For the first time in nearly six decades, a school bell rang in Riverside’s Casa Blanca neighborhood.

Casa Blanca Elementary School opened Monday, Aug. 11, to the delight of the area’s mostly Latino residents who’ve long waited for this day.

RELATED: Riverside’s Casa Blanca neighborhood ready to welcome its new school

The STEM-based campus is the first in the neighborhood that straddles Madison Street since the elementary school closed in the 1960s as part of the Riverside school district’s plans to desegregate schools.

The campus on Lincoln Avenue boasts three two-story buildings with classrooms for transitional kindergarten to sixth grade, three science, technology, engineering and math labs, three patios where students can grow plants or do arts and crafts and an interactive playground.

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Parents and children walk into Casa Blanca Elementary School in Riverside on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025, for the first day of school. The school is the first to open in the mostly Latino neighborhood in nearly 60 years. (Photo by Anjali Sharif-Paul, The Sun/SCNG)

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Principal Bernie Torres welcomed eager children onto campus early Monday. Meanwhile, many parents walked their kids to school — a welcome change from years of them attending schools outside the neighborhood, often by bus.


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