SUSD & IB CLOSING THE LOOP

With the certification earlier this year of Anasazi Elementary School’s Primary Years Programme (PYP), Scottsdale Unified School District is proud to offer a complete kindergarten-through-high-school International Baccalaureate (IB) education. SUSD is one of just four Arizona K-12 public school districts that can claim that distinction.

The achievement has been many years in the making. SUSD’s engagement with the globally renowned education framework for innovative teaching and learning began nearly three decades ago, in 1999, when Desert Mountain High School launched its IB Diploma Programme as an optional path of study for juniors and seniors (11th and 12th grades). In 2017, Mountainside Middle School and Desert Mountain began the joint pursuit of IB Middle Years Programme (MYP) designation for 6th through 10th grade students. Collaborating closely across the parking lot that separates the two schools, the schools became official MYP World Schools in late 2020. At that time, Anasazi was already two years into its PYP IB journey, culminating in January of this year and closing the SUSD IB loop. While the district’s IB programs are concentrated at three schools that lie within a mile of each other in the Desert Mountain Learning Community, they are available to all SUSD students and non-resident students through open enrollment.

IB schools are recognized worldwide for transforming education, preparing students who are critical thinkers and global citizens who actively seek the relevance of their learning as it applies to the world outside of school. For the teachers leading IB classrooms, they, in a sense, go back to school themselves, undergoing intense, collaborative professional development at the outset of a school’s journey toward IB certification that continues as the program matures. SUSD’s International Baccalaureate K-12 continuum is, perhaps, the ultimate example of engaging all students in world-class, future-focused learning.