Since July, when the Pa. Leadership Charter School opened a regional office in the Pittsburgh Mills mall, the number of students from Valley communities attending online schools has soared — more than doubling in some districts.

In all, about 600 Alle-Kiski Valley elementary and secondary students are enrolled in cyber schools — Internet-based schools where they take classes on a computer from home.

Last year, that number was about 350.

But some critics have raised questions about how many of those students, especially those with truancy problems in the past, are really getting an education online.

Amy and David Fortuna, of Allegheny Township, are very happy with the Pa. Leadership Charter School. Son Dave, 10, and daughter Casey, 7, are enrolled. Amy Fortuna began home-schooling her children, but when a third baby came along, the two older children attended Heights Elementary School in Harrison, where the family lived.

“My son is really, really good in math,” Amy Fortuna said. “I didn’t feel he was being challenged enough in regular school. When he took the placement test for the Pa. Leadership School, he tested four grades ahead in math. Even though he’s in fourth grade, we put him in sixth-grade math, and he’s in fifth grade for language arts. So they can be in different levels for different classes. I really like that.”

Renee King, home school visitor and social worker for the New Kensington-Arnold School District, says cyber schools are good for some students, especially those with adult supervision at home.

But she questions whether students who have been chronically truant are good candidates for the freedom that comes with an online school and little or no daily supervision at home.

“I got a notice after Christmas from the Pa. Leadership Charter School at the mall that they have dropped two students from our district who were enrolled at the beginning of this year,” King said. “They never even logged on to their computer site.”

King says one of them, a 17-year-old, has been a truancy problem since the fourth grade.

And now New Kensington-Arnold School District, by state law, is once again responsible for the students’ education.

Lynn Rodden, family coordinator at the online school’s Pittsburgh Mills mall office, says the cyber school doesn’t work out for all students.

“If they are not logging on, they don’t stay. We send them back to their school districts. We’re not here to hide them. Some children don’t realize the value of an education, and their parents don’t help.”

A total of four students were sent back to the New Kensington-Arnold School District in March, she said, because of attendance or academic problems.

Officials at the main West Chester office of the cyber school handle attendance problems, Rodden said. But she said, under state Department of Education regulations, the school must send students back to their home district after 30 unexcused absences.

Sheri Rowe, chief of non-public, private and charter school services for the state Department of Education, said if a student has three unexcused absences, a cyber school should notify the school district to pursue truancy charges.

“Any charter school is responsible for educating its students,” she said.

Rodden says once a student has three unexcused absences, the school sends both parents and the home school district a letter. And the school sends another letter after three more unexcused absences, and after the next three.

Rodden didn’t have figures on how many students had been dropped from the school. But she says about 100 students of a total 1,400 statewide have been placed in an intensive academic assistance program, which requires mandatory log-ons at specific hours.

Rodden disagrees that truant students should be excluded from online schools, however.

“Some students who were truant are the ones that are most successful here,” she said. “They get to escape the peer pressure or bullying that kept them out of school. They get to focus on academics only. Those are the ones we get the most excited about.”

Rodden said one of their best success stories involves a poorer family from Uniontown. “Both older children dropped out of school. The parents enrolled their third child with Pa. Leadership, saying, ‘This is our last chance.’ And that child is doing really well.”

District Judge Frank Pallone of New Kensington, who tries to convince students of the importance of education when the school district brings a truant student before him, doesn’t think these students should be eligible for cyber schools. He says it’s often a waste of taxpayer money because the student doesn’t get enough supervision.

Local school districts have no say in whether a student can transfer to a cyber school.

King estimated about 40 percent of the New Kensington-Arnold students who have enrolled in cyber school had attendance problems in the past.

Last year, the district had about 30 students enrolled in a half-dozen cyber schools in the state. This year it is 85, the most of any Valley school district, and about 40 are enrolled at the Pa. Leadership Charter School at the mall.

Other districts with more than 50 students attending cyber schools are Kiski Area, Highlands, Armstrong and Apollo-Ridge. All of these school districts will send cyber schools about $400,000 each this year after state reimbursements.

Local and state taxpayers pay the cyber school between $6,000 and $8,500 a year for each regular student and as much as $14,000 for special education students. Local taxpayers pay about 70 percent of the cost, and the state pays the remaining 30 percent.

The Rev. Mitch Nickols, chairman of the Weed and Seed Education Committee for New Kensington and Arnold, said truant kids, by definition, already have a supervision problem at home. So they would be the least likely to succeed with even more freedom and less supervision.

Armstrong School District officials also are concerned about the lack of oversight of the cyber schools.

Charles Pepper, coordinator of child accounting, said the cyber schools have not been diligent in overseeing the enrollment and withdrawal of students, leading to inaccuracies in their child accounting and billings.

He thinks they should be subject to audits, as the public schools are.

And the state education department, which is responsible for overseeing education standards statewide, exercises little oversight when it comes to attendance issues for cyber charter schools.

Rowe, of the state education department, says officials there don’t get regular truancy reports from cyber schools and, therefore, can’t comment on specific absentee problems. She referred questions about whether habitually truant students should be eligible for cyber schools to state lawmakers, who would be responsible for changing the law governing cyber schools.

By: Debra Duncan
Debra Duncan can be reached at dduncan@tribweb.com or 724-226-4668.

This entry was posted by Taman Siswa on Monday, May 1, 2006 at 11:07 pm and is filed under Online Education. Tags: Alle-Kiski Valley, Allegheny Township, Amy Fortuna, Apollo-Ridge, Armstrong School District, Arnold, Casey, Charles Pepper, Chester, child accounting, Christmas, David Fortuna, Debra Duncan, Department of Education, Education News, Frank Pallone, Heights Elementary School, home school district, Internet schools, law governing cyber schools, Leadership Charter School, Leadership School, Lynn Rodden, Mitch Nickols, New Kensington, New Kensington-Arnold School District, online school, online schools, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh Mills mall, Renee King, school services, Sheri Rowe, Son Dave, state law, Student, Uniontown, Valley school district, Weed and Seed Education Committee for New Kensington and Arnold, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.