Insight PA Cyber Charter School

We hope that you have been enjoying your summer break! Here at school, we've been busy preparing for the upcoming school year. We have some exciting and important updates to share with you, so keep reading!

Our first day of school for students will be Monday, August 26th!

To view our entire calendar for the 2024-2025 school year (SY), visit the link below -

Insight PA Calendar (CLICK HERE!)

We are excited to invite you and your family to our first ever Virtual Summer Family Game Sessions on Wednesday, July 31st! Hosted by Community Engagement Coordinators Courtland Handy and Chelsea Burke, these sessions promise excitement, engagement, and fantastic prizes from our school store!

We look forward to your participation and hope to make this event a memorable experience for all our students and their families. If you have any questions, please contact one of our Community Engagement Coordinators. (Please note their new email addresses listed below!)

• Mr. Courtland Handy - cohandyiii@insightpaschool.org
• Mrs. Chelsea Burke - chburke@insightpaschool.org

Insight PA's Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) Steering Committee is seeking feedback on the draft of our 2024 - 2025 Comprehensive School Improvement Plan. We invite all members of our school community to visit the School Improvement page on our website to learn more about the CSI process, view the draft of our plan for the 24-25 school year, and share their feedback with us in our CSI Plan Feedback Form using the links below.

• Insight PA School Improvement Page
• DRAFT 24-25 CSI Plan
• 24-25 CSI Plan Feedback Form

We greatly appreciate your time and attention to this important project and thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. Your feedback is invaluable and will be considered as we finalize our plan. We look forward to continuing to create even better learning experiences for our students in the years to come!

The CSI Plan Feedback form will remain open until Monday, August 19th. If you have any questions or difficulty completing this form, please contact Insight PA Chief Academic Officer Julie Jaszcar at her new email address, jujaszcar@insightpaschool.org.

Insight PA is required by the federal government to collect updated information about our families each year. By collecting this data from each family, we can secure Title I funding that allows our school to provide resources and opportunities to all our students, including social opportunities such as field trips and community events, and employ our Student Resource Specialists, who help struggling families access local resources to meet their needs. The data we collect is also used to determine eligibility for benefits such as fee waivers for SAT/ACT exams and college applications.

Insight PA uses two forms to collect this required data. If you have not already completed these for the 24-25 school year, please do so using the links and information below.

1. Family Information Survey – Please use this link to provide information about your family so we can ensure that you are receiving all resources for which your family is eligible.
   
   
2. Family Income Form – You should have received an email from familyincome@insightpa.org containing the DocuSign Family Income Form to be completed. If you need assistance filling out the Family Income Form, please watch the video below. If you have questions or need additional assistance, please email familyincome@insightpa.org.

Stride/K12 will be sending out communications with directions and mailing labels for you to return materials from the 2023-2024 school year after our Summer School program ends on July 26th. Please keep an eye on your email inbox for more information!

Specific questions about school materials and returns should be sent directly to Stride/K12. Please use the links below for more information and assistance.

• Materials & Computer Equipment Returns
• Request Support Online

Last week, the 2024-2025 State Budget was finalized and we’d like to share some updates on the details of this budget. Most importantly, we want to assure our families that Insight PA Cyber Charter School will continue to provide a high-quality public education at no cost to our students and families.

The 2024-2025 State Budget increases funding for traditional K-12 public schools by $1 billion. This will provide additional funding for each student who attends a public cyber charter school via the charter school funding formula.

As we shared previously, there was significant pressure from some elected officials to significantly cut funding for public cyber charter schools. Thanks to the advocacy efforts of the cyber charter community and our supporters in the PA House and Senate, we were able to prevent a cut to the funding for non-special education students in public cyber charter schools.

Unfortunately, the State Budget reduces funding for cyber charter students with special education needs. What does this mean for students attending Insight PA?

1. While this funding cut will negatively impact Insight PA’s budget, we have been preparing for the possibility of a reduction in state funding and we will continue to provide all of our students, including those with special education needs, with a comprehensive and robust education.
   
   

2. As always, Insight PA does not turn away any student - regardless of their learning needs - who wishes to enroll in our school. We will remain a welcoming learning environment for all students, and that includes those with special education needs.
   
   

3. As we stated in the newsletter we shared on June 27th, we believe that it is inequitable and discriminatory to single out a subset of Pennsylvania’s student population and fund them at a lower level than their peers in traditional public schools. We will continue to fight to ensure all our students receive the funding they are entitled to.

In addition to funding changes, the 2024-2025 State Budget included several other changes that will go into effect this school year including the requirement that all PA public cyber charter schools must conduct weekly virtual wellness checks for each of our students. This means seeing each student on camera at least weekly. We will provide you with additional details on how these weekly wellness checks will take place in the upcoming school year.

Thank you to everyone who reached out to their local state representative and/or state senator to advocate against funding cuts to public cyber charter students. Our school community appreciates your efforts!