school-choice
Eighteen Utah Districts Have More Students Absent Than Present. Seventeen Are Charters.
In 18 Utah districts, more than half of students are chronically absent. All but one are charter schools, with rates reaching 82.8%.
Utah Education News & Data
chronic_absenteeism
Three of 41 Utah Districts Have Recovered
Only Wayne, Carbon, and Juab districts have returned to pre-COVID chronic absenteeism rates. The other 38 carry an average excess of 11.3 percentage points.
chronic_absenteeism
Utah's Charter Absence Rate Spikes to 27% While Traditional Districts Hold Steady
Charter chronic absenteeism jumped 2.8 points to 27.3% in 2025 while traditional districts edged down to 23.3%, opening the widest sector gap on record.
school-choice
Utah's $100M Question: 14,955 Students Gone, 14,000 Vouchers Awarded
Traditional districts lost 14,955 students in 2026 as the $100M voucher program awarded 14,000 scholarships. The overlap is striking but complex.
district-spotlight
Park City Lost 731 Students in Seven Years
Park City School District's enrollment fell 15.3% since 2019 as housing costs push working families out of the resort community.
demographics
105 Boys for Every 100 Girls in Utah Schools
Utah enrolls 17,532 more boys than girls, a ratio that has barely moved in 13 years. The gap tracks biology, not policy, but niche charters amplify it.
grade-shift
Utah Has More Seniors Than Kindergartners
Grade 12 enrollment now exceeds kindergarten by 10,463 students, completing a 20,000-student swing that took just 12 years.
special-populations
1 in 7: Utah's Special Education Surge
Utah added 23,009 special education students over 12 years while total enrollment grew by a fraction of that rate, pushing SpEd to 13.7% of all students.
district-spotlight
Ogden Lost 1,755 Students. Both Sides of Its Divide Are Leaving.
Utah's only majority-Hispanic traditional district has lost students every year since 2019, with Hispanic and white families leaving in near-equal numbers.
school-choice
The Charter That Grew 356% by Serving Who Others Lost
Wallace Stegner Academy went from 624 to 2,848 students in seven years, becoming Utah's third-largest charter by opening campuses in majority-Hispanic neighborhoods.
demographics
Utah's Multiracial Students Doubled in 12 Years
Multiracial enrollment grew 108.5% since 2014, the fastest-growing racial category in Utah schools. But after a decade of gains, growth stalled in 2025.
district-spotlight
Jordan Quietly Became Utah's Third-Largest District
After seven years of Granite District losses, Jordan has overtaken its Salt Lake County neighbor for the first time, a crossover that exposes the valley's deepening geographic divide.
enrollment
Salt Lake County's 18,000-Student Exodus
Four urban districts lost 18,061 students since 2019 while Alpine and Jordan held steady, reshaping the Wasatch Front's educational geography.
special-populations
Utah Lost 3,062 English Learners in a Single Year
After a decade of unbroken growth, Utah's English learner enrollment fell 5% in 2026. The data points to reclassification, not departures.
district-spotlight
Salt Lake District Lost One in Five Students in Seven Years
Salt Lake City School District's enrollment fell 21.2% from 2019 to 2026, the steepest decline among Utah's large districts, as gentrification and falling birth rates hollow out the capital's classrooms.
