The International Baccalaureate dinner dance is an event that focuses on celebrating the students in this rigorous program as well as honoring the seniors who are graduating this year. This year’s dinner dance was held March 2 in the Gallagher Gym.
The goal of this dinner dance is to honor not only the students in the IB program but also their families. “Families can celebrate their students and how hard they are working through their commitment to the IB program,¨ said Franklin High School IB English Teacher Elizabeth James. The IB program is rigorous, but there are times when the students are not as celebrated; that is one reason why this dance exists. “IB students work so hard, and so much of it goes unnoticed and unrewarded… [it] is really important that they are celebrated and that everybody realizes that [it] is not just a curriculum, it’s a family,” said James.
This year’s events, as well as last year’s, were conducted entirely by students for students; even though this can be challenging, they were able to manage all the hard work and made this event possible. “Traditionally, the parent boosters have always planned and executed the event, but unfortunately, our booster [has] only 2 or 3 members right now, so the students had to take it on,¨ said James. ¨They [students] should be very proud of themselves.”
Another of the teachers in charge of this event was FHS IB English Teacher William James. “I think that is a great experience for the kids… [it] requires critical thinking, responsibility, leadership, it requires them to contact community members and… local businesses,” said Mr. James. He thinks this is an excellent opportunity for students to better their skills that could be used later in life as a key to success.
Mr. James hopes for this event to continue for many years since his principal goal, as well as Mrs. James’ goal, is to cement a sense of family in the IB program, since, as they said, the IB program is a family. “Special thanks to Mrs. James in the English department because she’s been the one really to lead the last two junior classes,¨ said Mr. James. ¨I don’t think they could’ve done it without her, and she’s doing a great job in keeping it going.”
This event was organized and led by students; the student in charge and president of the IB club is Ailani Monreal (11). Even though she said it was challenging since she did not have background knowledge about it, she succeeded with her team in doing the IB dinner dance. “It was a bunch of IB students helping me so we all kind of knew what had to be done,” said Monreal.
Monreal takes this as a great experience that teaches her many skills that she will apply to finish her college years successfully. “Leadership skills and… having this experience and going into college is going to help me with planning and sorting out and kind of going into the business pathway,” said Monreal.
Even though this can be seen as a good experience, Monreal also shows her struggles. “I just hope that I would have a little bit more support from the administrators, I would like to do it next year as well,” said Monreal. As a student, I need more help to achieve the goals set by the administrators for this event.
This event was a good experience not only for Monreal but for all of the students involved. “We had a lot of pride in saying that yes, we planned all of this, so it gave us more confidence to be able to say that we can probably be doing it again next year,” said Monreal. They hope that next year will be better, and they hope everyone who attended this event to support the IB program at FHS had fun.