Parking has been a huge problem with students at CHS since the beginning of the year. First, the school had a problem with there not enough parking spaces for everyone. Now, students are complaining because they are getting parking tickets for parking in the wrong place, as if they aren’t the ones in the wrong.

I think that students at Chapin feel like they have this right of entitlement. If they want it, they should get it for that very reason. I don’t understand how students can complain about multiple parking tickets when they should be parking in their assigned space, but instead decide to break the rules and park in Palmetto Woods. Are you really going to blame Officer Speight, as if he’s the one parking your car in the place it shouldn’t be?

I asked several juniors about how the felt about the situation.

April Epting said, “If you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing you shouldn’t get mad for getting into trouble. I rode the bus for 11 years. I want my parking space at the school. Juniors and seniors need to have first priority.”

This year, parking really wasn’t fair for a lot of students. There was no designated parking lot for Seniors, or for Juniors because of construction. Now, juniors have to make the haul Mt. Horeb while sophomores get the spaces at the tennis courts and the gravel parking lot.

Some Juniors are mad sophomores are even allowed to park this year.

Eli Aiken said, “Parking is a privilege and I think that upper classmen should be able to park and not necessarily lower classmen. We didn’t get to park last year. We got in trouble last year. The sophomores should have to wait until they’re juniors to park. Man up and ride the bus.”

Many juniors, including myself feel sophomores should be allowed to park on campus when the school is no longer under construction. Once the school is finished, to make it easier on Officer Speight and administration, each parking lot should have a different colored tag. It would make it easier to differentiate whether a student is parking in the correct place or not.

The parking is just one case of the right to entitlement some students think that they have. I’ve heard countless stories from different people about kids in their class whose parents call their teachers all the time complaining about the grade that their student has.  The argument is “It’s just an art or chorus class, I don’t understand why my student doesn’t have a 100 in there. How hard can it be?”

I think it’s ridiculous that some high school student feels like they deserve a certain grade in a class. Students just expect good grades to be handed to them without doing any work to achieve the grades. I also think it’s insane that parents are complaining about a child’s grade in a class, especially when it’s a high A, but maybe may not be a 100. Are you really going to tell me your child puts 100 percent in to their classes all the time? Especially if it’s an “easy” class that they should be able to maintain a 100 in? Students often seem to slack in these classes because they think they can get by.

I feel as though some students think they have this right of entitlement because they don’t want to take responsibility for their own actions. They feel that they are in the right and the authority figure in the situation is in the wrong when it should be just the opposite. Kids need to learn that in life, you don’t get something just because you want it and think that you deserve it. You can’t blame someone else for your own mistakes. Students need to learn to take responsibility for their own actions.