School for Neglected, Abused Boys Opens

Trinity Children and Family Services, a large nonprofit child-care provider, will open a school today near Temecula that will provide residence and vocational training to 162 abused, neglected and emotionally troubled teenagers from across Southern California.

This fall, about 30 teenagers will move into the $7-million, 900-acre campus on the site of a former union hall. The school expects to be at its state-licensed capacity of 162 boys six months later, said Trinity admissions official Al Winters.

Eventually, Winters said, the school could expand its license to become coed and house as many as 1,000 students.

The campus is in Anza, a remote southern Riverside County community about 30 miles east of Temecula and 130 miles southeast of Los Angeles. It will be the eighth such residential campus for Colton-based Trinity. The others are in Yucaipa, Whitewater, Ukiah, Corona, Sacramento, El Monte and Apple Valley.

“We’ve been doing this a long time,” Winters said. “It’s a very nurturing environment, and very successful.”

The teenagers, most of whom will be foster children and other wards of the state, will live at the school, first in dormitory-style housing and later in separate homes that will help them become self-sufficient by teaching them to shop for food, cook and clean.

The students will attend traditional high school classes, and will receive training in a variety of vocational pursuits, including firefighting, wildlife management, landscape design, printing, graphic arts and restaurant management.