Granite has one dual-immersion foreign language program on each side of the valley — but that doesn't match the 3:1 ratio of students who live on the west side in that district. It also has gifted-and-talented elementary magnet schools on each side of the valley. More programs aimed at disadvantaged populations on the west side, including full-day kindergarten, are expected to help create more of a need for accelerated programs and "to balance what heretofore has been left to neighborhoods and socioeconomics," Granite's Linda Mariotti said.

Offerings of other special programs are a mixed bag. In Jordan, its alternative high school is on the east side, as are two of three special needs programs and the teen mother program. Also in that district, 40 percent of east-side schools offer school breakfast, while 45 percent of western schools do.

In Granite, 37 west-side schools offer school breakfast while only four east-side schools do.

Newbold said east-west comparisons on special education programs don't indicate inequity. He said those programs bus kids from all over the district, and another school is going up in west-side Riverton.

East-side schools have teachers with more experience and advanced degrees than in the west.

Granite and Jordan: Confirmed.

When it comes to experience, east-side Granite teachers average two years more experience than their west-side counterparts (14.3 years to 12.4). In Jordan, east-siders have about 1.4 years more experience (10.0 years to 8.6).

In Granite, 45 percent of east-side teachers have advanced college degrees, while only 36 percent of west-side teachers do.

In Jordan, 41 percent of east-side teachers have advanced degrees, compared to 37 percent on the west.

New growth brings new jobs, and new teachers are the most likely to fill them, Mariotti said, adding Granite gives experienced teachers stipends to work in year-round and Title I schools for balance.

Jordan limits the number of teachers a new school's principal can take from an existing school, leading to more new or transferring teachers on the growing west side, Newbold said. The district also recruits at colleges and universities rather than other schools with established teachers.

Nevertheless, the east-west differences in experience and education level are negligible, Newbold said. Rookies also don't mean kids will be shortchanged.

Indeed, Granite's Lynn Davidson recalls parents in an east-side school full of veterans complaining about young talent going west. "Nothing young and exciting was happening in their school."

The west side has more behavior- or crime-related problems at schools.

Jordan: Busted

Granite: Busted

The data used to measure that is a bit different in each district. In Granite, responses from its own police department to schools was used. In Jordan, which does not have its own police department, its record of actions taken to expel students was used.