Insights & Information

Academy moves toward accreditation visit in 2016

Triad Baptist Christian Academy students in science lab with teacher

This time next year, Triad Baptist Christian Academy will have some influential visitors on campus — an accreditation team of Christian educators from the Association of Christian Schools International (ASCI) who will assess the school’s overall quality.

Through an agreement with AdvancEd, the secular group which accredits private and secular schools from elementary through college in North Carolina and many other states, the ACSI team will also determine if the Academy meets AdvancEd standards, too.

Since becoming the Academy’s director of education in 2013, getting the school accredited has been a key area of focus for Donna Mannon.

“Several people have asked me in the last few weeks ‘How is accreditation going?’ ” Mannon said. “This is always such a hard question to give a definitive answer to because accreditation work is not linear.

“We do not do step 1, check that off the list, and then move to step 2. There are five standards that are given, and each standard has multiple components that we’re addressing together.”

Those five accreditation standards the Academy must meet are:

Standard 1: The school maintains and communicates a purpose and direction that commit to high expectations for learning as well as shared values and beliefs about teaching and learning.

Standard 2: The school operates under governance and leadership that promote and support student performance and school effectiveness.

Standard 3: The school’s curriculum, instructional design, and assessment practice guide and ensure teacher effectiveness and student learning.

Standard 4: The school has resources and provides services that support its purpose and direction to ensure success for all students.

Standard 5: The school implements a comprehensive assessment system that generates a range of data about student learning and school effectiveness and uses the results to guide continuous improvement.

New parent surveys that go out in a few weeks are the latest step in an ongoing process to meet those standards, Mannon said.

Other parts of the accreditation process currently under way include:

  • Reviewing the Board Policy Manual for the school board.
  • Teachers listing every concept and skill taught and determining the grade level it’s introduced, reviewed, and mastered.
  • Writing a comprehensive job description for every position and ensuring the Academy’s human resources policies meet all state and federal regulations.
Triad Baptist Christian Academy students classroom writing

“We are presently working on the documentation to show who we are and how we accomplish each of these standards so we’ll be ready when the accreditation team visits us in the spring of 2016,” Mannon said.

That visit comes in the run-up to an Academy milestone: the 2017 graduation of its first senior class and completion of its K-12 education.

“It is not the outcome, but the process of accreditation that yields the greatest return on the investment for institutions because the accreditation process itself helps schools focus on continuous improvement,” Mannon said.

“Using a rigorous set of diagnostics, protocols, and research-based standards, the accreditation process is a top-to-bottom look at us — the programs, the cultural context, the community of stakeholders — to determine how well we’re weaving all the parts together to meet the needs of students.”

Mannon said that ACSI’s research comparing the Protestant Christian and Catholic schools it accredits with public, and private nonreligious schools as well as homeschools shows the difference ACSI-accredited programs make in the lives of students.

A few examples of the impact of a Christian versus secular education:

  • Better academic performance.
    On average, ACSI-accredited schools require more rigorous course loads in math, science, English, languages, civics, social studies, art or music, and Bible than all other programs surveyed. These schools also offer: more Advanced Placement courses on average than others; produce a higher percentage of students attending college than the national average (86 percent versus 68 percent); higher scores than the national norm in every grade level on national achievement tests, and SAT scores an average of 44 points higher than public school students.

  • Stronger community service and philanthropy.
    A greater percentage of ACSI-accredited schools: offer mission and social service opportunities in the United States and Canada; have graduates that donate significantly more money to their churches, religious causes, and other charities; have more official ties to student social service organizations; and have graduates that give more of their time to volunteer in their congregations, on mission trips, and on relief and aid trips.

  • Emphasis on spiritual development in addition to academics.
    Triad Baptist Christian Academy students in chapel
    More than two-thirds of administrators in ACSI-accredited schools said their top priorities for students was development of a Christian worldview (69 percent), involvement in evangelism, or a close, personal relationship with God while 80 percent of public school principals said their top priority was student basic literacy. Christian school graduates also are: more likely to pray and read scripture alone or with their spouse and children; more likely to attend religious services; and more likely to respect the authority of church leadership. According to ACSI surveys, its accredited schools have remained the most theologically stable and consistent over the past five years of any group surveyed, and, as a whole, believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and that it does not err in moral, spiritual, and religious matters.

Concluded Mannon, “What accreditation confirms is a program with a strong track record of graduating men and women of faith who will be leaders in their communities, workplaces, homes and churches, and wherever their talents take them in life.”

For more findings from ASCI’s research, visit www.asciglobal.org/about-acsi/why-acsi-schools.

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