Mt. Diablo Unified School District has agreed to transfer 90.5 KVHS Concord in the East Bay of California to the Contra Costa County Office of Education for $1.

The move salvages the station’s license after the Mt. Diablo Unified School District decided to not renew the station’s tower lease with American Tower earlier this year. In an STA filing to move it to a CCCOE tower, the school district said the lease was “not financially sustainable by a noncommercial educational radio station which has many other operational and administrative expenses.”

KVHS had been operated by a group of volunteers in recent years with no school or student involvement. It had been operated by Clayton Valley High School from its sign-on in 1969 until the school separated from the school district and went charter in 2012. The new operator intends to operate from a temporary site at their headquarters in Concord, while seeking a new permanent site for the station. Station host Dave Hughes, who has been chronicling the moves that led to the transfer including a 2022 attempt to purchase by K-Love Inc., says that the new operator intends to return to an educational purpose for the station while retaining the community volunteers.

Contra Costa County Superintendent of Schools Lynn Mackey said, “KVHS has a rich legacy of serving the local community and empowering young people through radio, and we are excited to be part of the next chapter in that legacy.”

The station signed-off from its former site on June 27 and intends to resume broadcasting by mid-July. It has continued to stream online.