Can contention be avoided following vote to split Alpine School District 3 ways?

Former Canyons School District board president Tracy Cowdell is forthright when envisioning the three-way split awaiting the Alpine School District and its patrons.
“Based on my own experience, those involved in creating the new districts in Utah County cannot fully grasp the magnitude of the endeavor,” he wrote in an email. “It’s impossible to articulate the enormity of this project.”
But Cowdell adds a hopeful caveat: The “grueling, exhausting” task of reforming districts can be, in the end, “deeply fulfilling.”
On Nov. 5, voters from several northern Utah County communities passed a pair of propositions that will now prompt the division of the sprawling Alpine School District into three districts.
One new school district will be home to students in Lehi, American Fork, Highland, Alpine, Cedar Hills and a portion of Draper.
Another new district will include the cities of Saratoga Springs, Eagle Mountain, Cedar Fort and Fairfield.
The four remaining cities in the current Alpine School District — Orem, Vineyard, Lindon and Pleasant Grove — are expected to become a reorganized third district by default.
A “divorce” is now certain in Utah’s largest district. Only time will tell if the divorce will be amicable or acrimonious.
It won’t be the first time the state has witnessed the division of its most populous district.
In 2009, the Jordan School District was split in half. Most of the schools in the southwest section of the Salt Lake Valley remained in the original Jordan School District. Schools on the east end of the original district became the Canyons School District.
It was a painful period for many. There were legal challenges, layoffs and plenty of emotion.
But there were also pivotal moments of cooperation shared by educators, administrators and school board members who were collectively determined to deliver high-quality uninterrupted education to the tens of thousands of students affected by the Jordan/Canyons split.
The Deseret News reached out to three individuals who experienced the day-to-day task of dividing — and then forming — a large school district that would become the Canyons School District.
Tracy Cowdell and Kim Horiuchi were both serving on the Jordan School District Board of Education at the time of the Jordan/Canyons division — then went on to serve on the Canyon District’s maiden school board.
Dave Doty was the Canyons School District’s inaugural superintendent.
All three expect turbulent days ahead for those involved in the Alpine School District’s three-way split. But a few lessons learned from the Jordan/Canyons district division over a decade ago, they add, might help ease some of the bumps.
“Creating the new district was one of the most difficult challenges of my life, but it was also one of the most rewarding,” wrote Cowdell. “It required overcoming doubt, navigating conflict and shouldering a level of responsibility that I could have never imagined.”
Cowdell remembers a “vivid juxtaposition” between the excitement of “creating something entirely new and tailored to community needs” — and the immense “challenges, conflict and uncertainties” of navigating unchartered waters.
There were equal measures of enthusiasm and resistance, he added.
Cowdell initially voted against the Jordan/Canyons school district division. His ties to the Jordan School District run deep. His father worked for the storied district for 35 years. His wife was a former Jordan School District teacher.
“I even worked as a (district) custodian while attending college,” he wrote.
At the time of the split, Cowdell was serving as the vice president of the Jordan Board of Education. But once the communities he represented voted in favor of the new district “my perspective shifted entirely. The community had spoken.
“My role was no longer to debate whether this was the right decision. I had a duty to be successful.”
Cowdell remembers the Jordan/Canyons division process including several defining phases — including modifying operations and budgets to reflect the new boundaries, dividing assets and debts, engaging with the community and building leadership by hiring a superintendent and key staff.
The process was grinding. Emotions often rose to the surface. Optimism sometimes surrendered to fatigue.
“It took several years before the (Canyons) district reached a sense of what could be considered ‘normal’,” wrote Cowdell.
Hindsight now offers Cowdell clarity — but he’s quick to add that he will forever carry the emotional and mental scars from the district division that he also calls a blessing.
“Looking back, I realize I would vote differently regarding the division of the Jordan School District,” he wrote. “I was wrong. The Canyons School District has thrived and the Jordan District has continued to flourish. Both districts now have the ability to focus on more localized needs in ways a larger organization simply could not.”
Dividing the former Jordan School District in two “was truly an ‘It takes a village’ moment,” said Horiuchi, who represented part of the east side communities on the Jordan School Board and then served on the first Canyons’ school board.
“We could not have done it without the support of the communities,” she said..
Horiuchi remembers the Jordan/Canyons split being a historic first in Utah.
Now she hopes the folks overseeing the Alpine District division can find comfort knowing “we broke through that barrier and demonstrated that it can be done — and it can be done with a great deal of success.”
Horiuchi said helping to form the Canyons district “was the greatest accomplishment of my life.” But it was rough at the time. There was resistance and litigation. “And there were people actively working to impede the process.”
Forming the new district, she jokes, was akin to making sausage: It’s a rewarding process that’s not always appetizing to watch.
“But we did it — and today I can say that it was well worth the effort,” said Horiuchi. “Both Jordan and Canyons school districts are flourishing now. They are now close to their communities and are meeting the specific needs of those communities, their schools and, most importantly, their students.”
“Even though it was challenging at the time and it sometimes appeared chaotic,” she added, “we worked through it and it was worth the effort.”
Horiuchi draws upon her district-building experience to articulate advice for those soon enlisted to divide the current Alpine School District.
“First and foremost, we worked diligently to try and keep the focus on the students. There was a deliberate effort to never lose sight of that primary purpose — educating students.”
Next, she said, take the time available to hire the right district leaders — especially the future superintendents.
“The (new school boards) will have an opportunity to hire leaders with a vision that could bring new innovations and, ultimately, new ways of looking at education and how it’s administered across the state.”
So what would Horiuchi change if given a Canyons School District formation do-over?
“Having more time would have definitely helped. … We just had to work with what we had.”
Horiuchi watches the Alpine school division situation with a bit of envy because organizers in Utah County will have an additional year to get things up and running than what was available when the Jordan School District was divided.
Dave Doty was hired to be Canyons School District’s first superintendent — a job he held for five years.
“I have a mix of emotions and perspectives,” said Doty, while revisiting the Jordan/Canyons school district division.
Being on the front end of the historic division was, he said, was the professional opportunity of a lifetime. “It was also, hands down, the most difficult professional time of my entire career. It literally took everything out of me.”
In speaking with the Deseret News, he highlighted the complexities that the new districts will face as they divide assets and liabilities. Clear statutory guidance and effective leadership will be critical moving forward.
Cooperation is essential, Doty emphasized. Shared services between the three new districts should also be considered to mitigate costs while improving efficiency.
Doty warned of potential conflicts during the division process due to disparities in property tax bases across the affected Utah County communities. Again, he suggested that cooperation and constant focus on student needs must come first.
Doty was a patron of the Jordan School District at the time of the Jordan/Canyons division. He had three children enrolled in Jordan School District schools and was generally happy with the district. But as he studied the facts he came to believe a division was needed.
The Jordan School District was educating 80,000-plus students — and growing by thousands of students annually. “It was very difficult for a district of that size to be adequately responsive to all the diverse needs of a district.”
He sees similar challenges in Alpine School District, which likely led to the successful votes to divide.
The electorate’s decision to split the district three-ways remains contentious for many Utah County residents. Those feelings likely won’t settle soon. “In the short term, it’s going to be very difficult for all three of these essentially new districts,” said Doty.
But Doty anticipates the formation of three districts ultimately being “a bit easier” than the formation of the Canyons School District following its split from the Jordan School District.
“For one, when we did it there was no precedent and no guidance as to how the assets and liabilities of the Jordan District would be divided,” he said.
Current state statute, said Doty, requires the Alpine School District to provide all the future districts with detailed inventories of all its assets and liabilities. The current law also requires that the physical properties — for example, the school buildings — are the claim of the district where it is located.
Doty said the current statute also spells out what to do with, say, bank accounts, divided indebtedness and assets such as lawnmowers. Most assets, he added, will simply be divided based on the percentage of students that each respective district will absorb.
Doty does foresee potential political challenges during Alpine’s “divorce proceedings.”
“Now the statute requires that the whole division process be the responsibility of the three new elected school boards, which I think is going to make that a lot more difficult. It’s going to become much more politicized.”
Additionally, Doty worries the current statutes are unclear as to what happens if the parties disagree. Does the Legislature resolve disagreements unilaterally? Would it go to arbitration or mediation?
“That seems to be a hole in the statute,” he said.
Doty agrees with Horiuchi that when it comes to dividing school districts, time is a luxury.
“The three new districts will have double the transition time that we had … they really have two years to work things out,” said Doty.
Much of the acrimony generated during the Jordan/Canyons division, he said, was a product of the stress the respective parties felt working in a time crunch to get things done.
School boards for each of the three districts formed from the original Alpine School District will be elected next November. The board will then have almost two years to hire a superintendent and complete the business of district-building by the summer of 2027.
Doty noted that the Alpine School District “divorce” will offer a few different challenges than his Jordan/Canyons experience simply because the former will involve three entities. “It’s just going to make it more complex.”
Cooperation can’t be overstated, advised Doty. He points to the relationship of trust and respect he shared with his counterpart at the time of the Jordan/Canyons division, Jordan School District Superintendent Barry Newbold.
The success of the Alpine School District three-way division, he added, will ultimately depend upon the leadership in the three districts — including the school boards and the administrators.
“If they can work well together and put their egos aside, they can do what’s best for the community,” he said.
Doty also recommends that the three districts think “very seriously” from the outset about sharing some services for the long term.
“In my opinion, there is absolutely no reason why they should create three separate transportation departments with school buses with three different district names on them. That makes no sense.”
In the coming years, the specifics regarding the Alpine School District three-way division will need to be worked out, revisited and then worked out again.
As Horiuchi noted, expect some “sausage-making.”
All involved in the school district division, said Doty, “will need to take a global view and really think strategically and carefully about what they want these new districts to become, for all students in all areas.”