Act!
Want to take action for Dublin public education and aren’t sure where to start? Here is your “get involved” checklist. Whether you have minutes or hours your help is valuable.
- Take the Dublin High Quiz: how much to do you know about Dublin High School? Try our quiz available here.
- Tell your Dublin friends, family and colleagues about OneDublin.org, email them, Become a Fan of the OneDublin.org on Facebook.
- Make your voice heard:
- Alameda County Office of Education key contacts: Trustee, Area 7 (includes Dublin) Yvonne Cerrato: yvonnecerrato@comcast.net, Superintendent Sheila Jordan: sheilaj@acoe.org
- Dublin Unified School District key contacts: Board of Trustees President David Haubert: davidhaubert@comcast.net, Superintendent Dr. Stephen Hanke: hankestephen@dublin.k12.ca.us
- California State Board of Education contacts
- Write a letter to the editor of a local paper (Dublin Patch, TriValley Herald, Valley Times)
- Raise the profile of Dublin High School by posting a short review of Dublin High in key places. Write one review and post in all of these places:
- Dublin Patch – Dublin High page
- Yelp – Dublin High page
- Education.com’s Dublin High page
- GreatSchools.org’s Dublin High page
- education.com’s Dublin High page
- YellowPages.com Dublin High page
- Telonu Dublin High page
- SchoolDigger’s Dublin High page
- Google’s Dublin High page
- Trulia’s Dublin High page
- Make contributions to Dublin High School’s Wikipedia entry
OneDublin.org 
A wheels bus is no enticement for me to allow my kids to attend Dublin High. There should be Dublin school board funded busing for all East Dublin kids. I will probably leave this city before my children become high school aged (currently they are 9, 6) as I do not wish to have them travel miles on a city bus to a West Dublin school which is antiquated. Tooting the horn of an individual who got into MIT (Is this the first one ever?) is nothing to brag about. As an individual who graduated high school from a school ranked in the US News ranking for over 20+ years, I don’t put much stock in the whole “Dublin High” is great story. I prefer my kids graduate from a high school with no more than 300 kids per graduating class. Sending them to Dublin High will most likely put them in a graduating class of 700+ students. No thanks. I’ll take my tax dollars to a more favorable community.
Appreciate you taking the time to provide your direct feedback.
Respectfully your comment regarding an aniquated school is inaccurate – $120M of Dublin taxpayer money is going into completely rebuilding Dublin High, and the brand new Math and Science Building has already won an award for green, state-of-the-art design. You may agree or disagree with the rebuilding of the school but it is a statement of fact that most classroom work is already done (and all classrooms will be rebuilt by the end of this year), and that the entire campus will be rebuilt by 2012-3. More on the rebuilding project and timeline available here. Since your oldest child is 9 (the age of my younger daughter), the rebuilding project will be completely finished before your older child reaches high school age and my child enters Dublin High as a freshman. Dublin High will be a brand new school.
A district-funded bus route would, I agree, be great but the reality of state budget cuts likely makes that unrealistic. The same would apply for a charter school – there is nothing I saw in the Tassajara Prep budget that accounted for a bus route for students that can’t walk to school (and there is no guarantee that the temporary or even permanent location of the charter school, if approved, will be on the “east” side of Dublin). For a district-run or charter-run school some additional fee or tax would be required to fund a school bus (and that begs the question, isn’t Wheels a more cost effective option anyway?) The bus issue is a money issue pure and simple.
The school size issue is a legitimate debate and one that has been written about on this site – there are multiple paths to achieving that end. OneDublin.org has publicly stated that a Smaller Learning Community model would be a valid approach at Dublin High – combined with the scale and choice you get from a larger campus – exactly like a university. That could mean pursuing an IB or Magnet Program, for example, within the Dublin High campus. The point is whether or not you believe continuous improvement is best accomplished within our existing school district or by taking the substantial risk of starting from scratch with a charter school. Note that the smallest high schools in Pleasanton Unified and San Ramon Unified (both districts with strong performing high schools) have average high school enrollments exceeding 2,000 students.
I realize there is likely nothing I can say or do regarding your perception of Dublin High and the quality of education it offers. I hope we can agree that I care just as much about the quality of education for my children as I know you must. I attended the premier private high school available where I grew up, went on to college and a graduate degree. My wife had a similar experience. My older daughter aspires to attend UC Berkeley and is a freshman at Dublin High. We believe in Dublin High based on our research and direct experience.
I recommend also taking a look at the early acceptance results and prior year college admissions for Dublin High grads available here.
I would like to know who the mayor of East Dublin is. I can’t seem to find this city on any maps. I recently talked to a friend of mine who plays softball in an adult league in Pleasanton. She played on a Pleasanton team because she thought no teams from Dublin were in the league. One night at the games she noticed there was a team from Dublin there, but their shirts read “East Dublin”. She went over to the team to meet them and said, “You guys are from Dublin, right?”. They replied, “No, we are from East Dublin”. Wow. I think some might get the impression that there are 2 parts of Dublin because Camp Parks is in the middle, and when you drive on Dublin Blvd between Hacienda and Dougherty it might seem that there is nothing there except BART. If you look on the north side of Dublin Blvd, you will see Camp Parks. Now like it or not, the military has a big presence in Dublin. Camp Parks is in Dublin and it does create a fictional East Dublin. Another point I heard a supporter of the Prep school make was that they just paid a million dollars for their home and they deserve their own high school. Really? Are you going to stomp your feet and hold your breath until mommy and daddy builds you a school? Lastly, we only need to look down the road at Union City. That city is almost double the size in population as Dublin. Guess how many high schools they have……….1! Come on people, don’t be an elitest. When the school board votes no against the charter, don’t go against the wishes of the board, not to mention a majority of the citizens of Dublin, and go to the county, then state. This is still a democracy where we vote, and the majority wins. When you loose, take your ball and go home. If you sue to get your school built, you are going to divide this city which will take years to mend, if at all.
@Go Gaels … that is exactly the kind of rhetoric that makes most people (at least the ones living in “east dublin”) believe that their interests have not been considered. it is also what is resulting in a number of families with growing children moving to other communities (this will destroy dublin more than anything else). while dublin high supporters make a big deal about keeping dublin whole, their language, tone and sentiments say the exact opposite. it is very clear to me that they have a chip on their shoulder and play that card at every opportunity. residents of dublin that live to the east of camp parks (not “east dublin” as you like to point out) are not trying to divide dublin, they just want quality education for their children. residents of west dublin and dublin high supporters on the other hand, consistently send the message – “deal with it or get out of dublin”. i have seen good and bad arguments for both the charter school and staying with dublin high. there are merits to both sides. at the end though, i am a resident of east dublin and do believe that there is really no location that would make everyone happy and given that most of the money is already spent, there is really no choice but to support dublin high. while it is unfortunate that the interests of families living in the eastern part of dublin were not considered, building a charter school will only make things worse. if the transportation issue was addressed, it might make things a little more palatable (connecting gleason to dougherty thru camp parks would be a huge benefit!) – also, let WHEELS provide the service, but give high school students a free ride – VTA does that in the south bay for students, so it is possible. like you say it’s a democracy and the majority will win, but there is no point in wasting time, resources, effort and money if an amicable solution can be found. changing your tone, understanding the concerns and trying to address them will go a long way. accusations of being elitist, divisive, telling people to leave if they don’t like it? … all sounds very macho, but in the end it is you that is responsible for the divide – if one exists. asking for good education and easy access is what normal parents who are concerned about their children’s future do – it does not mean you are being elitist or divisive – if they don’t get it here, they will go somewhere else where it can be found (trust me – there are a large number of families that will move rather than get into a fight with fanatics like you – hundreds have already done so). if you believe that the best thing for dublin is for people to fall in line or get out, then I guess, you should hold firm in your beliefs. on the other hand, if like me (and many others, I’m sure), you believe that the best thing for dublin is to attract quality residents, then you should work on being more inclusive, understanding and respectful of other people’s needs.
Well Resident, sorry you’ve missed the point. I’m glad to live in a democracy where things are not forced upon us. So far there have been 2 votes (Dublin school board and Alameda county), and no surprise, not one (1) vote for the Charter school. It is not that we are opposed to Charter schools. The simple fact is it is not needed in Dublin. The Livermore-based group needs to do more research and realize cities like Hayward need them. NOT DUBLIN. The Charter group, and the handful of supporters, claim it is all for the kids and everyone should have a choice, blah blah blah. It is all about a Livermore-based group’s greed. If it does pass guess where will the classes will be held, DUBLIN HIGH SCHOOL. They are not telling you that. If not there they are also looking at Nielsen El. One of the main points of the Charter group is it is too far to drive to DHS from the other side of Dublin. So you will drive your kid to DHS to attend the Charter school? Or drive further to Nielsen? What is next, a contest to see how many stop lights there are between Lorenzo Ct and Nielsen El? Bottom line, Dublin already has a great high school. Dublin High will soon be finished, which will have plenty of room for growth. If you are truly ‘for the kids’, listen to the petition of over 500 DHS students who are opposed to the Charter school. I would rather my kid be a Gael than a Charty.
Just wanted to make another point or two about how a Democracy works. Most of you might remember when the citizens of Dublin, not Livermore, voted on Measure C, which provided money to re-build Dublin High, and other projects around the district. Again, people voted to either build a another high school or fix Dublin High. It is sad that we live in a time where if the losing side of an election does not like the outcome they sue. The Charter group members who are Livermore-based did not vote on Measure C. Supporters of the Charter school say they want a choice for the kids. Well if you look, Dublin actually does have another high school – Valley Christian, and from what I hear, it is a pretty good school. So there you go. Oh wait a minute. Valley Christian is on the west side of town; even further west than DHS. What was I thinking. How silly of me to think that might be an option. Well I do have a suggestion for public transportation. Students on the east side can take advantage of the 2 BART stations here in Dublin. Drive to the Hacienda Station, which will cut your tiresome treck down to almost nothing, drop off your student and he/she can take BART to the new West Side Station. I’m sure the school can arrange a shuttle to DHS from there. There… I just solved the ‘distance’ problem. Now I know how silly this sounds, and that’s my point. Go Gaels!
Regarding bus transportation to Dublin High – there are two Wheels bus routes from the east-side of Dublin (routes 201 and 202 – details available here: http://www.lavta.org/schedules/trippers.html). Dublin currently has three comprehensive high schools – in addition to Valley Christian on the west-side of Dublin there is also Quarry Lane (6363 Tassajara Rd) on the east-side. Dublin High is located roughly midway between Schaefer Ranch and Dublin Ranch.
East Dublin?
I doubt it. Dublin is one city. My family moved to Dublin in 1965 and never has Dublin been a town of eliteists snobs.
If you don’t like Dublin, move. Dublin is a town of character and family. You will never change our town.