State educators taking a close look at St. Louis Public Schools this week

KSDK -- More than 200 educators from across Missouri will spend the next few days observing the St. Louis school system, two years after it lost its accreditation.

The final report of this visit could help determine whether Missouri's largest public school district remains unaccredited or moves up a notch to provisional or partial accreditation. The observation teams started their day early. They have 89 schools to cover in just a few days.

Bruce Green, principal at Gateway Middle School for only eight months, hopes his visitors will come away with a good impression.

"I want to make sure that they see our students in a highly engaged environment, to see that our students are learning and we are doing our best to meet their demands," Green said.

This evaluation, known as the Missouri School Improvement Program (MSIP), is essential to the accreditation process. The teams have a lot of schools to visit, but Becky Odneal, chief accountability officer for the Missouri Education Department, says they are looking for very specific answers.

"State officials and their teams will spend the rest of the week visiting schools and interviewing employees and other staff members. Their final report won't be made public for another three months," Odneal said.

Odneal has made it clear the final report will help determine the future of the city schools for the next two years, but full accreditation is still a ways off.

Fifteen-year-old Corbin Mason graduates in a few weeks and plans to attend Gateway's sister high school and then, hopefully, the University of Missouri. Mason hopes the MSIP team will think as highly of his school as he does.

"I actually want these guys to see that we're not just a school. We're a family, 'cause we stand behind each other in everything that we do," he said.

On Tuesday afternoon, MSIP members will interview the three-member Special Administrative Board, which was appointed to run the district after it was stripped of its accreditation.