CLARION TWP., Pa. (EYT) — Two new people joined the table at last week’s Clarion-Limestone School Board meeting.

On Wednesday evening, the Clarion-Limestone School Board welcomed Student Representatives Lauren Jamison and Samurah Curry (pictured above), and they were sworn in.

“I would like to thank you for taking the time out of your life and school days to do this because it’s above and beyond what most students do, and I think you’ll see this is what we all are about: education and students,” board president David Schirmer said.

Clarion Limestone Considering Updates to Fitness Center

Physical Education teachers Nickie Moore and Bill Burk spoke at the meeting about a proposal for updates to the Clarion-Limestone Fitness Center.

“The current issue is we’re in need of a better fitness facility for our student and currently, there’s a lot of space that’s not being utilized that we want to be utilized. Also, right now, we currently have eight machines: we have two ellipticals, eight treadmills, and the rest are bikes. Seven of the eight machines are currently working, but are not the best quality. A lot of them are worn out. They’re old and their rusty. We just want to make this better, improve it, and expand it,” Moore said.

The proposal calls for the purchase of 30 machines. Many of their classes are around or slightly under 30 students, according to Moore.

“We’d like to have enough for each student, and also for athletics and sports teams, which often have about 20 kids.”

Burk said he and Moore met with a representative of Webster’s Fitness Products to get recommendations on a variety of machines that would be best to utilize in the space available, including the old rifle range, which is currently being used mostly for storage.

According to Burk, the quote for the preliminary plan is $67,555.00.

“That could go lower, that could go higher. To put that in perspective for some of you that may not know fitness centers, when we were at Lakeview High School, they put one in, and it had a combination of about half cardio and half weight room, and they put $150,000.00 into theirs,” Burk said.

He noted that the current proposal doesn’t make any changes to the current weight room, which he said is sufficient now.

“Right now, we’re really trying to focus on our cardio machines.”

Burk also stated that Webster’s Fitness is a COSTARS company. COSTARS is the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s cooperative purchasing program, which schools can purchase from them through their cooperative purchasing contract without going through a bidding process. The company is also offering a five-year warranty on parts on labor.

According to Burk, he and Moore have been pursuing avenues for grant funding, but haven’t yet found any programs the school is eligible to receive. He also noted he’s reached out to the sports boosters to see if they would be interested in helping with funds for the project.

“I would suggest putting this through the budget process, and then we can see where we’re at with the whole thing,” board president David Schirmer said.

“I think it’s well-intended, and I think it’s terrific, but it’s like anything else. We have to see where we’re at.”

Discussion of Social Media

Superintendent Amy Glasl brought up the topic of social media, noting that there is some interest in starting Facebook and/or Twitter pages for the district.

Max Lowrie, the district MIS Director, spoke strongly against the idea.

“I’m totally against it. I’m not going to make any bones about it. I’m not a Facebook person, I’m not a Twitter person. You will not find me on the internet anywhere,” Lowrie said.

“I think it’s hypocritical that the school district has a Facebook and a Twitter page when the district blocks those pages from every staff member and every student on the school district’s network.”

Lowrie stated that as adults and educators, it’s about setting the right example.

“We need to project the good example for our kids and let them know life is not about how may followers you have or whether you got that viral video out there so that you’re famous for 15 minutes, or any of that. My problem is we’re busy enough, and I don’t want to learn Facebook, I don’t want to learn how to post, and I don’t want to make the decision on what gets posted and what doesn’t get posted. Every day of the week I see an article that somebody posted something on Twitter, then it got deleted, and now they’re making public apologies because they offended someone. I don’t think the district needs to get into that battle.”

Board president David Schirmer stated he’d like to use the platforms to disseminate information.

“Some of these millennial and other folks look at Facebook, and they want to see, maybe once a month, or like this play at the elementary school, a post saying, okay, there’s going to be a play,” Schirmer said.

“It’s just another vehicle, like a webpage, and for a lot of millennials, webpages are ‘yesterday.’ They look at Facebook and they look at Twitter. That’s what people use. The President of the United States uses Twitter. It’s just another mechanism to get information out to the public.”

Following further discussion, the board asked the new Student Representatives to do further research on how district pages on Facebook and Twitter would function, and report back at the next meeting.

In other business, the board:

• Approved the resignation for retirement of custodian Timothy Keighley, custodian Robin Flack, and library aide Carol Guthrie.
• Approved Andy Rawson to continue in the position of evening custodian supervisor when the Act 93 non-binding agreement clause expires on March 3.
• Approved day-to-day substitutes for the 2019-2020 school year.
• Approved the updated Custodian I and Custodian II job descriptions.
• Approved the hire of Daniel Grant and Jacob Spangler as custodians at an hourly salary as outlined in the Support Professionals Contract.
• Approved supplemental contracts for Justin Ochs as Assistant Softball Coach and Elizabeth Linan as Assistant Junior High Volleyball Coach.
• Approved supplemental contracts for Don Montgomery as Head Boys Soccer Coach, Jason Craig as Golf Coach and Head Junior High Girls Basketball Coach, and Elizabeth Gourley as Girls Assistant Track Coach.
• Approved acceptance of a bid from CDW Government LLC in the amount of $5,865.53 for the purchase of Uninterruptible Power Supplies contingent upon receiving Fiscal Year 2020 e-rate funding.
• Approved an amendment to the 2019-2020 calendar to make Friday, March 20, a make-up day for the snow day taken on February 7, and to have early dismissal on Tuesday, March 3, and Friday, April 24, as half Act 80 days for school district professional development.
• Approved the annual approval of the Vo-ag Occupational Advisory Committee.
• Approved Jeffrey “Drew” Beichner and James C. Times as athletic volunteers and Amber Aaron, Kristina Brzoza-Lewis, and Carrie Smith as school volunteers for the 2019-2020 school year.
• Approved any and all Clarion County Deputies employed by the Sheriff’s Office, retroactive as of February 1, to provide security services to the district for the remainder of the school year.
• Approved Riverview Intermediate Unit 6 for use of high school classrooms for a 2020 summer program beginning July 1 and ending on July 31.
• Approved a Memorandum of Understanding to facilitate Mathematica’s performance of the School Nutrition and Meal Cost Study project.
• Approved giving the administration authorization to establish natural gas and electric pricing at their discretion.
• Approved a public notice of asbestos management plan.