Taking the next step

The school district's effort to establish an International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme at Sebring High School will face a critical step next month with a visit from an IB team.

"We are getting ready our site visit in October, that is the next step," said Director of Secondary Programs Ruth Heckman. "We have finished application part A and part B, and so now this year we have the site visit that's coming up Oct. 26 and 27."

IB officials will review how the school district is preparing for the requirements for the program, which the district is hoping to put in place next year.

The visit will include meetings with school board members, teachers, parents and students.

They will talk with people to make sure the district understands the focus of IB, Heckman said. They will make recommendations and then the district will hopefully be approved to start the IB diploma program for 11th-graders in August 2010.

Sebring High pre-IB teacher Julie Giordano said, "I really enjoy the pre-IB kids; they seem to be a very cohesive group with a lot of insight and a lot of enthusiasm. It's been a fun year so far and I really look forward to teaching them perhaps for the next two or three years."

Pre-IB classes are being taught for a second year now at Sebring High School. Students in the program from Avon Park and Lake Placid are being bussed from a central location in those cities to Sebring High School.

Parent Diane Juve's son, who is in one of the pre-IB classes, loves it.

Instead of learning just facts, students are learning how to take tough issues, discuss and research them, and come back and debate them again, she said.

Teachers are more familiar with the program this year, enabling them to post assignments online, which allows students to work ahead and plan their schedule so they have time for extracurricular and after-school activities, Juve said.

"My son is able to do karate and teen court and things like that just by planning," Juve said.

A good number of students dropped out of the program over the summer partly because of a rumor that they wouldn't be able to do any extracurricular activities, she said. Some dropped out for academic or personal reasons.

"I hadn't expected quite so many to drop out, but the ones who are remaining seem to be very ambitious and very motivated," Juve said.

The pre-IB program has 21 10th-graders and 38 ninth-graders.

One of the three educators coming to look at the district's program readiness is Paul Gallagher, who is the coordinator for Sarasota's Riverview High School IB program.

In the next few months the district will be naming a coordinator for the Sebring High IB program.

Highlands will be one of the smallest school districts in the state to have an IB Diploma Programme, Juve noted. "It's already impressive that a low density, older population area like ours has gotten as far as we have as quickly as we have, so we are excited about it."

A school board workshop on IB and the student progression plan will be held at 1 p.m., Oct. 6, in the Garland Boggus Board Room, 426 School St., Sebring.