NR-S School engages in Cognia accreditation review

In the midst of a walkout by the school’s entire maintenance staff, and just hours removed from their first court hearing in the lawsuit filed by Klemetsrud’s Plumbing and Heating, the New Rockford-Sheyenne School Board held a short and routine meeting on Monday, Oct. 11.

In her report, Superintendent Jill Louters briefly mentioned that preparation for that morning’s court hearing had occupied the majority of her time recently, and that the result of the hearing would be known by week’s end.

Louters moved on to explain that Cognia, a company that’s been reviewing and accrediting schools since 1895, will begin their official accreditation review of the New Rockford-Sheyenne Public School on Oct. 12.

According to Louters, at least three reviewers held a Zoom meeting with the school’s administration and staff to discuss what they believed the school is doing well, and what they can improve on. Ahead of the meeting with Cognia, Louters detailed a few areas of improvement she intends to present to the reviewers.

“The goal is transparency,” said Louters. “[One] of the needs that we can identify is clarity regarding our mission statement in classrooms, and on the webpage, when it comes to our core direction and focus, and ensuring that that’s visible and active in our school and stakeholder communities.”

Louters went on to explain that the school needs more consistency in their surveys, as well as the need to develop a “new student protocol plan.”

“A couple weeks ago we had six students walk in the front door from one family,” said Louters. “How do we ensure that they have a positive start to the school year, right? To be a new student jumping into a new system, that’s tough. So [we need to ensure] that we understand their learning needs.”

The school won’t know the results of their review until Cognia releases its official report in approximately 60 days.

Up next was the teacher’s report from first grade teacher Alexa Ystaas. Ystaas expressed her excitement for MTSS (multi-tiered support system), which provides a framework to guide schools in providing more targeted support for struggling students.

Ystaas explained that faculty are working on implementing the framework and have already spent two days on training.

“Our goal is to come up with ways to intervene early before it gets too far and [students] are struggling already,” explained Ystaas. “It screens all the students to aim and address academic and behavioral challenges, and our first goal would be to start putting academic supports up for reading and to improve reading test scores.”

Ystaas added, “I’m really excited about this program because I feel like finally, as a teacher, I'm going to have some guidance on what interventions to use ... and I feel like it’s going to be really beneficial to students to get research-validated instruction.”

Next, senior high school representative Amzi Meier shared the success of homecoming and revealed that the senior class has already begun planning for their graduation. The meeting then came to close after a brief discussion and approval of the financial report and a district tuition agreement.

The school board’s next meeting is scheduled for Monday, Nov. 8, in the public school’s collaboration room at 7 p.m.