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http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/berkeley-high-may-cut-out-science-labs/Content?oid=1536705


December 23, 2009 NEWS » NEWS

Berkeley High May Cut Out Science Labs

The proposal would trade labs seen as benefiting white students for
resources to help struggling students.
By Eric Klein

Berkeley High School is considering a controversial proposal to
eliminate science labs and the five science teachers who teach them to
free up more resources to help struggling students.

The proposal to put the science-lab cuts on the table was approved
recently by Berkeley High's School Governance Council, a body of
teachers, parents, and students who oversee a plan to change the
structure of the high school to address Berkeley's dismal racial
achievement gap, where white students are doing far better than the
state average while black and Latino students are doing worse.

Paul Gibson, an alternate parent representative on the School
Governance Council, said that information presented at council
meetings suggests that the science labs were largely classes for white
students. He said the decision to consider cutting the labs in order
to redirect resources to underperforming students was virtually
unanimous.

Science teachers were understandably horrified by the proposal. "The
majority of the science department believes that this major policy
decision affecting the entire student body, the faculty, and the
community has been made without any notification, without a hearing,"
said Mardi Sicular-Mertens, the senior member of Berkeley High
School's science department, at last week's school board meeting.

Sincular-Mertens, who has taught science at BHS for 24 years, said the
possible cuts will impact her black students as well. She says there
are twelve African-American males in her AP classes and that her four
environmental science classes are 17.5 percent African American and
13.9 percent Latino. "As teachers, we are greatly saddened at the
thought of losing the opportunity to help all of our students master
the skills they need to find satisfaction and success in their
education," she told the board.


The full plan to close the racial achievement gap by altering the
structure of the high school is known as the High School Redesign. It
will come before the Berkeley School Board as an information item at
its January 13 meeting. Generally, such agenda items are passed
without debate, but if the school board chooses to play a more direct
role in the High School Redesign, it could bring the item back as an
action item at a future meeting.

School district spokesman Mark Coplan directed inquiries about the
redesign to Richard Ng, the principal's assistant at Berkeley High and
member of the School Governance Council. Ng did not return repeated
calls for comment.