Jefferson School

The mission of our school is to provide all scholars with a high-quality education that is rigorous and relevant, that tasks scholars to use high order thinking skills and to apply their learning to real-life situations. We seek to create an environment that promotes agency in learning and achieves equity for all scholars by challenging and supporting them to thrive as a global citizen, achieve academic excellence, and to embrace the full richness and diversity of our community.

Jefferson is committed to providing an educational pathway, rooted in lifelong learning, to support all scholars so they will be ready to move on to college and careers with the knowledge, positive attitudes, and skills to succeed in the 21st century. We cultivate a community of scholars, staff and parents in which learning through inquiry, action, and reflection supports the development of the whole child and encourages open-mindedness and knowledgeable engagement in the global community. Our staff is committed to providing a focused curriculum that is both engaging and challenging. The gifts and talents of our scholars combined with the dedication and passion of our teachers allows us to strive for excellence.

Jefferson School has been recognized by the California PBIS (Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports) Coalition, as a school that demonstrates and implements strong school-wide practices of PBIS. Some of the school-wide practices include, but are not limited to: school-wide expectations and acknowledgement system, weekly behavior lessons with videos, and PBIS minor/major referral implementation and tracking. Jefferson School continues to use the site based PBIS Tier II team to target specific scholars for added behavioral interventions that include: Improve Your Tomorrow (IYT) for middle school male scholars, Check In/ Check Out system, Restorative Justice practices and Second Step Curriculum focused on Social Emotional Learning.

Jefferson School continues to support our English Learning scholars daily in many ways. At Jefferson, we have an English Learner Instructional Assistant that works with targeted English Learning scholars who have past ELPAC scores of 1, 2 or 3 who have not been reclassified in grades 1st – 6th, for 30 minutes 2-3 times a week depending on their level of need. We continue to have English Language Development (ELD)/ WIN (Whatever I Need) designated time each day for 35 minutes at each grade level TK-6th grade, in which teachers focus on oral language, vocabulary and foundational phonics skills in kindergarten – 2nd grade; and reading comprehension, writing and literature responses in 3rd – 6th grade.

Teachers provide six weeks of targeted Common Core standards based instruction during this time with the seventh week being an assessment week, so that teachers are able to monitor, track and re-organize scholars based on their individual needs in alignment to the grade level standards. Scholars who are classified as English Learners within seventh and eighth grades are provided daily ELD instruction through a targeted class within the course of their day.

Jefferson School is an Authorized IB Primary Years Program (PYP) School. Jefferson School became an IB World School within the 2021/2022 school year. Jefferson staff has continued to focus on the implementation of the IB (International Baccalaureate) Framework and philosophy into daily lessons across the disciplines. Teachers have also participated in multiple professional development opportunities focused on the development and implementation of inquiry and assessments within all of the IB units that have been developed. Teachers continue to refine practices to support and develop scholar work products, rubric development and implementation within every classroom in order to provide rigorous high quality first instruction to all scholars on the Jefferson campus.

We are also committed to providing differentiated small group instruction to meet the needs of all scholars to increase their academic success. Teachers at Jefferson also provide some targeted teacher-led intervention support through our JAGS (Jefferson Academy of Growth and Success) after school program, in Math and/or ELA. Jefferson School has continued to increase academic support for targeted students through the implementation of a full-time TOSA (Teachers on Special Assignment) on campus daily. The TOSA collaborates with classroom teachers in order to push into classrooms daily to provide academic intervention support to scholars, as well as after school intervention support for scholars as needed. The TOSA uses data collected within 4-6 week cycles so that they are able to monitor, track and re-organize scholars based on their individual needs in alignment to the grade level standards.

Jefferson School is also continuing to strengthen our work of DEI (Diversity, Inclusion, Equity) by working with Dr. Sharroky Hollie’s organization The Center for Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning (CCRTL). Jefferson has partnered with CCRTL to continue to develop and strengthen strategies for culturally and linguistically responsive teaching and learning practices through book studies, professional development and in-person coaching opportunities. Staff that are participating in this work are committed to developing and refining their skillset of culturally responsive strategies and activities that validate, affirm, build and bridge our scholars with our curriculum and standards in order to increase their academic achievement and create a classroom environment that is inviting and reflective of the diversity of our scholars.

Jefferson School is also embarking and committed to becoming a community school. A community school uses a “whole child” approach to support scholars and their families by providing programs, services, resources, expanded learning opportunities, family and community engagement, and collaborative leadership based on the unique needs and assets of the community. At Jefferson, our goal is to bring all of the voices of families and the community together to build a more supportive learning environment for all of our scholars. This will make Jefferson a school that is specifically tailored to address our scholars and community’s needs and goals.

We strive to meet the needs of each of our scholars by adhering to the District's core beliefs and vision, which serve as guiding principles for site level planning. The core beliefs are: Every student can learn and succeed, disparity and disproportionality can and must be eliminated, our diversity is our strength, and staff must be committed, collaborative, caring, and exemplary. All of these are the foundation of the district vision of: All NUSD students graduate as college and career ready, productive, responsible, and engaged global citizens.