Public schools launch cyber programs in attempt to compete with cyber schools

Tuesday, March 02, 2010
By DOUGLAS B. BRILL
The Express-Times

Initial efforts by public schools to avoid cyber school costs were simple: They just didn't pay.

Two school boards in Northampton County even crystallized the plan in resolutions.

But their resolutions didn't work; state law said they had to pay.

And now public schools have increasingly adopted a new way to save on cyber school costs: compete.

To retain students and the state subsidies that come with them, school districts and intermediate units across Pennsylvania have increasingly developed their own cyber schools.

The public schools don't yet offer curriculums as expansive or developed as those offered by the state's 11 chartered cyber schools. But administrators hope they can offer enough online to persuade wavering students to stay.

"The costs are extremely expensive for the school district when they pay a cyber school bill," said Mary Beth Bianco, assistant executive director for Colonial Intermediate Unit 20, which last month launched a cyber school program in the Bangor Area School District. "Our goal is to keep the kids in the district."

The intermediate unit is among at least five in Pennsylvania to offer a cyber schooling program to its member districts. In IU 20, which hopes more of its member districts will join, Bianco said, educators asked for ways to save on cyber schools.

State chartered cyber schools are private nonprofit organizations that provide online education for children. They are funded by tax money that would otherwise go to public school districts.

This school year, Northampton County districts expected to pay cyber schools $4.96 million to educate 587 students.

Districts can see savings

Holly Brzycki, who oversees the Capital Area Online Learning Association, which serves 16 schools in IU 15 near Harrisburg, said member districts wanted in part to "retain and recruit students that may have been looking to, or who had already left the district to enroll in, full-time cyber schools."

Students can take anything from one course to a full curriculum through the program. Graduates receive a diploma from their home district, Brzycki said, and can participate in extracurricular activities at no cost.

School districts, she said, save about $1,000 for each student who picks the program over a state chartered cyber school and can save more per student as more students enroll.

Intermediate Units 15, 17, 18 and 19 also offer similar programs.

The Colonial IU program, called Virtually Linking Instruction and Curriculum, or VLINC, would cost $3,500 per student, according to administrators in the Bangor Area School District -- the only one in Northampton County to adopt it so far.

The district expects to pay about $9,200 per charter cyber student this year. Northampton County schools as a whole anticipate paying $8,453 per student.

The Saucon Valley School District is expected to look at VLINC as part of its budget talks this spring, as well as an online program that would act as a supplement to traditional instruction.

Some fault found

But one cyber school administrator predicts school districts and intermediate units would struggle to offer what chartered cyber schools do.

Dennis Tulli, a former public school superintendent, said public schools are equipped to do little more than "(send) students home with computers and books."

Programs like VLINC, he said, would divert money from "legitimate cyber school programs."

"There are just a lot of families that feel this choice (state chartered cyber schools) gives them a choice that meets their needs better than the traditional school system," he said.

"This choice, I'm seeing it work with so many families. I really see it as important for cyber schools to remain a part of Pennsylvania's educational landscape."

Bangor Area Assistant Superintendent Patricia Mulroy, who said "a huge loss of funding" led her to explore how the district could retain students, said VLINC wouldn't replace cyber schools.

"Everyone has a place and there's a place for cyber schools," she said. "Our goal is not to eliminate that. Our goal is not to alienate students from a Bangor Area education."

She said VLINC could offer better student-teacher ratios than cyber schools and a personal connection lost in distance learning.

More importantly, she said, the program could help the district reach struggling or disaffected students.

"I started to look at why are we losing these kids and how do we connect them back to us," Mulroy said. "It's not so much the money or (No Child Left Behind) status.

"I'd say we're trying to get students back to our schools."

VLINC launched in January with six Bangor Area students who left cyber school.