Excellence by Design

Dr. Connie Harris

Excellence by Design 

Dr. Connie Harris, director of AZ AdvancED, shared the transformation that AdvancED has gone through recently where it now “reaches schools and systems across the United States, covers 70 countries and includes a digital learning component.” AdvancED provides research-based standards, framework and tools to assist schools and systems to build a culture of continuous improvement. 

Dr. Harris explained, “Continuous improvement is done by design not by happenstance.” A direct relationship exists between continuous improvement and accreditation. The five AdvancED Standards for Quality School/System include:

1) Purpose and Direction

2) Governance and Leadership

3) Teaching and Assessing for Learning

4) Resources and Supports

5) Using Results for Continuous Improvement

The accreditation process is performance based and requires the following documents and protocols for the AdvancED External Review:

• Executive Summary

• Standards Self-Assessment

• Stakeholder Feedback Diagnostic

• Student Performance Diagnostic 

• Effective Learning Environment Observation Tools (ELEOT)

• Assurances

External Reviews must be completed once every five years. Every External Review Team creates Required Actions as part of the overall recommendations. The school or school district must respond to Required Actions in the Accreditation Progress Report (APR), which helps leverage change and improvement within the organization.

Dr. Harold Slemmer, principal of Mesa’s Red Mountain High School, agreed that the AdvancED process is truly valuable and articulated. “As a high school principal, I used what I gained from the process and applied it to my application for the A+ School of Excellence Award.”

This session ended with an overview of how to access to AdvancED resources and websites.

ASPRA reporter Anne-Marie Woolsey, Scottsdale Unified