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LOGANTON -- Schools might be closed, but progress has been made between Sugar Valley Rural Charter School and the Keystone Central School District.
Earlier this week, the charter school's board of trustees unanimously agreed to a new five-year charter with KCSD. The Keystone Central board is expected to approve it at its next voting session, which is scheduled for Tuesday, May 14.
Tracie Kennedy, CEO of Sugar Valley Rural Charter School, said that the new five-year charter is significant.
"Keystone Central and SVRCS collaborated to amend the charter. Agreements were made on both sides to develop a relationship that will allow parents to continue to have a choice in their child's education," Kennedy said. "We felt this was the beginning of a new era for both parties. Now that the SVRCS board of directors has approved the amended charter, Keystone will be voting on the amended charter on May 14."
That May 14 meeting, originally scheduled for 7 p.m. at Bucktail High School, will now be held via Zoom.
KCSD had originally scheduled a pair of meetings on Tuesday, April 28 and Thursday, April 30, "for the purpose of reviewing all relevant matters relating to the renewal request from the Sugar Valley Rural Charter School."
Those meetings were canceled after Sugar Valley approved the contract.
If the KCSD board also approves the amended charter, it will put an end to several months of back-and-forth between the schools.
The Keystone Central School District and Sugar Valley Rural Charter School have two decades of history.
The Sugar Valley Rural Charter School was established in 1999 when the original charter was approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. SVRCS is a public school option available at no cost to families and is located within the Keystone Central School District.
In 2015, the charter for Sugar Valley Rural Charter School was denied by a 7-2 vote. The renewal effort was not finalized until the middle of 2016 when the board approved it by a narrow 5-4 vote.
The charter school's 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. Information provided by the district showed that KCSD paid more than $6.6 million for nearly 400 students in the KCSD attendance area to attend SVRCS in the 2018-19 school year.
At its October 2019 meeting, the Keystone Central School District board tabled payments to the Sugar Valley Rural Charter School. Those bills were for tuition for the period of July-October 2019 for $557,891, $411,448, $593,579 and $658,100 -- a total of $2.2 million.
At KCSD's April meeting, superintendent Jacquelyn Martin said the district anticipates a savings of $342,000 in the next fiscal year due to a smaller payment to SVRCS.
The current enrollment at SVRCS is 492 students, primarily from the Keystone Central School District as well as the Jersey Shore Area and Penns Valley Area school districts.