February 12, 2009

Zara McDonald, Felidae's Executive Director, visited the Northern Light School in Oakland, CA and talked to the 7th and 8th grades about life, challenges, and wild cats. She explained the numerous challenges wild cats face within their stressed ecosystems. THANK YOU Northern Light School for your attention and open hearts. Wild cats are an important component of our ecosystems! Read more about the Northern Light School Below. View more PHOTOS!

About the Northern Light School

Unfortunately, Oakland is typical of too many cities in America. For a myriad of reasons, the public school system has failed to educate the children. Most kids (57%) enter high school but never graduate. Even worse, only one in nine will attend college. For black males (the most at-risk group), the college attrition number is one in 25.

In 1989, four Berkeley school teachers decided to do something about it. On a wing and a prayer, they started a K-8 school called Northern Light School. Their plan was simple…start a small school that could re-create the family environment that many Oakland youths have never known. Hire dedicated teachers who have an intense passion for changing lives. Take no government funding so to maintain the flexibility to adapt to different children’s issues. And, perhaps, most importantly… lovingly demand from the students that they fulfill their potential.

The student body is fairly consistent: they are poor, come from minority backgrounds and are lucky to have one parent. They come from the drug and crime infested inner city and way too many of the students are victims of abuse.

It is a gross understatement to say the results have exceeded the most optimistic expectations. Most children receive scholarships to prestigious prep schools and 98% of the graduates have gone on to colleges (including Stanford, Georgetown, and Duke). Northern Light graduates are in law school, medical school, getting doctorates and dancing at the Alvin Ailey Theatre in New York. One student received the largest scholarship NYU has ever given.

For the four women who founded the school and work long hours for little pay, it is a rewarding validation. They were correct…all kids, no matter how dire their backgrounds, can learn and do something productive (and AMAZING) with their lives.