Citing a “passion and dedication not seen in many places,” an accreditation team delivered good news to McComb School District officials on Wednesday.
The AdvancEd Quality Assurance Review five-member team gave school officials its preliminary report. They noted that leadership from the superintendent, all the way down the chain of employees, creates “a caring culture that positively impacts educational efforts in classrooms across the district.”
“This is a very cohesive group,” said team leader Dr. Cheryl Allread of South Carolina, who called instructional leadership within the school district “awesome.”
“The team felt strongly about leadership at all levels,” Allread said.
Though Wednesday’s report was preliminary, a full draft of the team’s findings will be presented to the district within 30 days. The draft goes to the AdvancEd global committee for the final assessment.
The team members — three of them from Mississippi, including Dr. Clyde “Bud” Ginn — issued only one required action: to increase the availability of daily updated technology resources that can be used for instruction, especially at the secondary level.
The district holds state accreditation and for the past 65 years its schools have been accredited through the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. That accrediting agency is now under the AdvancEd umbrella.
What’s different in this accrediting process is that the entire district is being assessed, rather than individual schools. The goal is to show how the district works as a cohesive unit.
AdvancEd has four assessment ratings — highly functional, operational, emerging and not evident.
The team assigns one of the four ratings on seven standards for quality: Vision and purpose, governance and leadership, teaching and learning, documenting and using results, resources and support systems, stakeholder communications and relationships, and a commitment to continuous improvement.
Allread said highly functional schools are in the top 5 percent internationally. Those at the operational level are meeting expectations and working beyond that and are not below standards in any way. Emerging schools are “getting there.” Those at the bottom are rated “not evident” and show no improvement. Allread told those gathered — city board members, school board members, principals, district administrators and community members — that the findings of the district “are very, very exceptional ... and beyond expectations.”
In governance and leadership, the district was “highly functional.” The initial rating for all other areas was “operational.”
“It’s rare that a district doesn’t get at least two ‘emerging’ standards,” Allread said. “I’d say, ‘Throw your chest out and be very proud.’ ... This is truly a quality school system, and anybody should be proud to be a part of it.”
The team met with school board members, 22 administrators, 46 teachers, 28 support staff members, 33 parents, community members and businesses and 55 students.
Allread said the district’s vision of success — “to produce students who are empowered to change the world” — is evident throughout the district.
Ginn, a retired vice president at the University of Southern Mississippi, said the team considers test scores, but the leading factor is school improvement. He said the team believes that its requirement for more integrated technology at McComb will bring up test scores.
“Any recommendation made is to improve student learning,” he said.
