Congratulations to the Clymer/Sherman/Panama Wolfpack for winning a third state championship in seven seasons.

A lot of things had to go right over the past decade to have the type of success C/S/P has enjoyed since the three rural schools made the decision to merge football teams. There’s a lot of give and take needed amongst administrators, athletic directors, athletes and parents to make a three-team merger work – and those in Clymer, Sherman and Panama have put in the work behind the scenes to allow athletes to have success on the playing field.

It truly has been a community effort. C/S/P is the gold standard for sports team mergers not only in Chautauqua County, but statewide.

There’s been a lot of discussion in recent months statewide about regionalization. The state Board of Regents wants to encourage more regionalization amongst school district by using BOCES as a catalyst. Some in the state Legislature oppose forced regionalization, particularly when it comes to school mergers. School districts themselves are sharing more and more, a trend we find encouraging.

C/S/P has shown that we can find success in football by pooling our collective talents. How do we do the same thing for academics? We’ve found a way for our athletes to continue playing as our county’s population losses make fielding individual teams in our schools difficult. But we have struggled to maintain academic offerings in many of our schools at the same time, which is a disservice to those for whom academics and preparing for college is a primary focus.

Warren County, Pa., is currently busing students from two of its smaller high schools to Warren Area High School in an attempt to offer more higher-level classes for all students. It’s something worth considering in rural areas of Chautauqua County if it allows us to offer more advanced courses for more students. We’re not saying the courses should be offered in Jamestown. But if we can offer merged courses in areas of interest for students in schools that are relatively close to each other we should do so.

Old battle lines are being erased through things like shared sports. Communities that may not yet agree on a full school merger have found common ground in shared sports and administrative positions. The Board of Regents wants to see increased regionalization as a way to save money through efficiency. That’s a good focus – but we’d like to see regionalization in the classroom to allow high-performing students more access to more courses of interest.