By Kent Lewis
Special to the Bonanza
The IB program is being brought in to attract more people to Incline Village. We already have an outstanding AP program that can stand against the metropolitan schools of this country. Here is a quote from a friend of mine in SF who is involved with scholarships to USC:
“We have a few students who apply to USC and also apply for our alumni scholarships. From what I can tell, IB programs are set up at rural schools which can't compete with other schools in the number or quality of AP classes. They set up IB programs to help even out the playing field for students at smaller, rural schools.
When a student from say, North Tahoe High, applies to college, they have transcripts that have maybe one or two AP classes, versus a student from a bigger, suburban school who starts with Honors classes freshman year, then has AP classes all junior and senior year, along with opportunities for community/volunteer work on a bigger scale. (i.e., saving the local theater v. setting up a boy scout troop in Bosnia).”
I moved to Incline Village with about seven other families from the Tahoe City area because of the schools. If we want more people to come to Incline, then let's spend a million dollars on a regional advertising campaign showing how great Incline schools are along with everything else we have to offer. Why bring in a controversial program like IB? We have IB in the WCSD already at Wooster — if people want IB, they can go to Wooster and get IB.
