San Francisco de Asis Catholic School Upcoming Accreditation Visit

02-02-2020Weekly ReflectionBill Carroll, SFdA Catholic School Principal

Dear SFdA Parishioners,

This week, San Francisco de Asis Catholic School will have their accreditation visit. Catholic schools throughout Arizona go through an accreditation process where the quality of Catholic education is measured. This accrediting process assures the primacy of faith formation and educational excellence. A team of six members will spend three full days at our school. During this time they will observe classrooms, interview teachers, parents, and students, and use their findings to determine our accreditation results.

To prepare for this visit, the staff at SFdA examined and evaluated our programs to establish general standards for excellence. We completed a Self Study to assess the quality of our school. This process took us nearly a year. During this process, the school took a look at our mission statement and determined that it needed to be revised. The staff met and reflected on an Apostolic letter from the Most Reverend Thomas Olmsted, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix. The letter was titled, Evangelizing through Catholic Schools. The staff agreed that the new mission statement should reflect the first point that Bishop Olmsted stated which was that a school should be a place to encounter Christ. The school adopted a new mission statement which is recited each day; “San Francisco de Asis Catholic School, through the life and example of Saint Francis, provides a culture where all can encounter the living Christ. We become faithful disciples by following Christ and His Church, acquiring knowledge, inspiring daily conversion, taking responsibility, and helping others.”

Throughout the Self Study writing process, the entire SFdA staff has renewed our commitment to be faithful Disciples of Christ. After thoroughly examining what we have accomplished we were able to collectively make a list of goals. These goals will be focused on for the next six years and they consist of:

1. Benchmark data will be used to support struggling students in the bottom quartile and to challenge those students who are in the top quartile
2. Create and implement methods to measure growth and mastery of Schoolwide Learning Expectations and assist students in becoming faithful Disciples of Christ
3. Complete curriculum maps for all subjects and use the maps to adopt a new comprehensive curriculum for all subjects
4. Create faithful Disciples of Christ by incorporating Catholic identity in all curriculum subjects
5. Integrate technology in all curriculum areas to enhance student achievement

With these goals comes a widespread timeline for completion. This timeline will be monitored after each school year to ensure success. The accreditation team will examine our goals and confirm that it will support high achievement of student learning.

Our visit will be on February 5-7. The staff is both excited and nervous about the visit. We appreciate being a member of the SFdA community and welcome your prayers for the success of our school.

In Christ,

Bill Carroll, Principal
SFdA Catholic School