As the dust begins to settle from the Granite Board of Education meeting Tuesday night, the board's preliminary decision not to close any schools raises serious questions. For one, how does the school board rationalize this, starting from the premise that there are 8,700 empty seats in the 68,558-student Granite School District?
The school board voted to shift some school boundaries to firm up school networks, switch two elementary schools to traditional schedules from year-round schedules and reconfigure some busing patterns. These decisions may buy time and help to use some resources more efficiently, but they are stop-gap measures at best.
If the school-closure debate was about the best utilization of resources, essentially keeping the status quo is not a cost-saving measure. It means the school board will start the budget process more than $3 million in the hole. Balancing the budget will require program cuts, tax increases or a significant increase in state education funding. The latter is unlikely considering some state lawmakers have already said they will not fight for increased school funding on Utah's Capitol Hill if the school board fails to make some difficult choices on its own.
The school board has voted to rebuild Wasatch Junior High, at a cost as close as possible to the insurance settlement, and has agreed to build elementary schools in Kearns and Granger as soon as possible and in Magna within five years. Add that to the eventual growth on the west side of the valley and the need to eventually replace aging schools.
While parents who were up in arms about potential school closures have been appeased for now, what about property owners in the Granite School District? The greatest share of their property taxes goes to the district. A good many of them have fixed incomes. Doesn't the school board have a fiduciary responsibility to them to close underutilized schools? If so, how does it defend operating "small schools" such as Granite High School or Canyon Rim Elementary school, which will be left with an estimated 200 students after a separate decision to halt busing to the school?
If there's any saving grace to the board's actions (to be finalized at the school board meeting Nov. 29), it is that boundary changes will solidify school feeder systems within existing school networks. That was the only recommendation of the district's option committee — a group of parents, principals and district-level administrators — that was adopted by the school board.
School closures are one of the most emotional matters to come before a board of education. But the board is elected to make the hard decisions. Except for the 6-1 decision to rebuild Wasatch Junior High, a divided Granite School Board has embraced the status quo. That simply means a future board of education and the school administration will be saddled with the fallout of its inaction.