SOARing Toward Excellence in an Age of Accountability: The Case of Esperanza School District Alan J. Daly, Basha Millhollen and Laila DiGuilio ajdaly@ucsd.edu Accountability reform mandates put pressure on schools and districts to respond in traditional ways that point to the weaknesses in their systems while overshadowing their successes. This extended case study provides schools, districts and policy-makers with a deeper understanding of the value of Appreciative Inquiry, strengths-based approaches and the SOAR-framework of Transformative Strategic Design. Our findings support our premises that in order for schools and districts to positively impact student achievement and the overall health of their schooling organization, they must consider their best efforts and those results as being instructive to their next efforts. Prologue The reform of public education in the United States, like in so many other countries, has become the focal point of intense public scrutiny. In the United States, this attention has come in the form of the No Child Left Behind Education Act (NCLB) which mandates that 100% of all children will be proficient in language, arts and mathematics by 2014. This goal is to be accomplished through a nation-wide system of accountability. Failure to meet established Annual Yearly Progress (AYP), as determined by test scores and participation in the accountability system, can result in a ‘Program Improvement’ label and significant sanctions including: major curricular changes or school reconstitution. Recent data suggests that the districts most impacted by NCLB are those who primarily serve children of color from low socio-economic backgrounds (Orfield, Kim, Sunderman & Greer, 2004). Thus, school districts that educate the most underserved populations and need the most support, are more likely to be under sanction and risk losing much needed resources. In the state of California alone, over 2200 schools have failed to make federally mandated progress and are labeled as Program Improvement (PI) (CDE, 2007). Many of these schools serve traditionally underserved students. In our opinion, this is the most important social justice issue facing the United States. It is on this difficult stage, we see the greatest opportunity, and that is where our story begins. Context The Esperanza School District serves students in kindergarten through eighth grade in eighteen schools. The district is located in a rapidly growing area north of Los Angeles, California. Until the early 1990s, the district served a majority of white and middle class students, which comprised over 70% of the total student population (12,500). However, the student population has changed dramatically, with the district currently serving 16,000 students of whom 40% are Latino, 30% African Americans and 27% White. Of the total student population 66% are classified as low socio-economic status and over 15% are English August 2007 AI Practitioner 37 AI Practitioner 37