Assistant principal Karen McDaniel answers students’ parking questions

What are the rules about parking in Carmel?

“At Carmel High School, parking for students is at the stadium. The only students that can park close to the building are students that win a Class award as a senior or who have a circumstance medically that requires them being in some kind of assisted device: a wheelchair, a boot, a brace, that kind of thing, or if you qualify for this Transition to College program. At the beginning of every year we try to have a senior lottery drawing because (during) the first quarter we don’t have a Class award winner because we haven’t had a full quarter yet to give away a Class award, so within the first quarter of school, we take the spots that we designate for Class award winners for seniors, and we give that to the seniors as a lottery. You have to kind of meet certain criteria with academics, and you get put into a drawing for potentially getting a parking pass. Short of one of those reasons, every student should park at the stadium.”

What are the punishments for parking by the school without a parking pass?

“In our handbook on page 15, you will find what these punishments are. If you have a first offense, you are automatically ineligible for Skip-a-Final and you have two Saturday detentions here at the high school, (on) Saturday mornings from 8 to 10 a.m. The second offense is again, you’re ineligible for Skip-a-Final for that semester and you get in-school suspension, and again, a parent is contacted each time. If there is a third offense, then my perspective is (that) it’s failure to comply with what administration is explaining to you are the rules, and that’s an out-of-school suspension and a parent meeting at that point. We don’t have kids that get to the third level though, they figure it out pretty quick.”

Why are the punishments so harsh for parking without a parking pass?

“Well, if you kind of think about where we are, the closest parking we have is the stadium. Unfortunately, that’s just the way life is at Carmel High School, so because we have a lot of staff, and we have over 500 adults here just as a staff throughout the day, and we barely have enough spots for those adults plus any visitors that come into our building. You probably know how busy SRTs are. We always have some kind of event going on where parents are coming in, so the spots closest to the school building (are) reserved for our staff and for our visitors. The only other place that students have available (for) parking is at the stadium, and there’s plenty of parking there.”

How does the senior schedule work with parking?

“So, if students are part of the Transition to College program, where they’re taking four weighted classes during each semester during their senior year, those students are eligible, depending on what their schedule turns out to be, to receive a parking pass on one or the other day, so either a blue day or gold day, if they have an opening in their schedule in the middle of the day. That’s not guaranteed. We just have to see every year what that looks like, and if we have the available spots, then we allow those students to participate. As the program grows, we may not always be able to give those students parking passes, but for right now we are trying to help them if they are participating in something off-campus where they’re going to an internship, and then they’re coming back for the last period of the day, we are trying to accommodate them with a closer spot to the building.”

How many parking spots are available each year?

“It just depends. (It) depends on what our need is for medical, it depends on what our availability is with staff. If our staff grows, then they take more of the spots and that lessens the amount of available spots that our students have. It just varies.”

Is is true that a senior can pay money for a parking pass?

“It is not true. There (is) the church across the street and I think the building next to us sell parking passes, but nothing on school property is ever for sale.”