Utah County releases proposed boundaries for Alpine School District split

SALT LAKE CITY — After voters in Utah County approved a split of the state’s largest school district in November, the Utah County Commission released the first map of the new proposed district boundaries on Wednesday.

The Alpine School District and Utah County Commission initially planned on splitting the district into two parts in May 2024, and a 45-day window was opened for public comment. But, according to district communications director Rich Stowell, the Utah Legislature passed a bill that “stripped (the) board of the ability to put any plan to voters” before the 45 days concluded.

Therefore, municipalities in the district made their own interlocal agreements to pose questions to voters separately on the November ballot. Voters agreed there should be a split, and when passed, the ballot questions resulted in a three-way divide.

The plans were presented during a meeting Wednesday, where the commission presented each of the three new areas and where their boundaries would be.

Redistricting Committee Chair Mac Sims presented the plans, which were created with the hope of keeping the city communities together in each district. He said the boundary choices were made based on population data from 2023.

One commissioner, Amelia Gardner, argued the amount of growth in the area in 2024 and the census data available now could lead to another redistricting problem years later. Sims and others present echoed her concern, saying it’s something to consider.

“I think ironically having the timing being halfway through a census is difficult because we don’t have the most accurate data, particularly in a county that is the fastest growing county in the state,” she said.

Gardner said 43% of the state’s growth in 2024 was in Utah County alone, which was backed by data from the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.

“That makes it difficult but at the same time we’re halfway to a census which means in four years we’re gonna redistrict this.”

Ultimately, the commission applauded the committee and Sims’ efforts in creating the boundaries, saying he considered more than just the math of the population totals — he researched how he could keep students and families close with the communities they were already apart of.

“The feedback from the stakeholders I think is invaluable to show, you know, where Lindon says, ‘We’re fine being over (a larger number of students) — we want to be together.’ Those are the type of things that the math brain wouldn’t have done, so I think the balanced approach was really good,” Gardner said.

The commission said the names of the new districts are just what they’re being referred to as of now, and are not finalized.

Central District

The most north district, referred currently to as the Central District, includes:

• Lehi
• American Fork
• Highland
• Cedar Hills
• Alpine
• Draper

One of the challenges faced with creating the Central district was making sure the cities kept their communities together.

“Obviously, Lehi is kind of the elephant in the room, they’ve got the largest population, they have just over half the population in the district,” Sims said during the meeting. “As we looked at this, one of the challenges that we really had was, if you’re familiar with the geographics [sic] of that area, Highland kind of sits in the middle of everybody.”

Sims added that Highland is very concerned with not being divided up.

“So, one of the things that was really worked on, for the Central (district) particularly, is, how did we make it so that as many of the cities were as unified together in the seats they had as possible,” Sims said. “And so, we really worked hard to, specifically, to try to help Highland accomplish that.”

Number three on the Central district map is Highland, which Sim’s said includes part of Lehi.

Lake Mountain District

The proposed Lake Mountain District, also referred to as West district sits west of the Utah Lake, and will include:

• Eagle Mountain
• Saratoga Springs
• Cedar Fort
• Fairfield

“Some of the things to note about this is this particular area,” Sims said in Wednesday’s meeting. “The west has basically three areas that have some potential growth coming and was identified in our discussions.”

Specifically, Sims said that areas one, five and six located on the map have the potential to grow.

Timpanogos District

The proposed Timpanogos District, also referred to as the South district, will include:

• Orem
• Pleasant Grove
• Lindon
• Vineyard

Plans for Timpanogos District were created with similar goals in mind — keeping the community together — according to Sims.

Response

The city of Orem commented ahead of the meeting, saying it looked forward to hearing more financial details about the split, and encouraged its residents to get involved.

Our children’s education is one of the most important priorities for Orem’s elected officials. We are completely engaged in this reconfiguration study process and will work diligently with the other stakeholders to make sure Orem’s needs are well represented. We look forward to seeing more financial details as soon as possible so that we can properly evaluate all potential options. We encourage all Orem residents to get involved and make sure their voices are heard.

The commissioners said in Wednesday’s meeting that a survey would soon be added to the county’s website where the community can submit feedback on the proposed maps. The new district plans will then be voted on during the commission’s public meeting on March 26.

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This story was updated with additional reporting after its initial publication.