Berkeley Parents Network: Getting into King Middle School

Berkeley Parents Network

Getting into King Middle School

The Parents Network > Reviews > Schools > Berkeley Public Schools > King Middle School > Getting into King Middle School

Oct 2000

As was mentioned in some of the posts regarding riding AC transit, we live in walking distance of King but are in the Willard zone. Also, most of my child's friends will be going to King, so it would be great if he could go too. I checked the BUSD website and found out we would be Priority 5 (one notch above people who don't live in Berkeley!) - that sounds like we have very little chance of getting in. Ethnically, we are "other" so I'm not sure what impact that would have. Does anyone have experience trying to get into a middle school outside of their zone? Also, is there any information about construction plans at King over the next two years? Thanks! Anonymous

Frankly, forget it. I need to remain anonymous because I'm afraid of repercussions. We had a horrible, awful, traumatic experience with the Parent Access office. The parent access office certainly does not care about your child; only in looking at what numbers of what kids are at each school. Period. My child is now at a private school and we'll return for Berkeley High. I know there are kids who live in south eastern parts of Berkeley who have to take public buses to get to King, when they're closer to Willard. And parents who live right near Longfellow who couldn't get into that school and had to go to King.

I can offer two suggestions. First, lie about your address. Sounds terrible, right? I regret not doing that. You'd be amazed at how many kids there are at King who don't live in the King district, and don't even live in Berkeley. The administration may tell you this is not so, but it is. Ask the kids. I also suggest taking up the issue of offering a bus with school board candidates. There's a meeting at Malcom X next Tuesday. If the school board wants to provide a bus, that's the only way it will happen.

We also live very near King, and faced the same issues over the years. Bottom line is that unless you have time to raise hell for months, and organize a group of people to challenge this absurd situation, it will not change. Neither of my kids are white, which actually made it harder to get into King, because this whole arrangement came about years ago, when Hillside was closed, and the district wanted to divide up the white kids between King and Willard.

As it turned out, our daughter wanted to go to Willard, so spent our limited energy fighting with other parents for a school bus for her first year, since you have to transfer on AC transit, but she quickly became AC transit literate. My son, who is now in 8th grade at Longfellow, had no desire to go to Willard, and most of his friends are either at King or Longfellow. I think Longfellow is really good, his teachers this year especially are great, and he either takes the bus or walks, a long hike but he enjoys it, at least until the rains!! In sixth grade, he took the school bus, which Longfellow provides, since it is a magnet school. By the time they are in 8th grade, they really don't want to be on the school bus!! If you want more info about this, you can email me at chilp@jps.net. I would personally vote for Longfellow- all the construction is done, teaching staff is very good, and since its smaller, it feels less daunting than the other 2 schools.

We had a similar situation last year - we wanted my son to go to Longfellow (both because of the technology program and because it was right around the corner), but he was assigned to King. After many frustrating calls and visits to the Parent Access office, they finally assigned him to Longfellow. I think it helped to be persistent, or maybe we just got lucky. After getting what we wanted, though, his experience at Longfellow was disappointing. Because so much time was spend on "classroom management" stuff, he was bored a lot of the time. Most of the homework appeared to be busy work, and the teachers seemed unwilling to consider any compromises about homework arrangements. This year, I finally gave up on the public school and my son is now going to New Age Academy. He loves school for the first time in his life (whew!). I'd be happy to provide more information to interested parents. Diane

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