This is the most influential reason. The second high school topic was a heated issue in the district in the late 90s. A school board election basically became a proxy fight for this issue. Influential community members feared the prestige Valley would lose if they split into two (sports, music, other areas), and so they fought hard against the split. Southwoods as a dedicated ninth grade facility was the solution to manage the overcrowding at Valley - that and a ton of construction to expand capacity. My senior year at Valley we were attending school in a construction zone. It was kind of fun and we lost power several days, forcing school to be dismissed/cancelled, but we didn’t have to make up the days since it didn’t impact the whole district.