On a tour of Mountainland Technical College’s new Heber Valley Campus, President Clay Christensen had one resounding message: “We’re training people to go to work.”

The campus, situated next to the new Deer Creek High School in Heber City, has been a major project decades in the making. Christensen said the college is meant to provide opportunities for learners ranging from high school to full adulthood.

Some students are juniors in high school while others are as old as 82. Learning, Christensen said, is open to everyone. 

“Once they cross the threshold here, they’re an MTECH student,” Christensen said.

Mountainland Technical College’s new campus celebrated its ribbon cutting on Friday. The college is no-frills in the sense that there are no student union centers or large gathering places. Instead, Christensen said funding and taxpayer dollars are focused on providing the best learning environments possible. 

He toured the welding center, where a mass of welding booths lines a large, warehouse-like room. Top-of-the-line machinery is centered in the space. Cars are hoisted up for work in the automotive division. There is a full-scale ambulance simulation in a room dedicated to medical learning. The cosmetology department is lined with hairstyling chairs, pedicure stations and more. 

Each sector of learning is decked out with quality equipment. Part of that comes from partnerships. Christensen said Mountainland Technical College maintains strong connections with businesses like Larry H. Miller. 

“Students are always using state-of-the-art equipment,” Christensen said, “because we’re able to partner with these businesses.”

Mountainland Technical College also partners with the Wasatch County School District. School District and Mountainland Technical College board member Breanne Dedrickson said the opportunities are designed to enrich students’ lives and education but also to strengthen the workforce in Wasatch County. 

“It’s so individualized,” Dedrickson said.

Some students want a certificate that will put them on a path to a successful career. Others use credits that build into an associate’s or bachelor’s degree at a two-year or four-year university. 

“I am most impressed with the quality of education and opportunity that MTECH offers, and excited to offer that to this community,” Dedrickson said. 

She added that local partnerships have made opening the new campus possible. Right now, Mountainland Technical College students in the Heber Valley drive to the Lehi and Payson campuses. Students will be able to stay close to home with the new Heber Valley campus.

“People realize these are crucial opportunities for kids, and we want to make sure it’s available in this part of the state,” Dedrickson said.

The technical college is made up of about 70% high school graduates and adults and 30% high school students. There are 7,000 students across the entire region. There are about 1,200 students on waiting lists to enroll in programs. 

“There’s a huge demand,” Christensen said. 

In part, that’s because of the streamlined education-to-employment pathway Mountainland Technical College provides. Christensen said the college identifies high-employment areas for education. That includes trade skills and pink-collar jobs. 

Students are streamlined on a path to employment from the moment they pay their $120 per credit tuition fees. Christensen said that partners like Larry H. Miller hire directly from the college’s programs.

But there is a caveat. Christensen said students must complete their education and have a certificate in hand before leaving the program to accept a new job. 

Students will receive certificates from the American Welding Society, for instance. That certificate is recognized across the world. Then, there’s the Automotive Society of Engineers approved program and other industry-certified certificates to be earned. 

“That certificate is going to prepare them for employment,” Christensen said. “It’s very competitive to get into these programs.”

Christensen said, depending upon the program, ranging in everything from healthcare to technology and dental work, about 90% of graduates find local jobs, boosting the nearby workforce. 

There is actually a requirement for the college to help students find employment after they graduate or earn a certificate. 

“We have to exceed the national standards for completion, licensure and placement,” Christensen said. “We can’t have somebody take our automotive program and go get a job at McDonald’s flipping burgers and have that count.”

Their employment has to be within their field for study. And Mountainland Technical College tracks that.

“We have a responsibility to help them find employment,” Christensen said. 

Students fresh out of high school with no industry experience to those furthering their education later in life — Mountainland Technical College accepts them all. 

Christensen, who is retiring next month after 44 years of working in education, said he is most proud of the growth and opportunities for students. About 20 years ago, Mountainland Technical College did not have such advanced facilities. 

Now, Mountainland Technical College is recognized as having the most advanced and accelerated programs for students. Aside from quality education, most students graduate debt-free. 

“It’s a generational change that changes families forever because there are good wages and good opportunities,” Christensen said. 

He remembers one student who provided inspiration for others. That student is hearing-impaired and went through Mountainland Technical College’s diesel mechanics and commercial driver’s license programs. 

“As a result of her involvement here and the experience she had because we provided interpreters for her to help, we have more students like her enrolled,” Christensen said. “We try to help every student that wants to excel.”

Dedrickson, who is a principal at a private school in Wasatch County, remembers one student who was struggling to learn. He lacked motivation and did not appreciate school classroom environments. During his senior year, Dedrickson asked what he sought to do after graduation and found he wanted to work in the automotive industry. 

That changed everything. Dedrickson suggested the program at Mountainland Technical College. 

“It wasn’t me pushing him to graduate anymore. He was going to class, he was earning the credits because he loved what he was doing,” Dedrickson said. 

For Dedrickson, one of the most impactful parts of the new campus opening is that students will bolster the workforce while staying in the Heber Valley. The boost that provides to students and the community, she said, is powerful.

“We’re bringing that opportunity home,” Dedrickson said. 

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The 40th anniversary is known as the ruby anniversary, and that gemstone symbolizes health, wisdom and a lasting bond.

That fits the Park City Education Foundation, which is celebrating four decades of its mission of funding “educator-powered initiatives that inspire all Park City students to successfully reach their academic and lifelong potential.”

“We started in 1986 with one $2,000 grant and have grown to supporting almost $2 million in grants that support students and teachers in the school district,” said Ingrid Whitley, the foundation’s president and chief executive officer. “What a history.”

That first grant marked the beginning of the Park City Education Foundation’s Classroom Grants, formerly known as Teacher Grants, which is the nonprofit’s longest-running program.

A teacher wanted to send two students to a Stanford University Space Camp.

A group of community members got together to fund the trip, which literally kicked off the foundation, Whitley said.

Today the Park City Education Foundation, known as the Ed Foundation to local residents, supports four funding initiatives:

• Personalized Learning: Preparing each student to meet their full potential
• Real World Learning: Equipping students for tomorrow’s challenges
• Elevating Educators: Supporting educators in and out of the classroom 
• Closing the Opportunity Gap: Every child, every chance

“Most of the things we’ve been doing for the last decade or so fall into those priority areas,” Whitley said. “So many people who preceded me and the team and the current board led to where we are now — the incredible work that’s going on now that we are honored to support.” 

The foundation continues its work through:

• Classroom Grants, which support and resource educators with funding for projects and programs. 
• Express Classroom Grants ​that support and resource educators with funding for one-time unanticipated or immediate needs.
• Innovation Grants, a new one-time grant to pilot or scale bold, visionary approaches to teaching, learning and building culture

In addition, the foundation, during the 2025-26 school year, provided more than $200,000 in scholarships to deserving Park City High School seniors and helped 20 other school entities such as high school clubs and activities raise nearly $100,000 during Live PC Give PC, Park City’s day of fundraising, which benefited the district’s 4,200 students.

Some grants also paved the way for new initiatives, Whitley said.

“We seeded the funding for the pre-school program and the expansion made possible by the school district’s investment in growing the program and also the community through a bond to build new facilities,” she said. “Over the course of last year and this year, the program offers a full-day preschool for 3 and 4 year olds at every elementary school.”

The Education Foundation is able to support these initiatives with donations through three fundraisers — Live PC Give PC, Running with Ed and the Red Apple Gala, Whitley said. 

“Our budget this year is $1.8 million in programmatic support,” she said. “That includes grants, but also programs we fund like Bright Futures.”

Educator Joanna Andres, Utah State Board of Education’s 2026 Teacher of the Year and Park City School District’s 2025 Educator of the Year, has seen first-hand how the foundation benefits teachers in a couple of ways.

“One end of the spectrum is teacher outreach and teacher elevation,” she said. “When I won Educator of the Year, one of my missions was to elevate teachers, specifically teacher leaders in the district, so they feel recognized.”

Andres, who teaches AP Concurrent Enrollment Government and criminal law, asked the Education Foundation for a way to help support her efforts in recognizing teacher leaders throughout the district.

“That was a neat endeavor they funded,” she said. “I had everyone fill out a survey, and they nominated different teachers, and through a grant from the Ed Foundation, I bought gifts for them, and then we got together and read quotes other teachers said about these leaders.”

The outreach also led to more students signing up for Andres’ AP classes.

“Last year I taught five classes that averaged 28 to 30 students, and this year I’ll have six classes,” she said.

The foundation is currently helping Andres connect with those students, by funding T-shirts that say, “Political Scientist.”

That may sound silly, but those shirts make the students feel like they are part of a political science community,” she said. “So, the Ed Foundation has benefited my students on a smaller scale to benefiting my colleagues in the whole district — from seeing my students’ morale when they show up on testing day wearing that shirt en masse to seeing my colleagues cry when they are recognized by their peers.”

Andres began working at the Park City School District in 2019 after moving to Utah in 2017.

“I started my teaching career in public education in California and worked in big and small districts,” she said. “I also taught abroad and worked in a charter school, prior to coming to Utah, and I’ve never taught in a place that was supported by a nonprofit such as the Education Foundation.”

While teaching in California, Andres would fill out grant applications for funds that were provided by the respective school districts.

“I’d submit the requests if we had a special lesson plan or wanted to research something, but it was hard to get the support,” she said. “Here in Park City, I can’t think of a subject or a school that has not been touched by the Ed Foundation.”

Whitley knows being an educator today is oftentimes a thankless job.

“There is so much that happens outside of the school day that I don’t think people understand,” she said. “You work very long hours. You have a caseload of (hundreds) of students, and you have to read all of their essays and grade each of their exams. So, I like to think we play a small role in elevating and showcasing our educators.”

Andres doesn’t think the Education Foundation’s role is “small.”

“The year I won Educator of the Year, I had never felt so celebrated as a teacher, as a professional, in my entire career,” she said. “To know it was my colleagues, my students, the district and the foundation was a life-changing moment for me. Even teachers who are nominated but don’t get the award are sent an email that contains what their peers said about them. All the things the Ed Foundation does around that is uplifting in itself.”

Whitley is grateful for the community’s support, especially for the Doilney and Louis families who sponsor the Educator of the Year awards.

“It’s our pleasure and an honor to do this,” she said.

This upcoming school year will have its own set of challenges, especially since education has seemingly been under attack by the powers that be.

Not only has the current administration’s office of management and budget slowed down more than $2 billion for 28 approved education programs nationwide, it also proposed a $2.3 billion cut for programs such as professional development, English-learning services and after-school grants, according to Education Weekly.

“I feel so much is thrown at educators, especially with changing legislation,” Whitley said. “The constant change can be a recipe for burnout and frustration for educators. So we want to be here to support whatever comes down the pipe that calls on teachers and the district to change practices that they’ve gotten familiar with, whether we do it through classroom grants or rolling out schoolwide programs.”

Andres is comforted to know the Park City Education Foundation has her and her colleagues’ backs.

“I think the Ed Foundation brings light whenever there is darkness,” she said. “If you’re at issue with legislation, a mandate or whatever frustration you are experiencing, this is an organization that listens, insulates teachers and provides a place of positivity in conjunction with the district. I have said multiple times in several speaking engagements that I know how lucky I am to work in this district and have the support of the Ed Foundation.”  

For information about the Park City Education Foundation, visit pcef4kids.org.

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Senior Kohler Rauzi wasn’t sure at first whether to attend Wasatch High School or the new Deer Creek High School, but the new school offered an opportunity impossible to pass up.

“There are no traditions, no stories that everyone tells, no expectations and no culture. But we get to create all of that,” he said at Deer Creek High School’s ribbon cutting ceremony and open house on Wednesday. 

The $169 million school is ready to welcome students on Aug. 18. Only a few finishing touches to the theater are left to do.

Former Wasatch School District Superintendent Paul Sweat noted at the ceremony that the building will soon turn into a “living organism” where students will build their futures. 

The first signs of life could be seen at the open house. Aspiring athletes mimed making shots on the basketball court. 

Students wandered into health sciences teacher Jordanne Davidson’s classroom for a demonstration of the new Anatomage table — used to dissect digitized cadavers — and left the room either green in the face or with a gleam in their eyes. 

Meanwhile, members of the student government were hard at work enlisting elementary schoolers to their cause, asking them to pledge to be a Deer Creek Riverhawk instead of a Wasatch Wasp when they grow up.

Rauzi, the student government’s vice president, wants to create a culture in which every student feels seen. He believes the easiest way to do that is by starting conversations. 

Rauzi started his high school experience somewhat isolated from his peers.

“When I was a freshman, I spent a lot of time in the front office, not because I was in trouble, but because my best friends were the ladies who worked there,” he said.

Eventually, a few seniors who frequented the office took him under their wings. Rauzi forged friendships with them that lasted even after they had graduated.

“They probably have no idea how much those simple conversations meant to me,” he said.

Now a senior himself, Rauzi hopes to start those conversations with other students. He’s done the math: If each of the student government’s 28 members befriended 47 of their peers, then every student at Deer Creek High School would have someone in their corner.

Ensuring that every teen gets care and attention is why the Wasatch County School District set out to build its second high school in the first place. 

Deer Creek High School Principal Justin Kelly, formerly principal of Wasatch High School, said, “It was sad to me at graduation that a student would come across the stage, and I would think, ‘I don’t know their name, and I can’t remember seeing them very much.’”

With more than 2,700 students enrolled at Wasatch High School last year, forgetting a few students’ names is inevitable. This upcoming academic year, that population has been halved, with the high schools’ enrollment numbers within only two students of each other, according to Superintendent Garrick Peterson.

Peterson added that at-risk students will be especially impacted by the second high school.

“We’re going to be able to have kids coming to school, and their names are going to be known better. Their struggles are going to be known better. We’re going to be able to react to them better,” he said. “If we can make a difference for just a few of those kids and change their lives forever and start to change their stories, there’s power to that.”

With smaller class and club sizes, students at Wasatch High School and Deer Creek High School have been eager this year to try new things, said school board member Breanne Dedrickson.

“I know kids in my own neighborhood who wouldn’t have gone out for student government before, but they thought, ‘Man, there’s extra spots. I don’t know if anyone’s going to try it at Deer Creek. I’m going to try it.’ And they got involved for the first time in something they never tried before,” she said. “That’s what this is about.”

Student government adviser Jessica Firth explained that the students have been planning the high school’s first year since May. They’ve designed merchandise, planned a spirit week and come up with cheers for football games that tease, “You wish you were a Riverhawk!”

Members of the student government hope there’s more to their relationship with Wasatch High School than a friendly rivalry on the football field.

“They were our people just a few months ago,” Firth said. “We have goals to do service projects with the Wasatch student government and keep connections so that we’re not just rivals, but we’re also collaborators.”

The motto the students came up with, “Together we soar,” was in line with the Riverhawk mascot.

“We don’t want anybody to feel like they’re doing this alone,” Firth said. 

Wasatch County has come a long way since its first Wasatch High School, a 20-by-40-foot building built in 1908, as former Superintendent Sweat pointed out. The school district has since moved the high school to new buildings twice — first in 1964, then again in 2009 — to meet the needs of the community. The opening of the Deer Creek High School continues the trend of cultivating the Heber Valley’s greatest resource: its children. 

To Sweat, the two high schools embody a quote from philosopher and educator John Dewey: “What the best and wisest parent wants for his child, that must we want for all the children of the community. Anything less is unlovely, and left unchecked, destroys our democracy.”

The post Wasatch County’s second high school opens appeared first on Park Record.

The parents of two students who reportedly faced racial discrimination while attending Ecker Hill Middle School and Treasure Mountain Junior High School are suing the Park City School District and former Superintendent Jill Gildea for allegedly failing to protect their children from bullying and harassment.

The lawsuit, filed in Third District Court last week, said the couple’s daughter experienced at least four “instances of harassment based on her race” while attending Ecker Hill Middle School from 2022 to 2024. Her older brother, who attended Ecker Hill and Treasure Mountain Junior High School, experienced at least 17 instances of harassment from 2020 to 2024, according to the lawsuit.

The complaint claimed the parents reported each incident to the school district, including the use of racial slurs and sexual comments. It also referred to a 2024 investigation conducted by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, which reported “77 documented incidents of students engaging in racially offensive conduct.”

The children named in last week’s filing were involved in the federal investigation, with the Office of Civil Rights specifically studying the family’s reports as part of its analysis, according to the lawsuit.

“(The Office of Civil Rights) found the accumulation of confirmed incidents of race-based harassment, antisemitic harassment and sexual harassment … created a hostile environment based on race, national origin and sex for specific students that limited their access to education,” the complaint said.

The federal report also declared the school district had not taken “effective steps to eliminate a hostile environment” because it failed to investigate all alleged incidents.

The family’s children suffered from anxiety and depression and were afraid of attending classes, according to the lawsuit. One child had to attend an inpatient treatment program to cope with the stress, and both require mental health support for ongoing anxiety.

The complaint said the children “have been damaged” because of the district’s “failures under the leadership of Jill Gildea.” The document alleged the district did not maintain records of student-to-student harassment, as federal law requires, and that employees were not trained on how to maintain or investigate reports of abuse or bullying.

“The behaviors outlined above constitute clear violations of both Title VI and Title IX, which require recipients of federal funds to maintain an environment free of discrimination, harassment and retaliatory practices,” the lawsuit said. “Additionally, Park City School District and Jill Gildea failed to take timely and appropriate corrective measures after these incidents were reported, which exacerbated the harm experienced.”

The document claimed Park City School District administrators and employees violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by discriminating against the children “on the basis of race.” It said school officials had documentation and reports of “ongoing offensive racial misconduct,” but employees “exhibited deliberate indifference” to the family’s complaints.

“(Park City School District) and Superintendent Jill Gildea had the authority and ability to investigate and take meaningful corrective action to end or prevent future racial profiling and misconduct … but they failed to do so,” the lawsuit said. “PCSD, by its acts and omissions, created a racially hostile educational climate where offensive racial misconduct was tolerated and minimized.”

The district did not offer psychological resources, counseling or academic assistance to the children despite the family’s repeated reports of discrimination, the document said.

“PCSD has maintained policies … and training which allows, tolerates or tacitly condones racial discrimination against students, leading to the violation of protected constitutional rights,” the lawsuit continued.

The family is entitled to compensation because of the “emotional distress, fear, anxiety and trauma; lost future earnings and earning capacity; and expenses for past and future medical and psychological care,” the document claimed.

The complaint requested Third District Judge Patricia Kuendig award the family at least $300,000 in compensatory damages, as well as attorney fees and other costs to be determined at trial.

The school district declined to comment on the case, citing a policy prohibiting officials from remarking on ongoing litigation.

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Any notions of Heber Valley’s agricultural industry being on its last legs are quickly shattered with a tour of Wasatch High School’s 1-acre farm.

Two adolescent goats curiously poke their heads through fences in a secluded barn. Greenery sprouts everywhere, both outdoors and in the greenhouse: mint and rose hips, watermelon beginnings and plump cherry tomatoes that students pluck for a sneaky snack while they work.

The labor is constant. Even in the July heat, a handful of students kneel on the ground, weeding the landscape instead of taking refuge in the air-conditioned indoors.

Tending to the farm is the students’ summer job, and they’re compensated well for it — $13 an hour, matched by $13 an hour set aside in a scholarship fund.

Agriculture teacher Matthew Zierenberg launched the farm, Ideal Farms, five years ago as a way to give his students hands-on experience and summer employees with a gateway to university.

“A lot of kids that come and work are not your typical … generational-wealth kids,” he said. “When we hire kids, we look for the kids (for whom) there’s a real need.”

The employees’ salaries and scholarships are funded entirely from revenue generated by Ideal Farms, which sells its wares to local vendors, including the Utah Department of Natural Resources. 

The farm has generated about $400,000 in its five years of operation, according to Zierenberg. Anything that does not pay for student employees rolls back into the farm’s continued operation. 

Zierenberg’s local advocacy for agriculture has not gone unnoticed. This month, the National Future Farmers of America Organization named Zierenberg a national teacher ambassador for the upcoming school year. While most states have multiple ambassadors — as many as six, in Texas’ case — Zierenberg is the sole ambassador in Utah. 

Zierenberg will provide training and resources to fellow agriculture teachers, assisting them in establishing work-based learning programs and tweaking national curricula to be relevant to Utah’s unique agricultural industry.

“Agriculture’s not just corn and animals. Agriculture is all the timber and the rangeland and the ranching that we do here, wildland firefighting, keeping our forests healthy, prescribed burns and all that kind of stuff,” he said. 

Zierenberg will also continue as an advocate for agricultural education in Utah.

“We see a lot of pressure from our Legislature right now. They’re looking to cut certain programs, and the summer ag is always right there on that (chopping block),” he said. “Luckily, we’ve kept it, but we want to make that a lot stronger and show this is hugely beneficial to our students as they go on to their future careers. But it’s also helping them to give back and build an economy right here in our state, right now.”

Recent graduate Trey Torres worked in the summer agriculture program all four of his years at Wasatch High School. The money he has earned will help fund his entomology studies, as soon as he can pin down which university to attend.

If Torres’ passion for insects was not apparent by his T-shirt reading, “Easily Distracted By Ants,” it shines through in his voice as he talks about the ant colonies he keeps in his room. 

“The first thing I remember, I ate a roly poly. That was I think where it started,” he said, half joking. 

In taking various agriculture classes and working on the farm in the summer, Torres has earned valuable skills — time management, teamwork and leadership — that will stay with him as he pursues his creepy-crawly career.

Seventeen-year-old Zadie Mitchell said something similar about her experience growing tomatoes.

“We had tomatoes at the beginning, but they really weren’t good, so we had to start over and plant different kinds and learn how to problem solve,” she said. “I think that’s a really useful skill in the future because you’re always going to run into problems.”

For Zierenberg, the appeal of teaching agriculture is instilling grit and critical thinking in students. 

He has been a teacher for 17 years, entirely at Wasatch High School. He’s currently one of five agriculture teachers in the Wasatch County School District. He began by teaching biology, physics and chemistry, later teaching an agricultural biology class. Within a few years, he’d transitioned completely to the agriculture program. 

Zierenberg found the constant hands-on learning a welcome change from the sparse, controlled labs in other science classes. Running a farm is also an excellent way to keep students off their phones, both because they’re engaged and their hands are too dirty to touch their screens.

“Meeting the kids with something that’s real is the key, and that’s what agriculture does,” he said. “They feed the goats. They’re like, ‘Oh, I have to keep this thing alive. This is real. I actually have to do this. If not, the thing dies.’ You don’t get more real than that.”

Growing plants and raising animals are also excellent Trojan horses for Zierenberg to sneak science concepts into his students’ minds.

“(In growing apples,) we talk about the roots, the shoots, the gibberellins, all the stuff that goes into raising a tree and raising healthy plants,” he said. “We bring all that science into it. But they see it as, ‘I’m learning to make apple sauce!’”

The high school’s agriculture program also teaches students about sustainability. 

Zierenberg’s students in the agricultural track of the high school’s Center for Advanced Professional Studies are installing solar panels on the farm to fuel its entire electrical output. The walls of the goats’ barn are lined with recycled Plexiglass instead of plywood. And the greenhouse uses a closed-loop aquaponic system. The students look after goldfish and koi, whose waste becomes fertilizer for plants. In return, the plants clean the water pumped back into the fish’s tank.

“It’s basically an ecosystem just running right here. We take the benefit of fish waste and put it into growing lettuce and tomatoes,” Zierenberg said.

Students learn how to take care of the environment through the projects they participate in through the agriculture program. 

They’ve sold thousands of willows to the Division of Wildlife Resources to plant along rivers to regenerate stream banks eroded by overgrazing or wildfires. They’ve raised thousands of chukar partridges for Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife to sustainably hunt. 

Not all of Ideal Farms’ projects make a profit. Students are currently growing trees to replace native plants destroyed by construction at the new Deer Creek High School. They also donate lettuce and tomatoes to local food banks every year. 

While agriculture has certainly shrunk in the Heber Valley, Zierenberg is consistently surprised by the popularity of the high school’s program. 

“Some of them, they come from legacy farm families here in the valley. So their grandparents owned a dairy. I mean, we had 40 dairies in this valley at one time,” he said. “Their parents skipped a generation, and we just see this resurgence … that interest in learning about where their families come from.”

The waitlist for Wasatch High School’s agriculture program is constant, Zierenberg said. The program will expand to accommodate more students when Deer Creek High School opens next month.

Zierenberg said it’s hands-on learning that draws in most students, even those with nothing more than a passing interest in agriculture. He said he hopes that even his students who do not go into the industry remember the National Future Farmers of America Organization’s motto as they cultivate their futures: “Learning to do, doing to learn, earning to live and living to serve.”

The post Wasatch High School teacher stands out as Utah’s lone ambassador of agricultural education appeared first on Park Record.

The Park City School District is bolstering its elementary programs in the fall with four licensed art teachers and two new social workers, aiming to improve the arts experience and provide more support for struggling students.

The school board approved the additional positions last month as part of its budgeting process for the upcoming school year. Superintendent Lyndsay Huntsman said this week that the Park City Education Foundation has historically funded portions of the visual arts program, and the district wanted to shift the financial responsibility to its budget instead of the nonprofit’s.

“That was an effort to off-ramp some of the funding the Education Foundation has provided for us, essentially in perpetuity, which is not the goal,” Huntsman said. “They live and breathe to provide seed funding for us to innovate and enhance our student experience, not to fund things in perpetuity, so we’re able to free up some dollars for them to do more innovative programming.”

The district will retain its partnership with Kimball Art Center, but it is ending the parent-led volunteer art program at Jeremy Ranch Elementary School. Each of the district’s four elementary schools will instead have a licensed art instructor.

The elementary schools will also have designated social workers on campus. Previously, two social workers split their time between the four schools, which Huntsman said was ineffective if a student was in crisis because there was no guarantee a social worker would be in the building instead of across town at a different elementary school.

Now, the district’s six schools, including the middle and high schools, will have a full-time social worker stationed on campus daily.

The new positions are included in the district’s $79 million budget for next school year, which is $44 million lower than the budget approved for the 2025-26 school year. Business Administrator Randy Upton said the district has been able to lower its budget — and avoid a tax increase for the second year in a row — by repurposing funds when employees leave, or programs end.

“We’re continually scrubbing programs because maybe a previous person knew what that budget was for, but there’s not a need for it anymore,” Upton said. “We’ll be aggressive about expenditures, and we’re trying to be a little more conservative on revenues.”

Upton said the budget is also lower because multiple expenses over the past few years have been a one-time occurrence, such as the construction of the Treasure Mountain Sports Complex or the renovation of Dozier Field.

Huntsman said there were no cuts for next year, but the district has been combining or eliminating certain positions if an employee leaves or retires.

“It really is dependent on what that individual was doing,” she said. “As we’ve consolidated into six schools versus seven, we’re recognizing that people may be able to take on more because we’re streamlining our efforts across the six sites.”

Upton said the budget was built with an enrollment decline of 55 students in mind, which has been a trend in the Park City School District. He said the decline may affect the budget, but likely not until next year.

“The bulk of our funding for the new year is based on membership for the prior year,” Upton said. “We haven’t built in any growth as far as students are concerned.”

The state Legislature sets the base budget amount for districts, which then becomes a “moving target” as administrators work to adjust it according to enrollment, payroll costs and other factors, like contributions from the Park City Education Foundation. Upton said the budget is often revisited multiple times each year, with the board approving changes or minor shifts as more information becomes available.

Upton emphasized the district’s “valiant effort” to repurpose funds instead of raising property taxes, praising Huntsman and the rest of the administrative team for approaching the budget with a “strategic” mindset.

“For the taxpayer, for the parent who has a student in our district, you can sleep at night knowing we’re providing them a great education and being fiscal stewards because the fact is we haven’t raised taxes for two years, we’ve been able to give employees raises and we’re working on repurposing funds rather than just saying, ‘Give us more,’” Upton said.

Huntsman said investing in people is always the district’s priority because it gives students a better education.

“We’ve been really good about buying all the shiny new things because there’s always a shiny new thing in education, but that’s not what has the most impact on students,” she said. “The greatest impact is that relationship with a caring adult and the skills they’re acquiring when they’re in that classroom setting. We don’t need to go out and buy all these trinkets, so to speak, to educate our kids. What we need to do is build the capacity of the people we have to ensure the highest quality of education.”

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The Wasatch County School District could increase its general fund by $11 million for the upcoming fiscal year, without raising property taxes.

The general fund includes expenditures for supplies, textbooks, equipment and professional development, but the biggest piece of the pie is salaries and benefits, which make up about $122 million of the nearly $136 million total. 

All categories of general fund will see some increase in fiscal year 2027.

Some new costs include the school district’s addition of a childcare facility in Deer Creek High School for school district employees to use and increased spending on early literacy programs. The majority of the spending increase, $10 million, will go to salaries and benefits, including 4% raises for employees.

“We have nearly 1,200 employees now. Obviously, our most valuable and most costly resource is our people,” said Business Administrator Jason Watt. “The board has prioritized this in recent years as a way to attract and retain high-quality educators.”

The increase also accounts for new hires at Deer Creek High School, which opens in August. 

While most staffing occurred by divvying up existing Wasatch High School staff between the two schools, some roles necessitated hiring externally. For example, it would be impractical to divide one theater teacher between two high schools. 

Watt said the school district hired eight teachers, as well as custodial and maintenance staff, secretaries, an instructional coach, a librarian, an athletic director, a Hispanic liaison, school resource officers and a nurse.

With the new high school also comes increased spending on transportation, maintenance and utilities. None of that will necessitate an increase in property taxes, which make up about two-thirds of the school district’s budget.

“We have been budgeting for this year for some time,” Watt said. “We are really pleased that we are able to cover those additional costs with existing revenues and will not be approaching the public for additional revenues through the truth in taxation process.”

While general fund expenditures are increasing since the previous fiscal year, the school district will spend less money overall this upcoming fiscal year. The school district spent over $250 million in fiscal year 2026, and estimates spending about $193 million in fiscal year 2027.

The primary reason for that decrease is a reduction in capital project spending. The district spent $111 million last fiscal year — largely to construct Deer Creek High School — and will spend $41 million in the upcoming year.

The school board held a public hearing on June 16, during which two school district employees made comments in support of the budget.

Wasatch High School Assistant Principal Drew Camps Wofford expressed her excitement about Deer Creek High School and the new childcare program while holding her toddler, Scout.

“As a parent, (I’m) super stoked to have kids … in a district where you know that they’re doing the right things to take care of our kids while I’m taking care of other people,” she said.

Wasatch High School agricultural science teacher Kody Clyde thanked the school board for its “continued support and confidence in teachers.”

“I can promise that the teachers will continue to take care of the community’s greatest resource, which is, of course, the students. You will continue to see an increase in student academic performance. I can also assure you that Wasatch will continue to be the best district in the state,” he said. “I personally would like to thank you for my job. I feel so lucky to have the greatest career in the greatest community.”

The school board will meet June 29 at 6:30 p.m. to vote on adopting the budget. The meeting will include an opportunity for public comment.

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Mercy Housing and the YMCA of Northern Utah have proposed an affordable housing complex in Trailside designed specifically for Park City School District teachers and staff that would also include educational and childcare amenities for Summit County residents.

Rich West, CEO of the YMCA branch and a longtime resident of the Park City area, said his organization partnered with Mercy Housing on a project in the Salt Lake Valley. As the two companies worked together, he realized they could potentially address a portion of the housing affordability issue in Summit County through a specialized development focusing on educators.

“The YMCA has always been about nurturing the potential of all kids, promoting healthy living and fostering a sense of social responsibility,” West said. “We’re not just the gym and fitness center that most people think of.”

Mercy Housing is a national nonprofit dedicated to the creation of affordable housing. Its headquarters are in Denver, Colorado, and it has developed 25,000 affordable housing units across 342 properties since its inception in 1981.

“We like to work closely with the community and identify housing needs,” said Kuhl Brown, Mercy Housing’s regional vice president of real estate development. “We raise those funds. We build very high quality sustainable housing, and we’ve got housing with services for the particular residents we are housing, so if it’s senior, we do senior living housing. If it’s family focused, we do financial literacy and educational attainment.”

Brown said Mercy Housing typically offers rental units priced at least $300 to $500 below market rate. He pointed to an educator housing complex the nonprofit developed in Palo Alto, California, that provided units at a price between the 60% and 120% area median income marks.

The tentative proposal to the school board on Tuesday suggested building 100 to 200 apartment units and townhomes on the district’s 55-acre Trailside property, with one-, two-, three- and four-bedroom options. Brown emphasized that the leases for rental units run for 12 months, meaning the complex could not be used for nightly rentals or short-term leases.

Brown also said there is an opportunity for Mercy Housing to include options for homeownership through a partnership with Habitat for Humanity, although there are no formal agreements between the two nonprofits at this point.

Summit County residents, not just teachers, could apply to live in the complex, too, but a number of units would likely be reserved for Park City School District employees. Mercy Housing would also include an early childhood learning center on the first floor of the complex, which would provide childcare and educational services to families with young children.

Mercy Housing would be responsible for maintenance, upkeep and renovations of the building.

“What we’re asking for is the school district’s land, but we’re not asking for the school district to help pay for the capital or the operations of this,” West said.

West and the YMCA would be involved in the development through the creation of a regional YMCA hub, which would be built on the same property. The facility would offer all-ages programming, as well as summer camps and indoor practice fields for various sports.

However, West acknowledged that the Snyderville Basin Special Recreation District is working toward similar indoor sporting facilities on the Cline Dahle parcel in Jeremy Ranch and its Silver Creek Village property. He said it would be important for the YMCA to keep tabs on Basin Recreation’s plans to ensure the two organizations aren’t duplicating any services.

“It’s owned and operated by the YMCA, but the whole point of the YMCA is partnering with everyone in the community,” West said.

If the school district is interested in the project, West said the nonprofits would need to conduct a formal community-needs assessment, market research study and feasibility study before acquiring approval on a site plan and starting construction. He estimated it would take a year to complete the three studies and that the project would not be completed for another three to five years.

The school board seemed curious about the proposal, with President Meredith Reed expressing excitement about the idea of ownership opportunities for Park City educators in particular. However, the school board did not make an official decision regarding its interest level and instead agreed to further discussions with Mercy Housing and the YMCA in the future.

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Every year, 78-year-old Rocky Mountain Middle School custodian Dean Davis swears he’ll retire, but he always comes up with some reason not to. 

His latest, morbid excuse? 

“I’m looking for two holes (for my wife, Carol, and me) to get buried in. And when I get them all paid for (then I’ll retire),” he said.

But Jade Chavez, the middle school’s Spanish liaison and secretary, isn’t taking any excuses from Davis this year. That’s why she organized a GoFundMe for community members to help fund her friend’s retirement. 

Chavez has worked at the school for three years; Davis for 18. The pair are usually the last people in the building on a given school day, so they’ve gotten pretty close.

“I love learning about him, and he gives me advice,” Chavez said. 

Davis experiences daily pain in his legs, hands and back, but never complains and rarely takes a sick day. 

“This body of mine, it doesn’t know how to quit,” Davis said. 

Some of his health issues stem from a battle with stage IV colon cancer 18 years ago.

“They took a big ball out of me, like a baseball,” he said about his tumor. “I came out of that alive, but I keep telling my wife I’m dead. When you get cancer, and when you get all them treatments, it takes a lot out of you.”

Namely, over a year of chemotherapy left him with peripheral neuropathy, an umbrella term for conditions involving damage to the nerves outside of the brain and spinal cord. Symptoms include numbness, tingling and pain.

“It gets you in your hands and your feet up to your knees almost, and you can’t walk that great. That’s how come I have problems,” he said. “I take medicines for it, but you always have pain.”

Like a 31-year-old “big sister,” as Davis put it, Chavez is always giving her friend a hard time for overexerting himself — for example, when the 78-year-old custodian climbs onto countertops to dust out of reach spots or skips meals. 

“He shouldn’t be working, and he’s always in pain,” Chavez said. “The first year I started working here, I asked him, ‘How would you feel if I made a TikTok about you?’ And he did not like that. So, I want to respect that and not do it, but I did it now because I just can’t see him like that.”

When Davis learned about the GoFundMe, he was embarrassed.

“Having people look at me like, ‘Oh, he’s old. He should be retired’? No, that’s not me,” he said.

As Chavez put it, she organized the fundraiser not because Davis has to retire, but because he deserves to.

Davis has been working ever since he graduated from Grantsville High School in Tooele County six decades ago. He milked cows at a local dairy for 32 years. Then he worked maintenance and custodial jobs for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Lucas Aerospace in Park City, Bear Creek Country Kitchens in Heber City and the Zermatt Utah Resort & Spa in Midway. 

When Davis tried to imagine his retirement, all he could think of was more work. He plans to spend his days pulling weeds in his backyard. He can’t see himself “sitting in the house all day long watching television.”

But when pushed, he admitted he’d like to travel to Georgia and Iowa to visit family. Montana and Idaho, just for fun. He might even go on an Alaskan cruise with his wife, who has been begging him to retire.

“I think she put her up to it,” Davis said, pointing to Chavez.

He’ll also, of course, spend some time planning his funeral. He’d like his hearse to be his baby blue 1986 Dodge Ram pickup truck, which he inherited from his father when he died in 2000. Somehow, the car has only 88,000 miles on it.

“I want to use it for the coffin … and let somebody step on the gas, and I go flying out,” he joked. 

Davis’ retirement GoFundMe has already raised nearly $6,000 and can be found at tinyurl.com/y38wn3pu.

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Hands hovering over buzzers, four Wasatch High School students in military uniform answered obscure trivia questions asked by retired Air Force Lt. Colonel Denise Harris.

“The ancient ouroboros motif shows,” Harris began, before junior Joe Grayson hit the buzzer, answering that a serpent eats its own tail.

Other questions left the quartet stumped, like when they were asked to name the novels “Mrs. Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf and “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe based on only a few plot details.

These four students — sophomores Hilary Palmer and Jonas Bevan and juniors Emilia Charlton and Grayson — are participants in the Leadership & Academic Bowl, a club that is part of the high school’s Air Force Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program, known as JROTC. 

On Friday, they will be traveling to Washington, D.C., with their instructors as the only Academic Bowl team in Utah to advance to this year’s national finals at The Catholic University of America. 

JROTC, an elective course with voluntary after-school clubs and service projects, uses the roleplaying of military service to instill self-discipline, civic engagement and leadership in student “cadets.”

Wasatch High School’s Air Force JROTC unit began in 2017. It’s the only one in the Wasatch Back and has about 70 cadets currently enrolled.

The elective course teaches the expected, such as the history and science of aviation, as well as other, less military-specific lessons, like how to fill out a college application, land a job interview or manage finances.

“We’re just trying to build future citizens that can affect their community in a positive way, giving them the tools to be a good human. … Learn how to be a follower. Learn how to be a team player. Learn how to be a leader,” Harris explained. “We hope they just become better people. They don’t have to become better military people, but just better people.”

Some clubs within JROTC focus on physical fitness, marksmanship or cyber security. 

Meanwhile, the Academic Bowl was created to prepare students for the ACT or SAT standardized tests they take in their junior year. Cadets answer questions in categories including math, English, science, social studies, financial literacy, college readiness and current events. Math, Harris said, is always the trickiest subject.

All students in Wasatch High School’s Air Force JROTC unit take the Academic Bowl practice test at the beginning of the year, but often it is only those who performed exceptionally well who decide to join Academic Bowl. 

Advancing to nationals involves making it past two rounds of tests. Sixteen Air Force/Space Force JROTC units will be advancing to nationals out of the 715 who took the first test. 

These 16 teams will compete against each other this weekend to determine which will represent the Air Force in the final round against the top teams in other military branches of JROTC, including Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Coast Guard.

Wasatch High School’s Academic Bowl team advanced to the national competition and got second place in the Air Force qualifier in 2022 and 2023. 

“It was a race to the buzzer,” Harris said about the final tiebreaker question in the 2023 competition.

Harris and the cadets this year are hoping to take home the gold — and its prize of bragging rights. But, Harris noted, they’ve already won in a sense: Outside of souvenirs and meals, their trip was entirely paid for by the College Options Foundation, the organization that runs the Academic Bowl.

The thing that excites Grayson most about the trip is meeting other cadets from across the United States and its territories. He said he was “timid” when he joined JROTC as a freshman. Now, he’s a more confident leader — but still calls himself “antisocial and an introvert,” despite his obvious love for his teammates.

“The people, in general, are the main reasons I stick around. It’s like a second family to me,” he said.

Grayson will likely join the Army or Marines after high school. 

Cadets Palmer and Bevan are also looking forward to military service. 

Palmer wants to join the Air Force as a stepping stone toward becoming an anesthesiologist. Military scholarships, she hopes, will help her pay for medical school.

Palmer is the commander of the Academic Bowl team. She said JROTC has made her someone more willing to serve others, stand up for what’s right and be a leader. She recently became cheer captain, a role she doesn’t think she would have volunteered for if she hadn’t flexed her leadership muscles in JROTC.

Meanwhile, Bevan has wanted to join the Navy ever since he was a kid listening to stories from a Navy SEAL neighbor about the excitement and grueling physical training. 

Additionally, Bevan’s father is a foreign service officer, meaning Bevan has lived in countries like Gabon, China and Albania for much of his life. He’s lived with his grandparents in Wasatch County since his freshman year, when his father was stationed in the Central African Republic.

“We always lived in embassies, and there were a lot of families near us (with) parents who spent time in the military or were working for the Department of Defense while working at the embassy. So, I was just surrounded by veterans or current military officers. I grew up with a lot of those people,” Bevan said.

He added that learning military protocol and ceremonies, like how to march or fold an American flag, have prepared him for what he’ll deal with in the actual military. 

“I’ll be ahead of kids in the future when I do join,” he said.

Three years of JROTC service also equates to two promotions in any branch other than the Marine Corps as soon as a student enlists, according to Harris.

That’s why JROTC models the actual military as much as possible, which can be a sticking point for students and parents alike. Cadets must follow a military dress code, right down to their haircuts, and those who are even 30 seconds late to the first-period class must request permission to enter the classroom and explain why they are late.

“You’re following a system. You’re learning discipline,” Harris explained. “We’re trying to build you into a person that’s going to succeed when you leave here, so we’re taking the training wheels off.”

She said the values JROTC instills are useful no matter what career path a cadet chooses.

Charlton, for example, joined JROTC three years ago because she was dead set on becoming an FBI agent and had heard that military service would be a good gateway into that career. 

She’s since changed her mind and isn’t sure what she wants to do with her career, but she’s stayed in JROTC all the same.

Charlton was a bit of a British fish out of water when her family moved from England to Utah seven years ago, all so her father could pursue his dream of becoming a ski instructor in Park City.

The culture shock first came with bathrooms being inexplicably referred to as restrooms, then, the food, and finally, her American peers, who seemed, by and large, more extroverted and bold than she was.

By the beginning of high school, she found company in literature more often than people and wasn’t sure how to prepare for the ACT or navigate the differences in university here versus in England. 

JROTC helped her with all of those problems — culminating in an above average score on the ACT this year — all while giving her an outlet to express her love for literature in Academic Bowl. 

“Every Tuesday, we’re answering questions and laughing,” she said. “It’s just super fun because then you’re shouting, ‘Oh, I know this answer!’ and then you’re arguing about it, and you’re just sort of making fun of each other. It’s that companionship.”

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