What's Happening Around Campus

List of 20 news stories.

  • Bryan Carmel ’96 and Paul Freedman ’96—Co-founders of the Oakland Ballers


    College Prep classmates Bryan Carmel ’96 and Paul Freedman ’96 have joined forces on a mission to bring the joy of baseball back to Oakland and breathe new life into West Oakland’s historic Raimondi Park. After the Oakland Athletics, (the A’s), announced their departure from the city, Bryan and Paul put their heads together to found an independent baseball team: the Oakland Ballers, or the B’s, as they are known by their fans. The Oakland Ballers represent more than just a sports team—they symbolize hope, opportunity, and the promise of a brighter future for Oakland’s residents.

    Bryan and Paul’s friendship began at College Prep, where Paul joined the School as a sophomore. “We were friends from the beginning,” Bryan recalls. Along with their other Prep friends, they spent countless evenings at Oakland A’s games, enjoying the era of Dollar Wednesdays at the Oakland Coliseum. Fast forward 27 years from their graduation, and their shared love for baseball and their community has evolved into a transformative project—the Oakland Ballers.
     
    Upon graduation from Prep, Bryan attended Columbia University before earning an MFA from the University of Southern California Film School. He went on to become an award-winning development and production executive and producer. Reflecting on his time at College Prep, Bryan fondly remembers influential English teachers like Nancy Steele and Harry Chotiner. As student council president in his senior year, Bryan forged a strong relationship with the then Dean of Students Andy Dean and was admired by both peers and faculty. His leadership was recognized with the prestigious Ruth M. Willis Award for service, character, and excellence.
     
    Paul earned his BA in Public Policy from the University of Chicago, and his career has been guided by a commitment to social impact and community development. He established himself as a successful education entrepreneur, founding and operating several socially conscious nonprofit and for-profit businesses. Most recently, Paul served as President of Guild Education, a certified B Corp that partners with Fortune 500 companies to provide debt-free college degrees. 
     
    Bryan and Paul’s collaboration building the Oakland Ballers began unexpectedly. When the A’s announced their departure from Oakland, Bryan was picketing with the Writers Guild of America in Hollywood, and Paul had recently left Guild Education. Paul texted Bryan, “Hey, I have a crazy idea… could we start a baseball team?”
     
    By combining their skill sets—Paul an entrepreneur and Bryan a storyteller—and shared passion for community activism, they devised a plan for the Oakland Ballers. The B’s join the Pioneer League as its first-ever West Coast member. Paul emphasized their mission, stating, “I strongly believe that the real value of a sports team is in its relationship to the community it serves. Baseball is a sport with deep roots in this country and a rich legacy in the East Bay. With the Oakland B’s, we intend to build a team committed to honoring that legacy and our community. We are going to bring joy back to the game and give Oaklanders something to be proud of.”
     
    With the Oakland Ballers, Bryan and Paul are not just creating a sports team; they are fostering a renewed sense of community and pride. Their journey from College Prep classmates to innovators in the baseball world is a testament to their enduring friendship and shared vision for Oakland’s future. The Ballers are poised to be a beacon of hope and unity, reflecting the values and spirit that Bryan and Paul have carried with them from their days at College Prep.

  • Neel Valeti ’21 and Teammates Win Inaugural X Developer Challenge


    Neel Valeti '21 (photo: far left) and his team won first place in the "X Developer Challenge," a two-day competition where they had all-access to X API as well as xAI/Grok (Grok is X's version of ChatGPT) API to build a product. Neel's team built a Chrome extension called InsightX that adds an “analyze” button to every post. When the button is clicked, it provides insights on the post's factual accuracy, sentiment analysis on the post’s author, an “All-Angle View” on the post’s topic, and a search tool to find all of the author’s posts on a given keyword. At the end of the challenge, Neel and his team presented their project to Elon Musk and met X's engineers. Watch a clip from KPIX news here.

  • Advanced Physics Seminar, Waves


    Students in our advanced physics seminar, Waves, visited Meyer Sound to learn about sound waves. They met with audio engineers to see how sound systems are assembled and used to shape the sound in concert halls and theaters. They visited an anechoic chamber, which absorbs all reflected sound. They also experienced how 2-D and 3-D speaker arrays can make a small theater sound like a big one, and a big theater sound small.
    This hands-on advanced course explores sound waves and music, light waves and color, matter waves and earthquakes. This semester students have built musical instruments, radios, and telescopes, while focusing on conceptually understanding the physics principles behind waves.

  • Intraterm 2024


    Intraterm is a one-week experiential learning program where students participate in courses that encourage intellectual risk-taking and adventure. Some of this year’s local courses include bowling, CrossFit, rock climbing, leather crafting, glassblowing, pickleball, and much more. Trips include cultural immersion and community involvement in Mexico, exploring the terrain of lava flows and geology of Hawaii, learning to surf in Santa Cruz, analyzing the dynamic intersection of technology, culture, and the environment in Seattle, and appreciating Black History as central to understanding American History in Washington DC ! See some of the action on our Instagram feed.

  • Ethics and Artificial Intellegence—Making Meaning from Knowledge


    With Artificial Intelligence and its applications rapidly developing, College Prep continues to make meaning from knowledge through in-person discussions that cannot be replaced or replicated by AI. In guided conversations, students are examining ethical gray areas that AI technology presents. 
    When music is sampled without permission • Do artists and creators have the right to sue OpenAI for using their content? • When markets are manipulated using artificial intelligence and financial crimes result, does AI
    have personhood? •     How is culpability for such crimes going to be determined?
     
    Students wrestle with these questions in a new History elective, Ethics and Artificial Intelligence, taught by Ian Beier. He introduces case studies as a way for the students to examine ethical matters within a challenging legal framework. “Anxiety about AI exists everywhere, largely because this disruptive technology is not regulated under any specific laws,” Beier explains. This course encourages students to assess and evaluate the diverse scenarios where AI may pose ethical issues. Classroom conversations are thoughtful and dynamic as students engage with relevant real-world challenges and their own use of AI.
     
    One real-world challenge that our teachers face is figuring out how to access evidence of student learning when ChatGPT allows people to outsource the creation of some tried-and-true measures. An essay once offered a window into a student’s thinking, but in the age of ChatGPT, it could just as easily be the output of a well-authored prompt. 

    College Prep teachers develop lesson plans that emphasize the importance of process. Much of the scaffolding around student discussions is built on a concern that students should not be outsourcing their thinking. The significance of how solutions may be derived, ideas are pursued, and conclusions arrived at, are emphasized rather than condoning the idea that students should head directly for answers. Assessments are designed so that students can demonstrate the paths they have taken to their destinations. They are tasked to explain the provenance of evidence and justify their conclusions, which ChatGPT cannot do well.
     
    Beyond the Ethics and Artificial Intelligence course, teachers across disciplines are reimagining methods by which learning outcomes can be measured. “AI can be a useful tool for repetitive or formulaic tasks, but we want students to understand where AI stops being a positive tool. When it starts being detrimental to learning is when it shortcuts the process that gives value to a classroom exercise,” says Preston Tucker, History Teacher and Director of Curriculum Innovation and Research. “We believe that our students want to learn, but AI can tempt a student to take shortcuts. By leaning into the social dimensions of learning, we can see that students aren’t taking shortcuts. When a student teaches a concept to their table group, explains their conclusions to the class, or debates the meaning of a passage, we know they are developing skills. That work can’t be outsourced.”

    College Prep teachers build learning experiences around human interactions and creativity, in the age of ChatGPT just as before. Developing their problem-solving skills and communication abilities in this familiar way, students prepare for an AI-driven world and are better equipped to adapt as the transformative technology evolves.   
     

  • CPS Week: Conscious Consumerism and Media Awareness


    This year’s theme for Connections, Pride, and Spirit (CPS) Week was Conscious Consumerism and Media Awareness. All week, a structured series of speakers, workshops, and hands-on activities were led by students, faculty, staff, parents, and community leaders. Collectively, we highlighted our purchasing power as informed consumers and investigated the ways our citizenship is linked to production and consumption. Topics included race in social media algorithms, labor practices in the cocoa industry, traditional Middle Eastern marketplaces, carbon offsets, mending clothing, mindfulness, “girl”ification, mending clothing, deceptive advertising, preserving fruit,big tobacco, microplastics, and imagining the end of capitalism.

  • MLK Day of Service


    On MLK Day, some College Prep students and families joined the Parents' Association Equity & Belonging Committee in a day of service honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They picked up trash in Oakland and planted trees as part of Oakland's Transformative Climate Communities (TCC) grant and the "Better Neighborhoods, Same Neighbors" Initiative, supported by Trees for Oakland, Higher Ground, and the Oakland Parks and Rec foundation.

  • Independent Study


    In Independent Study, students work closely with a faculty mentor to design their own course of study and dive deeply into a topic about which they are passionate. This fall semester ten students went beyond our core curriculum in pursuit of a wide variety of topics including 3D-printed textiles, auxetic structures, environmental justice, creative writing and family narratives, fine woodworking & joinery, French literature, functional programming in Haskell, topology in mathematics, Galois and fundamental groups, Spanish politics and the impact of colonialism, storms as a literary theme, and sorting algorithms and their speeds.

  • The Hill Project receives Design for Well-Being Award from the California AIA


    We are excited to share that The Hill Project received an award from the California AIA, under their 2023 Design for Well-Being Awards. You can read more about this recognition here. 
     
    College Prep’s simple shingled buildings and inviting landscape hold and shape our school, creating a unique learning environment.This new facility, in the heart of campus, has more than doubled classroom and student gathering spaces. Since its opening in January 2022, The Hill Project has transformed our school. The courtyard, surrounded by beautiful gardens, is a place for gatherings of all kinds, including Assembly. Nooks and crannies throughout are filled with students having lunch, mulling over a good book, meeting with advisory groups, and consulting with their teachers. The Hill Project will serve our students and teachers for generations to come.

  • Common Classroom


    Common Classroom is a weekly rotating set of engaging, ungraded learning opportunities. Teachers, students, and alumni lead activities, classes, and workshops across a range of ever-changing offerings that include art projects, political discussions, physical pursuits, and more. Students are encouraged to take and lead new classes throughout the year. The first week of 2023-24 offerings include:
    Animal
    Arc Browser: The Future of Computing
    Aux Battles
    College Prep Soccer Film Highlights
    Cuban Dominoes
    Extemporaneous-O-Rama
    Girls Varsity Tennis Media Day
    Healthcare 101: Personal Insurance
    Intro to Finance: Money, Markets, and More!
    Meditative Mandala
    Open Gym Volleyball
    Outdoor Yoga
    Rule the Turntables: Lear to DJ
    Tea and Sympathy
    What Happened in the World Track Championships?
    What’s the Deal with… True Indictments?
    World Games
    ‘Zine Club

  • 38th Summer Academy at College Prep


    This summer, Partners welcomed 60 Scholars representing 15 middle schools from Oakland and the East Bay, and celebrated this year’s theme of “Scholar Voices.” Through core classes in English, Math and Social-Emotional Learning, and electives such as Engineering, Coding in Python, Brazilian Dance, Debate, and Financial Literacy, our Scholars’ voices were amplified, their curiosity nurtured, and their grit strengthened. More about the Partners Program here.

  • North Coast Section Division II Champions!


    College Prep Boys Varsity Soccer team made School history this year when they ended their undefeated season as North Coast Section Division II Champions!

  • Congratulations Swimmers!

    Congratulations to our women’s relay swim team for placing 14th in the 400 Free Relay at the California Interscholastic Federation State Championships. The girls swim team placed 5th overall at North Coast Section, and are the Bay Area County League-East champions. The boys swim team also competed in NCS and finished second in BCL-East. Go Cougars!

  • Annual Dance Showcase: Essential Joy

    Students danced their hearts out in our annual Dance Showcase: Essential Joy. The performance was the culmination of our classes' explorations of many dance genres and the communities that created them, including Contemporary, Afro-Caribbean, Jazz, Congolese, and Hip Hop. Congratulations to all of our dancers, choreographers, and techs who made the show a success—the JOY was palpable!

  • STOak Hosts Screening of the Documentary, Alice Street

    Students in our Applied Studies course, Social Transformation—Oakland (STOak), hosted a screening of Alice Street, a documentary about the gentrification of Oakland, art as resistance, and activism. We were fortunate to be joined by community activist, artist, and poet Ayodele Nzinga, Chinatown community organizer Lailan Sandra Huen, and documentary film director, Spencer Wilkonson, for a Q&A panel. 

  • Connections, Pride, and Spirit Day (CPS Day)


    CPS Day is an annual celebration of community learning, unity, and progress towards equity and social justice. This highly anticipated day offers an opportunity for participants to delve deeply into a specific topic—this year’s theme was Income Inequality and Economic Justice.

  • Alumni Career Conversations: A Law Panel


    History teacher, Dan Song, and Alumni Director, Cindy Cesca Yoshiyama hosted Alumni Career Conversations: A Law Panel during a Common Classroom. Three alums, Aviva Gilbert '03, Chris Sun '04, and Sasha Filippova '03, talked about their journeys to become lawyers, their law specialties, as well as some of the cases they have handled. They also answered questions and offered students their advice for getting into the field.

  • Congratulations to our Cougars on their Fall 2022 Season!


    Boys soccer is North Coast Section D2 Champions and BCL-East League Champions. They finished the season undefeated with an 18-0-2 record.

    Boys Varsity Cross Country is the BCL-East league champion, placed third at NCS championship, and sixth in the CIF State Championship. Girls Varsity Cross Country is the BCL-East league champion, placed fourth at NCS Championship, and 17th in the CIF State Championship. 

    Girls Varsity Volleyball finished third in league. They seeded 8th in NCS play-offs and lost in the quarterfinals to the #1 seed.

    Girls Varsity Tennis are the BCL-East Co-Champions. They seeded 8th in NCS play-offs and lost in the quarterfinals to the #1 seed.  

  • Alumnae Women in STEM Career Panel


    Three alumnae joined us during a Common Classroom for our first Women in STEM career panel. Rekha Rao '82, Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories, Laurel Paxton '10, Lead Propulsion Engineer at Relativity Space, and Sarah Sachs '12, Engineering Manager, Machine Learning at Robinhood, talked about their work and some of the challenges they've faced as women working in their fields. They also provided helpful advice to the student audience. Big thanks to our alumnae and our moderator Eva Campodonico '95, College Prep Science Teacher, for leading the conversation!

  • STEMposium Applied Learning Summer Internships


    Over the summer, students in the STEMposium Applied Learning class participated in internships in labs at UCSF or UC Berkeley. Students gain hands-on experience in an array of STEM fields, learn how to read primary scientific literature, and acquire the analytical skills needed to work in a research team. Students work closely with their research mentor and routinely share their work with their STEMposium classmates throughout the summer. Current projects include Assessing Bias Pulse Oximetry and Skin Pigmentation.
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