Riverside Unified staff presented six draft attendance-boundary concepts for the district’s planned Ophelia Valdez Yeager elementary school and asked trustees for direction before public outreach narrows options.
The proposed Ophi school, planned for a 900-student capacity because of high neighborhood density, was modeled against current attendance at six receiving schools: Alcott, Castle View, Emerson, Magnolia, Pachappa and Taft. Staff said 1,145 students currently reside in the area that will be served by the new school and that 138 students residing in the area now attend schools other than their neighborhood campus (staff attributed a portion of that to employees who may transfer their children to their employer school).
Six preliminary options were shown. Common trade-offs were keeping some neighborhoods with longtime feeder schools (Longfellow and Emerson), avoiding overcapacity at an existing campus, and limiting major arterial crossings that raise safety concerns. Trustees and community members concentrated on several issues:
- Several trustees and residents asked staff to develop a blended option that would keep a two-block neighborhood near Longfellow tied to Longfellow while also keeping specified Alcott addresses with Alcott (trustees asked staff to combine elements of options 3 and 4).
- Trustees expressed strong concern about options that would put Longfellow above its capacity (Trustee comments flagged option 5 as producing too many students at Longfellow). Trustees asked staff to remove or refine options that create over-capacity at a single campus.
- Board members asked staff to confirm actual walk distances for the two-block neighborhood near Longfellow and reported conflicting measurements; staff supplied an on-the-spot check that noted a short walk of 0.2 miles for a specific two-block example, while a subsequent measurement using local street routing showed about a 1.09-mile walking route, underscoring how walking distance depends on actual pedestrian routing.
Staff said they will take trustee direction and present refined scenarios (combining the elements trustees requested) at upcoming community meetings and in the two virtual meetings already scheduled. Staff also noted the new Casablanca school opened near projections (410 students as of the Monday before the workshop), and that the district will revisit facilities plans for affected schools such as Victoria, Castle View and others once new school openings and residential growth data are validated.
Why it matters: Attendance boundaries shape student access to neighborhood schools, influence capacity and the need for portable classrooms, affect costs for potential school additions, and create transportation and safety trade-offs when major arterial roads are involved. Trustees asked staff to prepare narrower, community-ready options that avoid overloading single campuses and minimize unsafe walking routes.
Next steps: staff will prepare a smaller set of refined options (trustees suggested combining option 3 and area D from option 4), schedule additional public outreach meetings and provide updated enrollment and walk-distance calculations to the board.