Compliance with
Standards
(Revised Friday March 11, 2005)
1. Beliefs and
Colegio Maya is in full compliance with the standards regarding beliefs and mission. We have well-developed vision, beliefs and mission guidelines, as well as profiles for our graduates, teachers, administrators and parents and we review all of these on an ongoing basis with all of our stakeholders via surveys, committees, retreats, our monthly newsletter and our web site.
2. Governance and
Leadership
Colegio Maya has a very active nine member parent Board who assure the school’s quality operation with the help of four committees covering finance, policy, school improvement, and currently the Performing and Fine Arts Center Project. All committees meet regularly and report to the Board on a monthly basis. The committees include members from the Board and from the greater school community where appropriate. The Director is also a member of all committees. The Board has an annual fall training and goal-setting retreat where they review the duties and responsibilities of Board members and set their goals for the year. The Board polices are modeled after the Association for the Advancement for International Education’s model derived from a compilation of overseas schools’ policies. Within the seven sections of the school policy there is policy to guarantee and support compliance with all of the SACS governance and leadership standards. The administrative head is in her sixth year as director and provides leadership in accordance with all standards.
3. Resources
Colegio Maya has a qualified staff and meets all of the standards as can be evidenced by reviewing the personnel files where records are kept and updated yearly to demonstrate the school’s commitment to following these standards.
The school’s financial resources also comply with all standards and the school maintains a reserve as part of its annual operating budget that is set by policy. The school has no outstanding loans and will complete Phase I of its Performing and Fine Arts Center project this April providing the school with a 340 seat theater/auditorium complete and the shell for Phase II, music and art classrooms, also done using capital reserve and donations only.
The school’s physical resources are adequate, well-maintained and support the school’s mission, and long-range plan. Within the past 5 years the tennis courts have been resurfaced, the elementary and early childhood playgrounds re-designed, the libraries remodeled to double the size of both, the secondary science classrooms remodeled and currently the Performing and Fine Arts Center is under construction.
The school has a crisis management plan and maintains a healthy and safe environment for all. The front gate was recently upgraded to assure for better security when entering campus and walls are being built and reinforced on both sides of campus to ensure greater privacy and security.
4. Support Services for Student Learning
The school has a comprehensive guidance program delivered by one full time counselor and one part-time college counselor. The school has a full time nurse, contracts with a company to provide a nutritious cafeteria program and contracts bus services with a local bus provider as well as has its own smaller coasters and a van to help provide adequate transportation services. The school maintains ongoing communication with alumni, parents and other constituencies via the web site, newsletters, and weekly coffees with the Director. The school has a fully developed admissions policy that is administered by the principals, counselors and director who comprise the admissions’ committee.
5. Curriculum and Instruction
Colegio Maya actively meets all of the curriculum and instruction standards. Recent initiatives in this area include the implementation of a curriculum position, purchase of curriculum mapping software to assure curriculum alignment, and a commitment to use the Understanding by Design model of curriculum development for all curriculums. The school also has an active professional development program with time dedicated to its realization throughout the year monitored by a faculty committee.
6. Assessment
Colegio Maya has a comprehensive assessment plan including
standardized tests, portfolios, teacher made tests, performance based
assessments, anchor papers, project demonstrations and self-reflections. The
data from these assessments are shared with all the stakeholders in a variety
of ways and used to help improve classroom instruction and school-wide learning
initiatives.
7. Library Media and Technology Services
Colegio Maya meets and/or exceeds all of the library media and technology standards. We are very proud of our newly remodeled libraries which more than adequately serve our students, staff and greater community. We also have two technology labs, one for secondary and one for elementary students, and use technology proactively in many ways. We have an excellent web site that serves as the technological hub for our entire program and showcases our programs and students in a wide variety of ways.
8. Stakeholder Communications and Relationships
Colegio Maya uses a variety of ways to communicate with its stakeholders including an “open door” policy in all classrooms and offices. Parents and special visitors are always welcome on campus. At the elementary level, thanks for our PTA, we have active room parents in every classroom. Nearly every Friday the director hosts a parent/director coffee and in the course of each year, every parent is invited to this coffee. The purpose of the coffee is for parents to talk about “why Maya?” and to share their affirmations of the school and suggestions for improvement with one another and the director. The elementary principal has a “Star Student Assembly” on Fridays to honor student’s hard work and successes in all areas. We have parents, administrators and teachers on the School Improvement Committee and its various sub-committees.
We use technology via our web site to communicate with our greater public in many ways from teacher folders, to an alumni data base, to posting all of our daily, weekly and monthly school publications--the Daily Bulletin, the Thursday Bulletin and the Maya News, to our admission’s process and forms, to inviting visitors on the site to email us. Teachers and parents use email regularly to stay in touch regarding individual student and assignment information and students are actively involved in posting their work on the web site through their classroom teacher folders and two new features, “Two Doors Down” and “Write Next Door” that showcase student’s writing.
9. Citizenship
Colegio Maya’s environment is one guided by the ten values
identified by the students and staff over the past two years: respect, honesty,
friendship, diversity, sharing, growth, integrity, trust, unity and individua
There are three very active student councils on campus at the elementary, middle school and high school level and these groups are involved in a wide variety of activities including community service and working to bring as much cohesiveness and meaningful activities to the three student bodies as possible. The elementary STUCO adopted a zoo animal this year, the middle school STUCO recently sponsored a very successful middle school dance, and the high school STUCO is working on the adoption of an Honor’s Code that was initiated by last year’s high school STUCO.
Every fall, with the help of student organizers, Colegio Maya has a “Leadership Saturday” where all of the elected leaders in the school and other students who see themselves as leaders and want to learn more about leadership, spend a day reviewing good leadership principles and practices, set common goals for the year and have some fun together.
Community service is very important at Colegio Maya with an emphasis on learning by both those who serve and those who receive. There is a school-wide community service project that has been growing over the past 3 years. The school has adopted a project near the Guatemala City Dump, Safe Passage or Camino Seguro, as our “sister-brother” school. This project makes it possible for over 350 children living in and near the city dump to attend public schools in that area and come to a safe place before and after school for homework help, a healthy snack and other social activities. This year we put a pair of black leather school shoes on the feet of each of these students to help complete their public school uniform. Also we have two Talents Unlimited Trainer teachers who are working with the 18 teachers in this program to learn about Talents Unlimited and apply these productive thinking strategies in their classrooms there.
Through student handbooks and clearly established behavior guidelines for all, during the school day, on the busses and at all school sponsored activities, everyone is clear about the school’s expectations of student conduct. Attendance is checked daily and a call is made to verify every student’s absence by the building secretary. Colegio Maya has very few discipline problems and very high attendance rates.
10. Continuous School
Improvement
As evidence in our School Improvement Plan, Colegio Maya has
a purposeful, broad and deep commitment to improvement. Colegio Maya is a
school where everyone has an opportunity to be an active learner, from the
maintenance staff who can identify their eight “multiple intelligences” and know
they are welcome to check out books from our library, to the teachers’
professional development supported in a wide variety of ways, both personally
and collectively—exemplified by this year’s training on Understanding by Design
and Curriculum Mapping, to the school