Primary Thoughts
Neil Mufson, Head of School
Next week I will be away from school through Wednesday chairing an accreditation team for the Association of Independent Maryland & DC Schools. Every ten years independent schools undergo an exceedingly thorough, two-year, inclusive self-study during which time every aspect of a school’s operations is examined – from curriculum and teaching to finance and safety. AIMS’ Commission on Accreditation has created a detailed document that guides schools through this process. It also includes lists of every local and state legal requirement schools are compelled to follow as well as more generative questions that ask the school to consider how it might improve in the future.
When the self-study is complete, a team of educators from a variety of AIMS schools visits the school for 4 days. The team is composed of personnel in different roles from schools of various sizes, locales, and type (boarding, single gender, coed, PK-2, PK-12, etc.) The accreditation team reviews the massive self-study before the visit. It is then the team’s task to determine if the school does what is says it does, if it meets all accreditation standards, and if its practice is congruent with its stated mission. The accreditation team then compiles a report describing its findings in every area of school life and including lists of commendations and recommendations.
Once the school has received the accreditation team’s report which has been reviewed by the Commission on Accreditation, it has one year to create an “Action Plan.” This entails documenting the school’s plans to address every recommendation made by the visiting team. The Action Plan is reviewed by the team chair and then it is presented to the Commission for approval. The school then has 4 years to work on and document its progress on every item in the plan. The school is revisited five years from the time of the initial accreditation reports and is evaluated in its plan implementation. Three years later the school starts the self-study process again.
Over the years, I have served on and chaired numerous accreditation teams for AIMS, and I chaired the Commission for 6 very long years. It is a remarkable and intense professional development experience in that it exposes educators to a variety of settings, ways of doing things, and solutions to common dilemmas.
Primary Day had its 5 year visit last fall while we were still under many of the restrictions of the pandemic. We were lauded for our progress over the past five years under the leadership of Scott Lawrence. We are now finishing up some items from our last Action Plan before we begin a new self-study in about 2 years.
While I will be available to respond to significant issues next week, please contact Sami Eghtesadi, our Director of Teaching & Learning, for items with which you would typically reach out to me.