The Abridged version:
For the first time in five years, enrollment at St. Francis is not expected to decline next school year, according to its president, John Moran.
Stability for the all-girls Sacramento high school comes as all-boys Jesuit High School moved to start admitting female students. Concerns abounded that the decision might affect St. Francis’ numbers.
Moran said the school has gained interest with new and unique programs, along with outreach to a wider, more diverse group of families. One change the school will not make, he said, is to its single-gender identity.
Fears that St. Francis — an 80-year-old all-girls Catholic high school in Sacramento — would receive a heavy enrollment blow abounded last fall, after nearby Jesuit High School announced plans to start teaching boys and girls.
For decades, Jesuit has been an all-boys campus. Its controversial change, effective fall 2027, shook the Sacramento parochial school landscape.
It even led to rumors of St. Francis’ closure, according to the school president John Moran.
Yet in reality, Moran said next school year is the first in five years that enrollment has not gone down.
“And we’re just beginning to build this renaissance at St. Francis,” Moran said during an interview Tuesday on PBS KVIE’s Studio Sacramento.
Shrinking numbers are a widespread problem
Student bodies are shrinking in schools public and private, across the state and country. Declining birth rates are in part to blame, according to education experts.
But parochial schools face an extra hurdle in the form of tuition. Some families who may want their students to receive a Catholic education just can’t afford it, school leaders say.
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Data from the state Department of Education show several parochial schools in the Sacramento area suffering declining enrollment.
St. Francis has experienced the sharpest drop of any Catholic high school in Sacramento County.
Until recently.
Initial registration numbers for the 2026-27 school year are about equal to this year’s enrollment — just over 700 — Moran told Studio Sacramento host Scott Syphax. While lower than pre-pandemic numbers of more than 1,000 students, Moran described the stabilization as a welcome and intentional turn around.
“You can buck the trends of downward enrollment in two fundamental ways: adding more value to your school,” Moran said, “and communicating that value better.”
St. Francis ‘renaissance’
At St. Francis, part of that added value comes in the form of alluring extracurriculars, said Moran, who is in his first year with the school.
That includes new sports like stunt cheerleading and beach volleyball. The school is also one of a select group in the country part of the International Space Station program for high school students.
As far as communicating that value to the community, Moran said administrators are also broadening recruitment efforts. St. Francis officials hope to reach a broader, more diverse group of families, he said, and are increasing fundraising goals to meet financial aid needs.
“We’re not sitting on our laurels,” Moran told Syphax.
The full Studio Sacramento episode will air on KVIE at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 10.
Sticking to the school’s core identity
One thing St. Francis will not be doing, Moran made clear: changing its core identity as an all-girls school.
“We don’t need to have a mission change,” he said. “We are financially stable.”
The impact from Jesuit’s move has been “minimal” on St. Francis, according to the all-girls school president.
Jesuit officials have said the historic move to welcome female students was, in part, motivated by money concerns due to declining enrollment.
The school will not be co-educational — boys and girls will be together for extracurriculars but still taught in separate classrooms.
A vocal group of parents and alumni from the all-boys institution continue to protest the change. Administrators have emphasized that the decision is already made.
“We’re prepared to make the best beginning that we possibly can to welcome these young women to campus,” Chris Alling, president of Jesuit High School, told Abridged at the time of the announcement.
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.