At 3:30 on a blustery Friday afternoon a group of Cragmont Elementary fourth graders are lining up in the hallway in front of Room 209 for the second part of their educational day. -more-

With a week-long teacher work slowdown “having an effect,” according to Berkeley Unified School District Public Information Officer Mark Coplan, Superintendent Michele Lawrence has sent out a letter to teachers and community residents explaining the district’s position in the dispute. -more-

Residents gathered Saturday in a meeting room in a building named for one of the heroes of the African American struggle for freedom and equality to dine and celebrate Black History Month. -more-

Before setting out to buy groceries for his wife and 8-year-old son two Fridays ago, North Oakland resident Patrick McCullough made sure he had his wallet, keys and pistol. -more-

Facing the loss of one quarter of its four-person staff, Berkeley’s Police Review Commission (PRC) is positioning itself for a fight. -more-

For the second time, city Design Review Commissioners have expressed their unanimous disapproval of designs for South Berkeley’s “Flying Cottage.’ -more-

Fuzz Get Charity Clipping -more-

Israeli Air Force pilot Yonatan Shapira calls himself a patriot. After 11 years as part of a elite helicopter unit, he though he had proved his commitment to his country. Yet since 2003, Shapira has more often referred to as a traitor, than a patriot. -more-

Two weeks after the Berkeley Unified School District dropped its budget rating from positive to qualified and the announced start of a teacher work slowdown over a pay raise dispute, fiscal issues dominate this week’s BUSD board meeting. -more-

It’s been more than 30 years since the Free Speech Movement and the battle over People’s Park, but in the eyes of conservative pundits, Berkeley has once again become the center of the progressive universe. Just ask New York Times columnist, David Brooks, who in his Feb. 5 column deplored the ascension of Howard Dean to the position of chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and argued that it’s Berkeley’s fault. -more-

Most observers of the Middle East sensed that the U.S. invasion of Iraq, instead of bringing stability, would bring chaos to the region. The most recent signal of this unraveling was the assassination of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, a Sunni billionaire with ties to Washington and Riyadh, who had been credited with much of Beirut’s reconstruction. Popular protests have now led to the resignation of the country’s pro-Syrian government. -more-

The short-lived labor action at the Oaks Theater has ended in a settlement, and the picket line has vanished outside the Art Deco showcase at 1875 Solano Ave. -more-

In Michelle Carter’s San Francisco State workshop entitled “Writing in the Public Context,” we are to develop a project that requires us to step out of our daily routines and do something we wouldn’t normally do. -more-

Click here to view the latest work by Planet cartoonist Justin DeFreitas -more-

TEACHERS’ CONTRACT -more-

This March marks the beginning of a third year of negotiations between the Berkeley Federation of Teachers and the Berkeley Unified School District, and we have yet to reach a settlement. Over 25 negotiations sessions occurred before impasse was declared in June of 2004, and now the process is directed by a state mediator. Because progress has been minimal, extremely slow and frustrating, Berkeley teachers have worked without a salary increase for the past two years. At the same time, our working conditions have deteriorated. Class sizes have increased dramatically in grades 4-12, as has the amount of assessments and paperwork that we are required to submit. Despite limited and inadequate instructional supplies, we have been asked to assume a range of new responsibilities, well beyond our workday. -more-

During the last four years I have believed it inappropriate, as superintendent of Berkeley schools, to engage in newspaper debates, so I have refrained from ever responding to letters to the editor. However, because the recent attack by Michael Larrick (Letters, Feb. 25-28) on public education and Berkeley teachers was so ill considered and uninformed, I am compelled to respond. -more-

Although not a Christo groupie, when I got the offer of a free place to crash on Manhattan’s Upper East Side I couldn’t resist Jet Blueing to the Big Apple to take in “The Gates.” I wasn’t the only Berkeleyite who made the pilgrimage to the Central Park saffron spectacle staged by Christo and his wife, Jeanne-Claude. In my week-long whirlwind adventure of Gates-gazing and copious noshing, I kept bumping into Berkeley folks—at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, at the Stage Deli, on Broadway and in the park itself. -more-

Deep in the recesses of LaVal’s Subterranean, Philip Wharton is about to unlock his word-hoard. Dressed simply as a scop or scald, ancient bard and reciter, he begins alliteratively in Anglo-Saxon, then switches seamlessly into Modern English, his translation of Beowulf, heroes and monsters sketched in with graceful gestures and quick grimaces. -more-

After that long siege of rain, it’s been warm enough this week for the turtles to be out basking. You can see them at Jewel Lake in Tilden Regional Park: the larger, darker ones are western pond turtles, the Bay Area’s only native chelonians; the green stripy ones with red patches on their necks are red-eared sliders, the descendants of inconvenient pets who were released in the lake. (“Slider” here pertains to a group of freshwater turtles, not to a curving fastball or a small hamburger.) Their lives appear peaceful, apart from the occasional jostle over the best spot on the log. -more-

TUESDAY, MARCH 1 -more-

TUESDAY, MARCH 1 -more-