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Although he’s proud of what Dublin Unified School District achieved during his five-year tenure, 2025-26 didn’t exactly play out the way Chris Funk envisioned his final year as a superintendent would.
A teachers’ strike. A seven-figure budget gaffe. More cuts and layoffs. Shamrock Hills TK-8 School construction staying on track. One of his top assistants chosen as his successor. And maybe a nice gift from the governor and legislature for the district on the way out the door.
It was a mixed-bag year, to say the least. And Funk will be the first to admit it.
“I’m leaving with a general sense that, hey, they were upset with the strike, which they should be. But one event does not define us as a district,” he told me. “And I think people, if they look at the big picture of what’s been accomplished and where we’re going, the district is definitely going in the right direction and that they appreciate the work that’s been done.”
Retiring this month after 36 years in public education, Funk reflected on his time leading DUSD, district-union relations, state funding flaws and much more during a wide-ranging exit interview in his office Monday afternoon.
“I think the last five years, what I’m most proud of is the fact that we brought stability to Dublin,” Funk said. “And the fact that I was here for five years – I had committed five to seven years to the board when they hired me. My leadership executive staff have stayed. My school principals for the most part were stable.”
When he arrived from the East Side Union High School District in his hometown San Jose at the start of the 2021-22 academic year, DUSD had had four superintendents since March 2019 – including a brief “acting superintendent” stint by Matt Campbell, the administrator who would be hired as Funk’s successor nearly seven years later.
“That stability allowed everyone to take a pause and a breath and really focus on the work at hand, especially coming off of COVID, right? That was a huge challenge for all school districts,” Funk told me. “I think that stability really allowed us to get a lot of good work done.”
That good work, he said, included righting the ship with the district’s facilities bond program.
“As you know, when I came in, the bond program was in flux. People were upset that Emerald had not been built, and there was this big old fight about east and west and where the money should go,” Funk recalled.
“I’m proud of the fact that we were able to really identify how much bond money we had left. And then I took the board through a process of identifying the top five priorities,” he added. “And all five of those priorities were funded and will be completed here in August. And four out of five came in at or under budget. with one being a little over budget (Dublin Elementary).”
Citing a third accomplishment, Funk said, “You know, there were a lot of issues in Dublin being a mom-and-pop shop 10, 15 years ago to this explosion of 13,000 in enrollment. And we needed to build some processes and put processes in place to help build a more equitable community. And we’ve done a lot of that.”
“I think right now the board is as strong as it’s ever been. We have very good leadership,” he said later in our conversation. “And I’m just, I’m just really impressed with our student body here in Dublin. They do amazing. They have amazing, amazing accomplishments.”
Despite steps of progress, the vibe around Dublin Unified – and Funk – took a shift in his final year.
As the district faced yet another tough financial outlook, tense negotiations with the teachers union ratcheted up to a whole other level.
Not helping matters was the revelation in early December that Funk’s team discovered a $3 million-plus hole due to a budgeting error. He told the community he accepted “full responsibility” for the mistake, and publicly announced days later he would be retiring in June (a life decision he said he made back in August).
As the calendar turned to 2026, Funk found himself on the wrong end of a vote of no confidence by the Dublin Teachers Association as bargaining stagnated in impasse. He was later removed as the public face of the district’s negotiation team, with Campbell taking over the role.
Then, March 9, Dublin became the top education news headline in the Bay Area, if not all of California, as DTA members walked out for what would be a four-day strike.
“I am extremely disappointed that a strike happened,” Funk told me. “There’s fault to go around, right? But I truly believe where we ended could have easily been settled before the strike.”
Funk told me he owned his role and actions during the negotiations. “Once I knew this was my last year, I made the decision that I was not going to bend over backwards and try to meet them in the middle,” he said, adding that he sought to heed the Board of Trustees’ initial charge “that we were not going to put one time money on the salary schedule”.
Once the two sides got through the fact-finding process, the district endorsed the third-party panel’s recommendation for a settlement despite its higher costs. But the union thought more should be done on compensation, class size and case loads and opted for a strike – the first in the history of the modern Dublin Unified School District.
The strike lasted from March 9-12, although the Monday and Tuesday were early-dismissal days, the Wednesday was the lone full day and the Thursday (and Friday the 13th) were already no-school days on the calendar. Funk himself spent multiple days in a classroom teaching for the first time in 18 years, as schools remained open without the unionized teachers.
“When we endorsed the neutral recommendation that was approximately $11.9 million over three years, the union, DTA, was still at their original offer, which was a $32 million impact over three years. And what did we settle for? An impact of about $13 million,” Funk reflected. “You’re telling me that a strike was worth a $2 million impact? I don’t.”
“A strike does not benefit anyone, regardless of the outcome. It hurts our children the most,” the outgoing superintendent added. “It hurts our employees that go out on strike because they lose salary. They lose part of their year of service. And it certainly hurts the district, our reputation and our goal of providing that world-class education.”
He lamented “dysfunctional” DTA leadership, pointing out the union is set to have co-presidents next year, after six presidents during his half-decade administration. “I think that’s unusual, right?” Funk said. “That right there tells you all you need to know about the dysfunction of DTA’s leadership.”
“What I’m most concerned about right now is just the weaponization of words … particularly these three key words: trust, transparency and collaboration. They’ve been weaponized, and they’ve been weaponized in a way that it’s only one way,” he said. “And if that doesn’t change, then both sides are going to be combative and that’s not good for the district at all.”
“For instance, hey, we have all this new funding. We should be right at the negotiating table, negotiating for the best interest of kids,” Funk added. “Well, the best interest of kids isn’t you gain a bigger salary. You already have the highest salary or compensation in the Tri-Valley. So, I just don’t like how kids are being used during negotiations.”
Although it’s been a source of new strife with DTA, in terms of how to allocate the money, the district got some good news in Funk’s final weeks with the governor’s May budget revision.
“The state budget is very favorable to school districts. I have to admit, they came through – if it becomes a final budget … June 15th, hopefully,” Funk said. “And so for us, it meant less cuts in the future.” Perhaps to the tune of $5 million less.
“It’s really one of the reasons why I’ve chosen to retire because I’m just done dealing with the state funding mechanism and the impact to school districts,” he added.
In his eyes, four funding changes would make a huge difference for Dublin and other districts: special education being fully funded by the state and feds, increasing the base of the Local Control Funding Formula, enrollment-based allocations instead of average daily attendance, and instituting a regional cost-of-living and/or cost-of-operations type of adjustment factor depending on where a district is located.
As for what’s next for him, 60-year-old Funk said he and his wife are going on a two-week trip to Europe before he settles into retirement while she continues to work. He may pursue some part-time consulting but has no interest in going back to work even half time.
“I will just be spending a lot of time on the coast with our dogs,” he added. “I am looking forward to learning more about gourmet cooking. Now that I’ll have time to do it.”
Editor’s note: Jeremy Walsh is the associate publisher and editorial director for the Embarcadero Media Foundation’s East Bay Division. His “What A Week” column is a recurring feature in the Pleasanton Weekly, Livermore Vine and DanvilleSanRamon.com.
