Dublin Unified Teachers Walk Out Over Pay Raises and Class Sizes

After months of bargaining over wages, health care coverage and class sizes, Dublin teachers took to picket lines on Monday morning, joining a growing wave of California educators going on strike in recent months.

The East Bay school district’s teachers union launched the open-ended strike after it failed to reach a deal with Dublin Unified School District during last-minute bargaining over the weekend.

“Obviously, I’d rather be in the classroom,” said Greg Rodriguez, an advanced placement world history teacher at Dublin’s Emerald High School, from a picket line outside the district’s offices Monday. “But at the same point, we’re fighting for them, fighting for us. Until we can figure out the stuff outside the classroom, then the stuff inside the classroom is going to have to take a back seat for now, which is a shame.”

Schools remained open on Monday morning, but without teachers, many will have modified half-day schedules, and operations “will not look exactly like a typical school day,” according to the district.

Breakfast and lunch will be served at all sites, but only Dublin and Emerald High Schools will be open in the afternoons.

“Our focus remains on supporting students, families, and staff as we continue to work toward a resolution,” the district said in a statement on Sunday.

DTA’s more than 700 members are currently working under a contract that expired in June.

Like other school districts across the Bay Area, Dublin Unified has maintained that it doesn’t have the money to fund the union’s proposals, which it estimated over the weekend would cost $32 million.

The district said in a statement on its website that it has operated in budget deficits over the last three years, depleting its reserve fund, and requiring millions more in budget cuts this year to pay its bills.

In November, the union declared an impasse and entered mediation. In January, it moved into the final step of the process, known as fact-finding, when a panel with representatives for the district, union and a neutral chair hears arguments from both parties and issues a non-binding settlement recommendation.

The district said it has offered teachers a contract in line with the proposal, including a 2% wage increase and a one-time payment equivalent to 1% of salaries this year, and the opportunity to reopen negotiations on raises ahead of the 2026-2027 academic year.

The panel also recommended that the district begin to cover the full price of employees’ health care premiums by 2028, and increase its contributions for those with spouses or dependents on their benefit plans.

In a message to families on Sunday, Assistant Superintendent for Educational Services Matt Campbell said the offer would cost the district about $11.6 million, and require it to make “difficult financial decisions” next year, plus $6.3 million in budget cuts in 2027.

“Negotiations are meant to produce compromise,” the district said in a statement, adding that DTA’s “overall request remains far beyond what the District’s budget can sustain.”

The union has rejected the settlement’s terms and said that the district “seemed uninterested in bargaining in good faith” during weekend negotiations.

While Dublin teachers are among the highest paid in the Bay Area, according to the report’s findings, Dobrzenski said educators haven’t gotten pay raises for the last two years, and wages are falling behind the state’s cost-of-living allowance increases. The union has asked for a 3.5% for the current school year, and a raise equal to the cost-of-living allowance next year.

DUSD also contributes less to educators’ health care costs than many similar neighboring districts. In the San Francisco and West Contra Costa school districts, educators who recently went on strike have won paid coverage for their full families. Oakland’s school district also pays for educators’ and their families’ health plans.

DTA bargaining team member Catie Tombs, who teaches English at Dublin High School, said Monday the union was willing to settle on wages last week. The remaining sticking points, she said, are proposals from the union that would decrease class sizes, retain counselor positions in elementary schools and make changes to special education teachers’ caseloads.

DTA is asking for classrooms to be capped at 20 students across elementary schools, and to reduce high schools’ class sizes to match middle school levels.

Tombs said that her average class size is 36 students, and she has about 100 in advanced writing.

“At even 2 minutes [on] each, that’s 200 minutes of feedback on essays,” she told KQED. “That is an entire week of prep [periods], plus the next prep period.”

Tombs said giving each student feedback and grading their work in a timely manner is impossible.

“I can’t get grades back fast enough,” she said.

High school teachers generally have about 165 students spread over five classes, and the union is asking to decrease their total to 150 students over five classes. So far, the district has proposed to create a committee to look at funding options to meet the union’s class size goals.

The union is also asking the district to retain counselor positions at elementary schools, which teachers said are at risk of being cut, and adjust the caseloads of special education counselors to factor in the extent of each student’s needs.

Tombs said on those issues, their response was to “stay at zero. They are refusing to budge.”

Campbell said in his message Sunday that the district was open to reallocating money to meet some of the union’s class size and compensation demands, but that a final deal can’t exceed the $11.6 million it estimates its current offer will cost.

It’s unclear how long the work stoppage could last. Dobrzenski said Monday that the union’s negotiating team was on call and ready to meet with the district, but neither side seems prepared to make a new offer.

Dublin’s strike came less than a month after teachers in San Francisco reached an agreement with the district after a four-day strike, disrupting a week of school operations. In Oakland, teachers and the district recently averted a strike with a last-minute deal.

KQED’s Lakshmi Sarah and Sara Hossaini contributed to this report.