Saturday, August 11, 2007

Far West?

An anonymous commenter on the previous entry writes that
ALL UPREP SENIORS IS ATTENDING FAR WEST SO IF YOU ARE AN UPREP SENIOR GO AND REGISTER AT FARWEST BECAUSE THATS WHERE MOSTLY EVERYINE IS GOING
Does anyone know anything more to share about Far West? Location? Course offerings? Campus safety? Anything else?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Far West is located behind California College of Art (or "the Arts?"). It's at the bottom of Broadway Terrace, and so near the intersection of College Avenue and Broadway. It's easy to get to on public transit. For good or ill, it's only a few blocks from Oakland Tech.

Until a few months ago, I went past there almost every day, and the students seemed to treat each other well when they were out on the street. This was encouraging, especially since Far West has a reputation as a school of last resort, attended by students who have not had a lot of academic success elsewhere.

Whether the reputation is deserved or not, the school has had some struggles with student performance on state exams. They score in the bottom decile on the API, overall, and for similar schools. The similar schools ranking is almost certainly unfair, since the few schools on the list I recognized may have a simiar ethnic and socio-economic composition, but are not designed to serve students who have already failed elsewhere. The HTML tag for the similar schools list won't post here, but you can find it from Far West's API page if you're diligent.

I believe that Far West is in Program Improvement right now.

If you care about test scores (or student demographics, etc.) , you can see Far West's and other schools' at http://dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/.

OUSD has a pretty comprehensive School Accountability Report Card for Far West at http://webportal.ousd.k12.ca.us/sarc/docs/sarc05-06/html/Far%20West%20SARC%2006.htm. For that matter, you might check out the whole menu of SARCs at http://webportal.ousd.k12.ca.us/sarc/Sarc.aspx.

Good luck to the seniors, I know that this is especially hard on them.

Anonymous said...

AT THE BOARD MEETING AT THE OUSD MEETING ON WENDSDAY THE HIGH SCHOOL COORDINATOR OF OUSD STATED THAT SHE WOULD LIKE FOR ALL THE SENIORS TO STAY TOGETHER BECAUSE SHE UNDERSTOOD HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO BE A SENIOR AND GRADUATE WITH THE CLASS OF 2008 SO SHE SAID IT WOULD BE EASIER TO KEEP US ON TRACK AND MAKE SURE THAT ALL UPREP SENIORS GET ALL THE RESOURCES AND THINGS THEY NEED TO GRADUATE ON TIME SHE WANTED US TO GO TO ANOTHER SMALL SCHOOL SO SHE SUGGESTED FAR WEST AND SAID SHE WOULD DO WHAT EVER SHE HAD TO DO TO MAKE ROOM FOR UPREP SENIORS EVAN HIRE MORE STAFF SO THATS WHY MOST SENIORS IS ENROLLING IN TO FAR WEST ....AND BECAUSE SOME STUDENTS AT UPREP HAVE A STRONG BOND AND PLANNED ON GRADUATING TOGETHER , HAVING PROM TOGETHER, HAVING GRADUATION TOGETHER , SO SINCE THE SCHOOL IS CLOSED NOW THE SENIORS HAVE TO PLAN AND RAISE MONEY FOR A PROM, A SENIOR TRIP, AND A GRADUATION TOGETHER AND IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO HELP EMAIL UPREPSENIORS@YAHOO.COM

Anonymous said...

I have something to add to the other Anonymous Comment and to Mr. Schwartz comment well the OUSD also said that we are not in the same situation as the other students there and that if we enroll there we would not be known as students that had problems or things like they were already changing it to a regular high school last year now since the situation with UPREP this will really make them a normal small high school with their new seniors

Hanna Choat said...

Uprep Seniors: That's a lot of useful information!
I don't know how many students are reading this blog - are you spreading the word through MySpace too, to make sure as many as possible are seeing it?

UPREP SENIOR CLASS OF 08 said...

YES THE WORD IS BEING SPREAD THROUGH THE UPREP MYSPACE PAGE WWW.MYSPACE.COM/UPREP1

Anonymous said...

It is not all it seems it is a violent area there a tons and tons of shootouts between castlemont its like everyone has a gun so theres always shootings if I were you and I had to chance to get out while you can go with the rest of your school to that far something school I think it said far north or west but LPS is dangerous