Littering and vandalism discovered in the student lot

Aryav Dhar ’24

Littering and vandalism have both increased recently in the Student Parking Lot, and the EA administration has taken initiative to stop it. According to Micahel Letts, Head of Upper School, EA has “gotten a handle on the issue now.”

The littering has been an ongoing issue according to Nick Cerone ‘22 who explains, “Since the beginning of the year, I noticed a major problem with littering in the Student Lot. Every day there were new Wawa bags or protein bar wrappers scattered across the ground… I believe that the administration was contacted about the issue; form deans and even security got involved to help keep our campus clean. Since then, there has been a noticeable difference in the lot. There’s no more trash thanks to the EA staff.”

Students’ cars have also been deliberately trashed. Letts outlines the problem, saying, “A couple of kids came to us and said that they would come down and see trash on top of their cars like empty fast food bags or things stuck in their wheel well like bags of trash and wrappers… Unfortunately, it looked like a couple of kids thought it would be funny to put trash on cars, and in some cases it wasn’t even trash. Kids opened up umbrellas and put them inside a car. I think some of it was meant to be a practical joke, and some of it was kids just being disrespectful.”

Bobby Albani ‘22 and others discovered that this happened to one of their friend’s cars, and they decided to take action to learn who it was. Albani says, “Once my friend approached me [and told me about his car], I got some friends to help me survey the parking spot during Domino. During this time, we saw a group of students eating and throwing their trash around certain cars in the back left of the lot… We just made sure to occasionally take pictures when we believed they were doing something weird, and tried to make sure they weren’t doing anything too insane. After they left, we went to where they were standing and took pictures to document what we saw.”

In response to these allegations, Letts and a few of the form deans talked to the students involved in the littering as well as sent emails to their respective grades, emphasizing the need to keep the lot clean. In addition, Letts says that they “indicated to one student, maybe two, that for the time being they could park in the Athletic Center Lot where there are cameras. I haven’t heard that it’s continued since we addressed it, which is now (November 15) probably two or three weeks ago.”

Letts stresses the need to stop vandalism and littering in the lot, saying, “That’s just something that you have to have better sense: it’s not okay to do even if you think it’s funny. One, it’s somebody else’s garbage that has to be cleaned up, picked up, and put in the trash can. Two, in this case nobody experienced any damage to their vehicle but that could have happened. It could also be a safety issue, if you drive and have something up in your wheel well. You just have to use your head.”