Commonwealth Charter Academy’s graduation ceremony in Pittsburgh Thursday night looked a lot like an public school graduation.
Cleverly individualized caps and shoes to accessorize a sea of blue and gold gowns. Speeches peppered with cheesy jokes and inspiring cliches. Parents bouncing babies in the aisle as the ceremony dragged on. Big hugs outside after families reunited on the other side of the rest of their lives.
But there were some notable differences as well.
For one, this was the fifth of seven graduation ceremonies Commonwealth Charter Academy [CCA] is conducting this year across four cities: Wilkes-Barre, Philadelphia, Hershey and Pittsburgh. That’s two more graduation ceremonies than last year, as CCA continues to enroll thousands of new students every year, an unprecedented period of rapid growth for a school in the commonwealth. CCA is now substantially larger than every school district besides the School District of Philadelphia.
The graduation ceremony occurred just as lawmakers in Harrisburg are considering a sweeping set of reforms that could change how cyber charter schools are funded and regulated. Advocates say the changes could amount to a death sentence for these schools, while critics say the schools’ lavish spending is taking away from traditional districts and that cyber schools continue to underperform.
The leaders of CCA and other cyber schools say the graduation ceremonies themselves provide proof of the value of a cyber education—even if the data doesn’t fully capture their worth.
Eileen Canistracci, the CEO of Insight PA Cyber Charter School, told PennLive this year’s graduation speeches by her school’s valedictorian and salutatorian underlined the success her school is having with many of the commonwealth’s most vulnerable students. She thinks the Department of Education needs to come up with better metrics by which to evaluate cyber charter schools according to the specific challenges those students face.
“I hear that being used against us all the time, about our graduation rates, but that’s the four-year cohort graduation rate that doesn’t speak to the 18-year-old that enrolls in my program with three credits,” she said. “And I get that student, by the time he’s 21, a high school diploma. I don’t get credit in any of the data that the state reports on for that group of kids. And cybers tend to get a lot of those kids.”
Graduation rates vs. graduation stories
Amid CCA’s graduation ceremonies, CCA’s board of trustees reviewed the school’s graduation rates on Wednesday, which are on par with other cyber schools in the state, but still lag far behind statewide averages–even when comparing six-year graduation rates. But the school has shown some small improvement in its graduation rate the last few years and Jeffrey Piccola, the board chairman, invited the public to attend the Pittsburgh graduation ceremony to see the stories behind these data points.
“I want to reiterate the invitation to critics, friends, lawmakers, political officials, newspaper reporters who have questions about charter schools and legitimate questions about cyber charter schools,” he said.
Before CCA’s Pittsburgh-area graduates began to receive their diplomas, they waited silently while hundreds of students who were attending the ceremony virtually were recognized on the big screen. Most of these graduates didn’t provide a photo, so it was left up to the imagination who they were. Some of the graduates who attended the ceremony in person had traveled multiple hours and never met any of the students they were seated next to.
“It’s great to see all of your faces in-person instead of on my computer. My name is Meghan,” said Meghan Hertel, one of the two seniors chosen to speak after a two-round interview process overseen by a committee of nine staff members–who enrolled in the school this year for the first time. “I’ve been enrolled at CCA for eight months now.”
Among the most unique parts of the CCA ceremony were the stories the students and school chose to highlight. Hertel spoke about the challenge her mother faced going through a divorce and raising five children. Charlie Swanson, the other student speaker, spoke about having autism and learning disabilities.
“I escaped social pressures and distractions and was able to focus on my education,” he said.
A sign-language translator narrated the ceremony, and the school provided a ramp for students in wheelchairs who couldn’t take the stairs to get their diplomas.
Daniel Harmon, a professional magician from the Class of 2018 who spoke, highlighted a CCA teacher who helped him with a research project on Ancient Greece. Harmon said he was a very sensitive 10-year-old and troubled to learn about the “unsavory, brutal practices that the Spartan military would employ.”
So he reached out to his teacher to see if his special circumstances could be accommodated and his teacher allowed him to write a letter trying to convince the Spartans to put an end to the practice. “And [my teacher’s] response, almost 15 years later, remains one of the kindest and understanding things that’s ever been said to me,” Harmon said.
These are the stories that CCA’s leaders and other cyber school leaders hope lawmakers will consider as they race to pass a budget this year.
“All you have to do is sit there next to a couple of parents and ask them a couple questions and you will find out why they have chosen CCA,” Piccola said about the graduation ceremonies. “It is a moving and remarkable experience.”
After the ceremony was over, Isabella McClain, one of CCA’s recent graduates, told her story to PennLive.
‘I never really fit in’
Like Hertel, McClain didn’t transfer to CCA until late–the spring of her junior year in high school–and it only happened as a last resort.
She had always been bullied because she isn’t “a super tiny girl,” she said. She’s also had some health challenges and said she has been diagnosed with ADHD and “a writing disability” that she said makes it harder for her to write with a pen or pencil than to use a keyboard.
“I don’t fit in anywhere but I fit in anywhere because genuinely, I’m a pretty nice person,” she said. “But I never really fit in with the popular kids or the nerds. I never fit in with exactly one group.”
At one point her parents considered sending her to Keystone Charter School for high school. The school markets itself as a school for “students who have difficulty functioning in the traditional public school environment.” Keystone is only a 30-minute drive McClain’s home in West Middlesex, but it didn’t have the advanced classes that she wanted to take, so she stuck with her local public school.
Until she didn’t. She ended up having to have major knee surgery that required her to be in a wheelchair while she was recovering. She said her school district originally promised to transport her to school in a special van but ultimately didn’t, which she said led to an angry confrontation between her dad and the principal. Her dad ended up driving her to school and helping her into and out of the car. But then her dad got a new job at a nursing home, which made transportation difficult.
And then she got suspended twice for wheeling herself to the bathroom for too long when she was having a health problem with her stomach. Her mom had a meeting with the school after the first suspension, so when McClain got suspended a second time, she said, her family had enough.
McClain considered attending PA Cyber Charter School, which is Pennsylvania’s second biggest cyber charter school and the one with the largest footprint in Western, Pennsylvania.
But McClain ended up choosing CCA because it allowed her the flexibility to take a babysitting job in the mornings and finish her work at night. The school had advanced classes that she wanted to take and even gave her the option to take an EMT course, which she was considering when she transferred but didn’t ultimately do. Plus, McClain’s mom is a 5th grade teacher and had applied for a teaching position at CCA in the past. So, CCA came highly recommended by her own family.
McClain spent a little over a year at CCA and said that, in general, the classes were easier than at her old school, in part because she is better at reading independently than reading in a group. She particularly enjoyed a British Literature course, where she said her most difficult assignment was writing a five-page essay in the fantasy-writing style that matched her reading interests. She struggled with a statistics course because it was hard to learn math over a computer, but she got help and ended up passing.
McClain passed her Keystone exam in Literature, she said, but scored a little under the passing grade for her Algebra test. But she said she was able to use her first-aid and CPR certifications to help fulfill her graduation requirements.
As part of her coming of age rites, McClain took a date to one of several CCA proms. And during Thursday’s graduation, McClain sat in the second row and exchanged Snapchat information with another girl who she was seated next to.
She said walks to the beat of her own drum. “I fit in more with the kids that didn’t really have a social norm,” she said. “And tried my best to do what I love and what I care about.”
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