Berkeley Parents Network: Oakland Public Schools: General Q&A

Berkeley Parents Network

Oakland Public Schools: General Q&A

Berkeley Parents Network > Reviews > K-12 Schools > Oakland Public Schools > Oakland Public Schools: General Q&A

BUSD vs. OUSD
Oakland Elementary Schools - Three Questions
Oakland School rankings?
General Observations (1999)
Uniform Requirement
See also: OUSD School Choice/Lottery

BUSD vs. OUSD

June 2008

We are interested in moving to Oakland or Berkeley and want to know which school district is better overall. From what I understand, OUSD has good elementary schools if you can afford to live in one of the more affluent neighborhoods, but then the middle schools and especially high schools are pretty challenging. From what I have heard about BUSD, the elementary schools vary widely and the kids from the neighborhood don't all go to the same school because of the different zones (how does that translate as far as neighborhood cohesiveness, kids playing together, etc.?). I have heard the middle schools are okay depending on where you go and Berkeley High is good if you are the right kind of student. So, the question is, as a parent, is it better to move to Oakland or Berkeley for the best education for my kids? what to do?

As an Oakland parent, I'd have to say BUSD is preferable hands down. Yes, there are some ''good'' (it's all relative) schools in Oakland, but those schools are more and more crowded and now many of them cannot accommodate all their neighborhood children, who are then redirected to other schools. But, the main issue as far as I can see is that OUSD's curricular choices are much more uninspiring than BUSD's. In Oakland, you have a lot of No Child Left Behind pressures behind the curriculum choices. This has led to pushing reading instruction down into kindergarten where 2/3 of children are not developmentally ready to read. As a result, the teachers spend an INORDINATE amount of time on scripted phonics lessons, drills, and totally boring, uninspired tasks. There are great teachers in both systems, but I believe the Oakland schools' teachers' hands are more tied by the curriculum than in Berkeley. Then, the middle school and high school choices in Oakland seem more limited and iffy than the Berkeley choices. If you have the money to choose where to live, you might consider Piedmont (where they have retained developmental kindergartens) or possibly Lamorinda. Just my two cents . . .

''Better'' is totally subjective, and depends on a lot of factors. For a slightly objective criteria, you could consider that Berkeley has a substantial parcel tax that it dedicates to its schools, allowing for a lot of ''extras'' that don't have to be fund-raised year after year. Oakland doesn't. I can tell you what we did. We lived in one of the best areas of Oakland for elementary, but chose to send our child to a charter school in Oakland, whcih drew kids from all over. A very tight community, probably tighter than ''neighborhood'' schools. When our child was in 5th grade we moved to Berkeley for the middle and high school and are now considering whether to stick with the charter school for our youngest or send her to a Berkeley elementary. anon

We have 3 kids in OUSD elementary school and if we had it to do over again, we'd probably buy in Berkeley instead. What you've heard about the 2 districts is essentially correct. OUSD has about 4 good elementary schools and about 3 more that are ''getting better'' due to heavy parental involvement and fundraising. I don't know much about the middle schools but what I've been told is that there is 1 good one, and 3 or so that are ''getting better''. If you have a budding engineer then Oakland Tech's tracked engineering program will send your kid off to the top ivys, but otherwise ''challenging'' is a kind way of describing the general HS options in Oaklan. Another thing to keep in mind about OUSD elementary schools is that the after school care is pretty weak and doesn't even come close to meeting demand (if you don't get your application in the 1st day then you're on the waiting list forever). It's also very expensive for what you get (monitored playground time).

A close friend of mine with kids the same age has her daughter in Emerson in Berkeley and they do a MUCH better job of tailoring the work to more advanced students. At OUSD they do little to no tracking of kids - everyone gets the same work and the same assignments regardless of their level. It's been extremely frustrating for one of my 1st graders who is bored stiff and we have taken to ignoring the homework that is sent home and are giving her more advanced work to do.

I'll let the BUSD parents talk about their district but I will say that I'd beg, borrow and steal to get my kids into Berkeley High (tracked program or IB program) before I'd ever put them into an Oakland high school the way things stand today. Depressed OUSD mom

Oakland Elementary Schools - Three Questions

September 2006

My daughter is in her pre-K year and we are getting ready to send her to our local elementary school in 07/08. We are in one of the better school districts in Oakland. I have three questions:
1. I heard through another mom, whose child will attend another good elem. school in Oakland, that her school meets with incoming kindergarteners to assess their skills and place them in an appropriate classroom with the idea being that the students were were performing ahead of their peers would be in one class, those who were average in another and those who needed extra help would be in a third class. Is this how it works at other elementary schools in Oakland?
2. With students are varying levels of preparedness for kindergarten, is teaching done to the ''lowest common demoninator''? What happens to those kids who are ahead? Is extra or advance work given to them?
3. Are there any language immersion classes available in Oakland? Thank you
Getting Prepared

Answers to your questions:
1. Never heard of grouping Kindergarten kids by ''learning'' level. Does not make sense anyway. What criterias would they use? How would it be explained to parents of the ''lower'' group? How about how the teachers would feel about that? It is definitely not done in any Oakland public schools I know of.
2. No, in my kids' school they don't. Teachers provide appropriate work and goals to kids. It is not part of the teacher's program anyway to teach to ''the lower denominator''. Visit your school and ask questions to teachers.
3. I don't know but look in the Oakland School District webpage. There might be information about it.
m

Oakland School rankings?

Oct 1999

Is there a web site that lists the ranking of Oakland Public schools, particularly elementary? I went to the Oakland Unified site and couldn't find anything there.

The October 26 advice given column had a message stating that Montclair, Hillcrest, Chabot, Thornhill, Juaquin and Miller schools were the highest ranked of the 90 Oakland public schools. I would like to see more information on how they determine these rankings, by test scores, or grades, or what. Not surprisingly, there is no link to such information on the Oakland Unified School district website that you listed: http://www.ousd.k12.ca.us/
Is there another website where one can look, or is this information available through other sources, such as the local news agencies?

The following site does not strictly rank schools, but has a lot of information on individual Bay Area public schools. By just plugging in a school name, district or your zip code, you can find out a particular school's test scores, number and experience of teachers, ethnicity of students and faculty, number of computers in the school, etc. Also, what's nice about the site is that it has information and advice about *not* judging a school strictly by test scores or other "objective" criteria. www.greatschools.net

OUSD has recently redesigned it's web site so the "school finder" which had a statistical snapshot of the school is no longer there. There is a state web site: http://star.cde.ca.gov/star99/AC97star.html which requires you to download a file in various database formats. In addition, last week, there was a supplement to the Oakland Trib which had all of the schools test scores. However, as a Redwood Heights parent (and someone who pays attention to these things) I can tell you Redwood Heights is in the second tier of Oakland Public Schools, It's test scores show that 77% of the children perform above the "proficiency level" in reading at both the 2nd and 5th grades and slightly less than that in Math. Best test scores are (I believe in order, but I might have it slighltly skewed)
Hillcrest
Joaquin Miller
Thornhill/Montclair (virtually identical)
Chabot
Redwood Heights/Glenview/Crocker Highlands

Test scores, of course are never the whole story, especially since Socio-Economic factors play into the scores in a big way, so one should note that the wealthiest school has the best test score (Hillcrest). This is not to say that Hillcrest isn't an excellent school... It is, actually an extraordinary school. Redwood Heights, I think is a good school too, with a very diverse population. Glenview was the real surprise to me here. Looking at the SES stats, more than 50% of the children receive free lunches, and yet it has done something really right. Yeah Glenview! I'd be happy to discuss this with any parents who are interested in Redwood Heights. Myriam

To the person who inquired of additional comparative data for Oakland Public Schools, there are a couple of web sites that might be useful. Neither of these is dedicated to Oakland Public Schools, but both provide comparative data including test scores, demographic data and some performance data.

Ed-Data Partnership--http://www.ed-data.k12.ca.us Managed by the Alamaeda County Office of Education, the California Dept. of Education, EdSource and the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, this website tries to provide easy access to consistent data about public schools in California.

School-Wise Press--http://www.schoolwisepress.com This is a commercial site that provides comparative data on all public California schools. There are detailed profiles for $6/profile, as well as free data on test scores and other objective data, school by school.

In addition, Neighborhood Moms is planning a Parents Roundtable event for Oakland Public Elementary schools sometime after the first of the year. When that event is actually scheduled, you'll see an announcement for it. These events are free and open to all. They typically provide a panel of parents whose kids go to the schools being discussed, with plenty of time for QA and one-one-one discussion. Parents seem to find them helpful.

Jan 1999

I've done a LOT of research on Oakland schools, and I'd like to offer a few of my impressions. Please understand that these are the impressions of a dad who's sons are not quite school-age yet. (4 and 2)

There is a school district report card that's a big newsprint publication, and the publications office will mail you a copy if you call 879-8582. This publication is full of great info. They have been very helpful to me. Open enrollment is from Feb-9 thru early March (March 3?sorry I can't recall the exact date) for next year--applications can be picked up in Portable #15 at 1025 2nd. Avenue.

Hillcrest Elementary in Rockridge seems to me head-and-shoulders above the other schools in terms of test scores anr activities available. They have language, art, and music classes available as well as a sports program that competes in a private schools league, as most other public schools in Oakland don't offer sports. It's a K-8 school, too.

I have a 16 year old sister who's now an honor student at Bishop O'Dowd HS who attendent Hillcrest and loved it. Good preparation for private HS honors classes.

One drawback--it draws almost exclusively from Rockridge, so most of the kids come from quite affluent families, and there is some social pressure to have $$$. It is also very difficult to get in-district transfers into Hillcrest.

Thornhill and Montclair schools in Montclair are also quite good, but they are K-5, I believe. Kaiser Elementarty is a magnet school that has great test scores and goes up to eighth grade.

Grass Valley has solid test scores, and a LOT of parent participation as well as a dynamic and energetic prinicpal.

District maps are readily available from the district, as is test score information and school profiles. Interestingly, if you look at the test scores in conjuction with the map, it appears that there are three seperate districts. One small district has about six elementary schools, very high test scores, and is located above Hwy. 13. The second is a bit larger, and consists of schools with good-to-middling scores between 13(or south of 13) and above 580. The largest has a number of schools with fair to poor scores below 580. This is a generalization, of course.

There ARE exceptions to these rules of course, and in talking to a number of people in elementary ed, one thing keeps coming up: aggregate test scores are not as important as YOUR comfort level. If you are a parent who is involved in the life of the school, and you like the teachers and principal, that's what really matters. A school with excellent scores may not be the right environment for your child, and no school is perfect for every kid.

Good luck! Eric

Uniform Requirement

Oakland Unified School District has a mandatory uniform policy. However, you may choose to exempt your child from it by exercising the District's Exemption Process which amounts to completing an exemption form at the school's office.

I believe every school decides what their actual uniform code is, but most schools look as though they have the same guidelines to me. At Joaquin Miller it is solid, plain white or dark navy blue tops and solid, plain dark navy blue bottoms (pants, shorts, skirts, jumpers, or skorts). Any appropriate shoes and outerwear are acceptable. Optionally, kids can wear any JM walkathon or other fundraiser T-shirt or scout uniforms. The uniform is optional at JM for Kindergartners. There is also a weekly free dress day on Wednesdays. Cathy (Aug 2000)

These vary from school to school both in the form of what is considered the uniform and what is customary. Although uniforms are theoretically required in all Oakland public schools, in actuality many of the schools don't require them at all. There's a form which you are supposed to fill out if your child isn't going to wear the uniform but we haven't filled it out for the past two years at Redwood Heights without problem.

Some of the schools are more likely to be strict, but they can't actually require you to wear the uniform. The school is the best resource for what the uniform is (and their web site, perhaps). Mostly it's a combination of blue slacks/skirt/short/jumper and red/white collared shirt. All of these items are available at Target, K-Mart, and more expensively at McCaulous. Myriam

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