News & Media

Laurel Schools gets SACS team approval

LAUREL — A Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ (SACS’) Accreditation Team told officials with the Laurel School District on Wednesday that they were on the right track.

The team of educators from throughout the country included Dr. Linda Brown, Billy Folkes, Lisa White, Dr. Angela Bluitt and George Peternel.

The five-member team have been visiting the Laurel School District this week to determine if the school district meets AdvancED’s — which includes SACS’ — accreditation.

Wednesday the team announced that the school district met the requirements for accreditation.

Brown, who was the leader of the team, said the team — which is referred to as the Quality Assurance-External Review Team — is comprised of professional peers with diverse experience and rich contextual perspective. She said the team assessed and evaluated the district’s effectiveness in meeting the requirements of the agency’s accreditation.

Brown said a five-member team visited the district and talked with school officials and stakeholders in the community.

She said during the three-day on-site Quality Assurance Review (QAR), team members visited six schools and interviewed four school board members, 26 administrators, 36 teachers, 10 support staff, 34 parents, community and business partners and 53 students.

“We interviewed 163 stakeholders and that’s a nice number of people for this district,” she said. “You have a lot of things you can be commended on. ... We are not reporting on individual schools, we are reporting on a system as a whole.”

Brown said SACS is a part of AdvancED, which is the world’s largest education community, serving more than 27,000 public and private schools and districts across the United States and in 69 countries that educate over 15 million students.

Officials said the SACS accreditation process “is a voluntary method of quality assurance developed more than 100 years ago by American universities and secondary schools, and designed primarily to distinguish schools adhering to a set of educational standards.”

Brown commended the school district’s for it’s willingness to go through the review.

She said the accreditation process is also known in terms of its ability to “effectively drive student performance and continuous improvement in education.”

She said the goal for the QAR is to “provide the district and its community with important validation and recognition, along with valuable feedback and direction for improvement.”

According to the team, the Laurel School District received a good report. The agency’s rubrics ranged from not evident, emerging, operational, to highly functional. Based on the agency’s seven standards, the school district received two highly functional ratings and five operational ratings.

Some of the things the team commended the school district for were: providing strong superintendent leadership that builds public support and enthusiasm throughout the district; transforming teaching and learning into a data-driven process for all stakeholders; establishing a highly transparent system of communication and accountability; having a stable, knowledgeable and highly competent school board; and establishing and implementing multiple resources and support services for struggling students.

However, the team did issue the school district some required actions. The things the team suggested that the district look to improve were: review and revise the district vision and purpose, ensuring that all stakeholders have meaningful roles in the decision-making process; and investigate best practices of successful school districts with similar demographics to increase the likelihood of growth.

Dr. Chuck Benigno, superintendent of the Laurel School District, said he was pleased with the team’s report and commended the administrators, school district staff and all those involved in making the district successful.

Miranda Beard, president of the Laurel School Board, said the team’s report is promising.

“It’s encouraging news for our school district,” Beard said. “It’s our goal to move to the next level.”

Brown said the team’s report is just one part of the process. She said the team will submit its report to the agency and the school district should receive a very detailed written report in 30 days.

“The work does not end here,” she said. “Improvement never stops.”

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