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Both the School Board and City Council embraced a proposal by parents Wednesday night to intervene on behalf of ninth-grade students failing classes their first semester at Berkeley High School.  

The city government’s affirmation of the proposal added muscle to the partnership between parents and educators to create a system to serve struggling students.  

In a 4-1 vote, with School Board Vice President Shirley Issel dissenting, the board adopted the plan, created by a group called Parents of Children of African Dissent, which would place students that are failing both math and English into intensive courses with a low student-teacher ratio. In addition to the new courses, struggling students will be targeted with an aggressive attendance policy, and parents and mentors will keep a close eye on their progress by means of regular teacher contact. 

As of the 15th week of the school year, 242 ninth graders are likely to fail at least one core class, English or math, in their first-semester. Eighty-three students are failing both English and math. The parents hoped to serve as many of the students as possible with the smaller student-teacher ratio by Jan. 30, the beginning of the new semester, in order to prevent students from falling even further behind.  

An overview of resources available at Berkeley High School found that although the school offers many programs, students are not accessing them, such as an after school program to assist failing students with algebra and English and lunchtime math tutorials.  

Board President Terry Doran wanted to make certain that new resources for a new program would not join that list. “Will the PCAD program tie the kids that need the help with the help we already have?” he asked. 

Principal Frank Lynch said it would, “unequivocally.”  

“It’s risky because it’s new,” Lynch said . “The one thing that sells this program is the parent support.” Lynch said regardless of the mechanics of a program, the most important aspect is parental involvement. Because of that, the PCAD program has unprecedented prospects for  

success “if these parents can turn the light on to other parents,” he said. 

Parents asked for $225,000 to hire teachers for about 180 of the 242 failing students they estimated would participate in the program. Lynch and the Berkeley High administrative staff recommended the plan be adopted for a smaller number of students – those 60 to 80 students failing two or more classes – with the possibility for further expansion. The school offered six classroom spaces and three teachers for the reduced class size program. The school board offered to pay for another three salaried teachers out of the general fund.  

Lynch said he thought finding qualified teachers on such short notice, especially during a teacher shortage would be a major barrier. PCAD members said they already have 26 resumes submitted from interested parties. 

One important part of the plan involves “learning partners” to follow the students’ progress and demand success. The role that learning partners would play in the program was not mentioned explicitly at the school board meeting, although parent Valerie Yerger said they hoped to take advantage of an existing mentor program, the Link Program, which partners seniors with freshmen to help them ease into Berkeley High. 

After more than an hour of vociferous and sometimes angry testimony from parents of African-American students in the Berkeley school system, Issel expressed her feeling that the School Board was being railroaded into adopting a proposal.  

“I’m shocked by the way that we’re proceeding,” Issel said. “I can’t vote for something that comes from threats.” 

While strident parental demands were off-putting to Issel, others focused on the positive side of enthusiastic parental participation. “If there’s anything we’ve always longed for it’s a systematic, informed, motivated, organized and not prepared-to-leave group of parents.” Russ Ellis, former UC Berkeley vice-chancellor said in the meeting. 

After the Board of Education meeting the parents carried their momentum to the City Council meeting, where the council was asked to provide resources for the program. A usually politically divided City Council voted unanimously to adopt the plan, and asked the city manager to unearth resources to assist the collaboration. At the special meeting Jan. 30, City Manager Weldon Rucker will report on city resources available to the school district. 

Reporter John Geluardi contributed to this story.