Marin County Office of Education Superintendent of Schools history

The first public school in San Rafael was established in 1861 with 25 students at the corner of Fourth and B Street.

In 132 years Marin County public high school enrollment grew from 11 students at San Rafael’s B Street School in 1888 to nearly 11,000 students in eight comprehensive and four continuing high schools today.

An article in the Marin Journal newspaper from June 4, 1891 states, “The precinct or district itself (current area that includes the Dixie School District) has always been a Democratic stronghold, at some of the elections the entire vote polled being Democratic.

To resolve crowded conditions in 1907 the San Rafael High School Board sent an inquiry to school districts from Fairfax to Tiburon looking for interest in a union high school district.

Prior to its 1908 opening all students wishing to attend a public high school in Marin would have to travel to San Rafael.

In 1912 a west Marin high school opened in Tomales.

Originally a two-classroom building located on a hill in downtown Tomales, it grew quickly and was expanded to ten classrooms in the 1920s.

An election was held on September 3, 1921 to determine where students from the Ross Valley would attend high school.

A much larger San Rafael High was built in 1924 on the current school campus between Third and Mission at Union Street.

Opening in 1951, Sir Francis Drake High School became the fourth comprehensive high school in Marin.

1954 marked the beginning of dramatic growth for the District.

In 1957 Novato High School was the fifth high school in Marin County.

Until 1958 Drake High served all of the lower and upper Ross Valley towns from Corte Madera to Fairfax as well as the San Geronimo and Nicasio Valleys.

In 1972, the Dixie Schoolhouse Foundation submitted an application to the United States Department of the Interior National Park Service to get the old Dixie Schoolhouse added to the National Registry of Historical Places.

Bruce Anderson, a Marinwood resident, started asking questions about the Dixie name in 1989 on the first day of school for his child at Dixie Elementary School.

With this increase Mary E. Silveira school was opened as a K through 5 school in 1990.

In 1993, Old Dixie Schoolhouse was declared a State Historical Site.

The life and work of Doctor Lyon, who passed away in 1999, were celebrated through the dedication of a new flagpole, raising of new flags, and the unveiling of a memorial plaque.

The memory of the late Doctor Larry Lyon, former Dixie School District Superintendent, was honored at a ceremony held at the Old Dixie School House on January 21, 2000.

In 2003, then Dixie School Board Trustee Karen Crockett and a group of parents, proposed a new district name.

In October of 2010, the group reached out to an internationally known advertising firm, Venables Bell & Partners who, impressed by the concept of working for all students, committed to developing a campaign on a pro bono basis.

In 2011, a new group was established with the name of SchoolsRule-Marin.

In a new partnership that was unprecedented in our State, SchoolsRule-Marin was designated as the theme partner for the 2013 Marin County Fair.

Through 2019, contributions to SchoolsRule continued to grow each year with more and more businesses, corporations, foundations and individuals seeing the benefit of being able to support every child in every community with a single contribution.