NORTH SALT LAKE — Almost 200 students at Orchard Elementary in North Salt Lake will be attending different schools next year due to crowding at the school.
Around 95 students living east of Bountiful Boulevard and north of the Bountiful/North Salt Lake City boundary will be bused to Muir Elementary School starting next fall. Those students will feed into Mueller Park Junior High School and Woods Cross High School.
The students had previously been feeding into South Davis Junior High.
Also another 92 students who live west of Highway 89 and north of Center Street will be bused to Washington Elementary next year and will continue to feed into South Davis Junior High and Woods Cross High.
Leaders considered options like year-round school, moving an entire sixth grade to a different school or a rotating schedules to accommodate Orchard's 856 students. But after a number of community meetings, leaders settled on the boundary change.
The decision wasn't popular among some parents, since their homes are within easy walking distance from Orchard, but Davis found itself in a pickle between two crowded ends of the district and funds to build only one new school.
The north end won out, since students were packed in a little tighter. The shuffle of students in the south will only be a quick fix, but it will have to do for now, said Davis District spokesman Chris Williams.
District leaders plan to build a new school near the new Foxboro development, but that is still a few years down the road.
Orchard Principal Merry Fussleman said even with the alleviation of almost 200 kids, with a larger kindergarten class coming in next year, enrollment will be 711.
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