This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Utah's charter schools passed a symbolic enrollment threshold this fall, topping 10 percent of all public school students for the first time, according to data released Tuesday by the State Office of Education.

The state's public education system grew by 1.9 percent in 2015, adding 11,743 students for a total enrollment of 633,896 children.

More than half of that growth was absorbed by Utah's charters, which in October enrolled a combined total of 67,609 children, or one out of every 10 public school students in the state.

"School choice is here and it appears to be here to stay at this point," said Mark Peterson, Utah Office of Education spokesman.

Kim Frank, executive director of the Utah Charter Network, said school-choice advocates didn't set out with an enrollment goal in mind when the alternative schools were created in 1999.

But as more charters were launched in the state, she said, the 10 percent figure loomed on the horizon.

"This has been kind of a long-range goal for a number of years," she said. "I think 10 percent is not quite where we should be, but it's a great start."

Charter schools are public schools that operate independently of the state's 41 school districts.

Enrollment in a charter is voluntary, and is not based on a geographical area as are the boundaries of a traditional district school.

Frank said charters exist to provide families with educational options within the public school system, and the number of charters and charter students will continue to grow.

"I would love to see us in the 30 to 40 percent range at some point," Frank said. "I don't know if that will happen, but if we keep growing at the rate we're currently growing, we could get there."

New charter schools open each year. Two also closed at the beginning of the school year after performance and governance issues were brought to light.

While charter enrollment is up this year, the number of Utah students identified as living in low-income households fell by roughly 5,000.

Low-income students now account for 35 percent of the public education system, down from 36.4 percent last year.

It's "great news," according to Peterson, who noted that student poverty is on the rise nationally.

"We're bucking that trend a little bit," he said. "Exactly what would account for that, I'm not sure, other than our economy is doing pretty well here."

The number of minority students in Utah increased to 155,539, or 24.5 percent, continuing recent trends.

Salt Lake City School District, Ogden School District and San Juan School District continue to be the state's only minority-majority school districts, in which the majority of students are not white.

But Granite School District is nearing minority-majority status, Peterson said, with a 2015 minority percentage of more than 47 percent.

"Granite comes close but Granite is still majority-white," Peterson said. "We continue to get more diverse. If you round, a quarter of our population now is nonwhite."

bwood@sltrib.com Twitter: @bjaminwood