- Granite School District may close Eastwood Elementary and Morningside Elementary due to declining enrollment.
- Eastwood's closure would merge its boundary with Oakridge Elementary's larger capacity.
- Morningside would transition to a K-5 French immersion program without Advanced Learning Center program consolidation.
SALT LAKE CITY — Granite School District has closed 10 schools in the last seven years, with two more eastside schools potentially on the chopping block after district officials recommended they shut down.
Those schools are Eastwood Elementary, 3305 S. Wasatch Boulevard in Millcreek, and Morningside Elementary, 4170 S. 3000 East in Holladay.
The primary reason the district is considering closing schools, Superintendent Ben Horsley said, is declining student enrollment.
"Back in 2018, 2019, when we first started these studies, we started to see a decline in enrollment district-wide," Horsley said. "There are declining birth rates in our area and because of the maturity of Granite School District, we don't have new young families moving into our area."
Because of enrollment decline, Granite approved a population analysis study of its 10 easternmost elementary schools in February to look at either changing the boundaries or closing the elementary schools altogether.
Eastwood Elementary
The district's director of planning and boundaries, Steve Hogan, told the board during a Sept. 2 board meeting that closing Eastwood would result in combining the boundaries of Eastwood Elementary and Oakridge Elementary.
"Oakridge is more centrally located in the combined boundary," Hogan said, adding that officials also chose Eastwood for potential closure over Oakridge because Oakridge has a larger building capacity and a more efficient school pickup and drop-off system.
Horsley added that of the 170 students who live in the Eastwood boundary, only about 125 of them attend Eastwood Elementary.
These declining numbers make it harder for the school to function and for the district to adequately staff the school, Horsley said.
"It creates inequities in terms of over-reliance on the same 10 volunteers and so we tend to wear out our (Parent Teacher Associations) in smaller schools and so it's appropriate to consider a potential consolidation to beef up opportunities for our students and for our families," Horsley said.
If the school board chooses to go through with the recommended closures, Eastwood's campus would close completely.
Morningside Elementary
Beyond the traditional role of Morningside, the school also hosts two additional programs.
250 students participate in a French dual language immersion program and 150 other students participate in an Advanced Learning Center program for gifted and talented students.
"The vast majority of that population is actually from out of boundary, coming into that school location. We just have too many schools clustered together and we're trying to maintain neighborhood schools that are walkable. So in this particular case, geographically, Morningside is at a little bit of a disadvantage," Horsley said.
Initially, the district's population analysis committee proposed consolidating all eastside Advanced Learning Center programs into one school — Woodstock Elementary.
This raised concerns from parents of students who participated in the program, but the district is no longer considering the consolidation of those programs.
"We're not going to consider consolidation anymore. We're going to just find another location so that that issue is actually off the table," Horsley said. "Under that original recommendation for consolidation, it would have limited the amount of kids to what gifted and talented should be serving. Given the fact that so many of our families want to participate ... if they would like to continue to participate in an elevated program, then we want to be able to provide that service."
Caitlin Leavitt, a parent in the district whose kids have gone through Advanced Learning Center programs, said she was "thrilled" when she got the news that the district was no longer considering the consolidation.
Instead of consolidating, Horsley said the district is looking to move the program to another location to regionalize it and even consider enhancing it.
"We're going to study that issue separately than the boundary study," Horsley said.
While Eastwood's campus would close completely if the board approves the recommendation, Morningside's campus would transition completely into a K-5 French dual language immersion program.
Moving forward
The public will have the chance to weigh in on the closures during a public hearing at the district's board meeting on Nov. 18 at 7 p.m. at Granite Education Center.
An additional public hearing will be held at the district's Dec. 2 board meeting at 7 p.m., before the board makes a final vote on the closure recommendation that same night.
"It's not appropriate for us to prop and subsidize smaller schools at the expense of neighboring schools within the same area, especially when we can combine those populations and add resources because of the economies of scale by creating larger student populations," Horsley said. "These are some of the top-performing schools in the state and it's our goal to make sure that they continue to have an outstanding educational opportunity and if anything, improve it from there."
More information regarding the closure recommendation can be found here.
