Let us request the whole Dublin city to support the new charter high school! DHS is on the right track to improve. The new charter school will be a great complement and a great magnet in tri-valley. It will attract students from all over Dublin, Pleasanton and San Ramon.

Please keep a positive attitude and let's make the charter school a reality.

It is going to take years for a charter school materialize. I support DHS to improve greatly; at the same time, I am intrigued by the idea of a charted school in east Dublin. We should explore the idea to see how to achieve the goal. I support DHS, I also hope John Ledahl and others will support a new charter high school so that parents can have an option.

BTW, how is the attendance area determined for a charter school? Can a west Dublin student choose to go to charter high school when it is built? Different students may thrive at different environment. I hope Dublin will have an exceptional DHS and an exceptional charter hign school. That will make Dubin the most desirable city in the area.

At the school board meeting last night the school board:

1. Cut $3.5M including teachers, programs, and all professional development for teachers for next year, after cutting $2M+ this past year. More cuts are expected mid-school year. It will all have a direct impact on every classroom in the district.

2. I confirmed that Dublin High School can easily be built to over 3000 students given its land and new facilities.

3. I asked staff to re-do the forecast going out 15 years on both estimated city population and the sizes of each school. Dedicated to this re-evaluation is a look at the assumptions used and any change in the estimates. Given our economic future over the next few years I cannot imagine the numbers will grow, but in any event, I have asked for an update. I fully expect to see Around Dublin bloggers at the meeting as this is central to your argument.

Which leads me to the last point. No one from Around Dublin – neither bloggers nor editors nor proponents of a charter school showed up to see how our funding has been shrunk and the devastation that will occur to our processes in place, including new grad requirements. Is it because you only care about your own agenda? I can't see how that will attract cooperation from the majority of folks in town.

Where I come from, there's no such thing as a API score. People judge schools on their teacher, facilities, offerings. They meet them, they go visit the school.

For me, high score doesn't mean good teachers/facility/offering. And different demographic and ethnicities doesn't mean your child future is doomed.

How many here grew up in a blue collar environment vs. those who grew up in an isolated royalty-like compound? I see the former much more open-minded to have their kids studying alongside others from different backgrounds as well as with kids living in condos and rentals on the East Side while not considering them all thugs and low-life (as frequently mentioned on this blog).

Good point. The Master Plan for Dublin High allows, with both the land and broad facilities, to handle well over 3000 students. The charter school question is separate from the growth capacity and is really only being proposed in order to bring a high school to the east side.

You said, "Based on the geography, demography, and City growth plans any one in the know can see no more than 2500 kids at buildout. Many eastside folks attended board meetings to hear experts on this. If they are wrong it is not going to be by 1000 kids."

First of all, I do not quite believe the demographic analysis they have done a number of years ago is necessarily true now. Even I follow your logic, what if they are wrong by, say, 800 students? Where should those students go? Can DHS accommodate them? You know, most of the charter high schools have less than 800 students. It makes sense to me to have a larger traditional public high school and a smaller charter high school side by side in Dublin.

I seldom respond to anonymous posters, but since you are new to Dublin please allow me to answer your question.

First of all its apples and oranges. Equating how a decision by a distict/city that is expected to grow no more than 65-70K people to the Madoff scandal seems to defy logic. Everything done around building out Dublin as a city, and focusing on Dublin High as a flagship school has been done in the public eye with complete transparancy including board meetings, Community Conversations, and even an all hands City industry meeting of every stakeholder in the city. This wasn't a decision made by just one school board.

Directly to your question, the decision for one high school was made by a number of years ago in conjunction with city and district planners and lots of community input. They simply decided that even at buildout the city should not have two small high schools, and that bringing all possible resources together could only enhance the chances of building a greater school for the whole city. Since then we have devoted $100M to rebuild Dublin High School.

I can understand your comment about wanting to learn more about charter schools. Of course, in order to do that you will also have to learn about the current schools and their needs going forward – including every elem. and middle school. Nothing can be done in a vacuum (which BTW is the farthest thing to what the Madoff scandal implies). Hope that answers your question.