“Why don’t I see more diversity in my high school AP classes?” 

“Why are some of my teachers okay with using AI for schoolwork, and others aren’t?” 

“Relying on AC Transit to commute across town to school means I’m sometimes tardy and always late getting home. Could there be a better system for students like me?”

These are just a few of the questions that Oakland high schoolers are now exploring with the help of Oaklandside journalists through a new student reporting fellowship at our newsroom. 

Since January, Oaklandside reporters and editors have been mentoring and working closely with a cohort of 12 fellows, who were selected last year from a pool of roughly 80 applicants from district high schools and public charter high schools across the city. The participants represent seven Oakland schools, and bring a wide range of backgrounds and lived experiences. Some have worked on their school newspapers or been exposed to journalism through local youth media programs. For others, reporting is brand new. All share a passion for uplifting student voices and a desire to see Oakland’s public schools reach their fullest potential.

The Oaklandside’s 2026 Student Reporting Fellows (clockwise from top left): Elizabeth Ramos (Coliseum College Prep Academy), Zoe Psomas (Oakland Tech), Cesia Gonzalez (Oakland Tech), Deisy Camacho (Fremont High), Nathan Fuentes (Skyline High), Twyla Hoshida (Oakland High), Ashley Martin Chales (Oakland Tech), Alexis Kennedy (Skyline High), Maya Mastropasqua (Oakland School of the Arts), Cameron Williams (Skyline High), Julia Magar (Oakland High), Brean Melgoza (Madison Park Academy). Credit: Kelly Sullivan for The Oaklandside
Why we launched a newsroom fellowship for Oakland high schoolers

About 36,000 students go to school in the Oakland Unified School District, and close to 11,000 more attend Oakland’s public charter schools. For these local kids and their families, schools aren’t only a place to work on reading, writing and arithmetic. Schools provide reliable healthy meals, opportunities to play sports and explore the arts, and access to trusted mentors. They’re where young people make friends, learn to think critically, and begin to understand their responsibilities in society. In other words, they’re vital community hubs that impact life in Oakland far beyond the campus walls.

For these reasons, public K-12 education has been one of The Oaklandside’s main coverage areas since we started the newsroom nearly six years ago. Led by education reporter Ashley McBride, we’ve learned and written a lot in the ensuing years about how OUSD works and followed the big storylines playing out across the district, from school safety to campus closures to budget crises and teacher strikes. Along the way, we’ve sought to amplify the voices of people in Oakland’s schools community who are most impacted by these challenges: its students, families and educators.


Oaklandside journalists have been working with fellowship participants in small teams since January, sharpening their story ideas and giving them research and reporting assignments. (Clockwise from top left): Reporter Natalie Orenstein with fellows Camacho and Magar, reporter Roselyn Romero with fellow Martin Chales, reporter Azucena Rasilla with fellows Kennedy and Melgoza, and reporter Ashley McBride with fellow Psomas. Credit: Kelly Sullivan for The Oaklandside

In opening our newsroom’s doors to students who spend every day inside Oakland schools, we aim to expand on this coverage by tapping into their expertise, perspectives, passion, proximity to peers and access to other important voices at their school sites and in their communities. 

The fellows have already begun meeting weekly in small teams, each led by an Oaklandside reporter, where they’re developing story pitches and taking on assignments, from doing research to conducting interviews. Soon they’ll be pitching in on writing and capturing photos or video for social media stories. Over the next couple of months, they’ll share bylines with their Oaklandside mentors on published stories they’ve contributed to.

Oaklandside editor Esther Kaplan addresses student reporters during a fellowship training in January at the newsroom’s downtown headquarters. Credit: Kelly Sullivan for The Oaklandside

For The Oaklandside, launching a high school reporting fellowship is also about strengthening the local journalism pipeline by creating an opportunity for young Oaklanders to explore what this work is all about. 

While working side-by-side with professional mentors on real stories, the fellows have also been attending training sessions facilitated by our editorial staff. We’ve covered journalism ethics, and how to identify trusted sources and misinformation. We’ve shared tips on how to conduct a good interview, talked about story elements and writing fundamentals, explained best practices for collecting video for social content, and provided an overview of OUSD’s organizational structure and data sources. 

The fellowship asks a lot of our reporting team — and asks a lot from the students as well, who are balancing the fellowship work with their academic responsibilities, school sports and other extracurricular pursuits. That’s why students who successfully complete the fellowship will be supported with a stipend of $1,500 and a certificate of completion that they can add to their resume to support their college, internship and job aspirations.

Our news organization is proud to be doing this work and excited for its potential. We’re also grateful to the Stuart Foundation, a philanthropic organization focused on public education, for believing in our vision and supporting it with a grant. 

“The journalists who’ll report Oakland’s stories tomorrow are already hard at work reporting in Oakland schools today,” said Oaklandside editor-in-chief Tasneem Raja. “This fellowship is about building the next generation of a representative, deeply rooted local press for Oakland. We can’t wait to see where these young reporters take their work — and their careers — from here.”

We’ll be celebrating the student reporters’ accomplishments and discussing their education reporting at a community event when the program concludes later this spring.

“*” indicates required fields