Joint UC–Riverside STEM High School Dropped

Riverside Unified School District and the University of California, Riverside, said Friday, May 22, that they have dropped plans for a joint STEM high school that had been proposed on university land near the campus. The decision ends a project the district had discussed for more than a decade and that most recently was estimated to cost $134 million. In a joint announcement described by local reporting, the two institutions said they will instead form a group to assess broader STEM programming across the district. Superintendent Sonia Llamas and Chancellor S. Jack Hu both said the partnership will continue in a different form. ### Which project did Riverside Unified and UC Riverside abandon? The proposed campus was known as the STEM Education Center, a new high school facility tied to Riverside STEM Academy, a district school serving grades 5 through 12 near UC Riverside. UC Riverside said in 2024 that the plan called for an approximately 80,000-square-foot, three-story building on East Campus land owned by the university. The draft environmental review described a campus for grades 9 through 12 with capacity for about 800 students at any given time and roughly 1,200 daily participants, including part-time students. (riversiderecord.org) Riverside Unified had planned to build the school on land leased from the university for 50 years, with options to extend the agreement, according to a December 2025 board presentation later reported by The Riverside Record. That presentation said the high school campus would separate older students from the academy’s middle school grades and give both groups more space. (events.ucr.edu) ### Why did the plan stall before it was formally dropped? May 1 reporting by The Riverside Record said the project had been “in limbo” since June 2025, citing foundation board minutes and correspondence. Assistant Superintendent Orin Williams told the Riverside STEM Academy Foundation board in January that Riverside Unified had completed and submitted the necessary documents, but the project had not been advanced to the UC Regents after leadership changes at both institutions in mid-July 2025. (riversiderecord.org) UCR spokesperson Jack Warren told the outlet that Llamas and Hu had held several conversations about the project since August 2025 and were working on what he called a “deliberate and informed timetable.” Riverside Unified spokesperson Liz Pinney-Muglia said at the time that the institutions were considering the “most responsible, sustainable and impactful path forward.” The project was not listed for the Regents’ May 5-6, 2026 meeting, according to that report. (riversiderecord.org) ### How much money was tied to the project? The most recent public cost estimate was $134 million, Orin Williams told the school board in December 2025, according to The Riverside Record. That same report said district staff presented four lower-cost fallback options: major renovations to the current Riverside STEM Academy campus, repurposing another school, sharing space with one of the district’s other high schools, or building on district-owned land. (riversiderecord.org) At the December 18 board meeting, Williams also said the district had spent about $1.5 million to complete the project’s environmental impact report, The Riverside Record reported after the plan was shelved. District spokesperson Pinney-Muglia said that money could not be recovered. ### What did district and university leaders say when they ended it? (riversiderecord.org) Sonia Llamas said in the May 22 release that leadership changes at both organizations created “an opportunity to think more expansively about our approach to partnership in service of Riverside’s students,” according to The Riverside Record. She said the district’s focus is on “connecting the dots” across schools, partners and the community. (riversiderecord.org) S. Jack Hu said UC Riverside remains committed to the partnership and to expanding high-quality STEM education in the community. He said the new approach would let UCR work with the district to broaden opportunities across more schools, according to the same report. ### What happens next instead of the new high school? Friday’s announcement said Riverside Unified and UC Riverside will create a group to assess opportunities for expanded STEM programming across the district and connect students with university resources. (riversiderecord.org) The institutions said the effort will bring together leaders from different areas of expertise to strengthen supports that help students move into higher education. One likely starting point is Riverside STEM Academy itself. In December, district staff told the board that major renovations to the current campus were among the alternatives under consideration if the university partnership did not proceed. The next formal public steps are likely to surface through Riverside Unified board materials and any district-university planning updates tied to the new committee. (riversiderecord.org) (riversiderecord.org)