Following a couple of protests and hundreds of phone calls and e-mails, the board preliminarily voted in early November to close no schools and rebuild fire-ravaged Wasatch Junior High. Three weeks later, however, it voted to also reconfigure Granite High as a nontraditional school and close Meadow Moor and Canyon Rim elementaries. The board solidified the vote earlier this month, when it declined to revisit its decision, infuriating dozens of onlookers.

Granite High's reconfiguration is expected to divvy students among Olympus, Granger and Cottonwood high school boundaries.

Or, students can stay to participate in career and performing arts "academies," where they will focus their electives on those disciplines but still learn the core curriculum and engage in college preparatory coursework if they choose. The school also will include programs for immigrants, teen parents and Central's alternative programs. Students wanting to play on athletic teams would have to participate at schools in whose new boundaries they live.

Sandstrom said the plan works well in a Florida school she and district officials have examined.

"Be patient," Sandstrom urges the Granite community. "Give us a chance to let it work."

Granite High students, publicly lauded for their cultural diversity and unity, are expected to embrace Central students and other programs that would come their way, Anderson said. That's not the issue.

Rather, community members wonder if district plans will contain sufficient academic rigor. They wonder who's heading up the academies — many feel that will determine whether they want to enroll. Problem is, staffing is unknown until the district can gauge student interest. And students have to say whether they want to stay at the school by Jan. 13, according to a Dec. 14 district letter to Granite High students.

"I think people are just, at this point, pretty much resigned to the fact that they're not going to be sending their students there," said Anderson, who outlined community concerns in a letter to Superintendent Steve Ronnenkamp.

"There has just not been enough substance in any communication from the district that there will be programs there that will address the interests and needs of their students. It may be a misunderstanding . . . (but) it just hasn't been communicated clearly enough to the parents."

Anderson also fears programming decisions are being made too quickly. Sandstrom said an attorney has advised the board to stick to its original time line for the boundary changes, meaning they're effective next school year. Anderson, however, sees the changes as programmatic, not boundary-related. He wants the Attorney General's Office to weigh in on whether the board can take more time.

Money also is an issue.

The school closures and reconfiguration is expected to save the district $1.4 million in annual operating costs, with nearly 60 percent of that coming from the Central-Granite marriage (the district has reported each elementary closure would result in about $300,000 annual operating cost savings).