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Berkeley Unified School District
Address
2020 Bonar Street Berkeley, California, 94702 United States
District information
Motto	Excellence Equity Engagement Enrichment
Superintendent	Enikia Ford-Morthel
Schools	20
Students and staff
Students	9,800
Other information
Website	berkeleyschools.net

The Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) is the public school district for the city of Berkeley, California, United States. The district is managed by the Superintendent of Schools, and governed by the Berkeley Board of Education, whose members are elected by voters. Its administrative offices are located in the old West Campus main building at 2020 Bonar Street, on the corner of Bonar and University Avenue.

History

The Berkeley Unified School District was formed in 1936 by the merger of the city's elementary and high school districts.

District administrative offices were originally (in the late 19th century) at or near the Kellogg School (above Shattuck Avenue between Center Street and Allston Way).

In 1927, a two-story administration building was completed at 2325 Milvia Street (at the corner of Durant Avenue, across from the grounds of Berkeley High School). Designated a seismic hazard after the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, it was put to non-school purposes beginning in 1940 and was razed in 1946, the site becoming tennis courts for the high school.

In January 1940, administrative offices were moved to 1414 Walnut Street, the original Garfield Jr. High, later University Elementary and the temporary site, after the 1923 fire, of Hillside Elementary.

In 1943, Ruth Acty was hired to teach kindergarten at Longfellow school and became the district's first African American teacher.

In 1979, the district offices moved to the Old City Hall at 2134 Martin Luther King Way, and in 2012 to 2020 Bonar Street (originally Luther Burbank Junior High School, then Berkeley High School West Campus, and finally the Berkeley Adult School).

Integration policy

During and following World War II, the African American population of Berkeley, as in the entire region, increased substantially. However, the practice of racial covenants in property title deeds, together with informal discrimination ("de facto"), had resulted in the black population being concentrated in certain sections of the city, primarily in the southwestern portions. Consequently, public schools serving those areas had a disproportionately high number of blacks while virtually no blacks attended the schools in other mostly white sections of the city. The only exception to this was Berkeley High School as it was, and remains, the only high school for the entire district.

Heightened local interest in the concerns and efforts of the civil rights movement, shared by many in the community, eventually led to the district adopting a school integration plan starting in the mid-1960s. The plan included the use of bussing to effect an integration of all the public schools in Berkeley. The first schools to be integrated under this plan were the junior high schools, Garfield and Willard, starting in the Fall of 1966. A third junior high school, Burbank, was closed, demolished and rebuilt (by 1968) as the high school's "West Campus", serving all the district's 9th-grade students.

Two years later, in the Fall of 1968, the elementary schools were integrated, utilizing the district's own expanded bus fleet.

Berkeley's integration plan, substantially modified, remains in place today. The Berkeley school district has evolved from a race-based to a geography-based integration plan.

Governance

The school district is governed by the Berkeley Board of Education. It consists of five voting members (elected by the city's voters to four-year terms) and two non-voting student directors (elected by the district's high school students).

The current five voting members are Ana Vasudeo, Ka'Dijah Brown, Jennifer Shanoski, Mike Chang, and Laura Babitt. However, in the 2024 election, Babitt lost reelection and was replaced by Jen Corn. Vasudeo was reelected.

Schools

Early Childhood Education

• Franklin Preschool
• Hopkins Preschool
• King Child Development Center

Elementary schools

• Berkeley Arts Magnet Elementary School at Whittier (formerly Whittier Elementary)
• Cragmont Elementary School
• Emerson Elementary School
• Ruth Acty Elementary School (formerly Jefferson Elementary)
• John Muir Elementary School
• Sylvia Mendez Elementary School (formerly Le Conte Elementary School)
• Malcolm X Arts & Academics Magnet Elementary School (formerly Lincoln Elementary)
• Oxford Elementary School, the smallest school in the BUSD with 262 students in 2024
• Rosa Parks Environmental Science Magnet Elementary School (formerly Columbus Intermediate School)
• Thousand Oaks Elementary School
• Washington Elementary School

Middle schools

• Longfellow Magnet Middle School
• Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School (formerly Garfield Junior High School), site of the Edible Schoolyard project
• Willard Middle School

High schools

• Berkeley High School, the largest school in the BUSD with c. 3000 students enrolled each year.
• Berkeley Technology Academy (Continuation High School)

Adult schools

• Berkeley Adult School

Former Schools

• Burbank Jr. High School (closed 1966; original structure demolished and replaced; reopened as West Campus-Berkeley High School)
• East Campus, Berkeley High School (first located at renamed McKinley Continuation School, relocated to temporary buildings at former Savo Island federal housing site (Derby at Grove) in 1971; closed after Spring 2001, replaced by Berkeley Alternative High School)
• Edison Junior High School (located on Oregon Street and Russell at King Street; became the Instructional Materials Center for the district, remodeled after a major fire in August, 1970)
• Franklin Elementary School (closed 2002; re-opened as Berkeley Adult School; originally was the site of the oldest school in Berkeley, the Ocean View School, established in 1856, renamed the San Pablo Avenue School in 1879, later renamed Franklin)
• Grizzly Peak Primary School (formerly Little Hillside Primary School) (closed 1981)
• Hillside Elementary School (closed 1983)
• Kellogg Primary School (1880–1910, Berkeley's second public school, located at Center and Oxford; Berkeley High School was located on the grounds from 1880 to 1900; after Kellogg closed, its buildings were rented to the California College of Arts and Crafts from 1911 to 1921; subsequently razed)
• Lorin School
• McKinley Continuation School, constructed in 1896 as the Dwight Way School for grades 1 through 8. Renamed McKinley School in 1902 for the assassinated president. McKinley became a junior high school in 1909. In the 1930s, it became a continuation high school. The property was bought by the University of California and leased back to the school district. It was renamed as the East Campus of Berkeley High in late 1960s; building razed, site became part of the Rochdale Apartments student housing cooperative)
• Rose Street School
• Tilden Primary School (formerly Cragmont Primary School; closed 1981)
• University Elementary School (opened in 1922–23 at 1414 Walnut Street in a building originally housing Garfield Junior High, and in later years, the site of the Berkeley Unified School District's headquarters building now located at the former West Campus)
• West Campus, Berkeley High School (closed 1986; became the site of the Berkeley Adult School until 2004; since 2012, the site of the administrative offices of the district)

See also

• List of school districts in Alameda County, California

References

1. The City of Berkeley, Mary Johnson, 1942, p.56 (typewritten mss in Berkeley Public Library History Room)
2. "Berkeley Daily Gazette - Google News Archive Search". news.google.com.
3. "CatalogIt HUB". CatalogIt.
4. Pimsleur, J.L. (October 9, 1998). "Ruth Acty". San Francisco Chronicle.
5. "West Campus Project (2020 Bonar Street) | Berkeley Unified School District". August 3, 2011.
6. Orenstein, Natalie (16 October 2018). "A radical decision, an unfinished legacy". Berkeleyside. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
7. "School Board Members". Berkeley Unified School District. Archived from the original on December 11, 2016. Retrieved June 21, 2017.
8. "School Board | Berkeley Unified School District". 2011-07-13. Retrieved 2024-12-11.
9. Kwok, Joyce Tsai, Iris (2024-11-21). "Jen Corn, Ana Vasudeo win Berkeley school board race". Berkeleyside. Retrieved 2024-12-12.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
10. "Berkeley Public Schools". Retrieved 18 October 2022.
11. "Elementary Schools in Berkeley Unified School District District". U.S. & World Report News.
12. "Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association - McKINLEY SCHOOL. One of my favorite Berkeley buildings was the McKinley School on Dwight Way near Telegraph. I liked it because, with its columned portico, wood siding and two towers, it strongly evoked an earlier era. McKinley always bore a kinship, in my mind, to Emerson School (1906). Both were rectangular, wooden buildings with Classical details, and both were painted the same cream color. I remember reading in an editorial in the Berkeley Gazette in 1965 at the time Emerson was to be demolished, that it belonged to the "egg carton style of school architecture." Facetious, but an apt description! McKinley School was built in 1896. At that time, the only school in the southeast section of Berkeley was Le Conte, and additional classroom space was sorely needed. The School Board had purchased the lot on Dwight Way in 1891, but did not approve the construction of a new school until 1895. The architectural firm of Cunningham Bros. was engaged, construction began in late 1896, and an imposing and somewhat fanciful building with towers topped by belvederes soon rose on Dwight Way. The name it was given was the Dwight Way School, and it was designed to accommodate grades one through eight, with library, auditorium, and recreation rooms. After President McKinley was assassinated in 1901, the name of the school was changed to McKinley. The president was honored in like manner throughout the country, but in Berkeley the naming had special significance as McKinley had visited the college town during his presidency. On April 20, 1902 at the naming ceremony, a bronze bust of McKinley by sculptor Robert L. Aitken was unveiled with "appropriate ceremony," and an English elm was planted on each side of the walk leading to the entrance. It was stated that the naming of Berkeley's model grammar school was the highest compliment that the citizens of Berkeley could bestow, and that although "new buildings will someday replace these, this statue of bronze will remain here in its place in the ages to come." A bronze plaque known as the Shaw Tablet was installed at the school at the same time to honor Capt. Shaw and his Civil War regiment. At the dedication, Superintendent S.D. Waterman explained its significance: "This tablet is intended to help perpetuate the memory of the heroism and valor of a colored regiment and to keep before the people of this country the fact that more than 36,000 Negro soldiers gave up their lives in defense of the union." At that time, McKinley was indeed Berkeley's "model grammar school." Several innovative programs were begun there. The one-teacher system, usual in an elementary school, was changed to departmentalized classes; special beginning classes were provided for non-English speaking Asian students; and in 1909, McKinley was reorganized as one of Berkeley's first two junior high schools. By 1900, the original building had become overcrowded. A new four-classroom building for primary grades was built on the north half of the property, facing Haste Street. It was designed by San Francisco architect Maxwell Bugbee. The school kept growing: in 1906, local designer-builder A.H. Broad built a larger primary-grades classroom building on a newly purchased lot on the north side of Haste. The shingled "Haste Street Building" still stands and is a City Landmark. Since sometime in the 1930s, McKinley School became Berkeley's continuation high school. The University bought the property and leased it to the School District. Maintenance declined. Handsome and imposing in its youth, the building continued even during its last days to project a sense of its past glory despite years of neglect and the removal of much of its ornamentation. The building was demolished in 1970, and the McKinley bust and the Shaw Tablet were removed and have vanished. In 1974, the site became one of several new parks planned for the City. Designed by Alex Forrester, the park was named for YMCA and University counselor William H. Davis. As a tangible link with the old McKinley School, the concrete steps and the two English elms were retained by the planner. Today, there is a new building on the site, and all trace of the past has been removed. Photo by O.V. Lange from a view book of Berkeley published in 1898. (colorized) Commentary by Anthony Bruce. | Facebook". www.facebook.com.

External links

• Berkeley Unified School District webpage

• Education in Berkeley, California
• School districts in Alameda County, California
• 1936 establishments in California