Berkeley High School Graduation And BUSD's Jewish Community: BUSD Superintendent

Press release from the Berkeley Unified School District:

Dear Berkeley Unified Community,

This message was shared with the parents/caregivers of our high school seniors on Monday. I’m sharing it with you now after getting requests to share it more broadly in our school community —

Recently there has been some conversation about the date of the BUSD High School graduation to be held at Berkeley High School’s Jacket Field on Saturday, June 3. I would like to take this opportunity to provide some background information about our high school graduation ceremonies.

The whole-school graduation is a ceremony held in two sessions (10:00 am and 3:00 pm). This ceremony is open to all graduating seniors (with some discretion to pick the early or late afternoon).

In addition to the whole-school high school graduations on June 3, 2023, BUSD will host over 11 graduation ceremonies for graduating seniors (from Berkeley High School, Berkeley Technology Academy, and Berkeley Independent Studies) during the months of May and June. This includes graduation ceremonies for our small learning communities: Academic Choice, Berkeley International High School, CAS, AMPS, AHA, and the Multilingual Program. These more intimate graduations provide seniors with the opportunity to be celebrated and recognized with the group of peers they have known and worked closely with throughout their high school experience. BUSD will also host graduation ceremonies for affinity groups and programs, including Bridge, Latinx, African American, and AAPI students. All of these graduations are an opportunity to celebrate our students and their completion of high school.

At the start of my tenure as Superintendent, I was impacted and inspired by a meeting I had with a Jewish family. They shared with me that while their overall experience at Berkeley schools has been positive, there are also times as a family of Jewish faith they do not always feel included and embraced at BUSD. One example is the conflict that a Saturday graduation presented to them. Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath, a day on which some Jewish people would not be able to attend the graduation ceremony.

After this meeting, I was intent on better understanding the experience of Jewish families in BUSD, and I engaged in listening sessions with some members of the Jewish community. I also gathered information regarding the many factors, constraints, and contexts that drive high school graduation celebration logistics. As a result, I worked with district and high school staff to explore other possibilities of conducting the whole-school high school graduation ceremony and how to make it more inclusive. We explored things including a Sunday graduation; splitting graduation between two days; holding a Jewish affinity graduation, similar to the district’s AAPI, Bridge, and other affinity graduations; and conducting graduation several weeks before the end of school.

We were able to make some changes to graduations this year in response to the concerns raised by some members of the Jewish community. We moved the Academic Choice graduation from a Saturday to a Tuesday. Additionally, after meeting with BUSD Jewish students, we were able to make modifications to how a Saturday graduation could be run to try to make it more accessible.

Unfortunately, for a variety of financial and logistical reasons, we were not able to change the date of the whole school graduation this year.

Each year there are some families who are unable to participate in the graduation ceremonies for a variety of reasons. And each year we try to make accommodations, where possible, understanding that we will not be able to find a day/date that works for everyone. We are making every effort to avoid conflicts and issues with graduation dates going forward and we will continue to be in conversation to look for ways to make this year’s ceremony more accessible.

I look forward to continuing our collaboration and partnership with members of our school community to work at making graduations and other important school events as inclusive and welcoming as possible. We are excited to celebrate the graduation and many academic accomplishments of the Class of 2023 this Spring!

In community,

Enikia Ford Morthel
Superintendent