Higher Ground After-School Mission Statement

Higher Ground’s after-school program mission comes from a restorative justice framework. Our Mission is to provide a safe and nurturing space where students are given both the tools and access necessary to be successful in the academic arena while exposing them and their families to varied cultural, artistic and fitness experiences that will assist in their development into happy, well-rounded and successful people.

As a Lead Agency, we strongly believe in supporting Oakland Unified's District Plan that includes providing Safe Heathly & Supportive Schools.

Our Lead Agency serves the City of Oakland. Over the past 20years, we have servered or continue to serve Bay Area Technology Middle School, East Oakland Pride, Kipp Elementary/Middle School, Parker Elementary , (Formerly) E. Morris Cox Elementary School, Bridge Academy at Melrose, NewHighland Academy, Brookefield, Allendale, & Sobrante Park Elementary. We serve children ages 6-12 years old participating in a wide variety of recreational, cultural, and educational programs. Each program provides across the board the same beliefs, support system, and care allowing our children to grow as young healthy well-rounded individuals. Higher Ground NDC serves approximately 500 students in the City of Oakland. Between 2:45 p.m. and 6:00 pm Monday through Friday, 1:00pm to 6:00pm on minimum days and Saturdays.  

 Higher Ground Neighborhood development corporation  recognizes that the time when school age children are most in need of being in safe, supportive environments are between 3pm to 6pm.

At all our after school program sites, our youth receive homework help, service learning,  participate in fitness activities, engage in non-traditional recreational games and explore arts & culture opportunities. Our After School Programs are proud to say that our curriculum complements complement what children are learning in their schools with modeling their academic schedule with Si-Swun, Envisions, & Open Court with our Agency’s lead lessons plans. We empower and strengthen our student’s sense of belonging in the communities in which they live through community walks & safety routes program. 

Our Afterschool youth receive academic support from staff to complete homework, engage in academic plans/games and reinforce classroom learning. In addition, Afterschool youth can utilize our resource centers such as the library& computer lab to improve their literacy and computer skills.

Higher Ground service learning projects concentrate on creating experiences for urban youth and their families that expose them to different physical actives such as hiking, traveling competitive sport teams for boys and girls that incorporate service projects such as reading to youngsters, volunteering at senior homes, hosting food, penny, and coat drives, and lastly creating opportunities for travel outside of the united states through sports.  Our service learning projects incorporate entrepreneurship, civic leadership, and community activism.  Our goal is to develop social responsible and conscious adults.

In addition,  Our Afterschool youth participate in nature tours and visits cultural institutions, which introduce them to the breadth of resources in the Bay Area allowing them to learn in an active way. We conduct nutrition, cooking and gardening classes 3-4 days week teaching our student to promote self wellness & healthy living. Our students learn to grow organic foods, maintain an ecosystem, harvest, and put use of all grown products with its entirety. Students learn the process of farming, utilizing what they have on limited means, and recycling.

The Geography, Restoration, Environmental Ecology, and Nation building(G.R.E.E.N) is our comprehensive service program that focuses on the four components listed in its title.  This project focuses on building our future environmental restorers.  Park rangers, engineering , scientist, and researcher are the career paths this service program encourages.  The culminating project is a comprehensive family oriented 6 week hiking experience for paying customers.  The goal is to create an intergenerational experience for entire families to experience the hike trails of the Bay Area. The G.R.E.E.N mile hikes take participants on a three part series in which they learn about the history, vegetation and habitat along a particular trail, to restoring habitats and trails along a stretch, to understanding the importance of gardening and nutrition to healthy living.  Students are the primary planners and implementers of this project that culminates in 24 mile hike that takes place of 6 Saturdays.

Our programs offer a rich and diverse performing & visual arts program that develop creative minds and bodies in various arts and culture programs, led by our lead staff. Among the arts courses offered are photography, cheer/drill, theatre arts, fashion class, sewing & visuals arts, African Dance, and Mexican Dance. We serve grades Kinder to 5^th grade, five days a week.

Our Afterschool youth, young athletes participate in a range of physical fitness activities & organized sports. Youth are encouraged to develop their abilities in various team sports and learn new skills, such as flag football, track, baseball, year-round cheer competitions & basketball. Our coaches offer a balance of sports instruction, games, recreational fitness opportunities, and competitive play in citywide tournaments with the City of Oakland Parks & Rec. We empower life lessons such as self-discipline, teamwork, group interaction, community building, & team relationships. Our sports program promotes unity, friendly competitive play, & good sportsmanship. Each season culminates in various special events, community socials, & fundraising. We are proud to say that our afterschool program youth  have successfully won numerous awards in all areas of organized sports & individual achievements both city-wide & state.

The community all starz health & fitness program works with student athletes to build social responsibility.  So many times we read about athletes taking or not taking a stand around issues that may or may not empower the communities they play in or represent.  The Community All Starz work to build competitive athletic skills that lead to the colligate level competition, we provide exposure to experiences that allow student athletes to plan, implement, and monitor  projects that teach, coach, and build self esteem in the students and youngsters they work and plan for.  Projects like researching their favorite professional or college athletes favorite charity and participating in it, planting flowers, planning school and community gardens,  discussing local and global issue and deciding what to do about it, as well as creating projects that will engage and excite their peers at other schools and locations.  The All Starz are about scholarship, athletic skills, and community service.

Registration is available from September through June. Pre-enrollment for continuing students starts every May For more information about the registration process please visit our "Meet our Schools" Tab or check out our simple step guide below:

Ms. Lee (Kinder Teacher) Allendale Elementary

    "Higher Ground after school and day time service really help us out. The after school program is better than it has ever been and really promotes community and the staff work well together."  -Ms. Lee

Each afternoon across the U.S., 15 million children--more than a quarter of our children--are alone and unsupervised after school. The parents of 18 million would enroll their children in an afterschool program, if one were available. These are some of the key findings from the nation’s most in-depth study of how America’s children spend their afternoons. America After 3PM was sponsored by the JCPenney Afterschool Fund. The 2009 report, conducted for the Afterschool Alliance, surveyed nearly 30,000 households across the United States.

The survey finds that 8.4 million children participate in an afterschool program, an increase of nearly 3 million children over the past five years. While this is encouraging, there is still work to be done. The number of children left alone after the school day ends has risen to 15.1 million children - an increase of 800,000 children - since the 2004 edition of America After 3PM.

Listen to the Afterschool Alliance's Jodi Grant and the JCPenney Afterschool Fund's Jodi Gibson talk about the new America After 3PM findings.

Click here to download a PDF of the complete findings fromAmericaAfter 3PM or see the links and map below for insight into nearly every avenue of afterschool program participation.