County Will Begin IB Program at Eight Elementary Schools

Prince William County school officials have formally launched teacher training so they can begin implementing the prestigious International Baccalaureate program at eight elementary schools during the next academic year.

The IB program is well-known for its college-level classes in high schools. Yet more schools across the country are signing up for IB's "Primary Years Program." Seventy-two schools across the country are authorized as IB elementary schools, but many more such as those in Prince William are seeking authorization from the International Baccalaureate Organization, a nonprofit group that offers its programs in more than 1,900 schools around the world.

In Prince William, two Title I elementary schools, Dumfries and Featherstone, are applying for IB status; those schools receive federal funds to assist low-income students. Although the schools will begin teaching under the program's rubric next year, it could take them two to three years to undergo evaluation by the IB Organization and become officially authorized.

Prince William school officials said they hope the IB programs will add another layer to help ensure that the schools make the annual benchmarks set by the federal No Child Left Behind program. More important, they said, they hope IB's distinct curriculum style makes students better at asking questions and being inquisitive.

"You want kids to make meaning of ideas, and you make meaning through cross-disciplinary courses and research," said Gail Hubbard, the school system's supervisor of gifted education and special programs.

The IB program's centerpiece is its "Program of Inquiry," which relies on six themes that provide a framework for school curriculums: "Who We Are," "Where We Are in Place and Time," "How We Express Ourselves," "How the World Works," "How We Organize Ourselves" and "Sharing the Planet."

School officials decide which subjects -- Egypt, the weather or math, for instance -- to teach under which IB themes. For example, "How We Organize Ourselves" might require students to learn math, arts and civics during a six-week period in one class. "How We Share the Planet" might involve classes exploring how living and dead things are classified and could touch on science and social studies at once.

Unlike the high school IB program, there is no end-of-year exam graded by the IB organization. Graduating fifth-graders are required to do an "exhibition," which could be a play, paper, community service project or some other long-term endeavor in which each student submits portfolios throughout the school year to be graded.

The other six county elementary schools in the IB program will be Antietam, Buckland Mills, Ellis, Rosa Parks, Victory and Williams.

The school system will allow students who do not live in those schools' boundaries to apply for transfers, and if there is too much demand, a lottery will determine who gets in. The main factor in choosing which schools got the program was whether the school had the space, school officials said.

"I think this will provide choice for parents, " said Pamela Gauch, the school system's associate superintendent for instruction. "We want to be competitive and have programs that will interest them. That's what a world-class school system does."