Editor’s Note: Student Union is written by students at Brewer High School, Hermon High School, John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor, Schenck High School in East Millinocket, Searsport District High School and Stearns High School In Millinocket. The weekly column is a joint effort among the schools, the Bangor Daily News and Acadia Hospital. This week’s column was written by Schenck High School students. Their adviser is Charla Lowell.

Schenck High School in East Millinocket is in the midst of a significant process: attaining its accreditation again.

One of the first challenges to the faculty and staff was to develop and adopt a new mission statement.

This statement reads: “Schenck High School is committed to maintaining an intimate, caring place for students, staff and community. Through pride and dedication, we strive to integrate a strong curriculum with technology, human resources, and a wide variety of activities to ensure that each student reaches his-her potential. Our size enhances a flexible learning environment, supports a strong teacher-student connection, and promotes effective communication.”

Using this statement as a guide, Schenck will assess and apply the rules and regulations of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and is hopeful to acquire its accreditation.

Being awarded an accreditation by the association shows that the school has met certain standards at an acceptable level and is willing to maintain those standards and improve its educational program by implementing the recommendations of the evaluation team. Accreditation shows that the school has conducted a self-evaluation of all its programs and has been host to a visiting committee. This visiting committee will evaluate Schenck High School’s stated education goals and the seven Standards for Accreditation of the Commission on Public Secondary Schools.

As students at Schenck, we know that accreditation is important to staff and students. Schenck’s own accreditation team, which is co-chaired by Kim Glidden and Nancy Moscone, is made up of six other faculty members: Louise Fiske, Mindy MacKenzie, Paula Sprague, Greg Friel, guidance counselor Charla Lowell and Principal Tom Tetu.

We feel the staff at Schenck has been actively involved in developing our curriculum, designing instructional strategies to assist us in learning as much as possible, implementing the Maine Learning Results and developing assessment tools to meet Learning Results standards. In helping us meet these standards, the staff has selected appropriate textbooks and materials.

The committees involved in the accreditation process are the School and Community Profile Committee, Kim Glidden, chair; the Mission and Expectations for Student Learning Committee, chaired by Fiske; the Curriculum Committee, chaired by Moscone; the Instruction Committee, chaired by MacKenzie; the Assessment of Student Learning Committee, chaired by Sprague; the Leadership and Organization Committee, chaired by Friel; the School Resources for Learning Committee, chaired by Lowell; and the Community Resources for Learning Committee, chaired by Tetu. The Curriculum Committee and the Instruction Committee had their reports approved on Oct. 26 and Nov. 15, respectively.

When the visiting team visits Schenck High School from Sunday, April 3, to Wednesday, April 6, the team will evaluate the strengths and needs identified by the committees. The team will shadow students and teachers to determine whether Schenck is meeting the seven Standards for Accreditation of the Commission on Public Secondary Schools set forth by the association.

The committed, caring staff at our school strives to integrate challenging courses with new technology and a wide variety of mentally stimulating activities to ensure that each of us is successful not only as a student, but as a respected citizen in our community. For this we praise and thank the staff and faculty of Schenck.

Gabrielle Rioux contributed to this article.