Cooperstown Central School's "Greatness in Our Sights" initiative will enter a key phase within the next few weeks as the school implements several prototypes designed to test potential improvements that will help the district improve from "good" to "great."

The prototypes address areas in the district identified during the kickoff workshop meeting Feb. 9 as needing improvement. At a second workshop meeting Monday afternoon, participants in the initiative split into groups and developed a set of prototypes that will be used to gather information and further the GIOS initiative.

"These are ideas, strategies and activities that the groups want to implement during the next two months in order to assess their effectiveness of reaching our goal of being great by 2010," said superintendent Mary Jo McPhail.

She said the prototypes are still in the refine and revise stage, but most will be implemented throughout April and May. The entire GIOS group will then meet again in June to determine how effective the trials were in meeting the overall goal.

"We'll be able to reflect on what worked, what didn't work and what has the potential of working with some minor adjustments," McPhail said.

The prototypes are designed to test areas which can be improved and to generate information that will help the district become great by the stated goal of 2010, said Timothy Maniccia, director of operations for The Rensselaerville Institute, the organization facilitating the GIOS initiative.

"Where we are is an important part of the designing process," he said. "We're going to get a lot of good information and it's going to help to design a more thought-out and well-conceived roadmap to greatness." He said the hard work really comes next year, once the prototypes - at least those deemed useful - are enacted on more than a trial basis.

Nine different prototypes are currently in the works and will be implemented during the two-month trial period.

One involves working to increase communication between the school and community. McPhail said the school would be setting up a "blog" - an online, public journal of sorts - as part of this effort.

Another prototype looks at surveying students and parents to evaluate teachers on what worked and what aspects of a course could use improvement.

A third prototype will seek to make the school more welcoming to visitors. One possibility discussed at the meeting was to install a more notable reception area and to have a larger sign denoting the school's front entrance.

A prototype is in the works to turn the school buses into "vehicles for learning," in which educational, instructionally focused information would be placed on buses as a way of reinforcing the learning that takes place during the day.

A fifth prototype looks to provide homework help to students who reside farther out in the district and a sixth prototype looks to get their input on developing mentoring programs.

Another prototype will evaluate how aware students are of career and trade resources and potential options after high school.

One prototype will look at how to expand student involvement in extracurricular activities - not necessarily associated with the school - to 100 percent of middle and high school students.

The final prototype will address student volunteer programs and seeks to determine what constitutes a great volunteer group.

"I think they're all doable and can be successful," McPhail said Monday at the meeting.

She said in addition to working on the prototypes, GIOS participants would begin thinking about how and when to have a more public, kick-off launch at the beginning of the next academic year.

"We're very appreciative of people's time, energy and commitment to this initiative," she said. "They're energized and we want to take advantage of that momentum."