Nebo District to adjust its school boundaries

SPANISH FORK — Over the protests of some parents, Nebo's Board of Education decided Wednesday to go ahead with plans to change school boundaries across the south Utah County district.

The geographic boundaries that determine school attendance will absorb Nebo's expected enrollment growth. The adjustments also were made to accommodate planned school closures and new-school openings in the next two years.

As part of the district's growth plan — of which the boundary changes were a major part — Nebo will eliminate middle schools and by 2010 will open or remodel a handful of elementary and high schools.

District officials and community members have spent hundreds of hours meeting and studying maps in order to come to a decision about the new boundaries.

The district has grouped towns and cities and altered boundaries for each group. Payson and Santaquin have eight elementary schools. In Salem and Elk Ridge, there are three elementary schools. In Spanish Fork, there are eight elementary schools. There are two junior high schools for each area, except Salem students will attend junior high in Spanish Fork and Elk Ridge students will attend junior high in Payson. There will be five high schools spread throughout the district.

All schools were affected in some way. The new boundaries are expected to be on the district's Web site — www.nebo.edu — by Feb. 1.

Nearly 100 people attended the meeting Wednesday during which the school board voted for the school-boundary realignments. Those who spoke against the new boundary plans live in a neighborhood in northern Springville.

Westside Elementary PTA president Annette Dyer, who was on a committee that studied boundaries, said it's not surprising the board was not swayed by parents at the meeting Wednesday.

"They had already clearly made the decisions," she said.

Since 1998, students in Dyer's neighborhood have been bounced three times in boundary shifts — to Art City, Brookside and Westside elementary schools. Under the new plan, they will attend Brookside Elementary.

"I think Nebo School District thinks that since we're on buses, they can send us to whatever school needs the numbers," she said.

District administrator Rick Nielsen, who led the boundary-realignment process, acknowledged the neighborhood had been carved out. But, he said, it was the most logical decision with districtwide busing considerations and a remodel project at Brookside that will allow for 700 students, up from 450.