Posted in a hallway of the Chattanooga Girls Leadership Academy is an ACT scoreboard — of sorts — tracking the school's average composite against others in the county.
Next to it sits a blue poster quoting the rap artist Drake: "Started from the bottom now we're here."
School CEO Elaine Swafford removes one of the scorecards and mentions the board needs an update. She said, however, the board is not about competition. It's about telling her students' story.
"This is intrinsic motivation for kids," Swafford said in an interview. "In 2013-14, we were dead last. So, that's why we have started from the bottom and now we're here."
In 2013, when Swafford came to the all-girls public charter school, the average ACT composite score was 13.8.
"I looked up, and I went, 'That's got to change,'" Swafford said.
It has since risen to 19.3 -- higher than the statewide and county averages.
Swafford said because the school serves mostly economically disadvantaged girls of color, high ACT scores ensure more opportunities.
"We want as many as we can college ready by the state standard, which is 21 or better," Swafford said. "And, really, 21 is the floor, not the ceiling. The better the score, the bigger the scholarship. And for most of our kids, that's the way for them to fill that gap between tuition and room and board."
Though it took nearly 10 years, Swafford's efforts have been successful. Her secret? Motivation, repetition and cold hard cash.
21-Plus Club
In 2015, Swafford launched the ACT 21-Plus Club.
"That, at the time was, if you can score 21 on any subcategory, you can come into my club," Swafford said.
Club membership included cash prizes, class parties and extra field trips.
The ACT has four main subsections: English, reading, math and science, and an optional fifth subsection of writing. Each section is scored separately, but an overall composite is taken as an average of the four sub-scores, rounded to the nearest whole number.
That year, Swafford also began letting students take the ACT as many times as they wanted, which she funds with her own money.
(READ MORE: Chattanooga Girls Leadership Academy named Tennessee Charter School of the Year)
"Economically disadvantaged students get two waivers," Swafford said. "But if they take it more than that, then we pay for the ACT as many times as they want to take it."
It costs around $60 each time a student takes the test, she said.
As students began showing improvement, she changed the requirements for the 21-Plus Club: Now to join the club, students had to have an overall composite score of 21.
"I then opened a 25-Plus Club, where if you score a 25 on a subcategory, you would be in my 25-Plus Club," Swafford said. In 2020, she opened a 30-Plus Club.
Alexis Cordell, an 18-year-old student at the school, is part of the 25-Plus club. She took the ACT three times and was able to raise her reading sub-score from 16 to 27.
"I focused on reading," Cordell said in an interview. "So I had confidence in reading that I could do it, and I was able to score higher. I think it was just a mind thing that I knew I could do good on it."
She said she has a 20 composite.
Student Rosio Garcia Tomas, 18, said she was shocked when she made it into the 21-Plus Club last year when the members were announced during a pep rally.
"All of a sudden, I heard my name, and I was like, 'Oh my gosh, I finally made it,'" Garcia Tomas said in an interview. "It felt very surreal because I am a person who tends to doubt herself a lot, so, it felt very surreal going up and receiving the envelope full of $100 from Dr. Swafford. I was like, 'OK, I can put this in my savings.'"
Though the pandemic has caused a significant decline in the nation's ACT scores -- resulting in the lowest national average since 1991, according to the ACT organization's website -- Chattanooga Girls Leadership Academy showed improvement. Since the previous school year, the school's seniors' composites moved up 1.1 points.
"I'm just happy that kids have found the importance and understand the worth of giving your best no matter what," Swafford said. "We want them to give their best. And we want them to academically give their best and then give their best as just people."
Contact Carmen Nesbitt at cnesbitt@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6327.