Members of the Clarke County Board of Education will get an update on the district’s accreditation status at their work session on Thursday. This comes in advance of a virtual site visit from accrediting organization Cognia coming up early next month.
Following a 2019 complaint by then-Superintendent Demond Means, Cognia changed the CCSD’s status from “accredited” to “accredited under review” in January 2020. Placing the district’s accreditation under review does not affect the diplomas earned by CCSD graduates.
In their January 2020 review, Cognia identified several areas where CCSD needed improvement in order to return to accredited status. Those areas included:
- Adherence to policies
- Adherence to a code of ethics
- Organizational effectiveness
In December 2020, Cognia followed up on those areas for improvement and found that the CCSD had made some progress in two of the three areas. Under the “adherence to policies” item, Cognia changed the district’s status from “initiating” to “improving” after the Board of Education began a comprehensive review of the district’s policies and underwent policy training.
Under the “adherence to Code of Ethics” item, Cognia changed the district’s status from “insufficient” to “initiating,” following steps from the Board of Education to establish governance norms and an ethics training for Board members.
A third area, organizational effectiveness, remained unchanged in the December 2020 review by Cognia.
Cognia is set to return to the district for a virtual site visit early next month, where those three areas’ improvement will again be assessed. Board of Education members will hear a presentation on how that process is unfolding at their work session on Thursday.
