April 19, 2002
Contact: Jerry Brong GMB Partnership (509-968-9805/e-mail: gmbp@elltel.net)
ELLENSBURG, Wash. - In 1979, Richard DeLorenzo received his diploma from Central Washington University. In 2002, he received the Baldrige Award from President George W. Bush.
DeLorenzo is superintendent of the Chugach, Alaska, School District. As announced by the White House and Commerce Department last December, the Chugach and Pearl River (N.Y.) school districts and University of Wisconsin-Stout are the first recipients of the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in Education.
DeLorenzo received the award from President Bush during a ceremony in March. He followed that up by serving as the keynote speaker at the Quest for Excellence Conference, April 7-10, in Washington, D.C. More than 1,300 participants from around the world attended the conference.
While at CWU, DeLorenzo majored in special education. His wife, Barbara, is also a Central alumna.
DeLorenzo’s district, in south central Alaska, has 30 staff members and a service area covering 22,000 miles that includes the rural Prince William Sound region as well as many areas reached by a distance education program based in Fairbanks.
The Chugach School District follows a performance-based system combining conventional testing with practical demonstrations of proficiency. Each student has an individual learning plan. While many school programs are considered “cutting-edge,” DeLorenzo said, “We like to refer to ourselves as ‘bleeding edge.’ We believe we’re the first district in America to go to a performance-based system supported with best practices.”
The district’s test score improvements between 1995 and 1999 reached nearly 50 percent in reading, writing and math.
DeLorenzo said the Baldrige Award, and its accompanying $100,000 grant, will help increase awareness of Chugach’s programs. He said his goal is to take the Chugach model to “a 1,000 districts or a million students, which ever comes last.”
The Chugach district is already working with a consortium of 12 other Alaska districts to spread its ideas.
“Once you have a shared vision involving all stakeholders, Baldrige helps you move forward,” DeLorenzo said.
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award was created in 1987. It is named for former Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige, who served from 1981 until his death in a rodeo accident in 1987.
The annual awards are given to U.S. organizations that have made exemplary achievements in seven areas: leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information and analysis, human resources focus, process management and business results.
DeLorenzo will make the keynote presentation at the Washington State Quality Award Symposium May 14 in SeaTac.
