(COVINGTON, La) — Two weeks ago, St. Paul’s received its quinquennial visit from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) in order to receive a re-issuance of their accreditation certificate. 

After the panel of local educators left the campus, St. Paul’s was guaranteed an accreditation. 

According to the weekly newsletter published on Sundays by SPS President Bro. Ray Bulliard, FSC, the school passed with flying colors and St. Paul’s regional accreditation will be renewed for another five years. During their visit, SACS evaluation met with students, teachers, parents, and staff. They visited classes and examined all of our printed policies.

“They were very thorough,” Bro. Ray stated.

Assistant Principal Joe Dickens was one of those in charge of directing the visit, and has already begun to act on the suggested changes which the accreditation service addressed. 

“There are five different standards, and there are innumerable indicators under each standard,” Dickens said. “Everything from purpose and direction, to teaching and learning, to support systems; you name it. There are probably about 60 different things they check you on, but we did very well.” 

In addition to all of the praise received from SACS, the panel questioned SPS’ use of technology in the classroom.

“Specifically, they want us to work on data mining a little more in how it affects classroom instruction,” Dickens said.

Standardized testing preparation was also a topic of discussion for the panel.

“We really need to get into detail with standardized testing,” Dickens said, “(like) looking more specifically into certain types of questions and topics within English sections, math sections, et cetera, teaching the faculty in how to bring preparation back into the classroom a little more. We already do a lot of (standardized test preparation), but we can become better at it, so we will probably workshop that and ramp that up a little more.” 

With another accreditation secured under their belts, the SPS faculty and administration will attempt to continue in their efforts to improve for the next five-year visit. Implementation of suggested improvement already began on Monday of this week, with a faculty in-service session held to discuss cross-curricular opportunities, implementation, and documentation.