Bishop O'Dowd High School is a Catholic, co-educational, college preparatory school in Oakland, California, administered by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland and named after the late auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, James T. O'Dowd (1907–1950). The school requires all students to attend school liturgies, to enroll in religious studies courses each semester, and to complete its 4-year service learning program. O’Dowd is a Catholic high school community of 1,212 students. The school has 129 faculty and staff members and more than 82 part-time coaches, teachers and moderators.

The Diocese of Oakland is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in the San Francisco Bay Area of California in the United States. It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archbishop of San Francisco.