Canyons School District is taking a careful look at school boundary changes to ensure all students continue to benefit from optimal class sizes and a full choice of academic programs in safe, well-maintained schools — now and for years to come.

Faced with declining enrollment and unused space in some buildings, the District is considering boundary changes involving seven schools: Bella Vista, Ridgecrest, East Midvale, Granite, Park Lane, Lone Peak, and Willow Canyon elementary schools. This boundary study will also consider combining some schools and examine where schools need to be repaired or — when resources allow — rebuilt.

The District is also using this as a community-building opportunity to strengthen middle school and high school feeders by aligning school boundaries with feeder patterns, geographic features and neighborhoods. This portion of the study involves the following schools: East Sandy Elementary; Glacier Hills Elementary; Albion Middle; Butler Middle; Eastmont Middle; Indian Hills Middle; Mt. Jordan Middle; Union Middle; Brighton High; and Hillcrest High.

What happens next?

Following a thorough review of enrollment projections and facility needs, the District’s Long-Range Planning Committee on Sept. 2 proposed several recommended changes to the Canyons Board of Education as a starting point to jump start the public input process.

Detailed descriptions of those recommendations can be found on an interactive web portal along with information on how to provide feedback online and in-person at community meetings. Invitations to community meetings will be mailed to families with home addresses that could be affected by the proposed changes.

Canyons Superintendent Dr. Rick Robins emphasized the District is committed to gathering as much feedback as possible from families, employees, students, and taxpayers, with the goal being to move forward in a way that best serves students.

“Boundary adjustments and school consolidations give us the opportunity to align resources more effectively and ensure all students have a choice of academic and extracurricular activities,” he said. “We want to work with our community to find solutions that strengthen our schools and set up our students for success.”

Why are boundary changes needed?

K-12 enrollment is falling nationally and is projected to continue to fall through, at least, 2031. Utah is no different. Once an outlier known for its unmatched fertility rate, Utah is also seeing a decline in its birth rate. This, coupled with soaring housing costs, is contributing to a drop in the school-aged population in Utah. These trends are so pronounced that, even though a majority of the school-age children who live in Canyons enroll in Canyons, enrollment is declining at some elementary schools.

What priorities will the Board take into account as it reviews options?

To ensure every child in our community has access to high-quality learning at well-resourced schools

• Keep class sizes small and maintain access to academic opportunities: When enrollment drops too low at a particular school, it becomes harder to offer the full range of academic programs, extracurricular activities, and services that families expect and students deserve.
• The goal in Canyons is to have enough students at each school (preferably three to four classes per grade level) to optimize class sizes and give parents a choice of class assignments and programs.

To plan proactively and responsibly for the future

• Enrollment projections indicate that several CSD communities will continue to see enrollment declines. The goal of this study is to take thoughtful and forward-looking steps for addressing population shifts before they create unintended equity issues between neighborhoods. 
• Canyons is committed to being a good steward of public resources and maximizing the use of taxpayer-funded school buildings.
• This study will help CSD plan and finance school upgrades or new schools to house combined school communities.

To strengthen school communities

• Consolidations allow school communities to pool resources to offer enriched programs, balanced class sizes, and upgraded facilities.
• CSD has built a successful blueprint in consolidating school communities that not only ensured a strong neighborhood school but gave the new community a chance to play a big and unified role in deciding the new school’s name, mascot, and colors. The new school became a unique part of the community.
  
  
  To engage our community and employees every step of the way 

• Parents and employees are valued voices in this process and will have dedicated opportunities to ask questions and share their perspectives with District leadership at committee meetings (see schedule here).
• Families, employees, students, and property owners can provide input at any time by emailing communications@canyonsdistrict.org or submitting comments using our online survey tool.