After Utah County voters approved a three-way split of the Alpine School District in 2024, Draper families on the county line will start attending schools under the new Aspen Peaks School District on Tuesday, July 1, 2027.
Aspen Peaks will serve an estimated 35,000 students across 36 schools in Draper, American Fork, Cedar Hills, Alpine, Highland and Lehi. It is the largest of three successor districts replacing Alpine, which enrolls more than 80,000 students and ranks as Utah's biggest district.
Voters created Aspen Peaks (then called the "Central District") by approving Proposition 11 in November 2024 with 57.61% of the vote. A second measure, Proposition 14, formed the Lake Mountain District covering Saratoga Springs and Eagle Mountain, while the remaining cities of Orem, Lindon, Pleasant Grove and Vineyard automatically became the Timpanogos School District.
Staff pay and seniority transfer intact
Teachers and staff already assigned to a school will keep working there under the new district. State law guarantees their pay, benefits, seniority and existing contracts transfer, Alpine School District spokesperson Rich Stowell told the Salt Lake Tribune.
District-level administrators, including the superintendent, are not guaranteed the same position in the successor districts.
"Anybody who works exclusively at a school, it'll be relatively unchanged," Stowell said in December 2024, when the split timeline was first reported. "They'll just continue working at that school, and it'll be for a different district."
Alternative schools protected through 2030
Aspen Peaks Superintendent Joel Perkins and the Timpanogos district signed a memorandum of understanding to keep Polaris High School and Summit High School operating through 2030, according to a Sunday, July 20 announcement on the Alpine School District website. Both are alternative schools serving at-risk students, including youth in the care of the Utah Division of Child and Family Services.
Summit High School has operated for 46 years and draws students from group homes across both district boundaries.
"This MOU is the best-case scenario for Summit," Principal Dan Biolo said. "It provides the stability and clarity of being in a familiar building with familiar staff and continuing to be who we have been."
Biolo added that because Summit's funding comes primarily from the state and most students reside in the two districts, the school will maintain financial stability under the agreement.
Perkins said the partnership lets both districts share costs of alternative programs through the transition period.
Online programs have no confirmed home
Alpine Online, a K-8 virtual school, and East Shore Online, a credit-remediation program, are not tied to a physical campus, so no successor district will automatically inherit them. Stowell said both will probably close when Alpine dissolves, and new districts would need to build similar programs from scratch. Families who rely on either program have no confirmed replacement.
Boundary overlaps and school assignments
Where attendance areas cross the new district lines, Alpine officials conducted a boundary study to determine which district each school fits best. One example: Dry Creek Elementary sits in Lehi (Aspen Peaks territory) but its attendance boundary extends into Saratoga Springs (Lake Mountain), according to the Tribune.
The Alpine School District's transition page at alpineschools.org/o/asd/page/new-districts lists which schools are assigned to each new district and will post meeting dates as they are announced.
