The Clymer Central School Board of Education discussed and approved a Pre-K enrollment Lottery Policy at a recent meeting. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

CLYMER — Clymer Central School approved adding a policy to its policy manual through a grant for the Universal Pre-Kindergarten Program during a recent Board of Education meeting.

“Through the UPK Grant we needed to add a policy to our policy manual that identifies, and this goes in relation to, a school should be working in collaboration — if there is one available — with a community based organization,” Superintendent Beth Olson said. “When that happens there is a lottery system in which students — if there was more kids that were eligible for Universal Pre-K than slots that we had, you’d have to give two kids to the community based organization, which we currently don’t have one, so all of our kids are going to be ours — but you have to have a policy in which you’re going to select those kids.”

Olson said there is a very narrow window for a student to qualify for Universal Pre-K. The student has to be four years old by Dec. 1, and is not eligible if the student turns four after that date, and either are starting late or going right into kindergarten. Olson said the school has had slots available in the program in previous years, so the school has been able to allow those students to continue in the program without requiring another teacher or staff person, and to fill out the class.

Additionally, Olson said students who are residents of Clymer will get priority for the program over students who come to school because their parents are teachers.

“So this policy also addresses that, that we would use a lottery process if there are more seats,” Olson said. “First of all, priority is going to be given to our residents by Aug. 1, and after Aug. 1 if we have open seats and if there are more kids that are either age-eligible or are non-residents we would use a second lottery process to fill the remaining seats.”

Olson said this policy fills the requirements of the grant, and that there are currently 12 or 13 students in the UPK program for the upcoming school year. There are enough seats for 18 students. The board discussed the ability for more kids to register before the beginning of the school year on Wednesday.

“We had probably three kids register the week before school started last year,” Olson said. “We try through Child Find to seek them out and we have the UPK registration, so we put things out to try and show them, ‘hey, come get registered,’ but you always have a few students that come at the last minute.”

Business Official Jarrett Wiggers added that this is the first year this policy has been required for the school to be able to get the funding for the program.