Parking is $50 more this year than last. That's up from $120 to $170 and that has many student leaders fired up.
"We know that there's a shortage in the funding that they're getting and we understand that," student Ashley Farwell said. "We're not asking for parking passes to be free."
They just want them to be cheaper.
Several student leaders representing about one dozen Wake County high school showed up at the school board's meeting to make their case.
"We're asking that they take the money from a more inclusive source," student Catie King said. "They're taxing a select group of kids. Usually kids pay out of their own pocket for parking passes and it's unfair that we have to support their deficit."
School leaders raised the parking price in recent months during budget discussions after Wake Schools received tens of millions of dollars less in funding from the county than leaders wanted.
But some couldn't tell Eyewitness News exactly why permits were chosen as a source for more revenue.
"That was a day when we were just trying to find dollars to make up the difference between what we were receiving and what we thought we should have," school board member Ron Margiotta said.
The increased fees make Wake's parking by far the most expensive we found in our area.
"It is voluntary, students do not have to drive," Wake Superintendent Del Burns said. "We do provide bus transportation and certainly something students want to do. It's sort of a right of passage if you will to drive to school."
