Cyber School Facing Wrongful Death Suit Says It’s ‘Unreasonable’ for Teachers to See Students Weekly

By Katie Meyer of Spotlight PA

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s largest cyber charter school says it is “unreasonable” to expect its staff to see and hear from all students weekly, despite the Shapiro administration’s contention that it must do so to comply with state law.

Now, state lawmakers are pushing to update the law’s language to ensure these wellness checks happen.

The statute, passed as part of last year’s budget, says cyber charter schools must weekly “ensure that each enrolled student is able to be visibly seen and communicated with in real time.”

The language had been inspired in part by a prominent case in which a 12-year-old cyber charter student died in May 2024 following alleged torture and starvation by her guardians, according to state Rep. Joe Ciresi (D., Montgomery), the lawmaker who sponsored the original bill. The girl had been attending Commonwealth Charter Academy (CCA), which now faces a wrongful death suit.

It’s also the school that is now resisting performing weekly wellness checks.

When the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) requested documentation of the newly required checks from CCA, an attorney for the school said it had a different interpretation of the law and would not be performing them, according to October 2024 letters viewed by Spotlight PA.