Granite strategies focus on east-west disparities

As parent Dan Lidgard says, "It's a physics problem": too many crowded schools on the west side, too many empty classrooms on the east.

Lidgard was one of more than 200 east-side parents who attended a Granite School District open house Thursday night to get their first look at five possible strategies to solve what the district calls a "looming enrollment crisis."

According to district projections gleaned from a two-year population study, Granite District currently has empty space equivalent to two elementary schools, two junior highs and two high schools. And the situation, the district says, will become worse by 2010, as the population continues to grow west of Redwood Road and declines to the east.

At the first of three open houses, the district unveiled five "strategies" developed by an "options committee" made up of parents, principals and administrators. The strategies were presented in short computer-aided presentations that parents like Julia Plant found so rapid-fire that they had to sit through a second time.

The strategies include phrases like "network adjustment," which caused Plant to note that "that certainly sounds better than 'boundary change.' "

The network adjustment strategy would indeed include boundary changes, closures and/or consolidations. Other strategies are "status quo"; busing students from high density areas to schools with lower enrollments; "grade reconfiguration"; and "efficiency" (defined as "close schools below utilization benchmark to achieve academic effectiveness and financial efficiency.")

Parent reactions ranged from furious to philosophical.

"There are no easy answers to this," said Kim Keisker, whose children attend Millcreek Elementary and Evergreen Junior High. She thinks the district "wants what's best for the community," but she also feels frustrated. "We've been through this year after year," she said, pointing to the closure of Libby Edwards Elementary several years ago and the contemplated closure last year of Millcreek and Canyon Rim elementaries.

"It's difficult for students to be uprooted and hard on teacher morale when a closure is pending," Keisker said. "And it's hard on the communities." When the school board debated whether to close William Penn or Libby Edwards, it created enemies between the two neighborhoods, she said.

Parent Deann Zebelean, whose children attend Oakridge Elementary, said she favors the efficiency model but would hope that any money saved would flow back into classrooms to reduce student-teacher ratios or increase the number of specialists.