Palm Springs Unified School District

PSUSD employs more than 2000 administrators, certificated staff and classified staff. More than 23,000 students are enrolled in sixteen elementary schools, five middle schools, four high schools and a continuation high school. In addition, the district provides Preschools, Head Start programs, charter schools, and adult education. The district covers the following communities: • Cathedral City • Desert Hot Springs • Palm Desert (Parts of the city north of Frank Sinatra Dr.) • Palm Springs • Rancho Mirage • Thousand Palms Other unincorporated areas within the western Coachella Valley region are covered as well. == Departments ==

• A • Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) • Assessment & Data AnalysisB • Benefits • Business ServicesC • College and Career Readiness • Communications & Community OutreachD • Diversity and Racial EquityE • Early Childhood Education • Educational Services • Elementary Curriculum & Instruction • English Learner ProgramsF • Facilities Planning & Development • Family Engagement Center • Fiscal ServicesG • Gifted & Talented Education (GATE)H • Health Services • Human ResourcesL • Linked Learning / CTE • M • Mail/Reprographics • Maintenance & Operations • Mental Health ServicesN • Nutrition ServicesP • Payroll • Professional Development • PSUSD Arts • Purchasing ServicesR • Risk ManagementS • Secondary Curriculum & Instruction 6–12 • Security • Special Education • State & Federal Programs • Student Support Services • Superintendent's Office • Supplemental InterventionsT • Technology (ETIS) • Transportation ServicesW • Warehouse ==Schools==

Elementary Cathedral City • Agua Caliente Elementary School, opened in 1930's, current site since 1960, renovated. • Cathedral City Elementary School (opened 1950s, moved to new site in 2005). • Landau Elementary School – opened in 1991. • Rio Vista Elementary School – opened in 2006. • Sunny Sands Elementary School – opened in 1989. Desert Hot Springs • Bella Vista Elementary School – opened in 2014. • Bubbling Wells Elementary School – opened in 1990. • Cabot Yerxa Elementary School – opened in 2009. • Julius Corsini Elementary School – opened in 1983 (formerly Hacienda Elementary School 1950s–80, replaced older site). • Two Bunch Palms Elementary School – opened in 1997. Palm Springs • Raymond Cree Middle School – opened in the 1960s, replaced site built in 1930s. • Cielo Vista Charter School - opened in the 1980s. • Proposed Desert Highland Education center Proposed (in Palm Desert/ Thousand Palms area) • Desert Cities – Palme Park School Complex (K–grade 8). ==Historic schools==

The PSUSD used to have 5 other public schools in Palm Springs and one other in Cathedral City. Until the 1950s, the PSUSD had separate school campuses for African-American, Latino, Asian-American and American Indian students when school segregation was then legal, then came the mandated policy of racial integration affected local schools. They were the El Camino, Harry Oliver, Mount San Jacinto and Palm Valley schools in the Section 14 neighborhood, inside the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation. 4 out of the 28 schools in the District reside on The Agua Caliente Indian Reservation: Cathedral City High School, Vista Del Monte Elementary School, James Workman Middle School and Rancho Mirage High School. Local celebrities and billionaires like Walter Annenberg and Frank Sinatra boosted public schools in the city and desert, whom also personally fought against racial and ethnic segregation of public schools. At the time, even American Jewish and American Catholic students would choose church-run and religious day schools over public ones, until the end of WWII when their parents were comfortable sending them to secular public schools. By the start of the 1960s, the PSUSD was integrated of all races and creeds. The (later private) Palm Valley School in the 1920s on the city limits of Cathedral City, closed and moved to current site in the 1960s. The Smoke Tree school which faced the Walt Disney ranch and the Bob Hope and Elvis Presley residences closed in the 1960s. The Frances Stevens school now the Palm Springs Theatre. The Harry Oliver school became the Palm Springs Community School run by Riverside County Department of Education. The Ramon School now the St. Theresa's Catholic school. The relocated El Camino Continuation High School, on Demuth Park (the park and school's original site was on west Ramon and south Palm Canyon Dr.) in the late 1970s, on the PSHS site in the early 1980s, then became the Esperanza High School for teenage mothers in 1986, then closed in the early 1990s. And the Mount San Jacinto School, later a special-day studies school on Section 14, the land parcel on the Agua Caliente Indian reservation, also where El Camino was. ==References==