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As a group representing 600 plus schools, the first job of the NEASC Standards Review Committee for Public Secondary Schools is listening. John Clements, Principal at Nipmuc Regional High School in Massachusetts and Chair of the Committee, explained that the committee has set out to make Accreditation as meaningful and valuable for member schools as possible.
“What we’re emphasizing in the latest revision of the Standards is moving beyond accountability in order to help schools use the Standards as a compass for the path they want to blaze for their schools.”
John Clements, Principal, Nipmuc Regional High School, MA;
Chair, Standards Review Committee
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NEASC regularly reviews and modifies the Standards for Accreditation based on recommendations from a Standards Review Committee of school leaders from across all New England states. Over the past year, NEASC also convened and expanded on the work of multiple advisory committees to establish guiding principles for Accreditation and to update the overall Accreditation protocol in an effort to better meet the needs of member schools.
In conversations with Clements and other members of the Standards Review Committee, three themes emerged:
Building on Guiding Principles
New guiding principles for Accreditation create a common thread of thinking throughout the Standards and protocol that is growth oriented, inquiry-based, focused on problem solving and capacity building, and allows for creativity, differentiation, and emphasis on student learning outcomes.
Scott Leslie, Principal at RHAM High School in Connecticut and member of the Standards Review Committee and the Accreditation working group, said “Coming to consensus on the guiding principles has helped us ask the right questions about how the Standards ensure accredited schools are able to show progress.” He continues, “Guiding principles help to focus attention on the things that are most germane to the continuous improvement process.”
Leading with a Growth Mindset
New guiding principles put the concept of continuous improvement and school growth front and center. Cari Medd, Principal at Poland Regional High School in Maine and member of the Standards Review Committee emphasized that an important part of this work is to find a way to continue to push schools forward while also acknowledging that every high school is in a different place.
“My hope is that the revised process and Standards will do more to honor where schools are in the process of changing and growing and be more responsive to that.”
Cari Medd, Principal, Poland Regional High School, ME;
Member, Standards Review Committee
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Medd added that a valuable piece of continuous improvement is the opportunity to celebrate...to stop and acknowledge the hard decisions that were made and the good things that were accomplished. “We hope the new process will allow us to do a little more of the storytelling about our schools and our next steps,” she said.
Clements echoed this sentiment. “Engaging in peer review and reflection on the Standards provides an opportunity for growth that is really powerful for schools,” he said. “When a school community collaboratively engages in reflection on the Standards, it opens up a lot of doors for school improvement.”
Supporting Schools to Achieve their Goals
Committee members emphasized the impetus to create a protocol and revised Standards that balance what is reasonable to ask schools to do with rigorous benchmarks that reflect what an accredited school would look like.
“We not only want to reflect current research and innovations in education, but also want to best meet the needs of schools that also have to meet a myriad of other requirements at many other levels.”
Scott Leslie, Principal, RHAM High School, CT;
Member, Standards Review Committee
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Clements explained it as being able to look at both form and function together. “The committee is able to look at Accreditation from the perspective of schools, finding ways to streamline their work so that the self-study process and Standards together provide powerful support to the member schools,” he said.
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