Jordan IB (International Baccalaureate) Program

Best decisions are made when all facts are on the table.

Tuesday, the Jordan School approved sponsoring an IB (international baccalaureate) Program on a 4 to 3 vote. IB is similar to our AP (advanced placement) programs that exist in all of our schools. These two programs along with CE (concerned enrollment) helps students receive advance preparation for a college education. These programs often are hard and have high expectations.

As a member of the Innovations committee, I was excited to offer a program that our district did not offer and I was lead to believe that IB was a superior program to other advance education options. IB comes with a big price tag. Tuesday the board approved setting aside one million dollars to be used over the next 5 years. There are a long startup time and fees to even get this program implemented. While a million dollars seems like a large amount to spend on a few students, I favored this program since it will give our students an advantage in college.

Prior to our Tuesday meeting, I posted on my social media pages to hear what you had to say. I love to hear your views as you help me make sound decisions. As I read your comments I got mixed views on the value of this program. Some people felt this is very valuable, while others thought it was no better than the programs we already offer. This caused me to question how valuable the IB program was.

I decided to call several college admissions offices to ask just their opinions on how important IB is. The University of Utah, Utah State and Brigham Young University admission office all told me that IB does not weigh any stronger consideration than AP. This alarmed me because I was lead to believe IB was superior. I further explored this issue with Universities outside of Utah. Stanford and the University of Southern California gave me similar comments,

If IB gives no advantage to a student over an AP program, I started to question my commitment to support this program. I returned to my original concern with IB. Should we be committing a million dollars to a program that we are uncertain of the commitment level? How many students would commit to a program, that is likely harder, and gives hem no significant advantage to college admittance?

Durning the discussion at our board meeting, I brought up my concern. I wanted the board to continue to explore this issue to access the interest in IB, BEFORE we committed a million dollars. My request to consider this option was denied from consideration even before the vote.

Two board members brought up concerns about our priorities, they agreed that IB would be a good program to offer, however, they felt that the Jordan School District has bigger needs to address like technology and 21st Century learning programs. For them, the issue was timing. Solving our technology issues has the ability to help MORE teachers and students than a program that is targeted to just a few students.

In the end, I was only given two options to vote on. Neither option was my choice, however, I lined up more with delaying the DI program until we address these more important needs. I voted no, with two other board members. None of us we against having an IB program.

While I support the board's decision, I hope we will address these other issues of technology and 21st Century Learning. I believe an IB program with a Blended Learning emphasis would give us an edge over other IB programs. See the article below.

I am also against bringing the Jordan IB program to the Herriman area. Providence Hall Charter school in Herriman offers a very good IB program. I am not interested in directly competing with this school for the few IB students that are out there.

http://www.ibo.org/…/september-2013-issu…/the-next-45-years/

Published by Darrell Robinson · December 2, 2017 · 

UPDATE: During our February 12, 2018 study session, the announcement was made that our High Schools are not ready to take on the task of starting an IB Program at this time. The timing is just not right at this time. This was the primary reason I voted NO. We will look out a year or two before we look at this program again.