Northside Elementary School will be recommended for AdvancED reaccreditation by members of an external review team who visited the school Thursday and Friday, January 29-30.
“The External Review Team recommends to the AdvancED Accreditation Commission that Northside Elementary School earn the distinction of accreditation by AdvancED for a five year term that expires June 30, 2019,” said Dr. Alice Patterson, AdvancED Lead Evaluator who addressed members of the administration, faculty, and WJLE at Northside Elementary in an exit report meeting Friday afternoon.
But while the school drew praise for advancements, the team cited an improvement priority that must be addressed within two years. “You know you need additional resources for your students regarding mental and emotional health needs. You know this is an area in which you are not at a standard you want to be or should be, where students need to be. This will be what has to be reported to AdvancED and you will have two years to rectify this area for improvement,” said Dr. Patterson.
The AdvancED external review team, made up of five Middle Tennessee educators, met with eighty six stakeholders including administrators, teachers, parents, students, school board members, and others in conducting its two day evaluation. Northside Elementary was evaluated in three domains “Teaching and Learning Impact on Student Performance”, “Capacity of Leadership to guide and ensure effectiveness in carrying out the strategic direction of the institution”, and “Utilization of Resources”.
According to Dr. Patterson, the Index of Education Quality results for Northside Elementary School indicate that it is performing within acceptable ranges as compared to the expected criteria as well as with other institutions in the AdvancED Network nationally. ” We take the three domains and use all of our data and standards indicators to make the connection between what we found locally to a national ranking,” she said.
*Northside’s overall IEQ score was 284.62 compared to the AdvancED Network Average of 282.79 (All schools in the network nationally)
*Teaching and Learning Impact on student performance: Northside IEQ Score:285.71. AE Network Average 274.14
*Capacity of Leadership to guide and ensure effectiveness in carrying out the strategic direction of the institution. Northside IEQ Score: 292.73. AE Network 296.08.
*Resource Utilization: Northside Elementary Score: 268.57. AE Network Average 286.32.
While Northside Elementary’s score in Resource Utilization is below the national AdvancED network average, the school has two years to make improvements. “You have an improvement priority which will address that. When your review comes back that will have been addressed and that is going to bring that report up more to the national average. Improvement priorities must be addressed within two years,” said Dr. Patterson.
A written external report will be prepared and sent to the State AdvancED headquarters in Nashville and to the regional office in Atlanta for final action on the recommendation. It will be several weeks before Northside is informed of the decision on reaccreditation.
Dr. Gayle Redmon, Principal at Northside Elementary thanked Dr. Patterson and members of the external review committee as well as the Northside teachers and assistant principal Beth Pafford. “Dr. Patterson on behalf of Northside, our parents, and our community we would like to thank you so very much. You have been a fabulous team to work with and you are welcome to come and visit our school at any time. We appreciate you and the hard work you have done. I think we are a great school. I tell our teachers all the time that they are the hardest working bunch of people I’ve ever been around. But it is so nice to occasionally have someone come in and take a good look at us. And we’re so glad you think we are (a great school) too. I want to thank our parents for coming back today. We have two school board members here (Doug Stephens and Shaun Tubbs) and Dwayne Page from our radio station. We’re delighted to have him here as well. And teachers, as always, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the hard work that you do. And I couldn’t do this without Ms. Pafford. She turns out more work than anybody I know,” said Dr. Redmon.
Members of the AdvancED External Review Team who visited Northside Elementary School Thursday and Friday, in addition to Lead Evaluator Dr. Alice Patterson were Sharon Anderson from Putnam County; Adelaide Nicholson, a Nashville School Principal; Craig Lynn, Principal at White County Middle School; and Scott Gaines, Assistant Director of Maury County Schools in Columbia. Dr. Patterson also serves on the faculty at Trevecca Nazarene University and the School of Education in Nashville.
The AdvancED Network was created as a result of a merger of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools with the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. “Several years ago SACS merged with North Central and created AdvancED which was the K-12 component for accreditation purposes. AdvancED is now a global leader in providing continuous improvement and accreditation services to over 32,000 institutions serving 20 million students worldwide. Our office is in Atlanta, Georgia serving this region. Our state office is in Nashville,” said Dr. Patterson.
DeKalb Middle, DeKalb West, and Smithville Elementary are also to be evaluated for reaccreditation this year. DCHS was reaccredited last year.
(PICTURED ABOVE: Beth Pafford, Shaun Tubbs, Dr. Gayle Redmon, Doug Stephens, Dr.Alice Patterson, Craig Lynn, Sharon Anderson, Scott Gaines, and Adelaide Nicholson)
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