Myths about Tassajara Prep

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1. Tassajara Prep will not offer anything that Dublin High does not provide. Tassajara Prep will provide a rigorous curriculum that uses the University of California A-G requirements and the traditional honors track to define our minimum graduation requirements. Tassajara Prep will also offer areas of emphasis that include Environmental Studies, Arts & Humanities, Applied Technology, and Entrepreneurship. Finally, Tassajara Prep will apply innovative teaching methods and best practices that have been extremely successful in schools with small, tightly-knit learning communities, as we prepare our students for success in college and beyond.
2. We only have 1,450 students at Dublin High School. Dublin does not need a second high school. Dublin is the fastest growing Bay Area city with a population that is projected by the Association of Bay Area Governments to increase by more than 70% to 80,000 by 2035. Pleasanton, San Ramon, and Danville all have populations less than 70,000, yet they all have over 4,000 high school students. Dublin’s high school student population will not stay at 1,450 for long. We must build a second high school now in anticipation of the coming growth, while land is available and construction costs are relatively low.
3. The renovated Dublin High School will have sufficient capacity for 2,500 students and more. The average enrollment of the top 10 high schools in America is 681 students, according to U.S. News & World Report. Parents in Dublin have commonly heard that students are better served by a high school with at least 2,000 students than by a smaller high school with roughly 1,000 students; however, recent studies have shown that students perform better in schools that embrace smaller learning environments where each grade level has no more than 300 students. The maximum number of students per grade at Tassajara Prep will be 216 initially and is not expected to exceed 297 ever.
4. Dublin has indeed experienced record surge in population over the last few years. Given the number of foreclosures and short sales on the current market, Dublin may never grow at the same rate again. The challenges in the local real estate market are temporary. We are already seeing an increase in median home sale prices and home sale transactions. The national economy has emerged from the recession, and the Bay Area will lead the way in the next phase of economic expansion. Dublin will grow faster than all other Bay Area cities and will attract a higher percentage of families, once Tassajara Prep opens in 2012.
5. Dublin already decided years ago that the city only needs one high school. People who bought in east Dublin were aware of that decision, so they have relinquished all rights to another high school. DUSD had the land to build a high school in east Dublin at the current location of Fallon Middle School but decided to give back half the acreage to developers in 2001. Many residents who bought in east Dublin from the late 90s through 2000 were told that a high school would be part of the Eastern Dublin Specific Plan. The decision not to build a high school in east Dublin was made at a time when most of the new residents had not yet arrived. Over the years, thousands of Dublin residents have expressed a need for a second high school, and they are entitled to demand what is best for their children. Because Tassajara Prep is a public charter school, it will be open to every family in Dublin just like Dublin High School. Students and parents throughout Dublin deserve to have two outstanding high schools, so they may choose one that best meets their educational needs.