Reader comments
Special session on split?

If the split of any school district is so good. Every voter in those districts should get to vote. Not just the ones in the new district.

Pardon the sarcasm, but...

If the legislature is now drafting bills that prescribe where students must go to school (i.e., west side students are to continue to attend Cottonwood for six years), why do we need school districts at all? Let's fire all the superintendents and have the legislature run the schools. That oughta work.

A number of people outside the school district could well be effected by the decision including businesses who supply existing school districts based on certain quanities.

There may be other districts in the State who desire to change their boundries. Whatever rules that are used should apply to those future possibilities as well.

Russ, the legislation was drafted specifically to allow minority segments of a school district to leave without being held hostage by a majority of voters. I'm sure Great Britain would have loved a vote at the Continental Congress over the Declaration of Independence.

If remaining part of a giant, unresponsive school district is such a good idea, then you should be able to persuade me to vote against leaving rather than forcing me to stay.

The west side doesn't want the east dictating where and how they build schools. They just want us to pay for their decisions.

The modest increase in west side taxes during a period of high growth is a small price to pay for independence to run your district as you see fit. AND, faced with the financial consequences of your decisions, maybe you'll decide that a 15 minute bus ride to existing schools isn't quite as bad as you thought. Or if not, at least you get to pay for your own choices.

Eastsiders in both Jordan and Granite Districts should think back to when their buildings were built when Kennecott Copper was the biggest taxpayer in the state.

Charles,
Another war analogy works just as well, what if the Confederacy was allowed to just split away?

The current situation is ill-conceived and the hasty reworkings are making it even worse.

It's not at all like the Confederacy. Creating a few new school districts isn't breaking apart. We're all still in the same state and under the State Board.

What it's really like is how we created new states as we grew instead of just expanding the existing ones. Expanding as we grew would have been a horrible mistake. (Virginia and North Carolina originally claimed the Kentucky and Tennessee territories.) 50 states give us 50 laboratories for citizens to practice self government. That is far better than still having 13 huge states.

Teha Rangi the legislation doesn't "prescribe where students must go to school." It ALLOWS them to continue IF they want.