News

They know they can dance. Check out the Titans performing at their annual Spirit of Dance show hosted every December by the Visual and Performing Arts and dance students.

A sunny Friday afternoon was one to remember for many members of the Skyline High Class of 2024. On June 21, the Golden State Warriors welcomed the new graduates to their former Oakland headquarters, which is now known as Generation Thrive, where a big party awaited them.

It’s hard to believe that we wrapped up another successful school year of teaching and learning across the District last week. These annual times of transition often get me thinking, reflecting on our shared educational journey at the end of every school year.

The final month of the school year is always busy as students and teachers wrap up instruction, schools prepare for promotion ceremonies and graduations, and families get ready for summer. This month in Oakland has been particularly busy as OUSD has been celebrating student success in numerous academic excellence events.

Every May, school districts across the state celebrate the important contributions of classified school employees during Classified School Employees Week.

Every year in Oakland Unified, numerous outstanding Classified staff members win recognition as Classified School Employees of the Year. Then, those employees are entered in the competition to be honored as Alameda County Office of Education (ACOE) Employees of the Year.

March is Women’s History Month, and today is International Women’s Day - a time to lift up and celebrate the contributions that women have made and continue to make for the betterment of our society and world.

We are now well into the spring semester in the 2023-24 school year. I know that our students are working hard and growing every day in class, our families are gaining support where needed and building a stronger community, and our staff is becoming even more entrenched in the work to improve our schools and the outcomes we help our students achieve.

At its most recent meeting, the Oakland Unified Board of Education approved the 2024-25 academic calendar. It took a few days to finish formatting the new calendar, and today, that task was completed.

The gymnasium at Oakland Technical High School was filled with excitement and anticipation on Thursday morning, February 15. That’s where more than 800 students from across the District came together for the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Caravan.

There is so much Black History to celebrate here in Oakland. Of course, we can always point to the Black Panthers and all they did for our society, or to Ida Louise Jackson who was Oakland’s first Black teacher and the first Black woman to teach high school in California, or to Vice President Kamala Harris who was born at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland. But this Black History Month, I want to celebrate people who are here in our district right now or products of OUSD. Let’s start with our amazing staff.

We hope that the new year is off to a great start for you and your family and we look forward to another year of enriching academic programs, exciting community partnerships, and above all, putting students at the center of everything we do.

In a fusion of technology, education, and community collaboration, Oakland Unified School District recently partnered with automaker Tesla for a special event to start the new robotics competition season. The December 21st event brought together 70 students from seven OUSD schools to tour the Tesla factory, participate in the season’s first robotics scrimmage, and experience hands-on engineering demonstrations.

Dear Oakland Unified Community,

Today is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year which is accompanied by the longest night. Of course, that also means starting tomorrow, our days will grow longer little by little. We’ll have more daylight each day moving forward until we reach the summer solstice in June, the longest day of the year.

We’re live!

New websites for the District and all of our schools formerly housed on the Blackboard platform have launched. Please visit www.ousd.org or your school’s website and check out the new look and feel of District websites.