Sidney schools receive high marks

Sidney schools are on the right track, in the opinion of an external accreditation team who visited the school last month.

“Really, in a nutshell we had an excellent visit,” said Sidney high school principal Chris Arent at Monday’s school board meeting. “The accreditation team was very impressed top to bottom, across the board.”

The accreditation process for the middle and high school takes place every five years. This process includes an external review performed by administrators from other districts in this region of the state. The reviewers conducted interviews and completed classroom observations.

All accredited schools must demonstrate a school improvement goal for the students and teachers. Sidney’s goals include improvements in math and reading.

The team, which visited all of Sidney’s schools, was pleased with the faculty’s commitment to quality instruction as well as the district’s goals, Arent said. The team called the school exemplary and a “model district” many times in meetings with the administration, he added.

“Certainly a lot of good things to kind of puff our chest out a little bit and be very proud of but understanding we do have some work to do as well,” Arent said.

Arent praised the dedication to excellence of all those involved including students, staff, administration, board members, parents and community members.

“It really is a team effort here, it’s across the board that we want excellent schools,” Arent said.

The team who visited and accredited the school were impressed with the respect shown by both the students and teachers and the quality of the character of the students, he added.

The team did require some changes at Sidney schools. These included a formalization of the process for training professional and staff members to interpret and utilize data to support learning. This is to include mentoring and coaching and should ensure consistency with the school’s values and beliefs about teaching and learning. The team also required the school to continuously plan to upgrade technology infrastructure to meet the needs of all those with stakes in the school.

“They already saw there’s plans in place for these two things,” Arent said. “That was noted during their discussion with this as well.”

The school was already aware of these two issues before the accreditation visit and already has a plan in place to remedy them.

“They have to rate us on where we’re at right now,” Arent said. “And right now those things need to be improved.”

School board member Doug Means wondered about Sidney’s low rating for a digital learning environment. Arent explained that the school could only be rated well in that category if the students were actively using technology during the random 20 minute visit a member of the accreditation team might make to any class during its visit.

“They had to actually see students using the technology at that time,” Arent said.

Arent admitted that for the students to use technology, they need the proper infrastructure to do so.

“We have the infrastructure in every building,” Arent said. “It’s just not industry standard like it will be once we get through the summer here.”

School board member Randy Miller thanked the administration and all those who attended the accreditation meeting during the team’s visit to Sidney.

“I was very, very impressed with everybody’s report that they did, they did a very professional, fantastic job,” Miller said. “It made me proud to be up here, I can tell you that. I think you guys did great.”

Means commented that the school needs to keep up with the technological updates that the accreditation team required.

“That, to me, is a good indication of where we need to be headed and I think where the rest of the world is headed,” Means said. “And I think we’re all pleased with the work that’s being done and the focus on technology and what we’re doing to enhance technology.”

He stressed that the school stay focused and committed to ensuring that kids and teachers have access to the technology they need to be successful.

“I think this world is gonna change very rapidly and it’s exciting to see what a small town in western Nebraska is doing to keep up and I think that gives our kids a great opportunity to be competitive everywhere and we need to make sure we stick with that,” Means said.

He added that the school is doing the right things, it just needs to keep pushing.

“It really made us proud,” said school board president Tom Von Seggern.