History
MLK was originally named Garfield Junior High School after U.S. President James A. Garfield. It was renamed 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. 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. Following a long legal struggle, a new cafeteria (the Dining Commons) was opened for use in the fall of 2008. Prior to its opening food was cooked in a small room in the "Science Building" at the West end of campus.
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 restaurateuse Alice Waters and the Chez Panisse Foundation, in which students at King learn about growing organic food through tending a vegetable garden. The Edible Schoolyard has been integrated into the King curriculum, and involves students in growing, harvesting, and cooking the food from the garden. More recently, the Edible Schoolyard has become a key part of the King school lunch program, which now features fresh, seasonal foods instead of processed foods. 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. The school includes a middle school Newspaper known as The King Cobra.
Read more about this topic: Martin Luther King Middle School (Berkeley)
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