Innovation Lab High School is an NSD choice school that opened in 2020. Focused on nurturing leaders and innovators, the school offers a unique learning style that focuses on several skills — such as collaboration, communication and critical thinking — many of which are sought after in the 21st century. The school also provides a tight-knit community of just under 250 students, which is great for making connections and team building. Students are drawn to Innovation Lab’s small student population and educational style, which seem helpful in preparing for an ever-changing workforce. I had the opportunity to attend ILHS for a year, but I decided to switch back to my home high school after I realized ILHS isn’t what I imagined it would be. Registration for ILHS is coming soon, and many eighth graders have the potential to be led astray.
The way NSD markets ILHS is very misleading, and it has caused many students, like me, to be led astray. Despite NSD promoting Innovation as a school that prepares students to be leaders in innovation and STEM careers, the school is only beneficial to students who prefer a flexible learning environment and a smaller community. It is crucial that NSD starts advertising in a different way.
ILHS students have fewer academic opportunities than they would have at their home high schools. Innovation’s clubs and classes in fact, are still evolving and establishing themselves. In other words, due to the lack of resources, the clubs depend on students to pursue passion projects, which puts a big burden upon individuals who may want to seek leadership positions. In high school, students are supposed to explore their interests, which is hard to do at a school that doesn’t offer these opportunities to students. Moreover, it doesn’t help that the school’s name itself — “Innovation Lab” — is deceptive, as the science-related words suggest a STEM-focused rigor that differs from its emphasis on flexibility and collaboration. I was completely unprepared for ILHS’s lack of resources, since the photos and flyers for the school made it seem very well furnished.
ILHS also doesn’t have typical high school clubs such as DECA and NHS, which limits extracurricular opportunities. They don’t offer many advanced courses either, with no AP or IB classes. There aren’t any school sports, and there isn’t a gym or other athletic facilities either. STEM schools such as Tesla STEM High School offer several academic opportunities, such as advanced tech, more hands-on learning and larger science labs, which makes ILHS’s lack of resources an unpleasant surprise. The building in reality is an old T-Mobile call-center turned into a school, with none of the classrooms containing actual doors. As a matter of fact, the school still has cubicle quadrants and whiteboards for their classroom walls. ILHS simply doesn’t have the resources to “innovate.”
The unique grading system is something that baffles many freshmen as well. Innovation doesn’t focus on A’s, B’s and C’s; instead, they grade students based on their proficiency and effort. You may think that this is what the traditional grading system does, however the ILHS School Profile states that their system titled, the “Mastery Learning Record, (MLR)” specifically focuses on growing a student’s skills overall, rather than reducing them to a number with a GPA. The six skills that ILHS wants to establish in their learners are communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, agency (initiative to learn) and citizenship. Students embrace these values through student-led initiatives, which teachers grade upon rather than a traditional grading rubric. Although these are great skills to have, the focus on these skills felt much like another layer atop the fact that Innovation wasn’t the STEM school I thought it was. It was a huge shift from traditional school, and it took lots of getting used to. One key thing to consider when you apply to this school is if this is how you want to be graded, and if this curriculum is something you’re ready to shift in.
Innovation’s dynamic learning system emphasizes student-led initiatives and project-based learning, modeled by their little-to-no-homework policy, and classes focusing on collaboration and communication. Most of the time, I was always on a big assignment with someone else. There is a strong focus on interdisciplinary work, where students will learn skills and information from various subjects and apply them to a project in another class. Teachers encourage students often to start their own passion projects. In fact, one of ILHS’s big traditions that every student gets to work on its Better World Day project, where groups of students will together work on a passion project throughout the year that improves their local environment and community around them.
An additional aspect that contributes to ILHS’s flexible setting are their weekly Wednesday “Flex Days.” On these days, students go around to different clubs and complete schoolwork, where there are no classes scheduled.
The highly flexible curriculum has its drawbacks. Some students said they feel disoriented or unproductive in the student-led setting. I know I often felt lost as I had nothing much to do, especially during the weekly Wednesday Flex Days. With the student-led atmosphere, it actually led to many feeling distracted as working on these days wasn’t necessarily enforced by staff. Furthermore, the little to no homework policy doesn’t really work out if they give students those Flex Days, because students end up sitting around with nothing else to do. Overall, ILHS is not the school for students who seek academic challenges or students who like exploring multiple extracurriculars.
My overall experience with Innovation Lab is that I have lots of mixed emotions about the school. I made multiple new friends, met amazingly kind and understanding teachers, learned much about what I prefer as a student, as well as what I prefer in a school. However, I just cannot see the school in the completely positive light that I would like to, because I felt like I was tricked into thinking the school would give more than I actually got. The key component that needs to change is how the district is marketing ILHS. The school has the potential to be a place many students could thrive in, but I and many others found that it wasn’t the right fit due to us being misled. To incoming freshmen, it is imperative that you do extensive research on this school, to know if this is what you want.
Elizabeth A • Apr 6, 2024 at 12:30 PM
As a past innovation student I think this article is a great piece and is well put. Amazing job Rishi!
Anonymous IHS Student • Mar 13, 2024 at 9:18 AM
I would just like everyone to know that this is an opinion article and everyone can have their own opinions.
Lee Hurchalla • Mar 8, 2024 at 9:00 AM
ILHS junior here, and both of my siblings have or are currently attending IHS.
I’ve noticed that I’ve only seen this rhetoric that ILHS isn’t a good school from older students and parents. I’ve gotten it from my own family, considering my parents expected my to follow in my older brother’s footsteps by attending IHS or WHS (my home school) and taking an IB load.
However, I haven’t seen any disapproval from anyone who actually understands what Innovation Lab is. If anyone takes the time to actually talk to students, staff, and parents, you can understand just how different and special ILHS is. You could look at anything our marketing committee has put out in the last year and a half and learn more about our school than whatever you get from this article.
I don’t want to repeat what everyone’s already saying, but as someone who has participated in many extracurriculars and elective classes, I think this is incredibly misleading. Yes, it was a hard choice to give up orchestra when I chose to come to ILHS, but if I really wanted to, there were many routes I could have taken. I could have taken lessons from a commercial program, or asked about opportunities at other schools, like joining marching band or one of the ensembles that practices before or after school, or joined ILHS’s music club.
In freshman year alone, I was on Woodinville’s slowpitch softball team, Woodinville’s swim team, a competitive swim team that met for over an hour every day (Gold’s aquatics), a different softball team (NGSSA), and taking dance lessons. If I wanted to, I also could have taken part in WHS’s spring musical. Not to mention, I also took WANIC summer semester courses.
If you take the time to look, it isn’t hard to make up for the lack of opportunities going to such a small school entails. Of course we can’t have some of the programs other schools have, it isn’t viable when you have a school of less than 450 students. (And we lack district funding, which isn’t our fault)
Either way, there are so many upsides to ILHS that are completely ignored in this article. ILHS doesn’t have to be the same as the major high schools, and we don’t want to be. ILHS was never intended to be the same generic high school, it’s right in the name. Innovation.
Maci Epp • Mar 6, 2024 at 8:09 AM
Was your school so bad you felt the need to bash another school to make yourself feel better?! Come on we learned this in first grade you don’t step on other people to make yourself feel better. And I also think you should’ve done your research and it was the first year the school was operating it’s not like we’ve been up and running since 1800 BC like inglemoor… and guess what…
WOMP WOMP we don’t care.
Molly Olsen • Mar 6, 2024 at 8:26 PM
Be civil Maci these comments are representing our school, we don’t want to respond to an uninformed article with hostility, simply explain why this isn’t accurate!
Ainsley • Mar 5, 2024 at 11:41 AM
Rishi this is a great article, please ignore the people in the comments being ignorant and rude. Thanks for the great opinion and information, which is super helpful to those considering the school!
Lea Waters • Mar 6, 2024 at 8:53 AM
It’s not ignorance if we are speaking out against an article about us and the school we go to? Whats ignorant is defending someone blindly and not looking at both sides in an unbias view point.
Rico Portland • Mar 4, 2024 at 9:56 PM
Great article many articulate points that you have made, however I noticed you managed to leave something out of it. The overflowing amount of Liberals that dwell in the abhorrent, glorified call center they call a “School”.
Lea Waters • Mar 6, 2024 at 8:59 AM
Ironic how you’re bringing up capital L ‘Liberals’ when your last name is Portland.
J.K Rowling • Mar 6, 2024 at 10:46 AM
Average Republican behavior
Julien Wong • Mar 4, 2024 at 3:37 PM
Hello,
I am an ILHS Freshman and wanted to point out a few things that you had stated in the article that are either currently not true or have a purpose that may differ from a normal high school.
First of all, the school was never meant to be a STEM school. This has been a common misconception, yes, but the original goal was to have a different way to learn, and that was always how it has been. The Mastery Transcript and Mastery Learning Record is not to support STEM learning, but rather, progress. Rather than learning something just to spit it back out onto a test, and then forgetting it, ILHS is here for learning and then retaining knowledge. If a student actually remembers what they were taught, that is a better sign of learning then whether they scored 100% on a test. Although this may not be how you wish to learn, I feel that this is a better learning style for me.
Next, I saw that you used the fact that ever since the building was a call center, it’s been unchanged, using whiteboards for walls and cubicle-style rooms. There was a lot wrong with this, and it was why I couldn’t agree with the article as a whole even if I wanted to. First, we stopped using cubicle-style walls earlier and switched to what might be considered more “normal” for a school setup. And also, who said that keeping an old setup was bad? If it works, it works. And the whiteboard walls are used on almost a daily basis in some classes, rather than working on personalized whiteboards. So are such things that some might consider shoddy a bad thing for the school? They work quite well from my perspective and help to let people communicate more on a project.
I understand that Innovation Lab is not a perfect fit for everyone. For me, it works, and for you, it didn’t. And that’s ok. However, because so much of the article was not correct from my standpoint, I feel that this article should be edited after some research has been done. As a Student of ILHS, I can firmly say that much of this article needs to be revised in order to prevent further misunderstandings about what ILHS really is as a school now, as it has evolved and changed over the few years of it’s existence.
Saara • Mar 8, 2024 at 2:06 PM
Do you know what an opinion article is? it’s not a research article, they don’t to research to have an opinion on their past experiences. Rishi is just giving his OPINION on the school from when he attended. He’s not even bashing the school that much, he’s more bashing NSD about falsely marketing ILHS. I respect your opinion and everyone is entitled to their own opinion, however you’re just belittling him. Have a nice day 🙂
Nordy Enbaby • Mar 4, 2024 at 3:13 PM
Don’t listen to the haters and karens, Rishi! We love you and in this country we have the right to freedom of press! ꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱₊˚⊹ To the h8ters: Rishi was only arguing that ILHS should be remarketed as a school so that students know 100% what they’re getting out of the experience, not that it’s an inherently bad school. He was solely commenting neutrally on what ILHS does and doesn’t have.
Lea Waters • Mar 5, 2024 at 8:47 AM
womp womp :/
Dane Miller • Mar 5, 2024 at 11:50 AM
Your bias is incredible and your audacity is commendable.
But this is anything but a neutral article, and to insinuate that people would take away anything but a negative idea of ILHS from this article is incredibly dishonest
Also good job bringing up freedom of speech when this has nothing to do with that, like quite literally nothing. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from criticism
Victoria Tchervenski • Mar 6, 2024 at 12:22 PM
I agree that the marketing in 2021 was not accurate to our brand new school. HOWEVER, thanks to the hard work, initiative, passion, and hundreds of hours put in by staff and students, our marketing has changed and now accurately represents our school. The reason there is so much backlash is because we believe in our school, we know that things are VERY different now than what this article stated, and we know how important enrollment is to our school’s existence. We also see how hard our fellow students in Marketing Club and ASB are working to market the school, and it’s frustrating that there is misinformation about our school.
This article does say it was written so that potential students will not be misled, but then proceeded to give outdated information.
If this article really was accurately commenting on what ILHS does and doesn’t have, we would appreciate the sharing of information. The problem here is that it is outdated and many things are inaccurate and presented as fact.
Anonymous ILHS • Mar 7, 2024 at 10:50 PM
The main problem is that this article is NOT commenting accurately on what ILHS does and does not have. This student was basing the current state of the school off of the first in-person year it ran, and a lot of the information is simply not factually correct. The student has not seen the current marketing, as is evident by the misinformation I mentioned— all of which is clearly addressed in the current marketing strategy. If it was an article with factual information and quotes from ILHS teachers to back up claims, then ILHS students wouldn’t be such “Karens” as you put. We are not “being Karens”, we are (the large majority of us anyways) responsibly speaking out about how this article is harmful to our school, how it reflects poorly on NSD as a whole, and how it is based upon outdated information. I don’t think people critiquing an article for not being well researched and potentially causing harm to a population is “being a Karen”.
BB • Mar 4, 2024 at 12:21 PM
We’ve been part of the Innovation Lab community from the beginning. It’s important to clarify that Innovation Lab is not a STEM school. In the three years we’ve been at the school STEM has not been a focus. I’m a bit baffled by this STEM comment so I poked around the website and again nothing pointed to STEM. It seems the author assumed that the words innovation or lab was synonymous with STEM. Nope! You can innovate outside of STEM and a lab could easily be a studio, forest, or parking lot.
Let’s recognize the limitations of the current educational model in meeting the diverse needs of students. ILHS is advocating for progressive, out-of-the-box thinking in education. ILHS provides an environment where students have the freedom to explore their passions through open-ended learning.
Sure ILHS has and will experience growing pains. Anything new is gonna need adjusting. We need these lessons in flexibility and rolling with change.
Any 8th grader (or current High Schooler) seeking a high school experience that challenges norms, fosters creativity and encourages exploration, consider ILHS. Do your research, educate yourself, check out a tour, and come to Better World Day. Visit Innovationlab.nsd.org/our-school.
Matthew Schurke • Mar 1, 2024 at 10:11 PM
While I think that ILHS had the opportunity to BECOME a STEM powerhouse, it was not set out to do that from the beginning. Hi, son of the founding principal here, I would like to point out that ILHS was never a STEM focused school, Entirely centered around the Mastery learning model Ilab was intended to build a different learning model based off of similar schools across the country using the same model. The district knew it was never going to have the funds to be STEM based and so it didn’t bother. Now with the new Administration (especially top-side) it has become strapped for cash and the budget crisis threats to shut down more and more programs. I took decided I had had enough of the small program selection, and I will give you that. It is devoid of interesting classes unique to it. However you don’t go to Ilab for the classes in my opinion. The school has many advantages, mainly moving me ahead academically by a year. Even if it did obliterate my study skills. All in all I would recommend doing what I did, attending for freshman or even sophomore year, but in the end I prefer a larger school l. However many have found success at Ilab, and to my fellow ravens, current and former, I wish you all luck! And may the district never snuff out the dream.
Garrett Maxwell • Mar 1, 2024 at 7:35 PM
All publicity is good publicity is a myth.
Erin Feeney • Mar 1, 2024 at 6:34 PM
Hey! I’m a junior at ILHS, and I’d like to highlight something VERY important about this article (to me, at least)
As many have pointed out before me, the author of this article attended ILHS in 2021, when it was essentially still in its infancy. The school was heavily impacted by Covid-19 at the time, but has changed significantly in those 3 years!
We are a very very small school, and have been constantly threatened by the district’s decisions in the past. Last year, we lost our assistant principal, and nearly lost our bus routes, with little reasoning besides our numbers. An article like this, with opinions formed from an outdated experience that doesn’t reflect the school’s current state, could do real harm to our community and threaten our numbers.
I know this is an opinion article, and it’s totally okay if ILHS wasn’t the right fit for you! (I wasn’t there during freshman year, maybe it did suck, for all I know!) But I love this school, and I know its future students will likely love it too.
I hope you strongly consider rewording or removing this article. Have a great weekend!
Maci Epp • Mar 1, 2024 at 5:17 PM
I love how me and my mom read this and started laughing about how everything in this was for the most part flat out false, and let’s remember what school is clean, which school doesn’t have bathrooms where your at risk to get assaulted,let’s remember which school is so chill that’s there’s little to know drama and no physical fighting, let’s remember which school has teachers that really do care about student, and if you still don’t believe me and your looking down apon ILHS because of this email then I can’t help you with your lack of brain cells, (we do have a lot of amazing science classes and projects but we haven’t figured that one out yet)
Matthew Epshtein • Mar 9, 2024 at 9:49 PM
let’s remember which school has students who can comment on posts while using the correct form of your/you’re, who can comment on posts while using singular/plural correctly, who can comment on posts while using the correct spelling of “upon”, etc etc. when commenting on the intelligence of Inglemoor’s journalists, it could serve you to learn what those red squiggles that keep showing up under the words you type actually mean.
Mikaella Boyance • Mar 1, 2024 at 4:01 PM
While I don’t agree with all the opinions in this piece, I can say as a former ILHS student for 2 years that the school isn’t for everyone, some people will thrive here and some won’t. It’s all about what you need as an individual learner 🙂
M Sul • Mar 1, 2024 at 3:59 PM
As many of these students have said this article has zero journalistic integrity and is full of holes. The author attended ILHS in one of its foundational years, which were extremely rocky as the district was refusing to fund basic aspects of our school. Since then our school has dramatically improved. Any prospective freshman or family of one who reads this should not take this article as an accurate representation of our school and instead attend one of the numerous information nights or public events that our school puts out.
As one of the students leading marketing committee I want to make it clear that ILHS does not market itself as a STEM school. We market ourselves as a mastery skills and project based learning school. There is nothing to “uncover” about ILHS, we are extremely honest about how we run. This author had numerous chances to attend marketing tours and see how the school has changed, but did not take advantage of those opportunities.
It is unfortunate to see this student did not take advantage of the opportunities ILHS offers for student leadership (ASB, leadership opportunities within clubs, student committees, or other groups), advanced workload (going for exceeding proficiency on assignments, going outside of your comfort zone on projects, joining committees, etc), and our flex time adequately. However, that is not the schools fault. The school will support you through the flexible learning it offers, which is not what this article implies.
I am shocked that IHS allowed this to be published as there was zero journalistic integrity to it, and it also has NOTHING to do with Inglemoor high school. This is the IHS student newspaper, why was there a need to report on another school in the district.
Dane Miller • Mar 2, 2024 at 9:57 AM
It’s even stranger when you realize that this article is worded in a way that makes it targeted towards 8th graders, who probably will never even see this article
Anonymous • Mar 4, 2024 at 10:13 PM
I agree.
Can u Please make this a counter argument article? maybe it will be linked at the bottom for readers to fully understand…
Anonymous 2 • Mar 5, 2024 at 6:08 PM
I dont see the point of a counter argument article if one side is very much apparent to the fact that this opinion piece has loads of misinformation, targetted to 8th graders, and is from someone who wasn’t there for over a year, and it comes off that the other side refuses to do research into this article and blindly supports someone who has written this with the intent to harm the reputation of ILHS and the students who go there. No matter if it was direct or indirect intent, the intent within itself was to hard a group of individuals. Plain. And. Simple.
Matthew Epshtein • Mar 9, 2024 at 9:51 PM
If only ILHS actually had a student newspaper to publish a counterargument article in…
Victoria Tchervenski • Mar 11, 2024 at 1:42 PM
Don’t worry, we do!
Maddy Potter • Mar 1, 2024 at 3:50 PM
This is a bad article and depicts my school in a very bad sense. ILHS was never ment to really be a stem school. Our unique grading policies and transcripts make our school even better than others. ILHS is such an amazing school with some of the best people around with very caring teachers and passionate students. It is not our fault that we do not receive enough money from the district to reach the full potential of innovation lab.
Nordic News Editors • Mar 1, 2024 at 3:21 PM Nordic News Pick
We appreciate your comments on the article. We want to clarify that this is an opinion piece based on a reporter’s personal experience at Innovation Lab and does not reflect the opinion of the entire publication. We encourage further discussion, and you can email the editors if you would like to submit a letter to the editor. Letters to the editor are subject to condensation and/or resubmission to the author for revision. Material that is not the author’s own work or is copyrighted may not be submitted.
Lea Waters • Mar 5, 2024 at 9:01 AM
there’s a HUGE difference between an opinion and spreading false information
Saara • Mar 8, 2024 at 2:15 PM
womp womp :/
Mason Rynearson • Mar 1, 2024 at 2:58 PM
As a current ILHS student, reading this was quite disappointing. Not only were you a student here at ILHS for one year, but you also made a multitude of points which are simply wrong. I understand that this is an opinion piece, however making an opinion piece about a school which is home to a tight knit community as you put it, is bound to receive backlash.
One thing I find issue with is your point of ILHS having a limited choice of academic opportunities, which is true to a degree but fails to convey the true reason as to why this is the case. ILHS is heavily student driven, meaning if students want to see a class, the students will vote and the teachers will work on said class for next year. However, seeing as you were only here for the first year you would most likely have not seen this. An example of this can be seen at our DND class, which focuses on world building and creative writing aspects (this class was voted for at the end of 2022-2023). A lack of classes is primarily due to students voting for what selection of classes we want. Another solution to this problem that isn’t really a problem, is the schools programs such as Satellite classes and Running start, and another thing to note, is our school population is not high enough to have a ton of classes, as that would be inefficient and expensive (again, which is why we vote for our classes).
Another issue I have is your point of how NSD markets our school. First, only as of this year has NSD truly been marketing our school, in previous years it has been up to us students to work on going out to advertise our schools by doing talks with Elementary schools and making advertisements through doing events. Another thing, is how you say you were “led astray” as the marketing was misleading. As someone who started at the same time as you, I never once had any of these thoughts about the school. For example, you were misled by the simple word “Innovation”. If you went to the school where your ideas were surface level, that is at no fault of NSD or ILHS. I came to ILHS because I wanted to experience a school where students education is students responsibility, similar to the responsibility students face in college. By this I mean the Better World Day projects that students work on their whole time of being at ILHS. Something I just want to throw out there how you were misled and thought it was a STEM school, which at no point was it ever advertised as such.
Another point you made was the lack of AP classes. AP classes are not available at ILHS yes, however, we have College in the High School classes, which are free while AP classes cost up to a hundred dollars (you tell me what sounds better). You also talk about our flex Wednesdays, which at the time you were attending ILHS we had only had 2 flex Wednesdays, the schedules of which weren’t even fully fleshed out like they are now.
You may want this to be your “Revenge Article”, however this is simply a clown post. You very clearly and purposefully made numerous lies about our school without having any clear facts or evidence other than your one, single year at ILHS. In my opinion, you don’t have the authority to make such a post about ILHS, as this in itself is promoting false ideas about ILHS.
Avery French • Mar 1, 2024 at 2:51 PM
This is getting passed around ILHS students like ravens crowding a lost McDonald’s order – I’m curious if any Inglemoor students have thoughts on this piece? It’s not exactly leaving a great impression here.
Alex Murillo Segoviano • Mar 4, 2024 at 2:01 PM
Not leaving a great impression on Inglemoor students or ILHS students?
Avery French • Mar 7, 2024 at 9:16 AM
On the ILHS students. We don’t like it.
Ainsley • Mar 5, 2024 at 11:49 AM
Inglemoor student here! I think its a great piece that I’ve heard the sentiment of reflected in multiple past ILHS students that are now at IHS
John Weston • Mar 1, 2024 at 2:01 PM
Hey, maybe in the future actually fact check your articles. Almost all the information you stated in this is out of date or straight up incorrect. You were here for a single year in the first year we were in person, of course things weren’t going to be perfect. Since then things have vastly improved and if you had maybe reached out to interview people as good reporters tend to do you would have seen how the majority of students actually feel. While of course we still have problems, every school has problems and I thoroughly enjoy going here, and since I did research before attending I knew what to expect and have stayed here since 2020.
Tyler Neal • Mar 1, 2024 at 1:42 PM
I fail to understand how it is any fault of Innovation Lab that you incorrectly assumed that it was a STEM school or that you did not take advantage of student-led opportunities. I am very surprised and disappointed that an article teeming with both reporter’s bias and outright false information would be displayed under such a prestigious banner as Inglemoor High School. I hope you will consider revising or removing this article. Feel free to reach out to me if you would like to discuss this more.
Lea Waters • Mar 5, 2024 at 9:02 AM
You tell them, Tyler!
Lea Waters • Mar 1, 2024 at 12:03 PM
As a current student at Innovation Lab High School, I understand your point of view though the things you have said here are very contradicting, especially understanding the fact that you were only here for a single semester, in the year when there were only 4 flex wednesdays TOTAL.
The cubicles have been removed since last summer, and since then the place has felt more open and energetic. Along with the fact that you mention how it is a STEM school. Innovation Lab High School has not and will never be a STEM school.
We weren’t able to supply ourselves with the resources necessary because the district, only this year, began to hear us with our need for advertising and funding, so I find it kind of puzzling how you bring up how the school is at fault for not getting proper funding even though that is the district’s responsibility. Not to mention you attended the school two years into its creation, which is, for some reason, too hard for you to understand how and why there are little to no extra-curriculars We currently have a Model UN here now, thanks to the people who attend ILHS, and we are possibly getting an NHS next year! Finally, the admin and the staff told everyone that was going to attend or was interested in attending if you want to do more sports and fitness or musical classes and extra-curriculars like that to, and i quote, “not come here”.
The rooms have always been open, since the beginning sketches of the classroom layouts in the late 2010s it was common knowledge that Innovation Lab High School would have very open and communal learning environments.
The fact you generalize all Innovation Lab Students under your ideals is not only egotistical but it shows the biases you hold for not liking a certain way of learning and mention, and I can not emphasize this enough, you didn’t interview any current ILHS students on their views of the school to
give an unbiased view and opinion on things.
As an aspiring journalist, I am simply commenting on this to help you with future articles, opinion or not. But I also want you to know, as someone with common sense and reasoning, that questioning both sides before publishing an article to have people choose which side they are on is a no-brainer.
I am sorry you were misled.
Dane Miller • Mar 1, 2024 at 11:54 AM
As a current student at Innovation I will say that as of 2024 (the schools 4th year of operation), many of this has become outdated. Stuff like references to cubicles still being up, to how flex Wednesdays operate are just simply out dated. While I do agree that the school was marketed poorly I feel this articled focused to much on that and not enough on what the school actually offers.
Things like student teacher relationships, which are a vital part of the community and environment built at ILHS is hardly mentioned at all. As well barely going over things like Better World Day, an event that is also vital to our school, was glossed over with disinterest.
It feels like this article was far to focused on being a negative piece that it unfairly represents the school as directionless and without purpose, and while I don’t like to make assumptions, reads like it was written by someone who didn’t actually try to properly engage with the school while attending.
I mean nothing by that I respect not only the writer but also the opinions presented here, as there are points that a lot of staff and students at ILHS would agree with. But that doesn’t negate the fact that this is overall not a fully accurate or in depth look at how the school operates as of 2024.
Gregg Bloom • Mar 1, 2024 at 11:52 AM
The first two years of ILHS were held under pandemic protocols preventing much of the stated goals of innovativelearning styles, moving away from factory learning, from going according to design. And then budget cuts, to pay for other schools’ pandemic operational increases, little of which went to ILHS, took a bite
ILHS never got a real chance to do what it planned.
It will be a fantastic school once NSD actually invests in it and it gets to staff the initiatives it marketed.
Samson Smith • Mar 1, 2024 at 9:54 AM
As a current Junior at ILHS I find it incredibly audacious of you to make this article with such outdated information about our schools. This is all old information from our first year open, this has all changed since you have been here. If you’re gonna write up an article about ILHS at least make it current information. First of all, the cubicles were removed to make way for our new classrooms. Second of all, Flex Wednesdays are way more structured and students actually LOVE Flex Wednesdays because we get to be productive in ways that aren’t at other high schools, we can go to our teachers and get one on one help during Wednesdays. Third, our school was NEVER marketed as a stem school, you interpreted the word ‘innovation’ in the science sense, innovation means to create new things, not just with science. We also do have outside of school extracurriculars that you go to your home high school to participate in. You want theatre? Band? Stem? Go to your home high school after school to participate. I am so deeply disappointed in this article and hope in the future you would come to interview us, ILHS students, instead of assuming you know it all from attending here for a single year.
Dina Estevez • Feb 29, 2024 at 10:19 PM
Wow, I never realized ILHS was like that, I always assumed it was advanced or better. I feel like I can see what their goal was, but they didn’t have the resources to execute it properly. Looks like it ended up kinda messy and confusing. I hope they are working to make it better for their students!
Maggie Rynearson • Mar 1, 2024 at 12:15 PM
Unfortunately this article was not fact checked before publication. This students opinion is based off the very beginning of the school. Much has changed since then as the school growed, learned & demanded equality from the district. If you want sports or Activities not offered after school you can attend them at your local HS. The school is no longer set up the way this student suggests. I’m rather shocked that IHS allowed this opinion piece that’s so degrading & full of holes. I’ve had 3 children attend IHS. The switch to ILHS was the Best decision ever. My son’s attending running start & doing by far better than his 3 older siblings did at IHS. My current 8th grader will be attending ILHS next year as well. Maybe IHS should allow an ILHS student to write an opinion piece on ILHS for their home school, IHS to keep things in perspective. Would IHS allow a student to write a paper for publication saying how horrible IHS is? I don’t think so.