On April 18, 2016, Clarke Central High School sophomores, who completed and passed their International Baccalaureate personal project, presented to students and faculty in the Media Center. The project mediums and subject matter ranged from videography to engineering. “For my IB project, I went around the school and I interviewed people in the LGBT community and I asked them when they started to realize when they weren’t straight,” sophomore Edgar Flores said. Gallery by Julie Alpaugh.
By JOHANNA HALL – ODTV Executive Producer
Clarke Central High School Middle Years Program students have received mixed messages about what the true requirement is for the International Baccalaureate personal project.
The term “International Baccalaureate” can be found posted through the walls of Clarke Central High School. IB Learner Profiles are pasted outside the door to each teacher’s room, identifying the IB traits with which they most identify. The doors at the main entrance of CCHS label the school as an “International Baccalaureate World School.”
So what is IB?
“The curriculum is set by the state, we have standards. What changes through the IB is the way it’s supposed to be taught, the conceptual links to it, so that’s where you’re going to hopefully see a difference,” CCHS IB personal project coordinator Ammon Hammett-Bregger said. “It’s a complete shift in the way grades are done and the way ideas are taught.”
The Clarke County School District became a candidate for the IB Middle Years Program in 2012. It was
officially certified as an IB MYP district in 2014. According to CCHS IB and gifted coordinator Larissa Jean, the purpose of IB is to teach students how to be globally conscious.
“The IB program itself is a great opportunity for learners to learn about what it means to be a global citizen. We focus a lot on conceptual-based teaching and learning key concepts within the Middle Years Program that really anchor the learning for our students,” Jean said. “We have global contexts; those include personal and cultural expression, science and technological innovation, and all of these are global concepts that any culture, any community can identify.”
This program spans from sixth to 10th grade. Once students reach sophomore year (or year five of the MYP), they are expected to complete a personal project that is graded on the IB rubric one-through-seven scale.
“One of our district-wide initiatives is to provide students with opportunities to be creative and to be innovative, and so the IB project really fits really well into that,” Jean said. “It is a requirement for all students at Clarke, but not just here at Clarke, but all over the world, all schools worldwide that have the Middle Years Program. This is a chance for students to choose a topic that they’re really passionate about that really means something to them.”
Junior Edgar Flores completed the project in his sophomore year.
“For my IB project, I went around the school and I interviewed people in the LGBT community and I asked them when they started to realize when they weren’t straight,” Flores said. “I thought it was such an eye-opening experience.”
Though the project is recommended by Jean and Flores, the numbers show low participation. Out of roughly 350-student classes, an average of 23 CCHS sophomores completed the project each year, with an average of 19 passing since 2014.* Most recently, 30 students completed the project in 2016 and 22 passed with a score of 3 or higher on the IB scale.
According to principal Marie Yuran, there has been a larger push for students to complete the project this year.
“There has always been an expectation that all tenth graders participate in that culminating project because we are an IB Middle Years Program,” Yuran said. “Throughout the years, we’ve had a various numbers of students participate and so it was really a concerted effort this year to increase our overall numbers of students completing the project and seeing it through to the end.”
When Flores did his project in the 2015-16 school year, he felt that the project was encouraged, but optional. However, some teachers are now saying that the project is required for all sophomores, and the CCHS morning announcements read, “The personal project is graded and will appear on your transcript and report card.”
“It’s a requirement. There’s an IB report card that’s going to be coming out this year, this is the first time it’s going to be coming out. It’ll be coming out in May. So the students’ score will be on the IB report card,” Hammett-Bregger said.
Sophomore Paulina Hafer has received mixed responses to the question of requirement for the IB project.
“If it’s required or not, it’s really unclear. Some teachers will say it’s optional, some teachers will say it’s required. The information we receive is very inconsistent,” Hafer said. “We’ve never really gotten a straight answer from any teachers cause I don’t think they wanna say that there’s no repercussions, but I think that it won’t affect your transcript if you don’t do it.”
Clarke Middle School vice principal Christopher Pendley served as the Gifted and Advanced Program specialist for four years before moving to CMS.
“The IB personal project is an expectation of all students who are finishing the program in year five, which is our grade 10,” Pendley said. “It is a requirement of all students who go through the Middle Years Program, but the state of Georgia sets graduation requirements.”
The verdict? Though the project is graded, it will appear on a separate IB report card not related to students’ usual grade report. The completion of the project will only appear on the transcript if a student passes. If a student does not complete the personal project, their Grade Point Average, eligibility to graduate and transcript will not be affected in any way.
“It is expected that all students participate. There is not anything that is specific to a requirement other than that it is a requirement of the culminating project of IB and we’re an IB Middle Years Program,” Yuran said.
*Numbers provided by CCHS IB and gifted coordinator Larissa Jean
