As a current BHS senior who has taken a number of science classes at Berkeley High, I can tell you that labs are not currently being utilized to the degree people imagine. I strongly believe that a class such as AP Physics requires the lab time to get through all the course material, as may AP Bio and AP Chem, but regular level science classes certainly do not need that extra hour a week. Kids rarely come to regular level labs, and any work done during that time could easily be done during regular classes. Moving labs to during the school day would probably ensure that more people showed up. Even in my AP Chem class, most labs were used to catch up on homework for other classes and watch our teacher make oatmeal over the bunsen burner, but we more than easily managed to cover all the course material.

Of course, in an ideal world science labs would not be threatened, but the fact of the matter is that Berkeley High has committed itself to closing the equity gap, and to even attempt to do so requires taking funding from some other area of the budget.