The Challenge: Jefferson Elementary

clear determinations that “beliefs about ourselves, others, and how the world works predict how high we set our life goals and whether we actually succeed in achieving them” (Caproni, 2017, p. 27). Purpose is bonded to collective efficacy because it actually resides within our convictions, perceptions, and beliefs; beliefs not only about why we exist but about our competence and capability to succeed. If our individual or collective purpose is perceived as miniscule or insignificant, to what degree of motivation does that serve? How much potential may be deterred or inhibited because schools lack a higher purpose? In this chapter, we highlight the story of Jefferson Elementary and the experiences they shared when transforming themselves from one of the lowest performing schools in the district and state to one of the highest performing. This experience occurred between 2000 and 2010 and focused on building the staff’s understanding of their true purpose.

Jefferson Elementary, founded in 1955, is a small K–6 elementary school just inside the city limits of Sanger. In 2001, Jefferson was struggling to achieve meaningful academic outcomes for students. Located on the east side of town, across the railroad tracks, Jefferson’s surrounding area had a high degree of poverty, gang activity, and crime. Standard in the Jefferson community were high-density apartments, low-income housing, high populations of English learners, and a high percentage of socioeconomically disadvantaged families. It was a harsh reality that large numbers of students in the Jefferson area had family members either involved or formerly involved in gangs, drugs, or incarceration. Many struggles that plagued the community were outside the Jefferson staff’s locus of control. However, what was in their control was maintaining pride and honoring traditions that lifted the spirits of students, staff, and community. Amidst such a poverty-stricken neighborhood, Jefferson and its facilities were immaculate. It didn’t take visitors long to figure out why. Albert Mendoza, who retired in 2021 after forty-nine years of service, had been the custodian at Jefferson since 1972 and was a respected pillar in the community. In fact, many of the staff at Jefferson had many years of service at the school. Many teachers had students whose parents had also been their students years earlier. Because of the pride in the school and longevity of staff, which equated to strong relationships with the community, the school was essentially off-limits to vandalism, graffiti, and theft. The school community, regardless of the hardships it faced, took pride in their school, and it showed in the care of the facilities as well as in the community’s protection of its staff. By 2001, the state of California was moving forward with the legislation surrounding No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The state had rolled out scores for schools by assigning

schools a score through an academic performance index (API). In Jefferson’s case, its initial API score was 456 API out of a possible 1,000, placing it in the bottom 2 percent of schools in the state (www.cde.ca.gov; data no longer available). As the state transitioned to the new federal accountability model through NCLB, it began to identify schools in need of greater accountability, which could include administrative or school staff changes. As a result of the new focus on data, many in the educational system identified Jefferson as one of the lowest-performing schools in the state of California. Specifically, Jefferson was identified through NCLB’s similar-schools ranking as a 1 out of 10 when compared to all schools and similar schools’ demographics across the state (www.cde.ca.gov; data no longer available). Within NCLB, the bottom schools in the state of California were beginning to feel the mounting pressure of school rankings as well as the public display of achievement data that would signify the success or failure of the educators teaching the students. Despite the mounting pressure of sanctions, Jefferson was still a happy family, with staff and faculty who loved their students like their own, and cared deeply about the community. As a result of the new NCLB requirements and penalties, parents and families could opt out of attending Jefferson and could ask the district to fund and pay for the transportation of their children to go to another, more successful school within or outside of the district. So how many parents requested a transfer with this new option? Not one! What Jefferson had was a school and community who were feeling “good” but doing “bad.” Despite these rankings, by 2000, the situation at Jefferson had minimally changed. The change incentives were there—teams were offered professional improvement, and NCLB had now publicly anointed Jefferson as one of the lowest-ranked and lowest-performing schools in California, leading to humiliation and sometimes suffocating pressure—but nothing had actually made enough of an impact to change the school’s overall test results. In an effort to change course, Jefferson’s leadership took a different approach. At the opening staff meeting in 2001, leadership posed the following questions, adapted from the PLC process, for staff to consider.

• Why do we exist? • How do we prove why we exist? • How do we showcase our students’ abilities to the rest of the world?

These questions helped shape a deeper level of conversation and discussion among staff and provided opportunities for staff to open up about their core beliefs, convictions, and, more importantly, assumptions about the students and the community. The questions forced honest reflection from individuals and teams with regard to efforts, expectations, and commitment. Conflicts initially surfaced from emotional trigger points and transitioned to unfiltered, genuine dialogue around a unifying collective purpose. The respect and dignity of the staff were always treated with great