Dear Neighbor,

I fully support Orem separating from Alpine School District and forming its own school district. With 86 schools, Alpine is simply too big to fully focus on the specific needs of Orem residents. This point was made crystal clear to me while talking with some county employees recently. Their job is to provide badly needed health care services to low income students in Title I schools. They praised the Provo School District for their supportiveness of the program. Sadly, they expressed frustration at Alpine’s seeming indifference. They even implied that Alpine does not seem to think it has a poverty problem. From a district-wide perspective, it is easy to see why Alpine’s administration might reflect that attitude. Out of 86 regular schools and a handful of specialty schools, Alpine only has 9 Title I schools. 7 of those 9 Title I schools are in Orem. An Orem School district would certainly have the time to give Title I schools, along with many other Orem specific needs, the attention they deserve. For this and many other reasons I will be voting “Yes” on creating the Orem School District.