When Chad Hunsaker purchased his childhood home last year, a half mile from Valley View Elementary in Pleasant Grove, he didn’t anticipate the school would close within the year.
He bought the home, in part, so his children could walk to school while he and his wife adjusted to life with a new baby.
“We got some good snow boots, and they would walk to school, even though this was one of the snowiest years ever,” Hunsaker said.
“I don’t send my kids to charter schools or private schools or any of those things,” he said. “I feel like the value of my kids being able to walk to school is worth more than private school tuition.”
But the Alpine School Board decided Friday to close two elementary schools — Valley View and Sharon Elementary in Orem — so Hunsaker will have to drive his children to school starting this fall.
“These decisions are very difficult,” school board member Joylin Lincoln said Friday. “And we know that there are families whose children go there, and their parents went there, and their grandparents were there. And for them, it’s hard just to say goodbye to their school.”
The closures are, in part, necessary after voters in the Alpine School District turned down a $600 million bond that would have funded the construction of new schools, board members said.
Following a boundary and facilities study, the board selected Sharon and Valley View for closure due to declining enrollment and the poor state of the buildings.
The move comes amid a lawsuit and scrutiny by Utah lawmakers over whether the Alpine School district followed school closure laws.
A group of 33 parents, which included Hunsaker, sued the district on April 28, contending it did not comply with the then-120-day requirement for getting public input on closure decisions. SB143, passed in the 2023 legislative session, changed that requirement to 90 days.
“Though closure of these two schools was expected by many stakeholders, (Alpine School District) acted illegally by approving the closures and taking premature steps to close these schools long before the statutory required 120-day period expired,” the group said in a statement about the board’s Friday decision.
“No legal action can remedy the damage for those two schools at this point,” the parents said. “These communities will be harmed whether they are closed through this botched and hasty process or whether they are kept open after being gutted of their resources.”
Other nearby elementary schools will absorb Sharon’s and Valley View’s students.
“The purpose for closing Sharon is to acknowledge that we do have aging buildings in our district that we are trying to address as aggressively as we can,” board member Ada Wilson said. “With the failure of the bond, this is a good option for these children. Because, really, the bottom line is academic performance.”
All students previously attending Sharon will now attend Cascade Elementary. Some Cascade students will shift over to Centennial Elementary.
Central Elementary will absorb Valley View’s students.
“Decisions on boundaries are never easy,” Lincoln said. “We’re really trying to look at student outcomes and school safety and accountability to the taxpayers. And we have to balance that three-legged stool.”
Sharon Elementary is a Title I school, meaning it receives extra federal money to support its high population of low-income students. Sharon students will not lose services, district spokesperson Kimberly Bird said.
“The Title I services will follow the Sharon students to Cascade,” Bird said. “Cascade will be a new Title I school this year.”
What sparked the lawsuit?
On Dec. 8, the district emailed parents and local officials about its intent to study school boundaries and facilities. According to the parents’ lawsuit, the district has at times argued that this communication began the required 120-day notice period.
But, the parents and their lawsuit argue, the email did not mention possible closures.
On Feb. 28, the board voted to “formalize the study,” which entailed directing staff to begin the process of closing Sharon, Windsor, Valley View, Lindon, and Lehi elementary schools effective for the 2023-24 school year. On March 1, the district sent an email notifying parents of the proposed closures and included a link to an online public input form and a schedule of public hearings.
After several open houses, the board voted to remove three elementary schools from the study until 2024, but to “continue the process” of potentially closing Sharon and Valley View in 2023.
What’s next?
After the parents sued, Utah lawmakers summoned — and later subpoenaed — district officials, saying they wanted to determine if the state’s school closure law was unclear.
Legislators questioned the wording of the Feb. 28 motion approved by the school board, saying that it did not mention a study — and instead said the district would “begin the formal process of closing” the elementary schools. They also pointed out that after the Feb. 28 vote, teachers from Sharon and Valley View were reassigned within the district.
Committee members may make adjustments to the statute, but it is not yet clear what actions they’ll take.
Parents who joined the lawsuit said they’re still worried about the future of the three other schools slated for possible closure next year.
“While we are grateful that our lawsuit has ensured that ASD’s actions will not stand as precedent and that legislators are actively engaged in further clarifying the law and adding enforcement mechanisms to it,” their statement said, “we are still concerned about the current closure processes for Valley View, Sharon, Lehi, Lindon, and Windsor Elementary Schools.”
Correction, 5:40 p.m. July 2, 2023: This story has been updated to correctly reflect where former Valley View students attend school.
