PUB. 11 2021-2022 Issue 1

4 BY ROYCE VAN TASSELL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF UAPCS Utah’s Charter Schools: Giving Every Student, Every Teacher, Every Family the Chance to Find Their Place! F all in Utah is lovely. The maples and aspen turn red and yellow. Dustings of snow start to cover the highest peaks in the Wasatch and the High Uintas. Cool mornings are a great time to read on the porch, and cool evenings almost invite friends over for s’mores around a backyard campfire. Today, Utah does a good job of telling that story, but it hasn’t always been the case. For many, many years, Utah was a little-known backwater, flyover country at best. Sure, WordPerfect was founded here and everyone used it. But Moab, as a national, even international destination, simply didn’t exist. Slickrock, Arches, Canyonlands, Zion, etc. – Utah offered all of these treasures, but no one knew, so no one came – until Utah started to tell its story. I worry that Utah’s charter schools face much the same problem. Absolutely great things are happening in our schools, but we are not very good at sharing our stories. It’s particularly curious, given that we have more stories and more tools to share those stories than ever before. Let me offer a couple of examples of what I mean.