Students and staff celebrated this year’s International Baccalaureate diploma candidates during the stole ceremony held at 7:30 a.m. on May 1.

“The IB stole represents the hard work put into completing the program,” senior Zayda Osman said. “It’s very important because it signifies that I completed a very difficult program and I can showcase that at graduation.”

The Stole Ceremony represented the IB students who are on the way to finishing IB. Students have CAS, or creativity, activity and service. Additionally, students have also submitted their mandatory extended essay and internal assessments. Parents and guests attending the ceremony received brochures with information about the IB program and a list of diploma candidates. The ceremony began with speeches and remarks to successful IB students who won awards.

“[My favorite part of the event] was taking pictures and celebrating getting the scholarship for $250, because I did not think I was lucky enough to get my name drawn out,” senior Hannah Ly said.

Ly joined the IB Booster Club to be eligible for the scholarship. Some scholarships were worth $500. Students who won the $500 were nominated by teachers for positively representing IB. Additionally, three names were pulled randomly and each student who was nominated received a $250 scholarship.

“I think it’ll help me pay for textbooks, any amount really helps me for funding,” Ly said. “My future college plan is to study Biology and to do dentistry. I feel like [my experiences from] IB will help me with my work ethic and help me write essays and [meet] short deadlines to plan things out over the course of a time. It also helped me relax a bit, because it’s a tight knit community, I think I’m really going to enjoy A&M and the IB network there.”

 Through the rigorous deadlines and extensive writing projects, IB students often find a community. According to the International Baccalaureate, IB pedagogy focuses on teaching students how to learn, rather than focusing solely on what to learn. Teachers support students throughout the learning process.

“Miss Vincer, my Biology teacher, [has helped me along the way],” Osman said. “I’ve known her for two years now, and she’s my Academic Decathlon coach. She taught me how to be confident in speech, but also how to excel academically. She supported me a lot through the program and I’m really grateful.”

After speeches and awards, the ceremony commenced with the presentation of the traditional IB graduation stoles to recognize each student’s tenure and success in the program. Each stole has paws printed on it, this represents the amount of years a student spent at Plano East.

“It meant a lot, because [I’ve been] in the IB program for four years, so I got four paws on my stole, but even those who have been in it for two years have felt really accomplished,” Ly said. “I’m proud of how much I’ve done so far in IB.”