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Charles Clare Named Associate Director
AdvancED welcomes Mr. Charles Clare as the new Associate Director for the Virginia Managing Office. Mr. Clare most recently comes to AdvancED Virginia from the Virginia Department of Education, where he was an independent educational consultant. He is a retired superintendent from King and Queen County Schools and formerly served as an assistant superintendent, principal and assistant principal for King William County Schools.
Mr. Clare oversaw the AdvancED School System Accreditation Process in King and Queen County. In addition, he has served as a Lead Evaluator for school External Reviews and as a team member on School System Accreditation External Reviews.
Of his recent appointment, Mr. Clare says, “I’ve enjoyed many years of association with AdvancED as a school and school system employee, and I know well the value of AdvancED accreditation. I am honored now to be in a position to give back to schools and school systems and to demonstrate the benefits of AdvancED.”
An educator since 1984, Mr. Clare began his career as a Math teacher in Hanover County Schools. He obtained a bachelor’s and master’s degree, respectively, from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the Virginia Commonwealth University. He is currently enrolled in the Doctoral Cohort Program for Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
You can contact Mr. Clare at cclare@advanc-ed.org or 888.413.3669 888.413.3669, ext. 5664.
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“Keeping on Track” External Review Webinar
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AdvancED Virginia will host a webinar: “Keeping on Track for the External Review” on Tuesday, October 28, 2014 at 7:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. The webinar will focus on what schools with a fall or early winter review should be doing at this time in order to be ready for the External Review. It will be good for many of your committees or teams. We hold another similar webinar in January for those schools with a review in the spring. Please join us.
Register for any of the below sessions by contacting our office.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014, 7:30 a.m. - 8:30 a.m. EDT
Tuesday, October 28, 2014, 3:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. EDT
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AdvancED VA Conference February 23-24 in Williamsburg
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The AdvancED Virginia Conference will be February 23-24, 2015 at The Fort Magruder Hotel and Conference Center in Williamsburg. Registration will open in November and heads of school and key central office personnel will receive emailed information. We encourage you to forward the conference information to all school improvement personnel and others who may be interested.
Lead Evaluator Training will run concurrently during the conference on Sunday and Tuesday, February 22 and 24. Participants also may choose to attend day one of the conference on Monday, February 23 at a special rate to be announced. The Lead Evaluator Training is for persons who wish to lead External Reviews to other schools. Attendance at both days of training is required.
Creating Learner Centric Environments is the theme of the 2015 conference, and sessions will examine how learning platforms are transforming into personalized environments where learners both participate in and create their own learning experiences, highlighting a modern system of education focused on what’s best to prepare students for tomorrow’s world.
Plan now to join us for a stimulating opportunity to connect with fellow educators, thought leaders and practitioners from all over the state as we transform education systems for a new age of learning!
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Call For Presenters at 2015 Virginia Conference
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If you have a creative idea or best practice and would like to lead a small group session at the AdvancED Virginia Conference on February 23-24, 2015 in Williamsburg, we want to hear from you! Click here to be taken to the presenter’s form. Complete and return it as soon as possible to AdvancED Virginia Director, Dr. Kathleen Smith.
Of particular note, AdvancED Virginia is very interested in providing a session specifically for nonpublic schools on using data from both formative day-to-day assessments as well as using data from yearly ITBS or CAT assessments to help plan specific strategies to improve instruction.
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Guidelines for Granting for Delays in the External Review
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AdvancED implements a protocol whereby institutions are granted accreditation for a term of five years. Accredited institutions engage in a cycle of continuous improvement that adequately prepares them to host the External Review during the fifth year of its accreditation term. Schools and school systems are expected to prepare and host the External Review in a timely manner. The AdvancED Virginia Managing Office recommends that institutions seek training for their upcoming External Review at least 18 months prior to the External Review.
Requests for a delay to the accreditation cycle will be handled on a case-by-case basis using the outline below. Neither of the lists below should be considered an exclusive list.
Acceptable Reasons
The institution has:
- Experienced a severe natural or man-made disaster rendering one or more buildings unfit for use for more than one week.
- Been the subject of a state take-over due to academic performance or financial distress.
- Experienced loss due to death of key personnel in the semester the External Review is scheduled.
- In the case of an individual school, the building is closing, combining with another attendance center or splitting into multiple centers.
- The school system is already a Candidate for AdvancED School Systems Accreditation.
Unacceptable Reasons
The institution has:
- Had recent changes in leadership or staff.
- Reorganized personnel or attendance centers within the system.
- For school accreditation, reorganized within the building, including most substantive change reasons
Contact the AdvancED Virginia Managing Office with any questions.
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Three AdvancED Schools Named Blue Ribbon Schools
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Three AdvancED Virginia schools were named 2014 National Blue Ribbon Schools by the U.S. Department of Education. The Blue Ribbon Schools Program honors public and private K-12 schools that are either academically superior or that demonstrate dramatic gains in student achievement.
The schools are:
- Galileo Magnet High, Danville City Schools
- Gilbert Linkous Elementary, Montgomery County Schools
- Charlottesville Catholic School in Charlottesville, Catholic Diocese of Richmond
“Despite increased rigor in the commonwealth’s standards, assessments and accountability benchmarks, each of these schools has maintained full state accreditation while meeting all federal benchmarks,” said Superintendent of Public Instruction Steven R. Staples. “I applaud the principals, teachers and staff who are responsible for the recognition these schools are receiving.”
The public 2014 National Blue Ribbon Schools earned awards earlier this year through the Virginia Index of Performance program. Gilbert Linkous Elementary earned the Board of Education Excellence Award, and Galileo Magnet High earned the Board of Education Distinguished Achievement Award.
The National Blue Ribbon Schools are selected based on one of two criteria: performance on state assessments, or in the case of private schools, performance on national standardized tests and high school graduation rates or performance in closing achievement gaps between a school’s subgroups and all students over the past five years while increasing graduation rates for each subgroup. The U.S. Department of Education will honor all of the nation’s 2014 National Blue Ribbon Schools during a conference and awards ceremony November 10-11 in Washington, DC.
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Don't Forget These Great Resources!
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If your school or school system has an External Review on the horizon, AdvancED has some valuable resource online that will walk you through getting started with AdvancED’s web-based school improvement platform, ASSIST™ (Adaptive System of School Improvement Support Tools), conducting surveys, and other important tools that will be a large part of planning for your internal review.
Here is a helpful hint: You can create a resource “Cheat Sheet” for your school committees and teams to use. Visit the resource Web page of your choice. Open a Word document. Cut and paste the contents of the webpage into the Word document. All of the blue links will then work in the Word document, so you have a page with all resources about at topic in one place. You can then save the Word document as your cheat sheet.
If you need assistance with accessing these Web pages, please feel free to contact our office. |
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We Can Help With Your Staff In-Service
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AdvancED Virginia Director, Dr. Kathleen Smith, has an extensive background in school improvement, data use, instruction and aligning the written, taught and tested curriculum. As a leader in the Virginia Department of Education in remediation, early childhood and school improvement provides her with extensive experience in many areas. Associate Director Charles Clare has an extensive background as a secondary and human resources leader. His experience as a school superintendent offers a variety of areas where he could share resources. Please contact the AdvancED Virginia Managing Office if you would like additional information on in-service topics that we could provide to you and your staff. The cost is $1,000 per day plus the cost of travel expenses. Let us know how we could help you!
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AdvancED, the home of NCA CASI, NWAC and SACS CASI, is dedicated to
advancing excellence in education worldwide.
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