The Academic Program receives its reaccreditation of the Secondary course by MACTE

Instituto Nueva Escuela (INE) is overjoyed to achieve the reaccreditation of the Secondary course for seven more years from the Montessori Accreditation Council for Teacher Education (MACTE), who accredited the course for the first time in 2015.

MACTE, founded in 1995, is dedicated to improving academic degree and certificate programs for professional Montessori educators who teach and lead schools from infants and toddlers to the Secondary and Administrator levels, thereby assuring the public of their quality.

In Puerto Rico, INE is the only educational center that provides Montessori certifications at all levels, all of which are accredited by MACTE.

What INE celebrates today was an extremely careful and rigorous process, as described by the Academic Program. INE Secondary School faculty began an internal self-study in 2021 which consisted of reviewing and consulting previous evaluations of adult learners and faculty, academic requirements of the course, literature that supports the work with adults, conversations and questionnaires from graduates.

“Together, as a faculty, we were building and rebuilding the final self-study presented to MACTE for reaccreditation,” shared Annabel Martínez, director of INE’s Academic Program.

Something that distinguishes the organization is collective work, and in this same way they worked to achieve the reaccreditation that they celebrate today. Part of this group were course facilitators, level coordinator, program evaluators, academic services coordinator and the director of the Academic Program. For INE and the group in charge of this achievement, what they are experiencing today is something significant and important.

“Presenting before the board of evaluators of the accrediting agencies is not an easy task, nor is it simple. However, we open the house and clearly show the task we carry out every day with joy and commitment. The day of MACTE's visit to INE was a great celebration; They spoke with current adult learners, with program graduates, with faculty and administrative staff,” Annabel Martínez mentioned about the process.

Isabel Arce, who is currently the coordinator of the Secondary level at INE, was also part of this process. Isabel was one of those first teachers to train at the INE as a Secondary School guide, serving for a long time as a guide at the Juan Ponce de León school, while helping the INE along with other colleagues to train teachers and grow the Secondary school course for achieve that first accreditation and now reaccredit.

A term that Isabel uses to describe the Secondary course offered by the INE is that it is ''creolized'', and this is because at the beginning of INE the courses were in English and the Secondary course was also offered by staff from Cincinnati Montessori Secondary Teacher Education Program (CMStep) an innovative, multidisciplinary graduate program for teachers interested in creating hands-on curricular and field studies for students ages 12-18.

''By the time we went to reaccredit the course it was very Creole, in other words, the basis was there, the principles, the methodology and the philosophy, but they were adapted to the needs of Puerto Rican teachers which is very different from the needs of the North American teachers'', shared Isabel Arce.

Some components of this reaccreditation consisted of showing how the INE trains teachers, the course curriculum, evaluations, interviews with graduates, adult learners and course facilitators, review of documents and even a visit to INE’s office space, among others.

Not only the INE group celebrates this reaccreditation, but also graduates of this course such as Kevin Sánchez González, Secondary School guide at the Manuel Elzaburu y Vizcarrondo school, who shares that “we really liked being part of the process. Knowing that they listen to us, knowing that they take us into account and that Instituto Nueva Escuela is going to continue training these new generations of teachers in a methodology that increasingly attracts attention and seeks to teach in a different way. This achievement is gratifying for me.”