On 07 Mar 2022, PaxPerPoten <PaxPerPoten@magik.beanz.net> posted some
news:t0604v$28jco$17@news.freedyn.de:

> The country is falling apart and all Rudy can do is cry about Trump.

>From the Philippines to San Francisco, families are making a beeline for
Dublin schools.

For 18-year-old Grace Holmes, there�s one thing that speaks to the
population explosion in her hometown more than anything else: the
stairwells at her high school in Dublin.

�I�m stepping, then I�m pausing, then I�m waiting five seconds, then I�m
stepping again,� said Holmes, a senior at Dublin High. �It�s just crazy to
see that many kids.�

Over the past five years, 85% of school districts in the Bay Area
registered a drop in enrollment, with some losing nearly a third of their
students. It�s a trend largely driven by falling birth rates, a rise in
homeschooling, and a steady stream of people leaving the state.

But in Dublin, both the schools and the city have seen the exact opposite:
Its student population has tripled since 2009. Dublin Unified is one of
less than 15% of all Bay Area school districts that have grown its
enrollment over the last five years � and only one of six districts to
have grown with over 5,000 students.

In the decade between 2010 and 2020, Dublin�s population jumped by 60%, a
result of more than 8,000 new homes popping up during that time.
Meanwhile, other cities in the East Bay reported population increases one
third or less of Dublin�s, and the population of many � such as nearby
Danville � barely rose at all.

RELATED: A Dublin divided: Growing pains in California�s fastest-growing
city

�It seems like we can�t build schools fast enough,� said Erik Bertelson,
the music director at Wells Middle School. �Everyone�s moving to Dublin.�

When Bertelson started teaching at Wells, he was just 23 years old. Forty-
four years later, he�s watched as the city around the school transformed
from a town �full of cows and ranches� to one with layer upon layer of new
housing developments. With those new houses have come new families, and
with those families have come students and new schools.

The school district is racing to keep up.

Over the last two decades, Dublin Unified has built five new elementary
schools and is upgrading three others. They�ve expanded a middle school
and a high school and begun planning for a new K-8 campus. A second high
school, Emerald, is nearly finished and slated to open its doors next
January. That�s all been paid for by four bond measures totaling $850
million, on top of three additional parcel taxes. Each of those bonds,
which increased property taxes on Dublin residents, were passed with 57-
73% of the vote, depending on the year.

Though Emerald is one of just three new non-charter high schools to be
built over the last 10 years, in other parts of the region, districts such
as Fremont Unified, West Contra Costa Unified and Pleasanton Unified have
used bond measures to rebuild older schools or expand and modernize
classrooms, such as Richmond�s De Anza and Pleasanton�s Amador Valley high
schools.

�It�s night and day in terms of the pressure of always worrying about the
shoe dropping,� said Chris Funk, who led East Side Union High School
District in San Jose � a district whose student population has dropped 7%
since 2016 � before becoming superintendent of Dublin Unified. �Most
districts in California have declining enrollment, which means that
elephant is always in the room: If the state reduces funding and you have
declining enrollment, it�s a double whammy.�

RELATED: Borenstein: California�s population boom is over, plan
accordingly

That�s a battle familiar to districts across the Bay Area. In Oakland, for
example, dwindling student populations (and with that, state funding) has
led to not only multiple school closures but a struggle to find dollars to
provide the best educational experience for students at the campuses that
remain open.

Throughout the Dublin district�s expansion, students� test scores have
steadily increased, fueling a rush of young families to the city. Today,
Dublin students surpass the achievement levels in neighboring San Ramon
Valley and Pleasanton schools � a magnet that, for years, has spurred
families to places such as Palo Alto or Fremont.

On top of that, it takes under an hour to commute from San Francisco by
car and public transport and, according to families, feels �just far
enough� from the area�s major metro areas. Crime rates in Dublin are more
than 60% lower than Hayward, 70% lower than San Francisco and nearly 80%
lower than Oakland � another lure for families seeking safer
neighborhoods.

One of those families is the Lapierres. Destiny, age 14, transferred to
Dublin High in early March when the family moved from San Francisco, and
she�s been settling in pretty well for a transfer student. There are �tons
of girls� from Oakland and San Francisco, she said.

�Everything is so pretty out here, and so green,� said Destiny. �It feels
like nothing could go wrong.�

But with the entire city sharing one public high school, the overcrowding
makes it a challenge to navigate to class on time. And before the high
school�s newest building opened in 2019, up to three teachers could be
sharing a classroom, rotating out between periods.

At Dublin High, 18 portable classrooms now sit beside the sports fields to
accommodate the growth. Sixty-nine more portables have been placed on
other school campuses around the district, helping schools accommodate
rising class sizes.

When class is in session, Dublin High feels serene, and almost quiet. But
every time the bell rings to announce the end of a lesson, the 44-acre
campus swells with students � all 3,500 of them.

The district has also been hunting for teachers to accommodate their
rising student body. Over the past eight years, Dublin High has gone from
hiring 10 new teachers a year to 20 or 30, said Dublin High Principal
Maureen Byrne � a difficult feat in a state with an ongoing teacher
shortage.

Not all residents are enthused about the situation. Anti-development
groups have demanded an end to the city�s steady growth, with one petition
circulating last year attracting nearly 1,000 signatures. �Let us first
get the schools in place before we dump more students into them,� one
petition signer commented.

Despite that, tension has eased the closer they get to opening up Emerald
High, according to Shazia Nomani, a mother of two and the president of the
Dublin High parent teacher association. Located on the east side of the
city, Emerald will make it much easier for many students to get to school
and their classrooms, she said, especially because East Dublin is the
focal point of the city�s new growth.
�Dublin High is doing amazing things, but there�s a saturation point,�
said Nomani. �The city keeps building houses, and the growth hasn�t
stopped.�

They don't teach fucking woke shit.

<https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/03/18/bay-area-school-enrollment-has-
plummeted-so-why-has-student-population-spiked-in-this-east-bay-city/>