Cyber charter reforms might aid area schools
On paper, cyber charter reforms proposed by Gov. Tom Wolf would save nearly every Butler County School District money.
A spreadsheet of every school district in the county, with two cyber charter school funding adjustments added, shows savings in the Butler, Karns City, Mars, Moniteau, Seneca Valley, Slippery Rock, Freeport and Allegheny-Clarion Valley school districts.
In Butler County, only the South Butler County School District wouldn't see savings, according to the calculations, and it would only lose about $6,300.
Of those, the Butler Area School District would see the biggest windfall at about $548,000. The district's school board talked about the reforms briefly Monday.
“Where do we find the next piece to put in our capital fund?” Superintendent Brian White said Monday. “Well, you're looking at it.”
Wolf's new charter school plan is projected to save $280 million per year, in part by better aligning charter school funding to actual costs. In addition to the savings, the plan will place caps on tuition payments for cyber schools. Additionally, the special education funding formula will apply to charter schools as it does for traditional public schools.
Behind Butler, Seneca Valley School District would see about $360,000 in savings and Slippery Rock Area School District would see about $222,000. Other districts see a little in savings, like a $347 projected savings in the Mars Area School District.
When families enroll their students in cyber charter schools in Pennsylvania, the public school districts they would ordinarily attend send school tax dollars to the cyber programs. Education activists who don't support school districts argue that said programs require much less funding to operate, but collect the cash all the same.
The funding adjustments, according to a Department of Education memo, attempt to account for those disparities to adjust the tuition rates paid to cyber charters.
The Butler Area School District is going to participate in a news conference in December with the Pennsylvania League of Urban Schools to advocate for the funding changes.
