How Dublin fought for a second high school
If you moved to Dublin recently, Emerald High School probably feels like it was always there. It wasn't. Here is the story of how a fast-growing community had to organize, petition, and show up for years to get it built, and why that history still matters today.
Dublin has been one of the fastest-growing cities in California for two decades. New neighborhoods kept rising on the east side of town, but the plans for new schools did not keep pace. As early as 1997, district planning documents called for a second high school to eventually serve the area. By 2004, that second high school had been quietly dropped from the plan, and in 2006 the school board formally voted against ever building one, citing cost and land constraints.
For the next decade, enrollment projections were revised upward again and again, portable classrooms went up at already-crowded schools, and voters approved hundreds of millions of dollars in school bonds (Measures C, E, and later H) in large part to keep up with growth. By 2015, packed town hall meetings made clear that parents had had enough: Dublin needed a second comprehensive high school, not someday, but soon.
What followed was years of public pressure, petitions, rallies, and hard-fought votes at the school board, before Dublin's second high school finally opened its doors. Below is a timeline of how it happened, drawn from the detailed record kept by the community group Dubliners United, Bay Area news coverage, and public Dublin Unified School District (DUSD) board records, along with how the story has unfolded since.
The timeline
- 1997The East Dublin Specific Plan identifies a future need for a second high school to serve the growing east side of the city.
- 2004A revised Facilities Master Plan drops the second high school from the district's building plans. Voters approve Measure C ($43.5M) for other facility needs.
- February 2006The school board formally votes against ever building a second high school in East Dublin, citing land costs and the difficulty of operating two campuses.
- 2012Voters approve Measure E ($99M), campaigned in part on preventing student overcrowding.
- 2013 to 2015Enrollment keeps outpacing projections. Portable classrooms are added at multiple campuses to handle the overflow.
- June 2015A packed town hall meeting catches the district off guard: parents turn out in force to demand a new high school on the east side.
- August 2015An official district needs assessment confirms it: Dublin will need a new K-8 school, a new elementary school, and a small high school within five years.
- February 19, 2016The school board formally approves a resolution to build a second comprehensive high school, with a first phase of 1,000 students targeted to open by 2021.
- June 2016Voters approve Measure H, a $283M bond campaigned specifically on funding a comprehensive second high school.
- February 2017The board eliminates several potential sites, including Camp Parks, Fallon Middle School, the Croak and Chen properties, and the SAP Complex, narrowing the search to a short list that still includes a 13-acre former Zeiss property at Hacienda and Gleason Drives.
- May 2017Parents organize against the Zeiss site, located two blocks from Santa Rita Jail. A petition gathers 1,875 signatures. At an emotional board meeting on May 22, trustees vote 3 to 2 against purchasing the property.
- August 20, 2017More than 200 residents rally outside a board meeting to ask trustees to honor the February 2016 commitment and keep the second high school on schedule.
- August 2017The board votes to split Measure H funds between the high school and other modernization projects, a sign that the funding fight is still not fully resolved.
- 2018 to 2022A new site is selected, and design, financing, and construction continue, alongside continued community advocacy to keep the project funded and on track.
- 2023 to 2024Emerald High School, Dublin's second comprehensive high school, opens: freshmen in 2023, with the full campus and sophomore class following in 2024, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony on June 8, 2024.
- 2026 to 2027Emerald reaches its full four-grade enrollment, roughly 2,500 students, and graduates its first senior class in 2027, nearly 30 years after a second high school was first identified as a future need.
Sources: Dubliners United's detailed timeline of board decisions, the DUSD Board of Trustees meeting page, the district's BoardDocs meeting archive, and public reporting on Emerald High School's opening.
The fight over a site next to Santa Rita Jail
One moment captures just how close the second high school came to being built somewhere parents felt was fundamentally wrong for their kids. In early 2017, the district's site search had narrowed to a 13-acre former Zeiss office property at Hacienda and Gleason Drives, just two blocks from Santa Rita Jail and the Alameda County courthouse.
Parents organized quickly. A petition opposing the Santa Rita Jail-adjacent site gathered 1,875 signatures, and dozens of residents turned out to an emotional May 22, 2017 board meeting to voice concerns about student safety and the site's small size compared to the existing Dublin High School campus. The debate drew Bay Area news coverage from ABC7 News, CBS News Bay Area, and OneDublin.org.
The board ultimately voted 3 to 2 against purchasing the property. Trustees Dan Cherrier, Amy Miller, and Joe Giannini voted no; Board President Megan Rouse and Trustee Dan Cunningham, who favored the site, voted yes. The vote sent the district back to the drawing board for a location, a frustrating setback at the time, but one that kept the second high school from landing somewhere so many families had organized against.
Why it took organizing, not just a vote
A bond measure on a ballot is one thing. Making sure that money actually becomes a school, on a site families can live with, is another. Dubliners United, a group of local parents and residents, formed to make sure that did not slip through the cracks. Their argument, laid out in posts like "Dublin Residents take it to developers to fund Schools" and "Why are Dublin Residents Rallying for Second High School?", was straightforward: new development was driving the need for new schools, but the fees developers paid toward school construction had not kept pace with the actual cost of building them, leaving homeowners and bond measures to make up much of the difference.
That organizing culminated in the August 2017 rally where more than 200 residents turned out to hold the board to its earlier promise.
It is one example of what it took, year after year, to keep a second high school from being quietly shelved the way it had been in 2004 and 2006.
Want the full, detailed record, including board meeting dates, vote counts, and more? Dubliners United has kept a thorough archive of this fight since 2017, and DUSD's own BoardDocs meeting archive has the official agendas and minutes. We're grateful for Dubliners United's work documenting this history, and encourage you to read it directly.
Why this still matters
If you are new to Dublin, Emerald High School, Shamrock Hills, and Cottonwood Creek probably just look like the schools your kids attend. But none of them were guaranteed. They exist because parents and neighbors paid close attention to a school board for years, asked hard questions, and refused to let growth outpace planning, or let a flawed site get the final word.
That same attention is still needed. Dublin continues to grow, and the decisions made by the school board today, about enrollment, facilities, and how bond dollars are spent, will shape the schools the next generation of Dublin families walks into.
Stay involved
Dublin's schools got here because people paid attention. Here's how to stay in the loop and help keep it that way.