Hey high schoolers,

Have you been late to an event because of the outrageous wait in the school parking lot?

I know that you would rather be almost home than sitting in that parking lot for 10 or more minutes, just because we have one way to get into and out of our school. You could be hanging out with friends, playing games, doing much more important things then just slowing rolling through the parking lot. 

This has been a problem for many years now, and it still has not been fixed.

Last week, it really got to me, sitting in the parking lot for way too long. I got out of class at the same time I do everyday, 3:15 p.m., then walked out to my truck and was hoping to get home early to play video games with my friends. As I was pulling out of my spot to head home I was met with the longest line in our school’s parking lot. As I took a deep breath I was not ready for the extra 10 minutes that I had to wait in the line, on top of the 10 minute drive to get home. 

This also shows a significant problem because if there was an emergency the lines would be backed up and hard for first responders to get into our school in a timely manner. As this is a huge risk that our school takes I feel it needs to be addressed more and taken care of. 

There are many other places Mount Vernon could put entrances and exits to get to the schools. For example right behind the high school there is a plain field that never has any action during the day that could easily be built to be a road. Neighboring Mount Vernon schools, Cornell College, they have plenty of open land that could be useful and be used to help with traffic flow to school. Cornell has had free and an open section of land that has not been used before. You would think as a College they would be willing to help a neighboring school district, but no. 

Cornell has had the open land behind our school for many years now, and still has not done anything with it. They could have contributed to adding an extra entrance when our school was building the Athletic Facility. 

But even with another entrance it most likely would still not be enough. When looking at our school from the only entrance we have, you can see a house to the right of the corner. That house has been there for many years now, and for some reason there is almost every year, a sign in the front of the yard that says “Coming For Sale”, but that house has never been sold. 

If our school was able to acquire this land it would help significantly as we would be able to add two new entries that we could put in to get to the middle school, and we would also have one more that would enter near the football field and the back parking lot in the high school. 

Our school needs another sentence! Having one way into the school is not efficient enough. It seems this topic is not talked about, but it is a serious problem that Mount Vernon Community School needs to fix.