Kellie Nielson wanted to boost her son's self-esteem.
Karen Primich wanted her daughter to belong to a strong community.
Paul Muench wanted his children to learn about God.
Their desires are disparate, but their solutions are the same.
They sent their children to private schools.
Private and parochial schools are increasingly cropping up across the state, carving a niche where some see weaknesses in the public school system.
And many are packed full. An elementary and high school built at Skaggs Catholic Center in Draper was so popular that more than a thousand were enrolled and several hundred more on a waiting list before the construction dust had settled.
"More and more people (believe) they could do better for their children," said Derek Baker, CEO of Challenger Schools. "Parents come in and say, 'My son's done well and could do well in public schools, but I want to give him the best opportunity I can. I don't need to drive my BMW — my money is best spent on him.' "
New growth, more choices
Parents have more options today than they did just two years ago. In 1997, the State Office of Education listed 107 private and parochial schools; seven more were added in 1999, including preschools, tutoring centers, and even classes set up at Primary Children's Medical Center.
State officials think private schools enroll about 3 percent of Utah's half-million schoolchildren. The State Office of Education requests enrollments to report to the National Center for Education Statistics, but no law requires private schools to hand over the numbers, said Patty Bowles, state school statistics specialist.
Last year, just 68 schools reported to the state enrollments totaling about 11,400 students. The number does not include many schools, among them Challenger, which jumped from 350 students in 1987-88 to 1,450 students in seven locations last school year, Baker said.
While some schools are full and have waiting lists, some, such as Reid School in Salt Lake County, continue aggressive advertising campaigns. But the best marketing is word of mouth.
"The neighborhood is filled with wonderful families that go to Rowland Hall, and it seemed a wonderful tradition to follow," said Primich, a Federal Heights resident who sends her second-grader to Rowland Hall-St. Mark's School. Tuition for the elite, college-preparatory institution is in the neighborhood of $8,000 to $10,000 a year. "I just feel like there's so much more of a sense of community, and parents are so involved."
Religious schools booming
Parochial schools represent the largest block of private alternatives in Utah. About 35 schools are affiliated with a range of faiths, including Judaism and the the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
"Education by its very nature is a spiritual phenomenon. We're talking about the hearts and minds of people, not just training for a football team," said Gaylord Swim, chairman of American Heritage School's board in Pleasant Grove. The school is based on teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
But enrollments elsewhere are nothing like those of Catholic schools. Enrollment at the 10 Catholic elementaries and three high schools has risen steadily since 1989 to reach 5,200 students for the coming school year, said Sister Catherine Kamphaus, superintendent of Catholic Schools in Utah.
And every school has a waiting list.
The year-old St. John the Baptist school at the Skaggs Catholic Center enrolls 900 preschoolers through eighth-graders. Another 1,700 are waiting to get in.
Nationally, 250 Catholic schools have been built over the past 10 years, and 46 percent of all Catholic schools have waiting lists, the National Catholic Educational Association reports.
Yet not all Utah families seeking out Catholic schools are Catholic. Kamphaus says non-Catholics, who pay $2,800 to $6,000 a year in tuition, account for 30 percent of students in some Catholic schools.
But church leaders want to keep non-Catholics at around 20 percent of enrollment, particularly because siblings of enrolled students — Catholic or not — are the first admitted from waiting lists, she said. Next in line are children from the parish associated with the school, then other Catholics and lastly, non-Catholics.
Reasons for attending parochial schools range from religion — students pray daily and attend monthly Mass — to discipline, in which students often are asked "what would Jesus do?"
Some parents who seek out parochial schools say they do so because they feel LDS beliefs influence Utah's public schools.
Kevin Matuz, 20, attended a variety of private and parochial schools growing up. When his family moved from California to Salt Lake City, his parents looked to Catholic schools "since the state is pretty much all Mormon," he said.
Indeed, a lot of Utah transplants have heard rumors that "the public schools are Mormon schools, but that's not true," Kamphaus said. And the Catholic system does not want to be viewed as an escape from the state's LDS majority.
The best choice?
Parents say they have removed their children from public school for a variety of reasons, but class size often is a factor.
Utah's student-teacher ratio is among the nation's highest, averaging 21-1 compared to the national average of 17-1, the State Office of Education reports. That number, reported in the 1998-99 school year, was down one student from the year before. But it's an average, and many secondary-school teachers have reported more than 40 students per class.
"With class sizes what they are (in public schools), it's difficult for a teacher to sit down with a student . . . and realize, as the student is doing the work, what the problem is," said William Hawkesworth, executive director of Sylvan Learning Center on Parley's Way in Salt Lake City. The centers offer tutoring, with no more than three students to a teacher, at $30 to $40 per lesson.
But private schools aren't necessarily the answer to classroom crowding.
Reid School allows no more than 20 students per class, and brings in extra teachers for small math and reading groups, said principal Ethna Reid.
The average Challenger class has 26 students, but classes may be smaller with varying student ability levels, Baker said.
Grace Lutheran School's maximum class size is 25 students, with 15 in kindergarten, said school board chairman Muench. Class sizes average around 20 students.
And Catholic schools won't allow more than 35 students, a maximum that has been reached at St. Joseph's in Ogden and the new St. John the Baptist School in Draper, Kamphaus said.
When it comes to parochial schools, some parents are more interested in instilling religious values than how big the classes are.
While Reid says her school believes it can teach any child, not all do. Challenger, for instance, won't take a second-grader who can't read.
And some schools can't handle every student, even if they try. Some parents, though on rare occasions, pull kids from private school because teachers couldn't "fix" the child, whatever the problem was, Swim noted.
Reid sometimes receives calls from from parents frustrated with public schools. But anger sometimes stems from misunderstandings and is "not why you should go to a private school," she said. In such cases, she tries to resolve the problem between the school and parents.
Sometimes private schools simply are ill-equipped to handle children they take, as one Davis County parent found out.
Catholic school started out as a good option for Enrico Dubach's family. Dubach lived in Farmington and sent his son to St. Olaf's in Bountiful for kindergarten, first and second grade.
"We had full intentions of continuing that, but he had some learning problems with reading," Dubach said.
After testing, Dubach's son, who is now 17, was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and dyslexia.
"(The school) came to us and said they didn't have resources to spend one-on-one time with him," Dubach said. "They recommended we put him in the public school system."
St. Olaf's principal, Jo Ann Emery, was not there at the time, but said the school now has no problem enrolling students with learning disabilities.
"We don't turn them away. We try to meet their needs," Emery said. "But sometimes parents will choose (public school), because we don't have the finances to have a full-time resource teacher or certain specialist."
St. Olaf's has also contracted with the Davis School District to provide some teaching services, allowing private school parents to access education funds they already contribute to as taxpayers.
Greater demand ahead?
Talk of government vouchers and tax credits for private school tuition is alive and well. It has entered the 2nd Congressional District race, both in a pre-primary debate and last week when Republican Derek Smith said he would favor tuition tax credits to give families more educational options.
Public school educators typically oppose the move, saying tax credits will funnel needed dollars away from an already underfunded system. Utah spends the least per student in the nation despite putting nearly half the state budget into schools. They also argue that private schools would take only the best students, breeding inequity.
But if the concept goes through, as it has in states such as Florida, already jam-packed private schools probably couldn't accommodate increased demand.
"I think if all of the sudden there were a rush, private schools already ongoing would probably start other schools," said Reid.
Kamphaus said the waiting list at St. John the Baptist indicates demand for another private school at the south end of the Salt Lake valley. But parochial schools rarely cover their expenses with tuition, so new construction soon is unlikely.
Many Utah parents were eager to see their children don private school uniforms this year, but instead ended up on waiting lists and enrolled their children in nearby public schools instead.
E-mail: jtcook@desnews.com, mtitze@desnews.com