Davis School District is a school district serving Davis County, Utah, United States. Headquartered in the county seatofFarmington, it is the 61st largest school district in the United States and the 2nd largest school district in Utah with 72,987 students attending Davis schools as of 2019.[1]: 72 It is located almost entirely within Davis County. Students attend elementary school from kindergarten to 6th grade, junior high from 7th grade-9th grade, and high school from 10th grade-12th grade.[2]
In 2006, the Davis School District received recognition for having the nation's top graduation rate among the 100 largest school districts in the United States, according to a survey by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. Also in 2006, the superintendent, Dr. W. Bryan Bowles was awarded superintendent of the year in Utah.[Note 1]
In 2012, district administrators were sued by the American Civil Liberties Union for deciding to remove the book In Our Mothers’ House by childrens’ author Patricia Polacco from the shelves of their elementary school libraries due to its content about lesbian mothers.[5][6] The district returned the book to shelves a few months later.[7]
For the 2016-17 school year, Reid Newey moved from the Weber School District to become the superintendent of DSD.
In 2019, a Davis school bus driver closed the bus doors on the backpack of a boy, pinning him outside the bus and dragging him forward over 150 feet. His family sued the driver, alleging this was done intentionally to racially harass the boy, who was biracial. They pointed to previous instances of racial harassment by the driver and attempts at retaliation for reporting him.[8][9] The district settled the suit in 2021 for $62,500 and acknowledged the racial assault.[10] The incident also sparked a three year investigation into the Davis School District by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). That investigation found that racial harassment was widespread in the school district and hundreds of complaints were intentionally unaddressed.[11]Black and Asian students in the district faced a hostile environment where they were subjected to racial slurs, and Davis School District employees responded to complaints by telling them "not to be so sensitive or [making] excuses for harassing students by explaining that they were 'not trying to be racist'".[12] The DOJ required the district to create a plan to address the systemic problems moving forward which included changing its policies, offering more training, and creating an equity department for racial discrimination complaints with a director that is approved by the federal government.[11][13]
In 2021, a ten-year-old black girl who attended the District's Foxboro Elementary School committed suicide due to racist bullying, sparking national outcry.[13] An independent investigation that was commissioned by the district found that staff had joined in on the mistreatment of the girl. In 2023, her family was awarded $2 million in a civil rights settlement, to be paid by Davis School District.[14]
^Until 2016, Dr. W. Bryan Bowles was the superintendent of Davis School District.[1]: 72 However, effective 31 August, he retired and a replacement had yet to be named.[4]
^As of 2016, Fruit Heights was the only city within Davis County which does not have an elementary school located within the city. (All the communities within Davis County, except Hill Air Force Base are classified as cities.)
