Welcome to the 2007-2008 school year

The Honors program at Rancho Buena Vista offers a wide variety of courses for academically motivated students. In addition to our Advanced Placement classes, RBV is fortunate to be an official member of the International Baccalaureate Organization, a prestigious, worldwide program that offers an incredibly rigorous two-year pre-university course of study, leading to examinations, that meets the needs of the highly motivated eleventh and twelfth grade student. At Rancho, students can opt to take single subject AP and IB exams. Yet those students who wish to challenge themselves at the highest level and receive an unparalleled preparation for their college studies may strive for the full IB diploma.

Exciting News:

Our IB students did a wonderful job preparing for and managing our 2nd Annual ONEkind Foundation Walk-A-Thon that took place on November 14th. The event raised money for the Zamar Academy, a non-profit organization working in Chennai, India to provide free education to children from the slums in India. Among the approximately 300 participants, were teams from North County Solutions for Change, Vista High School, and RBV staff and students. One of the core components of the IB program is called CAS, which stands for Creativity, Action, and Service. IB candidates are required to accumulate 150 hours for CAS. The Walk-A-Thon is only one example of the amazing projects that our students are involved in. These projects and our students embody the essence of the CAS component, which encourages students to share their energies and special talents, and helps develop a spirit of open-mindedness, lifelong learning, discovery, and self-reliance.

Other CAS projects include the following:

We have a group planning a “Longhorn Olympics” event on January 9, 2010. With the support of the Special Olympics organization, Rancho Buena Vista High School will be hosting a soccer scrimmage, with the set goal of unifying the student body and students with intellectual disabilities.

IB student Anna Lei founded a non-profit organization, MAD About Cancer. Her organization has been active on our campus raising money and awareness for cancer research.

Our IB students also plan our IB Think Tanks. The goals of the IB Think Tank are to create awareness, encourage community action, and make change. Think Tank sessions are designed to create an engaging learning environment where high school students come together to explore and discuss the important social, economic, and cultural issues facing our world today.

Our 1st Think Tank of 2009/2010 occurred on October 19th and focused on the topic of Poverty at Home and Abroad. We had 158 students in our lecture hall (and quite a few parents) listening to personal stories of homelessness from graduate parents of Solutions for Change, an organization working to solve the problems of homelessness in North County. Board members from this organization shared information about the Solutions for Change model. Following the presentation, students brainstormed ways that they could personally be active in answering the needs of our community. The energy was great, and I was so pleased to see such a diversity of students and to witness their engagement. The board members and graduate parents from Solutions for Change were also quite impressed with the motivation and involvement of our students.

In other news…

On December 3^rd, we honored our AP Scholars with a special cake reception.  These are students who are being recognized for their outstanding academic performance on Advanced Placement exams.  This year we are proud to honor 40 AP Scholars, 20 Scholars with Honor, 18 Scholars with Distinction, and 2 National Scholars.  Congratulations to these students on their achievements!

HONORS STUDY HALL is now open!  Berkeley grads and CSF tutors are available to help students with their honors classes.  The Study Hall is open Monday-Thursday after school from 2:30-5:00pm and on Tuesdays and Thursdays at lunch.  Students can get the help they need or utilize the space for their study groups!

Reminder:

IB Club meets every 2nd and 4th Thursday at lunch in room 351.

I’m looking forward to a wonderful year!

Thank you for your support.

Heather Golly

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