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Follow Our Accreditation Journey

Stay up to date with the latest information regarding the O'Hara Catholic School Accreditation process. Please check back here regularly for the latest news on our Accreditation journey. If you have any comments or questions about Accreditation, please fill out the form at the bottom of this page, we'd love to share more about the accreditation process with you! 

APRIL 23 - MAY 7, 2023

On April 11, the entire O'Hara staff worked together to advance our accreditation efforts. We read through the full rough draft of our report, making edits and recommendations along the way. We also added more detail to our Educational Improvement Plan (EIP). The EIP lists each of our major goals along with strategies, timelines, and personnel responsible for helping the school achieve them.

Our School Advisory Council is also making edits and recommendations for the rough draft of our report. Their input as a voice for our families is very important to the process. Additionally, each SAC member brings a unique focus to the report based on their experience in the school, involvement at various grade levels, and professional background.

Our next steps include finalizing the report and EIP, organizing evidence to support the conclusions in our report, and preparing for our Visiting Committee's arrival in November. 

MARCH 5 - APRIL 16, 2023

We have completed a rough draft of our accreditation report, and SAC will be reviewing it at their next meeting. Over the next few weeks, staff members will create action plans to help us achieve the goals we've identified through the accreditation process. 

FEBRAURY 5 - FEBRUARY 26, 2023

Over the next month we will continue to work on goal development. Please click here to view our Executive Summary.

JANUARY 22 - JANUARY 29, 2023

Over the next month we will continue to work on goal development.

JANUARY 15, 2023

A huge thank you to our School Advisory Council (SAC) for reviewing the Domain work we completed on January 3 & 4.

We are busy reviewing our self-assessments and developing our goals for continued growth. We will continue to inform our school community of our progress each week.

JANUARY 8, 2023

We are so grateful for the two work days we had for our accreditation self study! As a staff, we were able to accomplish so much!  Additionally, we were able to spend time as a staff in Faith formation where we focused on the virtue of Orderliness and putting God first in our lives.

We are currently working on:

  • Creating a list of our major accomplishments over the last 6 years
  • Finalizing strengths and areas of growth for each of the 4 domains
  • Summarizing our data results to share with stakeholders.
  • Over the upcoming months, we will be working to finalize our goals

 

JANUARY 3, 2023

Welcome back, O'Hara. Please see our latest Accreditation updates below.

  • Reminder that January 3rd and 4th are days dedicated to our self study for accreditation. Our staff will be working on data analysis, goal setting and operational vitality. 
  • We have a SAC member who has completed the analysis of all of our parent data, and is currently working on the analysis of our student and staff surveys. We discussed the results of the parent data at our December SAC meeting. 
  • We continue to work on goal formation as a staff.
  • We are working on a list of significant accomplishments from the last 6 years.
  • We have completed a review of our enrollment data, and developed a policy for future admissions.
  • We are in the process of finalizing the technology plan.
 
DECEMBER 18, 2022

Please see below for the latest updates on our Accreditation process:

  • We have a SAC member who has completed the analysis of all of our parent data, and is currently working on the analysis of our student and staff surveys. We discussed the results of the parent data at our December SAC meeting. 
  • We continue to work on goal formation as a staff.
  • We are working on a list of significant accomplishments from the last 6 years.
  • We have completed a review of our enrollment data, and developed a policy for future admissions.
  • We are in the process of finalizing the technology plan.
 
DECEMBER 11, 2022

Please see below for the latest updates on our Accreditation process:

  • We  have a SAC member who is working on data analysis of parent, student, and staff surveys. We will discuss the results of this data at our December SAC meeting. 
  • We continue to work on goal formation as a staff.
  • We are working on a list of significant accomplishments from the last 6 years.
  • We have completed the enrollment management program.
  • We are in the process of finalizing the technology plan.
 
DECEMBER 4, 2022

Please see below for the latest updates on our Accreditation process:

  • We have shared our first Accreditation update with our parish, St. Mary, via an insert in their weekly bulletin. We are working on getting one of these done for each parish in our community. 
  • We  have a SAC member who is working on data analysis of parent, student, and staff surveys. We will discuss the results of this data at our December SAC meeting. 
  • We continue to work on goal formation as a staff.
 
NOVEMBER 27, 2022

Thank you to everyone who took time to fill out our Accreditation Survey. We exceeded our goal of 90% participation and, as a result, our students will receive a Free Dress Day on Friday, December 9.

We are currently working on the following next steps in the accreditation process:

  • We are working on collecting evidence for all of the domains within our staff.
  • One of our SAC team members will be doing a deep dive into our parent, student and staff survey data to give us an assessment.  We have an extra session in December to review updates and brainstorm goals.
  • We have met with St. Mary Pastoral Council and Finance Council to share key points on the accreditation process.
  • We have mailed an accreditation overview to each of our local parish priests. 
  • We are beginning initial work on goal formations.
  • As a reminder, last spring we updated our mission statement with the help of our staff and our School Advisory Council (SAC). Our mission statement is our guiding document and is always in the front of our minds when we are making decisions for our school.

MISSION STATEMENT

O'Hara Catholic School is committed to developing and supporting the whole child in a secure, Christ-centered environment in partnership with the family. We encourage academic excellence, serving God and our neighbor, and demonstrating strong Catholic values.

 
NOVEMBER 20, 2022

ACCREDITATION SURVEY - THANK YOU!

Thank you to everyone who took time to fill out our Accreditation Survey. We exceeded our goal of 90% participation and, as a result, our students will receive a Free Dress Day on Friday, December 9. We cannot tell you how important your feedback is to us, and we are very grateful for your time.

We are currently working on the following next steps in the accreditation process:

  • As a staff, we have analyzed and reviewed the staff survey data.
  • We are working on collecting evidence for all of the domains within our staff.
  • One of our SAC team members will be doing a deep dive into our parent survey data to give us an assessment. 
  • We have met with St. Mary Pastoral Council and Finance Council to share key points on the accreditation process.
  • We have mailed an accreditation overview to each of our local parish priests. 
  • As a reminder, last spring we updated our mission statement with the help of our staff and our School Advisory Council (SAC). Our mission statement is our guiding document and is always in the front of our minds when we are making decisions for our school.

MISSION STATEMENT

O'Hara Catholic School is committed to developing and supporting the whole child in a secure, Christ-centered environment in partnership with the family. We encourage academic excellence, serving God and our neighbor, and demonstrating strong Catholic values.
 

Accreditation Days Off:  On Tuesday, January 3 & Wednesday, January 4, we will not have school but our staff will be working on our self study for accreditation. In years past, schools were allotted 6 days by the Archdiocese Department of Catholic Schools to do this important work. Currently, we are allotted 2 days for work days. During those days the entire staff will be working to complete our self study document and make as much progress as possible. The remainder of our work is done during staff meetings, prep times and after school.

 
NOVEMBER 13, 2022

Please remember to fill out our accreditation parent surveys that were emailed out to parents last week. As parents, you are your students’ primary educators, and your feedback regarding our school programming is extremely important to us and to the accreditation process.

Right now we are at 55% participation, please help us reach our goal of 90% in order to reward our students with a free dress day!

Please complete your parent survey by Friday, November 18. Your answers will remain anonymous. We would love to hear from every parent in our community! Thank you for your cooperation and valuable feedback. 

 
NOVEMBER 6, 2022

Please keep an eye out for our accreditation parent surveys going out via email tomorrow morning. As parents, you are your students’ primary educators, and your feedback regarding our school programming is extremely important to us and to the accreditation process.

Students will also be completing surveys in their classrooms this week. We have spoken to our students about the importance of gathering their feedback, and we look forward to hearing their responses.

Please complete your parent survey by Friday, November 18. Your answers will remain anonymous. We would love to hear from every parent in our community! Thank you for your cooperation and valuable feedback. 

 

OCTOBER 30 ,2022

Please see below the latest updates on our accreditation process. We have accomplished the following goals within the past week, and we appreciate the parents and staff who have participated:

  • Our leadership team is working on gathering data & evidence for all domains.
  • We have been reviewing goals from past accreditations to ensure the same level of success.
  • Our School Advisory Council (SAC) is assisting each accreditation committee as a voice for the parent perspective. They are currently reviewing and adding to our lists of data and evidence. 
  • We are creating documents to share with parishes regarding the accreditation process.
  • We met with the St. Mary Pastoral Council to share our journey through the accreditation process and plan for future goals.
  • We will be sending out Parent Surveys on Monday, November 7 to collect valuable feedback. Students in grade K-8 will complete surveys at school the same week.
OCTOBER 23, 2022

Hello, O'Hara Families.

Accreditation is an important part of any school and for all Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of Portland, we are accredited through the WCEA. Accreditation is run on a six year cycle. Our last accreditation visit was in the Fall of 2017, where we were awarded a full six year rating. This year is what is referred to as our "self study" year with next fall being our site visit.

The WCEA is in the process of updating their protocol to better connect to the USCCB . We will be piloting this new protocol as well as a new digital evidence library this year. One of our goals is to keep our parents and shareholder community involved in the process. It is important that you are aware of how we are doing, what our process is, as well as what goals we are working on. In the upcoming weeks, we will be sending out a survey to our parents to gather important feedback from you all.

What we have completed so far: 

  • Staff Surveys - we will be analyzing these at an upcoming staff meeting.
  • Begun work in our Four Domain groups with staff leaders as we brainstorm where we are on all the standards. 
  • We have created a work timeline to ensure we stay on track. 
  • If at anytime you would like to learn more about the process, please contact either Mrs. Conway, Mrs. Cohn or Mrs. Obersinner. You can also view our Accreditation webpage where updates will be posted regularly. We will also continue with weekly updates in the bulletin as we progress through this important process.

Thank you for your support.

Tammy Conway - Principal
 

Accreditation Updates Form