Reader comments
Governor signs school-district bills

This is all well and great but when we are trying to fund schools why are we creating new districts which will require the expense of new superindendents, staff, district offices, etc.

If portions of the districts feel that they are not being represented they need to make changes in their school boards.

Grant, you misunderstand the economics of school district size. Once a school district exceeds about 20-25,000 students, the duplication has to happen internally anyway. Instead of multiple superintendents, you end up with one superintendent and a handful of deputies and assistants. There is no longer an "ecomomy of scale" in continuing to grow larger. Instead, the research data show, that costs begin to increase in other areas, which overcome any savings due to ecomomies of scale in administration.

Changing the school board looks great on paper, but when a single school board member represents one and a half times as many constituents as a state senator and three times as many as a representative in the House the raw politics make such changes ineffective.

This is not good folks. Splitting the JSD is going to be one big mess. Does anyone realize this is going to cost a fortune? There will be many superintendents, and more top heavy district administratiors. VOTE NO

The district already is way top heavy. I don't know the specifics of Jordan, but Granite has 7 assistant superintendents. With a split you can streamline and have only one superintendent. District offices can be located in many places. In Granite the district is in a huge 15 million dollar building. So I think having a few offices in an undercrowded school might represent a huge savings. When people start screaming this is going to cost a fortune -- it would be good if we know what your information is based on.

TO: SMALLER IS BETTER

I need to help correct some of the information offered here. It troubles me to see people speaking out when they clearly don't know the facts.

**Granite school district has four assistant superintendents (not seven) - over schools, support services (contruction, buses, maintenance, etc.), program services (special education, community education, ESL, etc.).

**Locate a district office in many places? Yes, we tried that for 50 years. After moving everyone under one roof, we are saving $80,000 per year in travel expenses to hold meetings. We also reduced the numbers of secretaries and other staff that used to be necessary when we were located in several buildings across the district. Having offices in undercrowded schools? The only place that exists is on the east side of the district, which is proposed to split off. The west side is very crowded.

**Yes, we spent $15 million to buy the old FHP hospital. (One new elementary school costs $18 million.) Howard Stephenson, Utah Tax Payers president called it a tremendous savings for property tax payers when we made the purchase. The fact is, the district offices occupy less than 1/4th of the space in the old "doctors clinic." The five story old hospital now houses four schools: Wilson Elementary, Granite Technical Institute (for high school students), Granite Peaks adult and community education, and as of this week Utah State University extension. It also provides numerous professional development sessions for teachers.

Split the district into two smaller district and all of this goes away because there's not enough overhead or personel to run it. Is that what you want?

Perhaps I just don't understand this well enough. It seems to me that the effect of splitting Jordan School District would not be advantageous in the slightest. East side schools don't want to pay in taxes for the incredible amount of growth and expansion that is happening in the west. They are already landlocked and established. East Side wants to pay to rebuild their already existing schools. It's obviously more urgent to build new facilities.
Anyway, according to what I know, a split would result in the east side spending less money and the west side experiencing a substantial increase in taxes for public educational purposes. This is just my opinion, I am not too well informed on this issue, but a split sounds incredibly selfish of the east side to me. West side isn't ready financially for a split, and the rapid growth that is currently taking place will simply exacerbate the situation. I am not in favor of a split in the slightest-nor do I know anyone west that is.