Tag Archives: Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award

A School Board Improves Its Focus Using the Baldrige Framework

28 Wednesday Sep 2016

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This post reprinted in its entirety courtesy of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, Gaithersburg, MD, http://www.nist.gov/baldrige and author Christine Schaefer. Posted as “A School Board Improves Its Focus Using the Baldrige Framework” on September 27 by Christine Schaefer.

BlogrigeThis past Saturday (September 24, 2016) was a proud day for Greg Gibson, a member of the Judges Panel for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. As superintendent of Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City Independent School District (ISD) in Texas, Gibson was delighted to see his district’s board of trustees publicly recognized for its performance at the annual convention of the Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA).

Specifically, the board of trustees for Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD is one of five (among school boards for about 1,100 public school districts across Texas) named a “2016 Texas Honor School Board” by TASA. Selection criteria for the annual award include “support for educational performance, support for educational improvement projects, commitment to a code of ethics, and maintenance of harmonious and supportive relationships among board members,” according to the TASA website.

scuc-board-portrait-blogrigeSchertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD Board Members:
Front row, from left to right: Mr. John Correu, Trustee; Mr. Robert Westbrook, Vice President; Mrs. Amy Driesbach, Trustee; and Mr. Jerry Perkins, Asst. Secretary.
Back row, left to right: Dr. Greg Gibson, Secretary of Schools; Mr. Mark Wilson, Trustee; Mr. Gary Inmon, President; and Mr. David Pevoto, Secretary.

Describing his board’s recent achievement, Gibson explained, “Starting about five years ago, we took the bold step of wiping our slate clean of our previous agenda in order to focus our actions at board meetings on student achievement and staff satisfaction and engagement. Previously, we had wasted too much time at meetings on other issues.”

He added, “We started with the definition of governance in glossary found in the back of the Baldrige Excellence Framework booklet (which includes the Education Criteria for Performance Excellence). The definition, which reflects the systems perspective that is a core concept of the Baldrige framework, begins as follows:

the system of management and controls exercised in the stewardship of your organization…

“We built on that definition and the Baldrige Criteria concepts in item 1.2 [the section on an organization’s governance system],” explained Gibson.

To improve its focus on the school district’s true priorities during board meetings, Gibson said, the seven board members and school system leader initially worked on improving the governance board’s performance in relation to 29 indicators of excellence from a longstanding state self-assessment tool.

“Once we maxed that out, we looked to continuously improve by moving to the Baldrige Criteria,” said Gibson. “The new self-analysis we built—it’s an inventory for good governance—is based directly on the Baldrige Excellence Framework. We’ll start using it in the next school year.”

For the statewide award received by his board last weekend, Gibson noted, “We wrote our application around the work our trustees are doing with the Baldrige framework.”

Congratulations to the board of trustees for Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD—and kudos to all boards of directors that similarly are using or plan to use the Baldrige framework to achieve and sustain good governance!

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Special thanks to Blogrige blogger Christine Schaefer for providing the opportunity to reprint Blogrige posts for WRIE readers. Reprint courtesy of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, Gaithersburg, MD, http://www.nist.gov/baldrige.

Our mission at Studer Education is to help education systems achieve measurable results that produce positive outcomes in student achievement, employee engagement, support services, and financial efficiencies and productivity. Our goal is to help school systems provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Follow us on Twitter at @StuderEducation and visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

WRIE Evidence Based Leadership @StuderEducation

02 Tuesday Aug 2016

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Each year in August Studer Education showcases select partners and school district executives at What’s Right in Education in Chicago. This month, more than 200 educational leaders attended. Over the next couple weeks we’ll share some of the Twitter feed (#WRIE) takeaways from the event which highlight how school district leaders are all in, all of the time when it comes to improving their school districts and their students’ learning experience. Today’s focus is Evidence Based Leadership.

Evidence Based Leadership CI 1 LeadershipLeadership 2 All In

Why Evidence-Based Leadership? Why What’s Right in Education? Great education leaders show our school board leaders, school leaders, teachers, staff, and our students and parents that we care about their well-being. In doing so, we connect with the hearts and minds of those we lead, and in turn, we provide “life opportunities” to the kids we serve. Leader behavior, grounded in Evidence-Based Leadership, means we are proactive to solve problems in an execution framework and maximize performance through continuous improvement. When we do these things, we champion great places to work, learn, and achieve.

Huron SE Logo

 

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Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. For more information about building a culture of high-performance in your education system contact Ryan Hess at Ryan.Hess@StuderEducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Follow us on Twitter at @StuderEducation.

Execution of Leading Practices Paves Way to Culture of High Performance

04 Saturday Jun 2016

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“It’s not a matter of knowing what to do…it is the execution of how.” This is a quote from Quint Studer, founder of Studer Group, in a September article in Becker’s Hospital Review (Dunn, 09.05.2013). Studer is not alone in his focus on execution. Brandon Dixon of the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, the Double A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds, has seen his per game batting average steadily increase over the last 10 games, from .263 to .317, moving to .471 overall. Recent articles headline his bat coming alive with titles, “Dixon goes yard twice again for Wahoos: Reds infielder plates five runs in second straight two-homer outing” (MiLB) and Dixon’s reflective practice to higher performance:

“You can just kind of tell [when things are good], by how your outs are, if you’re making hard outs, drawing walks, seeing the ball well… It’s not necessarily just based on hits or stuff like that. The entire scope of [each at bat] lets you know you’re feeling pretty good and trying to keep it rolling.”

DixonIndeed, Dixon at bat is “feeling pretty good” for the Blue Wahoos and moves manager Pat Kelly to be committed to getting the high-performing slugger into the daily lineup. Of course, for Kelly and the first place Wahoos it’s more than getting high performing players on the field  if they want to continue to stay at the top of the league; and for educational leaders it’s more than getting high performing employees “on the bus” and “in the right seat” on the bus.

Once we recruit and retain high performing employees, the challenge for us as educational leaders is to align our actions and our district practices to five practices common among high-performing organizations, and then execute them. Five practices common among one industry’s high-performing organizations as identified by Studer (Dunn, 09.05.2013) are:

1. Executive and senior leadership commitment.

2. Leadership evaluation and accountability.

3. Leadership institutes and training.

4. Communication and employee forums.

5. Know this was the right thing to do.

As educational leaders we must think about and describe how our district or school embodies these five practices. In doing so, we:

  • identify how each practice is executed,
  • describe “what right looks like” for each practice,
  • identify a metric or measurement for each practice,
  • identify individual responsible, and
  • reflect on how well our organization executes each practice.

Why? When we do these things we show our colleagues (school board leaders, school leaders, teachers, and school staff) that we as leaders care about their well-being. We must connect with the hearts and minds of those we lead. In turn, they allow us to be proactive about solving problems in an execution (evidence-based leadership) framework and maximize performance through continuous improvement. When we do these things, we champion great places to work, learn, and achieve.

Huron SE Logo

 

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Photo Cite: Screen shot of Dixon statistics via MiLB.com accessed online 6.4.2016 here.

Maun, Tyler. (06.01.2016). Dixon goes yard twice again for Wahoos. Reds infielder plates five runs in second straight two-homer outing. Accessed on MiLB.com online 6.4.2016 here.

Dunn, Lindsey. (09.05.2013). Building a Culture That Works: 5 Traits of High-Performing Healthcare Organizations. Becker’s Hospital Review. Accessed online 6.4.2016 here.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. For more information about building a culture of high-performance in your education system contact Dr. Janet Pilcher at Janet.Pilcher@StuderEducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

School Boards, @BaldrigeProgram Framework, Excellent Results

22 Friday Apr 2016

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Two of our Wisconsin colleagues, Superintendent of Pewaukee Schools, Dr. JoAnn Sternke, and Executive Director of Wisconsin Center for Performance Excellence, Liz Menzer, share thoughts about school boards connecting the Baldrige Framework to focus on excellent results. The post is reprinted in its entirety courtesy of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, Gaithersburg, MD, http://www.nist.gov/baldrige and author Christine Schaefer. Posted as “School Boards and the Baldrige Framework = Excellent Results” on April 14, 2016 by Christine Schaefer.

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The 2013 Baldrige Award-winning Pewaukee School District of Wisconsin began using the Education Criteria for Performance Excellence (part of the Baldrige Excellence Framework) at the prompting of a school board member, according to its superintendent, JoAnn Sternke. Larry Dux—then clerk of the Pewaukee School District Board of Education—was familiar with the Baldrige framework’s value to the business sector from his work. Dux believed his school district could benefit just as for-profit organizations had from adopting a systems approach to improving its performance, among other Baldrige core concepts.

He was right. As Sternke’s high-performing school system has since demonstrated, the Baldrige Education Criteria can be used as a self-assessment tool by a school and, better yet, the entire school system to improve performance in all key areas. Those include leadership and governance systems; strategic planning and development; approaches to engaging and supporting students, stakeholders, and employees; knowledge and data management as well as performance measurement; operations; and results.

Sternke and Liz Menzer—a longtime school board member and a leader in both Wisconsin’s Baldrige-based program and the nationwide network of local programs known as the Alliance for Performance Excellence—presented earlier this week on the Baldrige framework’s benefits to school boards at the 2016 annual meeting of the National School Boards Association (NSBA). I recently asked them to share some key information about their presentation for readers of the Baldrige blog.

As background, Sternke noted that NSBA has identified the following as core skill areas that effective boards of education need to ensure that all students achieve at high levels: vision, accountability, policy, community leadership, and relationships.

“These five dovetail beautifully with the Baldrige framework,” said Sternke. “In fact, the Baldrige framework supports and makes these concepts become actionable. This is the focus of our presentation at the National School Board Association conference (held in Boston, April 9–11).”

When asked why school boards can find the Baldrige framework valuable, Menzer responded, “Ensuring that public education will meet emerging challenges requires a clear vision for the work and operations of school boards in the future. The Baldrige framework can help boards shape proactive strategies that make school board members more relevant, credible, and effective leaders of public education.”

Sternke and Menzer each shared examples of the value they described, based on their respective experiences in school communities in Wisconsin.

“Using the Baldrige framework has helped our organization better utilize people, plan, and use processes to achieve [desired] results,” said Sternke. “Our board and our senior leaders clearly know their roles and their key work as we pursue our mission to open the door to each child’s future.”

For her part, Menzer said, “Using the framework has made us more data-driven, and this makes us better decision makers. It also makes us better ambassadors for public education because we can be less anecdotal and more factual about the good things going on in our public schools.”

Sternke and Menzer also provided their answers for three questions school boards are likely to ask about adopting the Baldrige framework, as follows:

1. Does adopting the Baldrige framework add more work for school boards?

Menzer: “No, it just organizes your work and provides focus.”

2. How do you get started?

Sternke: “The state-level, Baldrige-based programs of the Alliance (see link above) throughout the country can be great resources for educational leaders. In fact, Pewaukee School District got started with the support of the Wisconsin Center for Performance Excellence, which is headed by Liz Menzer.”

3. What’s the board’s role and the superintendent’s role in pursuing school/district improvement?

Sternke and Menzer: “One of the nice things about using Key Work of School Boards along with the Baldrige Excellence Framework is that these resources provide clear direction about governance versus operations. The first clearly presents differing roles that superintendents and school board members hold in education organizations that function optimally. These roles are supported by the Baldrige framework, which aligns the focus for all and also identifies the line between leadership (the work of senior leaders) and governance (the work of the board).”

[Illustration Omitted]

To help your local school board get started using the Baldrige Excellence Framework, consider downloading and sharing copies of the following free resource containing sample questions from the Education Criteria: http://www.nist.gov/baldrige/publications/baldrige_perspective.cfm. And please share how this or other Baldrige resources have helped your board of education and local schools improve and excel.

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Special thanks to Blogrige blogger Christine Schaefer for connecting with us via email about our request to reprint this post for WRIE readers. Reprint courtesy of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, Gaithersburg, MD, http://www.nist.gov/baldrige.

Our mission at Studer Education is to help education systems achieve measurable results that produce positive outcomes in student achievement, employee engagement, support services, and financial efficiencies and productivity. Our goal is to help school systems provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Follow us on Twitter at @StuderEducation and visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the seventh straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Process Management Tips from a @BaldrigeProgram Award-Winning School District

30 Wednesday Mar 2016

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This post is reprinted in its entirety courtesy of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, Gaithersburg, MD, http://www.nist.gov/baldrige and author Christine Schaefer. Posted as “Where Success Isn’t an Accident: Process Management Tips from a Baldrige Award-Winning School District” on March 21, 2016 by Christine Schaefer.

BlogrigeAs superintendent of the Baldrige Award-winning Pewaukee School District, JoAnn Sternke is widely considered an expert on systematic process management (among other areas addressed by the Baldrige Excellence Framework). Sternke is frequently asked to share her district’s best practices to help other organizations around the country improve their systems so they too can achieve their desired results.

Yet Sternke recently said something that new users of the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence may find both surprising and reassuring. In regard to the “Operations Focus” category (where process management is assessed), Sternke admitted, “I used to fear category 6.”

“Now I recognize that process is so vital to any organization’s success,” she added. “Improving processes will truly get us long-lasting results.”

At the Baldrige Program’s Quest for Excellence® conference in April, Sternke—along with Pewaukee School District Information Technology Director Amy Pugh—will provide guidance on process management in the session “How to Manage Your Processes So They Don’t Manage You.” According to Sternke, “Participants will learn a five-step process to identify, document, measure, analyze, and improve processes.”

Pewaukee-Five-Step-Process-Management“Without a process you don’t have a guide,” said Pugh. “Having a process makes it so much easier to identify targets and then collect key data points around those goals, monitoring them regularly and making changes as necessary.”

Sternke agreed, “Success isn’t a happy accident if you can rely on process. [Having a systematic process] is what makes positive direction sustainable and predictable—and that’s what we aim for.”

Tips and Insights on Managing Processes

Based on her district’s experience, Sternke offered the following tips for managing key processes to support excellence across an organization:

  1. Have a process owner who is identified as the “go to” for this process, and have this person document the process so there is a collective understanding of the process.
  1. Know what’s key and measure this.
  1. Have a systematic review of the process—remember the “S” and the “A” in Plan–Do–Study–Act [improvement methodology]. Don’t become so busy doing the process that you don’t evaluate it or refine it.

Sternke also shared her insights on innovation in relation to process management:

“I’ve learned that innovation truly comes from process, not in ‘lightbulb moments,’” she said. “The quest to offer greater value to stakeholders is what drives both process improvement and innovation. They go hand in hand.”

Benefits of the Baldrige Framework in Education

Why is using the Baldrige Excellence Framework (including the Education Criteria for Performance Excellence) beneficial for school districts today? According to Sternke, she’s “better equipped to lead my organization using this framework” and doing so helps her avoid merely “pursuing random acts of improvement” as a leader, ensuring systematic improvement.

“We can’t be successful if we just lead from one cool idea to another, thinking that is improvement,” she explained. “The people who come to work and learn each day deserve an organization that allows them to do the good work they want to do.”

“The Baldrige framework is a proven means to better outcomes—and we all want that for our students,” Sternke added. “The Education Criteria focus our organization on the right things: the questions guide me as a leader and all of us in our organization to think more deeply about how we can make our organization operate best in order to be successful.”

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Visit the Pewaukee School District website for more information. The district will also present on Tuesday, April 5, at the Baldrige Program’s Quest for Excellence® Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.

Special thanks to Blogrige blogger Christine Schaefer for connecting with us via email about our request to reprint this post for WRIE readers. Reprint courtesy of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, Gaithersburg, MD, http://www.nist.gov/baldrige.

Our mission at Studer Education is to help education systems achieve measurable results that produce positive outcomes in student achievement, employee engagement, support services, and financial efficiencies and productivity. Our goal is to help school systems provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Follow us on Twitter at @StuderEducation and visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.