Grade school remains open despite patriarch's pull-out decree
 
The Associated Press
 
HILDALE, Utah - First-year Principal Max Tolman was pleasantly surprised when 94 students showed up for the first day of classes Monday at Phelps Elementary in Hildale.

Last year the school had nearly 250 students.

However, in July the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Warren Jeffs, told followers to stop associating with apostates and outsiders and pull their children from public schools.

Most of the families in Hildale and neighboring Colorado City, Ariz., are polygamists and most are members of Jeffs' FLDS sect.

Neither Tolman nor Rex Wilkey, Washington County School District assistant superintendent for elementary schools, would speculate on the religious beliefs of the students at Phelps this year although Wilkey said he recognized a few kids from last year.

"We don't care what religion they are. We're just glad they're here," Tolman told The Salt Lake Tribune.

A new staffer, who asked not to be identified, said students at Phelps this year are either from Apple Valley, 10 miles west of Hildale, or from an offshoot of Jeffs' sect referred to as the "Second Ward."

"Students at the school this year are from families that are disassociated with the First Ward (Jeffs' group)," the woman told The Spectrum.

In addition to Phelps Elementary, three schools in Colorado City, Ariz., are grappling with declines. The junior high school in Colorado City was closed this week because of a lack of students.

Two full-time teachers are returning to Phelps from last year, and Tolman and a kindergarten teacher will be teaching on a half-time basis.

Schools in the two towns have cooperated since Phelps opened in 1986. Utah students attended Phelps up to eighth grade and then moved into upper grades at Cottonwood High School across town in Colorado City.

So far this year, no Utah students have registered for school in Colorado City, said Alvin Barlow, superintendent of the Colorado City Unified School District.

This time last year, there were more than 1,000 students enrolled in the district's elementary, junior high and high school. This year there are about 400.

Private schools have been popping up all over town, including Morningside School run by his brother Dan Barlow, mayor of Colorado City.

"We find it important to still maintain professional rapport (with the private schools) as the public school district in the area," Alvin Barlow said.

At Phelps, kindergarten had the largest enrollment with 29 students. The smallest grouping was in fourth and fifth grades, which had a combined total of 14 students. The school has also combined first through third grades and sixth through eighth grades.

Two polygamous mothers told the Tribune that their children went to school in Colorado City last year, but the lure of much smaller classes in Hildale made them switch.

Wilkey said that with large polygamous families prone to maintaining more than one household, the change is probably legal.

"All we ask them for is a Utah address," he said. "And they gave us that."

The mothers said they are not members of the FLDS church and characterized themselves as Mormons who still believe in polygamy - though The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has disavowed the practice since 1890 and excommunicates its adherents.

Jeffs referred all inquiries to Scott Berry, the group's Salt Lake City-based attorney. Berry did not return telephone calls Monday.
 
The Associated Press
Originally published August 22, 2000
 
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