Around 1 pm, while students are still in the middle of classes, parents begin to descend upon the Cathedral parking lots, ready for pick-up. With people arriving so early, the parking lots become full and many parents are pushed into the surrounding neighborhoods. By the time the last bell rings, there are cars lining Old Carmel Valley Road and Gamay Way.

“On Old Carmel Valley Road, parents are not driving through the lot, and are instead picking students up on the street side. That’s what’s causing the main riff with the neighbors,” said Head of Security, Mr. Leighton Balalio.

Cathedral has tried to address the concerns of neighbors by sending mass email blasts to Cathedral parents, directing PA announcements to students, and adding an additional security guard to monitor activity in the back lot.

Mr. Balalio said, “We ask a night guard to arrive about fifteen minutes early to help deter students from walking down the Old Carmel Valley sidewalk to get picked up, and now students and parents are seeing that they need to come through the lot.”

Mr. Balalio, who has worked security for almost twenty years, remembers similar traffic problems at the USDHS campus in Linda Vista. The main concern in the past was a one-road hill that parents drove to pick up students. This hill ran through college dorms, and if parents did not see their child right away, they were made to drive back down the hill and up again.

Knowing that similar problems arise every year around Cathedral’s campus, the school works to eliminate these issues after assessing the situation and alerting parents of proper pick-up procedures. Due to flared tension with neighbors, Cathedral has invited local police to observe parents picking up students on Old Carmel Valley Road and Gamay Way.

“The police stood on the street and watched everything happen, and concluded that students and parents are doing nothing illegal. I’ve seen it several times, and it’s just a fifteen-minute window that is causing issues,” said Mr. Balalio.

Since implementing another security guard to remind parents and students to drive through the back lot for pick-up, Cathedral has seen a decrease of street traffic. Cathedral will continue to remind its community to practice safe driving and respect of neighbors because, as Mr. Balalio said, “Everybody just wants to get home at the end of the day.”