News & Information
An authorized team of educators from the International Baccalaureate Organization is visiting with students, staff, families and community partners at Wade King Elementary School this week to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the school’s ability to deliver the IB Primary Years Program (PYP).
The school opened with the vision of becoming a fully authorized IB World School in September 2008. The PYP is a comprehensive program addressing the needs of the whole child. Students become internationally minded, gaining a deeper understanding and respect for other cultures and global interactions. Learners apply and use their skills and knowledge through six transdisciplinary themes of inquiry and take meaningful action on their new learning.
"We are excited to be at this point in our journey," says Principal Rob McElroy. "The authorization visit is a comprehensive assessment of our school's ability to deliver a high quality program. Our entire school community has worked extremely hard during the past two years on implementing the key elements of this program while embedding the Washington state standards in the framework."
King staff have partnered with Bellingham's Sister Cities Organization, the Mei Hua Chinese School and Western Washington University to provide world language instruction in Mandarin Chinese for all K-5 students as well as other cultural opportunities. All are welcome at the Wade King World Tour from 5 to 8 p.m. June 10 at the school for a Chinese dinner, games, performances and celebrations. Please click here for details.
To learn more about the IB program at King, please click here. The school will find out if it has achieved authorization as a result of this visit in the next few months.
Northern Heights Elementary School is also pursuing IB authorization and expects to be at this point in the process sometime next school year.
District schools pursuing IB or other innovative programs such as the Arts Academy at Roosevelt Elementary School use their existing funding for staffing that all schools receive based upon student enrollment. For example, King and Northern Heights do not have staff positions that other schools have in order to provide IB program coordination or world language instruction. Teachers at those schools have pooled individual staff development resources provided to every district teacher for IB training.