St. Paul's Episcopal School Viewbook

VIEWBOOK1

MISSION
AND VALUES
ACADEMIC
RIGOR
FEARLESS
LEARNING
SERVICE &
STEWARDSHIP
DIVERSITY &
INCLUSION
SPIRITUALITY
St. Paul’s prepares students to be confident and skilled
learners, cultivates in them a strong sense of purpose, and
inspires them to be generous and active citizens of the world.
Education at St. Paul’s is characterized by academic rigor, inclusivity, critical
thinking, and social involvement. As part of our Episcopal tradition, we develop
independence, respect, empathy, fairness, and the moral imperative to serve others
and care for our planet.
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“In 1975, their vision was that
“[o]ur students would learn
to love the city by using the
resources a city has to offer.
Our students would learn to
give to the city as well as
to use the city. They would
learn both compassion
and civic responsibility by
practicing them
”
— DONALD SEATON
FOUNDING RECTOR OF ST. PAUL’S SCHOOL
OUR STUDENTS
GRADUATE WITH
SKILLS, PURPOSE,
AND EMPATHY.
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WE VALUE:
ACADEMIC PROGRAM &
SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING
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We believe diversity of thought, viewpoints, and talents are
cornerstones of academic excellence. Students are academically,
intellectually, and personally challenged to develop the skills and
knowledge to solve complex problems creatively.

Students need a strong social emotional foundation to realize
their full potential. Using our teacher-developed People Power
Skills, Responsive Classroom, and advisory programs, we support
the development of students’ interpersonal skills, resilience, and
confidence to take academic risks.

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3
5
2
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WE VALUE:
COMMUNITY
ENGAGED LEARNING
St. Paul’s emphasizes Community Engaged Learning to build
students’ curiosity about their academic work, prepare them for
civic engagement, and inspire them to work for positive change.
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8
1
Community Engaged Learning denotes immersive learning experiences that connect students to our city
and its history, people, and culture through multidisciplinary units. Examples of CEL projects:
1. Lake Merritt Lakebed trash removal
2. Lake Merritt Institute Weekly water
quality data collection, reported to
City of Oakland
3. Lake Merritt Wildlife Sanctuary
Bird count, working with Cornell Lab of
Ornithology curriculum and reporting to
Department of Fish & Game
4 Lakeside Park Eighth graders provide
companionship and service at
Assisted Living facility
5. The Gardens at Lake Merritt
School garden plot maintenance, yield to
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church Food Co-Op
6. St Paul’s Episcopal School Waste
management (recycle, compost, trash),
planter boxes for pollinator host garden,
Library Science
7. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church Weekly
market and Food Pantry, students help
pack bags for monthly food distribution
8. Children’s Fairyland Pollinator posse,
working with horticulturalist
9. Small Trans Preschool (not pictured)
Middle School students support
preschool teachers with their program.
7

WE VALUE:
THE POWER OF DIVERSITY,
EQUITY, AND INCLUSION
We embrace differences as an essential strength of our school. By
learning in a vibrant community that celebrates, values, and respects
diversity in its many forms, students gain the confidence and mindset
they need to effect positive change in the pursuit of equity.
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9

“St. Paul’s taught me how to be a lifelong learner. I arrived at high
school more academically and emotionally prepared for 9th grade
than my peers. More than all the obvious - math, reading, writing
skills, etc - I think St. Paul’s shaped me into a confident,
kind, and empathetic person.
”
— OLIVIA RYNBERG-GOING ‘14,
THE URBAN SCHOOL OF SAN FRANCISCO,
SMITH COLLEGE
“The teachers — they’re so dedicated to their work. They all care
about education in an academic sense, and that’s clear, but they’re
also devoted to bringing up caring, articulate, and thoughtful
students. I’m still in touch with many of my old teachers, and I plan
on staying in touch for many years to come.
”
— JOHN KLOPOTOWSKI ‘15,
OAKLAND TECH,
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
“St. Paul’s helped shape me into the person I am today. Besides being
more than ready academically for high school, St. Paul’s instilled in
me a lasting respect for others and the confidence to explore any
subject that interested me. However, the best thing I got from
St. Paul’s were the friendships. I made lifelong best friends; they’ve
always been there for me and I know they always will be.
”
— GABRIELA RINCON ‘15,
ST. MARY’S COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOL,
NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
“What I really value about my years at St. Paul’s is how much time we
got to spend in the community. My time at St. Paul’s has taught me
to seek out opportunities and take advantage of every chance to give
back because it may better someone else’s day
”
— CHARLOTTE HAHM ‘20,
LICK WILMERDING HIGH SCHOOL
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ALUMNI
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PARENTS

“Our family has been a member of the St. Paul’s parent community for 11 years.
It is a diverse community, no doubt, but also a remarkably coherent one.
Parents may have a variety of backgrounds and viewpoints, and differing life goals
for their children, but what unites them is the emphasis they all place on social
and moral values. We all appreciate the effort St. Paul’s gives towards weaving
discussions of character, of social responsibility, of moral courage,
into its curriculum from Kindergarten to 8th grade.
”
— GENEVIEVE GARFUNKLE, PARENT OF SOPHIE ‘18 AND PENELOPE ‘23
“In my past at St. Paul’s, and it’s been a long and fond one, I found the parents to be
friendly, welcoming, and real. No pretense to who they were or what they did in life.
Very open and honest and I found that to be so refreshing and comforting because
then I knew my kids would be in a place that other like minded parents wanted their
children to be. I found it easy for me to blend in and be me and
continue that atmosphere of friendliness
”
— EARL ELZY, PARENT OF AILISH ‘06, KATIE ‘08, BRONAGH ‘19, AND KIAN ‘23
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CURRICULUM
Language Arts
Math
The St. Paul’s Episcopal School
curriculum charts the intellectual growth
of our students, from the self-contained
classrooms of the Lower School to the
subject-specific classrooms of the Sixth
Grade & Middle School, from concrete
thinkers to abstract analyzers.
K
1
Phonics; develop sight word
recognition; reading instruction;
introduction to Writers’ Workshop
Reading fluency & comprehension,
small group reading instruction;
story elements, poetry writing
Patterns; one-to-one
correspondence; estimation
Addition and subtraction,
introduction to time and money
Informing every aspect of our curriculum
are the values of our founders, who
believed that keen analytical skills, a depth
of knowledge, and a generous heart are
essential qualities of an educated citizen.
2
Build reading stamina; introduction
to steps of writing process;
presentation skills
Multiple strategies to problem
solving; place value upto 1,000;
word problems
For more detail about our curriculum,
please visit our website.
3
Building writing stamina; research
& report writing; book reports
3-digit addition, and subtraction;
multiplication and division;
fractions
4
Reading across genres; improving
writing craft; persuasive
argumentation
Fractions and long division;
geometry and measurement
5
Reading & writing non-fiction
books for children; poetry;
personal narratives
Relationships among fractions,
decimals, and percents; polygons
6
Literary analysis; building blocks of
essay writing; grammar intensive
Operations with integers, fractions,
and decimals; data analysis; ratios,
rates, and proportions
7
Literature with diverse
protagonists; analyze literary
themes & elements; note taking
techniques; oral presentation
Writing and solving linear
equations; algebraic concepts and
notation; 2D and 3D geometry
8
Irony and symbolism in stories and
poetry; analytical and comparative
essays; research & editing skills
Algebra I: expressions, equations,
inequalities; understanding
algebraic and geometric
representations of functions
14

Social Studies
Science
Spanish
Community Engaged Learning
Introduce People Power skills;
build a safe community;
awareness of diversity
Animals and their habitats;
rainforests; data recording
Songs and vocabulary development
Environmental stewardship;
food justice
RAD Women; community building;
People Power skills development
Light & sound, human body,
pollination
Songs and vocabulary
development
Pollinator Posse: learn about and
build pollinator habitats with
fifth grade buddies
People Power Skills development;
change makers; rights vs.
responsibilities
Scientific observations; geology
Songs and vocabulary
development
Knowing and giving back to one’s
community
Ohlone Native People; Black
American Biography;
Gold Rush Unit
Birds investigation and
conservation; electricity;
narcissus bulbs
Subject pronouns; verb
conjugations, spelling and
vocabulary
Bird Census of Lake Merritt
species; bird habitat restoration
US Constitution; Black Panther
Party; WWII
Energy; waves and information
Conversational skills; oral
presentation
Trash audit for the school; Black
Panther Party history in Oakland
African American Civil Rights
movement; European Resistance
movement during World War II
Redwood forest ecology; climate
change; Brainology
Guided conversation; cultural
studies of Spanish speaking
countries
Pollinator Posse: build habitat for
pollinators with first grade
buddies; climate change study
Ancient civilizations; archaeology;
farmworkers’ rights
Watersheds and water quality;
preservation and decay; product
testing; physics of motion
Present, preterite, and future
tenses; storytelling; small group
conversations
Study the ecology of Lake Merritt
and clean the lake
Medieval Europe, the Arabian
Peninsula, West Africa, Japan,
and the Americas
Evolution; genetics and heredity;
sex and drug education;
data collection and analysis
Interrogatives and imperatives;
art, music, and dance; study
of Mexico
Community gardening;
understanding food deserts
United States history, culture,
and geography; emphasis on
indigenous populations and
laboring classes
Physical sciences;
electromagnetism; motion, forces,
and energy
Composition writing; oral
presentations; murals of the
Mission District
Service to Alzheimer’s patients,
toddlers at day care, and others
off-site; impact of climate change
on Oakland
15

ST. PAUL’S AT A GLANCE
FOUNDED IN 1975
SCHOOL ENROLLMENT
About 375 students
HIGH SCHOOL PLACEMENT
Almost all of our graduates enroll in one of their top choice schools.
Here are a few of the most popular high schools among our students
over the last four years:
FACULTY
59% faculty of color
27% African American
12% Latinx
10% Asian American
7% Multi-racial
3% Middle Eastern
41% White
PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS
Bishop O’Dowd
St. Mary’s College
High School
St. Joseph Notre Dame
INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS
College Preparatory School
Lick Wilmerding
Bentley School
Head-Royce
The Athenian School
PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Oakland Tech
Berkeley High
Oakland School for the Arts
STUDENTS
70% students of color
36% Multi-racial
22% African American
6% Asian American
7% Latinx
30% White
SPECIALIST PROGRAMS
Spanish
Swimming (K-2)
P.E
Music
Art
Library
AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAM
Open until 6:00pm
Enrichment classes
Study Hall
Outdoor play
Music lessons
EPISCOPAL IDENTITY
St. Paul’s welcomes families and faculty of all faiths or none. We embrace
the rich roots of the Episcopal tradition through our weekly nondenominational
chapel, a commitment to the well-being of our school
members and neighbors, opportunities to explore diverse world faith
traditions, and a curriculum that focuses on the pursuit of equity and justice.
TEAM SPORTS (GRADES 6-8)
Cross Country
Soccer
Flag Football
Basketball
Volleyball
Ultimate Frisbee
WWW.SPES.ORG
116 Montecito Avenue
Oakland, CA 94610
510.285.9600