The Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education is considering whether to move forward with a plan to participate in the creation of a countywide International Baccalaureate School, or “IB School.” Bert Okma, one of the founders of an IB program in Oakland, and Naomi Norman, the director of assessment for Washtenaw Indermediary School District, presented to the board on Wednesday.

The IB program was founded in Geneva, Switzerland just after World War II, and is currently used by 131 countries around the world. It serves as a tool for globally standardizing high school education by functioning as a standalone high school, providing students with a rigorous curriculum while allowing individual districts to modify some of its elements. Okma had this to say about the IB’s mission: “The heart and soul of the IB really has to do with high standards of academic achievement…it wants to make these high standards available to a broad spectrum of students. It believes in access very strongly.” There are currently 33 IB programs in Michigan, with an additional 101 in the certification process.

If implemented, the IB program in Washtenaw County, currently referred to as “Washtenaw International High School,” would be attended by students from participating districts. The location agreed upon by the districts is East Middle School in Ypsilanti, which closed last year. Starting in 2011, freshmen would be admitted by a lottery similar to Community’s, and attendance would likewise be capped at 150 students per grade.

The proposal was received very optimistically by the Board of Education, with most board members already expressing their support for the program. The most evident criticism of the proposal was on its admission policy – some feared that the new school, like Community High, would lack the racial and economic diversity of the other schools in the district.

But in her presentation, Naomi Norman argued that, by helping to form a countywide IB program, the district would make it available to a wider variety of students. “I do know that Ann Arbor could, maybe, pull off something like this on their own, but I feel very strongly that we would have a geographic bias in this community…I think providing this as a county option, and doing it as a consortium, will provide a much higher and diverse student body, which will be better for the school, but I also think it would provide options for all the kids in this community, and that it’s the right thing to do.”