Shelton High School Maintains Accreditation

Shelton High School will continue to be one of approximately 650 schools in New England to maintain their accreditation by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC). 

Headmaster Beth Smith gave an in-depth presentation summarizing both the many commendations and recommendations of the NEASC’s visiting committee in a special meeting of the Board of Education on Wednesday, July 20. 

“Shelton High School is a supportive and collaborative learning community that is mission-driven, committed to improvement, and on the verge of significant progress in student achievement,” said the visiting committee in the 90-plus-page report.

The high school will now begin a follow-up program and submit a special progress report by October 1st indicating how several of the most pertinent recommendations have been addressed, as well as another report by the same date next year, and a third in five years time, according to Smith.

“There were some areas I was willing to take a hit on and some I wasn’t,” said Smith, who focused much of the school’s efforts on the mission and expectations for student learning, resulting in ample commendations in that area on the report.

The main issues to be addressed and rectified are the three remaining fire code violations and several issues with developing and aligning school-wide rubrics with the school’s mission and academic expectations, as well as increasing the autonomy of the headmaster to direct the school toward its mission and establishing a formal curriculum development schedule. 

Smith said that they are in the process of aligning the rubrics and curriculum to the school’s mission and school-wide rubrics, and Superintendent Freeman Burr noted that the process was a “victim of the budget mitigation when we had to find 2.9 million dollars in a very short period of time.”

Among the other victims of that process was the custodial staff, which isare now severely overworked, according to Smith. Each custodian at SHS must cover 30,000 square feet, as opposed to the industry standard of 18,000 square feet by most custodians, said Smith.

“The reality is we have to fund the entire district. We need to obviously restore some funding to the high school as was pointed out here, but that also means we have to restore some funding to other places,” said Burr, “this year was our lowest request and we didn’t get it; next year we don’t have that luxury.”

“The last report said that the community has to do a better job of funding the school system and the high school so we’re all part of that,” said Board of Education member Arlene Liscinksi.

“We have to find ways to get the job done,” said Smith “They’re not going to change their standards because we just don’t have money, they’re saying these are the standards and you have to find ways to meet them. So, we need to be creative in the ways that we are going to rectify all of these recommendations.”

One of Smith’s creative administrative moves was placing after-school detention in the Library/Media Center so as to keep the area open till 3 p.m. after having to cut the hours and staff at the library as part of the budget cuts.

“I commend you for your efforts,” said Tim Walsh, Chairman of the Board of Ed. “Thank you, Beth.”