Berkeleyside » Bill Huyett

Berkeley Schools Superintendent Bill Huyett to retire

Frances Dinkelspiel — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 23:10:27 +0000

Superintendant Bill Huyett speaks on the first day of the 2011 school year at Rosa Parks Elementary. Photo: Rachel Anderson

In a surprise move, Berkeley Unified School Superintendent Bill Huyett announced today that he will retire on June 30, 2012.

In a statement published on the BUSD website, Huyett said: “I was drawn to Berkeley because I saw an opportunity to work on the achievement gap. With a committed Board, dedicated staff, an involved community and the 2020 Vision, much has been accomplished in the past four years. Now I’m ready to pass the torch so I can spend more time with my wife and family.”

“Bill is an intense family man,” said BUSD spokesperson Mark Coplan, adding that when Huyett accepted his current position, his wife took retirement. “Bill’s wife has been enjoying retirement for four years now and Bill would like to do the same,” he said.(...)

Read the rest of Berkeley Schools Superintendent Bill Huyett to retire (248 words)

By Frances Dinkelspiel. | Permalink | 19 comments |
Post tags: Bill Huyett

Closure of BHS gym rattles athletes, angers parents

Frances Dinkelspiel — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 14:00:30 +0000

The Old Gym at Berkeley High School was abruptly shut this week because of seismic safety concerns. Photo: Frances Dinkelspiel

The unexpected and abrupt closure of Berkeley High School’s Old Gym this week has thrown some of the school’s athletic programs into turmoil.

On Monday, members of the football team were told they could not go into the locker room in the Old Gym to suit up for practice or to retrieve their belongings. Since then, the team has not had a place to change, store personal items, use weights, or watch films to prepare for upcoming games.

“It has caused a lot of confusion and it is having an effect on how we practice,” said one member of the varsity football team who did not want his name used. “It has a detrimental affect on the team.”

The abrupt closure on Monday October 3 came about because Superintendent Bill Huyett only recently learned of reports that the structure may not be seismically safe, and decided to take action.

“I am a very prudent and cautious person when it comes to student safety,” said Huyett.

Huyett was referring to an engineering study included in a 2006 environmental impact report that raised – but did not answer — questions about the seismic stability of the Old Gym. The structure was built in 1922 based on a design by architect William Hays. In 1929, an addition housing what is now known as the Warm Pool was added. The complex is slated to be torn down in 2012 and replaced with a $35 million, three-story building that holds 15 classrooms, a new gym, and a fitness center.(...)

Read the rest of Closure of BHS gym rattles athletes, angers parents (514 words)

By Frances Dinkelspiel. | Permalink | 30 comments |
Post tags: Berkeley High football, Bill Huyett, Old Gym, Pasquale Scuderi, Richard Boyden

Students see security changes at Berkeley High School

Frances Dinkelspiel — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 16:30:34 +0000

Two signs direct visitors to enter at office door and students to proceed to A gate. Travis Dennis, an interim campus monitor, stands by the door to direct visitors. Photos: Frances Dinkelspiel

As Berkeley High students returned to school this week, they weren’t permitted to enter by the Allston Street door leading into the main office. Instead they were directed to a nearby gate.

“Visitors Entrance Only,” read the lettering on two new signs posted by the office. “Students Please Use the ‘A’ Gate.”

Five and a half months after two students discharged a gun in a portable bathroom, spooking students, parents, and administrators, change has come to Berkeley High. Access to the school now will be more closely monitored, school security officers will dress in uniform, there will be an increased police presence on campus, and students will be educated about the dangers of guns.

All of these items were part of the set of recommendations made in June by the Ad Hoc Safety Committee, a group of parents, teachers, and administrators that was given the task of determining how to improve safety in Berkeley schools. BUSD superintendent Bill Huyett appointed the group after six separate gun incidents in three months at Berkeley’s two high schools.

One of the main recommendations was to better control who was coming on and off the campus. This year, students will only be able to come onto campus by four doors. Visitors will be directed to go to the front office to sign in and get a visitors’ badge.

Vincent Trahon, or Coach T, sits by the A gate. Printed signs to inform students to enter there will be ready in a week.

To get a handle on all the traffic – Berkeley High has more than 3,200 students and hundreds of teachers and administrators – the district hired four campus monitors to help out the school’s 12 safety officers. The campus monitors will sit by the entrances during the day to check IDs, prevent students from leaving while school is in session, and direct visitors around.

On Thursday morning, two hours after school started, Victor Trahan, whom the students call Coach T since he coaches the basketball team, was sitting on a chair by the “A” gate. As tardy students tried to enter the campus, he asked for their ID, or ID numbers, or waved them in if he recognized them. There was a walkie talkie nearby in case he had to connect with other monitors or one of the school’s 12 safety officers. In about a five-minute period he talked to three students.

Visitors to Berkeley High must now stop at the front desk before entering the school. The district installed the crowd control rope to direct people to the desk and prevent them from just walking by

Trahan was wearing a red fleece Berkeley High vest, but, in about a week, he will be wearing a new uniform. After the spate of gun incidents, the Berkeley Police Department recommended that school safety officers wear uniforms. It would give the safety officers more authority and let police officers arriving on any scene identify them easily, they said.

The new uniforms have a large, round logo on the back of the garment with a picture of the high school. The front of each garment has the wearer’s name and the school they represent. Each safety officer will get a jacket, three polo shirts, and three long-sleeve shirts, according to Susan Craig, the director of student services.

The color of the uniforms will be different at each school, said Craig. The uniforms at B-Tech are brown and the ones at Berkeley High are either white or black. The campus monitors will wear maroon, she said. The middle schools will have other colors, including blue and green, she said.

The jackets cost about $100 each and were paid from the student safety discretionary fund, said Craig. The district worked with the unions this summer to come up with a design all could agree on.

Susan Craig, director of student services, holds up one of the new security staff uniforms

The safety officers “wanted to be visible, yet approachable,” said Craig. “They didn’t want something that said ‘School Security’ so that students wouldn’t approach them.”

Another major change for this school year is that the school district will report all robberies to the police, Craig told school and city officials at a “2 x 2 meeting” of city and school officials on Thursday morning. Previously, the district did not report robberies unless weapons or a sexual assault was involved. The school’s safety officers dealt with assailants through OCI, the On-Campus Intervention program.

In May, Berkeleyside reported on Berkeley Police Chief Michael Meehan’s frustration at the fact that the school was not reporting robberies.

That policy infuriated many parents, who felt the school district sometimes downplayed serious crime on campus. School safety officers often would identify culprits but focus on working with them to get on a better path rather than punishing them. When parents whose kids had been robbed or roughed up complained, they were often ostracized, making the victims of crime feel like they were being blamed.

“I am very happy that they have promised to report robberies to the police,” said Ginny Roemer, whose son was robbed last year at Berkeley High. Roemer filed a formal complaint against the district about the way the school investigated the incident. She wanted to know if the assailants were dangerous, but the district would not investigate whether they had any criminal records.

Roemer later found out one of the assailants had a warrant out for his arrest for committing another violent crime and the other robbed a different Berkeley High student right outside the school. “It’s the police who are able to investigate. They have the resources. They have access to the criminal records of the students.”

Laura Menard, a frequent critic of what she believes is the district’s tendency to worry more about the perpetrators than the victims, and turn away from dealing with violent culture, said reporting all robberies is long overdue.

“It’s gratifying that it’s finally happening because for all these years the victims of school-based crimes have faced discrimination,” said Menard. “We would go in there to meet with officials and would be further abused. The district didn’t want to admit it was discriminating against victims of crime.”

Read here for a list of all the recommendations made by the Ad Hoc Safety Committee.

By Frances Dinkelspiel. | Permalink | 30 comments |
Post tags: Ad Hoc Safey Committee, B-Tech, Berkeley High School, BHS, Bill Huyett, Coach T, guns at Berkeley High, Susan Craig, Travis Dennis, Vincent Trahan

Berkeley school board considers weapons safety report

Frances Dinkelspiel — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 18:00:51 +0000

Berkeley High: after recommendations on safety, the school board will come back with a detailed plan. Photo: Frances Dinkelspiel

While Berkeley High should tighten its perimeter, enlist its uniformed police officer to patrol its edges and nearby park, have its security officers wear identifiable uniforms, and teach students about the impact of guns, it should not require students to wear a visible identification badges and use them to get on and off campus – at least not yet.

There are still too many unresolved issues on how to implement the mechanics of closing the campus and requiring ID badges to move forward quickly, school board members decided Wednesday night. The board directed Superintendent Bill Huyett and his staff to more closely examine those items and return with a more detailed and workable plan.

“We don’t have to do this by fall,” said Board member John Selawsky. “I just want to see us working on it.”

Huyett agreed that rushing into a new set of requirements might not be the best idea.(...)

Read the rest of Berkeley school board considers weapons safety report (660 words)

By Frances Dinkelspiel. | Permalink | 28 comments |
Post tags: Ad Hoc Safety Committee, Bill Huyett, Dave Peattie, John Selawsky, Karen Hemphill, Michael Meehan, Pasquale Scuderi

Student voices are missing from gun safety report

Frances Dinkelspiel — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 18:00:12 +0000

One of the inner courtyards at Berkeley High School

Some significant voices are missing in the 11-page report the Ad Hoc Safety Committee prepared on how to reduce guns in Berkeley high schools: that of the students.

While two Berkeley High students sat on the committee — at least until the end of the academic year — efforts to find out and understand why students brought guns into school did not go far.

Susan Craig, the director of student services for the Berkeley Unified School District, interviewed almost all of the six Berkeley students who were caught with guns and asked them why they brought weapons on campus. None of them were particularly forthcoming about their reasons, she told the safety committee.

The district also enlisted the aid of Pastor Michael McBride of BOCA, a faith-based action committee, to hold focus groups with students to discuss guns on campus. While those conversations happened, McBride did not provide a summary of those discussions to the committee, despite repeated phone calls asking for the information by Craig and Superintendent Bill Huyett.

McBride was not paid for his efforts, but in late May the school district approved a $15,0000 contract with Lifelines to Healing, an anti-violence mentoring program promoted by BOCA. (Note 7/1/11: McBride said BOCA will not benefit financially from this contract and is in fact, donating $10,000 to the overall project.)

A survey conducted by the safety consultant Al Bahn of Edu-Safe Associates only garnered one student response.(...)

Read the rest of Student voices are missing from gun safety report (224 words)

By Frances Dinkelspiel. | Permalink | 135 comments |
Post tags: Ad Hoc Safety Committee, Al Bahn, Bill Huyett, BOCA, Edu-Safe Associates, Pastor Michael McBride, Susan Craig

School safety committee issues weapons report

Frances Dinkelspiel — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 18:30:31 +0000

Berkeley High School, where there were six gun incidents in 2010-2011

Three months after two students accidentally discharged a gun in a Berkeley High School bathroom, a task force empaneled to study the issue of weapons has concluded that the school should not install metal detectors or close the campus during lunch, but should require students to carry – but not necessarily display — identification cards.

In addition, the school could improve safety by more closely controlling who comes in and out of the campus. To do that, the high school should reduce the number of entrances to campus to four and hire monitors to stand by the gates. The school should more strictly enforce its visitors’ policy to make sure everyone on campus has a legitimate reason to be there, according to the report.

The school should also retain the 12 safety officers currently on staff – up from 10 in previous years — and hire a second full-time police officer for the campus, if financially feasible. All security personnel should be required to wear uniforms that plainly identify them to students, staff and the police, concludes the report, which will be presented to the school board on June 29.

The eleven-page set of recommendations is the culmination of three months of work by the Ad Hoc Safety Committee, which was appointed by Superintendent Bill Huyett in April to review policies and procedures in the city’s high schools after a spate of six gun incidents in a two-and-a-half month period from January to March 2011. The large number of weapons found on campus deeply distressed the community and the school board and led to emotional community meetings, student focus groups, police training, a flurry of online comment, and a sense of urgency that the district had to quickly address a growing problem.

Right after the sixth gun incident on March 25th, the school district took a number of immediate steps to try and improve the situation and asked the 15-member task force to examine some long-term policy questions on how to eliminate – or at least minimize – the presence of weapons at school.

The district bumped up its security detail by hiring two more school safety officers and increasing the presence of a uniformed police officer on campus from four to five days a week. Berkeley High closed some entrances to the massive campus, positioned security guards at the gates in the morning and after lunch, and stepped up patrols in out of way portions of the campus. It installed an anonymous hotline to report weapons. There have been no other guns discovered on the Berkeley High or B-Tech campuses since the security upgrades.

The report, and discussion among committee members, provide some new details on the six gun incidents, which included six Berkeley students and one non-Berkeley student.

All of the on-campus incidents happened in the morning while the off-campus incident happened after school was dismissed.
A total of seven Berkeley students and one non-Berkeley students were involved in the six gun incidents.
Six of the seven students were not on probation prior to the incident
One student was a senior, three were juniors, one was a sophomore, and one was a freshman.
Three students had not had prior discipline incidents this year before they brought weapons to school.
All the students were male.
One student was homeless.
All resided in Berkeley
All have been expelled from the district

(...)

Read the rest of School safety committee issues weapons report (1,289 words)

By Frances Dinkelspiel. | Permalink | 137 comments |
Post tags: Ad Hoc Safety Committee, Bill Huyett, school shootings

Plans dropped for controversial community school

Frances Dinkelspiel — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 15:45:05 +0000

BUSD is dropping effort to establish community school at the Berkeley Adult School. Photo: Frances Dinkelspiel

The Berkeley Unified School District is dropping its efforts to place a school for expelled students inside the Berkeley Adult School on San Pablo Avenue.

Superintendent Bill Huyett thinks “the District has other more pressing issues and needs that require staff time,” according to a press release that was sent out at 12:40 a.m. Sunday “The District will continue to encourage the Alameda County Office of Education to locate services for expelled students in the northern part of the county.”

The decision means that the students expelled from BUSD, whether for truancy, bad behavior, repeated suspensions, and violent acts like carrying a weapon to school, will have to do independent study or travel to another community school run by the ACOE, like the one in Hayward. This year 17 students have been expelled from the district.

BUSD has been facing a number of pressing issues this year, and apparently Huyett was not willing to dedicate the resources necessary to fight off the objections of a group of neighbors who did not want a community school in their neighborhood.

The group, Berkeley Adult School Neighbors, thought the plan was not well thought out and accused the district of trying to slip in the school without adequately notifying the community. Neighbors were also concerned that crime would increase if a group of high-risk kids came into the area each day. City Councilwoman Linda Maio, who represents that area, had also expressed concern about the program.

This year, the district has had to deal with potentially huge cuts in its budget due to the state’s fiscal issues. Huyett and other top district officials have also been spending time creating a plan to address the prevalence of guns in Berkeley high schools. Earlier this year, two students accidentally shot off a gun in a bathroom portable at Berkeley High; a bullet penetrated the wall but did not strike anyone. There were five other gun incidents at the two high schools this year.

Huyett is planning to present a set of recommendations about guns to the school board on June 29.

By Frances Dinkelspiel. | Permalink | 53 comments |
Post tags: Berkeley Adult School, Berkeley Adult School neighbors, Bill Huyett, community school, Linda Maio

School committee finalizes report in wake of guns

Frances Dinkelspiel — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 18:15:45 +0000

A Berkeley High safety officer stands by a gate before the start of classess, part of a series of measures to reduce the number of guns on campus. Photo: Frances Dinkelspiel

In a small conference room on the second floor of old City Hall, a group of school administrators, parents, students, police and safety officers have met regularly over the past nine weeks to debate how to tackle the issue of guns at Berkeley High.

They have talked about the colors gang members wear – and whether gangs pose an issue at the school. They have argued about whether to close the campus, and how a cafeteria equipped to hold 500 would serve 3,200 students a day. They have talked about making school security officers more identifiable, how to encourage students to wear ID badges, and how teaching students about the dangers of guns might be critical to stopping the presence of weapons on campus. They have agreed that metal detectors just won’t work.(...)

Read the rest of School committee finalizes report in wake of guns (589 words)

By Frances Dinkelspiel. | Permalink | 35 comments |
Post tags: Ad Hoc Safety Committee, Bill Huyett, Karen Hemphill, Susan Craig

Community schools help kids but worry neighbors

Frances Dinkelspiel — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 21:00:28 +0000

The courtyard of the Hayward Community School

HAYWARD — Nine teenage boys and one teenage girl sat grouped around a set of desks arranged in a rectangle. Their eyes were focused on another boy standing in front of them, who was reading from his report on the effects of marijuana.

“People are introduced to marijuana usually by their friends, older sister or brother, or someone they know,” said the speaker, who looked up from his paper to flash a smile at his classmates, who then started to talk.

“You are doing very well,” said Annie Green, the teacher, who, without missing a beat, turned to the class and told them to tone down their chatter. “Save your comments for later,” she said. Green then turned her attention back to her standing student and started to probe some of the points he made in his presentation, particularly what marijuana does to pregnant women.

The scene could be one from any Bay Area high school with its mix of restless students and a teacher trying to tamp down their chatter. But this didn’t happen in an ordinary school. It took place recently at the Hayward Community School, a school run by the Alameda County Office of Education for students who have been expelled by their own school districts for truancy, bad behavior, repeated suspensions, and violent acts like carrying a weapon to school. Some may have served time in juvenile hall.

Nestled in the back of the bright yellow Eden Youth and Family Center on West Tennyson, right next to a pediatric clinic, a day care center and a day labor program, the Hayward Community School serves 64 of Alameda County’s toughest students, those, who, despite repeated chances, could not make it at their own high schools. They have been sent to the community school to sit out their expulsions, which may range from a semester to a year.

Four of the students at the Hayward Community School live in Berkeley, and soon, in the 2011-2012 school year, students like them might be able to attend classes in their hometown rather than have to travel to Hayward. The Alameda County Office of Education and the Berkeley Unified School District are proposing to create a small community school inside the Berkeley Adult School on San Pablo Avenue near Virgina.(...)

Read the rest of Community schools help kids but worry neighbors (1,630 words)

By Frances Dinkelspiel. | Permalink | 141 comments |
Post tags: Alameda County Office of Education, Berkeley Unified School District, Bill Huyett, Hayward Community School, Heather Wood, Mary Fisher, Michelle Lawrence, Robert Crose, Sheila Jordan, Vanessa Arce Kaskiri

New state budget is good news for Berkeley schools

Frances Dinkelspiel — Tue, 17 May 2011 18:00:23 +0000

The Berkeley Unified School District Board

The final numbers haven’t been completely crunched, and the legislature hasn’t passed the budget yet, but the fiscal situation for the Berkeley Unified School District for next year looks much better than previously thought.

Gov. Jerry Brown released his “May revise” budget on Monday and it contained an unexpected $6.6 billion in new revenues. Brown applied $3 billion of the money to K-12 education, which means BUSD won’t have to cut as much as $330-$700 per student, the numbers projected as recently as last week, according to Supt. Bill Huyett.

“We’re actually delighted with what we know so far,” said Huyett. “Overall it’s much better than we hoped.”

The news was not so good for childcare funds, which are used to pay for preschool children to stay all day at school, said Huyett. The governor cut those funds deeper than he had in his January budget.

BUSD is looking to eliminate the four remaining pre-K classrooms that offer care for as long as 9.5 hours each day. The district will now have to find additional ways to trim the budget, said Huyett, and more cuts could impact the district’s attempts to close the achievement gap. The childcare services mostly serve families of color who need full daycare so the parents can work, according to Pablo Paredes, chair of the School Governance Council for the Hopkins, King and Franklin preschools.

The district will have a better sense of the 2001-1012 budget by the end of the week, said Huyett.

By Frances Dinkelspiel. | Permalink | 2 comments |
Post tags: Bill Huyett, budget cuts, Pablo Paredes, Pre-kindergarten programs