I fear no carpark...

It is always interesting to see how others work when they step into different roles in the school. A couple of weeks ago I asked one of our teachers, Chris Wise, to do my carpark duty on a Friday afternoon. His reflections on this experience are both hilarious and sobering at the same time.

I have reblogged his post here for your enjoyment!


There’s a scene in the 1953 War of the Worlds movie in which a priest attempts to subdue the aliens by calmly walking toward the invading horde quoting a psalm:
‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.’
So I imagined myself as headed out Friday afternoon in to the most dreaded of school activities – car park duty.
I’ve lamented our car park along with parents and colleagues. We’ve joked about multistory parking facilities and the chaos that envelopes the area around 3:00pm each day. We’ve heard the stories of how it can take 25 minutes to move from the Rec Club to the traffic lights up the hill. Our school car park dramas have been no secret and there have been many attempts to improve it; car park duty being one of them. It’s no secret to our local Police Officers either.
This happy Friday, I was joined by Officer Marlene. I didn’t know she’d be there. She’d been keeping an eye on the car park over the last week and decided it was time to intervene. While I did the usual duty in the Green Zone, Officer Marlene stood at the top of the drop off line and as it became full, directed entering cars to either park in the lower car park or loop back around.
As an observer, there’s a couple of things I wanted to pass on:

1. Over 1000 people leave our school at 3:00pm each day.
2. Despite some initial confusion, the car park was almost clear by 3:15pm. Given the sheer numbers, this should be seen as a great result.
3. Some of you are very rude.

There’s a saying in education that it ‘takes a village to raise a child,’ well, it clearly takes a village to operate a school car park efficiently. We all (students, parents, staff and visitors) want to get home quickly and safely. Everyone needs to make the effort and exercise patience. Please take the time to understand the car park procedures:

• The Green Zone and Pick Up line is strictly for picking up, if your child is not there – you can not park; you must move on (please have this conversation with your child, not with whoever is on duty, we can not magically make your child appear).
• If you can not enter the Pick Up line – you must move on to the lower car park and park OR loop back around the car park. You can not block the round-about. The Avenue outside the school is a yellow lined zone which means there is no stopping. We must keep traffic flowing. Yes, you might end up driving around the car park once or twice.

Believe it or not, we have a big car park compared to many other local schools. Its size is not going to change. We will have more students, more families and more cars. Please play your part in making sure everyone has the opportunity to get home safely and happily. Even it means you are inconvenienced by a few minutes.

By the way ***Spoiler alert*** The priest didn’t make it.

Chris writes eloquently on many issues about education, parenting and learning in the modern classroom. I encourage you to read more here.

I actually love the Drop Off Zone and you can read why here.