Phony permits get students suspended

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) - More than a dozen Volcano Vista High School students have been suspended for ripping off APS.

Word of a black market business cropping up on campus spread fast around Volcano Vista High.

“I heard that a lot of people were buying parking passes from this one kid, I don’t know who he is,” VVHS Senior Hope Romero.

The district confirms there were three seniors who bought parking permits like these legitimately but APS said those students quickly turned that legitimate purchase into an illegitimate side business.

“They either made fake parking permits that they sold or they allowed other kids to make copies and sell them,” APS Spokeswoman Monica Armenta said.

The going rate for the phony permit was ten bucks a sweet deal considering the school’s price is $35 per permit.

The permits were for a coveted lot where only seniors can park and it was sold out.

“It’s the North lot that the fake permits were copied and sold for and that lot is closer to the school so it’s a shorter walk,” said Armenta.

Students KRQE News 13 spoke with Tuesday said they not only heard about what was going on, they saw the permits too and they said the fakes looked pretty real.

APS says they didn’t look real enough because the high school found out about all this after a security guard noticed a permit that did not quite look right.

When they started investigating the district said the students came clean.

“At this point there were 14 students involved in this activity,” Armenta said.

The principal suspended all of them and banned them from parking on campus for the rest of the school year.

APS said even though the North lot is sold out, the other student parking lot is not. Tthere are more than 500 spaces available but the South lot is a little bit further from the main building.

The 14 students were each suspended for three days out of school and two days in school.

The high school is still investigating to see if more students were involved.