That timing is not the board’s fault. It is the inheritance. In late August the board voted to begin closure studies of 13 schools — Canyon View, Oak Canyon and Orem junior highs, and Aspen, Bonneville, Foothill, Lindon, Northridge, Orchard, Orem, Parkside, Rocky Mountain and Windsor elementaries. Board members have said the district may close three to five elementary schools and consolidate one junior high. No school has been chosen, and being studied is not the same as being closed. But by December, names will come off that list and onto a vote.

The enrollment case is real, and families should not be asked to pretend otherwise. A district letter put elementary enrollment across Orem, Pleasant Grove, Lindon and Vineyard at nearly identical to 1980 levels. Projections show 15 of the district’s 20 elementary schools falling outside the size ranges in its Robust School Criteria by 2030, and the district has warned of rising costs per pupil in smaller schools. It expects to start with about 23,330 students spread across buildings built for more children than now live in these four cities.

Last week the board showed it can make a hard structural call. On Oct. 21 it voted unanimously to reconfigure grades for 2027-28 — sixth graders will move to junior high and ninth graders will move to high school. That decision will touch almost every family in the district. The closure vote deserves the same clarity, and more, because a closed school does not come back.

So before December, the board should publish three things that an enrollment chart cannot answer.

First, the program map.

Orchard Elementary in Orem runs a Spanish dual language immersion program that, as the Herald has reported, draws more applicants than any other in the district, and Orchard has been discussed as a possible pairing with Foothill. Say, school by school, where each special program goes, whether its teachers and administration move with it, and whether a family that chose a school for that program can follow it. A boundary line that splits a program in half is a closure by another name.

Second, the student map.

At its September joint session with Lindon, the board discussed grandfathering — letting students who began at a school finish there — and building true feeder patterns so cohorts move together from elementary through high school. Put those commitments in writing before the vote, not after it. Families who spoke Oct. 8, including Lindon parents who said they moved there for the schools and warned that closures could push families away, are not opposing math. They are asking whether their child gets to finish what she started, with the classmates she started it with.

Third, the building map.

A closed elementary in Orem or Pleasant Grove is a public asset in the middle of a neighborhood. Say what happens to

each site — kept for district programs, held for future enrollment, or sold — and say it while the decision can still be debated, not once the building is empty.

None of this requires keeping every school open. A new district that starts by carrying half-empty buildings will spend its first years cutting programs instead, and that trade is worse. It does require that the December vote be the end of a public argument, not the start of one.

Timpanogos will be judged for years by its first decision. If the board publishes the program, student and building maps before it votes, it will have earned trust it has not yet had a chance to build. If it votes on enrollment alone, it will open its doors in 2027 already owing families an explanation.

Charles Mayfield is the producer of Education Across the States, a national education news organization covering education in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories.