Parking

I want to take some time over the next couple of weeks to highlight and underscore some of the more pertinent items that are included in our annual 'Topics' newsletter. You can get your own copy of this newsletter on the 'School Registration-Forms, Supply Lists' page of our school website. Here you can also find information about registration and a whole host of topics related to the start of the school year. And as always, please don't hesitate to reach out if there is something we can  help with! 

Today I want to spend a bit more time talking about parking for the 2023-2024 school year. Our Facebook post on June 29th garnered a few observations that I would like to explore a bit more deeply, and this also gives me an opportunity to keep the parking challenge front and center for you as we prepare for the start of the school year.

As a starting point, when preparing for this current construction project, the community task force spent quite a bit of time talking about both the issue of parking and congestion at school. Multiple options for additional parking lots were discussed as well as the traffic flow during pick up and drop off before and after school. Those who were in attendance at those meetings can attest to the fact there were/are no easy answers. 

The good news is our parking situation will improve for the 2024-2025 school year. The bad news unfortunately is this is more than a year away. Even so, I urge you not to conflate improvement with solution, particularly as we continue to grow. Once completed, the improved concept will be focused on 'angle street parking' on both Wood and School Street. Additionally, once the bus barn is removed from campus, we'll be able to capture some parking on the footprint of that former building site. All of this is going to take some time though. Once piece of good news is that with the reconstruction of Wood Street that is currently underway, we will add an additional 40 parking spots along the street. 

Our immediate concern however is the 2023-2024 school year, slated to begin just a few short weeks from now. During this construction period about half of the high school parking lot will be unavailable for student use, which means those students are going to have to park elsewhere. A key component of our plan includes the addition of employee parking behind the PK-8 facility. We now have enough parking spots behind this building to accommodate all our employees. The caveat, however is that students will not be permitted to park behind this building at anytime, before, during or after school. By adding this parking behind the facility, it will free up the north (junior  high) parking lot for students. 

As far as traffic flow is concerned, that is really a different (but related issue) as it pertains to parking. Our hypothesis is that by moving the front entrance of the high school to the west side of the building, it should improve congestion on Washington Street. However, I am not naïve enough to believe that will be a silver bullet solution to traffic flow during pickup and drop-off. It is important to remember that during these beginning and end of day pressure points, we are moving more than 900 students either onto or off of campus in a relatively short window of time. That sheer volume alone would suggest congestion, particularly when compared to the geographic footprint we are working with. This is one of the primary reasons why we continue to utilize crossing guards. Truth be told, once the underpass was completed we thought we would need one less traffic guard. That proved to be a faulty assumption when we realized one was needed at the entrance to the junior high parking lot. We can certainly improve upon this system by reminding youngsters they should only cross where these crosswalks exist. In full disclosure, I am not always a good model for this myself!

I encourage you to please take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the map enclosed in today's post. Please also take an opportunity to have a conversation with your novice drivers about where they can; and cannot park. A detailed explanation of those areas can be found under the 'Parking' tab of our website.