May 20, 2022
Dear St. Joan of Arc Families,
Over the last several months the faculty, staff and I have been working on a project to have St. Joan of Arc accredited by a company called Cognia. The purpose of accreditation is school improvement. The following is from the Cognia website:
“For more than 125 years, schools have been inviting Cognia and our legacy agencies into their classrooms. Why? Because we go beyond evaluating school quality. We provide trusted expertise and actionable ideas that move the needle on school quality.
Accreditation is the launchpad for school improvement. Based on rigorous research-based standards and evidence-based criteria, the process probes the whole institution—from policies to learning conditions and cultural context—to determine how well the parts work together to meet the needs of every learner.
Accreditation isn’t about passing a one-time inspection—it helps education providers meet improvement goals and sustain commitments to better learner outcomes.”
The process of accreditation enables a school to study itself, celebrate its strengths and to improve on its weaknesses. In years past the accreditation process was facilitated through Middle States. Over the last two days St. Joan of Arc has been going through this process of accreditation. This school year the Diocese of Brooklyn took upon itself to have twenty plus schools/academies accredited by Cognia. Surveys were sent out and taken by parents, teachers, and students last June. The results of those surveys, data taken from testing and an accreditation tool was used to put together our accreditation information. Yesterday, Monsignor Hoppe, the teachers and staff, several parents, students and I were interviewed by the accreditation team. The faculty worked extremely hard to put our information together and they deserve a huge round of applause for their demanding work and dedication.
It is with extreme pride that I can announce St. Joan of Arc Catholic School has been granted accreditation by Cognia. This is a wonderful achievement for us. However, we are not finished, it is up to us now to work on continual school improvement. We will be receiving recommendations from Cognia as well as official documentation and we will continue to seek new ways on improving the school. Thank you to all who participated in interviews, completion of surveys and support. An incredibly special and heartfelt thank you to our faculty and staff who undertook this enormous task.
Gratefully yours,
Mr. Raffaele Corso
