The self-assessment guide is adapted from the internationally recognized Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Programs 2009 2010 Education Criteria for Performance Excellence. By using an integrated approach to school performance management, both documents seek: To help you improve your school s performance practices, capabilities, and results; To facilitate communication and sharing within your own school as well as among other schools and organizations; and To serve as a working tool for understanding and improving your school s performance and for guiding planning and opportunities for learning. This guide helps you evaluate the systems and processes within your school or school district. Complementary to accreditation and state reporting requirements, it takes a next step and focuses you on a systems perspective, helping you to align and improve your processes, with the primary focus on learning. Using this self-assessment guide, you are developing levels of understanding within a framework of excellence based on high standards used by organizations recognized as high performers. The School Self-Assessment Guide to Performance Excellence has been used in many ways in schools of education, state-wide, and as a district-wide improvement effort. Community Consolidated School District 15, Palatine, IL, 2003 Baldrige Award Recipient, disseminated this guide to each school in their district as a tool in the development of goals and action plans for school improvement planning.