International School Manila

International School Manila
Veritas et democratia Truth and Democracy
Location
Bonifacio Global City, Taguig
Information
Type	Private International School
Established	1920
Superintendent	David Toze
CEEB Code	705720
Faculty	Elementary School: 104 Middle School: 75 High School: 94 Total: 259
Grades	Preschool-12
Enrollment	1,715
Campus	University Parkway
Campus size	17 acres (0.069 km2)
Color(s)	Green (Primary)      Gold (Secondary)
Athletics conference	Interscholastic Association of Southeast Asian Schools (IASAS)
Mascot	Bearcat
Rivals	Brent International School Faith Academy
Website	www.ismanila.org

International School Manila (abbreviation: ISM) is a private school in Taguig City, Metro Manila, Philippines. It is non-denominational and co-educational, and primarily serves Manila's multinational community. A member of the Interscholastic Association of Southeast Asian Schools, ISM is accredited by the Council of International Schools and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. It is headed by superintendent David Toze.

The school consists of an elementary school (including a two-year preschool and the Early Childhood Learning Center ECLC), a middle school, and a high school. The elementary school is headed by Adam Campbell, the middle school is headed by Simon Gillespie, and the high school is headed by William H.R. Brown.

It was considered to be one of the premier high schools in the Philippines, with past students being accepted to top universities, such as Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, Brown, UC Berkeley, LSE and many others.

History

International School Manila opened in 1920, during the American colonial period, after American and British parents sought the establishment of a school in Manila that would provide for the long-term educational needs of their children and the children of future expatriates. The American School, Inc., chartered on March 4, 1920, was a non-profit, non-stock entity that distinguished itself from other schools geared towards Manila's expatriate community by preparing its students to pursue university studies in their home countries.

The American School changed locations four times between 1920 and 1936, when it constructed a permanent campus on Donada Street in Pasay City. The Japanese occupation of Manila during World War II (1941–1945) disrupted regular schooling. The Japanese army took control over the Donada Street campus, while many expatriates were forcibly interned at the University of Santo Tomas (UST). American School classes were held intermittently amongst the expatriate community at UST and resumed in Donada Street after the war ended.

The American School's rapid growth in the years after the war led its administration to seek out a new location that could accommodate the school's burgeoning student population. Construction began on a new campus on Kalayaan Avenue in Bel-Air Village, Makati City. In 1970, the American School changed its name to the International School to reflect its changing enrollment patterns. Between 1965 and 1994, the percentage of American students at ISM declined from approximately 75% of the student body to just 30%. Meanwhile, the percentage of students from East Asia, South Asia, and the Philippines rose significantly. In the 2006-2007 school year, ISM students were nationals of 60 different countries. Approximately 65% were from the Asia-Pacific region, 25% were North American, and 8% were European.

In September 2000 the school began construction of a 70,000-square-meter campus. ISM moved to its new location on University Parkway, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City at the beginning of the 2002-2003 school year. The Bel-Air campus was subsequently purchased by Century Properties Group, which (as of early 2008) is developing a mixed-use project on the site.

ISM has been recognized and accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges since 1975 and has been accredited by the Council of International Schools since the 1980s. It is also a member of the East Asia Regional Council of Overseas Schools. It has been a participating member of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme since 1975. It is a member of the Interscholastic Association of Southeast Asian Schools (IASAS), along with Jakarta International School, International School Bangkok, International School of Kuala Lumpur, Singapore American School, and Taipei American School.

ISM maintains an international alumni network through its official website, alumni.ismanila.org, where over 3,000 alumni have registered.

Institution

Organization

The School is normally governed by a ten-member Board of Trustees elected for three-year terms by parents.

Admissions and financial aid

The admissions process includes the submission of records from previous schools, recommendation letters, and test results, as well as an interview with a guidance counselor. ISM also awards need-based scholarships each year to a small number of students from local schools entering the eighth grade through its Filipino Scholars Program. Applications for the highly competitive scholarships must be made by mid-April for the school year beginning in August. ISM offers no other scholarships and grants no financial aid to its students.

Academics

ISM Campus

Instruction at ISM is in English, and the school provides an English as a Second Language (ESL) program for students whose English language competency falls below that required for their grade level. The Optimal Learning Center (OLC), meanwhile, provides an integrated model of support services for students with special needs, including high academic talent. The foreign languages program includes courses in Filipino, French, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish.

Unlike most other schools in the Philippines, which hold classes from June to March, ISM's school year runs from early August to early June.

Preschool/ECLC

ISM operates a preschool for three- and four-year-old children. The school's Early Child Learning Center (ECLC) is an integrated approach to learning based on the principles of a child's physical, social, personal, and mental development.

Elementary School

The elementary school at International School Manila is a five-year program (as of school year 2009-10) for children between the ages of five to ten.

Middle School

ISM's middle school comprises four years of preparation for the transition to high school. 5 grade to 8 grade.

High School

ISM's high school curriculum is based on the American college-preparatory model and includes both Advanced Placement (AP) courses and courses leading to the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma. Approximately 80% of the graduating class of 2008 received the IB Diploma. The majority of ISM graduates (98%) proceed to four-year colleges and universities in the United States (64%), the United Kingdom and Western Europe, Australia, Korea, Japan, and the Philippines.

High-achieving students of ISM High School are eligible for induction into the Cum Laude Society, the National Honor Society, the Tri-M Music Honor Society, the Quill and Scroll Society for high school journalists, and the French Honor Society.

Faculty

In the 2008-2009 school year, there were 190 faculty members, 89% of whom were expatriates; the rest of the professional staff were Filipino citizens. Potential teachers are interviewed each year at international school job fairs in Bangkok, as well as cities in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Facilities

ISM operates on a seven-hectare campus in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City capable of providing education for 2,000 students. Facilities include three air-conditioned gymnasiums, one covered gymnasium, six tennis courts, three swimming pools, three playing fields, two canteens, a multi-level media center containing a total of 80,000 print and non-print resources, a 350-seat capacity Little Theater and an 880-seat Fine Arts Theatre. All rooms, including the 200 classrooms, are air-conditioned.

Tuition and fees

Tuition is paid partly in US dollars and partly in Philippine pesos to minimize conversion costs. For the 2010-11 school year, annual tuition rates ranged from US$4,280 + P138,600 (for Pre-School 3) to US$11,760 + P378,000 (for Grades 11-12). The School also charges a one-time matriculation fee of US$3,000, and a facilities upgrade deposit of $5,000 is levied upon enrollment. The latter amount is fully refundable when the student withdraws from the school.

Initiatives

ISM is committed to community outreach through its service learning programs, in which students, faculty, and staff work with community organizations serving groups such as street children and physically and mentally challenged people. The Middle School's Classroom Without Walls (CWW) program (previously known as the Outreach program) and the High School's International Community Actively Responding to the Environment (ICARE) program have sent groups of students, with faculty and staff chaperons, to work with communities around Metro Manila and the Philippines for a week during the school year. The students helped with local projects such as paving basketball courts and painting houses, while learning about local cultures and development initiatives.

In early January 2007, ISM started a Let's Go Green program, mainly operated by the High School, looking to decrease the size of the school's carbon footprint. The effort has involved advertising ways to keep the environment cleaner throughout the school. In addition, the school has taken major steps to reduce electricity and water consumption by replacing four-tube lights with two-tube lights, instating 'no idling' policies for the covered parking lot, installing water meters on the garden hoses, and reducing water pressure in all water outlets in the building. A set of five Green Rules were introduced to the school in March 2007.

Controversies

In June 2000, a five-year legal struggle between the school and its locally hired teachers was resolved by the Philippine Supreme Court when it ruled that ISM could no longer use 'point-of-hire' as a basis of determining salary levels. In effect, the Philippine Supreme Court stated that ISM needed to pay the same salary to locally hired teachers belonging to the International School Alliance of Educators (ISAE) as was paid to expatriate teachers hired abroad. The School complied with the ruling in 2000 and has since reached a settlement with the teachers' union on the related issue of back wages.

In late August 2006, ISM underwent a leadership crisis resulting from conflicts among the Members of the Board of Trustees, particularly on the issues of the newly elected Trustees' relationship with the Superintendent, David Toze, the Board's apparent interference in the school's day-to-day operations, financial management, and curriculum development. The situation came to a head when two Trustees resigned due to these conflicts, and parents, faculty, and staff began to mobilize as ISM Stakeholders called for steps to remove the remaining Trustees and to reconstitute the Board. On 4 September 2006, the remaining Trustees relieved the Superintendent of his command due to his failure to control the mobilizing faculty and had him escorted off campus. The faculty then declared two no-teaching days to protest against the Board's actions. Remaining Board members resigned over the next five days under pressure from parents, faculty, and staff.

On September 18, 2006, an Interim Board of Trustees was elected for the duration of the school year (2006–2007). After they assumed office, an order was issued by the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) to maintain the status quo ante and reinstate David Toze as Superintendent. As one of their first decisions, the Interim Board concluded that they needed "quickly to reestablish ISM’s stability and credibility by resolving the issue" of the Superintendent, and conducted an intensive review of performance-related documents. They concluded that "all of these materials reflected strong support for David’s performance as Superintendent." In a unanimous decision, the Interim Board renewed Toze's contract through School Year 2007-2008.

Notable alumni

Famous and distinguished graduates and non-graduating former students of ISM include:

• Victoria "Vikki" Belo, doctor and Medical Director of the Belo Medical Group
• Stephanie J. Castillo (1967), filmmaker and Emmy Award recipient
• Maria Kristina "KC" Concepcion (2003), professional model and MTV VJ
• Tim Cone (1978), Philippine Basketball Association coach
• Sharon Cuneta (1984), pop singer and movie actress
• Andrea del Rosario, actress and model
• Cielito "Pops" Fernandez (1985), pop singer
• Amanda Griffin, model and television personality
• Maureen Hultman, murder victim
• Bea Lucero (1991), Olympic medal awardee in taekwondo
• Imee Marcos (1973), governor
• Atsushi "Sushi" Matsuura (1986), former member of The Dawn
• Sarah Meier (1998), former MTV VJ
• Steven T. Murray (1948), literary translator from Scandinavian and German
• Robin Nievera, myx VJ
• David Webb Peoples (1952), screenwriter
• Josephine "Jo" Ramos, musical artist
• Alexandra "Lexi" Schulze, model and television personality
• Mark Villar, congressman
• Cris Villonco, filipino performance artist
• Chris Gavino, also known as Manila Killa, professional cool-guy and DJ.

External links

• International School Manila official website
• Bamboo Telegraph (official high school newspaper)
• History of the American/International School Manila
• ISM Stakeholders' website
• Jeepney Gang