EAGLE MOUNTAIN — Ground was broken Wednesday for the city's first high school, a charter school.

Rockwell Public Charter High School, off state Route 71 and The Ranches Parkway, is expected to open in the fall of 2008.

Eagle Mountain Mayor Don Richardson said the high school is needed for the town of 20,000 residents, which has recently grown at a rate of about 3,000 residents a year.

"Eagle Mountain is the fourth fastest-growing city in the state," Richardson said. "Utah County was the 16th fastest-growing county in the nation."

A high school under construction by the Alpine School District in nearby Saratoga Springs will be filled to capacity shortly after it opens, the mayor said, but the Deseret Morning News was unable to confirm with Alpine officials projected enrollment for the Saratoga Springs school.

"Some people worry this will take away from that (Saratoga Springs school)," Richardson said. "It won't."

The school received its charter from the state in the spring. It is approved for 600 students in grades nine through 12.

"We're going to be a standard high school," said Suzanne Burdick, vice president of the board of trustees. "We're geared to preparing kids to go to college, but we want to be well-rounded."

The single-story brick and lap-siding building will be 65,000 square feet, with a gym, cafeteria and 34 classrooms. There will be soccer, football and baseball fields, said Bobby Colson of Sage Community Development.

Sage Community Development developed the Ranches section of Eagle Mountain and will be financing the $11.8 million school as well as building it.

The annual payments to Sage Community Development start at $750,000 and will increase each year, until the school is considered financially stable enough to purchase the building through local or state-backed bond issuances.

Rockwell's board has entered into partnerships with local charter schools — Lakeview Academy in Saratoga Springs, the Ranches Academy in Eagle Mountain and Lincoln Academy in Pleasant Grove — to recruit students to its high school.

The school will get tax dollars for each of its students through the state's weighted pupil formula, but Rockwell is not associated with the local Alpine School District.

And for many, that's a good thing.

Alec Foss, who will be in the first freshman class, thinks the school he would normally attend, Lehi High, is too large.

"It's going to be a small school," said his mother, Jenny Foss, who's on the school's board. "I think at a large school, they're forgotten about. He's a gifted child. He'll get to learn at his own pace (at Rockwell)."

"All my friends I know are going to go over here," said Alec Foss, who currently attends the Ranches Academy.

The school is named after Orrin Porter Rockwell, a famous and controversial gunman and deputized marshal, namesake of the school's mascot — the marshals.

Would naming the school after a famous LDS convert be offensive to people who are not LDS?

"That is one concern we have had," Burdick said. "But we just wanted to bring out his historical importance to Utahns, not just to the LDS."

---

E-mail: lhancock@desnews.com