Cyber charter schools fill up as parents seek virtual options

In a normal year, the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, based in Midland, Beaver County, doesn’t even start receiving most of its enrollments for the fall until August. This year, the school, better known as PA Cyber, was already full by the end of July.

The COVID-19 pandemic has parents across Pennsylvania beating down the virtual doors of established cyber charter schools, either because they do not want to send their children to school inperson or because they were dissatisfied by the virtual experience in their home school districts in the spring.

“We’ve been getting over 1,000 inquiries a week,” said Brian Hayden, chief executive officer of PA Cyber. “We’ve had to redeploy 40 employees from other positions just to respond to inquiries.”

On Wednesday, PA Cyber — the largest of the state’s 14 cyber charters — announced enrollment had filled up and those who still wanted to attend would be placed on a waitlist.

The Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School, a cyber charter based in West Chester, Pa., cut off enrollment on July 27, saying all applications received after that date would be placed on the waitlist. And the Career Connections Academy, based in Seven Fields, began placing all applicants on a rolling admissions waitlist as of

Friday.

The Agora Cyber Charter School, based in King of Prussia, Pa., near Philadelphia, is still taking applications for now. But the school is closely monitoring when it might reach capacity.

“We have had a huge spike in interest,” Agora CEO Rich Jensen said. “We hold virtual open houses a few times a day, even sometimes

on Saturdays because of the demand.”

Natasha Williams, of the North Side, is planning to send her 11-year-old twins to Agora in the fall instead of Pittsburgh Allegheny 68.

Partly because her 4year-old daughter, Ta’Shae, has severe asthma, Ms. Williams is not comfortable with her twins physically attending school.

“I don’t want them to just go to school and something happens, or somebody gets sick, or somebody in school winds up with coronavirus,” she said.

And while her twins had a great experience generally at Pittsburgh Allegheny for elementary school, she wasn’t satisfied with what Pittsburgh Public Schools provided after it shut down in the spring. About a week after school shut down physically in March, Ms. Williams enrolled them in Agora, wanting them to finish the school year with more support.

The question is how many more children such as Ms. Williams’ twins will the cyber charter schools be able to accept.

Though cyber charter schools don’t have physical capacity limitations, they do need to maintain student-teacher ratios. By law, they also provide computers, printers and reimbursements on internet access.

“Similar to a brick-andmortar school, we can’t stuff 60 kids into a classroom that’s designed for 25,” PA Cyber’s Mr. Hayden said. “We have live teachers that can only teach so many students.”

PA Cyber, which typically starts the school year with fewer than 10,000 students, now has more than 11,100 enrolled for the fall. Children statewide are eligible to enroll.

Demand started to spike in early July, Mr. Hayden said, when the governor announced that all children in Pennsylvania would be required to wear masks in school.

“Our lower grades filled up much faster,” Mr.

Hayden said. “They didn’t see their young child attending school all day in a mask.”

Other parents have told him that they prefer an allonline option versus inperson school because they fear for the safety of their child or other family members.

And while many districts are offering their own online options, Mr. Hayden said that he has heard from parents choosing cyber charters because they were disappointed with what their home districts offered in the spring, when districts had to come up with their online platforms virtually overnight. In particular, he said, parents are interested in live classes — also known as synchronous education.

“We’re going to start our 20th school year this fall,” Mr. Hayden said. “This isn’t something we just started doing.”

For school districts, however, there is a downside to a rush of students to cyber charters. Much of district funding is allocated per student, and if a student leaves for a cyber charter, the district loses roughly 75% of those dollars.

Many districts are ramping up their online offerings, offering separate all-virtual programs in addition to their in-person or hybrid learning options. The North Allegheny School District, for example, created the NA Cyber Academy for students who prefer to attend school remotely.

The district touts the NA Cyber Academy as using North Allegheny teachers and aligning specifically with what students who attend in-person would learn, for an easier eventual transition back to inperson learning.

Students have until Aug. 9 to let that district know which they are choosing, acting superintendent Patrick O’Toole said, and the district will have a better idea then of what, if any, budgetary hit it might take from students choosing a cyber charter instead.