Healthcare
The healthcare pathway has been a very major part of our life here at Innovation Academy, and the year started off with a blast. As the pathway took its first steps at the beginning of the year, the teachers had some hopes for the upcoming year. For the healthcare program, Dr. Foran wanted to see the students and teachers working together and collaborating with each other, while also enjoying this new experience. HOSA and healthcare have made some tremendous progress with the competitions at SLC and volunteering all throughout the year at the various fundraising events. Students showed their interest in the school and healthcare to a very large extent through the levels of volunteering for the various fundraisers, and also other events such as blood drives. In the future, Dr. Foran hopes that people find a passion that they are deeply interested in so that they explore and find out different possibilities in their field of choice.
IT
At the beginning of the year, Mrs. Whitlock was hoping that students would be exposed to the variety of skillets that IT encompasses apart from just coding and the careers that they can lead to. IT has proven to be a very creative pathway with all the new projects and ideas that the students came up with, using their strongest skills to their advantage as they were able to grow in their interests. TSA was able to get established this year by overcoming organizational challenges, and our school also had 28 teams competing at the TSA states competition this year, 8 of which placed in the top 10, and 2 of which will now progress to nationals. Another thing that Mrs. Whitlock is proud of this year is that Tech Alpharetta, a partner of the school, started a mentoring program at IA and was able to connect with five female IT students, one of which will have an internship this summer. Yet another group is working on a client project to create a check-in/check-out website for the Lion Heart School. With all these new accomplishments of the students, including the success at the showcase, Mrs. Whitlock is really proud of all the students and teachers, as they as a whole helped make a great leap. For IT, with the three new classes being offered, there are many more opportunities, including AP Computer Science A, Game Design, and Introduction to Cybersecurity. In the coming years, one of the greatest hope is to establish internship opportunities and give the students a chance to grow and succeed in the field.
Engineering
Engineering was a very successful pathway this year, and Mr. Reid started out the year by hoping that students would understand concepts well enough that they could apply them in projects and help others in the future. This was definitely accomplished at the robotics tournament, where a group of students was struggling, and students from the IA team went over and helped them fix their robot and become eligible for the competition. Mr. Reid was certainly very proud of his students as a mentor, as the students were not only able to understand the problems and concepts, but also pass on the knowledge to others on their way to becoming future engineers. As a pathway, the engineering program hopes to prepare students for their next steps in life by raising their own expectations and goals and striving to meet them. One of the major ways that Mr. Reid hopes to accomplish this is by helping the students build their resumes by helping them learn and apply their skills, as well as gaining a CAD certification to ensure a better future.
- Krishna Chaugule