Board votes no
MAPLETOWN – Southeastern Greene School Board on Thursday voted against entering into a cyber school pilot program being researched by Intermediate Unit 1. IU 1 is reaching out to the 25 school districts it serves in Fayette, Greene and Washington counties to establish a consortium to consolidate cyber services afforded to students and potentially saving school districts thousands of dollars by making one joint program.
IU 1 is looking to recruit a minimum of eight school districts to make the venture viable. The program would offer district students courses online that would be accessible from home or school.
The proposal is linked to the KITS Regional Wide Area Network, a five-year IU 1 project that increases area school districts’ Internet capabilities.
Southeastern Greene is one of the first in the area to vote on the cyber school proposal.
Michael M. Caruso, who was appointed as superintendent at the regular monthly board meeting, said the proposal currently would not benefit the district. The district needs the means to negotiate the costs of students attending cyber charter schools, he said.
“We would just be adding another cyber school for them to go to, which kind of encumbers the program,” Caruso said.
The proposal being brought onto the table sparked a conversation among board members on the value of cyber school and the costs associated with it.
Last year, the district spent $90,000 to $100,000 to pay for the online education of 10 to 12 students, according to district business manager Patrick Sweeney. Because the district was reimbursed 30 percent of that cost, out-of-pocket expenses for the district totaled $60,000 to $70,000, Sweeney said.
Caruso added that the district’s costs last year to fund the online education of special education students was $19,000 per student and $8,000 for every other student.
Board member Gary Yoskovich questioned the benefits afforded to students who are cyber-schooled, noting he can understand students receiving the online education in the case of a disability, but he has spoken to youths hanging out in front of the computer, smoking cigarettes that said they are being cyber-schooled.
“How did we come so far as to allow kids the easy choice?” Yoskovich asked. “If you can’t get along with kids in school, how can you get along in life?”
He added that if students desire to go to a school other than what Southeastern Greene offers, it should be at the expense of the family, not the district.
Caruso said the biggest downfall to being cyber-schooled is that it robs students of the campus life gained through attending a public school.
“There’s a social factor students will have to find elsewhere,” said Caruso. “Some may find it, some may not.”
In other business, the board renewed a one-year contract with the Tri-State Area Study Council, which provides district teachers with a mathematics and reading coach to help them identify strategies for learning.
Caruso said the ultimate goal is to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), a measuring stick for the progress of districts across the state. Both Bobtown Elementary and Mapletown Junior/Senior High School missed AYP targets last year.
AYP is the state’s accountability system started under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which aims to ensure every student has essential reading and math skills by the time they graduate high school.
Missing the targets prompted the district to submit to the state a plan for school improvement. The board wanted to retain the services of the teaching coaches until the conclusion of the plan.
The board also conducted the following business:
– Approved the district’s $4,599 contribution to the IU 1 general operational budget. The amount, which is not an increase over last year’s expenditure, is based on the number of district students served by IU programs. It finances programs in the areas of curriculum, technology and information and administration and management among others.
– Transferred $250,000 in grant money from the general fund to the capital reserve fund. The money will offset costs of the new electrical entrance and data cabling project at the junior-senior high school, bringing the balance of the capital reserve fund to around $630,000.
– Revised the school calendar to reflect an extended school year because of cancellations because of snow. The last day of school will be June 5. High school graduation will to held June 1. A teacher in-service day will be held June 4.
– Hired Linda Shultz as girls varsity basketball coach and Bernard Garnek as grade 7 and 8 girls basketball coach. The board also appointed Joe Spiker as a non-paid grade 7 and 8 football coach and Arnie Bowser and Mike Gashie as volunteer assistant grade 7 and 8 football coaches.
– Announced the next regular board meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 26, in the junior-senior high school cafeteria.