By: Samanyu Bhupalam…

With October comes IA’s tourist season, where flocks of prospecting families are invited to look
around the building each Tuesday. Taking families from the third floor down, student
ambassadors lead the way in showing off our facilities and building to lots of ooo-ing and
ahh-ing. One ambassador, Lauren Trute (senior, healthcare) has been a tour guide for over a
year and now helps manage the ambassadors program.

Trute explained that “the tour is the step beyond the promotions and advertisements and where
parents come in with specific questions to ask. So, as much as it is a tour, it serves as a long
Q&A session as well. Since IA is such a different kind of high school, parents are rightfully
nervous about sending their students here, with their most common question usually having to
do with whether IA can really support their student in a holistic sense. And even while
shadowing one of her tours, a parent came up to me and asked whether I found that to be the
case, to which I explained that it does, but it all matters on whether you can find your community
at IA. Since we pull from so many corners of Fulton county, with so many different interests and
passions around the student body, it all boils down to whether a student is willing to reach out
and look around. Students get ideas of what might be there community while walking around,
with the pathway classrooms getting the most attention.”

Trute’s favorite tour experience was on the last week of tours in January, right before the
deadline closed and there were four consecutive days of tours where hundreds of people
showed up. While intense, she described how she enjoyed leading such large groups around
and talk about our school and all its quirks.

If you or someone you know is interested in touring Innovation Academy, please click here and
sign up early!