June
Lottery is best alternative to limit chaos for parking spot bids
M ichele B ondy
Imagine a beautiful
summer day. Now change
that to waking up at the
crack of dawn, exhausted
from staying up until 2 a.m.
the night before, only to
arrive a mere hours later to
wait in line for a parking
spot for the next school year.
A less hectic process of an
online application and simple
lottery for parking will be
used this summer. No chaos,
no lines.
The administration and
ASB threw out new ideas
for a parking system and
decided upon a lottery being
the best and most positive
alternative for the whole
student body.
Although the new parking
system initially caused quite
an uproar from students
when introduced, it should
be a positive experience and
minimize issues that have
occurred in previous years.
However, the whole student
body should have been more
involved in the selection of
the new system as many
students were unaware
that there would even be a
change.
In previous years, there
Viave b e e n issu es of stu d e n ts
cam ping o u t illegally,
littering around the school
and cutting in line for
spots. The new system will
minimize other issues for
those students that were out
of town or didn't want to
wake up at the crack of dawn
during the summer just to
acquire a parking spot.
The new system consists
of a lottery with 143 spaces
open in the Tripp Lot and 111
spots open in the Senior Lot.
Students will be able to enter
the lottery between May
17 - June 1 on the website
under: Students > Seniors >
Senior Parking Request. An
email will also be sent out
to all juniors' school email
accounts. A driver’s license
must be obtained by Aug. 1
in order to sign up for a spot.
All students that request
a space in the Senior Lot will
be randomly selected from
a hat by their ID number.
Students that request a
parking space in the Tripp
need to wake up early in the
summer and can just sign up
online," Aaron Downs, Vice
Principal, said.
The subject should’ve
been addressed either by the
school's daily announcements
or by the ROAR's live
broadcast to introduce the
issue. Having the whole
student body involved in the
decision could have caused
less indignation by students,
and many, including me,
would have been pleased
to have been involved in
choosing the new system.
"I am sort of taking a
liking to the new system, but
waiting in line was tradition.
I would have liked to have
been more involved in the
change," Claire Offer, junior,
said.
In no way am I against
the new system, but I would
have liked to have seen
involvement on the part
of the whole student body
versus a few students as
everyone is affected by this
decision. It is important to
have more students involved
in future endeavors.
Letter to the editor
Newspaper distribution is huge waste of paper
To the editors:
W h at a coincid en ce. The
day after Earth day the
school wastes hundreds of
pounds of paper to print one
copy of the school paper for
every student.
I'm sorry if it comes off
as rude, but frankly most of
the teachers have a cabinet
of untouched old Amplifier
issues. I brought in about
120 today from just my last
two classes.
I also know that emails
are sent out asking the
teachers to give out
amplifiers to each student,
and they do. The thing is
nobody keeps it and most of
; '
J
West Linn High School, 5464 West A Street, West Linn, OR 97068
_ „ iS É fi
(503) 673-7843 »fax: (503)657-8710 *
wlhs~amplifier@wlhs.wlwv.kl2.or.us
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The Amplifier is published approximately every four weeks by the West
Linn High School Advanced Journalism class. Opinions expressed in .
commentaries and editorials represent only those of the writer, and are
not necessarily the opinions of West Linn High School, its administration,
faculty, staff, or student body.
Business Editor:
Zack Mueller
Section Editors:
News: Mary Wood
Forum: Alison Fieldhouse
Features: Lexi Welp
Sports: Jennifer Sitton
Entertainment: Nora
Hand, Emily McDonald
The Senior Lot is a closer
walk, but traffic can be quite
hectic. If students have early
release or late arrival, this
will minimize the amount
of traffic in the morning and
afternoon.
"This will and should be
a positive experience for
everyone. Many students
are excited that they won't
Photo by Alex Houston
A new parking system is being introduced. The goal of the new system is to streamline the process and
the issues thait have occurred in the past such as students camping out to be first in line.
A m p lifier
Editor-in-Chief:
Mary Wood
Managing Editor:
Zack Mueller
Lot will automatically have
a space in that lot as more
spaces are available. Overall,
the system is a good idea.
As students have two lots
to choose from, both lots
have their advantages and
disadvantages. The Tripp
Lot may take a little longer
to walk to, but it's easier to
enter and leave with traffic.
Photo Editor. Mark
Poppert
May Day Essay: Clara
Altemus
Staff Reporters: Clara Al
temus, Michele Bondy, Ty
Clarke, Austin Cummins,
Patrick Douglas, Mary
Earp, Bailey Middleton,
Emily Reed
Photographers: Ethan
Brent, Alex Houston, Libby
Kara
Adviser Ann Breyne
W
the class just walks up and
puts them back in a pile!
I understand that you
want everyone to have
an equal opportunity to
read the school paper but
honestly anyone who cares
enough to read it is more
than capable of picking one
up from a pile in the library
or looking at it online. It's
completely wasteful to print
that many papers and silly
to think that every student
wants one when the stark
truth is that the only people
that read them are either in
amplifier or have been in the
past!
It has become common
practice to spend the
period searching for typos,
similar to the one in the
FIRST SENTENCE of the
highlights section on the
top-left of the most recent
issue of the Amplifier
distributed on April 23rd.
The quality of the papers
have gone way downhill as
of late.
To wrap this up, I
just needed to say what
everyone else was thinking
and say that it's ridiculous
to have "no print" days
when you waste that much
school money, ink, and
paper on such a silly cause.
Please take what I've said
into consideration.
Sincerely,
Jake Gianuzzi
Dear Jake,
Thank you for providing
us with your feedback. We
always appreciate hearing
what people have to say and
their comments about the
newspaper.
The Amplifier provides
a service to the students
and staff of the school:
informing them of different
activities, competition
results and upcoming
games and productions,
among other things. We
do want every student to
have the opportunity to
read the Amplifier, and we
are supposed to print one
copy of the paper for every
student.
In fact, we do not print
one copy per student, we
print several hundred less
copies per student because
we know not everyone is
interested in reading the
paper. In consulting with
Lou Bailey, principal, we
decided that delivering
them to classrooms was the
best way to ensure that only
a small amount of papers
are unused and wasted,
rather than letting them
sit on the library desk. We
use the returned copies to
exchange with other schools,
for archived and learning
copies, and to distribute
within the community.
Like many school sports,
we raise funds to offset the
cost of printing the Amplifier
through advertisements.
For some issues, we are
able to raise over half the
cost of printing the paper
in advertisement revenue.
This is a much higher
percentage of our total
expenses supported through
fundraising than many other
school sports or activities.
In addition, we've only run
seven issues this year, a very
small percentage of the total
paper use of the school.
We feel that The Amplifier
is a better use of paper
than many of the wasted
computer printouts students
make every day.
It's a shame that the
only value you find in
the Amplifier is searching
for typos. The staff on the
Amplifier work very hard
every issue to bring you
interesting, professional
stories. As a staff, we
recently won Best in
Category for an overall
school newspaper issue —
the top spot in the state of
Oregon. Like anyone else,
we make mistakes, and we
work to ensure that those
don't happen very often.
We would encourage you
to read the articles instead
of simply looking for
typos — maybe you will be
able to appreciate the high
quality writing and the great
accomplishments students
in our school have achieved.
The Amplifier staff doesn't
feel that the newspaper
is a "silly cause" and we
would hope that you could
recognize its value as well.
Zack Mueller, Managing
Editor
Mary Wood, Editor-in-Chief
and the Amplifier Staff