In 1900, the citizens of Berkeley voted in favor of a bond measure to establish the first dedicated public high school campus in the city.

The local office of the Bay Cities Telephone Company sat on the site of today's administration building at the corner of Allston Way and Milvia by 1911.

On Arbor Day of 1902, noted naturalist John Muir joined Berkeley's mayor William H. Marston in planting a giant sequoia in a yard south of the new high school buildings.

The main building of the high school suffered moderate damage in the form of toppled chimneys, broken windows and some weakened walls as a result of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Professor Andrew Lawson of the University of California included one of his own photographs (shown at left) of the damage in his famous report issued in 1908.

[12] A significant portion of students and faculty alike were involved with the various forms of political activism which characterized the sixties in Berkeley, including protests against the Vietnam War, advocacy for civil rights and third world studies, and supporting People's Park.

[17] This gap extends beyond the results of standardized test scores and also applies to the disparity between certain groups regarding dropout rates, participation in honors classes and Advanced Placement (AP) exams, and numbers of students admitted to colleges.

However, after several years, it was clear that the learning communities model had made little progress in closing the academic achievement gap between students at BHS.

Percent of students "proficient or above" in Math and English California Standards Test (CST) scores A policy exists surrounding students who wish to be placed in IB or AC (the most rigorous of the small schools) that guarantees them a spot in one of those small schools if they don't list any other choices.

"[19] Segregation inside schools is directly influenced by segregation outside of school, and in Berkeley white students are more reported to be from middle and upper-middle-class families living the Berkeley hills while minority students are more reported to come from lower income families in the more flatland neighborhoods.

This is intended to counter the occurrence of freshmen choosing their learning community based on stereotypes within the school and give them the opportunity to learn what the communities are like first-hand before they decide which one to join by creating a "randomized and intentionally heterogenous collection of students who would share a core group of teachers" that monitor the students and make sure none slip through the cracks.

"[32] After the BHS lottery process and upon being placed into a learning community, students are required to fulfill each learning community's unique academic requirements and are able to choose additional courses from individual departments, like African American Studies, Math, Performing and Visual Arts, Physical Education, Science and World Language.

[33] If students prefer a more flexible and individualized education, they have the option of Berkeley Independent Study (BIS) as an alternative to the traditional classroom environment.

One worry, however, is the fact that because academic disparities among racial and socioeconomic groups are established in elementary and middle school, these programs aimed at closing the achievement gap at BHS won't make that much of a difference.

[23] The argument is then made for elementary and middle schools to make similar efforts in order to reduce those disparities more early on.

To add, the development of interactive feedback loops would give districts the potential to continuously measure effectiveness and then implement alterations or modifications to its programs.

It currently receives a rating of 8/10 by GreatSchools, which utilizes test score, college readiness, course offering, equity, and discipline data to evaluate schools.

The Florence Schwimley Little Theater, the Berkeley Community Theatre, and the G and H buildings are prime examples of the Streamline Moderne style designed by architects Henry H. Gutterson and William G. Corlett.