BELLEFONTE — The Bellefonte Area School Board is evaluating ways to strengthen its virtual learning program after reviewing state assessment data that showed mixed results for K-12 Bellefonte eLearning Academy (BeLA) students.

During their board meeting this week, BeLA Principal Dr. Jennifer Brown outlined the challenges and successes of the district’s online learning program. While Keystone Literature scores — taught by district educators — were notably stronger, students in Edgenuity-based courses struggled.

BASD contracts with the vendor Edgenuity to provide online instruction and curriculum, supplementing the 12 virtual high school courses taught by BASD educators, for the 116 students enrolled in the program districtwide.

Because the district lacks the resources to run an entirely in-house online learning program, BASD relies on the Edgenuity curriculum and program instructors to teach many of their predominantly asynchronous classes. Though elementary students may be required to participate in synchronous learning as requested by their course teachers, otherwise, students are able to work on their coursework on their own schedule.

The data presented by Brown is from students who took state assessments in the spring of 2024 while attending BeLA. All of these students are also counted in BASD’s building-level Keystone data.

“It’s not a perfect sample of data because it’s a snapshot; however, with the nature of virtual learning being fluid, that’s just kind of the way the data shakes out,” said Brown.

Notably, the data also reflects fewer students than those enrolled in BeLA, as many are beyond the age of these assessments. Some students included in the data may also have been newly enrolled in BeLA at the time of the assessment.

For the Keystone Exams, which serve as one component of Pennsylvania’s statewide high school graduation requirements, students must either score proficient or advanced on each exam or achieve a satisfactory composite score to pass.

Bellefonte utilizes Edgenuity courses for 9th, 10th and certain 11th grade students preparing for the Keystone Biology and Algebra Exams, which are both aligned with Pennsylvania state standards and taught by Pa. certified teachers.

In Keystone Biology, of the 16 students who took the exam, 25 percent (4) scored below basic; 43.8 percent (7), basic; 12.5 percent (2), proficient; and 18.8 percent (3), advanced. In Algebra, of the 12 students evaluated, only one student received a passing score of proficient. Meanwhile, 58.3 percent (7) scored below basic and 33.3 percent (4) scored basic.

Statewide in 2024, 50.5 percent of all students passed the Biology exam and 41.6 percent passed Algebra, solidly above BeLA’s performance.

In Keystone Literature, which is taught by a Bellefonte High School teacher, of the 15 students, 20 percent (3) scored below basic, 20 percent (3) scored basic, 55.3 percent (8) scored proficient and 6.7 percent (1) scored advanced.

Brown noted students in the district-led class, Keystone Literature, performed roughly twice as well as their counterparts taking exams under the guidance of Edgenuity. Across the entire district in 2024, 53.6 percent of students passed Keystone Algebra, 55.4 percent passed Biology and 50.2 percent passed the Literature exam.

“Relationships, rapport and connections are important for all kids, and dare I say, even more important for our kids that we don’t get to talk to or touch base with on a daily basis,” said Brown.

She added that, while Edgenuity is a good product with great, responsive teachers, “We believe that our teachers can do it better,” which is why the district has made an effort to implement more classes taught by BASD faculty.

Among classes preparing students for the PSSAs, all are taught through Edgenuity.

In PSSA English, of the 12 students, 25 percent (3) scored below basic, 33.3 percent (4) scored basic and 41.7 percent (5) scored proficient.

In PSSA Math, of the 10 students, 10 percent (1) scored below basic, 80 percent (8) scored basic and 10 percent (1) scored proficient.

In PSSA Science, of the 7 students, 14.3 percent (1) scored below basic, 42.9 percent (3) scored basic, 28.6 percent (2) scored proficient and 14.3 percent (1) scored advanced.

Districtwide, across all grade levels, 59.9 percent of students passed the English PSSA, 51 percent passed the Math PSSA and 80.7 percent passed the Science PSSA last year. These results again demonstrate lower success rates for virtual students.

“It seems like if you can stay in school and be part of that (learning environment)… there’s a much better chance that you’re going to be doing better,” said Board President Jon Guizar.

Because the data is imperfect and does not reflect how the school fares in relation to other in-house, e-learning academies, he asked if Brown could compile information to assess whether Bellefonte is on the right track or if the program needs reassessment.

Brown explained that other schools don’t necessarily complete the same assessments for comparison – particularly charter schools – and added that with so many different e-learning pathways, it’s like comparing apples to oranges.

Board Member Donna Smith pointed out that because of the way schools report their data, that information is not readily available, meaning Brown would need to call in favors to obtain that information.

“I have looked at the cyber charter data, and their pass rate for Keystones and PSSAs is absolutely abysmal – they are in the single digits,” said Smith, noting that BAHS and BeLA are still getting most students to graduation, whether through traditional or non-traditional paths.

Regardless, Brown said she would try to explore other data sources to create a more comprehensive picture.

Superintendent Roy Rakszawski said he believes certain procedural factors with Edgenuity contribute to lower scores – like a lack of due dates.

“So we want to look at those things, too,” he said, while recognizing the process of improving BeLA will be incremental.

Board Member Nate Campbell then asked how the District’s efforts to attract cyber students from statewide programs to BeLA have fared. Brown admitted the program has kept more students from leaving the district than it has managed to bring back.

“It tends to be when they’re gone, they’re gone.” said Brown.

In their effort to offer more classes taught by local educators, the District plans to add BeLA Health and Earth and Space Science next year. For the 2026-2027 school year, they are looking to add BeLA Geometry, along with another course that is yet to be finalized.

Reiterating the importance of the program, Brown added, “Even just today, I enrolled a student in BeLA, so it is always growing.”

In other business the school board:

— Heard an update on their new elementary school from SiteLogIQ. Substantial completion and final completion dates have shifted to seven weeks behind schedule.

— Heard a presentation by Superintendent Dr. Rakszawski on BASD’s internal and external communications. His goals are to refine external communication strategies with a focus on supporting student success while aligning with the District’s Mission and Vision, enhance internal communications while being responsive to staff feedback, build on communication practices that promote consistent messaging and marketing and increase external communications pertaining to Board decisions, actions, policies and finance. He offered several recommendations including offering more in-depth communications via presentations or newsletters, more regular email communication from the superintendent, communicating Board updates on decisions, finances and curriculum and expanding engagement.

— Held first review of the proposed budget for the 2025-2026 school year. Second and third review will be held during the BASD board meetings on April 8 and April 22, respectively. Review of the proposed final budget is set for May. The budget presentation is available online at: https://go.boarddocs.com/pa/bellasd/Board.nsf/Public

— Reviewed numerous policies for first reading.

— The Bellefonte Area School District Board of Directors will utilize an ad hoc committee of the Board to consider names for the new elementary school. The Committee will then make a recommendation to the Board for action on April 9, 2025. Suggestions may be received from members of the community, from elected officials, from school district personnel and from students. Interested contributors should see Policy 701.1, available on the District website, for more information and guidelines. Input can be emailed to publiccomment@basd.net or sent to 318 N. Allegheny St., Bellefonte, PA 16823.

— BASD will have open walk-in custodial and cafeteria staff interviews on Tuesday, March 25, from 1-3 p.m. No experience required. Staff will be available to help with job applications and training. For more information call 814-355-4814.