The Granite Board of Education voted Tuesday to examine closing schools to make its system — which has 8,700 empty seats, costing taxpayers $3 million a year to sustain — more efficient.

The board also voted to study adjusting school networks, which could mean boundary changes or school consolidations or closures to ensure solid program offerings, and shifting around which grades go into what schools, such as creating middle schools and adding a ninth grade to high schools.

At any rate, things are going to change — because people want them to.

"The clear message is, nobody wants status quo," board president Patricia Sandstrom said. "Fix it. Something is broken."

The state's second-largest school district has slowly shrunk to about 69,000 students. Schools west of 5600 West are increasingly crowded, while those east of State Street have empty seats, according to a building utilization study issued last spring.

The board, which annually examines enrollments and has adjusted boundaries (and closed Holladay and Libbie Edward elementaries) in recent years, took the study to the public.

It asked people what ought to happen regarding the lopsided enrollments, which district officials say limit course offerings, special programs and choice of teachers.

They put five options on the table: Status quo; bus students to low-enrollment schools; network adjustments; reconfigure grades in schools; and "efficiency," or closing schools to achieve an 85 percent utilization rate.

The options were presented in a mailed survey, to which nearly 2,300 parents responded; at open houses, where 415 surveys were marked; in an employee survey to which just under 1,000 responded; and in an independent telephone survey of 402 respondents.

Different surveys yielded different results. But each ranked network adjustments as the No. 1 preference.

Efficiency and grade reconfiguration were next in line, with busing and doing nothing generally the least preferred.

The board voted to pursue the top three preferred options.

"I think we've gone out really trying to glean from our communities their feelings," board member Sarah Meier said. "We have problems facing us we need to look at. I do have a sense now, I think they understand . . . we need to do something."

Now, an options committee will round out how the specific options might look, which school committees will review in August. The school board then will further narrow the field of options for public input in October open houses.

A final vote is set for November; the action could affect schools the following school year.

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