KELSEY PHARIS

If you are a parent and have to drive your child to school everyday I am okay with it.  What I am not okay with, is when and where you do it. So this one goes out to the parents and students who either drop their kids off or get dropped off by their parents.  

These are the top 10 things to know and consider when dropping your kid off. 

1. Don’t be surprised if you get cut out or glared at by students, it is our lot and you are invading our space. Like animals in the wild, we do not want people in our space. When you drop your kid off you are invading our space and making our probably already mediocre day worse. We just want to get home as soon as possible and you are ruining that.
2. Let students in when you are either leaving or coming into the lot. Just like bikers we have priority. We want to be able to get to class on time or get home in a timely manner. This would be much easier if you let as many students in as possible, and if a student lets you in be very kind and wave.
3. Do not give us dirty looks if we cut you off or try to pull in front of you, we just spent seven hours in school and deserve to get home, and probably do around three hours of homework, your kid can wait another five minutes. Must I really go on?
4. Drop your kid off early before school. If they won’t take a bus or find a ride from another student, they don’t have to be at school right on time. Even if you don’t want to get up early to take your kid to school or if your kid doesn’t want to go to school early you should so you don’t make more traffic trying to get into school. If that happens to be such an imposition then take your kid late. It is not fair to those of us who drive ourselves and need to get to school on time to be late because a bunch of underclassmen need to be dropped off.
5. Same goes for when picking up students after school. If you wait 15 minutes to pick your kid up, then you can come pick and not block up too many students. Although this might annoy your student it will make many other students much happier.
6. Do not line up right outside the school doors, find empty parking spaces and make your kid come to you. Do not be one of those parents who is sitting outside of the back doors just waiting for school to be out. You are not going to get home any earlier and if anything you are just killing the environment and making students mad.
7. The upper lot is there for a reason, use it. I know it is congested and annoying, but it is there for you, the parents, to use. The line up there seems to go pretty quickly and if you are a little patient then it isn’t too bad.  It goes pretty fast if the students are prepared to be picked up and the parents don’t have to wait for them.
8. Don’t stop on the side of the road to pick your kid up, that backs up the already backed up roads. Last year especially I realized how annoying it was if a parent would pull off to the side of Wildcat to pick their child up. This causes a lot of confusion for student drivers and backs up the already busy roads.
9. When pulling away from dropping your kid off don’t be looking at your phone.  Not even a week ago some mom was dropping her child off at lunch and almost hit my friend and I. She had dropped off her child, was on her phone and started going forward without checking. Luckily she realized we were in front of her before she hit us, but it was still scary. So please, stay off your phone until you are either home or outside of the parking lot so we are all safe.
10. Do NOT EVER complain about student drivers because it is your choice to drive them and it is not the students fault you feel the need to pick your kid up every day. You do not have to deal with student drivers if you do not want to. It is your choice to drive your child to school or pick them up from school every day. Unless there is some crazy circumstance your child could easily ride the bus, walk or find another ride to school.