On February 5-8, 2012, McCracken County Schools hosted an AdvancED Quality Assurance Review Team that visited the district and a cross section of its schools to evaluate the district’s adherence to the AdvancED accreditation standards and to make a recommendation for district accreditation. AdvancED is the parent organization of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Council on Accreditation and School Improvement.     

The team found that McCracken met the requirements for accreditation and announced that it will be recommending that the system’s status as a fully accredited district be continued. Their recommendation will be reviewed andacted upon by the national AdvancED Accreditation Commission in June, 2012 

The McCracken district accreditation visit also represented a significant milestone in a collaborative project between McCracken County, AdvancED and the Kentucky Department of Education, begun last July, to field test an innovative school and system improvement planning and accreditationprocess using new and more rigorous accreditation standards as well as state-of-the-art technologies to assess stakeholder perceptions and manage the accreditation and improvement planning processes.  

In a separate letter presented to the McCracken County Board and Superintendent on Wednesday, Dr. Mark Elgart, President and CEO of AdvancED, thanked the district for their willingness to help the Kentucky Department of Education and AdvancED implement the new improvement platform that is designed to significantly streamline processes, reduce duplicative efforts, and improve performance. 

In his letter, Elgart stated: “the new process represents rigorous expectations for schools and systems, and the AdvancED Accreditation Protocol involves the use of diagnostic tools to analyze the results of internal assessments including Accreditation Standards, student performance data andstakeholder surveys.  Your experience and insights in piloting this approach will help us ensure that we, too, are continuously improving our accreditation and school improvement support for the more than 30,000 schools and school systems we serve around the world.”

In addition to McCracken, Elizabethtown Independent, and Fayette County also accepted invitations from AdvancED to participate in the pilot process this year.

To earn AdvancED District Accreditation, districts must: 1) meet the AdvancED accreditation standards; 2) implement a continuous process of improvement; and 3) host an external review team once every five years. In two years, the district must report to AdvancED its progress in addressing the team’s recommendations.

In accepting the AdvancED/SACS report and recommendations, Dr. Nancy Waldrop, McCracken County Superintendent expressed appreciation for the work of school and system leaders and the AdvancED Review Team in helping to strengthen the school system’s capacity to improve student performance. “We believe strongly that the AdvancED District Accreditation Process has made us even better,” Waldrop stated.  “Students win when the entire district commits to examining all of its processes and systems to determine what more we can be doing to benefit the students we serve.  I am most pleased that a national team of educators has validated the work of our board and staff as well as many initiatives that are underway in our school system,” she added.