IB Anti-Bias Anti-Racism Work
IB Anti-Bias Anti-Racism at Seneca Valley High School:
The IB Programs at SVHS believe that all of our students have the ability to soar into college and careers. We also know that we must actively and purposely work to identify and dismantle systems that result in opportunity disparities for our students. Being an IB World schools is an integral part of this work at SVHS.
At SVHS, we use an Anti-Bias Anti-Racism (ABAR) lens to analyze all levels of teaching & learning:
Personal
Our personal beliefs & attitudes
Curriculum
What we teach
Pedagogy
How we teach
Institutional
Our rules & procedures
Community
How we engage with our community
Our SVHS IB Anti-Bias Anti-Racism work:
SVHS IB program data, such as the data presented, is analyzed through an ABAR lens.
Data analysis drives the action planning for the IB programs, including student and community outreach, registration procedures, professional learning, student support initiatives, and more.
Data shown: The graphs show the demographic breakdown of our three IB Programs for the 2022-2023 school-year compared to the demographics of Seneca Valley HS.
The IB Programs co-led and facilitate the Equal Opportunity Schools (EOS) Initiative for SVHS. EOS works to ensure access and support for underrepresented students in IB and AP courses.
EOS work includes:
identifying students using multi-measures of potential beyond the limited metric of grades
analyzing EOS student & staff survey data metrics to identify trends in beliefs and opportunity gaps
data collection from current students on their experiences in AP & IB DP/CP to identify ways to better support their success
facilitating one-on-one conversation between students and student-identified trusted adults in the building
tracking and analyzing registration data to plan outreach
facilitating counselor outreach to targeted students using registration data
tracking various data points throughout the year to analyze and support access and success in AP & IB courses
SVHS IB coordinators collaboration with the Staff Development Teacher (SDT) centers teaching & learning on ABAR.
The philosophies and teaching practices of IB (outlined below) align with and work towards our ABAR goals at SVHS. This relationship is at the core our ABAR work at the personal, curriculum, and pedagogical levels.
IB is an international organization operating in over 160 countries resulting in programs that are uniquely focused on international mindedness and cultural proficiency.
IB's focus on the Learner Profile attributes, the Approaches to Learning (ATL) skills, and Approaches to Teaching (ATT) center teaching and learning that helps develop essential beliefs and skills need to for student success.
To facilitate this work, the IB Programs work closely with SVHS SDT to plan staff development workshops that explicitly center ABAR to support staff growth and learning.
The Learner Profile Attributes
Informed by the IB mission to develop active, compassionate, life-long learners, an IB education works to foster the 10 Learner Profile attributes. At SVHS, we focus on educating the whole student by modeling, discussing, and reflecting on the IB Learner Profile attributes both in and outside the classroom.
Approaches to Learning (ATL)
An IB education fosters the development of deep content knowledge while also emphasizing academic and socioemotional skills. The ATL outlines these essentials skills that we work to develop in all students to ensure their success in college, career, and life. This explicit focus on skill-development helps support student growth and continual progression into appropriately rigorous coursework.
Approaches to Teaching
In the classroom, IB educators utilize the Approaches to Teaching (ATT) principles to shape the learning experiences for all students. SVHS staff center instruction on inquiry approaches, big concepts, and authentic assessments so students access the curriculum through curiosity and their own experiences, while applying their learning to the real-world.
International Mindedness
IB is an international program in over 160 countries resulting in a unique focus on international mindedness and cultural proficiency. With a goal of focusing on creating, "a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect", this mission is reflected across all SVHS IB Programs- from the inclusion of global context and explorations in MYP, the international scope of content in the DP & CP, and the focus on developing the learner profile attributes.
The IB Organization's Official Statement on Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion:
More than 50 years ago, the IB was born out of a commitment to develop a new way of thinking about teaching, learning, and assessment–grounded in education for a better and more peaceful world. Our historic mission emphasizes our shared humanity and the bonds that tie us together in one global community. Our responsibility to the world and to the people and systems that shape its future is enormous.
At the IB we want to understand and celebrate differences within our community, while recognizing and valuing the things we have in common. As we all strive to achieve our mission of creating a better world through education, we cannot underestimate the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion.
The International Baccalaureate Organization aims to live these values through these commitments:
The IB will embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion practices in our work—and reflect this commitment as we develop our policies and procedures—both as an employer and as an educational organization
We commit to promoting human rights and the idea of one shared humanity in all our work, both as an employer and as an educational organization
The IB commits to promoting justice—social, economic and ecological—in our work, both as an employer and as an educational organization
Alongside our community, we will work to help protect the environment and the local ecosystems that form it
The IB will foster a sense of agency and enquiry in both the people we work with and the young people we help to educate
We embrace learner variability so that our learners are not excluded on the grounds of any of their characteristics, and so that our stakeholders can develop and thrive in a culture of equal opportunities for learning, personal growth, and developing the ability to make positive change
The IB commits to act supportively and with consideration for young people affected by difficult or adverse circumstances, their own changing personal histories or contexts, or other challenges affecting their life as IB students
We will work to promote the voices, identities, and leadership of marginalized people in our work, both as an employer and as an educational organization. We will be transparent in all our policies relating to the people we work with and as we work with our educational programmes and resources through a DEI lens
We will explore new ways to open our programmes and our work to new languages, cultures and contexts
The IB commits to being fully focused on the needs of our staff, IB World Schools and their educators and students, as we challenge ourselves to become a more diverse, open, inclusive, and accepting organization, standing against racism, prejudice, discrimination and marginalization wherever we can.
Additional resources on IBO's work: