Berkeley High School | |
---|---|
Address | |
1980 Allston Way Berkeley, California 94704 United States |
|
Coordinates | 37°52′04″N 122°16′17″W / 37.86772°N 122.27141°WCoordinates: 37°52′04″N 122°16′17″W / 37.86772°N 122.27141°W |
Information | |
School type | Public |
Established | 1880 |
School district | Berkeley Unified School District |
Principal | Sam Pasarow |
Teaching staff | 162.41 (FTE) |
Grades | 9-12 |
Enrollment | 3204 (2014-2015) |
Student to teacher ratio | 19.56 |
Campus type | Urban |
Color(s) | Red and gold |
Athletics conference | West Alameda County (WAC) |
Nickname | Yellowjackets |
Accreditation | Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) |
Newspaper | Berkeley High Jacket |
Feeder schools |
King Middle School Willard Middle School Longfellow Middle School |
Website | Berkely High School |
Berkeley High School is a public high school in the Berkeley Unified School District, and the only public high school in the city of Berkeley, California, United States. It is located one long block west of Shattuck Avenue and three short blocks south of University Avenue in Downtown Berkeley, and is recognized as a Berkeley landmark. The school mascot is the Yellowjacket.
The first public high school classes in Berkeley were held at the Kellogg Primary School located at Oxford and Center Streets adjacent to the campus of the University of California. It opened in 1880 and the first high school graduation occurred in 1884. In 1895, the first high school annual was published, entitled the Crimson and Gold (changed to Olla Podrida by 1899).
In 1900, the citizens of Berkeley voted in favor of a bond measure to establish the first dedicated public high school campus in the city. In 1901, construction began on the northwest portion of the present site of the high school. The main school building stood on the corner of Grove (now Martin Luther King Way) and Allston Way, where the "H" building is located today. At that time, Kittredge Street ran through what is today's campus site instead of ending at Milvia. The local office of the Bay Cities Telephone Company sat on the site of today's administration building at the corner of Allston Way and Milvia by 1911.
On Arbor Day of 1902, noted naturalist John Muir joined Berkeley's mayor William H. Marston in planting a giant sequoia in a yard south of the new high school buildings. The tree is apparently no longer there, pending results from a future investigation.
The main building of the high school suffered moderate damage in the form of toppled chimneys, broken windows and some weakened walls as a result of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Professor Andrew Lawson of the University of California included one of his own photographs (shown at right) of the damage in his famous report issued in 1908.