Virtual charter schools lose funding from state leaving 2,200 students ‘angry’

INDIANAPOLIS – Pamela Bless thought she had found an exciting education answer when she enrolled her three children in a new online charter school slated to open this fall.\nInstead, she’s wondering where her 13-year-old triplets will end up after the Indiana General Assembly decided not to fund the schools.\n“My kids were as or more disappointed than I was,” said Bless, of Greenwood, Ind. “They feel that it’s a statement that children are not important to officials in state government.”\nVirtual charter schools have teachers and lessons like traditional public schools but offer most instruction online to students at home. Ball State University had proposed opening the Indiana Virtual Charter School and Indiana Connections Academy this fall with a total of about 2,200 students.\nThe budget proposed by the GOP-led Senate would have allowed the two schools to open. Democrats who control the House, however, objected to having any state money go to such programs, and the budget approved late Sunday – the last day of the session – explicitly stated that virtual charter schools cannot receive funding from the state or any distribution of property taxes.\nThe decision left parents scrambling to sort through their options, said Julie Price, with the newly created group Indiana Families for Public Virtual Schools.\n“They are angry beyond words, they are upset beyond words,” Price said. “They are panicked and they don’t know what to do for next year.”\nIf the virtual schools use private funding, they will not be able to open as public schools chartered by Ball State, said Larry Gabbert, director of the university’s Office of Charter Schools.\n“At this point we don’t have plan B,” he said.\nRon Brumbarger, chairman and CEO of the Indiana Virtual Charter School, urged parents to wait a few weeks while the school considers ways to open its online doors.\n“Shame on our legislature for being shortsighated and disappointing these 2,000 students around Indiana,” Brumbarger said. “Shame on our legislature for not being forward thinking for how to create a competitive Indiana instead of slamming the brakes on innovation. They should be embarrassed.”\nOpponents of virtual charter schools said the programs were unproven and would have taken more than $11 million annually from traditional public schools. Other critics said the online instruction would be a form of taxpayer-funded home schooling because students work at home with a parent or other learning coach.\n“We have a responsibility to fund and maintain public schools,” said Rep. Joe Micon, D-West Lafayette.“We don’t have a constitutional requirement to publicly fund those who choose to home school their children.”\nBall State’s Office of Charter Schools has said some students who enrolled in virtual charter schools come from home-schooled backgrounds, but not the majority of them because many home schooling parents want to be free of state regulations that the schools must follow.\nMiranda Anderson of Mount Vernon, Ind., said that if virtual charters don’t open, she plans to continue home schooling her third-grade daughter, Elizabeth, who has attention deficit disorder. But Anderson hopes the Indiana Virtual Charter School will be around to give her daughter contact with a teacher, a better curriculum and more access to children her own age.\n“I am really hoping that that will be an option for us,” Anderson said.\nOther parents are continuing to fight for virtual charter schools by contacting lawmakers even though the legislative session is over, Price said.