Banning Unified School District

The mission of the Banning Unified School District, as an educational community, is to improve academic achievement, provide a safe school environment, and maintain a positive school climate to produce life-long learners and cultivate productive citizens.

The San Gorgonio School District was formed in 1877 and became the Banning School District. There were 14 children enrolled when the first school opened in a one-room shack. The school moved several times and burned to the ground once before 1907 when a new stucco building was built on Williams Street and a separate high school was started. The Williams Street building is still in use as the Banning District Office.

Banning Unified School District, one of the oldest districts in Riverside County, has a past as colorful as the 300-square mile area it serves. Flanked by magnificent mountain ranges to the north and the south, the area forms a natural passageway between metropolitan Los Angeles and the Greater Palm Springs desert communities. Home for centuries to peaceful Indians, the rugged pass was used in the early 1800s by the San Gabriel Mission for grazing vast to point east. With it, the Stagecoach era came thundering through with its satchels of U.S. Mail and currency. The Southern Pacific Iron Horse was the predominant trailblazer by the 1890s. The automobile followed, culminating in the opening of the I-10 Freeway, the most traveled trail of all. Today, Banning is known throughout the world as Stagecoach Town USA. The District area is still semi-rural and encompasses Cabazon, Whitewater, Poppet Flats and the Morongo Indian Reservation as well as the City of Banning.