Dublin High Senior and Drama Club President James Sievers spoke recently at a Dublin City Council meeting about his experiences at Dublin High. Mr. Sievers spoke about his positive experiences at Dublin High and how Dublin High has prepared him for the challenge of college.
Charter High School Debate: Facts, Myths, TBDs
Below is a summary of facts, myths and TBDs regarding the Tassajara Prep charter high school debate. OneDublin.org encourages parents to research and debate the issue – all Dublin students will be impacted by the outcome.
Dublin High Senior Ravali Reddy Accepted into M.I.T. and Stanford
There are hundreds of success stories at Dublin High every year – here is just one. OneDublin.org congratulates Dublin High senior (and student body President) Ravali Reddy for receiving a notice of early acceptance into M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Ms. Reddy is one of only 590 students to receive an early acceptance offer out of a pool of 5,700 applicants. In 2010, 96% of Dublin High grads reported attending college.
[Update] Ms. Reddy was later accepted into Stanford University (where she has chosen to enroll).
Ms. Reddy recently talked about her experiences at Dublin High at a Dublin City Council meeting:
Charter Schools Should be a Local Decision
Today’s San Jose Mercury News included an article on California’s approach to charter schools that is relevant to the current Dublin charter high school debate. As noted in earlier articles, OneDublin.org contends that charter schools can be an excellent solution to real problems, but that adding a new high school too soon means less choice for Dublin students.
OneDublin.org 2010 Goals Shared at Dublin School Board Meeting
At the Dec 8, 2009 Dublin School Board meeting, James Morehead (founder, OneDublin.org) presented the 2010 goals for OneDublin.org:
- Educate Dublin parents on the charter high school initiative and provide an independent forum for parent feedback.
- Drive the Dublin Unified School District (DUSD) to make permanent measuring and addressing the perception gaps about the quality of Dublin public schools.
- Direct the School Board to prioritize Smaller Learning Community methodologies at Dublin High School.
- Work with the School Board and District to institutionalize an annual Parent / Student Survey at all Dublin public schools, starting in 2010, modeled after the successful 2009 Fallon School Parent/Student Survey.
OneDublin.org was founded by Dublin parents as an independent voice and advocate for public education excellence. Subscribe to OneDublin.org (right-hand side of this page), follow us on Twitter or become a fan of our Facebook page, and most importantly share OneDublin.org with your friends, family and neighbors. Together our voices will make a difference.
When Charter Schools Work (The Harlem Children’s Zone)
60 Minutes aired an inspiring story tonight about The Harlem Children’s Zone – a charter school initiative tackling the enormous challenge of helping inner city kids achieve college admission. This program is an example of a charter school being created to solve a real problem, and in the case of The Harlem Children’s Zone, led by an experienced educator (in this case, led by Geoffrey Canada, Harvard Graduate School of Education). OneDublin.org is sharing this story to reinforce that charter schools created to solve a real problem and led by experienced educators make a difference.
OneDublin.org’s position is that the challenges faced by Dublin high school students are better served by a comprehensive high school as outline in detail in a recent article. Read more…
OneDublin.Org Online Town Hall Replay Available Now
For those that were unable to attend the OneDublin.org Online Town Hall webinar you can now view the presentation online with audio – in just 10 minutes. Viewing this webinar will educate you on the key points regarding charter schools, the charter high school proposal for Dublin and OneDublin.org’s position.
OneDublin.org is also now available on Twitter (http://twitter.com/OneDublin) and Facebook (http://tinyurl/onedublinfb).
The Importance of Choice (why a new charter school means less choice)
It may not seem logical – a new school means less choice – until the logic of critical mass is presented. Dublin’s neighboring school districts know this – the average size of high schools in the San Ramon Unified and Pleasanton Unified school districts is more than 2,000 students per high school (Dublin High has less than 1,500 students). A critical mass of students enables a school to offer more choice – more advanced classes – more performing arts options – more athletic teams – more extracurricular clubs. Choice for students is important when competing for the best colleges across the country – academic excellence is a baseline but not enough – acceptance into college requires academic and non-academic achievement.
29% of grade 9-12 charter high schools in California have failed
OneDublin.org is not an opponent of charter schools. As we’ve dug deeper into charter schools, however, it is clear that charter schools are a blunt instrument, risky to setup and heavily dependent on parental support (both donated time and donated dollars). As a result there needs to be a very strong motivating force behind a charter school – a charter school brought into a community needs to be a “must have” not a “nice-to-have” in order to overcome all of the challenges inherent in creating a new school. This is true for an elementary school or middle school, but is especially true for a charter high school. In a high school the stakes are higher – and the impact greater – if the school fails. Failure of a charter high school impacts students on the home stretch to college.
I Used to Fear Dublin High (I was wrong)
Let me tell you a bit about my past. When my older daughter was in middle school, I started to seriously look into high school options. Even when my daughter was going from kindergarten (a local Montessori school) to 1st grade, we investigated all the local options – public and private. We finally settled on Dougherty Elementary after talking to neighbors but most importantly, after we went to the school to meet the principal. While we are generally in favor of public schools, at the end of the day we are going to do what is best for our children.
OneDublin.org 