By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
Juab School District board members have some concern
about the consistency, year to year, of the methods used to
re-accredit schools.
Superintendent Kirk Wright and board member, Delanie
Hathaway, attended the last state school board meeting to
complain about the way the accreditation is conducted and
results compiled.
"The upshot is that our patrons need to know we are
certified and we will remain certified," said Leon Pexton,
Juab School Board president. "We intend to resolve any
issues and are pledged to maintain a high standard of
education for those who attend our schools."
The Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges
issued the warning to nine Utah schools recently for having
too few teachers, counselors, librarians or administrators
for the number of students they serve per professional
educator. Juab High School was one of nine Utah high schools
warned to make changes or they may lose their national
accreditation.
"The state school board had no idea about what
Northwest was doing being inconsistent," said Wright. "What
we discussed did concern them enough that board members
realized that the state needed to set priorities and review
the committee results before they were submitted to
Northwest."
Since Northwest has limited staff, the procedure of
accreditation is left up to each state. Utah has a committee
which reviews the accreditation of each school.
The committee needs to report to the state school
board and review the process they have used. That needs to
be done before the information is turned over to Northwest,
said Wright.
"We were the first school board in the state of Utah
in the accreditation process to raise a protest," said
Pexton. "It had never done before."
Pexton said the re-accreditation process employed by
Northwest was inherently discriminatory and was flawed.
Each district is held up to a standard which,
depending on the committee members doing the review, may
differ substantively from a prior review. Juab School
District, for example, has made great improvements and was
approved in the past when the improvements were still not in
place.
"We have a structural vs a performance issue," said
Pexton. "I'm glad the state school board is interested in
cleaning up the act of Northwest by setting some priorities
in the way items are judged."
Some items Northwest is reviewing are archaic and
should be given lower priority on the totem pole than a more
technologically oriented and out-come-based system, said
Wright.
Wright said the state school board will now consider
granting some items on the list which are currently judged a
higher priority status.
"They will look at ways to clarify which things are of
a higher priority and will, most likely, hold a meeting in
November with the individual schools and with the committee
which has done the review prior to submitting the
information to Northwest in December."
"That will give the school and district administration
an opportunity to discuss issues which might not have been
approved," said Wright.
The out-come and performance of a school's students
should receive a higher rating. Schools are judged in 10
major areas and on a checklist of 100 items.
"For example, our major sticking problem," said
Wright, "is that we do not have a full-time certified media
specialist in our library at the high school."
Part of the problem which brought about 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.
"To my way of thinking, it is more important that we
have a qualified person there than that they have a piece of
paper saying so," said Rick Welsh, board member.
Media specialists no longer shuffle papers. They now
have different responsibilities but are still judged by
devotion to the Dewy Decimal system.
"At present, a student receives more benefit from the
ed-net and computer center than they would from a full-time
media specialist and we have people working in the high
school in these areas who are specialists in those
areas."
Rick Durbin, high school principal, said the school is
continuing to gain more technology for student use.
"Half of the media center consists of 12 computers
hooked to the state system via the Pioneer system," said
Durbin. "Students have assistance in working on these
computers."
In addition, he said, the school has a system whereby
students may take a class from Utah Valley State College for
both college and high school credit. These classes are
available over ed-net. A specialist is hired to assist these
students.
Juab High School, has a classified media staff member,
a full-time classified employee who manages the computer
lab, and a part time classified employee who is over the net
program.
Approximately 55 percent of rural schools do not have
a certified media specialist, said Wright.
"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."
The school was found in violation in only two
areas.
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.
"Patrons can be assured that the high school is really
not in danger of losing accreditation," said Wright.
"Connie Amos, accreditation specialist for the state
Office of Education, 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."
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.
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