Senior Kohler Rauzi wasn’t sure at first whether to attend Wasatch High School or the new Deer Creek High School, but the new school offered an opportunity impossible to pass up. “There are no traditions, no stories that everyone tells, no expectations and no culture. But we get to create al l of that,” he said at Deer Creek High School’s ribbon cutting ceremony and open house on Wednesday.  The $169 million school is ready to welcome students on Aug. 18. Only a few finishing touches to the theater are left to do. Former Wasatch School District Superintendent Paul Sweat noted at the ceremony that the building will soon turn into a “living organism” where students will build their futures.  The first signs of life could be seen at the open house. Aspiring athletes mimed making shots on the basketball court.  Students wandered into health sciences teacher Jordanne Davidson’s classroom for a demonstration of the new Anatomage table — used to dissect digitized cadavers — and left the room either green in the face or with a gleam in their eyes.  Meanwhile, members of the student government were hard at work enlisting elementary schoolers to their cause, asking them to pledge to be a Deer Creek Riverhawk instead of a Wasatch Wasp when they grow up. Senior Kohler Rauzi is Deer Creek High School’s student government vice president. He hopes to create a culture in which every student has someone in their corner. Credit: Jack Casebolt/Park Record Rauzi, the student government’s vice president, wants to create a culture in which every student feels seen. He believes the easiest way to do that is by starting conversations.  Rauzi started his high school experience somewhat isolated from his peers. “When I was a freshman, I spent a lot of time in the front office, not because I was in trouble, but because my best friends were the ladies who worked there,” he said. Eventually, a few seniors who frequented the office took him under their wings. Rauzi forged friendships with them that lasted even after they had graduated. “They probably have no idea how much those simple conversations meant to me,” he said. Now a senior himself, Rauzi hopes to start those conversations with other students. He’s done the math: If each of the student government’s 28 members befriended 47 of their peers, then every student at Deer Creek High School would have someone in their corner. Ensuring that every teen gets care and attention is why the Wasatch County School District set out to build its second high school in the first place.  Deer Creek High School Principal Justin Kelly, formerly principal of Wasatch High School, said, “It was sad to me at graduation that a student would come across the stage, and I would think, ‘I don’t know their name, and I can’t remember seeing them very much.’” With more than 2,700 students enrolled at Wasatch High School last year, forgetting a few students’ names is inevitable. This upcoming academic year, that population has been halved, with the high schools’ enrollment numbers within only two students of each other, according to Superintendent Garrick Peterson. The interior of Deer Creek High School resembles a train station in homage to the Heber Valley Railroad. Credit: Jack Casebolt/Park RecordDeer Creek High School Principal Justin Kelly speaks about how smaller class and club sizes will positively impact students at Deer Creek and Wasatch high schools. Credit: Jack Casebolt/Park Record Peterson added that at-risk students will be especially impacted by the second high school. “We’re going to be able to have kids coming to school, and their names are going to be known better. Their struggles are going to be known better. We’re going to be able to react to them better,” he said. “If we can make a difference for just a few of those kids and change their lives forever and start to change their stories, there’s power to that.” With smaller class and club sizes, students at Wasatch High School and Deer Creek High School have been eager this year to try new things, said school board member Breanne Dedrickson. “I know kids in my own neighborhood who wouldn’t have gone out for student government before, but they thought, ‘Man, there’s extra spots. I don’t know if anyone’s going to try it at Deer Creek. I’m going to try it.’ And they got involved for the first time in something they never tried before,” she said. “That’s what this is about.” Student government adviser Jessica Firth explained that the students have been planning the high school’s first year since May. They’ve designed merchandise, planned a spirit week and come up with cheers for football games that tease, “You wish you were a Riverhawk!” Members of the student government hope there’s more to their relationship with Wasatch High School than a friendly rivalry on the football field. “They were our people just a few months ago,” Firth said. “We have goals to do service projects with the Wasatch student government and keep connections so that we’re not just rivals, but we’re also collaborators.” The motto the students came up with, “Together we soar,” was in line with the Riverhawk mascot. “We don’t want anybody to feel like they’re doing this alone,” Firth said.  Wasatch County has come a long way since its first Wasatch High School, a 20-by-40-foot building built in 1908, as former Superintendent Sweat pointed out. The school district has since moved the high school to new buildings twice — first in 1964, then again in 2009 — to meet the needs of the community. The opening of the Deer Creek High School continues the trend of cultivating the Heber Valley’s greatest resource: its children.  To Sweat, the two high schools embody a quote from philosopher and educator John Dewey: “What the best and wisest parent wants for his child, that must we want for all the children of the community. Anything less is unlovely, and left unchecked, destroys our democracy.” Wasatch County School District cuts the ribbon at Deer Creek High School’s grand opening on Wednesday, July 29, 2025. Credit: Jack Casebolt/Park Record The post Wasatch County’s second high school opens appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less