The Pleasant Valley School District is seeking to hear back from several hundred families whose children were in cyber charter schools, the district’s cyber academy or home-schooled last year. The district wants to know if the students are coming back to the bricks-and-mortar classrooms this upcoming school year.

Charlene Brennan, the acting superintendent for the school district, told the school board last week that the district has tried multiple times to contact about 390 families without any luck.

In addition to direct contact, the district has posted on the district’s website a letter asking the parents to contact the school district.

“Please let us know by 4 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2021, whether your student will be returning to a district building from an outside cyber charter school or Pleasant Valley Cyber Academy or if the child will remain in the cyber school. If we do not hear from you, we will be unable to make appropriate plans for your child,” the letter stated.

On Tuesday, the district sent out certified letters to the families in an attempt to exhaust all efforts to reach them.

“I believe that trying every last effort to contact families is our responsibility as a school district,” Brennan said this week. “I believe it is incumbent upon us as a district to reach out to our families and take every effort to do that. Their children are our children, and we want to make sure that if we can provide for them before the start of school, that we do that.”

During the public comment portion of the school board meeting, a resident said he didn’t think the school district will ever hear back from some of the families. He said some have probably moved away and others don’t want to speak to the school district.

Parents whose children were in a cyber charter school, home-schooled, or the district’s cyber academy and have not told the school district of their intent for next school year can do so by contacting the school with their child’s grade level.

The phone number is the same for all school buildings, but the extension numbers are different. The phone number is 570-402-1000. The extension number for the elementary school is 6001, the intermediate school is 3001, the middle school is 2001, and the high school is 4001.

“We greatly appreciate your assistance in this matter,” Brennan said to the parents in the letter.