7 cities considering school-district split

Seven of the eight east-side cities in Salt Lake County are now moving forward with the possibility of a school-district split.

As mayors and city staff members from various east-side cities met Thursday with Jordan School District leaders, an ad-hoc group of political officials convened at the Capitol to iron out problems with a current law.

The recently passed law allows for cities to split from the large school districts that they are a part of and create their own locally controlled district. That idea is now being researched by South Salt Lake, Holladay, Cottonwood Heights, Midvale, Sandy, Alta, Draper and unincorporated Salt Lake County — all of which fall under Jordan, Granite and Alpine school districts. The only east-side city out of the discussion is Murray, which runs its own city school district.

Five of the cities — Sandy, Draper, Cottonwood Heights, Midvale and Alta — met Thursday afternoon with Jordan School District to discuss where the entities stand on the issue. The group plans to meet regularly to explore what needs to be done before the issue is placed before voters, Cottonwood Heights Mayor Kelvyn Cullimore said.

Midvale and Alta, both of which have previously been out of talks, are now also actively pursuing the idea.

"Because of our geographic situation, we are unfortunately going to have to do whatever the masses do in the valley," Alta Mayor Tom Pollard said. "Our one vote is probably not going to win over Sandy, Draper and Cottonwood Heights."

Alta, the town atop Little Cottonwood Canyon with 397 residents, has about 15 students that attend a satellite school set up in the Goldminer's Daughter hotel. But the town's property taxes total nearly $3 million.

"Everybody forgot about us up here," Pollard said, noting he was approached about the idea 10 days ago. Under the new law, islands of existing school districts cannot be created within a new district, so Alta is a key piece to an east-side district.

Although Midvale Mayor JoAnn Seghini, a former Jordan School District assistant superintendent, opposes the idea of creating small school districts, she said Thursday that she wants to leave the matter up to the voters.

"I cannot, as a representative of the people of Midvale, say I'm opposed to this," she said. "That's up to the people of Midvale."

Sandy and Cottonwood Heights both hired Bennett Educational Consultants Inc. earlier this summer to do a fact-finding study for a variety of different new district scenarios. Those reports show that a new district, with the two cities and Draper or Midvale, would have smaller class sizes and generate more money per pupil.