CAIS/WASC accreditation training

I spent much of today in a training session for the joint CAIS/WASC self-study that we will be undertaking next year, held at The Trinity School in Menlo Park. Along with around 30 participants from a variety of schools in the Bay Area, I had the opportunity to listen to and learn from Jim McManus, Teal Gallagher, and a variety of other members of the California Association of Independent Schools go over various parts of the process, and give insight and tips they have gathered over the years.

The conversation began with a brief overview of the history of accreditation. I had not known that up until the 1960s, universities and colleges directly accredited independent schools, and that it was during the '60s that resources were pooled to form six regional accrediting bodies across the country. This was followed by a review of the values assumed in accreditation (self-reflection, observations and judgments of professional peers, and an ethic of continuing improvement), the tensions accreditation brings to a school (a feeling of invasion compared to a growth opportunity; balancing the unique mission of a school with the adherence to general professional standards; spending minimal time necessary to complete the task with cultivating depth of thought), and the many benefits accreditation brings to a school, including the generation and analysis of information and moments of truth, professional feedback, the presence of a catalyst for improvement, and the marketing dimensions.

The training continued with a review of the timeline of accreditation tasks; the structures of committees; the structure of the self-study; and the on-site visit by the Visiting Committee. It was interesting to hear the challenges that were named in this section, including a) an under- or over-involved Head (since the Head should not be the Self-Study Coordinator), b) the presence of a rogue community member who is looking for a Supreme Court to reverse a particular decision with which s/he is unhappy, c) team and time management, since the three-day visit goes at breakneck speed (which I can attest to, in my lived experience on a WASC committee last spring), and d) the need to manage a desire to hear what length of term the visiting committee will recommend, on the part of the school.

The training concluded with a reasonable suggestion for a process by which the entire self-study can be generated using only Google Docs, and thereby reducing clerical time and paper consumption; information about the product that the Visiting Committee produces, including a 10-12 page "Documentation and Justification Statement" that defends the committee's recommendation of an accreditation term length to the CAIS Board of Directors; and a Q&A. Advice included how to meld the self-study with strategic planning; providing time for faculty to work on this instead of other things; having the Self-Study Coordinator remain positive and upbeat throughout the process; and best practices for structuring committee chairs.