Revealed in Gov. Tom Wolf’s budget agenda this week was a proposal to establish a statewide cyber charter school tuition rate aimed at reducing the costs to districts for students attending those schools, which has local superintendents saying it’s a start, and state cyber charter schools calling it “callously wrong.”

Under Wolf’s proposal, cyber charter school tuition would be established at $9,500.

Currently, cyber charter schools in the state charge between $9,170 and $22,300 per student each year. The average tuition rate Intermediate Units in the state charge districts for a comparable online education is about $5,400 per student annually. This change in how cyber charter schools are funded is estimated to save school districts an estimated $130 million annually.

The governor also proposed to change the formula for determining funding for special education at cyber charter schools.

Although they are happy that there is some movement in the direction of a more equitable funding for cyber charters, the district superintendents contacted agreed that it still was not enough to rectify the situation.

“I believe that every student in Pennsylvania should have the same access to education and I look forward to a formula that is equitable and helps Jersey Shore students get what they need, but have it fairly and equitably. I think that would be great and I support it,” said Dr. Brian Ulmer, district superintendent at the Jersey Shore Area School District.

At last month’s school board meeting Ulmer had shared that the current formula for funding cyber charter schools equates them to brick and mortar schools.

“They’re still getting money as if they were turning on lights and building a building and heating the building and putting carpet in the building and whatever else you need for the building,” he told the board at that meeting, adding, “they’re getting paid to run a building and they’re not running a building.”

Ulmer had noted that with 200 students attending cyber charter schools, the cost to the district for this school year will total $3.2 million. He compared that to figures showing that the same amount of students in the district’s cyber program would cost the district $628,000.

The cost of educating a student in either special or regular education in the district’s program is $3,000 per student per year, while the cost for educating a special education student in the cyber/charter school setting is $25,849 per year and in regular education the cost is $12,266 per student per year.

Because of the pandemic, many districts have developed their own cyber programs which offers this type of education at a much lower cost than that offered by cyber charter schools.

East Lycoming is one of those schools. Like Ulmer, Michael Pawlik, superintendent, agreed that doing cyber school in-house is less costly to the district. He also agreed that the governor’s plan was a start at alleviating the problem.

“Anything he (Wolf) can do to improve the system for us would be something that we would look at very positively,” Pawlik said.

In referencing the governor’s proposed tuition rate for cyber charter schools, Pawlik said, “That is about $3,500 less than what we are paying them right now per student. That is for regular education.

“It’s just looking at them fairly and talking about what their expenses truly are,” he added.

I certainly appreciate what he’s trying to do. Any improvement in that piece of legislation is needed. However, I can offer the same cyber program to my students at half that cost,” Dr. Mark Stamm, South Williamsport Area School District’s Superintendent said.

“It is helpful and it’s a lot better than the $20,000 we currently get charged to us for a student with special needs but I can prove that day in and day out I can do it for half that cost. So, it’s helpful, but we’re not quite where we need to be yet,” he added.

Cyber charter schools were quick to respond to Wolf’s proposal, vehemently disagreeing with the governor.

In a news release, Lenny McAllister, CEO of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter School reacted to the governors proposal to cut funding to schools in his group.

“Governor Wolf believes that 169,000 public school students should endure nearly $230 million in funding cuts during a global pandemic and hard economic times. This is callously wrong,” McAllister stated.

McAllister went on to say, “We believe that every cent of public education spending should follow every Pennsylvania student without cuts, without delays and without fail to the public school of their choice. We support reforms that achieve these goals. We oppose proposals such as the governor’s that would harm the most vulnerable in Pennsylvania.”

Cyber charter schools are defined as public schools in Pennsylvania.