BUSD K-12 Population, 1968 (year of desegregation) to 2002
October, 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Though the BUSD buildings suffered no damage in this earthquake, some parents question the seismic soundness of the district's building stock. Activist parents demand that the district commission a credible engineering study of school buildings.
October 1, 1990. Presentation to the board, "Seismic Evaluation Results and Alternative Plans". Engineering evaluation of Cragmont, Whittier, Oxford, LeConte, Franklin, Hillside. Cragmont school is subject to "complete collapse." Other schools are subject to damage. BUSD is abruptly hurled into chaos. It is obvious that a large amont of capital funding will be required immediately.
A subsequent study included all the K-12 buildings. Other buildings are determined to be unsafe.
Fall, 1990 "BUSD Strategic Planning Process" launched by Superintedent Steele.
Jan 29, 1992. Board approves a $165 million bond, to go before the voters in the June election. The "Green Book," compiled by a citizen and staff committee, projects how the money will be spent.
June, 1992. Voters pass a $165 million bond dedicated to school construction. The story behind this success is told elsewhere. Passing the bond proved to be the relatively easy part.
Voters have authorized funding sufficient for a very bold program of school reconstruction. But the full scale building program is not yet deployed. The Board, staff and key parents perceive a once in a generation opportunity to make a huge correction. Subject to reconsideration are the grade configuration, the method of maintaining racial balance, the geographic zones and the distribution of classroom capacity in the city. All of these had been little changed since the school desegration of 1968. All had been causes of "consumer dissatisfaction" from their inception. The statistic most cited as evidence of parent dissatisfaction was the long-established pattern of exit from Berkeley public schools by white parents after grade 3. For numerous years, school population figures indicated a drop in resident student enrollment from g3 to g4, particularly among whites and most particularly among affluent white families. The K-3 schools were mostly located to the east, the more affluent and dominantly white neighborhoods. (Old Zone Map) The 4-6 schools were located west of MLK Jr, Way, in neighborhoods - with the exception of King's - not dominantly white. Many parents admit the 4-6 schools and their neighborhoods seemed "scary" and they did not think their 4th graders were up to the adjustment.
In commencing such a grand reconsideration the administration and board may have overestimated the authority of logic and of principle among the parents of Berkeley. Without doubt they did not anticipate a process and prolonged and painful as what followed.
October, 1992. Superintendent Lavoneia Steele convenes the "Ad Hoc Task Force on School Reorganization." It it charged to review matters of a) grade configuration, b) student assignment methods, e.g. zones and other methods, c) transportation of students, d) desegregation policy and methodology, e) other issues related to school organization (e.g. school size, magnet schools, space utilization for pre-school and extended day programs, integrated social services, other public services, etc.) Seated on the committee was a representative from each K-3 and 4-6 school and representatives of other important BUSD constituencies. The district hired Jim Masters, parent and "community outreach" consultant, to facilitate the meetings. Many District staff attended. Thus the group was quite large by design. Its charge specified weekly meetings.
Each K-3 school was obliged to select a representative to this group. But the K-3 PTA's, parent communities and even principals slow to perceive what was at stake. K-3 parents are unfamiliar with school bureaucracy and have no historic perspective of BUSD. They are scarcely aware of the existing configuration and of other schools. Some K-3 schools paid intense attention from the beginning. The typically informed and opportunistic schools saw the "opportunity" early, as always. The District was presumably slicing up some kind of pie. The contents of the pie was unclear, but that there would not be "enough" to go around veterans assumed. The typically clueless schools very slowly became aware that important decisions were being hefted and that torpor was not the order of the day. The "quick" and the "sleepy" followed the usual pattern among schools of the district. At LeConte we were without a clue. As a brand-new LeConte parent I was cautioned by a veteran Jefferson parent, "This is big. Any school that doesn't get up to speed ASAP is going to miss out."
But the district sponsored no first-come-first-served feeding frenzy. After some time, all the schools had someone at the table. Each school began working on informing their local parent community of what was going on.
The Ad Hoc Task force met weekly. In addition there were some special weekend sessions. In tandem, there were "site committee" meetings at the respective schools.
Many people who participated, myself included, found this the worst public involvement experience of their lives. During or after its conclusion some participants dropped all volunteer engagement with Berkeley schools. One or more families sold their houses and moved out of Berkeley.
Feb 17, 1993 Report, Superintendent's Ad Hoc Task Force on School Organization (Executive Summary, Summary of Process, Membership, partial text, and one PTA's newsletter's perspective.) For the enormous time consumed of so many people, the product of the task force was very lean. The only enduring deposit of policy was the now-famous +/- 5% goal for the new integration method. The new integration method had not been identified. Other than this, nothing was seriously proposed or assessed to satisfy the items of the committee's charge. The era had succeeded in rousing the whole city from its sleep, however. Little insurrections were igniting all over town. If anything the atmosphere for converging a decision was worse than it had been at the start.
The discussion so far had revealed a big difference of opinion in the city. It tended to follow geography. The northern two thirds of the city was gung-ho for K-5. The large middle class population in the north had long been unhappy with their 4-6 schools, Columbus and Longfellow. The southern parents were more comfortable with the prevailing K-3 4-6 grade configuration. They valued the music and arts programs which florished at Malcolm X school, their 4-6 school. The southern parents saw that the vigorous music and arts program would be a casualty of reconfiguration because the resources formerly concentrated at the 4-6 schools would be dispersed among many K-5 schools. Another dissenting faction were parents of Whittier/Arts Magnet, a K-6 magnet with a long established music and arts program. Though a magnet school, Arts Magnet by its location served mostly central and northern parents.
Spring, 1993 Reconsideration and reaffirmation of integration guidlines at +- 5%.
Though Spring, 1993 had been the target date for a decision the city is nowhere near to one, despite the very large amount of time, money and good will which has been consumed. The Superintendent and Board recognize that buying the help of an effective consultant is money well spent. Fern Tiger Associates of Oakland is hired for the job. Fern Tiger Associates proposes a public involvment and decision-making process the like of which no one had seen. It is a blueprint of events of the entire year, culminating in a decisive school board vote on a new plan on December 15. (Diagram.) The methods are tailored to the culture of Berkeley and to the sensitivity of the issues. Fern and her competent staff soon prove to be the reinforcements the District needed.
Fern Tiger Associates introduces methods which where were new to us. The "house meeeting" was the most novel. Throughout the city over the course of the spring at least 50 house meetings convened. This suits the nature of the issue and of the "stakeholders." Many parents are not comfortable making speeches at large meetings but have strong opinions on the issues. Their dissent may be indicated not by their voice but by their feet - their exit from the district. The house meetings provided a venue for people to candidly share views and be heard. A Fern Tiger note taker / facilitator was always present. These meetings entailed, of course, a lot of work.
That wasn't all. Parallel to the house meetings on the calendar was a succession of public forums. These brought face to face the school district staff, board, and parents from the opposing sides. The number of forums was modest. They were carefully planned, featuring parent speakers to voice the major divergent positions. The oral presentation was followed by break-outs into smaller groups. These events were thoroughly engaging. They were genuine elements of the decision-making process, not one-way report-outs on what the "decision makers" had been doing.
These months are a time of passionate conversation engaging nearly the entire parent population of the city. Though it seems at first a rerun of the previous year, it is soon apparent that this time was different. Most people are persuaded to engage - again.
The whole town is talking. Churches and civic organizations are engaged. To shake this cocktail some more, Fern flys in a classroom of MIT graduate students to exploit our decision as their classroom planning project. In the fall about a month before the due date for our decision the class presents their proposals. This proved not only entertaining and stimulating. A catalytic ideas for our solution was provided by one of the groups.
Throughout this era, Fern, the BUSD cabinet and the author continue testing proposed models. No sooner an idea is voiced, it is simulated and evalauted. (Zone models 1992) (K4 and misc models 1993)
Clippings East Bay Express Bay Guardian
November, 1993 The final city-wide workshop. The work by the class of MIT graduate city planning students is presented. One of the groups presents several ways of physically dividing or grouping the city. One of the schemes features a division into three, labeled "crescent." We had never considered a division of the city into three K-5 zones. A consequence of such a division is a that bisects the large affluent northeast hills neighborhood. This divides the biggest geographic lump which had defied previous arrangement attempts.
End November, 1993 Via the software the author applies the "crescent" idea. With little effort he devises two plausible lines dividing the city into three zones. The population numbers are not perfect. The zone populations so not roughly match the school capacities. The assignment of geography along the boundaries is not final. But the racial balance of each zone was amazingly uniform. Is is evident that this method of division is superior to any previously tried. We dub it the "Crescent.", the label coined by the students. More "Crescent iterations "
December 13, 1993. After more experiment Bruce Wicinas presents to the BUSD cabinet a revised location for two boundaries dividing the district into three approximately equal K-5 zones. (Map and rationale) Integral to this scheme is a recommendation to rebuild Cragment and to locate it, against prevailing presumption, in the Central zone. The table of capacities and populations for the three proposed zones needed no interpretation. Populations match one another and school capacity almost uncannily match populations. In attendance: LaVoneia Steele, superintendent, Catherine James, assistant superintendent, Arturo Taboada, Manager of facilities, Nancy Spaethe, Assistant Superintendent, Fern Tiger, strategic information consultant to the District. None could dispute the logic. Dr. Steele had formerly resolutely opposed the rebuilding of Cragmont due to the anticipated cost of building on an earthquake fault trace and because very few BUSD students resided in its vicinity. She had one resigned comment,"If we build it, they will come." Arturo added, "make Cragment's capacity 450,." his intention to demand economy of scale from an expensive venture. (Because the administration had formerly assumed Cragmont would not be re-built there had be no public debate about its size.) There was not much more to say. The "Crescent Plan" had been submitted to the board more than a week earlier. This new division would be revealed later, presuming that the Board passed the reconfiguration plan.
December 15, 1993. Board approves the reconfiguration plan. The meeting was held in the Community Theater. "Theatric" it is. The passionate dissent is from ones who urge the board leave particular schools as they were. These factions mainly include Arts Magnet parents and Malcolm X parents. There are memorable performances, including one by ardent Malcolm X parent Rosemary Desario who recounts a similar evening years earlier on which the Board voted to close John Muir. An aggressive performance by the Arts Magnet dance troupes "dramatized" the importance of leaving intact the existing K-6 magnet school program at that school. As the board announced its vote, Arts Magnet parents ironically brainstorm in the foyer to propose to the board their program be moved to the lifeless shell of the suddenly slain Malcolm X school.
December 15, 1993, "Approval of Recommentation Regarding School Organization and School Buidling Decision" Changes grade Level structure from K-3, 4-6, 7-8, 9-12 to K-5, 6-8, 9-12, with three integrated zones and a K-5 controlled choice-within-zone assignment system meeting space available and district integration criteria and caveats of "no additional General Fund expenses" and "providing additional resources for flatlands schools." The minutes from the December 15, 1993 meeting detailing the motions and the caveats appear in Attachment A. The zones appearing in this report are the boundaries devised in late November, the "Crescent."
April 20, 1994 Establishment of three middle schools - King, Longfellow and Willard - on an open choice basis within space available and integration guidelines.
July 13, 1994 Following the months everyone needed to question and to accept it, the infrastructure of the plan comes before the board. The boundaries of the three zones - the December 13 lines - are adopted by the Board. Established are the desired size of certain elementary schools at two classes per grade level (approximately 300 students) and some at three classes per grade level (Malcolm X, Columbus, Thousand Oaks, Cragmont - approximately 450 students), assuming BSEP class size of 25 at K-5 level. The board approves the rebuilding of Cragmont - a sharp reversal of policy - around midnight at this mid-July meeting.
Through the remainder of the year the "Transition Team" labors to realize the plan the board approved.
November 16, 1994, Report to board, "Progress Report on Reconfiguration Policy Decisions"
March 16, 1995. First student assignment by controlled choice lottery. All incoming and continuing K-8 students are assigned to a school by means of the new controlled choice software commissioned for the purpose by the district, authored by Bruce Wicinas. In this first year following reconfiguration, hundreds of students were changing schools. So the lottery software had to assign the entire K-8 population by controlled choice lottery. The software was viable for the job only a couple days later than the target date. On the whole, the first lottery was extremely successful. Both district and parents were relieved and plesantly surprised by the positive outcome.
Nov. 1, 1995 BUSD, Office of the Superintendent, "Report on the 1995-96 Reconfiguration Plan and Approvial of 1996-97 Reconfiguration" Reviews the outcome of the first year's performance under the new system.