Overview of Oceana High School

Oceana is a small public high school with an alternative college preperatory program serving just over 600 students in grades nine through twelve.

One of five public schools in the Jefferson Union High School District, Oceana is located in northern Pacifica. We serve students from Pacifica, Daly City, Colma, and Brisbane.

We are in our sixteenth year of implementing a restructured school program, and we can look back to where we were, take measure of how far we've come, and realize, as we look ahead, how far-reaching a journey we've undertaken.

Some of the features that distinguish Oceana as an alternative program are:

• Oceana is guided by a vision that sets high expectationd for all students. This is reflected in our rigorous graduation requirements, including a Senior Exhibition, a Senior Portfolio, 100 hours of community service, and four years of Humanities classes; and in such practices as offering all students the opportunity to enroll in enriched and advanced placement classes.
  
• Students are required to demonstrate mastery of the schoolwide outcomes (also known as ESLERS) through an educational program that stresses project-based learning and authentic assessment.
  
• The school has a block schedule to support instructional goals and methods.
  
• An advisory class facilitates student-teacher personalization and supports college and career planning.
  
• Teachers offer office hours for students who need additional academic support.
  
• The school's site-based management emphasizes shared leadership and governance, including an Academic Council comprised of teachers, the principal, a member of the clerical staff, students, and a parent.

Sixteen years since our initial restructuring, the Oceana community remains committed to a culture of inquiry and reflection and ongoing efforts to improve our practice and achieve better results for our students. We are building our capacity to utilize data to understand who our students are and the causes for gaps in their achievement. As the demographics of our student population change, we recognize that we must change. As our faculty changes, we seek to hire new teachers who share this commitment and are prepared to engage in ongoing professional development to improve their practice. Since that first year, our population has grown from 325 to over 600 students. Our students are economically and ethnically diverse: African American 7%, Caucasian 35%, Native American 0.62%, Asian 11.47%, Filipino 22%, Hispanic 21%, Other 0.25%, Arabic 1.74%, Pacific Islander 0.8%, Indian 0.12%, and are of varying academic abilities. According to the State of California, Oceana is one of the twenty-five most diverse high schools in the state.