Charter School Marketing in Utah: Growth, Lotteries, and the Enrollment Math

Charter and district students, October 2021 to October 2025 (USBE):

USBE projects 88,681 charter students for October 2026. That is a projection, not a count.

Method note. Counts are October 1 headcounts from USBE's school-by-school and LEA files. USBE's state row lists 85,204 charter students, and the school and LEA rows add to 85,268, because USBE counts a student enrolled part-time in two schools in both. The share uses the state row. Shares for 2021 to 2024 use the state totals in USBE's LEA file.

What this means for enrollment marketing. Utah's public enrollment is shrinking, and charters are taking a larger piece of a smaller group. Nearly one in five kindergartners is in a charter, so the families you are competing for are choosing a first school. A family gets a seat at your school only when it picks you over the district school, the next charter, a private school, or home-based learning.

Taylor Wiz measures what we control: the cost of a submitted application. You know your own yield, meaning the share of submitted applications that become enrolled, attending students. Divide our number by your yield and you have your marketing cost per enrolled student.

The Taylor Wiz figure. Across 20 charter school accounts, from October 2025 to September 2026, a submitted application cost $113 in Meta ad spend over the full year, and $103 from October through July. None of the 20 accounts is in Utah. The seasonal detail is in the Charter Enrollment Marketing Benchmark 2026.

The math at different yields, using $113 and one WPU of $4,870 as a reference point:

What this table does not include. Student weights and add-on funding, other state and local dollars, staff time, open houses, and printed materials. It is ad spend against one WPU only, and a student's total funding differs from one WPU.

Method. Total Meta ad spend divided by applications marked submitted in our CRM, counted only in months with at least $300 in ad spend. All 20 accounts are charter schools in other states. The full method is on Cost Per Enrolled Student.

What your ads must match (Utah Code 53G-6-502):

1. Enroll eligible applicants. A charter school enrolls an eligible student who applies on time, unless applicants exceed capacity. Ads should invite families to apply.
2. A random lottery. When applicants exceed capacity, the school selects students on a random basis, except where a listed preference applies.
3. Your actual preferences. The statute allows preferences for children of people who helped develop the school, children of governing board members, siblings of current or former students, children of employees, children of military families, and students within a two-mile radius when their school of residence is at capacity. A 2026 law, Senate Bill 131 (effective July 1, 2026), adds students who live within the political subdivision that contains the charter. Mention a preference only if your school uses it.
4. A weighted lottery, only if you use it. A school may weight its lottery to give a slightly better chance of admission to certain educationally disadvantaged students, including low-income students, students with disabilities, and homeless students. Describe it as your school's policy, not as a guarantee.
5. Publish your timeline. R277-551-5 requires the website to show the application timeline and the number of new students to be admitted.

We did not find a Utah rule that names charter advertising either way, in the statute or the state board rule we read. We did not read Utah Code 53G-6-503, which governs timelines. Whether a specific campaign is an appropriate use of public funds is a question for your governing board, counsel, and auditor.

1. Meta advertising. Facebook and Instagram campaigns aimed at families in your enrollment area, timed to your application window.
2. Parent outreach. Our outreach team contacts every inquiry within 15 minutes during business hours, by the next business day otherwise, and never later than 48 hours. They work with each family until an application is submitted. See Parent Outreach.
3. Enrollment websites. Inquiry and application paths built to convert on a phone.
4. Creative and video. Ads and video that show your school the way families experience it.
5. Reporting. Submitted applications and cost per submitted application, by month and by ad.

Your school takes it from there: lottery, offers, registration, and enrollment. We report submitted applications because that is the step we control.