GWHS IB Diploma Program

George Washington High School IB Program Background

Updated on December 1, 2009

As the oldest IB program in the state, George Washington continues to attract the top students from the Denver Public Schools and from the surrounding suburbs. With 425 current students active in sports, music, drama, yearbook, newspaper and more, the International Baccalaureate students are very important to GW. Graduates from the IB program maintain a 90 percent IB diploma rate and are studying at colleges and universities across the United States and abroad.

GWIB Informational Flier (PDF)

Class of 2008 Statistics (PDF) | Class of 2008 Highlights (PDF)

Class of 2009 College Choices (PDF) | Class of 2008 College Choices (PDF)

GWIB Alumni College Choices - 1988-2007 (PDF)

GWHS IB Curriculum (PDF), September 9, 2008

2008-2009 DPS High School Brochure - GWHS (PDF)

Read about IB in the Fall 2008 issue of the Colorado Parent Education Guide

Read about IB in the February 2008 issue of State Legislatures magazine

"Jeffrey R. Beard, IB’s director general, says the International Baccalaureate Organization’s goal—“to prepare students to assume a meaningful role in today’s global society”— meshes well with Americans’ heightened awareness that they must compete for jobs with people on other continents, and that they need a world-class education to succeed."

 

History of the International Baccalaureate

The idea of an International Baccalaureate was first conceived in the early 1960s by a group of teachers in the International School of Geneva in conjunction with other international and national schools in New York, Copenhagen, Wales, Paris, Frankfurt, Tehran and Montevideo. The founders of the IB were most concerned with the ever-increasing emphasis on education as the mere delivery of information, the fragmentation of knowledge, and the crowding out of aesthetic and creative experience.

In 1965, the International Baccalaureate Office was established in Geneva. An experimental project was launched in 1967 and offered for use in 20 schools in 1970. In 1984, Lawrence Corsa, the Principal of George Washington High School, applied to the International Office and was granted permission to offer the program. In 1985, GW became the first high school in Colorado to offer the IB program. Since 1987, thirteen more programs have been established in the state. There are more than 475 IB Diploma programs in North America, and over 1,357 worldwide.

For an excellent overview of the international curriculum, visit www.ibo.org