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- Ogden School District is weighing closure of Bonneville Elementary, which would be the district's fourth school to shut its doors since 2019.
- The decision is driven by declining enrollment figures and a desire to house students in newer, more modern facilities.
- If Bonneville closes it would bring the number of elementary schools in Ogden to 10, down from 14 in 2019.
OGDEN — Ogden school officials are likely to shutter another school in the district at the end of the 2024-25 school year, making it the fourth to close since 2019, if the plan proceeds.
The proposed closure of Bonneville Elementary, 490 Gramercy Ave., stems at least in part from declining Ogden School District enrollment and expected dips in the years to come. But it's not the only factor, according to Jer Bates, Ogden School District spokesman.
The varied closures and Bonneville proposal also stem from the construction of new, larger facilities, rendering older schools like Bonneville and others that have closed outdated and obsolete, he said. James Madison Elementary in Ogden was built in 1941 and closed at the end of the 2022-23 school year, while Taylor Canyon Elementary closed in 2022 and Gramercy Elementary closed in 2019.
"We've been closing older, less safe, less secure, less comfortable, smaller schools and replacing them with schools that are safer, more secure, more comfortable, more capable and also larger," he said.
The Bonneville plans have been a topic of discussion among district officials, and they were the focus of a public hearing Wednesday when just two residents attended, Bates said. Another nearby school, Hillcrest Elementary, is being rebuilt and would absorb many, if not most, of the would-be-displaced Bonneville students when it opens for the 2025-26 school year, per the closure proposal. "As of yet, we haven't gotten any notable pushback or word of people being upset," Bates said.
At any rate, the four closures — accompanied by rebuilds of Hillcrest and three other schools — would bring the number of elementary facilities in the district to 10 in 2025-26 from 14 in 2018-19, underscoring the loss of students. The district served 12,330 students in 2014-15 and the count for 2024-25 sits at 10,045, an 18.5% drop, according to Utah Board of Education figures. A 2021 consultant's study, citing in part expected declines in birth rates, forecasts district enrollment of 9,056 by 2031.
Ogden School District isn't alone in shuttering facilities. Granite School District in Salt Lake County is mulling closure of three schools, which, if the plans go forward, would bring the number of elementary closures in the district to nine over the past five years, according to KSL NewsRadio.
Enrollment in public schools statewide, meantime, fell by 4,873 from 2023 to 667,789 at the start of the 2024-25 school year, according to the State Board of Education, with lower birth rates one of the suspected factors. The number of students enrolled in school districts fell while the figure for students at charter schools increased.
Nostalgia among some
The rebuild of Hillcrest Elementary School, 130 N. Eccles Ave., has a price tag of $52.7 million and will be the last in a series of elementary school improvements in the Ogden School District. Thanks to funds from an $87 million bond approved in 2018, Polk Elementary was rebuilt and two other schools were torn down and replaced with new facilities, Liberty and East Ridge elementary schools. Another school, Wasatch Elementary, received a significant upgrade thanks to bond funds.
The closure of the varied schools has caused nostalgia among some, Bates said. "But once our families get into the newer schools and especially the kids start experiencing what's available to them in our newer schools, our general response from families has been very positive," he said.
Hillcrest closed after the 2022-2023 school year so it could be torn down and rebuilt, with most of the students shifting to Bonneville, which had space to accommodate the influx given lowering enrollment figures. The two schools housed 903 students between them in the 2018-2019 school year, according to state data. Bonneville, even with the influx from temporarily closed Hillcrest, now serves just 438 kids, according to 2024-2025 data.
Ogden's three junior high schools would likely be the focus of future capital improvement plans, Bates said, though no firm proposals have been put forward.
