Three months after the state approved changes to the cyber charter tuition formula, administrators from Western Pennsylvania’s K-12 public schools are beginning to tally the expected savings.
The state’s latest budget, approved in November after a 4½-month impasse, allows school districts to reduce their tuition payments for students to attend one of Pennsylvania’s public cyber charter schools.
Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office estimated the changes would save the state’s 500 brick-and-mortar school districts a combined $175 million.
At the New Kensington-Arnold School District, Superintendent Chris Sefcheck anticipates a slight decline in cyber charter expenses moving forward. But, as the district is on track to spend about $3 million on cyber charter schools this academic year, Sefcheck believes more needs to be done to cut tuition costs.
“We have our own cyber school, and it doesn’t cost nearly (as much) — not even close to what it costs (cyber charter schools),” he said. “We have to do the same curriculum, have the same number of people teaching. It’s just crazy how much they charge per person.”
Conversely, cyber charter leaders have expressed concerns that a decline in tuition dollars could force them to reduce school services.
Annual cyber charter tuition costs range from around $7,600 to nearly $29,000 per student, according to the state Department of Education.
Rates are based on the school district’s budgeted expenses from the year prior — not the actual cost to educate a student at the cyber charter school. The state in November tweaked the formula, allowing school districts to deduct more expenses — such as student activities and facilities maintenance — from their cyber charter tuition calculations.
The tuition adjustment comes after calls last year for a flat cyber charter tuition rate. Shapiro’s proposed budget and state House Bill 1500 both suggested an $8,000 annual per student rate for regular education students.
No action has been taken on the legislation since it landed in the Senate education committee in June, and Shapiro’s proposed flat rate did not make it into the final state budget.
Tuition reform ‘not nearly as impactful’ as expected
Penn-Trafford School District expects to save just shy of $88,000 this school year because of the changes, according to Business Manager Rebecca Rodriguez. The district will spend about $1.5 million this school year for 100 students to attend cyber charter schools, she said.
“That will definitely help stabilize our cyber charter tuition rates so that, hopefully, we can take some of those budgetary savings and apply them to other parts of our budget that need help,” she said.
After more than a decade of listening to educators discuss cyber charter funding reform, Jeannette City School District Superintendent Matt Jones is encouraged by the tuition formula adjustment. He expects it will save the district $85,000 per year starting next school year — funding that could support the new math program Jeannette plans to implement in 2026-27.
“We don’t believe it’s going to be as significant as we had hoped,” he said, “although anything is better than nothing, and we’re certainly encouraged by the reform thus far.”
Kara Gardner, assistant superintendent at Greensburg Salem School District, echoed that sentiment.
“I don’t think (the tuition adjustment) is nearly as impactful as we were hoping it was going to be,” she said.
Districts find success with online learning
Greensburg Salem is on the hook for tuition for about 170 cyber charter students, Gardner said.
Since August, the district has taken matters into its own hands, revamping its own online learning program to attract its cyber charter students.
The district reworked its former ePride program — offered in partnership with the Westmoreland Intermediate Unit — to form GOLD Academy.
GOLD Academy, or Greensburg Online Learning Dashboard, offers more than 350 courses with various difficulty levels for K-12 students. Students do not receive live instruction — apart from daily check-ins with their teachers to make sure they are on track with their schoolwork.
In 2024-25, 30 students were enrolled in ePride, Superintendent Ken Bissell said. GOLD Academy has attracted 50 students in its first year.
Nicole and Nick Purnell of Greensburg enrolled their son, Lucas, in the program at the start of the school year.
It follows the same curriculum as the school district’s in-person classes, Nick said.
“He gets to remain a Greensburg Salem student,” he said. “Transfer of information is a lot easier. His educational history still remains intact, and really, for us, the future goal of getting him back into the brick-and-mortar school seems a lot more achievable with keeping him in the district.”
Administrators also will take steps in the coming months to connect with the 35 Greensburg Salem households that have never enrolled their students in the district, opting for cyber charter education.
“They’re in our community, and they’re an important part of our community,” Bissell said, “and so we want to learn. … We just want to learn what they need and how we can still help them out.
“Even if they don’t change where their children are learning, they’re still part of our community, and we want them to know that.”
Several GOLD Academy students decided this school year to return to Greensburg Salem’s halls, Bissell said.
New Kensington-Arnold has seen a similar trend with its in-house online learning program, which has grown between 5% and 10% this school year compared with last, Sefcheck said.
In 2024-25, the district spent about $3 million on cyber charter tuition for 162 students. That same year, it cost the district about $118,000 to educate 203 students through its in-house online learning program, he said.
“Families have opted to come back to the district and (put) their kids in our cyber (program),” he said, “because we offer face-to-face human interaction, tutoring and support for cyber students.”
Cyber charter leaders weigh in
Not everyone is pleased with the adjustments to the tuition formula.
Insight PA Cyber expects to lose about 20% of its annual revenue, said interim CEO Beth Jones.
The school laid off about 200 employees in December and January to make up for the loss. No student programs have been cut, she said, but remaining staff have been saddled with additional responsibilities.
Because some school districts have yet to submit all of their financial forms to the state, PA Distance Learning Charter School hasn’t been able to estimate its loss of funding, said CEO Michael Leitera.
The school will reevaluate its budget over the summer to determine whether layoffs or program cuts are necessary, he said.
As of two weeks ago, the school had turned away more than 50 potential new students for violating the truancy policy the state enacted in the 2025-26 budget. The law prevents students with six or more unexcused absences from enrolling in a cyber charter.
“When you put a barrier to entry to (the cyber charter schools),” Leitera said, “it treats us differently than it does the brick-and-mortar schools.”
Looking ahead: state education funding
Education was a focal point of the state’s 2025-26 budget.
It maintained several funding categories from the year prior, such as $100 million for school safety and mental health and $125 million for building and facility repairs. It also added more than $900 million in new education funding, including a $105 million bump in basic education and a $40 million increase in special education.
Legislators allocated $565 million, about $39 million more than the previous year, to the state’s adequacy formula, an effort to more equitably fund schools.
Shapiro’s proposed budget for 2026-27 allocates another $565 million to the adequacy formula, increases basic education and special education dollars by $50 million each and dedicates $111 million for school safety and mental health initiatives.
The budget also calls for additional adjustments to the cyber charter tuition formula, which Shapiro’s office said could save brick-and-mortar school districts about $75 million.
After a lengthy budget impasse last year, Sefcheck is skeptical legislators will support additional cyber charter reform.
“It’s really hard to speculate on what’s going to stay and what’s going to go in the state budget,” he said. “Considering the political climate right now, I don’t know what anybody’s going to agree to.”
Jeannette school district’s Jones shares Sefcheck’s concerns but expressed gratitude for the state’s overall education funding support.
“I think they’ve been very favorable to us in Jeannette,” he said.
Leitera worries that additional reductions to tuition rates would slash cyber charter schools’ savings — particularly those with the fewest students.
“I think one of the things that’s very troublesome in the law is we don’t even have an accurate picture of what our funding levels are for this year, yet another cut has already been proposed,” he said. “I’m not sure what empirical basis — what factual basis — they’re basing new funding cuts upon before we’ve even seen the outcomes from this current funding cut.”
Cyber charter leaders need to be included in conversations about funding reform, said Insight PA Cyber’s Beth Jones.
“By working together with public cyber charter schools,” she said, “lawmakers can craft legislation that creates equity and fairness for every public school student, preserves public cyber charter schools as an option for every Pa. student and respects the rights of families to choose the best education environment for their child.”
Leitera believes cyber charter schools have been ousted from discussions about the tuition formula.
“Cyber school leaders have said there could be improvements to the financial system,” he said. “We’ve asking to be a part of improving that system … or understanding what the desired outcome is from the administration or from the legislator.
“I don’t think we’ve been met with the same level of collaboration that we’ve offered.”