The Abridged version:
- Catholic families in South Sacramento were distraught when the Diocese of Sacramento announced the closure of St. Patrick Academy, a historic campus. So, they started their own school.
- Alphonse Gallegos Academy, located in a Tahoe Park nondenominational church, will open fall 2026. Parents who started the school say more than a dozen students registered so far.
- The school includes faith-based education inspired by Catholic tradition. Without the bishop and diocese’s blessing, though, it is technically not a Catholic school.
When the Diocese of Sacramento announced in January the consolidation of three South Sacramento schools — and the effective closure of two of them — families were incensed.
“We started out upset,” said Aaron Reading, whose daughter is a current fourth grader at St. Patrick Academy, a nearly 100-year-old campus in its final days of operation.
“But, we’ve progressed from that,” Reading added.
Reading and several other St. Patrick parents gathered after the consolidation plans were announced, unsure of their next steps.
Many did not want to send their students to a public school, yet St. Patrick was the most affordable option in the private, faith-based education landscape. Without it, a parochial school felt out of reach.
So, Reading said, the families built their own.
Not a Catholic school
What sparked from anger and frustration grew into a much more organized and productive effort, Reading said.
Alphonse Gallegos Academy is a parent-led initiative, set to welcome students, transitional kindergartners through eighth graders, by this fall.
It is advertised as an independent faith-based school inspired by Catholic tradition — not a Catholic school.
Without Bishop Jaime Soto’s blessing, the Christian school is not technically a Catholic school, said Reading, the new school’s director and CEO. Someday, he said, the school founders hope to work cooperatively with the diocese, while remaining an independent institution.
“We would like to be able to work with them,” Reading said. “We just want to keep the community together.”
A spokesperson with the diocese did not respond to a request for comment.
Keeping classmates together
Keeping the community together was fundamental, said Monica Gonzalez, treasurer for Alphonse Gallegos Academy.
“She knows nothing but St. Patrick and that community,” Gonzalez said of her daughter, a current fourth grader who has been at the South Sacramento school since transitional kindergarten.
Diocesan leaders announced in January that St. Patrick Academy and St. Charles Borromeo School would be closing. A new consolidated school will open in August on the grounds of St. Roberts School in Hollywood Park.
As hard as the news was for parents to take, Gonzalez said the confusion and sense of loss was profound for young students in a tight-knit community.
One the biggest reasons families initially came together months ago was to support one another, Gonzalez said.
With the realization that officials would not be relenting on their decision, she said many parents were left with the same question: “Well, what do we do next?”
Reaching lower income, Catholic families
Parents had little time to decide what the 2026-27 school year would look like for their students, when the consolidation news broke. Enrollment periods for public and private schools were either around the corner or already underway.
Multiple affected families told Abridged recently they are either registering at a different Catholic school or planning to go the homeschool route.
For a contingent of parents who wanted to keep their kids in a parochial institution, Gonzalez said, the current Sacramento area offerings were out of reach.
“We can be that option for them,” she said.
Annual tuition at Alphonse Gallegos is $4,750 per student, plus a $350 registration fee and $500 parent involvement fee, the latter of which can be waived through volunteering or donations.
The diocese’s new regional school will charge $6,780 for Catholic families to enroll their first child and $7,420 for non-Catholic families. Rates decrease by about $1,000 for a second student and again for a third. Registration fees are between $375 and $450.
‘A full school experience’
Rather than a traditional school setting, where one teacher stands in the front of the classroom and leads a couple dozen same-aged students through a lesson, the new school will use a “co-op model.” Students will learn from independent study curriculum while teachers or a teaching aide circulates, offering help as needed, Reading said.
There will be religion and theology classes, plus, electives like physical education and art.
“It will still be a full school experience,” Reading said.
Reading said the goal is to have at least 35 pupils enrolled in the first school year.
Committees of “founding families” are helping steer and shape the parent-led school, with Reading and four other school board members at the helm.
Same community, different building
Alphonse Gallegos Academy will be housed at Village Church, a nondenominational church in Tahoe Park.
Collin and Nasriene Aranjo, plus their two kids Daniel and Saoirse, visited the campus site for the first time Tuesday. The Aranjos were among the original families behind the new school initiative.
Daniel, a third grader, and Saoirse, a first grader, were at St. Patrick for the past two years. Before that, they were at a different local Catholic school.
“When we broke the news to them,” Collin Aranjo said of the school closures, “they were like, ‘OK, so now we have to move again?'”
But their new school has been a “soothing factor.”
“It’s going to be the same folks, same set of peers,” the father of two said. “Just a different building.”
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.