The Abridged version:
- Miwok Middle School is slated for teardown and replacement starting in 2029. Sacramento City Unified School District officials laid out options for temporarily relocating students, but Umoja International Academy emerged as the likely choice.
- Miwok is by far the largest middle school in the district. Depending on where the student body is moved, the number of seats for non-neighborhood students could be severely limited.
- School officials insisted the project will stay within a two-year timeline. A more concrete relocation plan is expected before the end of this year.
The question remains of where students will go to class when Miwok Middle School is torn down and rebuilt in a few years.
Sacramento City Unified School District officials offered more clarity on the available options for temporary relocation while the East Sacramento campus is under construction. That process is slated to begin summer 2029 and finish in 2031.
Chris Ralston, assistant superintendent for facilities, appeared before roughly 200 people — mostly parents of future middle school students who are currently in second to fourth grade — at a town hall in early June. The event was organized after parents pushed district leaders for more transparency.
He floated two schools where the district may relocate students during the rebuild: Umoja International Academy or Sacramento Charter High School.
But of those options, housing middle school students at Sacramento High would be “highly unlikely,” a district spokesperson said, which leaves Umoja, for now, as the likely recipient of the Miwok student body for at least a couple of years.
That was unclear to parents at the time, who said they still need answers and hope conversations will continue, as many families plan their schooling decisions years in advance.
Umoja or Sacramento High?
Parents have overwhelmingly expressed support for keeping what would be the Miwok student body together, rather than scattering the seventh and eighth graders in seats across the district’s middle schools.
Standing in the middle school gym, a prominent green banner declaring Miwok the “pride of the city” behind him, Ralston laid out two interim options: Umoja and Sacramento High.
In either scenario, hundreds of middle schoolers would share a campus with the school’s existing student body.
An informal survey, created and distributed by parents, reported 75% of respondents preferred using Umoja, which is 2 miles from Miwok. About 14% opted for Sacramento High, located by North Oak Park and on the other side of Highway 50 from East Sacramento.
The remaining 11% of the 141 parents surveyed said they would enroll elsewhere during reconstruction.
Sacramento High a ‘very unlikely’ option
During construction, East Sacramento students zoned to Miwok are guaranteed to still be part of the district’s largest middle school population.
More than half of Miwok’s almost 1,200 students, though, live outside the school boundaries and secured a spot via open enrollment.
Sacramento High would have room to fit Miwok’s current student body. Umoja, with a total capacity of roughly 1,000 and a little more than 300 students already, would severely limit the number of open seats left for non-neighborhood students.
Sacramento High is one of three sites run by St. HOPE Public Schools. The charter system’s leaders were not told that their campus was on the table as a potential host site, said St. HOPE interim Superintendent Elisha Parsons.
Her administration learned about the idea secondhand after the town hall.
“When I approached the district after this report, it was told to us that this is not their preferred option and that it is very unlikely to happen,” Parsons wrote in an email to Abridged.
Al Goldberg, district spokesperson, confirmed Sacramento High is a “highly unlikely option” because the school’s current charter runs through June 30, 2030, which falls in the middle of the district’s construction timeline.
Two-year timeline
Ralston reiterated the district’s plan is to finish a total rebuild in time for the 2031-32 school year.
The Miwok rebuild is one of several facilities projects funded by a voter-approved bond measure. That money is separate from the rest of the district’s budget.
Asked during the town hall whether construction could run beyond that two-year window, Ralston said he is confident his team will be able to meet the deadline.
“There are too many people impacted,” Ralston said.
“So, I’m going to say, ’29 to ’31,” he continued, “I’m willing to put 99.7% success rate on that.”
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.