Indio Middle School

Indio Middle School (IMS) is a middle school (grades 6 to 8) in Indio, California in the Desert Sands Unified School District. It is also a Charter School as of 1996 and is the second in DSUSD history after George Washington Elementary School in Palm Desert. The school first opened in 1991 at a temporary site but its present site was constructed in 1992/93.
Being a charter school, the official name is Indio Charter Middle School as of 2002 to identicate they adopted the charter school system. They are second of 3 middle schools in the DSUSD to have done so, along with two elementary schools, Washington and Lincoln.
It is also a California Distinguished School with a relatively above-average rank in state academic standards in the past decade (since 1997), among 90 others in the state with this honorable designation. The official school mascot name is the "Tigers" and the first principal was Robert Block, whom resigned in a federally investigated school district money laundering scandal in the mid-1990s.
IMS is third out of four middle schools in the city, with Thomas Jefferson, Woodrow Wilson now decommissioned, John Glenn and Cahuilla Desert Academy Junior High School in the Coachella Valley Unified School District for students residing south of Avenue 48/east of Jefferson Street.
IMS serves students residing in western parts of Indio, as well some from Bermuda Dunes and northern half of La Quinta. The school's boundaries once covered those areas until John Glenn and Colonel Mitchell Paige Middle School of La Quinta later opened in the 2000s. These areas are also served by Palm Desert Middle School and La Quinta Middle School by voluntarily choice.
Currently, IMS has 920 students, which has increased over time in the 1990s and 2000s. About half of their students attend Indio High School, but two-fifths choose La Quinta and one-tenth go to Palm Desert High School, since these high schools ranked higher in state and federal academic standards. In student body ethnic/racial makeup, it has a deal of cultural diversity.
The school provides all required classes that provide Math, English, Social Studies, Music (the Indio Middle school band appears in the annual Indio National Date Festival parades every Feb.), P.E. including sports (softball, football, basketball, volleyball, and track and field) and several elective courses of various academic subjects. The school increased the number of classrooms to boost the availability and choice of classes for their students.
Originally, IMS was supposed to be called Ronald Reagan Middle School in a debate at the DSUSD headquarters in 1991, but a former supervisor of Desert Sands took down the idea in his quote, "What did President Reagan have done to public education?" But the DSUSD later put his namesake on a new elementary school in Palm Desert, California in 2007. IMS officials apologized for politicizing the decision.
Indio Middle School made national headlines in March 1993 when the first principal, Robert Block, jumped out of an airplane in a parachute over the campus for the amusement of students. He had done so to award students for achievement of high academic standards whom promised to study hard and score well in their tests.

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