The school has no parking spaces for the many teachers it employs, and they do what they can to avoid parking tickets.

"It's gotten worse this year because every day we're getting tickets --$30 tickets-- and if you can imagine, most of us are raking in about three to four hundred dollars worth of tickets [a year]," Lynne Gray, a teacher, said.

Parking on the streets surrounding the school is limited to two hours. So many instructors leave their students in the classroom so they can move their cars and avoid getting a ticket.

"It disturbs things big time and if you say, 'For the next hour and 20 minutes, we are going to be doing this' and you have to spend 15 to 20 minutes to move your car, you lose focus on the kids," observed Ronald Lee Newman, a teacher.

More than a hundred teacher have signed a letter to Mayor Adrian Fenty, urging him to give them neighborhood parking permits before it becomes too expensive for them to teach here.

"I cannot afford it and I also have three children myself that I'm trying to feed, and if I have to pay parking tickets all the time it's tough and it makes you not want to work here," said Angel Walker, a teacher.

While residents say they are sympathetic to the teachers, they want to preserve the limited parking spaces.

"On one hand I understand the situation, on the other hand, I would just be concerned as to how it's going to impact the neighborhood," said Cathy Kerkam, a Georgetown resident.

Top administrators, including the principal and assistant principal, do have assigned spaces.

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