Photo: Some of the Oakland Promise Staff at our Retreat (outdoors) in July. The smiles are for Oakland's young people and to all our supporters, donors and partners!Oakland Promise Summer 2021 Letter Dear Oakland Promise Community, The end of summer season is approaching and yet the Fall 2021 semester is already underway in Oakland and soon to follow will be many of our colleges and universities that our scholars will be attending. At Oakland Promise (OP), we know that students, families and educators continue to face challenges of the pandemic and yet, they have shown the resilience that is so needed in times like these. Persistence and resilience are what we coach at OP so that families can always maintain their children's career aspirations and strive to attend and complete college, regardless of the times. And as I said in my earlier letter, it is my hope is that you experience the collective support from us and so many other educational and community partners. Please read below
for highlights from our programs and learn more about how families can participate in our College Savings Accounts (529s) and our Oakland Promise Scholarships. As always, you will be receiving important communication through our emails, social media, program newsletters and on our website from our respective program staff regarding information you need to know to help students to achieve college and career aspirations at each step of the way. Please Save the Date / Time for OP's 2021 Community Briefing on Friday, November 5th at 3pm. Finally, I want to share with you an inspirational personal
story written by Imahni Cheeks, a Class of '21 graduate of Oakland Tech and an OP Scholar. She shares her pre-college journey with the goal of helping other students, especially prospective first generation college students like herself, with tips to explore and believe. We are here for our students and families! Thank you all for your support. It bears repeating that without you, our partners, collaborators and supporters, we wouldn't have as much impact for our Oakland students and families. If you would like to get involved or support us, please consider following and following and sharing our highlights on social media and consider making a donation! In Community,
Mia Bonta, Chief Executive Officer - Oakland Promise
Here Are Some Recent Program Highlights
Photo: A post of OP’s Brilliant Baby Program's promotion to enroll more families in College Savings Accounts. The Brilliant Baby (BB) program supports children’s early healthy development and school-readiness by setting up College Savings Accounts (CSAs) for babies, offering financial coaching to parents and caregivers, and building a supportive community for the whole family. The Brilliant Baby Team and our Enrollment Partner organizations have opened over 948 College Savings Accounts (CSAs) with families to date as of 8/1! All enrollments and the opening of CSAs continue to be happening over Zoom due to the pandemic. Learn more about our $500 funded Brilliant Baby College Savings Accounts available for Oakland’s Medi-Cal eligible newborns. July was a busy month for new enrollments, with 25 infants and
their families joining the program. Much appreciation for our BB Enrollment Partners and the BB staff who do this important work of setting up children’s CSAs and welcoming new families into Oakland Promise! NORC at the University of Chicago completed the first of several forthcoming reports on its longitudinal, randomized control trial evaluation of Brilliant Baby. The research is being undertaken in partnership with UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, where 200 families were enrolled in the Brilliant Baby study. The Brilliant Baby Report, found
that even after just six months, parents who have a college savings account for their child increased their expectation for how many years of education their child would complete, while in the control group, that expectation declined. Parents in the Brilliant Baby also report increased hopefulness, lower stress and improved financial well-being relative to families who were not in the program. Here is the press release of the Report . We had great attendance at our Community Connections workshops in July - reaching a new high of 45 participants at the
workshop on Healthy Spending Habits. Other topics covered in Community Connections workshops included: entrepreneurship, setting your money intentions, financial goal setting, and uncovering limiting beliefs.
Photo: Post of encouraging K-5th graders to activate their Oakland Promise Scholarship on the new Portal. Oakland Promise Kindergarten to College (K2C) provides Oakland Promise Scholarships (formerly known as Early College Scholarships), family-owned CSAs and helps each elementary and middle school student in Oakland think of themselves as a college-bound individual. OP Scholarship Portal Launch: We’re gradually rolling out our
scholarship portal, where families/students can activate their accounts to see their Oakland Promise Scholarships (formerly known as Early College Scholarships. For parents and guardians of Kindergarten to 5th graders at Oakland public schools, please activate your Oakland Promise Scholarship account at www.oaklandpromise.org/k2c/, which can grow to $500+ when you’re ready to go to college, career technical education (CTE) or certificate
program. 2021 Keep On Moving (KOM) Kits: All items have been ordered and we are assembling them this August. By October, we hope to have distributed approximately 3,200 kits to Kindergartners at our schools receiving specialized K2C programming. Our team worked diligently to do summer planning (calendar of events, program agreements, marketing materials, etc.), including all the community partnership work to get ready for the start of the school year. For Middle Schools: Summer planning
had been in full swing: We revamped curriculum, created new program materials, and so much more before the start of the school year. We looped in OUSD’s priorities, having met with the middle school superintendent.
Photo: A post showing the major important dates. November 1st is when high school scholarship applications for college and career technical education (CTE) open. College Access serves high school students in Oakland Public Schools and charter schools to have access and support to set them on a path to college & career success. Read about Imahni Cheeks's (Oakland Tech, Class of '21) compelling pre-college journey of a lifetime and her tips for other Oakland students thinking about college. Students were counseled (college/career/financial aid/holistic advising) and invited to be thought partners with us for the upcoming year's scholarship application process. OP College Access Family Engagement collaborated with BB and K2C to expand access to families interested in The Family Bag Grant. The grant considered families' experiences at home during shelter-in-place and
distance learning and supported parents with a mini-grant to buy and replace household items used for distance and natural learning. OP obtained insight into the challenges brought on by the pandemic. - Planning Welcome Week: Counselor brunch outreach (9/7- 9/9); solidifying dates for 2022 scholarship; planning HBCU College Tour; Outta Pocket: Financial Literacy Series (Oct-Dec).
Photo: Post welcoming OP's Class of 2021's Scholars! College Completion supports college students with scholarships and persistence help so we can dramatically increase the number of college graduates from Oakland public schools. Mentoring Worked on the development of Mentor Recruitment Portal w/ Data and Evaluation Team. Continued support included user
support, Portal updates, and ongoing development of additional features. Rolled out 2nd Year Mentor-Scholar Curriculum. First-Year Workshops were completed, introduced all First-Year Students and Mentors to OP program requirements and resources.
Advising In collaboration with OUSD and Peralta, advisors worked to reach Scholars to prevent Summer Melt and support the enrollment
process for all community college students. The new cohort of CREWS Leaders have been hired and are currently attending weekly training. The team is preparing to accept the new cycle of Scholar Docs for ensuring timely check distribution!
Partnerships Through a partnership with Safeway Corporation, 14 students (mainly high schoolers) participated in a three-week Summer Tech Immersion
Program. Students were assigned a Safeway mentor, learned HTML, created and presented a final project. All participants received a $550 stipend upon completion. Through an exclusive partnership, seven scholars are currently interning at Wind River.
Photo: Photo of the July 1st, 2021 #OaklandUndividedForever Event with founding partner teams and supporters.Other Oakland Promise DevelopmentsHiring: Oakland Promise is hiring for several exciting positions. Candidates can check out our opportunities here. Help us to spread the word! Development Focus: We are excited to launch our work with Dayspring for our migration to the OP Salesforce. This is major for our work in our internal transparency project to ensure that dashboards are useful, accurate, and available to all staff. Salesforce development: Salesforce community portals for OP Scholars and Mentors allow us to have improved interactions and communication. We launched our mentor and scholar portals on June 1. As of 7/25/2021, 57% of scholars and 29% of mentors have activated their accounts. Culture: OP leadership team just had our Staff Retreat (see pic on the top of this email) at the end of July. It was the first time all of us got together in one place for team building since the pandemic hit. Media: Worked on media coverage for our
college scholarships from our media release on KPIX/CBS 5, SF Gate, Localnewsmatters and Patch Rockridge. OP’s College Graduation Ceremony (Alumni) was also covered by KTVU Fox 2 news. Strategic Planning: The leadership team has finalized our integrated 3-year plan for 2022 - 2025 and it was approved by the Board. An abbreviated version will be shared with the community and public soon. #OaklandUndividedForever Event: We celebrated with our other founding partners of #Oakland Undivided (#OU) who helped us address a systemic inequity and close the digital divide. Here are Mia's thoughts about this significant initiative in video interview with Youth Beat in Oakland. In partnership with our community, together the #OU distributed more than 29,000 devices and 10,000 hotspots, and
responded to over 10,000 requests for tech support. The result: increased connectivity for Oakland public school students from low-income backgrounds from 12% to 98%.
Your Support is Needed At Oakland Promise, we rely on the support of so many people and partners. Please spread the word about us by following us on our social media channels (bottom of this email) and consider volunteering or donating!
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