Teachers Rooted in Oakland (TRiO): A Partnership Between the Oakland Mayor’s Office, Community Development Finance (CDF), Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), DGI, and Philanthropic Partners
Our Mission: To advance educational equity by addressing the cost of living and providing affordable housing to increase the recruitment & retention of highly skilled and committed Black, Latinx, and other teachers of color through OUSD’s Teacher Residency program for Special Education and STEM teachers.
What is the Oakland Teacher Residency through OUSD?
An OUSD teacher residency is a full year of immersive classroom experience, with a veteran teacher, in the subject area mentoring them. Each teacher resident is paid $15,000 yearly while student teaching. In exchange, they’re expected to make a commitment to teaching for a minimum of 4 years in OUSD schools.
OUSD aims to partner with TRiO to cultivate and develop local diverse STEM and Special Education teachers to serve our students and communities, where systemic racism has had the greatest impact. The goal is to ensure all OUSD students have access to rigorous and relevant learning experiences delivered by OUSD STEM and Special Education teachers. These individuals should reflect the critical identities of their students, especially Black, Latinx, and multiracial students, are highly skilled practitioners and committed to anti-racist practices, and receive the highest quality preparation and support to be fully qualified.
What is the “Teachers Rooted in Oakland” pilot?
National Research shows that teachers prepared through a residency model both, stay longer in the classroom and are more effective than their peers trained differently. However, with teacher residents only making $15,000 in their residency year, it has been difficult to recruit highly qualified aspiring teachers, especially Black, Latinx, and other teachers of color to the program. As an additional part of the Oakland Teacher Residency program, the City of Oakland Mayor’s Office, in partnership with Community Development Finance (CDF), is providing:
- Subsidized housing for STEM and SpEd teachers residents — the majority of whom are BIPOC and only make $15,000/year — so they only pay 30% of their income on rent. We work with property owners to set aside units at reduced rates for the first year to teacher residents. From there, with the support of our philanthropic partners, we provide further, deep subsidies to make the housing very affordable and to ensure that teacher residents are not rent-burdened. If the specific housing options do not work for teacher residents, we provide monthly subsidies at the same rate.
- $500/monthly guaranteed income stipend to teachers who have graduated from their residency year, for the next 4 years they continue teaching in OUSD.
Teachers Rooted in Oakland: Impact to Date
In the first 2 years of TRiO pilot, we were able to see the following impact:
- 3x increase in OUSD teacher residents from 8 to 24
- 3.6x increase in teacher residents of color from 5 to 18
- 4000+ more students with fully credentialed STEM and SpEd teachers
| Teacher | Class Att. Rate | District Att. Rate |
| Teacher Resident, Skyline High School | 77.7% | Dist: 75.6% |
| Teacher Resident, Oakland High School | 86% | Dist: 75.6% |
| Teacher Resident, Oakland Technical High School | 99% | Dist: 75.6% |
CDF’s Role
CDF’s role has been to receive the funds, manage varying aspects of the funding and disburse the allotments to the teachers or the property. We offer financial coaching to any of the interested TRiO participants on a case by case basis. CDF is also involved in helping to set policy, and to determine how to scale the program and find additional ways to create teacher housing in Oakland and beyond.
Our Donors:
- Akonadi Foundation
- Anonymous
- Bank of America
- Hellman Foundation
- Lisa Stone Pritzker Family Foundation
- Teachers Housing Cooperative
- The California Endowment
Media Highlights:
- “How do you get a luxury apartment in Oakland for $350 a month? Become a teacher” Jill Tucker, SF Chronicle (Nov. 16, 2020)
- “New affordable housing program for teachers unveiled by City of Oakland, OUSD”, Julian Glover, ABC7 News (Nov. 17, 2020)
- “Oakland pilot program to pay for teachers’ housing”, Anne Sciacca, The Mercury News (Nov. 17, 2020) also East Bay Times
- “Program to provide Oakland teachers housing subsidies”, Haaziq Madyun, KRON4 News (Nov. 16, 2020)
- “Oakland pilots program to pay for teacher housing”, The Dallas Post (Nov. 17, 2020)
- “New affordable housing program aims to help student teachers stay in Oakland”, Ashley McBride, The Oaklandside (Nov. 17, 2020)
