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Research dossier · History & Society

Berkeley High School (California)

high school in Berkeley, California, United States

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ4892030 ↗
Source-derived summary

Berkeley High School is a public high school in the Berkeley Unified School District, and the only public high school in the city of Berkeley, California, United States. It is located one long block west of Shattuck Avenue and three short blocks south of University Avenue in Downtown Berkeley. The school mascot is the Yellowjacket.

Some of the campus buildings are recognized as a Berkeley Landmark by the city; and since January 7, 2008, eight of the campus buildings were designated a historic district by the National Register of Historic Places under the name, the Berkeley High School Campus Historic District.

History

The first public high school classes in Berkeley were held at the Kellogg Primary School located at Oxford and Center streets adjacent to the campus of the University of California. It opened in 1880 and the first high school graduation occurred in 1884. In 1895, the first high school annual was published, entitled the Crimson and Gold (changed to Olla Podrida by 1899).

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. In 1901, construction began on the northwest portion of the present site of the high school. The main school building stood on the corner of Grove (now Martin Luther King Way) and Allston Way, where the "H" building is located today.

Editorial summary

“Berkeley High School (California)” enters the record as high school in Berkeley, California, United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Berkeley, High and School can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2008, 1880, 1884, 1895—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1880. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Berkeley, High and School.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Berkeley High School (California)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Berkeley, High and School provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4892030. VIAF identifies the subject as 191148752043841200544. The Library of Congress control number is no96060350. Authority coordinates are 37.868, -122.271. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2008, 1880, 1884 and 1895.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Berkeley High School (California)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Berkeley High School (California) primary sources, Berkeley High School (California) archive and Berkeley research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Berkeley High School (California)”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Berkeley High School (California)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.