For the first time in nearly four years, an Arizona school district serving a remote area of northern Arizona and southern Utah long dominated by a polygamist sect is no longer under state control.
The state board of education last week voted unanimously to end its receivership of the Colorado City Unified School District, which officials said is now in good shape both academically and financially. Colorado City is a sparsely populated region located north of the Grand Canyon. Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints chose it decades ago for the isolation.
The state placed the district in receivership in late 2005 because of financial insolvency and mismanagement. Those conditions no longer exist, and the district has repaid its debts to the state and an insurance co-op, officials said.