5746 J St
Sacramento, CA 95819

This school does not do a great job educating all children equally. While compared to many schools in the district it is not a bad school they still fail children that are different. Unfortunately the principal lacks any sense of responsibility for the failings of the school. There isn’t the emotional maturity to look at what is happening and look for ways to improve.If your child is in special education in this school expect them to receive inadequate and infrequent services. Expect the IEP not to be followed. Expect them to continue to pat themselves on the back about how great their school is while failing to meet the child’s needs. It could be a great school if they viewed all children as equal, important and part of the community. Sadly, that is not the case. The caliber of staff varies as it does in any school, for the upper grades their is one particularly odious RSP teacher so pay close attention to what is going on with your child. She is not a kind person or someone that is good at their job.

Hi. I am a student here at this school, and just wanted to give you a simple review on why you really shouldn’t send your kid here.- The education here is ABYSMAL. If you aren’t in AP/honors courses, community college classes, or even an academy, your student will be bored/unstimulated throughout the whole year (especially if they’re looking for more advanced work). The teachers don’t give out homework, and some don’t even teach all that well (I am in standard courses). I find myself coming home, and wondering what I just spent my whole 6 hours learning. There is an astonishingly low amount of APs/honor courses, and I feel like this school does not adequately prepare the population to handle college.- There is NO student pride at this school. Absolutely none. During rallies, there are many people who don’t participate (since we’re forced to go to rallies) and just scroll on their phones. Students recognize that this school is one of the forgotten schools in the district, and know that this is a “bad” school. Many people just come here because this is their neighborhood school, and I’m one of those folks.- the phone problem is that evident. In all of my classes, many students just spend the whole period on their phones, and honestly, the teachers either don’t notice or they do notice, and they don’t care anymore. - the community isn’t that close-knit. Family engagement is non-existent, as we don’t even have open house. We have back to school night at the beginning of the year, but even then people don’t show up. - the fights here aren’t that bad. Many of these fights happen before we’re on break for school (summer, winter, spring).- one of the pluses here, is that the school has adequate psychologists/nurses/mental health professionals/community resources on hand. As we are designated as a community school, we have a lot of resources that serve the students here at HJHS. It’s honestly amazing.All in all, just come here if you don’t really care about what you’re learning and just want to get your diploma. Otherwise, find somewhere else to go to school, because this ain’t it.

KCIA has had a rough couple of years with the pandemic, the loss of both the principal and the AP, and a bunch of staff retirements. The post-distance learning middle schoolers are half feral and there have been a lot of behavior problems -- this is pretty much the norm at most schools in 2021-2022, but it's probably true that KCIA has been a little more chaotic than some other schools.That said, we love KCIA and are here for the long haul. My child is now in high school but started here in seventh grade. He's a highly gifted kid who struggled in a high-pressure elementary school where teachers assigned a lot of homework and focused on a lot of rote learning in the classroom. He has blossomed at Kit, where the work is challenging but never high pressure and there is virtually no homework. Instead of reams of math problems or boring reports to write, he's engaging in lively classroom discussions about topics that matter to him, and doing group projects with peers during class time.The new principal is still learning her way and there have been some stumbles, but she is a lovely person and I think she is going to be amazing once she gets some administrative support in the form of an assistant principal and a high school counselor. The kids respect her and she projects so much warmth and caring, which is what they all need right now. The high school is a small program at constant risk of defunding, and it is not for everyone, but KCIA is truly a special place and I look forward to sending my younger child here, as well.