This spring, 20 students at Pinecrest High School hope to become the first in Moore County to complete the prestigious two-year International Baccalaureate program.
The International Baccalaureate (IB) Program allows students to earn college credit while still in high school. There is an added benefit to the program beyond simply preparing them for college: It also heightens their awareness of other cultures around the world and how they relate to American culture.
Pinecrest is one of only 17 high schools in North Carolina that offer the IB program.
The diploma program, which is offered at Pinecrest, is for high school juniors and seniors preparing for college. The middle years program is for students ages 11 to 16. Southern Middle School is in the application process of implementing the program.
The third program, not yet in Moore County, is the primary years program for students ages 3 to 12. Pinehurst Elementary School is looking into the possibility of beginning a primary years program but has not begun the application process.
Since its inception, the IB Program has grown to include nearly 1,300 schools worldwide.
Before Pinecrest instituted the IB program, advanced-placement courses had been the most logical, if not the only, option for students looking to get ahead on preparing for college.
“A lot of things appealed to me about (the IB program),” says Scott Martin, a senior at Pinecrest. “It’s just a good chance to take a lot of advanced classes where you can get weighted credit. I thought it would look nice when I applied to college. Basically, I did it because I thought it would help me get into college.”
Angela Bleggi says she has applied to several Ivy League schools because of the IB program.
“Statistics show that the chances of getting in (to a good school) are a lot better,” Bleggi says. “If the colleges see that you’re taking the IB program, they know that you’re not just taking AP courses. They know that you’re taking the IB courses but you’re also involved in a lot of community services and involved in a bunch of different aspects. I think it’s more worth the time than AP is.”
Whether or not she is accepted into an Ivy League school, Bleggi says the benefits will be great wherever she ends up.
“The way the projects work (in the IB program), it’s more your individual ideas,” she says. “They don’t give you an actual core curriculum. They don’t give you an actual rubric to follow. You come up with the idea, you write about what interests you. It’s more independent, which is what college is about.”
Michael Matthews considered a number of factors in deciding to pursue an IB diploma.
“I wanted to be surrounded by high-level students, a high-level curriculum and high-level work,” Matthews says. “I decided that the best way to do that would be to join the highest program that’s offered in the world, and that’s the IB program.”
Matthews says taking the IB courses offered more benefits than AP courses.
“If you just take AP course, you don’t get the full benefits of a program like the IB program,” he says.
Even though Ashlyn Stone is not pursuing an IB diploma, she says she is reaping the benefits from earning IB certificates.
“I didn’t really want to do the 4,000-word essay,” Stone says. “Deciding not to do the essay (and get the diploma), it relieved some of the stress, but I’m still taking most of the same classes, and I will still get the college credit.”
Stone says she has already been accep-ted into North Carolina State University, Elon University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“I think the IB (certificates) carry a lot of prestige,” she says. “Even though I’m not getting the diploma, I’ll still have the certificates.”
While she is taking the IB courses, Stone says she will be taking the AP examinations at the end of the year.
“Either way, you get the college credit,” she said.
Parents See Results
Mary Sonnenberg, whose son Eric is a senior and an IB Diploma candidate, says her son’s grades have been the best they’ve ever been over the last two years.
“It’s really helped him bring his study skills together,” Sonnenberg says. “He was looking for the most challenging curriculum, because that’s what colleges are looking for.”
Eric’s parents wholeheartedly backed his decision to pursue an IB Diploma.
“It was a mutual decision,” Mary Sonnenberg says. “We knew it would be hard work because there are a lot of requirements, not just in the classroom, but with community service, too.
“I think we are all glad he’s doing it because we know he will be better prepared for college. It makes them work with similar things they’ll be doing in college and it makes them organize their time. I won’t be there to help him do that when he’s in college.”
Sonnenberg says the program is good for other students at Pinecrest besides the IB Diploma candidates.
“It’s been nice at Pinecrest because students can take the IB classes but don’t have to commit to the whole program,” she says.
Janet Kenworthy’s daughter, Helen, is pursuing an IB Diploma. She is a senior. Kenworthy says she and her daughter both decided the program would be worth the challenge.
“She has definitely gained research skills and has learned to manage long term assignments,” Kenworthy says of her daughter’s experience in the IB Program. “This will be essential for college. I would recommend the program to parents with self-motivated students.
“It is excellent preparation for college work. Helen has worked independently on a great variety of subjects that interest her, something a standard curriculum would not allow. This has enabled her to express herself more fully, and write with more precision.”
Sue Davis, a math teacher at Pine-crest, not only teaches IB students, she is the parent of a child in the program.
“I have a child that’s in my math class, actually,” Davis says. “I also have a freshman who is in the pre-IB program.”
Davis says she would encourage her children to take the IB program whether she was an IB teacher or not.
“It teaches them good study skills, good study habits,” she says. “If these kids can make it through these IB courses, they’re going to be prepared for college. They really are.”
World View
Anne McLean, IB coordinator at Pinecrest, says the program has been a phenomenal success so far. She anticipates this year’s IB diploma recipients will be more than ready to make their marks in the collegiate ranks when they move to the next level in the fall of 2004.
“The kids who choose to do this are making a huge commitment,” McLean says. “They are the hardest-working students at the school. They need to be commended for having the gumption and the tenacity to do this.”
McLean says the chance to obtain college credit while taking IB courses is certainly one of the benefits of the program, but that it shouldn’t be the only reason parents and students decide to enroll.
“Preparedness is a big benefit,” McLean says. “If you talk to students who have completed high school and gone through the diploma program — whether they earned an IB diploma or not — and go on to college, probably 99 percent of them will say college is easier than going through the IB program. The transition is so much better.”
The extensive research involved in the IB program also pays dividends when diploma recipients get to the next level.
While the main focus of the IB program is on preparing students for college, it also emphasizes a worldview for students.
“Part of the IB philosophy is that we should not be ethnocentric,” McLean says. “We should sincerely appreciate and understand other cultures and their differences.
“We are in a world now that is truly global. We can talk to people all over the world at the tips of our fingers. So we do need to understand Chinese culture or Russian culture or African cultures.”
McLean says teachers who are instructing students in IB biology not only must use the traditional Western methods, but also must teach students how other cultures study biology. All IB courses have some international aspect of study.
Students who complete the IB Diploma Program can certainly study abroad at the college level, but it’s not required.
“I had a parent ask me, ‘Why would my daughter want to take the IB program? She’s not going to college outside of the United States,’” McLean says. “It’s not just about where you’re going to college. It’s about truly understanding cultures everywhere. We do need to train our young people to look at the world differently.
“We’re not just Americans or Canadians or wherever these students may be from. We are a people. We all have a common bond, and we need to learn what that is. That’s the only way we’re ever going to get world peace. That’s certainly real idealistic, but there is something to that.”
Brings Prestige
Dr. Beverly McAnulty, principal at Pinecrest, says having an IB program on campus brings prestige to the school.
“It’s good for the entire school,” McAnulty says. “It’s good in that it’s recognized internationally. It’s a rigorous program. And when you have that kind of rigor in your school, it raises the program across the board.
“The more IB students you have and the more IB-trained teachers you have, the higher your expectations are for all students. It gives you a jump start when you’re looking at whether or not you’re providing a rigorous program.”
McAnulty says the training that the students go through is brief, but intense.
”The training itself, over a very short period of time, must take you beyond the gut content and into the high-level thinking,” she says. “You want kids to be able to integrate knowledge and make cross-connections. The training is very in-depth and fast-paced.”
IB teachers aren’t certified as such, but McAnulty says the distinction is certainly worth noting on a resume. Pinecrest has 30 IB-trained teachers, several of whom are trained in more than one course.
McAnulty, who came to Moore County from Montgomery County, Md., says she has seen the benefits of the IB program and is eagerly anticipating the arrival of the Pinecrest IB Diploma candidates at college next fall.
“The program asks the students to be well rounded, not just an expert in one area,” McAnulty says. “You can be very capable, very talented in an area. In the IB program, students are encouraged to be well rounded and put everything together.”
The assessment methods used in the IB program help the students become more “well rounded,” too, she says.
“An IB Diploma recipient can say, ‘I can do this test-wise, I can to this with an oral presentation, I can do it in terms of research,’” McAnulty says. “It shows that students can research, develop and implement their own projects. It’s a multitude of assessments.”
While the true proof of the IB program’s success at Pinecrest awaits the graduation of this year’s 20 diploma candidates and those who will follow, the number of students already involved in the two-year-old program suggests a bright future ahead.
McLean says 20 candidates in one school year is a large number. She points out examples of other schools that have carried the IB Diploma Program for several years, but have never come close to having 10 candidates, let alone 20.
She says, “That just gives you an idea of what kind of kids we’re working with here.”
Wednesday: Pinecrest adjusts to new program.
