"First, the back-story: Laura Longmire (ASQ member, longtime Baldrige Examiner, former recipient at TI and fellow Quality Texas supporter) and I were talking at a Quality Texas meeting several months back, along with fellow Quality Texas Board of Governors members Paula Sommer and Dr. Kathryn LeRoy, about what we could do to help support some of the Texas school districts that are using the Baldrige Criteria. Paula and Laura are very active in working with some of these districts and Kathryn is the Chief Quality Officer at a suburban Houston district, Fort Bend ISD. I'm just a curious bystander.
After much discussion and work, Laura, with lots of help from Paula and Kathryn, set up an initial meeting at Fort Bend's district headquarters yesterday. There were representatives from seven districts in all, from both the Houston and DFW areas. Five other districts have expressed an interest in participating, but could not attend yesterday's session.
Our agenda was based on initial feedback from the participants on their main topics of interest: 1) mission, vision and values, 2) leadership development and 3) communication. Each participating district rep did a short, informal presentation on their approaches in these areas, facilitated by Paula, Laura and me. I had responsibility for the communication topic, and provided the attendees with some best practices that I've identified in this area.
All the attendees thought the session was quite worthwhile and we're planning a second session in the DFW area in mid-November and more for next year. The educators also suggested several other districts whose Superintendents might be interested to attend.
I think it's a nice story about how interested people can help our schools share their own approaches and build learning to drive improvement in their organizations, using the Baldrige Criteria."
