Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville recently celebrated 100 years as a continuously accredited institution.
Cognia, a non-profit, non-governmental accrediting agency, recently awarded RMA with a banner and plaque commemorating the milestone.
"I've been with the academy since 1999 ... and I knew that we had been accredited for a very long time, but I had no idea that it had been that long," Britt Daniel, executive vice president of RMA said. "I'm proud of the very small role that our administration played in steering the academy through the last accreditation cycle ... the credit for reaching a milestone like this goes, quite literally, to generations of dedicated and talented faculty and staff."
RMA was established in 1907 and was accredited in 1922. Daniel said accreditation has played an important role for schools across the country.
"Accreditation of secondary schools in the United States was born out of a desire to provide colleges and universities assurances about the quality of the preparation that a high school student had received," Daniel said.
RMA added two signature programs as part of the most recent accreditation cycle - one in cybersecurity and another in aerospace engineering. They are also soon adding a Civil Air Patrol Squadron.
Daniel said he was confident RMA will stick around for another 100 years of accreditation.
"I'm confident that it will be here 100 years from now, serving boys from all over the world," Daniel said.
