A new change has been put in place regarding student seating in the auditorium for assemblies. All students are required to sit with their class in a designated area of the auditorium, which is organized by the type of class they are in prior to the assembly.

This change sparked confusion and irritation for several people, especially students.

“I don’t like the seating charts at all, I think they are just a waste of time and it makes the process of getting everyone to their seats a lot harder. The seating charts are never clear, I can never find my teacher’s name on the screen either. I think it’s just dumb,” sophomore Amal Fazil said.

Assistant Principal of Operations Steve Parnther explains the reasoning behind this abrupt change.

“Assigned seating has been a thing of the past like they have done it before even before my time, we started it back up because we wanted a sense of foundation of where people should be going as they enter the auditorium, especially when we have double assemblies. It is very important we have a start and end time, so we figured it might be helpful for our staff and our students to be going to this row or be going to this row, just to expedite our transition process for each assembly,” Parnther said.

One aspect students dislike is not having the ability to sit with their friends during assemblies. However, Parnther argues that students should be focused.

“I understand from a student perspective, [but] my goal is not for students to sit with their friends, the goal is for you to highlight our school, our students, and whatever we are doing at that moment. I think that should be the focus. You can sit with your friend in the cafe and other places, this is more so like let’s be respectful, let’s be intentional about focusing on our students who worked extremely hard in preparing in whatever they are showing,” Parnther said.

Physical Education and AVID teacher Mr. Garrett Jones expresses his perspective as a teacher.

“I think the seating chart is a good thing to have for organizational reasons. But, at the same time, I think more of the focus should be getting all students in the auditorium rather than assigning them seats because a lot of students do tend to leave. For example, we had our international assembly, I felt like a lot of kids left because it was at the end of the day,” Jones said.

Other students just don’t see it as effective, knowing that the seating chart will not work for students.

“I don’t really think it’s necessary, people are gonna sit where they want anyway. I feel like they did it for organizational purposes, but people are going to leave and sit wherever they want to,” senior Gabby Adefala said.

Even though West came to this decision from a safety and organization standpoint, they will still be meeting to discuss if assigning seats will be a set rule for Niles West.

“We will take feedback from our staff and from our team and see what changes we need to make, but everything is constantly flowing and changing,” Parnther said.