Dexter School Board Approves International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme for DHS

The Dexter Community Schools Board of Education voted 5-1 to implement the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program for  beginning fall 2012 at their regular school board meeting Monday.

The International Baccalaureate Diploma Program, based out of Geneva, Switzerland, is an academically challenging program for students ages 16 to 19. The program will cost about $119,000 for the first year, $124,000 the second year, and $79,000 for consecutive years due to a full-time coordinator of the program changing to half-time in the third year. Of that amount, $10,000 will be required for the district to register with the program.

IB provides students with a rigorous course schedule that can be stated on college admission forms in a similar way to the Advanced Placement (AP) program.

Trustee Bonnie Everdeen cast the lone dissenting vote against the program's implementation. Trustee Richard Lundy was not present.

Before the vote, community members and parents had the chance to voice their divided opinions on implementing the program, with those against stating concerns about funding, and those in favor stating that students would be more prepared for the global market.

Mary Daugherty and Bernadette Quist, both of Dexter, spoke out against implementing the IB program in 2012.

"My main concern is that we will be spending money we don't have," said Quist.

"The school is already doing very well," said Daugherty, citing Superintendent Mary Marshall's report that the school district was one of four schools in Washtenaw County to make

AYP is an evaluation administered to every public school in every state and is based on test scores, four-year graduation rates and other factors.

"It is fiscally irresponsible to start a new project when you are asking the teachers and bus drivers to make sacrifices. This is not the appropriate time to spend money," said Maisch.

International Baccalaureate would start for students in their sophomore years. Parents would pay $225 for student registration and an exam to enter the program.

Avery Gordon and Eden Krull, both students at DHS, made a plea to the board to begin the program. Krull said that she had been wanting to be a part of the program since she was a freshman.

"I'm a sophomore who is going to do the whole program," she said.

Board trustee Julie Schumaker said she believed that having an IB program would attract students to Dexter schools, including foreign students.

"While we have limited funds...it will better serve our students and community," said Schumaker.

Everdeen countered.

"I don't think it is a good fit right in this fiscal environment," she said. "We have to look at all-day kindergarten, and I would personally like to see the AP program expanded. AP provides college credit, IB does not."

Everdeen also said that Dexter has one of the top performing arts programs in the state, and IB does not fit well with that.

Trustee Ron Darr said that though the fees were troublesome, he supported the program because he believed it would allow the students to be enrolled in higher quality colleges and universities.

Trustee Kim Covert said she had concerns about whether the music program would be affected because students in the IB program would have to stick with the course schedule, and music is not necessarily a part of the program they would be taking.

Marshall said that this would depend on whether it was a semester or trimester schedule, and said not all of the three levels of band may be available.

"If there were three sections of a class, there might be only two sections of the class," said Marshall about other classes that might be affected.

Teachers would be assigned classes based on course interest by students. Some might teach one IB course, an AP course, and two traditional classes, she said.

Marshall said that about 35 members of the sophomore class have signed up to take IB classes, while an additional 100 sophomores also express an interest in the program.