A selective private school whose top grade costs $41,785 a year opened a new campus in Dublin this month — in a suburb families move to precisely for its public schools. Those same public schools spent the spring living through a four-day teacher strike over class sizes and pay, and now owe millions more in cuts.

A new private campus is not, on its own, notable. Its setting is. Dublin's appeal has long rested on public schools that rank among the Tri-Valley's highest-scoring — the reason families pay a housing premium to live there. But in the same year BASIS Independent unlocked its doors, Dublin Unified ran a third straight year in the red, watched more than 700 of its teachers walk picket lines, and disclosed a multimillion-dollar accounting error that helped force still-deeper cuts. The private school sells small classes, invested teachers and rigor — the very things the district's teachers say the budget squeeze is stripping out.

A new private campus is not, on its own, notable. Its setting is.

BASIS Independent opened its newest Bay Area campus in Dublin this month, a selective school for grades 5 through 12 that expects to grow toward 800 students. Its top grade runs $41,785 a year, per the school's published fees (external source, opens in a new tab). The network sells measured results and a record of placing graduates at selective universities. It landed in a town where families have long paid a housing premium so they would never have to write a private-school check at all.

The public system that justified that premium spent the past year in open conflict.

By March, Dublin Unified and its teachers had been at an impasse for months over pay, health coverage and class sizes. After a state fact-finder's non-binding proposal failed to break the standoff, the union announced its roughly 700 members would strike (external source, opens in a new tab). Union president Brad Dobrzenski demanded the district "reprioritize the budget" and put Dublin students first, KQED reported. The district's answer was arithmetic: it estimated the union's full package would cost roughly $14.2 million it did not have, after three straight years of deficits had drained its reserves.

The walkout came anyway. Hundreds of teachers picketed for four days in March (external source, opens in a new tab) before the two sides reached a tentative three-year contract — an ongoing 2.3% raise backdated to July 2025, a path to fully covered health care by 2028, and elementary classes trimmed by one to two students per grade. Matt Campbell, the district's business chief, called the deal a "balanced path forward" for its schools and students, in KQED's account.

Union president Brad Dobrzenski demanded the district "reprioritize the budget" and put Dublin students first, KQED reported.

The deal did not end the fiscal strain. By the district's own telling, it still needed to make about $8.6 million in ongoing cuts this spring on top of years of prior reductions. Its leadership was in upheaval, too: as KQED reported (external source, opens in a new tab), outgoing superintendent Chris Funk announced a December retirement, took credit for a roughly $3.6 million budgeting error, and drew a January no-confidence vote from the union.

The collision is sharper than a simple story of decline. Dublin is one of the few California districts where enrollment is still growing (external source, opens in a new tab), which should be lifting per-pupil revenue. It ran deficits and cut anyway — the residue of years of overspending, a drained reserve, and that accounting error, not of empty classrooms.

None of this is the private school's doing. It leases a building, admits the students who apply, and delivers the rigor it advertises. But two facts now share one city: a campus selling a premium version of exactly what Dublin's public teachers just struck to protect, in a town families chose so they would not have to buy it. The district that made Dublin desirable spent the spring asking its teachers to accept less — the same season a school across town began charging families more than $40,000 to opt out.