OBSERVER Photo by Braden Carmen Board of Education member Sheila Hahn strongly opposed the Wheelock campus being used as a polling site on Election Day. While the District’s efforts to move the polling elsewhere were unsuccessful, the District has instead shuffled its calendar to address the matter.

The Fredonia Board of Education recently approved the updated Districtwide School Safety Plan, which is posted on the District website, excluding information that could potentially create a safety risk to students and staff.

Fredonia School Safety Officer Tim Kachelmeyer assisted with the Safety Plan, which details the District’s response to a variety of scenarios. Superintendent Dr. Brad Zilliox noted the District’s “strong working relationship” with the Fredonia Police Department, New York State Troopers, and the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Office.

Zilliox noted that part of the plan is the District’s emphasis on preventative measures the District can take to keep campuses safe from any potential threat. Zilliox emphasized ways of “being proactive and trying to get ahead of things that might happen that result in a dangerous, emergency situation.”

Minutes later, Zilliox posed a relevant question to the Board of Education with that emphasis in mind.

With the upcoming election on Nov. 5, the Wheelock School campus has been designated as a polling site. The District petitioned to have the site moved to not disturb students as potentially hundreds of voters could be entering the school during the day, but the District’s appeal was denied.

“We did our best to try to get that adjusted through a formal process. That request was denied,” Zilliox said.

The District responded to that ruling by meeting with representatives from the Fredonia Teachers’ Association and District administrators to find a solution. The District believed the best course of action would be to swap a District-wide professional development day with a regular day of instruction so that students would not be in class at Wheelock while polling was held at the school.

The decision to swap the Friday before Election Day, Nov. 1 with Election Day, Nov. 5, was then presented to the Board of Education. The members of the Board in attendance at the recent meeting were overwhelmingly in favor of the decision.

Board member Aaron Marshall called the move “a great idea.”

“That’s what being proactive looks like,” Board member Courtney Gullo said. “… If we can’t take the voters out of the building, we have to get the kids out of the building.”

This past February, Zilliox called the matter an “unnecessary risk.” Board of Education member Sheila Hahn later added, “It doesn’t even seem like a matter of debate. We’re securing entrances so that people can’t come into the school, yet we’re publicizing a day when it’s a free-for-all and everyone can come with whatever. That, to me, does not make any sense. It should never have been used as a polling place and definitely should not continue to be used.”

While a meeting with County Executive PJ Wendel did not shift the polling site away from the youngest students of the district, Fredonia’s flexibility with its school calendar allowed for the risk to be mitigated.

Also related to who is coming in and out of the Wheelock building, the Board approved the rental agreement with Children’s Educational Services, Inc., for its Little Seeds program to rent eight rooms at the Wheelock campus for a cost of $53,820. The negotiated rate Fredonia will receive represents an approximate 3.5% increase from last year. Zilliox called the agreement a “win-win.”

The next Fredonia Board of Education meeting is Thursday, Oct. 17 at 6 p.m. in the High School Library. The meeting was moved from its regularly scheduled date of Oct. 22 to better accommodate the timeline for a proposed capital project, of which the District expects to issue a resolution at its next meeting.