Vision

Our vision for Bernice Harrell Chipman Junior High School is to prepare and empower all students to become driving forces in today’s rapidly advancing society.

Mission

The mission of Bernice Harrell Chipman Junior High School is to provide students with a rigorous and innovative environment that will ensure academic achievement through collaboration, critical thinking, problem-solving, and inclusion.

Chipman Junior High was first opened in 1969 providing educational services for students in 7th and 8th grades. The school is named after Bernice Harrell Chipman, a longtime Bakersfield resident, who is most well-known for being president of The Daily Californian, the local newspaper. She also served and volunteered in many different capacities, including being named the honorary chairman of the Kern County Centennial Celebration in 1966. Chipman Junior High is dedicated to providing each student the tools and curriculum they need to be successful in each phase of life, from High School, College, career, and beyond.

Mrs. Chipman was a witty and intelligent writer. Bernice Harrel Chipman for many years contributed a weekly column, “What Do You Think?” to The Bakersfield Californian.

The daughter of publisher Alfred Harrell and his wife, Virginia, Chipman was born in Bakersfield in 1887. Following her marriage in 1911, she made her home in San Francisco, where she was a civic leader, but retained strong ties with her hometown and took an active interest in the newspaper until her death in 1967. As president of the corporation, she furnished leadership and vision, editorially.

Mrs. Chipman attended Bryan School, one of Bakersfield’s first elementary schools. She attended Kern County Union High School, graduating with the class of 1905. She was enrolled at Miss Murison’s School for girls in San Francisco when the 1906 earthquake interrupted her schooling.

“She certainly was a woman ahead of her time,” said Lawrence Weill, one of Chipman’s contemporaries. “In those days, women did not participate as they do now, but she always did.”

Chipman served on the boards of all the major arts groups in San Francisco and was president of such civic organizations as the Family Welfare Agency and the League of Women Voters. Earl Warren, then the governor of California, appointed her to a two-year term on the state Welfare Board.

She was instrumental in the creation of a replica of the Havilah Courier office at Pioneer Village and in 1966 was named honorary chairman of the Kern County Centennial celebration. “Bernice was sophisticated with a sense of what was right at the right time,” said her friend Marie Clerou Barnett. She was sort of New Yorkish, sort of Paris, and sort of Havilah.”