Over five years before a petition was filed to form a school district at Adamsville, the first seat of Stanislaus County, Davis School District (later to become the Ceres School District), was organized Jan. 27, 1859 by Harvey Bates Davis.

Davis School was located at what came to be known as “Hatch Crossing,” where Hatch Road and Highway 99 now intersect. Some of the few area children attended this school in the early years before Ceres was named as a railroad stop and began as a town in 1867.

These are some of the historical milestones of the Ceres school district over the past 153 years:

1870 – The one-room Davis School was enlarged to accommodate 50 pupils even though just 25 were attending at the time.

1874 – The Davis School building was moved to Ceres and placed in what was for years known as Triangle Park (now Whitmore Park). This school was the only public building until 1879 and all community meetings were held there. The name remained Davis School District.

1884 – A cloakroom partition in the schoolhouse was removed to accommodate more pupils.

1886 – The first Ceres school tax election was held to finance the building of a new school.

1887 – A two-room, two-story school was erected northeast of the old one-room school. The old building was moved back to the Hatch farm just east of its original location and became the main part of the Herbert Hatch farm house, approximately where the Dollar Tree and Harbor Freight are on Hatch Road. The two-story school was of wooden construction, with one long room on each floor.

May 30, 1890 – The Stars and Stripes was first raised over a Ceres school building with pupils, principal, teachers and visitors singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” This was no doubt part of an official Memorial Day observance.

1897 – Davis School District was officially renamed the Ceres School District. Old habits die hard for the clerk of the county school board continued to refer to it as Davis School District in the minutes for another year.

Sept. 3, 1898 – A special school tax election was held and succeeded by a margin of 15 to 6 votes. The funds allowed the addition of a room to the two-story schoolhouse in the park.

July 1905 – Another tax election for $500 was held to fund yet another addition to the school building and pay the salary of a second teacher.

1908 – The Ceres High School District was established. Classes first met in the Grange Hall at the Triangle Park, in the portion that is now El Camino Street.

1909 – Land was acquired on the north side of North Street (opposite the school house) for the construction of a newer school made of white brick. The white brick, formed of a sandy mixture to give the appearance of stone, was so crumbly that weather and pupils’ engraving skills too soon made it impractical and faulty.

From 1909 to 1931 the White Brick School and schoolyard extended across the present Third Street which then ended at North Street, and included not only the area now occupied by Ceres Police Station, City Hall and library civic but half of the block now bounded by Third, North, Fourth and Magnolia streets.

1915 – Ceres introduced its first “school bus” to serve students living out in the country. It was a converted horse-drawn with roll-down canvas windows by a Mr. Richards who also became the driver.

April 3, 1931 – Ceres school trustees Walter P. Rinehart, Frank R. Lander and J. R. Beam inspected and officially accepted the new $85,000 Ceres Grammar School on Lawrence Street. (Another account gives the cost as $80,000.) A contemporary description follows: “The new brick building with its tiled roof represents several months of labor and sets a new standard of excellence for schools of the community. It comfortably houses in its 16 rooms, the 18 teachers and 565 pupils which now make up Ceres Grammar School. The building is steam heated. The offices, teachers’ room and clinic are electrically heated for special meetings. Two of the classrooms, the domestic science room and the cafeteria, have four large electric lights provided for night meetings. All rooms have electric lights, telephones and electric clocks. Manual training rooms, home-making rooms, kindergarten rooms and a special sun porch are other attractive features of the new school.”

(Other accounts at various times give 15 classrooms and 20 rooms; no doubt depending on use, whether or not offices, etc. were added in, or whether classrooms only were meant.)

After the acceptance of the new building, the weekend was spent by Principal Walter White, teachers and older pupils in moving equipment to the new school. On Monday, April 6, pupils reported to their old classrooms, gathered up their books, and class by class marched across town to the rambling new structure. The wide, hardwood-floored hallway with its windows letting in the light was a wonderful thing, the townfolks thought. Only one occurrence marred the day – vandals got into the old White Brick School and destroyed school records before they could be moved.”

Though a 1934 picture of the new school showed a sign that read “Ceres Elementary School,” it remained Ceres Grammar School in common parlance and officially in the district title – Ceres Grammar School. It was not changed to Clinton Whitmore School to honor the original owner of the land until after World War II when other schools began to be built.

Plans were to host an official grand opening on April 10, however, elaborate plans pushed the actual ceremonial day to Thursday, May 7. At 7:30 p.m. more than 500 people gathered to tour the building, hear speeches and applaud pupil performances. All making speeches or having a part in the opening ceremonies in addition to the trustees and principal were four ministers; Vaughn D. Whitmore, chairman of the board of supervisors; local banker Arthur L. Harris; Mayor Wayne Baldridge; and George F. Wood, prominent local merchant active in the Board of Trade (forerunner of Ceres Chamber of Commerce).

At 8 p.m. 15 programs began simultaneously in different classrooms. Visitors were entertained with musical and dramatic numbers and exhibits of school work. Plays, recitations, solos, the school band and a third grade classroom band were included.

Refreshments were served at the end.

1930’s – In the early years after the new school was opened, the first commercially-built school bus began operation. The original horse-drawn wagon had been superceded by motorized vehicles converted in a makeshift way to carry passengers. The new “real bus” was owned by Johnny Newkirk, a farmer on Service Road, who drove it under private contract with the school.

1938 – Ceres Grammar School District officially became the Ceres Elementary School District.

1942 – The old Ceres Grammar School grounds (site of the White Brick School) were given to the city of Ceres for government structures. On this site was built the police and fire station and later City Hall (it was razed in the 1990s to make way for Ceres Fire Station #1. In 1942 Ceres Elementary had more than 600 pupils, a faculty of 19 and three new 60-passenger buses.

1948 – The rural Westport Elementary School was constructed but would not become a Ceres school until consolidation in 1964.

Also in 1948, Caswell Elementary School opened. It was named after the Thomas Caswell family who owned 125 acres in the area where the school site is today. 

1949 – In the post war baby boom, Ceres opened Don Pedro Elementary School and Walter White (which served as a junior high).

1957 – Carroll Fower Elementary School opened on land formerly owned and farmed by Carroll Fowler, later a Duarte resident where he is buried with wife Aurelia Whitmore Fowler.

1965 – Unification of Ceres Elementary School District, Ceres High School District and the rural Westport School District into Ceres Unified School District.

1968 – CUSD starts Argus High School as a continuation school but the school didn’t get its own campus until 1973.

1972 – Ceres added its first junior high school and named it after Mae Hensley, the longtime attendance officer. It would serve as its only junior high school until the opening of Blaker Kinser Jr. High.

1989 – Virginia Parks Elementary opens. It was named after Virginia “Betty” Parks, a Ceres School Board member in the 1950s and 1960s.

Jan. 11, 1991 – The historic bricked Whitmore Elementary School on Lawrence Street, then used as the CUSD headquarters, was destroyed by fire. The current district office was built on the same site, using some salvaged bricks from the old structure.

1994 – Blaker Kinser Jr. High School opened west of Highway 99.

Also that year, Sam Vaughn Elementary School opened in the Eastgate Master Plan area. It was named after Sam Vaughn, who served CUSD for 34 years, first as a teacher hired in 1961 and later as Supervisor of Child Welfare and Attendance.

1995 – Endeavor Alternative High School opened on the campus of Argus High School.

2003 – Berryhill Elementary School opened at Ceres’ eastern edge and later became known as Whitmore Charter schools. 

2005 – Ceres opened up three new schools this year. M. Robert Adkison Elementary School opened north of Hatch Road. It was named after the former CUSD superintendent.

It was also the year that Central Valley High School opened at Service and Central avenues.

The third was Sinclear Elementary School, named after the Sinclear family, of which Dale and son Stan served on the Ceres School Board.

2006 – Two more elementary schools opened, one named after the late Joel J. Hidahl, a Ceres area farmer who was active in the community. The 1944 graduate of Ceres High School served on the CUSD board from 1969 to 1977.

The second school was La Rosa Elementary, named after the family who farmed that area of east Ceres.

2011 – Ceres opened its third junior high school and chose the controversial name of farm labor leader Cesar Chavez. District policy up until that point was to name facilities after local community members. Some who pushed for the school to be named for long-time farmer and Ceres resident Wayne Salter circulated a petition to get the board to change its mind but the board stuck to its original decision.

2013 – Lucas Elementary School opened as the first-ever dual language school in Ceres. It was named after Grant and Mildred Lucas, longtime residents and farmers. Grand served on the school board from 1965 to 1973. Mildred wrote a history book on Ceres.

2014 – CUSD opened Patricia Kay Beaver Elementary. Beaver Elementary School is the district’s first leadership and character development magnet program. District officials say it’s only appropriate that the school emphasizes leadership and character development since Beaver had a passion to stir students to do their best.

Beaver taught history and social studies at CHS from 1990 until her death. She also was teacher and adviser for the Ceres High Cereal yearbook class. She was also instrumental in developing the “S” Club on campus and was active in the Ceres Street Faire and Miss Ceres Scholarship pageant in the 1990s.

Also in 2014, CUSD opened Walt Hanline Elementary. The Ceres School Board felt the naming of a school for Hanline was appropriate since he facilitated the successful expansion of the district from 12 schools to 19, including five new elementary campuses, a third new junior high campus and the Central Valley High School campus. Hanline served as superintendent from 2001 to 2010. The school is not serving elementary school students yet but is being utilized for adult education.