Peoria Pathways opens at former Pioneer campus

Peoria Unified School District formally opened its Peoria Pathways campus Thursday, bringing four alternative-education programs together at the former Pioneer Elementary School site in Glendale.

The district held the ribbon cutting Oct. 15 at 6315 W. Port au Prince Lane, near 63rd Avenue and Thunderbird Road. The location matters for families searching by city: the campus is operated by Peoria Unified but sits within Glendale.

Peoria Pathways began serving students Aug. 3. ABC15, which attended the ribbon cutting, reported Friday that about 120 students currently attend in person, with room for 160, and that five students had already graduated through Peoria Flex Academy and the S.O.A.R. Center.

Four programs under one roof

The campus consolidates programs that serve different student needs:

• Peoria Flex Academy provides an alternative high-school setting with flexible scheduling, individualized learning, self-paced coursework and credit recovery. The district says students can combine online and in-person courses.
• S.O.A.R. Center is a dropout-recovery program built around a teacher mentor and a route to a high-school diploma. ABC15 reported that students may attend through age 22 and that 40 students are currently enrolled.
• Peoria eCampus is the district’s K-12 virtual school. District program information says K-8 classes use scheduled live instruction, while high-school courses are asynchronous and supported by Peoria Unified teachers. The program also offers online dual-enrollment courses through Glendale Community College.
• WORKS, short for Work Orientation Readiness Knowledge and Skills, serves students with intellectual disabilities through workplace preparation and community-based job experience. ABC15 reported that the program is capped at 32 students in the morning and 32 in the afternoon.

The online eCampus enrollment is much larger than the number physically attending Peoria Pathways. ABC15 reported more than 1,200 K-12 students in the virtual program. Those students use the consolidated campus as an organizational home even when coursework is completed remotely.

A former elementary school gets a new role

Peoria Pathways occupies the former Pioneer Elementary campus. The governing board voted March 12 to close Pioneer and Kachina elementary schools for the 2026-27 school year as part of a broader school closure and repurposing plan. Pioneer students were reassigned to Foothills Elementary.

The new use preserves an education function at the Pioneer property while concentrating programs that had operated separately. For students, the practical change is a single location for diploma completion, credit recovery, virtual learning support and work-readiness services.

How families can start

Families unsure which pathway fits can call the Peoria Pathways campus at 623-412-5475. Peoria eCampus lists a separate enrollment contact at 623-412-5345 and ecampus@pusd11.net. Its enrollment pages distinguish full-time virtual students from Peoria Unified students who take individual online courses while remaining enrolled at a comprehensive school.

The district’s next useful measures will be enrollment by program, credit completion and graduation totals over the full school year. The five early graduates show that the campus is operating, but they are not yet a full-year performance measure.

Sources: Peoria Unified ribbon-cutting announcement; Peoria Flex Academy; Peoria eCampus; ABC15 reporting from the Oct. 15 event.

Featured image: AI-assisted editorial illustration created by West Valley Post. It is representative and does not depict the actual Peoria Pathways campus or students.