Amana Renews its EL Education Credentialed Status for a 2nd 5-year Term

On February 23, 2024, Amana received notice that EL Education had renewed our EL Credential for another 5-year term.  This news came after a lengthy presentation with EL Education staff and other EL Education Credentialed school leaders that included a slide presentation that dove deep into data from each of the three dimensions of achievement – Mastery of Knowledge and Skills, Character and High Quality Work. 

We were joined both in-person and virtually and guests had the opportunity to take a tour and visit classrooms with student docents, meet with focus groups of faculty, leadership and students, and provide feedback at the end of the visit.

One visitor said, after speaking with a group of middle school students, “I’ts so obvious that your school is infused with joy.  I also noticed how the values of your school shine through.  When I spoke with your students, they used words like, ’empathy,’ and they said, ‘If I don’t feel well, people will notice,’ and, ‘nobody talks down to me,’ and, ‘We’re like a family.’ So it’s quite evident that you infuse your values in everything you do and that’s quite a beautiful thing to witness.’

Ayanna Johnson, Principal of Kuumba Academy in Delaware, said, “I want to commend you for being a model and a North Star for all of us at EL.”

Scott Hartl, President and CEO of EL Education spoke about Amana’s contribution to the EL Network.  He said, “I hope that you see the value that Amana plays in making the EL Education network strong and something that people can see models that they want to shoot for and drive for….. I don’t know too many schools that have been excellent for multiple decades.  Attaining that level of excellence – a credentialed level of excellence – in a public school in America is one of the hardest things I know. To maintain that for multiple decades is just very unusual.”

The EL Education School Credential is a marker for schools implementing the full-school model and seeing excellent and equitable outcomes in the Three Dimensions of Student Achievement.