Achieve campus in Chico designated California Distinguished School
CHICO — Steve Wright has been with Achieve Charter School since its founding. He began in 2005 as a second-grade teacher, transitioned into a faculty leadership role after 10 years and became K-8 principal when Achieve established a high school.
Soon after, the Camp Fire hit, destroying both campuses in Paradise. Achieve relocated to Life Church in Chico; that refuge evolved into a permanent site. With Paradise rebuilding, Achieve reopened to serve K-5 students in its original community while maintaining the K-8 campus headed by Wright, under the auspices of the Chico Unified School District.
The state recognized Achieve as a California Distinguished School, for the second time, amid recovery from the Camp Fire. In the wake of coronavirus, it’s happened again: State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond included Achieve’s Chico campus among the designees recently announced for 2023.
No other Butte County school received the biennial honor; the state alternates between primary and secondary schools each year.
“What it means to me and the school is it’s that vote of confidence and somebody else rubber-stamping our work, that this is actually working and we’re doing a good job,” Wright said in his office, which occupies one of the modular buildings on the East Avenue property.
The state honors schools for two reasons: closing the achievement gap and achieving exceptional performance. Achieve accomplished the former by improving scores of its socioeconomically disadvantaged students on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CASPP) exam.
“We don’t believe that test scores are the be-all, end-all or the best way to measure student growth,” Wright said, “but it is one very valid way of showing student growth. The fact that we earned this on the year coming out of COVID, with a lot of people who also went through the Camp Fire, makes it extra special.”
Thurmond awarded California Distinguished School status to 356 schools. Others in the north state include Lake Elementary and Plaza Elementary in Glenn County, and Cottonwood Creek Charter, Phoenix Charter Academy and University Prep in Shasta County.
Achieve previously was honored in 2014 and 2018.
“Achieve Charter School of Chico is only a year and a half old in its (standalone) existence, which is strange because really that school has the majority of our staff who helped grow Achieve from its early, early days,” Executive Director Casey Taylor said. “So the Chico school seems more like the older school, even though on paper it’s new. This is the first award for Achieve Charter School of Chico, because these are the first test scores that it has technically received.
“This is a remarkable effort,” she added. “It just shows the intentionality of my staff to really recognize where our students are and give them what they need.”
‘Secret sauce’
Achieve, a publicly funded school, draws students from the community at large. It holds an enrollment lottery when applications exceed capacity; otherwise, any student may be admitted, and the school does not admit based on academic performance or family income level. Through advertising and outreach, Achieve aims for demographics comparable to its chartering school district.
Taylor and Wright attribute the success to the school’s culture and approach — what they call its “secret sauce.”
Small by design, Achieve leans into its size to promote a sense of family, of community. Wright starts every day with an assembly to share unifying messages. Each student’s family works with faculty on a plan they revisit every trimester, a process older children lead, and each student in grades 4-8 has a weekly meeting with a teacher who’s their mentor.
“That’s our secret sauce,” Taylor said, “along with consistency.”
Wright, an Achieve parent as well as principal, acknowledged the struggles all schools are experiencing, particularly post-pandemic, as teachers work to recover learning lost during remote instruction. Yet, last year, Achieve reached near-parity among its student body. CASPP scores in English were less than 1% different; in math, “socioeconomically disadvantaged students in math outperformed our students as a whole” by 6%.
“All schools have an achievement gap,” Wright said. “Our achievement gap is really, really small. We’re very, very proud of that.
“We’re extremely proud because our school community has changed a lot. We still have a lot of people who went through a lot of crisis in the past couple years. Having a small achievement gap in light of all that is absolutely amazing.”
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