A senior Riverside Unified School District (RUSD) administrator told its science and technology academy’s board of directors a proposed $134 million high school expansion project has been stalled since last June, according to documents obtained by The Riverside Record.
According to minutes from a January 21 meeting of the Riverside STEM Academy Foundation Board of Director meeting, Assistant Superintendent Orin Williams said the project was “in limbo” due to a communication breakdown between RUSD and the University of California, Riverside (UCR), which was partnering with the district on the project.
“He explained that all the necessary documents from [RUSD] were completed and submitted to UCR,” the foundation’s secretary wrote in the minutes. “But UCR held them back from the July UC Regents meeting due to the arrival of a new chancellor that month.”
The board of directors did not immediately respond to The Record’s request for comment.
The university, in a statement to The Record, said both RUSD Superintendent Sonia Llamas and UCR Chancellor S. Jack Hu started in mid-July 2025.
“They have had several conversations about the STEM project since August 2025, establishing a deliberate and informed timetable,” Jack Warren, public information officer for UCR, said. “More information will be made available in the coming weeks.”
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Williams, at the January meeting, said he felt the “ball was in UCR’s court,” according to the minutes, noting the indecision could lead to higher construction costs if prolonged for too long. He added the lack of a decision had left students in an inferior facility but said the district had already developed alternatives if the collaboration did not move forward.
An email exchange between an RUSD administrator and a UCR director two days after that meeting, also obtained by The Record, showed UCR had still not submitted the plans to the university system’s governing board. The project has not been agendized for the University of California Regents’ upcoming May 5-6 meeting, nor was it included on previous 2026 agendas.
“As both institutions continue under new leadership and evolving financial conditions, our conversations are focused on identifying the most responsible, sustainable and impactful path forward,” Liz Pinney-Muglia, public information officer for RUSD, said in a statement to The Record. “RUSD remains proud of its partnership with UCR, committed to supporting Riverside STEM Academy and focused on strengthening STEM pathways across the district so that more students can access meaningful opportunities.”
Since 2014, RUSD has discussed expanding the Riverside STEM Academy, a fifth through 12 grade campus that focuses on teaching science and technology-based curriculum to students, by building a new high school campus. To do this, the district decided to partner with the University of California, Riverside (UCR) to build the expansion on a portion of university property leased for a minimum of 50 years.
At a December 18 RUSD Board of Education meeting, Williams said the district had already spent about $1.5 million to finalize the environmental impact report and the ground lease. One of the final steps before getting the project started, according to Williams’ presentation, was getting approval from the university system’s governing body, the UC Regents.
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