There are three major difference between charter schools and neighborhood public schools: Transportation, curricular emphasis and enrollment.

Charter schools don’t receive funding to transport students, so all parents have to carpool or arrange for alternative transportation, like public bus service.

As dictated by the State School Board, every school must teach the same core ideas in every grade for each subject. These are considered the minimum standards for educating students in Utah. Most schools go beyond the minimum requirements, but charter schools use their curricular emphasis to go beyond the minimum. For example, a charter school with an American History emphasis would fill in the blanks with topics from American History. A curricular emphasis doesn’t excuse a charter school from teaching the core standards, it just gives the school a guide for how to teach the core standards, or how to go beyond the core standards.

The charter school enrollment process can be confusing for the general population. Charter schools are given an enrollment maximum. In addition, schools have class size maximum they have to adhere to. Because of these caps, charter schools can’t take every student that shows up to the school because that may cause them to violate class size or total student maximums. Charter schools could use a first-come/ first-serve process, but to ensure fair and public access to charter schools, federal law dictates a lottery process. Students sign up to be in the lottery pool. If there are plenty of spots open, in the grade or in the school, all students get in the school. If there are not enough spots to enroll all students, then the school runs a lottery so that students are admitted on a random basis. You can find all the information about the lottery processes on each charter school web site. Unfortunately, there isn’t one list for all schools, you have to enroll in each one individually.

In almost all other respects, charter schools must follow the exact same rules and laws as your neighborhood public school.

Jeanne Whitmore is the founder and CEO of American Fork charter school Aristotle Academy and an education columnist for the American Fork Citizen. You can learn more about Aristotle Academy at aristotleacademyk8.org or on Facebook.