By Camryn Ragland and Liv Ronca
The Board of Education has recently proposed an extensive list of budget cuts totaling to $1.7 million, of which includes a $100 increase in senior parking stickers.
Senior parking stickers in past years have cost students $50. However, in a recent budget proposal by the Board of Education, this cost increased 200 percent.
“Staples right now charges less than many other schools, not all, but many.” Staples Principal, James D’Amico said.
Fairfield, Greenwich, and Wilton high schools charge their students $150 for a senior parking sticker, while Ridgefield charges their students $200. There are some high schools that charge no fee at all for a senior parking sticker, such as Stamford high schools.
Superintendent Colleen Palmer believes this new possible price is seemingly reasonable. “$50 a year is extremely low,” Palmer said. “Many schools have fees of $150 to $200 per year, and $150 is less than a dollar per day.”
Although these budget cuts can be seen as a loss, the Board of Education does not want it to seem as though Staples is losing anything from its core curriculum. So, in order to do this, they are shaving off areas of money that will not affect what Staples offers. One of these income sources is senior parking tickets.
While D’Amico agrees that the increase is significant, he also sees that there is a need for this extra charge such a prestigious benefit as parking on campus is.
“My guess is that [the Board of Education] looks at senior parking as something that is a privilege. Right now, when you pay for your parking sticker, the money goes to maintaining the vehicles, and the parking lots, so the board of ed is looking for a way to offset these maintenance costs with the higher costing ticket.” D’Amico said.
Rising seniors, however, find this proposal to be unfair. “I think it crazy that they decided to raise the price of the parking stickers by so much,” Lana Whittleton ’18 said. “It seems kind of unfair to me that every other class before ours has only had to pay $50.”
Jacob Maged ’18 also agrees with Whittleton and says that these new prices are “unreasonable and too high for students to pay.”
Overall, the price is not liked by most students. Eve Korus ’17 had to pay $50 at the beginning of this year, and was told she would have a spot in a lot on campus every day this year. But, she believes that the price she paid, which was one-third of the proposed new cost, was even still too much.
“I understand it’s needed for budget cuts but the sticker is pointless to begin with because the juniors park wherever they want so it doesn’t guarantee you a spot anyway.” Korus said.
Charlotte Rossi ’17 agrees also agrees that there is an issue with juniors parking on campus, and she thinks that the sticker price increase will prove to current juniors that parking on campus without a sticker is unacceptable.
“I have been forced to park in staff a number of times and often I get parking tickets for parking there despite the fact that there was nowhere else to park. It’s not fair for the current seniors who paid
their dues but are being boxed out by juniors.” Rossi ’17 said.
Rossi also believes that because she waited her turn, and paid her dues through the years at Staples, parking at Wakeman every day, that she should have the freedom to park on campus.
“Seniors this year had to pay the $50 sticker at the beginning of the school, that we waited our turn to get the privilege for, and yet there are so many juniors who park on campus without stickers who should be parking at Wakeman, and they take up many student parking spots.” Rossi ’17 said.
