The Change

care. The Jefferson staff’s love for their students was unquestionable. However, the why had to be put front and center. The staff needed a greater purpose for why they existed in light of the students and the community. With that call, leaders stopped speaking to the minds of staff and instead spoke to their hearts. These conversations were gently infused with genuineness, grace, and an emotional delivery that fostered clarity of purpose (the why). And it was collective clarity of purpose that changed the trajectory of Jefferson, as shown in figure 2.1. As a result, it also changed their identity.

API Score 850 800 750 700 650 600 550 500 450 400 Jefferson API Growth

(1998–2010)

456 477 520 531 557 589 640 698 747 778 801 830 838

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Growth Years Source: California Department of Education, n.d. Figure 2.1: Jefferson Elementary academic performance index (1998–2010).

So, what did Jefferson do to move from being one of the lowest-performing schools in the state, with an API of 456 in 1998, to becoming one of the highest-performing schools in the district and one of the most compelling school turnaround stories in the state, with an API of 838, by 2010? There were three distinctions, inspired by the PLC process’s three big ideas, that were paramount in Jefferson’s transformation. Leadership and staff:

1. Stopped looking at the scoreboard and started chasing the vision