Students will have the opportunity to take a class in lieu of paying a parking citation. ORACLE PHOTO/CHAVELI GUZMAN

Student Government’s (SG) Judicial Branch and Parking and Transportation Services (PATS) created a cost-free class to teach students about the rules and regulations of parking on campus.

Students can take this one-hour class in lieu of paying a first-time parking ticket received on campus.

Individuals are eligible to participate in the class for parking citations including improper permit display, out of an assigned area, facing traffic, parking over the line or having no permit displayed on the vehicle, according to Peter Tiberini, the assistant director of PATS.

However, they can only take this class once.

They will be given the opportunity to take the course when appealing for the citation by selecting the class module option that will be given. The class will be held in a conference room located in PATS, which can hold about 15 to 20 students during each session, according to Chief Justice Safa Shah

Shah said SG and PATS are in the final stages of the project, but there is still a pending completion date for when the class will be available.

The target completion date, according to Shah, is Nov. 4 or Nov. 5, but it may be prolonged due to finalizations within the Information Technology (IT) team — which is developing a system to track students who have completed the course.

Students who have completed the course will be recorded through the parking citation system, according to Aaron Nichols, the assistant director of Administrative Services.

Contradictory to what Shah said, Nichols is expecting a later release day.

“We are anticipating by the end of November, so students will be able to take the classes from then to early December,” Nichols said.

Although the dates are not set in stone, Shah said the class will either be held on a weekly or biweekly basis and will include multiple session times to accommodate student’s schedules.

The parking citation class would consist of a presentation given by SG. According to Tiberini, the powerpoint has about 20 to 30 slides, which will take roughly an hour to complete.

“We won’t be teaching the class,” Tiberini said. “An SG officer would perform the duties and handle the presentation, while we would take charge of the quizzes by scoring them.”

The on-paper ten question quiz will be based on information from the powerpoint to make sure everyone is fully attentive when listening to the class, according to Tiberini. Students are able to pass with answering nine out of the 10 questions correctly. A failing grade would result in having to take retake the class in a new session.

The idea for the project began when former Chief Justice Milton Llinas was in office. The initiative was then forwarded to last year’s Chief Justice Cameron Valdez and will now be completed by Shah.

Shah said SG hosting the class will be important because of the misinformation students may have about parking.

“This gives people a chance to learn about parking and not have to pay for a ticket for information they may or may not even know about,” Shah said.