After receiving considerable feedback, the Jordan Board of Education approved a boundary change aimed at easing the large student enrollment at Aspen Elementary School in the upcoming school year.

With Aspen’s enrollment exceeding 900 students and another 150 students expected next fall, the board voted 5-2 to shift students living south of 11800 South and east of Mustang Trail Way to Bastian Elementary School in Herriman. The boundary adjustment will take effect for the 2025-26 school year.

The move will bring Bastian Elementary’s enrollment to about 900 students.

“This boundary change will provide much needed relief for the overcrowding problem at Aspen Elementary,” outgoing board president Tracy Miller said. “There is room in surrounding schools for additional students, so it makes sense to move some students.”

While no other options were considered, she said the board will continue to investigate further boundary changes in the upcoming months.

“Aspen will need further boundary changes in the future, which the board will consider as part of a bigger study of the area, including feeder system alignments with middle and high schools,” Miller said.

While the board recognized the necessity for change, some dissenting votes questioned the urgency of making an immediate decision without fully evaluating the entire
feeder system.

Board First Vice President Niki George expressed concerns about the potential disruption to students, stating she didn’t want to see students moved only to be relocated again the following year. While not the board’s intent, she voiced uncertainty about whether that might happen. 

“This conversation is not finished…let’s keep working,” she said before the vote.

Board Second Vice President Darrell Robinson questioned the lack of consideration for other options, such as offering students—many of whom are Spanish-speaking—the chance to attend Herriman Elementary, a dual-language immersion school.

“I just don’t think we’ve done our homework to make a good long-term solution,” he said at the meeting.

Aspen Elementary, which opened just four years ago with approximately 400 students and three teachers per grade, has seen its enrollment more than double. The growing student body now requires five to seven teachers per grade, and faculty and staff have had to adjust to accommodate the
increased numbers.

Outgoing board member Marilyn Richards supported the boundary change, recognizing both its advantages and challenges. She noted the positive aspect of students not having to cross 11800 South, but also acknowledged the emotional difficulty of losing a community the school staff had grown attached to over the past four years. She also sympathized with teachers instructing from a cart.

“I’ve been a teacher with a cart,” she said. “It’s hard, extremely hard and it’s not conducive to quality instructional time.”

Mikayla Miller, an Aspen teacher who had previously addressed the board about the school’s enrollment issues, explained some of the adjustments staff have made to cope with the growing population.

“We’ve had to push up our lunch times, and we’ve also had to shorten the time they can sit and eat, just because we have to get them through the line and get them through the tables since we only have so much space in our cafeteria,” she said. “We’ve also had to manage adding more classes to our rotations and having rotations on carts, the music rotation on the stage while PE is going on. We’ve had to split up our kids for assemblies and other changes where we’ve had to adapt to provide the best support and the best education for these students.”

Despite these challenges, Mikayla Miller emphasized the emotional impact of the boundary change, particularly for the students who have been part of Aspen’s community since the school’s opening.

“This will impact us a lot, especially moving students to Bastian from the (Copperwood and Emerson) apartments,” she said. “It has been a big focus for the last four years to help the ML (multi-language) students, making sure we’re providing the resources they need, and providing the best growth we can give them. They brought a lot of great things to Aspen, and our students, some of them, really needed them here to learn from them, to learn about their culture and learn about their lifestyles and learn about differences. But I’m looking forward to the new challenge of the boundary change and seeing how the dynamic changes and kind of where we go from there. It’s bittersweet, because the last four years, we’ve poured our hearts and souls into all these kids and to just say goodbye…”

The fifth grade teacher also said the change is distressing for many families, particularly for students who fear losing their friends and adapting to a new school environment. For some of these students, the move could add stress.

“Many families are upset about the change, with students worrying about not knowing any friends and having them into a new school,” she said. “It will be a heartbreak at the end of the year, but they’ll be just as successful at Bastian. We’ll talk with the teachers there to help make a smooth transition, and they will do the things that we did to help those students, because they care too.”

Mikayla Miller expressed hope the boundary change would provide a long-term solution for students living on the borders of both schools.

“The board did promise in the meeting that if they move the apartments’ (students) with this boundary change that they would not move them again. I hope, for the sake of the kids, they stay true to their word,” she said. “There are projections we will grow by 150 kids next year, so it doesn’t alleviate our long-term issue of growth in the area. I hope the board takes that into account and does stand by what they’ve said; I hope they will follow through with the long-term study of the boundary changes and what makes the most sense for our area so when the boundary change discussion for Aspen comes up again, they’re ready, and will know what fits best with roads and numbers and future growth projection.” λ