OBSERVER Photo by Braden Carmen Fredonia Superintendent Brad Zilliox spoke to the district’s steps to addressing the needs of its students and staff at a recent Board of Education meeting.

Often with more needs than people to address them so far this year, the Fredonia Central School District is taking even more steps to address the needs of its students and staff.

“We have been struggling to start this school year with a shortage of subs, and that takes a couple different forms – it could be teacher subs, it could be subs for aides, as well,” said Fredonia Superintendent Brad Zilliox. “There may be a day or two this school year where we have been fully-staffed.”

Zilliox said that the district has “put a few different measures in place to begin to chip away at this problem.”

Zilliox noted several job fairs the district has held, as well as the proposal of a “contract sub” to be appointed to a specific building to fill whatever needs arise each day. Talks on that subject remain ongoing.

To help address the issue, the Board of Education passed a Memorandum of Agreement between the district and the Fredonia Teachers Association to allow for teachers who substitute for other teachers to be compensated for doing so.

A member of the audience in attendance who currently subs in the district part-time claimed a reason she does not accept more assignments is because of a lower pay rate than other surrounding districts, including Dunkirk and Silver Creek. “If you look at it in the grand scheme of things, including some of the smaller districts in the area, we’re in the middle of the pack. There are certainly some districts paying more,” Zilliox said. “We are absolutely looking at all of those factors. … We are taking it one step at a time. We are hopeful that through a variety of measures, we can get to a place where we’re not having this issue on a daily basis.”

The Board of Education also passed a Memorandum of Agreement between the district and the Fredonia Civil Service Employees Association regarding the position of a Special Class Aide. The position is similar to a teacher aide, but will have unique responsibilities that the district did not anticipate when the school year began.

“As the beginning of this year started to unfold, we recognized we had additional needs,” said Zilliox. “This is a very unique position, a little bit different than what we ask the majority of our aides to do. … It is a title within the contract of the (CSEA) but not one we have filled recently. … This made sense to have someone in this position.”

“We started the year with a lot of significant, unanticipated needs,” said Fredonia Director of Special Education Kristen Ferro. “I’m grateful to the people in my department for their advocacy for students.”

The district also announced three new hires at the recent meeting. Samuel Correa was hired as a teacher aide, Michelle Hamilton was hired as a teacher aide, and Haidy Colon Gonzalez was hired as a cleaner. “We feel good about all three individuals coming on board. … We look forward to their contributions to the district,” said Zilliox.