Clymer, Sherman, Panama Merger Discussions Ongoing For Multiple Areas

OBSERVER Photo by Sara Holthouse
Much of the conversation during the November Clymer School Board meeting surrounded the idea of the merger of CSP, specifically in sports and prom.

CLYMER — The Clymer, Sherman and Panama schools have been merged in some sports for multiple years.

Other potential sharing of sports and other areas pops up from time to time. One of those sports may be softball, but Beth Olson, Clymer superintendent, wants to look back to the decision to merge football teams as the district considers future sharing amongst the districts.

During Clymer Central School’s November Board of Education meeting, Olson asked the board to discuss the why behind the original merger of Clymer-Sherman-Panama athletics, looking forward in time to a specific example of the potential of merging the three again for softball.

“So, we keep coming up with questions of, when is it the right time to combine teams, when is it the right time to separate teams if need be, and so my question to the board is, what is the why behind C/S/P athletics?” Olson said. “I just wanted to sort of revisit that, what was your understanding of why we went in that direction for C/S/P athletics? And the reason I am asking for this is, as these concerns come up, if we don’t round into why we’re doing this, emotion is always going to drive our decision or keep playing into our decision.”

When emotion plays into a decision, Olson said, she is then responding to whoever is louder or more convincing. Board Member Mike Schenck said his understanding was that originally the merger was meant to allow for students to be able to play football, and originally it was only for football. Board Member Carole Siverling agreed with Schenck, and while board member Rachel Kinal was not on the board at the time of the original decision, she said she agreed with merging sports if there are not enough players, but that can lead to problems in sports where individual schools do have enough students to participate.

“I don’t know what the original why was and maybe it’s evolved and maybe it’s different for every sport,” Kinal said. “I mean, I agree if there’s not enough players that it makes sense to merge, but then you get into we’ve got 20 girls on the volleyball team, so that does not make it competitive in my mind. So, it’s going to be that it’s for opportunity, then I think it evolves into you have to start cutting if you’re going to have 20 girls going out for a team, and only six out on the court or nine on the field.”

Kinal also wondered if it was something that became this is how it was so this is how it should always be. Siverling added that there were so many students in volleyball when they were merged with just Sherman, Clymer ended up backing out to field a Clymer-only team. Justin White, a new board member, asked if there were any repercussions for that, and Olson said after pulling out of the merger for volleyball the team had their first big success in many years that was not achieved during the merger, but that for other sports it might be different.

“Going back to the point about evolution, if we, Clymer, are not the ones hurting for numbers, therefore can form our own team, are we sacrificing our neighbor because they can’t form a team and we’re not going to take them because we can form our own team,” Olson said. “It’s sort of that give and take piece of it, so when is it okay to bring in the opposite team, even though it may affect our students too?”

Olson said the reverse can also be true, and that is the current dilemma for some sports, giving the example of softball being currently Clymer and Sherman combined to form a class D team. If Panama is added the combined three-school team will be bumped up to a class C team. This brings in an issue with competitiveness as the team may have a good chance for success in the season as a D school but not as much as a C school. She added that in the meantime, Panama cannot field a team and make it so their students either do not get an opportunity to play or have to go elsewhere, therefore defeating the purpose of C/S/P.

“So again, all of your points play into it but that’s when it becomes tricky because then when do we preserve our own for the sacrifice of our neighbor, and then we want them to take us because we can’t give our kids the opportunity, and it’s this give and take piece,” Olson said.

Schenck said to him it sounds like it should be an all or nothing thing, meaning CSP across the board no matter the sport, even if that means the possibility of cuts. Siverling added that the school is caught between a rock and a hard place no matter what, saying that maybe there is not a right decision to be made.

Returning to softball, Olson said in the past Panama participated in the team with modified and JV softball teams, before deciding they had enough for a team and pulling out. They currently have eight solid kids in both JV and varsity. Olson said for the current merged Clymer and Sherman team there are 13 kids so adding Panama is not a necessity and would put them up to a C school. Additionally, during the last meeting between the schools Olson said it was brought up that if they needed a place to play that they should offer it, but that this is also something that has been discussed for several years.

The original plan was that in 2026 the C/S/P merger for softball would happen, so there has been discussion but they are now asking for a year earlier. The board discussed finding out more about the grades of the Panama students, the opinions of the current coaches, and that waiting until 2026 would give another year to prepare. While the board said it was not their decision to make, they said they would support whatever decision was made.

NON-SPORTS SHARING

Discussions regarding bringing the three schools together came up at the November meeting two more times, specifically regarding creating a strategic plan for all three schools, and the potential to have a C/S/P prom.

The prom was brought up by Principal Brianne Fadale during her report, saying that she had been approached by students with a question of whether or not it could happen.

“Students actually brought this up, saying ‘hey, why don’t we do a combined prom, homecoming is really fun, we have lots of kids because we have all three schools, is this something we could do’?” Fadale said. “So, some of our kids asked our advisors and they asked me. I said, ‘that’s a great question and I’ve often wondered that myself’, because you walk into our prom and it’s like, where is everybody?”

Fadale said she has reached out to the other schools, who have reported being asked the same thing, and that the two junior class advisors in all three schools were brought together to ask if it was something that could work. After Prom then becomes a question, but Fadale said it may bring in more support and resources for that, especially since the other schools do not have one. Schenck also brought up that there is a possibility of having an After Prom not affiliated with any specific school, adding that the Peek’n Peak has already reached out and it has been discussed having something there already. He added that it does not necessarily need to be the Peek, and that it could be somewhere else.

Fadale added that it is also hard to find a day in the spring because of everything else going on, but that the idea is still in the early stages.

“It makes sense, so we’re going to see where it takes us, and we’ll see,” Fadale said.