photo: bertabetti/ BY-NC-SA

Oakland's Promise Alliance will hold a free dropout prevention summit Saturday, Nov. 14. Oakland Mayor Dellums, OUSD Superintendent Tony Smith, Oakland Education Association, and other community leaders will be present at the event discussing the future of Oakland education. Student speakers will share their own stories about dropping out and recommitting to school.

The summit will take place from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm at the Castlemont Community of Small Schools, 8601 MacArthur Boulevard, Oakland, CA, 94605.

Raquel Jimenez, student engagement specialist for OUSD, said that at Saturday's summit, "We are highlighting programs and initiatives in Oakland that are taking into account ... different elements – bringing a caring adult to every young person, making sure that we have effective teachers, making sure we have a student support system so that all students can get what they need from their school, so that all students can come to school...".

Wesley Sims, a senior at East Oakland School of the Arts, is one of the young people speaking at the event. Sims, who dropped out of school, is now re-enrolled and is a student leader and a member of Oakland's All City Council. Sims says that he is driven to help his fellow students because he is worried about what will happen to them.

“My motivation, my biggest motivation is when I go ride the bus and see a homeless man or I see an old hooker and I think to myself, 'Dang, what did they do wrong? Where did they go wrong?' When I thought about it deep, I thought … one of these students at my school is going to be that homeless man; one of these students is going to be that hooker; one of these students is gonna be that crackhead. My motivation is -- how can I stop that from happening? It’s going to hurt me heavily, in twenty years, if I grow up and see my partner living under a freeway. My biggest motivation is the failures of alumni students."

Sims believes that having a mentor is important, particularly because his peers don't have traditional support networks.

"Some people’s moms are on crack. Some people’s dads are in prison, been in prison for life. Some people's in foster homes, some people’s in group homes. This is what it’s like," Sims says. "Very few have their mom and dad and if they do, they’re not married; they’re divorced. So they need that extra support -- someone to say, don’t give up, have faith. As long as the world has faith in us, we’ll do it [stay in school]."

Jimenez says that an important, but often overlooked element to dropout prevention is helping the students find a spiritual connection. She says, that many students, because of what they have been through, need to redevelop empathy and having a spiritual connection helps them do that.

"For Wesley, that [spiritual connection] was church," Jimenez says,"but for a lot of our other young people, it means being exposed to African dance, or to Dance Azteca, to some of these really ancient traditions that are very familiar to them that spark that spiritual connection."

Jimenez says that what's important is that students have something that is sacred to them.

To contribute to the dropout prevention discussion, pre-register for the summit, by going  to www.oaklandspromise.eventbrite.com or calling 510.238.7906.