809-H Bay Avenue
Capitola, CA 95010
Central Phone: 479-5225
Product or service: Collaboration to bring total quality practices into public schools.
Award Status: Overall Excellence

The Santa Cruz County Educational Leadership Consortium Academy (SCCELCA) is a formal county-wide school/community commitment to engage schools in the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards continuous improvement process.

SCCELCA gives participating school teams "hands-on experience" in implementing proven, high performance management approaches used to transform lagging American businesses to global competitiveness.

SCCELCA represents one of the first formal attempts to give schools Baldridge training in quality improvement. School teams learn business methods of organization, problem solving, and decision making based on satisfaction data collected from customers and tracking classroom performance measures compared with standards.

Over 6,000 customer surveys were returned soliciting community input and participation. The surveys link the key stakeholders' (customers) concerns directly with the learning improvement actions. Broad based community support is developing through these linkages, making it possible for both school and home to move forward with substantial academic improvement plans that both specifically support.

The academy's bottom line goal is higher student achievement. The academy provides a process for change that integrates and streamlines current reform efforts, school improvement projects and other programs already in place.

The academy is facilitated by the Santa Cruz County's Office of Education in partnership with Granite Rock, Co., and the following school districts; Live Oak, Pajaro Valley Unified, Santa Cruz City, Scotts Valley Unified and Soquel Union Elementary.

Through SCCELCA, teachers, administrators, parents, students, business and civic leaders all play significant roles in reforming local schools.