Kodiak Island Borough School District is Now Accredited

logo-w-sunburstKayla Desroches/KMXT

The Kodiak Island Borough School District just gained accreditation.

Kim Hanisch, director of instruction with the school district, says members of the non-profit organization AdvancED visited Kodiak to do an analysis.

“Three of the six people had to be from a state outside of our own, so three came up from the Lower 48 to give a true picture, but it is just that, it’s not just us saying we’re providing a quality education for students, it’s a system of protocols that they go in and look for key indicators and they say you are right, you are providing this quality opportunity for your students.”

Hanisch says most of the time only high schools get accreditation because it influences what colleges students get into, but the district wanted to pursue the accreditation for the entire borough.

“To do a district-wide accreditation, you think well a middle school doesn’t need to get into any other institutions so it doesn’t matter, but if you consider it more of a systems approach, a high school can only be as good as the system or as the district, and we want to know as a district how we’re functioning so that we don’t have gaps.”

Hanisch says the accreditation will help the school district improve.

“It means that we’re a part of a network of districts that are one growth mindset as we are, but it’s also gonna allow us to continue to get that feedback, how we’re doing now, what’s our next steps to continue growing, so it’s not an end once we receive this accreditation, it’s actually just a doors open now to this network of institutions.”

Hanisch says the district began its process of self-assessment using AdvancED criteria in the spring. According to a KIBSD press release, the district learned about winning accreditation last week.

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