Every seven years Parker is tasked with examining its school culture and putting its mission, values, and environment to paper for outside review. The self-study asks various subcommittees to write a report for the Independent Schools Association of the Central States (ISACS).

This semester, departments were tasked by ISACS to talk about what they do, highlight the strengths and weaknesses of their department, and to set goals for growth. Key players include Assistant Principal Ruth Jurgensen and the steering committee, who focus on coordinating the study in terms of dates and tasks and bridging gaps between departments.

“Next year, when the ISACS committee comes, they’ll look at those goals and judge ‘are you achieving those goals, are you working towards those goals,’ basically asking if you’re doing what you say you are,” steering committee Member and Upper School English Teacher Mike Mahany said.

Although the study isn’t officially due until the visiting educators arrive around February 2020, various deadlines are set within-in the process. In the first phase of the study, committees focus on the academics of the school and is written by faculty from all departments – from English and History to P.E and Drama. Reports were due right before break.

The steering committee is now waiting to follow-up and prepare for phase two, and have set the first meeting time for January 22 according to Jurgensen. Phase two looks at everything non-curricular like athletics, facilities, or alumni culture. Committees made up of administrators, parents, students, and faculty writing about different aspects of the school’s culture and landscape.

As a member of the steering committee, Mahany helped oversee the study first semester. “Get information to the different departments about how they might do the self-study, how they might write up their document, the format they might take, the length it might be,” Mahany said. “Then we looked over the document and made some suggestions.”

Although certain committees lead, Jurgensen said everybody is involved with completing the study. Every faculty member has some part in the academic evaluation, while second semester is open to different constituents. “If you’re an employee at the school you can participate regardless of area of expertise,” Jurgensen said.

For the first semester, departments look at both a JK-5 and a 6-12 perspective. Most of the report is written, but some departments include visuals. “Issues of the newspaper were attached electronically, we attached a lot of things to try to make more visual the things we talked about,” Mahany said about the last study.

Long-time Sixth Grade Science Teacher Peg Zerega is going through her fifth self-study this year. “I appreciate the way it’s been organized for the last two self studies where were in different groups and you spoke to an area of your expertise, working with students in some situations and colleagues in others,” Zerega said.

The ISACS self-study has a central goal of getting schools accredited. Because the Department of Education can only accredit institutions of higher and adult education, ISACS accreditation gets a school certified with government recognition.

This accreditation program focuses more on the development on institutions than one simply getting them certified. According to the website, the program’s main motives are to “provide a stimulus for excellence, help the school assess its strengths and weaknesses, and help the school confirm the validity of its priorities and planning for improvement.”

Overall, according to the ISACS website, next year’s visiting committee will look for a “congruence between the school’s stated mission and its actual program and services” using the self-study as a guide.

“Not to just get accredited – Parker is gonna be accredited…so that’s not really an issue,” Mahany said about his hopes for each department’s primary goal. “If you did it right…you learn about your department. Here are some challenges we have, here are some things we need to work towards, and here are ways we can do that, and I think that’s really beneficial. As a result of this, it’s not like we’re just gonna prepare this document just so we can be done with this. I’m hoping we come up with goals that are really gonna be helpful that are gonna make our department better.”

Currently, Parker is a “Fully Accredited Member School” and listed on the ISACS website among other accredited schools across the region, like Latin. According to the ISACS website, these members must pay annual fees with a “base of $1,900 plus an $8.50 per student charge.” In 2020, Parker will invest another type of fee into the process by providing transportation and accommodation for visiting educators.

“You’re hosting a good number of educators, so you want to make sure they’re comfortable while they’re here and they’re staying locally,” Jurgensen said.

The self study and committee visit aren’t the only steps to reach this status. For a school to get accredited, it must complete a seven year cycle of review and reflection. Year one asks schools to prepare for the self-study by doing things like reviewing their mission statement, looking at curriculum materials, surveying constituents, or collecting data on alumni.

Year two of this cycle is when the self-study actually takes place. Next, the visiting ISACS evaluation team visits the school to observe the culture for themselves.

Jurgensen noted that for a progressive school, the evaluation aspect of the accreditation process is different than what the school is used to. “The process itself is very static and progressive schools aren’t so there is that natural tension,” Jurgensen said.

Still, putting the mission of the school onto paper does not present as much as a challenge for as expected. “That’s everybody’s job, to live and breathe the mission and make sure the mission is reflected throughout the school,” Jurgensen said. “It’s always hard to put a school on paper, but of course it is possible because we do have a lot of things written down and our work is internal and anticipatory… it’s easy because we’re fulfilling the mission and we can of course document the way that we’re doing that.”

“We’re talking constantly about what we’re doing here even in the comments that students receive we’re identifying how the educational program is related to the mission,” Jurgensen said.

According to Mahany, he doesn’t feel pressure from the visiting committee. “I don’t anymore get that freaked out by people coming to see Parker, but I’ve been here a long time,” Mahany said. Mahany believes that in a short period of time, a visiting committee can only learn some things about the department from their few observations.

“I’ve been on visiting committees, I’ve been on ISACS self studies,” Zerega said. “They will get a snapshot, they will get a portrayal of what we say, and they will observe to see if what they see matches what we say, but they won’t be able to get nuance because they’re not here long enough…I personally learn things by walking around and observing…but mostly kind of a reaction of feeling that I get. That’s not impossible but difficult to put on paper.”

“Nothing is adjusted,” Jurgensen said in anticipation of the visiting committee. “We try to say we’re putting a pause on things so we can evaluate everything that we have done since the last self-study. Last spring, we said, alright, we’re really not going to initiate any new programming in a year where we’re evaluating how things have gone and what our plans and priorities are for the next several years.”

Jurgensen notes that the school still evolves, pointing to the Upper School Advisory Board and the DEI Task Force. “This is a progressive school,” Jurgensen said. “This is a dynamic school. We are continuously improving.”

Mahany thinks that some small changes are still made based on the study and anticipation of the committee visitation. “You’re probably going to notice that the school will spruce itself up in some ways, like bulletin boards and welcome signs,” Mahany said. “I don’t know that teachers will teach any differently, they won’t have a test on that day or watch a film on that day, but I don’t know if you’re going to find a difference in the way people are going about their daily stuff.”

When the self-study reveals flaws in the English department, Mahany observed that there’s normally one or two recommendations the department takes to heart.“As the result of our last self-study, the English department has worked hard to look at its texts and try to be vary, try to have more texts by women, by a wider and more diverse group of writers,” Mahany said.

“Sometimes we have insights that we can do something about and sometimes we know that we can’t do anything about it but we’re still going to try and point it out,” Zerega said.

“It’s interesting to see what they say. I think it’s more valuable what we say about ourselves and what we see,” Mahany said. What feedback these committees will give back, detailing challenges and suggestions on how to implement plans, is hard to anticipate. “There’s an opportunity to say, ‘thank you for your feedback, but we don’t agree,’” Jurgensen said.

Jurgensen does not yet know what distribution of this self study to groups like students or parents will look like. “Available to faculty very quickly. It was also available to board of directors for sure,” Zerega said about the report in past studies. “I believe various went out to all of the parents.”