La Cumbre Junior High Loses ‘La Jefa’

Throughout her career, Jo Ann Caines had a lot of names attesting to her ferocity and formidability. “Mamma Bear” and “Tiger Mom” were just two. But at La Cumbre Junior High School ​— ​where Caines ruled the roost with undisputed authority — she was known simply as “La Jefa,” meaning The Boss. Last week, La Cumbre lost La Jefa as Caines succumbed to an unspecified illness, surrounded by members of her immediate family, at age 70. Although Caines had been on medical leave since April, news of her death last week came as both a shock and a surprise to those in the Santa Barbara Unified School District community.

When Caines took over as principal at La Cumbre in 2005, district officials were on the verge of pulling the plug on what was then a very troubled school. Enrollments were plummeting; test scores likewise. La Cumbre had become Santa Barbara’s poster child for a white-flight school. “It was basically out of control,” said school boardmember Kate Parker. “Students were walking around the school grounds; they were walking in the hallways. They were everywhere except where they needed to be.”

Caines was brought in as a mid-semester Hail Mary, the previous principal having suffered a nervous breakdown. She prowled the hallways, both greeting and confronting students and shooing them into classrooms. She instilled on the campus a semblance of discipline. Students who acted out quickly got invited to her office for lunch ​— ​not an offer to be lightly declined. While sitting at a round table in her office, Caines would share a meal with students as well as her thoughts on what was happening in their lives.