Seeley Lake Elementary School is going through its accreditation process and is looking for community input to complete one element of the requirements.
The state Office of Public Instruction rolled out a new portion of the rotating accreditation schedule this year for elementary and high school districts across the state. Schools are accredited as a way of holding districts accountable to their roles and purposes laid out in the state Constitution, like staffing levels and test scores.
Generally the schedule includes developing a mentorship program or a process for evaluating students, but this year OPI added a profile element. Districts might call the survey something different — a graduate or learner profile, as examples — but SLE is terming it the accreditation profile, as it’s part of the process for accreditation.
According to OPI, a graduate profile “typically represents a school or district’s vision for the skills, character traits and social-emotional competencies that students will need to be successful in their adult life.” The profiles are meant to guide decisions on school improvement, curriculum choices, teacher professional development offerings and student experiences.
OPI had been working on putting together this profile idea for a few years, inspired by other states, like Kentucky, Virginia and Michigan, that have adopted the idea. Elements of Michigan’s profile include what the state referred to as “power skills,” like communication and reasoning.
Christina Hartmann, principal and superintendent at Seeley Lake Elementary School, said the profile allows districts to get more buy-in from community members outside of the immediate people who are associated with the school, like staff and parents.
“As a community, we need to develop this profile and it needs to be based on what attributes we want students to have when they come out of Seeley Lake Elementary,” Hartmann said.
Hartmann said the elementary school district has pulled together a group of stakeholders in Seeley, like business owners, school staff and students to work on putting the accreditation profile together by the end of February. The skills community members might want their students to leave elementary school with will vary, Hartmann said, and can look different depending on the district. For Seeley Lake Elementary, Hartmann thought strong communication skills, problem solving, critical thinking and being able to think outside the box might be elements desired in the profile.
A survey is available for community members to fill out to contribute to the profile. The survey can be found at the post office, Rovero’s, Cory’s Valley Market and the elementary school. It is also available online at https://www.sleonline.org/ or on the school’s Facebook page.
A community meeting will be held on Jan. 23 at 5:30 p.m. in the SLE multi-purpose room to discuss survey results and begin putting together the profile. Survey responses can be submitted up until this date.
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