We've all heard (or said) "I'm not good at math" or "I get stressed out by math".  Such  math anxiety  is a key factor affecting math understanding and competency in perhaps 20-25% of students nationally.  It can manifest as stress, fear or depression but also create physical responses such as increased heart rate, sweating, headaches, or stomachaches.  It can even affect cognitive ability.   Math anxiety leads to math avoidance, further increasing anxiety when students must

We are excited to again support Oakland Unified School District’s annual summer program for rising 10th and 11th graders: S’HAcK (Summer Healing & Academics 4 Kids).  Last year, Oakland Serves provided 16 volunteers who gave over 200 hours of support to the HAcK classrooms.   Students often approach summer school with resentment. They would much prefer to earn money or hang with friends. But summer school is an important option for getting students back on track for graduatio

Four Years at Oakland High School! This spring will mark 4 years that we have been mentoring at Oakland High School . Not only is OHS one of the largest  schools in Oakland, it is also  one of the most diverse  with a student body that is 38% Hispanic, 30% Asian, 23% Black, 2% Caucasian as well as one of the largest. This year we are mentoring in Math, English and Senior Seminar classrooms and are part of OHS’s strong wrap-around community partner support system led by the E

We are celebrating by recognizing four Black educators that made a difference to their communities and to American education.  ​Our short bios do not do justice to the work these men and women have done.  We encourage you to learn more about these amazing people. The “Father of Black History” Carter G Woodson, born a slave, was the 2nd Black American to graduate from Harvard. He was an educator, writer and mentor. He worked tirelessly to inform the American public about the

In our 3rd mentor profile this month, we spoke to Deborah. You can hear the passion she brings to mentoring.  Deborah has a graduate degree in economics and she taught economics at San Francisco City College for quite a number of years.  She has been working with Oakland Serves as a mentor since 2020.  Read below and see the  video here . ​ Deborah, what motivates you to be a mentor? I did community college teaching for quite a few years and what I liked best was getting to k

This week for National Mentoring Month, Oakland Serves mentor Andraus talked with our Program Coordinator, June Pangelinan. Andraus supports OUSD's academic recovery classes in history and Spanish.  Andraus is the Deputy Police Chief for the San Francisco Veteran Affairs and has served over 32 years in the State and Federal government and military law enforcement.  In addition, he is expecting to receive his doctorate degree from USC in May.    Below are excerpts from the int

For National Mentoring Month we asked our mentors to tell us about mentoring.  Mentor Nick, a mentor at Castlemont High School, talked with our board member Sue Wollowitz.   You can watch the video here .  Below are excerpts from the interview that have been edited only for readability. Today I'm talking to Nick.  He is a professional tutor and has been a mentor with Oakland Serves since spring of 2023. He currently mentors Algebra 1 at Castlemont High School. Hi Nick, tell u

As National Mentoring Month comes to an end we cannot forget our college student mentors.  William, an applied math undergrad, talked with our program coordinator June last month.  He currently mentors  in Algebra 2 at Castlemont and English credit recovery at McClymonds.  Below is an edited transcript from the video interview, which can be seen here . Can you tell me what a mentoring session looks like? It actually changes a lot as the semester moves on!  The first time you

One of the teachers we support got to the point:      “The OS Mentors were instrumental in the success of so many of our students.” A mentor got to the point:      “Working with the students has been very rewarding, seeing the students make             progress on their struggles has been amazing to see.” ​Our partner CalTeach got to the point:      “We cannot thank you enough for your support this semester and the chance to … aid in student support and learning.“ Now we have

Dear friends,  As we approach the end of 2023, I want to thank the many people and beautiful community spirit that have contributed to Oakland Serves’ mission of raising OUSD’s high school graduation rate.   As this is the season of giving, I want to start with our gratitude to all our individual and corporate donors for their generous donations. Without your commitment to increase the educational success of young people in our community, we would not exist. When you give to

Our mentors go into over 20 classrooms on a weekly basis.  Consider these reasons that five Oakland high schools are engaging our mentors this fall to improve graduation rates: Increase the success rate of 9th graders in Algebra 1 .  Failure in this class is linked to more challenges in upper grades and a higher chance of dropping out. Getting mentors into these classes has been a key priority for Oakland Serves this year and we now work in six  Algebra 1 classes across two

#1 National teacher shortage Lack of fully credentialed teachers within OUSD leads to large classes and classes taught by other teachers. Teachers have less time for individual students  as they teach to the larger group. Oakland Serves’ mentors give the most challenged students the attention needed to grasp new concepts and understand assignments while allowing the teachers more time to address the class as a whole. #2  Schoolwork not homework ​ Most assignments are now don