This year a new opportunity has come to Fenton High with students now being allowed to paint their parking spots. For years students have been trying to get this approved, and this year, the Student Council was able to get approval for it. If a student wants to paint their spot, it costs $20 and the student has to get their design approved ahead of time by the school.

“This has been a conversation for a number of years,” Athletic Director and Assistant Principal Michael Bakker said. “It never really grew legs to get going until this year— but when the Student Council brought up the idea and said they would take control, the plans ended up just falling into place.”

At the end of the school year, the paint has to be covered for students to paint them the next school year.

“It’s not going to be removed at the end of the year,” senior Kaitlyn Premo said. “A portion of the funds raised from painting spots will be used to buy some black paint and then, at the end of the year, members of the Student Council will be in charge of painting over the spots.”

While students were excited about the opportunity to paint their parking spots, there were also some suggestions for improvement for the next year, one being adding an extra day after the school year started for students to paint their spots. 

“I believe that next year there should be more than one day available for students to paint their spots,” senior Jilian Roberts said. “I think if they only do one day again next year, there should be a longer amount of time because it took me five hours to paint my spot and it was extremely hot outside which made it hard to get it all done in one day.”

With only a one day time frame, only a small window of opportunity was available for students to paint a spot. Although there is a backup date, students believe they should have more time or days on the first scheduled date and to get it done without having to wait for the backup.

“By the time everything was set and stone, we didn’t have much time left before school started,” Premo said. “Although there weren’t a lot of problems with getting the plan approved, there was a lot of time spent editing the proposal. At the last Student Council meeting of summer, [Principal Laura] Lemke and [Assistant Principal Zachary] Bradley joined the meeting so we could actually discuss the event with them. I believe in the future there should be multiple days allowed for painting and this would be an easy fix for the future because all the details of the event have already been sorted out.”

Some students who painted their spots decided to display the grade they were in throughout the painting.

“My spot was white with cow print and said ‘Holy cow I’m a senior,’” Roberts said. “I saw it on Pinterest and I thought it was so funny and super cute. I also really love cow print or animal print so I thought that it fit me perfectly.”

Others used inspiration such as albums or songs when they painted their parking spot.

“I decided to do a Spotify song cover for my spot,” Premo said. “I chose the song “22” by Taylor Swift because I am in the graduating Class of 2022. I chose this idea because I’m not very artistic, so I was looking for a design that didn’t include a lot of drawing or pictures.”

With all the positive feedback from the students, the student body and staff are considering keeping this as a recurring activity.