East Lee County High School has achieved full accreditation by the National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation (NATEF). The mission of NATEF is to improve the quality of automotive technician training programs nationwide at secondary and post-secondary public and proprietary schools. NATEF examines the structure, resources and quality of training programs at schools and evaluates them against standards established by the automotive industry. These standards reflect the skills that students must master to be successful in the industry. NATEF accreditation is available to automobile, collision repair and refinish programs and medium/heavy duty truck programs. To be accredited, schools must perform an intense self-evaluation process which they submit to NATEF for review. The self-evaluation is performed by program instructors, administrators and advisory committee members. The school’s program is internally compared to national standards, with the opportunity existing to make program improvements. NATEF reviews each application and determines whether or not the program qualifies for an on-site evaluation. If a program is determined to be eligible for an on-site evaluation, an Evaluation Team Leader who holds ASE Master Certification reports to the campus to conduct the evaluation. If all industry requirements are met, the program becomes NATEF accredited for a five year period.
Achieving NATEF accreditation is a tremendous accomplishment for the automotive program at East Lee County High. Accreditation brings with it program credibility, prestige, recognition and overall program improvement. NATEF accreditation ensures a higher quality educational experience with regard to automotive-related fields and increases the potential for students to secure a solid career after graduation. East Lee County High School began preparing for NATEF accreditation at the end of the 2012-13 school year. To prepare for the accreditation process, faculty from the school visited neighboring programs which had recently gained NATEF accreditation, including South Florida State College (Arcadia) and Hardee Senior High School (Wauchula), as well as three of the District’s own schools: Fort Myers Institute of Technology, Ida S. Baker High School and South Fort Myers High School. For more information about the NATEF Accreditation program please visit http://www.natef.org/Home.aspx