Dublin School Board Approves “Cottonwood Creek” Name for New K-8 School

DUBLIN, CA–The newest school in the Dublin Unified School District has a name. At Tuesday night’s Board of Trustees meeting, the Board approved the name for the K-8 school/park site that will be opening in the fall of 2018. The school will be called Cottonwood Creek School, named for a tributary that runs near the site of the school/park in the Jordan Ranch Development. The name was approved 4-1 (Yea: Megan Rouse, Amy Miller, Dan Cunningham, Dan Cherrier; Nay: Joe Giannini). Also considered were Colina Ventosa School (Spanish for “Windy Hill”) and Virginia S. Bennett School (which would have continued the tie-in with Dublin history).

“We are excited to mark this important milestone in the process of opening our new school and park site,” said Board of Trustees President Megan Rouse. “We think this is a wonderful, distinctive name and we look forward to the next steps in the process toward opening Cottonwood Creek School for our students and community.”

The Board’s decision came after recommendations presented by staff from the facility naming committee that was convened earlier this year. The naming committee (see details below) was comprised of parents, District and City staff, students and community members in a process the district has utilized many times to name its new school facilities. In this case, the site is a joint school/park site which will house the K-8 campus as well as park facilities for the City of Dublin as the result of a partnership between the City and School District that allowed the district to acquire the land from the City at nominal cost.

The decision to name the school/park site Cottonwood Creek is a departure from the district’s past practice of focusing on individuals to serve as school site names, but represents a great opportunity to pay homage to the beautiful, natural attributes of the area in which we live.

Cottonwood Creek is one of the many waterways that have sustained wild animal and plant life in the area since before the modern-day settlement of the community we now know as Dublin. These streams were vital to our early settlers to sustain farm land and livestock. In addition, vast expanses of cottonwood trees were abundant in the area. The Spanish name for cottonwood is “Alamo”, a name broadly recognized in the Tri-Valley.

E-5 Naming Committee Roster