Voucher funds limited

"The numbers we have been using are around $8,000 a year ... so that matches what our message has been all along and that it is it's difficult for a family to come up with the difference between the voucher and the actual tuition amounts," said Johnson. "People need to be aware of those costs before they vote."

Leaders of the pro-voucher Parents for Choice in Education have been reporting the average private school tuition bill in Utah is around $4,500.

Leah Barker, spokesperson for PCE, said their calculations only take into account private schools with grades K-8, not K-12.

"We feel that there aren't a lot of private high schools in Utah... and it's most important for children to get a solid foundation and that is going to happen in the beginning years," she said. "We use the K-8 formula because that is where this is going to matter the most ... then (students) could transition to any number of programs in a public high school and their needs would be met just fine."

The range of tuition varies greatly in the state, from about $62,000 a year (based on 10 months) at the Oakley School in Park City to just $1,170 a year at the Monument Valley Seventh-Day Adventist Mission School.

Among schools that have identified themselves to Parents for Choice in Education as willing to take vouchers, the range varies from an average high of $13,906 at the Waterford School in Sandy to a low average tuition of $2,135 at the Children's Christian School in Taylorsville.

A $3,000 voucher would fully cover average tuition at nine of the 62 schools that provided data. Another seven schools had average tuition between $3,000 and $4,000. Twenty schools had tuition between $4,001 and $5,000. And 28 schools had tuition over $5,000.

Of note, many private schools could not accommodate many more students if they wanted to take advantage of vouchers to enroll.

For example, the Catholic Schools of the Diocese of Salt Lake, the largest private school system in the state with 5,407 students in 14 schools, estimates it has capacity to add only 317 more elementary/middle school students and 373 high school students.

Current capacity at its schools ranges from a high of 101 percent (at both the St. John the Baptist elementary and middle schools in Draper) to a low of 68 percent (at St. Olaf school in Bountiful,) according to data provided by the diocese.

Only about one of every 34 school-aged students in Utah now attends private school, according to analysis of estimates and data from the State Office of Education.

Institutions such as the Challenger Schools were not counted in News' calculations because they did not respond to inquiries for data and because they have indicated they would not accept private school vouchers, should they become available, because they want to avoid government control in their schools.

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E-mail: lee@desnews.com, terickson@desnews.com