Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

WARWICK, RI -- Students who paid $5 to park their cars at Toll Gate High School this year got their money back over the last few days but will still be required to register their vehicles with the school and display a special sticker in order to have a parking spot.

The registration process and nominal fee instituted by principal Stephen Chrabaszcz last month had been temporarily put on hold while the superintendent's office researched the matter and sought parity with the city's other two high schools.

Also, there had been some objections from parents who felt it was unfair to charge students any fee for parking at a public school.

On Tuesday William Sangster, director of secondary education for the Warwick schools, said that the money was returned, but the required registration and stickers will continue as a pilot program to see if addresses some of the concerns that prompted Chrabaszcz to institute the parking policy.

At the time, Chrabaszcz said that one of his man concerns was theft from automobiles and that he wanted to make the high school campus safer since student cars are parked in a sprawling lot off a wooded road and cannot be easily seen from the school building. Stickers and assigned parking would make it easier for the school police officer to patrol the lot, he said.

Also, Chrabaszcz said he wants students to know that parking is a privilege and that that privilege will be suspended or revoked in cases of repeated tardiness.

"We decided to have the money returned because we didn't want to charge for a pilot program," Sangster said. "This way the principal still has the ability to address his concerns and we can see how it works as a pilot program. Then the principals at the other two high schools (Pilgrim and Warwick Veterans) can evaluate their schools and see if it's something they want to take a look at.

In the weeks since the Toll Gate parking policy was first imposed, it has come to light that there was a similar program years ago at Pilgrim, although possibly without the fee. Also, it was noted that North Kingstown has been charging its high school students $20 a year for parking privileges for quite some time.

"Safety was always a concern," Chrabaszcz said Tuesday. "But also there's the fact that the district did away with home rooms, so now when students go to their first period at 7:24 a.m. it is a class and they need to be on time. We still believe that it's a privilege to drive to school, and if they're going to be consistently late then they could end up with a suspension or lose the right," he said.

 Tags  parking fee Toll Gate High School Warwick RI

Leave a comment

Please be civil. Vicious comments, personal attacks and profanity won't be published. Name and email are required; email address will not publish.

Name:

Email:

URL:  

Remember personal info?

Captcha:

Type the characters you see in the picture above.