Anonymous
Post 04/21/2025 13:19     Subject: No Senior level Physics class at our IB School
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:If not enough kids choose that course when in the course selection stage, they don’t run it. At my school, a class will not run if there are not 15 students enrolled. So most likely, not enough kids at your school expressed interest or chose this class in course builder.


For Physics??

Physics is a basic requirement for college bound students.

How does it happen that a northern virginia high school fails to offer physics.

OP mentioned IB, which means it is one of the low performing schools like Lewis or Mount Vernon. FCPS really needs to ditch IB. They claim they care about "equity" but then force a low quality IB education on our lowest performing schools.

Ditch IB, but in the meantime, run the physics class even if it is just 5 kids hetting essentially a small, private school/homeschool/tiny rural school class experience.

At the minimum, FCPS owes it to the poor kids getting shortchanged by IB


Every HS offers Physics. The complaint is that some high schools aren't offering a more challenging ("Senior level") Physics course such as AP Physics or IB HL Physics.


I have never heard of AP classes or any fcps classes referred to as "senior level"


In IB world, an SL is a Standard Level vs the HL which is a higher level.
Anonymous
Post 04/16/2025 14:08     Subject: No Senior level Physics class at our IB School
Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a school/principal issue not a school board/superintendent issue. Our school offers multiple advanced level physics classes.


+1

Only really crappy "parents" would try to politicize this.
Anonymous
Post 04/16/2025 13:54     Subject: No Senior level Physics class at our IB School
That’s on your students- not the district. LBSS offers up through double block physics C. If no one registered for physics they won’t have a class. Students have to sign up .
Anonymous
Post 04/15/2025 08:09     Subject: No Senior level Physics class at our IB School
It might be an enrollment issue. My DD's APS school didn't offer AP Physics C this year because of low enrollment but will offer it next year with over 20 kids signed up.
Anonymous
Post 04/15/2025 02:51     Subject: No Senior level Physics class at our IB School
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:If not enough kids choose that course when in the course selection stage, they don’t run it. At my school, a class will not run if there are not 15 students enrolled. So most likely, not enough kids at your school expressed interest or chose this class in course builder.


For Physics??

Physics is a basic requirement for college bound students.

How does it happen that a northern virginia high school fails to offer physics.

OP mentioned IB, which means it is one of the low performing schools like Lewis or Mount Vernon. FCPS really needs to ditch IB. They claim they care about "equity" but then force a low quality IB education on our lowest performing schools.

Ditch IB, but in the meantime, run the physics class even if it is just 5 kids hetting essentially a small, private school/homeschool/tiny rural school class experience.

At the minimum, FCPS owes it to the poor kids getting shortchanged by IB


Her school is not offering IB PHYSICS, that is different than just regular Physics
Anonymous
Post 04/14/2025 15:36     Subject: No Senior level Physics class at our IB School
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:For the schools that don't offer it, couldn't students dual-enroll? If the IB HL Physics is equivalent to college physics, then that would work, right?


I don't know the specifics of OP's kid's school but we just signed our child up for a DE class not offered at the high school with NVCC and it was a huge pain. Lots of paperwork and not easy to navigate. For a niche class it's understandable but it seems terribly unfair to require students at IB schools to go this route when every single AP high school offers the course.


IB HL is not well aligned with introductory college physics taught at US universities. Some colleges give IB HL exam credit to the calculus sequence although anyone choosing to continue with the college Physics will be in a lot of trouble. AP Physics C doesn’t have this issue.

To be honest, it’s better to take dual enrollment Physics instead of IB HL. But you need Calculus as a prerequisite, and very few IB students take it in time.

If you’re a parent who chose an IB high school for your child, you should have done your homework before.
Anonymous
Post 04/14/2025 15:26     Subject: No Senior level Physics class at our IB School
Anonymous wrote:We live in another state and DC’s public high school only offers IB Physics, not AP Physics. The AP kids take the IB class and then self-study the AP exam material that the IB course doesn’t cover.


That won’t work well if they want to take Physics C which is Calculus based while IB HL Physics is Algebra based.

It just shows how terrible IB is. Why would a student have to self study when the school could just offer AP instead. It’s cheaper and serves the students better.

Anonymous
Post 04/14/2025 15:22     Subject: No Senior level Physics class at our IB School
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Yet another example of FCPS not being able to deliver a quality IB program. They don’t understand what the demand level is and consequently don’t offer IB at only 1 or 2 schools. Either run the program well or drop it.


It’s hard to say when OP didn’t name the school, but this so common in schools that run IB *and* AP *and* DE courses. The upper level courses just cannibalize eachother, whereas if you only offered 1/2 pathways max, all the classes could run.


Adding to this that AP has 2 different tracks (1, 2 and C), IB has 2 (SL and HL), and dual enrollment has their own (Calculus vs algebra based) so there are a lot of classes to choose from. IB coordinators will try to steer students towards IB SL classes even when it’s not in the interest of the student, because they want the high enrollment in the program.

It makes little sense to maintain the IB program at these schools. Make the AP default and students that want can do dual enrollment.

Not having an advanced physics class will screw up a lot of hopeful engineering majors.

Anonymous
Post 04/14/2025 15:12     Subject: No Senior level Physics class at our IB School
Anonymous wrote:We live in another state and DC’s public high school only offers IB Physics, not AP Physics. The AP kids take the IB class and then self-study the AP exam material that the IB course doesn’t cover.


This has nothing to do with FCPS
Anonymous
Post 04/14/2025 15:11     Subject: No Senior level Physics class at our IB School
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:If not enough kids choose that course when in the course selection stage, they don’t run it. At my school, a class will not run if there are not 15 students enrolled. So most likely, not enough kids at your school expressed interest or chose this class in course builder.


For Physics??

Physics is a basic requirement for college bound students.

How does it happen that a northern virginia high school fails to offer physics.

OP mentioned IB, which means it is one of the low performing schools like Lewis or Mount Vernon. FCPS really needs to ditch IB. They claim they care about "equity" but then force a low quality IB education on our lowest performing schools.

Ditch IB, but in the meantime, run the physics class even if it is just 5 kids hetting essentially a small, private school/homeschool/tiny rural school class experience.

At the minimum, FCPS owes it to the poor kids getting shortchanged by IB


Every HS offers Physics. The complaint is that some high schools aren't offering a more challenging ("Senior level") Physics course such as AP Physics or IB HL Physics.


I have never heard of AP classes or any fcps classes referred to as "senior level"
Anonymous
Post 04/14/2025 14:41     Subject: No Senior level Physics class at our IB School
We live in another state and DC’s public high school only offers IB Physics, not AP Physics. The AP kids take the IB class and then self-study the AP exam material that the IB course doesn’t cover.
Anonymous
Post 04/14/2025 14:23     Subject: No Senior level Physics class at our IB School
Anonymous wrote:For the schools that don't offer it, couldn't students dual-enroll? If the IB HL Physics is equivalent to college physics, then that would work, right?


I don't know the specifics of OP's kid's school but we just signed our child up for a DE class not offered at the high school with NVCC and it was a huge pain. Lots of paperwork and not easy to navigate. For a niche class it's understandable but it seems terribly unfair to require students at IB schools to go this route when every single AP high school offers the course.
Anonymous
Post 04/14/2025 13:44     Subject: No Senior level Physics class at our IB School
For the schools that don't offer it, couldn't students dual-enroll? If the IB HL Physics is equivalent to college physics, then that would work, right?