A group of Orem residents said they hope a new state law will mean a new school district for Orem children.

The group provided the Orem City Council with a petition with 1,000 signatures gathered over the last two years and asked the council to accept an offer from a consultant to perform a feasibility study for a new district. The group is wielding a state law pushed this year by local legislators that allows cities to take proposals for new districts to voters.

This is the second time in two years residents of the Alpine School District have tried to split it. Utah County commissioners declined to put a new district on the ballot in 2004 after a feasibility study didn't recommend it. That proposal would have created a district, called the Pioneer School District, within the boundaries of Lehi High School.

Orem resident Barbara Petty said the Alpine School District is too big and overspends without explaining its actions.

"When school districts are too large, decisions are made that cannot serve all the needs of a diverse and large population," Petty said.

An Orem city district would include about 15,000 students, which would be a much more manageable size, Petty said.

"Any bureaucracy that gets too large is inefficient. Orem could divide out easily because school boundaries are already synonymous to the city boundaries," she said.

The group asked the council to approve the study and take the issue to Orem voters in November to avoid being lumped into Alpine's bond election for more than $200 million, also on November's ballot.

"Let us take responsibility for our city, which is the size of a huge school district itself," Petty said.

Orem resident Kirby Glad argued against forming a new district. "I'm no apologist for the school district," he said. "I think there are many things wrong with it, but this is not the solution."

The city's tax base pays for schools elsewhere in the district, he said, but that is returned to Orem through Alpine's share of per-pupil dollars from the state. With declining enrollment in the city, remaining in the Alpine district would ensure that schools don't have to be closed, he said.

He also countered the city district proponents' argument that Alpine sends too few taxpayers' dollars to the classroom.

"If we form a district of 17,000, we could plan on just about doubling our administrative expenses, causing less money to go to our classrooms, which is where we would like it to go," Glad said.

A larger district provides benefits like lobbying power, central bus facilities, purchasing and negotiating power and professional development, he said.

Doug Hale, a father of seven, said charter schools have proven a better option for his children because Alpine School District has not responded to his concerns about curriculum, including investigations math.

"There are other curriculums parents have spoken up against over and over and over again in the Orem schools, and it always comes back to, 'We understand. We feel your pain. It's not what we want to do, but we have to do it because that's what Alpine presses and dictates to us,' " he said.

Rep. David Cox, R-Lehi, who sponsored the bill that lets cities put new districts on the ballot, said the law came out of the frustration of trying to form the Pioneer School District.

Cox is a proponent of small schools and small districts. "Unless we can get the districts broken down to community-based districts where the people will support their own schools, we're going to end up being divided anyway but with charters and private schools," he said.

Rep. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, chairwoman of the state Legislature's House Education Committee, said she supported the bill because it gives people a vote.

"It empowers the people to have a decision on the whole issue and settle it once and for all," Dayton said.

The Orem City Council could not vote on conducting a study Tuesday because the item was not on the meeting agenda. Petty said the study would take only 70 hours and would cost $4,500. "We could probably raise that from the concerned citizens we have," she said.

Councilman Stephen E. Sandstrom pointed out that the district would be slightly larger than the Provo City School District.

"They are facing huge problems and have areas of the city very upset because they are having to close many neighborhood schools because they are in declining enrollment," Sandstrom said. "They're losing state funds, and because of that they cannot afford to keep them open without raising property taxes to tremendously high levels. I'm sure that would come out in a feasibility study."

Councilman Dean Dickerson said he was supportive of the last effort to form a new district and wants what's best for Orem. "I think anytime you're closer to the grass roots, you're governing better."

Hale said he wouldn't mind paying for the kind of school district he wants.

"If it takes more money to provide a school system that is more responsive to the parents, where the school system has the attitude that they're an extension of the parents, then so be it," Hale said. "I would vote for that."