{"id":8148,"date":"2013-09-10T13:12:46","date_gmt":"2013-09-10T17:12:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=8148"},"modified":"2014-01-25T18:09:50","modified_gmt":"2014-01-25T23:09:50","slug":"change-agent-jennifer-coughlin-epps-94","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=8148","title":{"rendered":"Change agent: Jennifer (Coughlin) Epps \u201994"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jennifer<\/a>
Jenn Epps \u201994, assistant chief achievement officer and founding teacher at Synergy Academies, is at the forefront of efforts to transform K\u201312 education in South Los Angeles.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jenn Epps<\/b> went looking for a new job. She ended up finding her calling.<\/p>\n

Epps was working as a marketing manager for a California telecommunications company when, after receiving one too many customer complaints about \u201clines going through the Lifetime channel,\u201d she asked herself, \u201cIs this really what I want to do with my life?\u201d<\/p>\n

She enrolled in a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) program that offered the chance to begin teaching while she worked on getting credentialed. \u201cI didn\u2019t know if I\u2019d be any good at teaching, but it sounded like something \u2018more,\u2019\u201d Epps said.<\/p>\n

Despite her inexperience, she was placed in a school in Watts, a neighborhood long plaguedby gang violence and poverty. \u201cFrom that very first class of third-graders I had\u2014who needed so much and were so far behind, but whom I knew I could do something for\u2014I just had an instant love for the job,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

Not all of her fellow teachers shared her passion, she noticed. \u201cI realized if we all weren\u2019t working [equally] hard, then we weren\u2019t going to change these kids\u2019 lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she was invited to become a founding teacher of Synergy Charter Academy, in 2004, she accepted not because she was an advocate for charter schools, but because she saw in the other teachers\u2014all former LAUSD educators\u2014the same passion she had for changing lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an unbelievable feeling being in a group of people who had the same ideas about what these kids needed, and what we needed to do to make sure they had better options in life,\u201d Epps said.<\/p>\n

According to Epps, Synergy\u2019s founders believe that every student is capable of academic success, regardless of the socioeconomic or cultural barriers that might seemingly stand in the way. They opened their school in an area of South Los Angeles where standardized test scores were among the worst in the state. Within four years, Synergy\u2019s students were testing near the top 10th percentile statewide.<\/p>\n

One major reason for that success was Epps, who in 2007 was named California Charter School Teacher of the Year. In 2008, she became the school\u2019s principal, and this past spring her school was named the Best Urban Elementary School in America by the National Center for Urban School Transformation.<\/p>\n

In July, Epps was appointed assistant chief achievement officer for Synergy Academies, which now serves over 1,300 students in grades K\u201312 in three schools. (She\u2019ll take over as chief in January.) Epps oversees each school\u2019s principal, providing guidance on curriculum design and classroom management. Synergy\u2019s schools, which focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), are co-located with traditional LAUSD schools in underserved areas of Los Angeles\u2014a unique arrangement that allows educators from all of the schools to collaborate on best practices to maximize student success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jenn Epps \u201994, assistant chief achievement officer and founding teacher at Synergy Academies, is at the forefront of efforts to transform K\u201312 education in South Los Angeles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":8133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-corner","category-fall-2013"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}