Promoting Your Accreditation
Congratulations! Your school community worked hard for your accreditation. As a MSA‐CESS‐accredited member you are in good company among a wide variety of quality schools and educational institutions of all shapes and sizes. We encourage you to celebrate and promote your accreditation status with the audiences that matter most: parents, staff, students, community members, business leaders and public officials.
Did your school benefit from the process? Share your experience with others so they can understand what a comprehensive school improvement process like MSA-CESS accreditation is all about.
Celebrating your Accreditation on your Website
An important place to highlight your school’s achievement of Middle States accreditation is on your website. We recommend including an affirmation of accreditation on your school’s homepage with the MSA logo, and adding a description of the achievement in the About Us or Academic section of your website. Below is a sample approach for how to share your accredited status, but we recommend you look at our approach and the examples below to develop your own unique way to explain what MSA accreditation means for your school!
Suggested Approach
1. Promote your achievement on your homepage! Use one of the logos provided on this page, or if you need a different file format, contact us at info@msa-cess.org.
2. Explain more about your accredited status and the process of continuous improvement your school commits to through accreditation. Typically, schools share this information in the About Us or Academics section of their websites. All schools approach sharing this information in their own way, but make sure to highlight what accreditation means, what you experienced throughout the process, why accreditation matters to your school community, and who Middle States, as your trusted partner in this school improvement process, is.
3. Share real time updates of each step of the accreditation process. In addition to a general description of accreditation on your website, sharing updates is a great way to increase engagement, excitement, and visibility about the process. We encourage transparency with your school community, as well as opportunities for stakeholder engagement, throughout the process. Share steps of the accreditation process (self-study, team visit, accreditation decision) as they happen through news items or other updates on your webpage or social media platforms. Some schools share sections of their self-study as they are completed, as well as the final MSA team report after the team visit has concluded.
Examples from Member School Websites
Below are a few great examples of unique ways schools have highlighted their achievement of Middle States accreditation on their website:
American School of Valencia, Spain
Doodle Bugs! Early childhood centers, NY and PA
Share a Video
Share our video explaining the accreditation process.
Share a video explaining your accreditation achievement!
Record a short explanation of the accreditation process from your head of school/superintendent, like this video from Bill Crist, Superintendent for the Diocese of Syracuse Schools.
Share as a video press release like Our Lady of Mercy in Maple Glen, PA.
Get your students involved! (listen for #5) The Doodle differences
Sharing Your Accreditation with your Community
A great way to celebrate your accreditation and educate your community on the importance of accreditation is by sending out press releases. Once a school has earned accreditation or reaccreditation with MSA-CESS they may share the news by sending out the following press releases:
MSA Logo and Usage Guidelines
The MSA Logo is provided for use in print or web .
Once a school is offered formal candidacy for accreditation, they may advertise their membership with MSA-CESS using the logo with one of the following phrasing choices.
“Candidate for Accreditation”
“Pursuing accreditation”
“Candidate member”
Accredited members may post the logo alone or along with descriptive language of their choice.
