School’s challenging academic program marks big milestone

The term papers, final projects and intense workloads of college can catch students off guard and unprepared.

But plenty of Central High School alumni say they felt ready for those challenges, since they had gone through a rigorous academic program before their higher education.

Central High School in Macon has offered an International Baccalaureate program for 25 years and was the second school in Georgia to implement it, said Steve Smith, Central’s lead assistant principal when the program began and the school’s principal from 1995-2000. Several schools across the state now have the program, but Dublin High School is the only other in Middle Georgia, according to school officials.

“The program can be tailored to the individual needs of the school,” said Chris Kirby, a former IB coordinator and teacher at Central and now an assistant principal at Porter Elementary. “But in the end, it’s just a straight-up, across-the-board liberal arts education so students when they graduate can be in an exceptional position to take on college.”

More than 4,000 schools around the world have the IB program, which was developed in the 1960s at an international school in Switzerland.

The program was a way for a large, diverse school to enhance its offerings and recruit highly motivated students from across the district, Kirby said. With about 2,400 students in the early 1990s, there was talk of splitting Central in half, Smith said. Having an IB program ensured that the academic integrity of the school would continue amid any changes. (Westside High drew heavily from Central when Westside opened in 1997.)

“What we found out is it was everything we thought it was going to be. It was a very strenuous academic program,” said Smith, who served as Bibb’s interim superintendent from 2013-14. “We were extremely proud of the achievement of so many of these students.”

Students from area private and public schools can apply for pre-IB before their ninth-grade year, and 60 students are selected for each cohort, said Central principal Emanuel Frazier. They take a challenging schedule during ninth and 10th grades and move into the program in the 11th grade.

Not all 60 students stick with it, though, with some deciding it’s not for them or opting to take AP or dual enrollment classes instead. This year, 43 seniors are in the program. The first graduating class had about 25 students, Kirby said.

“Those IB courses really are taught on a college level,” Frazier said. “There’s really a lot of critical thinking and analysis and trying to teach to all the different modalities, trying to have a well-rounded student.”

College credit

Students are required to take courses in foreign language, English, history, science and math, as well as “sixth subject” electives in physics or the arts, Kirby said.

Each student must complete community service requirements, do a 4,000-word, independent research essay, and take a Theory of Knowledge course.

Darby Mowell, a 2014 Central graduate and current Yale University junior, said the latter prepared her most for college by helping her discover abstract thought and opening her mind to many learning possibilities.

When they test, students receive a score between one and seven on each course, depending on how they fare, and at least 24 points are needed to earn the IB diploma, according to Central’s website. And they can receive college credit for IB courses based on their exam scores, Frazier said. Colleges place high value on the program, and Central IB participants have been accepted into some of the top universities in the country, including Ivy League colleges.

Central alumni have told Kirby that the IB program gave them a huge advantage in college. It provided them with the framework they needed for their essays and projects and exposed them to works of literature and philosophical ideas that other students hadn’t yet discovered, he said.

Raymond Partolan, a 2011 Central graduate and now a program associate at Asian Americans Advancing Justice in Atlanta, made many meaningful, lasting friendships with his peers in the IB program. He found the academic side of college to be very similar to high school, although the university environment created some new challenges, he said.

Walter Fuller, a 2016 Central graduate and Mercer University freshman, said he became familiar with the set-up of college classes and learned to meet deadlines and view subjects in different ways.

“The IB program teaches students not what to think but how to think — and think critically. Classes were extremely challenging, absolutely on caliber with what I experienced with (the University of Georgia), if not more in-depth in some cases,” said Jonathan Lee, a 2005 Central graduate who is now a forester in Macon. “My well-rounded experience in IB was due in no small part to a very good environment at Central High School as a whole.”

The program expanded rapidly the first four or five years and reached its peak in the early 2000s, Smith said. It declined slightly when the economy crashed in 2007 and many students opted to stay at their home high schools. The addition of area charter schools also contributed to a decrease in applicants, but administrators hope to increase that pool in the future, Frazier said.

School Superintendent Curtis Jones has restored funding missing during the program’s “lean years,” which should allow for more growth. The school just received its five-year review from the IB board, and an improvement plan will be mapped out based on those results.

“Our goal is really to make the IB program at Central the pre-eminent program in Middle Georgia and really one of the pre-eminent programs around the state,” Frazier said. “We are making a commitment to providing resources and a high level of instruction.”

This story was originally published April 28, 2017 at 12:38 PM with the headline "School’s challenging academic program marks big milestone."