X-SciTech

Long-Distance Learning

May 29, 2001 / 8:21 PM EDT / AP

Kara and Cameo Lengeman don't have to worry about sharpening their pencils when test time arrives, but a good Internet connection is vital.

Kara, 11, and Cameo, 10, download their exams on the family's home computer. After completing the true/false or multiple-choice questions, they e-mail them off to be graded about 500 miles away.

"It's nice, because you can go at your own pace," said Kara, whose favorite subjects are history and language arts.

The girls became long-distance learners from their rural home about 30 miles east of Harrisburg in January, when they enrolled in the Western Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School. The 500-student, K-12 school based in Beaver County opened in September, one of two "cyber" charter schools in the state that deliver curriculum through the Internet.

More than 50 charter and public school cyber programs have been established in at least 30 states, according to the National School Boards Association in Alexandria, Va. Other cyber charter schools include Horizon Instructional Systems in Lincoln, Calif., and Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow in Columbus, Ohio.

But the burgeoning movement has angered some Pennsylvania superintendents, who say they didn't know the Western Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School existed until they received tuition bills in the mail.

The Pennsylvania School Boards Association and four school districts filed a lawsuit in April, alleging that cyber schools were never permitted under a 1997 law authorizing publicly funded, independently operated charter schools.

"Cyber schools are being shoehorned into the charter school law, and they just don't fit very well," association spokesman Thomas Gentzel said. "Most reasonable observers would agree that they're not being well-regulated."

The plaintiffs, which include the Butler Area, Cameron County, Mars Area and Pocono Mountain districts, argue they should not have to finance cyber schools whose charters they did not approve. Additionally, they say cyber schools may not meet compulsory attendance and instructional requirements.

The state Education Department has rejected the association's arguments, citing a charter school law provision that allows charter schools to enroll out-of-district students.

The Western Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School is the prime target of administrators' wrath because it enrolls students from more than 100 districts scattered statewide. Tuition ranges from $5,000 to $11,000 per student, depending on the home district's per-pupil spending.

Pennsylvania's other cyber school, the 115-student SusQ-Cyber Charter School in Northumberland County, limits enrollment in grades 9-12 primarily to three participating school districts. Six other cyber schools are scheduled to open in the fall.

"It's a difficult situation in that we've created something Pennsylvanians want, but we haven't found a fair way of paying for it," said Nick Trombetta, chief administrative officer of the western Pennsylvania shool, who views it as a problem for the state to solve. "I don't think school districts should have to foot the bill."

Cyber schools embrace a wide range of students, including gifted children bored in traditional classrooms, teen-age mothers, and disruptive students who have been kicked out of school.

They are also taking in homeschooled children like Kara and Cameo Lengeman. Their mother, Ruth, had a strong economic incentive: The homeschooling curriculum was expensive, and the cyber school provided instructional software, textbooks, a name-brand computer, and even safety goggles and test tubes for science experiments.

"It's not that we need all of these things, but when I tell other homeschooling parents about it, their first reaction is that it's too good to be true," Lengeman said.

Homeschoolers' enrollment is another point of contention in the lawsuit. Superintendents say they are able to monitor homeschoolers' academic progress under Pennsylvania's 1988 homeschooling law, but lose that authority when those students enroll in cyber school.

"I have no idea what those youngsters are doing, no confirmation that they are spending the required number of days in school," said Krauser, the Pocono Mountain superintendent. "Plus, homeschoolers are not counted as a deduction from my state subsidy, but cyber school students are."

The Lengemans live in the Eastern Lebanon County School District, where Cameo and Kara are among three cyber school students. Superintendent Ronald Hetrick said that although the tuition bills caught him by surprise, they amounted to only $5,300 for half the school year.

"We felt there were laws in place, and we had an obligation to pay," Hetrick said.