Public schools in New Mexico are not required to receive or seek national accreditation. However, the Española School District is in the process of being evaluated by teams from AdvancED, a national agency administering educational accreditation.
“Receiving accreditation is our number one academic initiative this year,” Superintendent Danny Trujillo said.
This year, all District elementary schools and the middle school are preparing for a team of three to four evaluators to come to their school and check to see if the school is complying with the AdvancED educational standards.
The agency assures each school meets five educational standards: purpose and direction, governance and leadership, teaching and assessing for learning, resources and support systems and using results for continuous improvement. Each standard has a list of indicators the school must show evidence of meeting. The indicators total 33.
Chimayó and Mountain View Elementary school went through accreditation Jan. 21-24. Director of Education Janet Malcolm said the process was new to her and her staff and thus took a lot of preparatory work.
Malcolm said the team was in the schools for four days, walking in and out of classrooms, offices and computer labs. The team observed classrooms and checked to make sure all data from testing was being properly maintained and monitored.
“They want to know what is happening to students from year to year. If the scores are dropping or gaining, they want to know what is attributed to those drops or gains,” Malcolm said.
At both Chimayó and Mountain View, the evaluation team recommended the schools for accreditation to AdvancED. The full report will be presented to each of the schools 30 days after teams leave.
Like Malcolm, Wilfredo Aguilar also has two school accreditations to worry about: Dixon and Velarde Elementary.
“The evaluation team reported to the staff and myself during the exit meeting that we would be recommended for full accreditation,” Aguilar said.
In Dixon, the process took several days and took up a good amount of the student’s educational time, Aguilar said. The instructional ability and skills of the teaching staff was Dixon’s strongest characteristic.
“It was stressful and took a lot of time away from the kids. Now, we just have to do it one more time at Velarde,” he said.
The AdvancED evaluation team is scheduled to be at Velarde Elementary March 4-5.
Alcalde Elementary Principal Theresa Flores also said the accreditation process is stressful. The first task she and the Alcalde staff concentrated on was compiling 16 four-inch notebooks, which provide verification the staff is meeting all 33 indicators.
After the binders were compiled, Flores went through each one. If something was missing, or an indicator did not have proper proof, she worked with the teacher to add that data.
Those were the binders for the standards, but there were also binders of a survey, which was distributed to students, staff and parents to gauge how well the school is meeting academic standards. Parents were instructed to rate how “the school’s purpose statement focused on student success,” while kindergarten students were asked in smiley-faces if “my teacher wants me to learn.” The more smiley-faces the kindergarten students circled, the higher rating the school received.
The staff is still going through the surveys, but Flores said she was pleasantly surprised to discover that the parents and students rated the school higher than the staff.
The team did recommend the school for accreditation, Flores said.
Sombrillo Elementary hosted the AdvancED evaluation team on Jan. 21-24 and the school also received recommendation for accreditation.
The schedule for when the accreditation team will evaluate the other schools is as follows:
• Española Middle School, Feb. 11-13
• Fairview Elementary, Feb. 11-13
• Española Elementary, Feb. 18-20
• San Juan Elementary, Feb. 18-20
• Velarde Elementary, March 4-5
• Abiquiú Elementary, March 4-6
• Hernandez Elementary, March 4-6
• Los Niños Kindergarten, April 1-3
Trujillo said all the preparation for the accreditation will be used as the framework for the one-, three- and five-year District strategic and continuous improvement plan.