By: Kathryn Vance
After being thoroughly inspected in seven categories over the span of two days, it has been recommended that NAHS receive full accredidation. For many years, NAHS has been a member of Advanced Education, a group that decides whether or not a school should be accredited for the upcoming five years.
But what does accreditation really mean?
“It determines whether your diploma means anything,” said Principal Mrs. Janet Page. “On college applications and scholarship applications it asks for an ‘accredited high school’ and we are fortunate to be able to be on that list.”
Page explains that the inspectors are teachers from other schools that are members of the AdvancED program. NAHS also has teachers who will inspect other schools and will decide whether or not they should be accredited.
The preparation began at the beginning of the school year for what would come down to just one week. Page said to prepare she instructed the teachers to do one simple thing.
“Teach,” she said. “We have been practicing for the past three-and-a-half semesters doing good teaching on a daily basis. We’re working toward knowing that the way that we’re teaching is the absolute best way for students to learn.”
In addition to doing walk-throughs of classes, the AdvancED representatives also talked to students and parents to make sure that everything was being done correctly.
AdvancED has a specific rubric that they use to analyze schools which is comprised of seven standards and four possible scoring categories. Those are Not Evident, Emerging, Operational, and Highly Functional. AdvancED assumes that schools are Operational as they come into the school, but the goal is to someday be Highly Functional in some or all categories. This year, NAHS did score Operational in all seven categories.
Standard one is Vision and Purpose; the rubric states for the Operational scoring that “the school’s vision is supported by school personnel and external stakeholders.”
The other standards are Governance and Leadership, Teaching and Learning, Documenting and Using Results, Resource and Support Systems, Stakeholder Communication and Relationships, and Commitment to Continuous Improvement.
Page explained that the main difference between Operational and Highly Functional is the word “most.”
“Where we scored Operational it says things like ‘most students’ or ‘some students’,” Page said. “In the Highly Functional category it says that ‘all students’ achieved or ‘all students graduate. We hope to be to that point some day.”
Page said that the main thing that AdvancED said NAHS needs to improve upon is working on what is called the Common Core Standards. As of August 2011, national standards were implemented instead of each state having their own personal standards. Thirty-five days from the inspection date, the school will receive a full report outlining what they really excelled in.
As far as being satisfied with the results, Page compares it to one of Mr. Shannon’s basketball games.
“Until the final horn sounds, you don’t know that you’ve won the game.”
