As the 2025 school year unfolds, Niles West High School continues to change and adapt to students’ needs. These accommodations include Senior Alley, new televisions, a t-shirt cannon and most glaringly, numbered parking spots. Literally, glaring. Each spot in the front parking lot is stamped with a bright yellow number, ranging from 1-274. In past years, students have complained of the parking lot filling up with drivers who have not paid the hefty 300 dollar parking fee, leaving students who paid for a spot with nowhere to park. But coming from a student who pays her fee, numbered spots seem to be an ideal solution.

As a current senior, this is my second year utilizing the student parking lot, and I can say, without a doubt, that parking last year was a mess. I remember arriving at school during 3rd period last year, and to my dismay, every single spot had been taken. I had no choice but to park my car at the end of the football lot in the non-parking area. This bothered me quite a lot, considering I had paid 300 dollars to secure myself an all-year spot. As I took the seven-minute trek from the end of the parking lot to the entrance, I noticed the lot was littered with bright orange warning slips. Not only did a third of the cars in the lot have warning slips on their windshield, but the slips were all over the ground, trampled on and ripped up, implying that they meant nothing to students. 

Last year, no students received tickets or were towed as Niles West previously claimed would happen after the second parking offense. This year, Niles West’s new system makes it exponentially easier to identify which drivers are parking without permits and in a spot that’s not assigned theirs. To me, numbered parking spots seem like the best imaginable solution. Prior to the school year, I was worried my spot would be taken considering the fact that I picked a spot at the start of the lot and I have a late start. That leaves a worrying abundance of time for my spot to be stolen before I arrive. To my surprise, I arrived at school on the first day to find my spot open, and during the first week, this continued. My spot was not taken. To me, this was truly shocking. When I first heard about numbered parking spots I was highly skeptical. It seemed that the school had no solution to the question, “What if someone takes my spot?”, but in practice the numbered parking spots seem to be working flawlessly.

Of course, I can only speak from my own experience and other students may not find this solution as ideal as I do, but I have heard minimal discourse on the numbered parking spots. Although Niles West has only been in session for barely a week, I am already an avid supporter of numbered parking spots. The numbered spot system will be put to the test as the school year continues. If things keep going the way they have this first week, Niles West may have just found a permanent solution for the sticker-less parking epidemic.