I have had children in cyber charter schools for the past 5 years. I am currently with Commonwealth Connections Academy. (www.connectionsacademy.com)

There are over 18,000 children in the 11 cyber charter schools across PA. The number will continue to grow every year because parents are dissatisfied with the quality of the education and the environment in bricks and mortar public schools.

Cyber charter schools are still public schools but parents work together with the cyber school teachers to educate their children. I am the 4 county field trip coordinator for Commonwealth Connections Academy. (Berks, Lebanon, Lancaster, and Chester counties). I just returned from hosting a field trip at Lake Tobias Wildlife Park ( www laketobias.com) Over 60 parents, students, and teachers attended and we had a fabulous time!!

Cyber charter schools offer an excellent education to students and combine it with real-word experiences. Just as online college classes are a staple of most universities, online virtual education for grades K-12 is here to stay. The PA School Boards Association and the bricks and mortar schools are afraid of the competition, If they were so great, parents wouldn't be signing up for cyber charter schools in droves.

MaryAnne: self-professed science geek here - how do charter and cyber schools handle things like chemistry labs, dissecting frogs, and physics labs? IIRC, you too are an LCHS grad and probably had some fun times in the school's lab like I did. Science classes and labs are what saved me from an otherwise repressive (for me) education. So, I always wonder how homeschoolers can do the 'classic' science stuff. I realize that field trips like you describe can be wonderful for science 'stuff' but how do you do the basic science experimentation, dissecting, bunsen burner kind of science.

I've heard said that a lot of homeschool curriculum is not so heavy on science due to the religious nature of many home schooled kids. Is the program you use more 'secular' in nature and provide advanced science education? Yeah, with all these science questions, just goes to show my geekdom... Do various homeschoolers get together to have the lab partner experience? And if a bunch of homeschooled kids get together, doesn't that sort of make it more like a charter school?

Harv1,

All of the cyber charter schools send students the necessary supplies to do all the required science experiments. Many cyber charter schools have also started to form "blended" programs where the students get together once a week at a set location and do classes and projects together.

As far as traditional homeschoolers, I have seen many classes advertised in their SCRAWLS newsletter where students get together and do chemistry and biology labs taught by a certified science teacher.

Since cyber charter schools are public schools, there is absolutely no religion interjected into any lessons.

I have taken the initiative of setting up a 12-week series of science classes called "Classroom Earth" that will cover the geography and ecosystems etc. of North America and Australia for the Fall. It will be taught by Lancaster County park naturalist and marine biologist MaryAnn Schlegel.It will be offered Mondays starting 9/17 from 10-12 p.m.if anyone is interested. It is geared to grades 3 and up.

Another parent has set up a dissection and microscope class for the Fall using the skills of park naturalist Lisa Sanchez.This is already filled.

In addition, I have taken my children to numerous science classes offered by the National Aquarium, the Franklin Institute, the Whitaker Center,and the North Museum, just to name a few.

There are many creative ways that students can get hands-on science knowledge. It doesn't have to take place within the confines of a traditional bricks and mortar school.

Alot of traditional homeschoolers will have nothing to do with a cyber charter school since it is still a public school and they see it as the Government telling them how to educate their child. The big difference with enrolling in a cyber charter school is that everything is completely free- your computer, monitor, printer, all school supplies, as well as some Internet reimbursement. This is why many families choose it over traditional homeschooling. However, many cyber charter school families are still welcome in many homeschool co-ops. For example, I belong to two co-ops- Natural Learners and the Lancaster Catholic Homeschoolers..

(P.S. I am a graduate of Columbia High School, not LCHS)

Thanks for the explanation, mamc. Sounds like a well thought out program and if students are given the opportunity to explore it all, doing it out in the field would be a lot of fun to boot! (sorry about the high school mix-up.. can't figure out why I thought you graduated from LCHS. Probably a senior moment or something).