Most of this stigma is very wrong and unfair. Central Valley was and is one of the poorest areas in Shasta County, but much of it is not their fault. Shasta Lake City is one of the more beautiful spots in Shasta County.
Shasta Dam was the last large dam built as part of the huge water reclamation projects of the early twentieth century. Legions of workers, called dambusters, followed these huge projects to escape the ravages of the depression. When a dam was completed, say Hoover or Boulder Dam, the Federal Government would leave a "planned" community for future generations.
In Shasta Dam's case, there was no planned commuinity. The dam was completed during the Second World War and the Feds did not have the extra money to leave a planned community.
So Central Valley, Project City and Summit City (named after the workers' tent cities that grew up to support the dam's construction), had no infrastructure, no water system,no sewage system to speak of. The Feds just left, with practically nothing of benefit behind.
The Federal Government did leave a small planned commuity, the administrative housing facility, which was famously taken over in the 60s by local Native American tribes for a time as a protest for the wrongs done to their land and interests. It was reduced to rubble. Otherwise Central Valley had little in the way of a head start toward becoming a prosperous city. I can remember during my eight years at Central Valley High School, the smell of sewage that would always follow a strong rain storm, because the sewage system was basically home made.
So poverty was the starting point. And a sense of being a second class area in a county that was becoming more prosperous after the war due to the explosion of the logging industry was strong. Central Valley, in spite of the fact that the dam and federal project it was named after was directly responsible for Shasta County's affluence, was depicted in the larger community as a poor, underclass place.
It is interesting, because the dam workers, many who lived in Central Valley, were the best paid workers in Shasta County in the late 1930s and early 40s. They would come to Redding and spend their paychecks on the whores on California Street and the bars. There were many fights between the "townies" of Redding, and the "hicks" from Central Valley. There was great resentment in Redding citizens because the "hicks" from C.V. actually made way more money!
In the mid-1950s Central Valley High School was built. It was needed because Redding was growing rapidly, partly due to Shasta Dam, and one high school was not large enough. Unfortunately for Central Valley High, it was the smallest high school between Enterprise and Shasta, but was forced to compete athletically in the NAL.
So, winning was very difficult. One year in the 60s Central Valley High did not win a varsity boys game in any sport until baseball season!
Understandably the citizens of Central Valley did not like this stigma. And they rebelled by "unifying" Central Valley High out of the Shasta Union High School District in the early 1990s.
At the time I was an Assistant Principal and Interim Principal of Central Valley High School. I have the dubious honor of being the Principal of the school when it was unified out of the district.
There is more to this than just a school reorganization. There was a great amount of bitterness and resentment in the Central Valley community for alleged wrongs the greater Redding area constantly foisted upon them. Some of these were fanciful, some not. But for sure, there was a pent up resentment. Shasta High students called C.V. students hicks and worse, while running up the scores on them.
In the 1980s for example, the Central Valley Varsity Football Team won 3 games in the whole decade.
The citizens of now Shasta Lake City blamed the Shasta Union High School District for this unfairness. And they had a point, the district for some strange reason, refused to allow the high school to move to a smaller school league. This resulted in one year after another of defeat.
But, in the unification lies the moral of this story. It should have never happened. At the time proponents of unification studied future enrollments and quickly realized that a viable reorganization depended on Bella Vista and Columbia areas being included in the unification. Both areas were independent and did not want to be associated with the unification, so they opted out. This left the unified area with a small population base, in areas that did not promise rapid population growth.
Shasta Lake City for example is a retirement community with few school aged students. The Buckeye area is mostly commercial with few new housing developments. So, while the greater Redding area grew into the twenty first century, the attendance area of the new Gateway Unifed School District did not. In fact it is shrinking.
And then, in another spurt of local civic pride, Shasta Lake City was born.
Again, this organization faced formnable obstacles, small tax base, little real growth potential, and another threat that nobody could foretell: the implications of a killer drought on a community that relies greatly on recreation revenue from Shasta Lake.
As Shasta Lake goes, so goes Shasta Lake City. And Shasta Lake is running dry.
So now we see about 150 students graduate from Central Valley High. The size of the student body has almost halfed in the years since the unification. The school does compete in a smaller school league and the years of losing have ended, but the school district is becoming less viable by the year.
Small high schools are dificult to run, because the smaller they get the more difficult it is to offer a full ranged curriculum. College bound students transfer out to larger schools because they have to. The University of Califorinia system requires what is called an A to G curriculum, full ranged from chemistry to calculus. Small high schools cannot offer that.
So Central Valley High School, who once had Bella Vista students and Columbia students in its student body, now have way less. Ironically, the claims that under the Shasta Union High School District the school was being shortchanged have only come true AFTER the unification due to declining enrollemnt.
It pains me to see what was a wonderful high school struggle with declining enrollment. No school can overcome this. The state's financial support of schools punishes declining enrollment severely. I have often said, Jesus himself could not overcome declining enrollment.
And now we see Shasta Lake City's council cut the fire department in half due to declining revenues in the middle of the worst drought in recorded history. This seems to make no sense.
But it makes perfect sense in the tragedy that has become Shasta County and Shasta Lake City in particular. Reactionary political and educational moves almost always result in unwanted and unforseen consequences. As it turns out Shasta Lake City and the Gateway Unified School District are in big trouble because they are separate and smaller.
In retrospect they needed to stay part of a larger governmental entity (there was a move to incorporate them into Redding in the 1980s) for fiscal, educational and viable government reasons.
Smaller is not always better. I worry about my friends in the Shasta Lake City area as the days grow hotter and the water dwindles with 1/2 the fire fighters. I worry about Central Valley High School.
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