School tours are an opportunity to experience the school campus and get a taste of what the school has to offer. As the Leesville Road High School counseling staff begins its touring process for the 2024 class, middle school students have the opportunity to encounter Leesville’s community and campus. The tours are not only for Leesville Middle students, but for all students from different schools, hoping to get a feel for the school’s environment.
Eric Greene, a counselor at Leesville Road High School, manages and creates the dates and time schedules for the tours and appoints Leesville senior students as tour guides. Greene believes school tours are a good and effective way for rising freshmen to see the school’s campus and get a feel for the school’s environment and community vibes. “I think the tours especially help parents whose students are coming from outside the public school system. It takes some of the edges off coming to such a big school. The best thing for rising 9th-grade parents to attend is the Rising 9th Grade Orientation that takes place the 1st week of February,” said Greene. Greene also claims the tours are open to all students from different middle schools and not just Leesville Middle School, allowing for more students, from various schools, to attend tours.
In order to create a more positive and light environment for the tour attendants, Leesville senior students are instructed to lead the tours. The students attending the tours feel more relaxed and can relate with younger guides rather than adult strangers. In order to have the right amount of knowledge about the school’s campus and community, student leaders are required to have already attended at least one year at LRHS. This is to make sure the student tour leader knows what he/she is talking about when giving tours to the rising freshman and to prevent any misinformation given.
Lukas Stanton, current freshmen, says he attended an afternoon school tour in the summer of 2018, when he and his parents were searching for a high school to attend. “We were led around the school and visited each building and certain classrooms. We learned what classes taught what courses, and where we are allowed to eat lunch,” says Stanton. Overall, Stanton and his parents are impressed with the tour and the tour guides abilities to provide information about the school. Stanton agrees that the tour influenced him to attend Leesville and was effective in doing so.
The purpose of school tours is to attract the attention of the eighth grade, in an attempt to influence them in choosing Leesville over other highschools. In order to do this, tour leaders are advised to provide information about the school and answer any questions the students or parent/ guardian might have. Greene claims that the more students and parents understand the school, the more likely they will attend Leesville in the future.
Other schools such as Sanderson and Millbrook High School use the same touring process as Leesville to influence students to attend their schools. All schools have some form of introducing future students to the school, whether it be tours, fundraisers, or events held on campus. Each introduces rising freshmen to the school and its grounds, hoping to grab the attention of the youth and influence them to choose one school over another. Leesville’s tours intend to do the same and hope to influence the attendees in choosing Leesville as their future high school over other Wake County high schools.
Hi! My name is Chase and I am a staff writer for The Mycenaean. Two fun facts about me are that I enjoy playing guitar with my dad and friends, and I also am a two-time spikeball tournament champion.