| Palm Springs Unified School District | |
| Zipcode: | 92264 |
| Country: | United States |
| Coordinates: | 33.8251°N -116.4947°W |
| Grades: | K–12 |
| Established: | 1958 |
| Address: | 150 District Center Drive |
| Superintendent: | Mike Swize |
| Asst Superintendent: | Simone Kovats |
| Students: | 21,705 (2020–2021) |
| Teachers: | 961.16 (FTE) |
| Staff: | 1,125.81 (FTE) |
| Ratio: | 22.58:1 |
The Palm Springs Unified School District, or PSUSD, is one of three public education governing bodies in the Coachella Valley desert region of Southern California. PSUSD governs the western half of the valley; the Coachella Valley Unified School District and Desert Sands Unified School District oversee communities in the eastern half. Administrative offices are located in Palm Springs. The PSUSD was established in 1958 from the Palm Springs Public Schools, later included Palm Springs High School in the 1960s.
PSUSD employs more than 2000 administrators, certificated staff and classified staff. More than 23,000 students are enrolled in sixteen elementary schools, five middle schools, four high schools and a continuation high school. In addition, the district provides Preschools, Head Start programs, charter schools, and adult education.
The district covers the following communities:
Other unincorporated areas within the western Coachella Valley region are covered as well.
opened in the 1980s.
Had the second highest test scores of all Coachella Valley high schools in the 2000s and 2010–11.
Originally K–12 grade school in the 1920s and had the College of the Desert campus from 1958 to 1964.
The PSUSD used to have 5 other public schools in Palm Springs and one other in Cathedral City.
Until the 1950s, the PSUSD had separate school campuses for African-American, Latino, Asian-American and American Indian students when school segregation was then legal, then came the mandated policy of racial integration affected local schools. They were the El Camino, Harry Oliver, Mount San Jacinto and Palm Valley schools in the Section 14 neighborhood, inside the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation. 4 out of the 28 schools in the District reside on The Agua Caliente Indian Reservation Cathedral City High School, Vista Del Monte Elementary School, James Workman Middle School and Rancho Mirage High School reside on the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation.
Local celebrities and billionaires like Walter Annenberg and Frank Sinatra boosted public schools in the city and desert, whom also personally fought against racial and ethnic segregation of public schools. At the time, even American Jewish and American Catholic students would choose church-run and religious day schools over public ones, until the end of WWII when their parents were comfortable sending them to secular public schools. By the start of the 1960s, the PSUSD was integrated of all races and creeds.
The (later private) Palm Valley School in the 1920s on the city limits of Cathedral City, closed and moved to current site in the 1960s.
The Smoke Tree school which faced the Walt Disney ranch and the Bob Hope and Elvis Presley residences closed in the 1960s.
The Frances Stevens school now the Palm Springs Theatre.
The Harry Oliver school became the Palm Springs Community School run by Riverside County Department of Education.
The Ramon School now the St. Theresa's Catholic school.
The relocated El Camino Continuation High School, on Demuth Park (the park and school's original site was on west Ramon and south Palm Canyon Dr.) in the late 1970s, on the PSHS site in the early 1980s, then became the Esperanza High School for teenage mothers in 1986, then closed in the early 1990s.
And the Mount San Jacinto School, later a special-day studies school on Section 14, the land parcel on the Agua Caliente Indian reservation, also where El Camino was.