Our new neighbor: REALM Charter School

After many years, the BUSD buildings at the corner of University and Bonar are being renovated for occupancy. The site, which is called West Campus and was once a junior high and then the 9th grade of Berkeley High, has been vacant since the Berkeley Adult School moved to the former Franklin School on San Pablo at Virginia back in 2004. Much of the building will be used as the district headquarters of BUSD, which is leaving its current site at Old City Hall.

The West Campus site is also going to house a new charter school called REALM, which stands for Revolutionary Education and Learning Movement. The school has an admirable list of skills and outcomes, including intellectual openness, analysis, inquisitiveness, reasoning/argumentation, interpretation, problem solving, creativity and innovation, critical thinking, collaboration, ICT literacy (information, communications, and technology), and media literacy. The program will have four core elements; project-based learning, immersive technologies, Mindfulness in Education (transformative life skills), and participatory action research. They will open with 100 6th grade students and 100 9th grade students next fall, and grow to a full enrollment of 100 students per grades 6-12. We look forward to welcoming REALM to the neighborhood, and the opportunities for collaboration that may arise!