How many non-Berkeleyites go to BHS?
As the parent of a Berkeley High student, I remember going through a thorough registration process. The school district needed to see utility bills and a host of other documentation to prove that our family really lived in Berkeley. I also heard stories about investigators roaming around, checking to see whether families were really living where they claimed to be.
It’s understandable, I guess. Berkeley High School has a good academic reputation, and some of Berkeley’s neighbors — notably Oakland and Richmond — have high schools with less academic clout (although I consistently hear good things about Oakland Tech’s Paideia Program and Engineering Academy).
At least, the theory is understandable. In practice it’s widely known that Berkeley High is filled with kids from other cities. I’ve heard reports of kids streaming out of the BART station every morning. No one living in Berkeley would commute to BHS by BART. A friend who helped at freshman registration this year recognized scores of kids who she knew were Oakland residents — spend years on soccer and baseball fields, and you get to know lots of your child’s peers all over the East Bay. I’ve heard estimates of 10 to 20 per cent of BHS students being non-resident.
As a Berkeley taxpayer and BHS parent, it feels like a rip off. Or have the rumors run out of control? I’d like to know.
Photo from Flickr by Jeremy Franklin
InBerkeley on Twitter
InBerkeley on Facebook
well, personally, I was one of the illegal aliens back in the 80s, and there were a certain number at that point riding the AC transit with me. I was born in Berkeley but frankly we couldn’t afford to live there through school, so I snuck across the border every day. The one thing I’d say to justify it is that most of the funding is state funding. For the ‘cheaper’ students BHS/BUSD probably make money on the illegal aliens.
My son, who graduated last year, took BART daily from our house in NW Berkeley to BHS.
As a former BHS teacher, I’m more worried about having good contact information for the parents/guardians. If a student is from out of town “with permission” (there are many of those), I could contact the parents if there was a problem in class. But those who snuck in would not usually have as good contact information (often a grandparent/cousin/etc. with an address and phone), so reaching parents was sometimes harder. BUT, on the other hand, students who “sneak in” are often more motivated to do well, since they and their parents have gone through the trouble to figure out how to get in.
@ Lee: I would say that not getting kicked out was probably a motivator in my case…
When BSEP (the initiative in which Berkeley votes to supplement its local schools with additional tax revenues) was last on the ballot (2006?), I read letters in the Planet from some voters who would not support BSEP because there were not sufficient guarantees that BSEP funds would support Berkeley residents. Since BSEP passed by a large margin, perhaps BUSD feels no significant incentive to investigate such concerns.