Granite picks 3 options

The Granite Board of Education, following nearly seven hours of discussion Tuesday, tweaked then narrowed its sights on three options for closing schools and changing boundaries. Those options now go to the community for input.

The board, in a meeting packed with well over 400 people, pulled off the table four of seven options. They included the option that would rebuild both Granite and Granger as small school communities, another that would close Olympus High, and two options that would include putting ninth grades into high schools.

The decisions followed a more than 3 1/2-hour morning study session and a three-hour evening discussion, where board members tweaked and eliminated possibilities pitched by board members, communities and an options committee that studied enrollments and building use for two years.

The options will go out to the public for input in October open houses and are expected to be posted at www.graniteschools.org by this afternoon.

"Don't think after tonight . . . it's solid in cement. It's still not," board president Patricia Sandstrom said. "We'll just have a recommendation as to what to take out to the schools.

"Think of all the opportunities you still have to nag us," she quipped.

The 69,000-student district reports having 8,700 empty seats, costing taxpayers $3 million a year to sustain. Last spring, a building utilization study found booming enrollments west of 5600 West and tiny school populations east of State Street.

An options committee of parents and school workers has been examining ways to ensure educational equity by ensuring schools have enough students to support solid programs. The public last spring chimed in on how the district should go about the task. The school board in June voted to explore consolidating and closing schools and reconfiguring what grades go into what schools, such as moving ninth grade into high schools.

The options committee last month forwarded three options to school communities, where they sought input from about 350 parents. The options consider Wasatch Junior High, destroyed by fire last July, as if it were still standing.

Three options forwarded by that committee recommended closing up to seven schools apiece, mostly on the east side. They also sought to reconfigure boundaries, mainly with the idea of keeping students together as they move through the school system rather than splitting them into several high schools.