Welcome to Hillcrest

Principal's Message

Welcome to the 2025-26 school year! As a Hillcrest parent and now principal, I value our strong family partnerships and believe they are key to the success of Hillcrest. I am excited to partner together for another year full of joy, curiosity, challenge, and community.  This year, our school wide question is, “how can we support our students to be flexible, courageous, curious, and capable independent learners, ready to navigate a world we cannot predict?” We hope you will join us by reading Free Range Kids or completing the Let Grow homework that will come home with your child this year.

About Ms. Hatch

Ms. Hatch is thrilled to return for her second year as principal at Hillcrest.  Ms. Hatch’s love of small schools began as an English and history teacher at Life Academy, where she built deep relationships with students as they engaged in interdisciplinary, public, project-based learning. As an instructional coach and administrator at Madison Park Academy, Ms. Hatch used her creativity and hard work to establish systems, traditions, and partnerships that persist today. 

Ms. Hatch graduated with honors from Brown University, has a teaching credential and masters from Mills College, and completed her administrative credential at UC Berkeley. She lives in Oakland with her husband and two children. When she’s not at Hillcrest, Ms. Hatch enjoys running hills, riding her e-bike, acquiring too many plants, making jewelry, finding free things on corners, and reading any and everything. 

Ms. Hatch believes in the power of education to change lives, open up possibilities, and engender societal transformation. She can’t wait to watch her students grow up at Hillcrest from kindergarten to eighth grade and cheer them on as they make the world a more kind and beautiful place. Ms. Hatch is grateful to continue her 16 year career in OUSD at her neighborhood school, working with a group of talented educators and families invested in making Hillcrest a joyful and inclusive place. 
 

Our Motto/School chant

At Hillcrest, we are kind, we are safe, we are responsible, and we do our best! 

Our Mission

Hillcrest’s mission is to provide all students equal access to the knowledge, skills and educational opportunities to achieve high academic standards in a changing global society. We believe that to maximize students’ learning potential a school’s environment must be safe, joyful, and academically rigorous; feature high quality instructional practices that are supported at all levels; foster curiosity and passion for learning; and encourage students to take an interest in others as well as the world around them.

History

In January 1950, construction began on what was known as Rockridge Highlands School. The school was originally designed to house a maximum of 210 students in grades K-3. In May 1951, the PTA voted to rename the school  "Hillcrest". A 4th grade was added in the fall of 1951; 5th and 6th grades followed in 1966.  

In October 1991, a devastating fire displaced 67 Hillcrest students and impacted the entire school attendance area. The district proposed closing the school and  merging students to the Kaiser school site. The district was also exploring reconfiguration for the entire district. In response to these and a number of other factors, the Hillcrest School community submitted a proposal to the Oakland Unified School District to add middle school grades to its configuration. This proposal was approved in 1993.  

Portable units were added to the grounds as attendance increased with the rebuilding of the neighborhood. The community mobilized to raise funds to replace the portables with a permanent building that could more adequately house the K-8 population. In 2006, construction was completed on the new building, which houses five classrooms, a library, and a science lab. Now with a little over 400 students in grades K-8, Hillcrest preserves the academic culture of a small, neighborhood school through the middle grades.