Accreditation
Guiding Principles
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We believe the only form of accountability is performed locally, not by the state.
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Local accountability should be conducted by the locally elected school board under the guidance of the superintendent.
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The focus of a local accountability system should be on a continual movement toward excellence, not an ascribed, pre-set, arbitrary standard. Arbitrary standards result in static performance outcomes and limit students’ potential.
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Community members should be engaged in setting expectations for performance areas.
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A locally developed accountability system should remain flexible to meet the changing needs of students over time.
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The purpose of any accountability system should focus on growth opportunities, not punitive measures.
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An accountability system should communicate the overall effectiveness of a campus to include areas of distinction as well as opportunities for growth.
Assessment Categories
The six categories to be assessed through the accreditation system are:
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Student Learning
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Professional Learning Systems
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Student Involvement
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Community Engagement
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Safety & Well-Being
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Fiscal/Operational Systems
General Information
An organization exists to produce a benefit, value, or usefulness to those outside the organization. This can be a product for customers, profitability to shareholders, or a service for the public. Accountability connects the degree to which the benefit, value, or usefulness did or did not occur to the people, processes and systems that make up an organization.
An Accreditation System is a change engine for excellence. It looks objectively at the degree to which the benefit, value, or usefulness is accomplished, and then generates findings to be acted upon.
This Accreditation System for public schools is: the process of a community determining the benefits, values, and usefulness of an education for its students; an educational leader communicating the degree to which those are or are not being produced, and agreement between both as to necessary improvements.
The Accreditation System is run and owned by the superintendent and a board of trustees. Findings are specific to a campus and when a finding leads to a planned change, the principal and his/her staff are then accountable for that change in a manner that is highly visible to the community. In this way, each school is accountable in a manner appropriate to its students and their needs.
The Evaluation Instrument consists of six categories for review. Campuses will answer key questions and provide specific evidence to answer these questions. The Accreditation Team will do an in-depth analysis of these six categories. Each category will be individually scored and accredited with the possibility of receiving separate distinctions for excellence within each category.
The Accreditation Team consists of two board of trustee members, the superintendent, deputy superintendent (or designee), and the Campus Executive Director of Leadership Development. The Accreditation Team’s mission is the enhancement of educational quality throughout the school and the improvement of the effectiveness of that school by ensuring that they meet values established by our board of trustees, parents and key stakeholders in the community.
The product of accreditation is a public statement of the school’s continuing capacity to provide effective programs and services based on agreed upon requirements. Accreditation is a form of self-regulation, or local accountability, which more accurately depicts the quality of the entire school and can be used as a tool for growth in excellence.
The process of accreditation involves a collective analysis and judgment by the school’s administration, an informed review by the accreditation team, and a reasoned decision by that team for the accreditation of each category.
The final step of the accreditation process is a reflection by the campus team resulting in growth in excellence.