CAIS accreditation news!

Dear TMS family,

After all the complex communications surrounding the start of the school year—from class schedules to registration to mask requirements and vaccinations—I thought I’d take a minute to share some plain old good news.

The Marin School has been accredited by WASC (the Western Association of Schools and Colleges) for many years. Without that accreditation, we couldn’t operate and graduate students to 4-year universities. TMS is also a member of CAIS (California Association of Independent Schools), which provides its own training and accreditation to private institutions across the state.

In preparation for our latest accreditation cycle, TMS was invited to seek combined WASC/CAIS accreditation—which sets a much higher standard for independent school practices and performance. After more than a year of reflection, research, and writing, the school submitted (then, with the pandemic, updated and re-submitted) a Self-Study report and hosted a visiting team of educators and assessors this April.

Well, the results are in, and TMS has earned a 7-year WASC/CAIS accreditation—the longest period of time allotted before a school must reapply for renewal. We also dropped our CAIS “provisional” status along the way. (As a point of reference, only two provisional schools seeking CAIS accreditation this year were elevated to full member status.) This is a major achievement, made possible only by the hard work and excellence of our entire faculty, staff, board, and administration.

On behalf of the TMS board of trustees, I hope you’ll join us in extending a huge thank you to Ben for his leadership, and to our previous Head of School, Barbara J. Brown, who spent much of her last year at TMS focused on our accreditation effort. But mostly, thanks to the continuing commitment of our faculty and staff, whose work every day has built TMS into an institution worthy of this recognition.

Sincerely,

Amy Jonak

Chair of the Board of Trustees

The Marin School