Since the founding of ASV in 1980, the Middle States Association (MSA) has been the American accreditation association of the school. In November 2019, ASV hosted the MSA Visiting Team and in May 2020, ASV earned its MSA re-accreditation for another seven years until May 2027. The work of maintaining our MSA accreditation is an ongoing process of growth and development, and ASV would like to share this brief and periodic update with our school community.
Since earning its re-accreditation, ASV has transitioned from planning for re-accreditation to focusing on overseeing the implementation of our four MSA-approved performance objectives: Literacy, Mathematics, Assessments and Character Education. The Implementation Team responsible for these performance objectives consists of 16 ASV teachers and administrators who meet monthly to support the continual improvement process required as a condition of MSA accreditation. Each performance objective team oversees and coordinates the action plans associated with the successful implementation of each objective over the school’s seven year accreditation cycle.
The MSA performance objectives are organized into Student Performance Objectives and Organizational Capacity Objectives. Work on our two Student Performance Objectives focusing on Mathematics and Literacy has initially focused on establishing systems to collect and assess data for the performance measures. The systematic and consistent collection of data subsequently serves as the baseline data that informs the current best practice of instruction and curriculum development in Mathematics and Literacy.
Our Organizational Performance Objectives have two focuses: one in the area of aligning assessment practices with an Understanding by Design (UbD) curricular framework, and one objective focused on the development of a comprehensive Character Education program. The assessment team is currently focusing on auditing current assessment practices, which will lead to policy reviews and increased alignment of assessment procedures across all school divisions and within subject areas. The starting point for the Character Education group has been to align the ASV CARE Values with the IB Learner Profile as part of a revision of ASV’s social and emotional learning program.
These are lofty and ambitious objectives that will have a significant impact on the academic achievement and social interactions of all ASV students over the course of several years. We are committed to successfully implementing these objectives for the benefit of our students. In the meantime, we wanted to provide our school community with this brief update about the ongoing work, research and implementation of these objectives. Please stay tuned for future updates and as always, thank you for your continued support.
The MSA Implementation Team
