The Stone Valley Community Charter School (SVCCS) was founded in 2011 out of the desire of parents and community members to offer an alternative approach to public education.  Faced with the closure of their local elementary school, they saw this as an opportunity to provide an elementary school with a curriculum that embraced their local cultural heritage, focused on experiential learning outside the traditional classroom setting, and instilled in their children the need to be good stewards in their community and to exercise environmentally conscious actions.  By keeping classroom sizes small, they were determined to focus on each child’s whole needs – educationally, physically, and emotionally. 

The founding four, Mali Campbell, Mindi (Cramer) Crownover, Tina Guyer, and Theresa Hawbaker, enlisted the help of Carolyn Maroncelli who had recently relocated to the community.  As the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nittany Valley Charter School in State College, Carolyn provided the much needed guidance and expertise to begin the arduous task of writing SVCCS’s charter.  The small group spent many long hours formulating our mission, vision, and charter as it exists today.  The group was shortly joined by Sherry Everhart and Sandra Tussey, who represented the school as our first CEO.

Encouraged by the motto “Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world.  Indeed it is the only thing that ever has” (Margaret Mead), the team enlisted the support of their local community to assist them in making the school a reality.  Introducing their charter through a town meeting at the Stone Creek Valley fire hall, the small team quickly discovered that the community was willing to support their idea for a new school both physically and financially.  St. Stephen’s Lutheran church supported the school financially, and the Ennisville United Methodist Church and the McAlevy’s Fort United Presbyterian Church graciously opened their basements and kitchens so that SVCCS could immediately begin operation if the local elementary school closed.   

SVCCS’s first year began with 34 students, and by the end of the school year enrollment had grown to 38.  We are indebted to community members that provided early financial support and participated in our many fundraisers.  In particular, we thank Mrs. Thelma Hawbaker who graciously provided a matching grant for monies raised that was instrumental in providing for our school that first vital year. 

Teaching staff the first year of operation included Mrs. Teresa Gipe (kindergarten) and Mrs. Megan Byler (combined first and second) at the McAlevy’s Fort United Presbyterian building, and Ms. Alicia Hazel (combined third, fourth, and fifth) and Ms. Mallory Griffith (special education) at the Ennisville United Methodist building.

Our community again showed their strong support when several of its members formed a real estate partnership in order to purchase the building that was the previous home of the Jackson Miller Elementary School.  Thus, our second year of operation saw us move into our current location, the Jackson Miller Community Building.  Early in 2015, SVCCS was able to purchase the building from the Real Estate Group.  We are forever grateful to them for procuring the building and allowing us the time and space to grow until we were able to assume ownership.

SVCCS adopted the bumble bee as part of its logo.  The idea that it is aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly has been imbedded in folklore since the 1930s.  According to the scientific theory of the day, it was impossible for bumble bees to fly by the law of physics because they didn’t generate enough lift with their small wings given the weight of their bodies. But no one told the bumble bee! The determined bumble bee had the courage to do what seemed impossible at the time and just kept on flying, believing that science would catch up sooner or later. We BEE-lieve that each child should be instilled with that same confidence in themselves.

SVCCS’s names is in tribute to the Stone Valley High School, which educated students in the community from 1907 to 1947.

Mrs. Marian (Neff) Baker was a faculty member at Stone Valley High School during the years 1942-1947 and writes of some of her experiences in “The Fort Revisted,” compiled by James O. Smith, excerpts of which follow:

 “When I watch the orange school buses queuing into the asphalt parking lots that surround the glass palaces, my mind goes back to Stone Valley High School, and for a fleeting moment I harbor the heretical though: might not these buses be going the wrong way? Will there come a time when the pendulum has gone full swing, that we begin to focus on smaller units where students do not lose their identity in the crowd?”

 “Students came by bus to Stone Valley High School as well, but not any great distance. There was no asphalt parking lot; there was no need for any parking lot at all. The green and white painted building had served the community with dignity as church, as the Stone Valley Academy, and then as the Stone Valley High School. The high windows looked out on the surrounding mountains and hills and the grass of the fields came up to the very doorstep. I remember on late August days (we got started early) when the windows were raised and  the languid breeze came in laden with the scent of hay fields and we heard the hum of insects; grasshoppers and crickets and of course the buzz of ubiquitous fly. The calls of the field sparrow and the meadow lark added a mellow note to the industrious hum of the school.”

“Spring entailed biology trips to the surrounding woods, fields, and streams. One year we set ourselves to the all absorbing task of boiling maple syrup from the sap we collected from the sugar maples in Mr. James Cummins’ woods. Then the grand finale when we took the maple syrup, plus a large box of Aunt Jemima’s pancake mix and went off to the woods for an all-day nature study hike.”

“Subjects for nature study were everywhere. Even the flies that pestered us provided an experiment. In Tussey’s woods we had found a mushroom known as the fly Aminita. The books stated that this mushroom was used as an ingredient in fly poison. We were surprised to see that there was a ring of dead flies around this particular specimen as it lay on my desk.”

“On one occasion, while the County Superintendent of Schools (Prof. J.H.  Neff) taught for me, Miss Sue and I took the art class to Johnstown to an art exhibit where Miss Sue’s painting of the United Presbyterian Church of McAlevy’s Fort was hung. We felt very much a part of the whole. For after all there was our painting – the one we had watched grow.”

“On another occasion we of the science class, who had been studying rock formations, took our gunny sack of interesting stones to the Mineral Industries Building at State College where a kindly professor welcomed us to his office and examined our collection with interest. He told us that we were located in one of the richest areas for geologic formations.”

“Another time the biology class went to Juniata College where Dr. Homer Will showed us the intricacies of a biology lab.”

“And then came the sobering fact of commencement; the seniors were going to leave us.  The plans for Baccalaureate Services in the Ennsiville Methodist Church and the preparations for Commencement in the United Presbyterian Church beside the High School.”

“All in all my years at Stone Valley High School (5) were the pleasantest and most rewarding of my teaching career in public school. My aim was to have the students appreciate their surroundings and to encourage and abiding interest in natural history.”

Members of the SVCCS’s founding coalition included:

Louise Byler Lorraine (Mali) Campbell Mindi (Cramer) Crownover Marie DeVinney Sherry Everhart Christina (Tina) Guyer Theresa Hawbaker

Carolyn Maroncelli James Porter Paula Rachael Kent and Becky Robb Jesse Stickler Susan Wentzel Diane Yutzy