Mission & History
Mission
Oakland Kids First (OKF) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Our mission is to increase youth voice, leadership and power to create engaging and equitable public schools where all students learn and lead. Each school year, OKF provides over 600 Oakland youth with safe spaces and the skills needed to organize to positively transform their school system, while providing services and supports for students to navigate existing learning conditions and access postsecondary success.
We believe youth are the experts of their own experience, and therefore are equipped to evaluate, innovate and govern the institutions that are supposed to serve them. As Kenny, one OKF leader at Oakland Tech explained, “Unless you’re inside the school house, people can guess and read statistics, but they don’t actually know what’s happening or what issues inside of schools are. Youth experience OUSD schools every day and have insights into how to lead efforts to solve problems.” OKF prepares and empowers students to draw from their experiences to improve educational equity in schools in order to build power for all Oakland students.
history
Founded in 1996 as a coalition of community based organizations, Oakland Kids First has been partnering with Oakland students on systems change and organizing campaigns to meet the needs of low-income, BIPOC youth for nearly three decades.
Originally, the coalition came together to organize and pass the Kids First! Initiative as ballot measure K in 1996. That campaign won a 2.5% set aside of the City of Oakland’s budget, and amended the city charter in order to fund services for children and youth – now known as the Oakland Fund for Children and Youth (OFCY). OKF went on to lead organizing efforts to renew and increase OFCY funding to 3% of the city budget. This multi-million dollar fund is the cornerstone of our organization, the inspiration for our name, and a demonstration of Oakland Kids First’s commitment to youth power-building, economic inclusion and racial equity.
In 2002, OKF evolved from a campaign coalition into a nonprofit organization. Since our founding, we have trained and partnered with thousands of low-income BIPOC students in youth leadership development, organizing and community school programs. Over the years, OKF has continuosly evolved by assessing student needs, reviewing equity data and sharing decision-making power with young people when it comes to our programs, campaigns and services.
The REAL HARD youth leadership development program is OKF’s longest standing program. Youth in REAL HARD engage in cycles of participatory action research to identify educational equity challenges and to prepare youth to lead efforts that transform school culture and climate in order to improve public education in Oakland. Examples of REAL HARD youth contributions to OKF include a student-created academic mentoring program called Peers Advising Students to Succeed (PASS-2), creating Codes of Respect across high school campuses, and authoring a Student Justice Platform.
OKF has an intergenerational organizing approach and has worked directly with teachers and families of students with the goals of building youth power and transforming education systems to better serve students. Examples over the years include:
- Facilitating a Teacher Cohort to incorporate meaningful student engagement opportunities, restorative practices and shared facilitation with youth into classes
- Co-teaching Peers Advising Students to Succeed during the school day at multiple high school campuses to prepare 10-12th graders to facilitate academic success workshops for 100% of their 9th grade peers
- Leading Meaningful Student and Family Engagement forums to integrate student and family input into school site plans, policies and budget priorities
- Creating an A-G credited course called “Civic Engagement and Social Movements” that can be taught at any high school across the state of California.
OKF empowers youth to be creative in their approach to tackling challenges in their school communities. For example, in 2020, we published our first comic book Town Force 1: And the Battle for East Oakland featuring 4 real students from our programs at Castlemont high school. The youth and program staff collaborated with Bay Area based visual storyteller Wahab Algarmi and local illustrator Jimmie Robinson to tell the story of four students, Essai Taleb, Natalie Zapien, Jun-Sang Kim and Heavenly Simpson as they fought gentrification in East Oakland and saved their high school from closure.
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Victories and Milestones
With a rich history spanning decades, Oakland Kids First has been empowering youth since our founding as a community coalition to successfully navigate and transform inequitable school conditions.
Every year, young changemakers in our programs immerse themselves in participatory action research and then take the lead to organize campaigns that make public education more equitable and engaging for all Oakland students.
For an exciting journey through our inspiring youth-led campaigns and victories, see the timeline below.
