This year seems to have been a year of renovation in the UC High community, between the campus modernization projects and, as many students have experienced, new rules. Most recently, general discontent is centered around the new painted white lines on campus, which are a visual barrier intended to remind students that entering their vehicles during the day is prohibited.

   The most forefront concern for school staff and administration is obviously school safety: keeping students away from harmful situations and monitoring who enters the school campus throughout the day.

   Principal Jeff Olivero stated, “Because of school safety concerns, we wanted to be able to create more of a visual reminder of where ‘out of bounds’ is as to where students can and cannot go during the school day. Not going to the vehicles has already been a school rule — the difficulty is finding enough people to monitor it. And kids will be kids, and they were stretching the boundaries. Enough concerns were being raised about kids bringing in food and other items from their cars that this issue needed to be addressed.”

   Thus, the new enforcement policy is easily justifiable. However, these new, more boldly enforced rules are a reason for students to be disgruntled. Many students think they should be able to visit their vehicles throughout the day for various purposes and they want greater freedom to sit wherever they want at lunch.

   It seems as though most of the argument is timeliness: many students believe that if the issue was pressed at the beginning of the next school year, it might receive more support. Senior Class Vice President Abby Kim said, “I get the problem is that kids leave, but it’s almost inevitable. I don’t think there’s one solution, and if there is, it’s going to take a lot of time to fix it.”

   It’s well-known that getting a locker at the beginning of the year is a wearisome experience. Lockers also are very small and sometimes are not large enough to store sports equipment; therefore, students then resort to leaving equipment in teachers’ classrooms or their cars. It’s simply not fun or efficient to carry extra books or large equipment to every single class, but with this enforcement, students will be forced to.

   Kim stated, “I think the lines are inefficient, because a lot of students use their cars as lockers. You can’t just expect kids to start carrying their stuff when a lot of us don’t have lockers, especially the underclassmen, who I think have more to carry.”

   We, the editorial board of the Commander, understand the reasons behind the necessity for these rules. However, we support a relaxation of them in order to accomodate responsible students with genuine reasons to enter their vehicles and sit in certain areas at lunch. Solving this issue while keeping most of the rules in place could be simple. A pass to visit one’s car if storing school-related things inside could be a reward to students with a certain GPA. Development of a pass system or a special permit might alleviate some student concerns with this issue and foster more positive staff-student interactions.