Escondido Charter High School (colloquially referred to as Charter) is an independent, co-educational, college preparatory day school for grades 9–12 located in Escondido, California. The school opened in 1996 with only 30 students. Since then, the student population has grown to almost 400 in the traditional preparatory program, with over 500 students attending the independent learning program. A Charter education is grounded in a classical "back to basics learning," and the importance of pupil-faculty intellectual discourse.