FORT LEE - To better optimize its staff and resources next year, the district plans to merge some of its Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) classes into one course of study.

The combined same-subject classes, to be taught by the same instructor in the same classroom, will free up teachers and space needed elsewhere and give students an opportunity to learn from the college-level curriculums of both programs, said Assistant Superintendent Sharon Amato.

"Many of our students who are in AP or desire taking an AP class also want to take an IB class and they have to make very difficult choices," she said.

Fort Lee High School is the only institution in the county, apart from the Bergen County Academies, to offer the IB diploma program, which awards students an internationally recognized diploma.

Though some of the classes comprising the program are popular in their own right, attracting students outside the IB track, the intensive two-year diploma program has less takers.

Fort Lee graduated 11 students in its first IB class last year; this year's group will consist of seven, said high school principal Priscilla Church.

Church said the school is adamant about accommodating the program despite the low enrollment and high cost to run it.

The district pays a $10,000 annual fee to the International Baccalaureate organization based in Geneva and approximately $1,000 a year per student for testing, which includes a final 15-page thesis, standard exams in every subject and a variety of performance-based evaluations.

"We're committed to this program," said Church. "It's a beautiful program, it really raises the level of rigor and, to me, is a very inspiring course of study in the way it looks at content and makes connections about knowledge."

Still, resources are tight and adjustments have to be made. Classes that overlap in the AP and IB programs, such as English and history, can easily become one since they "basically cover the same material," Amato said.