Cyber school with a twist

By Dan Hardy

Inquirer Staff Writer

Katie Devanney, a 16-year-old from Paoli, likes the high school she has designed for herself.

She takes three courses online through a Chester County cyber charter school but also takes a literature course for gifted students in the basement of a former church in West Chester.

The arrangement makes her a cyber-blended student who takes courses on a computer but also at the cyber school's gifted education center, where she is taught in person by teachers and sits next to other students.

She's also a pioneer in the evolution of cyber charters: 11 schools now educate 17,000 students statewide. Having a building where students can take courses and interact with one another satisfies parents and students who want more structure and more social contact, experts said.

"This is a need that the cybers have recognized," said Timothy Daniels, executive director of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Charter Schools. "They are offering new services. That's how they are evolving; its customer demand."

The West Chester gifted program of the Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School is the only "bricks and mortar" gifted program among the 11 cyber charters in Pennsylvania. There are no cyber charters in New Jersey.

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