About

Oakland International High School (OIHS) opened in 2007 to serve Oakland's growing immigrant and refugee student population. It was the first school in California specifically designed to work with recent immigrants. Since our opening, our district and our state have undergone a significant shift in demographics, as many more immigrants, refugees, asylees, and Unaccompanied Minors have immigrated to our cities and enrolled in our schools, not just at OIHS, but across all district schools.

By 2016, more than 51% of students in Oakland schools speak a language other than English in their homes. In addition, 1 in 7 high school students was a Newcomer, who had immigrated to our country within the last 3 years. These dramatic changes in our district's demographics created a great need for our school to work in partnership with the wider educational community, to support and partner with other educators who are working to serve  recently arrived immigrants in our state and from this Learning Lab was formed to help share our school model, advocate for policy outcomes and support a greater understanding of newcomer students across many audiences.