December 2018 | Vol. 5 Iss. 12
SOUTH JORDAN
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overcrowding, aligning neighborhoods with schools
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By Julie Slama | julie@mycityjournals.com
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here were school boundary options A and B, and from those, C was created. But it was option D that was presented and approved Nov. 13 by the Jordan School Board. That fourth and final option, will go in effect for the 2019–20 school year. “I do not support option D,” Eastlake parent Zakia Richardson said. “The logic is incredibly flawed. Option D does not remove enough (students). It keeps the areas with the highest growth rate and the highest student yield in the district of Eastlake. So, next year, I believe Eastlake will be overcrowded again. None of the options considered moving students East of 4000 (West), who live furthest from the school.” She said that four buses currently pick up schoolchildren from neighborhoods east of 4000 West to take them to Eastlake Elementary. Next year, under option D, Richardson said – the four buses will continue the same route to Eastlake while approximately 111 students who live closest to the school will walk 1.4 miles to Daybreak Elementary. However, she knows that the board’s decision is final. “There are great families on both sides of 4000 prepared to honor any Jordan School District board decision that gives a long-term solution to the overcrowding at Eastlake,” Richardson said. Option D was presented from more than 7,000 survey responses and more than 2,900 additional comments after boundary option C was presented Oct. 24. It was for eight hours that day, after spending time the night before expressing concerns to the Jordan Board of Education, that parent Jodee Packer listened as the board worked from option B of the proposed boundary changes to formulate option C. “I wanted to be sure what I asked for was shared and heard,” Packer said. “For the most part, I’m happier with option C.” Packer, who has spent 16 years volunteering in her children’s schools of Monte Vista Elementary, South Jordan Middle School and Bingham High, said she has an investment in her neighborhood schools. “I was there to fight for our elementary — not just for the school and the education they receive there, but literally because the earlier options split our community in half and that wasn’t OK,” said the current Bingham High PTA vice president. “We’re talking about 14 homes; in six of them, the homeowners grew up in the houses and bought them from their parents so their kids could be raised with the same traditions they experienced.” In another option, Packer said that about 32 students were identified to leave the school, but after allowing those who study
Monte Vista parent Leesa Leonard addresses the Jordan Board of Education with her neighborhood concerns over earlier boundary options. (Julie Slama/ City Journals)
Chinese with dual immersion to permit back to the school, only six students were identified to leave. “That’s what made me so passionate about it,” she said. “We need to look at specifics and know what’s best for our communities.” Monte Vista parent Leesa Leonard said option C was more viable for her neighborhood.
“The board listened, and they’ve left us united as a neighborhood,” she said, adding that her community has moved several times in the past decade. “It didn’t make sense that we’d randomly be picked to move when we can walk one-half mile to Monte Vista. People bought houses to have their children attend this school. They want their children to grow up to attend Bingham High; it’s a great school for test scores, Continued on page 6...
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