Accredidation Committee Suggests Focus on Diversity
WASC, or the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, came to Las Lomas for three days in March to take notes, assess, and evaluate our school and how things are run.
All high schools can relate in that they too have to go through the same or similar process. “Every high school that sends students to college has to go through an accreditation process,” said Campbell.
WASC is one of six different academic organizations that has the job of accrediting public and private schools in America. WASC is specifically responsible for covering California, Hawaii, and the American territories, like Guam and Samoa.
This group of observers are made up of educators who are experts in their field.
“Most of them are teachers and administrators in the state of California,” said principal Matt Campbell.
“Teachers from around the state are gathering together to come and bring our own different perspectives to things,” said visiting committee member Ashley Hasqians.
The purpose of the WASC visit is to have a detailed check-in with students and teachers in order to ensure that expectations are being efficiently met. “We make sure everyone’s on track and doing what they say they’re doing and giving any suggestions we might have to help you guys reach your goals,” said Hasqians.
The visiting committee has the job of going up to students and asking questions about their experience at Las Lomas, in order to get student input. “More opportunities to get students voices heard and make sure that the needs are getting meet,” said Hasqians.
“When they talk to students, they want to know, from the students’ perspective, how it’s going,” said Campbell, “It’s just important for the students to be honest with the visiting committee.” WASC is a specially opportunity for students’ opinions to be voiced into the school administration.
For the first three days of the WASC visit, students were either chosen by teachers or WASC members or were randomly selected to partake in a meeting with the visiting committee during sixth period.
The students were asked a range of questions in order to get student input on certain topics involving campus life and school.
“The facilitators asked us questions about block schedule, our teachers, and overall how we like Las Lomas,” said sophomore Calia Lockey.
A big part of these WASC meetings were about diversity and how inclusion would affect students on campus.
“We spoke a lot about diversity,” said sophomore Zoe Larkin, “We want to make the school more inclusive- it was the main student grievance and thus the focus.”
About six months prior to WASC’s visit, Las Lomas sent WASC a report giving an overall description of the campus, student body, and the various different goals and projects currently being pursued, like block schedule.
“I am struck by the courage the school has to make this big change to a block schedule,” said chairman of the visiting committee, Dr. Dickson.
Also noticed by the committee members was the attitude and personality of the student body. “Overall, people said that they love how accepting and diverse Las Lomas is,” said Lockey.
After the week is over, the committee has to make the decision to accredit us or not. “There is different degrees of accreditation, the max being a six year clear, meaning no one comes back for six years,” said Dickson, “It means that the committee has a lot of confidence that you’re doing the right work.”
The previous WASC visit, Las Lomas had gotten this six year accreditation clearance but with a three year check-in, in order to make sure that Las Lomas was still functioning efficiently for students and staff.
Overall, WASC is a great opportunity for schools like Las Loams to plan ahead and make students’ educations and lives’ on campus better. “In order to function as a public education and get funding every school needs to be WASC accredited,” said Hasqians, “It’s beneficial to everyone.”
