Coeur d’Alene schools think globally

Tucked in with the plan to transform Sorensen Elementary School into a specialized school for the arts and humanities is a plan to incorporate the International Baccalaureate elementary program into the Coeur d’Alene school’s curriculum.

The diploma program for high school students is already in place at Lake City and Coeur d’Alene high schools. Two other elementary schools, Fernan and Hayden Meadows, are in the early stages of implementing the IB Primary Years Program.

The program aims to turn kids into bilingual, globally-minded citizens. School curriculum takes an international focus. All students must learn a foreign language and are encouraged through their course work to look at not just what happens in the world, but how it happens and why.

The cost to schools is significant and the required teacher training is extensive. But as the world’s countries become increasingly entwined, educators are looking to the program as something that can help bridge the gap between cultures and, hopefully, in the age of No Child Left Behind, raise standardized test scores. Seventy-two elementary schools in the country – none in Washington, Idaho, Montana or Oregon – currently offer the program, which began in 1997. Scores of others are trying to get it started – a process that can take years to complete.

“It’s the best way to teach kids,” said Patty Woodworth, principal of Hayden Meadows, which is furthest along in the application process. “In our world today, discrete information is not what children need. They need to think outside the box, and that’s what this teaches them to do.”

Unlike the high school diploma program, which is optional, the elementary program is schoolwide. There’s no final exam like in high school, but fifth-graders are required to complete a final project. And like the high school program, foreign language classes and community service are required.

Training teachers in the IB curriculum costs about $1,500 apiece. The school district paid for a few members of the Sorensen, Fernan and Hayden Meadows staffs to attend the first round of training in Los Angeles last year.

The program organizes curriculum by six units: “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.”

The units are tailored to each grade level, and all grades study the same unit at the same time. Staff at each school that hopes to incorporate the IB program must write their own versions of the units, all to be reviewed by representatives from Geneva-based International Baccalaureate Organization. Hayden Meadows has submitted its application for the IB program; Sorensen and Fernan staff are preparing theirs now.

The application fee is about $4,300, which pays for a consultant to visit the school. Hayden Meadows paid its application fee with donations. Fernan will use a $5,000 grant it received from a foundation in Texas. Sorensen Principal David Miller said his school will raise funds.

Sorensen and Fernan have until mid-spring to submit their applications and fee. The next application deadline is in the fall.

Woodworth, of Hayden Meadows, said she’s working on a few grant applications that would help cover the cost of hiring substitute teachers to give her staff time to work on the curriculum units.

“It’s all about time and money,” she said.

The money issue could drag out the application process longer than the typical two or three years. The school district is pinched financially, and the principals of the hopeful IB schools know most of the money for the program, if not all of it, will need to come from donations and grants.

Woodworth said the benefits of the IB program are already being felt at Hayden Meadows. Teachers took what they learned in training and are applying it in the classroom. In the IB program, concepts – not facts – are emphasized. Students are encouraged to ask questions and to think critically about what’s presented to them.

“Students are starting to ask questions – more interesting questions – and finding the answers to them,” Woodworth said.