Is There Life Beyond Elementary School? Yes There Is!

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 5^th 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 8^th 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 7^th 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 8^th 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. 

Check out San Diego High’s website (http://www.sandi.net/site/default.aspx?domainid=2601) to learn more about the other schools that might be of interest to your child down the road.  Roosevelt’s website (http://rooseveltmiddle.org/) also contains a lot of information about its IB program.

So now we can all get down to planning the rest of our kids’ lives!

Click here for a pdf version of this article.