Oakland mayor gets up-close look at city’s 'racial disparities’

In her inaugural speech, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf referred to the “morally outrageous racial disparities” in the city’s public schools.

On Friday, she saw some of them.

Schaaf toured three Oakland public schools — including one at the top end of what education has to offer to Oakland children and one at the struggling end.

The tour was part of her honeymoon week in office in which she participated in activities designed to convey her agenda: Crime reduction and educational success represent her highest priorities.

“I wanted my first week to be a demonstration of where my priorities lie,” Schaaf said.

Earlier in the week, she spent 18 hours — until 12:30 a.m. Wednesday — with the men and women of the Oakland Police Department, talking with sworn and civilian staff, spending time with rookie and veteran officers on ride-alongs.

The Friday school tour started with the K-12 Lighthouse Community Charter School, about a mile from the Oakland International Airport with about 750 bright-faced and eager students. Schaaf was instrumental in the efforts to raise funding to build a permanent school more than a decade ago.

Donations and grants

It’s an impressive facility, opened in 2009 with a $15 million donation from Gary Rogers, a philanthropist and the previous owner of Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, and another $7 million from grants and foundations.

Located just off Hegenberger Road, the school is a marvelous modern-day public school experience for students.

“It’s what happens in the building that’s more important,” said the school’s founder, Jenna Stauffer.

The middle and elementary schools are divided by a large multipurpose room, and there is a feeling that the school is a single community with a shared focus.

“Teachers create a connection with students — it just happens,” said Jorge Prieto, an 18-year-old senior. “Teachers care about you and want you to succeed. We are much smaller (of a school), and we are focused on our own community.”

A few miles away, at Life Academy High School, an entire building has been repurposed as a health and science classroom for high school students interested in careers in those fields — and for students seeking an education outside a traditional high school setting.

Schaaf’s entourage encountered a quiet, focused group of students preparing for final exams.

Aspiring to medicine

Some students serve internships at local medical facilities, where they shadow medical professionals to get a feel for the work they are preparing for.

George Reliford, a 16-year-old junior, joined the class after a bike ride from Oakland to Humboldt County led by his teacher, Jessica Oya. He transferred from Oakland High School after his freshman year into Oya’s class.

“The other school was so crowded that teachers didn’t seem to care too much, but Ms. Oya, she cares,” Reliford said.

The final stop of the day was at McClymonds High School in West Oakland, a school that once had nearly 900 students. These days, enrollment is below 300, and it’s one of five Oakland schools targeted by the district for “intense” academic improvement, said Troy Flint, a district spokesman.

The school was immaculate for the visit — the floors gleamed in orange and black school colors — but it lacked the energy and the vast resources available to students at other schools.

Struggling program

The school’s science, technology, engineering and math program lagged behind the work being completed by middle school students at Lighthouse.

Students at McClymonds are just like their counterparts at the others schools. They’re just kids with dreams of doing something bigger, something better, as they mature.

It’s clear that some of Oakland’s unconventional approaches to education work better in some school locations than others. Educators and city officials who want to help the schools must promote and expand successful educational models and re-cast or discard ones that don’t help students make the grade.

Chip Johnson is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. His columns run Tuesday and Friday. E-mail chjohnson@sfchronicle.com