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By MEGAN MIDDLETON
Staff Writer

Reaching the decision to recommend the voluntary withdrawal of John Tyler High School from the International Baccalaureate (IB) program was not easy, the principal said.

But it's one she believes is best for the students and one she will explain during a community meeting on the issue set for 6 p.m. Tuesday at the John Tyler Theater.

Letters were sent to parents of John Tyler students as well as churches and civic groups.

"The community will have a chance to come and ask questions," Vanessa Choice, principal of John Tyler, said. "I just want them to understand what led to the decision. I think they can agree with me that this program is not reaching the number of students that we hoped to or would like for it to."

The Tyler ISD Board of Trustees, during its April meeting, opted to table its vote on the withdrawal of the school from the program to give the school more time to inform the public about the reasons behind the recommendation.

The IB program has been at John Tyler for 10 years.

Given the pride of the community in the program, Ms. Choice said the decision to recommend the withdrawal was very difficult.

"It wasn't something taken lightly," she said.

Ms. Choice said, "The data says it all" - and that's what needs to get out to the community.

There have been 95 IB diploma candidates in the 10 years John Tyler has had the program.

"There are schools with 95 kids each year in the program," Ms. Choice pointed out.

Looking at the low number of students in the program is one of the things that led Ms. Choice to make the recommendation.

"When I look at our master schedule, you see one class with 25-30 kids but across the hall you're seeing an IB class with six or seven kids. It becomes a staffing issue for me," she said.

Ms. Choice said that in looking ahead to next school year, there are only 11 students who would be seniors in IB.

A five-year review of the IB program was also coming up.

There were conditions put in place from a previous review "that we were not going to meet," Ms. Choice said, noting the problems of high teacher turnover and low number of students receiving the IB diploma.

It wasn't as much the staffing issue as it was realizing that the school would not meet the conditions of the review and would likely have the program terminated from the campus that set off alarms for her.

"Upon further investigation, not only the past review, but the review before that there were some negative conditions, and we had not met those conditions," she added.

According to district information, in 2000-01, John Tyler was cited for high teacher turnover, low number of diploma candidates and diplomas earned as well as John Tyler administration misunderstanding of the program. The school's authorization was lowered to conditional status. In 2004-05, an internal evaluation also cited lack of growth, low student interest, low enrollment, low number of diploma candidates and IB diplomas awarded.

In subsequent years, "Despite serious efforts to strengthen the program, JT has been unable to do so. In short, IB is not successful by IB standards," according to information in the school board agenda.

Of the 95 diploma candidates John Tyler has had in 10 years, 41 earned IB diplomas - less than half.

Lisa Harper, the IB coordinator, said that what some people don't see is that IB is a full diploma program but the program at John Tyler is not producing enough diplomas.

"All people say is the 'IB program.' They leave a key word out - it's an IB diploma program," she said. "If you're not earning diplomas, what's the point of the program?"

After speaking with IB officials, John Tyler officials believed that if a review was submitted, they would have just six months to correct the problems.

"Those same problems have been here 10 years," said Ms. Choice, who is in her first year as principal at John Tyler. "We felt it would be a lost effort to try to do that in six months. So before we allowed them to say we no longer have a program at John Tyler, we decided to put a plan in place and move toward withdrawing from the IB program."

After several meetings with the school's campus based decision-making committee, IB junior-level students and the IB teachers, it was decided that it would be best to withdraw from the program rather than have IB terminate its authorization.

There are plans in the works to offer a new program to be implemented in two stages, with the first stage to include a stronger Advanced Placement (AP) program and dual credit courses.

"I thought the best plan is to be proactive, put a plan in place using resources we have available now and focus on improving our AP program here," Ms. Choice said.

Officials have said the IB diploma program is very prescriptive, "all or nothing," while AP offers students more flexibility to pick and choose which advanced-level courses they want to take.

In the two-year IB diploma program, students are required to conduct in-depth research on a topic and write an extended essay, complete 150 hours of community service and take a course on the "Theory of Knowledge" on top of advanced course work in six subject areas.

Students are required to take those advanced-level courses in everything from foreign language to math to science to the arts, whether they are weak in certain areas or not.

The program can limit students' ability to participate in extracurricular activities, Ms. Harper said.

"As they start going through the program, they have to start making a choice. There doesn't seem to be a lot of opportunity for them to participate in extracurricular activities that most high school students really want to pursue," she said. "Over the years, less students have chosen to stay within the IB program."

Ms. Harper also said, "It's very hard when you make the choice to stay in the program and you basically give up your normal high school life to pursue this program and you don't get the diploma. I don't want to see that happen to anymore kids. What I would rather do is offer a really broad based AP program with lots and lots of choices."

The plan is to increase the number of AP courses at John Tyler from four to 14, offering enough to allow students who are solely academic-minded the opportunity to fill their plate with advanced courses as well as offer an opportunity to students who need more flexible schedules to take advanced course work as well.

"We can take all the good components of IB and put it into our new AP program and be able to reach a lot more students," Ms. Harper said.

Ms. Harper, who will become the AP coordinator, said the AP program will "have the same rigor the IB program did."

And the concepts of IB will not disappear from John Tyler, officials said.

"The same techniques and strategies to teach the kids can be applied to AP classes," Ms. Choice said. "You're talking about two rigorous programs. Both curriculums are designed to prepare kids for college and academic challenges."

If a student graduates with an IB diploma, they can start as a sophomore in college. In AP, students can choose to take an exam at the end of the program and, depending on their scores, secure college credit.

Ms. Choice said they want to make sure students who take AP classes are ready for the exam.

"We have to do all we can throughout the year to teach the curriculum and make sure kids get what they need so they are successful," she said. "And with that success, they get that college credit."

The support of the AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) program, the principal said, will also assist students in preparing for and staying in AP classes.

John Tyler also expects to explore a dual credit course with the University of Texas at Tyler.

All funds presently allocated for the IB program at John Tyler will be used to begin and sustain the AP/Dual Credit program.

The second stage of the plan, which would begin in 2009-10, will include a Leadership Academy. The schools plans to investigate connections with Texas A&M University's International Outreach Center as well as the Mays College of Business and several other groups.

"I truly believe the global focus is very important," Ms. Harper said. "It's real important to me to keep that focus and those type of activities so kids can still have a global perspective while pursuing the AP program."

The school will also improve its Career and Technology Education (CATE) courses by increasing course offerings, certifications and internships.

Ms. Harper, who moved to Tyler just to be the IB coordinator in recent years, agreed that the decision to withdraw from the program was heartbreaking because of the pride involved in being an IB World School. She said it's hard to describe to people the "agony."

"It's a very serious decision," she said. "It's had a lot of thought put into it. But the bottom line is we are doing what's best for all students at John Tyler High School, not just a select few."

She said she believes IB is an "awesome program."

"But in the end you just have to step back and have to say we've got to do what's right for kids," she said. "I think we need to reach more kids at John Tyler. We need to open our arms out and bring more kids into college preparedness and college-level rigor. I think we can really do that with AP."

At Tuesday's community meeting, those in attendance will hear the data behind the decision and may ask questions. Ms. Choice welcomes the opportunity.

"I just want everyone to know the facts," Ms. Choice said.

"It's easy for people to hear about the IB program going away, and just based on history and what they consider the negative things people say about John Tyler, (think) this is just another program that didn't work. But I want them to understand the facts and all the details.

"I want them to understand that this decision was not an easy decision but it was one that we had to make."