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Best Practices Case Studies
Pearl River School District (PRSD) Name: Pearl River School District Pearl River School District (PRSD) in Rockland County, New York, also received the 2001 Baldrige Award. The district began their change process in 1992 with a new board of education and three strategic goals: improving academic performance, improving public perception, and maintaining fiscal stability and improving cost effectiveness. "As a community's largest public investment," said Sandra Cokeley Pedersen, Director Quality and Community Relations, "a school district has an obligation to keep the community informed about programs, funding, spending, decision making, and challenges." The district uses a plan-do-study-act process to improve performance. They start in July with the district mission, values and goals, and collect data throughout the year from student performance, environmental scanning, demographic and enrollment trends, student and stakeholder surveys, national standardized tests, state tests and learning standards, audits, and inspections. The district publishes a balanced scorecard to communicate district progress using leading and lagging indicators at the level of the school, grade, classroom, teacher, and student. The audience of the scorecard includes parents choosing between public and private school as well as senior citizens concerned about property values. The process revealed that 95% of children in the community go on to higher education, and perception of the school system is directly tied to their ability college preparation. Yet only 63% of students graduated in 1996 with a Regent's diploma (a higher standard in New York State than a regular diploma). The district set a goal that all students would graduate with a Regent's diploma. Teachers and counselors used 4th and 8th grade exams results to identify students who needed more support. They proudly post the number of their students who have passed the exam so that everyone works toward the goal. In 2001, 86% of students had achieved the Regent's diploma. The district also discovered a high attrition rate among top students after eighth grade. Six out of the top ten students left PRSD for private schools. Once the district knew what students they were losing and why, they took action to keep those students engaged. Now virtually all students continue in PRSD. The district uses a nationally recognized survey tool to measure value and satisfaction of students, parents, and faculty. The commercial survey tool gives them access to a comparative database to measure progress against indices and similar districts. Taxpayers have expressed their satisfaction by approving the district budget by a two to one majority in recent years. The results of eight years of continuous improvement are impressive:
Pedersen attributes the district's success to their formal process of continuous improvement. By adopting the Baldrige Model and conducting self-assessment, the whole organization knows what to expect and how to achieve it. PRSD Improvement Process
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