The state of charter schools in Utah County
Students at the Karl Maeser Preparatory Academy travel in between classes
Tuesday,
March 14
, 2017,
in Lindon.
Students at the Karl Maeser Preparatory Academy travel in between classes Tuesday, March 14, 2017, in Lindon. DOMINC VALENTE, Daily Herald
Students at the Karl Maeser Preparatory Academy enjoy their lunch break Tuesday, March 14, 2017, in Lindon. DOMINC VALENTE, Daily Herald
Students at the Karl Maeser Preparatory Academy travel in between classes Tuesday, March 14, 2017, in Lindon. DOMINC VALENTE, Daily Herald
Students at the Karl Maeser Preparatory Academy enjoy their lunch break Tuesday, March 14, 2017, in Lindon. DOMINC VALENTE, Daily Herald
Walking down the halls of Freedom Preparatory Academy’s elementary campus in Provo, Executive Director Lynne Herring seems to know the name of every child she passes.
Freedom Preparatory Academy is a small school with strong parent partnerships, Herring said, where parents are expected to volunteer 40 hours a year and be deeply involved in the school.
“We don’t view ourselves as a school where the kids are plopped on the bus and sent off,” Herring said.
Freedom Preparatory Academy’s two elementary schools — there is also a campus in Vineyard — have reached 100 percent attendance at parent-teacher conferences.
In its 14 years of being a public charter school, that model has proven to be a success. The school opened its Vineyard elementary campus for the 2016-17 school year, joining the elementary and seventh-through-12th-grade campuses in Provo.
“Our lotteries are good each year and our waitlists are long, and so we know that people are seeking this model of education,” Herring said.
And it’s not finished yet. Herring said there’s going to be a middle school built on the 7-12 campus that will create one large building, but two separate programs.
With three locations, Freedom Preparatory Academy has shown it is continuing to grow.
While there are other public charter schools in Utah County that have also demonstrated continued growth, others are struggling to keep students.
About public charter schools
Public charter schools are an alternative to traditional district schools. The schools are free, receive government funding, and any student is welcome to try to enroll.
If more students apply than there are spots available, the school holds a lottery to fill those seats. Preference is given based on different factors, like if the student is the child or grandchild of someone who helped develop the school, a child or grandchild of someone on the school’s governing board, a sibling of a current student, a child of an employee or if the student lives close to the school.
There are more than 25 charter schools in Utah County with more planned to open in the fall. Models vary by school. Some require students to wear uniforms, some stick to a back-to-basics approach and some, like Franklin Discovery Academy in Vineyard, even allow students to start school at various times in the morning.
There are more than 125 charter schools in Utah as of October 2016, according to information in a 2017 annual report on public charter schools from the Utah State Board of Education. There are more than 71,000 students enrolled in charter schools in the state which, if the schools were their own district, would make it the second-largest in the state. That enrollment continues to grow as new schools open each year.
Overall, charter school performance is on par with traditional district schools, according to the report.
Charter schools in Utah County also have strong ties to the Utah Charter Network. Of the seven members on the network’s board, five are the leaders at Utah County charter schools, one member is from the public sector and the final seat is vacant.
Enrollment
Retention and transfer rates vary by school.
Retention is the number of students enrolled at the end of the school year who are still there on Oct. 1 of the next school year. It was the lowest last school year at Pioneer High School for the Performing Arts in American Fork, where only 42.4 percent of students stayed, according to information from the Utah State Board of Education. During the same time period, the highest retention rate was 93.2 percent of students at the Utah County Academy of Sciences, or UCAS, in Orem.
Eight charter schools in Utah County had more than a fourth of their students leave from one year to the next.
The highest transfer rate during the 2015-16 school year was for Athenian eAcademy, which includes a Provo campus, with 25.8 percent of students leaving. That’s followed by 19.8 percent of students leaving Aristotle Academy in American Fork.
In Utah County, seven charter schools had transfer rates of more than 10 percent.
Transfer rates include students who leave the school within the school year. It does not include students who leave the state or county, attended school fewer than 10 days or were in kindergarten.
As a state, the mean transfer rate for charter schools was 5.4 percent during the 2015-16 school year. The average retention rate for the same time was 80 percent.
For one charter school in Utah County, this year is its last. Aristotle Academy, which opened in 2012 and enrolls about 100 students, is closing at the end of the school year.
A representative at the school could not be reached for comment before deadline.
Royce Van Tassell, executive director of the Utah Association of Public Charter Schools, said every charter school is a little bit of an experiment.
“The best measure to evaluate how well a school is succeeding is the extent to which the parents want their children to come,” Van Tassell said.
But looking at transfer rates alone to determine the success of a school can be dangerous.
“Just because it doesn’t work for some kids doesn’t mean it isn’t working for the students at the school, and it doesn’t mean parents at that school aren’t incredibly happy with the education their students are experiencing at that school,” said Cate Klundt, communications and media relations coordinator for the Utah Association of Public Charter Schools.
Van Tassell recommends parents who are looking to find a charter school for their students visit the schools they’re interested in, meet with administration and spend time in classrooms.
Van Tassell said one can see early on how successful a charter school is going to be, and by the third year, charter schools typically are in a good place.
“There are always going to be hiccups over the first three years,” he said.
He points to C.S. Lewis Academy in Santaquin, which he said at one point had lost half its enrollment. Van Tassell said the school made some changes such as hiring a new director and business administrator, and now will have a lottery for its enrollment.
Other schools might go through similar changes.
“There are inevitably some experiments that have to be tweaked a little bit,” Van Tassell said.
Klundt said many schools in the northern part of Utah County exist due to packed district schools in the area. She said charter schools take the burden and financial pressures off Alpine School District.
As students move out of public charter schools, they may filter into district schools, go to a different charter school or be homeschooled.
Kimberly Bird, spokeswoman for Alpine School District, said the district sees attendance numbers change in October.
More recently, there’s been a bump in enrollment at Vineyard Elementary School, which Bird said began a week or two before Franklin Discovery Academy in Vineyard was placed on probation by the Utah State Charter School Board last month.
She said 34 students have enrolled at Vineyard Elementary School from Franklin Discovery Academy in that time, and there are 28 other registration packets in the works for students planning to transfer from the charter school into the district one.
With Aristotle Academy closing, Bird doesn’t expect the 100 extra students to be a strain on the growing school district. Bird said those students could be coming from different areas and might not flood one school.
“If it was in the same area, then it would impact a school where we would have to make some quick adjustments,” Bird said.
According to a projection history from the district, enrollment for Aristotle Academy, which opened in 2012, has been decreasing since it opened. It opened in 2012 with 258 students and reached 113 students in 2016.
Of the 19 charter schools within Alpine School District’s boundaries included on the list, 11 enrolled fewer students in 2016 than in 2015. Some of those changes were only a handful of students from the previous year.
The data shows Pioneer High School for the Performing Arts had lost 140 students from 2015 to 2016 and was down to an enrollment of 131 students. It opened in 2012 with 209 students.
An interview could not be coordinated with a spokesperson for Pioneer High School for the Performing Arts before deadline.
At Lakeview Academy in Saratoga Springs, filling seats hasn’t been a problem.
Rick Veasey, the school’s director, said there were about 800 students in the lottery for about 100 spots. There are about 1,000 students at the school.
The school’s educational model includes arranging classrooms into pods that include their own bathroom and customizable space in the middle, which can be used for tables or a spot for computers. Students have block schedules and take math and science every day.
The school has a space center where students undergo eight to nine simulated missions a year based around their curriculum. In the space center, students rotate through responsibilities throughout the year.
Students undergo simulations from a ship traveling through space, in the body of a giant animal or through the Grand Canyon, a la Magic School Bus. The simulations are complete with music, intruder alerts and the voice of a computer that is actually an employee in a back room speaking through a voice changer.
Facing different problems, Veasey said, is a way for the students’ education to stick.
“They are never going to forget what they learn in there,” Veasey said.
With two expansions onto its current building already under its belt, it’s clear parents are believing in the school’s unique model. Veasey attributes the school’s culture to its success.
Veasey said the current location won’t get bigger, but there have been discussions about opening a second location.
He said while Lakeview Academy can handle losing a handful of students without seeing a large impact on its numbers, smaller schools’ rates can take a big hit if a single family with multiple children at the school moves away.
Veasey said parent satisfaction at Lakeview Academy is in the range of 90 percent, and said parents are experimenting with charter schools to see if they’re the right fit for their students.
“If it’s the wrong fit, that doesn’t mean it’s the wrong school or the school is broken, they are going to look for what their kids need,” he said.
At UCAS, which is on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, expansion isn’t easy. The school has the highest retention rate out of the Utah County charter schools at 93.2 percent. The school’s transfer rate is 1.8 percent.
There are about 400 students enrolled at the school.
Anna Trevino, the school’s principal, said students know what they’re getting into when they enroll. The school, which focuses on science, technology, engineering and math, doesn’t have athletic teams, music classes or drama classes.
Students graduate from high school with an associate’s degree from UVU. The schools covers their tuition, which ends up equaling a $13,000 scholarship, and books if the students maintain a 3.0 GPA, have good behavior and keep a 90 percent attendance rate.
Trevino said about 250 students apply to UCAS each year, and 150 sophomores and about 20 juniors are selected each year. She said the school has a high referral rate.
She attributes the school’s success to three factors — receiving well-prepared students who enter the school in the 10th grade, the location and the small size of the school.
“We have found a recipe that really, really works well for our school,” Trevino said.
Trevino said there are talks about adding a second campus, but UCAS hasn’t found a location that’s compatible yet. It’s also looked at adopting a seventh-through-12th-grade model.
She said the school isn’t looking to create a single, large campus.
“If we could grow, we would,” Trevino said.
At Karl G. Maeser Preparatory Academy in Lindon, some students commute all the way from Kaysville and Tooele to attend each day.
The school opened in 2007 in a renovated bowling alley and moved into its own building within three years.
The school’s model includes school uniforms, a requirement to learn Latin, a two-hour Socratic Seminar class that combines English and history, and “winterim” — a mini semester in January.
Winterim projects must be academically rigorous, include community service and explore a career. Winterim topics vary from building water systems in Peru, going to Rome, studying oceanography in San Diego and studying escape rooms.
School Director Robyn Ellis said winterim transforms the worst weeks of winter into something students look forward to.
“It gives those three weeks a breath of fresh air,” Ellis said.
It’s something to which other schools are paying attention. Ellis said charter schools call her every year to ask about winterim.
The school does tours and family information nights so parents and students can learn more about the school and determine if it could be a good fit before attempting to enroll.
Ellis said many students are siblings of current or past ones, and teachers’ children.
“I have a lot on my waitlist because of that,” Ellis said.
The school is also looking to add on with an auditorium.
Scores and grades
For the 2015-16 school year, one charter school received an A grade, nine received a B, nine received a C, three received a D and four received an F, as graded by the state.
Aristotle Academy, Athenian eAcademy, Lumen Scholar Institute in Orem and Pioneer High School for the Performing Arts received F grades.
Meanwhile, between the Alpine, Nebo and Provo City school districts, Payson High School was the only school to receive an F, and three schools received D grades.
School grades are awarded based on factors such as the percentage of students who are proficient in the SAGE assessment subjects and ACT scores for high schools. Last year, grades were adjusted after too many received A scores.
In 2016, 12.4 percent of students in charter schools opted out of SAGE assessments, compared to 4.2 percent in district schools.
During the 2015-16 school year, seven charter schools in Utah County had 50 percent or more of their students rated as proficient in SAGE language arts, 10 had more than 50 percent of students ranked as proficient in math and 11 had more than 50 percent of students ranked as proficient in science.
For comparison, in Alpine School District, 49 percent of students were proficient in language arts, 54 percent were proficient in math and 57 percent were proficient in science.
Nebo School District had 45 percent of students proficient in language arts, 46 percent proficient in math and 48 percent proficient in science.
Provo City School District had 51 percent of students proficient in language arts, 51 percent proficient in mathematics and 54 percent proficient in science.
The highest SAGE scores were from UCAS, which also received the only A school grade for a Utah County public charter school. At UCAS, 80 percent of students were proficient in language arts, 83 percent were proficient in math and 82 percent were proficient in science.
Trevino said all the school’s teachers have master’s degrees or are working toward one.
“They know how to scaffold the students’ learning so they can be successful,” Trevino said.
The lowest SAGE scores were at Spectrum Academy in Pleasant Grove, which is designed for students with autism.
Nine charter schools in the county tested above the state averages in all three SAGE subjects.
But for public charter schools and the parents whose students attend them, school grades and SAGE scores often aren’t the priority.
“We don’t ignore them, but we certainly don’t teach to them,” Veasey said.
He said Lakeview Academy is always looking for ways to improve. Third-grade reading scores have improved every year and ninth-graders are proficient in math, he said, adding that students are doing well but showing it in other ways than on the SAGE assessment.
Karl G. Maeser Preparatory Academy, which received a B last year, has high SAGE scores despite many of the high flyers — students expected to perform well — opting out, according to Ellis.
Last year, the school with an 89 percent retention rate and a 2.8 percent transfer rate had 57 percent of students test as proficient in language arts, 64 percent in math and 49 percent in science.
