Public input has Provo rethinking its school plans

PROVO — After sifting through comments from people who live and have children attending city schools, Provo school chiefs are rethinking some plans to accommodate enrollment shifts in the urban Utah County district.

The comments, solicited during open houses during which a major plan to build schools, change boundaries and alter the uses of existing district buildings was presented to the public, have prompted officials to consider rebuilding Timpanogos Elementary on its current site and building a new school in a northwest Provo neighborhood known as Lakeview.

Deseret Morning News graphic Proposed school options Requires Adobe Acrobat.

However, many of the 387 respondents to computer surveys, which are on the district's Web site, www.provo.edu, did not want the district to rebuild Dixon Middle School on one of the district's properties in west Provo, which is one of the proposals on the table in front of Provo's Board of Education.

While the district's student population remains about 13,000, thousands of new homes have been built west of I-15, causing a population shift in Provo. West-side students are bused to schools in other areas of the city, which was chief among reasons the board started talking about major school-boundary changes.

An overwhelming majority of survey respondents — 93 percent — accept the $25.8 million price tag that accompanies the changes that they favor. District officials estimate it will cost $7.5 million to rebuild Timpanogos, $8 million to build a Lakeview school and $10.3 million for improvements such as new roofs and energy-efficient windows at other schools.

In January, the school board will decide whether to have a bond election in June to raise the $25.8 million. That amount does not include purchases of property and a road that the district will need to expand the Timpanogos site, said Sandy Packard, a member of the board.

At the open houses, district leaders said that property taxes on a $200,000 home would increase $10 a year for every $5 million issued in bonds.

Voters also in June could be asked to approve a tax leeway of up to $2.3 million for increased energy costs of utilities and bus fuel, teacher salaries or general operating expenses.

The exact amount of a leeway, which would push ongoing money to the school district, is not yet known. It will depend on whether the school board ultimately decides to close Grandview Elementary after a Lakeview school was built.

Property for the new Lakeview school is in northwest Provo, and board members are unsure whether there is enough population justify keeping Grandview open in addition to the new school and Westridge Elementary.