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BHS Sophomores Face Exit Exam

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday February 09, 2007

A day after Berkeley High School students mourned the sudden death of Vice Principal Denise Brown, over 800 Berkeley High sophomores filed into the gymnasium to take the California High School Exit Exam Tuesday. 

The students tested for the English Exam on Tuesday and for the Math exam on Wednesday. Students can’t graduate from high school until they have passed the exit exam 

“No one was in the right state of mind, but there was nothing we could do about it,” said BUSD spokesperson Mark Coplan. Brown died Friday of a blod clot following a knee operation. 

BHS Principal Jim Slemp had called the State Department of Education to request postponing the exam but was told that they would have to go ahead with the testing. 

The sea of bent heads quietly working on the math problems in the gymnasium adjacent to the BHS food court was a sign of how important the test was. Most students who took the exam said that it had gone well but were nervous about the results, which will be out in May. 

Vice Principal Amy Frey and Acting VP Flora Russ administered the test on Tuesday morning and were assisted by about a dozen staff and parent proctors.