I already graduated from high school last year, but during my senior year, a big problem arose with the students and administration. We were told by our new principle that starting next year, students would no longer be able to take an IB class without being a full IB student. In other words, you would have to take ALL IB classes instead of having the option to choose to take one or two IB classes. The students voiced their disagreement with that but we would get in trouble every time we spoke out against it. The IB students had a meeting with the admin and they pulled up statistics of past IB scores from our school and it was very low and told us how only a few people pass the exams and started saying how we should think twice about doing IB because the tests are expensive. Like what?? I honestly feel like they are doing this so the IB program in our school will be filled with students who will stay committed to the program, get the diploma, and positively raise the test scores for our schools to make them look good. It is not fair because what if a student is really good in English and wants to take an IB English class but is not allowed to unless all of their other classes are IB? Does this go against IB’s regulations? Because this is not right. We were always allowed the option to take as many IB classes as we want.
Do you have other options? Like AP classes?
As IB classes are two years it may not make sense to have mix and match.
They also may find that kids not in the diploma program are not doing as well.
At our school, IB classes could be taken a la carte (as could exams). It’s up to the school to decide. It may be limited to make sure IBD candidates can get the classes they want. The exams are expensive so it may be a way to ensure that every student in the class is committed and has the goal of mastering the material to the exam level. IBD candidates would be compelled to test, others maybe not.
If you really care, you should respectfully ask the administration why it has this policy and listen carefully to the answer.