MILLCREEK, Utah — It was a packed house at Eastwood Elementary Tuesday evening, with the auditorium filled with parents who want to prevent the school from closing.
Granite School District Superintendent Ben Horsley said it mainly came down to dwindling enrollment.
“We do have a number of families who are permitting into that location, but we're still a very small school with only about 225 kids, and so that is one of the primary issues is, how do we sustain a school population and maintain a location for only 225 students?” he said.
WATCH: Protesters rally to save Millcreek elementary school as district considers closure
However, parent and alum Nastasya Mangone claims that some data the district is presenting is inaccurate.
“Everywhere is experiencing declining enrollment, but all of the things that were considered, such as our building capacity, how many students we can actually hold here, isn't correct,” she said.
If the school does close, Eastwood students would need to move to Oakridge, which many parents believe would create many issues, including the bus routes.
“They add an additional two to three minutes on the route from where some of our families are already coming to and from Eastwood now over to Oakridge. So, it's actually the least impactful change or adjustment that we can make. If we were to shift all the kids from Oakridge over to Eastwood, we'd have to double the amount of transportation that we're providing,” Horsley said.
But Mangone believes students are already on the bus too long.
“They can say until they're blue in the face that it's only a few extra minutes — our kids are already on the bus for an hour. We're adding more time to where 8-year-olds are supposed to be on the bus, and that's absolutely unacceptable,” she said.
Politics
Protesters rally to save elementary school as district considers closure
Despite the differences, Horsley said he is always willing to listen to the recommendations parents provide in these situations.
“Having gone through this process and being a parent myself, I can totally understand and empathize with the concerns we all want neighborhood, walkable schools for our children to attend,” he said. "And unfortunately, the school district has to face certain budgetary realities and what's going to be in the best interest of our students."
It seems the parents of Eastwood Elementary aren’t going down without a fight.
“We never expected that we would have such a big target on our back, and I knew that I had to do everything I could to fight,” Mangone said.
According to Horsley, the board will take what they learned from the community meetings, and during the month of October, they will draft revisions before public hearings begin in November.
The final vote is set to take place on Dec. 2.
