The proposed list is on the agenda for the school board’s Tuesday meeting.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Salt Lake City’s M. Lynn Bennion Elementary is shown in 2019, when it was proposed for closure. School board members decided to keep the school open, but it is now on a new proposed study list of schools that may be considered for boundary changes or closure.
| Feb. 28, 2022, 7:04 p.m.
| Updated: 7:12 p.m.
Facing enrollment declines that accelerated in the fall of 2020, Salt Lake City school board members have begun the process of evaluating schools for possible boundary changes or closures.
Board members asked Superintendent Timothy Gadson to develop a study list earlier this month, after hearing that the expected continued drop in enrollment next year would support 76.5 fewer teaching positions, under its formula for staffing schools. The board voted to trim 42 jobs instead, which district officials expect can be done through retirements and attrition, without layoffs.
The agenda for the board’s Tuesday meeting includes a study list proposed to Gadson by Paul Schulte, the district’s executive director of Auxiliary Services. He suggests evaluating 13 elementary schools in five clusters, based on the age of the buildings, enrollment, their utilization and proximity to other schools. Two schools are listed twice — Franklin and Wasatch elementaries.
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)
A spokesperson for the district did not immediately comment.
Several of the schools on the new proposed list were evaluated in 2019 by a committee of district employees and parents, and the group suggested the closure of M. Lynn Bennion Elementary, located near downtown at 429 S. 800 East.
While the school board did not close Bennion then, its enrollment has continued to decline and it is on the new proposed study list.
Bennion and five other schools on the proposed new list were identified as “underutilized” in the 2019 review, with space for an additional 250 students or more. Those schools are Ensign, Franklin, Nibley Park, Parkview, and Riley.
Bennion, Edison and Riley are the three Salt Lake City elementary schools on the proposed list where all of the students are from low-income families. (There are five such elementary schools in the district, including Liberty and Meadowlark, according to the district’s 2021 enrollment report.)
Bennion parents, teachers and students opposed the closure suggestion at an emotional meeting in February 2019. They told the board that more than a quarter of students at Bennion were homeless, and at least 30 children lived at the nearby women’s shelter for domestic violence victims a few blocks away. Nearly 65 percent of students were minorities.
As a Title I school, Bennion receives supplemental federal funding due to its proportion of low-income families — one of several such schools on the proposed new list.
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)
— The Salt Lake Tribune will update this developing story.
Resources
• District precinct maps and each precinct’s school board member.
• The district’s Fall 2021 Enrollment report. The numbers for each school are generally slightly lower than the numbers used in a more recent budget report to the board.
• The 2019 Equitable Use of Buildings report.