Oakland Serves

Oakland Serves is a non-profit dedicated to helping Oakland high school students  stay in school. We provide trained mentors who partner with students at the highest risk of dropping out for one-on-one tutoring during the school day. Our leadership team includes volunteers from academia, business and government.

Our Program is Working 

In our first year at Skyline High School, our senior-year mentees who were not expected to graduate turned things around in time to graduate with their peers. In the three and a half months we were at McClymonds High School, the tenth grade students who worked with our mentors showed significant improvement: they stayed in school, turned in their work, and raised their grades - in several cases, by a full grade.

Other programs help students who show exceptional promise; we focus on students on the verge of leaving school without a diploma. We work closely with faculty and administrators to make sure we’re giving students what they need in each school environment.

Right now, we can only help a fraction of the most at-risk kids. We want to hire staff for the time-intensive work of recruiting, training, and coordinating, instead of relying on volunteers to manage our project as it expands.

Why Is This Necessary? 

Despite the many programs in Oakland schools, our graduation rate is abysmal – only 64% of students graduate from  high school, compared to the statewide average of 84%.  Every year, about 600 students fail to graduate with their classmates.   (For more statistics, read our newsletter The Graduation Advocate.)

Dropping out of high school leaves our young people ineligible for most living-wage jobs, at a time when rents in Oakland and the rest of the Bay Area are skyrocketing. Dropouts earn significantly less than their peers with a high school diploma, and are 3.5 times more likely to enter the criminal justice system. Almost 70% of black men and boys without a high school diploma will be incarcerated by their mid-30s.

We believe this is the community’s failure, not the students’, and it’s up to us to fix it. As Oakland’s graduation rates rise, the community as a whole will see increased racial and economic equity, along with improved safety and stability. 

What Makes Oakland Serves Special? 

Our unique one-on-one mentoring combines academic tutoring with empathetic listening and counseling, providing youth with stable support to help them get back on the path to a diploma. But it’s really the people who make it work. 

In the short time since our program launched, our mentors have consistently shown dedication, patience, and perseverance in building relationships with their mentees. The students’ consistent academic improvement is proof that hard work pays off.

How Can Oakland Serves Build on Its Success?

Until now, we have relied entirely on volunteers and small individual donations. ;As our program grows, we need two part-time staff members to help do the work that keeps the wheels turning, including building stronger community awareness and support, managing the website, and improving the newsletter, as well as help processing mentors’ applications, training, and background clearances, coordinating with our current partner schools and building relationships with new ones.

We envision a community where every high school student graduates well-prepared for the next phase of life. Next year, we hope to support 40 students, which means recruiting and training a diverse group of passionate and committed mentors. We need your help to make that happen.