Most New Yorkers grew up attending public school. According to state data, about 87%, or more than 2.4 million kindergarten through 12th-grade students, attend New York public schools, while about 360,000 students go to non-public schools.

Parents have a variety of options for schooling in New York, between public schools, charter schools, private schools and home schooling.

In some school districts, students can choose privately-run charter schools funded by taxpayers, some of which focus on specialties like science.

Araceli Goodyear has attended a public charter school in Syracuse since kindergarten, along with her four siblings.

"You want to be able to be having choices, so you know what you can do in the future," said Goodyear.

"I think you have to prep our children for their future from the time they're walking," her mother, Patricia Goodyear, said. "Being ready for the world doesn't start at senior grade. It starts at the very beginning."

Patricia Goodyear decided from an early age that attending college was a top priority. So she entered a lottery to get her kids into the public charter school Science Academies of New York, a college-prep school.

"So many science fairs, it's not even funny. You know, it's always trying to figure out what is going to make them complete as humans," said Patricia Goodyear.

Araceli Goodyear participates in several clubs, and she’s starting on the girls soccer team.

"But it's like a lot of opportunities that you're just able to build clubs; you're able to do what you want to do in this school," she said. "If you want to be out and going like talking to your parents about maybe going to this school because they have this different thing, definitely really [talk] about your choices."