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NEASC committee tours ELHS during accreditation process

Date: 11/7/2014

EAST LONGMEADOW – A committee of about 16 representatives from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) recently performed an in-depth examination of East Longmeadow High School (ELHS) for its accreditation process.

ELHS Principal Gina Flanagan
said NEASC evaluates the school every 10 years in key areas, which includes curriculum, instruction, assessments, as well as school and community resources.

“[The NEASC accreditation] kind of serves for colleges and universities as a benchmark for colleges to say ‘you know, these schools are on the right track and kids coming from these schools, we know that they are being prepared properly,’” Flanagan added.

NEASC evaluators recommended areas for improvement at ELHS, which the school is actively pursuing, she noted.

Areas for improvement include new learning expectations for students revamped to reflect 21st century learning skills, a school wide rubric, and adopting a new mission statement aligned with 21st century learning, Flanagan explained.

“I think anytime that the school gets to take a hard look at how they serve students, I think that’s a good thing,” she added. “The everyday work of educating students is very busy so finding the time to do something as comprehensive as this is often challenging.”

The NEASC committee arrived on Oct. 19 and interviewed teachers, parents, school committee members, administrators, and students during a four-day period, Flanagan stated.

“We heard a lot, in terms of the strengths of ELHS, about the level of rigor and the level of critical thinking in our classrooms, which is really high,” she added. “They were very happy to see that our students are involved in active learning and there’s a lot of use of collaboration in the classroom.”

NEASC will create a formal report detailing the ELHS’ score through strengths and areas for improvement, which would likely be released in February, Flanagan said.

“My guess is that when the final report comes out we’ll rank pretty high,” she added. “They also are very impressed with our commitment to post-secondary [education] plans for our students.”

Flanagan said another goal for ELHS is to create two- and five-year plans to address areas of need for when NEASC representatives come back to preform update evaluations.

“I had one [NEASC] committee member say to me that he’s been eight visits to high schools and we were the best high school that he’d seen,” she added.

Committee members from NEASC also recommended renovating the 54-year-old ELHS facility and updating the school’s technological resources, she explained.

“One of the things that they shared with us is that currently our ninth grade counselor is part-time and so they would like to see that [as a] full-time [position] given the amount of students we have and the importance of the ninth grade year,” Flanagan said.

In the eastern portion of Massachusetts a lot of schools are beginning to question the need for NEASC accreditation, she added.

“We’re starting to see superintendents in some of the schools out east basically saying ‘We’re going to move away from the NEASC process and do our own self assessments and that’s primarily because of the cost that’s involved with the accreditation process,’” Flanagan said.

The costs for accreditation are based on the percentage of student enrollment and district operating expenses, according the NEASC’s website.

A school with more than 50 percent enrollment in grades 7 through 12 with an operating budget of $2 to $5 million costs $3,200 for an accreditation evaluation.

Ludlow is currently looking into the possibility of not going through the NEASC accreditation process, she added.

“I would certainly never want to put our kids in a position where not having accreditation might interfere with our post secondary plans,” Flanagan said. “So, I think we’re kind of taking it all in and watching what other schools are doing right now.”