In the 2022-23 school year, a good amount of North Atlanta’s beloved teachers took leave. One is Rachel Sturgess, former North Atlanta IB art teacher. Now her class is headed by a permanent substitute, Abbey Wightman who is a new art school graduate. 

Students enjoy having Wightman as a teacher because of her different perspective. Despite her competent and gratuitous description, though, she is new to the IB experience. The Dubs have expressed that Wightman is very contributive in art classes as a whole but there is a noticeable disconnect when it comes to the IB concepts. “Her not being an IB art teacher is out of the norm for sure.” said senior Ellie Dumont.

On top of the normal coursework, many also have other responsibilities that correlate to the IB program. In other major projects like the MYP and Service Learning, students had the backing of their respective teachers. Their management gave students structure to complete projects to their best abilities. Unfortunately, at the start of the year, this fact is untrue for multiple students at North Atlanta. The now-seniors are left without a strong support system to complete their Comparative Study, the IB art required assignment. This is an in-depth project with numerous elements including a written portion and presentation, which makes it a lot different from other art classes. 

Some students have explained that this process of completing the study is very intensive. As many know, the IB projects require extremely detailed and intricate work to complete with passing remarks. Artists say that it can also be difficult to ask Wightman, who does not have an IB degree, questions about the Comparative Study. “Now that we don’t have an IB teacher it does make things hard when it comes to the details, which are very selective and specific,” said senior Kira Watkins.

Typically, the arts don’t have to do a lot of written work, so a lot of the student stress stems from projects like the comparative study. Students have admitted to seeking out other art teachers for guidance, though the two can help only so much, with the large contrast between AP and IB students. Navigating through change can be difficult, and IB art students have a lot of work ahead of them if they hope to overcome this obstacle.