Paschal students and parents have grown all too familiar with the daily struggle of navigating the 8:00 am rush at drop-off. Berry and Forest Park have always been busy streets. However, recent changes to the entrance of the building and an earlier starting time have worsened the preexisting congestion for students arriving to class. 

“Everyone’s honking at each other. It’s overpacked, and you’ll always be late no matter how early you get here,” says a Paschal parent.

Parents have resorted to dropping off their children at nearby places, such as the Dutch Bros and Whataburger across the street from Paschal, to evade the traffic. While loopholes like this make drop-off quicker for some, students who cross the four-way intersection to get to campus slow the traffic flow. 

Vice Principal and Dean of Safety and Security, Mr. Swanson, attributes the front congestion to students crossing the street from West Bowie. 

“The backup starts when students have to cross, then cars have to stop and wait for students because the cars that are dropping students off have a priority to cross the street.”

The compounding traffic issue has left parents desperate for quick solutions. It didn’t take long for parents looking for a break from the long lines in the front to turn to the student parking lot behind the school. 

“The morning in the front is awful. But now that we come back here, it’s quicker, and we try to make it quicker because we know it’s student parking. When we do drop-off in the morning, she’s always been tardy. Once we started using this lot, she got to class on time”, said another parent driver.

However, school policy prohibits parents from using the student lot for morning drop-offs, and the extra cars have brought similar traffic conditions for student drivers who paid to be permitted to park in the lot.

Senior Sheridan Brockelman is one of the students who says the parent traffic in the parking lot has interfered with her ability to get to school on time. “It takes a lot longer to actually get to my parking spot, which can end up making me late for class because people will constantly stop and go in the middle of the street to drop off their students because they are parents and not students. It just causes a ruckus, and it’s annoying.”

Despite the posted signage, parents have continued to use the student parking lot as an alternative drop-off spot, causing tension between student drivers and parents. 

“I’ve tried to talk to parents, but they just don’t listen. We’ve put out messages to parents; they just don’t listen. They just do what’s beneficial for them”, said Vice Principal Swanson.

Mr. Swanson advises frustrated student drivers to “adjust your time” to account for the parent traffic in the lot. He also noted that parent drop-off in the student lot would be much less problematic if parents came before 7:40 while the gate on Frazier and West Berry is open. 

Additionally, the influx of parent drivers in the morning has increased spiteful interactions between students and parents. Senior Violet Doeren says she was approached by an angry parent one morning while she was on her way to soccer practice. The exchange transpired after Doeren “rolled through” the second stop sign while entering the sophomore lot behind a parent driver. Doeren recalls that after she parked, the parent driver “pulled up and banged on my window” and began to scold her for “driving like a maniac.” As the exchange continued, Doeren says the parent driver repeatedly threatened to call the police, exclaimed she should hit her, and took pictures of her license plate. 

Shortly after the mom left the scene, Doeren says she received a call from her dad, who had been notified of her encounter by the campus police. The following day, Doeren alleges the same parent reported her to campus police for “reckless driving” but “hadn’t even seen her that day.” 

While voluntary earlier arrivals and single-direction traffic measures west of campus may mitigate Paschal’s traffic issues, viable solutions do not appear in the immediate future.