Wasatch School District- overview

Scroll down for more info on the 2019 $150 MIL school bond proposal, the GRAMA REQUEST for the 2016 Superintendent hiring process, the school district’s history of lack of transparency, and much more.

For information on specific District Projects & Departments click on the links below:

Budgets–  Annual DETAILED budgets and employee salary info. In 2014, our GRAMA request for a full budget was originally denied by the school district, but later delivered after the GRAMA ombudsman assisted the release. They have complied ever since. Budget discussion recordings, and yearly budget reference.

Future Schools Project- Lease Revenue Bond 2021-23 The Wasatch School Board was hinting about another bond issue for a new high school in the North Fields, identical to the 2019 failed bond. Not all members of the new advisory board agreed with that plan. The Wasatch School Board decided to do a “Lease Revenue Bond’ in 2022 instead of allowing the public to vote on whether they wanted to save themselves $100 MIL on the ballot item, and so did not get the public’s approval on their $150 MIL LRB project. 

2019 $150 MIL Bond election-failed  All research and GRAMA requests done on the North Fields property for future high school, and ballot results. Then afterwards, the persistence of WTPA to get our GRAMA request on the Army Corps findings of wetlands released to the public, after the State Records Committee agreed with our request for release. The school district came this close to appealing at district court to not release the documentation.

2015 $62 MIL Bond election- passed.  As we suspected, the bond for the Daniel Elementary, Timp Middle School and new pool did not turn out as promised.

High School Construction 2009-  See how a $59.5 mil bond election turned into a $80 mil high school. Wasatch High School costs, concerns, and state audit on school construction featuring our district. Just 4 years after construction was completed new classrooms needed to be added and an expansion of the cafeteria? What happened?

North School Investigation 2000– Attorney General’s findings on this mismanaged $4.6 mil renovation project of the current district offices, where $1.8 mil “disappeared” without any invoice backup by the school board and business administrator. Citizen investigation went to the Attn General, with many media reports.

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9-17-19  The Wasatch School District held a public hearing for the purpose of citizens to share their concerns of the personal economic impacts that this $150 MIL Bond would create.  Watch the videos- Wasatch Taxpayers YouTube page

We also addressed our GRAMA request denial from the school district on the appraisal of the North Fields High school land, and the survey that was conducted by the school district that was done prior to them voting the bond on this November’s ballot. At the Interlocal meeting on August 8, 2019- a school board member said the survey showed that the people want the school bond to be put on the ballot. In this meeting, the school superintendent said that is WASN’T done….?  The appraisal of the land denial is curious, since the code they are citing says they don’t have to release it to the public UNLESS the property was already disclosed to the public. WHICH IT IS. Picture to the left is the poster they had at the hearing, and here is where the school district mentions the cost of the land.    Here are the state codes the school district is citing as their reasons to deny that information. denial appraisal and survey- STATE GRAMA CODE 9-17-19        WSD GRAMA original request 9-3-19 

Here’s what we did receive: wage & benefit percentage increases    y2 Analytics contract    denial – appraisals    denial – y2 survey  

8-15-19  WTPA Presentation given to Wasatch School District- We tried to give a presentation to the school district since March, but were put off until today at their 5pm study session. We wanted to help them communicate with the public better, and we were interested in supporting that effort. Here’s our presentation-WTPA- WSD tax increase PPT 8-15-19 They gave us 20 minutes, but when we were done, they had no comments, questions, or discussion. Here’s the video-Wasatch Taxpayers YouTube page .  But that changed at the 6:30pm truth in taxation meeting. After many comments by citizens and teachers, the school district voted to pass their tax increase (55% went to salaries, 45% to put money in the capital fund. A multi- million $$$ slush fund to purchase land, do capital improvements, etc.)  to give the teachers the raise that the board actually approved back in June.  Watch the videos of the whole discussion here- Wasatch Taxpayers YouTube page .     

(Click picture to enlarge)***Our comments, from our organization, on the unprofessional display by the school board in attacking our organization were publiched in the WAVE in Oct 2019.  Unfortunately, the Wasatch School Board ALSO decided to publicly criticise and try to embarrass our chairperson and organization during this meeting.  You can watch it yourself in videos #3 & #4 under the ABOVE 8-15-19 WSD meeting video titles here-  Wasatch Taxpayers YouTube page . Also, a couple people wrote to complain- Wasatch Wave letters to the editor Aug 21,2019

8-8-2019  The proposed $150 MIL SCHOOL BOND presentation was given at the Interlocal meeting, as well as a discussion on the 21 % tax increase slated for their August 15th, 6:30pm “Truth in Taxation” hearing (agenda).   Both the tax increase and $150 MIL bond proposal will be decided at this meeting! All concerned citizens need to be there!

***** Are you aware that our current capital debt compared to the other school districts, per capita and per student costs is one of the highest in the state?  WSD 2020- debt STATE comparison WTPA  Wasatch School’s DEBT is currently fifth of all Utah districts. With the proposed new building construction of $150 MIL it will be, far and away, FIRST. In debt. US.  See this – School Dist Debt per capita   (Several districts report NO Debt???) 

Public officials from Wasatch County, Heber, Midway, Charleston and Daniel have invited the school district for years to attend these meetings, but now Superintendent Paul Sweat, full school board, and business administrator attended to share info on the plan to build a new high school and Midway Elementary. The Wasatch School District showed these videos first, then tried to answer questions. WSD Presentation video   WSD Bond Q&A video   — The 3 must watch videos of meeting are here:  Wasatch Taxpayers YouTube page    The public officials reported to the school board that their constituents have been contacting them and are very concerned about their taxes, the additional school board’s 21% tax increase at their Aug 15 truth in taxation meeting on top of last year’s 13.8% increase, and the citizen’s concern about being able to afford to stay in this community. The school board said that they haven’t heard that from their neighbors, and that they’ve done surveys, but one has to ask how the school board has not heard these same concerns? Do citizens feel more comfortable telling their city and county officials instead of the school board? Do they know it has been a waste of time in the past?

There were many valid questions posed to the superintendent, who seemed perplexed as to why the public officials were not completely on board. After about 1.5 hours of discussion that got pretty heated, in fact one school board member told the public officials that they should, “stay in their lane” and not concern themselves with the school board’s decisions, the superintendent stopped the discussion himself even though the Heber Mayor, Kelleen Potter, was running the meeting.  The school board was questioned about demolishing Midway Elementary instead of using it, why we aren’t adding 2 classroom wings for $10 MIL on to the current high school (like Corner Canyon High School–   Canyons Construction update- 8-2019 City Journals paper -same design as ours), and why the new high school location is in a flood plain, and how the students, teachers, and taxpayers would be protected from an uncontrollable event of a dam failure. The school board didn’t think it was in a flood plain, but these 3 maps are clear. Flood Map- Earthquake Hazards   Map Central Area – Dam Failure  WSD high school property- Dam Failure GIS map

 Wasatch County Emergency Management talks about flood hazards. (Here are the high school location maps: click to enlarge)

More information on $150 Mil School Bond here:

5-17-19  The school board met with teachers and staff to announce a new possible $150 MIL bond for a new high school (our $80+ mil high school was built in 2009, and is already too small). Listen to the KPCW radio report. The superintendent, at this meeting, made it clear that he wanted all in attendance to promote this bond, but the taxpayers have a right (like all other Utah school districts’ taxpayers) to ask questions AND GET ANSWERS, have our concerns about how the previous bonds were spent, and see if we can’t accomplish the same outcome in a more cost effective way. WSD Presentation video     WSD Bond Q&A video – This video already has some incorrect information concerning the 2009 high school, it’s poor design, and it’s cost over runs. Blaming the public for a “smaller school” is not taking responsibility for the poor design. The cafeteria wasn’t big enough from the start, and they had to add on within a couple years.  It was $20 mil over budget from the $59.5 mil bond election. GO to this page to read about the mismanagement of that construction- we have kept the info on this website.  Also, the selection of a 60 acre parcel (way too much land) and the fact that the school district wants to pay “market price” is questioned. We have done GRAMA requests in the past where the school board did not do appraisals to determine value, and have over paid for some property already. We have also heard that a developer North of Heber City (where the majority of new development will be- see Heber City map below) had offered to GIVE the school district land for a new school, and the school board reportedly turned him down.

Several questions right off the bat:

1) Where was the public input BEFORE the parcels of land were chosen? Some public officials are already very unhappy with where the new high school would go, right where the proposed Bypass Road was being considered, BYPASS- NW route open house FEB 2019  and next to the ONLY exit on that Bypass on Midway Lane. Traffic would be horrendous. And UDOT just said a couple weeks ago that they won’t have possible routes decided for at least a year and a half. This school location should wait until after the Bypass route is determined cause we’re running out of options for the Bypass. (When are our local officials going to communicate together with the school district? The school district has been invited to the County/Heber/Charleston/Daniel interlocal meetings and has never shown up) Not to mention that area is in the North Fields where wetlands is an issue, so it’s not quite clear IF the high school COULD BE BUILT THERE until the Army Corps of Engineers does a study of the land.  Also, the majority of new growth will be occurring NORTH of Heber City, where this new annexation policy plan map below shows, not in Midway/Charleston where the new high school location would be closer to. (click picture to enlarge). 

2) If the bond is for $150 Mil, and the last Daniels Elementary was built for $15.8 mil  (from our GRAMA request) that means the NEW high school would be in the $132.2 MIL range? That is considerably higher than any high school in the state. 

3) Our enrollment is around 7,000 students, and we have about 34,000 residents in Wasatch County. Is $237 mil (just for the school district bonds) too much debt for such a small community? We know we’re growing, but other school districts our size have only 1 high school. The school board needs to supply citizens with options, price considerations, and answer why the bond itself is so high. Other school districts’ citizens are given OPTIONS on how to accomplish issues facing their community. Not us, we get one choice, then decide whether to vote for it, or not. See Park City, and how their school district has been working with citizens for 2 years since the public voted AGAINST their school bond. They finally got some respect.   KPCW report part 1   KPCW report part 2   KPCW report part 3   South Summit School District had to change their plan on what to bond for this year. Their citizens voted down their bond last year, and couldn’t afford both a high school and an elementary. KPCW report part 1    

Wasatch School District- Utah Certified Tax Website  See what we’ve been paying the school district in property taxes each year. (You can change year and public entity in top left corner). 

During the 2006 $59.5 MIL high school bond, there was analysis done back then of the price per sqft of existing high school, click here for reference. 

 More info coming soon…

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WTPA GRAMA REQUEST – For the superintendent hiring process info. Our superintendent was hired back in 2016 within 6 weeks (most school districts take 3-5 months) and with no public input before the final decision by the school board. Other communities get to meet the top 3 or 4 candidates and have a chance to give input before the final choice is made. Here is an overview of WTPA’s struggle to have Wasatch School District release public information that other Utah school districts’ residents get to have without a formal GRAMA request. Transparency and public input should be a right of every taxpayer in Utah, and the Utah State Records Commitee who heard our GRAMA request complaint agreed with us. They said this hiring process was a “colossal transparency failure” by the Wasatch School District. Jeff Hunt, the premier GRAMA attorney in the state, helped us because he was upset this still was happening in Utah.

In June of 2016, Superintendent Terry Shoemaker left WSD for a Utah School Board’s Association position.  The school board had a work session May 5, 2016 with a representative of the Utah School Board’s Association, to guide them through the process. The meeting videos are here: Wasatch Taxpayers YouTube page .   The school board stated numerous times that they plan on searching nationwide for the BEST CANDIDATE.   A citizen committee was formed to review all applications and make recommendations to the board.  In 6 short weeks the Wasatch School Board announced a new superintendent (it usually takes school boards about 3 months). Since the public had no info of the top 3 candidates, their qualifications, or who was on the citizens committee to review candidates prior to the final selection, the WTPA decided to GRAMA request the info. We were denied any info based on the “privacy” argument (most UTAH school districts release this info WITHOUT a GRAMA request). We appealed the denial to the State Record’s Committee in Oct 2016, who agreed with us and stated numerous times that Wasatch School District had a “colossal transparency failure”.  We have received the documents below, but both the WSD and the SSBA say they do not have certain documents, and the other group does. See our process, and detailed documents below:

12-29-16- UTAH SCHOOL BOARDS ASSOCIATION(SSBA) – GRAMA REQUEST response- Since the Wasatch School District said they didn’t have some of the documents we requested and said that the SSBA had them, we grama requested the same documents there. Here’s our GRAMA to the SSBA, and their response. GRAMA Request – Utah School Board’s Assoc supt hiring      SSBA GRAMA response 12-29-16 

SSBA states, “As an initial matter, USBA does not believe that it is subject to GRAMA such that it is required to provide a response to your request. However, USBA is willing to respond to your request regardless of whether it is legally required to do so.”

We asked where the applications were posted, since the Wasatch School Board said that they would do a “nationwide search for the best qualified”. The SSBA gave us all these docs: 1-WSD supt hiring broshure    2-SSBA posting ad- broshure mailing   3- SSBA posting ad- bus admins    4- SSBA posting ad- Desnews media     5-SSBA posting ad- Dir of Career placement     6-SSBA posting ad- Dir of placement list   7-SSBA posting ad- media list    8-SSBA posting ad- posting website      9-SSBA posting ad- Principals   10-SSBA posting ad- Supts

The Wasatch School District told the records committee in October that they didn’t have any info on the citizen’s committee MEETINGS (minutes and/or recordings) that reviewed the applications, but the SSBA says THEY don’t have them either. What’s going on? 

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11-23-16 – Update on State Record’s Committee’s decision for Wasatch School District’s mandatory release of info TO THE PUBLIC concerning the superintendent process. Here’s the info that WSD supplied to us.

Here are the released documents from our GRAMA request- see community committee who helped review applications-: supt hiring- selection committee-and-finalists  

Top 4 Supt. candidates: erickson-resume    briggs-resume    sorensen-resume    sweat-resume     Final Supt. choice Paul Sweat.

ALL applications for superintendent:   briggs-resume   foster-jr-resume   frascone-resume   lackey-resume   asher-resume   peterson-resume   proffit-resume   rawlings-resume    schulte-resume    sorensen-resume   stroder-resume   sweat-resume  wolters-resume  dawes-resume   erickson-resume

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— WTPA had a hearing OCT 13th at the State Records Committee in Salt Lake City, to formally appeal the Wasatch School District’s DENIAL of all our requested documents on the below GRAMA request for the hiring process of the new superintendent. Here’s the Record’s Committee finding: records-committee-findings-supt-process-10-2016

Jeffrey Hunt, a leading Utah GRAMA attorney, and Cynthia Love of Parr Brown Gee and Loveless agreed to represent us pro-bono because of the severe violation of GRAMA by the WSD. We cannot thank, and recommend, them enough for their expertise, professionalism, and respect of our concerns. We highly recommend them both!

Here is the State Records Committee hearing recording: http://www.utah.gov/pmn/files/253679.mp3         (our hearing starts at 166:00, you may need earphones to hear better) 

Here are both our arguments submitted to the committee for the Oct. 13th hearing:

Wasatch Taxpayers Association appeal: APPEAL -to-utah-records-committee for wasatch-sch-dist-supt-hiring       

The Wasatch School District’s reasoning to deny the public any information on the process and selection: position-statement-of-wasatch-county-school-district

 9-1-16 We GRAMA requested the documents, and information on procedure, concerning the recent Superintendent hiring process that took place in May- June 2016. We were denied completely, based on the school board’s assumption that this process is totally private and the citizens living in the Wasatch School District have no right to know how the superintendent was chosen. Other Utah school districts have shared THIS SAME information with the public BEFORE their school board chose their new superintendent. Ours won’t release the information even after a formal GRAMA request was submitted. We have decided to take this to the Utah State Records Committee for our appeal on October 13th. See what documents and info we requested here:  grama-response-7-18-16-superintendent

7-27-16- Our argument, responding to above document from WSD, to release documents (via email):

*** grama-appeal-judd-response-7-18-16-superintendent    Mr Judd responded above, and also sent us BLANK forms that were used in the process. No specific info concerning their process was given on those forms.

8-11-16- Second GRAMA request: wsd-grama-8-11-16-supt-contract

School District’s response (via email):  Ms. Taylor,
“In response to the GRAMA request you submitted on 11 August, 2016, I am submitting the following:
1.  Criteria used for selecting members of the citizens application review committee for new superintendent search in June 2016.
response:  the District does not have an obligation to create records in response to your GRAMA request, and no records exist that satisfy this particular request.

2.  Paul Sweat’s EXECUTED full, unabridged superintendent contract.  Paul Sweat’s superintendent salary and benefit package.
response:  a copy of the contract is attached.  paul-sweat-supt-contract-7-7-16The contract specifies the salary and benefit package.  The complete benefit package offered to the employees of the District can be found at the following link:  http://www.wasatch.edu/page/408 ”

Keith Johansen
Records Officer
Wasatch County School District

***So, our new NOVICE superintendent, Paul Sweat,  starts at a higher salary ( a 20% + increase) than Terry Shoemaker who had 20 years experience. 

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5-5-16  Superintendent Terry Shoemaker is leaving by June 30th. The school board had a work session May 5th with a representative of the Utah School Board’s Association, to guide them through the process. The school board stated numerous times that they plan on searching nationwide for the BEST CANDIDATE.  The meeting videos are here Wasatch Taxpayers YouTube page .  Supposedly a citizen committee will be formed to review all applications and make recommendations to the board.

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Test Scores and school district accountability reports:

9-15-16 SAGE TESTING RESULTS – Click Here -See how we compare with SIMILAR schools    SLTRIB ARTICLE to explain   

**** Wasatch 2016 employee salaries and benefits in excel spreadsheet- WSD-2016-employee-salaries-tranparent-gov (you may have to download onto your computer first, then open file)

**** 2015 EMPLOYEE salaries and benefits  WSD 2015 employee compensation transparent.gov    WSD employee BENEFITS 2015- transparent.gov   (you may have to download to your computer first to read)

SAGE TESTING RESULTS WEBSITE 2015  (click on grades, and schools to see specific info)      DESNEWS article   

ACT 2015 Utah Results- DESNEWS article to explain   Actual ACT 2015 Repo

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****9-10-15  Recording of State Records Committee hearing to appeal costs of $1500 associated with email request below. Direct link to recording here:  http://www.utah.gov/pmn/files/archive/178553.mp3

****8-28-15 GRAMA request- WSD- GRAMA 8-28-15     DANIEL TOWN elementary school lots #7 & 8 purchased JULY 2015- Lot #7 Daniel Estates     Lot #8 Daniel Estates     10 Acre piece purchased in 2013-     WSD- 525 E. 3000 s Daniel property purchase        Also, digital software contract- digital curriculum contract   School District denied fee waiver for EMAILS  and charging $85 /hr. email retrieval fee estimate 8-28-15    ( This was their charge for 6/9/15  GRAMA EMAIL request- $25/hr   WSD-email itemized costs GRAMA response 7-17-15 )                                                                                              ***Wasatch School District response- In response to the GRAMA request that you submitted on 28 August 2015: 1.  Purchase contracts, appraisals, and closing documents for lots purchased on Ranch Dr., Daniel, UT – I am attaching all documents regarding the purchase of lots 7 and 8 in the Daniel Estate subdivision, Daniel, UT.

2.  All emails between Superintendent, Business Administrator, and School Board during April, May, and June, 2015 – your request for a fee waiver is denied (see attached.)  The process of appealing this denial is included on the attached denial form. The estimated cost for retrieving the emails is attached and payment will be required before the retrieval process is started.

3.  All digital device and software curriculum contracts with all suppliers – the contract with the digital curriculum supplier is attached.  There are no contracts for the purchase of the devices, and the cost of the devices was supplied to you in the response to a previous GRAMA request.  Keith Johansen,Business Administrator

****6-9-15 GRAMA request- WSD- GRAMA 6-9-15 ,WSD- GRAMA response 6-15-15 , WSD- building additions-6-9-15   

District GRAMA response:  #1 – all employees who have retired from Wasatch County School District and have returned to work since FY2012. Response – there are no employees since FY2012 who have worked for the District, retired, then returned to work for the District.

#2 – real estate purchase contract, appraisal, and closing documents on the Danial property. Response – the documents are attached. There was, however, no appraisal done on the property.

#3 – all emails between the board, superintendent, and business administrator in the last year. Response – your request for a fee waiver is denied due to the excessive amount of time required to fulfill this request. It is estimated to take 60 research hours to fulfill this request. Therefore, at $25.00/hour, the fee is estimated to be $1,500.00. The District personnel who will do this research will not begin the process until the estimated fee is collected.

#4 – all schools expanded or added to in the last 10 years. Response – this record is already available on the Transparency website, but a copy is attached for your convenience.

#5 – improvements to the pool at TIS in the last 7 years, and how much. Response – your request for a fee waiver is denied due to the amount of time required to fulfill this request. It is estimated to take 3 research hours to fulfill this request. Therefore, at $25.00/hour, the fee is estimated to be $75.00. The District personnel who will do this research will not begin the process until the estimated fee is collected.

#6 – total cost of curriculum books, broken down by grade and year, from 2000 to 2013. Response – the District follows the State record retention schedule which requires the maintenance of 5 years of records. So the District will not go back to 2000 as requested. Also, there is no record which would show the cost broken down by grade. However, the financial reports available on the USOE website would show total costs of textbook purchases for each year going back several years.

Your request for a fee waiver is denied due to the amount of time required to fulfill this request. It is estimated to take 3 research hours to fulfill this request. Therefore, at $25.00/hour, the fee is estimated to be $75.00. The District personnel who will do this research will not begin the process until the estimated fee is collected.

#7 – procedure implemented by the District to monitor the effectiveness of digital conversion. Response – the District does not have this record. A governmental entity is not required to create a record to fulfill this request as provided in Utah Code 63G-2-201(8)(a)(i).

***5-28-15 GRAMA request for purchase contracts on the Old High School Property, contract on home at 224 E. 600 S., Heber., and the Maintenance and Operations budgets for Timpanogos Intermediate, Rocky Mtn. Middle and Old Mill Elementary Schools. WSD- GRAMA 5-12-15 – request     WSD- GRAMA 5-12-15 – Old High School land to Amsource contract     WSD- GRAMA 5-12-15 -3 schools M & O   ///  WSD- GRAMA 5-12-15 – contract 224 E. 600 S.           224 E 600 So appraisal  Appraisal $265,000, school district paid $325,000.

6/3/15-Terry Shoemaker interview on KPCW-Park City radio to explain OUR school district. _________________________________________________________

  2-4-2015 Grama Request of documents from the old high school property redevelopment project.  WSD grama- 1-29-15  WSD grama response-  Asbestos and demolition                         Redevelopment invoices      Mtn America – lot 1    Mtn America -closing doc and contract                    Mtn America -sales contract    _____

2-2014 OLD High School demo public hearing recordings-Wasatch Taxpayers YouTube page     Now with this WTPA GRAMA request denied below, it looks like the Wasatch School District has not done proper due diligence if their response to GRAMA request is correct.                                                                 See what info they are not willing to share with the public.***GRAMA REQUEST DENIED for these items! WSD GRAMA- response demo high school 2-7-14

1-29-2014- Short, not very informative , presentation given to public. No fiscal detail, just estimates of demolition costs and possible increase in value of property WITHOUT the high school on it. Emails were sent to school board from citizens, but were not mentioned at all, let alone read to the public. The public cannot possibly make an informed decision with the information supplied by our representatives at the meeting. No further fiscal info on demolition is on their website.

Wasatch School District already has a plan to redevelop the old high school parcel on Main Street. This plan presented here had to have been initiated months ago, back in November. With UDOT approvals no less, yet the school district just had a public hearing on this on January 29, 2014. Recording of Heber City Work meeting-  Wasatch Taxpayers YouTube page  

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Test Scores and school district accountability reports :

NEW!!!! SAGE RESULTS 2015-  DESNEWS article   

ACT 2015 Utah Results- DESNEWS article to explain   Actual ACT 2015 Report

SAGE RESULTS 2014– Compare our schools to SIMILAR Utah schools

Utah State Superintendent’s Annual Report

Wasatch School District page (You can input which school & which grade levels)                                          SL TRIBUNE- SAGE article to explain new state findings.        PACE-Wasatch District SCORES 2014

9-1-2013  KSL report of school grades

(also breakdown of school finance, and teacher and administrator pay)

Check your school’s grade! Some have info for 2012 too. Click on “School Grade” tab to see.  Wasatch High School 2013 Grade “C”  Timpanogos Inter 2013 Grade “B”   Rocky Mtn Middle 2013 Grade “B”    Heber Valley EL 2013 Grade “C”  JR Smith EL 2013 Grade “A”  Midway EL 2013 Grade “C”                                Old Mill EL 2013 Grade “B”

WSD test scores 2008-2011

If you want to know how big the USOE is- 2014- Utah Educational Directory

How is WSD doing???- their own WSD- Strategic Plan 09 (How did we do? Where’s the analysis of the effectiveness of implementing the 2009 plan?) WSD-2013 Strategic Plan 

See what training the new school board members get :http://usba.cc/training/pro-development/new-board-members/

****CONTACT YOUR SCHOOL BOARD!

****US CENSUS report Of Public Education Finances 2012 (Issued May 2014)

Interesting article on digital conversion curriculum by the NY TIMES.

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WSD 8- 16-2007 Truth in Taxation hearing- 49.34% tax increase.                                                 Wasatch Wave notice- school tax 8-07

Recordings- Aug16-07 Truth in Taxation Presentation

Aug16-07 Truth in Taxation PUBLIC COMMENTS Part 1

Aug16-07 Truth in Taxation PUBLIC COMMENTS Part 2

Impact local radio program AFTER 8-16-2007 Truth in Taxation hearing. (If you need to sign in, username- heberut/password- heber)        impact 8-20-07 Part 2 P & B Truth in taxation

WHS COST- updated amount 6-30-2010  (reveals that $6,653,923 are from TAX PROCEEDS from 2007-2010)    One month before the 8-16-2007 Truth in taxation hearing Supt. Shoemaker stated in the article “Financial Challenges” here:   Wave article -H.S. 6-20-07     that the WSD board would NOT ASK the public to pay for over runs in the high school construction.

Impact radio program 6-7-12 WSD discussion about FERPA privacy policy for students and budget transparency. (If you need to sign in, username- heberut/password- heber) Impact_6-7-12_Pt_2_School_Board_FERPA -First 2/3 FERPA. Last 1/3 of discussion is about releasing the 2013 budget before public hearing, and general transparency of the WSD. Superintendent Terry Shoemaker, new Board Pres. Blaik Baird, Vicky Gappmayer. Note: the 2013 budget hearing was 6-14-12, as of this recording the WSD was already LATE with posting their budget by 3 days per Utah State code.

Impact radio program  with WSD from 2009- impact 5-27-09 Wasatch school district  Many fiscal questions and a request for transparency.

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WSD test scores 2008-2011

WSD- Organizational Chart 2011-12

2012 GRAMA Requests Filed and denied:

GRAMA Request for Board Packets  11-2012

WCSD-GRAMA-Board-Packets-Appeal-December_2012

GRAMA_WCSD_Board_Packet_Request_Nov-15-2012

GRAMA Appeal Response 12-2012-1

Wasatch Taxpayers Association appreciates any, and all, donations to further the cause of transparency and accountability in Wasatch County. Please take a moment and help this ALL volunteer group. Donate tab above, or red button on the right.  Thank You!

This website is for educational purposes only, unless it is specifically stated that WTPA has a stance on a specific issue. To the best of our knowledge this is correct information, but we welcome corrections if errors are found.