Students parking at North Star Church received their second letter regarding improper behavior observed at the Church’s parking lot, March 14. With North Star’s generosity towards NC’s students providing their parking lot to licensed students during school hours, North Star, unfortunately, retracted their offering due to misconduct from students and will not allow students to park at their property starting Monday, March 18.

“I’m devastated. Now I have to ride the bus and get to school at a later time, and I can’t attend clubs in the morning. I don’t understand why everyone has to get punished for a few people’s immaturities, and I wish these students could be more mature and learn how to treat this privilege,” sophomore Lillian Southall said.

A month ago, students that parked at North Star received a list of “Do Nots,” ground rules for use of the Church’s campus after repeated inappropriate actions by students. The list consisted of rules urging students to pick up their trash, not drive recklessly, not speak rudely towards staff, not cause disruptions for events held at the church, not loiter, not park around other buildings, and not being considerate toward the adjacent apartments.

“I feel disappointed with the whole situation, but mostly disappointed with the students more than anything else. North Star doesn’t have to do what they do, they’ve never had to let us use their lot. It’s just always something that they’ve done, out of the kindness of their hearts, and being partners in our community,” Assistant Principal Kiel Southwell said.

Administrative pastor Jamie Maddox reiterated in the letter left for students after school that, on occasion, there were occurrences of reckless driving and donuts, which led to someone receiving a citation from the police. North Star informed NC’s administration about trash left on campus, and administration relayed the information to the student body on Tomahawk Today and announcements—students continued to inappropriately overlook North Star’s requests. Not only did the trash and donuts provoke North Star’s decision, but the church also received multiple complaints from the neighborhood next door concerning disruptive behavior after school.

“We’ve given the students multiple warnings to respect [North Star’s] property, but we’ve had a lot of instances of kids leaving trash, doing donuts in the parking lot, doing other things they shouldn’t be doing, parking in places they’re not supposed to park. It’s disappointing because when we had these issues, we would tell students to let us know so we could keep this privilege,” Southwell said.  

Due to this unfortunate occurrence with slightly over two months left in the school year, students hope to gain back this opportunity in the upcoming school year and treat North Star’s space with respect.     

“I think they will bring this privilege back again because this happened once before. It will probably be re-opened by next semester,” Southwell said.