The Cognia accreditation process engages the entire school system in a continuous process of self-evaluation and improvement. The overall aim is to help systems be the best they can be on behalf of the students they serve. To earn and maintain accreditation, the school system must meet the Cognia Performance Standards and adhere to accreditation policies, engage in continuous improvement, and demonstrate quality assurance through a continuing accreditation review.

Major Components of District Accreditation:

Engaging in Continuous Improvement: Systems seeking to achieve and maintain accreditation understand, honor, and embrace the concept of continuous improvement. Pasco County Schools implements a planning framework for district and school improvement that describes the future direction and purpose for the system and its schools, describes the current conditions and its focus on student learning, describes goals designed specifically to address student learning needs and the needs of the internal systems to address such priorities, and provides evidence of the results stemming from improvement efforts. Additionally, Pasco County Schools monitors and adjusts instructional and organizational practices in response to the evidence collected.

Meeting Standards: Accreditation requires systems to continuously meet the Cognia policies, standards, and requirements. The Cognia Performance Standards provide a set of evaluative criteria that lays the foundation for improvement planning and implementation. Based on rigorous research and best practices, the standards are a powerful tool for driving instructional change.

Demonstrating Quality Assurance: Under the district continuous improvement framework, the system and its schools are responsible for implementing a quality assurance process. This includes conducting a yearly comprehensive internal review and engaging in a Cognia accreditation review every six years. The Cognia review, conducted by professional peers from outside the district, validates compliance with accreditation standards and assurances, assesses the efforts of the system in engaging in continuous improvement, and evaluates the effectiveness of its internal improvement process.

Benefits of District Accreditation

• It is based on effective schools’ research derived from the National Study of School Evaluation (NSSE). This research indicates that school improvement support by central office and system-wide structures can be more effective than improvement efforts without such support.
• It is based on effective leadership research findings which note that leaders of high performing school districts develop and maintain quality systems by providing:
  • Direction by setting expectations and guidelines
  • Feedback and assistance to monitor achievement of expectations
  • A culture that builds understanding and commitment
  • The use of data and research findings to guide decisions and actions
  • Resources including professional learning opportunities, as well as time, human, and fiscal support.
• Its foundation ensures continuity and collaboration in planning for improvement, anchored in a common vision for education among all its schools, because each school’s improvement goals must complement those of the district.
• It supports and enhances a common language of school improvement communication across content areas and grade levels, as well as across individual schools, feeder schools, and district lines of responsibility.
• It ensures a continuing accreditation review every six years by a team of trained peer professionals from outside the district.
• It holds the promise of significantly reducing the costs associated with engaging in separate review for each school every six years.

District accreditation is a process designed to recognize school systems that embrace improving student learning as a systemic process. As such, district accreditation provides school systems with a process that supports, enhances, and stimulates growth and improvement throughout the entire system.

For more information about the standards involved in Cognia accreditation and about how the system is implemented, click on the icon below to access the Cognia site: