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Cyber Charter School Funding, Oversight and Accountability

Before the House Education Committee
Sept. 19, 2007

Roberta Marcus, Parkland School Director

Good afternoon Chairmen Roebuck and Stairs and members of the House Education Committee. I would also like to express my sincere thanks for allowing me to speak briefly today on cyber charter schools. My name is Roberta Marcus and I am a school director with the Parkland School District in Lehigh County where I have served in that capacity for 12 years. I would also like to note for the record that I am the 2007 Second-Vice President of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA).

I am here today in my capacity as a school director for Parkland, one of the many districts that have approved resolutions in support of House Bill 446. Between the 2001-02 school year and the 2006-07 school year, Parkland School District has paid $911,786.30 in cyber charter school payments while receiving less than 30% reimbursement each year. Parkland's reimbursement amounts have ranged between 25.3% and 27.7%. In addition to increased cyber charter school payments each year, Parkland's student enrollment has increased 29.4% since 1996. Due to the enrollment increases, Parkland is about to embark upon building an eighth elementary school this year. The building is scheduled to open for the 2010-11 school year. Enrollment projections indicate that by 2010-11 student enrollment will have increased another 28% by that time.

For the 2007-08 school year, my fellow board members and I budgeted $325,000 in cyber school payments for 37 non-special education students and 9 special education students. This is a 16.2% cost increase over the 2006-07 school year, however, we do not expect our budgeted amount to be the final number.

Due to the fact that students have the opportunity to transfer to cyber charter schools at any point during the school year, my fellow board members and I have never been able to approve a budget where the allocated monies for cyber school payments did not have to be increased months later. This continuous cycle contradicts my responsibility as one of the nine elected financial stewards for Parkland School District's taxpayers. Some critics might say that we, school board members, should over-estimate more than we already do for potential cyber school payments before we approve our final budgets. I ask you: How can any school board member go to their neighbors and tell them that their district needs to spend extra tax dollars to cover possible cyber school payments when we don't know how much the particular line-item will cost each year and can't support that request with accurate enrollment numbers?

I think you would agree that Pennsylvania's taxpayers do not want their school boards doing business in that manner. They want to know that their taxes are necessary investments that provide their resident students with an education to prepare them for a bright future. As Mr. Feinberg said earlier, a disconnect exists between cyber charter schools and the taxpayers that fund them. I submit to you that school board members are the missing link. As elected representatives who are ultimately responsible for the taxpayer dollars that come to

us, we must be prepared to answer questions about how our investments are meeting the goals of our district and the educational needs of students. That includes the investments we make on

behalf of our taxpayers to cyber charter schools. We cannot do that under current law because cyber charter schools are not required to report on the progress of a district's children to the school boards who invest taxpayer funds in them. More importantly, cyber charter schools have not engaged in any activities that we have seen to be accountable to taxpayers, other than the parents of the students they enroll - an important piece of what every school needs to do, but by no means sufficient when millions of dollars of taxpayer money are involved.

Being accountable to taxpayers means that cyber charter schools must have the same financial accountability that the General Assembly deems is important for school districts. This includes, among other things mentioned today:

•  Restrictions on unreserved fund balances and independent auditing;

•  Recognition that cyber charter schools should not receive full per-student funding for kindergarten students if districts' taxpayers have not committed to implementing full-day kindergarten in their community;

•  A requirement that funds provided by districts' taxpayers should only be used for cyber charter school educational purposes and not for services or schools that are outside the scope of a cyber charter school's instruction of students; and

•  Annual reports from cyber charter schools on how districts' resident students are performing.

The department's proposal for funding cyber charter schools is a logical approach to reform the cyber school funding system if the General Assembly determines that it is unable to fully fund the mandate that it placed on districts 10 years ago. But know that any proposal would be incomplete if cyber charter school funding reform is not completed in conjunction with measures to address the deficiencies with cyber charter schools' accountability to taxpayers. PSBA, my fellow school board members and I look forward to working with this committee, the department, and the administration to improve legislation that would further facilitate a more accountable public education system. Thank you and I will be happy to answer any questions.

Parkland School District encompasses 72 square miles in Lehigh County in the townships of North Whitehall, South Whitehall, and Upper Macungie. In 2005-06, Parkland School District's average SAT scores in writing, math and critical reading were all above the state averages. Since the 2002-03 school year, Parkland School District has met the requirements of adequate yearly progress (AYP) each year.

As of September 13, 2007, the Allentown City, East Penn, Northern Lehigh, Parkland, and Southern Lehigh School Board of Directors have all approved resolutions in support of House Bill 446.

Pennsylvania authorized traditional charter schools with Act 22 of 1997, although cyber charter schools were also chartered under the law. Subsequently legislative action created Act 88 of 2002, which specifically authorized the existence of cyber charter schools.