Sugar Valley Rural Charter School Charter Up for Renewal
BALD EAGLE TOWNSHIP – The Keystone Central School Board will again soon be passing judgment on the charter for the Sugar Valley Rural Charter School in Loganton.
The school’s 5-year charter is up for renewal in 2020 and the school district has announced two meetings on the topic for next week. Meanwhile the office of district superintendent Jacquelyn Martin on Friday released a statement on the matter in which she said, “I…do not wish to see the school closed unless there is conclusive evidence of fraud, illegal activity or educational malpractice.” (The full school district release, including Martin’s statement, is printed below).
Charter renewal for the school has been a contentious issue since the school was started in 1999 in the wake of the closing of the former Sugar Valley High School, shut down as part of a school consolidation program in the southern half of the district nearly a quarter of a century ago.
The last renewal effort began in 2015 and was not consummated until the middle of 2016. That time the school board voted initially 7-2 to not renew the school’s charter, but later reversed itself and on a 5-4 in June of 2016 authorized the school’s charter for another five years.
Information provided by the district on Friday of this week shows Keystone Central paid more than $6.6 million for some 385 students in the Keystone attendance area to attend SVRCS in the 2018-19 school year.
The school board will be holding a special voting session relative to the school’s charter renewal on Wednesday, Nov. 6. That meeting will be in addition to a special voting session on Thursday, Nov. 7 prior to the board’s regular work session scheduled for that date. Agendas for those meetings had not been posted on the district website as of this Friday.
Below is the text of the Friday announcement from Superintendent Martin’s office:
Sugar Valley Rural Charter School Renewal
The Sugar Valley Rural Charter School was established in 1999 when the original charter was
approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. The Sugar Valley Rural Charter
School is a public school option available at no cost to families and is located within the
Keystone Central School District. While the KCSD Board of Directors is responsible for
authorizing the charter to operate for five year increments, the Charter School is governed
separately by a seven member Board of Trustees who are elected to serve their community
school. Superintendent Jacquelyn Martin recently toured the Sugar Valley Rural Charter School
with Chief Academic Officer Tracie Kennedy and also met with the Sugar Valley Concerned
Citizens at their October 29th board meeting. Martin explained her position on the renewal by
stating, “I completely understand the purpose and origin of the Sugar Valley Charter School. I
have respect for the school charter, its staff, students and governing body and do not wish to
see the school closed unless there is conclusive evidence of fraud, illegal activity or educational
malpractice.”
The Keystone Central School District budget of $73M is reliant on revenue from local revenue,
state subsidies, and federal awards. The revenue is comprised of 46% local sources, 51% state
sources, and 3% federal sources. The Charter School budget is comprised of approximately
96% local revenue sources which are received through tuition that is charged to the home
district of the students who attend. The tuition rate formula is dictated to the schools by a
calculation through the Pennsylvania Department of Education and includes all budget
expenditures for a district minus the expenditures for federally funded programs, Ready to Learn
Block grant programs, transportation, and other debt service expenses. However, the tuition
expense payments sent to Charter and Cyber Schools is included in the calculation for the
tuition cost per student. For students who receive special services such as speech and
language instruction, or other special education services, there is an additional calculation that
increases the tuition rate. In the 2018-19 school year, the Keystone Central School District
forwarded total tuition payments to the Charter School in the amount of $6,635,797 in which the
tuition rate for a regular education student was $11,235 and a special education student was
$31,327. Approximately 385 students from the KCSD attendance area are enrolled in the
Charter School, as well as students from Jersey Shore, Penns Valley, Midd West and
Williamsport. Students enrolled at the Sugar Valley Charter School is approximately 490
students in grades Pre K-12.
