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Superintendent Michele Lawrence called for a controversial change in school policy Wednesday night at a Board of Education meeting, suggesting that Berkeley High School close its doors to transfer students from outside the district, starting as early as next year. 

Lawrence and members of the board also discussed public participation in upcoming budget cuts, and sparred over reopening the small schools debate. 

Lawrence’s proposed change in attendance policy would make school capacity the top consideration in deciding whether to accept a student from outside the district. The change would effect transfers to every Berkeley school, but the focus was on BHS at the Wednesday meeting.  

“Berkeley High School, presently, is attractive to many people,” Lawrence said. “But the excess numbers are creating some untenable situations. It’s a small campus. It’s overcrowded.” 

The high school has a current enrollment of 3,055, according to district figures, including 239 students from outside the district admitted through an “inter-district permit.”  

Community activists have long complained that the school is too large, and that too many students slip through the cracks. 

But board members Terry Doran and John Selawsky raised concerns about Lawrence’s proposal, arguing that it would be unfair to current middle school students, on inter-district permits, who are expecting to attend the high school. 

“I am very uncomfortable with thinking that we may have students on inter-district permits, in our system right now...who have to take into account that they won’t be able to go to Berkeley High School,” said Doran, arguing that, if the policy is put in place, it should be phased in so that current middle school students are not affected. 

According to district figures, there are currently 127 students in Berkeley middle schools on inter-district permits. 

Board President Shirley Issel said inter-district students have made important contributions to the district, and that it would be difficult to block their entry to BHS. But, she sharply disagreed with Doran’s gradual approach.  

“I think the idea of not implementing that for current sixth graders is silly,” Issel said. “I don’t think they’re entitled (to attend the high school).” 

Issel added that the district should accompany any shift in policy on inter-district permits with a concerted effort to remove out-of-town students who are attending BHS illegally, using false Berkeley addresses. 

“The perception in this community is that there are large numbers of these students,” she said. 

The board tabled a vote on the proposed change to attendance policy. 

The superintendent, Board members and local activists also discussed the proper extent of public participation in upcoming decisions around budget cuts. A state agency called the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, or FCMAT, which has been providing the district with financial advice since October, has projected a $1.6 million deficit this year, a $7.8 million shortfall next year and a $16.7 million hole the following year if the district doesn’t make cuts. 

Mary Riter, who works with the Berkeley Schools Excellence Project, a local group that funds class size reduction through a special local tax, called on the board to open up the budget process, and provide BSEP with attendance and teacher salary figures that it will use to make cuts. 

Lawrence said the district can provide BSEP with the specific figures it has requested, but warned that the district will not be able to engage the public as fully as it would like in making budget cut decisions. 

According to state law, if the district hopes to lay off certain teachers and certificated administrators next year, it must inform those employees by March 15. 

Lawrence said she hopes to provide layoff recommendations to the board by its Feb. 20 meeting, in anticipation of the March 15 deadline, and argued that the district does not have the time to engage the public before then. 

The board also voted, Wednesday night, to schedule four “special study sessions,” open to the public, on Feb. 27, March 13, May 15, and Oct. 16. The board will look at specific issues in depth at the sessions, but will likely not vote on anything.  

Board members agreed to focus largely on the budget for the first two sessions. But Selawsky suggested that a future session center on the high school, including a controversial proposal by the Coalition for Excellence and Equity, a community group, to divide BHS into a series of small, themed schools in 2003. 

The board elected not to discuss the coalition’s proposal at a raucous meeting in December despite a request by Doran, the one coalition ally on the board, to do so. 

Selawsky was one of the board members who stood in the way of the December discussion, but, in an interview Thursday, he said the board could engage in a more productive discussion of the small schools proposal later this year, once the district had gathered more information on the current health of the high school. 

Doran supported Selawsky’s recommendation Wednesday night, but Issel suggested that re-opening the emotional, divisive debate over small schools would be too much of a burden, given the difficulties the district will face with budget cuts later this year.