The High School Is Not a Good Neighbor

While the situation does not affect people living more than two or three blocks from Castro Valley High School, the parking and other problems caused by the high school students, and virtually sanctioned and indirectly caused by the school administrators, are a great nuisance and source of annoyance to the residents in the vicinity of the high school.

For example, I look out of my window on the mornings school is in session and see both sides of our street parked up by students' cars. A short drive around the corner brings me to the school's Redwood Road parking lot. Here I constantly see 15 to 20 empty parking spaces. Were the students allowed free access to these spaces they would handle enough cars to clear a couple of blocks of parking on the streets. But the majority of students are not allowed to use them. I am told that they are for the Seniors and require a fee of $20.00 per year (which I have confirmed on the Internet).

This is discriminatory and contributes to the nuisance endured by the neighbors. We, the taxpayers, pay for all of the school facilities to be available to all the students. Now we find that the school prohibits some students from using a part of the school that should be available to them. In addition, the school seems to be using taxpayer supported facilities as a profit base. Here's the really annoying part: the school administrators seem to view the surrounding streets as their auxiliary parking lots! It appears that they think they can do what they please here with no regard to the efffect on the neighbors.  These students park on the sidewalks causing pedestrians to walk in the street, block driveways, take up space normally used by residents' visitors, leave trash in the streets, play their loud stereos, and generally create a nuisance, all of which the school does nothing about because the situation solves the school's parking problem by pawning it off on the nieghbors!

There are some possible solutions. The first, and simplest, is too open the school parking lots to all students as they should be. Another is to get the school Resource Officer to occasionally walk around in the surronding neighborhoods and issue some citations to cars that are illegally parked. Encouraging students that live within a mile of the school to not drive to school (most of them could use the walk and the exercise) would help.

The school district is always quick to ask for taxpayer support and money. In return they could at least show some regard for the quality of life for the neighbors near the school.