The smell of mopped floors and confusing layout is the first glimpse of high school the upcoming 249 middle schoolers will see. Middle schoolers from Pleasant Grove, Red Lick, and St. James will be touring the high school on January 21st. These students will get to see what a normal day in high school looks like, as well as the extracurricular facilities.

“I like the middle school tours, especially Red Lick because I used to go there,” junior Fiona Meadows said. “We share the same experience of touring PG, so hopefully I can get them to choose our school.”

Usually, these three groups will tour on different days to help manage the amount of people, but this year all tours will be combined on one day. This is to ensure the students helping run the tours don’t miss as much class time.

“We have 13 groups that are touring, and they will spend about an hour and a half touring the school,” counselor Heidi Cashatt said. “Then they will end up in the athletic facility, and we’ll go over the course selection for next year a little bit.”

Not all 249 middle school students will enroll at PG — 187 of them are in the district, 56 are currently at Red Lick, and six are at St. James — but this is still a large number of potential students.

“At first when I came to Pleasant Grove, I didn’t really know anyone,” junior Giselle Lamare said. “But PG has small class sizes, so I easily made friends and assimilated with the people in my classes.”

There is still the question of: Are the tours even worth the hassle, or are they beneficial? While the middle schoolers are touring, it makes it more difficult for high school students to get to and from classes, but the pros may outweigh the cons.

“I like [the tours] because I think a lot of students have some anxiety about what high school is going to be like,” Mrs. Cashatt said, “I think sometimes just seeing it and laying your eyes on it helps to alleviate some of that anxiety.”

Touring can be a helpful way to get students excited about high school and promote Pleasant Grove to students that have never seen the facilities before. Touring shows students they are about to take the next steps in their academic lives and allows them to see the school without the stress of a first day of school atmosphere.

“I think [the tours] are very necessary because when I came to tour PG, I didn’t know where I wanted to go to high school,” Fiona said. “But getting to see all the departments and seeing students here, I could actually see the student body participating in everyday school activities instead of just coming to an empty school and seeing empty classrooms.”