Four Matchbox cars are parked neatly in a row next to the nameplate on Principal Marqui Fifer’s desk.

“Well, one is actually Minecraft,” a student reminded him on a recent Thursday morning. Fifer already knew about the video game, but asked his student for an explanation anyway.

Students just want to be listened to, Fifer said. So he uses the cars as a way to start a conversation with kids who come to him have had a bad day.

"Tell me about Minecraft," he'd said.

Pretty soon, the student was in the principal’s office at Robert R. Church Elementary talking calmly about all sorts of things. And then: “Mr. Fifer, I think I’m OK.”

Hear from students:How did Robert R. Church save Memphis? We asked the kids of Robert R. Church Elementary

This is Fifer's first year as principal at Church, and he wants students to still feel comfortable in their space. At Church, tests are a time to celebrate what you know. The culture of learning is rich, as are the ties between the school and the community. Fifer feels particularly fortunate to be at Church, he said, and wants to keep the focus on students, "through the eyes of a child."

It’s part of his plan to defend the school’s “championship” school year, led last year by Principal Janice Tankson. After being on the state's Priority List last year, Robert R. Church improved enough to land on the Rewards List this year.

The jump doesn’t happen often; Church is the first Tennessee school to make the leap from Priority to Reward designation under the state’s new accountability system. The last time the jump happened, the Tennessee Board of Education confirmed, was in 2015 for Springdale Elementary School in Shelby County.

Schools among the bottom five percent in the state are on the Priority List, and are eligible for additional support and funding from the state to improve. Implemented in 2018, the new accountability system redefines Reward schools so that any number of Tennessee's nearly 1800 schools can earn the distinction based on their improvements.

“When you’re at the bottom, you have to think outside of the box,” Tankson said.

She became principal at Church for the 2018-19 school year, after 10 years as a principal at Levi Elementary. Church was one of a handful of schools to join the Whitehaven Empowerment Zone during that school year, allowing it a “fresh start” for hiring new faculty and staff. The community-focused program carries the distinction of being unlike many in the country, and has proven success throughout its first years.

From 2016:Whitehaven school turnaround model first to focus beyond the bottom 5 percent

For it to work, though, the teachers need to be committed, ready to tutor and to try new teaching methods, Tankson said. She hired assistant principals James Patton from Nashville and Craig McKee from Detroit, who have stayed on with Fifer at the helm this year. Tankson left to become an Instruction Leadership Director with Shelby County Schools, working with principals in several other schools across the district.

“It was nothing to walk down the hallway and see three kids in trouble with Mr. McKee sitting on the sideline while Mr. McKee’s up teaching that class,” she said.

Tankson was tutoring kids herself, and teachers were making time during the day to offer tutoring to students who weren’t able to stay after school. She made sure teachers knew they were appreciated, an important part of Church's culture she stressed to Fifer when he started the school year. The school had two separate weeks for teacher appreciation, and daily and weekly shout-outs for teachers who were awarded classroom grants, often through Donors Choose, Tankson said.

“You can never pay a teacher for what they doso you have to find other ways to reward them," she said.

TNReady:See test scores for Shelby County Schools

TNReady results for this year show that Church bucked a frustrating district-wide trend for third grade reading: 38.6 percent of third grade students at Church scored proficient in the English language arts test, up from 15.1 percent last year. In Shelby County, 22.8 percent of students scored proficient, a drop of about three points from last year. Statewide, 36.9 percent of third graders scored proficient on English language arts tests this year.

Church’s math scores made a similar jump from last year to this year.

TNReady:See how your school performed on Tennessee's standardized test

Looking forward, Fifer wants to maintain the successful culture that Tankson set up for the school last year, and continue improving the school so that it is even more inviting for children.

As he walked from the front doors of the building down the hall, he pointed out what walls could be painted in brighter shades. In the library, he hopes to paint a mural on the back wall. Older posters, like one of a young Denzel Washington reading Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham,” had to go.

“When has Denzel looked like this?” Fifer said. “None of these kids know who this is.”

He’s making small adjustments, a word he’s careful to use instead of full-on “change,” but it’s all about creating an interactive space that’s more appealing and interesting for students, to hook them in before lessons begin.

In addition to making the updates to the library, Fifer is hoping to spruce up two garden areas near the middle of the school. Students see them from windows in the hallway and several other classrooms look out onto the green spaces, which currently have a few plants and bird houses.

Fifer wants to call it the Imagination Garden, and make it so that teachers can use the space for instruction. Children see blight daily in the surrounding neighborhoods, Fifer said, and it’s important that students can come to Church to learn in a space that they are proud of. They may even add in a koi pond.

The students “don’t know what koi fish are,” Fifer said. “It’s an experience.”

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Laura Testino covers education and children's issues for the Commercial Appeal. Reach her at laura.testino@commercialappeal.com or 901-512-3763. Find her (and her dog) on Twitter: @LDTestino