The WCCS faculty and staff are well-aware that we are coming up on our re-accreditation site visit in early April.  We have been working toward that visit for almost a full year now.  The process began last spring when a handful of teachers and administrators were chosen to take the lead in the digging deep into five “standards” as set by ACSI (Association of Christian Schools International) and AdvancEd.  These standards include:  Purpose and Direction, Governance and Leadership, Teaching and Assessing for Learning, Resources and Support Systems, and Using Results for Continuous Improvement.  Basically, everything that we do at school falls under one of these categories and teams of faculty/staff spent the summer and fall researching, surveying, and gathering documentation regarding different aspects of these standards.  This effort finally culminated in the last few weeks in a final “Self-Assessment” document.  This, along with some other documentation compiled a 72-page document that we sent off to the visiting team last week – what a joy to hit that “submit” button!

Just yesterday, we had a combined all-school faculty/staff meeting to give an update on the re-accreditation process.  I was able to share with them the “big rocks” of this Self-Assessment, as well as the follow-up document, our Continuous School Improvement Plan, where we have addressed the areas of improvement noted from parent/student/staff surveys and our own research.  I will be having follow-up meetings with the faculty and staff next week to discuss our Improvement Plan in more detail.  THEN, I will be setting up general meetings with parents from both campuses to get their input on our plan, particularly with regards to specific priorities.  (Watch for an announcement on these dates soon!)

The last step in the re-accreditation process will be the site visit.  We will have six educators from all over the area coming to WCCS from April 6th through 8th.  While here, they will observe classes, interview lots of folks, dig into our documentation, and even meet with folks from the church.  Their goal is to determine the accuracy of our Self-Assessment, and to then give us areas of commendation as well as recommendations as to ways to get better at what we are doing.  We know that we do some things well and that we have areas where we need to grow.  I really look forward to having folks form the outside confirm this for us – and, hopefully, even find areas for growth that are not on our radar.

I said above that the site visit is the “last step” in the re-accreditation process.  I could also say that it is actually the first step in our next five-year re-accreditation process, as it will set the stage for both our short-term and long-term futures.  In our meeting this week, I told the teachers that my prayer is that we, as a school community, would be TEACHABLE throughout this process.  We need to be “semper reformanda” (always reforming)!  I do hope that you will join me in praying to this end as well.