<p>orjr, Here’s hoping that it works out well for your son. I may be reading too much between the lines but it does sound to me as if he’d really like to follow through with the diploma.</p>
<p>Life is all about making choices, for sure, but your son’s school seems to have set up an unnecessarily complex series of roadblocks. The whole point of the IB is that it’s a comprehensive program. To offer it and then make key elements inaccessible is wildly frustrating. Bureacracy!</p>
<p>Good luck from me, too. I would be sad if he were to give up on TOK because it is the one thing that makes IB different from APs and seems to have been such a huge factor in IB graduates’s critical thinking and writing abilities. However, I know that nothing would induce my kid to get up at 5:30 regularly, and I don’t believe in pushing kids past their limits.
So I really really hope the schedule can be redesigned.</p>
<p>What’s wrong with the agenda of drop-out prevention and reaching state testing benchmarks?</p>
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<p>Why on earth are they offering a very small group of kids the IB opportunity, when they don’t even offer AP classes for the rest of the school? </p>
<p>In our IB high school (not low income or bad area, BTW), it has reached the point where more kids receive the Certificate than the Diploma. I think there is a point where the cost/benefit ratio just isn’t there, and I will be encouraging my School Board (when they review it) to strongly consider dropping the program entirely. And we are talking a much larger number of kids than your high school. I can’t understand why this program is even available at your high school. Let’s see…it has 2000 kids, only 8 Diploma candidates, and no AP classes for other kids?</p>
<p>orjr, Perhaps the new scheduling will help your son be able to continue on track for the diploma. Although we do have students who take only a few IB certificates per year, the ones that benefit from the program are those who go on and give their best shot for the diploma especially including TOK. I hope your school takes this all into consideration and realizes that IB students do need some sleep and time to work. After school sports & music & drama are part of the program, so to speak! I must say that my son did have to attend a few night classes along the way to keep up with the prescribed in class hours that IB demands. I know for a fact that not only did he receive many units for his labors at the school he now attends, but a true sense of accomplishment. I overheard a conversation between him and another student who had done the diploma who is now at his university. It’s a bond.</p>
<p>By the way, here is the North American link: <a href=“http://www.ibo.org/ibna/[/url]”>500;
I attended IB staff training this summer and have nothing but the greatest respect for the umbrella organization and the effort they expend to make the program what it is. The final marks for every student are gone over by committee. It is an amazing organization run by top educators. But how the organization is run at the local level, at each school may vary depending on the length of time a school has been in the program etc. They have specific guidelines to follow including how far desks are spaced during the final exams, but they are given some leeway in how the classes are offered. That said, they are accredited and must be reviewed periodically to maintain that accreditation by the IBO and thus to be able to offer the IB.</p>
<p>What’s wrong is when the school is focused on this exclusively to the point of ignoring the needs of the higher-performing students. This becomes more apparent when there’s a significant number of lower-performing students. The school needs to make sure it takes care of both ends of the spectrum (and the middle) rather than just one end and leaving the other end to it’s own devices.</p>
I think one needs to look at the demographics/SES of the areas feeding into the school to get an idea of what its priorities are (or should be). I’d say that operating an IB program for less than 2% of the students is foolish and a very poor use of school system funds. And I’m still curious as to why they spent so much money on that, when AP courses aren’t offered to the rest of the school? (Is this a poor school that started the IB program to bring its scores up, and can’t get participation in the program?)</p>
<p>Of course public schools should be all things to all students (in a perfect world), but in the imperfect world of public education choices must be made and priorities set. And sometimes investing in the potential drop-outs and weaker students is the saner choice to make, because it benefits society more in the long run.</p>
<p>Do you really think it helps the low end kids in this school to have a small elite group of >2% of the student enrolled in the IB program? How does that tiny group of students in their specialized, segregated (which they must be, since they don’t even have AP classes) help the low-end students? Are they supposed to be role models for the low-end students? I think it’s probably the opposite situation that is occurring – it is the large group of potential drop-outs and weaker students that is helping the IB students. They could be CAS fodder, and their inevitably lower GPAs (assuming that only the IB courses are weighted) are helping the IB students rise to the top of the heap, and have the highest class rankings. </p>
<p>Far better for the school/system to invest in some really good remediation programs and train teachers/counselors/staff to work with these potential drop-outs and weaker students. To me (and I realize in this HYP-crazed forum I will probably be flamed), it’s far better to invest in that kind of thing instead of sinking money into IB training for the teachers (including travel) and the other required components of the IB program in this kind of school. </p>
<p>Tell me, don’t you find it just a little strange that this high school has this tiny IB program while at the same time doesn’t even have any AP courses?</p>
<p>Can’t all kids take IB classes and exams? Or do they HAVE to be enrolled in the IB program? It doesn’t seem that weird to me since the only high school in our county to have an IB program is one of the lower performing ones.</p>
<p>If the IB program is not properly supported, then it will serve a tiny minority of students. As it is, the IB program seems to be shedding willing students out of sheer scheduling stupidity. The sad thing about forced desegregatiom in the Boston school system is that it precipated white flight. The Boston schools have been performing abysmally ever since. Our own district has been losing good students to the suburbs and private schools as well. Because of NCLB, it has focused most of its resources to remedial work. Obviously, it is a desirable that as many chldren as possible be appropriately educated, and no one will ever suggest aloud that high performing kids should divert resources away from struggling ones. The reality of life, however, is that the high performing kids are often better able to move out of the public schools.</p>
<p>When these kids move out, so do the parents. The OP is an involved parent who is serving on the School Council. The Council seeks to address the needs of all kids, not just of the members’ kids.
As for lack of AP, some members must have decided that IB is superior to AP. There are pluses and minuses to each program. </p>
<p>mathmom: Sometimes, an IB program is introduced in a low performing school as a way to try to improve school performance. Our district does not have one. But years ago, there was some discussion about introducing it. The most vocal supporter was an Afro-Am member of the School Board who advocated putting it into one of the lower performing schools (Pre-IB starts in 6th grade).</p>
<p>OP here to address some of the above. In the interest of full disclosure, I am a life-long educator, previously a teacher, and a GC for the last 16 years. I do not work in my son’s school, but I do work in the same district.
The problem with focusing SOLELY on drop-out prevention and benchmark scores is just as another poster noted - the bright kids are left to their own devices. In the NCLB era we have no choice but to address our test scores, and that is a good thing to focus on if that is what a student needs. However for the students who are able to perform at a higher level, something appropriate must be offered. Our school decided to do away with AP when IB was adopted - I think as a way to differentiate itself from other schools (we are the only IB school in town) and also because staff resources weren’t available to provide both. THE PROBLEM - is that they are unable to support the program and therefore create this “breach of promise” sort of incredibly stupid situation. As a parent and an educator, I would have no problem with them dropping the program and going back to AP. This would be preferable to a program they aren’t able to or aren’t willing to support. This year the school was labeled federally underperforming so the heat is on. The high performing kids are going to get no resources, and I think that’s very sad.</p>
<p>So basically, I feel that anyone who urges a sleep-deprived approach to educatio really isn’t concerned with learning, so much as with the trophy. The kid may do more work but that doesn’t mean he learns, understands or retains more – the kid with the lighter schedule and a good night’s sleep is probably the one who is getting more benefit from his education. </p>
<p>I personally believe that parents should not put the value of some objective measure of educational success over the kid’s general health and well-being. It doesn’t matter whether a given kid gets an IB diploma or not, or whether a given kid gets into Harvard. The kids who don’t get IB diplomas will do fine in life, as will the kids who don’t get into Harvard; and some kids with IB diplomas will get turned down by Harvard and some kids who never even attempted an IB diploma will get into Harvard. You can substitute any other academic/collegiate goals into the sentence and the result is the same. </p>
<p>I’m sorry. I wish that my own daughter would get more sleep. I couldn’t change her, but at least I was never the one egging her on. </p>
<p>Given the fact that the OP wrote that her son had decided to give up on the IB Diploma and was comfortable with the decision in part because he has no desire whatsoever to get up at 5 am in order to make it all work… I think it is inappropriately cruel to suggest that the parent should put pressure on the kid to pursue a goal he has already decided is not that important to him. Whose needs are being served here? </p>
<p>And Momrath … weren’t you agreeing with me on another thread where the girl would have to give up AP US History in order to participate in two arts classes, resulting in an arts-heavy but academically light schedule? What’s the difference? Why is it so important for this kid to get his IB Diploma but not so important for the girl with the arts leanings, who also was probably giving up the chance of an IB diploma with her choice?</p>
<p>Calmom, A very aggressive post! The OP’s son school had offered an alternative to the scheduling issue by offering an early bird class. </p>
<p>The OP’s son has already invested quite a lot of time and energy toward achieving the IB diploma. He may consider it a valid achievement or a “trophy.” I don’t know, but if it’s important to him, then I still think it’s reasonable and workable for him to start his day earlier on the days that TOK is offered because he WANTS to take the class and he WANTS to get the diploma. If he doesn’t then why ask?</p>
<p>The daughter of the other poster whom you refer to was not – as far as I could determine --a candidate for the IB diploma. She wanted to take the arts courses in lieu of a class that for inexplicable reasons would qualify her to take the exam for another class and her parent was seeking affirmation that colleges wouldn’t look at this as slacking. In my opinion and experience, they wouldn’t.</p>
<p>I’m in total agreement that a good night’s sleep is essential, for teens especially. Hours of sleep are determined by the time you hit the hay as well as by the time you wake up. Presumably the OP’s son could turn in a little earlier on the nights before the early bird TOK class. My son’s school started at 7:30 which meant a 5:30 wakeup every day. Kids adjust.</p>
<p>It’s my impression that’s part of the reason why this school has the IB program - also part of their pretty unsuccessful effort to mitigate segregated schools with theme magnets. I like the IB program, but my son would have hated it. I do think APs give more flexibility as they can serve both well rounded and not so well rounded kids. I have to say, though that my son has had scheduling conflicts every year - it really does seem to be a hard thing to manage.</p>
<p>Momrath, the IB diploma is NOT important to the son – OP told us that in posts 17 and 20: Post 17:
Post 20:
It seems to me that the whatever the son’s degree of interest in the IB diploma, it is not something he sees as important enough to change his sleeping habits or get up early for. Obviously he’d rather play soccer – the soccer practice schedule probably means that he doesn’t get home until later in the evening, and has homework to do then, so going to bed earlier may not be an option in any case.</p>
<p>So any urging at this point would be to serve the parent’s desires, not the sons-- though it is clear that OP currently is very much aware that her son’s attititude is the “healthier” one. In a way, I see this as more clear than the situation with the art student – the d. in that thread seemed uncertain and asking for advice concerning her choices, whereas in this thread the kid has already made up his mind: if he has to do X, then he doesn’t want Y. </p>
<p>In any case, if the kid is good at soccer, the way college admissions’ work these days the sport may be more of a hook than an IB diploma. Of course that depends entirely on whether his prospective colleges need more soccer players.</p>
<p>Hi all
When I started this thread, my son was uncertain - wondering how much (if any) difference it would make for college admissions if he gave up the diploma, but had all IB classes. He had been leaning this direction because of the early bird class and the untrained teacher.
When he got his schedule and there were numerous problems - not just the TOK issue - he began to think about it more, and during the several days since the beginning of the thread became increasingly upset with the school admin and increasingly happy with his ever more comfy choice of giving it up. As I said earlier, I have an appointment with the admin staff tomorrow, however I think it has taken so long he has come to his own conclusions. Both he and I are more frustrated than ever, though, with the attitude of the admin. staff.
As of today he was able to make more changes. his schedule is: IB Japanese II, IB World Topics, IB Bio II, IB Math Methods II, IB Psych., Newspaper (he is the editor), and Business Leadership (VP of DECA working on state competition), IB English.
The only missing class is TOK and he is now not willing to do the early bird. You are right that practice days are 13 hour days and game days are more like 16. I am fine with his choice, but frustrated that the guidance and information wasn’t there as he came along from grade 9 forward to plan out the track, and that several other students are having double booking problems as well when there is only one section of many required senior classes.
Also - he is not a kid fixated on ivy league. He is looking for a small non-party school where kids stay on campus for fun and the academics are fairly hard. He’s thinking of Emory, Whitman, Trinity (tx), Claremont-Mckenna… and hoping one of his schools in that general level pan out. He will qualify for need based aid and is still waiting to find out if he made Nat’l Merit (our school doesn’t understand the process, so we have to wait for the national info.) He could play soccer at a DIII non-powerhouse.
Hope this clarifies the situation for all of you enjoying the discussion. The boards are addicting and I am enjoying the cameraderie – even when the discussion is heated. Thanks!</p>
<p>orjr, I’m sure you’re both eager just to get on with life. Your son’s school definitely let him down. With only a handful of kids in the diploma program they should have been pulling out all the stops to accomodate them not erecting roadblocks to confound them.</p>
<p>Good luck to your son. I’m sure he’ll have plenty of good news come April.</p>
<p>Thanks momrath - and thanks to all the other posters also. The discussion is good and healthy. My perspective is better from “listening” to you!
Any ideas on colleges or application strategies are welcome. I’m fairly certain this decision has been put to bed.</p>
<p>In case anyone is interested in closing the loop on this - I had my meeting with admin. today and was told that I should be thrilled with my son’s schedule as he got almost everything he needs and the registrar did back flips to make this happen, especially for him because he’s such a great kid. Many students are having much worse problems and I should be supportive of the school.
And just to add to the humor - I asked about the national merit info. and they said they had no idea what I was talking about, they told him last May he was a semi-finalist (of course they don’t understand that this was an error as that info. isn’t released publicly until tomorrow).
My S is now happy with his schedule, no diploma, and moving on to college search. I’m gearing up for my younger son who started at this same school this year. Thanks for the discussion!</p>
After school sports & music & drama are part of the program, so to speak! I must say that my son did have to attend a few night classes along the way to keep up with the prescribed in class hours that IB demands. I know for a fact that not only did he receive many units for his labors at the school he now attends, but a true sense of accomplishment. I overheard a conversation between him and another student who had done the diploma who is now at his university. It’s a bond.</p>