Mixed feelings over splitting district

SANDY — In the first round of public hearings for a proposed east-side school district, east-siders responded with mixed feelings about leaving the Jordan School District.

Those attending cited lack of information, incomplete study material and a general happiness with the existing district as points of concern.

"I object to disenfranchising the west side over an issue that obviously affects the west side of the valley," said Tom Hicks, a Sandy resident who has spent 32 years working in the school system on both the east and west sides.

Others, however, said the City Council should put the issue on the November ballot and let the residents decide the future of their children's education. About a third of attendants were from neighboring Draper, concerned about what would happen in the growing SunCrest neighborhood.

SunCrest sprawls across the ridge, straddling the border between Salt Lake and Utah counties and splitting residents into two school districts. Many on the Utah County side put their children through Alpine School District, which is closer and provides bus service up the mountain roads. Most on the Salt Lake County side attend Jordan schools.

But if a split were to occur, new school boundaries would be drawn along city lines, meaning those 300 families on the Utah County end of the city would have to send their children across the ridge for school. An estimated 121 families send children to Alpine schools. That number, however, is expected to skyrocket as SunCrest continues to grow.

"The feasibility consultants ... did not take the projected growth of SunCrest into consideration," said DeLaina Tonks, a SunCrest resident. She added open enrollment is not an option because Alpine will not provide bus transportation to transfer students. "What are they going to do with us?"

Tonks and other SunCrest neighbors have banded together to form "Better Boundaries."

The group is pushing their concerns via the Web site betterboundaries.org.

"The feasibility study has so many holes, and they cannot lean on that for facts," said Dawn Berbert, another SunCrest resident. She said the city is impacting children's lives without bothering to ask the parents.