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You are Here: Fairfax County Public Schools > Departments, Clusters > Superintendent's Office > Superintendent's Community Advisory Council > SCAC Minutes October 12, 2004
Superintendent's Community Advisory Council
SCAC Minutes
February 15, 2005
Lynn Terhar opened the meeting and introduced new Council member Marilyn Mitchell, representing the Northern Virginia Urban League. Terhar then introduced Bernadette Glaze for a presentation on the Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) programs.Glaze distributed handouts. She introduced the teachers, Sue Bradshaw from an AP program (Westfield) and Linda Blair from an IB program (Edison), and their students (Keith Campbell, Daniel Jeong, Jackie Hortsmann, and Erin Harrison from AP and Georgina Cannan, Chimba Chindu, David Husband, and Tahmina Shepu from IB), who were present.
Glaze noted that the headquarters offices of both programs say that FCPS has the best program in the country because FCPS AP and IB programs are so inclusive. Any FCPS student who wants to take a course and do the work in either program is allowed to do so, and the percentage of students taking AP or IB courses is very high. Several years ago, when the first IB program was started in an FCPS school, the School Board decided to open the program to all students; then, they did the same for AP. Later, they agreed to pay the cost of students taking the exams and expect all students enrolled in AP or IB courses to take them. When the Board began this policy, FCPS was told to expect the AP pass (grade of 3 or higher) rate would go under 50 percent, but it never has. Actually, the rate had climbed steadily since 1998, from 62% to 72%.
Glaze said that she was asked to speak with World Bank personnel about FCPS' IB program a few years ago and that her audience was amazed that all IB courses in FCPS are open to all students.
On the diploma level, AP and IB are different. Students who take five AP courses and score over 3 on the exams receive certificates of achievement. IB diploma students must take exams in six subjects (including a foreign language), write a 4,000-word extended essay, and take a course called Theory of Knowledge" in which they discuss the similarities and differences among the different disciplines they are studying in their other courses. IB diploma students must complete 150 hours of Community, Action, Service (CAS), which is a combination of extracurricular activities and community service. Also in IB, in both math and science, topics (e.g., algebra and geometry in math; physics and chemistry in science) are taught in more integrated way, rather than separately (as is the case in US schools).
Since students must be prepared for advanced language study in grades 11 and 12 for the IB, Glaze encourages parents of middle school students to think long-term about possible IB enrollment. For both IB and AP, parents need to consider their children taking algebra in middle school as well as a second language.
Selective colleges increasingly expect applicants to have taken five or six AP or IB courses. Studies indicate that students who have taken these courses are more likely than others to graduate from college with their year groups.
Substantial staff development for AP and IB teachers has been critical to our success. AP teachers can be trained locally, but IB teachers need to go out of the area for training. FCPS pays for the training. Teachers learn to be less top-down and to act more as coach-mentors.
Part of FCPS' success in building inclusive AP and IB programs, has come from our ability to convince students that they can do the work, particularly students whose families do not have a tradition of going to college. Our schools target students with potential and stay with them.
One example of efforts to include students with developing English skills is an AP Spanish literature course at Annandale High School that allows native Spanish speakers to study literature at an advanced level that they might not be able to do in an advanced English literature course.
Dick Reed asked about the IB Middle Years program (IBMY). Glaze said that, unlike the regular IB program in 11th and 12th grade, IBMY is not curriculum-based, but, rather, takes a thematic approach to existing curricula.
Terhar asked the IB students present how many of them are full IB-diploma students. All were.
Kugler asked all the students what they were getting out of the programs other than college credit. IB students mentioned their extended essays. AP students mentioned their need for academic challenge.
Brenda Greene asked how the two programs compare. Glaze said that both are difficult.
Greene asked whether students are informed about the availability of the two different programs. Reed said that, in Cluster V they discuss the two programs at the same parent meeting, since some schools in the cluster have one program and some, the other.
A student said that the IB program is more accepted in Europe , and the AP program is more accepted in the U.S.
Levy asked if all teachers receive training before they are asked to teach an AP or IB course. Glaze said that is the policy but that very occasionally a teacher will leave just before the beginning of the school year and a teacher not fully trained will teach the course; in that case, the teacher is mentored and receives a one-day workshop, followed up by the complete training in the fall or summer.
Bill Oehrlein said that scheduling AP or IB courses into the overall school course schedule is challenging, and changes in teachers can make it difficult to guarantee a particular teacher for a particular section of a course.
Anne Halle said that the request for a student to ride the bus, on an existing bus route with excess capacity to a school with an IB program is listed on the request form but the possibility of going to a school with an AP program is listed [Regulation 7103.5 allows for both].
Jan Leslie said that, when she was principal at Herndon High School , students did ride the bus to be in the AP program there.
Connie Lorentzen said that she had three children who went through the IB program and found that the language of assignments was sometimes difficult to understand. A student said this is because some of the terms used are British rather than American.
Rick Baumgartner asked if anyone had followed up on the post-high school careers of students in these programs. Superintendent Dale said that the School Board was looking into ways to follow all students after graduation.
Baumgartner asked about the early year IB prep program. Glaze said it would not change the curriculum, only the instructional approach.
Reed noted that a previous Edison principal had required that AP and IB teachers also teach other courses, not just the AP and IB courses. This allowed as many teachers as possible to receive AP or IB training. Bradshaw asked the teachers how important the training was to them. Bradshaw said that it gives one pride to stay at the top of one's game and to get better and that the benefits of the training do extend to non-AP classes. Glaze said she recommends the training for any teacher who might want to teach AP or IB courses, not just those who have made up their minds to do so.
Baumgartner noted that certification by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) was another route to certifying teaching excellence. Dale said he had not seen any discussion among AP, IB, and NBPTS.
Leslie said some of her teachers were both AP-trained and NBPTS-certified. When her AP teachers retired, she asked them to identify their successors.
Dale said that he would like to see some discussion at the next meeting of the various special elementary school programs, including the Primary Years program (PYP) of IB, focus schools, and language partial immersion. At this point there is no defined structure for schools wanting such special programs to get them approved. He would like to hear from Council members what the School Board should look at when considering approval of such programs.
Dale also said that, at some point, he would like to have a SCAC discussion of the capital improvement plan (CIP) process.
Terhar introduced members' issues.
Eileen Filler-Corn asked about the Board's moving the southern portion of Hunt Valley community into the West Springfield pyramid as part of the south-county-site boundary decision. Dale said the Board had also committed to considering boundary changes for Lee, West Springfield , and Lake Braddock pyramids next year. Filler-Corn said the Board had not followed its own rules when making this decision. Dale said Board members are aware of this.
Elisabeth Freed said the textbooks today are so heavy that student’s backpacks have become ergonomically inappropriate and asked if the textbook material could be put online so that students would not have to carry so much. Leslie noted that most textbooks today include computer discs that supply this information on them electronically.
Levy asked if the Board was looking into how to start high schools later in the day. Dale said the Board has included, in its budget, funding for an outside consultant on all aspects of the transportation system; study of start times would be part of this.
Reed asked whether some FCPS schools still offer both IB and AP courses. Dale said that Robinson Secondary School is able to offer both a full IB program and some AP courses because the school is so big.
Reed asked how students and parents can be made aware not only of AP courses offered in their school but also of the entire range of possible AP courses. Oehrlein said that students receive both the individual school catalog and the FCPS catalog, which lists all subjects for which there are AP exams.
Leslie said neither program is better than the other. Students from both programs do well in college.
Reed said that, in his experience, AP teaches students to answer questions while IB teaches them to ask questions.
Eileen Kugler said that, when setting school boundaries, the value of diversity in the student population must be kept in mind.
Steve Spero said that it was his impression that IB is better than AP. Colleen Gallagher said that more colleges give credit for AP than for IB courses. Kugler said that people were working with colleges to change that. Dale said selective colleges today have many more applicants than places for them and did not need to offer more credit for high school courses.
Anne Hall said she had children in both programs. She said that if you take IB courses but not the entire diploma you were considered a second tier candidate by colleges. She said that FCPS is reluctant to publish IB scores on its web site in the same way that it publishes AP scores.
Baumgartner said what is needed is a longitudinal study of graduates of the two programs up to age 25.
The meeting was adjourned.