Shout out to Berkeley teachers who worked in the 60 and 70s: Pioneers in integration

Yesterday I attended a memorial service for a veteran Berkeley teacher. Keith Conning (obituary here) taught at King Jr. High and then Berkeley High School. I’m not sure if I ever had Keith as a teacher (my memories of that era are somewhat blurry), but I do remember Keith over the years. The service was powerful and emotional, with many families, friends, fellow teachers, former students, athletes (Keith coached track and cross country), and Scouts (Keith led a troop in Berkeley for a couple decades).

But here’s the shout-out I want to share with everyone that is often overlooked for Berkeley teachers of Keith’s era: These teachers were tasked with teaching integrated classrooms when the Berkeley school district decided to voluntarily integrate the schools in 1968.

There were no well-researched manuals on how to teach integrated classrooms in a large district. No professional development days with teachers from integrated districts coming to share their time-tested methods for helping students transition to integrated classrooms. No PowerPoint slides (oops, scratch that, slide show carousels) showing images of successful classrooms in other schools.

Nope, none of that.

Because Berkeley was the leader in voluntary desegregation. No other district had done this before.

But the teachers of this era were presented with this amazing challenge. I’m sure some of them were opposed to it, and I bet a few retired or left for other districts. But those who stayed worked through it, learning as they went. 

I have heard some fellow BHS Yellowjacket alumni complain about the difficulty they had making it through this era. And yes, it was a rough time for many. The teachers weren’t trained in what to do, neither were the students, nor the parents. But we all made it through.

So, my special shout-out goes to those teachers who knuckled down and did the work to help this incredible ‘experiment’ succeed. 

Was the experiment successful?

I believe it was.

I met students who I never would have known; I was able to experience diverse classrooms where I learned side-by-side with students from many racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds.

When I was teaching at Berkeley High around the turn of the millennium, I asked a teacher who had been in BUSD before and during integration about his experience. In a nutshell, his response was that, when integration first started, in many classes he had to create groups by race…that if he created mixed-race groups the students just wouldn’t work together. But, in 2000, while students still frequently socialized at lunch and after school with people of similar race, he could create groups in his class without worrying about race…kids would just work together (or, in some cases, not work together…they are high school students, after all).

For a recent student perspective on integration at BHS, see the “Long-lasting impact of BUSD integration policies” linked below.

So, thank you Keith Conning and all others from that era. Society gave you an extra task to do, and you took and did your best. And I think your best was pretty good.

Sites with more information

Here are a few websites with more information about Berkeley schools’ desegregation plan:

• Berkeleyside: A radical decision, an unfinished legacy (Oct 16, 2018). A deep dive into the history.
• California African American Museum: On September 10, 1968, the Berkeley public schools launched America’s first voluntary busing plan to combat school segregation (Sept 10, 2018).
• The Berkeley Revolution: Berkeley’s public schools. Scans of about a dozen original newspaper and other documents from 1968.
• Berkeley High Jacket: Long-lasting impact of BUSD integration policies (Sept 27, 2024). An article in the BHS student newspaper
• Berkeleyside: Kindergartners who integrated Berkeley schools in 1968 reunite (Sept 11, 2022). 

My life in BUSD

I started at Jefferson elementary school, and attended there for K-2. Jefferson was in the racial “middle” of Berkeley, and the school was probably more integrated than most of Berkeley schools. For second grade, we moved out of Jefferson district, but my parents asked the district if my (older) brother and I could stay at Jefferson, so when the district approved this request, we walked about a mile to school that year.

Bussing started when I entered third grade, and my mom remembers that BUSD had a strict ‘no exceptions’ policy for transfers between schools. My parents supported desegregation, so I walked about a half-mile up the hill to Oxford (my brother took the bus to his new school).

We lived in Kansas City during 4th grade, but when we returned to Berkeley (and into the house right next door to where we previously lived), I took the bus to Columbus (now Rosa Parks). While I can’t remember how this worked, somehow I was able to be on “Traffics” (Berkeley Junior Traffic Police) and guard the crosswalks at the school and still be able to get on the bus.

For junior high, BUSD had merged the three junior highs into two, and I attended King Jr. High (technically Martin Luther King Jr. Junior High). 

Ninth grade was at West Campus, one of the former junior high schools that was converted into a ninth-grade-only school where students from the two junior high schools finally got to meet each other. High School was at Berkeley High School main campus. I ran cross-country in my 9^th and 10^th grades, but, somehow, I don’t have many memories of Keith.

I returned to BHS in the 90’s; first to volunteer in a chemistry class for a year, and later as a science teacher (half my time there my last name was Amosslee, my married name at the time). While I taught at the same time as Keith, it’s a big school and we were in different departments, so I didn’t get to interact with him much.