AGES Club provides students free gender-affirming clothing

News

Berkeley High’s Alliance for Gender Expansive Students started a free gender-affirming clothing program towards the end of last school year. AGES is a student-run club dedicated to making a safe space for transgender and gender-nonconforming students.  According to club leaders, their goal is to improve the school environment and raise awareness around LGBTQ+ issues.

"I kind of tried to stay off social media as much as possible"
"I didn’t and don’t have social media"
"I decided I hate it even more than I did before"
What was your relationship with social media this summer?

Interim Principal Tonia Coleman reflects on goals for the year 

News

Tonia Coleman is the interim Berkeley High School principal for the fall semester. She previously served as a vice principal under Juan Raygoza who is on paternity leave until January.  Coleman has worked with Raygoza since she got hired six years ago.  “I learned from him every day,” said Coleman.  “His decisions are student centered

Let's Be Friends

September 22, 2023

Welcome to this year's first episode of The Buzz! For the 2023-24 school year, we’ll be featuring in-depth discussions and interviews about topics that matter to our community.

The school year is well underway. We’re sitting next to new people in class, joining clubs, and meeting up with old friends. But making friends in high school isn’t as simple as it was in elementary school, when asking someone to join you on the swings was all you had to do. It’s more challenging now.

For this episode, we asked Berkeley High students to share their experiences. We also talked to Eva Cantor, a Bay Area therapist who works with teens, about how we can build more genuine connections and make good friends in high school

This episode was produced and edited by Miriam Reichenberg and Zazie Duchene. Interviews and additional reporting were conducted by Zazie Duchene, Emmett Price, Julia Brimmer, and Paolo Rivera. We included a clip from the song We’re Going to Be Friends by The White Stripes.

Opinion

Avatar of Carina Thomas

Born a Leader

Me? A leader? My past self could only laugh at the very suggestion of that title being assigned to me. As a quiet kid, taking on leadership roles was so foreign to me– as if that title were reserved only for those who were loud, authoritative, or just incredibly confident.

Two hands shaking each other.

Legacy admissions: rooted in inequality

Should college admissions be based on merit or circumstance? Now that the Supreme Court has ended affirmative action, a practice meant to ensure equal opportunities for all, it makes no sense to allow a true injustice in college admissions to linger: legacy admissions.

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Investigative

Berkeley Copwatch Investigates Possible BPD Arrest Quota

In November of 2022, recently fired Berkeley Police Department officer Corey Shedoudy leaked a series of texts from the BPD Bike Task Force. These texts included officers joking about a hypothetical disease that could wipe out the homeless population in Berkeley and alluded to a possible arrest quota that had been established within the

A new graduate going to college of the back of a letter of reccomendation.

Letters of rec process overloads teachers

“Out of all the 50 letters of recommendation that I wrote, I was happy to write all 50, and I think that each student deserved a great letter of recommendation,” said Erin Smith, a Berkeley High School Biology and Integrated Science teacher, “(but) at the same time it’s a ton of extra work that I

Entertainment

Jazz combos at BHS foster creativity, community, and challenge

The band program at Berkeley High School brings creativity, community and challenge to the people in it. Combos are a combination of anywhere from two to 10 people with a mix of instruments, can be a great way for student musicians to not only practice their instrument, but also to play in a more casual

Colossal movie flops of 2023

From the John Hughes teen movies that dominated the 80s, to more contemporary series like “Riverdale” and “Gilmore Girls”, there’s often been a longstanding history of inaccurate representation of teenhood.

‘Bottoms,’ a basic plot paired with campy, feel-good comedy

“Bottoms” was the most-watched film on Letterboxd, the social media website for film nerds, on its first week of wide release. It’s been marked as “watched” by over 100k users, far more than other summer movies like “Gran Turismo” and “Blue Beetle.” But it has thus far made a mediocre nine million at the box

Sports

In Donahue Gym, BHS’s girls varsity volleyball gathers as a team before a set.

Girls volleyball dominates Alameda

On September 12, the Berkeley High School girls varsity volleyball team played against the Alameda Hornets. Berkeley crushed Alameda; not one set was lost.  The first set was the closest.