Conestoga Valley School District has a virtual academy in which about 20 students go through an online course of instruction.

But many more district students are enrolled in similar cyber charter schools for which the district annually spends $500,000. Now, district officials are looking at a plan to get more students to enroll in its own cyber school and recoup some of those costs.

Currently, 49 students in the Conestoga Valley School District are enrolled in state-certified cyber charter schools, for which the district must pay roughly $8,700 per student. Yet at the Conestoga Valley Virtual Academy, yearly costs max out around $5,200.

Consequently, if some of those 49 students enrolled in the district's cyber school, the savings could be significant.

At the July 19 school board meeting, district officials presented an idea to boost enrollment at the Conestoga Valley Virtual Academy by appointing a coordinator for the academy. The coordinator would focus on recruiting students who attend cyber charter schools.

Don Mann, the district's director of secondary education, presented the idea to hire a retired elementary school principal, Thomas Brackbill, to recruit more students to the district's online school and save on the costs of subsidizing other programs.

A draft proposal that Mann discussed with the school board called for paying $10,000 to $15,000 to Brackbill to take over basic management of the Conestoga Valley Virtual Academy. Brackbill performs similar duties in the Solanco School District.

Mann said that even if Brackbill is able to convince only a handful of cyber school students to switch to the district's academy, his contract would pay for itself.

The proposal will be refined with more specifics for the school board at a future board meeting, at which it will be considered for adoption.

In other business, school board members voted to approve Lisa Whitacre as a replacement for Thomas O'Neill, whose resignation from the board was made official July 19. Whitacre was one of five people who expressed interest in filling the vacant seat. The school board settled on Whitacre after 25 minutes of discussion and two straw polls.

Whitacre works in human resources at PNC Financial Services Group and has three children who attend district schools.

The appointment is temporary. To continue on the board, Whitacre would have to run in the May 2011 primary.