Scheduled to open in Dublin, CA, Fall 2012, Tassajara Prep will provide a comprehensive college-prep environment that represents the highest academic and civic standards for all students, establishing a solid foundation for success in premier universities and beyond through rigorous curricula, innovative teaching practices, an expanded choice of Advanced Placement (AP) courses and extracurricular enrichment programs, and integration of the latest technology in the classroom.

Tassajara Prep’s Charter Committee submitted the petition to the Dublin Unified School District (DUSD) on Monday, January 11, 2010. Superintendent Stephen Hanke personally signed for the charter petition at exactly 11:25AM. The main body of the charter petition explains the founders’ vision for Tassajara Prep, what we promise our students, and objective measures for our success. The appendices of the charter petition include, among other important items, a draft course catalog of Tassajara Prep and a detailed fiscal plan with a five-year budget projection and a three-year cash flow projection.

DUSD will hold a public hearing to review Tassajara Prep’s petition and provide feedback to the Charter Committee within the next month. The Charter Committee requested to have the public hearing during the DUSD’s February 9, 2010 Board meeting. That meeting will be held in the DUSD Boardroom at 7471 Larkdale Avenue. All residents are encouraged to attend. DUSD Board meetings are televised on Comcast channel 28. Please check TV30′s website for the exact date and time.

Tassajara Prep will strive to produce healthy, successful, highly motivated citizens. Our vision of an excellent high school is one that maintains a culture of achievement through a program that stresses high standards and a commitment to assist all Tassajara Prep students toward success. Educators at Tassajara Prep will hold high expectations of their students. All students will follow a common set of rigorous academic standards and meet a strict code of conduct in a supportive atmosphere conducive to learning.

The founders of Tassajara Prep strongly believe in the positive impact a charter public high school will have on the education of all students throughout Dublin. Tassajara Prep will receive money from the same funding sources as Dublin High School. That money belongs to the students and should, therefore, follow the students to the school that best meets their needs. The competition for enrollment will naturally motivate both the charter public school and traditional public school to focus on the students. Cities like Pleasanton, San Ramon, and Danville have thrived with two public high schools, and Dublin will be no different. In fact, the founders are delighted that Dublin Unified School District (DUSD) is already responding constructively to the competitive pressure exerted by Tassajara Prep, long before the school’s grand opening.

As published in an Around Dublin article on February 18, 2009, the DUSD Board of Trustees voted 3-2 against further exploration of the “Advanced Diploma” concept. DUSD already has a “Diploma with Distinction” to recognize Dublin High School students who receive all Cs or better and high scores on the California state exams. While the “Diploma with Distinction” was viewed by most parents as a move in the right direction, many felt it did not go far enough to motivate students to challenge themselves. Board Trustees Ledahl, Henry, and Cunningham argued that DUSD should focus on cost-cutting measures and developing classes to support the new Dublin High School graduation requirements. On October 13, 2009, just weeks after plans for Tassajara Prep were announced, the Trustees unexpectedly reversed their earlier decision and approved the “Advanced Diploma” program by a stunning 5-0 vote. As covered by Eric Louie of Contra Costa Times, “the new Advanced Scholars Diploma will be given to students meeting requirements they will likely need for admission into the University of California or California State University systems.”

Along with a newfound interest in elevating the academic standards at Dublin High School, DUSD has also actively explored ways to mitigate the commute time for Dublin High students who regularly rely on WHEELS’ Route 202. Dublin High students from Dublin Ranch have contended with bus routes that are at least 30 minutes each way for nearly a decade. After plans for Tassajara Prep were announced, DUSD, with the help of Mayor Tim Sbranti and the Livermore Amador Valley Transit Authority (LAVTA), successfully lobbied for a more direct WHEELS bus route from Dublin Ranch to Dublin High School in record time. The more streamlined Route 202 will be roughly 20 minutes each way.

As Tassajara Prep’s charter petition continues along the grueling process towards final approval, the founders have full confidence in DUSD’s ability to adapt effectively to the growing competitive pressure exerted by Tassajara Prep and implement policies that will benefit all students in Dublin proactively. Objectives such as creating smaller learning environments within Dublin High School, offering the same number of AP classes as other Tri-Valley cities, and elevated graduation standards will all become possible. The misguided notion that a successful charter public school and a successful traditional public school are mutually exclusive and cannot thrive together within Dublin will be replaced by a renewed sense of optimism that friendly competition will continually motivate the two public high schools to meet the needs of the students the best they can. That common goal shared between the two high schools as both “Race to the Top” will be the unifying force that make us all truly One Dublin.

The founders of Tassajara Prep would like to thank everyone who took the time to attend the recent town hall meetings. We received tremendous feedback from supporters who are excited about the promise of Tassajara Prep and stakeholders who expressed concerns. The concerns raised fall into four distinct categories:

• Harm
• Adequacy
• Need
• Affordability

We were grateful for the opportunity to respond to these concerns at the town hall meetings, and we would like to share our answers on the page “Myths about Tassajara Prep” at our website.

The founders respect the position taken by some of our fiercest critics. We applaud them for taking our volunteer initiative seriously and asking tough questions about Tassajara Prep. In fact, both Superintendent Stephen Hanke and Board of Trustees President David Haubert came to our first town hall meeting. The process of getting a charter petition approved is supposed to be grueling, and Tassajara Prep will ultimately be that much better because of the intensely critical feedback from our most vociferous and strident detractors.

Most folks take note when Bill and Melinda Gates contribute to a cause. One of the movements that Bill and Melinda Gates are supporting is the establishment of “small schools” in America.

Parents in Dublin have commonly heard that students are better served by a high school of more than 2,000 students than by a smaller high school of 1,000-1,200 students. However, recent studies have shown that a host of benefits that can be enjoyed by schools comprised of smaller learning environments:

• Higher student academic achievement
• Students have greater visibility with teachers
• Reduced violence and disruptive behavior
• Improved attendance and graduation rates – this translates into more state funding that can be used to support school programs
• Increased teacher satisfaction
• Greater cost-effectiveness in terms of amount spent to educate each graduating student

Not surprisingly, the average enrollment of the top 10 high schools in America is 681 students according to U.S. News & World Report. Small learning environments can be stand-alone schools, small schools sharing administrative resources, or large schools that have small learning environments. Many large schools are going through conversions to set up smaller learning environments. The target for small schools or large schools making the conversion is to have 250-300 students per grade level.

What Do Good Small Schools Have In Common?

Successful small schools share many of the same traits. For example, students are more visible to teachers in smaller learning environments. Additionally, teachers all know one another and tend to collaborate more frequently. Please click here to watch a video example of two math and science teachers collaborating to create a more integrated learning experience for their students while conducting experiments with homemade rockets.

Successful small schools also have non-exclusive admissions policies, involvement of families in the school community, and curriculum that’s integrated around a coherent focus (e.g., academic majors such as AP/Honors, Arts and Humanities, and Applied Technology).

Tassajara Prep, Dublin’s new public high school opening in 2012, will provide Dublin’s high school students with all of the advantages noted above through the creation of small learning environments that are focused on collaboration, integration of technology in the classroom, sterling academic performance, and extracurricular enrichment programs.

Tassajara Preparatory High School hosted a contest at their Day on the Glen booth this past weekend that invited folks to guess the number of round-trip traffic signals between Lorenzo Court in east Dublin (in the magnificent Positano community) and Dublin High School. There are 61 total traffic signals from Lorenzo Court to Dublin High School: 31 going to Dublin High School and 30 on the return trip. The extra traffic signal is at Sybase Drive.

While none of the contest participants were able to guess 61 traffic signals right on the nose, three participants guessed 60 and another three participants guessed 62. With the six-way tie, all six tickets were thrown into a hat with five winning tickets randomly chosen. The first ticket randomly selected won the Grand Prize, the second ticket selected won the first 2nd place prize, etc. Here are the winning tickets:

• Grand Prize: $100 Blush Gift Card – 621631 (C. Hong with 62 traffic lights)
• 2nd Prize: $25 Extreme Pizza Gift Card and $25 Blush Gift Card – 621593 (L. Silva with 60 traffic lights), 621569 (K. Pond with 60 traffic lights)
• 3rd Prize: $25 Blush Gift Card – 621620 (A. Tsang with 62 traffic lights), 621581 (S. Punnamin with 60 traffic lights)

The graph shows the distribution of the guesses. The median guess was 46 traffic signals. Winning ticket holders can email admissions@dublinlearning.org to set up a date and time for prize-pickup at Blush Organic Frozen Yogurt in the Waterford Plaza.

Special thanks to Blush Organic Frozen Yogurt and Extreme Pizza for generously donating gift cards for this year’s Tassajara Prep Day on the Glen contest.

The overwhelming positive response from festival attendees continued into our second day at Day on the Glen. We were so surprised by the number of parents that said they came to the festival just to hear more about the new high school. By the time Dublin Learning Corporation packed up our booth, we had collected a total of 30 completed “Intent to Enroll” forms and signed up 159 interested parents and residents for our mailing list. The delight and excitement expressed by everyone about Tassajara Prep was much more than we could have ever predicted. The whole town seems to be buzzing over what we are doing.

Dublin Learning Corporation noticed a significant difference between the parents who stopped by our booth on Saturday and those who stopped by on Sunday. While both groups of parents opened with the standard questions regarding the opening date of our new public high school and its location, parents who visited us on Sunday expressed more concern about their kids’ chances for getting into Tassajara Prep than Saturday’s parents. Parents have clearly noticed the resounding enthusiasm that the announcement of Tassajara Prep has been generating, and now some are becoming worried that the school may not have sufficient capacity for all of the students who will want to enroll.

Tassajara Prep will be a public high school fully committed to serving the racially and economically diverse student population throughout Dublin. Our goal is to offer every student the advantages of a comprehensive high school experience within a small neighborhood school environment. Given the tremendous buzz they have heard and the dense forest of pins on our map of residents who came by our booth to learn about Tassajara Prep, we at Dublin Learning Corporation completely understand the concerns of Sunday’s parents and will do our best to accommodate every student who wishes to attend Tassajara Prep. Over the next few weeks, Dublin Learning Corporation will be working very hard in preparation for our three public town hall meetings where we will solicit community input and feedback as we draft Tassajara Prep’s charter petition. Below are the dates and locations of these town hall meetings:

• 10/20/2009 – Dublin Library Community Room, 7PM
• 10/27/2009 – Civic Center Regional Meeting Room (located next to City Council Chambers at 100 Civic Plaza), 7PM
• 11/03/2009 – Dublin Library Community Room, 7PM

These town hall meetings will be the perfect opportunity for parents and community members to play key roles in planning the high school that everyone in Dublin would like Tassajara Prep to be. We look forward to seeing you there.

In addition to the many volunteers who helped make our appearance at this year’s Day on the Glen a success, Dublin Learning Corporation would like to thank Blush Organic Frozen Yogurt and Extreme Pizza Dublin for their generous gift card donations to our contest. We challenged everyone to guess the total number of traffic signals encountered on a ROUND-TRIP drive from Lorenzo Court in east Dublin to the Dublin High School parking lot on Brighton Drive via the route marked in RED on the map. This is the most direct route suggested by MapQuest. We received a total of 96 entries, and we will be announcing the winning entries on Tuesday, September 21 on the Tassajara Prep website and the Around Dublin Blog.

Finally, we at Dublin Learning Corporation would like to thank everyone who stopped by our booth and took the time to learn more about Dublin’s new public high school. Tassajara Prep’s debut could not have been the smashing success that it was without the outpouring of support from the community. We are especially grateful for the many passionate parents who pledged to volunteer and do whatever it takes to help bring school choice to everyone in Dublin, CA. The dawn of a brand new era for Dublin’s public schools has arrived.