Oakland Community Schoolyards

It’s not fair that some communities have access to incredible, lush, enriching parks and green spaces that support their need for quality outdoor time and contribute to positive health outcomes while others around the country live in park deserts.

Our Oakland Green Schoolyards program, in partnership with Green Schoolyards America and the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), serves communities by transforming asphalt-covered schoolyards into healthy and inspiring green spaces where children are able to play and explore and adults can enjoy the benefits of nature. The program also helps get us closer to our goal of providing every person in America a park or green space within a 10-minute walk of home.

Why schoolyards? They are the park-access solution hiding in plain sight. Although every community might not have a lot of open space, most communities have a school. And every school has at least some land. In fact, America’s public school systems own 2 million acres of land. By converting baren blacktop playgrounds into green schoolyards that are open to the public after school hours, we can ensure everyone has nature—and its myriad benefits—close to home. With one in five Californians visiting public schools daily, these spaces can serve as valuable community resources.

Oakland Unified School District has 122 schools on 505 urban acres, presenting an excellent opportunity to provide communities with access to nature. However, like many across America, OUSD schoolyards are often bleak and covered in asphalt with few trees or plants. These concrete lots can reach temperatures of 120 degrees, making them unsafe for both children and adults.

We began our transformation with four Oakland public schools: Melrose Leadership Academy, César E. Chávez Education Center, Markham Elementary School, and Bridges Academy.

Our school selection process prioritizes equity and is determined using several factors, such as school and community demographics, site conditions, and readiness.

These green schoolyards reflect the unique vision of each school community. We ensure that the local students and community members are directly involved with planning. Our participatory process gathers community input and implements their suggestions in the schoolyard redesign.

“For students that may not have that sense of tranquility in their own neighborhoods, we especially want to make sure that our schools have living schoolyards, that there’s green spaces, we have places for gardening. It’s not just a boutique-y sort of thing, but it really is connected to kids being in that space to learn and to be engaged and to feel joyous when they come to school.” – Kyla Johnson-Trammell, superintendent of Oakland Unified School District.