Resident Worries About 'Lack Of Vision' In Dublin: Letter To Editor

Dear Editor:

Dublin is going through a phase of extreme growth for the past decade or so. In 2006, the Dublin school board of trustees decided not to build a second high school and decided to expand the existing high school to accommodate 2500 students.

Since then irrespective of the ground reality and choosing the mid level projection numbers from demographer projections of student enrollments, DUSD consistently was short sighted in planning for the future.

Priority was given to building elementary schools, which helps the developers to sell home, while ignoring the fact that if there is a huge elementary growth inflow it is common sense that the kids will move through grades and will end up in Middle and high schools.

First visible public uproar came in 2015 where there was a town hall for talking about District Optimization Committee's discussion results and recommendation. Board assured that there will be no cap nor boundary change and there will be a new middle school coming up in Jordan range to address the middle school growth. Board finally chose to build Jordan range now named Cotton Creek school as K-8 school instead of a full Middle school. Only in Feb. 2016, the board passed a resolution to build a second high with 2500 capacity in east side of Dublin.

After the resolution is passed, board employs Terra realty a real estate firm to look for high school sites and gives direction to look for a site with 2000 capacity instead of 2500 capacity it passed resolution on. Terra realty finds a commercial building of 13.2 acres which is opposite to third largest jail in the state as the optimal location for the second high school. Fallon Middle school is twice the size of this commercial building and community had to come together to oppose this land whether as a feasible location to house 2500 kids or as a safe option for the students to be right across the street from the third largest jail in the nation.

Our city's growth is always in plain sight but the board always hides behind the demographer projected numbers and hasn't addressed the growth of middle and high school needs, which is going to explode in the coming years.

The board has floated two biggest bonds (Measure E for 99M and Measure H for 283M) to prevent overcrowding but did little to prevent overcrowding. Lack of vision and execution strategy over the past decade is leaving the community with a worrisome future.

— Jegadheesa Murugesan, Dublin resident