Central Unified School District establishes new boundaries for 2025-2026 school year

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Central Unified School District has finalized new boundary maps for the 2025-26 school year.

It helps redistribute students as a new elementary school is set to open and as changes are made to the high schools.

Construction is well underway at Shields and Brawley in northwest Fresno for a currently unnamed elementary school that is set to open in the fall of 2025.

That's the same time newly created school boundaries will go into effect across the district.

"This is a great place to live and raise your kids, and we've got to have school ready to welcome them in," Superintendent Ketti Davis said.

Davis says the new boundaries help determine which students will attend the new school.

It also addresses future population problems at Herndon-Barstow Elementary and reduces the number of students at Justin Garza High School.

"While it, by equation, has enough space for 2,500 students, anyone who is on that campus, just because of the traffic and the footprint says that's just too many students. It's hustling, over flowing for us," Davis said.

Another major change is happening at Central High School.

The campus has been a "choice high school," with special programs that allow any district student to attend, regardless of where they live.

But Davis says that starting in the 2025-26 school year, it will no longer be a choice high school and will instead have drawn boundaries.

"Getting students to go a little further from home; that draw was not fulfilled as we anticipated it would be and the students were sharing that, 'Well, we really want arts, we want athletics, we want that full high school experience.'" Davis said.

Davis says the district is working to create competitive arts and athletics programs for Central High students to address those requests.

Although the boundaries change in the 2025-26 school year, some students will have the opportunity to finish out their elementary, middle or high school terms at their current campus.

"If you are in 5th or 6th grade, if you're in 8th grade or if you're in 11th or 12th grade, we guarantee you'll have a spot to stay at your campus, but you have to tell us," Davis said.

Students can begin notifying the district during the 2025 Spring open enrollment.

For now, the district is busy addressing parent concerns over which programs and pathways will be available for their high school students.

"Our commitment to our community is that by December, we provide as much program information as we can to help them in making the decisions they need to make in the early spring at that secondary level," Davis said.

The district has created a website that is updated with new information as it becomes available.

Families can see the new boundary maps and answers to frequently asked questions in English, Hmong and Punjabi there.

You can access that website by clicking here.

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