Provo School Board tables open-enrollment decision after district capacity figures found to conflict with boundary study

Provo City School Board members on Oct. 28 reviewed the district's open-enrollment capacity report and voted to table a final decision after staff and trustees identified discrepancies between the report's formulas and the classroom counts in the district's boundary and feasibility study.

Deputy Superintendent Jason Cox led the presentation, using Tempe View High School as an example and explaining the report's capacity math: "So right now, there are a 113 classrooms available at Tempe View High School based on that walk through," Cox said, and described how the district derives early- and late-enrollment capacity by multiplying teaching stations by class-size factors and applying a 90 percent threshold for early enrollment.

Cox told the board that, on the current report, Tempe View's late-enrollment capacity would allow only three additional students: "So there's only 3 available spaces left at Tempe View High School, and that's why it's considered full," he said. He also described the district's distinction between early enrollment (the district's stated early window) and late enrollment, which uses staffing-based FTE numbers.

Superintendent Wendy Dow acknowledged a data mismatch between student-services'original formulas and the MGT boundary and feasibility walkthrough that the board conducted earlier. "So these numbers are based on student services' original numbers," Dow said, and asked staff to reconcile the two data sets: "So we need to get them that report, Devin, and get that over to Jason so we can adjust that capacity."

Board members pressed for clarifications about the dates and bases of the FTE figures used in the report and asked staff to: (1) confirm whether the FTE column refers to 2024-25 or the most-recent certified FTE, (2) update counts where the walkthrough identified different functional classrooms (for example, Amelia Earhart and several schools with district program classrooms), and (3) indicate whether specialized programs (Sunrise, district program classrooms) are included in particular school totals.

Following the presentation and questions, the board made and approved a motion to table the possible approval of open-enrollment status until staff have reconciled the capacity report with the boundary and feasibility counts and updated the report to reflect the district's agreed classroom inventory.

The board directed staff to return the corrected open-enrollment capacity report at a future meeting; no policy or enrollment changes were adopted at the Oct. 28 meeting.