Navigating Public Ed: Assisting parents with public school choice

• Utah’s open enrollment law is rated among the best in the nation, but district compliance and transparency remain low.
• Parents face barriers in navigating public school transfers and charter school applications due to inconsistent processes and limited data access.
• A statewide public school choice navigator could provide families with clear, functional tools to find available seats, compare options, and apply more easily.

An important part of education choice is public school choice, including open enrollment and public charter schools. For some parents, the idea of transferring a student to a new public school feels like a common-sense choice. For others, they are unsure what it is or how to go about it. For all parents, navigating school district open enrollment policies and charter school application windows can be a daunting and confusing maze.

Transforming public education into a parent-driven enterprise – in support of parents’ constitutional right to direct the education of their children – means making public school choice accessible and straightforward for Utah families.

One approach to accomplishing this goal is a navigator site that equips parents to easily find and pursue public school options that meet their child’s needs.

Utah’s opportunity in open enrollment

At least on paper, Utah’s open enrollment law is ranked among the best in the nation. It requires districts and public schools with available space – as defined by a formula enshrined in state law – to allow students to transfer in from outside district or school boundaries. The law also mandates key local district data reporting. Utah recently earned an “A” for its law.

However, school district compliance with this law is startlingly low – as detailed in previous Sutherland research. Additionally, Utah’s law could be strengthened for parents by requiring state-level reporting of open enrollment information and protecting against difficult-to-track barriers like address discrimination.

In other words, parents’ ability to pursue public school choice through open enrollment is dependent in part on factors like where a family can afford to live. Utah needs parent-focused, innovative tools to make open enrollment easily actionable for parents on the ground.

That’s where Utah needs to focus next. A public school choice navigator that provides parents with information like which schools have available seats and how to apply for open enrollment at their desired district school is the tool that can accomplish it. Policy reforms can make a navigator more viable and valuable for parents.

Utah’s charter school opportunity

Utah law, parents, and policymakers have long supported public charter schools. Enrollment in charter schools in Utah has consistently grown year after year. Additionally, organizations like the Utah Association of Public Charter Schools or Utah Charter Access Point offer search tools that allow parents to locate charter schools near their city, zip code, or latitude/longitude coordinates.

However, many charter schools have more student applications than they can enroll, pushing many parents to consider applying to multiple schools if their assigned district school doesn’t fit their child’s needs. Additionally, enrollment dates and processes can vary from school to school, making application to multiple charter schools a challenge for many parents.

A public school choice navigator can help solve this conundrum for parents by allowing parents to narrow their geographic search for charter schools, providing performance or curriculum details, and including application information for all charter schools in a single place.

How public school choice navigators look across the country

We reviewed public school choice navigators across the country to understand what’s already available to parents, recognize key features, and identify best practices.

We found that across the country, numerous online platforms are available to help families understand their public education options, apply for opportunities, or enroll in schools.

This review suggests that such resources are becoming increasingly desirable and necessary in the era of broadly available and popular education choice. It also reveals that there is plenty of space to offer similar innovations for parents as they assert their right and responsibility to direct their children’s education through open enrollment.

Furthermore, we noticed various features among platforms. Some platforms are designed to help users navigate all educational choices, from public to private providers. In contrast, others are more specific to open enrollment in district schools or a network for charter schools.

Some are primarily informational, listing options and descriptions with some personalized assistance, while others provide greater functionality, such as direct access to applications according to relevant deadlines.

Some are run by the government, like local school district websites that host information about schooling options at the district level. Others are run by mission-driven nonprofits that are committed to helping parents find education choices.

Finally, some platforms provide a statewide view of options, while many limit their scope to a specific region, usually their own district.

The table below lists some of the more smartly-designed, user-friendly, and efficient “one-stop shop” style navigators and some of their features.

Thinking through the value of different public school choice navigators

There are benefits and challenges to different navigator features. We outline considerations below to prompt discussions about what would fill the gaps in Utah and the policy implications of these features as well.

Informational vs. Functional

Some platforms are primarily informational websites that provide parents with details on the available schooling options. These often host search bars or map tools that use a user’s address to find options nearby.

Some informational platforms offer additional assistance to help families access information, with one-on-one mentoring or customer service specialists guiding parents through their options and any associated processes. This allows platforms to be hubs of information with a high degree of interaction, creativity, and breadth, but may not require as much direct collaboration with actual providers and school districts in the same way as a more functional platform.

Other navigators are more functional, meaning they are websites where families can actively search, apply to, or enroll in a school or in a particular district. For instance, some platforms allow families to apply to multiple schools simultaneously, enabling them to be matched with one of their top choices.

The more functions provided, the more imperative it is to ensure accurate, up-to-date data sharing so platforms can help families find real availability. Likewise, more functions require greater development of relationships with providers and school districts, who are the ultimate decision-makers for accepting or denying students from open enrollment applications. This also means that providers and districts need to have a greater awareness of their legal requirements.

Nonprofit vs. government-sponsored

Nonprofit platforms typically have fewer barriers to entry, in the sense that an organization can create a website without any prescribed public or governmental process. This may be more efficient and responsive to parent feedback in the long run.

Government-sponsored platforms may have more official support, but they also have more policy or bureaucratic barriers to overcome in their launch. For instance, creating a state or district platform may require public meetings, policy or legislation, as well as an RFP to find an administrator. Making changes may also be more laborious with a government entity than with a nonprofit.

At the same time, a government-sponsored platform may have greater leverage to require the already mandated data sharing from public schools. While school districts are obligated to comply with mandated data reporting, a nonprofit organization doesn’t have the same oversight role as a government agency.

Funding is a question for both types of public school choice navigators. Nonprofits rely on ongoing private donations, while the other requires the political will to allocate ongoing appropriations or prioritize funding in a budget.

Regional vs. Statewide

Deciding whether to serve a region or the entire state is essential. Without a doubt, many functional government-sponsored platforms are focused on specific school districts (or at least limited to certain regions).

In general, functional statewide platforms may be a heavier lift logistically, whether it’s run by a district or nonprofit. Delaware has a statewide government-sponsored platform, but this may be more reasonable given it is one of the least populous states in the nation.

Obviously, promoting a single statewide website may be easier for marketing purposes, but a district/region-based platform may realistically have higher accuracy for real-time data.

Achieving a statewide platform is aided by a mandate to report open enrollment data at the state level (Utah does not have this), which in turn necessitates local compliance with existing laws.

Broad choice vs. Specific choice

Finally, platforms can offer varying scopes of school choice. Some are geared towards helping parents understand and access all education choices, including district schools, charter schools, private schools, private vendors, and more.

Others are specifically designed to show charter school options or open enrollment availability or offerings eligible to be paid for by a particular state-funded scholarship program.

Offering an “all education choices” platform may help a time-strapped parent who is not sure what type of choice will meet their child’s learning needs, but simply knows they want more options. At the same time, websites limited to a particular subset of choices may offer greater expertise, specificity and depth.

Recommendations for Utah policymakers

Utah education leaders and reformers already host information websites on various options, which is good news. However, there is space to offer a streamlined public school choice experience for Utah parents.

Therefore, we recommend a nonprofit or government-sponsored, statewide,  “one-stop shop” style public school choice navigator that offers as much functionality as possible.

Regardless of features, policymakers should take the following policy steps to facilitate the launch of a navigator:

1. Clarify the definitions of capacity for purposes of open enrollment and attendance. A recent audit reveals confusion about what constitutes attendance in Utah schools. Another audit has been requested to understand open enrollment “capacity” and other issues. These definitions will help districts report more accurate data on the number of available seats for open enrollment in their schools.
2. Require public charter schools to follow a standard application window and timelines statewide, with an exemption that charter schools can apply for if their unique charter or operation requires a different application window or timeline.
3. Add the statutory requirement to post an open enrollment capacity report to the annual LEA Assurances Checklist that all districts must sign each year. It’s not a comprehensive list of all state laws that impact districts, and it is noticeably missing requirements that would impact sharing public information that benefit parents (like the capacity report being posted to the website or posting online how to access curriculum).
4. Seek more robust compliance with data reporting from districts. In an early 2025 report, we found that only seven districts out of 41 posted a full open enrollment capacity report that parents could find and review.
5. Create a state-level open enrollment data reporting requirement. There is no requirement to report district-by-district open enrollment data to the state board nor for the state board to share it. This reform itself may assist with compliance as it would highlight what’s missing. If a navigator is to succeed, there must be a central place for data in the first place. Even if a navigator is not feasible for some time, the state should at least host this information in one place.

Research contributed by Alexis Morgan and Dallyn Edmunds.