The Abridged version:
- Sacramento City Unified trustees are considering closing as many as four schools in the district within the next half-decade. Officials said they are not at the point of proposing specific sites to shutter, though.
- Closures are one of a few scenarios on the table, as leaders face declining enrollment projections and an unstable budgetary future.
- The school board discussed their options Thursday evening, beginning what they say will be a multiyear conversation and implementation process.
Leaders from Sacramento City Unified School District weighed the pros and cons of closing as many as four schools in the next four to five years, in response to shrinking enrollment projections.
The scenario — shutting down unnamed elementary campuses — was one of a handful on the table during a special board meeting Thursday evening. Members gathered to kick off what they expect to be an ongoing conversation about how to restructure amid declining enrollment in the district.
Essentially, the school district has too many underused buildings, according to Chris Ralston, assistant superintendent of facilities. And more seats are expected to go empty in the coming decade.
Sacramento City Unified is also facing chronic budget shortfalls. Trustees are dealing with a $170.5 million projected deficit for the 2026-27 fiscal year.
District not naming schools at risk
Closing four campuses, and saving about $5.7 million per year in the process, is on the more extreme end of the option list.
In another scenario, district staff propose shuttering two schools, for closer to $2.9 million in annual savings.
A presentation posted on a public meeting agenda does not name the schools on the hypothetical chopping block, instead using fictitious placeholder titles such as Poppy Elementary or Redwood K-8.
Ralston, who presented possibilities to the board Thursday, said this is just the start of the conversation. Executive decisions — like picking specific sites — will come later, he said.
His hypotheticals did include specific enrollment data, though. The four anonymous underused schools Ralston selected for his demonstration have between 218 and 303 students, occupying between 50% and 78% of the available campus.
There are almost a dozen schools in Sacramento City Unified with similarly sized student populations, according to data from the California Department of Education.
There are 22 schools at all levels using less than 60% of their capacity, according to the district’s data.
What would happen to closed campuses?
If and when a school stops operating, Ralston said his team would bulldoze the buildings. That’s to avoid a potential private or charter school from moving in and pulling students away from the public school system, Ralston said.
“We really are experiencing a decline,” he said. “Losing additional students to avoidable competition makes that situation more difficult.”
But the district would hold onto the land.
Sacramento City Unified would seek partnerships with nonprofits, who want to rent the site for community services, like recreation space. Plus, Ralston said, keeping ownership of the land leaves the option to build a new school, if decades down the road enrollment trends reverse.
The other option
A third scenario identified by staff suggests adjusting school enrollment boundaries and shifting some students to lesser-used sites.
District officials would consider keeping current classmates together through graduation and providing families with a clear appeals path, according to the presentation slides.
“If we ever ask families to navigate change, the least we can do is make the rules clear, fair and consistent,” Ralston said.
Cause and effect
Sacramento City Unified’s enrollment has been declining since the turn of the century.
Although its facilities team says the district has room for almost 55,000 students (its historic peak hit in 2001), current enrollment is closer to 37,000.
And the numbers are projected to keep slipping.
The district’s decline is worse than that of its neighbors and surpasses the state average. Across the board, though, shrinking school populations are fueled by declining birth rates.
Consolidating schools would improve conditions for students districtwide, officials say. Any course of action would likely take at least five years to fully implement.
Changes are also needed given the district’s financial reality. Sacramento City Unified is currently on track to run out of cash by June. Even before this year’s crisis, the district had a historic reputation for monetary mismanagement.
Next steps
What comes after the initial discussion?
The board’s most immediate decision, Ralston said, is whether they want to keep talking about this in the short term.
Ralston pointed out that the looming financial crisis is connected, yet more immediate than the broader facilities restructuring. He asked, “Is this the right order” of things for the board to consider?
Some choices will become inevitable soon enough, though. For example, the facilities team is slated to tear down and rebuild the Miwok Middle School campus in 2029. Ralston said staff will need to know whether they should design the new space to fit the current or a more conservative capacity.
Trustee Chinua Rhodes said he would prefer keeping the focus on finding more immediate budget fixes.
“I much, much more would rather be having conversations on that,” Rhodes said.
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.