building community

Building a community where everyone belongs is essential to a meangful education.
In College Prep’s collaborative environment, students take risks, engage deeply, and appreciate the gifts of others. Through spirited all school gatherings, clubs focused on shared interests, and affinity groups, College Prep creates space for students to authentically express themselves. The school encourages community members to act on their beliefs, collectively creating an inclusive environment that lives its commitment to equity, empathy, cultural competence, and respect.

spirit

College Prep is infused with school spirit through weekly student-led assemblies and more than 60 clubs on campus. Fun and play are a core part of College Prep’s culture, helping students embrace the elements of a balanced life. The Spirit Committee is a group of students elected by their peers to organize special theme days and spirit weeks during which students discover the joy and meaning that makes College Prep not just a school, but a community. Whether they’re representing our school on the field or cheering on our athletes from the stands, athletics are central to student life. We take pride in our athletic teams through assembly announcements, packing our gym with cheering supporters, and providing fan vans to away games. Go Cougars!   

Diversity, Equity, and Belonging

College Prep commits energy and resources to creating a transformative learning environment where each student is cared for, supported, and prepared to participate in the creation of a more racially just world. The School’s Dean of Equity and Belonging mentors student leaders, spearheads the effort to infuse the curriculum with diverse perspectives, and creates opportunities for education and reflection within our community. 

Students engage in awareness raising, advocacy, and meaningful action for social justice and service leadership. Student equity leaders serve as guides and facilitators who design and plan a wide range of programs, including affinity groups, an annual equity conference, service days, and community-wide initiatives. Two students are elected to student council to represent the cohort of affinity and identity-based clubs. 
The School’s community partners include A Better Chance, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, Leadership Oakland, the League of Women Voters, The Partners Program, People of Color in Independent Schools, Rock the Vote, Showing Up for Racial Justice, and Learning For Justice.

Affinity and Activism Student Clubs

List of 24 items.

  • Asian American Association

    AAA fosters an involved Asian presence at College Prep. We celebrate holidays, watch movies, learn recipes, host discussions, and eat awesome food together. Our club goal is to unite the Asian community at College Prep, while also sharing our culture with others. Everyone, Asian or not, is welcome to join.
  • Black Student Union

    College Prep’s BSU is a space for the celebration, examination, and discussion of black and African-American people in the past and present. Our goal is to create and sustain a community where black students do not feel alone and can take pride in their identity by:  
    • Empowering student leaders
    • Raising awareness about the facts surrounding key issues
    • Advocating effectively for the needs of students  
    • Act effectively to stop bullying, discrimination, harassment and other acts of violence 

    We engage in the following actions as a demonstration of our commitment to an equity and inclusion practice: 
    • Collaborate with partners like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to ensure a joyful, kind, diverse and creative community for all people
    • Create programs that inspire and empower people to build a kind, creative, diverse and joyful communities
    • Hone our awareness, practice and skills with equity and inclusion specific training
  • Bring Change 2 Mind

    Our mission is to end the stigma and discrimination surrounding mental illness.
  • Chinese Culture Club

    To share Chinese history and culture and promote greater understanding and inclusivity within the CPS community. To inform the community on pressing issues facing Chinese Americans, especially those that aren’t represented in the media, and encourage dialogue.
  • Climate Crew

    Climate crew is a club devoted to hindering the effects of climate change through local service work. We focus on making climate and environmental-related volunteering opportunities more accessible to the College Prep community by partnering with local organizations. Get involved! Your planet needs you!
  • Community Action Team: Food Justice

    The mission of Community Action Team (CAT): Food Justice is to spread awareness about issues of food (in)justice and to promote volunteering within our community. Students work alongside organizations like Planting Justice that center marginalized communities in their efforts to cultivate food justice.
  • CPS Against Human Trafficking

    CPS Against Human Trafficking focuses on battling human trafficking in the wider community through planned events and fundraising, especially regarding My Freedom Day every year. Our goal is to raise awareness about the issue of human trafficking, providing ways to stay conscious of potential predators and how to seek help in order to diminish the occurrence of trafficking.
  • Feminist Union

    The Feminist Union at College Prep is a space for the discussion of sexism and how it has both currently and historically affected different groups of people and their daily lives. Our goal is to establish a community where those who misogyny has historically marginalized can take pride in their identities. We aim to explore the history of feminism and its applications to contemporary issues including intersectionality. We also aim to provide a space where students feel supported and heard, while seeking opportunities for activism within College Prep and the broader community.
  • Filipino Student Association

    Filipino Student Association aims to introduce Filipino culture to non-Filipino students and cultivate a safe and fun space for Filipino students to bond and learn about our own culture. We will also discuss Filipino history and its effects on present Filipino society and culture.
  • Gender Sexuality Awareness Club

    The Gender and Sexuality Awareness (GSA) Club strives to create a safe space for students and others to safely explore identity and expression in a way that nourishes and enriches all. We aim to educate and raise awareness within the wider College Prep community, fostering an inclusive environment for students of all genders and sexualities.
  • Green Team

    Come celebrate and save the environment with Green Team! Green team brings College Prep together through fun events to spread awareness about environmental issues and their relevance to our lives, and to take action to help mitigate those issues.
  • Humanitarian Club

    A coalition of students interested in bettering our communities through a variety of volunteering opportunities and welfare contributions.
  • International Club

    The International Club seeks to provide a safe space for all members of the international community. Be it as an immigrant, first second or even third generation, the club creates and environment where your culture can be celebrated and appreciated. The International Club seeks to be a rainbow coalition where people hailing from all countries can seek information regarding other cultures as well as international news and events that are not reported domestically in the United States. Furthermore, the International Club encourages students to bring pieces of their heritage to all of our meetings, and allows for students to present and share the cultures and traditions of their homelands.
  • Jewish Student Union

    The Jewish Student Union aims to create spaces where Jews at College Prep can connect with each other, have discussions, and celebrate being Jewish while also sharing our values and culture with the wider College Prep community.
  • Korean Club

    Korean Club works to not only celebrate Korean culture through food, movies, and games, but also to raise awareness about Korean history and social issues. From holding a kimbap-making workshop to presenting a slideshow on the topic of comfort women, Korean Club is a place to share favorite past-times as well as a place to discuss important issues.
  • LatinX Club

    Our mission is to foster a safe and welcoming environment for members of the College Prep community who are LatinX. We aim to do this by offering affinity spaces for LatinX students and offering meetings open to the whole campus that celebrate LatinX cultures.
  • Muslim Student Association

    The Muslim Student Association is a student body dedicated to providing a space for College Prep Muslim students to practice their faith comfortably. We provide a space for prayer and a space for discussions involving the Muslim community and other intersectional communities, as well as discussions regarding elements of the Islamic faith and its history.
  • No Place for Hate Coalition

    College Prep’s No Place for Hate Coalition (NPHC) strives to eradicate hate within communities through activities and dialogue. We collaborate with the Anti Defamation League’s A World of Difference Institute; primary and middle schools to: 
    • Empower student leaders
    • Raise awareness about the facts surrounding key issues
    • Advocate effectively for themselves and others 
    • Act effectively to stop bullying, discrimination and harassment
  • PERIOD @ College Prep

    The goals of this club are to destigmatize periods in our community, combat period poverty, and advocate for proactive period policy. Through community discussions, documentary viewings, informative presentation and affinity spaces we hope to interrogate the systems in our community and the larger world that stigmatize periods. Periods are a bodily function and should be thought of as so, and not something to be quieted or feel ashamed about. The second part of this clubs mission is to combat period poverty, the inability to access menstrual products due to economic or social barriers. Menstruators should have access to period products. We hope to address this issue through menstrual hygiene drives, fundraisers, and other inventive ideas. The last facet of this club is to advocate for period policy. This will take the form of working with other schools and like-minded youth to pressure lawmakers into implementing policy that supports menstruators.
  • Side by Side

    At Side by Side, we aim to build community between high school students with and without learning differences. We meet weekly to chat, socialize, and have fun, and it's a great opportunity to build friendships with other students from another high school.
  • South Asian Alliance

    The South Asian Alliance serves as a space to celebrate and discuss South Asian culture at College Prep by doing work which ranges from festival celebrations to discussions about racism to fundraisers. The goal of the club is to create and sustain an environment which allows South Asian students to feel comfortable in their skin and heritage, and foster a community which is accepting of all cultural traditions, not just those belonging to South Asia. We aim to represent both those from all South Asian countries and their diasporas.
  • Student with Disabilities Club

    This is a community space for students with physical, medical, or mental disability.
  • Students with Interracial Lives

    Our mission is to provide a space for and about mixed race students to discuss what being mixed means to them, and how it affects their lives. We wanted to provide this space because the very real and visible reality of race in America is important to address not just through a binary lens. Although spaces where multi-ethnic and cultural people can meet, race has a political significance that is often talked about in terms of one single group, and only identified with that group. We believe that race is a social construct set up to enforce a white supremacist system, but we also need to function within a system before we can change it.
  • World Humanitarian Rights Club

    The World Humanitarian Rights Club seeks to shed light on human rights violations across the world, without a special focus on those that are not represented in mainstream media. The information is spread with the aim of not only bringing the state of the world into our view, but also inspiring future activists to take charge and end these atrocities.
I’ve been a part of GSA since my ninth grade year and it’s given me an opportunity to explore who I am, express myself, meet lots and lots of people, and discuss things that are interesting and important to me.”  

mens conscia recti

a mind aware of what is right