Peralta Community College District

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The Peralta Community College District is the community college district serving northern Alameda County, California. The district operates four community colleges: Berkeley City College, Laney College and Merritt College in Oakland, and College of Alameda.

[edit] History

Merritt College opened as a general campus in 1954. It had been known as the Merritt School of Business, and along with what is now Laney College, was operated by the Oakland Unified School District as Oakland Junior College.

In 1963, the residents of Alameda, Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland and Piedmont voted to form a single community college district. The district began operations under the Peralta name on July 1, 1964. The Peralta name was selected because all of the cities of the district, now a part of the greater Oakland metropolitan region, are located on the original Spanish land grant for Sgt. Luís María Peralta in August 1820.

In 1965, a bond issue was passed which established a new downtown Oakland campus building for Laney College (opened in 1970), a new campus for Merritt College (opened in 1971) and the founding of the College of Alameda.

Berkeley City College was established in 1974 and operated under the name Vista Community College until 2006, when it began to operate from a permanent site.

Feather River College was operated by the Peralta CCD from 1968 to 1988, when Plumas County was de-annexed from the district; it now operates as the flagship campus of its own district. [1]

The Peralta district is governed by a seven-member Board of Trustees elected by the public within the district boundaries. Two student members sit on the board, but do not have voting rights. The current (2006) chancellor of the district is former Oakland mayor Elihu Harris.