Winter weather has arrived with a vengeance, and with it has come snow and ice covered roads. The city of Johnston is relatively good about getting the streets cleared in a reasonable amount of time, but this does not hold true to the high school.

The school itself is responsible for clearing the parking lot. Similar to businesses, the city will clear the snow off of surrounding streets, but it is up to the school to accomplish it. The school has the janitorial staff in charge of the clearing of the lot.

On Monday, Jan. 14 I turned into the parking lot and slid on a sheet of ice. After correcting my turn I kept going through the parking lot only to see that it had not been plowed. I then slid again right before I was going to park. I saw several smaller cars getting stuck in the snow ice mix and, even larger cars were struggling to park in the lot.

Allison Lemke ’19 has had a lot of trouble navigating through the parking lot during her time at Johnston. “I have a smaller car and it is honestly just a nightmare trying to get out of the parking lot,” Lemke said. ” It is a huge annoyance to not be able to leave school at the end of a seven hour day.”

The next day, I showed up for my last day of first semester and found the parking lot to still be covered in snow and ice. For the next several days, the parking lot was still covered in snow and ice. Credit where it is due, the school did a good job of plowing the sidewalk throughout the past few weeks of winter weather. However, it is still ridiculous that the parking lot is covered in snow and ice days after it snows outside.

The state of the parking lot poses a safety risk to students. Most students are relatively new drivers. The parking lot is hectic even when the weather is fine. Adding the factor of ice and snow only makes things worse for everyone involved. There are hundreds of students who use the parking lot every single day. Most accidents in the parking lot are relatively minor and are not life threatening. However, it is a huge annoyance to get in a small car accident. Dealing with insurance, paying deductibles, and the cost of insurance rising.

It is the responsibility of the school to keep us safe during our time at school. Not plowing any of the parking lot puts us all at risk. If the school just does not have the resources to plow the lot why not have the city of Johnston do it? While it may be unreasonable to have the plows come through the lot when there is hundreds of cars in the parking lot, why not have them come through at night or earlier in the morning? It would not take very long for a plow from the city of Johnston to run through the parking lot so it would at least be easier to clear.