CLEARFIELD – The Clearfield school board on Monday night heard some promising news regarding its cyber charter expenses.
Business Administrator Sam Maney said the district was spending roughly $1 million on outside cyber pre-pandemic.
But during COVID, those expenses “shot up” 240 percent, or to $2.4 million, before beginning the trend back downward a year later.
The district’s bill was $2.1 million in 2020-21, then came down some again to around $1.9 million in 2021-22.
“It continues to settle,” Maney said, adding the outside cyber bill was down $281,000 in 2022-23 to $1.6 million.
Clearfield had 106 outside cyber students in 2021-22 and 93 in 2022-23, a difference of 13 students, with eight being in special education.
In 2023-24, the district’s annual cost per student is $13,101.18 for regular education and $33,185.07 for special education.
It also saw the bill for the Clearfield cyber program come down by $76,000 from 2021-22, which Maney said equates to 15 students.
At the end of 2022-23, the district had 92 students in its cyber program and 93 in outside programs for a total of 185 cyber students.
The district has approximately 2,100 students.
Maney wasn’t sure if the district’s cyber charter bills would continue their downward trend but did say it’s still promising.