Granite High, Central to merge
The district's decision will leave a new building vacant
Another way to put it: The district is closing Central High School.
"That's the bottom line," board president Patricia Sandstrom told the Deseret Morning News Thursday. "No one's said it, but if (the students are) going to be moved over there, they won't be called Central, they'll be called Granite."
Central High is the district's flagship alternative school. It sits in a building that's just a few years old at the corner of 500 East and 3900 South — six blocks south of Granite High, a building the district has said needs work.
So, as it stands now, Central is going to move into a building that needs fixing, leaving a new building vacant. The board has yet to determine Central's use next school year.
While the move, along with closing Meadow Moor and Canyon Rim elementaries, is expected to save $1.4 million, there could be some costs, too, Sandstrom acknowledges.
The change enables Granite High to remain open. But now, some community members worry whether plans will offer enough attractive academic opportunities for current students to want to stay, South Salt Lake City Councilman Bill Anderson said. He also is seeking an attorney general's opinion on whether the district has to move so quickly — an answer Sandstrom said she would welcome.
"I am trying to be positive. I'm not trying to fight the district with this," Anderson said. "I really just want to be involved in the process . . . (and) in terms of South Salt Lake, I would like to see a solid, academic academy at Granite High School."
District and board officials will address the concerns in a Jan. 4 community meeting.
The matter is rooted in a spring report that district taxpayers were spending $3 million a year to maintain 8,700 empty seats. The board took public input on what to do about it, and a district "options committee" of parents and school workers recommended closing several schools and changing boundaries to save money for programs, foster district-wide equity and keep students together from elementary through high school.
Following a couple of protests and hundreds of phone calls and e-mails, the board preliminarily voted in early November to close no schools and rebuild fire-ravaged Wasatch Junior High. Three weeks later, however, it voted to also reconfigure Granite High as a nontraditional school and close Meadow Moor and Canyon Rim elementaries. The board solidified the vote earlier this month, when it declined to revisit its decision, infuriating dozens of onlookers.
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