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Rave Reviews for Berkeley High’s Grand Opening

By MATTHEW ARTZ
Tuesday April 27, 2004

The people at Berkeley High think the newest addition to their school has a lot going for it. On Sunday they gathered to share their exuberance with the entire community. 

A crowd estimated at about 2,000 showed up for the grand opening of the campus’ first addition since the Donohue Gym in 1979 to see what $37 million and more than a decade of planning could do for a school better known for having a building burn down than built up. 

By and large, everybody was impressed. “This is just gorgeous,” said Daniella Thompson, a Berkeley resident. Thompson had opposed a previous design plan, which she said would have clashed with the neighboring 1930 art deco buildings. 

Inside the stuccoed structures, wood is the most dominant feature, and functionality rules. The two new buildings—christened D and E—front Milvia Street at Allston Way and Bancroft Way and account for about 86,000 square feet of space that includes a new library, college center, administrative wing, food court, gym, locker rooms, parent center, swimming pool and dance studio. 

“It just feels more like a real high school now,” said Caitlin Boucher, a sophomore. “It’s hard to imagine we didn’t even have a cafeteria until a few weeks ago.”  

That wasn’t all Berkeley High was missing, students said. For years, Jessica Kingeter and her teammates on the girls water polo team had to trek to Willard Middle School, where they scraped the tops of their feet trying to tread water in a pool that in some sections measured only three feet deep. “This makes you feel more like a part of the school,” she said shortly after emerging from the new regulation size pool that opened last week. 

Maria Hossey, a member of the school’s Afro-Haitian Dancers, said the new studio was a “huge improvement” from the space at the universally despised Old Gym where she said paint was peeling off the walls and the roof leaked. 

For several years Rory Bled, now a vice principal, ran the college center from the Old Gym right next to the boy’s locker room. “It just reeked,” she said. “I used to spray Lysol every time a college interviewer would come.” 

The new buildings came into being because of the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989. Responding to concerns that schools were seismically unsafe following that natural disaster, the district won voter approval for two bond measures—the first for $158 million in 1992, the second for $116 million in 2000—that have funded repairs or total reconstruction for every school in the district. 

Though two high school buildings were upgraded in the early 90s, the campus mostly languished for a decade while other schools got facelifts. Former superintendent Jack McLaughlin said that after the seismically unsafe old cafeteria was leveled in 1993, the eastern edge of campus along Milvia Street consisted of a steam plant, a parking lot and rubble. In 2000, after an arsonist burned down the B building, that gave way to a sprawl of portable classrooms. 

When it comes to the design, McLaughlin insists the credit belongs to him. “I drew the whole thing out on paper,” he said. 

“This is truly the house the Jack built,” agreed Lloyd Lee, a former school board director, who recalled McLaughlin constantly tinkering with cardboard models of the buildings. 

Once the exterior was set, determining what should go inside the new buildings wasn’t too hard to figure out, said Lee. “We knew we needed a new cafeteria and gym. Everyone agreed the old library was dismal and the old pool and locker rooms were disgusting.” 

The big question was how the different pieces would fit. “There was a holy war over who would be in the middle,” said School Board Director Joaquin Rivera. The board ultimately chose to put the food court and gym at the center of the facility to emphasize that it was a student center, Rivera said. 

Two enormous glitches in the plan were the presence of underground PG&E storage tanks on the site that contributed to an eight-month delay in the completion of the project, as well as the arson at the B Building.  

Lee said the new pool was designed to connect to that building, which had been slated to house the dance studio, and a weight room. The dance studio was moved to the new building, but a new weight room will have to wait for the next round of construction, according to Lee, who still serves on the district’s School Construction Oversight Committee. Lee added that the beginning of the new construction is not too far off. 

The district is shopping for a master planner to redesign the south end of campus, which will also be paid for with the voter-approved bond money. A new design will tackle the shortage of playing fields and parking spaces at the campus and determine what to do with the Old Gym complex, which houses the warm water pool used by many of Berkeley’s disabled residents.  

Several students interviewed hoped the next round of construction would include classrooms, which, they say, are becoming increasingly overcrowded despite declining enrollment. 

“People have to sit on the back ledge of my physics class,” said Zack Mitchell, a senior. 

There were a few other complaints as well. Kathleen Winger and Mischa Spieglemock of the school’s badminton team were angry that they would be temporarily relegated to the Old Gym after the contractor apparently forgot to lay badminton lines on the floor of the new gym. “We’d even take the Donohue Gym,” Winger said. “Something that doesn’t leak, maybe.” 

TerryLynne Turner, a Berkeley High parent and school librarian in Union City, said the new library “looks beautiful,” but was “way too small” for a school with 2,750 students. “The librarian should have her own classroom,” she said. “I have a full room [in the school library in Union City] with a door that shuts.” 

But graduates of Berkeley High marveled at how far their campus had come since their days at the school. “As a freshman I was afraid to go to my locker in the G building. It was so dark and bleak,” said Stephanie Baker who graduated in the early 1980s and now teaches in Richmond. “Hopefully the students will keep it nice, because not all schools look as good as this.” 

Karen Gordon Brown was so elated by what she saw Sunday she said she would consider moving from Oakland when her son reaches middle school. “I’ve been impressed by the people here, the conversations I’ve heard, and the interest they’ve shown,” she said. “This has opened my eyes that there might be other options for my child besides private school.”