I’ve had the honor of serving as CAWS’ board president since 2018 and will soon be stepping into the past-president role. Our new president, Rick Barlow, is coming in at an exciting time for CAWS. This year we will expand our PD training offerings. We’ll still be at Granlibakken in Lake Tahoe this June, but we’ll also be offering a training option in San Diego in March. As budgets tighten and funding appropriate PD options becomes more challenging, I’m especially proud that we have been able to bring this additional training opportunity to California’s IB world school community.
Our ability to provide these services only happens with your support. If you’ve been a CAWS member in the past, you know the services we provide and we appreciate your involvement. However, if you’re new to CAWS or just learning about us, I’d like to invite you to an “Introduction to CAWS” roundtable on September 10rd at 4:00PM. We’ll discuss all the services we provide and how we support IB schools across California. The link to this event is provided below and it is appropriate for all of our IB Educators.
We’ve heard our members’ concerns about the growing uncertainty with school funding and have done some work in the past few months meeting with state education staff to broaden their understanding of IB’s four academic programs and how they serve historically marginalized students. During my time as president, California has grown to become the third largest IB region in the world, where close to 80% of our IB schools are Title 1 and often serve large populations of English learners. That is the reality of IB in our state that our legislators need to discover, and we need your help. I’m asking all of our member schools to make the effort to invite their local legislators and state senators to visit their school at some point this year. If you have a big event you’d like to showcase, like the PYP exhibition or the DP collaborative sciences project, invite your state or even federal representatives to see firsthand what IB schools do for their communities. The conversation about IB is starting to happen at the state level, we want to ensure that conversation continues, expands, and turns into legislative action that supports California’s IB world schools.
Finally, I want to thank all of you for the tireless work you do making IB thrive in your school community. It’s been wonderful getting to know so many of you over the years and to discover all the incredible things happening at your IB schools. It’s been one of the highest honors of my professional life to serve as the CAWS president; thanks to all of you for your encouragement and support. I look forward to continuing to serve CAWS as the past-president, and I hope to see you at a CAWS event soon. Here’s to new beginnings.
Warm regards,
Mike
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Michael Winsatt International Baccalaureate Diploma Coordinator, Andrew P. Hill High School Performing Arts Dept. Chair, Andrew P. Hill High School President, California Association of IB World Schools (CAWS)
MICHAEL WINSATT is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Introduction to CAWS
Time: Sep 10, 2025 04:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://esuhsd.zoom.us/j/81346450301?pwd=XfUYBDensScMuJLS1bQOybf09EMS4s.1
Meeting ID: 813 4645 0301
Passcode: 314384