Lincoln Elementary School

Community Subscriber
Oakland
Public School
operated by Oakland Unified School District
Language(s):
Chinese,
English
Grades:
TK-5
Capacity:
700 students
Website:
https://lincolnschooloakland.org/
Phone:
510-874-3372
Address:
225 11th Street, Oakland, CA 94607
Affiliation:
School district-run
Editors' Notes:
2 parent questions ▼
Archived Q&A and reviews ▼

Parent Q&A

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  • Question about Lincoln Elementary in OUSD

    –
    Nov 1, 2019

    Hi:

    I am interested in hearing from any parents who have sent a kid to Lincoln in OUSD.

    Please let me know how you found the school culture, administration, and teachers! Thanks!

    -Andrew

    Nov 1, 2019

    We have a first grader at Lincoln and we're super happy with it. They get weekly music, computers, and library time and host really fun cultural events and fundraisers throughout the year.  The principal is new this year and she seems great--there is a really big emphasis on socio-emotional learning and she puts out a weekly update to share what's going on. That is helpful for us because we use aftercare at Lincoln Square so we're barely ever at the school and would otherwise have no idea what's going on. 

    We haven't interacted with many teachers but we do love his current teacher Ms. Chen. She has been at Lincoln for 14 years and seems to make an academically rigorous classroom really fun. 

    All students automatically qualify for free breakfast and lunch so as long as you don't mind them eating mediocre-quality food you'll never have to pack a lunch!

    The biggest bummer is parking--if you need to be at the school or come onsite for pickup then you need to find a metered spot, which is non-ideal.

    Nov 6, 2019

  • How Easy/Hard to get Child into Lincoln Elementary School in Oakland?

    –
    Jul 12, 2018

    Hello all, first time poster - excited to join the community here!

    I grew up in the East Bay but was away for many years, but just moved back with my wife and 20 month old daughter. I am looking to buy a home in Uptown Oakland but am definitely thinking ahead to the implications for my daughter's school situation. 

    As you may know Uptown Oakland is right on the dividing line between being in the Lincoln Elementary boundary and the MLK Elementary boundary. 

    From my point of view, Lincoln would definitely be acceptable for my daughter (who is about 20 months of age) while MLK sadly would be less than ideal to put it lightly. Note: we really, really would prefer not to have to travel far out of the neighborhood to bring our daughter to school, so for elementary those are really the only two options for me that are walking distance as far as I can tell. 

    Unfortunately many of the buildings in Uptown Oakland are on the MLK side of the boundary line.

    Let's assume I end up buying on the MLK side. I know that Oakland has a lottery system that prioritizes sibling school attendance first and residence within a school boundary 2nd, but makes it theoretically possible to have your child attend a school outside their boundary. 

    My questions are:

    1. Does anyone have any information whatsoever on how easy/hard it is to get your child into Lincoln elementary currently if you live outside the district boundaries?
    2. Another way of asking the above - does anyone know if Lincoln ended up with "extra"/unused student slots this past year, or were all the slots filled by students?
    3. Let's say I couldn't get my daughter into Lincoln for kindergarten and had to settle for MLK School for kindergarten. Would it get progressively easier or harder as she enters 1st grade or 2nd grade to transfer her over to Lincoln?

    Thanks so much!

    Nick

    Jul 12, 2018

    Lincoln doesn't fill with neighborhood kids, but it is very in demand so tends to have a long waiting list for non-neighbor spots. (So I guess that's to say: you would definitely have a shot, but a lot would depend on the luck of the draw.) Fewer people change schools in 1st and 2nd, but there are also fewer available spots, so whether it's easier or harder just depends on the year. Lincoln is a very large school, though, which helps. I do recommend that you visit, if you haven't already.

    Jul 15, 2018

    I get that you're trying to plan, but schools change a lot-- by the time your kid is ready for kinder, you may not even want to send your kid there. 

    Jul 18, 2018

Parent Reviews

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Archived Q&A and Reviews

July 2014

Re: Living in Jack London Square with kids?

About the neighborhood school: That would be Lincoln Elementary in Chinatown. My oldest is almost ready for kinder, and it was so frustrating that almost nothing has been written up on BPN about Lincoln. From my neighbor in my bldg whose child has attended K, 1st, and will be continuing in 2nd: academically rigorous, with lots of homework, even in K. Since the school's in Chinatown, almost all the kids are Asian, and they start school academically well-prepared and continue along that path with the assistance of the teachers. By the time they finish K they can add and subtract and read. If you adhere to test scores, you will see that Lincoln boasts the highest Math API score of all the Oakland public schools. Lots of field trips (her 1st grader had 5 or 6 field trips in one school year!). The school playground is actually the park that sits right next to the school.

Sept 2013

My partner and I are considering buying a home in the Oakland/Harrison neighborhood of Oakland (a few blocks from the Whole Foods). The zoned elementary school is Lincoln Elementary in Chinatown. I tried to look for reviews of Lincoln Elementary school but couldn't find any on BPN. It looks like it has good CST scores and received a national blue ribbon honor in 2010 but I'm wondering why I haven't heard of it and why there aren't any reviews on BPN. Does anyone have recent experience with the school? Oakland parent

We live in (and love!) this neighborhood, so I can share what little I know about the school--we're still a couple of years from kindergarten. Historically, Lincoln just served Chinatown, so the school has built its success on really embracing the Chinese-American community. The school newsletter is published in both English and Chinese; most of the teachers speak Mandarin, Cantonese, or both; students learn Chinese dance, Chinese instrumental music, etc. Clearly, it's worked, as the school is incredibly high performing and has a waiting list every year for people trying to option in. However, as a result, the student body has not been terribly diverse--one concern for our family. (I have heard that the Lincoln parents' group recognizes and would like to change this, though.) When Lakeview Elementary closed in 2012, parts of the Harrison/Oakland neighborhood and Adams Point were assigned to Lincoln. There hasn't really been enough time to see how many families here will actually choose the school and how the school demographics may change as a result. (It would actually be amazing if OUSD took the opportunity to make it a dual immersion school, but I haven't heard anyone even suggest that.) Right now, the neighborhood elementary kids we know are at a range of schools--about half are at nearby private schools, and the other half are at other high-performing OUSD schools they got into through the Options process. Some Lincoln pluses I do know about: the school campus is relatively new and Lincoln Park has a terrific playground. There's talk of making it a K-8 school, which would be great. The after-school program is supposed to be quite good. The biggest minus for us is the distance; it doesn't feel like a ''neighborhood school.'' (Half of our neighborhood is assigned to Piedmont Avenue Elementary, too, to further complicate things--we also plan to take a tour there.) I hope somebody currently at Lincoln will weigh in, since we are also a very curious prospective family! A Harrison/Oakland mama

I asked questions about Lincoln three times in the past two years and also heard nothing. I think this is because very few Berkeley Parents' Network families attend Lincoln, and very few Lincoln parents read BPN. So I did my own research and visited the school. It's an excellent school in many ways, but it's rather traditional in teaching style. In the end I decided Lincoln was not a good fit for us and entered the options lottery for another Oakland elementary (with lower API scores), which we are very happy with. Adams' Point mom