"Since 2002, Tates Creek High School has been involved in a challenging, comprehensive and extensive process in hopes of a payoff that will prove the same to future students.
The school will learn this spring whether or not it will join nearly 2,000 other schools worldwide as a part of the International Baccalaureate Programme, which was established 40 years ago by diplomats seeking a standardized curriculum across the globe for their children. If successful, Tates Creek High School will become the first Central Kentucky school, and fifth in the state, to be associated with the internationally respected organization, which produces graduates whose chances of being accepted to top colleges and universities almost double.
Much higher acceptance rates are nice, but that is not what made IB attractive to Teri Harper, Tates Creek's IB coordinator, who is working full-time on the program this year after 30 years of teaching in Tates Creek's classrooms. "We want this to work for students. This is all about helping the students reach their maximum potential and preparing them for life beyond high school," Harper said.
A main facet of the IB program is its focus on "the whole person," an almost liberal arts college curriculum for high school students to create a cross-discipline synergy within its students, according to Harper.
Though "consistently challenging" for students and requiring two to three hours of homework a night, the crux of the program encourages and even requires students not to spend their life buried in a book.
"It allows students to achieve at high levels and forces them to do so, but allows them to be children too," said Tates Creek Principal Samuel Meaux Jr., who along with Harper has received numerous inquires from parents wondering how their child's participation in IB would affect extracurricular involvement.
"It really is about the total person," Harper said. "It's not just about the classes, it's about the integration. IB's about integration, not isolation."
While the bulk of an IB student's classes would be spent exclusively with other IB students, the interaction in non-IB classes and throughout the day could reap major benefits for the school as a whole, according to Meaux.
"I envision this as having a multiplier effect academically. The few kids that start as students in the IB program will go out into the other classes and it will just snowball(it) will force other students to become better thinkers and be more analytical in their thinking, as well as the teachers. It will force everybody to raise the bar," he said.
Harper expects an initial class of 20 to 30 11th graders starting in the IB program in the fall with an additional 50 or so participating in the 9th and 10th grade ACE pre-diploma program.
There is no test or required GPA to enter either program and it is open to any high schooler in Fayette County, but there is a certain profile students should fit. The IB learner profile seeks students who are inquirers, knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, principled, open-minded, caring, risk-takers, balanced and reflective.
"When this program was created 40 years ago, it was created as an elitist program, but the neat thing is now it is for everybody who wants to really work at the program," Harper said. "You don't have to be Albert Einstein at everything, but what you've got to do is have the desire and motivation to do the program, to know that this program will give you the skills that will best prepare you for life beyond high school."
IB students are required to spend 150 hours out of school participating in activities that are creative, action and service oriented. While some see that as a possible burden, Harper said it is intended to be an extension of the whole person aspect of IB, forcing students to engage in something they otherwise might not, but can serve them in a positive manner later in life.
"We can teach 24-7-365 and never be able to teach them the content they need to know," Harper said. "Who knows five, ten, fifteen years from now what they're really going to need to know? But what you can do is give them a lot of content, but more importantly, give them the skills to be able to be effective group members, to make decisions, to be able to process and apply information, to actually think and to take theory and put it into practice. They've got to have those skills."