Across Utah, communities are confronting a growing question: Will we treat our public schools as cost centers or as civic anchors?
Declining enrollment, aging facilities and shifting budgets are testing the values that define our state’s commitment to education. Granite School District now finds itself at the center of that test, facing a decision that extends beyond one neighborhood: a choice that could dismantle a model of excellence and send ripples through generations. What’s at stake is not just the future of one school but also the direction of public education across Utah.
A school that builds generations
Eastwood Elementary is not a school in need of rescuing. It’s a school worth defending.
For more than 60 years, Eastwood has been the heartbeat of Millcreek, where generations return to give back to the community that raised them. Grandparents who once walked its halls now watch their grandchildren learn in the same classrooms. Teachers who once inspired parents now teach their children. Eastwood is where legacies are built and where belonging still means something.
This is not a story of decline. It’s a story of excellence, resilience and a community that refuses to let bureaucracy erase its beating heart.
When Granite looks at Eastwood, it sees numbers: enrollment, square footage, cost-per-student. What it cannot measure is the strength of a community showing up for its kids, teachers and for one another.
Eastwood is not just a building. It’s a promise that public education can be both exceptional and deeply human.
Eastwood is among the top 10 performing elementary schools in Utah. It holds a Gold STEM designation, earned not through privilege but through the relentless dedication of educators who believe excellence should be accessible to every child. Its students outperform Granite and state averages across the board. Yet somehow, this model of success is being treated like a problem to be fixed.
The cost of ‘efficiency’
Granite leaders speak of “efficiency,” of “mergers,” of “consolidation.” But efficiency should never come at the expense of safety, stability and soul.
Eastwood serves a unique population including families from Emigration Canyon, one of the few remaining rural areas within Granite boundaries. For these children, Eastwood isn’t just their neighborhood school; it’s their only accessible school, and this closure would effectively cut off an entire community’s equitable access to education.
A statewide reflection on our priorities
Granite is the third largest school district in Utah, serving roughly 58,000 students across dozens of diverse communities. Like many districts statewide, it is facing declining enrollment, aging buildings and financial strain. But these challenges call for creativity and collaboration, not contraction. Districts from Ogden to St. George are grappling with similar decisions that weigh efficiency against identity and test whether we will balance budgets by closing schools or strengthen them through innovation and partnership.
This moment is bigger than Granite. It’s about how Utah measures the value of public education itself. Whether we will preserve the places that connect us, the schools where children first learn what community truly means. When a thriving school like Eastwood is sacrificed in the name of efficiency, the impact reaches far beyond a single boundary map. It reveals what kind of state we want to be and whether we still believe that great public schools are worth protecting.
Defending what works — and who we are
More than 1,700 residents have signed petitions opposing the closure. Families have packed board meetings and stood together in the cold, holding signs that read “Save Eastwood.” Parents, teachers, alumni and neighbors, generations bound by a single purpose, have rallied not out of fear of change but out of faith in what their community can achieve together. They understand what’s at stake: not just a building but the heart of a community that still believes in public education as a shared promise.
We ask Granite to listen: not to the noise of numbers, but to the voices of families, educators and children who live this every day. To see that what makes Eastwood extraordinary is not something that can be replicated elsewhere. It’s a spirit rooted in the generations who built it.
Defending Eastwood isn’t just about saving a building; it’s about protecting the promise that great public schools still exist in Utah, that they still matter and that they can still bring communities together around something bigger than themselves.
In standing for Eastwood, we’re not just defending a school: we’re defending the best of who we are.