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Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School graduate wins West Point acceptance

May 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

As some around the nation wonder about the effectiveness of both cyber and charter schools, the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, that state’s largest and most successful cyber charter school, announced on May 7, 2012, its first graduate to win an appointment to West Point United States Military Academy. Hannah Tuffy of Scot Township near Scranton, Pennsylvania, will be a member of the 2012-13 school year’s incoming corps of cadets at West Point. She enters what former President John F. Kennedy once described as “part of a long tradition stretching back to the earliest days of this country’s history and that where you sit sat once the most celebrated names in our nation’s history.”

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Blairsville-Saltsburg hires principal, appoints director

April 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The Saltsburg area gained a new high school principal and a new school board representative at Wednesday’s regular meeting of the Blairsville-Saltsburg School Board.

The board voted unanimously to hire Allan Berkhimer as the new principal of the Saltsburg Middle/High School and to appoint Holly M. Hall to a vacant Region III board seat.

Berkhimer will receive a starting salary of $77,500 through the 2012-13 school year, prorated to the number of days worked. His first day at the Saltsburg school will be determined by his release date at the Shade-Central City School District in Cairnbrook, where he has been employed as a junior/senior high school principal for the last five years.

He previously served as a social studies teacher at the senior high and junior high levels in the Hollidaysburg Area School District. He also completed three years of active duty with the U.S. Army, serving stateside as a specialist in an air defense artillery unit.

Berkhimer will succeed Tom Trunzo, a former Saltsburg teacher and coach and Marion Center High School principal who returned from retirement on an interim basis after Saltsburg’s previous principal, Eric Kostic, left for another position.

School board President Ed Smith said Berkhimer “stood out among three excellent candidates.”

Berkhimer said he was attracted to the opening at Blairsville-Saltsburg because of the district’s “very contemporary and progressive approach to education.”

He referred to the district’s recent successful launch of its own virtual academy, to compete with cyber charter schools that have been attracting some students away from traditional public schools. The district also has approved an agreement with Apple that will provide an iPad 2 tablet device for each student in grades 9-12.

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University of Pittsburgh Honors PA Cyber Founder Dr. Nick Trombetta

March 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A committee led by Dr. Trombetta searched for some way to ensure an educational future for these students. Acting upon a clause about technology in the state’s newly enacted 1997 charter school law, and funded with a $25,000 state grant, Dr. Trombetta persuaded his school board to sponsor a K-12 charter school that would allow students to go to school from home by utilizing the Internet and new computer technology.

Expecting 50 students from the region, PA Cyber Charter School drew more than 500 from across the state when it opened in 2000. Enrollment doubled the next year and has climbed every year to a current enrollment of 11,000. The success of PA Cyber re-drew the educational map in Pennsylvania, making school choice an option for every family in the state.

PA Cyber has made AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) under the No Child Left Behind Act for three consecutive years. In 2011 PA Cyber earned full accreditation from the Middle States Association of Schools and Colleges, the nation’s most prestigious accrediting organization.

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STREAM Academy – Free Cyber Charter School Opens to Students

March 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The first of its kind in southwestern PA, and possibly the state, STREAM Academy is innovative, combining the best of traditional cyber charter school courses with innovative and dynamic “On-Location” learning opportunities with business and industry experts at some of region’s top companies. Students will have their choice of six focus areas, called tributaries, which will prepare them for careers in the 21st century global economy.

By stressing projected-based learning, students will have the chance to explore real world problems and learn the critical thinking skills necessary to become tomorrow’s innovators.  Through career-related experiences, students will be prepared to excel in the workforce and contribute to a strong, competitive economy.

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Backyard brawl? Western Beaver brochure criticizes PA Cyber

November 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

OHIOVILLE — Superintendent Robert Postupac says the Western Beaver School District wasn’t trying to ignite a backyard brawl when it mailed residents a brochure that targets the Midland-based Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, along with state legislators and media sources.

The brochure, which includes a comparison of state test scores, calls PA Cyber “a school that provides a below-average education.”

“Is this an attack on PA Cyber? Absolutely not,” Postupac said. “This is a questioning of the way schools like PA Cyber are funded by the state.”

Western Beaver has 30 students, kindergarten through 12th grade, enrolled at PA Cyber, and eight students enrolled in PA Cyber pre-kindergarten programs, according to Postupac. Western Beaver pays $10,800 per student, and $23,700 for students with learning disabilities, and the brochure says “almost $500,000 was taken from Western Beaver” and given to PA Cyber.

 

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PA Cyber Charter School Shares Self-help Tech Support Website

November 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment

MIDLAND, Pa., Nov. 4, 2011       PA Cyber Charter School has created a technical resource website for its 11,000 students, their parents and its staff – and is sharing the site with online students no matter what school they’re enrolled in.

The PA Cyber Resource Center was launched Oct. 31.

“As a leader in online education, PA Cyber has always freely shared innovative thinking with other schools. We see that as part of our responsibility,” said Dr. Nick Trombetta, CEO.

Brian Laquinta, director of technology and innovation, said, “This is the best technical self-help site for an online school I’ve seen. It has easily followed tutorials and how-to instructions on the most common problems users have with Internet access, email, iPads and general computer use. Of course we have geared it to the learning management systems used by PA Cyber, but many other schools use the same programs and their students probably have the same issues.”

Laquinta said the site provides links to help sites in popular learning management systems such as Elluminate and Schoology, and to curriculum sites like Lincoln Interactive and Calvert. There is a link to the appropriate-content search engine netTrekker and to academic improvements sites like DORA-DOMA and Study Island.

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PA Cyber Experiencing Success, Ease of Use With New Backpack SIS

October 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

BEAVER, Pa., Oct. 21, 2011 Pennsylvania’s largest cyber school finding platform to be most complete, fully functional product

With more than 11,000 students enrolled in their school, administrators at the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School were in need of a student information system that efficiently and effectively met their needs, while offering ease of use for its ever growing staff.

They found the solution with Backpack SIS.

Backpack is a student information system and private social network built on the powerful Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform. Featuring a user friendly interface, Backpack SIS provides schools of all sizes every function required of a student information system while seamlessly integrating with other Microsoft products such as Office and Microsoft Dynamics GP for financial management.

In 2009, with enrollment numbers nearing 10,000 students, the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School was in need of just that: full range functionality, seamless integration and ease of use.

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More of region’s students enroll in cyber schools

October 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

In a pale pink room adorned with posters of Justin Bieber, Julia Leister sits down to learn. The 10-year-old fourth-grader puts on her headphones, opens her laptop and begins typing to her classmates and teachers.

It’s 9:30 a.m. on a Friday in South Abington Township, and Julia is learning math in her bedroom.

Julia is enrolled in a cyber charter school – as are more than 2,300 other students in Northeastern Pennsylvania. That number has grown by 50 percent in just the past three years.

Cyber charters are public schools that are free for families and provide laptops, textbooks and other materials necessary to learn.

As enrollment in the schools grows faster than many education officials ever expected, districts are feeling the financial pinch of paying the tuition for students within their districts to attend cyber schools. Many districts are now offering their own virtual programs and are trying to recruit students back.

For Julia, the two years she has been a student at Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School have offered a way to relieve her anxieties and develop self confidence. She can work at her own pace and is doing well on her lessons.

“It’s not for everyone, but it’s working for her,” her mother, Cathy Leister, said.

High enrollment

Charter schools are self-managed public schools that are approved by local school districts or the state. Across Pennsylvania, more than 90,000 students are enrolled in nearly 150 charter schools. Of those students, about 30,000 are enrolled in 13 cyber charter schools.

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County superintendents hope collective voice creates change

October 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Superintendents at 15 Beaver County school districts authorized a position paper urging Pennsylvania legislators to create charter school, cyber charter school and school voucher policies that better address challenges faced by public schools.

The letter, authorized by superintendents of every county district but Midland, was sent to county legislators and other state representatives earlier this week, according to Freedom Area Superintendent Ronald Sofo.

“We have to develop a system that’s right for everybody,” Sofo said.

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Could a Cyber School be the right educational choice for your child?

August 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Hard to believe that August is here and that means getting set for back to school.

There have long been kids that have been home schooled, but since 2003 there have been CYBER charter schools in Pennsylvania and there is a big difference.

Could a Cyber School be the right educational choice for your child? It certainly presents interesting educational possibilities, but it also creates some degree of confusion as to just what these schools offer.

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