With over 900 International Baccalaureate (IB) students, and more on the way, Plant City’s Marshall Middle Magnet School will inevitably grow in prominence.
As reported in a recent Observer article, the IB program allows students to have a more hands-on approach with their lessons and hone-in on specific themes that encourage independence and applying skills outside class.
Marshall Middle is coined as a ‘magnet’ school as it offers this type of curriculum.
“We really emphasize real-world applications in all subject areas,” said Kathy Webb, the Marshall Middle Years Programme coordinator. “We’re incorporating math, we’re incorporating language arts, we’re incorporating history, and we’re incorporating culture.”
The middle school has submitted its application as a candidate for the IB Middle Years Programme, and once accepted, will join over 5,000 IB schools globally.
The Middle Years Programme is for students ranging from ages 11 to 16. Marshall Middle is the first Plant City middle school to enter the program, eventually making it an official IB World School.
Also, it will be a convenience in cutting down the commute time for other IB students.
Plant City’s Lincoln Elementary Magnet School is a full-fledged IB World School. However, for its IB students who graduate and want to continue in the program, they would have to travel to a Tampa middle school for those services.
Although it is in candidacy phase, Marshall Middle can accept those students – a geographical advantage.
Last school year, sixth-graders were enrolled in the IB program, then seventh-graders this year and next year eighth-graders.
After middle school, those IB students can then transition over to Strawberry Crest High School, which has been in the program since 2011.
William Silda said he didn’t know the program existed until he began attending Marshall Middle.
There’s a variety of courses for him to choose that can help prepare him for college, said the sixth-grader.
It is required for IB sixth-graders to take a French course for one semester, and a Spanish course for the other.
For Mickyla Patrick, the program is not only teaching her to speak French, but is exposing her to French culture on a whole.
It also has helped her learn more about herself as a person.
“I enjoy exploring new things,” she said. “I like exploring myself – parts of me. I didn’t know they were there before.”
Patrick and Silda have taken advantage of what is known as a “carousel.” This refers to sixth-grade students who have the opportunity to try different courses such as music, art, culinary arts, AVID, and agriculture.
Marshall Middle has two instructors who teach agricultural courses.
IB students in these courses belong to FFA. This group learns the importance of taking care of natural resources by doing many hands-on lessons outside the classroom. They’ve helped raise animals such as rabbits and chickens, as well as grow strawberries – many of which are used at the Florida Strawberry Festival. In class, they are equipped with a separate lab where they work on projects. In many instances, the teacher encourages the students to come up with their own ideas for assignments and then bring them to fruition.
Alicia Price is one of the agriculture instructors on campus. She grants students the leniency to become independent.
“They do activities that at the end, they can incorporate some type of leadership skill,” she said.
Some of those activities include doing speed interviews and writing resumes to better prepare the students when they transition into the workforce.
The members also use different venues to advocate for the importance of agriculture.
This includes social media, blogs, videos, photography, power point presentations, articles to submit to publications, and giving speeches in class.
“I’ve gotten a lot better at public speaking – projecting my voice, and all of those things that come along with it,” said Josiah Ellsworth.
He is the vice president of FFA at Marshall Middle and holds occasional meetings with members. The eighth-grader said that in addition to learning leadership skills, he has made more friends through the organization.
They also work cohesively in caring for their community by picking up trash on the roads and collecting goods for Thanksgiving.
And for four consecutive years, they have won the Florida FFA Premier Chapter Award.
Their work also pays off in the long run. They will graduate middle school already having two high school credits under their belt as well as a certificate to go along with any future resumes.
“When they get to high school and they want to apply for a job,” said Price, “they’re going to stand out in the crowd because of the stuff they’ve done in here.”
Another option IB students have is enrolling in Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID).
Founded in 1980, this service instructs teachers to provide a more equal opportunity for education, especially for students who are deemed as underrepresented. It provides kids with resources to help them become honor students as well as prepare for college and the workforce.
“The nice thing about AVID, it goes hand in hand with what we do as an IB school,” said Elisa Humphrey, Marshall Middle AVID coordinator. “So that was like a nice marriage that was already there when we became IB.”
Teaching in the AVID program for over 15 years, she always tries to find ways to meet students where they’re at academically and find common subjects to help build them up.
“It was all about leveling the playing field and taking those kids who were traditionally in the middle and bumping them up,” said Humphrey.
With Marshall Middle adding more IB students, there will be more lives receiving a positive impact.