In the spring of 2009, a Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) committee will arrive at Prentice to evaluate its school-wide program. The committee will review the school’s report; interview staff members, parents, board members, and students; visit classrooms; and look at our internal structure to determine if Prentice should receive accreditation for one year, three years, six years or not all. Six years ago, the committee awarded Prentice, for the second time, the maximum accreditation of six years. This fall, Prentice began the first step in the continuing WASC accreditation process, a “Focus on Learning Self Study.” It gives the school community the opportunity to reflect, review, and revise the school’s site plan. The school has the opportunity to determine its educational program’s strengths and weaknesses for successful student learning. The school then takes those findings and writes a report containing five chapters, including demographics, student learning goals, progress report, self-study findings, and school-wide action plans.

 

Why accreditation? The word originally meant trustworthiness in middle French and Old Italian. Today, the Accreditation Commission for Schools has developed a dual process, the expectation that schools must be worthy of the trust placed in them to provide learning opportunities for their students and the important component of self-improvement. Ultimately, WASC strives to help elementary, secondary, adult, postsecondary, and supplementary programs create the highest quality learning experience they envision for all students. For Prentice, accreditation validates the school’s program, fosters improvement, provides feedback from the perspective of qualified outsiders, and commits the school to continued assessment and improvement of its program. Accreditation also enables Prentice to focus on its mission and learning goals on a daily basis.

 

Currently, the school’s leadership team has attended the first of three preparation workshops provided by WASC. Focus groups, composed of staff members and parents, will be established within the next few weeks, while home groups, comprised of all teaching faculty, will be determined a short time after that. Both groups will meet throughout the winter and spring to establish the school’s learning goals, called “expected school-wide learning results” (ESLRS), gather evidence, and begin drafting the first three chapters---demographics, student learning goals (ESLRS), and progress of recommendations made from our last accreditation report in 2002.

 

By the fall of 2008, Prentice will address criteria and draft chapter 4, our self-study findings. In the winter of 2008 – 2009, the school will draft its action plans, chapter 5, as well as complete the final version of the self-study. Prentice will then submit the final report to WASC via CDROM. Keep in mind, this is a collaboration of the school community, comprised of staff, parents and board members.

 

Over the next year, Prentice will navigate through this extensive process to develop specific plans that include the strengths of its current program with the roadmap for improvement that will enable students to continue to unleash their potential as they travel on the road to success. What a positive, all-encompassing opportunity for The Prentice School community!