Chester Upland Cyber Academy - The Good, The Bad, The Questions

The school district announced the opening of a Cyber Academy for the new school year.  Any student living within the district can enroll immediately and start their studies in September at home with a district provided Dell laptop.

On Monday night, an information session was held to address the questions and concerns of folks interested in the new cyber school. I attended and walked away with the following opinions.

The Good

The Cyber Academy idea is excellent. It gives students an opportunity to learn without the distractions often found in the classroom. 

The courses and learning options are aligned with PA Academic standards and are approved by the Chester Upland School Board as part of the district curriculum.

Advanced placement courses that are not offered in the classroom can be taken by cyber students.

Students are still connected to the school district and can participate in extra curricular activities like clubs and sports, proms and graduation.

The cyber school is the perfect opportunity for self directed and self motivated students to learn, and it’s the perfect curriculum for a parent to use to home school their child.

The Bad

It seems kind of late to be introducing this option to parents. School starts in a couple weeks. I’d expect that this concept would have been introduced earlier in the summer to reach the largest number of eligible families.

Since so many students are so far behind in their reading levels, I don’t expect that there are many students who will successfully navigate through a cyber curriculum on their own. However, if a parent is home schooling, it could be a great way to get a student up to par very fast. 

Far more work is required in the cyber curriculum than in the classroom. The typical student coming out of the classroom environment will not be successful with the cyber workload.

There were a lot of good questions asked at the meeting and more than a few were not answered. There are some school district policy issues that haven’t all been ironed out yet. 

The Questions

They say this program is for grades K-12. Do they really expect anyone below the 6th grade to participate in a cyber program on their own?

Most of the other questions have to do with the process for getting reimbursed for home Internet fees; properly assessing student academic level according to the cyber curriculum; teacher interaction and training; special needs students; student options if they want to get out of the Cyber Academy; and more.

I hope someone was taking notes at the meeting. It would be great to have those questions and answers posted on the school district website so people can better understand what the offering is about.

Overall, I think the Cyber Academy can be a great asset to the district. Obviously, there won’t be much participation right away but that may be a good thing as the district works out the kinks during the first year.

In my opinion, it’s worth checking out if you have a student in at least 6th grade who is on grade level for reading, is comfortable with a laptop and the Internet, willing to work 25-40 hours a week on school work, and has an active participating parent involved. 

Otherwise, don’t try it.

For more information contact Sonja Harris 610.447.3506