School District No. 2 knocks the socks off accreditation team

When superintendent Rick Woodford saw the scores awarded to his school district by the advancED accreditation team, he knew right away the scores were very high. A few phone calls later he learned that his district, Big Horn County School District No. 2, had just been awarded the highest advancED scores ever awarded in the State of Wyoming. It also exceeded the average scores of every district in the advancED accreditation network.AdvancED is a worldwide accreditation organization that accredits public schools throughout the state and beyond and provides resources to help schools meet those scientifically proven standards. The standards are designed to enhance education for students with five major areas of focus.Those standards include: Purpose and direction, governance and leadership, teaching and assessing for learning, resources and support systems and use of results for continuous improvementAdvancED accredits the schools in the district on a five-year cycle. During the process a team of educators and administrators from outside the district visit the schools and analyze and rate how the schools are meeting these standards compared to other schools in the network, which includes schools in 50 states and even some international schools.A special team of experts visited the schools in Lovell Oct. 4 -8. During the visit the team interviewed teachers, administrators, school board trustees and parents and observed teachers and students at work in 54 classroom settings.During a special meeting on Thursday, Oct. 8, team leader George Griffin said, “Everything about this district is higher than average and amazingly outstanding.”He said the team was especially impressed with how involved students appeared to be in their classroom studies, how they were successful but at the same time challenged and how teachers actively engaged with their students.“The teachers collectively are doing a fantastic job in this district,” he said. “We saw students who were actively engaged, not a ritual engagement like we see sometimes.“We also observed students that were respectful, understood the lesson and really used technology while we were there.”One example of technology use that really stood out for Griffin and his team was the use of technology in a PE class, where the teacher had students use their iPads to film each other playing volleyball and played back the recordings to discuss and analyze each other’s techniques.“The way they used the technology was very natural,” he commented. “You just can’t fake this stuff.”Griffin said the team was also impressed with how seriously every individual took the continuous improvement plan for the district very seriously. He said one of the most “noteworthy” actions the team observed in this regard was the fact that the district actually had a written “handbook of continuous improvement.”“I don’t think we’ve seen anything like that before,” said Griffin. “We were impressed that the plan is taken so seriously that it is actually written down and distributed district-wide. The district does a fantastic job of implementing its continuous school improvement plan.”He added that the team observed “a high culture of expectations” and a “vision that included challenge and working hard, allowing students to learn a lot in the process.”Griffin also said the team thought the school board was doing an excellent job of governance and direction.“This is obviously a product of many years of work by many people,” he said.School board chairman Bruce Jolley agreed with that statement, acknowledging longtime board chairwoman Judy Richards as one individual in particular who contributed to that excellent leadership over a period of many years.Griffin said the team learned from parents interviewed that families are engaged and there is good communication. He noted that many said they felt their input was valued.The team suggested a few areas of focus that could take “what’s already great and make it even better.”Those areas include using student and teacher data more effectively and devising a system to assess the district’s curriculum and to evaluate its effectiveness.He concluded by showing the district’s scores, noting that they are “way above average” and “quite possibly the highest scores” he has ever seen.The overall score for the district was 336.99 compared to an average of 278.34. In the teaching and learning area the district scored 318.25 compared to the network average of 268.94. In leadership, the district scored 375.00, compared to the network average of 292.64, and in resource utilization, the district scored 329.17, compared to the network average of 283.86.“These numbers are very high and you should feel very good about it,” he said to an auditorium filled with teachers, administrators, parents and school board trustees. “In the world of advancED this is incredible. We hope you use our report as another piece of data to use in your continuous school improvement plan.”

By Patti Carpenter