FCSD Board Meeting May 6 2025

001So quiet. Uh welcome to the Predia Central School Board of Education budget hearing meeting for Tuesday, May 6, 2005. And we start uh each meeting with the pledge of the flag. So please join me. I pledge algiance 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. So, uh, tonight we need to we have two meetings. This is the first of two. Uh, this is the special, uh, meeting budget hearing for May 6. And I need to we need to approve the agenda. So, could I have a motion? So, move. Miss Han, a second. Second, Miss For. Thank you. U all in favor? I opposed. Great. Next, uh we need to review uh the required annual meeting

002documents. So, I'm going to turn this over to Morrison. Yes. Uh the official notice in the papers uh appeared at the very beginning of April and run four times um with a couple of weeks in between until it reaches just before the meeting on I believe May 19th is the last time it will run in the observer. For the qualifications of voters, uh that has not changed, but I will read it just to make sure that everyone is aware. Uh in order to vote in the school elections, you must be a US citizen. You must be 18 years of age or older on the day of the vote. As far as a residency requirement goes, you must be a legal resident of the district for 30 days or more as of the date of that

003can be as a renter or as a homeowner. You may have to show proof of residency if you kind of sums that part up. Thank you, M. Morrison. Um, so next, uh, we need to hear the presentation of the, uh, ten of the budget for the 202526 school year. So, uh, we'll listen to it one final time, Mr. Forbes. Thank you. So, tonight will be the final draft of the proposal that will go over in a couple weeks. Under New York state regulation, the districts are required to have a budget hearing. Although, at this time, there's not any ability to change anything within the budget as the board has already adopted the proposed budget for a couple weeks from now in the book. This is something that New York State requires each district to do

004the final information before it's voted. So, taking a look at um what we have now, we have a few remaining unknowns which are all potential future impacts to our tax levy. That would be the final state aid. Apparently, there was a little premature in the announcement that the budget was getting close to New York State as it's still not passed and they're still not passing bills. We don't have final equalization or final assessments. Those all come in the summertime and are part of your tax levy adoption in the middle of August. proposed final expenditure taking away this slide. The middle is the draft that the board saw at the beginning of the last meeting and that should say 29 over on the right hand side. Uh but we did make some adjustments after that. So

005it was another $68,341 reduction which took your budget increase down to 5.23%. A breakdown of the expenditures because we took out 68,000 from the equipment line that did raise the percentage in the budget of salary and benefits. You can see you're just a tail over 70% now. And you can see the distribution across each of the other major expenditure areas. How do we get there? These are all the areas that we cut from the initial footprint in late January. And the only adjustment on this would be 68,000 again. Salary and benefits make up 5.09% of the total budget. You can see the instructional size 4.1 instructional size is 12.1. Part of that which I think I mentioned along the way is increase in the number of days we had and also we have a contract

006negotiation going on with one support unit and we have to compensate for a potential addition there. In this budget draft there are the resignations on the instructional side of five teaching positions in the high school principal. We have budgeted to replace all of those and also five of those individuals were eligible for staff retirement incentive. You may have wondered along the way why we didn't have any information up there for our non-instructional which is our head of maintenance and head of custo essentially with the restructuring of that department and the salaries necessary to get those positions replaced it's about a wash with what they had going out salary and benefits um we took a look at these multiple times no real changes there because we didn't change any of our equipment biggest increase is New

007York State teachers retirement which is a mandatory increase of 10.11% on 2425 salaries which represent 7 a 7 7.9% increase equipment materials and supplies with the adjustment we are now slightly below the 2425 budget so negative 2 or -2% there overall a 9% increase in equipment materials and supplies contractual expense in both services we're up 2.22% 2.5 in both which is our high cost special education all the computer services instructional instructional that the district receives plus things like alternate education some of things like autobond for the elementary school. So a wide variety of services there 114,000 death services and fund transfers. This is a principal interest on all district borrowings not including the come forthcoming proposition one project. You can see that at the bottom of the page where we did have to earmark 395,000

008in the 2526 budget for the first principle and interest payment on that. There's no revenue offset because we don't get that till the subsequent year because it is a categorical you have to spend it in one year to get it in the next proposed revenue summary. The only difference on this page would be a result of the change on the expenditure side which would be a reduction in your tax levy by the 68,000 for equipment. So you can see at the bottom that change state a percentage uh slightly up to 50.55% of our budget comes from the state and 45.92% comes from our tax levy. And you can see taking a look at the bottom 2122 forward that is the lowest amount of the tax levy as a percentage of the budget in those five

009years. The breakdown of revenue 45.92 is shown on the last slide. School tax levy you got 50% for state aid federal source federal aid and local sources. Things like interest income, non-resident tuition make up a small percentage of the budget and the remaining 1.96 is the amount that we've assigned as appropriated fund balance. In this budget, there is a capital outlay project for $100,000, which will be field work at the Main Street campus on the athletic fields. Also, class classroom floor replacement in the elementary school required New York State Architect's fee. And a reminder, the district does receive 82.7% back on a total cost of 100,000. In order to do any work outside, we do have to do the the 10,000 of inside. We had this slide up for a few of the presentations just

010a reminder of some of the services that we do share participating in co-ops. Of course, our utilities electric national gas. We buy our district fuel through a cooperative agreement with Rosonia. We share services with districts for transportation, special education, and also art. The tax levy le levy limit is commonly known as a 2% tax cap load is not because districts have the ability to apply various exclusions. In our case this year our tax levy limit was 4.65%. The draft before you is 2.59%. So we are in compliance with the tax levy limit and we are not seeking a 60% plus majority vote for that. If our budget is defeated twice we have to be in compliance with the administrative cap which is 11.51%. The district is currently $9,178 under that cap and therefore in compliance

011should the need arise there. This slide shows tax levy limit in comparison to what our actual tax levy has been going back to the initiation of that in the 201213 school year. Our 10-year average 2.59 this year. Our 10ear average is a 1.33% increase in taxes over 10 years and a 5year average of 1.71. And you can imagine how that relates to your own budgets at home in terms of what's gone up over that time period. In comparison, the tax levy limit was 2.29 over 10 years and 2.40 over 10 years. So you can see that we're a pretty good amount below in each of the five and 10 year looks at that amount. The X's on the right hand side represent the years in which we were below the cap and in all years

012we did not exceed the cap and did not meet the 60% majority vote. our comparative tax levy just to show how done had a number of years where you're between zero and one and the last couple years of course a little bit higher than that you're at 2.59% on this and a reminder that in that 2.59% 1.9 is the previously approved proposition one for the upcoming capital project and finally compared to budget data with the adjustments we made since the last meeting you're at 5.23% of spending or $38 million 36005 budget. Thanks, Mr. Forbes. Um, any final questions from the board? There is something I'm curious about. Why is why is it so high our tax levy limit the 4.65? Good question. I tax levy limit is based on a couple of things and each

013year you take a look at changes in the employees retirement system and the teachers retirement system. And if there's a significant change, you're able to apply exclusions against your levy. So this year that wasn't applicable, but it has been in the past. You also have to take a look at any pilot agreements, payment in le of taxes that you have, any lease arrangements, which for us is essentially copiers in the offices and factor in both current year and next year. And then you also take a look at the same for debt service for what you're paying on interest and principal and what you receive in state aid. All those things combined then go into the formula where you have a growth adjustment from the state and also the CPI adjustment. In our case this year,

014the 4.65 resulted because of the 325,000 additional 395,000 additional that we had to apply for the project which then changes the proportion of your debt service and that bumps it up. So it's very possible in some year you might be at zero or close to it. Some years you might be at 4.65. Just varies based on all those factors. Lot lot of factors. A lot of factors. We know your stuff though. That's good. Uh any other questions? No. If you could just speak again, I know we talked about this, but um looking at the average inflationary rate over the last five years at 3.3% including 22 uh at 8%, 23 at 4.12%. Obviously, that means it's harder and harder for us to purchase the things that we need to purchase because our dollars don't go

015as far as they used to. Correct. Correct. In addition to that, we are seeing increased things like fuel costs are higher. Um, labor rates are are higher. Um, how do you factor that stuff into creating a budget that at at the moment is, you know, a 2% effective tax raise? Like, how do you balance that? Like, what work goes into that? Well, obviously, we've been talking about this now since the middle of January. And I have to tell you that probably within the last 10 years, this was by far the most difficult. Um, we've had numerous conversations with the administration with Dr. Box almost every day. We're talking about different things we can do and we had factors that we don't normally have. We have two labor contracts coming in. We picked up all the

016positions in the American Rescue Plan last year which now you have to carry forward and obviously everything else is going up. So, we were fortunate that we got a a decent increase in state aid which helped. Uh obviously we've trimmed the surplus items that may be fund balance in some years below where there's a comfort and all those things together hopefully will get us through to where we have to be for next year. Uh you're a path that you're on right now is not a good path because we've had the decrease for a wide variety of reasons that we talked about decreasing fund balance over four or five year period and now we're basically been maintaining it in some point as you know you have to buy things you have to fix things you have

017to build things and that's that's where we are now. So, it's going to be a challenge likely for the next few years moving forward unless there's some significant change. Um, and then just as a followup, I know it was in the slide, but can you talk about the increases that we've as a board, this district has asked of the taxpayers starting in 2020? Is that 1% increase? Do you have that information? In terms of the tax levy? Yeah, the tax levy. I apologize. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you take a look going back, so if you take a look at this, you're really looking at one year since 201213 that you've been over 3%. And only two years that you've been over 2%. Over a 10 12 year period. And so the board has done

018a a good job in taking into account the taxpayers and the situation in the community to try to keep it as low as possible, which is a a good thing to do obviously. At the same time, each of those years that you trim a little, trim a little, trim a little, then it narrows what you have for fund balance, it narrows what you can do with applying to reserves and things of that nature. It's all I mean, it's all part of the process that you go through. That's pretty Thank you. Any other questions at all? Yeah, it's uh it's difficult also to approve for you for us to approve a budget when the uh revenue state aid is a moving target. We have no idea the exact number we're going to get. So yeah, and

019the real thing is that uh and it's different for schools than other municipalities and counties and town and all that stuff because you are eliminated in the fact that the only way that you can get something big is you have to ask for it and have it voter approved and realistically if you had a a huge ask 10 12 15% increase in taxes and the ability to vote on it, you yourself might not vote on it because you have the ability to do that where other entities don't. So that brings you down to how do you build revenue? You don't have many choices. 50% is state. So if the state levels out, that's off the table. You can't increase the tax levy without going over 60%. So essentially, that takes that off the table because

020really, unless you had something really significant to propose to the community, you're going to want to try to keep that in a relatively nice place, which is what we've seen over a long period of time. So that leaves you with essentially 2 or 3% of your budget which is made up of fund balance on local sources. And what are the local sources? You have tuition that's been pretty stable. You have interest income that's been good. You have things like Medicare reimbursement which varies yeartoear, but it has been helpful in revenue. But you're not going to gain a lot from admissions to to sporting events. You're not going to gain a lot in additional rent school because that's just a factor of how finances are. you're kind of pigeonhold into what you can do and that's

021the nature of the school districts because you can't can't increase it arbitrarily. Again, that previous slide tell us the story you know over the years you know 1.3 1.7 in the last five years with inflation 8% 4%. It's a it's a tough job. It's a tough, you know, you have you have a very tough job balancing budgets and this was a difficult year. And as we talked about from the perspective of my job, I would always say go to the tax cap, but that's not the perspective the board and the superintendent have. They have to say what is reasonable for the community, what is reasonable to keep us going in the district. It's a different look yet. Sure. Okay. Thanks, Mr. Forbes. Um, let's move on. Um so uh next we uh hear from the

022public on the proposed budget. Uh board is allowed this time to hear questions from the public on the proposed 2526 budget. Individuals or groups are asked to limit your comments please to five minutes or less and state your name and address. So anybody would like to comment tonight on the budget. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Hi my name is Linda Shields. I live at 227 Seymour Street in Fredonia. I've lived in this community since 1985. Um I realized listening to your presentation that you take great pains in putting together a budget. I was an administrator myself at one time and had to put together a budget and I know how difficult it is. Um and I see that you have a number of shared services. I know in the past Fredonia has tried to consolidate

023with other schools and I don't see our economic situation getting any better. As you've said yourself, it's going to become increasingly difficult to put together a budget. I know for this budget it's too late for what I'm saying to you, but in the future um I'm wondering if you would give consideration to consolidating with another school. I know Brockton was one that you tried to consolidate with in the past and it was shot down. Um, I'm hoping that in light of most school districts being in the situation that you're in, um, maybe they would give consideration to it. Now, in the past, one of the the issues that people objected to was, um, having their high school teams and kids from other districts felt, oh, we might not get playing time or things like that.

024Well, now it's hard to put together a team from one school district. So, I'd like to think that maybe that is not so much an issue anymore. But you look at the population of Shiitakwa County, um it's not getting bigger. We have 18 school districts in Shiakwa County, which for about 7,500 students throughout the entire county. Um, I would hope we would give further consideration to consolidation of schools. Thank you, Mr. Shields. So, and I would be happy to serve on a committee if you decided to do that. Thank you. Thank you. Um, so what I'm hearing from you is you'd like us to consider consolidation in the future. Yes. U not this budget obviously, but obviously you can. Future future budgets. Yeah. Um just on teams we do field almost every team but other

025schools can't. We usually correct Dr. Zilax we do um the vast majority. Yeah but we do accept teams from other schools that can't if you can feel you know it doesn't impact our team. So but well I know that was one of the objections in the past. Sure. the kids were fearful that if they went to a bigger school like Fredonia, they wouldn't have the opportunities to play. Um, and there was the whole identity issue. You know, people identify with their communities, and I understand that, but I think we're kind of at a point in time where we need to think differently and maybe consider consolidation of services. Great. Thank you for your comments. Thank you. Anybody else like to speak to the board, mistakes? Sorry, you know my name. I gave your name already.

026Just your address is I can't be right back there in the book stacks. Okay. My name is Mary Day. 4422 Osborne Road. So, I don't wish to be here. I have plenty of things to do, but I feel compelled to be here. You know, I've come to some meetings and I don't mean to be a rabble rouser or be adversarial, but I do feel compelled. And my intent was after last week is after the public comment. Oh, I meant to put my stopwatch. Um, you can't really answer back. So, I thought I would write a letter and just state my purposes again as a summary. The week escaped me and I only did it late last night. So, I have this letter to read to you as a matter of record and I will email

027it to you after the fact. But if you would allow me just to indulge very briefly of um a little bit of nostalgia of why I speak the way I do. So the particular why I'm here is in this area western New York is my family goes back to 1850 here. Okay. The Eerie Canal was built. The Eerie Railroad kind of ended in Dunkerk for a while. I envision my ancestors saying let's let's settle here. Okay. But that that's how far it goes back. one of the first churches, one of the first school houses, St. Mary's on the lake. Okay. So, but come back now to over, you know, a hundred years later, I'm here. My four brothers and I were born and raised in Fredonia. So, we are longstanding here. We're not carpet baggers,

028you know, we were here. We're deeply rooted here. Uh I have to say that my brothers and I did not int uh attend Fredonia Central School. We intended one of the local prochial schools at that time. For the people who are new here, Mr. Forbes might know there were at least a dozen prochial schools here. Dunkerk Fredonia taken Silver Creek teaming with students. So much so that we had our own basketball league. Okay. Now, as a prochial student, we didn't know the bells and whistles. We didn't have we just knew what we had. I remember once every other Friday getting a manila sheet of construction paper and that was our art. It was like and we were happy to do it. Sometimes we get pieces of paper with printing on the other side that we

029would use. I don't know, maybe some industrious teacher even got castaways from the public school and that I don't know. Then my brothers and I went to Carl Manzani High School, the local progal school. Again, we didn't have bells and whistles. We certainly didn't have swim team. We didn't have a pool, but we got by with what we had. And Manzani produced a lot of wonderful, fine, competent graduates. And we might call we had a classic education. what it what they obviously you need money but we made do with what it was and as students we didn't know what we didn't have but classic educa classical education where we went on to many fine places it's what you do within the walls in your humble circumstances the birth the student achievement is as many kids

030back in the day we had to you know spread our wings my brothers and I were able to go to private schools not by any money my parents had it was through scholarships and things I personally went to St. Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana. Okay. Then I lived in New Jersey a while. I had gotten married very soon. And then all my children were born in Colorado, which is where my teaching profession took off kind of thing. But in a desire of the concrete jungle that was becoming, we wanted a more rural lifestyle. We chose here because it's all I knew. But this is a very uncomfortable thought that I have now is if I could go back in time, would we have chosen here New York State? It's so problematic and the taxes

031are just becoming so burdensome that I don't know that we would have. That makes me very uncomfortable to even think that. Certainly, younger people are going and with the increases in taxes, they they're getting their exit strategies together. They really are. And so, it's just kind of that sad scenario. We don't want to move. Okay? We we like where we live. We're older. We have beautiful property, but we I have this vested interest of all these ancestors behind me to make it a viable place to live. We don't want to move. I we don't want to be in that position. So that's just my walk down a little bit memory lane a little bit and not a carpet bag or not. This goes we have a vested interest in the area. So this is the

032letter I have a little bit of time left um of the letter and I will I will get to so it's two for central school board. I have been attending board meetings in an attempt to provide input regarding the tax burden on residents, how to reasonably minimize it, and to encourage various actions to at least investigate, if not improve, some of the district's challenges and problems, many of which I am aware of from working in the district 26 years before retirement last June. While I am bold enough to speak out, it is discouraging that I am viewed as an adversary by some people, including some within the teachers union leadership and ranks and most likely some administrators and board members. The budget vote is nearly upon us. So, in summary, our points I have made

033in prior communications and due to inaction is why we'll vote no on the budget encourage others to do the same. One, do not replace retiring teachers. I know I've stated this before, but it's a matter of record. Enrollment doesn't warrant it. There are only about 64 students or so in the current preK. Staff could also be redistributed at the 56 level to accommodate one less teacher. Retiring teachers are at a top of the pay scale, which means together with their added benefits could save the district well over 200,000. That alone would have reduced the district's budget. There will come a time when you will have to lay off teachers. If you took this action this year and on my retirement last year, you would have saved three teachers jobs at the other end when it

034comes time and even last year when there were three elementary teachers or whatever it was. That's a good thing. I'm saving jobs down the road. The budget hasn't even gone up for a vote yet. So, how is it that the union says, quote, "Every building will maintain the current FTA positions." At some point, you're also going to have to think about the taxpayer expense of being topheavy topheavy with too many administrators. At the last board meeting, I quoted some comments from the meeting I had missed. One of which included the superintendent quote cautioned against cutting any of the positions, especially without further evaluation. I am at 5:30. I will continue later at that point in the letter. Sure. No, there's 30 seconds of them to wrap up if you'd like. I'll wait. Thank you. You'll

035send that to us? Yes, but I will continue my letter in the second public portion. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Um, anybody else like to speak for the board on the budget? Um, actually days the the next the regular session doesn't have the bud. Oh, at the end for anything, right? At the end. Okay, got it. Uh, next we'll hear the report on items to be voted upon at the special meeting of voters. Uh, turn it back over to Miss Morris. We have two items on the ballot for this vote. The budget amount uh as you can see stated in the agenda 38,336,05 and we have one name that appears on the ballot for the one available seat on the board of education. Uh and that is great. Thanks in advance to Mr. Martin for volunteering

036his time uh to the board. That's fantastic. Um okay. Finally, we uh need to approve the proposition to be used in the voting machines for the 202526 school year budget vote on May 20th, 2025. It'll be resolved at the Fredonia Central School Board of Education. We'll expend a budget amount not to exceed 38,336,5 for the 202526 fiscal year and a levy necessary taxes. Therefore, uh could I have a motion to bring that to the table? Certainly, Mr. Marshall. A second. Second, Miss Han. Thank you. All in favor? I opposed. Great. Uh so that's wraps this one up. So, we will now recess the special district meeting until May 20th, 2025 at 2 p.m. Could I have a motion? So, move. I'm sorry. So, were you ready for I was Thank you. And a second. Second.

037Thank you, Miss Fora. All in favor? I opposed. All right, that's the end of the first meeting. Um, now we uh move right into the regular meeting. Um we're not gonna have any break, but if you were here just for the budget and don't want to speak in the second half, uh you're free to go. And thank you for uh for coming. But we're going to move right into the second meeting now. And that's uh the regular meeting uh for Tuesday, May 6, 2025. Already on the porch, I have to do that again. I pass that. I'll go right into approving the agenda for the regular meeting of May 6, 2025, including personnel and new business, excluding uh item A in new business. Um we didn't have any um extra addendums or anything. Okay. Um

038have a motion to bring that to the table. Mr. Marshall, a second. Second, Miss Fora, we all have busy jobs today. Um, is there anything that you'd like to anybody who'd like to have pulled out a consent tonight? You good? Okay. All in favor? I opposed. And now we're moving into our uh first uh public session for the regular agenda and it's the same as what I mentioned earlier and that it has to be directly related to the uh the agenda of this regular meeting. Does everybody like to speak on this agenda at all? Have a lot of students here tonight. That's good. Welcome. All right. Well, we're bypass that and move right into approving the minutes of the last meeting, regular meeting of April 29, 2025 as submitted. Could I have a motion to

039bring that to the table? Miss Forma. A second. Second. Thank you, Mr. Marshall. All in favor? I opposed. going too quick here. Um, well, that moves us right into our presentations. We have two presentations tonight. The first one is by Mr. Bennett. So, uh, Dr. Zelox, any comments? We're going to start with Miss Far. That's okay. Oh, we're going to start with Miss Pharaoh. Okay. There you go. So, yeah, each year, uh, Mrs. Pharaoh was nice enough to come and give us an overview of all that is uh special education um and everything going on with our program. So, thank you for uh preparing this for this evening and uh we appreciate you uh taking the time to share information with us. Well, thanks for allowing me the opportunity tonight. I'm hoping I can get

040this clicker to work the right way. I have to aim at the side button. That one. That's what I tried. Okay. Yeah. Doesn't seem I'll be your client. You do it, but go back one slide. You skip. Okay. I'll be your clip. So, um, special education's roadmap is the New York State Education Department blueprint, which is here for you. And it is focused on seven core principles. One, self- advocacy. Two, parent partnership. Three, access to the general education standards and curriculum for students with disabilities. Four, research based on high quality instruction. and five multi-tered systems of support that include both behavioral and academic supports. Six inclusion and seven career development and work-based opportunities. There are including preschool special ed school age students with disabilities and 504 eligible students with accommodation plans. A total of, and

041this is a year-to- date figure that was from April 30th, 409 students with disabilities in our district. that represents about 25% of our total uh P12 enrollment. So drilling down to just school age students with IEPs, our special education classification rate is slightly over 16% right now. Shitaka County uh stands at 17% in New York State at 19% and that is based on the state data that's available on the state website. By way of distribution across the 13 special ed classifications for school age students with disabilities 77 77 sorry a percent of our students are identified in three areas most predominantly that would be learning disability speech or language impairment and other health impairment. I've you know presented this information in the past. The distribution of students across these classifications really does the numbers change

042but the the distribution stays very similar from year to year. What is changing however is our overall number of students with disabilities. So if you pay attention to the dark blue bar there that represents preschool. Um the trend line shows an increase um from the 1920 school year to present and it's a year-to- date figure of about um the percent change is 40%. So there's a slight increase um not a slight increase but an increase there and preschool special ed is increasing a little more slower than 504 school age. So our school age increase is um percent change from 1920 the current year to date is 50% and 504s is 73%. Um so I I started this kind of trend line at the 1920 school year. That was the year that COVID occurred. Um in

043years past I've really done a retrospective about 10 years. I just felt like that was a lot of information. But when I look back at it, the years before CO were sort of stable. Um I would say that the fluctuations were commensurate with overall enrollment since CO. There are definitely increases. I cannot tell you that that's caused by COVID, but I can just clearly see as you can there's a correlation. So how do we bring students into special education? So there's a couple of different ways. One would be students transfer into our district already identified with IEPs. I I can't really explain why the trend of transfer in is increasing to the extent that it is, but that is data from o over the last five years to year to date. The second way we

044get students into special ed is really through a referral process and there's two different prongs to that. There's an inschool process which really happens through our students assistance teams at the building levels. Um and that would be represented by the dark blue line and you can see the trend line there that that's pretty stable over time. Um the orange bar represents parents who make direct referrals to cse and there has been a significant increase in that since the 1920 school year. So that is really a parent contacting my office me directly and saying I'm concerned about my child and I want that evaluated and I I feel that that trend is definitely you know you can see on the rise and I think parents are really reaching out for help for their children. On the

045other side of that how do we exit students from special education that also occurs in a couple of different ways. students can transfer out of the district or they are exited through graduation or unfortunately sometimes through dropping out. Um the light blue bar there represents students that have exited in that manner over time. And the second way students can exit special education is they are declassified through a prescribed process of re-evaluation. So that means new testing, looking at progress monitoring, and that re-evaluation is mandated every to occur at least every three years for students in special education. And that orange just represents a total of those two combined. Um, you know, just back to that really quickly. The the last, you know, chunk of data there again is year to date. We're going to have

046more students that exit by the end of the year. So those trend lines are going to flatten out a little bit. So, how do we make these decisions for students? And I my intention, don't worry, is not to read this entire slide to you. Um, but there the process is the committee on special education for preschool students. It's the committee on preschool special education. It is a formal mandated process through the state education department. Um, why I'm showing you this is I really want you to just appreciate the the detail of required membership for every student that we meet on There are also driving questions that we have to consider at each meeting for every student. And those would be, for example, are we evaluating comprehensively? Do we have knowledge of instruction that's received in

047general education? Are we considering all aspects about students and their needs? Are we considering unique student information? Are we effectively eliciting parent partnership and input? And are we making sure we're placing students in the least restrictive environment? And just a little bit about these meetings. There's a lot of them. Um, and I crunched some numbers and the, you know, numbers change all the time, but so far this year, we've had 323 meetings of the Committee on Special Education with 73 more to go. So, we're going to be right at around 400 by the end of the year. Preschool is going to be around 92 meetings across the course of the year. 504 would there's 77 already been held and more being scheduled. And there's another meeting process that's called a manifestation determination. And we've held

048seven of those this year. So grand total, you know, across the school year, we're sitting at about 570 meetings throughout the course of the year. These names are important. They're critical to our process and they're um they're just an important piece. So I guess that's what I wanted to drive home. Um least restrictive environment again is a significant driver of special education decision making. So 100% of the time when we meet and discuss students, we are striving to keep our students in general education to the extent possible with supports or we're excuse me working to keep them here or as close as possible to their home. So Kate, you go to the next slide. Um so this is just a depiction of least restrictive environment. 88% of our students with disabilities are here in our

049indistrun programs. Outside placements, 6% are in Bose special ed, 3% are in Boseis, Jenna. Those would be programs like alternative education, wave, um I can't think of other ones, but some of the Bosey's general ed or career and tech ed with special ed support. And then we have a number of students, small numbers, 1% or fewer, and some other placements such as Victory Academy, Summit Center, other public schools, home instruction, which would be um kids that we have placed on home instruction while they're awaiting a more specialized placement or home school. Um and you know, so who's doing the the good work here of special education? This is just a depiction of our staffing. Uh we have 27 instructional positions distributed across buildings as you can see there and we have 19 related services or

050per people personnel services staff which would include people personality school counselors school social workers school psychologists um to make all of these things work all of these meetings all the paperwork I have two excellent remarkable clerical staff in my office and administratively um there is one director of special education for the So, um, I wanted to talk a little bit about related services. Um, so this doesn't tell the whole picture, but I guess I'm just giving you up there. These are the case loads of our therapists. So, you can read those numbers, but what I want to talk about a little bit is case load versus workload. So, um, you know, if you average it out, our OT's are seeing about 24 kids per therapist. Our speech are seeing about 35. Our counselors are really

051distributing those kids across building levels based on goodness of fit. Um for the kids in OTPT and speech, most of those students are receiving therapy at at least twice a week. Some services are provided individually, some in groups. Scheduling is really challenging for them because our therapists have to work their schedules around the school day and around other mandates because there's lots of them, right? Um so you know this it's a tough um it's a challenge every year to kind of get all this to work and orchestrate all the our related services are also on a regular basis conducting new student screens. They're doing evaluations. They're doing re-evaluations. They're writing a report for every one of those evaluations that they're doing. They are um writing case notes for every child that they see. And those

052case notes are important because you know Mr. Forbes talked a little bit about um he called it Medicare. It's actually Medicaid. Um our therapists are able to bill Medicaid for services under what's called the school supported health services plan because those OTP speech and counseling are seen as medically necessary for our special students to have access to um education. So they have to write a case note for every child that they see so that Medicaid banning can take place. They also attend meetings. They write IEPs. They progress monitor goals. So there's a lot that goes on in this world. Um you know the number of students with IEPs has increased significantly over time. Therefore the number of students requiring related services has also increased. And with those mandated services, there's less time for our folks

053to provide preventative services, interventions, improvement groups. So, um, you know, we've added some self-contained classrooms at the primary and elementary grades. Almost all of the students in those classrooms, that would be our 611 or 811 or 1211, excuse me, receive one or more related services. So, it really just kind of compounds the the challenges of fitting these kids into a schedule. So, I just, you know, I feel like that's an important piece to understand. U, I'm going to shift a little bit to talking about state performance plan. So, the state performance indicators are public schools districts accountability measures to the state education department. So we're accountable to state ed to ensure that we are meeting the requirements and purposes of the federal education law that governs special education or the IDA. So um on the

054next slide you will see there's a list of 17 different performance plan indicators. Some are compliance indicators, some are results indicators. So the ones that are in black um type are collected via standard data submission and reporting just kind of happens through different mechanisms every year. The indicator in red indicators in red are they require a more active reporting process. So we have to actually do some things um every district does and they're spread out in AC across a sixear cycle um every for every district. So this year I have got a couple of things highlighted there. A 2425 school year. This year our indicator is preschool outcomes. So that means we're reporting on um the effectiveness of our preschool special ed services. So that is done by a pre-ervice uh rating of students and

055then a when they're finished with their pre preschool services we do a post survey and we submit that data to say state ahead and we see that we've had effective services. Next year we are going to be um responsible for indicator 8 which is parental involvement in the special education process. So this is really state measuring how we have partnered with parents how we've involved them in decisions regarding their students with special education needs and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. indicator two at the top. Um that is one that we it's a data collection indicator but um and I may have mentioned this in the past. We were cited um Kate if you can switch to the next slide it for the 232 24 school year as not having

056met our target in um students with disabilities dropping out. So we had too many students with disabilities that dropped out of school. That citation resulted in what has been a year-long process called a TSG or targeted skills group. So I have um had to coordinate a group which really involves high school personnel and administration and we meet with representatives from state ed and other districts that are also in this targeted skills group. These meetings have all been done by Zoom but they've been done um about every other month. They're pretty timeconuming and we are invested in a pathway change process and what we focused on in our particular district is giving our students with disabilities better opportunities to have some work-based learning opportunities to have a um path to a seed credential which is career

057development and occupational um standards so that they um are I guess more invested in their uh secondary education and that we give them some skills that they need if they're not collegebound or even if they are collegebound to enter into the workforce and have um a really quality skill set. So back to indicator 8 which is the parent involvement that's our indicator for this year. We also are starting a targeted skills group for that indicator. So the targeted skills group for indicator 2 is a reactive it's a reaction to data that's been collected. Indicator 8 um targeted skills group is proactive. So state is saying, "Okay, every district next year that has to do parent involvement in the special ed process, we're going to meet with you before you start that and we are going

058to talk with you about best practices in partnering with parents. And the way that this partnership is measured is through a survey that we have to give to parents at meetings. They submitted back. we have to get a certain percentage of surveys back and state that looks at the data from those surveys and tells us how well parents are rating us and our efforts to partner with them. So that's some of the important work that we do and then um really just a couple of highlights. So I some of the things that in my opinion and it it's really hard to kind of think through all the things that happen and like what what am I really proud of? Um over the last couple of years we have developed some uh additional instructional uh mechanisms

059at the high school. We have 151 classes now which are self-contained. Um in other words, just special ed students in a class taught by a special ed teacher. So we haven't had the opportunity to do this so robustly in the past, but we're instructing our special ed students that need it in a small group for ELA, math, science, and social studies at the high school. Those kids are earning credits for those classes and they're really meeting with success. We're expanding those SEOs credential options and exploration for high school students. Amanda Laro is our transition coordinator and she's really doing some remarkable things. She's linking our kids with Access VR which is um a state ed arm of state ed that helps our students with disabilities find jobs. They provide job coaching. They provide career counseling.

060They'll even provide driver training so that our kids can get jobs and get there. Um she also has a program from the resource center called promote youth coming into the building. Um they're working with kids in the classroom and resource rooms to really talk about workplace readiness, career exploration. Um and really supporting students directly in those endeavors. And we're providing some in-house work opportunities for our kids. So some of those are some of our kids are working in the print shop, they're working in the cafeteria, they're working in the locker, the school store, they're working in the tech office, which now has a student desk. So um some nice opportunities for kids and we're looking to grow those. And then um Kristen Thomaseski, as you know, is really the uh voice of unified uh unified

061sports, unified clubs. So kids this year have engaged in botchi, bowling, curling, basketball, unified physical education, the unified club. We are a unified banner school this year and the list continues to grow. Um there's just been a lot of excitement there between uh some meaningful inclusive events like the Polar Plunge and the Buffalo Bowl. Our students have arranged uh or our community has raised over $35,000 over the last four years for Special Education or Special Olympics of New York State. Um again we're a B national banner recognition school this year. We've met 10 standards of excellence which is a rigorous process and standards related to unified sports programs, inclusive youth leadership and whole school engagement. Um so just a lot of really good things happening there and there's some pictures to highlight some of the

062great things that have been happening. So I am happy to follow up on anything that anybody would like me to. So great. Thank you for your time. Um, any comments, questions? Thank you, Mr. Pash. Is it okay if I pop someone? Me, too. Um, I, this is just something I think the board needs to know and understand about Kristen and the team that's worked on this targeted skills group. Um, this has been an opportunity uh to grow for us in the sense that we could have approached this as the the number of students uh was something like two. It was a small number. Every student is a percentage in a district our size. So, so, and it was uh, you know, I think we could have approached this as, hey, these are kids that are

063in outside programs, don't even attend here, and there was only a couple of them. Let's not really engage, you know, in this process. But I I think from the get-go, the entire team saw this as an opportunity to say, "Hey, what do we do and how do we make it better anyway?" And I just I I just want to applaud Kristen for leading that because she came into it with that attitude and it was contagious and the group kind of got on fire with it and you know some of the things that are up there are a direct result of the this targeted skills group. So I think that was an amazing outcome of this even though you know it it's difficult to really affect things that are going on in programs outside of our

064school. you know, it it made us think, well, maybe if we had some programming here that would be more effective for kids that we wouldn't have to send them out, you know, we might be able to keep them here and then keep them in school. So, uh, just just kudos to to you, Chris. Great job. Thank you, I appreciate it. Um, you may have spoke on this. I was writing something down and you passed slide seven, Miss Morrison. Slide number seven, it's on the transfers and new referrals. Um I I retired from teaching in 2018, so just before this this graph illustrates, but um is it fair to say that things have changed in the seven years I've been out in terms of so what's happening here? Um and what are the numbers on the

065left hand side? Are they the numbers look like 20 students? Uh you have 0 10 20 30. Oh jeez. Maybe that might be that might be that would be okay. Well anyway. No, I don't think it is. That's correct. Yeah, never mind. I had to think about how I set that graph up. That's right. My question is the the light blue are transfers. So obviously trans a transfer is somebody that's come into the school. Well, so I in this case, somebody that transfers into our district and already is identified as a special education. Oh, I Okay. So, when that happens, we have an obligation to really align that IEP they're coming in with as best we can to compare services because every district does things a little bit differently. So, we compare what they're coming

066in with with what we have. A lot of times I make phone calls to the previous district, talk to them if I'm not if it's not real clear and figure out how are going to place them. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, it just striking the transfers. Yeah. A lot of It's interesting and I I can't explain why that number is increased. Maybe it's just attracting a lot of new students. I don't know. Yeah, we're attracting new students. That's great. Um they do have some needs. It looks like uh it's a it's a it's a juggling process as the board and administration balance the staffing and and the revenue. Um so it looks like it's fair to say that it's a little different from 2018 when I started in terms of number of schools coming. Yeah. And

067I don't think in talking to my colleagues in other districts and we're not alone. And I think the numbers of special ed are increasing, you know, in all over the place. And I, like I said, I I can't tell you that it's related to CO or I that it's caused by CO, but I can see a relationship there in the aftermath of that of the increases. And could you go to the next slide? Is that exiting? So you're having less You know, I it appears that way, but again, that last group of data from 24 25 th that blue bar is going to increase because we're going to exit more kids, right? Okay. You know, so I I don't know that it's a that we have a lot less kids leaving than coming in. I

068mean, I think there's some truth to that, but that that trend line is not going to be that slope's going to change. There may not be the trend there. Thank you. Any other questions from the board? Thank you. Yeah, just sorry. Just uh can you talk about uh at Welock we have a dozen instructional uh support staff or I'm sorry instructional staff there. That's we and we lock and elementary. Sorry. So as you as you progress through the grades, we have fewer and fewer. Why why the heavier concentration of the younger age? That's a great question and you can chime in if you'd like to too. But you know with our younger kids I would say especially at your building a lot of them are coming in identified with needs and their their readiness is

069not there and we find that we need to put a lot of our younger kids in self-contained set. So in other words just special art kids in a small group with a special education teacher. So there's more self-contained at the elementary and primary grades than there are at middle school and high school. So that's why you see that higher concentration. Do you think that's fair? I think that's very fair. I'd also say that we have a epidemic at the preschool level and that we don't have providers. Part of the reason that we're adding a classroom at preschool next year is because we have many many students who need services who are not getting them. So when they come to school age, they've either been at home or not received services that were indicated that they

070needed it at age two, age three, and age four. And those skills, those gaps just grow and grow and grow. Whereas early intervention, if we were able to address those issues when they were this big, a lot of the declassification would be much higher. But because we aren't addressing those issues, that gap is growing. And so we have many kids entering Christrista and I will sit on meetings together that they are at home and they should have been in a classroom or they should have been receiving services and they have not. It's it's a epidemic. So a little bit of investment at the younger age is going to pay dividends as they as they All right. Any other questions from the board? Well, thank you M chiming in. So uh that ends uh our special

071presentation on special ed. Uh, now we move into music education with Mr. Hello. It's nice to see you again. If you don't know me, my name is Andrew Bennett and I am the music department instructional leader. Uh, I'm so excited to talk to you about our wonderful music program today. So, I want to start by saying in the fall our district population was 1,424 students in grades K through 12. And of that, 1,160 of them were enrolled in a music class. So that's roughly 81% of the district population took at least one music course. Now, a lot of people know us by our ensembles, so I want to talk about that. Our ensembles are either curricular ensembles, these are music groups that meet during the school day for an academic grade, or extracurricular ensembles. These

072are like our middle school musical, our high school musical, our jazz ensembles, anything that happens outside of the school day. Our numbers continue to grow. We're at 916 students participating in our curricular performing ensembles. That means every week, rain or shine, there's almost a thousand Fredonia students receiving instruction in three rooms. Um, and our extracurricular participation is at about 519 students. So, just in perspective, 916 students is more than we had back in the 90s and 2000s, even though the district population has changed. and we've never had that high of level of extracurricular music participation. I definitely credit that to Mr. Wendell who I hate to compliment with the musical and the addition of a lot of other extracurricular music ensembles at the different buildings in different areas. All right. Now, this is brief summary,

073but I discovered as I do this every year to fit in the highlights, I have to get a smaller font. So, don't worry. I got better glasses. I can do this. So for the 12th year in a row, we were recognized as a best community for music education. That is a national honor that only about 2 to 3% of schools in the country receive. Uh we had over 200 students perform solos at Chicago County and state level solo festivals in 2024. That number is going to be even higher for next year. Uh so is this one. We had 187 students earn places in state and county honor ensembles. That's through competitive auditions. um which as you can see is almost every student who plays a solo for us. That's great. Other schools would love that.

074That does include one allstate musician and alternate. Grant Abby made All State for us and we had an alternate with Gilen Godinger. Just to give you a perspective, we're at a point in the state where about 400 students will receive a 100red on an all-state solo and not be selected. It is an incredibly competitive process where essentially you have to be the top 100 in the room at your festival. There are tens of thousands of students trying to get these spots. So, we are so proud of Grant and Gan for their honors. Uh, this is a big win. The Sha's Musical Theater Awards, we participated in that last year. Now, that is open to school districts of every size in Western New York. There are no classifications based on school size or level. And out

075of the I think there were over 20 schools that participated in that. We were recognized as third place for the best musical. And that is against schools that dwarf us in population. Uh, that is through competitive evaluation. They saw multiple versions of our show. There are very detailed writeups and because of that we were able to receive $1,500 in grants and also a little bit of bragging rights which we'll definitely take. We continue to offer a rigorous college credit sequence in music worth nine credits. I want to point out that the last time we offered the music theory exam 90% of the students earned credit that was 28% higher than the state average and 38 uh 30% higher than the global average. We hope to improve that on Monday when the next exam happens. Uh

076we continue to strengthen our partnerships with Sunni Fredonia and other cultural institutions. Our summer lesson program continues to grow. Thank you for approving it for this summer as well. We had over 80 students participate. For the third year in a row, the high school chorus performed with college students and renowned guest conductors at the Sunni Fredonia Coral Festival. It began as something where they're going to rotate through different choruses and now they liked Ryan's chorus so much that is the high school chorus they will use forever. Um we're very lucky to have a wonderful team of teachers except for me really. Um, we serve as clinicians, guest conductors, speakers all over the state. Uh, I know Mrs. Traus conducted some honor ensembles. I've had some opportunities to do that. We're really happy we can share

077our wonderful teachers with other student musicians. Last year, we had six ensembles perform at the NISMA Major Organization Festival. All earned gold for silver. Our fourth grade select chorus took first place at Daring Lake Music Festival for the second year in a row. And I know Mrs. Harton is hopeful it'll be a three repeat. I know. Um, fifth and sixth grade orcher students are participating in the all county spring festival at the Institution for the first time. Exclamation point. Oh, here we go. All right. And we've invited many guest artists to work with students, including musicians from the Buffalo Philarmonic, George Mason University. We had the Navy Commodores out here this fall, which was unbelievable. Uh, we brought in a saxophone player with the college from Australia. What a cool accent. An amazing player for

078people who know people in Australia. Uh, and even more Oh. Oh, sorry. Let me go back to this one. So, we started streaming during the American Rescue Plan. We had over 4,700 streams of concerts. I I just blew my mind. And Kevin does such a good job organizing this and sending these out to the community. But that's about 2600 more than we had last year. So, we are very glad that we can offer this as a way for members of our community to participate in our students achievements whether they can make it in our doors or not. We believe that in addition to being a good musician, we want our students to be good people. So, we invest a lot in character education. We're continuing to offer our pure mentorship program and string, chorus, and

079band buddies. Roughly 50 students participate in these programs this year, allowing a meaningful mentorship experience for both our high school and young students. We have had to limit this program slightly because our space is running out. Um, but I definitely want to give full credit Mrs. Trader who got us started on that. 14 new students were inducted into the Triam National Music Honor Society. That brings our chapter to a record high enrollment of 55 students. Exclamation point. Try members continue to inspire and connect with our youngest students through providing invitations to our pops concert and really developing more of these relationships cross level so they feel like they're part of a music family for their entire time here. Uh, the Triumph chapter partnered with Punt this year, a foundation that serves families in Western New

080York facing pediatric cancer diagnosises. The chapter raised over $1,000 this year and raffled off a signed Dawson Knox club. Uh, and over 30 student positions performed regularly at the Next Chapter bookstore this year, providing music to patron, students, and community members. I'll give them credit. Mrs. Terry is such a great adviser, but a lot of these the students are organizing themselves, which especially as we look into leader and retraining is certainly the kind of activities we're hoping to continue to pursue. Other examples of reaching out to the community students performed at the struggle literacy volunteers workshop. Our band was at the village of Fernon's Halloween trunk retreat. They always have more creative costumes than me. Our middle and high school chamber groups were still at the bookstore. Fourth grade hill harmonics see throughout Western New

081York shop institution si Fredonia PTO events dering lake and more. Uh and our high school students were able to spend time playing at perform Fredonia place that's always one of their favorite concerts of the year. They pack the hall for us. Uh and it's just so nice to be able to see again parts of our community that can't get to our performances. I want to give credit again for supporting the school instrument usage program. Our program to continue to provide instruments for families who economically are in need uh has only grown. We enter in our ninth year of doing this started with 20 38 47 58 63 77 99 127 and this year 165 students were able to participate in music who would not be able to participate without this program. Um and I talk

082to these families all the time. They were many times not able to participate in music before and they thought this would be an opportunity they would never be able to provide to their children and because of your investments. They are and those students typically remain with us for a very long time if not their full time. So it's wonderful that we are able to do that. Um I'll say as you know storage ensemble spaces continue to be an issue as we significantly increase the size of our instrumental groups. You've probably seen the racks in the hallways and everything but we're all on the same board about that. Um, we look forward to continuing discussions with the administration on this topic. And that's it. In conclusion, this goes without saying, but it's worth repeating. We are

083very proud of our students and grateful to our district and community. Fredonia is a special place. I'm so happy to live here. We look forward to working together to serve our growing enrollments. Next year's enrollments are projected to continue to increase. That is one advantage of me doing the presentation late presentation later in the year. It's I can tell you this trend continues. We continue to search for new and exciting experiences for our students and community and I wouldn't be a music teacher worth myself if I didn't advertise our next events. So, uh, next week we have a very special event at the college on May 13th. We partnered with them to put on our spring advanced music performance recital. These are students who are playing college level works with a come this. It's really

084a very unique thing that I'm glad we offer. And then I put up our high school, elementary, school concerts and our three middle school concerts and the elementary string recital. And always you can find up-to-date information including our online calendar events on our website or follow us on X and Facebook. And if you have any questions, I'd love to answer them. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Any comments from questions or uh I worked for years, still work in higher ed, the stat you put up about uh AP music, that's insane. Like that's a great thing because I used to look at those scores all the time and it was very uncommon to see a student taking an AP music theory and getting the the three or or higher. Two was a very common score. So the

085fact that I think you had 90% something 90% amazing. That's mindblowing. And then on top of that, tons of correlation between students who take music performing better in math and English and science. So the the greater the percentage of students we have taking music, the better it is for the university. So thanks to you to all the the music staff for all the hard work you do. Thank you very much. Anything else? Or my mother loves it when you bring ensembles to your place. She loves that. And uh you know, thank you for your can do positive attitude. Nothing's too small for you and it's reflected in your program for staff and students. Thank you very much. Thank you. [Applause] Well, on the housekeeping uh in the finance financial treasures reports, um no treasures report

086tonight, but uh we do need to approve a contract uh with children's educational services for occupational therapy services at a cost of $7,200. So, could I have a motion to bring that to the table? So, move Miss Han Marshall second. uh Dr. Zilox or Mr. Forbes. Oh yeah, just another way which we're able to meet student needs. Um you know as was mentioned um we are seeking a variety of providers and vendors in the area um to help address um the issues that are presented um each year within the district. So um I appreciate the work of Mrs. apparel and to find those vendors and find those services and uh make accommodations as needed. So, thank you. Great. Any questions from the board? All in favor? I opposed. Uh we need to approve the contract

087with Buffalo Hearing and Speech for Music and Speech Therapy Services as presented. Motion to add to the table. Mr. Marshall. A second. Second, Mr. For Thank you, Mr. Forbes. Dr. Zax um similar situation I believe Mrs. Sparrow these uh services are more as needed um and not necessarily a prescribed amount in the moment um but again gives us some flexibility and um additional services um as needed. Actually, just kind of a quick correction, but so we do have a two students that do receive music therapy currently and we contract that through Buffalo Hearing Speech as well as speech therapy for a homeschooled student. So, those are actually specific needs, but there's the potential that those needs will have as well. Gotcha. Thank you. Great. Any questions on that? All in favor? I opposed. And finally,

088we need to approve uh the resolution for the 202526 services commitment statement. Uh can I have a motion for that? Second. Um any questions on or I'm sorry, Dr. Z. Um as you know, we uh contract with most for a number of things across the district each year. We do go line by line through those services, make sure they're being utilized, make sure they're valuable, make sure we we still have students um who tap into those services or adults um or part of our program. Um it is reviewed very thoroughly. Um and at the end of the day, they're just looking for a commitment that um we're ready to take on those services again in the coming school year. Any questions on that? All in favor? I opposed personnel. All in consent. That's a rarity.

089Uh new business. So we have one item. Need to approve a resolution regarding workers uh at the budget vote. I think I'll go through the entire section there. Uh can I have a motion? Mr. Marshall. Second. Thank you, Dr. anything on this to speak on? Uh yeah, thanks to Kate for her work here who um you know puts uh the vote together. Um this is pretty much an annual um resolution. No changes. Um we appreciate um everybody who comes in and helps us get this done and uh typically very organized and uh thorough in what they do and we look forward to seeing people on May 20th. Questions? All in favor? I opposed. Wow. Okay, we're that's in consent. So, yeah, we're to the uh our second uh hearing for the public. I won't go

090through the entire paragraph, but it's name, address, five minutes. Uh could be on anything. Miss FS, you want to continue? Thank you. I wanted to state again, it's not meant to be adversarial. It's for what I stated before and the purpose of going down memory lane before if I didn't make it clear was to show the drastic decline in population through the decades and money throwing money at things often is not what it takes. Don't count this at my third as part of my assign. I'm going to stop for a moment because I want to speak to Andy Bennett. Okay, so so many things don't cost money. It could be teacher enthusiasm. And you wouldn't know this, Andy, but I was one of your biggest supporters of when kids would go off to music lessons

091that time of the day when then other kids were in study hall. I cracked the whip in study hall. He said, "You're going to do work here because your peers are going off learning a second language." And that's exactly what I called it. And that's and that's difficult. And I also said that's why I was an advocate of cursive handwriting. And I told the students is because it activates areas of your brain beneficial in your life similar to reading to to to read music and perform music. You wouldn't know that but that's okay. But it's not money that did it. It's you know the enthusiasm. So I'll start my time again. Okay. So um at the last board meeting I quoted some comments from the meeting I had missed. One of which included superintendent cautioned

092against cutting quote any of the positions especially without further evaluation end quote. I question why this wasn't an ongoing discussion throughout the year. Why wait till the last minute? It's also perplexing because this was the same thing that was said to me almost a year ago when I was retiring. It had to be studied. What's going on? A response to me last week was paraphrasing something I said at another meeting that student achievement is directly related to teachers working in the trenches. While I stand by that, this response was not related to the financial argument I was making. Teachers are the ones who work and make a difference. you just don't need the current numbers and still have small class sizes. The continued response about student clubs and such also did not relate. Two, at

093the last meeting, I also quoted prior meeting minutes that said the board shared a desire moving forward to have earlier discussions in the coming years to evaluate staffing throughout the district building principles and such. Last week, I stated I was shocked by this statement and asked when did that stop happening. In my experience in the past 40 years plus, that was a common practice and was an embarrassment from a business standpoint to not occur. If it does occur, that's not what the quote said. This response that everyone is working hard seemed plush to me. Three, I was encouraged that someone on the board at least looked into the possibility of conducting a confidential survey that I recommended to the teachers to collect unfiltered information about problems and the climate within the district. I recollect a

094reason was given last week that it's not our role. At another time, I would like to discuss this because a quick answer I researched said, quote, "Yes, a local New York State school board can conduct a survey of teachers to assess morale and other topics related to the district. School boards have the authority to gather information to inform their decision-making and improve district operations, including employee satisfaction and workplace conditions." End quote. The source stated there are compliance issues such as bargaining agreements, privacy regulations, and such. So, it would take some work. I say this is a worthy endeavor because doesn't the buck stop with you? Ultimately, the school board, you might have a scenario of lots of canary singing, but ultimately this could lead to improvement in many areas. Don't you want direct feedback? Four,

095speaking of surveys, speaking of surveys, one from the board would be different, so participation would likely be higher. Many teachers don't even bother, this is my experience, okay? Many teachers don't even bother to fill out surveys after professional development activities and such because they rarely get much if any feedback. Additionally, many professional development seminars days are deemed gimmicky and a waste of time. So, there is little buy in. Whatever the new thing is, it dies quickly with little follow-through, sometimes not even lip service. They are certainly overpriced and a waste of money regardless of who is paying for it. Save the money. Good teachers do their own ongoing development. Related to this, there was too much time spent at the last meeting discussing half days in conflict with professional development. Do the state required ones

096before the school year starts for students, but no more than what is required. Cut out the half days and students will go to school. Five, finally, spend more time on asking tough questions about the hard reality of the economics of village residents. Why student achievement continues to be stagnant and below below state average? why morale was low, how to cut out waste and redundancy, etc. It's pleasant to hear roundt reports of upcoming events, but smiling and congratulating everyone has to be balanced with addressing very real problems openly discussed. Until this happens, support from residents will continue to wne. As usual, there may be low turnout for the budget vote, which is probably what you count on, but don't take it passing as a sign of approval. Time will tell. Start thinking of the future beyond

097next year. In parenthesis, I have this thought makes me think back to the disaster of vision of vision 2000 over 25 years ago that left the district with huge unused building spaces that now have to be maintained. Most evident at Welock in the high school. A projected enrollment study must have been a neglected oversight on that one. The answer can't continue to punish and demand more and more money from the fewer residents who try to hold on. Now, I don't know how you'll spin the budget in your upcoming flyer, John. There's all these moving numbers. I can't claim to understand them, but from what I can gather, your budget is really up over 5% from last year. If you had the same tax levy as last year, which would be zero, say increase. The budget

098still would be up over 4%, which would be plenty to cover Proposition One with an extra 2% plus for yourselves. It doesn't matter if state aid is 8% more this year was what I could gather. You haven't tightened your belt at all in any significant way. So that's my opinion. That's a matter of it's my time. So I thank you for your time. Um I will dismiss myself because I have some farm chores, evening farm chores I need to attend to. But I would like a question if you could answer how people get absentee ballots for the upcoming vote. What's the procedure? I don't know. to apply for the absentee ballot. If they're not on the permanent list, they fill out an application and if they are in the office when they do it, they

099hand in an absentee ballot. If they choose to mail in the application, then the absentee ballot is mailed to them. So, how do they get an absentee ballot if they're not here? I mean, how do they apply? They call the office, mail it to them, or they can email and request it, but the paperwork has to be done. So, you just have to send paperwork to them wherever they are. Correct. Even if it's overseas, if they are overseas and already elicisted mail military ballot, then I have already sent it to them. Okay. All right. So, they have to call in. You send paper. Is there enough time to do that? Yes, there is. And that's I we have New York State guidelines for that. I don't get to pay. So, they No. So, they call

100in. Yep. You send them paperwork and they send it back? Yes. Okay. And then they either get mailed the ballot or they Oh, so that's two times in the mail. Get chopping on that. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. The deadline for the application May 13. Oh, the absentee ballot to apply for an absentee ballot. The application is due May 13th. 13th. Today's the six. Okay, that is correct. Okay. Thank you. Yep. All right. Well, again, I have to Thank you, Miss N. Anybody else like to speak to the board today in general comment? Okay. Um Oh, I'm sorry. This is happy news. Susan Honey Church, physical therapist for the district. I live at 150 Central Avenue in Fredonia. I just wanted to say that um Joanne Pleta this morning on the classical music station

101was honoring teachers and to um collaborate with what you had said, collaborate, I should say. Um, when you do take music lessons or play an instrument, you stay in school and most of the people that play instruments go on to higher education. So, it is extremely valuable and you know, I'm in your corner every day. So, I appreciated your comment because that's exactly what she said this morning on the radio. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry I didn't catch your name. Oh, Susan Honey Church. Honey Church. Thank you, Miss Church. You're welcome. Would anybody else like to speak uh to the board tonight? General comment. All good. Okay. Well, we're moving on the superintendent report. Dr. Zilas. Yeah. I just have a uh a few things. Wanted to touch on um one

102of the things that Mr. Forbes mentioned that um again New York State budget has not been solidified. So, we are still waiting on some fine-tuning of those eight numbers and we look forward to that hopefully sooner um rather than later. Um, also in consent tonight was two resignations I wanted to um mention. One is Val Makula um who actually came on board here in 1998 um in the food service um and then transitioned over to an aid. I just want to recognize her and appreciate all of her hard work over several years. perhaps a round table you could touch on Val's work, Mrs. Piper, that would be appreciated. Um, also from a high school science uh department sadly uh Jenny Bner um is moving on to another position. She has been here since 2011. Just

103a very solid, polite, friendly, welcoming um knowledgeable um excellent instructor um in our district again over um several years. uh she will definitely be missed and I just wanted to recognize her tonight. I was hoping Mr. Pass she would be here to share a few thoughts um and perhaps we'll do that um at a future meeting. Um but thank you uh to both Val and Jenny um very much appreciate everything they've done for the district and best of luck um as they move on either into retirement or into the new position. Um, you know, we do look in the district to balance out and really look at the whole child. And I think what's happened at our board meetings over the last several meetings, we talked a little bit about data and those educational pieces.

104Um, talked a little bit about special education tonight and some data that's within that work. Uh, we've had a music presentation and if you've been looking at the observer lately, uh, you can tell that the uh, spring sports season is alive and well. Um, and there's a lot going on. Um and um one of the nice things is that um in Fredonia our student athletes cross over into a lot of other activities um including our music program. So we're we're happy to see students involved in a a diverse array of um activities as they um experience um their their middle high school uh education. Um, softball went to the Bingmpington tournament uh this past weekend, which is great. Um, they also had a win over Jamestown and Dunkerk recently. Um, baseball has had some pretty

105big wins lately. One over Pioneer, who I believe at the time was ranked seventh in the state. Um, as well as Salam, Hutch, and Dunkerk. So, nice job. Uh, baseball. Our golf season is going well. um you will particularly see a young lady and a young man who are doing particularly well and uh seem to be winning um at a uh rate um far above most people in the county. So congrats to both of them as well as the golf team. Our girls flag has had winds over one north as well as health sciences from Buffalo recently and both of those games the weather conditions weren't ideal. So, um nice job kind of toughening it out in some rain and wind and uh mud. Um also our unified uh basketball team had a win over

106Casta uh last week. I believe they also have an assembly coming up this Friday um that's here during the school day which is a fantastic event. If any of our board members can be present for that, feel free to come on in. Um, track is also off to a great start. We particularly have a young man in the hurdles, both 110 and 400, who's doing very well. We also have another young man doing an awesome job in the triple jump. Um, our girls track had a win over Falner Casadega recently and uh, in that meet seven um, of our young ladies uh, won events. So, nice job to those in track. Um, our tennis team again uh continuing a tradition of doing really well. We have had nine individuals um win um a match either

107in singles or doubles uh so far this year. That includes one seventh grader who um recently won a varsity match. So, congrats to everyone on the tennis team. And uh even going back to the uh winter sports, we did have a senior uh earn honorable mention recognition in class B. Um, having said that, behind the scenes, we have all kinds of coaches, um, spending a lot of time and energy, not only preparing for the seasons, but also during the seasons, practices, riding buses to and from games, games themselves, um, calling the paper, providing information, also probably thinking a little bit about the games we did well, as well as maybe the games we didn't do so well. So, thank you to all of our coaches who are on staff as well as a number of

108volunteer coaches um who join us each year. Just want to say again, congrats and welcome to Ron Senelli. It was another article in the paper recently uh welcoming him to the district. Uh we continue to communicate as he uh gears up for July 1. um he was nice enough to send an email through me uh to the high school staff um sharing uh his excitement about the job and he's going to start working on some entry plan things here coming up soon. Um, in terms of our calendar, which was also in consent tonight, um, one of the changes that we made for this coming year temporarily is that we did not include the half days for elementary school um, on the school calendar for the moment at the end of the year in June. The

109reason for that is there is a want um, to move them all to the last few days um, of the school year, which isn't a bad idea. However, as Mr. Ashki mentioned at our last meeting that does conflict. Um it caused a little bit of a problem for students who would be taking regent exams and we need to get home on those days. We're looking at how we can work that out. Um right now although the regent week has been designated there is not a schedule of the exact exams um for June 26. So we're also waiting for that to understand how many students are we talking about? what exams are they? Um so we will um approve the larger calendar with those. It's noted um on the draft that we'll send out tomorrow that

110those are TBD at this point. So more information on that and we will certainly announce that and communicate that um as soon as we possibly can. Um next meeting for superintendent report we'll talk a little bit about the strategic plan updates um in those various categories. And uh thanks for everybody for coming tonight. And uh we keep moving forward. We're excited about this um next month that includes not only a lot of sporting events, a lot of concerts, a lot of celebrations, a lot of ceremonies, a lot of traditions uh which culminates um at the very end of June with uh commencement. So thanks to everybody. Thank you, Dr. Zox. Any uh any comments, questions on the superintendent report? Okay. Um, so, uh, the annual budget vote and board education election will be held on

111Tuesday, May 20th, 2025 from 2:00 to 9:00 p.m. in the high school cafeteria. And the next regular board of education meeting will be the same day, Tuesday, May 20th at 6:00 p.m. uh, here in the high school library. So, before we get around to our uh, administrators, any comments from the board, reflections? All good. Just want to say thanks for great presentations. It's great great service to our students and our community. You know, that really impacts our families and impacts the community. So, appreciate that. And music program is always one of our favorite favorite nights to hear about um our outstanding music program. So, thank you, Mr. Bennett, for that. Great. Thank you. Yeah, Mro, thank you tonight, Mr. Bennett. Outstanding as usual. Speaking about, you know, special programs in Fredonia, um I had the

112pleasure to walk in the rain on Saturday. Remember the continuous rain all day, a seven-hour hike on the Quest program. Uh speaking of some special retired educators, the Cobs, but in walking with them, I learned so much about the program and uh just the number of volunteers they have. And it's just it's such a laundry list of volunteers and they're just so eager to be out there excited helping mentoring our our students. Uh what a great program. It's special. Uh and just one last thing speak I I walked with Mr. Cobb for a while. We just had a hip hip replacement I believe or maybe it was a knee replacement. He's out there walking doing the seven hours and my feet are wet in the first 10 minutes. Uh but he's he went through the

113land owners and every year they have to call every landowner. It's got to be like a hundred land owners to give permission across their land. And if they have even one landowner that's changed ownership and they refuse. It blows the whole thing up and he has to start over and find a new route with new land owners. So it's it is it's like the iceberg, you know, the tip and then underneath the underneath been what they do. is is amazing. So that was that was really a neat experience. Um so yeah, so we'll move on. Mr. Gasky has left the building unexpectedly. Yes, I believe expected. Okay, so Miss Paul, we'll start with you. Yes. Thank you. So I was going to share that our expedition for Quest um they were glad to have you

114join them on Saturday. I talked to the cops today, but the um one-day hike was on Saturday, two-day will begin Friday and Saturday of this week. Hopefully the weather is an improvement over weekend. We we're hopeful for that. Um on the heels of your athletic report, our flag football team is currently up 186. So continuing on that winning streak. Um and modified sports is up and running also with rosters just being solidified as recently as today. Um including modified softball, baseball, track, and of course modified flag football, which has already had two games and undefeated as we speak. So, um, and just lastly, our Lisa Forbes and Shannon Marsh took some service learning club members to Predomi Place last week to volunteer. So, that was a nice way to make that connection between some community

115partnerships and our middle schoolers. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Der. Um, so it's teacher appreciation week today if you don't know. So, we appreciate everybody for coming to this and supporting your administrators and things like that. So, um, along that theme, I appreciate April hard tongue and our music department because next week is the opera invasion and that's a thing where they bring some, uh, you know, professionals into the third and fourth grades. They do a mini lesson in the classrooms. They teach them about instruments and music and then we have a concert um after that event. So, that's pretty special and the kids look forward to that each year. I appreciate our school counseling team and Miss Piper for organizing our kindergarten visit. So, um, in two weeks we're shipping a the kindergarten

116class up to the big school and we do a little, um, well, we give them a tour. I do a science experiment. We take them to the playground. We feed them a little bit. They get to know the first grade teachers and things like that. But it kind of helps bridge the gap. So, we appreciate your teachers. And then lastly, um, I appreciate our RTI teachers, um, because anytime we go on a break, whether it's winter or spring or summer, they do some sort of reading challenge. And this Friday is the spring break reading challenge. and they created an obstacles course um in the building. They get a snack. So, they had you had to read so many um books over break to get the the prize. So, we appreciate all the teachers in the

117building. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Sparrow. Anything else to um Sure. A couple of things. Um I wanted to give proper recognition to some folks in the audience. So, Susan Honey Church, Jen, Christy, and Sugos are here. They are part of our weekly services team here. So, PT OT and speech. So, thank you for coming and participating in providing me with information that helped um also wanted to say, I mentioned this last time, the local Special Olympics event that's held on the uh Fredonia College campus will be May 28th. We are gearing up for that. We're collecting rosters and, you know, kind of putting information together for that. And if you are interested in that unified assembly and the um basketball game, that is at 1:00 on Friday in the high school gym. That's it.

118Okay. 1 Friday. Yes. High school gym. Yes. I hope I'm right. Send an email to Oh, that's right. Thank you. Thank you. Verification. Take some pictures. newspaper. Yeah. Um, just to back up what Dr. Z said about Val Mula, I remember Val starting in the cafeteria expressing interest to me when I was elementary principal about moving into an A position. She worked with us at the elementary school and then when we transitioned back to Welock, became one of our UBK aids, has worked she worked actually with Mark Putney when they did the remote classroom during excuse me COVID and has Dr. Melissa Putney for the last couple of years and she's just a joy. We're really going to miss her. Her knowledge, her patience, her nurturing with the kids has been wonderful. So, we will

119miss Veil and we're planning some things for for her departure. I also want to say that April is the month of the young child. So, we've been doing a lot of celebrations in recognition of our young students. Our young students have actually gotten together and have done things like clean up the outside classroom. They've been doing some things to give back to the community as well. also for celebrating the month of the young child. Um I also want to recognize our principles. Last week um was uh national principles day. So national principal appreciation day and I have to say I've had a rough year medically and have been in and out quite a bit as you all know. And this team has been incredible and I know m Mrs. Faroh was count as part of

120our principal team. Um and I just have to put kudos out to this team because they've been very supportive and wonderful. um they deserve a lot of recognition. So, thank you to the team and happy national principles appreciation week. Um our teacher appreciation week at Welock. We also are celebrating we're following the Ted Lasso believe theme um and are doing a little bit of celebration every day um in honor of the amazing wonderful work that they do every day with their kids. So, great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks. Um, you know, my granddaughter Val was my granddaughter's teacher aid and she's fantastic. Big loss. Yeah, it is big loss, but you know, congratulations to her retirement. So, you know, that's great. Dr. Right. Thank you. Um, in the Yes. And we certainly appreciate

121all of our administrators and the team and uh how everybody does take a team approach um and all things which is very appreciated. and for teacher appreciation week um they are the ones that who are doing the hard work to showcase in the building the appreciation. So that's the lift that that they're doing. So um again kudos to all of you to make sure that your staff feels the love. And then I'd like to shout out to our PTO our elementary life PTO because they also do amazing things to um support the schools and the teachers and um make their way around all of us you know. So, a huge shout out in recognition of all the work they do all year long. Um, I also wanted to um back up with a little bit

122of info that you may or may not be aware of. It's been a while now since we talked about co money. It's been over for a while, but um to Miss Honey Church, yes. I mean, one of the things that we, you know, one of the COVID money um tenants was to increase attendance. And one of the ways through our wonderful music program was to be able to support um with instruments and some music that could go their way because we do have the data to show that our students come to school and get to enroll in music because we can support families who may not be able to otherwise um afford, you know, instruments. And so that is a metric and data point that we were able to allocate funding from the COVID relief

123fund. So all of it goes together and works together. And so um thank you for highlighting that. It's appreciated. Um today was our first UPK3 addestation team meeting and um we met with the good folks from our literacy new new literacy curriculum HMH into reading that we're piloting. Um this year was kind of the soft year one. Next year is going to we can kind of dig into it. lived it a little bit because our materials arrived like like moments before school started. So, um it was exciting to all be together and to have this. So, thank you again to um Amy and Mark and Andrea Marsh who are our administrative team with that um to partner with them and then to our 13 members um of the team. So, that's really exciting to have

124representation with that. And then um something that we don't often talk about. It dawned on me today from a couple conversations I've had recently is that we have um three teachers I believe currently who are going through getting their administrative certification. And that's something that you know does happen you know throughout the time but we like to you know we talk about always being lifelong learners and our mission statement applying to all people. And that's kind of an example of it that we don't really see. So, I want to just highlight um those who are stretching themselves to continue to become their greatest selves. And um I think that that's really, you know, um exciting to know that we have people who choose to increase and do and take PD and often are doing things

125that many of us aren't even aware of. So, just a shout out to that trickles to our students. That's exciting. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Fors. Nothing, Miss Morrison. I'm all set. You're all good. Okay. Um Okay. So, let's see here. Um we do have executive tonight. We anticipate the need to enter into executive session to discuss collective bargaining agreements can personnel. Could I have a motion to enter executive? Mr. Marshall second. Second. All in favor? I opposed. All right. We're in executive session. Thank you everyone for coming. Uh students feel free to come up. Anyway, privacy. Yes.