Diocesan Catholic Schools Accredited by State Organization
By John Jaksa
Assistant Superintendent
for the Diocese of Kalamazoo Schools

      All of the 23 Catholic schools within the Diocese of Kalamazoo are accredited by the Lansing-based Michigan Nonpublic Schools Accrediting Association (MNSAA) which is part of the National Federation of Nonpublic Schools State Accrediting Association. Accreditation goes beyond the state requirement for both public and nonpublic schools and involves a rigorous process of examining and evaluating a school based on a set list of quality standards. This process is repeated every seven years and consists of three phases.
      Phase One, the candidacy phase, includes a self study which is completed by the faculty, staff, pastor, board members, parents and other supporters of the school. This phase is a self evaluative tool by which the team examines how well it views itself as accomplishing its mission and goals.      Phase two consists of a visitation by a team of professionals not associated with the school. This team consists of representatives of other Catholic school teachers and administrators, a public school representative and a person from another nonpublic school that is not associated with the Diocese. The visitation is usually two to three days in length. The visiting team is charged with preparing a report highlighting the strengths of the school and listing any concerns that surfaced either from the self study or from the visit. The team makes a recommendation regarding accreditation to the Board of Directors of MNSAA.
      Phase three lasts for seven years. During this phase, the school must show signs of adequate progress of addressing the concerns listed in the annual report. During the third or fourth year of this phase, a school will experience a mid-cycle review. This is when a team representing the association visits the school and reviews compliance issues and verifies progress reported annually to the association.
      This year the following schools have or will undergo the phase two process for either the second or third time: St. Mary School, Paw Paw; St. Mary School, Niles; St. Basil School, South Haven; St. Joseph School, Battle Creek; St. Philip Middle School, Battle Creek; St. Philip Catholic Central High School, Battle Creek; St. Joseph Catholic School, Watervliet. The following schools have or will undergo a mid-cycle review: St. Charles Borromeo School, Coldwater; St. Rose of Lima School, Hastings; St. Mary of the Lake School, New Buffalo; and Immaculate Conception School, Three Rivers.

Task Force on Funding Catholic Schools Created

Bishop James A. Murray has asked Father John Fleckenstein, Pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Battle Creek and Pastor/Administrator of the Battle Creek Catholic Schools, as well as, Margaret Erich, Superintendent for the Diocese, to establish a task force to examine alternative funding sources for Diocesan Catholic schools. This action is in response to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops document from the Committee on Education where the bishops renewed their commitment to Catholic elementary and secondary schools in the third millennium.
The Task Force will examine various diocesan funding models for Catholic schools from throughout the country as well as the economic climate of our diocese.“We must begin to examine current practices on funding schools and make changes so that we may ensure the viability of our schools,” states Bishop Murray. Preliminary recommendations from the Task Force are to be made to Bishop Murray by January 1, 2008.

Diocesan Schools Prepare to Take New Standardized Test

Beginning with the 2007-08 school year, the Diocesan elementary schools will have the option of taking the new normed based Iowa Test of Basic Skills. This test replaces the outdated version of the Stanford Achievement Test which the schools had given in previous years.
This optional test is an addition to the Diocesan requirement of the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) test at the elementary and middle schools, and the Michigan Merit Exam at each of the high schools. The MEAP measures the success of student mastery of the Diocesan curriculum which is based upon state benchmarks and standards. The optional Iowa Test of Basic Skills will give parents and schools a broader picture of each child’s educational progress in skill development and critical thinking.
Developed by the University of Iowa and backed by a tradition of more than 70 years of educational research and test development experience, the Iowa Test of Basic Skills provides an in-depth assessment of students’ achievement of important educational objectives. Sub-tests include an assessment in reading, language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, and information sources.

Diocesan Educators Focus on Building Community

The Celebration of Mass, presided over by Fr. Mike Regent, resident Chaplain of Hackett Catholic Central High School with Lake Michigan Catholic Schools (St. Joseph) staff members David Houseal, Frank Deja and Gerald Heath set the tone for the day-long in-service of Diocesan educators that focused upon building communities.
The theme was Professional Learning Communities (PLC) a concept that is being adopted in Catholic schools throughout the Diocese. In addition to being designed to enhance curriculum and the means that Catholic educators use to instruct Michigan’s curriculum benchmarks and standards, PLCs create an embedded structure within each school that standardizes communication among same grade level and multi-grade level instructors, improves evaluation of methods and achievement and aids the precise identification and timely intervention for students who may be struggling.