Accreditation
CCS belongs to
ACSI (Association of Christian Schools
International),
MSA (Middle States Association),
MACSA (Mid-Atlantic Christian Schools Association), and
LACMS (Lancaster Area Council of Mennonite Schools).
We are accredited by both ACSI and Middle States Association.
From the ACSI website:
"Accreditation, a national benchmark of quality, is a voluntary process validated by peer review and involving systematic self-evaluation against nationally accepted standards.
Schools, like organizations, are not stagnant. They are always moving in a direction. Accreditation and school improvement assist schools in changing for the better in an orderly and systematic way. It brings a vigorous dynamic into the school by engaging every staff member in a process of organizational appraisal.
The work of accreditation and school improvement is rigorous. When scheduled properly, it is not overwhelming, but it is demanding. The end results though, are well worth the investment."
From the Middle States Association website:
"Accreditation is the affirmation that a school
provides a quality of education that the community has a right to expect
and the education world endorses. Accreditation is a means of showing
confidence in a school's performance. When the Commission on Secondary
Schools accredits a school, it certifies that the school has met the
prescribed qualitative standards of the Middle States Association within
the terms of the school's own stated philosophy and objectives.
The chief purpose of the whole accreditation process is the improvement
of education for youth by evaluating the degree to which a school has
attained worthwhile outcomes set by its own staff and community. This is
accomplished by periodically conducting a comprehensive self-evaluation
of the total school. Through the accreditation process, the school seeks
the validation of its self-evaluation by obtaining professional judgment
from impartial outsiders on the effectiveness of the total school
operation. The intent throughout the process is more than to focus on
shortcomings; the chief goal is to seek remedies for inadequacies and to
identify and nurture good practices.
Accreditation of a secondary school is on an institutional basis. It
should be noted that the whole school, not just one program such as the
college preparatory courses, is covered by the accreditation."