Original Research by School Decision on New Pacific School - Roseville District
New Pacific School is a recently authorized tuition-free public charter operating in Roseville as part of the Roseville Joint Union High School District. It is an initiative of Pacific Charter Institute, a nonprofit organization, and opened with a deliberately limited and expanding grade structure. For the current school year the enrollment spans kindergarten through tenth grade, with plans to add eleventh grade in the following year. The school is small, with enrollment in the low double digits per grade in the elementary band and markedly smaller numbers in the middle grades.
The student body is racially and ethnically mixed, with a substantial majority white enrollment, a significant share of Hispanic students, and smaller representations of Asian, Black, Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander, and American Indian Alaska Native students. Data on free and reduced-price lunch eligibility, English learner status, and special education enrollment were not available, so a parent seeking to understand the economic and linguistic diversity of the population or the depth of support services available would need to contact the school directly.
The school's instructional approach centers on personalized, project-based learning paired with a leadership framework derived from Franklin Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, known as the Leader in Me. Classes are small and multi-age by design, with an emphasis on social-emotional development alongside academics. This is a deliberate pedagogical choice that will appeal to families seeking an alternative to traditional grade-level, lecture-based instruction, but it also means the school operates quite differently from standard public school structures.
Academic performance data for state testing were not provided, so readers cannot yet see how students are performing on California's standardized assessments. This is not uncommon for newly opened schools, where data may be sparse or still being collected. A parent considering enrollment may want to ask the school about its early achievement results, any internal assessments it uses to track student progress, and how it plans to measure growth as the program matures.
One distinctive aspect of the school's structure is its phased grade expansion. Rather than launching with a full K-12 span, it began with early grades and is adding one grade level per year. For families enrolling now, this means the school will grow alongside their child, which can create continuity but also means the high school experience will be relatively new when it arrives. The school is still in its early years of operation, so the full program and its track record are still taking shape.
Among Placer County's districts, chronic absenteeism data show the school in the top quartile, meaning students are attending at relatively strong rates. Per-pupil spending, graduation rates, and overall academic proficiency figures were either not available or not yet applicable given the school's grade span and age.
For families in Roseville, New Pacific represents a distinct choice within the district lineup: a small, personalized, project-based alternative grounded in leadership development and social-emotional learning, with a deliberately gradual expansion structure. It is a public school with no tuition cost but a very different operating model from the traditional public middle and high schools in the district. A parent weighing this option should understand upfront what the pedagogy entails, that data on academic outcomes remain limited, and that they are enrolling into a program still in the building phase.
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