For School Administrators ·
What you'll accomplish
By the end of this guide, you'll have a working method for using Claude to draft individual sections of your accreditation self-study — turning a crisis documentation project into a manageable, ongoing process. Instead of writing from scratch under deadline pressure, you'll produce solid first drafts in 20–30 minutes per section.
What you'll need
Go to claude.ai in your browser and click New Conversation. Claude's free tier allows you to work on sections one at a time. If you're on Claude Pro, you can use a Project to store your school context (see Tips below).
What you should see: A clean chat interface with a text box at the bottom. Troubleshooting: If prompted to log in, use your school email address to create a free account.
Before asking for any drafts, give Claude the standard you're addressing. This is the most important setup step.
Type or paste:
"I'm a school administrator writing a self-study for [accrediting body, e.g., Cognia] accreditation. I need help drafting narrative sections. Here is the standard I'm working on: [Paste the full text of the standard from your accreditor's guide] The standard expects evidence of: [paste any sub-indicators or required evidence types] My school is: [School Name], a private [type] K-[grade] school with [enrollment] students in [city, state]."
What you should see: Claude confirms it understands the standard and asks what evidence you have.
Now paste in the specific evidence you've gathered for this section:
"Here is the evidence we have for this standard:
Claude will produce a structured narrative that:
Read through carefully. Note anything that overstates your evidence or claims something you can't document.
Troubleshooting: If the narrative doesn't cite specific evidence, say "Please be more specific in citing the evidence I provided. Don't make claims that aren't supported by my evidence list."
For each section, tell Claude what to adjust:
Copy the refined narrative into your self-study document template. Move to the next standard and repeat from Step 2. You don't need to re-explain your school context in each session — just reference "my school described above" or paste a brief school description.
Standard narrative draft:
Draft a [X]-word self-study narrative for [Standard Name] at our private [school type]. Our evidence: [bullets]. Tone: formal, analytical, accreditation-appropriate.
Evidence gap identification:
Looking at [Standard Name] and its sub-indicators [list them], what evidence categories are we missing from our list? [paste evidence list]
Honest self-reflection paragraph:
Add a brief paragraph of honest self-reflection to this narrative — acknowledging one area where we're still developing. Accreditors respond well to this. Here's the draft: [paste section]
Executive summary introduction:
Write a 200-word executive summary introduction for our self-study. School: [type, size, location]. Our self-study theme/focus this cycle: [describe].
Section transition:
Write a 2-sentence transition paragraph linking these two self-study sections: [paste ending of section 1] → [paste beginning of section 2].