After waiting three years, Ezie, 8, finally walked up the sidewalk and entered the doors of John Hancock Charter School in Pleasant Grove.
"We've been waiting and waiting," said her mother, Tina Shelley, of Cedar Hills.
Some charter schools have numerous vacancies, while at others hundreds of students are waiting to be chosen in lottery-style drawings.
The Shelley family's patience was tried when Ezie's younger brother, Caleb, 7, made it into the charter school while she didn't, splitting the siblings for three years.
The State Charter School Board is proposing a policy that would require charter schools to relinquish their vacant student slots after three years. The slots could then be used by charter schools that hadn't been authorized yet to accommodate more students but had the physical capacity and prospective students waiting to fill the seats.
"We have schools that have unused capacity. The numbers would just become part of the pool again," said Brian Allen, State Charter School Board president.
The proposal could be addressed by the State Board of Education's Law and Policy Committee in September.
The committee quashed a proposal earlier this month that would allow charter schools to simply give away their unused slots. The committee agreed the proposal would violate a school's charter agreement.
"A charter is a legal agreement or a contract," said committee member Carol Murphy. She is an attorney by trade.
Committee member Denis Morrill suggested the unused slots simply expire rather than be distributed to other charter schools.
The committee suggested a slot "use or lose" rule be made for schools when they first form their charters. The first this could be implemented would be for the 2013-14 school year, said Marlies Burns, state charter school director.
Some principals and directors of charter schools are wondering what the big deal is when it comes to "trading" student slots.
Noah Webster Academy in Orem is not going to use the 75 to 100 slots allotted for its seventh and eighth grades. With the economic downturn, the school simply can't afford to expand its physical building to make room for those grades, said Noah Webster director Rick Kempton.
"We might as well be a good community citizen and offer some of these (slots) back so the state charter board can utilize them for other schools," Kempton said. "It doesn't make sense for us to hold onto them."
Noah Webster is a kindergarten through sixth grade school and opened fall 2006. It is authorized for 625 students.
Meanwhile, Lincoln Academy charter school in Pleasant Grove is full with 590 students and a list of 360 children waiting to enroll. The school is kindergarten through ninth grade and opened fall 2005.
Lincoln Academy principal Jake Hunt said he told Noah Webster officials they would be happy to take some extra slots.
Lincoln Academy, with its ratio of 12.5 students per teacher, is a big draw for parents. "We've established a good reputation in the community," Hunt said. "Our advertising is word of mouth."
However, charter school board officials say schools can't just trade slots willy-nilly. It needs to be outlined in board rule, and a specific process needs to be in place.
The number of charter school students is capped each year by the Legislature, based on 2.5 percent of the state's total enrollment, which is counted each Oct. 1.
A total of 7,331 additional charter student slots were allowed this fall, bringing the total to 40,208 potential charter school students in Utah, according to Utah State Office of Education data.
In fall 2008, a total of 32,877 charter school student slots were authorized, but only 27,369 seats were filled by students, data show. This is because some schools simply don't fill up while others continue to have students lining up for the opportunity to attend.
Charter school enrollment is tricky, as the Shelley family discovered when trying to enroll their children in John Hancock. It has kindergarten through eighth grades, touts small class sizes and is at capacity with 185 students.
Parents of preschoolers at John Hancock need to submit their child's name for the lottery drawing by November. Tina missed the deadline for Ezie and had to send her to kindergarten at Deerfield Elementary School in Alpine School District.
That school year Caleb was in preschool, and Tina, who had learned her lesson with Ezie, got his name on the lottery list in time. Caleb got into John Hancock the next year as a kindergarten student while Ezie still didn't get chosen and spent first grade at Deerfield Elementary.
Having Caleb at the charter school enhanced Ezie's odds of getting in, however. John Hancock, like most charter schools in the state, has a first-choice waiting list for siblings. These students are selected before implementing the school's random lottery drawing.
Having children spend three years in separate schools was difficult for the Shelley family.
Tina would drive Ezie and Caleb to the different schools, dropping them off at different times and picking them up at different times. Luckily, both schools are only about a five-minute drive from the Shelley home. Charter schools don't offer bus service. Deerfield Elementary is close enough to home for Ezie to walk, but the route parallels a busy road, Tina said.
"We juggled carpools. It was hard," Tina said. "It was a burden on our family."
Caleb wore the school uniform of khaki or navy pants, and a red, white or blue polo shirt. "It's a pretty simple wardrobe," Tina said.
Meanwhile, Ezie was obsessing over what was in style for little girls. "I about pulled my hair out," Tina said, and thought, "If only she could be at the charter school, wearing a uniform."
Caleb had classes of 20 students while Ezie shared her teacher's attention with almost 30 other children. Ezie was interested in playing the violin, and the charter school's strings program begins in the third grade.
Tina wanted her other two younger children to attend the charter school, starting with preschool. But what would life be like for Ezie, the odd girl out? Tina began mulling sending all her children to Deerfield Elementary.
When Ezie made the lottery late last spring Tina was relieved beyond belief. "We're really glad," she said. "It was worth the wait."
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