The morning of Feb. 24, the parking box responsible for scanning in students and raising the entrance into the ABM Industries owned parking lot was knocked over and irreparably damaged by a student. This caused a major traffic backup and a delay in attendance, as half the entrances to the lot have been closed. Almost all students that use the lot were late to school, and it is currently unclear when this issue will be resolved.
Principal Peter Laub spoke to The Lasso on his intended solution to the issue.
“Because it was unexpected today, we permitted [students parking in the lot] to be issued excused tardies, we did not mark them. If the issue persists into tomorrow I’ll just tell students to factor it into your commute.”
Essentially, students will be forced to adapt to the added traffic caused by the issue and must leave their houses earlier if they want to avoid an unexcused tardy in the following days. Principal Laub remains unsure, however, of how long this scanner failure may continue.
“To be clear it is not FCCPS property, so we have no control over anything. They will tell us if it’s broken for a week or an hour,” he commented.
Principal Laub did report however that as soon as he hears back from ABM industries, he will formally alert the student body to the timeline of the repairs and the policy of unexcused tardies. As of late Tuesday morning, however, ABM has not been notified of the issue.
“If [the parking scanner] is not fixed by the end of the day, it’s worth me telling everyone that there’s some change to the patterns,” Laub noted.
The new parking lot came to fruition in December of last year, due to the heavy impact of construction on the nearby West Falls Church Metro Lot. ABM Industries has allowed Meridian students to park in their lot for the remainder of the school year for a fee of $300. With a new parking problem arising, and no end in sight, students are once again concerned about how they will get to school on time.
Senior Ainsley Gorman spoke about her difficult experience of getting to school.
“I left my house around eight, and I did not get into school until about nine, so it took me almost an hour to get into school, and I was 30 minutes late.”
When told that there would be no more excused tardies going forward, Gorman outwardly displayed her disappointment.
“I don’t really think that’s fair. Just because they don’t have enough space in the parking lot to allocate to all of us does not mean it should be our problem to deal with this,” she said.
Attendance Manager Ms. Carmen Calderon commented that even with the increased parking traffic, she did not feel overwhelmed by the higher influx of late arrivals.
“It’s a normal routine, accidents happen and I just need to handle it,” she stated.
Though a lot remains unclear about how long the issue will remain, it is clear that the student body will feel the effects of the parking delays and must factor them into their mornings if they hope to avoid unexcused tardies.
