Photo: Journee from Prescott Elementary School getting creative with her OP K2C Keep on Moving Kit.

Oakland Promise 2021 Spring Letter

Dear Oakland Promise Community,

This has been a vibrant and challenging time as we are in the second year of the pandemic. Although we saw some progress nationally, with certain court decisions such as in the case of holding Derek Chauvin to be accountable for the murder of George Floyd, we continue to advocate for justice and equity in so many other cases and situations that indicate much more systemic progress needs to be made.

On the educational front, we are encouraged with the proposed American Rescue Plan and American Families Plan, that altogether, bode well for lifting more children out of poverty, offering high quality preschool to all three-four year olds and two years of free community college. And here in our own state, Governor Newsom recently announced a bold plan to establish $500 College Savings Accounts (CSAs) for low-income public school students. Amanda Feinstein, our director of our Brilliant Baby Program and I were recently interviewed by EdSource in both a podcast and article featuring the importance of CSAs and our advocacy of the Newsom proposal.

As we continue our work in service of students in Oakland, our program teams have been working hard to provide digital access, financial support and advising on so many levels to our scholars and families. A huge shoutout to our College Access Team and everyone who volunteered to support them for wrapping up the scholarship application season in 2021 with a record 514 recipients; to our College Completion team for receiving over 190 completed mentorship agreements; and to the Kindergarten to College Team for pulling together a beautiful virtual College and Career Week while providing over 3,000 Moving On Kits to kindergarten students! Also, we were able to give out over 120 Dell Chromebooks to our Brilliant Baby and College Access families.

Please read below for more highlights from our programs. Thank you all for your support! 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!

Be well, everyone.

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 900 College Savings Accounts (CSAs) with families to date as of 5/1! All enrollments and the opening of CSAs are happening over Zoom due to the pandemic. The BB staff completed 20% of our enrollments in-house - a first for the team. A Partner Tool kit was also developed for a dozen organizations that are promoting Brilliant Baby.
The BB and College Access teams had the opportunity to give over 120 Chromebooks donated by Dell Computers to some of our BB families and Scholars. One of those young scholars was Madison Harvel, who joined our program and received her Oakland Promise BB CSA back in 2017! Today the $500 initially invested in Madison's CSA, has grown to $753 -- a 50% increase in value in four years! Madison’s mom, Tiffany, sent this note to us: "Thank you, Brilliant Baby! Until today, Madison was upset that her siblings had laptops, but not her. Madison is so ready to learn!" This Dell Chromebook giveaway was a wonderful opportunity to support the learning and development of our Brilliant Babies as they grow! .
Brilliant Baby is using some of our Community Connections financial workshop sessions to offer “Community Care Circle” events for our families. Most recently we’ve organized multiple events, facilitated by guest trainers, for our Asian families and three for our Black and other English-speaking POC families. Our goal is to provide extra emotional and community support during trying times (i.e. resiliency, managing depression and trauma). Similar Community Care Circles for our Latinx BB families are being developed.

Photo: Post of one of the major highlights of K2C's College and Career Week.

Oakland Promise Kindergarten to College (K2C) provides early college scholarships, family-owned CSAs and helps each elementary and middle school student in Oakland think of themselves as a college-bound individual.

College & Career Week 2021 had over 100 attendees throughout the week! The highlights are shown here in the 2021 Early College Scholarship Ceremony Book with all the videos from the event! Also, our last Family Leadership Group (FLG) session on Summer Resources can be viewed here!
We have assembled and delivered 4,000+ “Keep On Moving” (KOM) Kits for Kinder students at our participating schools! K2C team is closing out the school year by supporting schools to spend their Innovation Fund ($1,000 annual college/career-going fund they receive), delivering remaining Keep on Moving Kits, and working with schools to complete their end of year surveys and reflections to inform our fiscal year 2021 planning.
For middle schools, K2C has been supporting students to work on setting SMART goals, solidifying their knowledge on a fixed and growth mindset and exploring their options for post-secondary education. Students are completing their post-advising survey so we can understand the impact of this year’s pilot work.
The team is also preparing to launch the new infrastructure to support our Early College Scholarship Fund, while also ensuring strategy alignment across all our programs.

Photo: A post congratulating the OP scholarship recipients who will attend college or a career technical education program (CTE).

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.

We are excited to announce we awarded 550 Oakland Promise Scholarships to support Oakland high school seniors in their post-secondary educational plans. Of those 550 awards, 515 Oakland Scholars accepted the scholarship: 70% attending 4-year and 30% 2-year or CTE programs.
In partnership with K2C and Mentoring teams, we launched career workshops for students that featured professional panels from criminal justice and art /media / entertainment and there are plans to do more.
We launched the “Family Bag Grant” to support Oakland families with at-home learning supplies. Together with the College Completion team, we also mailed 515 swag boxes welcoming the Class of 2021 which contained a T-shirt, stickers, pins, notebook and graduation stole.

Photo: Post welcoming OP's Class of 2021's Scholars and inviting them to show their swag through pictures and videos.

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

The team wrapped up a successful mentoring recruitment season and there will be 315 Mentor - Scholar matches that will be announced on 6/1! We created a Welcome Video for 2021 Mentors and will be shared soon.
We launched our final mentorship activity (“A Year in Review”) of the academic year on April 1st.
We administered our Annual Mentor Survey in March and began analyzing our responses in collaboration with the Data & Evaluation Team.
We are working with SF consultants to complete OP Mentor-Scholar Portal in Salesforce by the end of May to facilitate on-boarding the class of 2021 and their mentors.

Advising

Check distribution for quarter Scholars has ended; The Advising team distributed over $181,000 in scholarship money!
Advising team is hiring a new cohort of CREWS Leaders; we have received several applications from current upper-class scholars and look forward to interviewing our Scholars for these positions.
We are excited to begin the planning for the Alumni Ceremony and celebrate with Scholars their accomplishments. Here is the Flyer.
Advising and Mentoring teams are working on Scholar and Mentor activities for 2021-2022. New and continuing Scholars will be working together with their Mentors to complete these activities.

Partnerships

Chime and our team collaborated to host a student workshop on “How to Negotiate your Salary & Benefits.” They brought essential information to our current scholars and alumni to support their job search process.
Safeway & the Access/Advising team hosted an Info session for the new “Summer Tech Immersion Program.” This 3-week program will teach students about engineering, business, and technology while pairing them up with a Safeway Mentor to present their solution-oriented projects for their community.
FERC & Advising team hosted a Fireside Chat with a Mental Health Professional of Color to discuss mental health issues, like anxiety and loneliness, with scholars and mentors. The workshop shared resources to support anyone going through a mental health crisis.

Photo: Photo of children at Cues & Future School being given protective equipment (PPE) by CEO Mia Bonta and Councilmember Sheng Thao as part of OP's partnership with Oakland Mutual Aid Collective.

Other Oakland Promise Developments

Development Focus: The Development Team is reflecting on how we can become an antiracist fundraising team, analyzing how we are living our Unity Principles and developing a team operating philosophy. We are working on bringing more accountability and transparency to fundraising.
Salesforce Implementation: Salesforce community portals for OP Scholars and Mentors will allow us to have improved interactions and communication. We are on-target for a June 1 launch.
Culture: OP leadership team just engaged in a session with the BeTheChange organization entitled “How to Be An Anti-Racist Leadership Team” where we discussed how to focus on the long-range vision, turn strategic priorities into concrete solutions, and keep racial equity at the center of of organizational culture.
Strategic Planning: All the leadership and staff at OP have been working on strategic planning and in the process of finalizing our integrated 3-year plan.
Partnerships for bridging the digital divide and protecting the most vulnerable: We continue growing our partnerships with Oakland organizations including #Oakland Undivided (where we are a co-founding partner) helping to bringing laptops and hotspots to OUSD students) and working with HCZ, Oakland Mutual Aid Collective (OMAC), Oakland NAACP and others to provide masks to Oakland's families, especially in the Black community, whose been affected most by the pandemic.

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!