LUMBERTON — The Public Schools of Robeson County recently earned system accreditation by Cognia™, a nonprofit organization committed to providing quality assurance for schools, school districts, and education service providers.
For the past 125 years, Cognia, formerly known as Southern Association for Colleges and Schools (SACS) and then AdvanceEd, has been accrediting schools and districts for improvement on rigorous research-based standards. The average score earned in national Cognia reviews over the past 5 years is 278-283. The Public Schools of Robeson County proudly earned a score of 312.
What accreditation means
Historically within the district, each school sought accreditation individually. Over the past two years, the district sought accreditation as a unit in a shift towards the goal of instructional alignment across its schools.
System accreditation means all of PSRC’s schools are accredited for six years and meet rigorous Cognia standards. In addition, accreditation means schools across the district remain committed to ongoing improvement efforts.
“Earning districtwide accreditation is one way PSRC is working to improve our educational programs and offerings for our students and assure the public that we are committed to this turnaround work,” said Dr. Windy Dorsey-Carr, PSRC Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum, Instruction and Accountability.
Systems and institutions seeking to achieve or maintain accreditation understand and embrace the daily process of continuous improvement. Accredited systems are dynamic, continuously evolving, and focused on becoming better on behalf of the learners they serve.
Accredited systems operate in learning communities by demonstrating healthy cultures where individuals collectively analyze practices and results, engage in professional learning and dialogue, take meaningful action, and assume responsibility for results.
“Cognia accreditation and certification are like no others. Our research-based performance standards give your teams a shared framework to achieve measurable, meaningful improvement. No other accrediting agency gives you actionable data from professional evaluators who are experienced educators—or continues to guide you to leverage your strengths for improvement,” according to Cognia’s website.
District improvement initiatives
The accreditation comes after the district’s adoption and implementation of the EL Education and Eureka Math Squared Curriculums. The district made significant shifts to support instructional improvement through providing equitable timely instruction, focusing on the instructional leadership of the principal, and deploying additional curriculum support, such as academic coaches and lead teachers.
“With the implementation of EL Education and Eureka, we are able to provide equitable opportunities to all of the students across the district to quality evidence-based language arts and math curriculum. The curriculum will not only engage students in meaningful challenging work but also prepare them as leaders for today and tomorrow,” said Dr. Windy Dorsey-Carr, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum, Instruction, and Accountability.
These shifts, along with other initiatives, represent the district’s intentional approach to improving student outcomes by increasing rigor and expectations.
This means that teachers internalize lessons and make them their own to address specific student needs and provide real-time feedback. As a result, students are engaged in lessons that allow them to apply their learning through inquiry-based experiences and critical thinking. As the academic expectations and rigor have increased in all classrooms across the district, teachers are engaging in vertical conversations to address the need for acceleration.
PSRC developed a framework for support to ensure the implementation is cohesive with the district improvement plan.
The focus of the framework is on principals as instructional leaders. Principals play a critical role in ensuring excellence and equity in schools. They shape a vision of success, guide teaching and learning, and build capacity in teachers and other adults to improve student outcomes and provide high-quality educational opportunities for all learners.
The emphasis of this work is on the principal being an instructional leader in their building. This means the principal works alongside teachers to provide support and guidance in establishing best practices in teaching.
St. Pauls Elementary School Principal Amanda Graham has seen a positive impact on her practices as a principal and leader.
“My instructional calendar drives what my instructional team monitors and completes daily. Today, I am a stronger coach and leader than I have ever been during my twenty-plus years in education,” Graham said.
Principals employing this model of leadership communicate with their staff and together set clear goals related to student achievement. School leadership team members learn, practice, and plan alongside their principal, developing common student-centered instructional leadership skills. To make this happen, an assistant principal was hired for all K-12 schools and an academic coach for all K-8 schools.
Accreditation process
The accreditation process spanned two academic years. During that time, the district provided information including evidence of its work, programs, initiatives and its ability to meet Cognia standards to Cognia officials. According to Cognia, the four key characteristics needed for successful schools are a culture of learning, leadership for learning, engagement of learning and growth in learning.
“Cognia Performance Standards are at the heart of continuous improvement and accreditation. They define the characteristics of a good education institution and provide guidelines for efforts that will energetically and visibly grow learners, teachers, leaders, and organizations,” according to Cognia’s website.
The district also took part in internal and external reviews and provided information regarding its improvement plans. A variety of stakeholders took part in the accreditation process, including teachers, principals, parents, students and community members.
Donna Gibson, Cognia’s Regional Accreditation Evaluator for the Mid‑Atlantic Region, worked to evaluate the district during the process.
Gibson said accreditation allows schools to “take a deep dive” into practices.
“It’s a great opportunity for them to come up with those noteworthy practices and areas of improvement,” she said. “I think the process is excellent.”
Cognia’s website further details the accreditation process.
“Based on rigorous research-based standards and evidence-based criteria, the process probes the whole institution—from policies to learning conditions and cultural context—to determine how well the parts work together to meet the needs of every learner. Accreditation isn’t about passing a one-time inspection—it helps education providers meet improvement goals and sustain commitments to better learner outcomes,” according to Cognia’s website.
PSRC Superintendent Dr. Freddie Williamson said the process involved the collaborative efforts and hard work of many PSRC members to complete and move the district one step closer to sustaining improvement.
“This work has been a rigorous process met by the dedication of district leaders and administrators. I would like to thank our district leaders, administrators and everyone who took part in this accreditation process for their continued commitment to the improvement of educational programs and to our daily work of providing all students with a sound basic education,” Williamson said.
Next steps
The district’s next step is to begin working on Cognia’s theories of action, which are action steps for improvement, detailed in the final accreditation report, Gibson said. She will continue her work with the district as it presses forward and implements improvements.
“If they work on those areas for improvement definitely in six years it should be a much easier process and the scores should go up,” Gibson said.
“It takes each of us working within this team with one goal in mind to move forward. That goal is the success of our students,” Williamson added.
To view the district’s 2023-2028 strategic plan, visit PSRC’s website at www.robeson.k12.nc.us. Anyone with additional questions is encouraged to reach out to PSRC Central Office staff for more information.