School Names

A Bit of History – School Names

The first school in Oakland was founded in July 1853 with sixteen students. Miss Hannah J. Jayne, a member of a pioneer family after whom Jayne Street is named, was the first teacher. The school was located at Twelfth and Jefferson Streets and was purchased in 1853 for $900. Later, the home of Oakland High.

Oakland’s First Schoolhouse – Steeple Among the Oaks

First High School Principal

J.B. McChesney was the high school’s first principal for many years, starting in 1867. In 1913 a grammar school at 13th Avenue and East 38th was named in his honor and later called McChesney Junior High. In 1989, it was renamed Edna Brewer Junior High, a long-time principal at the school.

McChesney Elementary School

Named for School Officials or Civic Leaders

Like McChesney School, many schools in Oakland were named after school officials, principals, and teachers.

Burckhalter Elementary School was named for astronomer and director of the Chabot Observatory Charles Burckhalter in 1927.

Clawson School was named in honor of William F. Clawson, an educator and principal at the Tompkins School until his death in 1882.

Clawson School

Campbell School at 4th and Grove Streets started out as Grove Street School. In 1907, it was renamed in honor of Oakland’s first superintendent of Oakland Schools, Frederick ‘Fred’ M. Campbell. Campbell’s daughter Mary was a teacher and then principal for 32 years, ending in 1926. In the early 1950s, the school was closed.

Campbell School – OMCA

Cole Grammar School (c1885 – c1926) at 10th and Union Streets opened in 1885 and was named after Dr. Rector F. Cole, president of the board of education.

E. Morris Cox School was first called The Elmhurst Annex. It was renamed in honor of E. Morris Cox, who died in 1925. Cox was the Assistant Superintendent of Schools.

Durant School at 28th and West Streets was the 28th Street School renamed in honor of the Rev. Henry Durant, head of the old Oakland College on 12th Street, which grew into the University of California.

Durant School

Kaiser Elementary was named in honor of Henry J. Kaiser Jr., an industrialist and civic leader.

Howard Elementary on Fontaine Ave was named after Charles P Howard, a civic leader. It is now Oakland Charter of Knowledge.

McClymonds High School was named after J.W. McClymonds, who was once the superintendent of the Oakland Unified School District.

McFeely School was named in honor of Susan McFeely, who was a teacher and principal in the Oakland school district for 49 years before her retirement in 1930.

Carl B. Munck Elementary was named for Carl B. Munck, who served on the school board from 1943 to the mid-1980s, 28 of those years as president.

Swett Grammar School (also known as Intermediate School No. 1) was located at 12th Avenue and East 19th Street. It was named after educator John Swett. In 1913, this historic school became the first of the lower high schools (junior high or middle School). In 1926, a new school was built on Steele St.

Named After Presidents

Many schools in Oakland are named after presidents.

  • Cleveland School
  • Garfield School
  • Harrison Grammar
  • Hoover Junior High
  • Lincoln Elementary
  • James Madison
  • Roosevelt High School –
  • Washington School – is now Sankofa United
Washington School

Named for Authors, Poets, or Historians

Longfellow School is at 39th and Market Streets, Emerson at 48th and Webster, and Hawthorne School (which was Fruitvale School No. 2)at Fruitvale and Talant Street. Hawthorne School is now Urban Promise Academy.

Emerson Elementary

Joaquin Miller Elementary and Bret Harte Middle School

Joaquin Miller Elementary

Franklin School at 9th Avenue and East 16th Street was named in honor of Benjamin Franklin.

Prescott School at 9th and Campbell Streets was named for William H. Prescott, a historian.

Named for Pioneers or Landowners

Chabot Elementary School was initially called the Claremont Annex School and was renamed Anthony Chabot School in 1927.

Chabot Elementary

Frick Grammar School (later a junior high) located at 62nd and Foothill Blvd was opened in 1912. It was named after Walter P. Frick, a well-known lumberman who donated the land for the school. It is now Frick United Academy of Language.

Frick Grammar School circa 1915 – Photo by Cheney Photo Advertising

Peralta Public SchoolThe Peraltas Spanish Pioneers and the First Family of the East Bay

Peralta Public School – Photo by Cheney Photo Advertising

Tompkins School was named for Edward Tompkins, an Oakland Pioneer.

Other Famous People

Ralph J. Bunche Elementary The school was named for Ralph Johnson Bunche (1903-1971). He taught Political Science at Howard University and was the first African American to get a Ph.D. in political science from an American university. He worked with helped Martin Luther King Jr. He was the first African American to be honored with the Nobel Peace Prize. He helped form the United Nations and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President John F. Kennedy.

Burbank Elementary was named after Luther Burbank, a botanist and horticulturist who lived in Northern California. It is now Burbank Preschool Center.

Lazear School (now Lazear Charter Academy) at Twenty-Sixth Avenue and East Ninth Streets opened in 1914. The school was named after Dr. Jesse W. Lazear, an army surgeon. J.W. McClymonds is responsible for coming up with the name. McClymonds, a superintendent for the Oakland schools, voiced his belief.

“that schools should be named after persons who had accomplished something in the world’s work.”

JW McCymonds 1913
Lazear School March 1915

Dewey School at 37th Avenue and East 12 Street after George Dewey was an Admiral in the Navy. He is best known for his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War.

Dewey Public School –

Fremont High School was named for John Charles Frémont, an American explorer, military officer, and politician.

Horace Mann School started as Melrose Heights School and was later renamed Horace Mann.

Original Horace Mann School circa 1915 photo by Cheney Photo Advertising

Name After The Location

The school’s location played a part in naming the earlier schools. Bay School at 62nd Street and San Pablo Avenue had a view of the bay. Beulah School at Tompkins and Orchard Streets near Mills College was in the Beulah district.

Many were named for the district or neighborhood they were in.

Montclair School

Allendale School, located at Penniman and 38th Avenues in the Allendale district, was founded in 1904 as Fruitvale School No. 3.

Allendale School – from the Oakland History group on Facebook

Highland School on A Street between 85th and 86th Avenues got its name from 85th Ave, formally called Highland Street. Now called Highland Community School.

Lakeview School opened in 1914 at Grand Avenue, and Perry Street has a lake view. The school began as an annex to Grant School on Broadway (later moved to Pill Hill) and is located on Perry Street. Westlake Middle School is west of Lake Merritt.

Santa Fe School at 54th and Adeline Streets in the Santa Fe Tract.

Santa Fe School

Nature played a part in the naming of some schools: Laurel School on Kansas Street, Manzanita (now Manzanita Community School) at East 26th and 24th Avenue, Sequoia School on Lincoln Avenue, and Redwood Heights School (also in the Redwood Heights neighborhood)on 39th Avenue.

Original Sequoia School on Scenic at Lincoln circa 1915 photo by Cheney Photo Advertising

Skyline High School, Thornhill Elementary, and Piedmont Avenue School were named after the street they are on.

Castlemont High School was first called East Oakland High, but Castlemont was more fitting as it resembled a castle. It is now

Castlemont High

Hillcrest Elementary is at the crest of the hill, and Bella Vista School, Bella Vista means beautiful view.

More Info:

The End

Then & Now – Oakland Public Schools – No. 19

In this series of posts, I hope to show Then and Now images Oakland Schools.   Along with a bit of history of each school, I highlight.  

Note: Piecing together the history of some of the older schools is sometimes tricky. I do this all at home and online — a work in progress for some. I have been updating my posts when I find something new. Let me know of any mistakes or additions.  

Skyline High School

Skyline High School is located on a 45-acre (some say 35 acres) campus at the crest of the Oakland hills. The school is near the Redwood Regional Park and has a panoramic (through the trees)view of the San Francisco Bay Area on one side and Contra Costa on the other.

My School Id

Hill Area High School

Where will Oakland’s proposed new hill-area school be located”

Oakland Tribune Sep 05, 1956

Talks about a new “Hill-Area High School began in the early to mid-1950s. After weeks of field trips and meetings the possible sites for the new school were reduced from eight to three.

They finally they decided on a 31-acres site at Skyline Blvd and Fernhoff Road – No 1 above and below.

The new hill area high school costs were expected to be almost $4,000,000, with nearly $3,000,000 earmarked for site development and construction.

Oakland Tribune May 21, 1958

For 1,500 students, the plans called for fifty-four classrooms, a library, a cafeteria, a gymnasium, an auditorium, and administrative offices. The number of classrooms would be increased to 67 for 2,000 students.

The Oakland architectural firm of Warnecke and Warnecke were hired to design the new school.

Construction

The grading and excavation was complete by July of 1959 at a cost of $182,000

Montclarion 1961

Architects Warnecke and Warnecke estimated the school building would cost $3,650,600 in addition to the money already spent on the site, and development would bring the total to $4,623,301.

Some of the suggestions to cut the cost was.

  • Omit a $500,000 auditorium
  • Omit the covered walkways for a savings of $97,000
  • Substitute 13 portables classrooms for permanent buildings to save $266,800
Oakland Tribune Jan 25, 1959

The contract to build the Hill Area High School was awarded to Branagh and Son, at a cost of $4,140,500 for 50 classrooms.

Construction was set to begin in November of 1959

The school was set to open in the fall of 1961.

Oakland Tribune Jan 25, 1961

Loud protests that the “tentative” boundaries for the new Hill Area High School would keep low income and minority groups prompted the Board of Education to request further study on the matter in January of 1961.` 

Representatives of the NAACP told the board members that keeping attendance boundaries in hill area would make the new facility a

“private prep school supported by public funds.”

The existing boundaries of the four high schools in Oakland then had lines extending to the eastern limits of the city allowed for a wide divergence of racial and economic backgrounds.

The proposed boundary for the new school stretched along the top lines of the hills would only allow for “horizontal mobility.”

David P. McCullum, president of the Oakland NAACP, stressed that “Negros would not be the only ones deprived of a chance to attend the new school but that all races in the lower economic group would be cut out.

” It is not just a color problem-it is a total problem.”

Henry J. Kaiser Jr was the chairman of PACE (Oakland’s Public Advisory Committee on Education), and he wrote in a letter to the board of education that. 

“This is the time when all of us-the Negro people and the white people-should face common problems together and work them out to our mutual satisfaction, to the end that the community is strengthened and our school children are given the maximum opportunities for development.”

McCullum said:

Skyline boundaries don’t just shut out Negroes, but create general “economic” segregation which also affects many white people.

The new attendance boundaries brought charges of gerrymandering.

The Segregation unintentional School Official Decries”

April 03, 1962

But today there are many Negro children in junior highs which feed into Skyline High School”

Selmer Berg Apr 1962

The discussion on Skyline’s borders went on for a few more years. In 1964 an ‘Open” enrollment plan was proposed, and eventually, it was accepted.

Oakland Tribune Feb 26, 1961

The new boundary did the best job of following present junior high attendance lines, and in giving relief to Castlemont, Fremont, Oakland High and Technical High.

The Name Skyline Wins!

In January of 1961, Dr. George C. Bliss was appointed the first principal of Skyline. Dr. Bliss had with the Oakland schools for 36 years most recently as the principal of Technical High School.

School board members received suggestions that the new Hill Area High school be named Sequoia or Skyline High.

Montclarion 1961

In February of 1961, Oakland’s newest high school had an official name.

The board voted at the regular meeting to call the $4.5 million school “Skyline High School”.

Athletic Shakeup

To fill Skyline, they planned on taking the following students from:

  • 700 from Oakland
  • 400 from Fremont
  • 200 from Castlemont
  • 125 from Technical

Seniors could stay at their present school and graduate with their class, and junior within the new boundaries also had that choice. Sophomores had no choice. They must go to Skyline.

This meant that some of the star athletes would be leaving their school for Skyline.

Oakland’s starting basketball guard and the best high jumper in track and field were bound for Skyline. 

Oakland High was set to lose Paul Berger, their coach of nine years.

Ben Francis was the sophomore starting basketball guard at Oakland High, who must switch to Skyline. Others were Craig Breschi,Glen Fuller, Jim Ida, and Ed Huddleson.

Oakland Tribune Nov 03, 1962

Ben Haywood Oakland’s best high jumper was bound for Skyline.

JUNIOR BEN HAYWOOD WIND FOUR EVENTS

Oakland Tribune Mar 03, 1962

It was announced in April of 1961 that no varsity football would be played the first year at Skyline, by principal Dr. George Bliss.

“Football depends a great deal on size and weight.” the principal said, ” and we’ll be outnumbered two and three to one in seniors by the other schools.”

Skyline High circa 1963

Dedication

Sky’s the limit

All we have to do is develop the finest school that’s possible-one that everybody can look up to”

Dr. George Bliss – Aug 1961

The formal dedication for the school was held in December of 1961. The ceremony was held in the auditorium, with music provided by the Skyline Concert Band and Choir.

Oakland Tribune Dec 04, 1961

The formal presentation was made by Selmer Berg the Sup. of the Schools with Arch W. Host and Leroy D. Smith accepting on behalf of the students and faculty.

In a surprise feature to the program the auditorium was named the Selmer H. Berg Hall in his hoor.

The school newspaper is the Skyline Oracle and the yearbook is the Olympian. These publications have existed since the early decades of Skyline High history. The participants of each publication are involved by taking the offered courses. The Skyline Oracle has won numerous honors over the years for the quality of its publication.

Skyline Mascot

Arson Fire

From Chris Treadway

In January of 1973, an ex-student of Skyline who at the time was AWOL from Fort Ord broke into the 20 Building in search of food or money. He said he threw a lighted match into a can of cleaning fluid. He said he tried to put the fire out but fled and pulled the fire alarm. When the fire department responded, they were unable to find it. Neighbors later saw the flames and called the fire department by this time the 20 Building was gone.

From the Skyline Yearbook

After leaving Skyline, he broke into a church down the hill and was arrested by the police; he had set off the silent alarm. While in police custody, he confessed to starting a fire at Skyline.

Oakland Tribune Jan 31, 1973
Oakland Tribune Feb 1973

Skyline High Today

Skyline High is located at 12250 Skyline Blvd.

More Info:

Skyline Website – OUSD