Carmen Capogreco has seen both phases of life for the former El Dorado Elementary School in East Sacramento.
Capogreco, 84, attended kindergarten through sixth grade at the school. After the school closed in 1974 for earthquake safety and began offering adult education, Capogreco took upholstery class in one of her former classrooms. The site, located at 5241 J St., also serves developmentally disabled adults and is now known as the A. Warren McClaskey Adult Center.
“I hope they keep the school there,” Capogreco said.
At the moment, that’s not certain.
A surplus property advisory group for Sacramento City Unified School District, which owns the former school, held its first meeting about the school’s future on Monday. It could advise the school board to close, repurpose or sell the 4.83-acre site. The group will meet again on Wednesday.
Shannon Ross, a member of the advisory group, said the meeting Monday “went well” and that there was broad support among the group for preserving the building.
Classes will cease operating in June at the center.
The A. Warren McClaskey Adult Center in East Sacramento earlier this month. The building, set to close later this year, was once an elementary school. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com
“This is a beautiful building in my neck of the neighborhood and I have been there multiple times and toured it,” Jasjit Singh said during an SCUSD Board of Education meeting in October, when he and others voted 8-0 to have the site reviewed by the surplus property committee. “But I also completely understand the underutilization of it.”
For now, the building is in a holding pattern, with it uncertain that the building would escape demolition.
Who the former school serves
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, adults meet at the center for upholstery class, paying $7 an hour to rent space. It’s been more than a year since their most recent teacher resigned. Once a month or so, the students use YouTube for tutorials, otherwise helping one another as they work on reupholstering items like chairs.
“There’s several of us that have been here for so long, we end up doing a lot of teaching, helping people,” said Kathy Horan, who said she’d been coming to upholstery class for more than 20 years.
Aside from the program that serves developmentally disabled adults, the upholstery class is the last one that meets at the former El Dorado School.
Kathy Horan, right, shows Sharon McKernan the chair she is working on in an upholstery class at A. Warren McClaskey Adult Center in East Sacramento on March 3. The class, which has turned into a club after an instructor left, will have to find a new home as the school is set to close. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com
“I love making something out of nothing, something that was discarded or abused or just well-loved and repurposing it, making it new again,” said Ross, who’s been taking upholstery class at the center since 2019.
The upholstery class can be both a creative and social space, according to retired state worker Linda Riccardo Henderson.
“It’s not because we can’t get to the machines and stuff,” Riccardo Henderson said. “We’re talking and getting used to updates in people’s families. And then a lot of times… I’m watching other people and learning new skills.”
The school district is moving its program for disabled adults at A. Warren McClaskey Center to Charles A. Jones Career and Education Center in the Lemon Hill area of south Sacramento, according to an email from district spokesperson Al Goldberg.
Linda Riccardo Henderson, right, works on sewing a pillow while Bev Tanaka makes an apron in an upholstery class at A. Warren McClaskey Adult Center in East Sacramento earlier this month. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com
A representative for the program for disabled adults was unavailable for an interview for this story.
Goldberg added that the upholstery class was a community class currently renting space at the McClaskey center and that it would “have to arrange a location with us or somewhere else.”
The upholstery class is interested in moving to the Charles A. Jones center, but is considering other sites, too.
“We’re looking at all sorts of commercial space,” said a member of the upholstery class, Michelle Neal. “But it’s hard to get stuff in our price range.”
Building is not listed national historic register
Whatever happens with her class, Ross isn’t content to let the fate of the former El Dorado school building be left to chance.
Ross has co-founded a group called East Sacramento Neighbors for Smart Growth to advocate for adaptive reuse and preservation of the building. She is one of the members of the surplus property committee that is meeting about the building.
“It’s a special place,” Ross said. “You can almost just feel it when you walk in.”
Shannon Ross, co-founder of East Sacramento Neighbors for Smart Growth, poses for a photo at A. Warren McClaskey Adult Center in East Sacramento earlier this month. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com
The earliest portion of the building dates to 1921, according to a National Register of Historic Places application prepared by Napa-based architectural historian Kara Brunzell on behalf of a group called East Sacramento Preservation.
Brunzell’s application suggested that the building, which was designed by the Dean and Dean architectural firm, could be listed because of its Spanish Revival architecture. It also has a Great Depression-era mural inside. “The architecture is good,” Brunzell said. “It’s got some later elements that are also significant.”
The historic status application that Brunzell submitted to the National Park Service went to the California State Office of Historic Preservation, as is standard. No action has been taken.
“When I reached out to management at the State Office of Historic Preservation, they just told me, ‘It’s under review,’” Brunzell said.
The auditorium at A. Warren McClaskey Adult Center in East Sacramento earlier this month. The building, which is currently home to an adult education center, was once an elementary school. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com 
The hallway at A. Warren McClaskey Adult Center in East Sacramento earlier this month. The building, which is currently home to an adult education center, was once an elementary school. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com Interest in preserving former school
Sean de Courcy, preservation director for the city of Sacramento, said he should probably do a detailed review of the building’s historic application, as he kept getting calls about the property.
“I’m not going to put it on my short list of nominations to work on because I don’t know how the council feels about it,” de Courcy said. “I don’t know how the school district feels about it.”
Nathaniel Browning, the district’s director of facilities planning and property management, told the school board in October, shortly before it voted to create the surplus property committee, that he received regular calls from people interested in purchasing the site.
Adult education students walk down a hallway at A. Warren McClaskey Adult Center in East Sacramento earlier this month. The building, which is currently home to an adult education center, was once an elementary school. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com
“There is a lot of interest in that community for wanting to find something else for that property,” said Browning, who was unavailable for an interview for this story.
Sacramento has had numerous schools close or need renovation over the years because they didn’t meet California earthquake safety standards.
Some of the city’s former school structures have been demolished over the years, including buildings that served as Sacramento High School, California Middle School and Sutter Junior High when it was at 19th and K streets in the early 20th century.
Other old buildings have found new life, such as the former Sierra Elementary School in Curtis Park which became Sierra 2 Center for the Arts and Community.
Two local schools long shuttered in the name of earthquake safety are also on the cusp of revitalization.
The Marshall School at 2718 G St. sat vacant for years before a developer announced new plans for the site in 2024. Another local school that didn’t meet earthquake standards, the North Sacramento School, is in the early stages of possibly being converted into a community center, with housing to potentially be built nearby on former school land.
Sacramento City Councilmember Phil Pluckebaum said he’d taken note of how good of shape the former El Dorado school was in when he’d toured it last. He said it was his understanding that an administrator had taken special care of it for decades.
Pluckebaum was confident the building wouldn’t face demolition. He said the best-case for the former school would be to create a community center. He was also open to creating housing within the former school.
“I think there’s a really strong adaptive reuse opportunity for at the very least condo conversion, if not something else,” Pluckebaum said. “I think that building gets preserved in some capacity.”
The office and hallway at A. Warren McClaskey Adult Center in East Sacramento on earlier this month. The building, which now serves as an adult education center, will be shuttered later this year. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com
The Sacramento Bee
Graham Womack is a general assignment reporter for The Sacramento Bee. Prior to joining The Bee full-time in September 2025, he freelanced for the publication for several years. His work has won several California Journalism Awards and spurred state legislation.