The future accreditation status of Wake County\u2019s high schools remains unknown.<\/p>\n
The board of education did not take action at its work session this week or move to respond to the accreditation organization\u2019s latest communication, which said that it would not limit the scope of its investigation, as the school board had demanded in a letter last week.<\/p>\n
Further, the organization\u2019s president Mark Elgart announced in the letter that unless Wake withdrew its own accreditation, AdvancEd would conduct its review February 17-18, \u201cwith or without the cooperation of individual board members and professional staff.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a public hearing at Millbrook High School last week, majority members indicated that they might be prepared to pull Wake\u2019s accreditation if AdvancEd did not agree to the terms set out in the letter.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot all school districts in North Carolina are accredited,\u201d said pro-neighborhood schools majority member, John Tedesco at Tuesday\u2019s meeting. \u201cCabarrus County isn\u2019t accredited.\u201d He also added that children who come from home schools do not possess a diploma from an accredited high school, but that those children receive \u201chigh college placement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tedesco noted that the interim-superintendent Donna Hargens has assembled a team to identify the effect losing or changing accreditation will have on college admissions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important and necessary we deal with this soon to keep our accreditation in tact,\u201d said minority member Keith Sutton. \u201cWhat else can we do when there aren\u2019t any other opportunities and ballgames in town?\u201d<\/p>\n
Only six organizations have the ability to accredit entire school systems, rather than individual schools, and those accreditors operate regionally. Wake County is currently accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools or SACS, a branch of AdvancEd.<\/p>\n
If worst came to worst, Tedesco said the board would seek accreditation from the State of North Carolina and push the state to raise its standards for accreditation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s never a positive thing for a school to not be accredited,\u201d said Barmak Nassirian, press officer for the Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers. \u201cIn some places it can be the kiss of death, like in highly competitive schools that receive ten applications for every one seat.\u201d<\/p>\n
AdvancEd\u2019s latest letter, in what it has called a \u201cconfrontational\u201d correspondence, said that in the organization\u2019s experience of accrediting more than 27,000 institutions, there has been no other instance of \u201can institution or school system [that] failed to cooperate in the accreditation process.\u201d<\/p>\n
After AdvancEd put the ball back in the board\u2019s court with its prompt response, many thought that the board would take action at its work session Tuesday, but the item was noticeably absent from the board\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n
Tedesco said the investigation isn\u2019t too broad in its examination of the divisive neighborhood schools policy, as many suspect. On the contrary, he said he would \u201cbe happy to talk to AdvancEd about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He believes that AdvancEd is going too far by wanting to review the decision to give parents a choice of a traditional or year-round calendar school, which, Tedesco claims, \u201cthe people elected us to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Majority member Deborah Prickett\u2019s complaint of the AdvancEd investigation is slightly different. She is unclear about AdavancEd wanting to review the school system\u2019s \u201cgovernance.\u201d \u201cWe have lots of kinds of governance. That could be schools or administration or central office, she said.<\/p>\n
Elgart\u2019s recent letter did stipulate a review of the school system\u2019s governing body, but stated, \u201cThe governing body of the high schools in Wake County is the Board of Education.\u201d<\/p>\n
A reason for non-compliance?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cAll we asked for in the letter is two things,\u201d said Tedesco. \u201cA lawyer present during the review- which some of my colleagues feel is an issue of due process- and that they [AdvancEd] keep the investigation relevant.\u201d<\/p>\n Elgart noted that the board is \u201casking for us to deviate from the policies and procedures that guide our work with all other institutions and their school systems.\u201d<\/p>\n Addressing the board\u2019s concerns, he wrote, \u201cThe accreditation process is not a legal process.\u201d The letter continued: \u201cIn order for this process to succeed we will insist that all parties engage in this process freely and openly.\u201d<\/p>\n AdvancEd also specified the terms of its review in the letter, but added that limiting the terms would be impossible because \u201cthe review team has the responsibility to identify, if evident, violations of other AdvancEd standards and policies that may be discovered through [the] review process.\u201d<\/p>\n Tedesco indicated that he\u2019s willing to meet with AdvancEd in February, if the review comes to fruition.<\/p>\n \u201cAs anyone will tell you, I\u2019m open to meet with anybody. Some people love me and some people hate me, but everybody knows where I stand,\u201d said Tedesco.<\/p>\n What it is unclear is whether the board majority will decide to drop the county\u2019s high school accreditation before the scheduled review in February.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s unfair to the students who want to go to college. They didn\u2019t get us into this mess,\u201d Keith Sutton said. \u201cAll nine of us got us into this mess and now we need to shoulder the responsibility of being investigated by SACS.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf your decisions are principled, based on sound research and you feel comfortable with them, then what\u2019s the problem with answering questions about them?\u201d Sutton asked.<\/p>\n He added, \u201cSome of my colleagues feel they don\u2019t have to answer to anyone.\u201d Referring to the board\u2019s closed session discussion on accreditation (the support of which was divided along party lines) Sutton said, \u201cIt\u2019s easier to just walk away and not participate [in public discussion.]\u201d<\/p>\n The closest the board came to giving insight into when Wake County can expect closure on accreditation, was in an exchange between board members well after the public had left the board room, which mostly involved scheduling.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile we\u2019re here I\u2019ve got to ask,\u201d said minority member Kevin Hill, who supports a fast resolution to the situation, \u201cWhen are we going to discuss SACS?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s got to be quick,\u201d said the only majority member up for re-election this year, board chair Ron Margiotta.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The future accreditation status of Wake County\u2019s high schools remains unknown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24024,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,55],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5149"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24024"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}