State education committee hears Johnstown officials and parents on rising cyber-charter costs

State lawmakers heard sharply different accounts Wednesday in Johnstown about the fiscal and educational impacts of cyber charter schools as testimony focused on rapidly rising tuition payments, special‑education costs and calls for funding reform.

Rob Gleason, president of the Westmont Hilltop School Board of Education, told the House Education Committee that his rural district now pays roughly $1.2 million a year to third‑party cyber charters for 79 students and that the program’s outcomes and costs worry local leaders. “The practice of repeating students is a very expensive” burden, Gleason said, and he noted that Westmont Hilltop provides school counselors at a ratio of less than 300:1, a social worker, two school psychologists and a behavioral specialist—services he said many cyber charter students do not receive.

Michael Dady, assistant to the superintendent for the Greater Johnstown School District, said Johnstown’s cyber tuition has increased sharply in recent years and that the district struggles to…