As part of looking to the future of the school, Clymer Central School is looking to change some things such as their social media presence. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

CLYMER — As a part of looking to the future of the school, Clymer Central School is looking to increase its presence on social media.

Beth Olson, district superintendent, said during a recent board meeting the decision comes following conversations with staff and looking to reorganize the district with an eye toward the future. The school has created three subcommittees that have been discussing specific parts of the issue.

“One takeaway that we have put into action or want to put into action from our engagement, motivation and connection is to increase our social media presence in terms of how are we spotlighting what we are doing here,” Olson said.

Teachers have been doing this individually through the school’s Parent Square, but Olson said teachers want to hear what other teachers are doing. They also want to be able to share these things with the community as a whole, not just the families directly connected to their classes.

“So we are trying to frame that up right now and sort of give a charge to the teachers that once a week they submit a little blurb of what they’re doing in the classroom with a picture so we can start that,” Olson said. “Some things are going to be informational, some things are just going to be a part of PR.”

Olson also addressed some concerns and feedback the school has received on the newly installed “period zero” at the beginning of the day, including accountability concerns. Olson said the idea in the first place was because of the decrease in enrollment, the creation of collaboration time between teachers, and to decrease the amount of study halls in the schedule.

“Doing that soft start, we were able to decrease the amount of study halls by half,” Olson said. “We want to keep doing that, we want to make sure kids are maximizing their time here and be able to engage in the program that we offer.”

Olson said there are some options being looked into for that, and how they can best maximize their time as to what works best. Olson also briefly discussed course offerings, a potential cellphone ban coming down from the state and trying to keep as much control over that as they can, a student legislator being selected to be on the school board, and giving students a say in some of these things. Olson said they are looking to get feedback on course offerings from both teachers and students, to find out what they are interested in.