The Academy’s founding body - the International Baccalaureate Organization- was formally chartered in 1968. Its advent, however, dates all the way back to the mid-1920s, when a number of international schools took steps to establish a “common curriculum and university entry credential for geographically mobile students” while furnishing the “shared academic experience emphasizing critical thinking and exposure to a variety of points of view [that] would encourage intercultural understanding and acceptance of others by young people." They succeeded.

With grants from the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Twentieth Century Fund, and the Ford Foundation, the IBO organized under Swiss civil code and launched what has now become a worldwide educational enterprise, comprising more than 1,000 authorized schools in over 100 different countries; all of which are non-profit in status, all of which are governed by IB principles and methodologies, and all of which receive curriculum guidelines, instructional support, and faculty training from the organization.

The IB program was implemented within East Hartford High School in the fall of 1999 under the guidance of Michael Abelon, among others. Opening the school was a long-time dream of his, and he served as the first principal of the CIBA before his passing in 2005. He is remembered everyday and missed beyond words.

www.cibanet.org