Was the boundary process just a theatrical production?

The Davis School District, under the direction of Assistant Superintendent Paul Waite, hired J. Dale Christensen to steer the 39 member citizen based boundary committee. After a judge ruled the district violated the law and required them to start over, they hired Darrel White to draw the boundaries. But was the whole exercise just a theatrical production to give the board and public the perception that the district was open to input?

Here are the facts as we see them:

August 1st School Board Workshop.

• District staff presented that Bountiful High School’s enrollment is declining and they are “bouncing off 3-A status” and “Woods Cross is right where we want them to be” (download: Audio 1 - 2Mb) [Note: WXHS is currently 116% or 190 students over capacity. BHS is currently at 88% or 172 under capacity (see projections) ]
• The solution or Staff Plan was to move North Farmington to Viewmont and turn the south end of Viewmont boundaries into a “flag lot” by moving all the nearby neighborhoods to Bountiful High School. The speaker admits that the Staff Plan will be contentious but “none of these are insurmountable”. The Staff Plan appears to be virtually the same plan that was presented 3 months later to the School Board on November 7th (download: Audio 2 - 2Mb & Map4).
• The School Board’s clear directive, was for the 39-member Boundary Committee to evaluate the needs in the south to “see if there is a solution that is better than the status quo” (download: Audio 3 - 3Mb). Had the meeting of the Boundary Committee been open, you would know:
  i. The committee was never informed of your directive.
  ii. Two of the three sub-committees did not recommend moving more Farmington students to Viewmont (see maps AA, BB & CC).
  iii. Ten members, including the Community Council representatives from BHS, VHS and DHS and the Region III PTA Director, signed a statement that they “do not feel moving any North Farmington students to Viewmont is a safe solution”.
  iv. At the last meeting of the Planning Committee the district staff re-introduced the Staff Plan and more than 5 hours of debate could not persuade the district to move a single boundary line.
• On January 2nd, when the Board asked consultant Darrel White, how he came up with the target enrollment numbers for each school, he stated that the district staff gave him enrollment numbers. He merely drew the boundaries to achieve the district's target numbers.