DUBLIN — Dublin Unified Superintendent Chris Funk described new details in the recent brawl at Dublin High School, saying the fight stemmed from two families having a “community issue that came onto campus” and led to a boy violently knocking a girl unconscious in the school’s student union.
“It was two families that were having issues, and it did not involve one group of kids against another group of kids,” Funk said in an interview Wednesday.
Two students were hospitalized and another was arrested in the Feb. 20 fight. Dozens of other students eating lunch saw the fight in the student union, which was captured on video by students’ cell phones, Funk said. He said that some students who saw the altercation were traumatized by what they witnessed, which led to a drop in attendance at school Friday.
“It was a boy against a girl, and that’s despicable,” Funk said. “That person has been arrested. The people involved have been suspended. There will be further consequences as we move forward.”
Further consequences from the district for the students involved in the incident could include transfer to another school, expulsion or a “significant behavior contract,” depending on the student and situation, Funk said.
Following the fight, rumors spread through the community of an armed retaliation, which led the district to notify parents Thursday night that police were investigating the possible threat, which officials later said was unfounded. Funk said police visited a home in Dublin to investigate the rumor. On Friday, between five and seven Dublin police officers patrolled Dublin High throughout the day, and additional administrative staff were stationed throughout campus, Funk added.
After two violent incidents at Dublin High School this school year, parents and students have both expressed concern for students’ safety in the district.
“There’s death at our doorsteps, horror in every headline, and we see it all. We have seen the statistics and think of them when there is even a whisper of danger,” a Dublin High junior told the school board on Tuesday. “We heard of a knife, a gun. We didn’t know if it was safe.”
She said she did not attend school Friday out of concern for her safety, noting that she feared becoming another “statistic” in a possible school shooting.
“Communicating with parents, I will say that there was a slight break in the protocol,” Funk said of the notifications sent to parents about the fight and retaliatory threats. “There was miscommunication on our part, and there was a breakdown of protocol at this time. That won’t happen again.”
Some parents kept their kids out of school Friday due to safety concerns. Funk added that the district is moving forward with a plan to fence off the “wide open campus,” in order to keep unwanted people out. Last August, ski-masked intruders followed a Dublin High boy onto campus and beat him inside a locker room.
“It’s definitely very unsettling. The first one was probably a little bit more unsettling because people came on our campus after school, during school athletics,” Erin Robison, who has one child at Dublin High and another at Wells Middle School, said in an interview. Her high schooler did not go to school Friday. “That was probably more unsettling, but this wasn’t any different in the sense of the level of how it disturbed me and rocked me as a parent in trying to feel safe sending my kid to school.”
Hoang Thai, whose twin daughters attend Dublin High, moved to the district in 2011 from Oakland and said in an interview he is “very concerned about the safety of this school.” He added that installing fences around the campus “might be the first step.”
“We’re lucky because the last two events that happened, nobody died,” Thai said. “As a taxpayer in Dublin, I would like to see what the city and superintendent at Dublin is planning to do about it, and when.”
Funk said, “any high school you go to, you’re going to have fights on campus.”
“All in all, I thought the staff responded very quickly, Dublin PD responded very quickly, and I do believe Dublin High and all our schools are safe schools to be at,” he said.