Recently, we’ve been working to help our community, both current and future, to better understand our academic offerings in the High School at Lincoln School Costa Rica. This might seem a simple thing to do, but the truth is our programs are quite complicated. This is because we offer three separate diplomas (accredited by three outside educational institutions) across three separate matriculation pathways (not the same thing). The result is a program that offers an incredible amount of opportunity and choice to our students, but also one that takes more than a cursory glance to understand and take advantage of.
Our Diploma Offerings:
Our Matriculation Pathways:
The variety of these programs have immediate implications when students join the high school in 9th grade. We run the MYP program, with additional mandatory and elective courses aligned with our strategic initiatives around entrepreneurial education and our emphasis on college and career readiness for all Lincoln graduates. Our 9th and 10th grade academic programs look like this:
One of the courses listed, College and Career Readiness, does just that. We use this course to help students get to know themselves, their likes and strengths, and how these attributes should be taken into account during the course selection process. This is just one of several steps students go through in selecting their programs of study and specific courses for 11th and 12th grade:
Our IB Diploma Program is both broad and deep. Lincoln School offers more than 20 distinct IBDP courses, most at both the high and standard level. This is by far the most broadest program in our region, and we are able to use these opportunities to help students prepare themselves for whichever college major they ultimately decide to pursue.
Of course, many students and their parents still wonder if the IBDP is right for them. While this is an individual choice (we offer entry into the IBDP to all Lincoln students) we do our best to counsel each student (and their parents) based on their particular needs. Some of the more general benefits to pursuing the IBDP include:
For students not choosing the IBDP, Lincoln offers the Entrepreneurial Academy. The Entrepreneurial Academy is not its own diploma, but it is a matriculation pathway that allows students to select courses directly related to their college and career plans, take distinct Lincoln courses in entrepreneurship, and enroll in asynchronous, online courses from Arizona State University that result in the student earning college credit. Benefits and requirements of this program include:
Lincoln School is truly focused on preparing students for life. We value academics, the arts, athletics, entrepreneurship, and service…each in their own right. We see students as people, and seek to be a community in which students and all stakeholders can show up as their whole, authentic selves. That said, we are also a college preparatory school. 100% of our students seek college admission and earn it, and it is important to us that our academic programs are grounded in the rigor necessary to provide students with skills they’ll need to be successful once they get there. For these reasons, each of our graduation pathways prepare students for college success.
The slides embedded above are a selection of those used to guide Town Halls held earlier this semester with our high school parent community, and they were sent (along with others) to high school families as well. Our hope is to meet our families where they’re at so that they can talk with their students and make the best, informed, decisions for themselves. This is just part of the work we are doing each day at Lincoln School to provide our students and their families with the very best educational opportunities available!
Garrenteed Learning 