Ruth Acty Elementary School

Best school in Berkeley! Three out of my four children went here! AMAZING principle....teachers and staff! My daughter is going off to middle school next year and I will honesty miss this school!

Best elementary in Berkeley.

I attended this school for kindergarten for the 1965-66 school year. I think that my teacher was Mrs. Howell but I don't really remember all that well. The school was racially integrated, which was one of the reasons my white, liberal parents sent me there. One of the neighbor kids who also went there was called "Big Steve". I don't know what his last name was. i remember learning to play the game Carom in the schoolyard. We lived a couple of blocks away and walked to the school. I had two older brothers who were there longer than I was; they finished third and fifth grades there as I recall.

I attended Jefferson from 1968 to 1972, Kindergarten to 3rd grade. I had Mrs.Howell for K, Mrs.Haig for 1st, Miss Furichi for 2nd, and Mrs. Mengel for 3rd. I remember Nixon was running against McGovern and I got bawled out by the librarian for teasing an Asian boy because his parents were voting for Nixon. I remember learning to read and to write numbers up to one thousand in 1st grade. I remember singing in the Jefferson Choir wearing dashikis,gospel folk. I think the choir leader was named Larry Finlayson. Does anyone else remember?

I attended this school from kindergarten (1959) through 6th grade (1965). There was an innocence about this school that never can be revisited. Mostly Asian and European type in make-up,we had an African-American student body that increased from 2% to about 10% when I graduated to Garfield. An old slice of history. Thank you.