At the start of the 2026-2027 school year, students at BVH will be able to take International Baccalaureate (IB) Physics SL (Standard Level), something they have not had the opportunity to do since 2018. This new development does not mean a new class; instead it is going to be incorporated into the Advanced Placement (AP) Physics 2 and AP Physics C. classes taught by Elan Hiller. Hiller has been teaching at BVH since 2012 and has been teaching physics for 21 years. Multiple concerns have been raised on whether incorporating IB Physics into AP Physics class is fair for both kinds of students who are planning to take different routes during their high school lives.
“[IB Physics] is going to be the same curriculum as AP Physics 2,” Hiller said. “Those students would then prepare for an IB physics exam, and at the same time the other students are going to take the AP Physics 2 exam.”
An exception is the different style of the end-of-year exams for IB and AP. Hiller does not have any notable concerns about the class. Even though both AP and IB Physics are the same level of rigor, Hiller is still planning to slightly change his method when it comes to approaching the IB students. He plans to give IB students proper exposure to the style of IB Physics exam. Hiller is still going to teach the AP Physics class the same since both AP and IB students will learn the same material. What is being added next year is that he will now guide the students into their respective exams.
“They are going to be prepped according to the different exam styles,” Hiller said. “So I want to make sure they have seen those styles and how to accommodate them. You just need to have given them exposure throughout the year.”
Andrea Lopez is a sophomore at BVH who is enrolled in the IB diploma program and is taking IB physics next fall. Since Lopez is in Hiller’s Physics Honors class, she does not have any concerns with the classes being merged; she knows that he will do well in handling both classes. She enjoys having him as her teacher, one of the reasons she decided to continue going down the physics route for her IB diploma. Lopez shared why she thinks Hiller is a good fit to handle both of these classes.
“He is the best choice, mainly because he is my teacher this year and he is fun, but also because he is enthusiastic and excited about what he teaches,” Lopez said.
Students like Lopez have advocated for having an IB Physics class at BVH. IB diploma candidates are required to take six IB tests in order to graduate with the diploma, a program that starts during junior year and ends senior year. Before the re-addition of IB physics, IB students were only allowed to take IB Chemistry and IB ESS (Environmental Systems and Societies). If they did not take Chemistry Honors the previous year, the most common choice was to take IB ESS instead. This caused frustration among students following the IB path because there was no option to continue studying physics. Jared Phelps is the IB diploma coordinator at BVH. He shared his insight as to the benefits of having an IB Physics class.
“One of the benefits is that it gives students more options,” Phelps said. “If a student did Physics Honors, you [used to] have to do environmental systems. You did not really get a choice because you do not have IB Physics as an option.”
Before, when there were only two main options for students to choose from, it stressed out many students–especially sophomores. Phelps explained that he usually talks to students about the IB program during their sophomore year, and if a student took physics they either had to take Chemistry Honors their junior year, then IB Chemistry, or take IB ESS since it has no prerequisite. This later limited students options in their junior and senior year since they would have to take either a zero period or summer classes. Phelps also shared that having an IB Physics class is especially important for students who are planning to be engineers. With many students at BVH wanting to be engineers, they are most likely to take physics rather than chemistry or biology.
“I did feel like there were not enough options since there were mainly two classes to choose from and they were classes that did not feel right for me,” Lopez said. “I am really excited about an IB Physics class because I want to continue in physics while taking the IB diploma.”
The previous IB Physics class was removed in 2018 because students were not requesting to take the course anymore. Another reason was the topics they were going over in the last IB Physics class were completely different from what students were learning in regular physics and Physics Honors. The reason for the re-addition of IB Physics was due to students advocating for the class and Hiller making the connection between AP and IB Physics.–they have a curriculum with very little differences.
“The change happened because people have started to request it again. And I am perfectly willing to [teach it],” Hiller said. “I want to see it back in school.”
Both Phelps and Hiller want IB Physics to stay at the school for the foreseeable future. However, there still might be hope for a full class. Counselors and Phelps will not know if there will be a full class until after spring break or at some point in May. Despite this, Hiller, Phelps and students are overall joyful of the new addition of IB physics at BVH.
“I am excited to see it come back. I am excited to see people want to do it again,” Hiller said.
