Juniors and seniors have recently received a bit of a shock regarding their parking privileges. Near the beginning of the second semester, the administration conveyed to the students over the morning announcements that, due to the considerable amount of drivers, parking passes would not be sold for the remainder of the school year.

Sandy Iwanoff, a staff member of the student store, said certain factors contribute to halting the distribution of the passes.

“We ran out of parking spaces,” Iwanoff said. “There’s more juniors and seniors that are asking for parking passes.”

Another issue is the increasing number of kids coupled with the constant number of parking spots.

“We’re getting to the point where we do not have enough parking places to accommodate every single student… we have to cut off sales so students can have a parking place,” said Darryl Falk, a member of the yard staff.

Ending sales for this year will keep any new drivers from using the parking lot during school hours. This solution is only temporary.

Iwanoff, who also handles the responsibility of issuing the parking passes, adds that this is the earliest that the school has needed to end selling of the passes. Never have they stopped selling before the second semester.

The parking spots near the tennis courts do not completely belong to the high school. Of the 351 spots in the parking lot, Rancho Simi Park shares 41 of them with the high school, — many of them located by the tennis courts.

“When tennis players come… they take up a lot of the spaces… and I think [the students] don’t understand that that part of the parking lot is a shared lot,” Falk said.

One of Falk’s responsibilities is to confirm that all cars in the parking lot have passes.

“I’ve had students try to use prior years’ permits,” Falk said.

But Falk is able to spot a culprit from a mile away, as several techniques have made it easy for him to recognize an unpermitted car.

“The parking passes are different colored every year… we also have a log that lists students by alphabet, by permit number and by their make of their car.”

Due to the fact that this hasn’t happened at Oak Park before, steps must be taken to cease the chance of it occurring in the future.

“Next year we will probably set a limit on the number of permits that we sell and cut it off there.” Falk said. “First come, first serve.”

Not everyone agrees with the decision on the parking passes, though. Junior Claire Matulis plans to attain her license before the end of the school year and has mixed feelings about this matter.

“I personally feel that it limits student’s on their ability to drive to school… because they can no longer get parking passes after the beginning of the second semester,” Matulis said.

She concurs that it is unfair that students who get their license near the end of the year are getting the shorter end of the stick: “I don’t know, it’s kind of unfortunate.”

However, Matulis agrees that there wasn’t another way the school could have handled the problem.

“It’s the right way to go just because it is difficult to try and find enough parking for all the students,” Matulis said.

Unable to purchase a parking pass for this year, Matulis commented that she “would probably have to park somewhere along Doubletree… which is more of a walk.”