They are doing this on the advice of LDS Church leaders in the area, with whom the board president and superintendent met, without the knowledge or participation of the board. This group of LDS Church leaders includes a professor of education at Brigham Young University and a member of the City Council, I am told. Apparently, these discussions also took place in meetings of the BYU-public school partnership.

This divide-and-conquer philosophy is diametrically opposed to the tenets of the building and boundary policy that support neighborhood schools. Superficially, it may appear to support the tenet of the policy that encourages consideration of "socioeconomic and racial diversity" in drawing boundaries.

However, free and reduced-lunch data, which is normally the indicator of socioeconomic status, was not the basis of this division.

Instead, the proposal only specifies that because these children are really poor they should be treated differently than other poor children, and it does not specify what makes them so different. The proposal is also suspect because it serves political interests that are probably not obvious to most members of the community.

Though I consider myself a devout member of the LDS Church, or maybe because I consider myself a devout member, I believe that the process I have described is an inappropriate confluence of church and state.

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Sandy Packard of Provo is a member of her local school board.