School Accreditation
What is AdvancED’s
accreditation?
• All schools in Nebraska are required to be accreditated. AdvancED is
the largest accreditation agency, working with schools all across the
world.
• AdvancED brings together more than 100 years of experience and
the expertise of three US-based accreditation agencies — the North
Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School
Improvement (NCA CASI), Northwest Accreditation Commission
(NWAC), and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
Council on Accreditation and School Improvement (SACS CASI).
The AdvancED Accreditation Process, a protocol embraced around
the world, is a clear and comprehensive program of evaluation and
external review, supported by research-based standards, and
dedicated to helping schools, districts and education providers
continuously improve.
What will we find?
• By participating in this process, the review team will tell us we
are doing well.
• These are referred to as our Powerful Practices.
• We will also be given some areas of weaknesses to improve
upon.
• These are our Required Actions. We, as a school, have to respond to
these following our visit.
• This will help provide us with some focus for our school
improvement for the upcoming cycle.
The process
• AdvancED accreditation schools are involved in a 5-year-cycle
working toward school improvement.
• Every 5th year, the school hosts an external visit where a team of
educators rate the school’s processes of school improvement.
• Our role is to:
• Take stock of themselves in relation to a set of research based quality
standards
• Establish a vision, assess their current reality, implement and improvement
plan, monitor progress and evaluate results
• Enhance the school’s best thinking with the insights and perspectives of an
external review team.
• This is year five for our schools. Our external visit is scheduled for
March 19-20. All of our documentation is due 4 week prior to allow
the team time to review our materials.
External Visit
• The external team will be rating us based upon five standards
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Standard 1:
Standard 2:
Standard 3:
Standard 4:
Standard 5:
Purpose and Direction
Governance and Leadership
Teaching and Assessing for Learning
Resources and Support Systems
Using Results for Continuous Improvement
• There are a total of 33 indicators under each standard. Early
Childhood has some more indicators.
• Workbook containing the standards are located at:
http://www.advanc-ed.org/webfm_send/288
Also during the external visit
• The team will be doing interviews with students, staff, and
community members.
• The team will also be conducting 20 minute classroom
observations. These are observations looking for student
engagement/focus. The form they use for their observations is
called the ELEOT. The link for the form is:
http://www.lccschool.org/vimages/shared/vnews/stories/524
8ff8444ac4/ELEOT.pdf
• Looking at the form, which area usually receives the lowest
scores?
School’s responsibilities
We need your help
• The CIP team will be preparing a self-assessment,
improvement plan, executive summary, assurances, and
student performance and stakeholder diagnostic documents.
• There will be surveys of the staff, students, and community
members.
• We also need to gather evidence/documentation to show the
external team that we are meeting the indicators/standards.
AdvancED refers to these as artifacts. The artifacts we need
will have to come from all three buildings, so we need help
from everyone.
Artifacts
• To get an idea of what some sample artifacts are, look at the Self
Assessment Workbook for Schools and at the end of each Standard are
some examples.
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Workbook can be found at: http://www.lccschool.org/vimages/shared/vnews/stories/5248f75c579d9/selfassessment_schools_workbook.pdf
What we are asking of you…
• When the staff surveys come out, please fill it out. If you are a parent
of a student, don’t duplicate the survey
• For today, familiarize yourself with the standards/indicators and
determine if you have any artifacts we can use. If you have them, email
them to me to tell me which standard/indicator they align to, and which
building they apply to (artifacts can apply to more than one
indicator/building).
• Review the school improvement website and look through the artifacts
present (Standards 3-5) to identify which building the current artifacts
apply to. Address:
https://sites.google.com/site/lccschoolimprovement/
• Continually review your practices to see if you have any of these
artifacts.