Martin Luther King Middle School (Berkeley)

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Martin Luther King Middle School (commonly MLK or King) is a public school in Berkeley, California serving grades 6-8. Its address is 1781 Rose Street.

[edit] History

MLK was originally named Garfield Junior High School after U.S. President Garfield. It was re-named for the civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a few years after his assassination in 1968. Garfield was established in the early 1900s at 1414 Walnut Street, just south of Rose Street. Garfield was moved into new buildings at the present site of MLK in 1922. The original site on Walnut Street was subsequently used for an elementary school (University Elementary School), and later, as the headquarters of the Berkeley Unified School District until the 1970s. The site and buildings are today occupied by the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center.

King was originally a junior high school serving grades 7-9. In the 1990s, following multiple school closures and relocations caused by damage from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the Berkeley Unified School District's grade structure was reorganized. The ninth grade was moved to Berkeley High School, then the sixth grade classes were gradually moved from the intermediate schools to the junior high schools. At King, a new building was constructed to house the sixth grade classes, as well as a new library. The name was changed from "Martin Luther King Jr. High School" to "Martin Luther King Middle School" in the mid-to-late 1990s.

In the early 2000s, the main building of the school was completely renovated and made more earthquake-resistant.

In 1995, a garden project called the Edible Schoolyard was started on the grounds of King Jr. High, a project sponsored in part by noted restaurateur Alice Waters in which students at King learn about growing organic food through tending a vegetable garden. In the late 1990s, the garden was visited by Mister Rogers, longtime host of a PBS television program for children, and both the garden and school were visited by Prince Charles in 2005. ^[1]

[edit] Campus

The King campus is very large, occupying the equivalent of about four to six city blocks between Hopkins, Josephine, Rose and Carlota Streets. It includes a park, a swimming center, a fullsize track and soccer field, as well as several buildings.