By: Michael Wang <[email protected]>

Carmel Clay Schools is hoping to acquire district accreditation from AdvancED, which is an organization that reviews and verifies the quality of instruction in schools in over 30 states and 65 countries.

Dr. Jeff Swensson, assistant superintendent of curriculum, instruction and assessment said, “District accreditation is really assuring that the school district, K through 12, all the schools do three things – that we are engaged in and seeking systemic improvement, systematic improvement and the third type of improvement is sustainable improvement.”

According to Swensson, systemic improvement is really about aligning the curriculum from K through 12, systematic improvement is all about whether successful practices are repeatable and predictable and sustainable improvement is whether Carmel Clay Schools are trying to improve continuously.

“When you get involved with district accreditation, you have to work on all seven standards, again to seek the three basic improvements: systemic, systematic and sustainable,” Swensson said.

“Each one (of the seven standards) has a different number of indicators (which) are really sub-portions that are under each of the seven umbrellas.”
The seven standards, according to Advanc-ed.org, are Vision and Purpose, Governance and Leadership, Teaching and Learning, Documenting and Using Results, Resources and Support Systems, Stakeholder Communications and Relationships and Commitment to Continuous Improvement. The number of indicators under each of the seven standards range from five to 11.

The district as a whole is seeking district accreditation from AdvancED. The North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement (NCA CASI), which previously accredited all the schools within the district individually, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement (SACS CASI) and the National Study of School Evaluation (NSSE) have come together to form one unified organization known as AdvancED.

Ronda Eshleman, CHS co-chair of this process and Assistant Principal, said district accreditation from AdvancED is necessary because in the past, all 14 schools in the district have always done their own school improvement plans. As a result, they have all had different goals. She said, “If we do it as a district, we will all have the same goals. Elementary, middle and high schools will all be working on the same thing so it is a way for pulling our district together and all working toward the same vision and goals.”

Why shouldn’t we accept challenges to make us to better serve the mission of supporting high standards and engaging success for each student?”

Because district accreditation is much more difficult to attain than individual accreditation, the process to achieve the actual certification will last two years. Swensson said, “The process to earn district accreditation is very rigorous so it is going to be about two years before we have our initial Quality Assurance Review (QAR) from a team of educators sent here by AdvancED.”

In addition to the process lasting two years, if AdvancED does in fact grant the certification, it is only effective for five years. Eshleman said, “That is the cycle; it is to continually update to see if we are improving and to see how we can do even better.”

There is a District Accreditation Leadership Team, which according to Eshleman is composed of business people, parents, school board members, teachers and school administrators.

In order to seek an opinion from actual students, Eshleman said students may be asked to be in focus groups, where one gets a group of students together and asks them questions.

Swensson added that because the Senate here is a key vehicle for student expression, he will actually come to one of the Senate meetings and not only share information about district accreditation but also ask the Senate members some questions. He said, “I will be asking the Senate if they would like to name a student representative to participate as a committee member (for the District Accreditation Leadership Team).”

Sophomore Sunny Huang, who is currently part of the Senate, said, “I think it is a long overdue thing that I am glad they are doing now. This accreditation will breach the gap between switching schools and stuff because like when kids come from middle school to high school in the advanced classes, they may think that the school work in high school is such a drastic change compared to middle school so the freshmen aren’t doing as well in high school as they did in middle school. I think that the administrators are noticing that so they are trying to make it an easier transition to help these kids to continue to succeed in high school.”