Hartsfield to be first International Baccalaureate elementary school in Leon County
Hartsfield Elementary students are getting an alternative curriculum and teaching method meant to encourage students to think about their effect on the world.
Hartsfield became an authorized International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP) school as the 2024 Spring semester began.
It will be the first of its kind for the district and will pipeline students to IB programs at Fairview Middle and Rickards High.
"For the past five years, the Hartsfield leaders and teachers have been working hard toward becoming an authorized IB World School Primary Years Program," Leon County School Board chair Rosanne Wood told the Tallahassee Democrat. She represents District 2, which encompasses Hartsfield. "They did it, and it’s well worth celebrating."
The IB PYP program is taught through a project-based style, meaning students will follow a hands-on, engaged approach when learning benchmark standards.
The program is designed for children 3-12. Students will learn through what's called inquiry-based learning, an approach school leaders say is necessary to foster rigorous academics and get students to start thinking at a young age.
The school applied for the IB PYP in 2019 and was approved for candidacy in January 2020. During the 2021-22 school year, which was the same year Hartsfield became a magnet school for international studies, the IB curriculum was first put in place.
Hartsfield, a Title I school, is located in the Indianhead Acres neighborhood. Title I designation means the school receives federal assistance because at least 40% of students are from lower- income families.
"Statistics show that (for) students who grow up in households that are socially and economically challenged, the most attention may be needed," said Fayon Jones, the school's IB coordinator.
Hartsfield Principal John Olson says all students will be in the program, preparing them for middle school with skills to think critically that they otherwise would not have received in a traditional classroom.
"The nice thing about the primary years program is that the student will be equipped to move into any middle school program," Olson told the Tallahassee Democrat. "They'll learn some research skills in the primary years program, and they'll learn social skills, self-management skills and there's a foreign language acquisition they'll receive at our school as well."
Students in PYP classrooms will practice project-based learning outside of a traditional manner.
"It's exciting to see students excited about learning and getting to do performance and project-based assessments where they can really showcase their skills outside of our traditional, standardized assessment or classroom settings," Jones said.
Even though the school has maintained a D grade for the last two years, Olson believes the new teaching culture will help improve student performance.
Less than half of students passed the English language arts exams for grades 3-4 and the math exams for grades 4-5. Only 19% of fifth graders passed the science state assessment exams.
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"The entire school and community is involved in improving Hartsfield performance on state assessments," Olson said of the lackluster performance.
"The staff really worked on improving the students' performance and we have a lot of learning gains. I do believe that with the implementation of the PYP, we're going to be a high-performance school in the coming years."
Alaijah Brown covers children and families for the Tallahassee Democrat. She can be reached at ABrown1@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Hartsfield Elementary in Tallahassee approved for IB curriculum
