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ACCREDITATION

The Western Catholic Educational Association (WCEA) is pleased to announce the action taken by its Elementary Commission wherein St. Pius X School is awarded a full term of accreditation through June 30, 2025.

What is WCEA?

The Western Catholic Educational Association is a private educational accrediting agency for Catholic elementary and secondary schools in ten western United States and the US Territory of Guam.

The mission of WCEA is to promote quality Catholic education for students in our member elementary and secondary schools through an accrediting process that assures the primacy of faith formation and educational excellence.

The specific purpose of WCEA is to coordinate the accreditation process by assisting schools in their self-evaluative programs, to establish general standards for excellence in Catholic schools, to grant WCEA Accreditation, and to cooperate formally with regional accrediting organizations as determined by the WCEA Board of Directors.  Currently WCEA co-accredits schools with ACS-WASC and AdvancED.

WCEA was originally formed in California under the auspices of the Bishops of the Catholic Arch/Dioceses of California.  Although the membership now includes Catholic Arch/Dioceses in nine other states and Guam, the Bishops of the Catholic Arch/Dioceses of California retain reserved powers as the Members of the Corporation and appoint one of their member Bishops to serve as the WCEA President.

What is Accreditation?

Each member diocese has both an elementary school and high school commissioner. It is the responsibility of the respective commissioners to assist the school community in the preparation of a Self Study Document using an approved Protocol (Process for School Improvement for the elementary schools, and Focus On Learning for Catholic High Schools).  These protocols are criteria-based and lead the school to examine specific aspects of school life and the extent to which the criteria are currently being met. The school community then prepares for a three-day visit by an accreditation team composed of educators who are trained evaluators from other schools with educational expertise.

A visiting team spends three days with the school community after review of the Self Study document. During the visit, the team visits classrooms, investigates the written evidence of responses to the WCEA criteria, holds interviews with the members of the school community, and prepares a written report on its findings during the three-day visit.  The team also writes a recommendation of a term of accreditation based upon factors relative to the school community's success and growth needs.