Cities may soon control schools
"Once the Wasatch Front realizes what this means to them, they favor this all over," said Rep. David Cox, R-Lehi, sponsor of HB77. "If we can't make it possible to have community districts, we might as well forget trying to protect public education."
Under HB77, first-, second-, third- and fourth-class cities would have the option of creating their own school district. If the new legislation passes, 40 Utah school districts could become 74 or more. The Salt Lake County Council passed a motion in support of Cox's bill on Tuesday.
Cox says smaller districts can provide a better education, support a more effective administration and cost less to run.
"With these big districts, these tend to become government schools rather than public schools — that don't reflect the community," Cox said.
The bill is good news for West Valley City, South Salt Lake and Holladay, who have all juggled the idea of ditching Granite School District. Many argue the roughly 70,000-student district, the second-largest in the state, is too disconnected and impersonal for students to succeed and patrons to be happy.
If a new district were drawn along city lines in West Valley City, it would take away 27 of Granite School District's 90 schools. About a third of the students Granite serves, 23,000, are West Valley residents.
The City Council recently passed a unanimous resolution supporting Cox's bill. However, the entire council, with the exception of Coleman, later withdrew that support. City officials say the change of mind was simply because of new information, but supporters of the bill believe it was a response to a threat from Granite that it would pull out of a land-swap deal to relocate Granger Elementary School.
"I received a perspective that I did not know about, and I'm very grateful for that. And I can see that our passing of that resolution created some concern on your part," West Valley Mayor Dennis Nordfelt told the Granite School District Wednesday during a meeting among some city mayors within the district. "I'm sorry for that"
And while Coleman believes Cox's bill would be good for West Valley's students, he said the benefit doesn't stop there.
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