Cover your mouth when you cough. If you're a kindergartener at Oakland Academy, those are skills your teachers will expect you to have by the end of the year. And if you're a parent of an Oakland kindergartener, you'll know at the beginning of the year that your child will be working on those skills. That's because at Oakland there's no mystery about what children are being taught. Instead, teachers' expectations and children's progress are all laid out in detail.
Progress notes go home weekly from each teacher and once a month from Oakland's principal.
Parents attend a conference each semester, and they have at least a half-dozen less formal contacts with the school each semester. Oakland's emphasis on social behavior, virtue, and discipline are also part of the formula. For example, the school expects children to follow a code of personal conduct that includes honesty, courtesy, punctuality, respect for others and their property, and a dress code. Second-grade teacher Jennifer Anderson says that is one of the main attributes of the school that helps her be successful. It's like a family atmosphere.