Longfellow school rebuild may not be complete until summer 2027

Longfellow students play on the back patio during lunch recess at their current campus at the Berkeley Adult School, Dec 18., 2024. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight Local

The reconstruction of Longfellow Middle School could now take up to three years, rather than the predicted two, and cost about $68 million, significantly higher than the original estimate of $39.5 million, according to the school district. The extended timeline is due to “unforeseen conditions as they are found and the level of work needed to mitigate the issues,” BUSD spokesperson Trish McDermott said in an email Tuesday. Among the discoveries is the need for seismic upgrades on some buildings.

The latest expected completion date is July 2027, according to a slide deck presented during a BUSD Facilities Subcommittee meeting on Nov. 14. Funded by Measure G, the project aims to repair severe dry rot and water damage to the main academic building discovered during remodeling work earlier this year which threatens the building’s structural integrity. Seismic upgrades also need to be made to some buildings.

“As we continue to work on this project, there have been extreme unforeseen conditions that have been identified. These conditions have pushed back the timeline and there is nothing that the district can do or could have done to avoid this,” McDermott said.

In June, BUSD red-tagged Longfellow’s main academic building and announced that the school would relocate to the Adult School campus at 1701 San Pablo Ave. (at Francisco Street). Students began the new academic year at the new location in August. According to BUSD’s FAQ page for the temporary move (now closed with a last update posted on Oct. 7), the relocation was originally slated to last through “at least the 2024-25 and the 2025-26 school years.”

A handful of BUSD parents attended the subcommittee meeting to express concerns about what they said has been slow communication and a lack of transparency from the district regarding construction updates at the middle school on Derby Street.

“It’s been really difficult to get any information from BUSD about the status of the project,” one of those parents, George Torgun, told Berkeleyside. “We’ve been asking for information for months now, and we keep being promised more information, but there’s nothing forthcoming.”

Torgun’s has two sons, one in fifth grade at Malcolm X Elementary and one in seventh grade at Longfellow. He said his eldest has adjusted well to the new school site, now biking from South Berkeley instead of walking each weekday morning, and he is grateful to be among the same community, albeit at a different location.

“It’s kind of a shame that they’re missing the Longfellow campus, which has a lot of great features, but we’re making it work as a school,” he said. 

Torgun said his older son will likely finish up his middle school years at the temporary school site, but he is unsure where his younger son will be attending class as a Longfellow student in the next few years. 

A district spokesperson said “all information” related to the construction project has been discussed in public meetings such as those held by the Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee and the Facilities Subcommittee. Officials plan to provide the community with an update on the project during the second school board meeting of January.  

The district said it anticipates repair plans for Longfellow’s main building to receive approval in spring 2025 from the California Division of the State Architect — the agency that oversees design and construction projects in public K-12 schools across the state. 

Dry rot will also be removed from Longfellow’s library and administration buildings, and the gym, which BUSD said had its “structure stability compromised” and will need maintenance work, with plans expected to be approved by September. The cost for this preliminary work is estimated to be $28.4 million. 

Constraints at temporary campus, but teachers and students are adapting

The school library workers have adapted to a smaller space that can’t fully accommodate all the books in the Longfellow collection. L to R: Emma Spertus, library technician, Melanie Ford, teacher librarian and Mary Ann Scheur, retired teacher librarian and volunteer. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight Local

As the first semester following the move comes to an end, Juliana Jones, an eighth-grade math teacher at Longfellow, and parent to a seventh grader at the school, said she thinks most people seem to like the new location. 

She said the new site is big enough to allow all teachers to have their own classrooms, and, unlike the original location, this building has cooling and heating.

But for teacher-librarian Melanie Ford, the transition has been less than smooth. 

“About four of these could fit in the old site,” Ford said Wednesday about the temporary library room at the campus.

She said Longfellow Middle School has an extensive non-fiction novel collection that could not fit into the new space. Ford instead prioritized keeping popular books like those about sports on campus, but hopes she can bring in more variety from their collection. 

Instructional specialist Nikko Butler works with students in the school’s garden and cooking class. Butler said adjusting has been difficult as the temporary kitchen facility is much smaller than at Derby Street and is lacking some necessary cooking equipment. Still, students have made meals like pozole for the whole school, and, on Wednesday this week, they were making cookie dough.

Crystal Paschel, another math teacher at the school, and a Berkeley Federation of Teachers union representative, said students seem to like the new space, especially the long and wide hallways. 

“They say it’s great for TikTok videos,” Paschel said.

Overall, the semester has gone smoothly, Jones said, but it took a lot of work to ensure a good start. 

“Teachers spent hours and hours of unpaid time to set up their classrooms,” she said. The district allowed them 12 paid hours to relocate, but she said educators spent closer to 30 hours moving into the new location. 

Paschel said parents and former students helped them move and ready the new classrooms for the school year. 

“In the end, it’s about what happens in your little room, and we create that because of who we are.”

Juliana Jones, Longfellow math teacher

“(The district) is still figuring it out, but it sounds like there’s a team of people who are trying to make this work for us,” she said.

Jones said the previous year at the original Longfellow campus was “extremely challenging” because of ongoing construction causing disruptive noise and dust. A floor was shut down, she said, and many teachers shared classrooms. 

“Last year was disruptive, but now it’s like ten times better and everyone is off to a good start,” she said.

Juliana Jones, an eighth-grade math teacher at Longfellow, photographed in her classroom after class on Dec. 18, 2024. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight Local

Students at the Berkeley Adult School have also needed to adjust to new temporary classroom locations at various other BUSD properties. District officials acknowledged on the FAQ webpage that staff will need to be “intentional and creative” in how they stay connected and “lean” into lessons learned during the pandemic when most institutions were remote. 

Officials said night classes are still offered on the Adult School campus during the temporary relocation and do not interfere with Longfellow programming during and after school. Additionally, building improvements at the Adult School are in the design phase but will be put on hold until Longfellow returns to its home campus.

Longfellow is not the only Berkeley school that has needed to relocate in recent years due to building safety issues. In 2020, North Berkeley’s Oxford Elementary School was relocated after a geological survey showed it was at risk of endangering students if a major earthquake were to occur. 

Jones, who’s been a teacher for 27 years, said these situations are “normal upkeep” for schools.

“In the end, it’s about what happens in your little room, and we create that because of who we are,” Jones said. “The building makes a difference, but it hasn’t disrupted too much of what I do.”

Affordable housing project for teachers slated to go ahead

The front parking lot of the Berkeley Adult School campus is slated to be the site of a 110-unit workforce housing complex. The project is expected to break ground in the spring. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight Local

Meanwhile, construction for a 110-unit workforce housing complex in the Berkeley Adult School parking lot is slated to begin by March, despite Longfellow’s temporary presence there, according to BUSD documents. The project will provide preferential affordable rental housing for BUSD employees.

Officials said a sound barrier, which will cost an estimated $550,000, will be placed between the construction site and classrooms to minimize disruptions. The project will require a full closure of the campus’ front parking lot, but bike and pedestrian ways will still be accessible, officials noted in the meeting. The Longfellow student drop-off area will be moved to the Virginia/Curtis streets side of campus during construction. 

According to the BUSD FAQ, no other facilities in the district besides the Adult School adhered to the “legal and logistical constraints” of operating a middle school. “In this emergency situation, there are no ideal solutions,” officials wrote.