McClymonds High School Oakland Has New eSports and STEAM Lab and Artist/Maker Creative Lab
Oakland (Special to OaklandNewsOnline.com) – Having stood in its current location for 85 years, McClymonds High School is getting ready for a major overhaul of its campus with money from the Measure Y bond passed by voters in 2020. But even before all those changes take place, the school got two new spaces installed that have quickly become popular places for students to spend their time and explore potential future careers. This fall, McClymonds High School opened its Artist/Maker Creative Lab, and an eSports and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) Lab. “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” said one student after seeing the eSports Lab for the first time. 
The spaces were created by an organization called Own Own, which focuses on bringing this kind of facility to schools in under-resourced communities. “We started with this idea that you can’t do what you can’t see,” said co-founder Lee Johnson. “Really creating access for all the different aspects, but specifically around mental health because without your mind, nothing else matters. So, we try to create opportunities and spaces to allow students and teachers to feel safe, and seen and heard.”
The Our Own team says the spaces “will spark change in the way students, teachers and their communities perceive and participate in wellness through interactive entertainment.” Dustin Young, the co-founder of Our Own, said they installed similar spaces in a high school in Southern California, and quickly saw positive results in the student body. “The first year of it, we have seen a lot of improvement like test scores and GPAs, but also a reduction of stress, anxiety, and depression.” Our Own points to test scores rising 20% and GPAs that rose seven percent.
The McClymonds High School eSports space has several big screen TVs for playing video games, and eight computer stations for playing and designing video games, and doing other work. There’s also lots of comfortable seating, on top of new black carpeting. “Ooo, I love that,” said McClymonds social worker, Relonda McGhee. The creative space is more wide open with dramatic checkered flooring and no TVs, but lots of space for creativity to flourish among students who are looking to be fashion designers or something similar.
When McClymonds High School Principal Jeff Taylor first heard about the idea, he entertained it, but with a healthy dose of skepticism. “Throughout my career, I’ve had a lot of folks promise things, and it was just promises. So, I was like OK, it’s another one. But it started getting serious, and then I was getting a little nervous, and I was like maybe this will happen… I’m just excited that they (Our Own) see the love and the greatness in our students that we see, in bringing this space to McClymonds. Our kids deserve high quality things like this. I’m overwhelmed with, you know, the ideas that are going to be generated from this space. This is top notch.”
One major motivating factor behind this effort from Our Own is overcoming the huge disparity in the amount of people of color in video game development. According to Our Own, more than 70% of game developers are White, 8% are Latino/a, and just 6% are Black.
The curriculum that can happen in the spaces include game design, graphic design, content creation, data science, and entrepreneurship, along with a variety of additional supports for students including mentoring, mental health, and experiential learning.
“I don’t really play games, but I’ll come here and get on the computer, and like, chill, in a chair, the chairs are comfortable. Or read a book… I think it’s a big step for our school,” said McClymonds High School senior Makhiya Jones, adding she also sees working in the creative lab doing art.