Berkeley Unified School District Website

The instructional program in the Berkeley Unified School District is designed to provide students with a firm foundation in the skills, abilities and values necessary for success in all future educational, vocational and life endeavors. The program is articulated from K-12 so that knowledge and skills are built upon as the student progresses from grade to grade. The Berkeley Unified School District's instructional focus is on the whole child, meaning that the educational program includes nutritional awareness, emotional and physical growth, and community responsibility alongside literacy, mathematics, science, social studies, visual and performing arts, and global language instruction.

Berkeley Unified School District is known as an innovative leader in education. There are many examples of why this is a well-earned reputation.

• Berkeley High School is one of the few public high schools in California to offer additional laboratory sections for its science classes.
• In a new partnership with the Chez Panisse Foundation, Children's Hospital Oakland, and the Center for Ecoliteracy we intend to tackle the escalating diabetes and obesity rates in children by changing how we view the school lunch time, nutrition and health. This expands the vision of The Edible Schoolyard, a program that gives students the opportunity to grow, harvest and cook nutritious fruits and vegetables from their school garden.
• Berkeley High School has a larger athletics program than any public high school west of the Mississippi.
• Through the leadership of high school principal Jim Slemp we are continuing the development of small schools to make a large high school more intimate and responsive to kids.
• The African American Studies program is a model for high schools across the nation.
• The BHS Jazz Ensemble has won the Monterey Jazz Festival's Annual National High School Jazz Competition for the past two years. The event is the premier jazz band competition nation-wide and features jazz bands from across the country.

TELS: Technology Enhanced Learning in Science

At every School Board meeting there is an item on the agenda highlighting an academic instruction program. This presentation of instructional programs to the Board began in the Fall of 2004. Click the link below to bring up a specific presentation.