photoillustration by Rachel Guo

IB Coordinator and English teacher, Bernadette Cranmer has her students write a reflection of an assignment or what the students have learned that day.

 Granite Bay High School is one of the only schools in Roseville Joint Union High School District other than Oakmont to offer the International Baccalaureate Program, also known as the IB Program. Since the IB Program is globally recognized, it allows students to study abroad.

   In 2023, GBHS began to merge CP English and IB Language & Literature HL 1 into a combined class taught by Bernadette Cranmer, the IB Coordinator and English teacher. 

   Cranmer estimates that in the past, the IB Language & Literature class had a small number of under 20 students.

   “I always appreciate teaching the class, but (the IB students) would benefit from having a larger class,because you will have a more diverse group of students that really represents the student body of Granite Bay High School.” Cranmer said.

  In this new merged class, everyone is taught the same curriculum with the same assignments, but IB and AP students have different grading requirements.

   “The grading requirement will be higher for IB because they get the added grade point,” Cranmer said, referring to how IB students are weighted on a 5.0 GPA scale versus the 4.0 S scale. 

   Other than trying to make the IB class larger, the school also hopes to promote the IB program to become more popular among students. As the classes are already merged, IB teachers hope students will take a leap and transfer from CP English to IB Language & Literature. 

   “If you can do advanced work, then why don’t you sign up for IB?” Cranmer said. “We have students here who don’t realize that they can do it.”

   The merge of CP English and IB Language & Literature is not the only class that has had different levels put into the same period. This year, US History and IB History was also combined, as well as the art classes that have multiple merged classes from Art 3, 4, AP Art and IB Art. Not all merged classes last. Last year, Advanced and Intro to Journalism were combined, but this year they have returned to separate classes.

   “There’s something called College and Career readiness indicators. Those are things that employers and universities look for in skills that students have,” Cranmer said, “They’re looking for things like thinking skills, social skills, collaboration, self management skills, things like time management skills or being motivated and resilient and communication skills … All those skills are a natural part of IB.”

   Students have the choice of picking and choosing IB classes, or completing the program that takes two years. The IB program classes all connect with one another, and aim to achieve the IB program mission statement to “develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.” 

   GBHS is also not the only school with merged classes. At Oakmont High School, their French classes also have multiple levels in a single class period. In the inaugural year of the merged English classes, the English departments are awaiting feedback about the class from students: feedback to come in a survey with questions such as whether or not the students are interested in joining the IB course, and what type of learning materials they are interested in.  Cranmer said students would be surveyed again after about a month of class. 

   “I’m just really excited about having this interaction with students,” Cranmer said, “We have students from all walks of life, so we tried to choose things that are more representative of that.”