New School Opens in California’s Central Valley

Middle and high school students started school at a new campus built on California’s agricultural lands on Aug. 18.

The Terry P. Bradley Educational Center in the Clovis Unified School District in Fresno welcomed 1,000 students across three grade levels.

The campus is currently home to two schools, an intermediate and high school, grades 7-9.

The campus has enough space to expand into a large, K-12 campus that would be able to enroll about 4,000 students in total, Clovis Unified School District’s chief communications officer, Kelly Avants, told The Epoch Times.

“They’re built on one plot of land so that we can maximize the efficiencies of pulling utilities and doing the infrastructure work, as well as the academic benefits of having students be able to see it when they’re in elementary school,” Avants said. “To see that continuum up through graduation and becoming that high school student and succeeding out to ultimately do what we want them to do, which is achieve their high school diploma.”

Avants said the population has increased in the area due to people starting their own families and moving there from other parts of the state.

“We have been told by families moving into the area that the quality of education that they get at our schools, the opportunities available to their students in curriculars and athletics are of such a high quality that we attract people who are moving into the area. Oftentimes [they] want to move into our district,” she said.

Clovis Unified School District offers band and orchestra performing arts programs, club activities, career technical education programs, banking and finance pathways, and eventually, aviation studies.

According to the Census Day Enrollment data for Clovis Unified, student enrollment has been increasing steadily since 2020.

The district saw a cumulative enrollment of 42,790 students in 2020-2021, and 43,669 students in 2024-2025.

San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) reported a decrease in enrollment: 58,705 total students in 2020-2021, and 55,840 in 2024-2025. The Los Angeles Unified School District had 574,996 students in 2020-2021, and 516,685 in 2024-2025.

In March, SFUSD said it plans to eliminate 837 positions to cut $113 million in spending from its budget for the 2025–2026 fiscal year due to low student enrollment.

The district expects to cut another $13 million next year, according to officials. In February, its Board of Education approved layoffs for 149 administrators, 43 office workers, and 96 civil service employees.

Similarly, Los Angeles Unified School District officials are prepared to operate on less funding due to declining enrollment.