“Wow....”

St. Tammany Parish School Superintendent Gayle Sloan was at a momentary loss for words upon receiving the AdvancED review team’s oral report at a special meeting of the school district community, including the school board, Wednesday afternoon.

“I was confident about what they would see, but (this report) surpassed all my expectations.” Donna James, chair of the 10-person visitation committee, presented the oral exit report quality assurance review required for the district’s re-accreditation under Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

The St. Tammany School Board was one of the first districts in the country to receive district-wide accreditation.

The accreditation, or in this case, reaccreditation process is lengthy, involved and extremely detailed. In addition to personal walk-through of 10 schools in the district, interviews were held at other schools with administrators, teachers, students, parents and even support personnel at the schools. In all, 412 interviews were made in addition to the site visits that include classroom observations.

James said in her report that if one did not know what the school system faced in the last five years after Hurricane Katrina, one would “never know Katrina had happened.”

There is a national protocol used to for district accreditation. Criteria include a district commitment to goals with systematic, systemic and sustainable improvement.

The team reported that there are many strengths in the system, including:

• Courageous and visionary leadership by the superintendent.

• A clear delineation of roles among board members; shared leadership and collegial relationships, which promote cohesiveness among all staff members in all categories.

• Collaborative relationships between the administration and district leadership.

• Sound stewards and fiscally responsible administrative leadership development programs to continue progress in developing future leaders for the district.

• Realization by the district that the system is bigger than any single need.

• District culture showed a legacy of excellence.

• Widespread support for district initiatives by public as seen in the 80 percent approval of the $167 million bond referendum in 2008.

• Great relationship demonstrated by resources and support from the community.

• Providing a positive and safe learning environment by improving security techniques at school sites. Everyone interviewed feel safe and secure working at his or her sites.

• Provide design teams and whole faculty study groups.

• Instructional leadership from sources such as the Schlechty Center for building capacity for improvement and change.

• Use of a guaranteed curriculum for student learning.

• Infusion of technology across the district which is important for future learning, and

• Visionary leadership of the superintendent.

As a result, the team had the following commendations for the school district. The district is meeting the needs of 21st century learners by providing up-to-date technology. Additionally, the district has an intentional focus on student engagement and research-based teaching and learning strategies that use solid research and best practices. The district’s teachers are attuned to and use technology to teach. These strengths and commendations are applied district wide.

The challenges the team found the district facing include a reduction in funding; the need to service a large geographic area; meeting the needs of new students due to changing demographics; and expanding recruitments to add diversity in teachers and administrators.

The team recommended the following actions be taken by the school board for improvement:

• A plan to systematically analyze the impact the district initiatives have on the community.

• Expansion of the guaranteed curriculum to other core areas.

The next steps the school district needs to take will be to receive the detailed findings of the accreditation team, address the required actions that should be taken, monitor school standards and submit an application in two years for reaccreditation in five years.

Public access to the detail reports will be available in June.

James finished her report by citing the district as a “quality school system. Congratulations on your progress and reaccreditation.”

She also complimented the district on their transparency.

Sloan addressed those present saying, “Everything we do in St. Tammany is a team approach including the efforts and accomplishments. I’m so pleased this came through in this visit. We did not realize we would make this kind of progress. You say we are great. We feel great is a moving target...greatness is a continuous journey.”

“It’s important that every school show the high quality expected in the community. We still have lots to be done, so full steam ahead. But we can celebrate a little. Give yourselves a standing ovation,” Sloan said. “We’ve made so much progress since 2005 in quality, technology and our facilities . . . I’m gratified it came through in the report.”

School board president John Lamarque addressed those present and said, “Thank you for providing a quality education and for recognizing this. We are all proud of what you (school employees) have been doing.”