Minecraft Server: Everyone spawns in the ground

In the MC server I'm in, every player experiences a spawn issue; players spawn in the ground and start to suffocate. After a second or so you then spawn where you would normally spawn.The length of time in the ground depends on the connectivity to the server (the laggier the server, the longer you suffocate).

When you're low HP and you teleport home, suffocation can kill you and I noticed that, after spawning back to the correct location, some of the items lost during death are lying around and some are gone completely. Because of this I believe that the players spawn directly below the spawn point by a few blocks, but I'm not sure...

I've also mined the area I suffocated in, hoping that if I ever spawned there again I would just be in an empty square, but the blocks always respawn.

Does anyone know of a solution to this problem?

I'm assuming you run the server. You could:

• Op yourself and disable spawn protection, then mine out the area.
• Use a plugin to set the spawn point (I'd suggest EssentialsSpawn)
• Load the map into MCEdit and move the spawn point up a couple of blocks.

If you don't run the server, see if you can set yourself a /home position.