OASD Board responds to student voices with parking pass fee elimination

Photo by Isabelle Cartwright

Students are able to park freely due to many of the complaints. COVID-19 created much less traffic and congestion in West’s parking lots.

This year, the rationality of the price of student parking passes seriously came into question by multiple students, and as a rare occurrence, a completely student-led movement resulted in the elimination of the fee for this school year.

 These passes have been a requirement by the Oshkosh Area School District for all student drivers who wish to use the parking lots at either West or North High School. Priced at $75 each, they make all the difference on the long and dreaded walk from the side streets to the school building in the seemingly frozen tundra known as Wisconsin winters. They even save the occasional student a minute or two from being late to class due to the convenient distance from the building. 

“If we’re paying $75 for money that doesn’t even go to bettering our school, why on Earth should we have to pay that much,” senior Rianna Duvall said. “Other schools near Oshkosh don’t pay more than $20 from what I’ve heard and seen.”

The slogan “half the days, half the price,” came to be and was spread widely among students via social media, and even some parents voiced opinions in the comment section of an Instagram post made by the official Oshkosh West account. The parking pass debate became a widely known issue in Oshkosh. Despite the noise, according to English teacher and coordinator of the official Oshkosh West Instagram account Kelly Wayne, this was not where the conversation began, nor was it what caused the district to change its mind.

“Before making the post, I was not aware of any pre-existing issues,” she said. “I post upcoming events and deadlines on the account to keep followers informed on important school information.”

The size of the response was unexpected by her and many others, but she also detailed that as she had read the comments, things started to become clear.

“I would agree that if you guys are only going to be at school half the time, it makes sense to at least reduce the fee,” Wayne said.

However, despite the quantity and depth of comments, the discussion didn’t change much as Wayne was only able to inform the OASD Board of Administration of the opposition she was receiving via email. 

“I would just hope that most people know, even though there were a lot of comments and ideas put into the comment section, they didn’t really do much because the Board is not running out to look at the Instagram,” she  said. “It was the direct and well-worded emails written by student peers from both West and North to the Board that even got the issue on their radar.” 

The matter of how these passes came to be was virtually discussed with the President of the OASD Board of Education, Barbara Herzog, for greater insight. 

“As board members, I believe that our understanding was that the fee largely went to maintain the student parking lots,” she said. “This would mean maintaining the blacktop, making sure that the lines are clear, and covering the cost for snow removal of course from a parking lot of that magnitude, at least at the West parking lot.”

There’s not an exact date of when the fee began, but Herzog mentions that it has been in place for quite some time. That being said, she claimed the fee had most likely increased over time with the cost of upkeep. Some students argued differently when reviewing the condition of the lots and the issue of an inflated price is exactly what led to it being brought up in a board meeting. In particular, her attention was called by the words of a few students from both West and North.

“It wasn’t entirely surprising when students came forward with this specific request, and one of the things that particularly touched me about the request was that some reported that they were the ones responsible for paying this fee,” Herzog said.

Seniors Sara Morehouse and Henry Artus took the initiative to see this issue through to the end, regarding not only the current parking pass fee, but also the fee for future years.

“I had actually been thinking for years now that the pass was very overpriced, but when the school sent out this year’s first newsletter that said the passes would be $75, we knew we had to do something,” Morehouse said.

Due to a mandatory closing of school, the last three months of the 2019-2020 year in which the parking passes were not made use of or refunded for that matter, was another factor that motivated the two to take action. 

“Nothing came in the form of a refund, but I assumed the school would have a discounted rate for the upcoming school year,” Artus said.

Morehouse and Artus had initially contacted Oshkosh West Principal Erin Kohl, but were redirected to the OASD Board of Education, communicating largely with Herzog and Deputy Superintendent David Gundlach.

“The board is in charge of approving fees and the administrative team recommends to them each year any changes,” Gundlach said. “We continue to work hard to reduce the quantity and number of fees after many years of increases.”

In the time between reaching out to the board and an actual decision being made, a petition was drafted by Artus to show public support for the reduction/elimination of the fee. 

“We received hundreds of signatures within the first day of creation, and the number as of now is just over 600,” he said. “We echoed this in future emails with the board and Dr. Gundlach.”

An Instagram account, @Oshkoshstudentvoices, was also made by the two to explain the issue to the community, what they were asking of the school board, and the actions supporters could take to help. This was all while making sure to maintain a respectful manner towards those in charge of making the decision.

 “The way to win this is through positive community support for our movement, not boring the hardworking board members with angry or rude emails,” Artus said.

At the end of it all, despite doubt by some peers, apprehension towards working with the already busy school board, and the large amount of work to be done, Artus and Morehouse were able to do more than just lower the fee; they were able to work with the district and eliminate the fee for this school year, as well as bring about the consideration of refunds for the past school year’s partially unused parking passes. One school board member even brought up the idea of returning a portion of the fee charged last year, due to the fact that parking passes were unused for three months. 

“The district will continue to review the cost of providing parking lots and the board will determine how much of this cost is passed on to the user,” affirmed Gundlach.

The school board has been open to hearing out the requests of students and has made it clear they want to partner with the student body to improve and make schools as accessible as possible for every student. 

“We are working to reduce some of the barriers whether that's transportation or food, which are pretty basic needs in terms of students' success,” Herzog said. “We still have more progress to be made in other areas when it comes to equity, but, I believe this is a reasonable start for us.”

By Ksena Lomena

Oshkosh West Index, Volume 117 Issue I

October 2nd, 2020