Some see cyber charter schools as alternative during pandemic

While the coronavirus pandemic has forced millions of students to learn online, for over 30,000 students in Pennsylvania, this was already the norm. These students have swapped out traditional brick and mortar schools for cyber charter schools.

According to James Hanak, CEO and founder of Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School and executive director of the Public Cyber Charter School Association, a cyber charter school “delivers a substantial portion of its curriculum and instruction via the internet or some other electronic means.”

These schools are alternatives for students like Garrett Dunn who are not best served by an inperson learning environment. Garrett is a rising senior who started cyber school in 7th grade. “He needed to get more review on certain things, move at a slower pace, and ask questions,” said his mother Susan Dunn, “He doesn’t fit in a cookie cutter mold.”

In addition to the instructional benefits Garrett has experienced, Dunn said one of the best parts of cyber school for her son is the “subtraction of the drama” of a traditional classroom environment, which allows Garrett to “get back to some quality learning.”

She also said she appreciates the flexibility of cyberlearning. Dunn said if Garrett struggles one day, he can take a break and make the work up the next day. Hanak added that cyber schools “give students flexibility by giving them two weeks to do an assignment.”

The pandemic has caused a dramatic spike in interest in cyber charter schools. “We have received more enrollment applications as of today [July 27] than we did the entire previous year,” Hanak said.

He believes that students and parents were “dissatisfied” with the online instruction they received from their brick and mortar public schools last spring. “They tried to ramp up in a week or two what we have been working on for 16 years,” Hanak said.

One advantage of cyber charter schools is that their teachers are already experienced in teaching remotely. “They have their lessons already catered to online learning,” said Dunn, “That’s what they do, so this isn’t something that a teacher who was teaching last year in a classroom and has nothing online is trying to throw together.”

Cyber school is ideal for certain students, but “it’s not for everybody,” said Kristina Lapsker, a special education teacher at Agora Cyber Charter School and the mother of a fourth grader there. “It depends upon the child, the parent, and the family dynamic,” she added.

Hanak said both the students’ and parents’ levels of motivation are essential in determining who will be successful in a cyber environment. He added that some students struggle without the daily social interaction of brick and mortar schools.

As local districts seem poised to extend distance learning into the fall semester, students and parents are contemplating the merits of the online format adopted by their brick and mortar schools versus the curriculum of a cyber charter school. And for some, the clear choice is a switch to cyber charter school.