001Welcome to the Fredonia Central School Board of Education meeting for Tuesday uh December 9th, 2025. Uh we uh start each meeting with the pledge to the flag. So if you please join me 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. [clears throat] >> Okay. So uh tonight we have an addendum uh that I think we all received this afternoon. Um and uh so uh we need to add that in. Uh we also need to approve the agenda for the regular meeting of December 9th, 2025 uh with consent that includes all the personnel but excludes B1 uh and consent that includes all new business. So could I have a motion to bring that to the table?
002>> Miss Gullo and uh Mr. Marshall a second. Thank you. Uh uh anybody like anything pulled including the you know the uh the addendum? All good with that? All in favor then? >> I >> opposed. Uh so we have our first reading uh from or our first hearing from the public. Uh the board is reserved uh this time to hear comments from the audience. Uh those wishing to address the board are asked to stand, give your name and address and limit your comments to five minutes or less. Uh concerns on this first uh session, we do have a session at the end. Also, concerns and comments during this first session should be directly related to items that are listed on the proposed agenda for tonight's meeting. So, is there anybody like to speak uh publicly
003to the agenda tonight? >> Yes. Good evening everybody. Um Michelle Go. I live at 7849 Plank Road in Cherry Creek and I am the president of the Fredonia Teachers Association. Please excuse the cough drop. I wouldn't get through this without it. Um the FTA would like to speak to you tonight um uh regarding the executive session agenda item for personnel matters specifically about appropriate staffing for related service providers. It's clear from our meetings over the past year and a half that our related service providers that includes speech pathologists, occupational therapists, and physical therapists are being pushed to the breaking point by underst staffing in this unit. The FTA supports an immediate hire of a full-time speech pathologist. Additionally, our KODS schedule will be completely full as soon as a pending student shift takes place, which
004will leave time for only one newly classified student to receive occupational therapy from any provider on staff. New classifications with therapy needs happen every month and new students with needs move into the district all the time. Physical therapy service services are also at the max with teachers being asked to be flexible and creative with scheduling resulting in student services done more in group sessions over individual sessions. These numbers need to be very closely monitored so the district can be proactive in hiring for OT and PT in the near future as well. If we want students to exit services and make meaningful progress, they need adequate clinician time. Additional related service providers improve student outcomes and reduce long-term special education costs. When RSPs are overextended, evaluations are delayed, IEP updates take longer, teachers wait for consultation,
005and referrals backlog, creating a systemwide friction. Even more concerning is the wait list of students needing these mandated services who can't be seen when the current short with the current shortage of speech pathologists. We've already implemented the most efficient service delivery model available. There's no remaining flexibility to exploit without reducing service quality or compromising compliance. The current workload is unsustainable and very taxing on our providers. Increasing special education student numbers over the past five years have resulted in the hiring of additional special education teachers, but the district has been relying on RSPs to absorb this growth indefinitely. Staff are experiencing burnout just 15 weeks into the year, which means that hiring is also a protective measure to sustain the workforce we do have. Without more staff, we face compliance and financial risks. Hiring additional RSPs
006will improve student outcomes and reduce long-term costs. Expect neighboring districts to poach our RSPs unless we fix workload expectations with appropriate staffing and case load management. I would like to thank Miss Pharaoh and Dr. Dr. Zilios for their work on this issue and for their willingness to meet with our providers and hear their concerns. We hope the board will give their full attention to the information presented within executive session and act quickly for the sake of our students. Thank you for your consideration. [applause] >> Thank you, Mr. Um if you could leave your statement or email us. um you know sometimes I hear about 30% or I hear more than that but it's good for us to reflect. So if you could pass it on to us we appreciate that. Uh any other uh public
007comment related to the agenda? Uh if not u thank you Miss Greenhow for your comments. Um, we'll uh we'll move on and uh our next order of business is to approve the minutes from the regular meeting of November 18th, 2000. Is it 18th? >> 18th, 2025. Have a motion to bring that to the table. >> Miss Han, a second. >> Second, Mr. >> Martin. Sorry. >> Uh, any questions on that? All in favor? I >> opposed. Uh we also need to approve the minutes from the uh audit meeting of December 3rd, 2025. A motion to bring that to the table. >> So moved, >> Miss Wharton. A second. >> Second, >> Miss Thank you. Any questions on that? >> I'm sorry. >> It was Mr. Kenny. >> Oh, Mr. Kenny. Sorry. >> He's on the
008other side. >> You're over there. >> Okay. I'm going to get going here. Okay. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Uh, so next we have a special presentation of leader move by Miss Katherine [snorts] Fortnox. >> Yeah, I'll do a quick intro. Uh, thanks for anyone else joining us tonight or you guys right up front. I'm going to let you guys all introduce yourself during the presentation. Um, but thank you as well. Um, you know, for a long time in the district, we talked a little bit about, you know, beyond the academics that are taught in the classroom or within those, what are the skills our students are leaving um our district with at the end of their pre-K12 experience. And um, you know, there was a lot of great things going on, but
009maybe nothing that really unified those efforts. And in a response to that question, um, at some point the suggestion was, what if all of our students and adults at the time they exited, um, Fredonia, um, were aware of and used and incorporated the seven habits into their work life as well as perhaps their personal life. And everybody agreed that would be a good thing and a positive direction to move and people would most likely be more efficient and more um in tune with a lot of different um ways to just maximize um our potential and eventually become our greatest selves. So, at the beginning of the school year, our students were nice enough to start off at least the high school and middle school faculty meetings um with a presentation on the seven habits and
010this is a version of that tonight. Um again, thank you to everybody involved um advisors, students um we appreciate you being here and are interested to learn a little bit more about the seven habits tonight. So, having said that, >> thank you guys. >> [clears throat] >> I think it's Okay, good evening every everyone. Um, I'm Landon. This is Rosemary. That's Neilan. And that's Catherine. And we're going to present to you the seven habits and leader in me. Empowering students to see the vision. Be the change. Who we are is more important than who we appear to be. Dr. Steven R. The first habit is to be proactive. We are not in control of what happens to us, but we are in control of how we react. The freedom to choose how we respond is
011at the core of being proactive. The key paradigm, I am responsible for my own happiness. Imagine shaking a bottle of Coke versus water. The coke explodes whereas the water shows how staying calm, collected, and optimistic allows us to remain our best even when in a stressful situation. We want to switch from reactive language to proactive language. Instead of saying I can't, I can't. Instead of saying it's not my fault, say I'm sorry. Instead of saying I have to, it's I choose to. Having this uh vision for what you're doing allows you to in your own mind and outwardly uh have a more optimistic outlook. Now at least the board and anyone else who wants to can if you can stand if you're able to. Um each of our habits have a little uh action to
012go along with them. >> I feel like this is for everybody. Come on. Let's join in. So we can demonstrate and then if you guys want to um come in with us. Goes like this. I'm in charge of me. >> I'm in charge of me. Yeah. >> Having a vision for what we want to do gives our actions direction and our results meaning the key paradigm. I define my life's vision and purpose and live by it. Activity. Imagine your 80th birthday party. What would you want the people who have been closest to you in your life to say about the impact you've made with your life? Beginning with the end in mind also applies to smaller scale projects, even this presentation. What's your vision for our school this year? What would you like to see
013in your students? Consider this as we consider as we continue through our presentation. So uh those who are able to if you could stand again. This is our so we begin with the end in mind. The end in mind [laughter] >> habit is putting first things first. And the idea with this is to think of your tasks, work, and obligations as rocks, pebbles, or sand. So you have to imagine your day is like a bucket with just enough space in it. And so you have to figure out how you would work to fit everything in. The idea with this is to start with the big rocks first or the problems that are most immediate in the situation. So thinking of your big rocks in the day might be a pressing deadline or an immediate crisis
014on hand. And the idea is to plan out your week with what your biggest priorities are for this week. And so to demonstrate this, we have a little pet square on the right that is divided into four quadrant quadrants. Quadrant one is what's urgent and important. That is what you do. Quadrant two is what is not urgent but still important. That is what you plan. Quadrant three is what is urgent but not important. That is what you delegate. Then quadrant four is something that is not urgent and not important. Anything trivial you eliminate. And the also idea idea is to stay true in the moment of choice and trying to focus on the uses of time that fall into important but not urgent. Try to avoid activities that are unimportant. And so those who are
015able to, we also ask you to stand up again. And for this next exercise, the idea is to focus on putting first things first. So you start with the first things first. >> First things first. >> Habit four, think win-win. There are four types of interactions. Win-win, win lose, lose win, and lose lose. In the long run, the only way to make sure we can continually improve is by seeking win-win solutions. Key paradigm. There's more than enough for everyone. Think of everyone as having an emotional bank account. A win for someone else is a win for you, too. Know the person's emotional currency. Consider what brings you joy. What about someone else? Be sincere and con consistent. Post relationships require more deposits. Make small deposits over time to try to avoid withdrawals. The emotional bank
016account deposits. Seek first to understand the other person. Show kindness, courtesy, and respect. Make and keep promises by loyal. Be be loyal to others. Withdrawals. assuming you understand, showing unkindness, dis courtesy, and disrespect, breaking and not making promises, being disloyal, and bad mouthing others. All right, for this one, please stand up. >> All right, it's going to be think win. Habit five is seeking first to understand, then to be understood. I need to make sure people understand my point of view is the main view people have when issues or disagreements come up. Yet, seeking to understand and listen empathetically gives us more credibility while allowing everyone to feel understood. The key paradigm, I have more influence when I listen first. Empathetic listening is 90% the intent to understand and 10% your response. Think about reflecting
017the feelings of the other person in your own words while giving any insight that is relevant. Then try making your own point of view seen and heard. Try listening actively and giving your response when appropriate. Relate to who is speaking or show that you understand. And when you give out seeking first understand then to be understood you will have that same come back to you in conversations and you will be understood better as well. Okay if you can stand up. Okay this one is seek first to understand then to be understood. Seek first to understand then to be understood. >> Synergize. Compromise is a word that people often use. Yet it is not necessarily the most productive way to find a solution that works. Key paradigm. Let's come up with a better way together. Synergy
018is all about valuing instead of just tolerating or rejecting our differences and using that to seek third alternatives that are a win-win for everyone. Synergy is also about creating win-win solutions and empathetic listening. These solutions together alongside a willingness to understand and intent to listen are creed to creating synergy. [clears throat] So, uh those who can stand one more time. So it's it takes two people to come together and synergize. It takes two people to come together. >> And our seventh and last daily habit for highly effective people is sharpening the saw. Sharpening the saw is about investing our time and energy into something that makes ourselves better. The key paradigm here, I take time for myself every day because it gives me the ability to do something else everything else. And the main idea
019with this is in in spite of everything else to also remember to take care of yourself. And trying to take care of your care of yourself every day with something that nourishes your body, mind, heart, or spirit. And so, well, >> [laughter] >> And for our last motion, we'd like to say sharpen the saw. So sharpen the sharpen. >> The see do gift cycle is the entire idea of leader and me and the seven habits together. The sea is our paradigms. what we imagine for the future. The do is our practices and the get is our results. When this is put into the leader and me framework, we have the different paradigms of leadership, potential, change, motivation, and education. And we use each of those to uh positively impact the school in leadership, culture, and
020academics. Everything we work together on and all our projects are individual to each of these three categories and then the results of that hopefully positively impact our school either through the leadership, the culture or the academics. >> Thank you. [applause] ANY [applause] uh any questions from board members or >> no? Thank you very much. >> No, thank you for that. Um there's a lot of positives that come out of this. Uh one is um it's so fantastic to see our exeicio members and other members coming in and and providing input to the board. It just kind of livens the room. So uh we really appreciate that. A lot of good ideas come from the students and also just the leader in me seems like such a great program. I mean uh being an ex-teer myself,
021professional development is always a bit scattershot in my years at different schools and feels like you have a plan here a leader. I mean like it wasn't the first year just to plan with and train teachers and train the student leaders. Is that would that be accurate? >> Yeah. And now this is year two and now you're implementing to the student body. So maybe we could hear even more from the two of you how it's going, you know, as the year progresses in the next year. So, so again, thank you so much for that. Appreciate that. Um, so next on our uh to-do list is our financial treasures report. Not quite as exciting as that. I'm sorry. [laughter] >> I'm not doing very well tonight. Um, [laughter] but uh could you uh fill us in
022on the budget investment for us? >> We'll do those three together dashboard. made a few changes on the expenditure side mostly in both the services and in the benefits employee retirement and teachers retirement system final billing came in slightly above what we budgeted so we're we're not tracking good there we're spending way more on those categories but on the revenue side we continue to make progress with the investments in the treasury bill although the rates continue to drop and there's a meeting of the feds tomorrow which anticipating we'll further reduce that so we're trying to trying to keep the numbers up there uh other than that we took in 8400 of lottery aid and we did book in the October since this is the October report you're seeing today the October portion of the teacher
023retirement system which is both as an expense and a revenue other than that uh I don't have anything on any of those categories >> great any any further questions from the board on those reports uh so we'll move on to the treasures report um could I have a motion to bring that to the table I promise to listen more carefully >> so let's go a second Second, >> Mr. Marshall heard you first. Um, any questions or I'm sorry, Mr. Forbes? >> Nothing on that. No questions. All in favor? >> I opposed. Uh, next, uh, we have an external audit report presentation from Laura Napoli. Um, I have a motion to bring that to the table. So moved, >> Mr. [clears throat] Martin. Second. >> Second. >> I'm sorry, Mr. Kenny. Did you say at the
024same time? Mr. Mr. Kenny. Okay, you're too far away. Um, uh, so Dr. Zo. Oh, yeah. As, uh, many of you, uh, probably know, each year we require you to have an external audit and, uh, Miss Kavi is nice enough to come in and help us with that each year. And she's here to just share the results, um, of the audit. And in my mind, the the initial purpose of the audit is really to make sure that we are in line with all standard practices and good business practices. And uh the hope is that we have a clean audit. Um which is the the first really focus and priority for us as superintendent, administrators, board of education. So um we're interested to hear what you have to say. >> Good evening everybody. Thanks for having
025me. Um this year I did a little PowerPoint summary um just to kind of keep us on track and um make sure that I go over all the highlights. So if you could go to the next page. Um so as um Mr. Zilak said um the first goal is the independent auditor's report um of the basic financial statements. Um, we issue that audit report each year. There are governmentwide financial statements which will go over fund financial statements. We have a report on internal controls. We have a management letter this year. Um, due to the federal government shutdown, we actually have two reports for you. It's the same report that we issue every year. It's um, but we have to have it in two sections this year. the governmentwide financials, the basic financial statements, and the
026single audit report in a separate report. Um, they didn't issue an audit compliance supplement until after we had already issued the audit report. So, we couldn't do the single audit, and we'll go over what the single audit is as we go forward. Um, and then, um, we are required to make audit communications to your audit committee and the board. Um, and that's part of tonight. [clears throat] and you guys approved the minutes of the December 3rd audit committee meeting where we went over the audit in in great detail. You go to the next slide. So, we issue our independent auditors report. Um, we did issue an unmodified opinion. It is the best opinion that you can get. It states that the [clears throat] financial statements are in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. So, like
027Dr. Ziliac said um your financial statements are in accordance with all the required um Gazsby statements and other statements that are required to be um in this audit report. We did have a change um a new Gazsby was added Gazsby 101 for compensated absences. So that just changed how you have to account for accumulated sick days that have not been paid out yet. So, there's a new liability in your financial statements for that. That's only in the governmentwide financial statements. It's not in your fund financial statements. The fund financial statements are the ones that you use for everyday management and budgeting. This Gazsby only applies to the full acrual financial statements. If you can go to the next slide. So, the governmentwide financial statements, those are on they're on pages 20 and 21. These are
028your full acral financial statements. They include all the receivables, all the payables of the government. They also include all fixed assets and long-term debt. You don't have those in your regular financial statements. And again, these are required to be full acral by the gazsby and you have to present them. But what we're going to focus on today is more information from the fund financials. Go to the next slide. Your fund financial statements are presented on a modified approval. So, we don't have all the receivables, payables, long-term debt, fixed assets included. But these are the statements that you use in everyday management of the district and also to prepare your district's annual budget. Those financial statements follow the governmentwide ones. They are on pages 22 and in your audit reports. One of the things that um
029I'd like to highlight about your financial statements is what is your fund balance? kind of one of the things that you guys need to take a look at regularly is, as you know, John stated, you're looking at your financials to figure out if your revenues are in line, if your expenditures are in line, and what does that do to your fund balance? Your fund balance is basically what money do you have left over to apply to next year's budget? What do you have in reserves? Um, and what do you have that's unassigned? So, you can see your restricted fund balance is about 1.6 6 million your assigned fund balance restricted fund balance consists of reserves and I have a slide later to show you what reserves you have in the district at the end of
030the year. Assigned fund balance is um consists of two different amounts. One is the amount applied to next year to reduce the taxes. That is actually 750,000. Plus, you have purchases that didn't complete in the 2425 year that complete in 2526. So, those get carried over. That's the difference of that 37558. You have unassigned fund balance of 887,915. Total fund balance $3.29 million. Okay. Can you go to the next slide? So, your undesated unappropriated fund balance is 2.32%. That's kind of low. Real property tax law allows for 4% of your next year's budget. So, you're just over half. So, one of our recommendations during the audit was that you guys look at ways to potentially increase that 4%. >> [cough] >> I said you had around $887,000 of undesated fund balance. If you apply $750,000
031of that again like you did the year before without revenues in excess of expenditures, that only allows for your 2627 um amount to reduce the taxes. So, it's something that the district needs to be aware of and be looking at because, you know, we're not I don't think you want to look at a huge tax increase. So looking at what that fund balance is and trying to make sure you get to the legal limit and then looking at potentially even increasing your reserves is [cough and clears throat] something that the district needs to consider. If you could go to the next slide. So from your fund financial statements, your operating fund is your general fund. These are your revenues um compared to last year to see what the [cough] changes are. You can see your
032real property tax change is 3%. Other tax items is down a little bit, but that's just because of the star reimbursement rate changes every year. That's what's included there. Um the other change that is actually fairly large was your state aid went up [cough] from the prior year. Um that's a couple of things. your Bosey's aid increased because you had Bosey's expenditures that were higher in the year before. Plus, um the state is fully funding foundation aid. So, you had an increase in your foundation aid as well. So, those are good things. And if the state aid keeps increasing, hopefully that will help your revenue stay at a better rate than what your expenditures are. But it's definitely something to keep looking at on a regular basis. The next the next one shows the summary
033of your expenditures for the general fund. Um all of those expenditures went up some except for debt service. Your debt service is decreasing because you're paying off some of your debt. Your new capital project though is going to replace that debt and that I anticipate will go up. Not until you start um your capital project uh a little bit more rigorously. But right now it's lower and it will go back up. But you can see that all of your expenditures increased. Transportation most especially um obviously transportation costs have you know um been going up with your contract um for your transportation. So, oh just one more thing just at the very bottom you can see the very net of your expenditures greater than your revenues of 391,000. So that took your fund balance down from
034last year. Okay. So your savings account went down. Um thank you. So here shows your whole fund balance. It shows each reserve that you have and the change in the reserves. um $70,000 of the capital reserve was moved over to your capital projects fund to cover some of the capital project. So, you're going to be moving some money from your capital reserve. So, that reserve will go down. The others didn't change very much. Um you can see again your appropriated fund balance of 750,000. That's what you're using to decrease taxes. That's what you need to have each year in your fund balance to apply to next year. Unappropriated fund balance at 8.87. You can see that went down from the prior year. Um the last report that we issued in your basic financial statements in
035the large booklet that we had was your internal control report over financial statements. We had a couple things that we mentioned to the district every year. We assist in preparing the financial statements and the notes to the financial statements. Um, and we make some computer control recommendations in there. The management letter comments are other comments that [clears throat] we make to strengthen internal controls and those were reviewed in depth with your audit committee. So, the second booklet that you have that is much smaller is your single audit. Your school district is required to have a single audit because you expend more than $750,000 in federal funds each year. So that requires us to do a special audit called a single audit where we take a look at what are the largest grants and we have
036to determine what are the major programs based on a set of criteria in the compliance supplement that wasn't issued by the government until after the basic financials were finished. That's why I have two booklets. Um, we tested the school lunch fund and we tested the ARP esser funds and in that testing we had no findings. So those all complied with the requirements of the grants. Lastly, we were required to communicate the results of our audit with the board and the audit committee. Um so the significant things that we had to communicate to you are the new accounting principle was the SB 101. We did have to restate the prior year fund balance due to that. So we had to take June 3024 and restate for the company stated absences that would have been outstanding in
037that year. Um we identified the significant estimates and disclosures um in your financial statements. Um, and we also request that um, management signed a representation letter saying that they've given us access to everything we've requested and um, given us everything that we needed to do the audit. >> That's my presentation for tonight. Does anybody have any questions? >> Yes. >> I I just wanted to comment real quick. Um first of all um on behalf of everybody we want to thank everybody that uh for their time and effort in resulting in a clean audit that's step one >> and that's good news. Um I also feel like part of what you shared with us reiterates some of the things we've been discussing amongst administrators amongst the board um in public session prior to this is both
038that we're aware our fund balance is lower than it once was. We're also aware of some concern around the reserves. Um it wasn't that long ago we were identified as being fiscally stressed through the controllers's office because of that reduction in phone counts. Um so this kind of reiterates a lot of the conversations we've already been having and continue to have and certainly this will be part of our planning as we uh gear up for um the budget season which is pretty much underway at this point already. So, um, thanks for sharing this information and thanks for your work to, uh, you know, make sure that we're doing everything that we need to be doing. So, sorry if I interrupted the flow elsewhere. >> Uh, well, kind of jumping off from that. So, you had
039said we should look at ways to increase our undesated fund balance to 4%. >> And increase our reserves. >> State aid, of course, we don't have any control over. So, [clears throat] um, seeking from you some ideas. >> Well, one of the things that we've discussed is, um, looking at departments. I mean, this is going to be tough. It's not easy. You have a property tax cap, so you're limited in what you can raise in property taxes unless you go for a 60% vote, which is not going to be easy. Um, really increasing your revenues. John has done a really good job of investing and that $887,000 that you have is really due to the interest income that you've been earning on your treasury bills right now. So that's one way to obviously increase your
040revenue. But as a district, I have a lot of ways to increase revenue other than property taxes, investing your money. So you have to look then at decreasing expenses. We frequently ask our taxpayers for less than the maximum that we're allowed. What is your position on that? >> Absolutely. Raise to the tax cap. >> Could you repeat that? >> I mean, we want the district to be fiscally [cough] sound. You're a large employer. You're you educate our students. We want to have all the programs. I mean, the presentation that you guys had tonight was excellent and and obviously that's a testament to all the work that everyone does here. Um, and to keep the district fiscally sound is important to all of us. I'm a taxpayer, too. So, you know, um, all of it is
041important. And I'm not saying this is easy and not easy. Um, but raising to the tax cap, looking at expenditures at this point, because I don't know really how you're going to raise revenues. Um, it's not as easy as increasing prices if you are a forprofit. [clears throat] >> Great. Any other questions from the board? >> Just one. Could you explain again that when you said the 750,000 that we have in the budget and you said we were you saying we need to keep that there? Yes. So what happens is you come up when you do your budget the basics of it is you have revenues you have expenditures. Your expenditures are going to be more than your revenues. Right? So the difference goes to property taxes but you also can take some of your
042savings and use that to reduce the amount that you need to raise in property taxes. Right now we're taking 750,000. um at the end of June 3025 you had 887,000 left to say okay when we do our 2627 budget how much can I take of that fund balance to reduce taxes we've been using 750,000 if you take 750 out of your 887 doesn't leave you very much for the following year so that's why planning now is really important so that we don't come up with an issue in your 728 budget. >> Any other comments? Well, thank you, Mr. Napoli. Very sobering comments. Um, you know, uh, we have work to do in this upcoming budget cycle, it looks like. So, thank you for your presentation. >> Thank you. [applause] >> Um, so moving on into
043uh into personnel. Uh, we need to approve. Oh, I'm sorry. We need to Yes. So, all in favor we have to have, right? >> We've already got the motion. >> Yeah. So, all in favor? >> Opposed? Uh, next we need to approve the appointment of William Wright to a probationary position in the tenure area tenure area of teaching assistant. I have a motion to bring that to the table. >> So, move that. this format. A second. >> Second, >> Mr. Mr. Kenny. Thank you. Uh Dr. Zillots. Oh, yeah. [clears throat] Bill Wright is working with us at the middle school. He was an employee in the past and we're glad to have him return. Uh he is a retired teacher from Silver Creek. Um has a really good um foundation of knowledge and literacy and
044also in academic intervention. and um him working here prior, he did an outstanding job and we're glad to have him back on board and uh we look forward to all the positives he brings to the table. Miss Paulus wanted to um echo that. Um although she's over at the concert tonight. Um just mention that he's an allaround team player and just a overall um positive person to have as part of the district. So welcome back, Bill. >> Thank you. Any questions from the board, comments? All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Uh that takes us straight through personnel and also new business. So we get to our second round of uh public comment. Uh the board is reserved this time to hear comments from the audience. Those wishing to address the board are asked to
045stand, give their name and address. Please limit your comments to five five minutes or less. It can be on any general topic. Um do I have any comments there? Yes. >> Yes. Hi, my name is Linda Shields. I live at 227 Seymour Street in Fredonia. This is my third time coming to the board. I'm asking you to consider consolidation. We look around the county and we see that Climber, Sherman, and Panama are studying a merger. Beis Point and Chicago Lake are sharing a superintendent. Fredonia has previously looked at merge merging without success. Perhaps people are more amendable to some sort of consolidation than in the past. People are financially struggling. More people are using services like local food pantries. I look at how many houses are for sale in Fredonia. I've never seen so many.
046Our population is shrinking and yet we have 18 school districts in Shiitako County. We have two Bose sites that serve the entire county. Why can't we have two or three regional high schools? I have asked if you would pull the residents during the last vote for the budget. If people don't vote, they have no right to complain. During the next budget vote, let's poll the district to see if their opinions have changed. I will end with a quote from an opinion piece from the Observer. Quote, "For decades, this region has missed out on private investment. That is because government and school districts keep growing larger in terms of buildings and employment while the numbers they serve keep dwindling. Perhaps the county has been listening. The county is launching a government reduction initiative to include schools.
047They will award $100,000 a year that for schools or government entities that will look at consolidation or mergers. My hope is that you will give this serious consideration. We live in this beautiful community in Shiakwa County. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else, but we need to come together, share our resources for the greater good. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss. >> Um, and if you could uh please leave your statement with Miss Morrison, our district clerk. We'd appreciate that. Take it. >> Thank you. Sure. >> Uh, anybody else uh like to speak in public comment? If not, uh, we'll move on to our superintendence report. Oh, yeah. A couple items for tonight. Um, agenda back together here. There we go. Um just wanted to um recognize some individuals um who are both leaving the
048district and joining the district who are in consent tonight um each um year. We have a number of people resigned for a variety of reasons. But we want to thank um everybody for their service to the district and wish them good luck um in their next uh steps. Um, for tonight we have Isabelle Rodriguez, Teresa Priolet, Ryan Colt, Olivia Urbacher, as well as Jackie Monahan. Again, thank you for everything you've done for the district and best of luck moving forward. Um, joining the district a little more upbeat. Um, we have Dylan Pierce coming on board as food service helper. So, welcome to Dylan. We also have uh Yarretti Aliyah um who's coming on board as a cleaner. We welcome her as well. Uh Peter Priveteer is coming on board as a building maintenance mechanic 2,
049which is a little bit of a moment for our district. We have not been fully staffed um in our maintenance department for quite some time. So Peter rounds out full staffing. So welcome to him and um thanks to everybody in the department for really doing a great job um in this transitional phase. We also wanted to welcome Erica Liss um who is joining us as a teacher aid. So welcome to Erica. I also wanted to just briefly mention our winter sports are up and running. We have a basketball game going um down couple hallways um as of right now. So, um, thanks to all our student athletes who are willing to be part of our teams and, uh, hopefully learn all kinds of great lessons from being part of our athletics program. Uh, thanks also
050to all our coaches, uh, both volunteer and paid who are part of the winter season and also to our AD portando who works hard to keep it all running. So, um, best of luck to everybody. Uh we also wanted to recognize we're also in concert season as was mentioned earlier and uh thanks to everybody who is part of our music program, part of our music department um students and adults. Thanks for everybody supporting the our music program at home and we look forward to those events uh here in the winter season. We also had a board of education facilities meeting um earlier tonight. We did review a variety of topics. Um we talked about the wrapping up of um our lead testing um water audit that occurred a few months ago. The last step in
051that was us creating a corrective action plan which was submitted to the state. We actually followed all these steps in the 2025 testing. So um these things are already in play and implemented. Um we were thankful to go through the process. We learned a lot um and have improved our processes. Um also we talked a little bit um about the capital improvement project um phase one and two. This is from Proposition One. And again thanks to our community uh for supporting uh that part of the um capital project proposals. Um that's roughly $2.1 million. Um, we will be open for bids this coming Thursday for the phase one work and eventually we'll be looking to approve those bids in January here at our board meeting and then we will get a notice out to contractors
052to proceed shortly after mid January and construction should begin in the spring of 2026. Some of the highlights of that work are resurfacing the track, um, a lot of roof work at Wheelock and also two playgrounds at Wheelock. So, we look forward to getting this work up and running. Yep. Got to help. That's correct. Um, phase two will follow a similar process just a little bit later on. Um, we'll be getting all our documentation into state ed in the spring of 2026. Bids will be roughly a year from now. um in the fall of 2026 and construction will start in the spring of 2027. So, more information to come about that. We also talked about our outlay project um that will be happening in the summer that will include work on the softball field as
053well as some flooring here at the elementary school. We also reviewed our district-wide emergency phone project which is concluding here shortly. Um, all wiring work should be done by December 18th and then over break they'll be installing phones. We are on schedule to be fully operational as of January 5 when we return from break. So, we look forward to that. We also talked and then toured the areas um that have been brought to the board for concerns um in terms of accessibility. Um, we visited our nurs's office at the elementary school, our chorus room, our science labs, our pool. Although we didn't go outside today, board members at some point over the last couple weeks got a chance to go out and spend some time um on our main campus playground. Um although not part
054of the things that came forward, >> [clears throat] >> um young and right also um suggested that we look at locker rooms and restrooms as well and we tour with those um facilities. And basically what it comes down to is that there's a couple different ways to go about getting work done in this area. Either through a larger capital project that we're already engaged in. This would be an additional project sometime in the future and also the $100,000 outlay projects that we do each year. So we are in the process of thinking about all of that. What would next steps look like? Um how do we continue to address the variety of needs we have in terms of facilities across the district and try to be as thoughtful, logical, and sequential in our thinking as
055possible. Um, so more information there. Um, but I wanted to make you aware that our facilities committee does meet three times a year and this is an ongoing discussion um about how we upgrade our facilities and what's the best path um and approach to have that happen. Um, wanted to turn over to Dr. right real briefly to just overview some of the literacy work that's happening in the district and thank you for all your efforts and leading the charge. >> I appreciate that. Thank you. >> Y um it's exciting to talk about literacy. These are the things I think when you're educators you get all excited about being all nerdy about curriculum more than anything else. So it's exciting. Um as you know literacy is one of the prior priority areas in our district long-term
056plan. When we talk about literacy, it's important that we all have a shared definition so that we really understand what it is we're talking about. So literacy is defined in education has evolved from the ability to read and write to include listening, speaking [cough] in order to effectively communicate and make sense of the world around us. The key to providing a sound literacy education is to have both horizontal and vertical alignment. By horizontal, we mean the shared practices, materials, assessments [clears throat] across a grade level. And by vertical we mean aligning [cough] the continum of education through PK12. That means that when children are experiencing it, they're experiencing a cohesive from one grade to another things that are familiar, things they know. So it isn't like to a student new learning each time. Well, this
057year in [cough] PP4, uh we are committed to the all-in literacy initiative, which is a culmination of work over the past four years. To highlight this, curriculum councils, instructional leaders, and subcommittees focus on literacy and exploring current practices. We have to know where we are in order to know where we want to go. And then we have professional learning opportunities [cough] such as letters [clears throat] training, which is an acronym for language essentials for teachers of reading and spelling. And for some members of our audience today, they participated in that and they could tell you that was like a college course. Um, so kudos to them for doing that. Also we have members um part of our the Erie to Chicago County Bosei science of reading symposium um and the new pulse micro credentiing in
058science of reading. We have been exploring curriculums and in doing so in subcommittees and in groups we arrived on HM into reading curriculum. Um so last year was a pilot of that curriculum and it was a pilot in various levels. People could [cough] self- select. Did you want to dip your toe in? Did you want to wait in? Did you want to dive in? And this year we are all in. So that's where that comes from. Yes, I'm that corny. So um to clarify the science of reading, right? There's a lot of buzz around that. The science of reading literally is the science of how the brain learns to read. It's all it is. It's not a curriculum. It's not an instructional practice. It's understanding the science behind that. And when you know that, then
059imploring those things in the curriculums. HMH is grounded in the science of reading as is letters as is um you know the other thing I'm going to talk about which is the UFly curriculum. So the all-in plan is structured yet flexible. It allows for continuous feedback and adjustment. The goal is to establish a strong foundation for a schoolwide reading program by setting clear targets, tracking progress, fostering collaborative [cough] dialogue within horizontal and across vertical UP4 grade bands. This includes weekly grade level meetings, quarterly curriculum goals with each into reading, um sharing the good, the bad, the ugly, and focusing on phonics through UFly. Now, we have to give a shout out to first grade teachers. Um UFly was their recommendation. This is the University of Florida Literacy Institute. This is a specific systematic daily lesson
060program that builds foundational skills in grades K2. It uses grades three, four. Um, it can be used in grades three, four, excuse me, to support struggling readers. It ensures the critical foundational phone names or sounds are solidified. Students have to have that phmic awareness, that ability to recognize and manipulate sounds before they can truly be solid readers. For example, I'm sure everybody here knows there are 26 letters of the alphabet. There are 44 phone names. So, those 26 letters make 44 sounds. So it's making sure that we as practitioners through new research, new science, new understanding are aware of that so that [clears throat] we can then use these best practice resources in helping our students to learn. So we're excited that grade 5 has embraced UFly um for their remedial support as well. This
061then allows students to go from kindergarten the UFly program into first grade, second grade in a systematic thing they're used to. And then when those spots for students are struggling, they have that UFly to rely on for remediation. Again, a continuum of learning for students. So, put together this hits horizontal alignment. All grade level teachers are using H.M.H. and vertical alignment, a shared experience for students and data that has meaning for cohorts. It's it's comparing apples to apples as one teacher said to me today. Um, it's also realistic. We realize that as we're all in, I don't want to sound like everybody's like, "Woo!" You know, we understand that there are times and seasons of year December where your big rocks are going to be kids are excited. There's three weeks of school, there's snow,
062there's things. So, we're going back to leader and me and I appreciate the efforts of our students today. We have to look at our big rocks first and make sure we're focusing on those and then know that each year we do this as we go through it this year we that implementation dip you start something new you're all excited and science shows us you get to that like oh this is scary this is really hard I want to give up keep pushing keep pushing that's why it's a collaborative effort we have those weekly meetings to help reach down or get the boost that we might need so a huge shout out to our teachers because they're the ones putting this into practice each day they're using the curriculum they're using curriculum writing time to work
063together to ensure alignment. They're engaging in conversations and they are seeing the growth in students. So, we're really excited about it. >> Anything else? >> Thank you for letting me read because I know I' like been talking forever. >> Probably just want to remind everybody of our social media and still hanging in there on Facebook, although we do have a couple other platforms, but Facebook seems to get a lot of attention. Miss Piper does a great job posting, Mr. Dinger. Um, our district page is going well, middle school uh page is going well. So, feel free to check it out and keep up to date uh as you're looking for information about the district. And that wraps it up unless there's questions. Any questions from the board? Um, thank you Dr. Wright, Dr. Zillian for
064the report. That was good. Um, so we'll move on. Uh, we have uh our next is our next regular board of education meeting will be held January Tuesday, January 13th, 2026, I think say right at 6 p.m. in the high school library here. Um, and is there any board correspondents tonight? Did you attend a meeting on November? >> Um, I did. I attended the Erie 2 Shitakqua Cataragus Bosey's uh board of education meeting on November 5th and we as in case anyone doesn't remember we take turns going to those meetings each of the board members goes Jerry I think you might be up tomorrow um and it's so interesting both substant substantively and procedurally um they had a representative from labor relations speak on on educational law about protecting student teacher and administr administrator um
065personally identifiable information. They honored two um educators with tenure and did a little presentation for each and they went around and had board uh board members representing each of the different committees give a brief update on their committee's work and the entire meeting was 20 minutes. It was awesome. Um, so I asked I followed up with their communications person just because I was curious how they run like a Swiss train station and he said um that when someone gives a presentation, most of the presenters work with the communications department to create their slide decks and they're asked to focus their presentations on board goals, data points, and pertinent updates. Uh, so I just thought that was interesting. and they use board docs which is something I know our board is considering using and um and
066that's very you know it was fun to go in and look up their documents on the board docs landing site >> so just you know very interesting thank you >> great thanks yeah board docs is certainly something we should consider um it's very it makes makes things very efficient which is fantastic thank you for volunteering your time and all board members volunteer your time over the months, you know, take a a meeting a month. So, it's been uh it's been really good last year and it's excellent this year that we're doing that. Um so, uh we move into any other general comments from the board tonight. Um you know, thank you Neshwan and Katherine for the presentation. It's um it's excellent to see you know, that input and thank you to your team for putting
067that together with leader Lee tonight. Uh we'll move on to Mr. Tanelli. >> Sure. Anything tonight? >> Um just want to publicly uh congratulate Claire McMury Damato and Grant Abby for performing in the uh Nisma String Orchestra. We clapped them out uh last week, this past weekend. They they spent a couple of nights up in Rochester and were able to perform. Um it's the equivalent of, you know, making states basically for a sport. Um so they're congratulations to them. Um, our students participated in the Polar Plunge last week, Friday, on a very chilly day. Um, their goal was to raise $10,000 for that event, which they did uh succeed in doing. So, that's fantastic for them. Um, and super super proud of them for doing that and for having the bravery to um go into
068the lake. I think it was 8 degrees that morning. Um, but it was sunny. That's all I heard. It was sunny. It felt good. So, okay. Um, another update from our for our student lighthouse team. Um, so this is the the group of 12 students and and four faculty members that meet pretty regularly. Um, they're pushing out surveys right now to the student body and to faculty members about a use of our high school courtyard. Um, [clears throat] and not necessarily in the let 60 people go out there and in two days we have to shut it down because it gets too noisy for the classrooms. um being really smart and really thoughtful about some ways to be able to use that space, which is really nice um and underutilized and um they're they're working
069really hard on finding um some thoughtful and introspective ways to use that that space in our building. So, uh just a quick update from them. Um and from student council as well, they're they're involved in a number of student center activities. They meet every Wednesday. Um, I try to stop up there as much as I can, but they run like a welloiled machine and I end up just kind of in awe watching them. Um, they held a turkey hunt for our students before Thanksgiving. They put paper turkeys around and if you found one, um, you got to turn it in for a prize. They're working on Santa's workshop this weekend. That's where parents can come drop their students off and um, have our kids work with them for a while while they go and do
070what they need to do. Holiday spirit week next week for our students. So, we've got five dress up days. Um, I think there's a dress like a J C Penney Christmas card day, which is kind of fun. It's bring back old memories. Um, and then, uh, when we get back from break, they they transfer right into the winter ball dance in February that they'll start planning for. Um, and I just wanted to mention one bigger shift at the high school this year. Um, with me coming on board this year, um, looking specifically at scheduling, uh, for the 2627 school year. Um, I'm a a proponent of the earlier the better. Um, and I've asked my counselors to kind of think a little bit about that when we come back from like right now in December,
071we're concentrating on semester 2, making sure we're ready to go for the second part of the school year, but as soon as we come back from winter break and hit January. Um, I ask them to kind of shift their minds and and to start to think about 26 27. Um, we'll start scheduling with students actually during exam week in January. Um, so we'll use that time to do some of that work and then um, January, February, March really make sure all of our students are scheduled and then start building our master schedule for the next school year. Um, which seems like it's far away, but it comes much faster um, than you could ever imagine. So, just a a shift that um, we're we're getting used to here this year. Um, and then I just
072wanted to mention that our high school winter concert is next Wednesday. So, if you can attend that, it's a a wonderful few hours with all of our music performance groups that night. >> Thank you, Mr. Tali. A lot of proactive work and a lot of student initiatives. Correct. It's fantastic. >> Uh, Mr. Joerger. >> Yep. Thanks. I want to thank the high school kids for the seven habits. At the elementary school, we're really trying to live those. So, I want to thank uh Sam Gambino for beginning with the end in mind. She started this year uh wanting to get creative with her class to do as many field experiences uh that they could within reason. Uh busing is expensive and things like that. So she got creative and she reached out to the county carts
073bus and that service has been providing uh food transportation for her class. And today they went to Butllo in downtown Fredonia and they iced cookies um they insurance some dough and things like that and coincidentally u Mr. Santa Claus showed up too at the same time. It was kind of weird. So, it was a nice little experience for the kids. Um, and then I want to thank April Hartown for being proactive. Um, she's has her winter concerts this week, Thursday and Friday. Uh, we have a nice little ticket system because some of our concerts are during the school day. So, it's just a way to kind of monitor uh the adults that are in and out of this building. And I want to thank the high school uh food and garden club again for thinking
074win-win. Today, they took locally sourced carrots and uh sweetened them up with honey and another little flavoring. and the second graders today had an opportunity to try this um this uh vegetable and it was actually really good. And then lastly, I want to thank uh Miss McAfee for synergizing uh with the most recent um Balloons Over Broadway uh unit that I talked about. It went off with the hitch the day before we left for uh Thanksgiving break. And what I mean by synergizing is that it brought the staff together. We had the PE teachers helping monitor the halls. We had the RTI teachers working with the kids. We had the special areas doing the uh robotics for the uh parade. And then we had the classroom teachers of course doing the the crafts and decorating
075the halls. And I want to thank um John in advance for a little lenience. Our you know fire inspection is tomorrow and uh or Thursday. So blinders. [laughter] So thank you to everybody. Appreciate it. >> Thank you Mr. Der. exciting activities at the uh leading up to Christmas. That's great. >> Miss Frell, $10,000 at Polar Point. >> Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. >> Yeah. Mr. Telli commented that there were a total of 43 kids there. Um Mrs. Thomas told me it was the best weather day they've ever had for I was not able to be. That was during the school day. But um I think by the time they were there, the temperatures in the 30s, it was calm and no wind. So water is a, you know, nice warm 42 degrees. So I guess it went
076off really well. Um, and you know, Mr. Drawinger highlighted a lot of things which involve a lot of our special ed students. So um, I don't have a whole lot of news, but I would be remiss if I didn't um, mention Olivia Irv and Jackie Monahan, too, members of our special ed team that have been short timers at Fredonia. I would say Olivia has been here just a little over a year as clerk too in my office and Jackie has been here just since the beginning of this year as a school psychologist. So in the short amount of time both of those ladies have been here. They've made a huge impact and I'm very sad that they're moving on and I wish them the best in their future endeavors. >> Great. Thank you, Miss Frell.
077>> Miss Piper, leading up to Christmas you have any idea that it was reindeer day, >> right? It was very exciting. very exciting time at Lei. Um we're getting ready to celebrate the winter solstice. Big shout out to Alan Poy who has created a big sun moon in our hallway to show us how much daylight time there is each day and changing it. So the kids are actually having a visual to see what that looks like. So we're looking forward to celebrating that next Friday with our we always have our big pajama day that day. Um I do have to uh put a shout out and thank Mrs. for mentioning um the related services need and as an educator for over 35 years your chairperson for the preschool committee on special education it is imperative
078that we have these services for our students what we've seen this year with the addition of our cyst classroom has been remarkable kids that are in our district that we're getting reimbured for the county for some of those services I actually was talking to Miss Wilson today about the declassification of some of those students and it's only December because they've been able to get those services at a young age and I know that it costs money on that end of it. Um we do get a lot of that money reimbured by the county but the payoffs are huge if you look at any research looking at getting providing early intervention for services. Closing that gap for kids that are having speech issues, fine motor issues, gross motor issues when they're two, three, four years old
079versus waiting not providing those services until they're seven, eight, nine, 10. it ex potentially exponentially increases the costs, the needs and whatnot. So again, a shout out to Michelle and for our staff. I am a huge promoter, as you all know, of early intervention because it works. And so, um, thank you for that. And I again, I thank the board for supporting the CIS classroom. I'm actually hoping to grow that program, providing more supportive services for our students because it works. And then hopefully down the road, they don't need as many special ed services or support services. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Barrow. >> Great. Thank you, Miss Piper. We'll certainly have rigorous discussion about it. So, thank you, Dr. Wright. >> Couple shout outs. Um I'm sure Dr. Zillows will talk
080more about Wednesday evening. The music department was um honored in Rochester, New York um for their award with [cough] And then um I wanted to also give a shout out to Lindseay Moon. She's a high school um history teacher and she is in the adviser for the student ambassadors and they took a trip down to Welock before Thanksgiving and they're really trying to be role models in the school and engage with younger students to see about getting engaged for doing what it means to you know work hard and the seven habits and all of that. So they actually went down and spent that half day in Wheela and talking to Mrs. Moon she said the high school kids got were far more excited than the younger ones. So that was really neat. um and to
081Mimi joint high school teacher, math teacher and her just endless work of finding grants and new ways of of doing things and supporting and growing and providing opportunities like you heard. Um thank you to our maintenance department who works so hard to plow and is here in the freezing cold and times when um we're not. So shout out to them and some behind the-scenes people that you may not be aware of. Angie Welock um who oversees our IT department and Laura Lazarsk who's the district office secretary. They work endlessly with the data and the data requirements and the everinccreasing requirements by state ed for more and more and more data, more and more and more reports all the time. So, um, you don't see them, they're quiet and they're in the background, but they really
082do just a yman's task and I just wanted to highlight and say thank you to them. >> Thank you, Dr. Wright. Um, you know, it's great that you shout out, you know, give out shout outs and acknowledge staff and, you know, we got a lot of great staff here and it's good to acknowledge that and recognize them. That's great. Thank you, Mr. Forbes. Anything else, >> Miss Morrison? >> No. Okay. Um, so um we uh anticipate the need to enter into the executive session to discuss personnel matters. Uh, can I have a motion to bring that to the floor? >> Miss Han, a second. Second, Mr. Martin. Thank you. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Uh thank you all for attending. Drive safe out there. Uh students, anybody up here signs?