Alpine School board votes to close two schools
Jun 30, 2023, 5:33 PM | Updated: Jul 27, 2023, 1:51 pm
Orem voters chose not to split from the Alpine School District in last year's election. (Stuart Johnson/KSL TV)
(Stuart Johnson/KSL TV)
ALPINE, Utah — Parents and children will see two elementary schools in the Alpine School District close, and the boundaries of others move.
The Alpine School District’s Board of Education voted unanimously Friday to close Sharon and Valley View elementary schools, effective in the fall of 2023.
The boundary changes are for Centennial, Cascade, Central and Grovecrest elementary schools.
Here are the boundary changes for Cascade and Centennial:
Here are the changes for Central and Grovecrest:
Here are the changes for Traverse Mountain and Belmont:
Here are the changes for Barrat, Forbes and Greenwod:
The district is delaying making any changes, if any, to the boundaries of Lehi, Lindon and Windsor elementary schools for the 2024-2025 school year. All three of those schools are on the district’s “proposed school facility closure” list.
The district had been studying boundary adjustments since April.
A group of parents filed a lawsuit in May over the possibility of the schools closing.
“Unfortunately it wasn’t a surprise,” said Rachel Hall, who is part of the lawsuit and has a child at Cascade. “We had felt they had their mind made up [since April when the plan came out].”
Hall says bringing in the population of Sharon Elementary makes Cascade too full, and that there were other schools with fewer students that would have been better to shift Sharon’s students to.
What’s next for the students
The school closures will leave some students to move to different schools, when they start on the district’s Aug. 16 start date.
For the most part, Sharon and Cascade elementary schools will merge, as will Vallew View and Central. Sharon is a Title I school, so by moving its students to Cascade, Cascade will become the Title I school.
But some students will be sent to Centennial Elementary and some to Grovecrest Elementary to help accommodate for the influx of students.
Last November, the Board of Education approved a district-wide boundary study.
