Desert Sands Unified School District

Desert Sands' community is located in the heart of Riverside County's Coachella Valley, a rich and varied residential, commercial, agricultural, and recreational area surrounded on three sides by impressive mountain ranges and within two hours of popular mountain resorts and beaches.

The community can readily boast of educational and recreational opportunities to suit the interests of all, its desert climate makes tennis, gold, hiking, off-road sports, hot-air ballooning, and a myriad of other activities offered by community programs possible year-round. Nearby College of the Desert offers academic as well as self-enrichment classes and California State University, San Bernardino has recently opened a satellite campus in Palm Desert, which continues to be under construction for a full service campus for the future.

In addition, Chapman College, National University, and University of Phoenix run satellite programs in the Palm Desert and Palm Springs area. The community is also host to a variety of festivals, as well as a number of desert golf classics and nationally acclaimed tennis tournaments. 

Desert Sands Unified School District consists of 32 schools: 20 elementary (including one charter school), seven middle schools (grades 6-8), four comprehensive high schools, a continuation high school and an alternative school. In addition, the district also runs an Adult Education Program. The district serves 27,565 students from the cities of Bermuda Dunes, Indian Wells, Indio, La Quinta, Palm Desert and a portion of Rancho Mirage.

The district provides comprehensive educational programs and services with significant special education, vocational and early childhood programs to multi-ethnic student population with diverse socio-economic and cultural interests. The district also offers many programs including Staff Development, giving teachers an opportunity for career advancement. Voters in our district recently passed Measure K, a $450,000,000 school bond that will allow the district to build new schools and upgrade existing schools.