Viking Elementary Principal Lisa Snyder knew the school had made some progress in its improvement program. Maybe more than she thought.

The school, in its third year of a comprehensive school reform program, has become the first elementary school in the state to win a Wisconsin Forward Award, the state's highest award for organizational excellence. Viking Elementary was one of 16 organizations to be recognized with a 2004 Forward Award.

The main goals of the Forward Award program, started in 1997 by the Council on Workforce Investment, are to help organizations improve their performance results and to recognize performance excellence. The award has four tiers - excellence, mastery, proficiency and commitment - which are based on a rigorous assessment process that uses the Criteria for Performance Excellence of the Malcolm Baldridge Quality Program.

Snyder said most first-time applicants, if they are honored, get a commitment level award. "That's all we were going for," Snyder said.

Viking, though, was honored at the proficiency level, along with Agnesian HealthCare Inc., American Society for Quality, Bay Area Medical Center, Children's Hospital of Wisconsin-Fox Valley, Hudson Hospital, Luther Midelfort-Mayo Health System, St. Clare Meadows Care Center, Springs Window Fashions LP and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.

No excellence level awards were given this year, and mastery awards went to All Saints Healthcare, Northcentral Technical College, Central Wisconsin Center, St. Marys Care Center, Meriter Hospital and Physicians Plus Insurance Corp.

Snyder said she would have been happy with the commitment level award or no award at all, really, because what was most valuable to the school was the process of applying for the award, which takes about a year and involved a 50-page application and an assessment of the school's organizational practices by he Wisconsin Forward Award's board of examiners. A 15-member leadership team of staff members at Viking Elementary worked on the application.

"We didn't do it for the award," Snyder said. "We did it because we wanted that external evaluation to really catapult to that higher level of excellence."

As a result of the award application and review process, she noted, the leadership team is now "much more focused on what we need to do to get excellent results."

The review that goes along with the award noted that Viking Elementary has a number of key organizational strengths. For one thing, Snyder said, the school has processes in place to gather information from students, parents, community members and staff - surveys, assessments and focus groups, for example - that help the school shape its strategic goals. Communication also was deemed a strength, as was the school's outreach efforts, in particular the work to help Hmong families make a stronger connection with the school.

Superintendent Fred Frick noted that all of the district schools have been going through improvement programs, stemming from a quality initiative Frick introduced to the district 11 years ago. The middle school is in the process of applying for a comprehensive school reform grant from the state like the one Viking won, and the high school has been going through an assessment and improvement process through North Central Accreditation.

While the concept of the kind of organizational improvement honored by the Forward Award can seem kind of nebulous, the bottom line is standardized test scores at Viking Elementary have improved, Frick said, and the award is well-deserved.

"It's a tremendous accomplishment," Frick said. "I give Lisa all the credit in the world for her leadership, plus some very committed staff."