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Schools

District Superintendent Discusses Virtual Schooling

Saucon Valley School District superintendent Sandra Fellin presented members of the school board with several cyber-schooling options for high school students at the board's March 27 meeting.

Editor's Note: This article has been updated with additional information from Saucon Valley School District superintendent Dr. Sandra Fellin.

 superintendent Sandra Fellin asked school board members at the March 27 meeting to consider virtual schooling options for the upcoming school year.

The four areas of consideration--all for students--include credit recovery, summer school, elective options and cyber options for students to receive a Saucon Valley diploma.

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Fellin said she visited other districts, talked to vendors and found a program called E-Bridge Academy that could be a fit for the district.

The E-Bridge Academy program allows students to take courses online and graduate from their home district. In addition, it also provides options for credit recovery, summer school and electives.

Find out what's happening in Hellertown-Lower Sauconwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Fellin said one of the reasons for looking at these options is that the district could recover some of the money lost from Saucon Valley residents choosing to attend cyber charter schools in other areas.

Fellin said the total cost per year for those students in cyber school is $361,366--$11,561 per student for regular education students and $21,165 per student for special education students.

By using E-Bridge Academy to create a cyber school option, the district could potentially save money.

"Currently, we have 17 students in cyber school--11 regular education students and six special education students," Fellin said. "For every (regular education) student we bring back, we would keep $7,061 per student. For every special education student we would keep $16,665 per student."

The cost to the district to use E-bridge Academy would be $4,500 per student.

Besides cyber school, Fellin also asked the board to consider allowing high school students to be eligible for credit for certain cyber-courses that they have twice unsuccessfully attempted to take in a traditional classroom.

This option would not cost the district anything, but the student would need to pay $110 per course.

"This could be very helpful to the kids," said board vice president Susan Baxter.

Similarly, Fellin asked the board to consider offering a virtual summer school option.

This option would cost the student $220, which is $140 less than a traditional summer school course would cost.

Lastly, Fellin proposed the idea of offering a program called Virtual High School for juniors and seniors.

This program would allow students to learn online and in-school, and would be for electives that Saucon Valley does not offer or previously offered.

The cost for the Virtual High School service is $425 per student, per course and per semester.

There is also a one-time fee of $1,500 for site coordinator training.

"Almost every other school district has programs like this," said board member Sandra Miller. "We have been pursuing this for almost six years. We are behind other districts. I think it would be beneficial to review their history (with these programs)."

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