By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
Juab High School was one of nine Utah high schools told
to make changes or they may lose their national
accreditation.
The Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges
issued the warning to the schools for having too few
teachers, counselors, librarians or administrators for the
number of students they serve per professional educator.
"Our major problem," said Juab School District
Superintendent Kirk Wright, "is that we do not have a
full-time media specialist in our library at the high
school."
"The board of education thinks the re-accreditation
process employed by Northwest is inherently discriminatory,"
said Wright. "Board members have indicated to me that they
are disappointed and think the process is flawed."
Since Northwest has limited staff, they leave the
procedure of accreditation up to each individual state. Utah
has a committee which reviews the accreditation of each
school.
Each district is held up to a standard which,
depending on the committee members doing the review, may
differ markedly from a review done in the past. Juab School
District, for example, has made great improvements and was
approved in the past when the improvements were still not in
place.
Part of the warning status, in this case, was that it
was not fully noted by the reviewing board that a full-time
teacher with a media specialist certification is a resource
person for the library.
Wright said the high school has not had a certified
media specialist at the school since 1989. During the budget
crunch that year, it was decided to have the teacher teach
and hire a classified media staff member.
There are five status ratings, said Wright, which
Northwest issues. Those are approved, approved with comment,
advised, warned and unaccredited.
If the district received any rating other than
approved, it should have been approved with comment, he
said.
"The second problem noted was that the school had
seven teachers with more than 160 students on Oct. 1, 2000,"
said Wright. "The transferring of students from school to
school resolved the problem. Our district, as a result, now
has only one teacher with a class load of over 160 students
and that is an English class where the teacher has 162
students."
"If the problems persist in the nine schools, the
association can drop the schools' accreditation status,"
said Connie Amos, accreditation specialist for the state
Office of Education.
That could mean that students would be unable to
transfer credits to accredited schools, including other high
schools and colleges, and could also affect federal
funding.
Juab High School in Nephi has been placed on warning
status once before. Although the status was later changed
when some information was clarified for the school.
"The board of education is dedicated to seeing that
our students are never in danger of not being able to
transfer credit because of accreditation standards," said
Wright. "They are committed to doing whatever needs to be
done to assure continuing accreditation."
However, he said, the high school was really not in
danger of losing accreditation.
"Connie Amos agreed that the state has been and
continues to be inconsistent as to staff/student ratio."
said Wright. "Some schools have been on the warning status
for several years and have not lost accreditation."
Wright said the school was in better shape than it had
been for the last three years and so the board was surprised
to receive the warning status. There are fewer teachers who
had large class loads.
The administrative staff and counselor/student ratio
were all improved.
Juab High School was judged in 10 major areas, as are
all high schools, and on a checklist of 100 items. The
school was found in violation in only two areas.
Approximately 55 percent of rural schools do not have
a certified media specialist, said Wright.
Juab School District, in addition to a classified
media staff member, has a full-time classified employee who
manages the computer lab, and has a part time classified
employee who is over the net program where students are
allowed to take UVSC classes for credit.
"Last spring, the board had to set priorities once
again," said Wright. "They decided to use the money
available to assure the best education for our students." It
was decided to give priority to class size and to meeting
state catagoricals.
Two years ago, the district was told it did not have
fully certified teachers in a few classes. However, that was
a reporting error since all teachers were in compliance with
state requirements. A few were still taking classes in order
to qualify in specialized subject matter, but were in
compliance with a time schedule set by the state.
It was the fourth warning Northwest has given to West
High.
In addition to Juab High and West High, Highland High
in Salt Lake City, Cyprus in Magna, Grantsville, Kearns, Sky
View in Smithfield, Snow Canyon in St. George and South
Sevier in Monroe were also warned.
The association found that West High has three
administrators but needs five, allows 11 teachers to teach
during their preparation hour, and has 52 teachers who teach
more than 160 students. One English teacher, for example,
teaches 265 students.
Highland also has two too few administrators and
allows 55 teachers to teach during their preparatory
period.
Cyprus does not follow the core curriculum in some
classes, has 34 teachers with excessive class loads and 22
with excessive assignments.
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