Grow With Us: An Oakland Unified Podcast

Oakland Unified School District

The Grow With Us podcast tells stories about the hard work and creative thinking that makes Oakland Unified such a remarkable place of learning. Here, you'll find acronym-free, content-rich storytelling about the things that matter to Oakland.

  1. 12/06/2025

    Enrollment 2026-2027: You can apply for After-School now!

    "Apply with non-panicked urgency..." Executive Director of Enrollment Kilian Betlach and Enrollment Marketing Team leader Bobby Jordan convene to review the basics of submitting an application for the on-time enrollment and highlight changes for the 2026-2027 enrollment season. Most importantly, perhaps, is the change that allows families to submit After-School Progam applications* when they apply for their core school program. This replaces the Balkanized, site- and agency-specific model with disparate models, timelines and procedures. This is a big deal! *Before-School too, where applicable. Meantioned in this episode: ⁠Apply to OUSD schools Our TK episode: Talking TKBurbank Early Childhood Education centerInteractive map feature on a local major air carrierConnect with an enrollment counselor Get GROW WITH US Gear: At a time when there is literally nothing more hardcore than being an OUSD parent, get some hoodies and rock them in public.. ⁠⁠⁠Right here!

    Enrollment 2026-2027: You can apply for After-School now!

  2. 10/10/2025

    College on Campus: How OUSD students are using Dual Enrollment to get a jump on college

    "Dual Enrollment is a post-secondary accelerant..." For a long time, if you were doing college-level work in high school, this meant taking Advanced Placement (AP) classes and then cramming for their multiple-choice centric exams at the end of the year, hoping you'd get a 4 or a 5 to earn credit. Today in Oakland Unified, college-level access means taking actual college classes without leaving campus. it's called Dual Enrollment, and it's an ever-growing program wherein more and more high schoolers are earning college credit and high school credit and college exposure and 6-point As and deepening their Linked Learning Pathway experiences. That's a lot. Like almost too good to be true. But it's not. It's real. Meantioned in this episode: Dual Enrollment in OUSDHigh School Isn't What You Remember: our episode on Linked LearningMeasure N/ Measure H: the local parcel taxes that helped support Linked Learning Check out McClymonds and Skyline High Schools Get GROW WITH US Gear: Impress the public school afficionados with your hoodies and T-shirts demonstrating your level of local education knowledge. ⁠⁠Right here!

    College on Campus: How OUSD students are using Dual Enrollment to get a jump on college

  3. 04/23/2025

    (Still) Don't Panic! Enrollment Offers

    A re-release of last year's episode with Executive Director of Enrollment Kilian Betlach reviews the on-time enrollment offer system and process, discusses waitlists, and waxes nostalgic for 1980s baseball cards. Discussed in this episode: ⁠Enrollwise⁠, the district's enrollment toolThe bountiful and jaunty ⁠Enrollment FAQ⁠1987 Topps ⁠Marc McGwire rookie card⁠ Support the pod and show your love of Oakland's Public Schools by⁠ purchasing some swag from our store.⁠

    (Still) Don't Panic! Enrollment Offers

  4. 03/27/2025

    "You can't get that from a book": LIFE Academy & Linked Learning

    "You never when kids are fully--with their whole heart--listening. Turns out it's all the time." Fruitvale's LIFE Academy is a 6-12 school boasting one of Oakland Unified's oldest--and most successful--pathway programs. Students at LIFE embed their learning in the health field, gaining exposure to unique instructional experiences and inernship opportunities. By committing deeply to the linked learning pedagogy and building authentic relationships with students, LIFE graduates students A-G* ready at twice the district average, and student enroll in 4-year institutions at significantly higher rates. We went to see how they're doing it. *Don't know A-G? That's the⁠ course sequence⁠ the UC and CSU systems require students complete in order to even apply to a state college. Get this: It's different than the ⁠state diploma requirements⁠. Not just a little different, like a lot different. True story. You can earn a high school diploma in California, a real diploma, and somehow be ineligible to apply to a 4-year state college. If you read that and thought: "Dang, that makes no sense." Why would we create a gap, a literal crack for students with less access to highly educated parents, private tutors, and lot's of college counseling to fall into? That's why some folks are out here saying the system isn't broken, it's doing just what it was designed to do. Mentioned in this episode: LIFE Academy Previous Episode: ⁠High School Isn't What You RememberReclassification rates in OUSDA-G completion rates in OUSDYou love this podcast and you want swag

    "You can't get that from a book": LIFE Academy & Linked Learning

  5. 01/07/2025

    Make Our Board Meetings Boring Again: In conversation with outgoing Board President Sam Davis

    "We have to be really clear-eyed that if we're saying no to mergers, no to closures, no to consolidations, then we're saying yes to cuts in the other areas." Being a School Board Director in Oakland is... interesting if nothing else. As he prepares to exit the Board, we speak with School Board President Sam Davis about some wins, his biggest regrets, the current budget deficit, and why he believes the next School Board will need to once again take up the matter of operating fewer schools. Mentioned in this episode: Previous Episode: High School Isn't What You Remember Measure N/ Measure H ⁠Cole Administrative Building OUSD Budget deficit McClymonds Measure Y project Get GROW WITH US Gear: Impress the public school afficionados with your hoodies and T-shirts demonstrating your level of local education knowledge. ⁠Right here!

    Make Our Board Meetings Boring Again: In conversation with outgoing Board President Sam Davis

  6. 06/25/2024

    Can't Spell Community Schools Without Oakland

    "When we say 'thriving' we mean all the way... We want students to be the best humans they can be. THAT is this work." The state of California recently dropped billions of dollars into the Community Schools initiative. But Oakland has been engaged in this work for some time, whether you track that back to the Freedom Schools of the Black Panthers, the grass roots reforms that helped drived the original small work, or some of the most recent deliberate, focused community schools work of the last decade plus. In this episode, we're in conversation with two veteran Community School Managers, discussing what it really means to do school this way, and why it matters for Oakland. Mentioned in this episode: The Community School Manager (CSM) role in Oakland Unified Community School work realized in Oakland Unified The California Healthy Kids Survey (not abbreviated "Chicks") The state's investment in community school work Get GROW WITH US Gear: Impress the Playground Mafia with your hoodies and T-shirts demonstrating your level of local education knowledge. Right here!

    Can't Spell Community Schools Without Oakland

  7. 03/21/2024

    Talking TK

    "This is the building block for how we build really confident, happy, successful kids who can pick themselves up and take risks." Mentioned in this episode TK and Kinder readiness in OUSD Tontra Love in action Diamond Slice Pizza ChooseOUSD.org Support public schools and look good doing it.

    Talking TK

  8. 03/04/2024

    Don't Panic! On-time Enrollment Offers

    Executive Director of Enrollment Kilian Betlach reviews the on-time enrollment offer system and process, discusses waitlists, and waxes nostalgic for 1980s baseball cards. Discussed in this episode: Enrollwise, the district's enrollment tool The bountiful and jaunty Enrollment FAQ 1987 Topps Marc McGwire rookie card Support the pod and show your love of Oakland's Public Schools by purchasing some swag from our store.

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The Grow With Us podcast tells stories about the hard work and creative thinking that makes Oakland Unified such a remarkable place of learning. Here, you'll find acronym-free, content-rich storytelling about the things that matter to Oakland.

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