Starting next year, students at Del Mar High School enrolled in International Baccalaureate (IB) courses will be required to cover their own exam fees after the school announced it would no longer subsidize the costs.
Ever since the COVID-19 outbreak, the Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) has been covering the costs of students’ IB exams. Next year will be the first year since the pandemic during which students are expected to pay for their exams out of pocket.
Ariel Dukellis, Del Mar’s IB Coordinator, says that the pandemic created an opportunity for the district to redirect funds toward supporting students and covering their exam fees.
“There was some specialty funding, not just for IB exams, but for schools in general, that was increased with the pandemic,” says Dukellis, “When schools were online, the district was able to save money because some of the services that they would usually use [weren’t needed during online school].”
According to Dukellis, each IB exam costs $124 per course, approximately $50,000 per year to cover the total costs of every student. Now, Dukellis explains that the extra funding from the pandemic has run out, which is why students have to pay for their own exams.
Exam fees, however, are only one part of the school’s expenses.
Diana Nguyen, the principal at Del Mar, explains that the IB program is more than just the exams themselves, but involves many factors that contribute to its costs, including substitutes and proctors for the exam, mailing fees to get the exams graded, and other associated expenses.
“The [IB] program is successful, and I’m excited,” says Nguyen, “It just ends up getting expensive; the more IB classes we bring, it just ends up costing more.”
Although this new requirement has its downsides, it may also bring some benefits.
After teaching IB courses at Del Mar for nine years, Victoria Braithwaite says she has noticed a pattern ever since the school began covering the costs of exams.
“Because the school has been paying for the last few years, there has been one issue: some students don’t take [the exam] seriously because they haven’t had to pay for it,” says Braithwaite.
“I think students feel that they won’t do very well anyway, and so they just don’t try or show up,” says Braithwaite, “I think some of those students would try harder [without fee waivers] because they know that their parents paid for it, or they paid for it.”
Braithewaite tells students that they should want to challenge themselves through the course and advises them to make clear choices about which IB classes they wish to take, especially now, considering the new additional fees added on to students’ plates.
Despite this, Dukellis doesn’t believe that the IB program’s success will shift, “I think students are still trying to take the most rigorous classes offered,” says Dukellis.
“We are still figuring out exactly what [test fees] will look like,” says Dukellis, “But some kind of default is that students are paying full price. If a student [needs it], then the district would set some reduced fee.”
As of now, Dukellis and the IB parents are coming together to get a head start on fundraising and are now working with Headstart Nursery to sell poinsettias. Be sure to buy your flowers by December 2 to help fund Del Mar’s IB program.
