As the IB Diploma Program Coordinator at Midlothian High School, I fully support this legislation as written. The International Baccalaureate Diploma Program is the most rigorous curriculum currently offered to high school students in the state of Virginia. As a general, liberal-arts, college preparatory program the IB requires students to take two-year courses across six subjects, along with a two-year course specific to the IB program called Theory of Knowledge. As such, the program puts significant scheduling pressures on students during their junior and senior years. Given other, non-IB requirements required by the state of Virginia to earn an Advanced Studies Diploma, students are often required to take courses during the summer in order to fulfill those requirements. Specifically, regarding the social studies requirements, I encourage the committee to follow a model currently followed for the Virginia state science requirements. In that subject, students are deemed to have met the requirements for an Advanced Studies Diploma provided that graduate as an IB Diploma candidate in good standing regardless of whether or not they met the three science requirements. Within social studies, dropping the requirements of completing various types of social studies classes would allow greater flexibility for scheduling IB students. The IB Diploma Program is a unique, rigorous academic program, and graduates of the program are prepared to be fully engaged citizens in the US and global community. They are knowledgeable about state, national, and global issues. Placing another layer of requirements (beyond the IB Diploma Requirements) does not serve an educational need for these students. I encourage you to pass this bill, allowing graduating from high school as an IB Diploma candidate in good standing to fulfill the Virginia Advances Studies requirements. I encourage you to speak to graduates of IB programs to fully understand the quality of education they have received. I also encourage you to speak to IB educators. I have served as an educator in Virginia for 26 years. Twenty-one of those years have been at an IB World School. I've served as an IB Diploma Program coordinator for seven years, and I am a past-president for the Mid-Atlantic Association of IB World Schools. I would gladly speak to any legislator in more detail regarding the merits of this bill.

Please support this bill. My daughter attends Midlothian High School in the International Baccalaureate program. She will be graduating this year and earning the IB Diploma. She is our 5th child to graduate from Chesterfield high schools, and I can unequivocally say her course of study has been the most challenging by far. These requirements - especially personal finance and AED, forced her to take classes over the summer in order to obtain an "advanced studies" diploma. Given that she has taken all college-level courses her junior and senior years, having the state mandate specific topics to qualify as "advanced" seems arbitrary bordering on absurd. IB students moving forward will also have to take AP Government in 9th or 10th grade, when it won't be salient. There is nothing more advanced than the IB Diploma, so please support this bill to allow those kids to graduate with an advanced studies diploma regardless of other coursework.