The folks at Stronger Together, a political issues committee in Orem, are attempting to influence other cities in the valley to stick with the status quo and stay in the “too big to fail” Alpine School District.
This small group of political activists are loyalists to the administration and employees of Alpine School District (ASD), but have not shown the same loyalty to the children and parents of Utah Valley or the quality of their education. Stronger Together has made it abundantly clear they believe bigger is better and they want ASD to maintain its hold on the valley’s schools and students.
However, parents have expressed concerns at public hearings and meetings saying they feel unheard. They say ASD goes through the motions of public meetings for public input on important decisions, but rarely listens to public suggestions or concerns. Rather the district and school board end up doing what they wanted to do in the first place. The two board members in Orem are overtly and extremely loyal to ASD in their public statements both in meetings and on social media, but again not so much to their constituents who elected them.
The group has formed both a Political Issues Committee (PIC) and Political Action Committee (PAC) which allows them to accept donations. One entity may not actively campaign in an election or support candidates (PIC) while the other is designed support political campaigns to raise money on behalf of a candidate or campaign. Doing so allows the group to raise funds to pay for campaign literature, ads, and other expenses. They have used this tactic before.
Stronger Together under the guise of a Political Issues Committee, succeeded in convincing Orem residents to vote no on Proposition 2, a ballot initiative in 2022 that asked voters in Orem if they would like to split from ASD and create an Orem School District. Stronger Together used misleading information in their “Vote NO on Prop 2” campaign telling voters their taxes would increase by over 50%, their teachers would all leave the city for better jobs, schools would be closed, and an Orem School District wasn’t financially feasible, none of which was true. They did a masterful job of mixing truth with partial truths and falsehoods, frightening voters into rejecting the Orem district idea. You can read about Prop 2 and Stronger Together’s involvement HERE.
Now Stronger Together is at it again, but this time other politically active groups are watching, recording, and documenting the rhetoric to make sure the same kind of misinformation campaign isn’t waged again and the residents of Lehi, Saratoga Springs, Eagle Mountain, American Fork, Cedar Hills, Highland, Alpine, and Draper can determine their own destiny regarding the educational needs of their kids.
It is noteworthy that 10 cities of the 14 that reside within the Alpine School District boundaries voted unanimously to leave the district and put the idea to a vote in this November election. The Mayors and City Council Representatives of these 10 cities came together in a rare show of unity on a subject that has been the center of contention and disagreement for years. This is truly unprecedented. They have done the research and have all determined creating their own district is what’s BEST for their city’s students, teachers, schools, and community, but once again Stronger Together is doing, in these cities, what it did in Orem in 2022 when that city’s leaders had the audacity to question the benefit of being part of ASD and putting the idea of an Orem School District to the voters.