A group of some 30 Davis County parents is suing the Davis School District over what they claim are violations of the Utah Open and Public Meetings Act.

The group is asking for a temporary restraining order that would prohibit the Board of Education from voting on a proposal that would realign the boundaries of seven existing high schools as it prepares to open an eighth high school in Syracuse.

In conducting the boundary study the district closed the 39-member Boundary Advisory Committee meetings, stating that the committee was not a public body since they are not making final decisions. Therefore, they are not subject to open meetings law, district leaders said last week.

But the Davis group argues that even though the committee doesn't have the final say they are still a public body and still subject to those laws.

The district formed the committee in early September to conduct a district-wide boundary study in connection with the opening of an eighth high school in Syracuse next fall.

The school board appointed committee members from city governments, school community councils and high school community representatives. The group is to create a proposal on which the board will make the final ruling in December.

Thousands of parents are upset about their students having to change high schools to balance enrollment.

"We want to see the process open up — the meetings were kept from the public ... and we want to have some input and see how the decisions were made," said Andrea Edwards, spokeswoman for the Davis group.

She said the school district held two open houses and accepted 3,500 comments.

"But the very next meeting was closed and according to our representatives that were at the meeting virtually nothing was discussed or changed," Edwards said.

District leaders are sticking to their policy that states, "Meetings of special committees are not considered 'meetings' of a public body under Utah law, and therefore members of the public and the press must receive permission from the committee chairperson in order to attend a committee meeting."

But the community group claims the law does not require that a committee have authority to make final decisions regarding the public's business in order for it to qualify as a public body.

The Utah Attorney General's Office's Utah Open and Public Meetings Act manual defines public bodies as any group meeting "for the purpose of discussion or acting upon a matter over which the public body has jurisdiction or advisory power."

The district also received a letter from the Utah Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists urging the district to reconsider their position and "avoid not only a lengthy legal battle ... but a loss of trust with your constituents, the taxpaying public."

The Boundary Advisory Committee has met behind closed doors on six occasions, and was expected to make the final recommendation to the county school board Nov. 21.

The first hearing of the lawsuit against the Davis District will take place Thursday in Farmington.

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E-mail: terickson@desnews.com