Representatives from colleges in California and the Hawaiian Islands will be visiting Oct. 6-9 to determine whether Los Medanos College will be reaccredited.

The representatives, led by Dr. Helen Cox of Kaua’i, will be analyzing LMC to make sure that the standards set by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) are met sufficiently.

Every six years, accredited colleges complete a self-report and are visited by a group of people whose job is to make sure the school is doing its best to maintain quality education. It’s important to meet these standards so the students moving into certain professions are well prepared and that their diplomas and certificates have merit.

“Their standards are very prescriptive” and there will be a “level of scrutiny high to low,” said LMC President Bob Kratochvil at a management meeting addressed to faculty members Sept. 16.

Kratochvil also stressed the importance of school pride. “We want to be ready for a simple question, “what are you proud of at LMC?” he explained.

Athletics Director Richard Villegas mentioned that he was proud of the community between faculty and staff members.

ETEC Program Director Cecil Nasworthy said that he is proud of the CTE involvement with the local industry; Laurie Huffman, who teaches foreign language, said she is proud LMC is a “premiere as a teaching college.”

The site team “needs to know about all of our strengths,” said Kratochvil.

Members of the ACCJC team did a pre-visit and LMC received praise for readability and the storytelling capacity of its self-report. According to Kratochvil, the school also received “kudos from the chancellor” for the same report.

On Oct. 6 there will be a meeting in the District office followed by a campus tour in the afternoon.

The next day there will be meetings with each Standard Committee followed by visits to the offsite Police and Fire academies that afternoon.

On Oct. 8 a visit to the Brentwood Campus will precede meetings lasting for the rest of the day.

On the ninth, there will be a college wide exit report at 2 p.m. in the Recital Hall. The results of the visit will be released January 2015.

While Kratochvil is confident that LMC will succeed in being re-accredited, he mentioned that it was very likely that the team will find something to recommend for a change moving forward.

A copy of the self-report can be viewed in the President’s office.