By Graham Smith

Sentry Staff Reporter

1. The parking situation

When the government requires that kids attend school for seven hours a day, they could at least entice us with free, convenient parking. Because nothing eases the stress of a teenager during finals like a three block walk from parking spot to school in the pouring rain. Some seniors, however, were given the option to apply for a spot in the new parking lot based on after school activities and paid $50 for the “privilege.” Those kids get there on finals day, prepared to be on time to class, and the parking lot is full, all the spots taken by students without passes and even teachers. BOOM, you have to walk in the rain for three blocks, anyway, passing the teacher lot that is ironically filled with empty spots. One of the apparent reasons for the parking situation is the alternative, free buses. The catch: you can not ride them if you live more than a mile and a half away. Even the people who live 1.499 miles away can not ride a bus if it is across the street, instead they must wake up a half hour early and make the trek every morning. America, if we wanted to train for a marathon like this, it would not be every morning before school.

2. The new construction

With nearly $100 million being spent on renovating the school, surely some of that money should go towards making sure the things that are being built actually make some sense. I am not sure if making the staircases wide enough for only one and a half people saved some of the budgeted money, but the random blocks on the staircase in the courtyard certainly did not. Make sure to not get distracted by the three square feet of greenery in the courtyard, or you might trip! You also likely have noticed that the gym is not large enough to fit both the basketball court and the fully extended bleachers. Because who wants fans to be comfortable?

3. Spirit

Unfortunately, you would not even know it was spirit week if you did not see the dailies, or sometimes even if you did. The spirit days seem to often be random and abstract, and unlike at Washington Lee, there is little to no incentive to actually partake. These days lead up to a brief pep rally at the end of the school week that is meant to bring it all together. However, if the school has to enlist teachers to physically guard all of the exits so that students can not escape, clearly something about the pep rally could be a little bit more peppy and worth attending. There are often some awesome performances by people promoting things like International Night, dance team, cheerleading and other sports teams. The fun is even sucked out of those as well, though, by strict rules about what can and cannot be performed in school. Is a little pelvic thrust really going to hurt anybody?