[BHS Etree] ADMIN: Principal's Message/BHS Update

[BHS etree]

Dear BHS Families:

As we approach the final two weeks of the school year I wanted to touch base
with our community and discuss our expectations of students for the final
two weeks of school, and also check in with the community on a few issues
and developments. The weather has been beautiful and our senior class heads
into their final weeks of high school in some cases with highly visible
senses of accomplishment and celebration as well as subtle and not so subtle
anxieties around the big transitions that are upon them.

We are extremely happy for our seniors and wish all of our students and
families a very successful last few weeks and a restful summer. 

The Question of Streaking and Other Behavioral Expectations for the Close of
School...Seriously

As always, student safety is at the top of the agenda and one issue that has
historically created significant disruption at the end of the school year is
the pseudo-tradition of a "senior streak" at Berkeley High School. While it
goes without saying that this event is in no way endorsed, approved of, or
sanctioned by the high school, I wanted to be very explicit and clear about
why the administrative team feels that we need to discourage and eliminate
this event on campus and be clear and consistent with consequences for those
who participate.

The opposition to this event from the administrative team's perspective is
rooted first and foremost in the disruption it causes and the challenges to
student safety and campus safety that it creates. While there are various
perspectives on the event itself, regardless of one's feelings or moral
standings relative to the act of streaking, the administrative team's
position is simply that a public school is not the place for this type of
behavior, and that it has historically created and contributed to what we
feel are unsafe situations on campus.

Our experience with this event over the years has been one that causes
significant disruption to the school environment and poses a host of
logistical and crowd management challenges that consume an unacceptable
amount of time for both safety officers and administrators. As school rules
and guidelines often give consequences to students for being disruptive in
class, it seems logical then to have consequences for students participating
in what constitutes the single largest disruption of the school year.

Last year, and in past years, the event itself-now well-publicized through
the rapid channels of texting and social networking, saw an estimated 1200
to 2000 students abruptly leave class to stand on the courtyard to watch
students running by without their clothes. Moral objections are varied and I
suppose relative, but my safety staff and administrative team was intensely
concerned about the dynamics created in the crowd last year as the spectacle
also brought significant numbers of non-students to the neighborhood who
then attempted to come on campus.

Additionally we have concerns about unsafe driving and traffic around the
school with carloads of students often circling the perimeter looking to
gain access for this annual ordeal.

These are a sampling of the numerous concerns we have about this activity,
and I believe they provide sufficient reasons in the context of student
safety and crowd control for us to make additional efforts this year to
discourage this event and to provide clear consequences for those who
participate in advance.

We ask families of seniors to discuss this with their students and to be
clear about the consequences we are issuing for those who choose to
participate.

Students who are caught on campus without their clothes (imagine having to
write that to parents?) or who are in any way involved will be suspended for
a day and owe the school sixteen hours (16) of community service. 

Diplomas for seniors involved will be held until the required 16 community
service hours are performed. 

Suspensions may obviously prevent seniors from being on campus during a
portion of finals week and so students will have to make arrangements to
make up their finals on alternate days or on Friday, the make up day, and
the day of graduation.

While the morality of such an endeavor may be relative or subject for
debate, what is not in question is that Berkeley High School is a public
school and therefore public space, and like a crude or off-color  joke, what
one may find humorous or acceptable in private or among close friends or
peers, may not be appropriate in spaces shared with people who have
different perspectives or values. 

Students insistent on disrobing in public are encouraged to seek fulfillment
of that impulse in venues other than school and in consultation with their
families.

Elsewhere, our expectation is that students attend and remain in all classes
for the duration of the school year, and that cell phone policies continue
to be observed and adhered to; business as usual is the best recipe for the
school at this point. Abiding by our community agreements for the remainder
of the school year will allow administrators and safety officers the space
to do the numerous things they need to be doing to close out a school year
and prepare for graduation rather than spending that time dealing with lower
level disciplinary issues where students potentially jeopardize their
participation in finals or graduation festivities. 

Parents, please support us by reiterating to students that school policies
and school rules will not change for the last two weeks of school and apply
equitably to graduating seniors as well as all other BHS students.

Advisory News

Moving into next year we will be rethinking how we meet the goals of the
advisory program. If you recall, the essential advisory outcomes were to
help...

.  Increase students completing A-G requirements

.  Increase Graduation Rates

.  Increase personalization

.  Increased participation in post-secondary education and training programs

Recently, an internal discussion and decision-making processes led us to a
place as a school where we have to rethink and consider alternative ways to
help all students access the information and achieve the outcomes we have
focused on with advisory. A staff vote showed that a very large percentage
of the staff still supports the outcomes and the focus, but we did not come
to the necessary consensus on having monthly set-aside time be the channel
or vehicle for the pursuit of those goals.

My next move will be to make determinations about how best to share the
responsibility supporting these outcomes across the entire faculty, and I
will do this initially in discussions with the teacher leadership team. 

Our approach to these outcomes must be a shared responsibility as I
genuinely believe that the school needs a systemic approach to these
outcomes. These outcomes are not simply the responsibility of counselors and
support staff, but will require again, a concerted effort by the entire
school if they are to be realized with more equitable results for all kids.

Green Academy Decision

In what was a very difficult decision, the administrative team, after
lengthy consultation with the teachers and teacher leaders involved, has
decided not to run a ninth-grade cohort in the Green Academy for the 12-13
school year. We owe a collective acknowledgement and appreciation to the
Green Academy staff who have made enormous professional and personal
investments in the Green Academy and done tremendous work in the area of
curriculum and contextualized learning. 

The Green Academy will continue to run its program for their 10th, 11th, and
12th grade cohorts in the 2012-2013 school year. Most California Partnership
Academies run grades 10 through 12.  

In lieu of a ninth-grade cohort, the administrative team, in consultation
with Green Academy teachers and district staff will immediately begin
exploring how green education will be made available to students as the
remaining cohorts begin graduating next year. Challenges related to the
current student assignment/choice policies at Berkeley High, and projected
results of the lottery run, left us with too few students to have a viable
9th grade cohort for 2012-13.  

Recruitment issues coupled with issues generated by the current choice
system have created imbalances and community perceptions, both real and
unfounded, that have, in our opinion, served as significant barriers to
diversifying the Green Academy in terms of both ethnicity and levels of
academic readiness. Our hope is that this decision to rethink and reimagine
the best channel for the dynamic and thoughtful program that our Green
Academy staff has created will in fact also accelerate and enrich discussion
already underway by the board's policy subcommittee around the current
system of learning community placement at BHS.

Finals Schedule

Monday, June 11 will be a regular schedule.

The remainder of the schedule for the week is as follows...


Finals Day 1: Tuesday, June 12


 

Time

Minutes


Period 1

8:30-10:30

120


Period 2

10:40-12:40

120


Lunch

12:40 -1:20

40


Finals Prep

1:26-2:47

81


 

 

 


Finals Day 2: Wednesday June 13


 

Time

Minutes


Period 3

8:30-10:30

120


Period 4

10:40-12:40

120


Lunch

12:40 -1:20

40


Finals Prep

1:26-2:47

81


Finals Day 3: Thursday, June 14


 

Time

Minutes


Period 5

8:30-10:30

120


Period 6

10:40-12:40

120

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

________________

Pat Anderson, Diane Douglas, Marguerite Fa-Kaji and Lisa Sibony are the
parent-volunteer facilitators of the etree; please direct any questions to
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