Quality improvement, or Total Quality Management (TQM), has been used for years in the corporate world to help companies achieve better customer satisfaction, increase market share, and improve profitability. More recently, TQM has emerged as a promising strategy for school improvement and educational reform. In 1991, the school district of Pinellas County, Florida, adopted a quality-management philosophy in response to Florida's Blueprint 2000 education-reform initiative, which began the shift from top-down to site-based management. The county also established the Quality Academy, a partnership linking the district with various community partners. This publication outlines the Pinellas three-step change process. Section 1 discusses why the district is committed to the transformation to a quality culture. The following three sections describe awareness, alignment, and refinement/improvement, which are the three stages in the district's change process. Each section includes relevant examples of best practices at selected school sites. Section 5 provides examples of Baldrige-based integrated system components that have been implemented or are in the process of being implemented. The sixth section outlines the seven areas of the Baldrige criteria and discusses their application. It also describes the Superintendent's Quality Challenge, an organizational self-assessment and recognition process using the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria, and provides an example of a hypothetical school that meets the Baldrige criteria. Appendices contain a copy of the Superintendent's Quality Challenge questionnaire, a sample quality continuum, and quality challenge criteria. The handbook includes charts, worksheets, a glossary, and ordering information for this and other SouthEastern Regional Vision for Education (SERVE) publications. (Contains 80 references.) (LMI)