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USD 250 prepares for accreditation visits

Schools throughout the state receive accreditation visits every five years, and Pittsburg is receiving its first since the 2000-01 school year.

"This is big news for us," said Cory Gibson, Lakeside Elementary School principal.

Matthew Wendt, USD 250 assistant superintendent, echoed Gibson's sentiments.

"This is the cumulation of a five-year cycle for all of our schools in the district," he said.

A team visits all the district schools and evaluates them in various areas.

"The team involves specialists in areas such as administration, mathematics, reading, and they accept a presentation of the school 's academic improvements over the past five years," Wendt said.

The team also looks at how the schools did in achieving goals they set during their last evaluation.

"Each school has several goals that they established five years ago and the team would look at how well the school did in reaching those goals."

It will also be a unique time for the students and faculty at Meadowlark Elementary School and Lakeside Elementary School. Since Meadowlark did not open until the 2003-04 school year, it was not evaluated under the last certification. It will be evaluated along with Lakeside during this certification, but both schools will set individual goals for separate evaluations for the next certification visit.

"Their accreditation visit Friday is actually going to be shared and then starting July 1, they will be on their own," Wendt said. "It is unique. The team will look at what both schools have done over the last couple of years and then will be interested in hearing what each school will be interested in as far as goal setting over the next five years."

Wendt said that while the final findings won't be known until the certification team finishes its written report, the district will have a solid idea of how they did at the end of the visit.

"They will give a final report at the end of the day and we will know for the most part how well we did," he said. "They do have a written report that needs to be filed, but they'll have a recommendation for us. They will tell us what their recommendation is going to be to the state department of ed, so yes, we will know at the end of the day Friday what that recommendation for each school will be."

And while the certification can make for a stressful time, Wendt said the district is eagerly anticipating the visit.

"We're looking forward to it. We're very optimistic. Our academic achievement has improved in every school. We feel like we're ready and prepared and this is an exciting time for us. In a way, we hope that is validates what we're doing."

HEAD:Northeast pleased to partner with Crossland

Much like Crossland Construction, the Northeast USD 246 school district is thrilled to be partnering with the company starting next year to provide the Crossland Connections program to its students.

"I think it is the kind of model program that we need to look at for a large number of our high school programs," USD 246 Superintendent Randy Rivers said. "If we could find a business partner that could do that same sort of thing in some of the business areas, that would be terrific."

Rivers said that the program, which offers on-site visits for students from fifth through 12th grade, really helps the students be able to realize how their education applies to real life.

"They're gonna come out and take our kids out to job sites," Rivers said. "They're gonna take them not just to see the things that are being built, not the "Bob the Builder" sort of stuff, but they're gonna be taking them through the office to see that they're are people in the construction industry that use math to estimate the costs of buildings, there are people that use business skills and human resource functions.

"For years we've had those kinds of programs where we teach the vocational skills, but this program also gives the kids even more. It gives them some impetus that if they are taking and want to be say somebody that works in the construction industry, well maybe now they're gonna take some accounting classes, because if they want to have their own small business, they need to understand that, and those sorts of things."

Rivers said he hopes that educators in his district and throughout the state can use this as an example for other programs.

"Crossland, what they're doing with that, is just a tremendous model for other businesses to really become partners and help us with high school reform," he said. "That's a big thing; we really need to reform high schools because when I was in high school, I felt part of that time was just a waste of my time and effort. That's kind of one of the things that I think hasn't changed and needs to. Many school administrators know that; we're just trying to figure out ways to make it happen."

Rivers said the idea for the program, which is also being used in Frontenac and Girard schools, came from Northeast High School teacher John Jones.

"It came through our high school vocational educational teacher, John Jones. He's a very talented man. He has his own small construction business as well ... but just has a real mind for what we need to do to get kids involved in taking what we're learning in high school and applying it through life.

"John heard about it, brought it to the high school principal's attention and myself, and then we made the contacts and Crossland was excited to have another partner to do that with."

The Morning Sun, (www.morningsun.net) January 12, 2006