A roundup of news and events at Pacific Beach and Mission Bay-area schools:
The Mission Bay High International Baccalaureate School class of 2011 will have its graduation ceremony on Friday, June 10 at 5 p.m. on the football field at the school. The “Mission Bay High School Institute of Teaching Excellence” is scheduled this summer for teachers, administrators and counselors at the school. Funded by the federal magnet grant that MBHS received in 2010, this professional development program will run through the summer with three two-week sessions. Broken into three strands of workshops, teachers, administrators and counselors will concentrate on technology, IB training and the pedagogy of cultural proficiency. The technology piece will train all staff not only how to use the new equipment, but how to integrate the linked laptops and promethium boards into useful tools for learning. Working in Moodle and using the core syllabus form for unit planning and storing all school work and lessons electronically are among the areas that will be taught during the technology portion of the conference. The second piece of professional development for the staff will be continuing IB training. Next year, MBHS will offer the MYP international baccalaureate program in ninth and tenth grades to bridge the gap between the IB middle years program at PB Middle School and the IB diploma program at MBHS. The teachers will continue training in the MYP, and the content driven diploma program. The last session of training for the staff of MBHS will be a pedagogy piece in cultural proficiency, helping to close the achievement gap by looking through the cultural lens. Next year, the Mission Bay Schools will be the only cluster in San Diego County to offer the prestigious international baccalaureate program all the way through from K-12. On Friday, June 10 at 9 a.m., Pacific Beach Middle International Baccalaureate School will promote more than 200 eighth-grade students to high school. The graduation ceremony will be held on the PB Recreation Center field. More than 70 students will be recognized with an academic distinction medal at the PBMS 2011 promotion ceremony. Pacific Beach Middle School’s sixth, seventh and eighth grade international baccalaureate students documented over 13,200 hours of service to the local and global community. The students with the most service hours documented in each grade will be awarded savings bonds from the Kiwanis Club of Pacific Beach. The eighth-grade volunteer of the year is Jennifer Aguirre Tiempos with 201 hours. The seventh-grade volunteer of the year is Hannah Bloom with 260 hours, and top sixth-grade volunteer is Pauline Hales-Brown. PB Middle IB service activities included working with seniors at Wesley Palms, planting the new PB Middle School garden, designing healthy meals and delivering dinners to the Storefront Teen Shelter, organizing beach cleanups at our adopted beach, planning a food drive, working with Meals on Wheels and other activities. PBMS international baccalaureate students are inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect. The Pacific Beach Middle School “mathletes” competed in Math Field Day at Francis Parker Middle School on May 21. There were 33 middle schools participating from around San Diego County in 12 different events.  Pacific Beach Middle School students earned ribbons or medals in six of the ten events they entered.  Winners include Shilo Clarke (first place, sixth grade, 24), Hannah Bloom and Anika Trout (third place, Win/Lose/Draw), Miguel Acosta and Jacob Cayetano (sixth place, Dynamic Duo), Katia Kappele (seventh place, Math Wits), John Powell (seventh place, Equate), Lauren Tomasi (ninth place, seventh grade, 24). This was another extraordinary showing for the math students of Pacific Beach Middle School.