Harborcreek Township resident Dianne Jackson knew she had to make a change when she saw her daughter struggling in both public and private schools.
She said she knew her daughter, Hannah, needed a different environment to thrive because of her dyslexia. So, Jackson decided to start teaching Hannah herself.
A decade later, 17-year-old Hannah is still being home-schooled -- and so are her two siblings.
"For us, it works well," she said.
And it appears to still be working well for others.
Statewide and locally, school districts report the number of home-schooled students have remained stable. In the Harbor Creek School District, for example, Jackson's three children are among the district's 10 home-schooled students.
That's not a lot of students, but it also does not reflect the total number of children being taught at home these days.
Those enrolled in cyber charter schools are counted differently. In Harbor Creek, for example, there are 32 children enrolled in cyber charter schools.
The difference between home schooling and cyber schooling comes down to who decides what students learn and how they go about learning it. A parent in a traditional home-school setting assembles the lessons and teaches their children on their own. Those children are periodically evaluated by their home school district. A student enrolled in a online charter school must study the curriculum chosen by the cyber school and work with teachers online. Progress is monitored by the charter school.
Jackson teaches all three of her children at home. The family's dining room table is their classroom, where they gather for lessons in math, history and many other subjects. She likes home schooling because it gives her more freedom on what and how to teach her children, and she can tailor some class work to fit her Christian values, she said.
Jackson has enjoyed home schooling her children so much that she now leads an online support group for home schooling families in northwestern Pennsylvania.
Through that group, Jackson has witnessed the shift in how children are learning at home. She said she is seeing more and more students enrolled in cyber charter schools participating in her group or other groups that let students do things like science lab work and field trips.
"They get out of the muck and mire of traditional public schools," Jackson said, saying she wouldn't like to expose her children to violence, drugs or other problems that might exist in a public school. "It's very family friendly."
The difference between home school students and cyber school students is even more drastic in the Erie School District.
From August 2008 to earlier this month, the number of home-schooled students in the Erie School District grew modestly from 65 to 81. During the same time, the number of students enrolled in cyber charter schools ballooned from 942 in 2008 to 1,776 now.
About 32,000 students are enrolled in cyber charter schools across the state for the 2011-12 school year.
Cheryl Warnshuis, an Erie resident with five children currently learning at home, said enrolling her children in cyber schools has led to teaching her children things that don't mesh with her faith, particularly evolution. But she said the benefits of cyber schooling outweigh the restrictions.
Enrolling in one of the 16 statewide online charter programs offers several advantages: laptops provided by the charter school; stipends for high-speed Internet; and even classroom supplies like pens, pencils and highlighters.
Warnshuis' family has been using cyber programs for more than seven years. She said she made the switch because she was disappointed with the elementary schools in the Erie School District.
"We weren't happy with ... how their time was being spent," she said. "This way, we can control the environment our children are raised in."
Each of the Warnshuis' eight children has been enrolled in a online charter school at some point. Her five daughters, who range from 11 to 18 years old, have been enrolled in Commonwealth Connections Academy Charter School, based in Harrisburg.
Warnshuis and her husband, Mark, also are guardians to two nephews and a niece who are all enrolled in the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School.
As a former elementary schoolteacher, Cheryl Warnshuis said she's skilled to teach the students on her own, but time and financial obligations would make that much more difficult.
"You can easily spend $1,000 to $2,000 a year per child home schooling," Warnshuis said, given the expense of school supplies, text books and trips.
Cyber charter schools don't require money out of pocket for parents like Warnshuis, but they aren't free.
The cost of educating the students is taken out of public school districts' state funding.
The Erie School District pays $9,135 a year for each regular education student enrolled at one of the cyber schools and $18,384 for special education students. District officials are expecting to pay about $2.9 million to cyber charters for the current school year, and Erie schools Superintendent Jay Badams said that money is based on the district's costs to educate students -- not how much it costs for a cyber school to operate.
"The cost of educating in an online environment is obviously different, but they're funded at a brick and mortar rate," Badams said.
Badams said it also bothers him that the funding is taken from northwestern Pennsylvania and channeled to different parts of the state.
"There is an economic impact when someone makes that decision," Badams said.
Erie School District officials are actively trying to stop the migration of students to cyber charter schools by creating an online option of their own. The district opened the Erie Public Schools Online Campus in January 2012.
That program now has 228 students enrolled, 79 of whom work full-time with online course work. That program currently covers only high school grades, but Badams said the district hopes to expand it soon to include kindergarten through eighth grade.
Warnshuis said she is conflicted about how cyber schools divert funding from local school districts, but without the money to send her children to private school, she still thinks cyber schools are the best option for her children.
"I understand why it would bother them," Warnshuis said. "But ultimately, we're making a decision about our children's futures."
SEAN McCRACKEN can be reached at 870-1714 or by e-mail. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNmccracken.
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