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Fredonia teacher gets national recognition

OBSERVER Photo by Jo Ward Kristen Terreri is one of National School Band and Orchestra Magazine’s “50 Directors Who Make A Difference.”

In December 2018 the National School Band and Orchestra Magazine published its 21st annual “50 Directors Who Make a Difference” list. According to their website, the organization chooses one teacher from each state, nominated by students, both former and current colleagues, musical instrument retailers, band parents, administrators, friends, former band directors and sometimes a spouse who admires the hard work and dedication their other half gives to their school music programs.

In the state of New York, that individual was Kristen Terreri of Fredonia Central School. Terreri was nominated by Fredonia’s school music instructional leader Andrew Bennett. He believes that Terreri brings something unique and special to Fredonia and that she “deserves it without a shadow of a doubt.”

“She’s committed to teaching the whole child,” Bennett told the OBSERVER. “Her communication skills are unrivaled. She develops a positive working relationship with everyone she meets. She’s pushing the program forward and is a true master teacher.”

Terreri graduated from Michigan State in 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in music education, a five-year program. She knew she wanted to start teaching right away and took a job at Parkview Intermediate in Pasadena, Texas, just south of Houston, which was primarily an ESL (English as a Second Language) population. She was also teaching at Bailey and Jensen Elementary Schools. All of her students were living at or below the poverty level, but she loved working with high needs kids in her first job as she wanted to make a difference in their lives.

After working there for a year, a fifth- and sixth-grade strings position opened up in Kinawa Middle School in Okemos, Mich. She worked there for five years, but after finding out she’d be expecting, decided she wanted to be close to her family in West Seneca, where she is from.

She has been at Fredonia Central School for three years now and absolutely loves working with the various students there. Currently she teaches strings to grades four to 12 (her main instrument is viola) and also running the Tri-M Music Society, an honor society- based program, that allows students to give back to the community through music.

“I get to meet and work with the students that are in chorus and band,” Terreri stated about Tri-M. “It’s nice to be able to meet all the different students.”

“On a whole music makes you more human, the work ethic that it requires is different than anything else students experience throughout their school day and the experience that they have in our classroom is also unique,” Terreri said. “We build a really strong sense of community, which is wonderful. We’re in a great place right now, we have a wonderful culture.”

She pointed out that the program is growing and in 2018 they had to add a full-time position.

“It’s easy for music to be the first thing that goes when things get tough financially,” Terreri said. “But we are living in an age where the arts, in New York state and nationally are considered core curriculum and that is how we treat it. We’re especially passionate about trying to motivate students from the time that they start in our programs and we all share the philosophy that every kid should and can be in music. It’s important. Even students that are high achieving can find success, or students who need support throughout their school day can find a place in the music classroom to be successful.”

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