The Wasatch County School District Board of Education is under a time crunch to establish the boundaries.
Deer Creek High School is set to open in fall 2026 and for it to have high school sports, the Utah High School Association must know how many students will attend by mid-December.
The board was set to approve a boundary dividing students between Deer Creek and Wasatch High Tuesday. But after around 80 community members packed the meeting room to share their concerns, the board opted to delay a final boundary decision.
The board went back to the drawing board Thursday morning during a special session — interrupting their daily lives to make the timing work.
Board President Kim Dickerson delayed a trip, Vice President Cory Holmes and members Brad Ehlert and Jake Collett went to work late, while Breanne Dedrickson handed off child care duties to her husband.
They discussed the public’s biggest complaint: the proposed boundary split Daniels Canyon and J.R. Smith Elementary students between the middle schools.
Dedrickson lives and represents community members in the Wheeler Park area who didn’t want the elementaries split. She was steadfast about using boundary option B, which kept the schools together.
“That is hard on middle schoolers, to be the only two out of your close friend group to have to go by yourself to a whole new population,” she said. “I've heard people say, keep them together, either school.”
However, Dickerson, Collett and Holmes were in favor of option H. Similar to the board’s preferred boundary — option D — it would use Highway 40 as a natural boundary.
Students who live east of Highway 40 would attend Timpanogos Middle School and Wasatch High. Students to the west would go to Rocky Mountain Middle School and Deer Creek High.
But instead of heading east at Heritage Farms Parkway, the boundary would be bumped up to the Cove neighborhood near J.R. Smith.
Dickerson said this would satisfy many families in the area as their kids would attend the same middle school. The option also balances the number of students at the middle and high schools.
She said Sawmill area families would also be satisfied.
“They were quiet before when the boundary proposal went out publicly, and they've been quiet after our meeting,” she said. “To me, that speaks volumes — what they're not saying is what they're saying.”
Holmes said option H, with slight alterations, would also correct a “bad boundary” in the Cove area, which was split about nine years ago.
Ehlert and Dedrickson worried option H could create another bad boundary. Dedrickson said Wheeler Park would be split similar to how the Cove area is. On the other hand, Holmes said the Wheeler Park neighborhoods aren’t connected by road, so it’s OK to put those students in different schools.
Collett agreed, saying option H disrupts the least amount of people while prioritizing natural boundaries and evenly distributed school attendance.
“When roads connect, that's how you link neighborhoods. Right now, there isn't a way for those new homes to connect to the neighborhood south of them,” he said.
Another benefit of option H is it’s similar enough to option D that a 30-day notice isn’t required before approval.
With a majority of its members on the same page, the board set a date to approve new boundaries: Wednesday, Nov. 5, at 6:30 p.m.
The meeting will be open to community members.
