Dublin's New Superintendent Talks Fall, Facilities And Turnover

DUBLIN, CA — Superintendent Chris Funk is still getting to know the ins and outs of the Dublin Unified School District, where he plans to spend the final leg of his 30-year career in public education.

The San Jose native is in the midst of a 90-day effort to meet with staff, the school board, families and others to seek feedback and learn about the district as he looks to form a new strategic plan by the end of next year. But some things are already clear to Funk, who's spent most of his career in the South Bay.

He started a forum to seek community feedback and interviewed about 75 people at the time he spoke with Patch last week. Funk said that he's most excited to hear that he's joining a district where the community believes teachers set high expectations for students but subscribe to the "whole child" educational movement, which calls for prioritizing mental health and the development of social and emotional skills alongside academic achievement. Funk has also heard that Dublin schools ensure students have options post-graduation, thanks to the Tri-Valley Regional Occupational Program.

"That really excites me, that people feel like they can find their place here within the district," he said.

Funk came to Dublin after nine years as superintendent of San Jose's East Side Union High School District, where he oversaw 16 high schools that enrolled a combined 26,500 students. There, he said he worked with six additional superintendents and school boards in feeder districts.

By contrast, the 12-school Dublin Unified School District is about half the size of his previous district and is the only district serving the city. Funk said he looks forward to working in a K-12 school system, where he suspects it will be easier to foster alignment among grade levels.

Funk acknowledged that the district has faced its fair share of challenges.

For one, there's the matter of facilities.

Dublin schools “are bulging at the seams,” said Funk, and enrollment will continue to grow, with the district projecting the number of students to reach 14,500 within the next six years and then level off. Funk said he plans to focus some of his attention on the district’s aggressive capital program of old school modernization and new school construction but is waiting to see a revised facilities master plan, to be completed in September.

Elementary schools in west Dublin are becoming increasingly crowded, and a similar situation exists on the district’s east side, Funk said. That begs the question, “Do we build a third K-8 school, or can Nielsen be reopened?”

Where capital projects are concerned, Funk believes “one of the biggest things we’ll find is that replacing is more expensive than modernizing." Costs are increasing, and there will be competition for labor as the district’s projects proceed, he said. The district has accounted for this by including a 15 to 20 percent contingency into its project plans, he said.

Funk recognized that the district has gone through a period of administrative and financial turmoil. A forensic audit of district finances is currently underway, and when it is completed he believed both his administration and the school board will have a better idea of what happened and can learn from past mistakes — and not point fingers.

“I intend to be very hands-on and transparent,” Funk said.

The district must also study the effect of and plan for implementation of new transitional kindergartens for all 4-year-olds by 2025, with a $2.7 billion program included in the $124 billion earmarked for financial aid for California schools in the state’s 2021-to-'22 budget.

Funk — the district's fifth superintendent since 2019 — further acknowledged the turbulence that the community has recently endured. The top-to-bottom turnover seen throughout Dublin schools and in administration during the past four to five years is unsettling and leads to a lack of consistency, accountability and alignment, he said.

"I just ask people to judge me based on my track record," he said.

Funk spent nearly two decades in San Jose and nine years at his last job. His goal is to make Dublin the last stop in his career.

"My goal is to stay seven or eight years ... and continue to make Dublin a destination district" for staff and families, he said.

To do so, Funk said he will look to foster equitable learning environments — something he's sought to accomplish throughout his career. He said he plans to listen, learn, find out what's working well and analyze data before determining what might need to change.

Funk lauded the district for some of its achievements: 95 percent of students graduate from high school; 93 percent of seniors surveyed last year planned to go to college; and 80 percent of students complete a set of courses that meet minimum admission standards for University of California and California State University schools.

But take a closer look, and you'll find that students who are Latino, Black or disabled don't meet those same metrics. Many of those same students do not speak English as a first language, he said, and the district will be looking to determine what resources they have access to and what additional support may be needed to help them thrive.

As Funk looks toward his first back-to-school week in Dublin, he said that the district expected that 96 percent of students will be returning to the classroom. He looks forward to seeing students and staff have the ability to interact with each other once more.

The virtual academy for distance learners will look different depending on grade level, Funk said.

The district has yet to decide its final mask policy, but Funk said he anticipated that masks will be required at all grade levels when indoors, and masks will not be required outside, unless students are engaged in large group activities where they're close to one another.

— Patch Special Correspondent Bob Porterfield contributed to this report.

More:

• New Superintendent Begins, Moirao Says Goodbye
• South Bay Schools Chief Tapped To Run Dublin's School District
• Why DUSD Is Struggling To Pay For School Projects
• DUSD Reports At Least $184M Shortfall On School Facility Projects
• Dublin Schools Chief Resignation Spurs Community Outcry