School Options if moving to Oakland

My humble opinion is not to put too much weight on your neighborhood school in Oakland. Buy the house that you like and trust that schools will work out. We tried our local school, decided to buy in a better school area and eventually ended up in a private school. Try your local school and if it doesn’t work out, it’s ok to change. You can’t change your house as easily. We have friends who bought smaller houses to be in the desired school zone and ended up attending different schools for various reasons and truly regretting the lack of space.
 

There are many choices in Oakland. As you mentioned, there are many charter schools as well as private schools that are more affordable than others. You will also be surprised that many private schools offer financial aid. If you recently bought a house and are cash poor, you will likely qualify for financial aid because they look at the whole financial picture and not just income. 
If proximity to your house In Oakland /San Leandro is important, there are Francophone charter school, Urban Montessori, Melrose (Spanish bilingual) nearby and East Bay Innovation Academy and Bishop O’Dowd high school are in that area as well. Mills College Children’s School is among the more affordable private school. Many choices in that area but we know families whose kids go to school in north Oakland and commute from the Oakland zoo area / Eastmont Hills, Eastmont, Mills College area as well as San Leandro. I don’t think Eastmont is the nicest neighborhood but I love Eastmont Hills and Maxwell Park, Millsmont. San Leandro, I think, is a really nice town with great elementary schools. 

As a parent who has obsessed over schools for years and settled for a less than a dream house because we limited ourselves to a "good" school zone, I regret our house purchase choice. We could have had a bigger house with more bathrooms and a bigger yard for less $. We tried our local OUSD school when we were renters. It was fine and not as terrible as the Great Schools ranking indicates. What was interesting about the school was that lower grades were wonderfully diverse and for most kids, the school would be pretty great. Our child had a decent experience and it's largely due to amazing teachers and principal. The upper grades, however, was not diverse at all. I saw 2 kids who were not African American in a 5th grade class.  We bought in an area that was zoned for a popular and a higher ranked school -- known for its diversity, inclusion, and community. Ultimately, OUSD didn't work for us and we moved to a small progressive private school in Oakland. Many of our friends' kids who are at OUSD do not go to their neighborhood school or go to charter/private schools. But, we also know many families who love their neighborhood schools. If your child is not yet at the stage of having to make a school choice, don't worry. There are so many choices in Oakland, and you'll tour the schools and get a feel for them. If you start at one school and things don't work, it's ok to change. Many kids shuffle around in Oakland. Before/after care options are generally available for each school. Summer camps are plentiful.  

Please keep in mind that OUSD has school choice--so, you are not limited to your neighborhood school. Most families we know were able to get if not their first choice, their second or third (none ranked their neighborhood school as #1). We are at Cleveland Elementary and this past year the school has been under-enrolled which was really not the case in the past, but with the pandemic many families moved or went to private schools.

In terms of before/afterschool care, it will vary by school so you'll want to do research for each school. Summer camps are numerous and it just depends on what you're looking for (full day? half day? how far are you willing to drive?) and what your kid is interested in (sports camps, theater/dance, swimming, science/math etc. etc.) Good luck!

My daughter went to Cleveland Elementary, Edna Brewer Middle School, and now Oakland High. I recommend the first two without reservation. I've been frustrated with Oakland High, but I'm not how much covid and remote learning for a year-and-a-half is to blame. I suspect that I would would have had issues with certain things even if the last two years had been normal. But none of the Oakland high schools is all that great. I think Oakland Tech is the best of them, certainly on paper (Great Schools), but I don't have an insider's experience. O High isn't terrible, but the academics were not at the level I wanted them to be. Socially, covid notwithstanding, it has been fine. O High is diverse in terms of Asian, Hispanic, and Black representation but is less than 2% white (White flight is a thing in OUSD).

While Oakland does use a neighborhood school system, they do have a lotter system if you want to apply to an out-of-neighborhood school. My daughter got into Cleveland by lottery (zoned for Bella Vista). She also got into Tech by lottery, but after assessing the commute (and hour on the bus, literally walking to O High and then catching the bus to Tech) along with social (all my friends are going to O High!) and extracurricular factors (O High's orchestra is better than Tech's!) we switched to O High. My point is, the lottery actually works with a little bit of luck as long as you aren't trying to get into a super oversubscribed school.

We purchased our first home in San Leandro, had a child and then moved because the schools were rated so low (I think a few were rated a one or 2 in our area for elementary). We’re in the glenview/oakmore area in Oakland where the schools are rated higher. San Leandro was more affordable though. We are still not in the school system yet as my child is preschool age but moving to an area with better public school ratings was a big factor for us in moving. I know Castro Valley has excellent school ratings as well but is a bit more inland. Hope this helps! 

I agree with other posters that with the way that OUSD has been set up, it is common and fairly easy to go somewhere besides your neighborhood school. Schools change quickly. Kids are all different. You can't know for sure a school you like now is going to work out later. I'd buy for a neighborhood and house you like and then let the schools sort themselves out after that. For example, when we were looking to buy we knew we wanted our kids in a Spanish immersion program. So we bought in Maxwell Park, where we're within an easy walk or drive of several Spanish immersion schools but we didn't buy in a specific neighborhood for a specific school. The size of the house, the makeup of the neighborhood, commute times, etc all played a more important factor.

We are in our third year in OUSD and about to send our second child to an out of neighborhood school (though it's only a 5 minute drive from our house). While the pandemic was rough and I'm not impressed with the school board, our kids' school (Greenleaf) is awesome. It is definitely not one of the high rated or in demand ones. The principals and teachers and community support make such a difference. Touring schools and getting a gut feeling for different ones is a must.

If you're looking for a counterpoint to Great Schools, I appreciated this new organization/website for Get Schooled Oakland, which helps to find other ways for parents to evaluate schools and find those hidden gems. https://www.getschooledoakland.com/

I highly recommend you look at this article 

https://apple.news/AYXU6elE2SmWIM3qitdZk5Q

And check out getschooledoakland.com. This is an excerpt from the article in The Oaklandside:

”Get Schooled Oakland specifically focuses on elementary schools, and spotlights schools that have four strengths: high teacher retention and experience levels, principals with a tenure of more than four years, students who show growth in test scores over time (rather than just raw scores), and schools that have short or no waitlists so that parents aren’t competing to get in.”

My son goes to our neighborhood school, Manzanita SEED and we live in “Meadow Brook” aka Fruitvale. We’re happy with the level of education he’s getting at SEED and feel that it’s a great school. He went in to the school year behind thanks to last year’s COVID-zoom school, but is now up to grade level for everything. The teachers there are great. We also love that it’s a 50/50 Spanish/English dual immersion school. I do feel that we lucked out when we bought our house because we didn’t even consider the neighborhood schools as a deciding factor. We bought the home we wanted and then school stuff just fell into place. I’d suggest you do the same. Find a neighborhood and home that you like and then go from there. Fruitvale area is not for everyone. There’s definitely a fair amount of illegal dumping, litter, and crime, so make sure to really spend time in the neighborhood you’re going to buy in to make sure you’re ok with it. In spite of the issues, we’re happy here and love our neighbors and neighborhood school. Hope this helps. Happy to chat more if you’d like.