Are You Accredited?

One of the most frequently asked questions we are asked is “Are you accredited?” When I hear this question, my heart sinks…for two reasons—one, there is so much misunderstanding about accreditation and what it means vs what we are led to believe for the length of our educational career and two, I know me and my impulsive need to educate.  What follows will be a 30-minute mini-lesson on what accreditation is and why we are not accredited at BAO.  (For those of you that have heard my “soap box speech”, I apologize. Buckle up for round two!)

We can be described as an unaccredited, private, online Christian school. However, because this such a hot topic, the administrative team would like to address it thoroughly in an effort to help families understand our decision not to be accredited at this time.

There are over 100 secular accreditation agencies recognized by the US Department of Education and hundreds more secular agencies that the Department of Ed does not endorse.  This myriad of agencies grant accreditation to applying schools based on a veritable grab bag of criteria.  Each agency is their own governing body and can emphasize those things that they deem important.   Some of the common criteria are the following: Academic Standards (restriction/governance of the curriculum/content taught in the classroom), Self-Study (ensuring schools constantly providing opportunities for staff and school to adapt and grow), Financial Stability (based on longevity as a school and profitability), Effectiveness (Management and delivery systems for content and communication), Student Success (rates of student graduation and entrance to higher education), etc. In addition to these groups, there are many Christian Groups, local to international, that offer private school accreditation.  Christian accreditation is much more flexible and sometimes even lax, as most are focused on the belief system of the school and have been created to “unify religious convictions shared by member schools”.  This means they always include affirming the group’s Statement of Faith.

Clearly, accreditation means many things to many people! You can go through a process that includes YEARS of forms, evaluations, observations, etc to achieve accreditation, or you can become accredited simply by agreeing with a group’s beliefs.  Because of this, we feel accreditation actually says very little about your school and the quality of the school without looking at the accreditation agency as well as what and who they represent.  Colleges know this and accreditation has no impact or has very little impact on student ability to continue to higher education. For these reasons, we do not feel it is needed.

Furthermore, Bibleway Academy Online was born of a vision to help parents educate their children at home while maintaining the integrity of our faith.  Many accreditation agencies would require us to give up control of what is taught in our classes by regulating the content to meet their programs and agendas.  These curriculums and agendas are why most of our families have taken their children out of the public school.  Agreeing to let someone else govern what happens in our classrooms does not align with the mission of our school.

Well, then why not go with a Christian accreditation agency? This is the area into which we have delved and researched the most.  There are many highly respected Christian accreditation groups that give accreditation to both brick-and-mortar schools as well as online schools. However, along with all the other varied requirements, the applying school must affirm the agency’s Statement of Faith.  Every Statement of Faith that we have researched for these entities includes elements of trinitarian doctrine or the trinity.  As Believers, we know this is not consistent with the Message or Bible truths.  In good faith, our board of directors and administrators cannot sign-off on agreeing with the beliefs of these agencies.

We are not opposed to becoming accredited in the future, given we could find an accrediting agency that did not try to manage our curriculum and environment, did not ask us to agree with anti-message doctrine, and that we could afford (Accreditation costs and fees can be quite significant with initial costs and fees ranging from 3-30 thousand dollars and then ongoing yearly evaluation costs) given that accreditation is important to some potential families. The administrative team has regular discussions on accreditation and continues to prayerfully consider our stance and options.

That being said, we pride ourselves on offering the best educational experience possible to each family and child that is part of the BAO family.  We have made a commitment of excellence in everything from our management systems to our curriculum and are so proud of the growth and improvements we can already see in our school and what we can offer our students.  In only three years of existence, we have more than doubled our student population, added many new courses, and have brought on additional qualified teachers.  We strive to be transparent in all our policies, systems, and curriculums and always welcome feedback as we continue to grow.

If you have further questions about accreditation or BAO please email us at online@biblewayacademy.org.