State Denies Mystic Valley Expansion Plan, Imposes Conditions

The state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education recently informed Mystic Valley Regional Charter School that it must tackle critical governance and enrollment practices before its request to add 400 students will be put up for reconsideration, according to a Boston Globe report.

On Dec. 17 the state board voted unanimously to reaffirm Commissioner Mitchell Chester's decision in February to deny the Malden-based charter school's expansion request, according to the Globe. The board also added five conditions to Mystic Valley’s charter, including a requirement to place term limits on school trustees, reads the report.

Neil Kinnon, chairman of the Mystic Valley Board of Trustees, called the recent meeting a “kangaroo court,” and accused the state board with trying to thwart the growth of one of the state’s top-performing charter schools, according to the report.

“What’s really going on, in my opinion, is they don’t want us to become the largest charter school in the Commonwealth,” said Kinnon, a school founder Malden City Councillor, in the report.

The state tacked on a pair of conditions after discovering that Mystic Valley had allowed 150 kindergarteners to attend the school annually since 2011, when the school's cap was 120, according to the report.

Mystic Valley must submit an enrollment growth plan, which shows class sizes based on the current 1,500-students population, according to the report. An enrollment policy providing an overview of the process for accepting students in each grade also must be submitted to the state, the report adds.

To read the complete Boston Globe report, click here.