Monte Gardens Elementary earns International Baccalaureate (IB) designation

Monte Gardens Elementary is very proud to announce that it is officially an International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme school, after working toward the designation for several years as a "candidate" school. This means that the school offers an "inquiry-based, transdisciplinary curriculum framework that builds conceptual understanding" based on international standards, said Kellie Hoover, MDUSD's Elementary IB Curriculum Specialist. 

To achieve this designation, teachers have integrated new techniques into the way they instruct students that give students more "voice, choice and agency" than traditional teaching, with a focus on global mindedness, said 1st grade teacher Shannon Grisafi. "Having a school that's so culturally diverse and having a focus on that is exciting," she said. Teachers work together to focus on interdisciplinary IB themes, such as how we express ourselves, where we are, our place in time, and how we organize ourselves. They encourage students to ask questions and dive deeply into aspects that interest them the most. For example, Grisafi said teachers use language arts to connect to science, math, arts, Spanish language, music and library resources. Teachers create lessons together, refine them, and then reflect on them, building each year on the foundation that is started in the early grades. 

To verify that Monte Gardens had earned the IB designation, IB officials interviewed students, parents and teachers and observed classrooms remotely via the Internet. The school has selected six students to be "ambassadors" who answer questions about their IB program. "IB is a very special title," said student ambassador Samuel Stogner, a 5th-grader. "Only 5,000 schools in the entire world get to call themselves IB."

Samuel and student ambassadors Isabella Engelbert and Derek Chun (3rd grade), Jack Gordon and Isabelle Sullivan (4th grade), and Sienna Curry (5th grade) said they learn about the world and strive to adhere to the Social Super Hero (IB Learner) traits: being inquirers, communicators, thinkers, and risk takers, who are knowledgeable, principled, caring, open-minded, balanced and reflective. "It teaches you how to make good choices and be a better person," Isabella said. Jack added: "When you're being principled, it means you do the right thing even if no one's watching and you don't always get an award for it." Being focused on inquiry means "asking questions and being interested in learning and wanting to learn more about something that interests you," Isabelle said. Giving students voice means "letting everyone speak and not leaving anyone out," said Sienna. 

Students also get to choose how to present what they are learning. For example, after studying about world conflicts, Samuel said some students presented projects using slides, or by writing an essay, or creating a poem. Being ambassadors is giving the students self-confidence and preparing them for the challenges they will face in middle school, they said. 

The student ambassadors also spoke to the MDUSD School Board earlier this year, along with representatives from the District's other IB schools: Sequoia Elementary, Oak Grove Middle School and Ygnacio Valley HS. More information about MDUSD's IB schools is here.