If the district splits, state law would put Cottonwood High and Twin Peaks and Woodstock elementaries into Murray School District, because they lie within Murray city boundaries. Murray cannot support a second high school, and Cottonwood supporters have rallied to save their school.

But it's uncertain whether drawing a new boundary is legal. The Cottonwood parcel is not connected to Granite's west side, and the law forbids small school districts from creating a geographically isolated area.

The idea now is to connect the parcel to the west side by redrawing its boundary to include an element such as a road that leads to the Cottonwood swath.

Granite assistant to the superintendent Martin Bates, who is an attorney, said the redrawing would basically create a peninsula.

"This draws the thinnest of lines," Bates said. "That is not at all what the law intended."

Crockett met Tuesday with Bob Rees, associate general counsel with the Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel, to discuss the question.

"It depends on what the language 'completely geographically isolate' means," Rees said. "Whether connecting an area by a narrow neck would still be considered to be completely geographically isolating, I don't know. (The law) doesn't definitively say."

The question could be solved in court, or the Legislature could change the law.

Crockett said a district-split steering committee made up of Salt Lake County, Holladay and South Salt Lake officials might seek the latter option.

"If we really want to try this approach, it depends on what the Legislature has an appetite to do," Crockett said. "We might ask for a few minor wording changes."

East-side cities in Jordan and Granite school districts want to form two new school districts, and have voted to put the question to voters this November.

The Education Interim Committee and Local Issues Task Force on Tuesday embraced three bills they hoped to be heard in special session.

One bill includes provisions that would allow Draper residents living on the Utah County-Salt Lake County line to attend Alpine schools, and west-side Cottonwood High students would remain in that school's boundaries for six years after a split.

The other two bills would create building aid funds, one on a county level, and the other statewide, mainly to help tax-poor, growing school districts pay for buildings. The likely result would be tax hikes in about half the school districts, and tax cuts and additional building money in the rest.

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Contributing: Jared Page

E-MAIL: jtcook@desnews.com; ldethman@desnews.com

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