Team visits schools over accreditation

A team of 14 educators is in Aiken through Wednesday for a formal accreditation evaluation through the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).

The educators - from North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida - are visiting 14 selected schools in the Aiken County School District today. They met with district administrators, School Board members and some principals Monday.

The group will wrap up Wednesday with interviews with parents and community residents and will meet with the School Board in a public meeting at the district office Wednesday at 3 p.m.

In effect, the intent is to ensure that the school district is fulfilling its educational mission and objectives for all students. That process is a major change from previous SACS evaluations, said King Laurence, the district's federal programs director.

Previously, SACS worked in a five-year cycle where every school hosted its own accreditation visits over two-and-a-half days. Now the emphasis is on the district mission. The 14 schools chosen through demographic considerations will get half-day visits today to confirm their alliance with the district plan.

"It's a better experience for us," Laurence said. "It puts all the schools on the same page with the same vision and goals. It's more meaningful, too. In the past, in preparing one group of schools during a SACS visit, it was hard to bring continuity to it. Now everybody is focused on the same path."

The schools getting visits today include North Aiken, Oakwood-Windsor, Aiken, Byrd, Hammond Hill, Warrenville and Greendale elementary schools; Aiken, Leavelle-McCampbell, North Augusta and A.L. Corbett middle schools; and South Aiken, Wagener-Salley and Silver Bluff high schools.

Will the new process be less stressful?

"Ask me at 4:30 p.m. (today)," Warrenville principal Brenda Smith said with a laugh.

However, she added that administrators met in committee and did most of the paperwork last summer.

"We're not constantly meeting with teachers to get our proposal," Smith said. "All of that is being done by administrators districtwide."

Keith Liner, a School Board member from North Augusta, was interviewed by SACS evaluators Monday morning.

"I think it went well," he said. "They asked a series of questions about the goals of the district. It's a good process in that individual schools are not doing their own SACS reviews. It's more streamlined than in the past."

Contact Rob Novit at rnovit@aikenstandard.com.