001I know. >> Welcome to the Fonia Central School Board of Education meeting for Tuesday, February 24th, 2026. Uh we begin each meeting with a pledge to the flag. So, please join me. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Uh before we uh start the meeting, uh I'd like to ask for a moment of silence for Jennifer Mazlowski, former middle school English teacher and administrator, uh who uh recently passed away. So uh you please join me in a moment of silence. >> Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to share um I did not have the pleasure of working with Jen, but I did get to meet her on a couple occasions.
002Um, one thing for sure, her upbeat, very positive uh personality was readily apparent in those interactions. I definitely got a sense that she was very passionate about being an English teacher and equally as passionate about being um an administrator. and uh I'd heard over the last few days a lot of um very positive and reflective stories about her time with the district. Um I think Miss Pharaoh um was on board for most of that time. I thought you might be able to share a few thoughts of Miss Piper. If you wanted to chime in, you could as well. >> Absolutely. Thank you. Um I too had the privilege or I had the privilege of working with Jennifer Masowski for about 19 years. first when she was a teacher here and I was a school psychologist
003at the middle school and later when we served together on the administrative team here. Um Jen never knew this but she inspired me to pursue a path in administration. More importantly she inspired thousands of young people both in the classroom and as a school leader. Jen was truly one of a kind. She was one of the most creative and character rich people I knew. Um her she was bold, energetic, and funny on the surface, but just beneath that her heart of gold, her true spirit of compassion and her genuine care for everyone around her were always evident. I can recall with great clarity many of the conversations we shared over years, and I can really not recall a lot of things, but I I really can think back and think of a lot of things
004that we talked about. And I think that says a lot about a person, and the words they speak in everyday dialogue stay with you um very long after So Fredonia was truly fortunate to have been touched by Jen and though she left us in 2019 to pursue new opportunities, her losses deeply felt in our school. So thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak about that. >> Thanks, M. Carol. I just did want to note that we had over 10 people from the middle school attend their service on Monday um yesterday. Seems like a while ago now. Um and a number of people from the high school as well. So, thanks to everybody who was willing to uh take some time out of their day and thanks for our admin team and FTA who worked
005together to make sure everybody had coverage um so people could attend. >> Great. Thank you. And our condolences to her your family and friends. Uh we uh we next need to approve the agenda for the regular meeting of the February 24th, 2026 with consent including personnel but excluding C and uh all of new business and consent. Could I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Thank you. A second. >> Second. >> I saw Mr. Kenny's hand first. Anybody like anything pulled? >> I would like C and D pulled for discussion. >> I'm sorry, Mr. Kenny. >> I would like C and D pulled for discussion. Uh, which CND is? >> Uh, new business. >> New business. So, new business. >> Uh, new business cmd. Okay. Thank you. Anything else that anybody would like to hold?
006Okay. Um, if not, all in favor? >> Opposed? Uh, next we uh have our first uh hearing from the public. The board is reserved this time to hear comments from the audience. Those wishing to address the board are asked to uh stand, give your name and address, and please limit your comments to five minutes or less. Uh concerns and comments during this session uh should be directly related uh to items that's listed on the proposed agenda for tonight's meeting. Is there anybody like to speak on tonight's agenda? If not, uh we'll move on and uh we have uh two uh sets of minutes to approve. The first set is to approve the minutes from the regular meeting of February 10th, 2026. Can I have a motion to bring that to the table? >> So move.
007>> Thank you. And a second. >> Second. >> Thanks. Any questions on that? >> If not, all in favor? >> I >> opposed. And then the second uh set of minutes is from the policy meeting of February 10th, 2026. Can I have a motion for that to the table? >> So move. >> Thank you. And second. Second. >> Thanks. Any questions on that? >> All in favor? >> I >> opposed. And that brings us to a special presentation. Uh tonight we have uh Miss Frell that's uh doing a special education overview. Uh Miss Pharaoh is the director of special education. So Dr. Zelios, anything before Miss Frell starts? And I just want to first of all thank uh Kristen for her leadership in this area. I want to thank anyone attached to um our special
008education department. We have a wonderful group of professionals um that work um upfront daily with our students also behind the scenes um really having student needs met and really putting students in the best position to be successful whether that's social, emotional, um academically or physically and we really appreciate everyone's effort. Um it is definitely a team effort and uh each and every day that hard work pays off for our students. So thank you to all. Chris, >> thank you. Um tonight I'm presenting our annual report on special education. The intent of this report is to provide the board and the community with an overview of the students we serve, trends, our compliance responsibilities, and the work being done by our staff. Special education is a legally mandated function of public education that touches nearly every
009part of our school system. What I hope to do is frame for you why this work is so important, why it requires careful oversight, and why it must re remain a priority in our planning and our budgeting. So, I'll start with the blueprint for special education. And this is a New York State Education Department guiding framework that is designed to make sure students with disabilities get the support they need to succeed in school. Um the focus is on early health, strong instruction, and working closely with families so that every student can reach their potential. The blueprint aligns well with our district's mission for individuals to have the tools to become their great selves. It aligns nicely with our vision to be innovative and our core values. It's student focused. It focuses on respect for all,
010integrity in the educational process, inclusion, belonging and support, diversity and celebrating our differences, excellent grit and high standards, communication and resilience and empowerment in the face of adversity. Excellent. Okay. So, um I'll give you some data. So, I put the data for this presentation together uh starting last week. So, I used February 17th as my yearto date mark for data collection. So, as of that date, we had 276 school age special education students, 56 preschool special education students, and 89 students with a 504 plan. Um, all told, school age students with disabilities in Fredonia is now at 18%. As a point of reference as well, of those 56 preschool students I mentioned that have IEPs, 19 of them are enrolled in our prek program at the Rehawk building. So 32% of the total prek enrollment
011are students with IEPs. And I tell you this because I really want to underscore the importance of early intervention and you know why we need to continue to provide those services to our youngest students. Um as you can see our school district school age special education rate of 18% is now higher than the overall Shiitaka County rate of 17%. um 18% for our district is the um highest it has been since I've been doing this job and preparing these reports and I've um never had it be higher than the county rate. So just a little um bit of information for you to consider. So students serve by classification um as I share each year school age special education students are designated as eligible under one of these 13 disability classifications. So the basic distribution of
012students and categories doesn't change drastically over time. This year as compared to last year however I'm seeing increases in students who are identified under autism under intellectual disability and most notably other health impairment which has increased from last year's to current from 49 to 67 and speech or language impairment which increased from 51 to 61. So when considering the trends in special education uh population in our district over time, I've prepared two separate slides. So this being one of two. This slide shows the five years prior to the 201920 school year, which is the last year depicted there. Um and that was the year when CO impacted our world. As you can see, the trend lines in school age and preschool special education as well as 504 students for those years were pretty flat. In
013the five years since COVID to date, you can see a dramatic increase in school age special education overall overall with less sharp but nevertheless rising trends in preschool special ed and 504. I can't tell you that CO is a cause of these increases, but I can clearly see that there's a correlation. So, how do we get students into special education? um they are either referred or come in as transfer students who are already identified each year on this uh graphic is depicted as year-end data. So I did not include year-to- date data from this school year because it kind of skews the trend lines in a way that I don't think is is appropriate at this point in time. So as you can see we've shown significant increases in direct parent referrals to cse. Um,
014we've had an increase of 350% in this area over the last six years from 4 to 18. More students are transferring in with IEPs over these years as well. And interestingly, we have actually had a decreased number of referrals that come from our in-house processes, our student assistance teams, and our MTSS processes. Conversely, we exit students from special education in a few ways. Every three years or sooner, we're required to re-evaluate students and revisit their eligibility for special education. When we do this and the student is determined to no longer be eligible, they are declassified. This uh declassification is represented by the dark blue line over this uh period of time. We also exit students by transfers out to other districts or to homeschooling, to graduation, or because they've been dropped from enrollment for one
015reason or another. So you can see those numbers and uh the totals are the orange bars there over time. So I promise I will not read this slide to you but it it's just there if you want to read it and understand the composition of the committee on special education or the cse is the committee on preschool special education. So all of the determinations in terms of eligibility and required services and supports for students are made by an individually assembled team for each student. This team for school age again is called the cse and the CPSE is for preschool students. The membership requirements for cse and CPSE are mandated by New York state regulations and that shows you the mandated members. Um, LRE, which is least restrictive environment, is a key principle in special education
016and it is what guides the decisions of the CSSE and CPSC. It means that students with disabilities should learn with their non-disabled peers as much as possible and only be placed in more specialized settings outside of our district when necessary. The goal is to provide support while keeping students included in general education whenever appropriate. Uh what I've depicted here is just a graph that shows where our students are. So 89% of all school age special education students in Fredonia receive their services and supports in our buildings and programs. So right here 6% of our special ed school age students are placed in Bosei special education programs at various sites which include the Lua Center, the Hughes Center, the Bloom program at Shiitaka Lake and North Collins which are both Boseis programs operating in public school
017settings. We also have a small percentage of special education students receiving services through Boseis general ed programs such as alternative education at Maple Avenue, PEK or Wave which is an online program. Additionally, for students with um really unique and specific needs that require even more highly specialized programs, we have some students that are attending Summit Center or Rand and Randolph Academy. And we have a very small number of students who are homeschooled, are on home instruction or placed in another public school. So, our special education faculty has been able to slowly grow in proportion to our needs. We currently have 27 teachers up from 26 last year and 19 related services or pupil personnel services staff. We have a current posting for an additional 0.5 speech therapist and we currently have a vacancy in OT
018and are in the process of hiring in that area. I have two clerical staff in my office and we have helped steady over time despite the increases in special education population with one administrator for special education. So next I'd like to talk about um related services which would include OT or occupational therapy, PT, physical therapy and speech. Um what this slide shows is the current number of individual services students I'm sorry receiving mandated services in these areas. So, they either have an IP, a 504, or what's called declassification support services, which is how we uh taper students off of mandated services to make sure that we have made the right decision to discontinue those services. So, um that this numbers here are for our own therapists in our own buildings. This is not talking about
019students that are in other programs outside of our our um our home school. Um when you do some simple math and add up the number of students who receive each therapy and you divide it by the number of therapists on staff, that equals a case load um average of about 31.25 students per therapist. That's the simple view. It's essential to focus on therapist workload, not just case load numbers. A case load counts the number of students assigned to a therapist as I said, but it doesn't reflect the actual time, intensity, and the complexity of services each student requires. So workload I is really what we focus on and that includes and considers factors such as and this is not an exhaustive list but just some examples the minutes of therapy per student or group per
020week individual versus group sessions travel time between buildings or classrooms preparation documentation and consultation with teachers and families evaluations report writing meeting participation working with students who have more intense needs. For example, we have a number of students who are non-verbal or don't yet have functional language. So, our therapists are developing total communication programs and systems for these students that includes using AAC or augmented assistive augmentative communication devices, picture exchange systems, incorporation of simple sign language and gestures. We are working with hearing devices. We have students that have uh feeding issues and more. Like I said, it's just examples. So, you know, and I share that with you because that really does impact the workload of our therapists. So, by understanding and managing workloads, we can better ensure services are delivered effectively, comply with IEP
021mandates, and maintain therapist capacity while making sure that every student receives the individually determined support that they need to succeed. So we've taken the concerns of our related services staff very seriously and we've implemented a new uh service delivery model this year which is called the 31 model. So that is three weeks of direct service and one week of indirect service to do all a lot of those things that I just mentioned but not all. Um that service model is um really helps us be cognizant of the real factors of work load that includes staff burnout, supports for indirect work, planning, scheduling. Um and just a little bit about our numbers over time. Our PT numbers have generally maintain remained consistent over time. I'm sorry. um OT needs have in uh have nearly doubled since
022the 1819 school year and speech needs have increased by 50% um since 1819. So in all those areas needs are more intense. As I mentioned, we are over capacity in our speech needs right now and overall for all related services. Being at or near capacity for what our therapists can provide across the hours of the school day has diminishes diminished or completely eliminated our ability to provide early intervention and preventative services, which has undoubtedly added to the increase in our overall special education numbers. So, shifting gears, um let's talk a little bit about compliance. So um again this is not anything I'm going to read to you but I'd like to summarize what's here. This t uh slide shows what is called um SP indicators or state performance plan indicators. So state performance plan tracks
023how well on the statewide level New York state schools are providing special education under the federal mandate or the IDA individuals with disabilities education act. The SP measures state performance on 17 key indicators which are on the next slide. And it focuses on three key areas. Free and appropriate public education and least restrictive environment, fair representation of all groups or disproportionality and oversight of programs, transitions and services or general supervision. So these 17 indicators delineate compliance which you know asks the question are rules being followed results are students achieving outcomes. It provides updates, annual reports that show state and district progress, and it creates improvement plans as needed, which is ongoing work to improve outcomes for students with disabilities. So, the 17 um SP indicators are all listed right here. I've highlighted a couple of
024them for you. Um and many of these compliance indicators are collected by the state through our student management system. So data that we are required to enter into powers school or clear track which is our IEP management system. Other indicators um require some direct action from us um oversight and participation in what are called targeted skills groups which are both proactive and reactive ways to ensure positive outcomes. So I've um highlighted indicator 2 8 and 11. And if we can go to the next slide. Um indicator two, I talked about this uh last year that is students with disabilities dropout rate. So in the year 2223, we were cited for a disproportionate number of students with disabilities who dropped out of school. So what that did was it put our district in what's called a
025targeted skills group which took place last school year. So all throughout the 2425 school year and into the summer. So, we focused on enhancing our opportunities for students to gain more work-based learning opportunities um and gaining opportunities to earn a SEO credential which really focuses on work-based learning and work readiness. And we we did a lot of things. We created a plan. We submitted our results and our outcomes to state and based on what we submitted to them, we are no longer in the targeting skills group for that area, which is good news. Um this year we are responsible for what's called indicator 8. Um and indicator 8 is includes distributing state surveys to parents that member I'm sorry that measure the percent of parent parents of children with IEPs who report that schools facilitated
026their involvement in decision making. It evaluates how effectively our district is engaging families as partners in the special education process and planning. And then next year, indicator 11 will be the indicator that we will be um reporting specifically and that measures the percent of children referred for special education who are evaluated and have an IEP developed within the required timelines and that indicator ensures that our students are identified early and receive the supports they need without any necessary delays. So to conclude um a few thoughts and some key initiatives. So the introduction of 151 classes at our high school has enabled students to take credit bearing classes that meet some very unique student learning needs. Um I'm really proud of what we've done there. I think we've really kept some students in school successfully and
027trending towards getting a diploma that I think otherwise would have been um a really tough path for them. Um, we've create we've worked hard to give more high school students the opportunity to earn that SEO credential as I talked about. We're working to and examining our self-contained classrooms and alignments across buildings. We've opened a preschool integrated classroom this year and are ensuring that we are carefully examining the criteria and taking a highly thoughtful approach when designating students who are appropriate for what's called NISA, which stands for New York State Alternate Assessment. New York State Alternate Assessment is an assessment process for students who have significant cognitive disabilities and it measures their progress toward alternative learning standards in an accessible way. Districts are required or should not have more than 1% of their special ed students
028designated as an NISA eligible student. We actually in years that were over that 1% cap and we are over that right now. we're required to give some education to our staff um and to provide some assurances to state that we are um aware of the criteria. So, we're very aware of that. We um had a presentation at our last faculty, special ed faculty meeting from Boseies to really help us understand that criteria a little bit more and it was very successful. Um we also have had Boseies come in and work with our special areas teachers. So, art, music, fizzed, um I'm not naming them all, but those teachers so that they could feel comfortable working with our special education students in their own classrooms. Um we also had a recent half professional half day of
029professional development and we had a very excellent presentation from our law partners at Hodson Russ about IEPs 504 and the interplay with disciplinary procedures. You know, a salient note from that presentation was that every IEP and 504 essentially is an individual contract for that child's education and our responsibility is to fulfill that contract. So given that some things that I think um are important to consider and think about is that we have seen a percent change increase in special education over the last nine years of 69%. I I feel like that's a really significant increase. Um given the total number of students in our district that have an IEP, either preschool or school age or a 504 plan, that is 421 students, which represents 25% or one in four of our district population have a
030documented mandated plan. Thank you for your time and your attention and happy to answer any questions you may have now if I can or after this evening. Any further questions or I've got I've got a couple of questions. When you talk about the transfer um families, are those families who moved into the district from another district or who currently live outside the district? >> I was talking about students that move in from another district um become residents here and transfer in with an IEP in place. And um is ADHD considered under the is that >> typically that falls under what's called other health impairment? So and I you know we have lots more cases of ADHD diagnosed. So I think that accounts for why that number is increasing all the time. >> And um you
031talked a little bit about that 31 model. Yes. >> And I'm just wondering is that is it working? Is is like are you recommending that that continue? >> I I think the jury is still out on that. Um I think that there are some real benefits to that and I don't want to um speak you know directly for our related service providers but I think the benefits are that designated period of time for those indirect services because there are so many indirect things that have to happen to make their services work well and to make sure paperwork is done and the compliance is done. Um kind of the other side of that is in the three direct weeks it really creates a schedule that is um very full and you know we're operating on a
032schedule that um papers 10 sessions a day of of therapy. So, you know, and sometimes it's a full 10 sessions. Some schedules are not always at 10 every day. But but that's a lot. It's a lot to manage. And I think there's um some concern that that's maybe not sustainable um overtime just based on on time in the day and how taxing it can be. >> So, it's kind of a question of if there were more support staff then maybe that system would work better. >> Yes, absolutely. And then my last question is just you you mentioned how we're not able to do early intervention because there just isn't sufficient staffing. If we did have sufficient staffing, what would that early intervention look like? >> So that would be um I you know we call
033it improvement group. for kids who, you know, think about your younger kids who might have some speech difficulties, but their difficulties don't rise to the level of needing formal um IEP or 504 services, right? So, our therapists would be delivering improvement services to kind of close those gaps with kids. Um I'm losing my train here but you know so that you know in speech in OT and PT so really just providing intervention services much like we do for academics through RTI or MTSS um hitting those needs before they escalate to the point that they need to be um referred to the community on special ed. So it would be a preventative um support and for many years we were able to provide those services because our student population of special ed students wasn't as high
034as it is now and we had time our therapists had some time in their days to provide that right now. Um in speech we're not able to provide that at all and in OT very well. Um and I don't believe we're providing any PT. >> Thank you and thanks for the presentation. It was so clear and well done. >> Thanks. And one one more point, Mrs. Han. Um, for the 3-1 model, we are meeting quarterly um with our service providers, some of which are here tonight. Thanks for being here tonight. Um, we've got some really good feedback and have had some open dialogue about the challenges um to the model. There's also some upsides, but you know, as Kristen said, those those three weeks of service are in place. Um, so I just want to
035throw that out there that we're trying to keep the lines of communication open and having dialogue as we go throughout the year. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you for the presentation and thank you for your work in this area. Appreciate having the consistency and stability and the leadership with you. Um, I did have a couple questions about the data. Um just in terms of benchmarking I think that the transfer information you know that transfer increase is is an interesting statistic um and wondering if we have any you know what's driving that is that I mean and it may not have the answer I'm curious um and the other question I had um is that you indicated 89% of our students are serviced within the building which I think is is wonderful that we're able
036to service our students inhouse. Do we have any comparison on, you know, where that falls in terms of a benchmark? Is that typically districts are serving that high of a percentage in their building? What's what's kind of a standard? >> I would take a guess on that that we're probably in the ballpark with other um districts, but I can certainly do some research on that. Um, you know, I have a professional list serve that I'm part of and directors and, you know, other people in positions similar to mine. We talk all the time, ask questions like that. So, I'd be do a little research on that for you. Um, you know, in terms of students transferring in with IEPs, I I really can't explain, >> you know, why that is other than I don't think
037that our district is unique in identifying more and more needs and as people move, those needs move with them. >> Makes sense. Thank you. >> Great. >> Thanks. >> I just wanted to add um there's zero doubt that early intervention yields compounding outcomes just paves the way. So, um I know we've changed our approach in the last year and that's super important that we try new things and we assess and we're in the process of assessing and reassessing. So, thanks for being flexible to everyone. This is how we solve problems. >> Thank you. >> And I and I just wanted to add this, you know, in a lot of ways comes back to a couple of the core things that that we need to be thinking about um in terms of staffing. So we've had
038some people in the community, some people even here at this table um who are no longer on the board. Just kind of look at it as so if you look at 2010 2015 and our student population in 20 2025 or 26 overall there's been a decrease. So why has our staff either remained the same or even increased? And part of that, not all of it, but part of that goes back to the needs of our students. Um it's a different dynamic. things are shifting uh over that time period. And again, if you think back to the staff we brought on with COVID money that we continued, a lot of that was related to special education in some sense. And you know that we've had conversations um around this table this year around speech and then
039into OT and PT. Um and all that's in play. Um and at the end of the day, we're trying to do the right thing by our students. We're trying to deliver on our mission, vision, and core beliefs. And we're also trying to put students in the best possible position to be successful. So, all that plays out in a lot of different ways across the district, but it definitely impacts um staffing, how we look at staffing and the needs that are there within our student population. >> Great. Any other questions or um I just like to echo, you know, thank you for the presentation. Uh you know, Thank you for putting all that time for the data. Not only the data but presenting it in a digestible form. >> Well, I have to give credit. Gave
040made a lot of those the fancy slides for me because I think >> okay share the share the thanks over here because I think all these questions are coming >> from the fact it was easy to understand and thank you a lot of time and effort. So, thank you Chris. Um, okay. Uh, no other questions. We're going to move on. We're moving into our financial section. Uh we have our budget and investment revenue report. Mr. >> Yes. On the revenue side, we had uh about 340,000 worth of income during the month of January, 21,000 from non-resident tuition, 22,000 on interest earned on our treasury bills, 145,000 on basic formula aid, and also 84,000 on our general lottery aid. On the expenditure side, I didn't really make a lot of changes to this. Um I think
041the next big thing you'll see which you'll be on the next month will be changes to the Bosei services. On this dashboard you've only got one billing because they tend to delay their billings through the first quarter of the year and so this reflects one building so far. When we get the second one I'll have a better handle on how some of the things are tracking that would be potentially impact. We do have the final cost listed for employees retirement system and teachers retirement system. So that's kind of locked in. Otherwise, things seem to be tracking about as they normally would. On the investment front, the rates were sliding throughout the first four or five months of the school year. They started out around 4.2%. They dipped as low as four 3.47. Now they seem
042to level off in that 3.5% range, which is good that it stays up because that allows us to gather the extra interest revenue against the budget. We're already exceeding what we budgeted. So, so good after that. Any questions on those reports? No real red flags at this point then the burning burning issues financially or >> No, not not working. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. Forbes. We'll move into the treasures report. Got a motion to bring that to the table. >> Thank you. A second. >> Thank you, Mr. Martin. Mr. Forbes, Jonathan. >> Uh, all in favor? >> Opposed? Uh that moves us into personnel. Um just one item under personnel tonight and that is uh to approve a three-year employment contract extension between the Freedom Central School District and Brad Zilak, superintendent effective July 1st,
0432027 through June 30th, 2030. Have a motion to bring that to the table. So moved. >> Thank you. A second. >> Second. >> Oh, I heard two. So let's sorry uh um so um any questions on this? >> So we'll move to a vote. All in favor? >> I opposed. >> Um so uh to add some clarification to this um extension uh the major element of this three-year contract extension uh between the district and Dr. Zilax is a 2 and a2% yearly salary increase uh with some additional language for longevity. Uh and that's in recognition the board felt of the fact that this extension will see Dr. Zilios through June 30th 2030 which will be your eighth year with the district. It's gone fast or it's going fast. You're not yet. Um so the board
044without without question the board is very pleased that Dr. Zilox wishes to continue his employment with the district. Dr. Zilox, any comments? >> Yeah, I always say I'm very proud to be the superintendent here in Fredonia. That is directly connected to a variety of things. First of all, we have a great group of students who every day come to school um in a positive frame of mind and uh generally almost all the time um do what they're asked to do and do it with some positive energy and attitude. We have a great faculty and staff who are really in it for the right reasons and all about um trying to put students in the best possible position to be successful. Um our administrative team has been fantastic, those who have left, but also those who
045have come on board. Um I appreciate the support from the board of education. Um I'm proud of the work that we've done up until this point. I look forward to continuing those things and uh I'm humbled, I'm honored, and I appreciate um the support. At the end of the day, I try to be a hardworking individual, try to show up, be present, be visible in the district, and really be part of everything that's going on. I continue that um in the remaining years of the contract. Um when I interviewed here, I said I would like to close out my career in Fredonia. I've worked in 10 school districts and it appears that that'll happen under this um arrangement. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Thank you. >> Yeah. And
046the uh you know the board and Dr. Zilax, we have a very good working relationship and we're looking forward to continuing that relationship with you. So, thank you Dr. Zelox. >> Sure. >> Uh so, uh that takes us to new business. That wasn't consent, but Mr. McKenna has uh brought uh C and B out of uh consent. So first item be opening consent is C. Uh that's to approve the appointment of the following paid coaches for the 2026 spring sports season. So I can I have a motion to bring that to the table? >> So moved. >> Miss H. Thank you. A second. >> Second. >> Thank you, Miss G. Um Mr. If any discussion >> as far as uh C is concerned, I will not be supporting the approval of the varsity baseball coach
047and will be voting no. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Kenny. Um any other questions at all on that? Um so we'll go to the vote. Uh all in favor? >> I opposed. >> Opposed. Mr. Kenny opposed. Thank you. Uh Mr. Kenny also uh pulled out a consent um D which is the approved to approve the appointment of the following unpaid coaches for the 2026 spring sports season. I have a motion to bring that to the table. >> So moved. >> Thank you. A second. >> Second. >> Thank you. Uh Mr. Kenny. >> Uh yes sir. Because I'm part of that resolution. I just wish to abstain from that vote. >> Okay. So you're uh from trap coach volunteer trap coach. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions on that? If not, all in favor? >>
048I >> opposed with Mr. Kenny abstaining. And thank you for all your volunteer efforts with trap, Mr. K. >> Thank you. Appreciate that. >> Uh we uh next uh have our second round of hearing from the public. Board has reserved this time to hear comments from the audience. Those wishing to address the board or ask stand, give your name and address and limit the comments to five minutes or less. Is there anybody like to uh speak in the second session? >> I will. >> Hi, I'm Braden Carman with the Observer. Um I knew about this a long time ago, but I wanted to wait until it was official. Um a lot of times you talk about having big shoes to fill when somebody leaves. And now that you've officially appointed your coaches for the spring
049season, I wanted to talk a little bit about Jesse Beers. Um now that he's no longer the softball coach at Fredonia. Y >> um I've been back here for eight years since I moved back from Arizona. I started working with Jesse when I was running sports at the Observer and in my opinion I don't think that there has been a better softball coach in all of Western New York. I think that Jesse Beers did a fantastic job both on the field and off the field and his teams went very far very many times. So, I covered a lot of really good games and a lot of really tough endings and through all of it, he showed me nothing but respect. Um, I really respect the way that he coached and how passionate he was and
050I I just wanted to say that those are really big shoes to fill. So, >> okay. >> Thank you, Mr. Carmen. And I'm sure Mr. Beers would be very appreciative to hear those comments. So, thank you for that. >> Well said. Yes. Uh, any other comments? Um if not uh we'll uh move into the superintendence report. Dr. Zelox. >> Yeah. A few things for tonight. Um if you noticed um after the the coaching resolutions, there is two policies on the agenda tonight. Um for a first read, that means we're kind of looking at these policies considering um an approval um at our next meeting. Um the first one is actually both of them are fairly um simple but one of the things we do each year is have an organizational meeting or some sometimes called
051a reorg or reorganizational meeting. Um there is a requirement or there's been a requirement to have that meeting as close to July 1 as you can each year. And I think that is still good practice, but this policy does give you some leeway up until July 20. Um with different things that happen at the beginning of the summer, the July 4th um holiday vacations break, sometimes it's hard to pull the entire board together. Um so this does give us a little leeway. However, we will probably still try to do it as early as possible. Um, some of those resolutions are for things like our medical director, our attorneys, so on and so forth, and we just want to have those things in place should something come up that early um into the summary. Um, but
052that does give us a little leeway, which is nice. Um there's also some clarifications about how we do um absentee ballots um for our um budget vote. Um that includes some clarifications around military personnel and also how people can cast a vote early. So Kate and I are looking at that clarifying a couple things and should have um a little bit more information at our next meeting. Some good news I wanted to share. You might have seen in the observer that Kenny Betts um former graduate was recently inducted into the county uh sports hall of fame. Pretty big deal. If you don't know Kenny, he was an excellent wrestler here at Fredonia, two-time state champ, and had over 269 wins, which typically if a student or student athlete is able to get a 100 wins
053in their career, that's a big deal. So 269 as far as I remember that was a record um in New York State at one time. Since then um 304 is the record. And if you're wondering now that we have girls wrestling 148 is the current wrestling uh record for girls. Both of those athletes were from or one still is from Warsaw. So interesting if you're a trivia kind of person. Um, we also had a National Art Honor Society um, recently induct a variety of members. Um, they include Allison Hellwick, um, Alexa Clemens, Brooklyn Smith, Olive Tucker, and Riley Wixs. So, congratulations to them. They also hosted a craft night this Friday um, in the high school cafeteria, which um, is a great event and well attended. Um, our most recent round of concerts, um, whether
054it was strings, band, uh, coral were fantastic. Awesome job by our students and our music department. Thank you to our families for all their support of our music program. Um, we have girls basketball um, playing a playoff game as we speak. Mr. Tanelli and Miss Paulus are there. Um, and we are winning 2715 at the half right now. There is that is our second playoff game. So that will be our second playoff win potentially. Um and we would play at Buff State on Saturday along with the boys who play tomorrow night home. Um and if they win, we'll both be at Buff State on Saturday. So that would be a fun day if that all plays out. Um girls wrestling, we have two athletes going to the New York State Championships. Uh Brilen Wixs and
055Mela Hodkin. Congratulations to them. We have a clap out tomorrow for them in the morning. I can't remember the exact time, but we'll all rally for that. Uh indoor track is at H Hotton on Saturday uh to continue their season. So, best of luck to all our indoor track athletes. Um we also had London Wilmont um girls bowling u make allstars for our league. So, nice job there. And we also had a number of students who attend school at Luis um be selected for what they call character and action awards that was uh Eli Hawk, Orian Thompson, both seniors and also Brennan Cave who is a junior. Um right now we are in the process of sports signups. So, if you are interested in the spring sport, just a reminder to parents and student athletes
056to sign up, get your physicals taken care of um because that'll be here before you know it. You might have also noticed in personnel we had a resignation of Heidi Trestler um who's been a very helpful aid um at the middle school. Um she resigned to help care for a new addition to her family. So, congrat congrats to them. Um and she will probably appear on a self-resolution at some point in the future. Uh more from the board perspective, a couple years ago we explored and right now we currently have five-year terms um for our board members. That mean when you get elected you're on the board for five years. Um some districts have four, although that's rare. And some districts have three-year terms. At one point we discussed without taking action just the pros
057and cons of that. Do we want to look at that? Um, we were reminded that that would have to go to a community vote along with our budget and be approved by the community to make an adjustment. After that happened, we would have to adjust our policy. Then the um board members that came on board in subsequent years would then have that adjusted term. Most likely I think we were talking about three years. So, I wanted to open up that conversation at least initially tonight. I don't think we're looking to make a decision, but I guess the question is, do we want to pursue this um for further discussion, further conversation? I reshared a list of information that we um gained a couple years ago. much of that information holds true in terms of amount
058of districts that have three-ear terms, four-year terms, fiveyear terms, and what we might want to do. >> Thoughts from the board? >> Yeah. >> Just to be uh accurate, we did have a board vote on the topic and it was voted down last year. >> All right. >> Was it last year or two years? >> Two years. >> Two or three years? >> Three. Sorry. Um but I do remember that. >> Yeah. >> And I would I mean I would like to discuss it further, explore it further. I think um that reading through the kind of pros and cons. I'm not totally persuaded by the cons, but my mind is open. So I would like just to have us deliberate about it. >> Sure. >> Other other comments on that? um willing to have a
059debate. I'm not totally persuaded by the pros. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Others, >> I agree. It's worth it's worth a discussion. I think it's worth revisiting and seeing where we're at >> um to consider going forward. >> Sure. >> I agree. And then just to be clear, we would just decide if it should go to the public. Is that right? Yeah. >> Yeah. I would agree. >> That's right. Jared, >> uh, I'm content at the fiveyear mark because I'm in year number two and I'm still learning. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, Kevin. >> Um, yeah, I'm more than happy to to discuss. Absolutely. >> Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I am too. Uh, you know, last time the bolt was like 43. I think it was very close and, uh, I was in the middle a little
060bit, edged one way. Um, um, and, uh, we already have a lot of data accumulated from two or three years ago, whatever it was. And uh so I think it's worth worth pursuing. Um so yes, let's uh let's do that. Maybe next meeting. >> Yeah, >> that's okay with everybody. >> We'll talk. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thanks for that, Dr. Zillax. Anything else? Um last two things, a little bit of a budget update. So um for a couple meetings, we talked a little bit about Kate. I don't know if you have the slide or not. um kind of our budget principles that we've talked about as a board which are you know in play in conversations or at least in our mindset and will help us make decisions. Um but there's also some other pieces
061happening that I want to make you aware of um that currently we're kind of in the phase of making some determinations at the department um or the school or building level um as part of our process. Um, two of the driving questions are, you know, as an adult in the building, regardless of your role, what do you need to be successful? And if you work directly with students, what do you need to help students be successful? So based on those questions um individuals, departments, buildings can make um requests um in terms of materials and supplies, equipment, textbooks, um what we call it contractual expenses, which would be repairs, reconditioning, um conferences and travel, rental equipment, which is pretty rare, but that is categorized on there. um are there technology or software that might be needed?
062And those um requests are gathered by the building principles or the building um uh administration or if you're um in charge of a department and eventually come to district office and the business office for further discussion. Um eventually the results of those conversations show up here in terms of recommendations um for the board of education. But we do um reach out to middle school, high school, special education, custodial maintenance, library and audiovisisual, a little bit of a maybe outdated term there. Um technology or IT district office, business office, print shop, elementary school, wheel, um also athletics. Um again technology is part of that and sort of in the background of all that is also our Bose services. Um what are we buying into for adults and what are we looking for students who might attend
063a Boseis program? Um again we are in the process of meeting we've met with um elementary and high school at this point. I think later this week we have middle school can't remember where he lock is in that conversation. Um and then we typically meet with Miss Pharaoh and special education um after those building discussions so we kind of have a sense of where everybody is. Um recommendations then come further. Um our next bud budget presentation formally here will be at our next meeting which is March 10th. Mr. Mr. Forbes, I was hoping you could outline a little bit about the information you'll include in that. >> Yeah. So, basically last month we put together as Dr. Zox mentioned the different parts to get an original footprint of a budget uh that did include Bosei
064services. So, we process going through staff members the office does going through each building request to make sure things are coded correctly, make sure they've added shipping or not put too much and those kinds of things. In the meantime, I'm going through the Bosei services. We did the first finished the first run today which goes into them and then they can take a look at the final placement for all districts to determine the cost there. So that's kind of all ongoing. Uh simultaneous to that we're working on making sure our debt service and and this year's a little bit interesting because we'll have debt being added due to the building project making sure that we got that in there correctly for aid purposes and also it's a factor in our tax cap calculation. So that's
065all been ongoing in the last four or five weeks. So moving forward, and I talked to Dr. Zelix about this today, there's been a range of what the board has wanted from the time I've been here. Sometimes it's we know you're starting here and you're going to get to hear just get us there. Sometimes it's we want updates every meeting. Sometimes it's want detail. Sometimes it's we don't care about detail. So really I can provide to the board anything u that you want in any form or any detail uh simply by just letting me know that. So, what we thought we would do is send the first draft of last year's budget, kind of the same time period, out to you, kind of remind you what we're talking about, take a look at the format
066it was in, and then if there's anything off of that that you'd like more detail about, certainly let us know for the time and we can give you anything, any range of detail that you would like to see at this point. >> Great. Thank you, Mr. Forbes. Anything else, Dr. Z? >> I'm done. A couple things. Um again, Miss Paul Heyus and Mr. Tonelli are at the basketball game. Um in terms of information for the roundroin, Miss Paulus just wanted to share that um she wanted to thank our high school ambassadors who went down to the middle school and provided a little treat uh for the students on their locker for Valentine's Day. She really appreciated that. Um very well received by the students. And also that the middle school pride committee is working on
067some fun incentive kinds of things leading up to spring break. they're going to be involved in a bingo game that mirrors the seven habits in some way um as a little competition between classrooms. So, they're looking forward to that. Mr. Tanelli also at the basketball game um wanted people to know that we're working with the University of Buffalo um and really tried to do more outreach to parents around uh the FAFSA application, which again is free application for federal student aid for students on their way to college. um they were here on February 18th. We had an evening event and we're really trying to strengthen that connection and really um offer more support to parents negotiating um that application. Also wanted to just point out we had a fantastic unified bowling match last night um
068right here in town. There's another one happening tonight along with a little um end of the year um or sorry that's actually March 2nd that that's happening um bowling in Jamestown with an end of year celebration um for all the unified bowling uh teams. So they look forward to that and he really wanted to thank all the coaches um the support staff and the students and parents who are part of that program. Uh we have our snowball um our winter formal coming up um this weekend um and uh students are looking forward to that. Also a quick plug on the horizon um our high school musical this year is the music man and that'll be March 13 and 14th and also the 20 and 21. There's a link out there somewhere for tickets that need
069to be purchased electronically. So >> great. That wraps it up. Okay, any other questions on the superintendent report comments? As usual, a lot happening. So, good stuff. Exciting times. Um, so the uh next regular board of education meeting will be Tuesday, March 10th, 2026 at 6 p.m. here in the high school library. And we'll have our first budget presentation at that time, which is good news. Um any uh further comments from the board or or Neshwan or anything else tonight before we move on? Uh okay. So Mr. Tani, Mr. Mang update. Hopefully we'll get an update before we close this meeting out with girls basketball. >> Uh we'll move on to Mr. Der. >> Sure. Uh real quick at the elementary school, the period of time between now and spring break is a good chunk
070of time. Uh but allows for some good opportunities for our kids. So most recently, uh, Brett and Marchie were able to come down and see the fourth grade Olympic unit. We did a whole thing with the Winter Olympics where not only did they learn about it, but we had our own games, you know, hockey, curling, um, bobsled >> and it was pretty outstanding. And then we had the closing ceremonies with the medal ceremony as well. So, big kudos to our fourth grade who was able to pull together, you know, our PE teacher, who was our STEM teacher. Um, it really had like a crosscurricular uh vibe to it. And they had so much momentum and fun with that that they're playing in a spring um like a village of Fredonia unit where they're going to
071learn about the history of Fredonia, which will include like a walking field trip to the library and other various part parts of the town, which is kind of cool. Then I recently ran into Nashwan here who was building um a top secret prop for our culture fair. I don't want to say it because our kids do watch YouTube, but the experience this year for the culture fair is going to be very unique and um they're building this lifesize prop that our kids are going to have to go into first and that is March 12th. So if you want to come you will experience that. Thank you Nashville for building that. And then lastly, uh we had Barb from Leader and Me working with the elementary kids um as well as our teachers and our kids
072identified um how they liked uh reading buddies. We partner our first graders with our fourth graders and they wanted to expand upon that. Our fourth graders felt confident in their ability to uh read to kids, but they now want to help the kids um as they get on the bus the first couple weeks of school or find their way around um the new building. So, we're really going to work with our current third graders to help identify some leaders and then next year when we welcome some uh kids from Welock, we're going to hopefully have a leadership little um jobs for those kids. So, some nice ideas that came from kids um that we'll hopefully put in a motion here. >> Thank you, Mr. >> M. On that note, I just want to thank Kristen
073for that. I think that was an excellent report and uh well thought out and that absolutely represented our district. So thank you for that. It's important for all of the work that we do every day. So thank you for that. Um it was a hundth day of school today at WA. So I'm gonna probably just stop there too because it was a busy day. It's a big day but we had a lot of fun. 100 days. We counted 100 many times. Cora and I did too. Just trying to teach you the the trick that we did at that today. So >> great. Thank you, Mr. Sper. Dr. Wright. >> All right. Thank you. Um, yes. Thank you very much, Mrs. Sparrow, for representing our students with disabilities and all the different ways that we support
074them here at school. Um, as Mr. Dinger said, um, on March 12th is the culture fair. And a huge shout out to our, um, ENL staff. They work so hard, um, to make this a beautiful, wonderful, immersive experience for our elementary students. um and they have want would love to have your presence there if you ever want to come to the culture fair. It is starts at 9:00 and ends at 3 and they have groups that rotate through and special different presentations that go along with it. But this year um Mrs. Moon and the ENL team, Mrs. Moon's a high school social teacher reached out for one of her classes to work directly with um to support the culture fair. Is that the class you're in? Mrs. Moon's class? No, this is separate. So, um,
075but her students, her high school students are pairing with the elementary students. So, it's just a really wonderful cross connection. Um, and thank you to our ENL teachers. Um, uh, Mrs. Bernett is the, um, instructional leader for that group and she really works hard to make sure that this is an event, um, that everybody can pop into, all the teachers, different grades and stuff. They love to do that, but it is primarily for our elementary students to learn. They get a passport and they get to do all kinds of fun stuff. Um we've been having um Lisa Stonefoot. She's a Boseis professional development specialist and she's been coming and working with our instructional leaders and anybody else in the grade level that wants to come to help unpack the numerousy briefs. Those were released from
076New York State last year in May, late May, and they are for preK through 12th grade. And they are all about numeracy and new ways of doing numeracy and new things with the state um that they expect schools to be doing. And so she's been coming here. She worked first with the younger grades. Now she worked with the 38 and then next month she'll work with 912. So just kind of grouping them in targeted areas to unpack what do they mean for each grade level, how what should you expect from the one before and where would it go um the year after. So that's been really good work that's been um done. And finally, I want to give a shout out to Sunni Fredomia. Um this year our un where we typically take our AP
077exams is no longer available to us. So Mrs. Corzineseski, who is a high school assistant principal who works to coordinate the APs. It's a ton of work, reached out. She's like, we no longer have a location, which is pretty scary because this is not, you know, it's pretty soon. It happens in early May. So I reached out to Sunni Fredonia to the education department because I was like, I don't know who else to turn to. Can you point me to somebody in the right direction? And they immediately, they could not be, you know, just so happy to help. And boom, boom, boom, it is settled. We have a space for our students right over at Sunni Fredonia to go for their AP exams. Um and uh a second room for our students with disabilities that
078may have extensions that have been approved by college board for them to take with these AP exams. So that I just want to give a big shout out to Sunni for Union. They really saved the day for us. So thank you to them being community partners. >> Great. Thank you Dr. Great example of collaboration. So thanks to Sunni for doing that. >> Mr. Forbes, anything else? No. Miss Morrison? All good. Early night tonight. Okay. Good luck to the girls basketball. Uh could I have a motion uh to adjourn the meeting? No executive. >> Thank you. A second. >> Second. >> Thank you. All in favor? I >> opposed. Meeting adjourned. >> Whatever that says.