School board unanimously votes to close Cedar Valley Elementary School; community reacts

CEDAR FORT, Utah County —The Alpine School District Board of Education voted unanimously, in a board meeting Tuesday night, to close Cedar Valley Elementary School.

The Board of Education of the West District, also known as the Lake Mountain School District, voted to close the school last week, as state law mandates that both school districts must approve the closure.

"This was a very difficult decision made by weighing several important and sometimes competing priorities," Julie King, president of both school districts, said in a press release. "We spent a significant amount of time looking at every option to keep the school open. Unfortunately, none of these options were viable long-term."

The press release also identified three main factors for the closure: "rapid growth and limited capacity," "stronger educational opportunities" and "fiscal responsibility and efficient use of facilities," noting that the cost per student is higher in the Cedar Fort area.

KSL spoke to several concerned residents from Cedar Fort, including Ashley Cook, whose husband is the town's mayor. Cook spoke to many of the district's concerns and added her own.

"Most of the school classrooms (at Cedar Valley) are in a trailer, and they plan to move that trailer to Mountain Trails Elementary (in Eagle Mountain)," Cook said. "It will cost the district at least three years of running this school if they were to keep it open, just to move that building to Mountain Trails. Why not just keep us open? We're filling the classrooms here. You're just moving our classrooms from one school to another and busing our kids there."

The school that the Cedar Fort students will be bused to is Brylee Farms Elementary, which is 13 miles away. Cook said that the closest school is actually 7 miles away, but students from the nearby Firefly subdivision will be bused to that school until the new Firefly Elementary is open, leaving Cedar Fort students to be bused further.

"It doesn't make sense," Cook said.

Cook, whose children attend Cedar Valley Elementary, said the school's closure has long been known, but they were always told they could stay at the school until a closer one opened.

"We were originally told at the beginning of this school closure study (that Alpine School District completed) that we would have a school built closer to us in 2029," she said. "We have been fighting to stay open until that school opens."

Cook said Cedar Valley Elementary was once a two-room schoolhouse, and now operates out of a building donated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The older grades are taught out of a portable classroom. She said that many in the community feel as if they have been forgotten.

"We really don't have much in Cedar Fort," she said. "There isn't much that brings us together, except for the school. It's hard to see it go. We feel like we're not being well taken care of out here in the west, which is why we supported a district split from Alpine. If you look at the voting numbers, Cedar Valley and Fairfield were the highest supporting precincts in the area that voted for that school district split. We weren't being taken care of as the west, so we decided to split, and we're continuing to be seen as 'the west side.' I worry that we will continue to be neglected with the new school board."

The Lake Mountain School District was created after the passage of Prop. 14 in November 2024. It takes in the schools on the west side of Utah County, including Cedar Fort, Fairfield, Eagle Mountain, Saratoga Springs and unincorporated parts of Utah County west of Lehi. According to Cook, a survey was completed by the Alpine school board when gathering data on whether Cedar Valley Elementary should close, but residents pushed for the voting to be done by the board of the new district.

Although the vote was conducted by the Lake Mountain School District, no data or public input was collected by that board.

"To have our school closure decisions all be made by Alpine's data is really frustrating," Cook said. "It's projected that in 2029, we will have 270 students at Cedar Valley. Our capacity is 308."

Cook said that she and many residents in Cedar Fort hope to petition the board to keep the school open until a new one can be built.

"They're picking up our classrooms, moving them there, and then sending our kids there," she said. "It's crazy with this amount of growth that they would not leave these classrooms (at Cedar Valley) open and available, but are instead continuing to let these other schools grow to way over capacity. At that point, we're taking safety concerns for these kids."

While she is very much concerned about the community impact the school closure will have, Cook said she is even more concerned with what the district is doing to students and teachers.

"What was decided on Tuesday is that the Cedar Fort, Fairfield and White Hills communities will go to Brylee Farms, and the Firefly subdivision will go to Mountain Trails," Cook explained. "By 2029, Brylee Farms is projected to have over 1,300 students, and Mountain Trails is projected to have 1,500. That's if we don't have any other developments passed between now and then.

"If Utah is going to continue to push affordable housing, and Eagle Mountain continues to answer that call, we really need some high-growth solutions for high-growth areas for schools because our students and teachers are paying the price for that," Cook continued. "We will see high levels of teacher burnout, as well as academic and safety concerns for students. Mountain Trails is already the lowest-scoring school in the district, and they want to put 1,400 kids in that school."

The school district did not set a closure date but noted that Cedar Valley will remain open for the remainder of this school year.

School district officials recognized the school's "special role in the community" and said it is committed to keeping student and teacher groups who want to stay together at the same school.

Contributing: Devin Oldroyd

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