And Herriman and Bluffdale - the pimply adolescents in the valley - are getting dumped.
As the last undeveloped fields in the state's population center, the two cities are at the white-hot center of growth - 30 to 150 years after the rest of the valley. Following the natural progression of suburb-building, homes come first. Then families. Then Smith's and Old Navy.
Right now, the two cities have too many students and not enough strip malls. And that's why they're the wallflowers at this stomp.
This enthusiasm for smaller school districts was sparked a few years ago with the closure of Cottonwood Heights Elementary and Canyon Rim Elementary. Granite and Jordan School District officials weighed the relative needs of the established east side and the developing west side and figured they had to shift resources across Interstate 15.
Now, older east-bench cities have banded together in hopes of seceding from both school districts, leaving their neighbors to the west to fend for themselves.
East-benchers insist this isn't about finances; it's about focusing a smaller education bureaucracy on east-side needs.
But the numbers still raise questions about their motivations: Two feasibility studies financed by the hillside cities show taxes will go down on the east and spike on the west. In one Jordan School District scenario, property taxes on the average $300,000 west-side home would increase $209 and plunge $171 on the same east-bench home. And only those in the cities who want to break things off will be allowed to vote next November.
West-siders understandably feel spurned. Many residents of Magna, Taylorsville, West Valley City, West Jordan, South Jordan and Riverton figure they helped build schools in Cottonwood Heights, Sandy and Draper when those communities were bursting at the seams. Now, it looks like the east side is bailing when they need help.
"We're all in this valley together. We're all in the education business," said LaMar Wanberg, a Jordan School District employee who lives in West Jordan. "The west side is having the east side ramrod this down our throats. Let's see if it's about the kids."
East-siders believe they've been subsidizing west-side growth for more than a decade. Meantime, their schools are moldering. Wanberg gave that speech at 51-year-old Midvale Middle School. Retrofitting Bella Vista Elementary school in Cottonwood Heights - the only school updated on the east side in recent years - cost $8 million. Earlier cost estimates grew from $2.9 million because the district put off the project.
"People say we are being selfish," said Cottonwood Heights Mayor Kelvyn Cullimore, calling the east-west divide a "tired argument."
"We have been extra cooperative and generous for decades."
But that largesse apparently is about to end.
The Jordan School District's 80,000 student population is expected to grow by half to 120,000 in 10 years. Virtually all of those new students will live west of the Jordan River, requiring school construction indefinitely.
To add insult to injury, now West Jordan leaders are getting into the selfish spirit of things and talking about carving out their own small district.
This debate has pulled the scab off festering east vs. west tension. Have and have-not competition for parks and recreation centers and libraries now has descended into education - the most fundamental government stewardship and shared taxpayer responsibility.
A core group of lawmakers is trying to draft legislation to equalize school-building costs across the valley with a centrally assessed property tax for schools, eliminating that problematic tax imbalance. It's time for elected city leaders - and parents - on both sides of the river to ratchet down the rhetoric and back a compromise.
As State Rep. Steve Mascaro, R-West Jordan, says, everyone needs to rise above geographism: "The problem is funding for schools. We have to have this discussion without the words, 'east' and 'west'."
walsh@sltrib.com
