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Education is a big issue in northern Michigan, whether we're reporting on school funding issues to breakthroughs in the classroom.

'This is what teaching is all about': Innovative teaching program in question at TCAPS

David Cassleman

A handful of elementary schools Up North will have a better idea if they are closing next week, when the superintendent of Traverse City Area Public Schools gives his recommendations to the school board about how to save money.

 

But one of the other question marks is the future of an innovative program that has become popular at schools across the region.

 

 

 

International Baccalaureate (IB) is a curriculum used in more than a dozen schools in northern Michigan, including in Traverse City Area Public Schools.

 

At one elementary school, the principal says they have cut disciplinary problems in half since becoming an IB school.

 

But in a time of budget cuts and possible school closings, the curriculum might be grounded before it has a chance to take off.

 

Mrs. Vanderford's class

 

In Mrs. Vanderford’s class, third and fourth graders are learning about what makes Michigan special. There’s a map on the screen at the front of the class, showing where apple orchards are concentrated in the state.

 

Alisha Vanderford, who’s a teacher at Interlochen Community School, says this isn’t any old social studies lesson.

 

Credit David Cassleman
Mrs. Vanderford's classroom at Interlochen Community School.

“Instead of just giving them the answers,” Vanderford says, “they’re digging a little bit deeper into it for themselves to look at it differently.”

 

It’s a focus of the International Baccalaureate program to help kids discover the world for themselves, instead of just telling them how it is.

 

The students talk about the maps in small groups and look for patterns. One thing some students notice is that most orchards are located along Lake Michigan.

 

“My philosophy on teaching has changed in such an awesome way [since joining an IB school],” Vanderford says. “To me this is what teaching is all about: teaching in an IB school and teaching IB programs and just digging so much deeper into it, into the context.”

Extra costs

 

This type of teaching costs more than the traditional model. For example, kids have instruction in spanish daily. At another school, they’d only get it twice a week.

There are many other costs and fees, and at Interlochen it all adds up to an estimated additional cost of $117,000, according to the district.

 

A grant has paid these costs since the program began at Interlochen Community School in 2014. The grant also pays for IB schools in Kalkaska, Elk Rapids and Leland.

 

However that grant expires at the end of this school year.

 

Paul Soma, superintendent of Traverse City Area Public Schools, says the district has every intention of keeping IB, but he says the district does need to find ways to save money now.

 

“We have got to make some changes or else we’re going to be on the precipice of that fiscal distress,” Soma says.

 

That fiscal distress is the point where the district’s cash reserves get so low that the state gets involved in making decisions, Soma says.

 

One of the ways the district might save a lot of money is by closing three elementary schools. Two of those schools happen to be the only elementary schools in the district with IB.

While the IB budget for Interlochen is paid by a grant, the IB budget at the International School at Bertha Vos Elementary is picked up by the district. If the grant expires without being renewed, both IB programs would have to be supported by the district, assuming both schools remain open.

Soma says the district has other offerings besides IB.

 

“IB is not the only program that we’re implementing to address the needs of the wide variety of students that we serve,” Soma says. “We’ve got a couple other things going on within our school system that haven’t been quite as visible”

Soma says he’s still weighing the benefits of the program versus the costs.

A 'spot on' curriculum

Dave Griffith believes IB is worth the costs. He has two kids at Interlochen Community School, and is a teacher himself.

 

“The way in which the curriculum is organized and planned around thinking about the ways in which each and every one of us is part of a local community, but also citizens in a larger, global community, is just spot on,” Griffith says.

 

Griffith has a fourth grader with Asperger’s syndrome. He says she was initially enrolled in a Montessori program in TCAPS, but it didn’t work out.

 

She needed something to keep her motivated.

 

“For whatever reason she’s always been that kind of kid that wants to be out in the community doing things,” Griffith says. “She’s not content to just sit there and do her homework and then shut the book and put it in her book bag and forget about it.”

 

Then Griffith learned about the IB program at Interlochen Community School and the way it gets kids involved beyond the classroom. He has since enrolled his daughter and a younger son.

 

This past fall a group of students organized a canned food drive at the school. They were inspired by a lesson on world hunger.

 

Griffith says IB is keeping his daughter motivated. He says it would be a shame to shut down the school and the IB program.

 

“I worry about a sky is falling kind of mentality that’s being used right now … to scare people into believing that if we don’t do something now, that somehow TCAPS is going to fall apart completely,” Griffith says. “I don’t see that as happening at all.”

 

School officials say Interlochen Community School is already seeing improvements with IB. In addition to a sharp drop in disciplinary problems, the school has seen better than expected reading and math scores.

People at the school want to see where they might be in another couple years, but they might not have time.

 

Paul Soma delivers his recommendations about school closings to the school board on Monday night. A final decision on the district’s budget isn’t expected from the school board until March.