Bright colors and strange shapes appeared on the pavement as seniors began to personalize their very own parking spots. Some might be wondering: How did this start and whose idea was it to allow the seniors this freedom? After seeing other schools within Missouri offer personal parking, the Student Council at Rolla High School made it possible for seniors to purchase their very own parking spot. As the cherry on top, they get to customize the spot as well.
“I saw [the trend] in Cuba at their schools, and I thought it’d be cool if we had it at ours because we don’t really have anything,” Student Council member Addison Salazar said.
Parking is sort of a free-for-all and if you show up late to school, you may spend a while looking for a parking spot. Seniors without a first hour have it even worse since by the time they show up, most of the parking spots are already occupied. Among other reasons, this opportunity allowed seniors to guarantee that when they showed up to school, there’d be a spot waiting for them.
“It’d be like a cute little tradition. It’s just a fun little thing for students to do this year,” Salazar said.
The Student Council hopes that this tradition will, for years to come, allow seniors to purchase their own spots and paint them, adding a tradition for seniors in future years to really look forward to. However this isn’t a tradition meant to cost money forever.
“It did cost money, but in future years it’s gonna be completely free.” Salazar said, “We originally decided on “fifty dollars” but then I went out and painted my spot, and I spent a little bit more than what I wanted to, so I brought the price down to “thirty dollars”.”
Painting senior parking spots is a new tradition that will hopefully be something for future generations to enjoy. It can be continued and used to bring joy and ease of parking for the future seniors of Rolla High School.
“Once we have a new parking lot it’s a way to keep tradition fun,” Salazar said.
