Faculty Votes Against New Driving Policy
The faculty have voted to veto, at least for the time being, a new day student driving policy that would allow licensed day students to drive boarders with parental permission.
Although Student Council (StuCo) has been pushing for this policy over the course of three academic years, 92 faculty members opposed the policy, while only 42 voted for it at faculty meeting on Monday, Feb. 4. Those opposed find the current E Book policy––allowing boarding students to ride in motor vehicles with faculty members, licensed drivers at least 21 years old and day students over 18 with appropriate out-of-town permissions––to be more fitting for the Academy’s needs.
“The risk of fatal accidents may be small, but young drivers are more accident-prone and especially when driving with several other teenagers in the car,” Biology Instructor Townley Chisholm said. “I know three seniors from a previous school who died in car wrecks and I don’t want to know any more.”
Vice President of StuCo Michaela Phan noted that, despite the faculty’s opposition, “out of the 32 parents that StuCo interviewed, 80 percent were in support of the policy.”
The student body has invested much support into the policy. “Two falls ago, a few council members drafted up a proposal and talked with relevant adults on campus,” StuCo President Elizabeth Yang said. “There was a lot of momentum behind the proposal because this was something that a lot of students wanted to have seen on campus. When StuCo voted on the final draft that was presented in front of the faculty, there was unanimous support.”
Yang attributed the faculty’s opposition to safety concerns. “I think there was a pretty strong faculty sentiment that this policy would push adults past their ability to be able to take care of those to the students in the best of their ability,” she said.
Spanish Instructor Mark Trafton agreed with Yang, saying, “I sense that the faculty opposed the proposals to change the student automobile use policy due to concerns about liability of the school...due to the unmeasurable administrative headache of tracking drivers, passengers, locations and vehicles that would fall to the Dean of Students’ Office,” he said.
Implementing such a policy would require significant faculty planning as well, Trafton expressed. “It seems to me that as a whole the faculty was not ready to imprudently rush to change a policy in way whose consequences are unknown,” he said.
English Instructor Rebecca Moore, meanwhile, brought up the ways the proposed policy may adversely affect day students. “The suggestion that the access to day students driving cars will make better bridges between boarders and day students seems specious,” she said. “More likely, day students will feel pressured to drive boarders, or even more marginalized because they do not have access to a car to drive boarders.”
“Car accidents cause many of the deaths in the high school age group,” she said. “One good reason to go to boarding school is that you spend minimal time driving cars.”
Day students on campus felt that this proposal would have had a positive impact, rendering many activities more convenient and cost effective. “It would definitely be more convenient if boarders wanted to come over to my house for lunch, for example,” lower Annie Smaldone said. “I live [with]in the radius, and quickly running an errand or even going to the beach within the radius is significantly less expensive than ordering an Uber.”
As a day student representative, Upper Nick Schwarz has sought to make the policy more appealing to day student parents. “I think that safety is the most important concern,” Schwartz said. “While drafting and submitting the proposal, we felt that its success depended on how safe parents thought their kids would be.”
Lower Carlos Jones, meanwhile, acknowledged faculty concerns. “I was hoping that it would pass so that if my friends wanted to go out for dinner, then I could help to make that happen, but I do understand the liability that factors into a change like this,” he said.