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[quote=Anonymous]Okay, I'm jumping in here.  I've read maybe 60-70% of the posts in this long thread and I've seen a lot of questions and some iffy answers so I'll try to answer what I know as a parent of current Kennedy IB student.

There are pre-IB classes and they are weighted.  My kid has taken pre-IB: Algebra II, Physics, Chemistry, and English 9. I'm pretty sure there was pre-IB Biology and Geometry also available for kids taking a different track. All those classes are weighted like honors classes.

The pre-IB cohort takes AP GOV together in 9th grade and APUSH and APLang in 10th grade. These are AP courses but almost all the kids (can't guarantee 100%) are in that pre-IB cohort. In addition alot of the pre-IB kids took AP Precalculus this year in 10th grade. My impression was that that class was mostly pre-IB.

My impression is that there is a wide range of abilities inside the pre-IB cohort.  This has positive and negative sides.  What I've gathered is that there is a filtering that happens before the core IB classes begin in 11th grade. (Note that you can take IB level languages classes earlier, but can't take any IB Tests until 11th grade.) I will note that not pre-IB classes at the school also try to teach the IB "way/philosophy" so there is definitely an intention to make this way of teaching more universal to the school.

Teacher quality has been a mixed bag.  Some excellent, some ok, some... less than inspiring. I will say that the pre-IB coordinator is really great.  Responsive, knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and warm.

Kennedy currently doesn't track/teach to the IB HL Analysis Math test. They encourage kids strong in math take AP Precalculus in 10th, IB Applications 2nd year course in 11th and take the applications IB SL Test that year, and then take AP Calculus AB in 12th grade.

I don't know all the skinny on the Principal leaving, but I will say that my biggest impression was that she wasn't great at communicating. Slow to get info out and she came off as awkward/stilted.

There were a decent number of personnel changes before the 2023-24 school year, not just with the new principal, and the tragic loss of the beloved LTI teacher seemed to be keenly felt.

People mentioned security issues. My kid has felt generally safe there, but yeah, there are some community issues that have spilled into the school. I'll say that this seems to happen all through the district to a certain degree. I don't know that Kennedy is that much of an outlier.

I hope this answers a few of the questions.

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