Oh spare me — here we go again. A school district in Arizona is adding a "fee" to students activity charges for parking. $5 a year. Can you believe it. They have leased space from local churches for the parking lot, will grade it, gravel it (blade and gravel) and put in spaces. They are going to number the spaces so each student has an assigned space. They will then patrol the lot to enforce the rules. I doubt seriously if 50 cents a month per space will cover their costs.
But that’s not my biggest concern. Schools are supposed to teach our children. A good lesson would be what it costs to drive a car. They already pay for gas, insurance, maintenance, and the car itself, why shouldn’t they pay an appropriate amount for parking.
What I would do is charge them $20 a month to park on the lot.If they didn’t want to pay it fine, let them find somewhere cheaper to park. Collect the $20 each month. ($15 if they pay quarterly). Give them a lesson is economics and teach them how to save, budget, and the like.
Also the school will have enough money to actually pay for the service they are providing the students.
What a concept.
JVH
PS I note the district is having trouble attracting teachers because of the lack of suitable housing in the area. I would think that it would be preferable to subsidize housing, or raise the salaries of new teachers, than subsidize the parking for students. Just my opinion.
