Unexpected. Eye-opening. Challenging. Rewarding.

Five minutes from Altoona Area High School, nestled between South Lloyd St. and East Crawford Avenue, lies a building that has given its residents experiences encompassing all of these words: the Stevens building. On that street corner, staff and faculty strive to achieve the mission T.E.A.M. (“Together Everyone Achieves More”).

In the past decade, the founding and expansion of the Altoona Cyber Academy (ACA) has allowed them to do just that.

Since its founding in 2009, the ACA has offered a non-traditional approach to education for students. Members of the academy in grades K-12 complete course work that coincides with district guidelines in a flexible asynchronous setting for the entire school year. ACA students can connect with district employees for one-on-one instruction as well as participate in clubs, events and extracurricular activities like any other school district student. At the end of the program, students graduate with an AAHS diploma.

A “Tremendous Foresight”

Prior to the Altoona Cyber Academy’s founding, the school district had a partnership with the Central Pennsylvania Digital Learning Foundation (CPDLF). Once the partnership fizzled out, head principal Andrew Neely stepped in to oversee the newly-formed ACA in the 2010-2011 school year in his role as assistant principal. Since then, the program has grown astronomically.

“When I was involved with [the ACA] early on, I think we had five or six kids in the first years. I believe we’re up to at least 370 students at the high school at the moment,” Neely said. “Back then, it was only for high school; the program wasn’t offered at the junior high yet. Now it’s offered for grades K-12.”

The founding of the ACA aimed to reduce the amount of money the school district had to pay outside cyber charter schools where AASD students were enrolled by keeping students in the district. For School Board President Val Mignogna, the founding of the ACA was a moment of “tremendous foresight.”

“We approve a budget every year, and in that budget, there’s a line item for funding the Altoona Cyber Academy,” Mignogna said. “The problem is, you never know how many students are going to choose our local offering or one of the charter schools. It’s a question I’ve been asking a lot recently because the amount of money [the board] has to pay to outside cyber charter schools is a significant number.”

A Non-Traditional Environment

In 2009, Jason McGinnis taught health and physical education for credit recovery. Now, 16 years later, he’s been head principal of the ACA program for nine years. For him, the experience has been both challenging and rewarding.

“We see kids who just need a different mode of education, and oftentimes a change in pace for them or change in program can be exactly what that kid needs to be successful,” McGinnis said. “We get kids that come into the building often for extra assistance, extra help or just a quiet place to work, and we’re able to further build those connections and those relationships with those kids to ensure that they’re on track for graduation. The most rewarding thing is to see a kid that went through our program walk across the stage on graduation day and get their diploma.”

The ACA has an elementary program coordinator for students in grades K-5 and a secondary program coordinator for students in grades 6-12.

“There are a lot of components to the Altoona Cyber Academy,” secondary program coordinator Julie Schreiber said. “First and foremost, it is an educational environment for students the district offers in the event that they’re not finding success in the traditional classroom environment. We offer an asynchronous online platform that matches the curriculum with the school district and is delivered through Google Classroom. Students can work on their assignments at their own pace, within the realm of the due date timeframe, and they can reach out to their teachers in a multitude of ways in order to get help. It’s an environment for students that may not otherwise thrive in a traditional setting.”

Students interested in joining the ACA can obtain and fill out an online application from their school counselor or from the school district website. The application, academic records, classes and individual student needs are reviewed. If the student is accepted, an orientation is scheduled on a Tuesday or Thursday.

“The orientation is mainly for parents and students,” Schreiber said. “We go through the day-to-day, what they’re going to be experiencing as a cyber student, how to log in for attendance, how to submit an excuse, and so on. I take them through a mock Google Classroom and show them how to navigate. For our high school students, it’s pretty straightforward, but it definitely has been a new and interesting challenge working with sixth, seventh and eighth graders this year, and just seeing where they are in terms of their technology skills.”

Schreiber implemented a weekly and daily pacing chart for cyber students to keep track of their work and deadlines. Cyber teachers post the assignments for the week on Mondays by 5 p.m., and students must complete their work by the following week, encouraging a flexible working environment.

“We have a lot of students in our program that are working part-time and full-time, and [ACA] allows them to continue with their education and their academics, but also make money and get a job,” McGinnis said. “Some students can have some difficulties with being in a large environment, in a large building, so they choose this option to help them from a mental health standpoint or a social standpoint. It’s really individualized, but there really can be a variety of reasons.”

“I’ll never forget”

One of the newest editions to the AAHS teaching staff, math teacher Daniel Harber, spent the past five years as an ACA coordinator. This year, Harber decided to switch to in-person instruction, but he remembers his time as a coordinator and a cyber instructor. From office hours to answering emails and helping students, Harber has seen both the teaching and administration aspect of the cyber academy.

“A student has to have a lot of motivation to excel in any cyber learning because they have to do the work on their own,” Harber said. “The teacher is not standing behind you, asking you the questions constantly. They’re there to answer emails and everything, but if they’re teaching class today, it’s not like they have time to respond to an email or anything like that. Students have to be organized because they need to keep themselves on a daily routine, making sure they actually take time to do their work.”

In the 12 years Harber has been involved in the program, there is one student that left a lasting impression on him.

“There was one kid I’ll never forget,” Harber said. “They did not do well in cyber. We didn’t think they were going to, but they needed that time to get their life together. After a couple months, they were able to get through what they needed to get through, and they came back to school, and life was better. They were able to actually get through everything and then finish school in the building.”

Teachers involved in the cyber program typically teach a cyber section in addition to their in-person classes. For the cyber courses, asynchronous work is assigned every week. The ACA offers core classes and a variety of electives, with more courses and electives looking to be added in the next year.

Walking Across the Stage

To ensure that ACA students are meeting graduation requirements for the state of Pennsylvania, school counseling Department Chair Drew Yingling oversees and ensures that students in grades 9-12 are on the right track to graduation with the help of a team monitoring attendance.

“I look at how the students are doing and progressing in their classes,” Yingling said. “I’ll run credit earnings after each semester, making sure that students are progressing towards the academic achievement that they need in order to pass classes. I make contact with students who aren’t, utilizing Skyward quite a bit, reaching out also to students via email, telephone calls, parent contacts and those kinds of things.”

Students who are enrolled in the ACA receive an AAHS diploma after completion of the program and are invited to enjoy the same opportunities as students enrolled in the traditional, in-person school setting.

“It’s a work in progress,” McGinnis said. “We look to improve every year. We had some changes this year that have been beneficial, and we look forward to continuing to build a home. We’re always looking for ways to improve. Always. We’re trying to make sure that we’re able to provide the best education that we can to the students of this district, and of course, we don’t ever want to lose anybody to any other outside cyber [schools]. That’s important to us, that’s important to me, to keep everybody in our district and make sure we’re getting the best education that we can.”

This story was originally published on Mountain Echo on January 16, 2025.