SALT LAKE CITY — Weeks before Alpine School District will vote to potentially close two elementary schools, Utah lawmakers and members of the district's board of education on Monday went back and forth over one question.

What constitutes notification and when did the district properly notify the parents of the schools that could be impacted by closures?

Last month, members of the Administrative Rules Review and General Oversight Committee decided to subpoena the board members to require them to attend Monday's committee meeting in person after their absence drew the ire of lawmakers at last month's committee meeting.

"The purpose of today's meeting, as it relates to Alpine School District, is to determine whether or not we need to amend the relevant statute regarding school closures," said Utah Sen. Curtis Bramble, R-Provo, who serves as the committee chairman.

According to Utah law, parents of students enrolled in any affected school must be notified 120 days before that school is closed or its boundaries are changed.

"We need to know when were the school or these schools, plural, identified and when was a 120-day period commenced for purposes of complying with this statute," Bramble said.

The interpretation of the district's following (or not) of this code has been the crux of the debate around the potential school closures for months.

Last month, 33 plaintiffs — mostly parents — filed a lawsuit against the district, alleging that it hasn't followed the law in its process of exploring the closure of Lehi, Valley View, Lindon, Windsor and Sharon elementary schools and associated boundary studies.

Timeline

During the district's Nov. 29 board meeting, after a proposed $595 million bond for the district failed, the board requested a districtwide boundary study to explore possibilities around restructuring or consolidating boundaries and evaluating school buildings for potential closure, Alpine School District spokesman David Stephenson said.

In early December, the district sent a letter to parents notifying them that since the proposed bond failed, the district would be initiating a boundary study that could result in potential closures.

On March 1, the district sent an email to parents and city mayors, councils and administrators, notifying them that the five elementary schools were being considered for closure and/or boundary adjustments and starting the 120-day notice period prior to the closure of any schools, as required by Utah law.

However, the lawsuit claims that at a Feb. 28 board meeting, the board "voted to close Sharon, Windsor, Valley View, Lindon and Lehi elementary schools and implement the associated boundary and program changes to be effective in the '23-24 school year."

Related:

Alpine School District board, superintendent subpoenaed by Utah lawmakers

Utah lawmakers criticized Alpine School District's process of studying potential closures of five elementary schools during a committee meeting held during the Legislature's interim session.

Seemingly, a bulk of the disagreement between the plaintiffs and the district can be traced to the Feb. 28 board meeting, when board member Joylin Lincoln made a motion "that the board of education direct staff to begin a formal process, in accordance with state statutory requirements, of closing Sharon, Windsor, Valley View, Lindon and Lehi elementary schools and implement the associated boundary and program changes to be effective in the '23-24 school year."

The motion passed, with board member Sarah Beeson casting the lone opposing vote.

The March 1 email sent out by the district the day after the Feb. 28 board meeting states that the motion passed was "to move various components of the General Boundary Study to a FORMAL STUDY."

Essentially, the district said that the vote wasn't a final nail in the coffin of the five schools but, instead, a vote to move into the formal study process — denoted by the March 1 email specifically notifying parents who could be impacted.

Communication issues

Monday's meeting revealed an apparent communication breakdown between committee members Bramble and Rep. Brady Brammer, R-Pleasant Grove, and the school district leading up to last month's meeting, during which the superintendent and board members were subpoenaed.

Board president Sara Hacken, vice president Julie King and Kraig Brinkerhoff, executive director of legal services for the district, were present for Monday's meeting. Superintendent Shane Farnsworth was traveling and unable to attend.

Hacken, reading a prepared statement from Farnsworth, said that "no request was made via email, text, letter or telephone call for the superintendent or board members to attend this scheduled committee meeting last month."

"Consequently, a subpoena to this meeting was unnecessary, given that an invitation to attend is sufficient," Hacken said.

"Issuing a subpoena is not necessarily popular, but it certainly eliminates any question about communication," Bramble said.

"You can always call me, Sen. Bramble," King responded.

District responds to lawmakers

When addressing the seemingly elusive question as to whether the district followed Utah law in notifying parents who could be impacted by potential closures, Hacken said that it had but that there was some confusion over when that notification began to start the 120-day period required by Utah code.

"One of those confusions that we had, or one of the questions, was that December meeting. The questions came up: Did we give enough notice? And we had several different opinions from several different sources and they didn't agree with each other," Hacken said.

At that point, she said the question was whether the district needed to individually list all the schools that could be impacted — something the district did in the March 1 email to parents.

"We took a very conservative view of that 120-day timeline, whereas we originally had hoped that it could start in December so we would have sufficient time to do all those emotional, important things that we need to do," Hacken said. "We were counseled that that would not be the case, so we had to make the difficult decision to go ahead and restart the process in February."

Hacken said that the schools being studied for potential closure for the 2023-2024 school year have been studied in the past, both formally and informally, and all of them have "significant structural, operational and seismic challenges."

All five of the schools being considered for closure made their way onto the Utah K-12 Public Schools Unreinforced Masonry Inventory, making the buildings seismically unsafe in the event of an earthquake.

"Newer facilities are proximate to the schools being studied for closure, have the capacity and are in better condition to support the learning needs and safety of our students, families and communities," Hacken said.

Hacken also pushed back against allegations made by parents and echoed by Brammer at last month's meeting that the district took actions to close the schools by reassigning school administrators and encouraging teachers to find employment elsewhere before a final vote was cast.

"While most administrative assignments are typically done in the spring, other changes may occur during the summer and, on rare occasions, during the school year," Hacken said. "Knowing the board was considering possible school closures, we thought it prudent to allow teachers of potentially affected schools the opportunity to transfer. We remind this committee and the public that administrators and teachers are contracted with the district and assigned to a school or work location. Assignments may be changed at any time to meet the needs of the organization or the individuals."

Hacken said that the board will not make a final decision until its June 30 meeting, which is after the 120-day time period required by law.

"If you guys were to then make a motion to close certain schools on or after the 29th of June, you would still be within the scope of the law. Let's just make sure that's absolutely clear," said Sen. Jake Anderegg, R-Lehi.

Despite this, Anderegg still questioned whether the timeline outlined by Utah code is fair to families who may be impacted by the potential closures. Lawmakers during last month's meeting, prompted by the parents' allegations, mentioned plans to propose legislation focused on school closures.

During Monday's meeting, multiple lawmakers teased the idea of establishing a set timeline and specific dates for when districts are able to explore school closures.

"Any sort of legislative act to remedy this is going to be postscriptive. It's not going to help our situation right now," Anderegg said. "How do we better navigate for parents to be able to have as much time as possible to make decisions?"

"We've learned some profoundly important lessons that we would love to be able to share and that we would love to be able to, maybe, inform future statute," Hacken said. "For us, we would love to work with you, and I think a timeline would be really helpful."

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