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Miss Ellis and her class at Berkwood School in the 1950s. Courtesy: Berkwood Hedge

Eighty years ago, five mothers, concerned about overcrowding and the lack of competent teachers in public schools immediately after World War II, came together and opened their own parent-run elementary school with just nine students. 

They named it Berkwood School, and through decades of trials and tribulations, strikes and setbacks, mergers and expansions, not to mention some half dozen different sites, the independent nonprofit school, now known as Berkwood Hedge, survives to this day.

Throughout its history, the private school has always been at the vanguard of progressive causes. Racially diverse from the very beginning, it was the first school in Berkeley to offer before- and after-school child care. In the 1970s, students rallied against the war in Vietnam, boycotted grapes in support of farmworkers and wrote letters to save the whales. These days restorative justice circles are a mainstay. 

Betsy Willson with her kindergarten class during the 1978-79 school year. Courtesy: Berkwood Hedge

Along with topics taught at nearly every school — math, science, reading, art — students also learn Latin, woodworking, performing arts and yoga. They may take lessons in knitting, herbalism, circus arts, coding and cooking. Other weekly activities might include sound baths or roller skating (the school has 100 pairs of skates for the purpose), and every Friday there’s a dance party. The school also employs a staff storyteller who spins epic tales to young students during lunchtime. 

Its alumni have gone on to become scientists and teachers and artists. One is developing robotic systems to treat cancer. And another went on to become vice president of the United States. 

Today, Berkwood Hedge has 115 students, split between the elementary school, also known as the Lower School, which serves kindergarten through 4th grade, and the middle school, which serves 5th through 8th grades.

The sports courts outside the school. Courtesy: Berkwood Hedge

Berkwood Hedge is honoring its past, and celebrating its future, with a special 1980s-themed event for its 80th anniversary on April 25 called “Seeding Possibilities,” featuring stories from alumni, a paella feast and lots and lots of dancing.

Expansion plans nearly blocked by Red Scare of the 1960s

Berkwood School was founded in 1946 inside the home of a parent on Colby Street in South Berkeley. The five founding mothers, according to a 1957 article from the Berkeley Gazette, wanted to “provide a wide variety of experiences,” to their children, while satisfying their “physical and intellectual, as well as the deeper emotional needs.” 

A clipping from a 1957 article in the Berkeley Gazette about Berkwood School. Courtesy: Berkwood Hedge

After six months, the school relocated to a Boys’ Club in West Berkeley and then to a building owned by the YMCA downtown, then to a church in Kensington, and then to another church in South Berkeley, before buying property on Bancroft Way in 1958, where the elementary school has been ever since. 

In 1962, as the school was set to expand its facilities, several community members appealed to the City Council to deny the expansion, complaining about noise and increased traffic — as well as the supposed ties of its director, Betty Halpern, to the Communist Party. 

One of the neighbors quoted from the Congressional Record of the House Un-American Activities Committee, which stated that Halpern pleaded the fifth when an investigator asked about her affiliation with the party, according to an article in the Berkeley Gazette.

The City Council ultimately sided with the school on a 5-3 vote, with one dissenter citing the House Un-American Activities Committee report as swaying her vote.

Betty Halpern, director of Berkwood School from 1953-1968, plays music for children in the yard. Courtesy: Berkwood Hedge

In 1968, Halpern left Berkwood School, and the new leadership caused a rift among the teachers. Four of the six teachers went on strike and ultimately left the school, along with their students, and set up a makeshift school inside Berkeley’s Old Finnish Hall, where they finished out the school year.

Merger with the Hedge School

In the late 1960s, Alice Sederholm, a former Berkwood parent, started another progressive elementary school in Berkeley. Sederholm was inspired by Summerhill, an independent, democratically run boarding school in England, as well as “hedge schools” in Ireland, from which she took the school’s name. 

“Hedge schools were for kids who were not allowed to go to school,” said Deanne Burke, who taught at both Berkwood, Hedge and Berkwood Hedge schools. “So people would volunteer ‘behind the hedge’ and teach kids to read.”

Hedge School was run as a teacher collective. There was no director, every teacher had an equal vote and everyone made the same salary.

In 1975, Hedge School merged with Berkwood and became Berkwood Hedge School.

‘The world is our classroom’: Field trips have long been at the school’s core
Berkwood Hedge School has been at the corner of Bancroft Way and Grant Street since 1958. Courtesy: Berkwood Hedge

The types of teachers Berkwood Hedge has attracted have always been a different breed, according to Jane Friedman, a longtime teacher who began her career at Hedge School and served as director of Berkwood Hedge until retiring in 2012.

“It was more a calling for us or sort of a religion,” she said. 

“It was never our goal to make kids into anything that they weren’t,” said Betsy Willson, another retired longtime teacher who served as associate director with Friedman.

In 2020 the school expanded, adding a middle school. And in the long tradition of embedding inside religious institutions, took up residence inside two buildings on the Pacific School of Religion’s campus. Current tuition is $31,500 for the Lower School and $37,500 for the middle school. But more than half of families receive some sort of tuition assistance, according to Weinstock. 

While the school has had many locations over the years, it has always operated with the mindset that “the world is our classroom,” according to Love Weinstock, the current head of school.

Head of school Love Weinstock (left) leads a sound bath at Berkwood Hedge’s middle school. Courtesy: Berkwood Hedge

The 1957 Gazette article noted that “Berkwood children could be found on a supermarket loading dock, a San Francisco-bound ferry, at a nearby dairy, or in the city library, a fire station, or book store.”

Field trips, big and small, are still a mainstay. First graders learn about accessibility by going to playgrounds throughout Berkeley. Second graders do a “bridge study,” traveling to every major bridge in the Bay Area while learning about engineering. Third graders learn to take the bus and map out routes to the Berkeley Marina where they study birds. There are camping trips galore. Several times a year, on so-called “forest days,” instruction takes place on a meadow in Tilden Regional Park. 

The school left its mark on Vice President Kamala Harris
A page from Kamala Harris’ 2019 memoir, “The Truths We Hold.” Credit: Zac Farber/Berkeleyside

Kamala Harris, the school’s most famous alum, only attended the school for a single year, when it was still Berkwood School, but it left its mark — quite literally — on the future vice president.

At the 2024 Democratic National Convention, Stacey Johnson-Batiste recalled meeting Harris when they were both in kindergarten.

“One day at school we made clay art projects,” she said in the speech. “During story time, when they were outside on a table to dry … a boy in our class took mine, threw it on the ground and it shattered.”

Johnson-Batiste then recalled how Harris confronted the boy, who subsequently hit her over the head with a rock, leaving a bloody wound that required stitches.  

“The stitches she got, left a scar over one of her eyes,” said Johnson-Batiste. “She still has it.”

The night that Harris spoke and accepted the party’s nomination for president, a Berkwood Hedge sixth-grader opened the DNC proceedings by leading the Pledge of Allegiance. 

Berkwood Hedge student Luna Maring leads the Pledge of Allegiance at the 2024 Democratic National Convention on the night that Vice President Harris spoke. Credit: C-SPAN

“We were so proud,” said Weinstock. “It was in the evening, but the whole school was watching together. Teachers came together to watch.”

Weinstock was able to attend the convention, and remembering “that moment” made her reflect on the long history of the school. 

“This is a special place for children, for teachers,” she said. “This is a place where we love each other. We love our children and we love our program and we love our school.”

Berkwood Hedge School, Lower School (K-4): 1809 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. Phone: 510-883-6990. Middle School (5-8), 1798 Scenic Ave., Berkeley. Phone: 510-631-6179. Connect via Facebook.

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