Author Spotlight
Lilly Myers
Next year, East’s International Baccalaureate Diploma Program will host the largest junior class it’s ever had.
Since IB started at East 15 years ago, class sizes have ranged from 11 and 35. However, at the close of the sophomore enrollment process, a total of 44 sophomores had signed up for IB.
“This will be the first year that we have enrolled over 40,” IB coordinator Rebecca Murphy said. “I think it’s very exciting that this many students want to pursue the program.”
A main cause for bigger IB classes in previous years is the program’s open enrollment. For the first 11 years it was offered at East, not all students made it into IB due to the strict guidelines for who was allowed to participate. Similar to National Honors Society, students who applied were evaluated by Murphy. She looked at their GPA, previous class selections, and standardized test scores, but allowed only the students that met her criteria into the program.
“[Non-open enrollment] was never the philosophy of the governing IB organization,” Murphy said. “This was supposed to be an exceptional rigorous college preparatory program suitable for a wider variety of potential students.”
About three or four years ago, the district dissolved the requirements for IB and AP. During that year and the years to follow, any student up for the IB challenge could join.
“As our requirements disappeared and more students were participating in the program with success, I think more of our sophomores had confidence in being successful in IB,” Murphy said.
However, students have the opportunity to drop the IB program as a whole. Murphy has had at most only one student drop IB each year, and has gone years without any kids dropping. However, sophomore Maggie Thomas is expecting some students to drop. She chose the IB path over AP after much consideration, but believes some kids might have chosen it at the last minute.
“Kids just decided that they would do it to do what everyone else is doing, thinking it wouldn’t be that hard,” Thomas said. “I think it’s going to be a huge shock to people who just wanted to seem cool and do IB.”
Junior IB English teacher Marla Lindsay never enjoys hearing that one of her students is dropping, but accepts that the program isn’t for everyone. IB requires students to be strong in all curricular classes, as opposed to the AP style of selective challenging classes.
“Sometimes students realize that they want a different path,” Lindsay said. “I don’t know that I would anticipate anyone dropping out. The course and our teaching aren’t designed to cause them to do that.”
With classes of nine and 16 IB juniors this year, Lindsay is used to teaching smaller numbers. Fewer students are generally ideal for everyone to practice the oral component of the IB test.
“The students need a chance to practice their oral skills and you just need less voices competing in the room to do that,” Lindsay said. “[But] I think it’s actually great to see the numbers up because it’s nice to have a little bit larger group in class to consistently have different perspectives and keep the dialogue going.”
Murphy is aware of the stress and extra work the larger class will put on the teachers. She’s requested a second Theory of Knowledge teacher from the district to teach either juniors or seniors so current TOK teacher Nick Paris will not become overwhelmed with 70 students.
However, with the district’s budget cuts, Murphy realizes this request may be unfulfilled. Next year she will have the same amount of money to spend as this year, even with the additional students.
“I’m an economics teacher, so I try to be very mindful of making sure that I do everything in my power to be efficient,” Murphy said.
Despite the budget cuts affecting IB, students are still attracted to it, partly because of its eminent ‘family’ feel. By the time they graduate high school, the students are said to have become a close group of friends. However, some future IB juniors are worried about the group dynamics. Thomas supposes there will be smaller groups within the large class.
“I’ve heard you get really close, like a family,” Thomas said. “But with the huge group that we have going into it, you can’t really be a family with 40 or more other people.”
Others like sophomore Tucker Styrkowicz, who is excited to join IB with many of his close friends, is optimistic about their record-breaking class.
“I look at it as all of the kids in IB become close friends,” Styrkowicz said. “So if there are more kids than you’ll just have more people you work with on a consistent basis and more views on all the work you do together.”
Murphy agrees that one of the bonuses of more students is a larger group to discuss with. She is a strong believer of the IB program and its long-term benefits, and welcomes the large group of incoming juniors.
“The most rewarding [part] for me,” Murphy said, “is getting feedback from students who are in the first two years of college and hearing how the preparation provided by our IB program directly correlates with their university success.”
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