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Tag Archives: King Middle School
Man suspected of trying to abduct 2 Berkeley girls
On Thursday, May 2, officials say two sixth grade girls, who were waiting to be picked up from King Middle School, were approached by a man who asked them to help him retrieve an item from his car. The case is being treated as a possible attempted abduction.
On Friday, King Principal Janet Levenson sent an email and a recorded message via phone-tree to the King community in which she outlined what happened: “Yesterday at 3:00pm two 6th grade girls were waiting to be picked up at Berryman and Josephine,” she wrote in the email. “A man approached them saying that his keys had fallen into his car and his hand was too big to retrieve them. He pointed to the car which had the door open and was a couple of cars up the street. One girl started to go help him but her friend realized the potential danger and convinced her that they should run into the garden for help. The mom arrived almost immediately but the man was no longer there.He was described as a white male, 5’10″, thin build, brown hair and eyes, and driving a silver 4-door vehicle with no trunk (possibly a small SUV). Please be aware of who is driving around campus and remind your students to wait in front of the school.”
… Continue reading »
Learning to write, one edit at a time
By Mollie Hart
Andrea didn’t make eye contact with her writing coach right away. The 8th grader from Berkeley’s King Middle School brought out her rough draft of “An Open Letter to the Adults of our Country,” and started to read out loud, but kept her face turned away from the woman sitting next to her in the school’s designated “coaching” room.
“What did you think of the assignment?” the coach asked.
“It was okay,” said Andrea, without much enthusiasm.
Despite the young girl’s shy demeanor, the coach forged on. Soon the pair was talking about Andrea’s thesis statement, her conclusion, and how the American Revolution figured into the piece. … Continue reading »
All Berkeley comes together, celebrates hope on MLK Day
It felt like all of Berkeley was represented at yesterday morning’s Martin Luther King breakfast celebration down by the bay.
They came from seminaries and temples, political groups, law enforcement, schools, neighborhood associations and government departments — our assemblywoman, mayor, and chief of police were there, as were many church and community leaders, councilmembers, teachers, students, business men and women, and children. (Watch the slideshow of photographs, above, by Nancy Rubin.)
On a crisp winter morning, nearly 400 local people gathered to mark Martin Luther King Day, to share breakfast and to watch together live-streaming of the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States. … Continue reading »
Plans to put a beehive in every Berkeley middle school
A new initiative, spearheaded by Berkeley’s Edible Schoolyard Project, aims to put beehives in the city’s three middle schools by next spring.
King Middle School’s one-acre garden, home to the Edible Schoolyard, has already jumped in having acquired a hive of Russian bees six weeks ago, under a program the organizers named Bee Experimental Education in Schools (BEES).
The idea, said Edible Schoolyard Director Kyle Cornforth, is to extend King’s existing hands-on gardening and cooking education to include learning about pollination. … Continue reading »
Berkeley schools show gains on standard tests
The California Department of Education yesterday released its 2012 Accountability Progress Report, which show significant gains for Berkeley schools on both the state Annual Performance Index (API) and the federal Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). (Details of both district and individual school results for API and AYP can be seen on the state’s Accountability Progress Reporting site.)
Berkeley Unified School District had an overall growth of 19 points for a district-wide API of 810. Each of Berkeley’s elementary and middle schools exceeded the statewide API target of 800 or above. Berkeley High School, which went years without having enough students take the test to get an API, had a 19-point growth for a school API of 734, which was above the school’s target growth for the year. Only 30% of high schools in California exceeded an API of 800.
“I think these results are evidence that Berkeley is on the right track, that we’re making a difference for our kids,” said Co-Superintendent Neil Smith. “I think particularly looking at achievement all across elementary reading was a real strength for the district. Where we still have a lot of work to do is the high school.” … Continue reading »
Berkeley’s King school voted one of nation’s “coolest”
Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Middle School is one of the “25 coolest schools in the nation” according to Scholastic Parent & Child magazine whose annual list aims to showcase public schools that inspire.
The selection — which ranges from an elementary school in Wisconsin that’s using assistive technology to untap the potential of disabled kids to the nation’s largest online public school, based in Florida — also has an underlying agenda, says Parent & Child Editor in Chief Nick Friedman.
“We want to change the conversation,” he says. “There is so much negative talk about public education in America and the need to ‘fix’ public schools. That story is covered. We want to focus on the positive.” Friedman says the editorial team works to identify aspects such as community involvement and student engagement at schools which make them models for everyone. … Continue reading »
Olympic star Natalie Coughlin runs with King students
On Monday, 11-time Olympic medallist Natalie Coughlin introduced First Lady Michelle Obama at a Let’s Move press conference in Dallas. Yesterday, the Cal grad and Lafayette resident took time out from her training schedule to join with students at Berkeley’s King Middle School at its annual runathon.
Tagged King Middle School, Natalie Coughlin
New group with Berkeley roots aims to get kids outside
Sharon Danks and her colleagues around the world are doing their best to combat so-called nature deficit disorder in today’s children, many of whom are growing up with competing demands such as “screen time,” and other barriers to a romp in the park such as safety concerns or access issues.
Danks, a planner and partner with Bay Tree Design in Berkeley, recently co-founded the global group International School Grounds Alliance to address an increasingly sedentary and risk-averse generation of young ones who, it is feared, are becoming disconnected from their natural environments. Some children, shuttled from school to home to other indoor activities, simply don’t spend much, if any, time in the great outdoors.
The nascent organization, with members in Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, want kids to experience the fun and games of outside play. … Continue reading »
The atmosphere at Martin Luther King Middle School is normal today, following a fight on Wednesday between two students that sent one to the hospital.
Two 14-year old eighth graders who are friends got into an argument on the blacktop outside the school gym around 8:15 am, according to Sgt. Mary Kusmiss of the Berkeley Police Department. It quickly evolved into a physical fight.
One of the teens used his hands and feet to punch and kick the other, according to police. He continued to beat up his friend once he fell to the ground.
The injured youth was taken to Kaiser Richmond where he was treated for his wounds and released. He was not seriously injured.
Berkeley police took the perpetrator to a holding cell at police headquarters and he was released into the custody of a guardian. The case has been referred to detectives at Youth Services Detail, said Sgt. Kusmiss.
Ex Berkeley teacher Marie Schumacher plays hometown
Back in the mid-1990s when Marie Schumacher was teaching at Berkeley’s King Middle School, her students didn’t know she was living a double life. By day she elucidated math and science for sixth graders, and by night she performed at venues like Albany’s Club Muse and Berkeley’s Rose Street House of Music. While honing her craft with bands like the retro-pop combo Agent 99, she started to develop her own book of tunes as a singer/songwriter.
Based in Portland, OR since 2000, the vocalist, guitarist, pianist and vocal arranger has maintained close creative ties to the East Bay through her long-running faculty position at Cazadero Music Camp. She plays her annual Berkeley concert Saturday February 4th at the Subterranean Arthouse with bassist John Foster, drummer Jon Arkin and guitarist Steve Gibson, co-founder and co-director of Berkeley’s innovative music program BandWorks.
Her latest album, “Island Set Aflame,” is the result of her revived collaboration with Gibson, with whom she often performed back in the 90s. While developing the new music in the fall of 2008, she received a jolt of inspiration from a spectacular brush fire that swept across Angel Island, with flames visible from her rehearsal. Crystallizing themes of destruction and creation, life and death, she wrote a series of thematically linked songs that Gibson set to beautifully latticed arrangements. … Continue reading »
A freezing morning in Berkeley
The temperature gauge read 29 degrees this morning in Berkeley. Citizen reporter Aaron Glimme took a shot of a determined runner on the frost-covered track at King Middle School.
The cold, clear weather that has parked itself over the Bay Area for the past six weeks should be moving on soon. Weather forecasters have predicted rain for Wednesday and Thursday.
Tagged Aaron Glimme, King Middle School
Record $244,000 in grants to 400 Berkeley teachers
The Berkeley Public Education Foundation (BPEF) announced this week a record total of $244,000 in grants funding over 400 teachers in Berkeley public schools.
“We’re counted on by teachers who are now looking under every rock for funding,” said Molly Fraker, executive director of BPEF. “There’s not any public funding left for this kind of thing.”
The largest award is a single $44,000 grant to complete a two-year effort to build permanent book collections in every classroom throughout Berkeley’s 11 elementary schools, done in conjunction with the school district. But awards range widely, with most being for a few hundred dollars for projects like teaching nutrition while making smoothies for preschoolers at Hopkins, to purchasing a color printer for visual materials at the Arts Magnet, to plants and supplies for the school garden and chickens at John Muir Elementary. The complete list can be downloaded as a spreadsheet. … Continue reading »
Summer cooking camps: tales of solar oven berry crisp
The long foggy days of summer in Berkeley mean summer camp for many kids. In such a food-focused town it’s not surprising to learn that camps designed to encourage edible adventures are popular among the next generation of home cooks and potential professional chefs.
What may surprise you is the skills the young students master, like making pasta from scratch, using a culinary blowtorch, and preparing a four-course family meal. And the lessons the children learn: following a recipe is mostly a good thing, sometimes a dish missing many of its ingredients doesn’t taste so great, and working as a team means sitting down sooner to eat the culinary creations.
For young ones in town there are several cooking camps to choose from; we spotlight three here where children learn kitchen techniques such as knife skills, measuring and mixing, and reading a recipe, along with cleaning up and the pleasure of enjoying a meal together. … Continue reading »
