Emily Brand
News Editor
By now, the 21st century learning posters have become present in every classroom in the school. These are school wide rubrics that are used for instruction and assessment. From Apr. 8-11, 17 members of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, NEASC, will be visiting our high school to evaluate how the elements of this rubric are being implemented in the classroom, and the overall environment of our school.
What is accreditation?
The accreditation process occurs every 10 years, but NEASC’s visit isn’t just being thought about now. The administration has been planning this visit for almost a year. Principal Dr. Brian Luizzi explained how the early stages of planning were started. “Over the summer, before the faculty came back, we sat and created the committees that everyone would be working on,” Dr. Luizzi said. There are seven committees that members of the faculty were assigned to, with each committee covering a different standard. The steering committee is responsible for seeing the process through, with co-chairs Michelle Luhtala and Mike McAteer at the helm.
According to steering committee co-chair Mr. McAteer, who is also an advisor to the Courant, there are many logistics that went into ensuring that the visitors collectively receive a comprehensive idea of what happens daily in school. “NEASC tells you what you need to do and we figured out how we were going to do those things given what we were responsible for in terms of NEASC and how we work here as a school,” he said. “So that was our job, to find a way to make this process relevant to what New Canaan High School values and what the teachers want students to achieve.”
This time through, the accreditation is focused more on skills students should be equipped with versus what they should know. Prior to the visit, the faculty zeroed in on what the core values of the school are and what the ideal graduate of NCHS should know and be able to do. “One of the things I like about NEASC is that it’s a holistic look at the school, it doesn’t just look at one narrow piece,” Dr. Luizzi said. “There are seven standards that it looks at: core values (beliefs and 21st century learning expectations,) curriculum, instruction, assessment of and for student learning, school culture and leadership, school resources for learning and community resources for learning. But then it also looks at school culture and leadership, school resources for learning and then looks at community resources for learning. It focuses on teaching and learning, but it does account for those other factors that we know are so important in producing the right outcome.”
The Sun.-Wed. schedule
In order to better understand what will happen over these four days, Dr. Luizzi and the administration have created an altered schedule. On Sunday, the NEASC committee will become acquainted with the faculty. On Monday and Tuesday, 17 members of NEASC will divide their time and examine different parts of the school as well as get to know some of the students. On Monday they will shadow students to grasp what a normal day is like. “The shadowing is going to be spread out for all abilities and types of students and interests and things like that,” Dr. Luizzi said. “What we tried to do is make it so that they don’t have two people shadowing in the same classroom at the same time. It will be grades 9-12 and it will be all different groups.” Certain students, generally in leadership positions, will also be chosen to give tours of the building and two student group meetings will be held, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
Students can even expect to see these visitors participating in their classrooms, asking questions, answering questions and staying involved. “On Tuesday what they wind up doing is testing some of the hypotheses they’ve developed and double checking some of their findings,” Dr. Luizzi said. “About a third of them will shadow on Tuesday morning. It sort of goes in waves, two groups touring on Monday and one group on Tuesday.”
By Wednesday the hype over the school’s new visitors will have wound down. Members of NEASC will be voting on their reports, there will be a faculty meeting and then they’ll leave, sending in their final report to Dr. Luizzi over the summer.
What NEASC is looking for
Many students and faculty take pride in NCHS, believing it to be one of the top schools in our area. However, NEASC isn’t necessarily coming to give us a pat on the back. “It’s not to say that you’re the number one school in New England or anything like that,” Dr. Luizzi said. “What it is, is it comes in to look at where every school is and if we are meeting expectations and requirements, that’s a basic level, and then it looks at ways that we can continue to grow and improve. Their goal over the four days that they’re here is to learn as much as they can about our school, about what we do, how we do it, what we’re proud of, what we want to work on and what we’re working to improve already.”
Dr. Luizzi stressed the importance of remembering that the people who are coming are on a volunteer basis and are going to do their best to help us. He sees the experience as a positive thing.
What the future will hold for NCHS
The accreditation process won’t end once these visitors leave on Wednesday. Besides the reports that Dr. Luizzi will receive in the summer, he also looks forward to improving different aspects of the school’s academic and social culture. “Between the learning that goes on in the classrooms, the engagement of students, well articulated curriculums throughout, and great support services, we really are an excellent school,” he said.
Dr. Luizzi feels that having an unbiased group come into the school will be the best way to find authentic feedback. “What we’re doing for the next five years or so is creating action plans based on their recommendations to improve as a school. So if we try to be anything other than who we are, the feedback won’t be authentic and genuine to what we need. So I’d say just be ourselves, I think we’re good.
