Terry Cowgill

Region One BOE Will Address NEASC

September 25, 2007 on 11:14 am | In Education, Local, Main |

Region One BOE Chairman Judge Manning called me on Friday to say the board will hold a special meeting this Thursday, Sept. 27, at 4 p.m. in the high school library to discuss the recommendations of the New England Association of Colleges & Schools on HVRHS.

We’ll have a story appearing Thursday, but since many of you don’t get a chance to read us until later in the day, you might very well miss a meeting you are perhaps interested in. I will be there, as will Michael Flint of CATV6. Below is the text of the article as it will appear in Thursday’s print edition:

[P.S. To download a copy of the report, click here.]

By TERRY COWGILL

FALLS VILLAGE — The Region One Board of Education will hold a special meeting this afternoon at 4 p.m. to discuss the recent re-accreditation report of Housatonic Valley Regional High School by the New England Association of Schools & Colleges.

In an interview, Board Chairman and Sharon representative Judge Manning said the board agreed Sept. 19 to hold the meeting to address the recommendations in the 61-page NEASC report released last month. At its regular Sept. 10 meeting, the board did not comment on a five-minute presentation by Principal Gretchen Foster on the recommendations.

“To be honest, we weren’t prepared to [comment],” said Manning, adding that board members had already sat through a meeting of the Long Range Plan Feasibility Committee that began that day at 3:30 p.m. “It was a long evening.”

The visiting NEASC committee had lots of positive points to make about the goings-on at Housatonic. Members were impressed at the resources available at the 560-student school, including the variety of student services, supportive technology, health care access and the library-media center.

The student assistance team, which meets weekly, received praise for its attempts “to generate instructional strategies for students who are not successful in class.” In the area of assessment of student learning, the faculty was commended for its willingness to let students revise and resubmit work and for its “accessibility to students and parents relative to student academic progress.”

But the committee also saw room for improvement in several areas. In her update to the board earlier this month, Foster said “department chairs are already addressing the recommendation” that the school provide written curriculum guides for all courses and departments.

Also in response to the NEASC report, administrators have become even more active in the area of faculty evaluation. Released last month, the report from the regional accrediting organization also questioned whether Foster had sufficient autonomy, faulted the school for an unclear chain of command and cited an alleged lack of school spirit. Foster has said she is working on a document that will clarify the lines of authority.