Albuquerque Public Schools
Cleveland Middle Step Closer to IB Offering
Final approval for prestigious International Baccalaureate program likely two years away.
When Cleveland Middle School Principal Amy Veschusio Lissick announced the good news Tuesday, she came armed with a chocolate-marble cake.
Success has never tasted so sweet.
“It was delicious,” Veschusio Lissick said.
The celebration fit the honor: Cleveland has been selected as an International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program School Candidate School – a critical step in establishing a rare and prestigious program that will attract middle schoolers to a unique learning track within Albuquerque Public Schools.
IB, known worldwide, is a rigorous program that helps students think critically and solve complex problems and can put learners on track to top universities. It is known worldwide and is highly regarded in cities throughout the world.
“I’m so excited to add another innovative magnet school that will provide students a challenging framework that encourages students to make practical connections between their studies and the real world,” said Francesca Ver Ploegh, the district’s executive director of Innovation.
APS has had its own International Baccalaureate program at Sandia High School for nearly a decade, and district officials believe the Middle Years Program at Cleveland can form a natural connection with the Sandia IB program if students and their parents decide to pursue the offering in high school.
Cleveland, already an APS magnet school, will continue to offer its core set of offerings to students who aren’t interested in IB and will continue to feed students to both nearby Sandia and Del Norte.
Veschusio Lissick, in her second year at Cleveland, said the effort has been ongoing for two to three years. There remains much work – perhaps two more years – to complete before Cleveland is fully authorized to become an IB school, but Felicia Torres, a Cleveland teacher and the IB coordinator, said staff members “are very much on board, up for the challenge and the new path that we’re taking.”
Veschusio Lissick said the designation as a Candidate School will offer prospective students and their parents another option in education at a critical time.
“As a school community, it creates a different kind of opportunity for our students,” she said. “Internally, we are all about it.”