The school's building should be finished by the time students show up for class, unlike facilities being built for other new charter schools around the state.

Midsummer is scramble time for the more than a dozen new charter schools set to open this fall. Some face construction delays and financing woes or are waiting for supplies such as books to arrive.

Alpine's Mountainville Academy will open in portable classrooms on a yet-to-be-determined site while construction continues. The first day of school may be Aug. 23, or it could change.

"We are still in this start phase," said Rebecca Whitchurch, chairwoman of the school's board. "Things always do take longer than anticipated."

Parents talk about putting in 18-hour days to plan and launch new charter schools. For many, it is a much larger undertaking than they ever imagined.

Yet all of Utah's newest charter schools have told the state they plan to open this fall. If the school does not open by Sept. 30, it can't open for this school year, according to state rules.

That first year can be far from typical for a charter school. Its facility may be temporary and its student body somewhat in flux.

A new charter school may lose 15 to 20 students in its first month when students decide the school is not the best fit.

Some schools, such as George Washington Academy in St. George, have all their slots filled as of this month, while others, such as Paradigm High School in Draper, still are contacting students to verify enrollment.

Opening the school concludes a sprint that may have begun only a year earlier when the institution earned approval. The short time period between approval and opening could change, however.

John Broberg, state charter schools director, wants to see the state approve charters earlier to give founders more time to plan. New public schools are often years in the making, whereas charter schools can be approved by the Utah Board of Education as late as Sept. 30 and open the following fall.

Time alone wouldn't have solved all of Monticello Academy's problems. Choosing not to go with a private charter school development company in hopes of keeping more money for classroom needs, organizers of the West Valley City school sought independent financing for construction.

The school temporarily will lease space at Granite School District's Hill View Elementary, which had previously been at the center of a seismic safety debate in Granite. When its new building is completed, Monticello, which is fully enrolled, will move.

"The biggest hurdle is that lenders and investors don't know what charter schools are," said Kim Coleman, board chairwoman. "So we have had to spend a great deal of time educating anyone who would take a second look at us."

To make matters worse, the school won't receive its operational funding until the last week of July.

"If someone came along and said, 'I want to start a charter school,' I'd give them the names and numbers of the development companies, because what we've done cannot be easily replicated," she said. "And the result is that we don't have a building come September."

Coleman emphasizes the children are not at risk at Hill View.

"We would not put kids in a building that was deemed unsafe," she said. "That it's out of code is not the same as deemed unsafe."

Things change quickly when a charter school is about to be born.

Six weeks ago, the Salt Lake School for the Performing Arts didn't have phones or computers. Now the school plans to put on "Oklahoma" this fall in collaboration with Highland High students and faculty.

The first year, the school will be housed at Highland. Construction may begin on the new school building this year.

"It's going to be a roller-coaster ride," said Doug Bishop, the performing arts school's principal. "But we're going to have our thrills."

jlyon@sltrib.com

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Tribune reporter Sheena McFarland contributed to this story.