an interdependent school

January 16, 2009

As RDS continues to refine our place in the East Bay world of independent schools, the word that keeps coming up is “interdependence.” Rather than simply being a great independent school in Oakland, RDS is striving to become a great school that is an integral part of the East Bay, such that we both come to depend on and learn from each other.

This is most obvious in how we have shifted some of our service learning and community service components. In the lower school, for instance, we have worked closely with Good Cents to support different East Bay agencies over the past couple of years: the SPCA (www.eastbayspca.org) two years ago and Oakland Technology Exchange West (www.otxwest.org) last year. In the middle school, each grade this year has already done a clean-up of the Berkeley Marina. In addition, each grade will be spending a day at the San Francisco Food Bank as volunteers and to understand the science of food production and the math of efficient food distribution. Over the last couple of years, the School has also donated library books to neighborhood schools, worked to clean up Lake Merritt, collected food and winter coats, and even collected used sneakers for recycling.

In addition, in the last couple of years we have chosen to honor the faculty/staff during the holiday season with donations -- to Heifer International last year and this year, closer to home, to Oakland Fire Department’s Random Acts. We have also contributed to Good Cents.

As you can see, over time the focus has become more local with a goal of having a greater impact on and connection to the East Bay.

In our various expert presentations to parents and guardians, we have opened and designed many events to and for the greater East Bay community. We host the K Conference each spring, which focuses on the transition from pre-school to kindergarten, specifically the developmental changes in children and the subsequent changes in the classroom and in the home. Just last week we hosted our first College Admissions Panel, with Admissions Directors and personnel from UC Davis, Stanford, St. Mary’s College, Northeastern University, and Goucher College. The crowd was comprised mostly of parents and students from Oakland and Berkeley. Earlier in the year we hosted Emergent Thoughts, a night focused on the latest developments and research on high school education. In addition, for the past three years, the RDSPA has coordinated Parent University, which we open to the entire East Bay community. We are becoming known as an educational resource for parents and guardians in the East Bay.

We do all this with a goal of even more interdependence, largely because we want a true give-and-take relationship with the community from which we have grown and continue to grow. We know that with more knowledge people make informed decisions in their lives and with their children, which makes the RDS community, and the entire East Bay, stronger.

Have a great weekend.

Mike