Change usually does not occur without backlash. When administration instituted a new policy, prohibiting traffic through the west drive of the parking lots by the PAC, teachers and staff members cheered, but students jeered.

A metal chain now closes off the west drive, which connects the PAC parking lot to the student lot, from 7am to 8am and 3pm to 4pm to reduce accidents. As a result of only having one entrance to the school for students and parents, traffic has increased on Church Street.

“It takes an extra twenty minutes to get to school,” Hayley Johnson, senior, said. “We only have one entrance, and Church Street is always crowded to begin with, and now everyone who went through the PAC lot is also trying to get into that one entrance as well. I live by the Y, but if I leave at 7:30 like I normally did, by then it’s super backed up, so I have to leave earlier and beat the traffic.”

However, according to Ryan Rubenstein, assistant principal of student activities and facilities, this new traffic policy is a necessary precaution to ensure safety.

“I think it has [helped],” Rubenstein said. “We haven’t had an incident yet to have us relook at the procedure. We’ve had feedback from parents and some students that we’re messing up traffic on Midlothian by doing what we’re doing, and truthfully that might have been a consequence to this, but at the same time we feel that the safety of the people in our parking lot is of the utmost importance.”

The issues with safety extended beyond fender-benders in the parking lot. Parents and students were constantly at risk, whether they were driving or walking around school.

“There were safety concerns with students and parents traveling through [the PAC] lot, whether exiting after dropping somebody off or entering towards the student lot,” Rubenstein said. “Buses were being cut off, putting other students in danger. Kids were walking in front of buses, putting themselves in danger. We also had a near miss last year with a teacher getting hit in the parking lot by a car that was driving by. We’ve also had other accidents back there with other teachers and parents that aren’t obeying signs.”

The new parking lot restrictions are set to continue for the rest of the year, as well as next year. Even though the administration’s solution may be less than ideal, they say they have their hands tied.

“We don’t have too much leeway when it comes to that kind of stuff,” Rubenstein said. “I would love to see something in the plans of different directions of [exits] here, whether it be go to the east into the business park or something like that, so … there’s another way out of here.”