Venice recently completed the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) accreditation process that all high schools and colleges must undergo. A group of educators go to different high schools and colleges to make sure the schools are running properly and following procedure. The team’s report was submitted on Wednesday, Nov. 7 and looked really positive. The goal of the process is to get a six-year accreditation, but as of now, the school doesn’t know the results and will be informed in spring 2019.

Venice High put together a report for WASC that tells the story of the school and talks about some areas where the school accreditation team thought needed work six years ago and how the school has improved since their last visit. The WASC process involved everyone at Venice, including teachers, students, administrators, parents and community members.

The team arrived at Venice on Sunday, Nov. 4 to overview and familiarize itself with the school before it started the accreditation process. The next day, the official visit started and lasted until Nov. 7. During that time, the team visited every teacher’s class. They also asked for data from the last three years and had meetings in focus groups that consisted of school organization, curriculum, instruction, assessment and culture.

At the end of the WASC visit, teachers, students, parents, administrators and community members were asked to join meetings discussing the process. The WASC team was raving about what wonderful kids there are at Venice. They said they felt very welcome, they thought Venice had a nice staff and they had a pleasant stay.

A meeting was held with parents, district officials, students, administrators, leadership team, and out of classroom teachers, like coordinators, counselors and support staff.

Venice math teacher Michael Smith, the WASC coordinator, was in charge to make sure the WASC team was taken care of, had food, a place to work every day and hotel accommodations. He also made sure everything was going according to plan and organized meetings and sent reminders out to the team. Mr. Smith was also in charge of updating the report every day and sharing the report with Principal Gabriel Griego at the end of the day.

“I’m really really happy to say that everybody that I was working with on this was just so awesome and amazing on pulling us through this and I felt that attitudes were really positive amongst everyone,” said Mr. Smith.