The Accrediting Commission for Community Junior Colleges (ACCJC) recently cleared all nine of its recommendations for El Camino as of February 2011, leaving the college as a newly accredited school.

“This is a very significant event for our school,” Rebecca Cobb, director of student development, said, “When a student leaves this campus with a degree, it will mean something.”

The ACCJC overlooks accrediting schools under the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), by evaluating colleges in different areas via a commission composed of different faculty and staff from local schools, who evaluate how the institution meets its standards in the required areas that need to be worked on, such as educational procedures and learning standards that the school sets for its students.

According to Jeanie Nishime, vice president of student and community advancement and accreditation liason officer, there are 21 eligibility requirements and four “Standards” that must be met.  The process happens every six years.

Accreditation is a voluntary system of self regulation developed to evaluate overall educational quality and institutional effectiveness, according to the ACCJC website.

The ACCJC had issued its warning and asked El Camino to resolve its recommendations in 2009, meaning the nine recommendations were resolved in less than a year.

One particular recommendation that hadn’t been resolved since the 1990s according to Nishime asked the college to keep better watch over budgeting, program tracking, and department review. Some of the other recommendations included a revision of curriculum, an assurance of higher rigor for online classes, and a development of staffing plans and fiscal management plans.

If a college is put on warning, it’s given a variety of ways to prove its standards by the next update report or evaluation.

“The self evaluation can take up to a year to complete” said Nishime, “but if it passes the review, student’s graduating credentials will be accepted at other colleges when students transfer. A non-accredited degree means nothing”

“I think its great our school is accredited,” Johanna Aguliar, anthropology major, said, “I came from a high school that was not, and it was difficult for me to move on to a university because of that. It’s a good thing for our own futures and for the futures of other generations as well.”