District Accreditation: The Latest in PK-12 Accreditation
Patricia J. Wentz
University of West Florida
What comes to mind when the term “accreditation” is mentioned in your presence? Some immediate responses are frowns, grimaces, and maybe headaches, depending on your involvement in the latest accreditation team visit. In the world of pk-12 accreditation, life is changing. Over the past ten years, regional accreditation in the southern United States (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools) has evolved from school team visits requiring 15 to 20 visiting team members, months of intense planning and preparation by the school, and a separate room at the school designated as the documents room that contained documentation requiring paper equivalent to several trees.
What’s this idea of district accreditation? “Nearly two decades of school reform discussion and action have virtually ignored the part districts can play in promoting or hindering change. Yet, the political and fiscal accountability of school districts, their composition of many schools, and their reach across communities make them more promising venues than the state or the individual school for equitable, sustainable, and scaleable improvement strategies…(National Task Force on the Future of Urban Districts, 2003, p.1). “District accreditation provides external validation and recognition for improvement efforts for each school in the system. It affirms that the school district and each of its schools provides the high quality of education that the community expects and the education world endorses” (NSSE, 2004, p.3).
One of the benefits of District Accreditation, according to SACS CASI in District Accreditation Handbook (2005), is that “Based on effective schools’ research derived from the work of the National Study of School Evaluation and other regional accrediting bodies with whom SACS CASI is allied … school improvement support by central office and system-wide structures can be more effective than improvement efforts without such support” (p. 2).
Who are those other regional accrediting bodies with whom SACS CASI is allied? Regionally accredited PK-12 schools across the nation are accredited by one of the following: Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools (MSACS), New England Association of Colleges and Schools (NEACS), Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), Northwest Association of Accredited Schools (NAAS), North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCACS), and Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).
The accreditation landscape has changed for accredited schools in 30 states, including Department of Defense Schools, Navaho Nation, and international schools, primarily in Latin America and the Middle East. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement (SACS CASI), the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement (NCACS CASI), and the National Study of School Evaluation (NSSE, the research arm of the organization) have unified to become one: AdvancED. This means that regionally accredited schools from Florida to North Dakota to Arizona are unified in their approach to a research-based method of accrediting schools. With uniform standards and operational procedures across AdvancED, the accreditation process has been carefully developed to contain those critical elements that, when utilized by the school, help to bring improved student performance: meeting standards, continuous improvement, and quality assurance (NSSE, 2004)
In the current world of school accreditation with SACS CASI, demonstration of improved student learning is sought, not documentation of what has happened in the past. While this is happening in the world of the individual school, an additional enhancement is occurring at the school district level, both for public and private school systems: District Accreditation.
District Accreditation requires the same three elements mentioned above that are required by the school. What happens when schools are individually working on these three elements of school improvement within a district that is also working on the same three elements of school improvement from a district level and across the entire district? As gears that are aligned and work together to move school improvement (meaning greater student progress and achievement) for a district, district accreditation is empowered by the energies and focus of each of the individual schools within the district.
School districts come in assorted sizes; however, the district has the legal responsibilities for the schools within it, including the responsibility to meet state and federal standards and guidelines (NCLB, etc.). A major component of all school guidelines is the improvement of student performance. If the individual school is aligned through a careful focus on an effective school improvement model (including vision, profile, plans, and results), meets research-based standards, and demonstrates quality assurance as attested by a Quality Assurance Review team of peers, and if the district models the same focus on quality improvement, meets district standards, and demonstrates quality assurance across the district in all its schools, student performance should be affected in a positive manner.
The process of working toward district accreditation brings together stakeholders to develop or confirm the district’s vision for schools in that district. This is sometimes the first ever opportunity for this to happen. Staff members from schools across the district, from the district central office, and stakeholders from the business sector, parents, students, etc., all collaborate on the vision for the district.
With District Accreditation, a systems approach (NSSE, 2004, p. 21) to district and school management can enhance the use of scarce dollars for education. Schools can work with like schools to utilize precious money and materials. With the curriculum alignment of a systems approach, the wheel does not have to be re-invented by individual schools or teachers; the systematic use of methods and materials can save resources of both teacher time and school money. Schools are “brought into the fold” in the best interests of the students; saving their teachers time from other duties and allowing their teachers more individual time with students; saving materials dollars means that a greater variety of appropriate materials or materials with greater depth can be used.
How does a school district become accredited with the AdvancED accreditation groups of NCA CASI and SACS CASI? The district requests a Readiness Visit that is made by a representative of the accreditation agency meeting with district central office staff (usually including the superintendent), principals, and interested others. At this meeting the rationale and process of district accreditation are explained and the duties of designated individuals in the district are covered. Based on information shared at this meeting, the superintendent and staff will decide whether or not to become involved in district accreditation.
If the decision is to move into district accreditation, the superintendent takes the recommendation to the school board. If the school board approves, the superintendent relates that action to the NCA CASI/SACS CASI CEO who then determines if the district can begin participating in district accreditation. At that point, the district has about 15 months to prepare for a Quality Assurance Review (QAR). At that time, also, all individual schools team visits are canceled. The only visits to schools that occur after that point with be visits made by the district QAR team members that visit selected schools for four hours during the district QAR team visit. This relates to the systems approach to district accreditation: the unity of focus across the district on continuous improvement and meeting district standards. Team members would have electronic access to all of the schools’ improvement plans; individual schools do not prepare a self study; they must, however, continue to prepare an annual school improvement plan.
During the entire process, each school continues to meet the school standards (which are different from the district standards) and must work on a continuous process within the district’s district improvement process (back to the synchronization of gears: all the schools’ improvement processes must work in tandem with the district process).
The greatest benefit and goal of district Accreditation is increased student improvement. This improvement is the final outcome of district-wide planning and implementation of across-district, system goals.
A secondary benefit is the curriculum alignment that occurs across the district. People who have not worked together previously now have the opportunity to bring curriculum alignment across all subject matter areas and among all grade levels. Such alignment can be cost saving in that with a focused alignment, materials and equipment may be utilized by more teachers and students.
A third benefit is the cost saving of district accreditation. Whereas in the past, every school had a visiting team of four or five people visit every school every five years, now a team (with the number of members in proportion to the number of schools in the district), will visit the district every five years. A district with 40 schools would have those 40 schools spend approximately $750 to $1000 per team member (travel, lodging, and meals) for four or five team members every five years. That’s $4000 to $5000 x 40 = $160,000 to $200,000 every five years.
With district accreditation, the district has one Quality Assurance Review team visit every five years. A district of 40 schools would probably have a team of 8 members; for the same approximate costs of $750 - $1000 per team member, that would be a total of $6,000 to $8,000. There is also a nominal fee for the regional office to prepare materials for the visit. There is an obvious difference between the individual school accreditation at $160,000 to $200,000 every five years for a district and the district accreditation that would cost under $10,000 for the same sized district.
This cost saving is a serious implication for those considering district accreditation, but it remains in third place behind increased student improvement and improved curriculum alignment. All three of these elements are critical for school management to address.
How quickly is District Accreditation spreading across the southern states? In the 11 states in the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on School Accreditation, the following states have schools districts that are either already district accredited or are in the process of district accreditation: (SACS CASI Meeting Handout, August 2006)
Alabama 25
Florida 30
Georgia 62
Kentucky 15
Louisiana 13
Mississippi 21
North Carolina 44
South Carolina 12
Tennessee 13
Texas 5
Virginia 24
Total 264
To look at an individual state: Florida has 67 public school districts (each county has its own school district; this is different from North Carolina which has 100 counties and 135 school districts). The data now show 49% (33) of districts participating in district accreditation in Florida. Florida also has two nonpublic systems that are involved in the district Accreditation process. Florida has 33 districts participating in district accreditation; that includes 1410 schools (75.8% of the accredited public schools in Florida) are in districts that are participating in district accreditation.
Note that Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and North Carolina are “leading the pack.” Others are not far behind; school boards across the southern states are beginning to realize the benefits of district accreditation and are moving in that direction. Consider Broward (Florida) County School District with 232 schools; Broward has for a number of years been the largest fully accredited school system in the nation with all schools accredited. The leadership of Broward realized the advantages of district accreditation that will result in increased student learning and performance. Broward was approved in February 2005 to participate in the district accreditation process and in November 2006 will have their Quality Assurance Review Team visit the district.
Now, when the term “accreditation” is mentioned in your presence, think of this innovation that is profitable to systems through the improvement of their student performance, their system-wide curricular alignment, and the dollar savings that can be applied elsewhere in the district system. Now, instead of the frowns, grimaces, and headaches, you have proud parents, happy central office and school staff, and satisfied school board members.
Bibliography
National Study of School Evaluation. (2004). Accreditation for Quality School Systems: A Practitioners’ Guide.
Schaumburg, IL: Author.
National Task Force on the Future of Urban Districts. (October, 2002). Executive Overview of Annenberg
Redesign Work. In System-wide Improvement: Focusing on Student Learning (2003). Schaumburg, IL:
National Study of School Evaluation: Schaumburg, IL.
Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement (2004-2006).
Systems in District Accreditation (Handout for Directors’ Meeting, August 11, 2006).
Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement. (2005).
District Accreditation Handbook. Decatur, GA: Author. |
