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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! 

2023-24 Updates

SEPTEMBER 24, 2023

What does it mean to be an accredited school? “Catholic school accreditation is a process for determining the quality of a school’s overall Catholic identity and educational program.” (from wcea.org)  The process of becoming an accredited school requires a commitment to transparency, involvement of all shareholders, and continuous school improvement. Through careful analysis of survey data, foundational documents, and existing programs, shareholders are able to evaluate the effectiveness of their efforts in four domains: Mission and Catholic Identity, Governance and Leadership, Academic Excellence, and Operational Vitality. The result of these efforts is a thorough understanding of the school’s strengths and areas for continued growth. The visiting team reviews and affirms the school’s work and conclusions. Ultimately, the accreditation process helps the school work toward continuous improvement in all areas with the perspective of an external group of experts to affirm their conclusions and monitor progress.

SEPTEMBER 17, 2023

This year we are excited to conclude the accreditation process that we began in the spring of 2022. Here is a review of the process our community has been engaged in:

  • Spring and Summer, 2022: Staff and parents reviewed our school's guiding documents. We made no changes to the philosophy and only minor changes to the Schoolwide Learning Expectations. Staff created a new draft of the school mission statement. SAC members assisted with important feedback over the summer which helped us to formulate our new mission statement.
  • Fall, 2023: Students, staff, and parents completed surveys that guided us in forming initial goals to advance our school's mission.
  • Winter, 2023: Staff used rubrics to evaluate the school on the 13 standards of our accrediting agency.
  • Spring, 2023: With the results of our evaluation and the data from surveys, staff finalized our school improvement goals and wrote our accreditation report. SAC assisted with reviewing drafts of the report and goals and offering important insights to guide revisions.
  • Summer, 2023: We completed the final draft of our accreditation report and sent it to our visiting team.
  • Fall, 2023: We invite you to read our accreditation report! 

If you have any questions about our accreditation process, please contact Mrs. Conway or Mrs. Obersinner. Thank you.

VIEW OUR FINAL DRAFT OF THE REPORT HERE

SEPTEMBER 10, 2023

Over the summer we updated the draft of our report based on recommendations from staff, SAC, and our visiting committee chairperson. We continued to gather and organize evidence to support the conclusions in our report. To facilitate a smooth visit, we developed an accreditation website/app that will include all of the information in one place for our visiting committee. Lastly, we have sent the final draft of our report to our visiting committee, and we await their visit in November.

2022-23 Updates

JUNE 11 - JUNE 18

Thank you to our entire O'Hara community for your patience and participation during our Accreditation journey. Throughout the summer, O'Hara staff members will be working on creating their domain pamphlets, highlighting specific areas of growth and success in every facet of our school. We will also begin planning for our Accreditation team visit in the fall of 2023.  For now, we will continue to keep our community updated through our website and our summer and back to school bulletins. 

MAY 21 - JUNE 4, 2023

In the fall of this school year, we asked our families to participate in a survey for our Accreditation process. We had our data analyzed by a third party at the University of Oregon and we were able to share that report with SAC as well.  We are very grateful for all of the feedback we received and it is very helpful for us as we are constantly working to improve our educational environment. We would like to share overall feedback with our community. You are welcome to reach out to Mrs. Conway and ask questions at any time.

OVERALL FINDINGS

  • More than 93% of parents responded to the survey, which is supremely high. (We typically expect a response rate of 20-30% on surveys). Parents must believe their opinion matters to O’Hara.
  • The analysis that we had done found an average for every question. The average response on every question was between 4 (good) and 5 (very good/excellent) which is wonderful. This tells us that O’Hara parents are overall very satisfied with the school.
    CLICK HERE TO VIEW FULL RESULTS
     
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