PARIS – The Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School was recently notified that the New England Association of Schools and Colleges continued the school’s accreditation after reviewing its pre-self-study report in June.

But that’s just the beginning of the process, officials said.

“Our standards are very demanding. I don’t know of any school that’s done all we’ve asked them to do,” said Charles McCarthy, associate director of the Bedford, Mass.-based NEASC’s Commission on Public Secondary Schools.

The private, nonprofit regional organization, the nation’s oldest accrediting agency, serves more than 2,000 public and independent schools, colleges and universities in New England and American international schools in 70 nations.

Currently nearly 100 schools in Maine, including the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School, are accredited through the organization, McCarthy said.

As part of the accreditation process, the Commission reviewed the school’s pre-self study report at its meeting in June and continued the school’s accreditation.

In that report, which was received by local educators last month, the Commission said it was pleased to learn that a new mission statement had been drafted and that local educators had implemented a process for faculty and administration to identify what standards the school plans to address as the school begins its self-study that will show its adherence to the standards for accreditation when the NEASC committee visits the school in 2010.

McCarthy said the accreditation process is strictly voluntary, but the status of being accredited is reviewed by many colleges as part of the admittance procedures.

“Better than two-thirds (of college admissions offices) say accreditation has some effect,” McCarthy said.

Beyond that, staff and students see accreditation as a significant goal to be reached, he said.

“It’s an indication a school has chosen to be measured against a set of standards by a third party,” McCarthy said of the process that relies on a voluntary peer review process.

With the pre-self study completed, educators at OHCHS are now focusing on completing the 12-month self-study that will then be reviewed on-site by a peer-review team from the NEASC.

“It’s a kind of wake-up call for schools,” he said of the preliminary visit.

Jan Gauger, assistant principal at the high school, said that she, a guidance counselor, an English teacher and a health teacher make up the committee that supervised the rewriting of the school’s mission last year and is now overseeing the self-study process.

“You give a narrative of our values and a list of expectations. Everything derives from that,” explained Gauger of the process.

The mission of OHCHS, which serves more than 1,200 students in grades nine through 12 from eight towns in the SAD 17 district, was revised last year.

It now reads: “OHCHS is committed to encouraging students to be responsible for their own learning and to honor integrity of mind, body and spirit so that they may become contributing members of their community.”

The mission needs to have two sections: the narrative statement of fundamental values and beliefs about learning and a list of expectations for student performance in academic, civic and social areas. According to the NEASC Standards for Accreditation, the school must ensure that the academic expectations are measurable and written in terms of what students are expected to know and do.

“Everything should be reflective of the mission,” Gauger said.

The NEASC standards are broken up into several areas and focus on the school’s mission statement and expectations for student learning; curriculum, instruction and assessment of student learning.

For example, curriculum standards demand in part that the school commit sufficient time, financial resources and personnel to the development, evaluation and revision of curriculum and that professional staff be actively involved in the on-going development, evaluation and revision of the curriculum, based on assessments of student performance in achieving the school’s academic expectations and course-specific learning goals.

This year the committee will look at standards-based grading as part of the process to ensure they are meeting the standards set by the NEASC, Gauger said.

McCarthy said the high school will receive a preliminary visit from a 15-member visiting team in the fall of 2008 or spring of 2009. The committee will look to see if the school has met the standards, including the school’s mission statement.

Schools are now mandated to contact the NEASC commission within 60 days if they find a potential area that might have a negative impact on the standards such as the elimination of fine arts, practical arts and student activities; diminished upkeep and maintenance of facilities or significantly decreased funding.