CHERRY TWP — For a public school district like Moniteau, just a single student opting to instead attend a charter school can impact the district’s budget by tens of thousands of dollars.

At a previous meeting of Moniteau School District’s board of directors, K-12 principal Lance Fox was asked how many students residing within the district are attending a charter or cyber charter school instead.

At the Monday, Sept. 14 meeting, he said that number is 40.

In Pennsylvania, public schools are required to pay tuition to charter and cyber charter schools for any student residing within their district that chooses to attend one.

Cyber charter tuition has become a hot-button issue for local school districts in recent years due to allegations of funding misuse against cyber charters.

Moniteau’s board of directors in particular has been critical of the current system, when 60 Moniteau students were enrolled in cyber schools for the 2024-25 year. A letter at the time called the funding system a “misuse of taxpayer funds.” The district paid $881,447 toward cyber charter tuition during the 2024-25 school year.

“We’re hoping, for example, that one student coming back to us would save about $30,000. So we’re trying to pull back as many as we can,” Fox said.

“The goal is to get them back into the building,” he added.

Legislation had previously been proposed to cap tuition payments, but is currently sitting in the state Senate’s Education Committee.

A student attending a charter or cyber charter school is different from a student being home schooled, Dustin Thompson, coordinator of student support services, clarified.