Veteran educator Genethia Hudley-Hayes, above, recently delivered a state-of-the district report for Compton College, and told the audience bluntly that the two-year college is about seven years away from gaining its accreditation as an independent educational institution.
Hudley-Hayes was appointed special trustee by California Community College Chancellor Jack Scott, who also spoke at the meeting, and she is the fifth person to hold that position, since the state intervened in May 2004.
Hudley-Hayes said that in order for the college to even begin thinking about accreditation, it must fulfill the 21 criteria that would make it eligible to apply for candidacy. These include developing an educational master plan, an infrastructure master plan, a sound fiscal program, and insuring the district’s board of trustees is well trained in how to conduct its business and has a code of standards unique to the college and its situation.
Once the 21 eligibility requirements have been met, El Camino College, which partnered with the district to take over the college and insure that student’s classes would count toward graduation must present the school to the accrediting body–the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior College (ACCJC). The AACJC will come out to evaluate and insure the Compton College District is doing what is says it’s doing. Hudley-Hayes said this must be sustained for two years, before the campus can even apply for candidacy for accreditation.
At the end of two years, the school would move from eligibility to candidacy, then must complete a self-study.
Hudley-Hayes said her job is not to throw stones at the previous four special trustees who were supposed to be moving Compton along the road to accreditation during the nearly seven years since accreditations was revoked but to instead to make sure there is fiscal accountability and stability; make sure the education master plan gets completed; and to make sure that the college is ready to be presented to the accrediting body by spring of 2013.
