It’s official – with the International Baccalaureate program at Granite Bay and Oakmont high schools, “world schools” are now part of the Placer County bubble.
But being in the bubble has its challenges.
Oakmont band director Ritchey Hodge recalls the discussions surrounding the adoption of the IB program.
“IB representatives came over from other schools to tell us what it was about,” Hodge said. “None of those schools run a 4x4 schedule, and when we looked further into (the possibility of IB music,) they kind of laughed at us, (saying) it doesn’t work very well with the 4x4 schedule.”
The truth, Hodge said, is that IB and the 4x4 block don’t jive well with performance and other visual and performing arts classes. Because most on-campus programs have a performance or practice period during the day, most IB students don’t have room in their schedule to take the IB class and the performance class.
Despite these concerns, Roseville Joint Union High School District officials still decided to move forward with the adoption of the IB program. Both Granite Bay and Oakmont implemented the IB program at the beginning of last year, officially making both schools IB certified.
Although the program has been met with general acceptance and approval, there are some teachers and parents who are still not on board.
“Our school does support the program as a whole,” said Michelle Mahoney, the IB coordinator at Oakmont. “Of course, there are always teachers with concerns, and we do address those, and we have been addressing them over time.”
One such concern about the program was that it would be too costly to implement during the economic downturn.
Many of those concerns, however, have been addressed.
“IB is a program that basically funds itself through transfer students who get (an) interdistrict transfer,” said GBHS IB teacher Jenny Padgett.
Each RJUHSD out-of-district transfer student results in the district receiving approximately $6,500 – money the district wouldn’t have if the student stayed in their own district for high school. With nearly 35 interdistrict transfer students in the IB program at GBHS, those students are theoretically bringing in an extra $227,000 per year to the district, making the program self-sufficient.
“$40,000 to $50,000 is the minimal budget you can have for a successful program,” said GBHS IB coordinator Sharry Colnar. “The ideal is $100,000.”
Because the program is still relatively new on campus, the IB expenses at GBHS have been kept to at a minimum.
However, critics have raised questions about the cost of having the program at two schools in the same district. Because the RJUHSD only receives additional money from interdistrict transfers, having the IB program at Oakmont and GBHS does not bring in any more money than the district would by having it at one school.
The issue of interdistrict transfers begs the question of which IB school to attend – in other words, how are the GBHS and Oakmont IB programs similar, and how are they different?
“We work very uniquely from each other,” Mahoney said, “picking the classes that we felt would work well with our student population. I know Granite Bay picked classes (that worked) for them, and we’ve picked classes that worked for us.”
For example, GBHS offers Japanese (Standard Level), but Oakmont doesn’t; Oakmont offers Design Technology SL; Granite Bay doesn.t]
Another difference between the two programs is how they handle elective courses the IB students want to take.
“There’s been greater attention (given) to make sure that all or most (GBHS) IB students get an elective that they can choose,” Padgett said. “That seems to give them more of a normal high school (experience).”
The downside to offering an elective period during the day is that the IB-required Theory of Knowledge course was moved to a zero-period slot, requiring GBHS IB students to come in early to school a couple of days a week.
Oakmont, on the other hand, chose to fit all the IB classes into the school day.
“We work with (the IB students) the four periods of the day,” Mahoney said. “So as soon as 2:35 hits, the students can participate in whatever after-school curricular activities they want to be involved in.”
Another criticism is that IB program is too rigorous for students involved in the program, which prevents them from participating in other extra-curricular activities.
“A letter of recommendation from (an elective teacher) telling (us) about what a great manager this person is, how they’ve become a leader, how they’ve taken responsibility … that recommendation goes a long way toward getting a student into (top universities),” Hodge said. “If (students) don’t have access to those avenues, I think they’re being denied a chance to show off some of those skills.”
Interdistrict transfer students are also given a say in the choice of which IB school to attend.
“(Students) can actually write down on the application GBHS, Oakmont or does not matter,” Mahoney said.
However, Mahoney said most transfer students didn’t have a preference for which school they would attend.
“Both schools have many different things to offer, so really in the end, a student who would maybe want to go to Oakmont (but who) ends up at GB is still going to get a great, solid education,” Mahoney said.
GBHS and Oakmont both strive to make the transfer students feel as welcome as possible. Going to a new school without knowing anyone is an awkward and challenging situation, but this is why the IB program tries to integrate them as fully as possible.
“The transfer kids feel really uncomfortable,” Colnar said. “They don’t know anybody, but by joining (the IB program) early, (they) can feel a part of the family.”
This “family feel” forms one argument for having the IB program at more than one school in the district, advocates say.
“The more often you can have kids go to the school with kids that they’ve gone to school with from kindergarten, you have more of a whole family feel to it,” GBHS teacher Brandon Dell’Orto said. “So I think from a kid’s perspective, it’s in our best interest to have as many (IB) programs, even at the other two schools if you could.”
Other benefits of the IB program include increasing the academic reputation of each campus and having more students on each campus from transfers.
“When we bring those kids in, we’re adding sections to our master schedule,” Colnar said. “We’re keeping teachers’ jobs, because (we) have to have more teachers.”
There are, however, concerns regarding the effect the IB program has had on other extra-curriculars.
As the IB programs at GBHS and Oakmont grow, it will begin to affect more and more campus activities. Dan Nunes, an English teacher and the newspaper adviser at Oakmont, says he has seen the effects IB has had on his program.
“My journalism program went from predominantly juniors and senior AP Literature and Language kids (to) 75 to 80 percent sophomore IB students,” Nunes said. “It’s been beneficial in that I know I’m getting a younger crop of kids, but what’s frustrating and saddening to me is that I know that they’re probably not going to be able to take my class again, because they have their (IB) goals they have to meet.”
Nunes, like other teachers, says he is trying his best to accommodate the IB program on campus as best he can.
One way Nunes says he accomplishes this is by having one of his IB student page layout editors take the journalism class first period, instead of fourth with the rest of the class. And while this does work, it’s more difficult when students cannot interact with the rest of the class.
“Not having them there during that time is going to hurt that bond, and it’s going to hurt communication,” Nunes said. “(But) I’ll probably do it to keep my numbers up and keep my program surviving.”
Still, for Hodge and other critics, having the IB program at two schools in the same district is a mistake – because of the damage that will be done to electives on both campuses.
“I think it’s ridiculous to have it at two schools,” Hodge said. “Why would you? If you have one school that’s an IB school, we’re probably going to have less electives, and it’s going to affect the whole school, but we know that’s going to happen at this one school.”
In other words, Hodge said, why do damage to two schools’ elective programs when it can be limited to one school?
The IB program has had other impacts on school and district policies, much to the dismay of some teachers in some departments.
For example, an IB student is currently taking government/ economics as an online course without having failed the class before, a practice usually prohibited by school and district policies.
Normally, online courses can only be taken for credit recovery, not to replace the on-campus version of the course. But government/economics teachers were told at a common assessment meeting three weeks ago that a GBHS IB student was taking the online class.
“The teacher that was teaching (the online course) basically said, ‘Someone’s taking it at your school already,’ which we were never told about,” said GBHS AP government and economics teacher Jarrod Westberg. “Is this something where the kids that end up going into (the IB) program can find any way out of … classes not structured with IB? It’s definitely a concern.”
“That’s something we’re wrestling with right now, because it wasn’t supposed to be an out,” Dell’Orto said. “(It) may not necessarily be the best for kids … it may not be the ideal academic setting.”
Despite the many concerns about the IB program, perhaps the overriding argument, at least at GBHS, is that IB should at least be offered as a choice to GBHS students.
“We need to offer it and let students decide for themselves whether they want in or not,” GBHS principal Mike McGuire said. “I’m sorry if they choose (not to participate in another extracurricular program), but we’ve always been about choice at Granite Bay High