Clymer Superintendent, Beth Olson, reported on work being done in regards to looking at the portrait of a graduate. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

CLYMER — Schools across New York state are continuing working towards what their portrait of a graduate might be in conjunction with the state Department of Education’s new graduation measures.

At the most recent meeting of Clymer’s Board of Education, Superintendent Beth Olson reported on some of the ways Clymer is meeting that mandate.

Building Principal Brienne Fadale and Andrea Bryant, director of learning and development, have a goal for this school year that they have been working on in regards to instruction and relevance in instruction, which Olson said connects to the work being done for the portrait of a graduate. Before Christmas break a survey was sent to teachers to fill out, with three specific items the school was looking to have answered; learning is, learning is not, and I believe learning is most powerful when.

“So we took those responses, and that’s what you have in front of you, sort of a summary of the responses to those questions along with key words,” Olson said. “So you see that, ‘learning is’ you see a lot of experiences, hands-on, engagement, that’s what learning is. It’s not tests, it’s not lecturing, it’s not … we keep saying that learning is not.”

In taking the ideas of what the teachers say learning is and is not, a similar survey has been sent out to students through their English teachers and classes. Olson said the hope is that the student data will match up with the teacher responses and will prompt further conversation as to what activities go on in classrooms and what is meaning most to the students and giving the best results and engagement.

“So we’re starting to dovetail all of these things together and we talked about doing a further activity that is going to go on throughout this year, that we’re starting to think outside of the box,” Olson said. “How can we do a little bit more project-based pieces, can we do cross-curricular things, so basically putting it at the forefront of the more you can engage and find what’s going to capture the students’ interest, the better response you’re going to get from the students and ultimately the better results.”

Fadale and Bryant will also be having further conversations with teachers about how these ideas will impact grading and affect some of the assignments and material being chosen or focused on in order to start making tweaks where needed so they can have the most impact.