Many still unhappy on school boundaries

Someone will be upset.

That's one result the Davis Boundary Advisory committee can count on in redrawing school boundaries to balance enrollments in the county.

The committee has tweaked its original school boundaries proposal after listening to thousands of pleas from unhappy citizens. Some parents from organized groups are relieved, but many are still fighting the plans.

The initial proposal last month riled parents in a number of communities. They were concerned about uprooting students from their schools, safety on school commutes, isolation and family traditions at a given school.

Next fall, Davis District will be opening "high school No. 8" in Syracuse.

Leaders say it will help alleviate the bulging seams in many of the high schools, particularly Clearfield.

The catch is the district wants to balance enrollment in all the schools, which means all the high school boundaries will be adjusted — including the southern part of the district.

Students who are juniors this year are safe. They will be allowed to finish at whatever school they are attending this year, regardless of where lines are drawn. Next year the new high school will operate without a senior class.

Over the past two months boundary committee members have waded through around 3,500 written comments from open houses and hundreds of e-mails and phone calls.

Grass-root groups from various communities have mobilized, holding their own meetings, rallies and even creating Web sites to get their concerns heard.

With the new changes to the boundary proposal around 200 students in the north Farmington area, who were originally going to be sent to Viewmont, will be pulled back into Davis High lines.

Parents in the Farmington group were concerned about teenagers driving three times the distance to Viewmont on I-15 and U.S. 89.

But that still leaves around 150 students from the area within Viewmont boundaries.

Heather Simonsen, spokeswoman for the Farmington group, said her children were among those who were pulled back into the Davis High lines. Though relieved, she is still fighting for the others who live on the Viewmont side.

Another move the boundary committee took was in folding a sliver of Syracuse residents back into the new school's boundaries rather than sending them to Clearfield. Hundreds of parents were concerned about isolation issues for what would have been around 160 students.