Article published on September 12, 2012 by the Star Local News.
There’s a new school in town, and it’s buzzing with expectation.
Imagine International Academy of North Texas opened last month in McKinney, the climax of nearly a three-year process.
At a celebratory picnic Saturday night at Myers Park, the buzz was noticeable, spread around droves of K-12 students and their parents. Ten days into the school year, one thing seemed sure: this education is different.
“Our son is a bright kid, but he’s never shown the same enthusiasm for learning,” Bill Singleton said of his son, Brad, an eighth-grader at Imagine International. “The environment among the other kids is just tremendously rewarding to him. I’m incredibly impressed.”
The public charter school is one of the few of its kind to offer the International Baccalaureate (IB) program, a college preparatory approach that stresses academic rigor, critical thinking, leadership training and cultural consciousness.
The program was established in 1968 to serve children of diplomats who moved around the world, and has developed into a prime head-start into higher education. In Texas, students who earn their IB diploma are awarded at least 24 hours of college credit at any state university.
“No other advanced academic program provides that kind of benefit for students,” said Margaret Davis, director of Imagine International. “Only in the United States is there any access in a public setting for students to do IB.”
The IB works with 3,462 schools in 143 countries to offer its program to more than 1 million students worldwide, according to IB figures.
Just two private schools in Texas are IB-authorized, and both have an annual tuition upwards of $20,000. Several years ago, 31 founding families sought a charter with the state to provide such an advanced program, a K-12 prep school with more widespread, affordable access.
In 2010, they received their charter, which includes seven North Texas school districts in its primary attendance boundary. Close to 950 students, with 25 per class through ninth grade, make up the first Imagine International class.
Four teachers handle each grade, and ninth grade has two sections. “We call them the fabulous 50 because they’re going to be our first graduates,” Davis said.
The school will add 10th through 12th grade over the next three years. It is already a candidate school for the three IB programs: Primary Years, Middle Years and Diploma Years.
Students from founding families had first dibs, followed by the school faculty’s children and siblings. Additional students will apply each year from November through March, before a lottery is held to fill open spots.
Brad was homeschooled as his family awaited Imagine International’s opening. He got in before a waiting list formed – one that Davis said is now in the thousands.
“Two weeks in, we are sure that was the right choice,” Bill said. “We’re very pleased we did it. We found out the teachers are doing more, teaching eight blocks and coming in before school to do planning, working a longer day than most teachers. We’re grateful for that kind of commitment.”
Founding families reached out to Imagine, the country’s largest charter school company previously without a school in Texas. Other charter companies have a proprietary curriculum; they needed a company that would partner with them and allow IB-fueled learning, said Davis, previously director of IB and Gifted/Talented (GT) programming at Longview ISD.
Carrollton and Farmers Branch schools have the three-program IB continuum in place, and Plano ISD combines IB and Advanced Placement (AP) classes for college credit. One Plano East Senior High School graduate entered college with 82 hours combined credit.
Davis, who anticipates similar vigor at the new school, already notices the effects of IB learning. She’s seen first-graders using Venn diagrams to compare chimpanzees to humans, and a fourth-grader begin planning ways to raise money for clean water in Africa.
“These students are making a global impact on the ninth day of school,” Davis said. “That’s what we stress to the students: ‘Now that you know this, what action should you take?'”
Pizza and a petting zoo drew enthused students and parents to Saturday’s celebration. But Mick Piper, president of the school’s Parents and Partnership Group, had to pull his kids to the party. His daughter spent the past two weekends gleefully working on school projects.
“It’s a complete transformation,” he said. “That first day of school, when you’re kids come home, you ask them how their day was, and they smile and say it was great. That says it all.”