JACKSON TWP — Students in the Seneca Valley School District next year will have the option of enrolling in classes as part of the International Baccalaureate program.

Similar in fashion to advanced placement classes, the International Baccalaureate program offers students the chance to learn in an online classroom with students from across the world.

Each class has about 25 students.

Assistant Superintendent Matt McKinley briefed the school board about the program at a meeting Monday night and said administrators already have allocated enough money for the program in next school year’s preliminary budget to cover a few district students.

These classes will be more rigorous for students and will be weighted differently than standard courses offered at the school, he said.

The International Baccalaureate program, like advanced placement courses, also will offer students a chance to get a leg up on the competition when it comes to applying for college.

McKinley said after the meeting that while he couldn’t offer an exact figure on how much administrators have budgeted, he expects the number of students who will enroll in the program next year to be small.

The cost of the program will come out to about $1,300 per student, he said.

According to McKinley, the new International Baccalaureate program isn’t meant to rival or draw students away from a successful advanced placement program already in place at the school. The AP program has tripled its enrollment in the past four years, he said.

Rather, the new program will just be one more opportunity for students to push themselves in preparation for harder courses coming along in college.

“We want to keep opening up these opportunities for students,” he said.

McKinley added that Seneca Valley only plans to offer five courses next year to students in the International Baccalaureate program. Those classes include Mandarin, business and management, information technology in a global society, philosophy and film.

McKinley said each course will contain components of independent student learning mixed with online instruction from teachers. The program will only be open to juniors and seniors at Seneca Valley.

There won’t be a need to hire any new teachers for the program, McKinley said, because Seneca Valley will contract out with a public school in Michigan that has had the program for years.

Teachers from that public school district will serve as the main instructors for Seneca Valley students enrolled in the classes, although each Seneca student would have a teacher on campus to help them along in the process.

Superintendent Tracy Vitale spoke in support of the program, saying it gives students several new opportunities when it comes to enrolling in classes.

For instance, she said students might have the chance to take classes currently not available within the district. She also spoke highly about the international component of the program, which mixes students from around the world in one online classroom.

Those students will regularly have the chance to video conference with each other over the Internet, Vitale said, while she also praised the program for being “very, very rigorous.”

McKinley said he plans on surveying students in the district to get their thoughts on the program and to solicit input on what kinds of classes they’d like to see offered in the future.

Regardless, he said he’s excited at the prospect of offering students another chance to excel academically.

“It’s a new, different type of rigor,” he said. “It’s a new challenge for our students.”