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Members of the Alpine School District Board of Education listen during a meeting at the district office in American Fork on Friday, June 30, 2023. From left are board members Ada Wilson, Joylin Lincoln, Mark Clement, Sara Hacken, Superintendent Shane Farnsworth, Sarah Beeson, Stacy Bateman and Business Administrator Rob Smith.

Harrison Epstein, Daily Herald

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Valley View Elementary School in Pleasant Grove is photographed on Friday, June 30, 2023.

Harrison Epstein, Daily Herald

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Sharon Elementary School in Orem is photographed on Friday, June 30, 2023.

Harrison Epstein, Daily Herald

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Alpine School District board member Mark Clement listens during a board meeting at the district office in American Fork on Friday, June 30, 2023.

Harrison Epstein, Daily Herald

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Alpine School District board member Sara Hacken listens during a board meeting at the district office in American Fork on Friday, June 30, 2023.

Harrison Epstein, Daily Herald

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After months of discussion and public consternation, the Alpine School District Board of Education on Friday voted to close two of the district’s elementary schools. After unanimous votes, Sharon Elementary in Orem and Valley View Elementary in Pleasant Grove will close in advance of the upcoming school year.

“The purpose for closing Sharon is to acknowledge that we do have aging buildings that we are trying to address as aggressively as we can,” board member Ada Wilson said.

Under the Sharon change, a majority the school’s former students will now attend Cascade Elementary and 80 Cascade students will now attend Centennial Elementary.

Title I services for low-income families will follow Sharon students to Cascade, which will now be a Title I school for the coming year. Out-of-boundary students who were attending Sharon will also need to reapply to attend Cascade and their cases will be evaluated against the school’s capacity and attendance, according to Kimberly Bird, ASD executive director of internal relations and operations.

“(Sharon’s) having some serious issues in terms of the age of the building. But in terms of the neighborhood, it has been the focus, the heart of that neighborhood for 50 years now, so these decisions are very difficult,” board member Sara Hacken said. “I want to assure our public that we have every intention of assuring that those traditions and those services continue at the level that they’re accustomed to.”

Sharon Elementary was among the schools represented by Hacken on the board. While the discussion around changes to Orem was lengthy, the conversation around Valley View and Pleasant Grove was more business-like.

In under 10 minutes, the item was opened, talked about briefly and voted upon. Praising the to-be-closed school was Mark Clement, board member representing Valley View, among other schools in Pleasant Grove, American Fork and Lindon. Most students from Valley View will now attend Central Elementary while some, Clement noted, will attend Grovecrest.

“That building is very unique. It’s gone through many modifications and has served us well, but it’s time now for these students to move to Central Elementary where they’ll have many more resources and a larger group of parents to make their PTA and community council group stronger,” Clement said.

The vote made official a change that drew ire ahead of time from parents and residents of the cities. A group of parents in April filed a lawsuit against the district over the plans, alleging ASD was “not following the spirit or the letter of Utah law for school closures and boundary changes,” the group said in a statement.

The lawsuit is led by Crystal Muhlstein, parent of a Windsor Elementary School student and candidate for Orem City Council. Sharon is the second Orem elementary school closed by ASD in recent years after Hillcrest and Scera Park were consolidated in 2017.

In May, the Orem City Council rezoned the city’s public school lands as “Public Facilities” zones. This move gave the city more control over the site of a closed school — now including Sharon’s grounds at 525 N. 400 East — if they decided not to purchase the land from ASD. According to state law, a school district must first offer to sell the property to the city.

Now, in Orem, the city’s Planning Commission and City Council must approve redevelopment plans and new zoning from any potential buyers.

“As far as I’m concerned, ASD or no ASD, this just makes common sense,” Orem Mayor Dave Young said during the May meeting. “We never anticipated a school shutdown. In all this uncertainty, we need to preserve our lands.”

It also comes in the aftermath of an unsuccessful $595 million bond effort from the district in 2022 when 52.79% of voters opposed the issuance. According to district spokesperson David Stephenson, the bond would have included rebuilding one elementary school due to seismic concerns. It’s not certain, though, whether the passage would have impacted the decisions made Friday.

“That was a specific project on the bond that possibly could have been one of these schools or a merger of one of these schools,” Stephenson said. “We’ll have to keep looking at opportunities to provide the best education we can as our communities continue to grow.’

Superintendent Shane Farnsworth added that the district will reexamine closing three more elementary schools in the district — Windsor, Lindon and Lehi — in the future.

During a brief public comment period, discussion focused on the third item on the agenda, a proposed boundary adjustment between Traverse Mountain and Belmont elementary schools in Lehi.

“Decisions on boundaries are never easy because they always affect a single student. We are very cognizant of that and as we try to balance that as we really try to look at student outcomes, and school safety and accountability to the taxpayers,” board member Joylin Lincoln said.

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