AdvancED Results

***Click here to view the NCA Visitation Results.***

April 22, 2009

Dear Stakeholders of Chadron Public Schools:

Our school buildings hosted an AdvancED school improvement accreditation visit January 25-27, 2009. Accreditation is a voluntary method of quality assurance developed more than 100 years ago by American universities and secondary schools. CHS has been accredited since 1918. Middle School received their accreditation in 1920 and in 1985, the elementary schools. Our elementary schools were two of four other schools (Hastings and Ogallala) in the state to be the first. Most recently, our four rural schools completed a “Readiness” report demonstrating they have the capacity to also be accredited.

Accreditation engages the school community in meeting high quality standards, implementing a continuous improvement process and engaging in quality assurance through internal and external reviews Accredited schools demand rigor, use data to make informed decisions and approach documentation of results with discipline. The seven standards and accompanying indicators tie directly to research that impacts student learning and schools use them as a tool for ongoing self assessment.

When the entire school is aligned and focused on a shared vision for student learning, students win. They benefit from the enhanced focus on student performance and from greater articulation and coordination as they move from one level of schooling to another.

The benefits to our children or students in this community attending an accredited school are:

• Opens the door for our high achievers.
• A distinctive mark of quality recognized internationally, that affords external recognition of the school’s commitment to quality.
• Entrance eligibility for specific universities.
• Greater access to federal loans, scholarships, post secondary education and military programs that require accreditation.
• Worldwide transferability of credits from school to school.
• A connection to the best practices of over 23,000 public and private schools.
• Access to a rich and wide array of resources and tools aimed at enhancing improvement efforts.
• Professional development opportunities such as service on review teams, annual conferences, and state workshops on all aspects of school improvement.
• A framework and support system to help meet and exceed local, state, national and appropriate international requirements.

An example of universities our students have been able to attend and receive scholarships due to this accreditation are: Cal Tech, Tulane, Gonzaga, Villanova, Princeton, Xavier, Creighton, MIT, Master’s at UNMC, as well as, foreign exchange opportunities.
Our staff has worked very hard these last five years and our data reflects those improvement efforts. The following feedback is directly from the external visitation team. 

This unbiased feedback provides our district a direction in which to focus, that will benefit our students, staff and community.

Educationally,
Chadron Public Schools mbm

***Click here to view the NCA Visitation Results.***