The Academy of Arts and Sciences is pursuing authorization as an IB World School. These are schools that share a common philosophy, a commitment to a rigorous education, and international education that the Academy of Arts and Sciences believes is important for our students.

AAS plans to implement an academically rigorous college preparatory program for students in grades 11-12, which will allow students to receive a minimum of 24 hours of college credit at California public Colleges and Universities upon successful completion of the program.

Teachers of individual subject areas will plan their units on a collaborative basis using common themes, drawing upon connections between them in order to highlight to students the relevance of each subject. California state testing (CST) for each grade will be met through instruction in both these interdisciplinary units of inquiry as well as stand-alone instruction time in core subject areas.

Emphasis will be placed upon the development of social skills, thinking skills, communication skills, research skills, and time management skills. Students will be encouraged daily to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate what they are learning, as well as critically reflect on how they are learning, in order to improve areas of growth. This will be accomplished through the use of teacher modeling, as well as clearly defined rubrics for assignments in which active use of these skills are rewarded, among other means.

Sudents will participate in a Philosophy/Ethics course in which students will learn critical discussion and evaluation skills and how they relate to the areas of Social Science, Natural Science, Language, Math, and Fine Arts. Students will be expected to submit an essay of approximately 4000 words on their work. Students at all grade levels will be involved in active community service and while in grades 11 and 12, will be expected to complete approximately 3 hours per week of community service, for a total of 150 hours upon graduation.

For more information on the International Baccalaureate program, please review the following power point on the IB Diploma program and www.ibo.org