EASLEY — A three-day visit by 10 members of the Quality Assurance Review Team concluded Wednesday with a recommendation that the Pickens County School District be awarded accreditation as a quality school system.

The recommendation came during an exit report presented to board members at a special called meeting Wednesday afternoon. Quality Assurance Review team members said they conducted interviews with 416 stakeholders — including 155 teachers, 106 students, 97 parents, community and business partners, 39 administrators, 12 support staff and seven board members during their visit.

The board commended Pickens County for having dedicated and caring employees, a commitment to improve facilities to support the vision and mission of the district, communications promoting a positive image with internal and external audiences and investment in software and hardware to support the vision and mission. In addition, the board said the district is committed to ensuring that kindergarten through eighth-grade students begin the school year with the necessary resources to be successful, employs multiple methods for communicating with stakeholders and has implemented educational improvements at a progressive pace.

Strengths listed for the school district consisted of the superintendent providing opportunities for stakeholder input, systemwide professional development and opportunities for collaboration, investment in human resources to support the vision and mission at school and district levels, support of volunteers, parents and business partners, sound fiscal management and close proximity to institutions of higher learning and industry.

The board listed several challenges facing the district, consisting of changing governance and leadership, preserving tradition and support while pursuing innovation, full implementation of its building program, establishing advocacy with all segments of the community and sustaining current and future levels of operation during financial constraints.

In order to achieve its goals, the board recommended that the district do the following:

• Plan and implement intervention, acceleration and support systems to close the achievement gap;

• Plan and implement intervention and support systems to increase the graduation rate and decrease the dropout rate;

• Establish systems thinking as central to the district culture;

• Provide a systematic plan for ongoing collection of external stakeholders’ input; and

• Complete the development of curriculum resources to support system-wide consistency in instructional content and practices.

Team members say they reviewed evidence prior to arriving at their findings by seeking a district perspective, pursuing evidence that could be corroborated by multiple sources, examining the context and capacity of the district in relation to its vision, mission and beliefs and applying the criteria for accreditation.

A written report of the team’s findings will be submitted to the Pickens County School District within 30 days. Once it is received, the district will be required to review and communicate its findings, address the recommendations, monitor accreditation standards on an ongoing basis, monitor strategies for improvement and submit the Accreditation Progress Report.

Though the Quality Assurance Review Team has recommended that the district receive accreditation, a report must be reviewed and approved by the AdvancED Accreditation Commission. Once that has taken place, the district and all its schools would be granted a five-year term for accreditation.