The North Judson-San Pierre School Corporation continues to work toward AdvancED accreditation, and Superintendent Lynn Johnson explained the school board recently heard an update on the progress. Johnson explained that at every board meeting, she presents one of the five standards for AdvancED accreditation; this time, she presented the Teaching and Assessing standard.
According to the AdvancED website, the Standards for Quality mark an evolution in continuous improvement and accreditation, and they also emphasize teaching and learning and address students’ ability to successfully develop learning, thinking, and life skills as critical elements of student achievement. The next standard to be presented, Johnson explained, will be the standards for Resources and Support Systems, then Using Results for Continuous Improvement. She said the corporation is at least halfway through the accreditation process, and in November this year, she said the corporation will undergo their site visit. Johnson said this will be a three-day, full site visit by representatives of AdvancED to validate the schools’ efforts. Johnson said the accreditation will help the corporation to improve as a whole, rather than each school individually.
“It really aligns us,” she said. “It has made the conversation shift from separate schools to one entity. We developed our mission statement – our core values and beliefs – as a corporation instead of just individual schools. The most important thing is the alignment of K-12. When a student enters in kindergarten, we can say by the time they leave us in high school, this is where they will be.”
Johnson said the corporation has been working on this process for more than a year, and she said the schools will greatly benefit from the accreditation.
