Global Family School
2035 40th Ave.
Oakland, CA 94601 (Map & Directions)
510-879-1280
Rosalind Sarah, Principal
rosalind.sarah@ousd.k12.ca.us
In 2007, Jefferson Elementary School in Oakland’s Fruitvale District was divided into three smaller schools in order to address the problems of overcrowding and under-performance. Global Family School opened in August 2007, serving 260 K-3 students. Next year, enrollment will expand to include K-4 students, and the following year Global will serve K-5 students.
Global Family School is just one of three schools in the district focused on bilingual student immersion in English and Spanish. As a dual language school, all children have equal classroom exposure to Spanish and English, called a 50-50 model. The dual language programs are designed to bring children together. This program gives children the opportunity to learn both academic Spanish and English from Kindergarten through the fifth grade. In addition, non-Spanish speakers will be able to become truly bi-literate. The dual language classroom supports the collaborative elements of Global Family School, since children are learning from their peers as well as from adults.
Global Family School is guided by their mission to give children full access to the world. Bilingual students come to see the world in different terms, as they are given opportunities to truly capitalize on cultural diversity. It has been found that dual language students have increased divergent thinking, pattern recognition, and problem solving abilities; they also tend to score higher on standardized tests, are better problem solvers, and are more tolerant of differences.
Global Family School is focused on providing children with communication skills, the abilities to work in teams and with people from different cultures. Today’s economy demands not only a high level of competency in the traditional academic disciplines, but also what might be called 21st century skills. CEO’s from top international corporations talk about the need for workers who are global-trade literate, sensitive to foreign cultures, and conversant in different languages.
Global’s student body is 83 percent Latino, four percent African American, and 11 percent unspecified. More than 94 percent of the school’s families do not speak fluent English, and more than half of the parents have not completed high school. With 95 percent of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch, Global serves an overwhelmingly poor and underserved student population.
Two-way immersion programs are designed to serve both native Spanish speakers and native English speakers. Both populations are integrated within a single classroom where instruction is conducted for 50 percent of the day in English and 50 percent of the day in Spanish to develop reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills, and academic content knowledge in two languages.
Another important component of Global Family School’s academic foundation is Project Based Learning, which is designed to place children into a setting where they learn and practice collaboration, critical thinking, written and oral communication, and the values of the work ethic. Real Project Based Learning is deep, complex, rigorous, and the disciplines are integrated, while meeting state and national academic content standards. Project Based Learning becomes even stronger when projects fully integrate two or more subjects, such as language arts and social studies. This framework is a natural complement to the dual language program as envisioned at Global, since research on cooperative learning strategies shows they are powerful tools for fostering language acquisition.
Global Family School is a member of the Oakland Small Schools Foundation (OSSF) network. OSSF is not only the school’s fiscal sponsor, but also provides multiple supports including comprehensive fundraising, vendor contracts and invoicing, assessment and data coaching, program monitoring, and program provider resources. OSSF was founded in 2003 to help participating small schools identify, secure, and manage resources for needs that would otherwise be under-funded by traditional public sources. Its mission is is to increase the resources in Oakland public schools so that all of our students have the opportunity to achieve excellence.