Unique purpose

Jordan School District’s newest school is its most unique school. Juniper Elementary, which opened last month in Herriman, is a fourth through sixth grade school. It is the first school of its kind in Jordan District, built to relieve the overcrowding at Ridge View Elementary, which had 1,170 students and 16 portable classrooms last year.

Unique design

Students, parents and teachers are excited for the school’s large parking lot, reduced drop-off traffic and modern design.

“It’s a brand new school so there’s a lot of new features and new rooms— it’s new, so there’s cooler stuff,” new Juniper student Kaylin Baker said.

The school’s design is different from any other Jordan District school layout because it was designed to be easily transitioned to a secondary school or office spaces, if needed. It has two floors, wide halls, glass walls, and lots of natural light. Students say it feels bigger, quieter, lighter and cleaner.

“With all the glass, it doesn’t feel like we’re closed in with walls like at Ridge View,” sixth-grader Eli Gehrke said. “It feels more open.”

Unique classes

With 530 students, Juniper Elementary is not at full capacity. With more space comes more opportunities. Students have nearly twice as many enrichment rotation classes as they did at Ridge View, with P.E., music, two art curriculums, and two STEM curriculums, each with their own dedicated classroom.

“I like that we have rotations every day instead of once a week,” sixth-grader Lily Bachelor said.

Unique tech

The brand-new school is the first school in Jordan District to provide iPads to each student instead of Chromebooks.

“There’s some fun things I feel like we can do with art and science, technology, engineering, mathematics, part of it through the iPad, so we’re hoping to find some new and fun ways to learn through that technology,” Principal Kaleb Yates said.

Unique leadership

Because of their older ages, students are being given more leadership opportunities and school duties. Fourth graders are taking on the responsibility of being lunch workers, fifth graders are serving on Safety Patrol, and sixth graders are running the student council.

“It’s just a fun age group and they can take on a little more responsibility,” Yates said.

Special Education teacher Mariah Tolman, who previously taught in a sixth-grade classroom at a traditional elementary school, said Juniper students are missing out on opportunities to provide examples of leadership for younger students, but that sometimes that lack of influence is a good thing.

“From first to sixth grade, there’s such a big difference, and sometimes some of the things those sixth-graders do or say around first graders is not great,” she said.

Unique family situations

Dividing the elementary school-aged students into two different schools has affected many families. Callie Cazier’s first-grader and fourth-grader will never attend the same school together.

“This was going to be our time that they got to be together,” she said. “But that’s okay, we’ll try and make the best of it.”

Sixth-grader Taft Smith thinks the separation will be good for his younger brother.

“It can help my brother so that he knows he can do stuff without me,” he said.

Unique transportation

Siblings and friends still see each other on the bus. Juniper Elementary students take the same bus they took last year, which drops-off and picks-up at both schools. Many students who previously walked to school take the bus from Ridge View to Juniper (just a half mile away) to avoid having to cross a busy road.

Unique collaboration

While Ridge View and Juniper operate as separate schools, they will collaborate as necessary.

“The goal is to work as closely as we can with Ridge View, because we share the same boundary, and it’s the same families,” Yates said. “Instead of having families do multiple fundraisers and multiple carnivals, so that we’re not taking up double the time for families, we’re going to try to work together on those things.”

The traditional Back-to-School Carnival is the first of the combined events, scheduled for Sept. 30.

Unique Culture

Sixth-graders on the student council are excited to start school traditions and develop a good school culture. They created a mission statement and vision statement outlining their goals for Juniper Elementary to be a fun and welcoming safe place. Council member Allie Thackeray said things are off to a good start.

“Since it’s more of a new school, people are very nice now and everyone is just very kind— I haven’t seen any excluding or bullying,” she said during the first week of school.

Yates said his staff also already has a good culture, since the majority of the teachers at Juniper came from Ridge View, where they were already working together.

Unique first day

The differences between a traditional K-sixth elementary school and a fourth-sixth grade school were apparent from the first day.

“Typically on the first day of school, you have students that are crying or upset—we didn’t have any of those emergencies going on—and we didn’t give out any ice packs at recess, so that’s unique,” Yates said. “There’s definitely a different feel, a different tone, with having the older students, because this isn’t their first rodeo.” λ