Clymer Central School’s Board of Education discussed the first week back and some kinks that went along with that at its September meeting. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

CLYMER — After just about one week into the school year, Clymer Central School officials are reporting a relatively smooth first week back.

During her report at the Sept. 11 Board of Education meeting, Principal Brianne Fadale said that the beginning of the year events including the in-service day and Meet the Teacher event went well and had great attendance. She said the first week has gone relatively smooth, with only a few kinks.

“There’s always things, you’ve got to fix schedules, you’ve got to help kids figure out where they’re going, you know, there’s always some things,” Fadale said. “Just little things like that seem like not a big deal but when you’re a new kid or middle school kid those little things can be really stressful and it’s always more than just one thing.”

Fadale said she spent a lot of time in the school’s elementary wing, which is to be expected, and that high school seems to know what they are doing. She added that she has also received reports of high school students jumping in to help where needed.

Fadale said that teachers are already working on goals for the year and deciding where they want to go this year and how to make things better. Required drills are expected to come up soon, but so are other more fun things such as homecoming, Fadale said.

One new thing for the school this year is having a School Resource Officer. Fadale said the SRO has been very visible and working on trying to connect with everyone. Superintendent Beth Olson said during her report to the board that the SRO’s main goal for the first week has been to get out there and be visible.

“Basically his charge these first couple of weeks is, get out there, get your face out there, meet the teachers and the kids, and just make yourself present,” Olson said. “Through those conversations some teachers have already engaged with him and asked him to come talk to the kids about this or present on that. We’re going to collect those and make a schedule and that will be his charge going into the next couple of weeks.”

The SRO’s office is downstairs near the cafeteria and Olson said he has a school computer down there as well, though she said he has not really been in the office because he has been out and about. She added that he has reviewed the school’s safety plan and will be a part of drills, including suggestions of how to make any safety drills better.

As the new year begins, the board also discussed if there was any way to measure how the school has been coming back from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I mean, I think we are all changed from it,” Fadale said. “I don’t know if we are ever going to be the same as we were before, just because we learned a lot from that. We learned maybe some tools we can use to make things easier, better.”

Fadale added that attendance has continued to be a challenge and that while the school has pretty good attendance there are some “chronic ones” and that it is hard to get students to get back to being used to having to be in school. She said that there is always data and test scores to see how students did and how to make things better, and while she said she did not know if the school is totally fixed after the pandemic, they are doing everything they can to catch up. Conversations on this subject have included working to get students to become more independent and build problem solving skills to be able to move on into the world after they graduate.

Board Member Mike Schenck said that the school taking steps earlier on to help students get prepared in around seventh and eighth grade are helping.

“I think this is the first year that what will really affect the kids is sitting them down and getting to know them, seeing where they want to go and how they will perform to make sure they are on the path at that very first start so that when they get into high school, when they actually start picking their classes and start doing these things, they’ll know what they’re doing,” Schenck said.