The Lawrence school district’s effort to establish a virtual charter school was good enough to win approval from the Kansas Department of Education, but the program received less than a sixth of the funds requested.

“It does open the door for us, even though it’s only a crack,” said Karen Vespestad, the district’s director of grants, board services and strategic planning.

The district requested $633,225 of the $8 million the U.S. Department of Education sent to the state for development, design and operation of charter schools.

Instead of fully funding requests for a few schools, the state Department of Education decided to partially fund 14 projects. The Lawrence district will receive $101,709.

“They watered down the money,” Vespestad said.

With full funding, the district hoped to provide computerized instruction in reading, writing, math, social studies and science to third- through eighth-grade students not enrolled in public schools, such as students in private schools and home schools.

The district had planned to hire a principal, two curriculum coordinators and a Web technician for the program. The school someday could be expanded to include high school and adult education courses.

The school was designed to be self-sufficient after receiving three years of federal funds. The system was scheduled to be in place by January 2005.

Now, school officials must decide whether they should offer a significantly scaled-down version of the online school with the smaller pot of money.

“For us, the critical mass is the first year — getting the Web services going,” said Mike Eltschinger, the district’s supervisor of instructional technology. “The first year is really critical to show it is in place and that it will be functional. If we can’t get a quality product in front of the public, I’m not sure it’s worth pursuing.”

The district must decide by May 5 whether to accept the federal money. Staff members will consider their options for the charter school and take the issue to the school board later this month.

“We want to do it right from the beginning,” Vespestad said. “The big picture is we could really do some neat stuff down the road.”

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