Thank you for all your participation. Uh and that will conclude the presentation. We'll take a picture and we'll we'll call the night. Thank you. [Applause] question. Good. Thank you HLA for coming. We appreciate it. All right. Next, we're moving on to our superintendent student advisory council. This is our first year to do this and what an incredible experience it has been for me as a leader. We actually have 19 students in this group. They all have multiple activities going on. So, we got a few of them tonight to come and explain their experience. So, when we put this together, the goal was, who are our customers? It's our kids, right? They're the most important people in the school district. And guess what? They're a lot smarter than I am. And I learned that every time I was with them. We brought them together. We brainstormed what we were going to do.
Um it's feeling that they could get on board with this. They will be working on various strategies on how to build and be part of that. You know, part of our strategic plan, we have three words that we work on. It's the engage, empower for impact. And I think the one key word that we were really focused on at the building was about empowering. You know, part of having a good culture is empowering people to own that culture and, you know, stand up for um people that may not be as positive and and and confront that in a positive way without calling somebody out. So we really work with the team on how to do that, how to identify those characteristics and so uh they are definitely empowered to take on this again for next year. We will continue to be working with the staff uh next year.
So we don't require any board action on this. Uh so after review of the information that we received from CISC uh we've made the decision to purchase a 15 passenger lift bus for 130,000 and 84 passenger bus for 224,000 or 220,000 from Kurland bus sales and that is your business manager report right thank you Dr. Yeah. So, um just within the last uh week, Mrs. Hall and Mrs. Hos both reported that they are fully reviewed uh for final approval by Dr. Marzano for level two certification and effective teaching. So, that is exciting as they get to that final finish line um with Dr. Marzano's final stamp of approval. Hose Hoover and CHS are also very close um as well and we'll be crossing that finish line soon as well. So exciting um to achieve that and I know Dr. Reker and I are proud of the commitment to excellence from both our principles um and teachers as they they've worked towards these certifications.
Any questions for the chairman tonight? Okay, we will move on to the superintendent announcements. Dr. G. Thank you, Mr. Daniels. Good to see everyone. This I believe Mrs. Cortto, this is the largest crowd that we've had this year of recognizing students. So, I want to welcome everyone here this evening and congratulate the the families and the students for the outstanding accomplishments that you'll be honored for this evening. Tonight, to the board of education and the community, I will be presenting the superintendent's annual report for 2425. And then I also want to congratulate and thank the CAN community for the support and passing the fiscal year 2526 budget. It's been busy. I I haven't been home too much. We've had band concerts, coral concerts, art shows, athletic events. I do want to chime in a little bit on the comments that we heard regarding track. I happen to be at one of those track meets and it was a very long um afternoon and I actually was called by another superintendent of schools that also did share in in the concern regarding a starting gun and uh the timing system.
To know when not just to lend an arm or a hand, but to know when to lend your time. You are not characterized by these past four years and are not defined by everything that has ever hurt you, but rather your struggles are a testimony and reminder to yourself of your radiating resilience and patience. Congratulate yourself as you leave this building tonight. Smile with the knowledge that you have a promising future, one of intense brightness of light, filled with vividness of color, knowing that our future is one of brilliance. Congratulations, class of 2025. [Applause] And at this time, it is my distinct honor to introduce the Rampart Choir under the direction of Miss Ellie Hackbarth, who will perform I Lived by One Republic. [Applause] [Music] Bum bum. Bum B. They're screaming your [Music] names. Hope that you fall in love. It hurts so bad. The only way you can give it all [Music] you [Music] hope I Did it [Music] all.
I know we all want to do our best at everything and never stop aiming for that. But as Mr. Facelman says, always achieve at a level of which you are capable. And most of all, do not let stress consume you. I encourage all of you to find your equivalent to what music is to me. Search for your distraction, your passion, you might call it. Whatever takes your mind off of grades, due dates, work deadlines, and other responsibilities, is vital to your personal happiness and growth. After all, you can never reach your full potential without being happy while doing it. Thank you. [Applause] It is my honor to introduce this year's commencement speaker, a student whose dedication, leadership, and academic excellence have left a lasting impression on our school. Over the past four years, she has been a standout leader both in the classroom and on the field, captaining both our varsity cheerleading team and our girls golf team.
Hi, Mom. My name is Regan if you don't already know me. And I'm going to start by just taking a second to breathe because pausing to breathe in the moment is the first step to doing anything important. This day and this incredible milestone are important to me because I've always been known as a shy and quiet girl who is filled with words but terrified to speak them in front of others. Little me would not have had the strength to share a speech with you. But somewhere along the way, I found the courage. That is what makes today so special for all of us. Today, we are given the honor to look back to little us and to smile as we realize how much we've grown. That's the beauty of courage. Courage is growing and changing and daring to evolve in a world that encourages static safety.
uh this but the other sort of potential category that it will be uh within the transition zone as I understand it will be sort of a retail uh area uh first floor uh first ground floor com uh commercial use and that means the very sort of narrow definition of that would mean a lot of the air uh the local businesses that we routinely use would uh be no longer available So, we don't have a car. Uh we we walk to our uh doctor's office and vets. Uh we just took our dog to to our vet uh uh by walking yesterday. So, those sort of uses will no longer be permissible. And so, for for those reasons, we would uh I would just like the commission to consider not uh further uh dividing the transition zone into uh subd districts. Thank you. Hello. Hi. Hi. Hi.
The original Fair Housing Act was uh implemented in 1985. Um in this new act uh or amended act, the the legislation did a couple of things. It created an obligation. It basically said there are 80,000 units of affordable housing that are needed in the state of New Jersey over the next 10 years. It then brought it down to the regional level. As I said, we are in region four, Mercer, Mammoth, and Ocean. And then it brought it down into uh each individual municipalities based upon the methodology that Jeff talked about. Um and I won't get into the details unless people have questions. There's some very um basic information in the housing element fair share plan that goes through the methodology as it relates to the obligation. The other thing it did it it did create uh new compliance regulations. We don't have a set of regulations, but it's in the legislation.
Um, we took our staff there and we are super excited to partner and collaborate with Mrs. Kristen Blum as we implement court grant received submitted by the University of Arizona Foundation. It's leveraging community participation and K12 students enhancement on the Saturday experimental range. So, our teachers went to receive professional development to prepare to take students on field trips and we'll be going there, but they will also be coming to us using our greenhouse and our um school for different projects. So, we are very excited about that opportunity as well. Few field trips and there's another picture of the eighth grade students and we see our fifth graders. There's a picture of them going to the center [Music] expalited the men museum in Scottsdale. Additional field trips. You see the ostrich barn there. How many of you have been to the ostrich farm? Okay. I haven't been and it's somewhere I want to go this summer.
We went to Chandler Gilbert Community College. Took a tour. I think they learned some things that they didn't know. We talked about those things and the value of seeing what's out there. Not every community has multiple community colleges or universities surrounding them. So there's quite quite a bit of competition. So sorry last week we went to the ASU mix center in downtown Mesa and I think I was shocked at how much there is to offer. If you want to go into film school, go there. You want to learn about virtual reality, go there. So, we learned how to diagnose a sick dinosaur, treat it. We also walked through the world of Indiana Jones. The one thing I was good at was using the torch to burn down the crazy what were they, Michaela? Cobwebs. So anyway, we've had an experience and this is their turn to talk and tell you guys about it.
There's going to be a culture committee that goes into next year as we continue to do this work. But tonight I wanted to uh have uh Dr. Kowana Sanders the principal, Miss Metta Ali, she's the assistant principal. And we have uh two of our staff members, Miss Kowash and Miss Han. They're going to be here to talk about that and Dr. Perkins is going to say a few things. So, we're going to highlight a little bit that was from the PowerPoint that we presented at the staff meeting and um anyway, they have to present still. That's all right. One before, one for after. I'm very proud of them. Good evening to the board and colleagues to our students watching from home. Um, as we come up this evening with the staff, we want to make sure that everyone understands that this work is like Dr.
Um I learn testing is complete. Data has started to come in. We've had some early analysis and discussion for future planning. Um but definitely some appreciation to our principles and teachers in grades three through eight. It's very stressful, busy, um disrupted at times with the testing schedules. Um so um it is it is always a tough stretch there completing standardized testing and appreciation to our principles and teachers working working through that time of year. Uh reading selection committee. So um with that uh approval tonight so do just want to to give appreciation to that committee for their time and efforts in reviewing the reading uh curriculum. So Aaron Gillan, Stephanie Braum at Book Connect, Britney Reef, Morgan Thompson, Suzanne Burgie, Adam Wal Church and Hall, Marcy Galowski. Um it is a lot of materials to go through and and a lot um of information to digest and um it's an important thing in in what we do and what we'll be using for our reading program.
So that that's as recent as last week. So it was the first time that I heard it last week from another superintendent of schools, but I also actually witnessed it for myself that it's a long time for our student athletes. Track already is for those of you that don't know, track already is a long athletic event and when you have to run so many heats, it makes it even longer. So thank you for bringing that up and this board and this administration will work on that. I will speak to Mr. to provoke uh tomorrow to discuss that with athletic director. So, thank you. Next week, or actually this week, we have a fantastic art show at CIS. May 21st, we have the college signing for our athletics. I would invite anyone that would want to see our senior athletes that are signing their letter of intent to play for a college team.
I did it [Music] all. I owned every second. I saw so many places that I broken. I swear I live [Music] D when sun goes [Music] I could [Music] witness it all. I did it [Music] all. I owned every second. I saw so many places that I did. Yeah. With every broken bone, I swear I lived. [Applause] It is my pleasure to introduce Mrs. Ginger Habber, superintendent of Academy School District 20. Ginger Habber, a Colorado native, brings more than 30 years of educational experience and expertise to Academy District 20. She comes from a long family lineage of educators who instilled her instilled in her a desire to inspire others to be lifelong learners. After starting her career pathway as a registered nurse, she soon find realized that her true passion was being an educator. Ginger has served in many roles from the classroom to administration, including earning board national board certification as a science teacher and serving as a middle and high school principal, an assistant superintendent of student achievement, and a superintendent in the state of Washington.
A committed four-year athlete in both sports, she has led by example, bringing spirit, discipline, and perseverance to every challenge she's faced. Academically, she has distinguished herself among her peers, earning high honors with an impressive 4.38 GPA and graduating seventh in her class. In the fall, she will attend the College of William and Mary, becoming the first student from Liberty to do so, where she plans to double major in psychology and neuroscience. Please join me in welcoming your 2025 commencement speaker, Anna Finkelestein. [Applause] Thank you, Mr. Hill, for that introduction. Good afternoon. I am excited and humbled to represent the class of 2025 as our graduation speaker. I'd like to start by recognizing that none of us got here by ourselves, so some thanks are in order. Superintendent Habber, Academy School District 20 board members and honored guests. Thank you so much for supporting the students of Lancer Nation.
a world that encourages uniformity. In many spaces today, change is a wild and radical act of rebellion, and that makes it terrifying. But I want to remind you that if we weren't terrified, then we would never learn to have courage. These past four years, regarded by many as the formative years of our lives, can simply be defined by many of us as challenging. There are so many golden moments. friendships and relationships, victories in our sports, and the celebration of our homecomings, parties, and proms. The privilege of attending a school where we are encouraged to succeed in our maturity and embrace our freedom while still devoting time to the passions that we choose for ourselves. Yet, I don't think it is fair to credit the good and shining moments of high school without also remembering the hardship. I know that I myself struggled to see my own worth.
Uh, so my name is Ethan Jwitt, 502 West Teach. Um, and in case I don't make it to the end of this, my overall message is um that one of the earlier people um talked about disenfranchising earlier voices. The idea is absolutely not to disenfranchise anybody who's spoken before. It's to please not disenfranchise the people who are only learning about it now. The planning commission meeting on January 20 uh 3rd was the sort of first real public meeting that a lot of people saw about this and person after person got up to speak. Um given the fact that this room is full today and people are pretty hopping mad, I would have expected that a lot of people would stand up and speak in opposition to the plan, but that didn't happen. Person after person got up and spoke um strongly in favor of the plan.
Uh, and and there are some new and updated information. And again, that information is is in the housing fair share plan. I'll talk about that as we talk about individual um projects and and and how it relates some of these new rights relates to those projects. And I think the biggest part of it was it set up this mediation program. So um it is a panel of seven retired judges. Those seven judges are basically responsible for dispute resolution. Uh that each those judges also have a panel of about 10 what's called special adjudicators of which I am one of them. Our responsibility is as municipalities submit their plans to the program. Uh there is a there is a responsibility that they review those plans. If there are objections to those plans, the program is meant is set up that within a very very short period of time about three months to try to resolve those uh any objections.
I know I want to go. Second graders went to the biosphere 2 and to the desert museum. So, a lot of exciting experiences for our students. Career Day was another successful annual event. So, we welcome 34 presenters on career day from law enforcement to doctors to dancers and dog trainers and much more. Boys and girls, what you think about career day? Nice. We have celebrated um teacher and staff appreciation week. So, thank you for your hard work. And it truly does take everybody to run our school and to give provide what our students need. Our teachers and support staff, our paracross, custodial and maintenance staff, the nurse, bus drivers, service administrators. So, I I just can't thank all these staff members enough for all of their work and dedication to our school. Thank you and have a great evening. That completes my presentation. And I'll tell you that that fifth grade project volume thing is absolutely amazing.