Student journalists at Berkeley High School can rest easy knowing their newspaper staff size and print will not be significantly reduced this upcoming semester.
In May, Dharini Rasiah, the faculty adviser and teacher who has run The Berkeley High Jacket for the past three years, was told she would need to teach an extra class this upcoming school year due to budget cuts. Because teachers have a maximum number of students they can teach based on the number of classes they have, the number of students who could participate in the journalism class comprising the Jacket would be severely curtailed, she said.
The paper’s average of more than 100 students would be reduced to fewer than 40, and the reduced number would have also limited the paper’s ability to publish every two weeks, students said. Last week, student members and adult supporters of the Jacket attended the Berkeley Unified School District School Board meeting to protest the changes.
“It’s an intricate organization,” Rasiah said. “Very complex. It’s very hard to manage just for one period.”
Rasiah said Berkeley High Principal Pasquale Scuderi contacted her Sunday and said the paper can be two periods, which would allow a higher maximum number of students who can work on the paper. Furthermore, print will continue once every two weeks.
“I’m so thrilled,” said Editor in Chief Julia Clark-Riddell, who is also a former employee of The Daily Californian.” We spent so much time trying to make this happen. I wasn’t very optimistic that we were going to get everything we wanted.”
School Board Director Karen Hemphill said that the skills students learn through participation in the program are important and can be used in future careers and is relieved the issue was resolved.
“There are lots of opportunities to expand our resources and maybe even increase our support and funding for these kinds of programs,” she said.
Contact Adelyn Baxter and Weiru Fang at [email protected]
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So basically, this woman was paid to sit on her azz and “supervise” the school paper, which (a) there is no need to do because it’s not like they are going to censor anything in Berkeley, nor should they even have the power to censor at all, and (b) you would think 100 students could figure out how to do it on their own, which ought to be whole point of the exercise.
Yet now, because this and other inefficiencies have blown the budget, she now has to teach an extra class. And that triggers some stupid rule of her union that is meant to keep her “student load” below a certain level, like she’s some kind of (brain)washing machine and they want to make sure she can get all the impurities out without anything sneaking through the cycle.
So rather than suck it up and stay an extra period to “supervise,” the stupid rule put in the CBA by her union was once again going to disadvantage the students, until a last minute compromise was worked out, the terms of which remain a secret thanks to the bumbling, innocent, pollyanna reporters who don’t ask the important questions.
You have absolutely no idea about what you are talking about.
Former JacketStaffer, I couldn’t have said it better myself.