The New Year brought great news to the residents of Bow, NH, when it was revealed at the first BoE meeting that the IB program would not be going forward. TAIB hopes that this post will be the final reference to IB in Bow, NH, but urges residents there to keep their ears open as these administrators who dearly love IB will continue to try and slip it in at any cost. Considering that Bow has already spent some money on teacher training, it may try and minimize the cost of the program in the future. Well done Bow
There have been several online articles and many Internet postings since the departure of Bow, NH's last Superintendent in 2006, regarding controversy over the new Superintendent's IB intentions for the district.
According to the Superintendent Dr. Cascadden's blog, http://www.bownet.org/dcascadden/?p=37 on 4/03/08, the Board voted to suspend implementation of IB. Dr. Cascadden noted that there was not a concensus of support for the program and that:
"We need to work to gain trust and support of our larger community, before moving forward."
Apparently the new Principal at Bow HS didn't get the memo because in the 2008-2009 Program of Studies for Bow HS, Principal John House-Myers states:
Bow High School is a candidate school for the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. Bow High School is pursuing authorization as an IB World School. These are schools that share a common philosophy - a commitment to high quality, challenging, international education that Bow High School believes is important for our students. Only schools authorized by the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) as IB World Schools can offer any of its three academic programmes: the Primary Years Program (PYP), the Middle Years Programme (MYP), or the Diploma Programme. Candidate status gives no guarantee that authorization will be granted, though if all goes well with our application process, we anticipate offering the programme to Bow High School juniors in the fall of 2009. This spring we will begin to hold public meetings to inform Bow students, parents, and commu-nity members about this academically rigorous pre-university program. For further information about the IBO and its programmes, visit http://www.ibo.org.
According to Wikipedia, the former Principal of Bow HS is now the Principal of Bedford HS which is an IB HS as of 2008-2009. It really is amazing how these administrators hellbent on having IB will move around at the drop of a hat. Take a look at the IB courses offered at Bedford: http://www.bedfordhighschool.org/academics.cfm?subpage=323648
Can you spot the anomalies? There are some serious discrepencies between what Bedford is listing as IB courses under its IB tab on its website, and actual IB courses for which IB exams exist. There IS NO SUCH ANIMAL as IB Calculus I & II. HL courses are listed for only one year. There is no such thing as Global Studies Honors in IB. What is Bedford doing? TAIB was unable to uncover any controversy on the web about IB in Bedford.
A rather unique find, an actual 5 year cost projection of IB for Bow, NH. While still underestimating costs, this is very unusual to find any sort of fiscal "plan" which comes close to approaching reality:
