Originally published by Garrett Shiflet of The Villages Daily Sun
The Villages Charter School is adding to its accolades with the Cognia 2022 Schools and Systems of Distinction award. This award, based on student performance, parent involvement and more, goes to the top 5% of the 36,000 public and private institutions Cognia serves globally. “I’m humbled to work with a great team of educators and support team members,” said Randy McDaniel, VCS director of education. “Our school was founded by visionary leaders back in 1999-2000 and laid a foundation for success. Our business partners, parents and hard-working students have taken that vision and helped make it a reality.” Cognia, a nonprofit school accrediting agency, has given the Schools and Systems of Distinction award to only 96 schools and 38 systems out of the 36,000.
“We’re very proud to recognize The Villages Charter School as one of our Systems of Distinction,” said David Hurst, deputy chief accreditation officer of Cognia.
Patrick Murphy, curriculum, instruction, assessment & technology supervisor, leads the accreditation process for the charter school and said the award shows the school is on the right track.
“We are able to affirm we have the things in place that are keeping us a high-performing school,” he said.
Murphy said the process for achieving accreditation requires a large-scale effort that includes submitting reports of team meetings, student assessment data, annual test scores and parent involvement.
All the data used came from a five-year period, from 2017-2018 to 2021-2022.
“It helps us with the continuous cycle of looking at our data to see if what we’re doing is having an impact,” Murphy said.
The Villages Charter School has a long-standing legacy as one of the highest performing charter schools in the state, with 19 consecutive “A” grades by the Florida Department of Education. It has been named a “School of Excellence” twice by the state.
Villages Charter School students typically perform well on annual state exams. In the 2021-22 school year, 75% of students from third through 10th grade scored a 3 (satisfactory) or above in English language arts Florida Standards Assessments — well above the state’s 52% average. In math, 79% of students in third through eighth grade scored 3 and above, also above the state’s average of 52%.
Parent involvement is mandatory at VCS to maintain child enrollment. Parents must complete at least 20 parent involvement hours per school year and they support the school as members of Buffalo PRIDE, or Partners Responsible In Developing Education.
“It’s definitely an honor to be recognized, and it reaffirms that all the hard work of our staff, parents and business partners throughout the year supports the school,” Murphy said.
Murphy said the accreditation process is beneficial to every grade in the school system, including The Villages High School, which is accredited to ensure course credit is accepted by post-secondary institutions.
“We want our entire school to be accredited, not just our high school,” Murphy said.
The accreditation process covers VCS for five years, and will be under review again by 2027.
VCS was first accredited in spring 2006 by Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and has maintained accreditation every school year since.
Cognia recognized winners during an awards ceremony at the Florida Impact Conference on Dec. 6 in Lake Mary. The schools hold the title for one year.
Cognia President and CEO Mark A. Elgart spoke about the distinction in a news release. He said the schools and systems earned the award through, “evidence of growth in learning, a healthy culture for learning, engaging and high-quality instructional environments, and effective leadership for learning.”