Continuous improvement is about learning from mistakes and experiences to improve in the future. However, students' perceptions of how continuous improvement practices affect their social and emotional skills have not been considered. The literature that exists neglects to include the perception of elementary students' social and emotional skills within this systematic approach to school improvement. Given this gap of research, this study examines the research questions: How do students perceive their social and emotional skills in a classroom learning community model? To what extent does the implementation of the components of the classroom learning community have an impact on the social and emotional skills of the students? The research and information illustrated in this qualitative intrinsic action research case study will provide a greater understanding of how continuous improvement practices increase the quality of an education system, specifically within the classroom environment. I conducted a survey of students' perception of social and emotional skills, semi-structured interviews, observations of classroom meetings, and collected documents from students in second and third grade as well as the classroom data centers, then employed inductive and deductive processes to analyze the data into themes which resulted in my findings from the study. Results of this study showed that most students perceive their social and emotional skills as average. The classroom learning community components that had the greatest impact on students were the student data binders that included individual SMART goals and the classroom meetings which provided every student a voice in the classroom. This study is important to understand how continuous improvement practices affect students and how these practices can be modified to provide an even greater impact on students' lifelong learning. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]