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McVEYTOWN -- School officials across the region joined in solidarity on Monday.
Superintendents from seven area school districts met for a press conference at Tuscarora Intermediate Unit 11 to bring attention to the need for reforms to the Pennsylvania charter school law and to share the impact of inflated charter and cyber school tuition payments in their communities.
The press conference came during National School Choice Week, which promotes the concept of school choice.
Since 2010, Mifflin County taxpayers alone have spent more than $14.4 million to fund tuition bills for cyber and charter schools, said Mifflin County School District Superintendent James Estep, who organized the press conference.
"The real irony is -- at Mifflin County -- we already offer online and blended learning programs to 500 students through our Alpha and MCO programs. I shutter to think how much more burden our taxpayers would shoulder for cyber and charter tuition if we didn't run our own programs -- it would likely double to current taxpayer burden to pay for cyber and charter school tuition."
Estep referenced "slickly produced" advertisements run by the cyber and charter school lobby which say they offer a free high-quality education.
"Let me tell you, it's not free. You're paying for it each and every time you get your school tax bill and because of the way in which the law is currently written, it guarantees that the price will continue to grow with each passing year."
He said studies have shown that students who attend cyber and charter schools lose the equivalent of about a year's work of instruction in math and nearly the same in reading and language arts.
Estep said in many cases, benefactors for cyber and charter education are private and for-profit companies, shareholders and CEOs that run the schools.
"Your tax dollars from all 67 counties in this commonwealth have enabled profiteers and CEOs from what is now a multibillion dollar industry to purchase things like 10,000 square foot mansions in Palm Springs, private planes, lavish trips to luxury resorts and other perks that none of us in this room will ever experience in our lifetimes," he said.
"I'm fed up. I'm fed up with struggling every year to make a budget balanced. I'm fed up with worrying about how I can maintain the programs that matter for Mifflin County's parents and kids. I'm fed up with having to worry about cutting teaching positions and increasing class size to make a balanced budget….I'm fed up that (while) year after year, some of our legislators who have recognized that this legislation is a real problem for taxpayers and have tried to introduce bills to start to fix the problem, (we) never see those bills never considered in committee, let alone, making it to the floor of the general assembly. That's a real leadership problem in our legislature."
Mifflin County Elementary Principal Kevin O'Donnell discussed the quality education being offered by cyber and charter schools and the need for greater accountability.
"All 15 cyber/charter schools are targeted for school improvement in some way, shape or form," he said. "That means these schools are in the lowest 5 percent in the state and at a secondary level will have a graduation rate less than 67 percent."
O'Donnell referenced the Future Ready PA Index, a collection of school progress measures related to school and student success.
"The quality (of education) is not equaling the investment of the taxpayer in our commonwealth and we see this when students transition back in. We see the cost of a parents hearing those advertisements thinking this may be a good thing for my child, only to find out when they are transitioning back in that they are not where their age-appropriate peers should be -- that their needs have not been met."
Chris Gill, who leads the online program at Mifflin County School District said when he was hired in 2015 to develop the program, he was "stunned" by the poor performance data that was available for cyber programs.
One school, he said, even had a 37 percent graduation rate.
"We didn't want to replicate that. It's not the way to go," he said.
To develop the program, Gill asked students why they didn't want to be in the traditional program.
"We had 136 kids in our cyber program and we quickly found out we had 136 reasons why kids did not want to be in this traditional program," he said. "That started guiding our decision on what we needed to offer. We found out we had to personalize that learning program for each kid. We found out that most kids did not need to be full-time online students. Most kids wanted to be a part of the traditional school program, but wanted something slightly different, which could be solved with a hybrid schedule."
Today, he said the district has 531 students participating in its online programs and graduation rates among online students at Mifflin County has risen.
Other school district superintendents and staff also commented on how cyber/charter schools affected their district.
Juniata Valley School District Superintendent Mike Zinobile said his district currently has 22 students enrolled in charter schools at a cost of about $350,000 per year with costs being about $16,000 to educate a student. That cost rises to as much as $25,000 to educate a special education student, he said.
Juniata Valley currently has eight full-time students who attend the district's in-house charter school at a cost of about $5,000 per student, he said.
"We find that many students who enter our cyber and charter schools do so to avoid truancy issues an so many students who enter these institutions return to us having earned zero or very few credits during their enrollment period in the charter schools," he said.
Southern Huntingdon County School District Superintendent Dwayne Northcraft explained that his district also implemented its own online program to reduce cyber/charter school tuition from $500,000 to $300,000.
"We operate our own online programs at approximately half the cost," he said.
Ramonda Zinobile, online coordinator for Southern Huntingdon School District, a program which launched about a year ago, said she also formed the program by offering more customized options for students.
"They have various reasons for why they're going online….many have outside things that don't allow them to be a traditional student for that school year or a couple school years."
Mount Union Area School District Superintendent Amy Smith said she felt cyber and charter schools should be held to the same standard that public schools are held to.
Furthermore, Dawn Shields, online program coordinator for Mount Union Area School District, said it is not uncommon for students who leave the school district to attend a cyber/charter school to need remediation after returning.
"It becomes an additional expense. Not only do we pay for their time at a charter or cyber (school), but we have to add additional funding to help remediate (to compensate for education) they didn't get when there were there to help get them caught up."
Huntingdon Area School District Superintendent Fred Foster said in many cases, the district pays more to educate a cyber/charter student than a students who attends the school district.
Using the 2018-19 school year as an example, he said the district spent $1.9 million to educate 143 cyber/charter school students. Those same students would have cost $250,000 to $500,000 less to educate at the school district, he said.
"How do we spend less on our own children that attend our facilities versus what we spend on those who go to other educational facilities?" he said. "I've got more questions than answers…There needs to be some accountability to the taxpayers."
Melinda Kenepp, chief financial officer for Mifflin County School District, discussed flaws in the funding formula that affect school districts every year.
As enrollment declines she said that charter school tuition will "naturally increase" each year, "even as we make every effort to keep our budget at a modest increase."
"The flaws in the formula are growing exponentially. It compounds and we have no control over that. It's just a flawed formula."
Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators Executive Director Mark DiRocco also announced his support for school administrators.
"We have been working hard to impart on the legislature that this 22-year-old charter school law needs tremendous reform -- especially with the funding mechanism," he said. "Our organization has never been against online learning. We have never been against cyber learning. We do want accountability, transparency and fairness in the formula. We want to make sure everyone is playing by the same rules."
Susan Spicka, executive director of Education Voters of Pennsylvania, an organization that works to inform the public about the needs and importance of public schools, who was also present during the press conference, commended the superintendents for their efforts in making the public aware for the need of a reform.
She said in Norristown, 31 superintendents came together from some of the wealthiest, largest school districts in Pennsylvania to discuss the need for reform as well.
"The time is now. This needs to happen. The legislature needs to act."
Following the press conference, the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools released a statement saying that there were "plenty of false statements" made during two press conferences held Monday by school district superintendents.
"We agree with district leaders that Pennsylvania's Charter School Law needs to be fixed and we have been working for 4 plus years to make meaningful reforms happen in Harrisburg. Instead of attacking charter schools and their students on during National School Choice Week, we ask these individuals and their advocacy groups to work with us on a reform package we can all agree on," the release stated.