NEASC

By: Kevin Guibord

This past October, Portland High School went through its first of two visits with NEASC (New England Association of Schools and Colleges). Not many people understood the full truth of this visit or its implications moving forward. When interviewed PHS senior Ash Martovich  said  “Yeah, I don't know what NEASC is or what those big posters in the stairwell are.” 

NEASC is an agency that visits schools and ultimately determines if they are retain their accreditation through a multi-year cycle and review. These criteria categories under review are: Learning Culture, Student Learning, Professional Practices, and Learning Support. 

Learning Culture ensures that schools are maintaining an environment conducive of learning, this means they are safe, judgment free, and inclusive. The Student Learning criterion is there to ensure there are plans in place as to how learning should be conducted as well as measurable ways to measure student success on their path through the Vision of the Graduate. Professional Practices ensure that schools are constantly looking to better themlves and improve, as well as ensuring that teachers get the  resources they need to facilitate learning. 

The NEASC process starts over a year before the actual visit is set to commence. First, a representative from NEASC reaches out to the principal to establish communications on the process of the upcoming visit. Next, the principal creates a committee to prepare the school in both making the visit go smoother and writing a self-reflection for the upcoming visit. Finally, representatives from NEASC come to the school and compare their findings with their self evaluation to determine what we need to fix before they can be re-accredidated. There is still work that needs to be done after the visit though, the committee shifts their focus from how to prepare for the visit to how to improve. NEASC then visits again 2 years later to ensure that changes were implemented to award accreditation.  

At PHS, English and Social Studies teachers Robert Jones and Michael Kenney played vital roles in spearheading the news committee. Prior to Portland own NEASC visit committee co-chairs, Kenney and Jones, went to serve as the visiting team at other schools in Tolland High School and Rockville High School. In an interview, Kenney said, ”Not only for, I mean, the purpose of NEASC, but it's also professional development just to see how other schools are doing things. But to be able to take what we learned about how visits occur and then get us ready for it was definitely a game changer.” 

These pre-visits were great because they allowed the official visit to function much better, according to PHS Principal Kate Lawson: “ I think it went very smoothly… we were very well prepared. So it went well, I believe with all things, preparation is the key. And it's not the kind of thing, just like planning graduation, it's not the kind of thing you leave to chance. You plan for every detail. And that's what we did, and it was very successful.”

The results of the visit were, for the most part, in-line with the vision of how the NEASC committee believed we would do. There was only one standard that the committee  believed we did not meet: Learning Support. Meaning, there is not quite a system in place where students who need learning support, except for extreme cases, can get it. This was the same finding of the visiting team as well, in that PHS didn’t have the resources necessary for struggling students. One fix the visiting team proposed was implementing a special needs tier system where the tier dictates the type of help needed whether that be extra testing time or even individualized help. 

There was one standard that Portland did not meet where they thought they did: Student Learning. This particular standard does not meet as, due to a host of new faculty changes, the school does not currently have a consistent curriculum documented in one place, year by year. Also, PHS has not fully implemented the Vision of the Graduate, a set of standards a graduate must fit in order to be a functioning member of society, into the day to day classes either. According to Kenney, “ In writing our report about ourselves, we relied pretty heavily on Capstone because Capstone was built around the Vision of the Graduate.” Now, with Capstone gone, there is almost no direct encounter with the VOG as well as any way to track a student's process through it. 

Going forward, Portland plans on implementing a more nuanced approach towards specialized education and student support. They also plan on aligning the curriculum with the Vision of the Graduate. There will be another visit in October 2026 and the school hopes for a smooth and effective visit.