New schools already full

Talk about growing pains.

Jordan School District on Monday is opening one brand new and two reconstructed elementary schools. While several Utah districts will open new schools come fall, Jordan's are believed to be the only ones to debut this summer on crowd-control, year-round schedules.

Each is expected to accommodate at least 700 students. One, the rebuilt South Jordan Elementary, already has three portable classrooms to help pack in 1,022. That's more than 200 over last year's enrollment, as boundaries of the new school, nestled in a neighborhood a mile away from the old one, had to expand to take in its new neighborhood, principal Bill Hanvey said.

The situation is uncommon for most Utah school districts. But not Jordan, where 30 of 56 elementaries are year-round, embracing some of Utah's fastest-growing communities.

"We wish we had bond money to (build) a few more, but it will just take time," Jordan Board of Education President Peggy Jo Kennett said. "The growth is phenomenal. But we're doing the best we can to address it, and we hope people will be patient."

Jordan is one of Utah's fastest-growing school districts. The southern Salt Lake Valley district in the 2002-03 school year added 953 students, the second biggest new crop in Utah, State Office of Education data show.

Alpine School District grew by a whopping 1,959 children the same year. Nebo District welcomed 822, Washington district took in 700, and Tooele District added 474 new students to its rolls.

Percentage-wise, though, Utah's largest school district didn't expand much. Overall, growth in the some 74,000-student Jordan District was 1.3 percent that year. By comparison, Tooele grew 4.7 percent, followed by Alpine's 4 percent and Nebo and Washington's 3.6 percent growth spurts.

Areas of Jordan are declining — the school board is weighing how to balance enrollments, including possible school closures — and others growing fast. District voters last year OK'd a $281 million bond to build 22 schools to accommodate as many as 15,000 new students within the decade. Among plans are two new elementaries and a middle school in South Jordan and a new high school in the southwest, Newbold said.

"Growth is just been something we've had to deal with a lot of years," he said, "and we've got a lot of years ahead of us."

A lot of students are on the way. Even more than first thought.

Copper Canyon Elementary in West Jordan — not to be confused with Tooele's Copper Canyon Elementary, which debuts this fall — will open Monday.