The following letter is from Tom Redmon, Ed.D, CAE, Executive Director of The Southern Association of Independent Schools (SAIS).

Dear Sandra,

I had the priviledge of sitting in the background during the recent SAIS accreditation visit to Summit School. My role, of course, was to be of help to our special visitors from the NAIS Commission on Accreditation as they reviewed the process. Clearly, Doreen Kelly and her team of official reviewers were in charge and very careful in their process.

Let me pause and remind you and your board how much SAIS appreciates the extra mile Summit has gone to exemplify the quality of our schools and this SAIS review process.

The visit itself was the perfect example of what makes "good schools great." No one of us ever doubted the quality of Summit. Its history, its program, its leaders and governors, and its remarkable place in the greater Winston-Salem community attest to the exceptional experience in which parents and students participate.

Members of the Summit administrative and teaching staff were always available and attentive to the needs of the visiting team. Their hard work in developing the self study and in knowing, really KNOWING, the operational features of Summit suggested how much commitment undergirds a great looking school. They make all the marketing and admissions material TRUE.

The visit this time added to what we already knew. Doreen and her team asked hard questions, met with so many remarkable staff, sought the details of why things work so well, and evaluated a broad range of issues covered by our standards. No school would want such a team to leave with just a series of pats on the back. Our schools depend on these five year visits for NEW ideas and recommendations. Even a school of the quality of Summit benefits from such. The great difficulty for the team was in holding back their enthusiasm and commendation. Summit is too easy to gush over! There are too many things going on RIGHT. This is, in fact and in practice, how to do school. I left the portion of the visit I attended wishing there was a way to write up what goes on in these young lives as a case study in "best of the American school experience."

Your and Doug's leadership have helped to make all this possible. Summit's board will have no small task finding a third "generation" of leadership to carry this school forward.

Thank you for the privilege of being there for this important event.

Tom Redmon, Ed.D., CAE
Executive Director
Southern Association of Independent Schools