CEDAR CITY — The boundaries of Iron County School District’s two newest school board seats have officially been set, with the candidate filing deadline just over two weeks away.
As previously reported in Cedar City News, the Iron County Commission initially had three different maps under consideration, each of which created two new school board districts to bring the number of school board seats to seven.
The change was required by a Utah law that mandates school districts with more than 10,000 students (but fewer than 24,000) to have seven members on their board, rather than five. Iron County schools reached that threshold in October 2020.
Following a public informational meeting on Feb. 1, it appeared that county officials were leaning toward choosing the map known as Proposal 3.
However, during Monday’s regular meeting of the Iron County Commission, a fourth option was brought forward, primarily in response to concerns raised by some Parowan residents.
That fourth map essentially moved the Summit and Brian Head precincts into the same district as Parowan. The change pushed the overall deviation among the seven districts up to 15.96% instead of Proposal 3’s 8.5%, but Commissioner Mike Bleak called it a “defensible compromise.”
“I think, to keep that community of interest together, that’s more important than just running it strictly by the numbers. I really think it’s defensible,” Bleak said shortly before he and the other two commissioners unanimously voted to approve the map known as Proposal 4.
At Tuesday’s school board work meeting, district officials thanked the county for getting the map worked out and finalized.
“I think we do need to express our appreciation to the county commissioners and to the clerk’s office for all of the effort that they put into this,” said school board member Ben Johnson. “I think they did their best to come up with what’s best for Iron County.”
An interactive map showing the finalized version with color-coded districts and precinct boundaries is available on the county’s website. For a high-quality PDF version of the final map, click here.
The school board seats for the areas designated as District 6 and District 7 on the maps are both open, and interested candidates are encouraged to apply.
The application window for candidates to file starts at 8 a.m. on Feb. 28 and lasts until 5 p.m. on March 4. That’s a week earlier than was originally stated, prior to the recent passage of the Election Schedule Amendments bill, known as SB 170 in the 2022 Utah Legislative session.
Anyone with further questions or who is seeking more information on the filing process is invited to contact the Iron County Clerk’s office at 435-477-8340.
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