RVC Board of Ed Discusses IB Program, Race to the Top Funds

The Rockville Centre Board of Education held its meeting Monday night at the , and school officials and administrators discussed Race to the Top Funds, the IB program possibly coming to the middle school and the January English Regents moving to Jan. 11.

IB - Middle Years Program

 Principal Shelagh McGinn and Assistant Principal Jennifer Pascarella conducted a presentation for the board on bringing the International Baccalaureate program — a program designed to help students develop the intellectual, personal, emotional and social skills to live, learn and work in a rapidly globalizing world — to the middle school. McGinn explained that it would be implemented from sixth through eighth grade and would encompass all students, including special education. The program would be tailored to the middle school, and there would be no IB project associated with the program, as there is in the high school.

Pascarella noted that the content being taught will not change, though the curriculum will be "tweaked through the IB lens." "We're charged with promoting kids from middle school to high school," McGinn said. "This provides the framework."

She explained that the program will help turn students into critical thinkers, and teach them to be inquirers. The program would cost slightly more than $17,000 to be implemented, as teachers would have to undergo training, as well as other additional costs associated with bringing IB to the middle school. Commack is the only other school district on Long Island that has the IB program in its middle school.

The school board did not make a decision on this matter.

Race to the Top Funds

After weeks of saying that he would not recommend to the board that they accept the $34,000 allotted to the district by the state through the Race to the Top Funds, Superintendent of Schools Dr. William Johnson said that the district has accepted the money. He explained that originally, it appeared that the district would have to spend more than it was actually receiving over the four-year span, which made it easy to say no to the funds. Once that changed, he said he decided that accepting the money would be a prudent move for the district.

There are four components in the Race to the Top Funds, Johnson explained, and the district would need to move forward with three of those components, even if it did not participate in the program.  Once the state scaled back the cost of the fourth component — a network team that would need to be compiled for each district school if it accepted the funds — from nearly $400,000 over four years to $12,000 over the same time span, Johnson said, "It made sense to participate."

He added that the district has the option to withdraw from the program, at any time, without the fear of penalty.

January English Regents Moved 

In a move that Dr. Johnson called "almost unbelievable" the English Regents has been moved by the State Education Department from the end of January — during Regents Week — to Jan. 11. Johnson said if the test is not rescheduled back to its original date, the district would have to close the high school on the day of the exam.