Accreditation
SelfDesign is accredited by AdvancED and the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement (NCA CASI). AdvanceED is the parent organization of the NCA CASI and is the world’s largest education community, serving more than 27,000 public and private schools and districts across the U.S. and in 69 countries that educate over 15 million students.
See SelfDesign's AdvancED listing and download our Executive Summary (PDF).
What Is Accreditation?
As AdvancED explains on its website, "Accreditation is a voluntary method of quality assurance developed more than 100 years ago by American universities and secondary schools, and designed primarily to distinguish schools adhering to a set of educational standards. The accreditation process is also known in terms of its ability to effectively drive student performance and continuous improvement in education."
Further, per AdvancEd, this means that "An AdvancED accredited institution or educational system adheres to the highest quality standards. These standards are the product of careful research and years of testing and fine-tuning the successful practices in education."
Why Is This Important?
1. Peace of Mind: Parents can take comfort in the knowledge that an accredited school has submitted to external review and its quality has been validated both through self-study and on-site evaluation by education professionals.
2. Solid Foundation: An accredited school follows accepted educational practices and has an ongoing process of continual improvement. This provides a solid foundation for each student's success.
3. Ease of Transfer: As a practical matter, it is far simpler to transfer high school credits from an accredited school than from a non-accredited one. SelfDesign will not be able to guarantee our credits will be universally accepted; it is common practice, however, for one accredited high school to accept credits which have been earned at any other accredited high school.
4. Preparing for the Next Step: Accreditation can be even more important when seeking college admission. Universities and colleges will more readily accept credits earned from an accredited high school than from a non-accredited one. This is because they are aware of the standards of the accrediting agency and recognize the value of the work accomplished by students of the accredited school.
