MILL HALL — In a meeting that lasted under five minutes, the Keystone Central School District Board of Directors unanimously approved a 5-year renewal to the Sugar Valley Rural Charter School’s agreement.

The board previously approved the renewal preliminarily in its March meeting in a 5-4 vote, with board members Chris Scaff, Elisabeth Lynch, Tom Cannon and Dr. Bill Baldino voting against it.

In a Letter to the Editor address to The Express — and published March 27 — Baldino offered further explanation behind the move at the time.

“My opposition was an attempt at removing what I considered harmful restrictions on the Charter School in the resolution as presented. I supported the renewal of the charter in committee, as did Mr. Scaff (the (ad hoc) committee chairman) where the consensus was to allow an increase in enrollment at the Charter School by 20 students without restriction on the origin of those students,” Baldino wrote. “This was the recommendation advanced out of committee but the resolution voted upon by the full board contained restrictions on the number of students from KCSD.”

Lynch echoed these sentiments during Thursday’s special meeting.

“I will say this, I did approve and I wanted to see 20 more students for them. I’m not going to vote no, I’m definitely voting yes ,but, I wanted them to have the… additional students. They worked very hard,” Lynch said.

She further expressed her positive experience in working with the SVRCS staff during the renewal process.

“I just wanted to thank the Sugar Valley group, they were very wonderful to work with. I had a really great experience just being able to watch the whole procedure,” she said.

At a previous meeting in March, the board heard two presentations from representatives of SVRCS leading up to the renewal.

The first presentation was made by CEO Tracie Kennedy and regarded the charter school’s communications with the district and other statistics.

Kennedy’s presentation noted that she and Superintendent Dr. Francis Redmon keep an open line of communication throughout the year and provided a breakdown of the charter schools current enrollment.

In total, SVRCS has enrolled 474 students, with that enrollment to remain steady throughout the remainder of the year.

She further noted, in the event a student chooses to enroll in a virtual school, those who reside within KCSD are encouraged to enroll in its virtual academy instead of a cyber charter.

In terms of its fund balance, Kennedy said the charter school’s General Fund as of June 2024 was at $4,240,464. Its board of trustees committed its fund balance on June 18, 2024 to Capital Projects, Summer Operating expenses and Summer Payroll and benefits. Remaining funds were later uncommitted on Nov. 19, 2024.

The charter school is currently working on its preliminary budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which will be presented to its board of trustees in May and finalized in June.

Supervisor of Curriculum and Instruction for K-12 Broc Phillips provided the board with a breakdown of its student assessment and intervention so far throughout the current school year.

This breakdown included PSSA scores for students grades 3-8; Keystone Exams for subjects such as algebra 1, biology, literature; and MAP Growth Tests which measure proficiency in subjects such as math and language arts during different parts of the calendar year.

Both presentations can be viewed by visiting the district’s BoardDocs, go.boarddocs.com/pa/keyc/Board.nsf/Public#.