Futuro Verde has long prided itself on our student success with graduation exams and we are proud, each year, of our students and their achievements academically. The academic results for any school are very important and we know how much our students’ success in elementary, middle and high school continue to pave the way for their university acceptance and university success. Prospective and current parents alike often consider our exam results to be a sign of the quality of teaching and learning at Futuro Verde. Like it or not, exam results continue to be an important factor in ongoing access to post-secondary opportunity and success.
For years, when we only had the MEP diploma to offer, we would anxiously await our exam results each year and we’re fortunate to proudly share the 100% success trend year after year. Now, with students working toward a new goal with our IB diploma option in conjunction with our MEP Costa Rican diploma and the option for IB certificates as well, we are reconsidering our approach to revealing the details of our students’ results. So, why the reticence to share more and make a bigger deal about student exam results moving forward? We will share with you three main points and some specific details that explain our new policy moving forward.
- Futuro Verde is a mission and vision driven school. Parents continually share with us how much they see and feel our mission and vision day in and day out as they visit and interact with our school and our students. Our mission and vision speak to the preparation of our students to be critical thinkers, to be fully bilingual and environmentally minded and to strive to promote a harmonious world on a local and global scale. Examination results, though important and often sought out as measures and determinants of success, prove wholly inadequate in measuring a child’s true ability in the foundational ways of thinking and of being that we seek to develop in our students.
- Our second main concern with over-emphasizing student exam results relates to a growing trend worldwide to be much more mindful of student well-being. An ever present pressure for perfectionism, irrationally high expectations and overly competitive environments for learning and youth development, as shown by current research, such as that summarized in the following two articles: BBC article on the rise in toxic perfectionism, article on role of parents and teachers regarding student well-being, are leading to a mental health crisis never before seen among our children and young adults. Over emphasis on the part of our school and our community on the exam results of our students leads to a deterioration of our students’ well-being.
- The third, yet primary, reason for our shift in approach to sharing student results speaks to the nuance Futuro Verde now lives of student exam success. Students at Futuro Verde can choose among any number of paths to success, with each bar of success being slightly different, yet nonetheless meaningful, than the other. As only a sample of the many opportunities for success that our diploma students can choose from are: full IB Bilingual diploma and MEP diploma, only IB Bilingual Diploma, only MEP diploma, MEP diploma with IB course certificates, etc. With such a myriad of options, quantifying our student success with only one percentage number is no longer informative in any way. Furthermore, the IB Diploma offers a range of success, from a maximum of 45 points to a minimum of 24 points. Each of our students is unique and their challenges and support systems, as well as individual circumstances during exam time, can vary dramatically. No student should be made to feel that success comes only by receiving both full diplomas at top scores. For many students, hard work and top effort will bring with it a MEP diploma only and this success should be celebrated with the same heartfelt support as that given to our school’s high achieving students, of which there are many.
With these three main points in mind, we share some important specific details to consider:
- Futuro Verde students are developed in a holistic manner, with emphasis placed on their academic development, their commitment to service and their community, their emotional and physical strength and well-being and their ability to face an uncertain future with the thinking and communication skills that will ensure long-term success and adaptability. We focus on this holistic development, not on cramming for exams in order to maximize points received.
- Futuro Verde accepts students into our diploma program with all levels of ability and disability. We are inclusive, not exclusive, because we know that the learning characterized by an IB education is beneficial to all and accessible by all!
- All of our students, prek-12 receive an IB aligned education and all our students are encouraged to attempt the full IB diploma with MEP equivalency. Most schools only allow in a select few students into their IB program in an effort to pad their results as a school. Futuro Verde is committed to IB learning for all and a differentiated path to diploma success at the end of the journey with us.
So, if you are curious about our results as a school, we can share this with you: All graduating Futuro Verde 12th graders from our first graduation years ago and all the way to this year’s students in 2019 have achieved a diploma and the qualifications necessary to be accepted at the university of their choice. Because our class sizes at Futuro Verde are small and our emphasis on student well-being is paramount, we will not share the exact diploma each of our current graduating class has achieved. But, please know and remember:
- we are exceedingly proud of each and every one of our students and their respective success stories! They are hard-working, driven, kind and passionate and we can’t wait to see what they will do and become in the years to come.
- as a school, internally each year, we put substantial effort into looking at all of our exam results, both national and international, on a macro and micro level, in order to understand patterns, see trends, and consider where we can make structural, curricular, and instructional improvements moving forward.
So, this is why we will be shifting how we share student results now and in the future. We hope that in doing so we strike the correct balance between transparency and placing value on the right things- on student well-being, first and foremost, and on a respect for the complete and holistic development of our students and their preparedness for university and for life.
