On March 31, Greeley West students including Bryan Corral, Sam Sasaki, Bradley Rainwater, and Rey Ocampo gave a tour of their campus to three IB administrators to determine whether or not Greeley West qualifies for the International Baccalaureate’s Career Program (CP). This would be an additional level of IB certification different from the Diploma program and being a member would come with its own stipulations similar, but also separate from the Diploma program.
The tour was centered around what it means to be involved in IB at Greeley West at all the different levels of participation. When asked about what was shown during the tour, Corral stated, “My role was being the connection between the IB and CTE programs because I’m involved in both. We started by going all the way to the CTE department. We showed them our wall in the hallway that displays the different words of encouragement that provoke learning within our school. And then we also took them to all the main core IB classes.”
Junior Sasaki also added , “We also showed them how the IB learner profiles are implemented around our school as well as other things IB teachers do to promote IB’s ideology surrounding learning.”
Some other examples of what IB teachers do to align themselves with IB is question based learning through both generating and answering high level questions, diverse exams both oral and written instead of one big exam at the end of the year, and fostering a diverse understanding of other cultures and global issues.
Unfortunately there are some areas that need improvement before Greeley West can qualify. Greeley West’s IB coordinator, Mr. David Whisker stated that, “I talked to someone the following Thursday and she gave me some ideas of what is most likely going to come back in the official report, but until we get that report we won’t know specifically.”
The goal moving forward for Greeley West IB is in the six to eight weeks until the official report is released to have made the changes to qualify for the program. Despite the uncertainty Whisker made it clear that it’s not a matter of if Greeley West will qualify but when, and that he is doing everything he can to make that qualification sooner rather than later.
