{"id":266519,"date":"2026-04-14T01:35:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T01:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/266519\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T01:35:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T01:35:15","slug":"berkeley-private-school-with-a-colorful-and-groundbreaking-past-turns-80","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/266519\/","title":{"rendered":"Berkeley private school with a colorful and groundbreaking past turns 80"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\"Miss Ellis and her class at Berkwood School in the 1950s. Courtesy: Berkwood Hedge<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Betsy Willson with her kindergarten class during the 1978-79 school year. Courtesy: Berkwood Hedge<\/p>\n

Along with topics taught at nearly every school \u2014 math, science, reading, art \u2014 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\u2019s a dance party. The school also employs a staff storyteller who spins epic tales to young students during lunchtime.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/The sports courts outside the school. Courtesy: Berkwood Hedge<\/p>\n

Berkwood Hedge is honoring its past, and celebrating its future, with a special 1980s-themed event for its 80th anniversary on April 25 called \u201cSeeding Possibilities<\/a>,\u201d featuring stories from alumni, a paella feast and lots and lots of dancing.<\/p>\n

Expansion plans nearly blocked by Red Scare of the 1960s<\/p>\n

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 \u201cprovide a wide variety of experiences,\u201d to their children, while satisfying their \u201cphysical and intellectual, as well as the deeper emotional needs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"\/A clipping from a 1957 article in the Berkeley Gazette about Berkwood School. Courtesy: Berkwood Hedge<\/p>\n

After six months, the school relocated to a Boys\u2019 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 as well as the supposed ties of its director, Betty Halpern<\/a>, to the Communist Party.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Betty Halpern, director of Berkwood School from 1953-1968, plays music for children in the yard. Courtesy: Berkwood Hedge<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Old Finnish Hall<\/a>, where they finished out the school year.<\/p>\n

Merger with the Hedge School<\/p>\n

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 \u201chedge schools\u201d in Ireland, from which she took the school\u2019s name.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHedge schools were for kids who were not allowed to go to school,\u201d said Deanne Burke, who taught at both Berkwood, Hedge and Berkwood Hedge schools. \u201cSo people would volunteer \u2018behind the hedge\u2019 and teach kids to read.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

In 1975, Hedge School merged with Berkwood and became Berkwood Hedge School.<\/p>\n

\u2018The world is our classroom\u2019: Field trips have long been at the school\u2019s core
\n\"\"\/Berkwood Hedge School has been at the corner of Bancroft Way and Grant Street since 1958. Courtesy: Berkwood Hedge<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was more a calling for us or sort of a religion,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was never our goal to make kids into anything that they weren\u2019t,\u201d said Betsy Willson, another retired longtime teacher who served as associate director with Friedman.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the school has had many locations over the years, it has always operated with the mindset that \u201cthe world is our classroom,\u201d according to Love Weinstock, the current head of school.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Head of school Love Weinstock (left) leads a sound bath at Berkwood Hedge\u2019s middle school. Courtesy: Berkwood Hedge<\/p>\n

The 1957 Gazette article noted that \u201cBerkwood 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Field trips, big and small, are still a mainstay. First graders learn about accessibility by going to playgrounds throughout Berkeley. Second graders do a \u201cbridge study,\u201d 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 \u201cforest days,\u201d instruction takes place on a meadow in Tilden Regional Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The school left its mark on Vice President Kamala Harris
\n\"\"A page from Kamala Harris\u2019 2019 memoir,\u00a0\u201cThe Truths We Hold.\u201d Credit: Zac Farber\/Berkeleyside<\/p>\n

Kamala Harris, the school\u2019s most famous alum<\/a>, only attended the school for a single year, when it was still Berkwood School, but it left its mark \u2014 quite literally \u2014 on the future vice president.<\/p>\n

At the 2024 Democratic National Convention<\/a>, Stacey Johnson-Batiste recalled meeting Harris when they were both in kindergarten.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne day at school we made clay art projects,\u201d she said in the speech. \u201cDuring story time, when they were outside on a table to dry \u2026 a boy in our class took mine, threw it on the ground and it shattered.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stitches she got, left a scar over one of her eyes,\u201d said Johnson-Batiste. \u201cShe still has it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The night that Harris spoke and accepted the party\u2019s nomination for president, a Berkwood Hedge sixth-grader opened the DNC proceedings by leading the Pledge of Allegiance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"\/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<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were so proud,\u201d said Weinstock. \u201cIt was in the evening, but the whole school was watching together. Teachers came together to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weinstock was able to attend the convention, and remembering \u201cthat moment\u201d made her reflect on the long history of the school.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a special place for children, for teachers,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is a place where we love each other. We love our children and we love our program and we love our school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berkwood Hedge School<\/a>, 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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