At the start of every school year, incoming seniors always look forward to the countless fun senior traditions that their high schools have. Everything from senior sunrise to painting parking spots is an essential and fun part of being a senior. However, many schools don’t allow seniors to paint parking spots, and Frederick is one of them. A lot of people think the opportunity to do this tradition would be cool and fun because each spot can become so personalized—things like cute little jokes relating to you or just something you like. Having this activity could bring the senior class together and add to another fun activity to do for their last year.
“I personally would like to paint a senior spot because I think it would be cool to see what other stuff the people in my class would do. My class has some pretty funny people,” said Senior Kaya Paluda. However, this tradition came to an end in many schools because people would take things entirely too far.
In schools with this tradition, the senior class gets permission to paint parking spots, giving students a chance to show off their art skills and even bond with their peers. Unfortunately, not everyone has this mindset, and that’s why that permission gets taken away in so many schools. Some people use this to claim a front-row spot in the parking lot. Even when the lot is full, they get a “guaranteed” spot, even though that wasn’t the intended purpose.
In the past, these parking spots have led to many cars being vandalized and paintings ruined out of anger. After asking the admin multiple questions involving this topic, I was told the school board said no without elaborating. Given that we are high school students, everyone wants to know why. Here is an example I was given: Say the seniors go and paint the spots, and everything is great. That is, until someone else parks in that spot and the senior gets upset. If the senior gets upset and reacts badly, then a car can be vandalized, keys stolen, tires messed with, etc.
The given reasons don’t stop there. If someone who doesn’t like you finds out that it’s your car, then it can possibly be destroyed. If someone messes up your painting, then that’s just another conflict that’s bound to come up. The parking spots are a good idea, but they can become a big headache for the school. If any vandalism does happen, then they have to go through the cameras to see who did it, and it’s a big process that they’d prefer to avoid in general. No painted spots, no ruined cars.
Although not everyone is like this—and the admin knows that—there are always a few people who just overreact and ruin it for everyone. Another thing against the painted spots is that it’s hard to guarantee people will be entirely appropriate. Admin doesn’t want to be the bad guys and tell only a few people that they have to cover up their paintings or can’t paint their spots in general, so they’d rather disallow it altogether. At the end of the day, if people weren’t immature, then this wouldn’t be a problem, and we could paint spots, but that’s not the case. If an idea comes to you and you think it’d be a cool substitute for senior parking spots, then Dr. Fox is open to suggestions as long as they are appropriate and doable.
