Portage Northern HS

How Portage Northern High School Uses ManageBac+ to Simplify DP Programme Management

What Public School DP Coordinators Can Learn from One Veteran’s Approach to Managing CAS, Extended Essay and TOK

For IB Diploma Programme coordinators, the greatest challenge is rarely understanding the value of the programme. It is managing the intricate machinery behind it: student deadlines, reflections, supervisor communication, assessment submissions and the many requirements that must move forward together.

At Portage Northern High School in Michigan, veteran IB Diploma Programme Coordinator Rick Searing has spent more than two decades helping students access and succeed in IB. Since adopting ManageBac+ in 2013, the school has used the platform to bring greater structure, visibility and consistency to the DP Core.

Rick’s approach offers an important lesson for other public schools: successful programme management does not require using every feature available. It requires a dependable system that helps coordinators see where students are, identify who needs support and keep essential DP requirements from disappearing into scattered documents and homemade processes.

Building a Public School DP Programme Around Access

Portage Northern and its sister school, Portage Central, were the first two public schools in Michigan to offer the IB Diploma Programme. The district was authorized in 1999 and welcomed its first diploma class in 2000.

Rick began teaching IB History at Portage Northern in 2002. After becoming an IB examiner and taking on greater responsibilities within the programme, he formally became DP coordinator in 2010.

At the time, diploma cohorts were often small, with approximately five or ten students. Rick began examining the barriers that kept more students from seeing themselves as potential IB candidates.

The school has maintained an open-access approach. Students do not need to complete an application or meet special prerequisites to pursue the full diploma. That openness, however, makes programme coordination especially important. Students must understand the pathway early enough to balance graduation requirements, IB subjects and the DP Core.

Over time, Portage Northern’s diploma cohort grew substantially. At the time of the interview, Rick estimated that approximately 42 juniors were preparing to enter their senior DP year.

For Rick, widening access to IB is connected to a belief that its value extends well beyond a particular university or career path.

The Coordinator as the Center of Communication

Growing an IB programme does not make the coordinator’s role simpler. It increases the number of students, teachers, supervisors and deadlines that must remain connected.

Rick describes the DP coordinator as occupying a distinctive position within a public school.

At the same time, the coordinator remains responsible for advocating for students and teachers, responding to questions and keeping the programme moving through its annual cycle.

That cycle includes exam registration in the fall, student recruitment and scheduling during the winter, internal assessments and Extended Essay work in the spring, followed by exam administration, hiring, curriculum updates and teacher training.

Experienced coordinators may carry much of that calendar in their heads. New coordinators need systems that make the year visible before its deadlines begin arriving like a flock of paperwork-shaped pigeons.

Bringing the DP Core Into One Structured System

Portage Northern’s original decision to adopt ManageBac+ was driven largely by the need to make CAS and Extended Essay more manageable.

ManageBac+ provides dedicated workflows for CAS progress, experiences, approvals and reflections, along with tools for Extended Essay proposals, interview notes, deadlines and student files. TOK deadlines, exhibition work and essay support can also be managed within the DP Core on ManageBac+. The wider DP platform includes IBIS exam registration and eCoursework submission tools, allowing schools to bring more of the programme’s administrative work into one environment.

Rick is candid that Portage Northern does not use every available function.

This selective approach makes his experience particularly relevant to established public schools. ManageBac+ does not need to replace every process at once to deliver value. Portage Northern concentrates on the workflows where structure, visibility and consistency make the biggest difference.

Giving Coordinators a Clearer View of Student Progress

One of the most practical benefits for Rick is being able to see what has happened without reconstructing the story from separate conversations, inboxes and documents.

Within pre-built project-based learning templates for Extended Essay and ToK, the coordinator can review communication between students and supervisors. That shared record can provide useful context when accounts differ or a student begins falling behind.

CAS activity in ManageBac+ provides another important signal. Rick can review when a student last logged in, whether reflections are being completed and where progress may have stalled.

These are not merely administrative details. They help him decide where his limited time will have the greatest effect.

Rather than following up with every student equally, coordinators can use those signals to focus on the students and supervisors who need attention.

Creating a Consistent Experience for Students

Before using a dedicated platform, schools may ask students to complete reflections in individual documents, follow manually created templates or submit evidence through several different channels.

That flexibility can quickly become disorder. Each student’s work looks different, information is stored in different places and coordinators must spend time explaining where every component belongs.

Rick values the clarity that ManageBac+ gives students.

In the pre-built project-based learning templates for CAS, students can select relevant outcomes, enter reflections and attach evidence such as photographs, videos or other files. Because everyone follows the same underlying workflow, students still personalize their experiences without inventing a new submission system for each activity.

That consistency also gives students a visual understanding of their progress. They can see which requirements they have addressed and where they need to focus next.

Rick believes this makes the process more intuitive for everyone involved.

Reducing Manual Work Around Reflections and Forms

Before using ManageBac+, Extended Essay and TOK reflections required considerably more manual handling. Students might send reflections in separate documents, which then had to be copied into the correct forms and converted for submission.

ManageBac+ allows students to enter information directly into the appropriate workflow. That information can then populate the required forms, reducing duplicate entry and helping coordinators prepare files for the IB.

The benefit is not automation for its own sake. Every minute saved on copying, formatting and hunting for documents is time that can be redirected toward students, supervisors and teachers.

Using TOK as a Support Structure for the Entire Core

Technology provides visibility, but Rick’s approach also depends on intentionally creating time for students to act on the support they receive.

At Portage Northern, TOK is more than an isolated DP requirement. Because full diploma candidates are together in the course, Rick uses it as a setting where students can receive support with CAS and Extended Essay.

ManageBac+ supports Rick’s TOK coordination by giving him a place to record notes for the exhibition, maintain information that will be needed for moderation and manage student reflection processes.

Together, the class structure and the platform create a useful loop: ManageBac+ helps Rick identify what students need, while TOK provides space to address those needs.

Why Building a DP Management System From Scratch Rarely Makes Sense

For schools still managing CAS, Extended Essay and TOK through a patchwork of documents, spreadsheets and forms, Rick offers a blunt assessment.

A homemade system must account for student reflections, learning outcomes, approvals, supervisor communication, deadlines, evidence, required forms and changing IB expectations. It also has to be understandable to students and sustainable when coordinators or teachers change.

“It’s so much easier to use a platform like yours and have all that already built.”

Rick compares the decision to building a house. A coordinator could act as the general contractor, architect, electrician and plumber, assembling every component independently. For most schools, however, the goal is not to become an expert in building management software.

“I think for the vast majority of people, we just want the house to live in.”

ManageBac+ provides the structure. Schools can then decide how to arrange the rooms, which workflows to adopt and how the platform should support their particular programme.

Lessons for Public School DP Coordinators
Portage Northern’s experience points to several practical principles.

Start with the workflows creating the greatest burden.
A school does not have to transform every process simultaneously. CAS, Extended Essay and TOK can provide a focused and meaningful starting point.

Use visibility to prioritize human support.
Dashboards and activity records matter because they help coordinators identify where a conversation, reminder or intervention is needed.

Create one recognizable process for students.
Consistency reduces confusion without making student work less personal.

Connect technology to the school’s support structures.
Rick pairs the information available in ManageBac+ with dedicated time in TOK to help students make progress.

Avoid rebuilding systems that already exist.
A coordinator’s expertise is better spent supporting the programme than maintaining a web of homemade forms and trackers.

A Reliable Foundation for DP Programme Management

Rick’s story is not about using technology to distance a coordinator from students. It is about removing administrative fog so the coordinator can see students more clearly.

ManageBac+ gives Portage Northern a consistent place to manage important elements of CAS, Extended Essay and TOK, monitor progress and prepare required documentation. Rick then uses that information to decide where his attention is needed most.

For public school DP coordinators balancing limited time, complex requirements and a growing number of students, that may be the platform’s most important contribution: not another layer of administration, but a reliable foundation beneath it.