Moving to Berkeley for Sabbatical with a middle schooler

It's true that you may not get a spot at King even if you live in the King zone--and that will be true even if you don't wait until August to apply, because they may not have room for new students in eighth grade. Sign a lease as soon as you can; you can submit the application once you have a signed lease, even if it's before the start date. That will give your child the best likelihood of getting a seat. (Also note that the areas closest to campus are not zoned for King, so if proximity is important, you'll want to consider Willard and Longfellow too.) Most importantly, know that test scores are not everything--all of the Berkeley middle schools have strengths and challenges, and your child will likely be just fine for a year at any of them.

Congratulations, I hope it's a great sabattical year for your family.  Overall, enrollment is down across the district so if I don't know if there's any reason to fear you won't get assigned to the middle school in your rental property's zone. And, yes, Longfellow may have worrying stats online. The reality is much better - it's a small school, and like the other middle schools a vibrant community and wonderful faculty. Unlike our elementary schools, until last year, the middle school assignment process was not as balanced for geographic diversity. Like other parts of the US, our testing results remain high for kids with high socio-economic/educational advantages, regardless of the school they attend.  In short, Berkeley has three great middle schools and given the small size of Berkeley, all of the middle schools are close to campus!! (Note: I'm not a Longfellow parent but a neighbor to the school + know some of the great faculty).  

I'd highly advise you NOT reference your workplace location or family needs in regards to placement as the staff are quite immune to all these appeals.  Also, with an 8th grader, the expectation is that they are making their way to/from school independently and your workplace location isn't relevant. Luckily, public transportation options are overall excellent to/from all of the middle schools. 

There is no lottery for Middle Schools. You simply must live within the boundaries for a particular school. Your concerns about Longfellow are unfounded. First because it is no longer a magnet school and secondly where you go to middle school in Berkeley has very little to do with success in high school here. All the schools are good. 

Longfellow parent here — just echoing the response that you should feel ok about any of the three schools. Last year, Berkeley recognized the inequities in its middle schools and changed the zoning to include Longfellow (before that it had been a magnet school that was increasingly underserved). All of the schools have things going for them — Longfellow is the smallest and might even be easier for a new student to navigate than the others. I would encourage you not to worry.