The Abridged version:

Sacramento City Unified trustees are considering closing as many as four schools in the district within the next half-decade. Officials have not said yet which campuses are at risk.

The scenario is one of a few on the table, as leaders face declining enrollment projections and an unstable budgetary future.

The school board will meet Thursday evening to begin what they say will be a multi-year implementation process.

Leaders from Sacramento City Unified School District are considering closing as many as four schools in the next four to five years, in response to shrinking enrollment projections.

The scenario — shutting down four unnamed elementary campuses — is one of a handful on the table during a special board meeting Thursday evening. Trustees are kicking off what they expect to be a deep and lengthy conversation about how to restructure amid declining enrollment in the district.

“We’ll be looking at how do we optimize the many facilities that we have and the resources that we have,” Board President Tara Jeane said last week.

Essentially, the school district has too many underused buildings, according to staff documents. And more seats are expected to go empty in the coming decade. It’s 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 the four schools, 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.

The slides do give specific enrollment data, though. The four underused schools 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. Also, there are 22 schools at all levels using less than 60% of their capacity, according to the data.

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.

Cause and effect

Sacramento City Unified 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 is expected to take up to five years to 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.

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.