Frazier School Board adopts cyber school service
PERRYOPOLIS – The Frazier School Board adopted a Pittsburgh-based cyber school service that would be customized to fit the district’s curriculum with a cost savings of $1,540 for a regular education student and $6,940 for a special education student. Dr. Alex Stone, founder and chief executive officer of Virtual Learning Network (VLN) Partners, said he and businessman Greg Voss assembled a team of instructional technology experts and business professionals who devised a new model for distance learning designed specifically for K-12 learners, teachers and public school administrators.
“The key that differentiates us from other cyber charter schools is our lessons that we present online match the home school district curriculum,” said Stone.
Stone said the company’s basic package of “Cyber School in a Box” consists of 30 customized Web-based courses for grades K-12 that a student can access during non-school hours from a variety of environments such as a hospital.
For Frazier, Stone said the service would be $25,000 the first year with a $10,000 annual maintenance fee thereafter.
Stone added there would be a $2,500 fee for additional courses with an annual licensing fee of $150 the first year and $125 for subsequent years.
With the basic package, Stone said the cost per student would be $4,000 based on a minimum of 20 percent enrollment of regular education students and a 50 percent enrollment of special education students.
Tom Shetterly, business manager, said Frazier currently has 22 regular education students enrolled in cyber charter schools at a cost of $7,916 per student for a total of $174,154 per year for tuition in addition to two special education students who are enrolled at a cost of $15,623 each.
Shetterly added the number of students at Frazier who enroll in cyber charter schools has increased each year by four or five over the last five years.
Stone, a former high school technology teacher for a state cyber charter school, said the company offers a turnkey cyber school package so that school districts can use it to compete with external education providers and cyber charter schools without placing an additional burden on staff and technical infrastructure.
“We match the scope and sequence of K-12 instruction presented in a student’s home classroom,” said Stone.
Stone said the concept originated in 2004 as a holistic model for blended learning with the team taking their idea to the Pennsylvania Department of Education to form a cyber charter school.
Meanwhile, Stone said those involved found it would be more beneficial to offer their model directly to school districts and abandoned their efforts, including returning a grant to the state.
“We started from scratch to make a model for Pennsylvania school districts to embrace cyber charter school,” said Stone.
According to Stone, VLN officially formed in 2006 by forming a partnership with Charleroi School District as a pilot school, while refining its current model and developing new programs that has since evolved to include 12 employees and seven school districts.
“We came up with the idea that lessons need to be placed in context so rather than focusing on technology, we focus on the use of it in the environment,” said Stone.
However, Stone stressed that VLN Partners is not a cyber charter school, but a service, which he said enables it to offer the product at a fraction of the cost, with students receiving a diploma from their home school.
“We’re America’s first and only one-stop cyber services provider,” said Stone. “That truly defines who we are. We are on the cutting edge of a new market in the public school.”