In one year, the new Deer Creek High School will open its doors to students. Which students? Well, that’s still up for discussion.

Eric Campbell, the director of student services for the Wasatch County School District, is in the process of finding the best solutions for which students to branch off from Wasatch High School or come from Rocky Mountain Middle School. In March, Campbell said it’s a process of face-to-face conversations, gathering feedback and working with a committee to draw the most advantageous lines for school boundaries. 

Led by Deer Creek High Principal Justin Kelly, the new school is still under construction and scheduled to open for the 2026-27 school year. According to Superintendent Garrick Peterson, the latest Wasatch County School District should announce new boundaries would be in November.

“The goal would be October,” Peterson said. 

From surveys, Campbell said they gathered enough information to glean what parents are looking for. Geography, equally balanced schools, safe access to Deer Creek High and keeping schools consistent. In that order, he said. 

“Ranked, those were all within 5% of one another,” Campbell said, adding that the surveys were set up to gather written comments. 

With the boundaries committee, Campbell said they ran through a few scenarios. Midway Elementary, Old Mill Elementary and Heber Valley Elementary boundaries were all never affected in those scenarios. In every scenario, however, boundaries for J.R. Smith Elementary and Daniels Canyon Elementary will be altered. 

Marci Horner, school planner and GIS analyst for MGT, said it’s important to understand where the numbers come from when they’re designing school boundaries. Horner is an expert assisting Campbell and the boundaries committee in the creation of Wasatch County School District school zoning. 

When she’s analyzing a school district, Horner said she uses current student data to create forecast factors. Birth counts, mobility, student yield — all of these factors are taken into account. 

First, Horner said that while birth counts have declined over the past few years, she is seeing “a bit of stabilization.” That will affect how many students end up in the same cohort for K-12 in the coming years. With mobility, Horner said she uses four years of historical data and maps it to watch changes in cohorts from one grade to the next. One identifiable item for student yield — the number of students who eventually enroll — is residential developments.

There’s plenty of those in Heber City, she said. A total of 3,613 forecasted units are single-family detached homes, but there are 9,000 units in the forecast overall. Horner said that’s a way for families to see there will be more neighborhoods and communities. In turn, that affects where students go to school and if they’ll stay in the area. 

“People sure know when there’s a neighborhood being built next door,” Horner said. 

Then, Horner said she looked at residential developments within both elementary and middle school attendance areas. It was J.R. Smith Elementary and Rocky Mountain Middle School that had the highest number of units (5,000 total) in the area. 

That’s the units per region, but anticipated students per region is different, according to Horner.

“For a 100-unit development, you can expect 87 K-12 students in Midway,” Horner said, walking through a map of the Heber Valley. 

In Heber, that number is 91 students. Then, 34 in Red Ledges, eight in Jordanelle along U.S. 40 and one student in Mayflower. 

With all of that taken into account, board President Kim Dickerson said their next step is to have community meetings. By law, the school board must have a proposal out to the community 30 days before a decision is made. There also must be a public hearing. 

“We’re really just trying to serve families the best we can,” Peterson said. “That’s what it comes down to here.”