Cognia Midwest Regional Meeting

On Friday, September 20, Dr. Kathryn Fishman-Weaver and Stephanie Walter represented Mizzou Academy at the Cognia Midwest Regional meeting. At the meeting, the two met with school leaders across the state to learn more about the ongoing accreditation process and share successes and best practices from work so far. Mizzou Academy completed their accreditation site visit in April 2024. Earning accreditation from the Cognia Global Accreditation Commission means that Mizzou Academy is recognized nationwide as a school that meets–or, in this case, exceeds–Cognia Performance Standards and is committed to continuous improvement.

After the review process, Cognia awards an Index of Education Quality (IEQ) as a holistic measure of overall performance. The average IEQ is 252. The top mark is a score above 300. Mizzou Academy’s IEQ is 348.

Dr. Kathryn Fishman-Weaver was among a few select school leaders asked to give a presentation to support others in their accreditation journey. She spoke about Mizzou Academy’s processes for ensuring quality evidence. Fishman-Weaver shared about the importance of involving all stakeholders to “implement a systematic analysis of our performance-based assessments” to inform course revisions and support students in “developing an authentic voice.” She also emphasized the importance of celebrating small and big successes. While every school has goals for improvement, pausing to mark highlights, such as student leadership and growth over time, is essential in the improvement process. 

Attendees also learned more about the continuous improvement process and attended an impactful keynote on mission, vision, and values work. At the regional meeting, the Mizzou Academy representatives talked about how proud they were of Mizzou Academy’s work around living, teaching, and planning according to the core values of partnership, access, inclusion, and innovation.

Values-Driven Award for Excellence 

Other leaders in the region have also taken note of the way core values drive decision-making and learning at Mizzou Academy. During the awards luncheon, Nancy Bolz, Midwest Director, named Mizzou Academy as the 2024 recipient of the Values-Driven Award by Cognia! 

Each year, the Cognia Midwest region awards one school or district with this honor. 

Bolz said, “The Values Driven Award of Excellence recognizes institutions who systematically and systemically model these values through their day-to-day efforts to improve outcomes for their students. [The award] recipient is led by a dynamic team whose commitment has been relentless, and their review this past year was indeed impressive! The Values Driven Award goes to a district who walks their talk and lives, eats, and breathes continuous improvement: Mizzou Academy!”

In an announcement to the team, Fishman-Weaver wrote, “CONGRATULATIONS to all! Our core values of inclusion, innovation, partnership, and access speak directly to who we are as educators and to the school community we are co-creating with our students, partners, and families. I can’t think of a more meaningful recognition from this recent accreditation process. Thank you all for all you do!” 

She then invited faculty and staff to join for a cookie celebration on Thursday, September 26. Assistant Professor Kimberly Kester drove up from Joplin for the celebration. She shares, “The award is meaningful to all of us because we work so hard to ensure student success, which aligns with our core value of inclusion.  In order to be successful, all students need to feel welcome, included, and equally heard.  All of us at Mizzou Academy are proud of playing our part in earning this award and knowing that our values coincide with the values of Mizzou Academy.” 

Core Values at Mizzou Academy

During the 2019-2020 school year, Mizzou Academy engaged in a rigorous strategic planning and revisioning process. Fishman-Weaver says that “defining and clearly articulating our core values was an essential part of this work.” 

Working with the entire faculty and staff, Mizzou Academy named partnership, innovation, access, and inclusion as our core values. The team wrote definitions, guiding questions, and key belief statements for each of these terms. “Our core values document is one of the most referenced documents at Mizzou Academy” says Fishman-Weaver “and for good reason. These values inform school policy, practice, and curriculum.” 

Core values guide the decisions Mizzou Academy faculty, staff, and administrators make during regular school operations. However, Assistant Professor Ericca Thornhill says they also inform our mindset about learning and growth. “There is strength in vulnerability,” says Thornhill, “and at Mizzou Academy, we recognize that we are all human, and it is not only our strengths, but also our weaknesses that provide us with chances to learn, and to celebrate ourselves for who we truly are. More learning happens when our students are comfortable knowing that we are here to see them and teach them at whatever stage they are at.”

Assistant Professor David Graham joined the team full-time this fall and has been struck by how much the core values really impact planning at the lab school. “It’s nice” he says “to work in a place that actively strives to achieve the words written on a page and mean it!”