Area districts advance cyber programs, call for even playing field

Yahoo

28-04-2025

The vibe inside the Conneaut Cyber Academy cyber lounge on Friday was low key, but that was part of the appeal.
A couple of easy chairs in one corner were empty, and the coffee maker in another was silent. Seated at tables in the middle of the room, juniors Amanda Shearer, Daylee Watson and Mitchell Lasko checked their computers before heading from Linesville to Meadville for the second half of their school day in various Crawford Tech programs. In another corner of the room, Jason Wertelet, one of the district's two full-time cyber teachers, was seated in front of two widescreen monitors, ready to answer questions on topics ranging from pre-algebra for seventh graders to AP calculus.
The flexibility offered by taking some classes online through the Conneaut Cyber Academy, now in its 15th year, has been a game-changer for the 55 full-time students in the program this year as well as the 80 students, like Shearer, Watson and Lasko, whose schedules are a blend of in-person and cyber classes.
'It's really nice,' Shearer said of the cyber option. 'We can't take all of our classes like other students can because we only have half a day here.'
Last year, for instance, Shearer couldn't fit an agriculture class into her half-day schedule at Conneaut Area Senior High (CASH). Taking the class online through Conneaut Cyber Academy allowed her to remain in the school's FFA club, where enrollment in an ag class is a requirement. This year, she is taking physical education and health online while taking agriculture in person.
For Watson, cyber versions of her Spanish and health classes enable her to balance classes at CASH, the sports medicine program at Crawford Tech, and the demands of a wrestling schedule that saw her earn a silver medal at the PIAA championships in Hershey last month.
'I'm able to do some work at home and not overwhelm myself at school with so many classes,' Watson said. 'With the cyber classes, we can get it done any time we have an opening.'
Lasko, who spends half his school day working at Griffin Motors Co. through Crawford Tech's cooperative education program, wouldn't be able to take all of his required classes this semester if not for the cyber option.
'I like it because I've got a pretty busy schedule these days as a co-op student, and I don't have time to get all my school work done in school,' Lasko said. 'So it's nice to have all week to get the assignments done on your own time.'
The program is not for everyone, according to Wertelet, who was been part of Conneaut's cyber offerings since they were launched.
'There has to be a self-motivation for the students,' he said. That attitude is sometimes lacking, he added, in students who come to Conneaut's cyber school from other cyber programs expecting an easy ride.
'I can tell when some students come from other cyber programs and they just will open up an assignment and submit an assignment because they've had teachers that have never even looked at anything before,' he said. 'I'm like, I'm sorry — I actually grade.'
Calls for changes
Like the students in the cyber classes, area school districts are hoping that in-house options can reshape the current cyber school landscape. In addition to building their own programs, the districts continue to mobilize in favor of major changes to how the state funds cyber charter schools, their primary competition in the world of online education.
It's a war that has featured numerous skirmishes over the past decade, many of them coming in the form of springtime griping from district officials concerned about the impact of cyber charter tuition costs on annual budgets.
More recently, however, local districts have grown increasingly vocal in their calls for reform following the February release of an audit of cyber charter school performance from 2020 to 2023 by the Pennsylvania Department of the Auditor General.
Among several key findings, the report described how the fund balances of cyber charter schools ballooned from $254 million to $619 million in the three-year period of the audit, an increase of 144 percent. The report also noted that while students who transfer to cyber charter schools from different districts receive similar educations, the tuition charges to their home districts can vary widely — from $6,975 to $25,150 per student for regular education and from $18,329 to $60,166 per student for special education. Because each of Pennsylvania's 500 school districts is required to calculate its own rate for regular and special education cyber charter tuition, there are 1,000 distinct tuition rates paid across the state to each cyber charter school, according to the auditor general's report.
Board members in Crawford Central School District last month unanimously endorsed a letter to Sen. Michele Brooks and Rep. Brad Roae, the legislators who represent Crawford Central residents, calling for changes. In addition to endorsing 'a comprehensive reassessment of the cyber charter school funding model,' the letter asked Brooks and Roae to consider requiring students to use a district's own cyber platform rather than private cyber charter schools.
Last year, Conneaut board members endorsed a similar letter to legislators that called for cyber charter tuition costs for regular education to be capped at $10,000 per student with an added provision that would have required all school districts to pay the statewide tuition rate or their calculated charter school tuition rate, whichever was lower.
Earlier this month, PENNCREST School District officials encouraged district residents to send similar letters to Roae and Brooks calling for cyber charter reform.
PENNCREST board member Tim Brown said he was disappointed to find both Brooks and Roae 'standoffish' when he raised the subject of cyber charter reform at a recent Republican Party event.
'As many letters as we can get out, we should,' Brown said.
'That's the key,' board President Bob Johnston agreed. 'They've heard from us board members, and I think they're just getting tired of hearing from us.'
Response from legislators
It's not as though years of school district concerns regarding cyber charter funding have been ignored. In fact, the latest calls for change come after major changes in 2024, according to Brooks.
'Last year we enacted significant reforms that included a reduction in cyber charter school special education costs by approximately $190 million annually beginning January 1st of this year,' Brooks said in a statement to The Meadville Tribune. 'In addition, school districts received $100 million in cyber charter reimbursements. Ethics and transparency measures were also passed at that time. I have to believe we'll see additional movement and reforms on this topic during this year's budget.'
Roae, on the other hand, appeared less sympathetic to the idea of increasing limitations on cyber charter school funding. In an emailed statement, he highlighted Conneaut's spending, saying the district spends about $25,000 per student, well above the national average.
'When a student leaves for a cyber charter school, Conneaut pays $14,875 tuition,' Roae said. 'Conneaut gets to keep the other $10,129 even though they no longer have to educate that student.'
Capping cyber charter tuition costs at $8,000 per student, Roae said, would mean 'Conneaut would keep $17,004 for a student that they no longer have, but the school educating that child would only get $8,000.'
'All local districts have similar numbers,' he added.
Fair competition
It's an argument Roae has made before and that school district officials have responded to before. One point of contention is that school districts spend thousands per student on costs associated with brick-and-mortar buildings, transportation and other requirements that cyber charter schools don't incur. While individual students may depart for cyber charter schools, these costs remain — but at least part of the tax revenue that should pay form them follows the student to the cyber charter school that doesn't have to transport students or maintain the same infrastructure-intensive system of buildings.
In responding to arguments like Roae's, Jarrin Sperry, Conneaut's outgoing superintendent, has pointed out the district's roughly $2 million in annual transportation costs and argued that the comparison Roae draws is no comparison at all.
'To simply take a district's budget and divide it by the number of students is misguided at best and dishonest at worst,' Sperry wrote in one response. 'If Conneaut's budget numbers were reduced to the same level as a cyber charter, the numbers would become more honest.'
Looking at just the expenses for teachers, administrators and business offices, Sperry argued, Conneaut's annual per-pupil costs are less than $12,000 — significantly less than the amount it pays per pupil for cyber charter tuition.
In making a similar point this month, PENNCREST Superintendent Shawn Ford said he was in favor of competition between public schools and cyber charter schools.
'I think it makes you better,' Ford told board members. 'I'm not even saying that we shouldn't help fund those schools, OK? But what I am saying — let's make it reasonable.'
At $8,000 per student for regular education, PENNCREST would save nearly $1 million next year, according to district estimates, about 1.7 percent of its projected $58 million budget.
'We'll compete with anyone,' Ford said, 'but put us on the fair grounds to compete.'