During the first semester, many students received tickets for one of three reasons: parking in a reserved area, parking without a visible permit or parking in an incorrect manner, such as pulling through. However, far fewer tickets have been given during the second semester, and this is due to a lack of enforcement in the eyes of many students like junior Laura Turner.

Regardless of whether her car had a permit, Turner said she only received a ticket during the first semester, making the difference evident.

“Our school likes to tell us that we are going to enforce the rules, and then they do it for one semester, and then the second semester, nothing happens, and there are no repercussions,” Turner said.

Similarly, junior Chloe Perkins received five parking tickets for not owning a parking permit during the first two months of school. She also disagrees with the parking lot regulations, especially since they don’t serve a purpose when they are no longer monitored as the school year progresses.

“They assumed they fixed the problems, but I don’t think anything was a problem to begin with,” Perkins said.

Regardless of the inconsistent parking lot monitoring, Turner believes that school security staff should dedicate more time to areas inside the school.

“We need to keep the SROs and the security guards in the building, keeping us safe instead of watching over private property outside,” said Turner.

The new Student Resource Officer, Bailey Salisbury, who has been working at Free State since the second week of February, believes otherwise. Salisbury says that with the number of security staff at Free State, there should be more people outside ticketing cars.

“The amount of time that’s spent in the school is actually pretty well covered … so it gives them the option to be able to still go outside while the school is still maintained,” says Salisbury.

By not enforcing their own policy consistently, the school is creating an environment where not following the established rules is acceptable.