School Accreditation

With the development of the Christian education movement over the past quarter century, there has at the same time developed the need for assessing the quality of the educational programming in Christian schools. That need has been recognized by the leadership of the North Carolina Christian School Association. Therefore, a strong commitment has been made within the Association to the development of a program of voluntary school accreditation. Accreditation is viewed as one means for improving the quality of a school’s curricular and instructional programs.

The leadership of the North Carolina Christian School Association is aware that accreditation never has and never will assure quality in any school. It will, however, cause a Christian school to self-evaluate its educational process and to receive counsel from experienced Christian educators. The accreditation process will also help a Christian school identify its programs’ weaknesses and offer suggestions on how these areas can be strengthened. In this way, accreditation should assist a Christian school in improving the quality of its educational program. The North Carolina Christian School Association is committed to helping Christian schools produce a quality product.

Accreditation does not guarantee a quality product, but rather verifies a quality process being implemented by an accredited school. There are unaccredited schools producing an outstanding educational product and accredited schools failing to do the same. Accreditation does, however, require the school to evaluate its educational process objectively. For this reason, the North Carolina Christian School Association encourages its schools to go through the Voluntary Accreditation Program, whether they become officially accredited or not. This program is not a governmental accreditation program and only available to NCCSA member schools.

The NCCSA Voluntary Accreditation Program (VAP) has been granted reciprocity from the accreditation commission of the American Association of Christian Schools. The NCCSA also maintains a co-accreditation agreement with the North American Christian School Accrediting Agency (NACSAA), which is officially recognized as an accrediting member of the National Council for Private School Accreditation (NCPSA).

For more information regarding the NCCSA Voluntary Accreditation Program, please email here.