How can I check whether a school's accreditation is real?
Programmes, amounts and rules change. Before acting on anything here, check the current details with the official source named in the answer.
Start with the exact name. Ask the school for the full name of its accreditor, its current status, and the dates of its current accreditation term, then check that name in the accreditor's own directory rather than relying on a logo on the school website. ACSI provides a Find a School search and a Find an Accredited School route for its schools. Cognia directs families to its Accreditation Registry to verify a school's status, and accredited schools in good standing maintain that status for a set term and go through a new engagement review. Membership, candidacy and accreditation are not the same thing, so read the status word the directory uses, not just whether the school's name appears somewhere on the accreditor's site.
Use a second check as well. Many state departments of education keep a private school directory or list, which can confirm that the school exists and is registered in that state, even though registration alone does not prove accreditation. Ask the school when it was last reviewed, what the visiting team required it to improve, and whether any condition or probation applies. A genuine accreditor publishes standards, uses trained reviewers and a site visit or equivalent external review, and can be contacted directly about a school. If the accreditor and the school give different answers, trust the accreditor's directory.
Be cautious about accreditation mills, meaning organizations that sell a recognition label with little or no review. Warning signs include an accreditor you cannot find through any established directory or association, a name chosen to sound like a well known accreditor, accreditation offered quickly for a fee with no standards, self study or visit, and a school that is vague about dates or that describes itself as accredited without naming a body at all. Guidance from the Council for Higher Education Accreditation on mills was written mainly for colleges, so treat it as a caution about the pattern rather than as a K-12 rule: the check that carries weight for a Christian school is always the named accreditor's own current listing.
Sources: Association of Christian Schools International, Find a School search and ACSI School Accreditation pages; Cognia, Cognia Accreditation Registry and Cognia Accreditation for Non-Public Schools pages (verify a school's status); Council for Higher Education Accreditation, guidance on accreditation and diploma mills (caution on mills, adapted for K-12). Checked October 2026.