Class of 2023 starts new tradition
Senior’s paint their spots Saturday, Aug. 27 in the high school parking lot. While in the heat of the day family and friends help the students paint there spot with jokes in conversations.
The sound of music playing and the smell of hotdogs cooking, with tape ripping and laughter filled the air in the parking lot on Aug. 27 when seniors painted parking spots that seniors selected.
When principal Rick Rivera looked at other schools around the district to see how the other schools did something for their seniors. Rivera saw it as how seniors get it to become their fun project for the year only and it is something special for their last year of high school.
Wonder where the school had come up with the cost of the parking spots.
Rivera looked at different schools nearby and saw the variety of prices for the parking spots. He looked at what he thought would be appropriate for the cost. What is most affordable for most students and he started to break it down
The cost works out to be $25 per semester. Certain schools charge less and others charge more. Rivera feels that $50 is a good balance.
It was a student-driven idea that Micheal Johnson brought to Rivera. Johnson and Rivera talk to the principal advisory council about doing the parking spots and see what their opinions were. Micheal Johnson had reached out to multiple administrators in the district.
All the ideas of what the seniors wanted to do for their spot had to be approved because the parking lot is the high school’s property. Rivera did not want students to invest a lot of paint for their design to not be approved.
“We want to give students a significant amount of freedom in what they pick,” Rivera said.
Senior students decided to have fun with their parking spots.
“We had a track meet at Circle, and we were walking out after the meet, and I was walking back to my car,” Micheal said. “I saw all the senior parking spaces Circle has. Then I kind of thought it as a competition,” Johnson said.
In Johnson’s opinion, Circle was a better school for letting their seniors have a parking spot that they got to paint. Johnson saw it as a cool thing for their seniors. Johnson did not want Augusta to be a worse school, so he saw it as an opportunity to bring it up to the school board and Rivera.
“I wanted us to have senior parking spaces to make the high school look better,” Micheal said. “it is just a fun thing to do, and it’s different,” Johnson said.
Seniors purchased and painted 30 parking spots.
Senior Ella Carrillo-Atherton is a second-year reporter for The Oriole. Carrillo-Atherton can be found outside school on the football field with the managers....
