$374M high school highlights Dublin’s growth
The brand new Bay Area high school, with verdant spring-green hillsides in the distance, doesn’t look real.
It looks like a mirage, an educational oasis in contrast to the thousands of aging public schools across the region desperate for critical upgrades and modern amenities.
The aptly named Emerald High School in Dublin offers an image of what public education could be. The $374 million school sits on 23.5 acres, with a sprawling library, 137-seat lecture hall, three-story academic tower, student union with soaring ceilings and much more. The first students, freshmen and sophomores, will arrive on campus this fall, with 2,500 eventually filling the halls.
Emerald High also exemplifies that when it comes to public school facilities, students are still divided into the haves and have-nots. While some children sit in classrooms with a leaky roof, inadequate heating and shaky WiFi, others attend schools, like Emerald, that have a performing arts center, a kinesiology lab and a ceramics studio.
When it’s fully finished in fall 2026, the school will also have a 600-seat theater, a huge swimming pool, science labs and much more.
The project — paid for by bonds footed by Dublin taxpayers — will be the first new high school in Alameda Coun
ty in 50 years.
While many districts across the Bay Area have lost thousands of students to declining enrollment and are facing school closures, Dublin is the very rare exception of a district that is growing. Dublin Unified has nearly 13,000 students, up from 9,000 in 2014.
The fastest-growing city in California between 2010 and 2020, Dublin saw its population jump from 46,000 to 73,000 residents over that decade, swelling its public schools. The city’s growth was fueled largely by developers building lots of housing while many Bay Area cities welcomed few new homes.
Emerald High is surrounded by new construction, including dense townhouse developments, with neighbors’ front doors within a few yards of school buildings.
While the enrollment increases have recently leveled off in the district, Dublin’s schools have struggled to keep up with the growth, and officials are just now catching up with Emerald High and another K-9 school planned.
Emerald High welcomed its first freshman class in the fall, though students are mostly in portable classrooms at another location as construction on the first phase finishes up. They will move into their new digs next fall as sophomores.
On Tuesday, ninth-grader Oluwafunmilayo Minett, who goes by Funmi, helped guide a small group of reporters through the campus. She was part of a community design team that provided input on furniture, lighting and other features.
Funmi couldn’t help but stare at the weight room, the sizable gym and the ceramic studio waiting for two kilns to arrive.
“I see opportunity for every single person who steps foot on this campus,” she said. “For me at least, it’s very surreal.”
Emerald High math teacher Jaime Roberts was also on the tour, saying she was “just in awe.”
“It gives me chills,” she said. “It’s just beautiful.”
And a far cry from the portable classroom she’s in now.
“I absolutely wish everyone could have this,” she said as she gazed at the campus. “I know how fortunate we are in Dublin to be able to open the first school in 50 years. I tell my kids that all the time.”
Principal Francis Rojas was like a proud parent as he gave the tour, pointing out bells and whistles. Rojas showed off the apartment-like classrooms, with stoves, sinks and other amenities for high-needs special education students so they can learn independent-living skills. He pointed out the mirror-walled physical education room for yoga and Pilates. The archery targets for the gym are on order, he said.
He stopped, looked around and smiled.
“We’re really building the school to last for the next century,” he said.