NDDPI is Nation’s First K-12 State Education Agency To Earn Accreditation

State School Superintendent Kirsten Baesler said North Dakota's Department of Public Instruction has become the first state K-12 education agency to earn national accreditation, a distinction that shows its employees' commitment to serving students and families.

"Our team has been working at a high level and serving our families, students, and taxpayers well for 12 years," Baesler said. "We know we have been doing good things, and continuous improvement is part of our culture. But when a third-party reviewer comes in to evaluate you, and says your operations are top notch, that really means something."

The board of directors of Cognia, an Alpharetta, Ga., nonprofit that promotes school improvement in more than 90 countries, officially approved the NDDPI's accreditation late last month. Andre Harrison, Cognia vice president for accreditation services, said the Department of Public Instruction is the first state K-12 education agency that has been accredited by a regional accrediting organization.

Baesler said the process identified the department's strengths in focusing on students' academic results; improving instruction and school board administration; seeking out collaborative partners among families, schools, communities, and other stakeholder groups; and establishing programs to increase North Dakota's supply of high-quality teachers and school principals.

It suggested improvements in NDDPI's operations, including improved tracking of North Dakota high school graduates' success in college, the military, and the workforce, and strengthening the effectiveness of the agency's Choice Ready initiative. Choice Ready uses a series of measurements to determine whether a high school's graduates are well prepared to be successful.

Baesler said the recognition came after an exhaustive process that reviewed the Department of Public Instruction's culture, operating practices, and leadership at all levels of the organization. It included interviews with school district leaders, legislators, parents, community partners and more than

Cognia, an organization formerly known as AdvancEd, has established performance standards for public schools, charter schools, and districts across the country. It has never accredited a state K-12 education agency.

Baesler said she began exploring the idea a few months before the COVID-10 pandemic. However, Cognia "did not yet have the materials or the standards or the framework to do this," Baesler said.

"So NDDPI worked with Cognia to build the framework and determine how this could best be done," Baesler said. "It was a true partnership committed to excellence in education for students. Now this process is available to use in other states."

Among the notable NDDPI achievements included in Cognia's review, the organization identified five areas that were the agency's greatest strengths, including:

• Developing and nurturing an authentic environment with an unrelenting focus on children.
• Instilling and investing in maintaining a climate of collaboration and partnership with all schools, communities, other state agencies, and key stakeholder groups.
• Proactive and innovative efforts to address the supply of high-quality teachers and principals through apprenticeships, including securing available funding to initiate and sustain those efforts.
• Being a national leader in initiating innovative programs such as Be Legendary Board Training and the K-12 Cybersecurity and Computer Science curriculum.
• Designing and implementing programs to meet students' needs and inform instruction, including the ND A+ program and the Native American Essential Understandings.

The accreditation engagement review team identified key areas for improvement for NDDPI to address in the future. They include:

• Codify: Establish systems to improve the ability to monitor and adjust state improvement actions.

• Calculate: Further study North Dakota graduates' success in the workforce, postsecondary education or military to inform and strengthen efforts to ensure students are ready and prepared for success after high school.

• Communicate: Ensure that the general public and school community understand with clarity and transparency the expectations for student achievement under Every Student Succeed Act.

• Coordinate: Determine the effectiveness of state teaching and learning initiatives to support student and staff success and build on what works and eliminate what is not needed.

Joe Kolosky, the NDDPI's director of school approval and opportunity, said the accreditation review will help NDDPI document its processes and maintain consistent standards of service. It should be useful in training new employees, he said.

For example, Kolosky said, the accreditation review concluded the agency excels at customer service. "We do this intuitively, but these processes are not written down and documented into a formal process," he said. "We want to have something that can be used by any leader or any team member."

Said Baesler: "A customer, whether they be another state agency or one of our schools, should be able to receive the same high standard of service and support, regardless of who works here, or on which day the customer calls."

North Dakota law requires schools to meet the requirements of "a review process that is designed to improve student achievement through a continuous cycle of improvement" in order to be state-approved. (NDCC 15.1-06-06(1)(d)). Each district must have an external review every five years.

"The accreditation process is similar to what we ask our local K-12 schools to do," Baesler said, "so it's only right that we make the same demands on ourselves."

Mark Elgart, president and chief executive officer of Cognia, said accrediting state education agencies will "strengthen their capacity to help schools improve education for all children … (It) helps state agencies increase their efficiency, improve collaboration, eliminate redundancy and silos, and work more effectively with schools and districts to help them meet improvement goals."

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