We asked several students about their opinion on the issue of student driving, and even though none of them actually knew what they were they still had an opinion. Although it may be inconvenient for some students not to be able to drive to school, not breaking the rule is beneficial for our school. When we asked students about their point of view on this there was a diversity of  opinions. Some of them agree, some of them disagreed, and many of them were unsure.

We asked a student that has previously taken  Drivers ED  if she was aware about the student driving policies.“No i am not entirely aware of them but I’ve heard that you cannot park near school but I do not know why” said Junior Julie Villalobos. After we explained the rules and showed her the Student Driving Policy she was surprise and said, “Well I understand now why we cannot park near school but how come we are not told this, not everyone is going to sit there and read the entire planner. The administrators are always telling us about our dress codes but how come they don’t tell us about this agreement”  said Julie. We also asked her how she felt about not being able to drive to school even with a permit she said “well that’s a disappointment, I barely got my permit and I was planning to drive to school since I live far and my parents sometimes struggle to bring me.” Julie is one of the many students that is affected by APB’s school driving rules.

Even though the 50 page agreement was signed and accepted in order to permit our school to exist it does not change the fact that a variety of students are troubled by it. There is no doubt that when the rules are not liked by students some choose to violate them.

When we asked Hartford if students have violated the policies and if there has been any problems Hartford said “absolutely we know students are breaking the law right now so we leave it up to the neighborhood,  if they are complaining we are going to be cracking down on this, if its not a big problem for the neighbors and we don’t get a lot of complaints,  we don’t go looking for people.”

While we continued to ask questions Hartford responded “We’re not trying to keep anyone from coming to school, at the same time we know that we’ve agreed to that and we have to enforce this rule. If we see students driving dangerously to school or if we find that students are driving without a license or we believe that students are giving rides to underage students without their parents knowing about it, thats when we get involved and make sure their parents are aware of this situation.” Even though it may seem as if their are no reasons as to why students can’t drive to school, there are. “One of the things that they required were that students cannot drive to or from school,” Hartford said. In order for our school to continue to be on ground APB staff and APB students have to follow rules.

We went out asking students whether or not they knew the policies of student driving, Senior Osman Samayoa responded “I am not aware of the rules I don’t even know what student driving agreement means” agreeing that, staff at APB does not inform students on the important  issue on students driving to and from school. After finding out about the policies we noticed that students that we interviewed changed their positions on the issue because they were informed.  We think that you should too. Before we went over the rules and policies of student driving we asked our colleagues if they knew about the policies for driving to school. Some students are not aware of the rules and have been driving to school,but the students that do know the rules tend to break them.

We asked Principal Joshua Hartford about the student driving policies in order to entirely find out the rules and know the background of them. Students are not allowed to drive to school because when APB was built, the school had to sign an agreement with the community to ensure that students would not take all of the nearby street parking,“When you build a charter school in the neighborhood you have to ask permission to the city and then the neighborhood” explained principal Joshua Hartford.  “So we signed this 50-page agreement of all the things that we promise to do in exchange to be allowed to build the school” Lisa Lopez said  “I dont think its fair because obviously parking should be allowed for anyone but it’s also understandable because teens have a  higher rate of crashing around school zones” similar to what Lisa said,Osman agreed “i dont think its fair because we go to school from far away places And it is safer if we drive to school then walk home or take the bus because it can be dangerous out there” When we revealed the students rights towards driving to school we noticed that both Lisa and Osman changed their opinions on this controversial topic. Osman stated “yes now i think its fair. and no one should take someone else’s parking.” and Lisa said “it has to be done because those are the rules”  Although this is a controversial conflict to talk about we believe students should be informed and should be aware of the student driving policies.

Although this may be true we have to worry about what the school and staff at APB permits and what they think is the safest thing to do around school,since we are on school property. Just like the agreements that APB and Green Dot made with the neighborhood when APB was first getting established here. Students should commit with the agreements APB made, for letting students study and achieve their goals here. You can find the policies in the in the student planner located on page 18, and can also always ask our administrators questions and I’m sure they will respond.

Lisa

“i don’t drive to school because  it’s kind of far and my mom doesn’t feel safe enough yet.”says lisa lopez

“i dont think its fair because obviously parking should be allowed for anyone but it’s also understandable because teens have a  higher rate of crashing and around school zones that always wants to be unpermitted”

“well not that its fair it has to be done because those are the rules”

Osman Samayoa

“i don’t because i don’t have a license ..yet. but i would not drive to school because i live super close”

“i am not aware of the rules i don’t even know what ‘student driving agreement’ means?

“i don’t think its fair because we go to school from far away places.And it is safer if we drive to school that walk home or take the bus cause it be dangerous out there”

“yes. now i think its fair. and no one should take someone else’s parking.” This is a  controversial conflict to talk about but we believe students should be informed and should be aware of the student driving policies. You can find the policies in the handout in the student planner located in page 18.