IB Feels Growing Pains

Granite Bay High School’s International Baccalaureate program has officially graduated its first class.
To earn an IB diploma, a student must take six IB courses during their junior and senior years. In May of their senior year they take the IB tests for each course, which are graded on a seven-point scale. The points from each test are added up to determine if students earn their diploma.
Last year, 17 students finished IB’s inaugural graduating year as diploma candidates. After the May testing, 11 students earned their diplomas.
The results of the testing served as both an affirmation and a warning for the IB program.
“It has been validated that this is the absolute right program to have in Granite Bay,” GBHS principal Mike McGuire said.
McGuire said the average scores at GBHS were higher than the national average in every subject except chemistry.
The low scores were disappointing to both the students and the administrators.

“My biggest surprise was that a lot of our predicted grades were higher than (the IB graders) thought the (student’s earned),” IB coordinator and chemistry teacher Sharry Colnar said.
IB policy demands that teachers submit a predicted grade for each student in April. They serve primarily to make sure the teachers are in tune with the global rubric for IB courses and exams. IB chemistry, biology and physics were the classes at GBHS with the most variation in predicted and actual scores.
The reasons for these discrepancies aren’t certain. Colnar, who teaches IB chemistry, said she thinks the labs and tests she gave might have been easier than the IB standard. She said there is also a possibility the students cheated off of each other on the at-home assignments, so they weren’t prepared for the final test.
GBHS graduate Kurt Chirbas, who is bound for Stanford University, was one of the students who didn’t pass the IB chemistry test. He scored a four out of five on the AP chemistry test, and decided to take IB chemistry because if he scored a five or above it would count for credit at Stanford.
Chirbas said he was perplexed that he didn’t earn a five or above, because he learned a lot in the class.
“When I talked to other people, (I discovered that) we as a class didn’t score well,” Chirbas said. “I feel like that didn’t line up with all that we had learned throughout the year.”
GBHS senior Ashby Vose, who will be taking the IB chemistry test in the spring, has a different perspective on why the grades in chemistry might have been low.
“Every IB class has a lot of outside work, but in chemistry (we are) expected to do most of the learning by reading the books,” Vose said. “Maybe some people can learn really well that way, but I can’t.”
When the predicted grades and actual grades for a certain subject are very inaccurate, IB gives schools the option to buy detailed breakdowns of each student’s test.
Colnar said that she has ordered the results for chemistry, biology and physics, hoping this will give insight into what changes can be made to improve both the scores and the teaching system.
Both Colnar and McGuire said they are confident the scores will improve across the board this year. It’s all part of the trial and error in developing the IB program at a new school.

Schedule Conflicts

The IB program’s current senior class faced conflicts with scheduling, resulting in complications for the IB administrators and a large portion of the students.
Near the end of the 2009-2010 school year, it was discovered that the classes several IB students wanted to take would prevent them from being able to enroll in Government and Economics at GBHS, two classes required for graduation.
Colnar developed a four-year plan for the students that is arranged so that during their two years in the program, candidates take science classes first period; English, history, math and languages divided between second and third; and electives fourth.
With this schedule, students would have fourth period open for Gov/Econ their senior year. However, many found that they needed to take their sixth IB class fourth period, and thus they had no room for Gov/Econ.
GBHS seniors Kendall Roth, Alexies Camba and Vose were three of the students who decided not to take one of the IB science classes first period. Instead, they had intended on taking IB physics, which would fill their fourth-period slot. IB physics was later dropped because not enough students signed up for it. It was replaced by IB Information Technology, a class that pairs with GBiT.
Camba said her IB Spanish class was moved from junior year to senior year, and when she chose to take IB physics instead of biology, she wasn’t aware of the conflicts with gov/econ. When she tried to resolve the conflict, the gov/econ classes were already full.
Both Camba and Vose are taking gov/econ online through Independence High School.
Roth said she decided to earn her economics and government credits at Sierra College over the summer because when school ended last year, the schedule of classes fourth period hadn’t been finalized. She didn’t want to risk the possibility that a gov/econ class wouldn’t be available.
When she learned the IB physics class was being cut because of to inadequate enrollment, Roth decided to drop her sixth IB class completely and become a certificate candidate instead of a diploma candidate.
Roth was joined in her government class over the summer by GBHS seniors Alex Wagner and Dalton King, who couldn’t take gov/econ fourth period because it conflicted with Speech and Debate.
According to both sides, it was largely a matter of miscommunication that caused the problems to arise.
Camba, Vose and Roth said they weren’t informed about these potential conflicts when they were deciding what classes to take. But Colnar and McGuire both emphasized that IB students have been aware of what classes they need to take and when for four years.
“It’s not a flaw in the program that creates (this issue),” McGuire said. “It’s a decision of students to not follow the program and try an alternate pathway.”
Roth had a different perspective.
“You have to directly follow the structure they laid out… (or) you can’t do it properly,” Roth said. “The program is not supposed to limit you to certain requirements.”
Despite the opposing opinions, both sides agreed on one thing–these schedule issues won’t resurface in the future.
“The government (conflict) will go away next year, it’s not going to be a problem,” Colnar said. “It will either be resolved or it will be very clear that you don’t get yourself into that glitch.”