Sports Editor
Upperclassmen are faced with $170 in parking fees every year. Starting mid-July, eligible students are able to register on SPAN for parking spots. Parking spots are guaranteed for seniors and the leftover spots are given away through a lottery for the juniors.
“The price is a little steep, but as long as I know that all the money is going to our school I don't mind paying it,” said Senior Elizabeth Zino. Contrary to this popular belief, Apex High School doesn’t use any of the funds raised via parking fees (approximately $85,000 a year.) Principal Matthew Wight explains that the $170 parking fee is “set by the county to help pay security guards who help with traffic.” Senior Rukmini Deva thinks the parking fee is costly. “I don’t drive everyday so paying $170 to park every once in a while is a lot…being a senior itself is very expensive.”
Because Apex doesn’t receive any of the funds from parking space fees, there is no money allotted for the upkeep of the parking lot. The faded paint numbers on the concrete pose a problem for upperclassmen. Apex only has one security guard, Officer Leathers, who directs traffic, checks lunch passes, and patrols the school, but other Wake County high schools have more. Because we only have one security guard, Wight and Assistant Principal Robert Barbour are often in the junior lot mornings and afternoons and Officer Leathers is in the senior lot. Zino also comments on the traffic, “The parking lots at Apex are extremely crowded, especially in the mornings when parents drive through to drop off their kids.”
Wight says that “chronic tardies, violating traffic rules, and endangering other people” are among the circumstances that parking and lunch privileges be revoked. Despite the underlying problems of the lots, they can also have those privileges taken away without a refund.
However, Wight says that “textbooks come first,” and students can expect the parking lot to be repainted “sometime soon.” Assistant Principal Kevin Sergent says, “Not this year…next summer.”
