Granite students dislike 'Alternative' label

Central High students want their name back.

The school is now called Granite High Alternative School. That after the Granite Board of Education voted to close Canyon Rim and Meadow Moor elementaries and reconfigure Granite High School as an "umbrella" school. The "umbrella" includes proposed career and performing arts academies and a Newcomers Program for immigrants at the South Salt Lake campus; Central High, which is about a mile down the street; and the Young Parent Program in West Valley City.

Student Ryan Cook calls the name change a bad move.

"Alternative — that labels us," Cook said. "It makes us sound less intelligent and less important."

He and other students recently presented a petition with about 300 signatures to the board asking for the Central High name back.

"Name is an identity ... our name is a spirit," Cook said.

The matter will be discussed in a study session Tuesday, board president Sarah Meier said.

"We're looking into the program. We're looking into that whole gamut of all those things that have fallen under the umbrella of Granite High. It's not over, and it didn't fall on deaf ears," she said. "I'm one of Central's biggest fans. I felt really bad" about the uproar.

The board never officially voted to change the school's name, Meier said.

Rather, the district changed it because the board put it under Granite High, said Linda Mariotti, assistant superintendent over instructional services. While she says this is a matter of semantics, she said she also understands the students' concern.

"The bristle there is that word (alternative) ... suggesting something that's stigmatizing" Mariotti said. "They have a legitimate concern there."

Still, she said, she's not sure calling the school Central High again is the only answer.

While the board has talked about the "new look" of Granite High, Meier says she doesn't remember the board voting to pull the Central High moniker.

---

E-mail: jtcook@desnews.com