WASC aims to help schools succeed

Western Association of Schools and Colleges, also known as WASC, is a national organization that validates whether a particular school is accredited or not as a good academic place of education. Currently every high school and college has to go through an accreditation in order to see whether or not they are recognized as a great fit for academics. On March 4 and 5, Carson High School had its own mid-cycle accreditation.

Even though an accreditation is a six year cycle, Carson High School wanted to see if they are ready for the big thing. Three representatives from three different schools visited Carson, to give commendations and recommendations to prepare them for the actual WASC Committee in three more years. This year’s committee consisted of a retired principal, a current principal, and a current assistant principal. The representatives were to report mainly to math and English classes, to see if the teachers were doing their job correctly.

The WASC committee was mainly looking for five things to establish the use of data, improve school spirit, create common assessments in academics, include school wide rubrics for grading in the core subjects, and target an early intervention plan that uses data to identify areas of students needs.

Even though the committee wasn’t allowed to say exactly their final results, they were allowed to say that we received a whopping total of six commendations of things we were doing well, and three recommendations. Even though our school received three recommendations, we executed those three things already.

Also a few students were hand picked to represent the school in the best way to talk to the committee, and say why they love Carson so much.

“It really brought out peoples perspective on the school because we had no administration there and it showed that we actually really care about our school,” Kim Terrell, a senior from Carson said.

Kim Terrell, Jared Dorsky, and Francis Suavillo were some of the few students that were chosen in this event. They spoke to the committee and talk about their experiences at Carson.

“Overall I really appreciated the WASC Committee conversation with us. They never really tried to hide anything with us and they were truly supportive,” Carson High School Principal Dr. Warren stated.

The importance placed upon the WASC Committee visiting just shows us how much our school cares for each other. Just because someone shows up and critiques our school, doesn’t mean we have to change the way act, but rather act professionally and in a good manner.