Central seniors can enter themselves into a lottery at the end of their junior year to see if they are eligible to park in the senior lot for the following school year. If their name is chosen students pay $50 to claim their spot. 

Central seniors should be allowed to paint their parking spots. We pay for our spot; the only additional task administrators would have to do is assign students individual spots for the year and make sure that the designs students want to paint are school appropriate.  

Administration could implement this through the lottery, assigning the first names drawn to the closest spots in the senior lot and progressively moving back in the lot the more names that are drawn. This lottery process could take place before their junior year ends, allowing the implementation of a deadline to ensure that all designs for their senior lot are submitted and approved before the first week in August. 

Parking spots are something many look forward to, typically painting them the week before their final year of high school starts, allowing them to catch up with friends, see classmates and socialize before school starts again. For many designing and painting spots is a way for the graduating class to bond and spend time together since the task takes a chunk of time. 

This allows for administration to determine what is school appropriate, ensuring that everything that is painted follows the Code of Conduct. This is not a new idea, as schools across the country and in Omaha Public schools have adopted this idea to allow seniors to express their personality through painting in their senior lot for the year. One of those schools is Omaha Westview, which, like Central, has a designated lot where seniors park, once they pay and are assigned a spot, they have the freedom to start painting. They use that one spot for the entire year until the following class takes over and can begin painting their new spots. 

There is also the thought that some students simply do not have the desire to paint a spot. In this instance the spot would stay blank. Since the spot would be assigned to the one student it would be up to the senior to paint or leave their spot blank. This allows for creative freedom and a system of expression if the student desires. The downside to that would be if the student wanted to keep their spot blank, they would have either the previous student’s paint still in their spot or would have to paint it a solid color to mask the previous paint.   

 If this were to be implemented there is the discussion that paint would be left behind, however this would not really be relevant as most spots would be repainted to fit the upcoming graduating class and their specific interests. 

While it may not appeal to everyone, painting parking spots could be an exciting start to the school year, act as class bonding and allow creative freedom among students.