Cyber schools are considered public schools. Therefore, state law requires public schools to pay cyber schools for the children who are educated through them.
At West Greene School District, 35 students attend cyber school, and the district pays about $12,131 tuition for each child. The state partially reimburses school districts, but Thelma Szarell, West Greene superintendent, said the reimbursement is wholly inadequate. During the 2006-07 school year, West Greene paid more than $106,000 for cyber school and was reimbursed just more than $5,000.
Szarell said the way cyber schools are funded should be changed.
"These costs should be uniform; perhaps they could be based on the tuition rate paid to other school districts. Why should it cost us so much when (cyber schools) don't have the same requirements as we do?" Szarell said.
Michael Race, a spokesman for the state Department of Education, said the department wants a change as well. The amount a district spends per student is sent to a cyber school by the district where students live, he said.
"It's essentially the money following the child," he said.
However, because all districts don't spend the same amount per student, there is a disparity in how much they pay cyber schools. If one pays $5,000, another may pay $10,000, which could lead to a profit of taxpayer money for cyber schools, Race said. If there's a profit, the cyber schools are being overpaid by taxpayers, he said.
The state is trying to come up with a uniform cost based on how much cyber schools spend to educate students, Race said. He said that idea was shot down in legislation in 2007, but the department plans to bring it up again.
"We want it to be fair but equal," he said.
McGuffey business manager Scott Burchill said the district spent $273,803 on cyber schools last year, which is about 4 mills for taxpayers. The cost is increasing every year, even though cyber schools don't spend nearly as much to educate a child as a regular public school, he said.
"A lot of these cyber schools made out like gangbusters," he said.
One troubling issue for schools is that they could absorb the cyber school students into their buildings without increasing costs because the students aren't all in the same grade, Burchill said. They wouldn't need to hire more teachers or spend a lot more money, he said. However, they must come up with the money to send to the cyber schools for those students, he said.
"We're trying to encourage (students) to come back because we offer a better education," he said.
Central Greene School District has 39 students enrolled in cyber schools. Superintendent Jerome Bartley said the impact on the district's budget is significant, since Central Greene pays about $8,100 for each cyber school student and more for students in special education.
"For a very small, select group of students, cyber school is a good idea. But the majority would benefit more from going to (traditional) school," Bartley said.
Children in traditional schools will learn socialization as well as basic job skills, such as working with others and time management, Bartley said.
The high cost has led some school districts to create their own cyber school.
Districts often spend between $9,000 and $16,000 for students who attend cyber schools, said Tamara Stimmell, Charleroi Area assistant superintendent.
That led the district to create its own charter school. Each student gets a laptop and textbooks and works with cyber teachers. They meet at home or at the library for tutoring and must log on daily. That costs the district about $4,500 per student, and the program is aligned with the district curriculum.
Last year, Charleroi had seven students in its cyber school. That number jumped to 24 this year.
"We're seeing a need for it," Stimmell said. "Brick-and-mortar schools didn't quite meet their needs, and they still wanted to continue their education."