Middle Schools that follow the IB program

[Anonymous]

What middle schools (public and charter) follow the IB Middle Years Programme and what are your experiences (and students) with the program in DC?
Thank you.

[Anonymous]

This lists the DC schools that follow the IB MYP:

https://www.ibmidatlantic.org/DC.html

[Anonymous]

Deal, DCI, and Eliot-Hine

[Anonymous]

DCI is the only one that follows the IB program with fidelity with any serious language tracks and offerings AND continues it into the high school curriculum with awarding the IB diploma.

For private, it’s WIS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCI is the only one that follows the IB program with fidelity with any serious language tracks and offerings AND continues it into the high school curriculum with awarding the IB diploma.

For private, it’s WIS

I am not an expert/teacher in the school, but Eliot Hine does use the IB middle years program, and kids can choose to complete the IN program/get the diploma at Eastern High school across the street. They have a couple of tracks there including a health and medical sciences program and an IT academy and maybe some others - I think kids can also choose to take some courses from each if they want

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCI is the only one that follows the IB program with fidelity with any serious language tracks and offerings AND continues it into the high school curriculum with awarding the IB diploma.

For private, it’s WIS

I am not an expert/teacher in the school, but Eliot Hine does use the IB middle years program, and kids can choose to complete the IN program/get the diploma at Eastern High school across the street. They have a couple of tracks there including a health and medical sciences program and an IT academy and maybe some others - I think kids can also choose to take some courses from each if they want

I am someone who is familiar with all three schools and I can assure you, only DCI does IB correctly. And I don’t even think DCI is as good as people hype it up to be. But when it comes to IB, it is better than any DCPs school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCI is the only one that follows the IB program with fidelity with any serious language tracks and offerings AND continues it into the high school curriculum with awarding the IB diploma.

For private, it’s WIS

I am not an expert/teacher in the school, but Eliot Hine does use the IB middle years program, and kids can choose to complete the IN program/get the diploma at Eastern High school across the street. They have a couple of tracks there including a health and medical sciences program and an IT academy and maybe some others - I think kids can also choose to take some courses from each if they want

I am someone who is familiar with all three schools and I can assure you, only DCI does IB correctly. And I don’t even think DCI is as good as people hype it up to be. But when it comes to IB, it is better than any DCPs school.

I am sure this will come across as snarky, but I am honestly curious. Unless you work in the school system observing classrooms (which maybe you do) - how does one know how the curriculum is or is not taught at three different schools? This comes up on here a lot when people are asking which school they should choose 'a' or 'b' - and not many people are able to speak to both schools. People can describe their experiences at one vs the other, and the original poster can compare the responses - but that seems about the closest you can get. Also, with middle schools, parents aren't really in the classroom much anyway.

Again, not trying to be snide, I struggle with 'comparing' schools when trying to choose what is best for a specific kid, bc very rarely does somebody have direct experience with both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCI is the only one that follows the IB program with fidelity with any serious language tracks and offerings AND continues it into the high school curriculum with awarding the IB diploma.

For private, it’s WIS

I am not an expert/teacher in the school, but Eliot Hine does use the IB middle years program, and kids can choose to complete the IN program/get the diploma at Eastern High school across the street. They have a couple of tracks there including a health and medical sciences program and an IT academy and maybe some others - I think kids can also choose to take some courses from each if they want

I am someone who is familiar with all three schools and I can assure you, only DCI does IB correctly. And I don’t even think DCI is as good as people hype it up to be. But when it comes to IB, it is better than any DCPs school.

I am sure this will come across as snarky, but I am honestly curious. Unless you work in the school system observing classrooms (which maybe you do) - how does one know how the curriculum is or is not taught at three different schools? This comes up on here a lot when people are asking which school they should choose 'a' or 'b' - and not many people are able to speak to both schools. People can describe their experiences at one vs the other, and the original poster can compare the responses - but that seems about the closest you can get. Also, with middle schools, parents aren't really in the classroom much anyway.

Again, not trying to be snide, I struggle with 'comparing' schools when trying to choose what is best for a specific kid, bc very rarely does somebody have direct experience with both.

I’m the PP you’re responding to. You’re right. I only know because of my work. What I would do if I didn’t have this type of insider knowledge is to first ensure that the school is properly accredited. For IB in particular, I would ask to see an example of an IB unit plan and ask how they handle IB grading and assessments. I would check out what a school needs to do to be accredited and design my questions for the school on that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCI is the only one that follows the IB program with fidelity with any serious language tracks and offerings AND continues it into the high school curriculum with awarding the IB diploma.

For private, it’s WIS

I am not an expert/teacher in the school, but Eliot Hine does use the IB middle years program, and kids can choose to complete the IN program/get the diploma at Eastern High school across the street. They have a couple of tracks there including a health and medical sciences program and an IT academy and maybe some others - I think kids can also choose to take some courses from each if they want

I am someone who is familiar with all three schools and I can assure you, only DCI does IB correctly. And I don’t even think DCI is as good as people hype it up to be. But when it comes to IB, it is better than any DCPs school.

I am sure this will come across as snarky, but I am honestly curious. Unless you work in the school system observing classrooms (which maybe you do) - how does one know how the curriculum is or is not taught at three different schools? This comes up on here a lot when people are asking which school they should choose 'a' or 'b' - and not many people are able to speak to both schools. People can describe their experiences at one vs the other, and the original poster can compare the responses - but that seems about the closest you can get. Also, with middle schools, parents aren't really in the classroom much anyway.

Again, not trying to be snide, I struggle with 'comparing' schools when trying to choose what is best for a specific kid, bc very rarely does somebody have direct experience with both.

I’m the PP you’re responding to. You’re right. I only know because of my work. What I would do if I didn’t have this type of insider knowledge is to first ensure that the school is properly accredited. For IB in particular, I would ask to see an example of an IB unit plan and ask how they handle IB grading and assessments. I would check out what a school needs to do to be accredited and design my questions for the school on that.

Not teacher or staff, just parent but look at the curriculum and course offerings, look at language offerings, look at test scores. At the high school level, look at percentages of kids who go the IB diploma track and of those, who are awarded the IB diploma. Also average IB scores if you can get those. I went to the DCI open house and they were very transparent with stats. It was incorporated into their slideshow. If it’s not presented, then ask these questions.

The IB diploma route is not easy and actually passing and getting the IB diploma is difficult. Doing well and getting a high score is even more difficult. But it’s a very good curriculum for kids who are up to the challenge.

look at percentages of kids

[Anonymous]

DCI middle follows IB grading, all kids take a language, it’s very clearly IB. Not sure about the others.

[Anonymous]

It is difficult to get a spot at dci for 6th if you’re not a feeder school. Your only hope is French or Mandarin program. In 7/8 grade I believe they take very few students as most of them are through sibling preference.

Note- you can only give sibling preference for your own language track. So if your older child is in the French track, you can only give sibling preference for the French track.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is difficult to get a spot at dci for 6th if you’re not a feeder school. Your only hope is French or Mandarin program. In 7/8 grade I believe they take very few students as most of them are through sibling preference.

Note- you can only give sibling preference for your own language track. So if your older child is in the French track, you can only give sibling preference for the French track.

It is one of the most competitive middle school seats EOTP for non-feeder kids because there are so few spots. And the chances decrease every year as these numbers trend down. But you should still list your true preference, even spanish because some families do “win” the lottery.

The main reason that there very few spots in 7/8 is because DCI has such a high retention rate, somewhere in mid 90th percentile I recall. And yes, those few spots go to siblings first.

[Anonymous]

Indeed! My 6th grader current WL # is >150 for DCI French!