East Stroudsburg Area School District and its taxpayers paid cyber charter schools $3.7 million last year. That total has climbed consistently for at least the last five years.
The Pennsylvania school code requires that all state funding follow a student regardless of his or her choice of school. Funds are allocated directly to public school districts. Then, charter schools seek a tuition reimbursement from the district that sends the student.
Public schools are obligated to pay, but institutions have clashed on how much. Calculations are currently based on the expenses of the sending school. They do not consider what it actually costs the charter school to educate a student.
“In my opinion, it’s destructive to the public education system,” said Principal Bill Vitulli of Smithfield Elementary School. “Is it reasonable to pay cyber charter schools who don’t have nearly the same costs we do?”
Vitulli also manages the district’s own cyber program, East Stroudsburg Area Cyber Academy. It currently has about 90 students enrolled full-time and closer to 60 attending part-time, he said. All classes are taught by district instructors.
“Cyber charter schools don’t really have any different expenses than we do in our program,” he said. “They might have to hire more staff, but they don’t have all the costs of building maintenance, sports teams or after-school activities.”
Vitulli estimated an annual cost of $2,500 to educate a single, nonspecial student in the district cyber program. He did not have an exact figure available, he said.
Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey Bader said cyber academy costs are included in district’s other expenses; however, he estimated the program costs less than $4,000 a year per student.
Right now, the district pays charter schools $12,735 for each student or $29,731 for each special education student.
In October 2015, East Stroudsburg school district had 202 students enrolled in nine different cyber charter schools, according to Pennsylvania Department of Education records. That total includes 51 special needs students, who have higher tuition costs.
Commonwealth Charter Academy had the largest population of East Stroudsburg area students that year. CCA had 84 district students enrolled as of October, including 21 special education students. It remains one of the most attended by students from Monroe and Pike Counties for the last five years.
“Our costs aren’t the same; they’re just different,” said CEO Maurice Flurie, who formerly worked as assistant superintendent for Lower Dauphin School District.
“The general expectation is that it’s less, but that’s not necessarily true,” he said. “Some things cost exponentially more, like equipment maintenance or technology infrastructure.”
It costs CCA a little over $11,000 a year to educate a nonspecial student, Flurie said. CCA currently has more than 9,000 students enrolled across the state.
“We have costs no school district has,” he said. “When traditional schools have Keystone Exams or PSSA tests, kids ride the same buses to school — there’s no added costs. We have to put teachers on the road, rent spaces and feed staff. It costs us $800,000 to $1 million a year just to administer tests.”
Testing performance is one of the indicators used by the state Department of Education to measure educational effectiveness. Those numbers comprise a weighted score, called a School Performance Profile.
Online education programs generally have lower SPP scores than brick-and-mortar schools. Cyber charter schools scored an average of 50.9 between all 14 institutions operating in Pennsylvania.
CCA scored 47.5 during the last school year.
“We care about our kids making progress over time,” said Flurie. “In most cases, students come to us because something wasn’t working at their other school. That’s not appropriately reflected in an SPP score.”
About 72 percent of CCA students are at least one grade level behind at enrollment, Flurie also said. While about 80 percent return the next year, about 20 percent seek another institution.
“It doesn’t take into account the amount of kids leaving and coming in,” he said. “Some students plan on being with us just for middle school, so they’re going to test better as a ninth grader at a new school.”
East Stroudsburg had a district-wide SPP score of 69.6, based on the average results of its ten individual schools. Its cyber program does not have a separate score. Those students’ performances are reflected in the results of the physical school they would have attended.
“The general consensus is that cyber school isn’t necessarily the best way to teach,” said Principal Vitulli of East Stroudsburg’s program. “Success in cyber learning — even in our district — is not as good as being in a brick-and-mortar school.”
The program has grown substantially since he took over three years ago, Vitulli also said. He estimated the program on its own could likely rate well above the 50.9 average SPP cyber school score.
“It’s hard data to get,” he said. “You can’t compare because cyber schools are not being held to the same standards as brick-and-mortar schools.”
This is part 1 of a 2-part story.)