Camelot of Naperville Gains MSA Accreditation

Principal Michael Gurley (second row, first on left) and the team at Camelot of Naperville show their pride in winning MSA accreditation.

Naperville, IL-October 19, 2015 – Camelot of Naperville has become one of the first therapeutic day schools in Illinois to receive accreditation through the Middle States Association (MSA), a nationally—and internationally—recognized validation of the quality of programming offered at a given school.

“We have our own internal quality management review team to make sure that we are providing excellent academics and research-based therapeutic approaches.  But having this external auditing program that’s familiar with education practices, academic excellence and behavioral management programming is something we do to keep ourselves at a high mark,” said Camelot of Naperville Principal Michael Gurley.

MSA requires a school to have a seven-year planning program. The plan lays out steps that schools will take to meet school improvement goals and measurements, which are all data-driven.

“A seven-year growth plan is a pretty massive undertaking for a school,” Gurley said. “You basically can’t be a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants program and gain MSA accreditation.”

Camelot is proud of the fact that it identifies student math and reading growth as goals for all therapeutic and alternative education programs. Camelot as an organization has been certified by MSA, and that umbrella certification means all Camelot programs – transitional, accelerated and therapeutic – are covered. But Camelot CEO Todd Bock wanted to take the next step and directed that over time as many Camelot programs as is feasible, including therapeutic programs, undergo the same thorough process.

“I think it’s very important to have an unbiased expert come in and look at our programming to give us new ideas and to evaluate the ideas that we’re currently using to see how they compare with the thousands of schools that MSA accredits,” Bock said. “Tapping into MSA is a way to get insight into best practices across academic and behavioral programming in schools. We want to give our kids every advantage possible.”

“MSA certification is kind of like a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval,” said David Wingard, Ph.D., Camelot VP of Quality Management and Compliance. “We can point to our amazing outcomes all day long but when MSA accredits us that should say we not only do a good job based on our internal evaluation, but that an internationally-recognized organization has thoroughly reviewed our program and validated that we meet their quality standards.”

What should a parent take away from the MSA designation?

“As a parent, I think it would be very important to know that the school your child attends is evaluated on many different levels and has passed such a high mark in programming – academic, social and emotional,” Principal Gurley said. “Parents should look at this data and know that their child is in a safe, thoughtful environment.”