Private School Accreditation

Accreditation is a way of ensuring that a school’s programs and facilities have been
given approval by the education community. It is your guarantee that the school meets
minimum standards of quality determined by a rigorous peer review and serves as the
school’s validation of its academic efforts.

What is Accreditation
“Accreditation means: This institution is fulfilling its stated purpose with integrity and
excellence,” according to the National Association of Private Schools (NAPS)
(http://napaaccrditation.com), which focus on private and Christian schools.
Accreditation indicates that a school meets or exceeds standards and criteria for
quality periodically applied through a peer group process, according to the National
Association of Independent Schools
(NAIS) (http://www.nais.org).

Simply belonging to a state, regional or

national organization does not mean
that a school is accredited. Nor is
accreditation granted when a school
pays an application fee. Accreditation is
not permanent, and must be
maintained over time.

Accreditation Standards

The basic premise of accreditation is that schools are held to the same standards. For
example, The Commission on Independent Schools (CIS) (http://cis.neasc.org/) one of
five commissions of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges,

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(www.neasc.org/) accredits more than 600 private schools in its six-state region –
including traditional boarding and day preparatory schools, private elementary schools,
schools serving students with special needs, and religiously-affiliated schools of many
faiths.
“The quality assurance aspect of accreditation is accomplished by requiring that a
school must meet all standards at any time that compliance is assessed by the
Commission or bring itself into compliance within a time period set by the
Commission, not to exceed one year,” according to CIS guidelines.

The CIS uses a 15-point set of standards and provides a six-point rating system for
each standard – three that rate how a school is meeting standards and another three
that rate how a school is failing them – ranging from “exemplary in compliance to
“non-compliance not recognized by the school” on the failing end.

Other organizations involved in accreditation of private schools include the Western

Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) (http://www.wascweb.org/), the Southern
Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement
(SACS CASI) (http://www.sacscasi.org/) and the North Central Association of Colleges
and Schools (NCA) (http://www.ncacihe.org/).

Evaluation

Each school evaluates itself, and those marks are then compared with the marks given
by a visitation team composed of faculty, administrators and trustees from other
schools participating in the accrediting organization. Their visit is basically an “audit”
to validate what the school has reported about itself as well as to make various
recommendations about the school’s practices, policies, and directions. The visiting
team makes a recommendation to the accreditation association’s board of trustees,
which has the final say on accreditation matters.

In addition to providing parents with assurances that a private school meets minimum
standards, accreditation also provides them with the re-assurance that colleges and
universities – usually rated by the same accreditation bodies – will recognize the school
as providing a qualified pool of applicants.

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