Founded by educator Jeff Duncan-Andrade in 2015, Roses in Concrete Community School opened in East Oakland, California. With a name inspired by a book of poetry written by Tupac Shakur, the school aims to create a model for urban education that prioritizes the needs of youth and families in the community it serves. In the school’s first year, Google.org provided $750,000 to help launch its unique vision.
Objectives
At the Google Community Space in San Francisco, teachers, students, artists, education advocates, Googlers and Oakland-native actress, Zendaya celebrated the announcement of Google.org's additional $650,000 grant to help the school build a first-of-its-kind computer science (CS) curriculum, which will serve as a model for other schools across the U.S. The curriculum will be culturally and community relevant, building Duncan-Andrade’s philosophy that education shouldn’t push students out of communities, but should instead help students transform them.