Barnwell District 45 updated its stakeholders on their accreditation process during a Jan. 30 community meeting.
Stakeholders are members of the community, including students, parents, faculty, staff and other residents in District 45.
The district has been undergoing the process of accreditation through AdvancED in recent months. While it’s optional, District 45 is “going above and beyond” and will reap benefits for going through this internationally recognized accreditation process. It will help the district exceed state requirements and help students who go to college because AdvancED also accredits colleges, said Dr. Terry Pruitt, a deputy superintendent in Spartanburg County who is helping District 45 in the process.
He said the goal of accreditation is to increase student learning and organizational effectiveness, while ensuring all elements in the district work together in pursuit of a shared vision. “The heart and soul of what a school does is in the classroom,” said Pruitt.
The process has been a “community effort,” including getting more than 100 faculty, staff and community members to split up between sessions to discuss seven standards and assess how the district is doing in each one.
Superintendent Roy Sapough said he appreciates his staff and everyone who has been involved in this important process. “We always want to excel,” he said.
In each session, groups discussed and rated the numerous indicators within each standard by choosing from four ratings: not evident, emerging, operational and highly functional. The scores of the indicators were averaged to come up with the overall rating for each standard. All standards received an operational rating.
District staff gave a presentation on each standard to those at the Jan. 30 meeting.
The following is a snapshot of one indicator for each standard:
-Vision and purpose: Margaret Matheny, the district’s director of human resources, said the district rated operational in communicating their vision and purpose to build stakeholder understanding and support.
-Governance and leadership: Barnwell Primary School Principal Leisa Clamp said the district rated highly functional on the indicator dealing with building public support and securing sufficient resources.
-Teaching and learning: Jaci Bearden, the district’s director of instructional technology, said the district rated operational when it came to allocating and protecting instructional time to support student learning.
-Documenting and using results: Barnwell High School Principal Jon Burdge said the district is emerging when it comes to using comparison and trend data from comparable school systems to evaluate student performance and system effectiveness. He said they are working to improve.
-Resources and support systems: Kim Rhoad, the district’s director of special services, said the district is operational when it comes to their physical resources. “We’re doing the best we can with what we’ve got,” she said.
-Stakeholder communication and relationship: Matheny said the district is operational when it comes to fostering collaboration with community stakeholders to support student learning.
-Commitment to continuous school improvement: Matheny said the district is highly functional in ensuring each school’s plan for continuous improvement is aligned with the district’s vision and expectations for student learning.
Pruitt said a quality assurance team of outside people will visit the district April 15-18. The team will look at how the local team rated each standard and then determine their own ratings. They will then announce their findings and recommendations during a special board meeting. Within two months after the visit, the district will know whether they’ve been accredited and if there are any recommendations.
In the meantime, Pruitt told the district’s stakeholders to “please be ambassadors in the community.”
For more information on AdvancED, visit www.advanc-ed.org.