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Candidates Come to Edison/Fareira High
School

Reaction to Sept. 11: Oct,
2001
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Edison/Fareira
Highlights
Edison/Fareira
Re-accredited
by Middle States Commission
The Middle States Association’s
Commission on Secondary Schools has announced that Edison/Fareira High
School has been re-accredited for the five-year period ending November
1, 2006. The decision to re-accredit Edison/Fareira
High
School was made following a three and one-half day visit to the
school
in spring 2001 by a visiting team of educators from member schools of
the
Middle States Association appointed by the Commission on Secondary
Schools.
During the visit, the Middle
States
team met with and interviewed representatives of all the school’s
stakeholders, including teachers, students, parents, and
administrators,
as well as representatives of the Edison Cluster. Team
members
also toured the school’s facilities, studied the school’s
strategic
plan for school improvement and other documents related to the
school’s
work, and observed teaching and learning in classrooms.
To be accredited by the
Commission on
Secondary Schools, a school must meet the Commission’s standards for
each
major area of a school’s work and activity. These areas include the
school’s
educational program, learning media services, student services, student
activities, facilities, school staff and administration, finance,
school
leadership and governance, and assessment of learning.
However, because
Edison/Fareira High
School elected to use the Accreditation for Growth protocol for
accreditation,
the school was required to do more than meet the Commission’s standards
to be accredited. Accreditation for Growth (AFG) is a unique
accreditation
process that uses strategic planning as a vehicle for school
improvement
and growth in student performance. In AFG, the primary determinants of
progress are not the resources a community provides for its schools
(the
inputs) but, instead, the actual results of the school’s work—the
students’
performance. AFG requires the school to establish objectives for
improving student performance based on a vision of a preferred future
for
the school.
By choosing AFG as its
accreditation
protocol, Edison/Fareira High School also made several commitments. It
committed to focusing its work on the end results — improved student
performance—as
the primary priority for school improvement efforts. It committed to
operating
the school from a vision of where it wants and/or needs to go with its
mission and beliefs serving as a unifying force for change. It
committed
to including a varied spectrum of stakeholders in the process of
continually
defining a preferred vision, in developing the means to get closer to
that
vision, and in implementing action plans developed by these
stakeholders.
It committed to a process in which progress will be continuously
reviewed.
And, it agreed to participate in a peer review and external validation
process by accepting outside visitors.
Ongoing review is the hallmark
of the
AFG protocol, and Edison/Fareira High School is required to conduct an
annual review of the plan and the school’s progress toward achieving
its
student performance objectives and to communicate the results of its
work
to the school’s community. Once every five years, a Validation
Team
will make an onsite visit to the school to examine the results of these
annual reviews, the school’s planning processes, and the content of the
strategic plan. At the midpoint juncture in the five-year cycle,
one individual, appointed by the Middle States Association, will make a
one-day onsite visit.
"Edison/Fareira High School is
to be
congratulated for having completed the rigorous and demanding
accreditation
review process successfully," said Dr. Joseph J. DeLucia, Executive
Director
of the Commission on Secondary Schools. "By meeting the standards of
the
Commission, and by having established a comprehensive and challenging
strategic
plan to improve targeted areas of student performance, Edison/Fareira
High
School has joined a growing number of schools in the Middle
States
region that are committed to public accountability for their results.
The
Commission encourages the entire Edison/Fareira High School to join in
supporting the school as it seeks to achieve its objectives over the
next
five years."
For more information about the
re-accreditation
of Edison/Fareira High School, contact: Mr. Kenneth Lerner or
Mrs.
Hedimay Berger, assistant principals, at (215) 324-9440.
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