{"id":291919,"date":"2026-04-29T20:15:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T20:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/291919\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T20:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T20:15:09","slug":"east-sacramento-parents-call-for-conversation-on-miwok-rebuild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/291919\/","title":{"rendered":"East Sacramento parents call for conversation on Miwok rebuild"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Abridged version:<\/p>\n

East Sacramento parents are calling for Sacramento City Unified School District officials to meet with them, after not receiving promised updates on the rebuild of Miwok Middle School, set to start summer 2029.<\/p>\n

District staff have said previously students may be temporarily displaced during renovations, though plans are not set in stone. Parents say they need to know sooner rather than later, and they have their own proposals for how to keep classmates together.<\/p>\n

Families are also re-upping proposals to turn a nearby campus into a local high school, a move they say would help with student retention.<\/p>\n

East Sacramento parents say the Sacramento City Unified School District is ignoring a commitment to keep them in the loop on the upcoming rebuild at Miwok Middle School, and are demanding a public town hall.<\/p>\n

The contingent is also reviving a push for a neighborhood high school in East Sacramento, arguing a closer option would keep more families from leaving the district after 8th grade for private school or Rio Americano in the San Juan Unified district.<\/p>\n

The demands come as the Miwok campus, by far the district\u2019s largest middle school, is slated for a complete renovation starting in the next few years.<\/p>\n

Sacramento City Unified is also grappling with a $170 million budget crisis, and the school board is kicking off discussions of campus consolidations and redrawing enrollment boundaries.<\/p>\n

Parents want to be in conversation<\/p>\n

Parents in East Sacramento say they have not received any updates on the Miwok rebuild, where students will be schooled during construction. The district had promised community meetings this spring.<\/p>\n

More than 60 parents of elementary school students signed an email to school board members and other officials this week, calling for an immediate public town hall. Katie Heidorn, a parent of three and main author of the letter, said if the district does not respond soon with plans for a meeting, she will likely organize a forum herself. Her oldest is a third grader, and would be in middle school when the Miwok project commences.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving a conversation is the first step,\u201d Heidorn said.<\/p>\n

\t\tSign Up for the Morning Newsletter<\/p>\n

The Abridged morning newsletter lands in your inbox every weekday morning with the latest news from the Sacramento region.<\/p>\n

District says it\u2019s following its process<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Sacramento City Unified, Brian Heap, told Abridged that family and community input are key elements of the district\u2019s process, including during three recent rebuilds and two ongoing projects elsewhere in the district.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe appreciate and value the thoughts and concerns shared by these families and look forward to engaging in meaningful\u00a0conversations with them at the appropriate time,\u201d Heap said in written statement.<\/p>\n

Parents \u2018panicked\u2019<\/p>\n

Construction on Miwok is slated to start summer of 2029, Chris Ralston, assistant superintendent of facilities, said in December. Heidorn said she and many parents first learned of the schedule from Abridged\u2019s reporting last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all kind of panicked,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Heap said this week they have no timeline updates to share.<\/p>\n

Relocating students to another campus during construction is not a foregone conclusion, Ralston said previously. But, he said, it would likely be the approach that takes the least amount of time.<\/p>\n

In that case, current third or fourth graders bound for Miwok would experience their middle school years somewhere else. And while 2029 can feel far away, Heidorn said, families begin planning the course of their child\u2019s education years in advance.<\/p>\n

\"School\"Umoja International Academy is located at 5301 N St, Sacramento, CA 95819. (Cameron Clark)<\/p>\n

Email includes ideas for relocation<\/p>\n

If kids are displaced, many parents said they worry their kids will be scattered in seats across the district, separated from classmates. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not a palatable option,\u201d said Kayte Fisher, parent of a 3rd and 5th grader at Theodore Judah Elementary.<\/p>\n

Instead, what Fisher and other East Sacramento parents say they would like to see are students kept together and close to home. To do so, they are looking at nearby Umoja International Academy.<\/p>\n

The 7-12 grade school, previously named Kit Carson Middle School, has 364 students enrolled this year, according to a recent report<\/a> from the district. That\u2019s about 35% of the school\u2019s capacity of 1,023 students. <\/p>\n

Parents of future Miwok middle schoolers are urging the district to use the Umoja campus as an easy-to-access temporary relocation site.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, Heidorn wrote in her email, \u201cFamilies who rely on walking, biking, and local after\u2011school programs will face major disruptions and will likely leave the district for private school rather than be relocated far away from their neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

A high school for East Sacramento?<\/p>\n

East Sacramento parents also have ideas to address another issue: high school.<\/p>\n

Heidorn and Fisher said they both know neighboring families with older students who have opted for private school or a different district because they deemed options in Sacramento City Unified as unsatisfactory.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach year, SCUSD loses hundreds of high\u2011school students \u2014 and the revenue tied to them \u2014because East Sacramento lacks a neighborhood high school,\u201d Heidorn\u2019s email reads.<\/p>\n

The solution, they say: Umoja. <\/p>\n

Parents are calling for the district to shift Umoja to a grades 9-12 high school and re-assign the school\u2019s 7th and 8th graders to Miwok. The middle school grades make up more than half of Umoja\u2019s current student body.<\/p>\n

The district did not respond to a question about the feasibility of the Umoja proposal.<\/p>\n

The suggestion is not entirely new. Previous calls to adjust the grades or even combine the two East Sacramento schools have been floated since nearby Sacramento High School became a charter more than 20 years ago.<\/p>\n

A 2011 Sacramento News & Reviews article<\/a> noted that changes could reduce the number of spots for non-neighborhood students at Miwok, a popular destination for open enrollment.<\/p>\n

Savannah Kuchar\u00a0is a reporter covering education. She came to Sacramento to be a part of the Abridged team and contribute to a crucial local news source.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Abridged version: East Sacramento parents are calling for Sacramento City Unified School District officials to meet with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-291919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}