Malibu High receives accreditation nod

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After a complicated self-evaluation that stretched over two years, Malibu High School has completed its accreditation process with a the final step — an official campus visit by a Western Accreditation of Schools and Colleges (WASC) committee — taken March 18-21.

School officials say they have been giving the nod of approval — MHS is accredited — but will not know for how long until they receive the final report from WASC. The longest term a school can be accredited for is six years — the longer the term, the better the ranking.

“Any yahoo can start a school, but schools aren’t considered by colleges to be worthwhile unless accredited,” said Principal Mike Matthews, of the importance of the accreditation. A diploma from an unaccredited school “would be almost meaningless,” he continued. “All schools need that accreditation.”

The WASC committee had both positive and negative comments about the way MHS educates its students.

The committee felt that there is a great deal of support for students at MHS, that parental and community involvement in the school is strong, that communication is very good, and that MHS’s college-bound students are trained well for college. The special-education curriculum is well modified and teachers are kept up to date on special-education issues, the committee reported.

In contrast, they found that students who don’t plan to attend college aren’t provided with day-to-day use of technology in the classroom and lack important life skills. They said that the student portfolio needs to be improved upon, and they found that expanded teaching methods, such as auditory or visual learners, need to be included in the classroom as well.

MHS has had an interim accreditation since it made the leap from Malibu Park Junior High to high school. MHS’s first graduating class in 1996 is the only one to have graduated before MHS was accredited.

Matthews, teacher Adam Panish, and former Assistant Principal Esther Winkelman attended a training session to study up on what WASC looks for when accrediting a school.

“[The accreditation process] really forces us to take a good look at what we’re doing and how we need to improve,” said Panish.

Essentially, a school must do a self-study to evaluate what it is doing and how it’s doing it. According to Panish, a large part of the self-analysis involves looking at student work. When MHS was founded in 1992, Graduation Performance Criteria (GPCs) were set as a standard for future graduates.

One of the ways a group like WASC can accurately assess a school is by observing whether the school is able to meet its own goals for students. If students meet a school’s guidelines, that is taken as a sign that the school is successful. In the beginning of the accreditation process, the teachers decided to implement the GPCs into the Expected Schoolwide Learning Results (ESLRs), which were created by WASC to help schools focus on the type of learning they want to provide their students.

Panish was in charge of preparing the self-assessment report, which was included in the application for WASC accreditation. The 100-page report, one of the most vital elements in the accreditation process, included students’ test scores and grade-point averages. The most essential section, Panish said, was the chapter on self-study, in which MHS was assessed by the teachers who work here every day.

Panish and Matthews arranged committees to represent each aspect of the school, the students, the teachers and staff, and the parents. Each committee was given lots of input so that faculty, parents and 10 students could accurately add to the analysis that MHS was conducting on itself.

The high school and middle school each submitted two-part plans toward improvement.

The high school students are required to have a schoolwide portfolio, which is supposed to be a positive representation of each student’s achievements at MHS. A 15-minute period is set aside on Fridays for students to work on their portfolios. The school recognizes that the advisory/portfolio process needs changes, but faculty have yet to reach an agreement about what should be done. According to Panish, some teachers want to expand the advisory time and some want to get rid of advisories. The high school would also like to increase school spirit, with hopes of expanding club participation on campus, offering more electives, and finding activities that children will participate in.

The middle school would like to work on reading skills in the areas of comprehension and critical thinking, and developing ideas and themes based on a piece of writing. The other focus of the middle school is to increase student recognition by expanding awards and honors offered to the students.