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School Board Approves Third Small School for Berkeley High By J. DOUGLAS ALLEN-TAYLOR

Friday January 21, 2005

With no dissent and much praise, the Berkeley Unified School District’s Board of Directors approved Berkeley High School’s third small school this week. 

The new School of Social Justice and Ecology (SSJE) is scheduled to join BHS’ Communications Arts and Science and Community Partnership Academy in the fall with a freshman enrollment of 56. 

The SSJE was listed on the board’s agenda as a conference item for possible placement on a future agenda, but the Board decided to act on it immediately instead. 

In an emotional scene in board chambers following the vote, SSJE promoters exchanged hugs with each other and with BHS principal Jim Slemp, and received handshakes of congratulations from board members. 

The BUSD board has committed itself to remaking the 3,000-student BHS into a half-small-school environment by the end of the next school year. 

Slemp noted that while BHS’ first two small schools were crafted out of existing school programs, SSJE was put together “from scratch.” 

Board Vice President Terry Doran called the approval of the school a major step “in a long journey to improve Berkeley High. This is so much greater than my original narrow vision of what was needed at the high school 15 years ago.” 

Student Director Lily Dorman-Colby said that she was particularly impressed with SSJE’s proposal to have students assigned to a single counselor to track them throughout their four years at the school. 

“The problem with Berkeley High is that there are opportunities, but only if you can get to them,” she said. “There’s nobody holding your hand.” 

BHS teacher Joel Hildebrandt, who will be moving from the larger school to teach at SSJE, said, “the climate has changed so that small schools are now in the forefront of Berkeley High. We’re making presentations to the board, instead of meeting in someone’s basement.” 

Hildebrandt was among five presenters at this week’s meeting. He was joined by parent Gina Wolley and BHS senior Scott Rasmussen, who worked on the SSJE proposal for more than a year even though he would never be able to attend the school. 

They presented a 43-page proposal and accompanying PowerPoint slideshow describing a school where science, math, and literacy will be blended together in a curriculum that emphasizes leadership, training and critical thinking, and where students will take trips to such locations as the Galapagos Islands and the Costa Rican rainforests to study ecology. 

Presenters stressed that while SSJE will have a higher graduation standard than most of Berkeley High (the goal will be UC-CSU-qualified for all graduates), grades and test scores are intended to be means to an end, rather than ends in themselves. One presenter noted that students will be allowed to retake tests and rewrite papers until they are satisfied with the results, with teachers acting more as collaborators than authority figures. 

“This is not going to be a ‘rip-and-rote’ environment,” she said. 

Math teacher George Palen explained that “learning at SSJE will be based on inquiry and problem-solving.” Rasmussen added that “SSJE will make high school not something to survive, but an experience to cherish. The most important thing is that students will be able to see their teachers in a new light, as real people.” 

The school board is scheduled to review an application for BHS’ fourth small school—the Arts and Humanities Academy—at its Feb. 2 meeting. 

In other action at Wednesday’s meeting, the board authorized the creation of an advisory committee to review the possible sale of the building and property at the old Hillside School, after rejecting a proposal to expand the committee to advise on all possible surplus properties in the district. 

Saying that he is “not willing to concede any other properties at the present time,” Director John Selawsky said that “surplusing school property is an extreme action and I don’t plan to make a habit of it.” 

The Hillside property has been ruled unsuitable for public school use because it sits directly on the Hayward earthquake fault. The board’s action in setting up the committee does not commit the district to selling the Hillside property, but only preserves that as a legal option. Those wishing to serve on the Hillside Surplus Advisory Committee were asked to contact the office of the superintendent or individual board members. 

The board also postponed, at Board President Nancy Riddle’s request, approval of a budget timeline so that Superintendent Michele Lawrence could include times for input from the district’s various budget advisory panels, especially the Planning and Oversight Committee of the Berkeley Schools Excellence Project. 

Riddle said these committees are “important to the budget process. Putting them in the timeline demonstrates to them and to the public at large our recognition of that importance.” 

 

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