Oakland saw a flurry of new and redesigned schools in the last decade. Along with the more substantive changes came a slew of inventive names – many with acronyms for aspirational adjectives, nouns, verbs and phrases: BEST, EXCEL, ASCEND, EnCOMPASS, Reach, United for Success, and EXPLORE, to name a few.
McClymonds High School, or Mack as it’s also known, was officially closed in 2005. The names of the two small high schools that opened on its campus were a mouthful: Business Entrepreneurial School of Technology (BEST) and Experience, eXcellence, Community, Empowerment and Leadership (EXCEL).
BEST closed in June, though, and now that McClymonds will be a one-school campus again, a group of people — possibly, alumni — want to undo the name change. They’ve
circulated a petition titled “Change the name back to McClymonds High.”
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I drove up to the Hintil Kuu Ca childhood development center this morning (yesterday morning, technically). It’s name means “Indian children’s house,” according to this fascinating
article about the center published in 1986 in Cultural Survival Quarterly.
Hintil opened in 1973; it was started by mothers whose kids — recently relocated from reservations as part of a federal government integration program — were struggling socially and academically in Oakland schools. In the late 70s or early 80s, it moved to its current location in the Oakland hills, near Merritt College and behind Carl Munck Elementary.
Leave a commentBy Katy Murphy
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 at 12:39 pm in
budget
Take a look at this
June 2010 report by the California Budget Project. If you only have a minute, I suggest you zero in on Table 1.
The report ranks California 44th of 50 states in K-12 spending in 2009-10 – $8,826 per student, compared to $11,372 in the rest of the United States. And it found California schools had way fewer administrators, teachers, guidance counselors and librarians per student in 2007-08 than the national average.
Oakland saw a flurry of new and redesigned schools in the last decade. Along with the more substantive changes came a slew of inventive names – many with acronyms for aspirational adjectives, nouns, verbs and phrases: BEST, EXCEL, ASCEND, EnCOMPASS, Reach, United for Success, and EXPLORE, to name a few.
