When Inland Empire students return to school this month, some things will be a little different.
Here is a look at five new schools or facilities opening in the 2025-26 school year.
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Jessica Johnson places a cookie sheet Friday, Aug. 1, 2025, under a machine that makes multiple cookies at once as Michelle Ortega looks on at the new Val Verde Unified School District central kitchen in Perris. The state-of-the-art facility allows the district to better serve students with nutritious meals while also improving efficiency. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)
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Jessica Johnson places a cookie sheet Friday, Aug. 1, 2025, under a machine that makes multiple cookies at once as Michelle Ortega looks on at the new Val Verde Unified School District central kitchen in Perris. The state-of-the-art facility allows the district to better serve students with nutritious meals while also improving efficiency. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)
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New kitchen serves up meals
The Val Verde Unified School District has opened its new central kitchen for the school year.
The state-of-the-art facility will allow the Perris-based district to serve fresh meals and improve efficiency year round.
The kitchen will deliver fresh, scratch-cooked meals that are nutritious and culturally inclusive for more than 17,000 students a day. The facility significantly expands the district’s capacity to prepare meals throughout the year, including during breaks.
The new kitchen has:
- Expanded capabilities for culinary training and farm-to-school programs
- Greater operational efficiency and menu flexibility
It is in the same parking lot as the district office, at 975 W. Morgan Ave., Perris.
A school returns to Riverside neighborhood
For the first time in almost 60 years, Riverside’s Casa Blanca neighborhood will have an elementary school.
Casa Blanca Elementary School, where the bell will ring Monday, Aug. 11, is a 9.8-acre campus comprised of six main buildings.
The school has three two-story buildings called “Learning Villages,” outdoor learning spaces and three hands-on STEM labs.
The school broke ground in 2023 and is projected to start the year with 420 students from transitional kindergarten through sixth grade.
The campus will be the first in the mostly Latino community since an earlier Casa Blanca school closed in 1967 under the Riverside Unified School District’s plan to desegregate schools. After its closure, students were bused to schools outside their neighborhood.
Murrieta church now a preschool
The Early Learning and Enrichment Center will open at 25664 Madison Ave. in the Murrieta Valley Unified School District.
The facility is a renovated church bought by the district more than a year ago, district spokesperson Monica Gutierrez said. It will act as a preschool and the home base for administration of the district’s after-school programs.
The preschool has 10 classrooms.
“We fully renovated, moved, and rebranded our early-childhood education programs,” Gutierrez said in a Wednesday, July 30, email.
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Roger Hauptman, of JCE Equipment, measures and marks lines for stripes to be painted at the Frances Grice Cardinal Childcare Development Center at San Bernardino High School on Tuesday, June 10, 2025. The center is part of the San Bernardino City Unified School District. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
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Roger Hauptman, of JCE Equipment, measures and marks lines for stripes to be painted at the Frances Grice Cardinal Childcare Development Center at San Bernardino High School on Tuesday, June 10, 2025. The center is part of the San Bernardino City Unified School District. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
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New childcare center in San Bernardino
A new $27 million facility at San Bernardino High School will welcome preschoolers in the new school year.
The Frances Grice Cardinal Childcare Development Center was built by the San Bernardino City Unified School District.
Named for Frances Grice, a community activist known for her role in the desegregation of San Bernardino schools, the center will provide “opportunities to connect to nature and support creativity and independent thinking at the preschool and transitional kindergarten levels,” the district’s website states.
The center was prompted by a law that phased in transitional kindergarten for 4-year-olds, beginning in 2022-23 and reaching full implementation by 2025-26, according to the website.
The center sits on about 2 acres at the campus’ south edge and has 14,700 square feet of classroom, administration and other space. It has a covered walkway outside. Its solar panels will produce enough energy to offset the building’s electricity consumption, according to the Tilden-Coil Constructors website.
Corona swimming complex makes splash
A new aquatics center at Centennial High School in Corona features an Olympic-sized pool, an administration building and covered bleachers.
An approximately 6,500-square-foot building contains locker rooms, coaches’ offices, a pool mechanical room and other areas.
A second 1,000 square-foot building houses restrooms and concessions. Concrete bleachers overlook the 50-meter outdoor pool.
