Novi School District Considers Math Restructuring at High School

The is considering restructuring the high school math department to remove the honors level International Baccalaureate (IB) course, adopt the standard level math IB courses as individual classes and add a regular calculus class.

The Novi Board of Education discussed the proposed change at its meeting Thursday and will vote on whether to go ahead with it at a future spring meeting. The change would then begin in the fall of the 2012-13 school year.

The proposed change is being made to meet the demands and needs of the student body, according to Maggie Laine, the content leader in Advanced Placement (AP) and IB.

The district is now in its second year with the IB program, and Laine said they are working out some of the bumps in the road. 

Right now, the standard level IB math program is a blended class with Honors Pre-calculus and AP Calculus AB, but just 30 percent of the curriculum aligns. The proposed change would separate these classes, so the standard level IB class is on its own.

"The content is not as similar as we thought it would be…so we’re either shortchanging one class, or we’re shortchanging the other,” Laine said.

She said the department wishes to phase out the honors level IB course within the next two years because they have not had enough interest in it to sustain it. 

The proposed addition of calculus course is a one-semester college course that would be given over a full-year to high school students. The curriculum would include algebraic support. Laine said students who wish to continue onto AP classes would be better served by this course because it does a better job preparing them for AP and college.

Laine said Novi is one of the only high schools in the area that does not have a calculus course. 

She also said that more students are now receiving Algebra 1 instruction at an earlier age, allowing for more advanced topics to be taught at the high school level. More students than ever are going on to college and the skill set to be successful in college has changed, she said.

The startup cost for the calculus course is estimated to be $7,903.50 for 60 textbooks, while the cost for the standard level IB courses is $2,872.50 for 30 textbooks. No additional staff training is needed, nor are there any additional costs.