Boundary proposals in northern Provo panned
"As far as I know from being my neighborhood representative, we have already petitioned the Board of Education to stay on the west side," said Julie Roper, who represented her neighborhood, off 1400 North between 500 West and University Avenue, on a committee studying the possible closure of Grandview Elementary.
The four boundaries the district is studying all require Upper Carterville students to shift from Westridge to east-side elementary schools.
"I wouldn't call any of (the four) proposals at this point," school board president Darryl Alder said at a Tuesday morning school board meeting. "They're analysis."
The Provo School District Board of Education hasn't yet voted on closing Grandview, but Roper said she doesn't have faith the school will remain open.
"I think it's a 'when,"' she said. "I don't think it's an 'if.'"
Next fall, the Provo district will open an elementary school in the nearby Lakeview neighborhood, and district staff have argued that keeping 14 elementary schools open is too expensive.
The school board is studying four options for Upper Carterville students: moving them to Edgemont; moving them to Rock Canyon Elementary after moving a group of children who live in Brigham Young University's Wymount housing to Wasatch Elementary; splitting the Upper Carterville neighborhood between Rock Canyon and Edgemont; and moving all the students to Farrer Elementary.
District staff and school board members talked most enthusiastically about moving the students to Edgemont at the Tuesday meeting. If Upper Carterville students attend school at Edgemont, they'd join peers from Lower Carterville who were moved to the school two years ago.
But the Provo school board received two petitions from the Carterville residents in recent months, Roper said.
Lower Carterville residents presented the first petition requesting to return to a west-side school. The second petition was from Upper Carterville residents to stay on the west side.
Residents are concerned that their children will attend east-side elementary schools but west-side middle and high schools. For instance, this year Roper has two children at Provo High, one at Dixon Middle School and two at Westridge.
"We moved over here for the purpose of being on the west side," she said.
E-mail: lhancock@desnews.com
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