Uphold the mission of Jesuit High School

Current leadership has taken action to permanently change our school and abandon the mission it was founded to serve. They should step down.

Read the record

3Signatures

What is at stake

A school built for a specific purpose, changed in a single board meeting

Jesuit opened in 1963 to serve the young men of the Sacramento region. Sixty-two years later, that purpose was set aside by a vote most of the community learned about only after it was final.

The brick entrance sign at 1200 Jacob Lane reading Jesuit High School.

1200 Jacob Lane, Carmichael

The community built this school

For six decades, families, alumni and parishes carried Jesuit through every difficult stretch it faced. They gave to capital campaigns, funded financial aid for boys who could not otherwise attend, and sent their sons because of what the school was.

That support was given to a mission. It was not given to a board to redirect at will. Our mission was never theirs to change or expand, and certainly not abandon.

Brick classroom building and breezeway on the Jesuit High School campus.

Campus, Carmichael

A board serves the mission

A board of trustees holds a school in trust. Its authority is real but it is borrowed, and it is bounded by the purpose it was given to protect. Governance is the mechanism that keeps that trust honest: deliberation, disclosure, a written record, and the participation of the people who will live with the result.

A change of this magnitude should never have been something decided by a small group of people serving finite terms. They were stewards of our mission, but acted as if they were owners.

Commencement

This is not about the young women of Sacramento

Nothing here is an argument that girls are less deserving of a Jesuit education. The question is whether the leadership of a 62-year-old institution can retire its founding purpose in a matter of months, without consulting the community that sustains it, and without producing the analysis on which the decision was supposedly based.

This fundamental change might be necessary, but the manner in which it was conducted and the expediency of its implementation cast doubt on the true intent — especially given that parents allege students were warned they could face expulsion for speaking to the media.

The campus bell tower silhouetted at sunset.

Missions come from community. When that community speaks out, the leadership should listen.

The record

Twelve concerns, and where each one stands

Every item below is labeled so you can tell the difference between what is documented, what the school itself has said, what remains an open question, and what is my judgment. I would rather be trusted than loud.

DocumentedSchool's own wordsOpen questionOpinionDisputed

01Governance
Open question

Overwhelming is not unanimous.

The vote, and who was in the room

The school has described the decision as "overwhelmingly approved" by the Board of Trustees. Overwhelming is not unanimous, and it does not tell us how many trustees were present, how they voted, or what was in front of them when they did.

We are asking for the minutes of the meeting at which the co-divisional model was approved, the attendance record, and the vote count. A board confident in its process publishes it.

STATUS — The school has not released minutes or a vote count. The characterization above is a request for the record, not an assertion about it.

Empty stadium bleachers at Jesuit High School.

02Process
School's own words

Not solicited in advance. Informed afterward.

The speed is visible in their own timeline

The school has published a timeline of this transition. It is worth studying, because it is the clearest evidence available of how compressed this process was: board discernment and decision, then an immediate announcement, with community conversations appearing alongside rather than before the decision.

Families and alumni were not solicited in advance. They were informed afterward, and then invited to conversations about a decision the school has repeatedly described as final.

SOURCE — Jesuit High School Sacramento, "One school. Two divisions." transition timeline, updated 4.24.26. Reproduced here as published by the school.

The school's published transition timeline showing board discernment and decision followed by community conversations and announcement.

03Finance
School's own words

Both things cannot be the headline.

Enrollment and revenue were part of the case

Leadership has framed this as an expansion of the mission. In public statements, the school and its trustees have also cited declining enrollment over the past fifteen years and long-term financial sustainability as drivers of the change.

Both things cannot be the headline. If the school needs more tuition-paying students, the community deserves to see the financial picture that made this necessary — the enrollment projections, the operating position, and the alternatives that were considered and rejected.

SOURCE — Board Chair Kelly Brothers and school statements on enrollment decline and long-term sustainability, reported October 2025 – January 2026. See Sources.

Aerial view of the Jesuit High School campus at sunset.

04Disclosure
Open question

If the analysis exists, release it.

The 2022 study

Whether to admit young women is a question Jesuit has considered before. I understand the school examined it as recently as 2022 — the year before the current president took office — and concluded it was not the right course.

That work has not been made public, and it has not been referenced by current leadership. Nor has any comparable study supporting the reversal been produced. If the 2022 findings were superseded, the analysis that superseded them should exist, and should be released.

STATUS — Unverified pending release. I am seeking the 2022 study and any subsequent analysis. If you can document either, please get in touch.

The swimming pool and surrounding grounds on campus.

05Mandate
Opinion

Spending an inheritance they did not build.

A short tenure, a permanent decision

The president took office in July 2023. The chair-elect's authority derives from a board vote, not from the community that built and funds the school. Neither holds a mandate from alumni, families, or the parishes that have sustained Jesuit for six decades.

New leadership can and should bring new thinking. What it cannot do is spend an inheritance it did not build, on a timeline that prevents the people who built it from being heard.

OPINION — This is an argument about mandate and process, not about where anyone is from.

06Capacity
Disputed

Capacity is not only seats.

Resources, aid, and the promise to boys

The school says it can accommodate several hundred young women without reducing seats for boys. That claim should be tested rather than assumed. Capacity is not only seats: it is financial aid, faculty, facilities, playing time, counseling, and attention.

We are asking the school to publish its aid model under the new structure — the total aid pool, how it will be allocated between divisions, and what it commits to maintaining for the boys and families it already serves.

DISPUTED — The school has stated publicly that boys' spots will not be cut. We are asking for the underlying figures.

Aerial view of a night football game at Jesuit High School.

07Region
Opinion

Made by one school alone. It redraws the map.

Consequences for St. Francis

Sacramento's all-girls Catholic high school stands to lose students and faculty to a larger, better-resourced neighbor. The two schools have shared theater productions, facilities and traditions for decades.

A decision of this size, made by one school alone, redraws the map for Catholic education across the region. I have seen no evidence that the effect on St. Francis was studied, disclosed, or discussed with the diocesan community before the vote.

OPINION — Concerns about regional impact have been raised publicly by families at both schools since October 2025.

08Conflicts
Open question

Did anyone recuse?

Who benefits, and did they recuse

Jesuit provides tuition remission to employees' children. Under the previous structure, that benefit was unavailable to employees with daughters. Under the new one, it is worth a great deal.

This is a structural conflict, not an accusation about any individual. It is exactly the kind of interest that governance policy exists to surface. We are asking the board to disclose its conflict-of-interest policy, whether written disclosures were made in connection with this decision, and whether any trustee or administrator recused.

STATUS — This entry makes no claim about any individual's motives; it asks whether the board's own disclosure procedures were followed.

09Litigation
Documented

Alumni don't sue their own school lightly.

It has reached the courts

In July 2026, a group called Men for Others filed suit against Jesuit High School in Sacramento Superior Court over the plan to admit girls beginning in 2027, alleging the school abandoned its all-boys mission with little community input. The school maintains that declining enrollment prompted the shift and that it has room for several hundred female students without cutting boys' spots.

I'm not part of this lawsuit and I don't agree with everything in it. But alumni don't sue their own school lightly. That people who love this place felt they had no other way to be heard is the clearest measure of how badly this was handled.

SOURCE — Men for Others v. Jesuit High School, filed Sacramento Superior Court, July 2026, as reported by The Sacramento Bee. Litigation is ongoing; nothing here should be read as a finding.

10Timeline
Open question

A different school than the one they chose.

The boys already enrolled

Every family with a son at Jesuit today enrolled him in an all-boys school. Under the published timeline, young women arrive in the fall of 2027 — before those boys graduate. They will leave a different school than the one their parents chose.

Nobody asked them. What consideration was given to currently enrolled families before the date was fixed — and where in the record is it reflected? If enrolled parents were consulted, the school can show it.

STATUS — A request for the record: what weight did enrolled families' expectations carry in setting the timeline? Dates are the school's own published transition timeline (see Sources).

Campus classroom building and breezeway.

11Consultation
Open question

Seven-figure donors, not consulted.

The donors who sustained it were not asked

The school's own news page has announced major gifts in recent years — including seven-figure commitments made within the last two years. Those gifts were made to the school as it stood, by the people carrying the largest share of its future.

By accounts from within the community, donors of that scale were not consulted before the decision. If that is wrong, the school can say so. If it is right, it says how narrow the circle that made this decision really was.

STATUS — Based on accounts from within the community; unverified by documents. If you were consulted in advance — or know that anyone was — please get in touch.

12Dissent
Open question

Parents allege students were warned not to speak.

What parents say happened to students who spoke

In November 2025, FOX40 reported that parents alleged students had been told they could face expulsion for speaking to the media about the change.

That is a reported allegation, not an established fact, and the school is entitled to answer it. But it belongs in this record because of the question it raises: whether disagreement inside the school community was treated as something to be managed rather than heard.

STATUS — Reported as a parent allegation by FOX40, November 2025 (Sources, U7). Attributed as allegation only; nothing here should be read as established.

The petition

Sign the call for new leadership

Missions matter. They shouldn't be changed by a small group behind closed doors. Our community has committed to our mission for over 60 years, through times good and bad. If the current leadership cannot uphold our mission, they should show themselves the door rather than change the school forever.

3Signatures

We publish the total number of signatures. We don't publish names. We'll send updates if you choose to provide your email. If you want your signature removed, you can let us know through the 'Contest this petition' form and we'll take it down. We're open to dialogue and dissenting views in arriving at the right outcome for our community. You can choose to contest the petition and provide this perspective which we will share in updates.