Keystone Central ad hoc committee discusses Sugar Valley Rural Charter School amendment requests; no votes taken

At an April meeting of the Keystone Central School District ad hoc committee, representatives of Sugar Valley Rural Charter School described how they use MAP testing and other tools for diagnostics and progress monitoring, and the committee discussed four amendment requests in the charter renewal application. No formal votes were taken; committee members agreed to follow up with a technical meeting and to adopt a document-review process for the school’s annual report.

The discussion began with public comment. Ashley Shadel, mayor of Loganton and a longtime Sugar Valley parent, told the committee she moved to Loganton for the school and praised staff and outcomes: “what they're doing at the charter school is phenomenal…Considering the fact that a roughly a third of their student population is special education and they're still blowing you guys out of the water test score wise should really say something,” Shadel said.

The committee then addressed four requests Sugar Valley submitted as part of its five-year renewal application. The first request asks the district to eliminate a second, mandatory diagnostic assessment listed in section 6(a) of the current agreement for students performing below grade level. Brock Phillips, supervisor of curriculum and instruction K to 12 at Sugar Valley Rural Charter School, described the charter’s assessment system in detail and defended reliance on MAP testing from NWEA as the school’s primary diagnostic tool. “We now aim to focus on helping students perform on their MAP test 3 times a year,” Phillips said, describing how the school imports MAP results into IXL to generate individualized skill plans and uses weekly rotations, MTSS meetings every two weeks, classroom-level analysis, and targeted interventions to monitor progress.

Phillips explained that additional vendor assessments Sugar Valley previously used (for example, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt placement tools and CDTs for high school) have been retired or provided no further diagnostic value beyond MAP for the school. He said the school continues to use DIBELS (now managed by Amplify) for K–8 literacy and uses IXL’s diagnostic tools for norm-referenced, ongoing monitoring. Sugar Valley asked that the agreement not require the second assessment universally for all students in a grade but only for those already identified through screening. Tracy Kennedy, CEO of Sugar Valley Rural Charter School, said the school would continue to use diagnostic tools selectively and asked not to be contractually required to administer an assessment that staff believe is not beneficial to students’ learning or mental health.

Committee members asked clarifying questions about progress monitoring. Phillips said teachers meet students one-on-one, set SMART targets tied to MAP strands, and use reports the system generates to guide instruction and MTSS interventions. He described classroom-level coaching and a curriculum, data and innovation team that analyzes results and leads professional learning.

The second request—that seniors who have completed an Act 158 graduation pathway be excused from additional assessments and interventions—was described as noncontroversial during the meeting. The committee chair read language proposing that “students in grade 12 who have successfully completed the Act 158 graduation pathway may be excused from the additional assessments and interventions,” and members indicated no objection.

The third request would raise Sugar Valley’s aggregated enrollment cap from 475 to 495 (described in the meeting as an aggregate cap, not a per-class cap). School representatives said the increase would typically amount to about two additional students per grade on average; they emphasized that new students might come from several surrounding districts, not only Keystone Central. Jeff Johnston, Keystone board member, raised fiscal concerns and cited an approximate per-pupil dollar figure: “by adding 20 more students, that’s gonna cost the district…if we’re averaging $20,000 roughly per student…that’s $400,000 more.” Johnston also referenced Act 1 millage indexing, saying 25% of the Act 1 index would increase district revenues by about $490,000. Committee members pushed back on using district fiscal impacts as the deciding factor in renewal conditions. Chris Scaff, committee chair, reminded members that the board’s agreement language restricts consideration of the district’s financial impact when deciding charter renewal conditions and said, “Whatever money we get for a kid, that money follows that kid.” Other board members agreed that the legal and policy context made it risky to deny an enrollment change based primarily on projected district revenue effects.

Finally, the committee discussed the charter’s annual presentation to the board. Sugar Valley asked that it be allowed to submit the annual report in writing and answer written questions rather than make a required in-person presentation at a board meeting. Some board members said they value an in-person public presentation so the community can hear directly from the charter; others said a written report that allows board members time to review and generate questions would be more efficient. The committee agreed to a compromise: Sugar Valley will send its annual report to all board members; the board will formulate questions, the district superintendent will forward questions to the charter, and Sugar Valley will reply in writing. If written answers are insufficient, the committee or board may request a follow-up in-person presentation.

Next steps recorded during the meeting included a technical meeting to follow up on MAP diagnostics and progress-monitoring tools (committee members asked to meet with Sugar Valley staff and district curriculum staff the following Friday) and the agreed document-review workflow for the annual report. No formal votes or charter renewal decisions were made at the meeting.

Votes at a glance: none. The meeting produced discussion, clarification requests, and procedural directions but no motions or formal outcomes.