The Abridged version:
- East Sacramento parents are calling for Sacramento City Unified School District officials to meet with them after not receiving promised updates on the rebuild of Miwok Middle School, set to start summer 2029.
- District staff have said previously students may be temporarily displaced during renovations, though plans are not set in stone. Parents say they need to know sooner rather than later, and they have their own proposals for how to keep classmates together.
- Families are also re-upping proposals to turn a nearby campus into a local high school, a move they say would help with student retention.
East Sacramento parents say the Sacramento City Unified School District is ignoring a commitment to keep them in the loop on the upcoming rebuild at Miwok Middle School and are demanding a public town hall.
The contingent is also reviving a push for a neighborhood high school in East Sacramento, arguing a closer option would keep more families from leaving the district after eighth grade for private school or Rio Americano in the San Juan Unified district.
The demands come as the Miwok campus, by far the district’s largest middle school, is slated for a complete renovation starting in the next few years.
Sacramento City Unified is also grappling with a $170 million budget crisis, and the school board is kicking off discussions of campus consolidations and redrawing enrollment boundaries.
Parents want to be in conversation
Parents in East Sacramento say they have not received any updates on the Miwok rebuild, where students will be schooled during construction. The district had promised community meetings this spring.
More than 60 parents of elementary school students signed an email to school board members and other officials this week, calling for an immediate public town hall. Katie Heidorn, a parent of three and main author of the letter, said if the district does not respond soon with plans for a meeting, she will likely organize a forum herself. Her oldest is a third grader and would be in middle school when the Miwok project commences.
“Having a conversation is the first step,” Heidorn said.
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District says it’s following its process
A spokesperson for Sacramento City Unified, Brian Heap, told Abridged that family and community input are key elements of the district’s process, including during three recent rebuilds and two ongoing projects elsewhere in the district.
“We appreciate and value the thoughts and concerns shared by these families and look forward to engaging in meaningful conversations with them at the appropriate time,” Heap said in written statement.
Parents ‘panicked’
Construction on Miwok is slated to start summer of 2029, Chris Ralston, assistant superintendent of facilities, said in December. Heidorn said she and many parents first learned of the schedule from Abridged’s reporting last year.
“We all kind of panicked,” she said.
Heap said this week they have no timeline updates to share.
Relocating students to another campus during construction is not a foregone conclusion, Ralston said previously. But, he said, it would likely be the approach that takes the least amount of time.
In that case, current third or fourth graders bound for Miwok would experience their middle school years somewhere else. And while 2029 can feel far away, Heidorn said, families begin planning the course of their child’s education years in advance.
Email includes ideas for relocation
If kids are displaced, many parents said they worry their kids will be scattered in seats across the district, separated from classmates.
“That’s not a palatable option,” said Kayte Fisher, parent of a third and fifth grader at Theodore Judah Elementary.
Instead, what Fisher and other East Sacramento parents say they would like to see are students kept together and close to home. To do so, they are looking at nearby Umoja International Academy.
The 7-12 grade school, previously named Kit Carson Middle School, has 364 students enrolled this year, according to a recent report from the district. That’s about 35% of the school’s capacity of 1,023 students.
Parents of future Miwok middle schoolers are urging the district to use the Umoja campus as an easy-to-access temporary relocation site.
Otherwise, Heidorn wrote in her email, “Families who rely on walking, biking and local after‑school programs will face major disruptions and will likely leave the district for private school rather than be relocated far away from their neighborhood.”
A high school for East Sacramento?
East Sacramento parents also have ideas to address another issue: high school.
Heidorn and Fisher said they both know neighboring families with older students who have opted for private school or a different district because they deemed options in Sacramento City Unified as unsatisfactory.
“Each year, SCUSD loses hundreds of high school students — and the revenue tied to them —because East Sacramento lacks a neighborhood high school,” Heidorn’s email reads.
The solution, they say: Umoja.
Parents are calling for the district to shift Umoja to a grades 9-12 high school and reassign the school’s seventh and eighth graders to Miwok. The middle school grades make up more than half of Umoja’s current student body.
The district did not respond to a question about the feasibility of the Umoja proposal.
The suggestion is not entirely new. Previous calls to adjust the grades or even combine the two East Sacramento schools have been floated since nearby Sacramento High School became a charter more than 20 years ago.
A 2011 Sacramento News & Reviews article noted that changes could reduce the number of spots for non-neighborhood students at Miwok, a popular destination for open enrollment.
Savannah Kuchar is a reporter covering education. She came to Sacramento to be a part of the Abridged team and contribute to a crucial local news source.