“You’re in control of your child’s learning environment from the safety of your own
home!” Andre’s mom repeats the Power 99 FM advertisement for Commonwealth
Charter Academy to his grandmother as she maneuvers through lunch traffic, speeding
to her son’s school. She has left work in the middle of the day, once again, to pick Andre
up—suspended for disrespecting his teacher. Andre has disabilities. He needs constant
prompting from his teachers to stay on task and engaged. When he struggles with
assignments, he often becomes angry and disruptive. After listening to that
Commonwealth Charter Academy advertisement countless times on the many drives to
stop her son from wreaking havoc on his teachers and peers, Andre’s mom decides that
this drive will be the last.
Commonwealth Charter Academy representatives assured her that Andre would
benefit from the cyber charter school’s high-quality and individualized virtual
instruction. No costs, no calls from the school, and a free computer? Deciding to enroll her son immediately, Andre’s mom has no idea that the consequences will soon outweigh the perceived convenience.
This Comment dispels the myth that Pennsylvania’s cyber charter schools provide
appropriate public education to most students with disabilities. The Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires that all students be educated in the least
restrictive environment appropriate to their needs. To ensure that students with
disabilities are included with their nondisabled peers to the greatest extent possible,
IDEA provides that all children start in the regular classroom environment and move
toward more restrictive environments as their needs require. This Comment argues that
Pennsylvania’s cyber charter schools are not regular classroom environments because of
their virtual nature. As school choice options, these schools are illegal substitutes for
in-person educational placements for most students with disabilities. Therefore, for
students with disabilities to attend cyber charter schools, key stakeholders must first
decide, on an individual basis, whether such schools are appropriate educational
placement options.
This Comment proceeds in three sections. Section II examines the history of school
choice and education reform related to students with disabilities, illuminates the current
education practices at Pennsylvania’s cyber charter schools, then describes the
educational best practices for providing special education services. Section III reveals
how the historical exclusion of students with disabilities has been allowed to persist with
this high-tech option, argues that cyber charter schools are less restrictive than the regular
classroom environment, and thus undercut a student’s ability to benefit from special
education services, and reviews current events that support in-person instruction.