East Sacramento, Midtown and Oak Park do not have a traditional neighborhood high school to serve their children, and the Sacramento City Unified School District is asking community members to take part in an important survey to help deal with the issue.

The online survey is available for community members, including teachers, staff, students and parents, to participate in at the district website.

 “This community has for many years debated what types of high school offerings should be available in the East Sacramento, Midtown and Oak Park neighborhoods,” SCUSD Superintendent Jonathan P. Raymond said. “We’re going to aggressively seek out the opinions of the entire community through our survey, and then we’re going to use the information from the survey to work with these neighborhoods to make sure we have the kinds of schools we need in the area to serve the needs of our children.”

The 15-question survey offers community members a chance to give their opinions on the needs and benefits of different types of high schools.
The survey asks parents to rank courses and programs that they think are important for a high school to offer. The survey asks parents to contrast their interest in a comprehensive high school with a charter school, which can have more specialized courses of study.

Parents are also asked how important the distance a student has to travel to high school is to the parent’s consideration of where to send high school-age students to school.

“This effort is part of our core principle of community engagement,” Superintendent Raymond said. “The public deserves a chance to be part of major decisions that affect their children. Community involvement in these kinds of decisions makes our schools stronger because it makes for better, more informed decisions.”

Community members will have until June 24 to respond to the survey. Those who want to participate in the survey but don’t have electronic access can contact the school district to ask for a paper copy of the survey. Those people who do not have access to the internet can call the district office at (916) 643-7400 for a list of schools, libraries, etc. where they can participate in this survey.

The district will make a public report on the results when the survey is complete.