Up until recently, I was PYP's biggest advocate. I am now starting to have doubts for two reasons:
1. The cost. If someone has information on the total costs, I'd be curious, but I imagine the cost of the two full-time coordinators, the cost of training for staff, and the member fees must be a hefty sum. There hasn't been a budget update for a while, but since the federal stimulus money was a one-time thing, I think we are still faced with the possibility of needing one to two million in cuts for the year after next. To prevent these cuts, and probably yet bigger class sizes, what is there to do? Even if they accomplish closing a school, the savings might be "only" around $500,000 per year by some estimates.
2. The restrictions the program places on how we do things. Basically, as I understand it, kids in a class always need to stay together with all the same kids (and the same teacher, if not needing a specialist). So if you have ability groupings, you can't have a teacher in that grade doing all the kids in that grade of a certain level. Each teacher needs to simultaneously handle all the ability levels in their own classroom. Also, it can tend to remove one tool for managing class size, the flexibility of freely forming a mixed age class one year and possibly dissolving it a succeeding year. Say one year you form a mixed 4th/5th grade. You can't separate out the 4th graders to do a 4th grade unit and the 5th graders to do a 5th grade unit. Therefore, since the 5th graders already did the 4th grade unit, you offer the 5th grade unit to the whole class. After that, if you continue the mixed age class, you could alternate the 4th and 5th grade units every year, but you would be in trouble if you tried to discontinue the class a year after offering the 5th grade unit. What would the 4th graders who move into a regular 5th grade class do? One side-affect of this might be that it becomes tougher to handle the crowded schools that would result from closing a school.
All I would ask is that PYP not be considered a sacred cow and the school district do an impartial cost/benefit analysis of it. The impartial part might be tough, since so many people have so much time and energy invested in it.

Here is a copy of what my wife, Linda Hammersten, posted to the Sun-Sailor, reprinted here with her permission :). We are becoming close in our outlook, although I might allow more for the possibility that I still could be convinced of the program's worth.

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Seth Rowe's article "District will save money for next year" highlights the St. Louis Park Schools' problem with large class sizes. Superintendent Debra Bowers talks about how we are in "tough times when we're looking at class sizes maybe being over 30" and that "options are limited given community opposition to options that have been suggested in the past."

There is one option to resolve these high class sizes that is "off the table" per district administration and school board members: the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (PYP). There are two coordinator positions funded to direct the implementation of the program, positions that if eliminated, could be used to hire teachers and lower class sizes.

PYP sounds like a wonderful program, and I'm sure it is. I just wish we were considering it when times weren't so "tough" that we have class sizes of 32 fourth graders.

The research on the benefits of smaller class sizes for elementary aged students is well established. But St. Louis Park foregoes what is known and makes a gamble with our tax dollars and our children's educations.

PYP severely limits our district's ability to make decisions that fit what our community values. For example, parents at the non-Park Spanish Immersion elementary schools have offered up Spanish instruction as something we would have no problem cutting. Two sessions per week does not add meaningful language learning anyway but the PYP requires it, so it stays. No exceptions allowed. Spanish instruction represents additional teacher positions that could be used to lower class sizes.

PYP requires that the schools follow some dogmatic principles that cause some people concern. The program requires students not change teachers for ability grouping for any subject. How Susan Lindgren fourth grade teachers are going to teach 32 fourth graders with wide ranging abilities in one class session is beyond me.

Two years ago when Susan Lindgren had a similar large class size issue for fourth and fifth grades, one additional teacher was hired to teach a combination fourth and fifth grade classroom. Because of PYP, a mixed grade class is not an option due to the IB units that the fourth graders will already have had.

Why does SLP refuse to consider not implementing PYP in the face of such high costs during these difficult economic times? Why do we have money for this program but no money for so many basic necessities? District administration and school board members say that one of the goals of PYP is to strengthen the school district by attracting students from outside our district. My question is this: What about using methods we know work well and focus on the students who live right here in SLP whose families and neighbors have approved levy after levy for the schools we care about so deeply?
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I had meant to state, since PYP is basically IB for elementary school, and someone was concerned about funding for IB at the high school, that these two subjects are totally independent. If anything, one could argue that PYP draws away funds from other programs, like IB at the high school.

There was one detail that was omitted in my letter to the editor of the Sun Sailor. What was left out is that there is no research or evaluation of the IB Primary Years Programme's impact, results, etc. There is literally NOTHING other than tracking how many schools are using it, what countries they are in, etc. Contrasting that with the research known about smaller class sizes in a time of tight budgets and making a choice to fund a program that has no demonstrated results vs. allocating money to lower student/staff ratios seems like quite a gamble in my opinion.

In terms of opting out of IB PYP... it is a moot point in my opinion at this time. The evaluators are scheduled, and funds are allocated to their airline flights, lodging, meals, etc. What is NEXT in the pipeline is the IB Middle Years Programme. Some preliminary research was done at the junior high and presented to the school board in the spring of 2009. The next marketing strategy to attract students from outside of SLP to SLP schools will be that we have IB available throughout all grades.

My question is "How much are we willing to sacrifice during tight budgetary times when there is NO FAT left to trim on marketing to out of district students?"

Linda Hammersten