The Morongo Unified School District, like 76 percent of the school districts throughout California, has experienced declining enrollment in the last several years. Moreover, the drop-off in the number of students throughout the Morongo Basin has been more pronounced than in virtually every other part of the state and appears very likely to persist.
Throughout California in the 2014-15 school year, there were 6,163,001 students from kindergarten to the 12th Grade in all of California. In the 2025-26 school year, as a consequence of declining birth rates, that number had dropped to 5,731,260, a diminution of 7.533 percent.
Meanwhile in the Morongo Valley Unified School District, enrollment has receded from 9,700 students in 2006 to right around 7,300 students, a whopping 24.7 percent.
Despite the Morongo Unified School District being San Bernardino County’s largest school district geographically at 1,342.44 square miles, there are 17 other school districts in the county with a more substantial student enrollment.
With 11 elementary schools, two middle schools and three high schools, the number of students in the district had climbed to 8,005 at the beginning of the 2020–2021 school year, when in-class instruction had been suspended because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prognostication suggests that by 2031, the number of students in the district will have attrited to approximately 6,821.
Earlier this year, with the writing on the wall, Superintendent Patricio Vargas recognized that operating the district’s schools as they had been in the past would not be sustainable. Nevertheless, given the sheer expanse of the Morongo Basin and the distance between its communities of Yucca Valley, Twentynine Palms, Wonder Valley, Joshua Tree, Morongo Valley, Landers, Pioneertown and the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, the extant schools served households scattered throughout the region. Closing any of those schools would be an imposition on at the very least scores and more likely hundreds of families.
Schools within the district consist of Condor Elementary School in Twentynine Palms, located on the grounds of the US Marine Corps Base; Friendly Hills Elementary School; Joshua Tree Elementary School; Landers Elementary School; Morongo Valley Elementary School; Oasis Elementary School in Twentynine Palms; Onaga Elementary School in Yucca Valley; Palm Vista Elementary School in Twentynine Palms; Twentynine Palms Elementary School; Yucca Mesa Elementary School, which offers instruction from Kindergarten to the 8th grade; Yucca Valley Elementary School along with La Contenta Middle School in Yucca Valley; Twentynine Palms Junior High School, which was the original all purpose elementary, junior high school and high school in the town in the 1950s, as well as Twentynine Palms High School, Yucca Valley High School and Black Rock Continuation High School,
The Palm Vista, Landers and Morongo Valley elementary schools have fewer than 350 students each and at present are receiving in per diem reimbursements for those students’ daily attendance an amount of money from the state that in total is less than what it is costing the district to operate them.
SchoolWorks Inc., a consulting firm retained by the district, suggested that the district close at least one and perhaps all three of the underattened schools as well as, perhaps, Friendly Hills. This would require that the district defray the cost of busing students a considerable distance to the next closest campus, including six buses roughly 16 miles back and forth from Landers to Joshua Tree five days a week.
In January, the district formed an enrollment advisory committee, consisting of Chairwoman Jennifer Cusack, Vice Chairwoman Karla Buchanan, Krystal Conrad, Nicole Hitch, Jeff Brady, Daniel Ramon Inguez, Wayne Hamilton, Amanda Mayes and Sara Smith.
Simultaneously, Vargas and members of the school board were huddling, holding discussions during closed sessions of the board during regular meetings at which the financial reality facing the district was discussed. In California, funding is in major measure provided to school districts by the state government based on daily student attendance, with the upward limitation being a function of the district’s enrollment. Keeping all of the campuses open was thus going to be, Vargas and the school board recognized, going to be a challenge. From a fiscal standpoint, it was most logical that the schools with the fewest enrolled students be closed. Between SchoolWorks Inc., Superintendent Patricio Vargas and other senior district staff, options on how the district should deal with the declining enrollment were outlined.
Vargas gave the public more than a hint of what he was contemplating at the committee’s April 9 meeting, when, acknowledging that campus closures were not the only solution, he indicated that the most sensible way of approaching the matter is to contemplate the closure of at least one of the schools by August 2027 at the beginning of the 2027-28 school year with further closures to follow thereafter. In this way, Vargas broached the concept of “a gradual decrease in the number of schools and adjustment of busing routes.”
Vargas said the district could, if it chose, leave all schools in place and open, make some school attendance boundary changes and live with the enrollment in as many as eight of the district’s 11 elementary schools having their enrollment fall below 350 by 2031.
The district could, Vargas said, close Palm Vista, Landers and Morongo Valley elementary schools and reassign students to the closest campuses. This would entail the district adding eight bus routes, which would increase transportation costs by $3 million. The transportation cost increases would be matched or more than offset by savings from the school closures, Vargas said. Even with the shuttering of Palm Vista, Landers and Morongo Valley, he said three of the schools that would remain open would see their enrollments dip to below 350 by school year 2031-32.
The district could also, Vargas said, close Landers Elementary and bus those students to Yucca Mesa Elementary. This would require the addition of three bus routes with the maximum drive time for one such bus being 57 minutes, less than the current 72 minutes. This would put kindergarteners though 8th graders on the same buses as high school students. Six of the remaining ten elementary schools would see reductions in the number of their students to below 350 by 2031-32.
Another approach Vargas outlined would be for Morongo Valley Elementary to closs, with its students sent to Yucca Valley Elementary School. This would require the addition of two bus routes, in which the maximum trip time would drop from 67 to 56 minutes. Seven of the remaining ten schools would see an attrition to less than 350 students by 2031-32.
A contemplated move is the closure of Palm Vista, with the displaced students moved to either Oasis or Twentynine Palms Elementary. This would call for the addition of three bus routes, with students spending as many as 50 minutes going to school and 50 minutes returning home. Six of the district’s elementary schools would have fewer than 350 students by 2031-32 under this plan.
If Vargas and the board were hoping that the enrollment committee would assist or back them in pressing for one or two or three campus closures in upcoming years, they were disappointed.
Right from the time of the committee’s formation, there were parents and teachers who, correctly it turned out, surmised that school closures were part of Vargas’s agenda. By April, everyone interested in the matter learned that closures were definitely being contemplated. Parents, students and teachers at or associated with the schools tentatively targeted for closure expressed opposition to the closure option, some in very strong terms. Some of those began lobbying the committee members to formulate another strategy beyond shutting down campuses.
Some parents, who were not as steeped in the hard financial numbers as Vargas, offered the opinion that the superintendent and other district officials were panicking needlessly and that state education officials, including those with the California’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, which advises school districts on fiscal matters and traces the mismanagement of education funding, said the Morongo Unified School District’s closing of campuses was not necessary.
Last month, the committee was due to complete its analysis of the situation, and bring forth some recommendations.
As it turned out, when Vice Chairwoman Buchanan, who is the principal of Onaga Elementary, presented the committee’s final report to the board of education on June 9, the report reflected greater sensitivity to the concerns of parents around the district who were worried that there children might end up spending as much as an hour-and-a-half each day commuting to and back from school than they did to the financial difficulty leaving all of those campuses running would entail.
Nevertheless, Buchanan told the board, “The committee understood the fiscal challenges facing the district and took those concerns seriously.” Buchanan told the board.
The committee, while not absolutely ruling out shuttering a campus or two, stated that school closures should be a solution of “last resort.” The school board should hold off on closing schools and instead up its educational game and improve student’s academic performance, the committee said.
District officials should deal with the financial crisis brought on by dwindling numbers of students pro-actively by interceding with Sacramento to alter its funding formula, at least for Morongo Valley Unified, by not tying the money it receives directly to enrollment or daily attendance. The district should make the point that the Morongo Valley Unified School District, given its vast size geographically, should be provided with some sort of funding augmentation to be able to keep its campuses around the far flung district open.
In addition to having seen its enrollment drop, the district has been bedeviled by lower than normal daily attendance. Average daily attendance in the district in 2024-25 was 6,565.
Shutting schools would, Buchanan said, have a negative and “lasting impact… on students, families, staff and communities.”
The committee concluded, Buchanan said, that it would be better for the district to design a policy aimed toward boosting enrollment and student retention, by curbing dropout rates and making a commitment to have students remain in school until graduation, which will pump up attendance numbers and enhance revenue to the district.
The committee concluded that the district should up its academic support programs for struggling students who are most vulnerable and therefore likely to drop out and give greater emphasis to its Academy of College and Career Excellence, aimed at preparing students to go on to receive a college education, which might influence parents who are taking their childern out of the district to remain with Morongo Valley Unified. District officials should contact parents of students who have enrolled their children in charter schools, parochial schools, privates schools or are homeschooling them to convince them to re-enroll in the district’s schools, the committee suggested. This will bring more students into the district, the committee opined. Furthermore, the committee said, the district should redraw the map relating to the attendance boundaries for the district’s schools to more evenly distribute attendance across the board.
Buchanan, on behalf of the committee, called upon the district to consider “expanding academic, behavioral and social and emotional supports [to] improve student outcomes, increase attendance, strengthen student retention and positively impact district revenue.”
“Meaningful alternatives exist and should be pursued before considering any campus closures,” Buchanan said.
Vargas had vaguely hoped that the school board last month, during the final stage of the 2025-26 academic year, might make a commitment to closing one of the campuses down by the beginning of the 2027-28 school year, the board did not consent to scheduling a vote to do so.
While the board members are acutely conscious of the financial issues dogging the district, they are cognizant of the general attitude of the parents who are understandably anxious about having their children bussed substantial distances across the valley to attend school. As elected officials, those board members must answer to those parents when they come up for reelection. The board will conceivably take up the subject of possible school closures when the 2026-27 school year is in full swing and the district’s financial picture erodes yet further.
-Mark Gutglueck