RALEIGH -- The Wake County school board agreed today to turn over documentation requested by an agency that threatened to immediately remove accreditation to the district’s high schools if it didn’t cooperate with the special review.
School board attorney Ann Majestic said that the board, after meeting behind closed doors, will provide the information requested by Advancing Excellence in Education Worldwide, or AdvancED, as part of a review looking at most of the major decisions made by the new board majority. But Majestic said board members still feel that AdvancED is going beyond its authority to accredit individual high schools by asking districtwide questions about the elimination of the diversity-based student assignment policy and other issues.
“While reserving its objection to the scope of your inquiry, the Board continues to hope for a collegial process and will provide the records that you have requested,” Majestic said in a new letter today to AdvancEd.
The school board has proposed that the review team come the week of Nov. 29. AdvancED had wanted to hold the review either this month or in October.
AdvancED had given the school board until next Friday to turn over the documentation and set dates for the review team to come to Raleigh or they’d drop the accreditation of the high schools.
In a Sept. 17 letter to Majestic, Kenneth Bergman, the general counsel for AdvancED, writes that the agency is concerned about the “openly defiant nature” of Wake’s reaction to its special review. Bergman added that refusing to cooperate is a “direct violation” of AdvancEd’s policies and “constitutes grounds for dropping accreditation.”
Majestic wrote today that they disagree with the characterization they’re being “openly defiant.” She said they feel they’re asking legitimate questions about the why AdvancED wants all the information.
If Wake’s 24 high schools lose accreditation, it will make it harder for students to get scholarships, loans and college acceptances.
The Wake County Board of Education were meeting in closed session to discuss the letter from AdvancED and additional personnel matters.
However, before the meeting was closed, members of the board minority said they were very concerned about the threatened loss of accreditation.
"It's pretty serious, isn't it?" said board member Keith Sutton. "I think we need to stop playing with these folks and comply, give them what they ask for."
Member Carolyn Morrison said the letter from AdvancED was "frightening," and disagreed with the board's decision to discuss the matter in closed session.
"I think we should be discussing it open meeting," Morrison said. "They are the most important accreditation agency in the nation, or the world."
Morrison said the proposed review by AdvancED wouldn't cost Wake schools anything, however if they came as the result of an appeal, it could cost $25,000 or more.
AdvancED certification is accepted in other countries, Morrison said.
"I've been in this system since 1964," she said. "We've worked very hard to get where we are. It's breaking my heart."
Before agreeing in a split vote to go into closed session, members agreed to allow board member Kevin Hill, on a long-planned trip out of town, to participate via telephone.
AdvancED is conducting this rare special review in response to a March complaint from the state NAACP over the elimination of the diversity policy and other matters. The agency has asked school officials for a variety of documents in advance of an expected October visit by a special review team.
School officials replied back in a blunt Sept. 8 letter to AdvancED that it felt the international accrediting organization that it has no right to question the way Wake assigns students to schools.
In the letter from school board attorney Ann Majestic, she accused the group of stepping beyond its authority to accredit individual Wake high schools.
Instead of focusing on the academics, administration and faculty at those schools, Majestic said, AdvancED is questioning nearly all of the major policy decisions made by the new school board majority. That includes the board's decision to ditch the district's diversity policy in favor of a student assignment plan based on neighborhood schools.
"A school board cannot be required to cede statutory authority over student assignment as part of an accreditation review," Majestic wrote to AdvancEd on behalf of the school board majority.
In the new AdvancED letter, Bergman writes that the organization hasn’t reached conclusions on the school board’s actions. But Bergman says “we have sufficient concerns that the actions of the Board may negatively impact the educational opportunities for students of the schools we accredit in Wake County.”
“Whereas, the Board has the ultimate decision making authority over the schools we accredit in Wake County, the Board’s actions, policies and decisions are subject to review by AdvancED,” Bergman wrote to Majestic.
AdvancED accredits more than 27,000 schools and school districts worldwide, but only rarely executes the kind of review envisioned for Wake, North Carolina's largest school district. In Georgia, reviews of three districts resulted in one losing its accreditation - the first such action in nearly 40 years - and two others facing sanctions. In two of those Georgia districts, the state's governor removed school board members in the aftermath of the accreditation group's review.
Mark Elgart, the company's president , has said AdvancED is charged with determining whether the school board is making decisions based on the best interests of students and the community, and whether the board is following its own policies.
But Majestic's letter said scrutinizing Wake's school board policy reaches beyond the scope of AdvancED's primary purpose. Last school year, Wake paid one ofAdvancED's accrediting arms $24,165 to certify its high schools.
For instance, Majestic said, the board wants to know why AdvancED is asking about dropping the diversity policy in favor of community schools. She writes that accreditation of high schools is "not a license to probe the Board's system-wide policy judgments in student assignment matters."
"The Board's overriding concern is that your request seems to have little, if anything, to do with the accreditation status of individual high schools in Wake County," Majestic writes. "Instead, they strongly suggest that AdvancED wishes to second guess the merits of the Board's decision to transition to a community-based school assignment plan."
Majestic contends that questions about matters such as the hiring of attorney Thomas Farr and the Civitas Institute; the cost of ending mandatory year-round schools; and, of not building a high school on Forestville Road don't relate to the accreditation status of a particular high school.
The group has accredited schools in North Carolina districts with community-based student assignment plans, including Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Buncombe County, Durham, Cumberland County and New Hanover County, Majestic writes. Majestic also notes that the group accredited five Wake high schools after the original complaint was filed by the NAACP in March.
She also sharply criticized AdvancED for ranging wider than the scope of the March complaint the organization received from state NAACP officials contesting the school board's elimination of busing for diversity and a variety of other matters.
The Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP, said his organization will make a major announcement Saturday on legal action against the school system at an event in Raleigh that will feature national NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous.
School board chairman Ron Margiotta said Majestic's letter reflected the sentiments of the board majority.
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"We questioned their authority to delve into areas that are not in their realm," he said.
For instance, AdvancEd questioned the board's decision to designate the Civitas Institute, a conservative think tank, to train school board members, Margiotta said.
"Civitas is a recognized organization," said Margiotta.
But Bergman, the attorney for AdvancED, responded that they need to conduct this wide-ranging review because the changes being made will impact all children in Wake.
“Many of the actions and decisions of the Board since taking office in January 2010 have constituted a substantive change,” Bergman writes. “Therefore, AdvancED’s review of these substantive changes is required under our policies and procedures.”/p
Kevin Hill, a former board chairman and current member of the board minority, said the board had seen and approved the letter in closed session. He characterized AdvancEd as an important organization with whom the board needs to cooperate.
"I think it was very firm," Hill said of Majestic's letter. "I don't know that it's the kind of letter you'd send if you were trying to build some bridges."
Yevonne Brannon, chairwoman of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition, a group that supports the system's former diversity-based assignment policy, said it's unfortunate that the tone of Majestic's letter discourages the review.
"Let's not resist the opportunity to have somebody from the outside look at us," Brannon said. "Let's not risk losing our accreditation. It's too important to our students."
