On Thursday, school board Superintendent Steve Norton met again with parents and community members regarding the proposed boundaries for the five northern Cache Valley school district elementary schools. This time they met at Greenville Elementary to focus on Hyde Park and North Logan’s schools. The superintendent opened the meeting with the same explanations on school boundaries that he gave to the Smithfield community at Tuesday’s meeting. The school board tries to make neighborhood schools available to the children, but with an area the size of our district, that’s not always possible.

Superintendent Norton mentioned that based on the evening’s discussion, the school board would potentially offer up further alternatives to the boundaries. “That won’t be the case,” he said during the meeting, since no attendees voiced any major concerns with the proposed options. Some did, however, have a couple of small issues.

Board accommodating community

Many parents in Hyde Park were concerned with the boundary at Center Street that would split which kids go to Summit and which kids go to North Park. Their reasons for concern were the busy street and splitting up neighborhood kids who attend the same church. “Splitting the boundary on Center Street would be devastating to our neighborhood,” one mother said. Wayne Reese, CCSD Director of Transportation, said that he could effectively move that border up one block to accommodate these community members.

Many parents also discussed the edge boundary on the east side of Hyde Park. In Option 1, the section east of 1600 East and north of 2500 North was included in Greenville, even though the boundary jutted up into North Park territory. One parent suggested moving that boundary down to send about fifty kids to North Park, which would fill up the bigger school. The superintendent agreed.

Individual cases

Superintendent Norton and Reese both mentioned that the small changes they had agreed to would not be visible immediately on the website, but that parents who had questions about which boundary they live within were welcome to go to the Transportation office and talk to Reese personally.

If any parent strongly desires their child to attend a different school, there is a school choice option that usually ends in February, but Superintendent Norton said he would extend the deadline this year because of all of the changes.

Study session coming up

On Thursday, Jan. 21 at 5:30 p.m. the school board will meet in a study session where they hope to finalize the boundary plan and come to a decision about which option to choose. The public is welcome to attend.