Published: Thursday, March 11, 2010

By Sydney Holtzclaw
Madison Magazine

"Do you know how lucky you are?" this is the question Joe Delaney asked those in attendance at the Madison City School Board Meeting on Wednesday March 10. "I hope you do," he said. "Sometimes I find there are lighthouse school districts that are not content with mediocrity. Madison City is a lighthouse school district made up of people that believe 'We're good, but we must be better.'"

Delaney and a team of five others from AdvancED spent the first half of the week in Madison visiting and observing the quality of teaching at each one of the Madison city schools. Their trip was the culmination of a year and a half long process to make Madison City an accredited school district.

According to Delaney, AdvancED is the largest education community in the world. The organization represents over 27,000 public and private schools, the Department of Defense Educational Activity Schools, 65 foreign countries and serves over 15 million students.

AdvancED was formed in 2006 when the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation merged with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and the National Study of School Evaluation.

Benefits of accreditation include assistance in maximizing school performance, proven processes for improvement, professional development opportunities and also greater accessibility for students to federal loans, scholarships and post-secondary educational opportunities.

For the last year and a half the entire school district has been working to meet the seven standards for district accreditation: vision and purpose, governance and leadership, teaching and learning, documenting and using results, resource and support systems, stakeholder communication and relationships, and commitment to continuous improvement. After all of this is completed, a team from AdvancED visits the city to examine the school district.

"This week we visited all of the schools, including the Patriot Academy and examined what you do by observing, listening to presentation, and conducting interviews," Delaney said.

According to Delaney the team interviewed all five school board members, 35 administrators, 128 teachers, 87 students, 91 parents and 36 staff members.

Through their research the Delaney said the team found multiple indicators that Madison should be an accredited system. Thus, Delaney announced he will make a recommendation to the AdvancED board that Madison City Schools be awarded a district accreditation as a quality school system.

The school system should receive a full report of the team's findings in June, which will be available for public access.

Following the announcement Delaney gave a brief report on the school system's strengths and challenges. Among the strengths were a high level of support from the community, high expectations for students and teachers, and each school acting as a learning community for its students. Challenges included a continuingly increasing enrollment while facing economic problems possibly resulting in teaching and staff reduction.

"These are things that should not come as a surprise. You are a school district that knows yourself pretty well. As far as the challenges you face, I could honestly copy the same results and hand them to any school district in the southeast," Delaney said.

Madison City Schools Superintendent Dr. Dee Fowler was very pleased with the results of the team's findings. "This group did an outstanding job. We're the only school district in Madison County that has a district accreditation.”

This is a great achievement because it allows us to have one vision and one focus for all of our schools," Fowler said.