you have choices in life, choose another school, if public, choose another school board member

Back in the 60s I walked two miles up-hill both ways to school. If you can afford a car, you can afford a parking fee. A parking lot costs money to install and maintain. Tax dollars used for that deprive all students the things those dollars could have been used for--like textbooks etc. Why should the students who can't afford a car subsidize your parking? If you don't like how your school operates, sell your car and use the money to enroll yourself in a boarding school (you might like a good military school) then you could just walk from your residence hall to your classes.

I agree with Aaron, parking and driving are privledges and are not a right. A lot of what you are struggling with however takes place at a higher political level and unfortunately the students get caught in the crossfire. I live in Forest Lake and have two things for you to consider.

1. Paying for parking is a way to weed out a few drivers. The high school doesn't have a lot of extra land on its site and is doesn't have anywhere to expand the parking lot to. If you make parking free everyone will want to drive and there will be no way that the current parking lot will be able to handle the increased parking load.

2. Parking permits are a form of revenue for the school. If the district didn't charge you to park there they would have to come up with that money from somewhere else. The school board and general community are very apprehensive of additional taxes. In particular in light of recent funding choices (diversity coordinator) of the district. People simply don't want to pay additional taxes for an already very well funded school district.

Cameron Piper

Parking is a privilege and privileges do not always come free. You choose to park at school and that costs money, just like most other choices in life. I had to do the same when I went to school in the 1990's in Bloomington.