At Tuesday’s Alpine School District Board of Education meeting, one of the biggest topics on the agenda revolved around the possible consolidation of some schools in the district.

“We’re in the study mode right now,” said Alpine Administrator of Public Relations David Stephenson. “We are definitely considering multiple ideas or proposals on what to do. We’re looking at the data as far as enrollment numbers and we’re going out and hosting meetings. We held meetings last week with school leadership and parent leadership to get their thoughts. We didn’t go out with an agenda, we just went out and asked for them to share their questions, concerns and suggestions. We’re kind of at the first of the process.”

The consolidations proposed would see Suncrest Elementary School and Geneva Elementary School merge as well as Polaris High School and Polaris West High School. The final school mentioned was Valley View Elementary, which would merge with other neighboring schools, according to Stephenson.

The board looks at trends with enrollment, the older schools in the district and more when looking into merging schools, adjusting boundaries and other options before using taxpayer money to build new schools.

Suncrest and Geneva are both located in Orem with Geneva Park acting as a divider between the two schools.

Geneva is actually the oldest school in the district, which was built in 1948, and is dealing with some seismic concerns with the safety of students and teachers.

Polaris High School in Orem and Polaris West High School in American Fork are alternative schools in the district, aimed at helping students who are at risk of not graduating because they are behind on credits. These two schools serve the same purpose, do not have set boundaries and pull from various schools in the district.

Valley View Elementary School is also being talked about as it is located in Pleasant Grove with two other elementary schools within 2 miles of the current campus.

Dr. Shane Farnsworth, assistant superintendent-operations and soon to be superintendent, presented the information following a request from the board in November to formalize a study into consolidations, according to the meeting minutes.

The formalized process for possible consolidation started on Tuesday but studies, focus groups and public comment will follow prior to a decision from the school board.

The current timeline for the possible decision includes informal meetings in January with focus groups, employees, city officials and patrons. Next will come formal meetings regarding considerations and public feedback, which includes public comment at board meetings, in the month of February. Come March, final revisions to the plans will be made with a public hearing held and a recommended plan going to the board toward the end of the month.

If the board decides to move forward after the study, the possible consolidation plans will be an action item during the April 13 board meeting.

Dr. Farnsworth said that the consideration of the consolidations is linked to public survey results that wanted to see district resources and facilities be maximized before another bond is proposed. Public notices will be posted and sent to the communities involved, starting the 120 days of feedback.

Online comments came through during the meeting with many parents unhappy about the possible closing of Valley View Elementary School.

Parents cited high testing results at the school, the quality of teachers and how the change could possibly impact their children.

One parent in particular said that their family lives adjacent to Valley View Elementary and the school was one of the reasons they purchased a home nearby. Next year, two of the family’s children will be school-aged and could be attending the school. The parent voiced that the idea for consolidation should have been brought to the school community for input prior to a formal evaluation.

The parent added that a realignment of boundaries might be a better move as it could possibly bring more students into Valley View from surrounding schools.

Stephenson gave some context about Valley View and brought up the proposed consolidation of Hillcrest and Scera Park elementary schools, noting Geneva was a part of the discussion.

After holding meetings with community groups and more, the board decided against the consolidation of Geneva into the new school. This was an example of a proposal that changed along the way.

“We’re definitely in really preliminary stages of even looking at possible changes for the Valley View community,” Stephenson said. “As we met with a school and community group last week they raised a lot of questions and concerns that we need to look at. There’s lots of possibilities that we have to look at and we just want to fully honor the process of collecting the feedback, listening to the public and looking at all of the options before any proposals are even made.”

One Geneva community member spoke on the consolidation of Suncrest and Geneva elementary schools and was in favor of the consolidation if it does not split up the current population, results in the construction of a new elementary school and “preserves the strong academic traditions that have been established at Geneva.”

The ultimate goal behind these consolidations is a possible bond in the future that could lead to the construction of new schools.

“We’re looking at potential boundary changes, school configurations, school consolidations, anything that we can do before we go back out and ask taxpayers for more funding through a bond,” Stephenson said. “That’s why we are going through this process, to ensure that is happening prior to a potential bond in the next year or two.”

The public notice to formalize the process and study the possible consolidation and boundary adjustments was unanimously approved by the board and will now enter the 120-day feedback period before any decisions are made.