The dream of having the entire Oxford Community School district becoming International Baccalaureate World Schools is one step closer to reality.
Superintendent Dr. William Skilling and Assistant Superintendent James Schwarz announced to the Board of Education at it’s Jan. 25 meeting that the five elementary schools, the middle and high school are currently in the process of submitting applications to become International Baccalaureate World Schools.
Founded in 1968, the IB is a non-profit educational foundation that is focused on the student.
It offers three programs for students ages 3-19 that help develop the intellectual, personal, emotional and social skills to live, learn and work in a rapidly globalizing world. The IB works in four areas – development of curriculum; assessment of students; training and professional development of teachers; and authorization and development of schools.
According to Skilling, one of the benefits of becoming a IB school is that it is going to help students to work and live successfully in a global world.
‘The standards of IB are much higher than any standards that we have at the state level, so these kids are going to better prepared all the way around,? he said.
The cost to become an IB school is not cheap. Since the IB is a non-profit organization, there are annual fees that must be accounted for. A Diploma Programme school is $9,600 a year, Middle Years Programme is $8,000 and Primary Years Programme is $7,000 per school.
If the entire school district would be accepted, the school district would budget $57,000 a year for the fees.
In addition to the fees, it costs an additional $1,200 per teacher in order for teachers, staff and administration to become certified up to level one. However, Skilling noted that the cost includes travel, meals and lodging.
‘There is a lot of training involved when becoming an IB school…out of our district of approximately 240 teachers, 120 will have to be trained,? he said.
In addition to the teachers, seven IB Coordinators and eight IB administrators would have to be trained. The IB Coordinator would be one representative from each school.
There are two additional levels of training, but they are not required for teachers and administration.
He added that there were two ways that the district could pay for the training and other costs associated with being an IB school.
‘We have a training budget right now, district wide, that we have been using for other training, and that is going to be shifted to IB because some of the other training we have completed,? he said.
Money appropriated for model school training, which they have done for the last three years, would be put towards IB training.
‘Now we’re going to be tapering down on the model schools training and ramping up with IB training,? he added.
In addition to the training, the curriculum would also have to be rewritten. The district added an additional three days of professional development days for teachers to rewrite the curriculum.
‘Now, by going to IB, that’s in essence taking our curriculum and rewriting it to the IB standards,? he said.
He added that the IB program is a collaborative approach. ‘We have to have meetings with our grade level teachers and align what we are doing horizontally as well as we have to have building level meetings among teachers vertically as they move up in grade.?
He also plans on using funds from Project ReImagine to help cover the costs.
In the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 IB budget, $382,000 is set aside from to help cover some of the costs. When those two years are over, Skilling said that they would have enough in their Professional Development budget to accommodate the costs.
‘Were going to have an annual budget of $222,000 approximately on an ongoing basis, and we are appropriating $270,000 from our current district budget,? he said.
Skilling wanted to emphasize that the district would be using existing money from the budget to cover the costs of IB. ‘It’s in what we call our curriculum framework budget, and that is already in our budget for other uses right now that we will be shifting to IB.?
Skilling said that a financial benefit of the entire district becoming IB was that it would be the only district in the nation to offer the program at all of its schools, which would be attractive to students.
Another school district, Fenton Area Public Schools, is also trying to become IB certified. Fenton High School is currently the only school in the district to be certified.
Repeated attempts to reach Fenton Area Public School Superintendent Peggy Yates for a phone interview were unsuccessful.
He noted that Oakland County businesses are growing their international business rapidly, and ‘the type of families that are associated with a multinational corporation are going to be ones that want IB schools.?
IB currently works with 2,816 public and private schools in 138 countries to develop and offer challenging courses to more than 775,000 students.
There are three programs within the IB structure, the Primary Years (PYP); Middle Years (MYP); and Diploma (DP).
The PYP is for students from ages 3-12 and focuses on the development of the child as an inquirer, both in the classroom and in the world outside.
MYP is for students ages 11-16 and provides a framework of academic challenge that encourages students to embrace and understand the connections between traditional subjects and the real world, and become critical and reflective thinkers.
Once students complete the MYP, they will have the option of continuing on to the DP.
The DP program is designed as an academically challenging and balanced program of education with final examinations that prepare students, aged 16 to 19, for success at university and life beyond. The program is typically taught over two years and has gained recognition and respect from the world’s leading universities.
According to Skilling, all seven schools in the district submitted letters of interest to the IBO in December.
Currently all seven of the school are working on Application A, which is due by April 1. From April 1 of 2010 to April 1, 2011, the schools work on Application B and getting teachers trained.
Once the second application is submitted, the IB will set up an authorization visit for each school, which will be evaluated individually.
If all goes well, the entire district would be IB by the fall of 2011.