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Dublin Unified School District parents, teachers and students rallied on Tuesday, holding up handmade signs while remaining socially distanced to urge the Board of Trustees to continue with facilities upgrades on two elementary schools, in the face of a $184 million budget shortfall.
The district’s revelation at the Feb. 9 board meeting that it was short $184 million needed to overhaul Murray and Dublin elementary schools, as well as the new Emerald High School currently under construction, compelled more than 30 people to gather in front of Murray on Tuesday to draw attention to the matter.
Carrying signs saying “No more roof leaks,” “We deserve more,” and “Trustees: keep your promises,” parents like Kristin Speck told the Weekly that while a new high school is needed, they want to ensure the district equally prioritizes repairing its aging campuses.
Dublin Elementary needs another $10 million from Measure J revenue to continue design work on overhauling its existing buildings and add new structures, while Murray Elementary has prefabricated classrooms waiting to be erected as part of the first phase of renovations. The $290 million bond Measure J was approved by voters last March.
At the Feb. 9 board meeting, which lasted nine hours, the board tied 2-2 — with Trustee Catherine Kuo abstaining — on allocating an additional $10 million for Dublin Elementary and $15 million for Murray Elementary to continue the projects. For now, currently approved and funded work will proceed including the first phases of Murray and Emerald, and for Dublin Elementary, but without any additional funding as staff recommended.
“The concern is that they seem to only be focused on the new high school, so they want to just hold the money and make sure the new high school has every cent it needs,” Speck said. “Our concern is there are multiple problems in the district and the money needs to be spent on more than just the high school.”
“There’s a feeling that the trustees are more concerned about schools on the east side of town and not the rundown schools on the west side of town,” Speck added.
Speck’s son, who attends fourth grade at Dublin Elementary, had his class displaced from their classroom due to a leaking roof at one point, but “a week later the new classroom started leaking, and so I directly saw the impact of this old building and what it was having on my child,” Speck said.
The parents are supportive of the second high school but Speck said “we also want our kids to go to schools that don’t leak, don’t have holes in the ceiling,” and that revenue from Measure J used on what was promised.
Jaime Morales, who has two children enrolled at Murray, said when Measure J passed that he and his wife were looking forward to finally seeing the school updated.
However, “at this point I feel some of that is being taken away because there is a big inequality going on here in regards to schools,” Morales said.
In particular, Morales recalled taking his son to Amador Elementary one time, where the boy was noticeably struck by the difference between the site and his own school.
“My son was like, ‘Wow, dad, this is a nice school, a big school.’ He thought it was a high school; he saw the disparity back then as a fifth-grader,” Morales said.
In the meantime, construction on Emerald High has been postponed since the funding gap was discovered, pushing back its opening to fall 2023. Morales, however, is worried what will happen when students return to Murray.
“The back-end has been completely demolished, there are big, giant construction vehicles back there, machines — what’s going to happen to that?” Morales said. “Kids are going to go back and they’re going to go back to what?”
While some trustees called the $184 million shortfall a clear case of under-budgeting, the board unanimously called for an independent audit to get to the bottom of what happened at their next meeting in February.
“I don’t want an audit to take away from moving ahead but at the same time it does appear there is a lot of public outcry for such,” Trustee Dan Cherrier said during board discussion.
“We’re asking for a forensic audit,” Cherrier said, and explained that “a forensic audit looks into a whole range of things.”
“It’s looking at what it is that we stated we were going to do and what decision led to what, what money was accrued and allocated, and was it spent in accordance with that,” Cherrier said. “It’s a whole look at the entire operation. It goes beyond the financial audit we just had.”
The board also unanimously approved creating a new facilities master plan to replace the one developed five years ago. DUSD spokesperson Chip Dehnert said, “This document would be the driving force of some of the remaining facilities budget decisions.”
The timeline for the investigation has not been determined yet.
