Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The Western Association of Schools and Colleges has granted a six year accreditation for South Pacific Academy, a private school founded in the late 1970s in the territory.

In a letter addressed to the school’s president Paul Michael Young, the accreditation commission committee chairman, David Gaudi Jr said, “based on the satisfactory completion of the accreditation visit, including the school’s report, it is the decision to grant six-year accreditation through June 30, 2028.”

In an email to the staff and board of directors, Young said: “I want to thank Dean Sabrina Uele for her leadership through this process and the staff for all their hard work, commitment, and integrity.”

 In a statement, SPA board chairman Fiti Sunia said it’s a “great honor to be fully accredited by an external quality assurance agency like Western Association for Schools and Colleges, these audits from an outside authority ensure to our stakeholders that we are taking every possible measure to see to it that our students receive the highest caliber education that American Samoa has to offer.”

“We pride ourselves on giving our students a safe and drug free environment with state-of-the-art technology to learn with and this WASC Accreditation shows us that the methods and standards we have in place will outfit our graduates with the tools they need to succeed at the next level,” he said.