Gov. Jon Huntsman should call the Legislature into special session to consider changes to a 2006 law that lets any city or group of cities with the prescribed number of residents form a new school district. It's a senseless law that ignores the possible consequences of breaking up existing districts.
Instead, the Utah State Office of Education should be involved in setting a statewide policy for dividing districts that considers the effects on everyone involved.
Jordan School District has 79,000 students and Granite district 69,000. Parents complain that they and their children are simply tiny cogs in the educational machinery, and some understandably want out. Smaller school districts may be the answer to overgrown bureaucracy, but this is no way to create them.
By dissolving the structure that has paid for new schools district-wide for many years, east-side residents stand to gain a big tax break. People living in what would remain of Jordan and Granite on the rapidly growing west side of Salt Lake Valley would be left to pay for new schools on their own.
They are not even allowed to vote on whether the district should be divided and plan to take that issue to court. The current law only requires a vote of those proposing to break away.
In the meantime, a legislative task force is supporting a bill to equalize funding for new schools statewide. That could help solve the revenue inequity but does not address other questions, including what is the optimum enrollment for a district and how a split might affect academic quality.
Studies done for east-side communities conclude only that the new districts are financially feasible.
West Jordan has more than the required 65,000 population to form a new district on its own. City officials say they will take that route rather than stay with their west-side neighbors in the Jordan district if the east-siders break away.
This chaotic stampede to the exit doors should be stopped. The complicated issue needs guidance from disinterested experts and a more comprehensive law.
