Op-Ed: How cyber charter schools create new paths for teachers and students

Originally published in Broad + Liberty.

As Pennsylvania’s public schools prepared for remote learning last year, Robert Pratt decided it would be best to send his children to a school that already had a well-developed online curriculum.

That school was the Agora Cyber Charter School, based in King of Prussia, where he works as a sixth–grade science teacher. He found that the “interactive classroom” available at Agora was much more advanced and reliable than what his “brick and mortar” school district was offering. Pratt began his career with Agora more than 10 years ago as a math specialist, and he transitioned to his new position just last year.

“The flexibility the cyber environment offers to teachers is just awesome,” Pratt said in an interview. “You can be as creative and innovative as you want to be. Everything is at our fingertips as instructors. So instead of printing out, say, 60 or 70 copies of a worksheet to give to students, I can simply create a worksheet and send it out instantly to the different individual breakout rooms for students in their online platform. I can create a quality lesson plan in an hour’s time thanks to new technology.”

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