Senior year: the year students can park on campus.  Finally, we get to carry on the tradition of being the only students who are allowed to park their cars in the white-numbered parking spots. It’s the time when We finally get to drive through Bedford Middle School on the way home and see every junior take the long walk back to the Wakeman Town Fields, as we reminisce on how we had to do that last year. 

Every senior has been waiting three years for this moment and has paid a fee to enjoy the privilege of parking on campus.  

And yet, some juniors have felt emboldened to request that they, too, have the opportunity to park on campus.  They claim that since COVID has driven the school to follow cohorts where only half the students are in school each day, then juniors should be allowed to use any unoccupied senior parking spot.

To these naive, entitled juniors I say: NO WAY.  

Each senior who wishes to park on campus must pay a fee of $75 and fill out a form. In contrast,  juniors do not pay to park at Wakeman.  So when they whine that they should be able to park in a senior’s fully paid-for spot, they are really asking to mooch off of seniors.  They want a “free ride,” so-to-speak, by getting all the benefits without having to cough up any cash. 

Furthermore, we seniors were once juniors.  We know all too well the “pleasures” of making the long, grueling walk from Wakeman early in the morning and again after school. Every junior class has had to park at Wakeman, and just because this school year is atypical, it doesn’t mean this time-honored tradition should change. 

This is a crazy and strange year that all Staples students are going through; however, COVID should not be used as an excuse to give juniors premature rights to parking on campus. Juniors, I promise your time will come. So, for now, I hope you juniors learned your lesson as you read this article on your walk back to Wakeman.