Some Information for
Anxious Parents About the IB Pathway from Roosevelt Junior High School and San
Diego High School
Kelly Mayhew, SSC/SSG
Parent Rep and SDHS Cluster Parent Rep at McKinley
I remember touring my son’s, Walt’s, preschool when I was
pregnant with him. Because my husband
and I were so anxious that he be in the right place when he reached the ripe
old age of 19 months, we wanted to make sure we got him on the waiting list
early. To say we were nervous about his
future—and intent on planning for it as far ahead as possible—would be an
understatement.
Thus I was thrilled to be able to attend a San Diego High
Cluster Meeting a couple of weeks ago with McKinley’s principal, Julie Ashton-Gray,
where we would be hearing about not only what the other elementary schools were
up to in our area, but also be able to talk to the representatives at the
meeting from our feeder schools, Roosevelt and San Diego High. I could then complete my now-second grader’s
life path at least until he has to start thinking about college…in the 5th
Grade.
Not every school in the San Diego High School cluster is
IB. In fact, McKinley, along with Birney IB and Jefferson IB, are just
three out of the sixteen total elementary schools that will ultimately send
their students to San Diego High. While
there are only three of us certified for IB, all the children in schools that
do not go through the 8th grade will end up feeding into Roosevelt
Junior High, which is also IB.
This means, that the IB curriculum, values, and pedagogy
will continue on with our children all the way through Junior High and into
High School…should our kids choose to
stay in an IB program when they get to high school. I’ll come back to this point in a bit, but
wanted to emphasize that our students have the opportunity to continue on the
IB pathway all the way up to college if they stay in the San Diego High cluster
area.
Roosevelt Junior High continues the IB learner profiles that
our children enjoy at McKinley. The
curriculum emphasizes project-based learning and does not neglect the arts and
humanities. Students must continue
learning a second language, as they do at McKinley, with Spanish being an
option as well as French. And Technology
is introduced as an elective in the 7th grade. There is no special IB track at Roosevelt; the entire school is IB, just like
McKinley, Birney and Jefferson. I was
really pleased to hear that our kids would have such consistency up through 8th
grade when they move on to high school.
Once kids move on to San Diego High School, they are then
presented with a menu of options. The
thing that was hard for us parents to hear at the cluster meeting is that it
will be the students, themselves, who
choose which of the 5 programs or schools they will enter. To be sure, the School of International
Studies is one of the choices, but it’s not the only one. As the website for San Diego High says:
San Diego High is the oldest high
school in the
San Diego Unified School District.
We are
located
at the edge of downtown San Diego, and have a diverse student population of
about 3,000. Our talented faculty instructs students in academic and
extracurricular disciplines.
In the 2012-2013 school year, San
Diego High School will have five (5) thematic schools. Each school provides a
smaller learning environment for students with an emphasis on rigor, relevance
and relationships.
School of The Arts
School of Business
School of International Studies
School of LEADS
School of Science and Technology
Thus, depending on your child’s interests and/or abilities,
they can decide what “learning environment” will work best for them. Every
child gets their first choice. Let
me repeat that: your child will get her/his first choice—there are no caps for
children who live within the residency area.
The rub, of course, is that it is up to your kid to decide where they
want to go—not you, their parents.
There is a persistent myth that should your child decide on,
for example, the School of International Studies (which is modeled on and
houses the IB program), that it’s difficult to get in to. This is not true, as the IB
Coordinator/College Advisor Nirit Cohen-Vardi informed us at the cluster
meeting. When the Schools at San Diego
High were funded by a Gates Foundation grant, there had initially been a cap
because of the grant’s stipulations. But
a few years ago when the grant stopped funding the school, that cap was dropped
and now every kid gets into the School at SDHS of their choice.
Cohen-Vardi also clarified the relationship between IB and
the School of International Studies.
International Studies houses the IB program and shares a lot of its
curriculum. But not every IS student
opts to complete the requirements for an IB diploma by entering the IB program
at SDHS.
In fact only 25% of students choose to participate in IB at San Diego High School because it is
so rigorous. Kids are not prevented from
trying, but they are counseled to be cautious if they are not at the
appropriate levels in math and language arts.
The IB Program really emphasizes reading at the college level, so that
is something that teachers and counselors look for when helping kids decide
what they want to pursue in the School of International Studies.
Every Junior in the School of International Studies takes a
Theory of Knowledge class. After that,
students select how many IB classes they want to take. The point is, is that it’s up to them to figure out if they can handle
the workload. This is why parent
involvement, encouragement, and support is key in helping your kid make good
choices for themselves.
Because McKinley is an IB elementary school, I was keen to
find out about the IB pathway through Roosevelt to San Diego High. Once your child gets to High School, however,
IB is not a mandate, and each School at SDHS has a unique flavor that bears
investigating.
So now we can all get down to planning the rest of our kids’
lives!
