Accreditation and Certification Programs
Types of Accreditation
Lumen Membership
National Recognitions
Mission
Vision
About Lumen Accreditation
Lumen Accreditation is a gift for school communities that desire a distinctly Catholic accreditation program.
As a service to Jesus Christ and His church, Lumen’s standards integrate Church teachings on Catholic education and attend to the specific charisms of dioceses and Catholic schools.
The Catholic University of America partnered with the bishops of the United States and other educational leaders to create a framework of guiding principles for P-12 Catholic schools. By choosing Lumen Accreditation, dioceses and schools will align their goals for improvement with the Church’s vision for Catholic school mission and identity.
In a Catholic accreditation, school communities are called to be more than successful, they are called to be faithful. With an aim towards a true Christian education that “takes in the whole aggregate of human life,”(1) Lumen Accreditation assists schools to align their community more fully to the example and teaching of Christ.
1. Catholic Teaching on Education, Divini Illius Magistri, §95-96.
P-12 Catholic Accreditation Cycle
- Application
- Onboarding
- Illuminate the Mission: Staff Retreat
- Community summary
- NSBECS (2nd edition) standards self-study
- Lumen Early Learning Indicators of Practice self-study
- Catholic Identity Program Effectiveness Surveys
- Lumen Early Learning Surveys
- Assurances
- Strategic planning
- Catholic School/Diocesan Discernment
- Renewal priorities
- In-person visit conducted by a team of Catholic educational leaders
- Accreditation report
- Ratification of accreditation
- Progress briefings
- Formative feedback processes
- Resource sharing across Lumen membership schools and dioceses
- Diocesan Catholic school accreditation visits (for diocesan-level accreditation)
Frequently Asked Questions
Accreditation is an important quality assurance process in which a school or diocese voluntarily seeks an external body to help it measure its effectiveness in fulfilling its mission and setting a course for continuous improvement. In this process, an accrediting body and a school mutually agree on a framework and standards of excellence and work together to support the school community in its striving for greater attainment of those standards.
Catholic accreditation is unique because it asks Catholic schools to evaluate every aspect of the school in light of their Catholic philosophy. “A collaborative and systematic exercise of assessing a school’s catholicity would serve to identify, clarify, and strengthen its effectiveness in its service of Christ and the Church” (Archbishop Michael J. Miller, The Holy See’s Teaching on Catholic Schools).
Lumen Accreditation, offered by The Catholic University of America, provides pathways for transformational growth of all member Catholic schools through a process that integrates the Church’s rich heritage of academic excellence and Catholic philosophy.
You can apply to Lumen Accreditation here.
Students attending Catholic schools accredited by Lumen will benefit from school communities that focus on academic excellence in the search for truth, beauty, and goodness aimed at the full flourishing of the human person. Lumen Accreditation’s member schools seek to develop students that are both successful in life and faithful to God by striving to serve the highest cause, to seek the highest good, to follow the more excellent way, and to inspire others to do the same.
