In-district cyber school option proposed in U.D.

UPPER DARBY >> The Upper Darby School District is looking to get into the cyber school arena in a move to keep cyber-charter students in the district and potentially save millions of dollars on tuition costs.

Assistant Superintendent Dan McGarry proposed at a recent school board committee meeting a contract with Pearson Connexus, an online education program, to provide an alternative form of education to students outside of the standard brick-andmortar schools. It would be a program that has licensed access to 700 courses of all levels and can use district teachers as the online instructors. Lesson plans and assessments are already included.

Through this program, a district teacher can lead the online courses at $379 per student (license) and cost approximately $190,000 for 501 students. The transferable licenses, which are issued one per student, get cheaper as more students enroll hence why administrators are targeting 501. Licenses may also be used for summer school instruction.

Even if the district chooses to use state-certified teachers provided by Pearson, the cost would be $1.8 million for 501 students. Money for the program may come from the homebound instruction budget.

Other options under Pearson that were mentioned included a student recruitment options from Pearson with a six-course license at $4,600, per student with the same package without recruitment for $3,600.

Already spending $3.6 million for cyber tuition, the district expects that to rise to $4.7 million next year for an estimated 473 students if it continues with the status quo. Regular education cost for cyber-charter school tuition is $10,400 per student according to the district.

McGarry noted the importance of keeping students with an indistrict program and the need to save money while not sacrificing the quality of education.

“This is a real progressive, aggressive thinking that we don’t want to use that money budgeted for cyber schools, and we want to put the money into one of these options to recruit back those students and have the money come back into the school district for other opportunities,” he said. “We need to think about this as a shift of what you budgeted already in the cyber charter world.”

“(It’s) a preventive measure for students who are thinking about going to a cyber school who are currently in our schools,” McGarry added. “This would be an opportunity to take this on instead of going down that path. I anticipate that this is going to do well and I think this is going to grow to well over 500 students in a cyber online solution for this community.”

McGarry said the Downington Area School District has had success with this program and has been in touch with Upper Darby to give more information and resources on it.

What has yet to be decided with the plan is teacher salaries and stipends, adequate number of Google Chromebooks for the students, special education and speech services and professional development. In regard to teachers, if the district could not get enough on board for the program then other state certified teachers would be recruited.

Director Kate Smith said the district is being pro-active with the cyber option to manage tax money that would otherwise be going outside the district.

If approved by the board at its May 9 meeting, the district would enter into an initial one-year contract with Pearson.