Boundaries move again in Nebo?

SPANISH FORK — Over the past five years, boundary changes in the Nebo School District have forced pockets of students in southern Utah County to change schools twice.

It looks like those same students will change schools again.

"Are we going to be the hot potato that's passed around?" asked parent Sherry Noorda at a boundary proposal meeting Tuesday night. Noorda and her children live in the Sunrise Ridge development in Springville.

"We hope (the new boundaries) will be for a long time," said Rick Nielsen, Nebo's elementary education director.

About 250 people — mostly parents, and some members from the teams that drew up the new boundary proposals — attended the meeting at Spanish Fork High School, where they discussed the proposed boundaries and new schools for the fast-growing district.

The Nebo Board of Education will formally adopt the new boundaries at its Jan. 11 meeting, scheduled for 6 p.m. at Spanish Fork Middle School, 50 N. 900 East, Spanish Fork.

Nebo currently operates 33 elementary, middle, junior high and senior high schools.

The district plans to eliminate middle schools over the next two years by moving sixth grades into elementary schools and seventh grades to junior high schools.

That will create additional space. The middle school buildings will be converted into junior high schools except for Springville Middle School, which will become Cherry Creek Elementary.

Schools in Springville and Mapleton will begin the transition next fall.

"We do Springville first because the Mapleton Junior High will be finished in fall 2006," Nielsen said.

The remaining areas of the district — which includes the communities of Spanish Fork, Payson, Salem, Santaquin, Goshen and surrounding unincorporated county territory — will change in the fall of 2007, Nielsen said.

Nebo has been growing by 800 to 1,000 students yearly for the past five years, excluding last year, when growth was flat because new charter schools absorbed more than 1,000 students, Superintendent Chris Sorensen said.

Another charter school scheduled to open next year will have room for about 450 students. The heavy growth is expected to continue for the next 15 years, he said.

The district currently has about 25,000 students.