Here’s how Pa. is holding cyber charter schools accountable with important reforms

Pennsylvania lawmakers approved substantial cyber charter school reforms when passing this year’s budget. It’s the first serious reform since 2002.

Since they were enacted into law over 20 years ago, Pennsylvania’s cyber charter schools have largely gone unregulated, or underregulated, until this past November when lawmakers included a series of reforms in a packet of budget-related code bills approved by the Pennsylvania House and Senate and signed into law by Gov. Josh Shapiro. 

For public education advocates and watchdogs like Susan Spicka, who is the Executive Director of the Education Voters of Pennsylvania, state lawmakers should receive some sort of “kudos” because it is not that often when meaningful reforms make it through the Capitol.

“ The accountability reforms are incredibly meaningful reforms that are going to reshape how cyber charter schools operate and make the industry accountable for educating students,” Spicka said in an interview. “They passed the Senate with unanimous approval. And I think that our legislature should get kudos for these very thoughtful reforms that are gonna make a big difference,” she added.

Cyber charter schools were created by the Pennsylvania legislature in 2002 after legislators amended the state’s charter school law, and, since then, the commonwealth has become the cyber charter school capital of the country, according to a 2022 Children’s First Education Report. 

There are currently 60,000 students enrolled in 14 cyber charter schools across Pennsylvania, and in 2021, those schools enrolled 99.7% of students looking to attend a charter school thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.   

Lawmakers included four accountability reforms in the budget that cyber charter schools must abide by, and they include: 

• Truancy reforms – students who have issues with unexcused absences are prohibited from transferring to a cyber charter school unless a judge determines that transferring to a cyber charter school would be in the interest of the student.  
• Attendance policies – cyber charter schools are responsible for creating attendance policies for synchronous instruction, which is teaching children who are visible and on camera, or and asynchronous instruction, which is setting weekly benchmarks for off-camera coursework for teachers to track.
• Wellness checks – cyber charter schools must complete weekly wellness checks on camera to verify the well being of students
• Verifying where students live – parents or guardians of cyber charter school students must submit proof of residency twice a year in order to determine which school district is paying for the student’s tuition. 

Additionally, school districts across the commonwealth are expected to save $178 million a year in tuition reforms. According to Education Voters of Pennsylvania, school districts will be allowed to make additional deductions based on tuition paid to cyber charter schools for non-special students, tax assessment and collection services, student activities and other services. 

“ Schools are supposed to educate students, and we spend a lot of money educating students,” Spicka said. “We spend a lot of money on public education so that students will graduate, get ready for the workforce, career, higher ed, whatever they want to do, and these [cyber charter] schools, there was clearly something in them that was not right.”