Estimated read time: 7-8 minutes
PLEASANT GROVE — A recent poll shows residents have strong opinions based on where they live when it comes to the potential splitting of Alpine School District.
Stronger Together, a political action committee that originated in opposition of the ballot initiative asking voters whether Orem should split from Alpine School District, presented its poll results Tuesday night during the Pleasant Grove City Council meeting. Keith Wilson said a school district study had analyzed potential split options, but the group wanted to have further data on city-by-city results.
He said several cities expressed desire to gather the info but "when it became clear this data wouldn't happen," Stronger Together decided to do it.
"Wise leaders will solicit broad input and gather as much data as they can before making recommendations of this kind of magnitude here affecting tens of thousands of students and affecting our communities for generations to come," Wilson said.
Utah lawmakers in June passed HB3003, sponsored by Rep. Brady Brammer, R-Highland, during a special legislative session. The bill prevents local school boards from initiating a process to divide a district. Instead, two separate interlocal agreement proposals to split the district will be on voters' ballots come November.
One proposal would see the cities of Alpine, American Fork, Cedar Hills, Draper, Highland and Lehi form their own district, after a rare, joint public meeting was held between those city councils. Another interlocal agreement proposal would see Saratoga Springs, Eagle Mountain, Cedar Fort and Fairfield forming a third district.
That would still leave four cities in Alpine School District — Orem, Vineyard, Lindon and Pleasant Grove — unable to vote on the measure as they have not entered into an agreement. If they don't form an agreement and the other two plans pass, the four cities will become a reorganized district by default.
As the issue has been weighed throughout the past several months, some leaders have pointed to a need to divide the district as the communities experience exponential growth.
Speaking at a July Highland City Council meeting, Wendy Hart, who served on the Alpine School District board from 2011 to 2018, voiced her support for the split.
"At some point, it was obvious that we would get so large that we would need to split, and the main reason for that is because of local control. The district has different areas of need," Hart said, adding a split would allow individual areas to better address their unique needs. "The west has outstanding growth, and the south has a lot of needs with Title I and refurbishing of buildings and things like that."
At a public hearing during a Highland City Council meeting on July 2, Molly Barrington said she was "very much in support" of a three-way split. Her son attends Highland Elementary.
"Not only will the districts literally have more local control (but) because kids get lost in a district this big. Oversight is not as good as it should be and especially in special ed," Barrington said.
Regional preferences
Stronger Together hired Alfajor, LLC, to conduct the study, which has a confidence level of 95% and a margin of error for each city of plus or minus 5 percentage points. Wilson said more than 3,400 participants were selected randomly from voter lists across all cities in the Alpine School District, but too few responses came from Cedar Fort, Fairfield and the Suncrest area of Draper to meet the threshold for analysis.
The poll results grouped cities by region, naming Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs as the west; Pleasant Grove, Orem, Lindon and Vineyard as the south; and Lehi, American Fork, Alpine, Highland and Cedar Hills as the north.
The poll asked how closely each participant is following the split and found the north region was less engaged than the west and south.
One of the poll questions asked (regardless of the voter's ability to vote on ballot measures) whether respondents prefer one, two, or three districts, are undecided or none of the above.
In the west cities, 35% prefer a three-way split, with 20% saying they prefer one district and 25% saying they prefer a two-way split.
The cities in the north and south, however, did not have a high preference of a three-way split, with only 9% and 6%, respectively, choosing it as their preferred configuration.
Results in the north showed 30% prefer to remain one district, with 45% supporting a two-way split. The south region preferred to remain together at 45%, but a two-way split wasn't far behind at 39%.
Other questions found a pretty significant divide between the west and the north and south.
When asked about factors of their preferences, respondents from the north and south said increased taxes and costs were the most important, with impact on students and teachers next. The west said the impact on students and board representatives was most important, before costs.
Although the west didn't put cost as the highest priority, the poll found those in the west were the least willing to have their taxes increased due to a district split, Wilson said.
The poll also asked who is most to least responsible for recommending the district configurations, including the Alpine School Board, State School Board, Utah Legislature and city councils.
Most cities in the north and south said the Alpine school board should be most responsible, followed by the State School Board, local city councils and then the Utah Legislature. The west differed, putting the City Council as most responsible, followed by the State School Board.
"Regardless, much of this is moot because the state Legislature determined who could or could not recommend," Wilson said.
Wilson said Stronger Together believes the school district remaining in tact is best for taxpayers, students, teachers and the community. But the group also feels the west should prepare to create a new district because of its growth.
"This just isn't the right time or the right way to do it," he said.
Wilson said the poll found many people were unaware that those in the south region will not be able to vote on any school district split measures, as Orem, Vineyard, Lindon and Pleasant Grove are not a part of an interlocal agreement and thus will not have either ballot measure on their ballots.
Stronger Together advocates for everyone to be able to vote on this decision, Wilson said, claiming that 81,000 people were disenfranchised by the Legislature not allowing the district to create the measure, resulting in southern city residents unable to vote.
Pleasant Grove City Councilwoman Dianna Andersen agreed that there's been disenfranchisement in the community and noted that 81,000 people can't vote because "(Brammer) thought that the Legislature could do better."
When reached for comment Thursday, Brammer said HB3003 was to help prevent confusion on the ballot.
"The bill was really about preventing confusion on the ballot through competing split proposals by allowing only the first submitted proposal to move forward. The Legislature overwhelmingly agreed this was the correct policy, as did the governor," he said."
Wilson emphasized during his presentation the responses are from a random sample of voters, and not a random sample of residents, so the results may not reflect the general attitude of the community as a whole, but are likely reflective of potential election outcomes, he said.
"We know, and we've already seen, that Stronger Together and the poll is going to be criticized. That comes with the territory, especially if people dislike or are afraid of the findings. We believe the poll stands on its own and is worthy of any scrutiny," he said.
The methodology, questions and his presentation from Tuesday are on the Stronger Together website.
Correction: An earlier version said north and south cities were overwhelmingly against a three-way split, but should have said they overwhelmingly preferred other options than a three-way split.
