How a Culture-First Strategy Turned a School into a State-Recognized Model

“No one warned me about kindergarten.”

That’s how Jeffrey Monroe opens the story of his first year as a principal at a pre-K–5 charter school in Memphis. A former high school teacher who stepped into an elementary leadership role for the first time, Monroe jokes about the “wildness” of working with five-year-olds: “The ‘Garden of Children’ is a very strange place,” he says, laughing. “It’s a beautiful place, but you’ve got to keep your mind right.” 
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A school in transition

The challenges of the school, however, ran much deeper than learning to navigate snack time and ensuring safety on the playground. When Monroe arrived at the school, everything was in flux. The school had a new leadership team, a new curriculum, and the school leader he was taking over for was still in the building after 13 years in the role.

Not only was it his first time leading an elementary school, it was his first time leading—and his first time in a charter school environment. And the school itself sat at the intersection of Hollywood Street and Chelsea Ave in the heart of the Hyde Park neighborhood of North Memphis. The surrounding area has been severely impacted by several years of divestment, population decline, and a gauntlet of negative consequences and symptoms that predictably follows. 

Wanting to make a difference immediately, Monroe says he “had to immediately determine what was going to be my highest-leverage move. Was it going to be technical or adaptive?”
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Understanding technical vs. adaptive leadership challenges

In the context of school leadership, principals often ask themselves this question. Technical challenges are those that can be solved with existing knowledge, clear procedures, or tools—like scheduling, curriculum mapping, or data systems. Adaptive challenges, on the other hand, are more complex and require changes in beliefs, relationships, and behaviors. They’re messier, slower, and deeply human. 

For Monroe, this question wasn’t theoretical. He stepped into a role with no prior experience in elementary education, in a school undergoing multiple transitions. The biggest barriers weren’t logistical—they were emotional and belief-based. That meant adaptive leadership had to come first. Monroe knew he needed to shift the mindset of the school, rebuild belief, and restore a sense of possibility. “I didn’t have the technical skills to support my teachers—I’d never taught kindergarten,” he says. “But I could help them move from focusing on what we didn’t have to what we did have.”

He began by turning to the Transformational Leadership Framework (TLF) he learned during his time in the New Leaders Aspiring Principals Fellowship. With a diagnostic TLF rubric in hand, he worked to expand the school’s leadership team from three to 12 and involved the entire community in identifying key instructional priorities. From there, he built a phased, strategic plan that began with belonging and ended in academic gains.
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Big results, rooted in school culture

Monroe’s results speak volumes: teacher attendance reached 98%, collective teacher efficacy skyrocketed, and the school was recognized as a Reward School for the first time in its 20-year history. With double digit gains, ELA proficiency more than doubled and Math proficiency more than tripled over a two year period. 

And, Monroe did it all without reinventing the wheel: “I turn-keyed everything I learned from New Leaders,” he says.

But Monroe is quick to point out that it takes more than a plan. It takes a mindset, or a belief system. And below are the five mantras that shaped his leadership then—and continues to shape it now.
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Five mantras for leading through challenging times

1. Trust before tasks

“In order for people to do the tasks you're asking them to do, they have to trust that you know what you're talking about—and that you care about them as people,” Monroe says. Trust doesn’t come from directives. It comes from visibility, listening, and consistent follow-through. Monroe spent time with teachers in classrooms, asked them what they needed, and made sure they saw the impact of their input. The result was a culture where feedback felt empowering rather than evaluative.

2. Support before systems

“You can put all these systems in place, but have you created the support for people to even know what's expected and why?” Monroe didn’t just implement procedures—he built in coaching, modeling, and space for his team to learn. Through weekly observation and feedback meetings, his school’s teachers facilitated data dives, hosted practice clinics, and rehearsed core routines. These layers of support made the systems stick.

3. Relationships before results

“You have to build relationships at every single level—with parents, staff, students, your supervisor. The results come after that,” Monroe says. Investing in student culture alongside instructional planning, he launched a student survey for grades 3–5, prioritized daily social-emotional learning check-ins, and created an attendance and behavior team made up of music, art, and PE teachers. Why? Because those staff members already had trusting relationships with every student. And when students feel seen, they show up ready to learn.

4. Patience before pride

“Being the principal doesn’t mean you’ve arrived. The higher you go, the more humility you should demonstrate,” Monroe views his path to school leadership as a multi-year journey. Year #1? All about adaptive work and creating conditions for growth. Year #2 honed in on technical execution: RTI systems and academic monitoring. He built in milestones and tracked leading indicators—like the first 45 days of school—to forecast whether his school was on track. And when they weren’t, he adjusted.

5. Courage before confidence

“You have to have the courage to do the work before you feel ready. That includes managing up, saying no, and staying focused on the real work in the face of chaos.” For Monroe, this meant making bold moves early. He shifted the staff’s focus from deficits to assets. He named adult mindsets as part of the challenge. Monroe helped his team embrace the discomfort of change—not just compliance, but actual behavior shifts. “You're changing what people do, how they think, and what they say. That mindset shift is deeply intensive work,” he says.
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A strategic, phased approach of “calm urgency”

Through it all, Monroe says he leads with what he calls “calm urgency,”—a clear-headed intensity that helps keep everyone focused on the goal, even when there are plenty of distractions. “There's always something to be done,” he says. “But if you don’t see the big picture, you get lost in the noise.”

He designed a phased instructional plan that mirrored his leadership values:

• Phase #1 focused on consistency: routines, procedures, and instructional habits, like getting students to produce work within five minutes of entering class. 
• In Phase #2, his team tracked implementation and delivered tailored support.
• Phase #3 brought deeper rigor, and by Phase #4, they were targeting small-group instruction for maximum impact. 
• Phase #5 mirrored Phase #1, creating a purposeful close to the year that reinforced norms and avoided spring chaos.
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Sustaining progress, growing gains

Monroe attributes much of the school’s transformation to the tools, frameworks, and mindset he gained through the New Leaders program. He says, “This isn’t just a diagram. This is how it works.”

It did work. Not only did ELA proficiency increase, but teacher retention did as well. 80% of staff said they planned to stay three years or more, and 60% said five years or more. That kind of consistency allows for looping, faster culture-building, and long-term student growth.

What makes Monroe’s approach stand out isn’t just the strategy—it’s the clarity. At every step, he rooted his decisions in the diagnostic rubric, focused his team on priorities, and communicated with transparency. He didn’t try to do everything. Instead, he focused on doing the right things, in the right order, with the right people.

“The principalship is not promised to you,” he says. “You only get one chance to get it right. Focus on the work. Drown out the noise. And don’t miss your moment.”

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Ready to lead like Jeffrey?

If you’re inspired by Jeffrey Monroe’s journey and want to build your own capacity to lead lasting school transformation, explore the New Leaders Aspiring Principals Fellowship. Learn how this nationally-recognized program equips educators with the adaptive, technical, and instructional leadership skills needed to drive real change: https://www.fellowship.newleaders.org/