Bill Pope can't find a better word for his feelings than "disappointment."
Dr. Pope, who retired in 2003 as superintendent of the Upper St. Clair schools after 35 years in education, recalls the time and effort he put into researching, recommending and instituting the International Baccalaureate program in the district. He is now watching it slip away.
"If I was back there, I would probably be jumping in front of every car that came along," he said.
And he worries what program will be cut next.
"It's going to be part of a more serious process than just IB," he said. "I don't know where the board's going with this."
The Upper St. Clair school board voted 5-4 last month to get rid of IB, which offered classes in all grades.
William M. Sulkowski, Mark G. Trombetta, David E. Bluey, Carol B. Coliane and Daniel Iracki voted to eliminate the program. Barbara L. Bolas, Glenn G. Groninger, Jeffrey W. Joyce and Angela B. Petersen voted to keep it.
International Baccalaureate classes are coordinated by the International Baccalaureate Organization, based in Switzerland, and have three levels: The Primary Years Programme, for pupils age 3 to 12, The Middle Years Programme, for those 11 to 16 and The Diploma Programme, for those 16 to 19.
Schenley High School and Vincentian Academy-Duquesne University offer The Diploma Programme. Quaker Valley offers The Middle Years Programme.
Upper St. Clair offers all three programs, which is unusual. About 650 students in the district, which has an enrollment of 4,100, take the classes. In Pennsylvania, 17 school districts offer at least a portion of IB programs.
Board members who favored cutting the program cited its cost, about $85,000, as the reason for the change. Some have said the program, which emphasizes global study, goes against "Judeo-Christian values" and is Marxist.
In a recent essay on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial page, Dr. Sulkowski, Dr. Trombetta and Dr. Iracki said the program "is not a popular or widely accepted educational program."
Additionally, they said, the real cost of the program is closer to $200,000 if items such as teacher training and transportation are calculated.
School board member Ms. Petersen, who wanted to save IB, said she is honoring the solicitor's request that board members not talk to the media because of threatened litigation over the issue.
Students in The Diploma Programme will be permitted to finish their studies through next year, but all others will be done at the end of this school year, Assistant Superintendent Terrence Kushner said.
A group of parents hope to reinstitute the program and has threatened a lawsuit as a last resort, spokeswoman Lauren Trocano said. The parent group, originally known as USC People Are Watching our Schools, is in the process of changing its name to USC We're About Value and Excellence for our Schools.
The name better reflects the group's goals and doesn't evoke images of other types of charities, Mrs. Trocano said.
She said the parents group, which has more than 300 volunteers, had three goals.
First, it wants to reinstitute IB.
"How we're going to do that, we haven't figured out," she said.
Second, the group wants to make sure the board follows "good governance," she said. For example, the group will monitor the board to assure it is following its own policies.
And third, the group wants to get more people involved in elections, Five school board seats, the majority, will be up next year. Of those, four voted to save the program.
The group has consulted with four law firms and the American Civil Liberties Union and a lawsuit was expected this week.
"We're in it for the long haul," Mrs. Trocano said. "We're hopeful, but we're no less angry than we were."
Mrs. Trocano, a 1984 graduate of Upper St. Clair High School, has two children in the district, a third-grader in the IB program and a fifth-grader who is not enrolled in IB. Her husband, Jim, graduated from Upper St. Clair in 1983.
Dr. Pope recalled the atmosphere in 1998, when he recommended IB and it was added to the curriculum.
"It was originated because people were being transferred from one part of the world to another, executives, primarily," he said. What attracted the district was IB's dedication to keeping the curriculum sequential no matter where students went in the world. A student who moved into one IB district from another would not find a gap in learning.
He said real estate executives were recommending Upper St. Clair to folks who were transferring to the area.
"People felt more comfortable coming to Upper St. Clair," he said.
The district started with The Diploma Programme for grades 11 and 12 in 1998. It received its authorization from the International Baccalaureate Organization in 2000, followed by The Middle Years Programme, which received authorization in 2002, and The Primary Years Programme in 2003, Dr. Kushner said.
Dr. Pope recalls no arguments among board members when the program was instituted, nor did he remember any problems with IB's morals or ethics.
He doesn't buy the current board's argument that the program is being cut for financial reasons because it is a small part of the district's annual $50 million budget, he said.
He is worried that the elementary foreign language program will be next in line to be cut.
"I think people have to realize this is a school district that is not going to attract the kind of people we are now," he said.
Correction/Clarification: (Published Mar. 10, 2006) The recently eliminated International Baccalaureate program in the Upper St. Clair School District started in 1998. A headline originally published with this article on March 9, 2006 gave the wrong year for the start.
First Published: March 9, 2006, 5:00 a.m.
