Reply to RM IB coordinator is leaving the school

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "RM IB coordinator is leaving the school"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hmm..I am not sure what that would do to our decision.  We were not too impressed with RM's info nights etc so a change of leadership might make it seem more desirable?

We did notice that the number of RM neighborhood kids entering the program in 11th grade seems to have climbed a lot.  Could this be what the issue is?  Making it less competitive?[/quote]

Information night is not what Jennifer Hoover is - she is extremely supportive of the IB kids. She would get any length to help them. Unfortunately with the exit of the last principal she has lost her support system. I have two kids at RM IB program and one already graduated from it.

Yes, there is a push from the principal to add more local kids to enter the diploma program. He is is not even trained with the IB concept yet and he is trying to change the structure. This is a classic struggle with any magnet school in MCPS - they put a magnet program within a school - create a very rigorous application process and then a new principal comes and tries to question the structure and tinkers it [b]using his/her own philosophy[/b]. It is unfair to the kids who go through the screening process, make so many adjustment in other aspects of their life to attend a school far from home and also unfair to the local kids who are not as prepared and join it with false hope.[/quote]

No. It's not about the principal's philosophy. It's about the philosophy of International Baccalaureate. Have you ever read IB's mission statement? If not, I'd suggest you look into it:

http://www.ibo.org/about-the-ib/mission/

The purpose of IB is not to exclude students from the program based on a test they take or on essays they (or their parents or tutors) write; the purpose is to "help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect." Is it a rigorous program? Yes. Are the expectations high? Yes. However, it is not - or should not be - about forcing kids to do 4-5 hours of homework a night and sending them into panic attacks when they get a B instead an A. And it's certainly not about promoting a culture that feels like an elite, private school within a public school which, unfortunately, magnets tend to do. This is why the IB Diploma Programme is offered to ALL students for whom RM is their home school. And this is why RM has a Middle Years Programme for ALL ninth and tenth grade students. This is why referring to students who are in the magnet as "the IB kids" is just wrong, because ALL students in 9th and 10th grade are IB students.

So if you want to talk about what is "unfair" then you need to reexamine what this program is really about. 
[/quote]

Ugh... What? [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics