NORTH LOGAN—The Cache County School Board heard from three members of the community tonight to speak regarding the configuration of the elementary schools that serve Smithfield (Summit, Sunrise, Greenville and North Park). Two of the community representatives were parents of affected students, one was a former teacher in Logan School District, and all three presented strong opinions toward configuring all of the elementary schools for Smithfield to contain Kindergarten through 5th grades.

Their arguments ranged from emotional family-centered pleas to logical appeals to research. One parent mentioned that his first-grade child commutes 45 minutes by bus to get to school each day, and that he wouldn’t like that kind of commute for himself. Mrs. Bettinger, the Library Media teacher at Greenville Elementary represented the opposing view.

There were many parents and school district employees in the audience awaiting the vote. Principal Toolson from Summit Elementary in Smithfield was in attendance, hoping the board would move to reconfigure all of the elementary schools into the K-5 structure. After Board Member Grange made a motion to accept the new configuration, she echoed the sentiments that the parents had expressed earlier in the meeting, saying that the change would really benefit the families in Smithfield. “I feel like I need to support and strengthen the family,” she said, as the motion was put up for a vote.

Despite the sentiments Superintendent Norton had previously expressed in favor of retaining the current school configuration, he did not vote in dissent—only one member did. The motion passed. The boundary meetings will take place December 1st and 2nd.

North Boundaries Staying Simple

The board discussed the different options for the school border changes for next year. The south end of the valley will be greatly affected by these changes—every school besides Mountainside and Wellsville seeing some affect of each of the proposed changes.

All Motions Approved

The board also passed motions to implement a policy that would require, among other things, periodic background checks of classified district employees and a self-disclosure policy for all district employees. Also passed were the proposed CEA tentative agreement and the school calendar for 2010-2011.