The Jordan School District has announced ground will be broken on a new school sometime in the next few months in response to high enrollment, which has spilled over into 12 portables.

Set to open for the 2008-2009 school year, the new school won't have many empty classrooms. Due to the explosive housing growth on the west side, the school is expected to open year round to handle the flood of students.

Parents have voiced their concern about the overcrowded school for months. Despite the promise of the new school, the seemingly unstoppable growth still worries some parents, who have been told that building additional schools may initially be difficult if the district splits.

"It's a huge beginning," said Becky Hutchins, an Oakcrest parent and coordinator of the Concerned Parents Coalition. "We're still a long way from having this explosive growth problem solved."

Oakcrest is currently home to about 1,450 students. Next year sixth-graders will be housed at Sunset Ridge Middle School, which will free up more space at Oakcrest. The new K-6 school will be built at approximately 7000 South and 6100 West. It is still to be decided which schools other than Oakcrest will feed into the new school.

Its construction hinged on the outcome of a series of negotiations between West Jordan City and the district surrounding infrastructure costs.

No one had ever expected the rate of growth to be this rapid, officials said.

"Based on growth projections in 2003, we would just now be needing the school," said Frank Shaw, the Jordan executive director of the Copper Hills feeder system. "We wouldn't have overcrowding."

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* JULIA LYON can be contacted at jlyon@sltrib.com or 801-257-8748.