Thursday, October 8th, 2009
by Dexter Morse
On October 4 I will leave for Tabor Academy in Marion, Massachusetts to chair the New England Association of Schools and Colleges’ Visiting Committee that will validate Tabor’s Self-Study and complete the ten-year NEASC accreditation process. In the fall of 2010 Worcester Academy will begin its own Self-Study and a NEASC visiting committee will come to our campus in October, 2011 to help us complete our accreditation process. I thought you might be interested to know a little about this decimal evaluation system
The NEASC defines its accreditation process as follows: “Accreditation has two interrelated purposes, school improvement and quality assurance.” These two goals are addressed in a three-phase process The first phase is a Self-Study done by each member school every ten years (to be completed at least a month before phase two). Phase two is the Visiting Committee that spends parts of four days on the campus of the school being accredited. Finally, phase three is the follow-up that is required by the NEASC to the recommendations for improvement and/or adherence to the Association’s Standards. Continue reading »
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Thursday, September 17th, 2009
by Dexter Morse
It is very exciting to be getting back to a new school year. Some economists are telling us that we have seen the bottom of the recent recession. They argue over how quickly growth will occur, but they are pretty much in agreement that we have seen the nadir. Hopefully, they are correct.
Worcester Academy weathered the recession in pretty good shape. We trimmed as much “fat” out of the operating budget as we could without affecting the academic program. We did not have to let any staff go for budget reasons and everyone was offered small raises. We anticipated and budgeted for an increase in financial aid requests. We slowed down plans to begin new construction at the St. Vincent property and extended the length of the Capital Campaign by two years. We were able to reduce institutional debt and improved our financial resources to debt ratio. The Admission Office anticipated a lowering of enrollment yield per accepted student and increased the acceptance pool accordingly. In the end we had a very successful admission year. We will open on September 2 with a full school.
Our institutional goals this year include working to implement our new strategic plan, doing a thorough facility needs plan, gearing up for the New England Association of Schools and Colleges ten-year reaccreditation, and continuing to improve our position as a leader in an innovative, 21st Century independent school curriculum.
I am as excited about starting the new academic year as I can ever remember being. I hope you are also ready for the challenge.
- Dexter Morse, Head of School
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