All right, we I believe we are ready, right, my friends? Yep. Yes. Good. We have three mics going. Good. These are the Wendigos. Uh we have three This is a Tanto rock ensemble. Uh we have three pieces playing for you tonight. And then we have an upcoming rock show which uh rock festival. We'll have us playing there and some other Tahanto bands. Um I highly recommend that. That's coming up on June 6th. But now I'm going to turn the floor over to them. All right. Our first song is by a band called Green Day. If we know uh our English teacher, Mr. Dhy, I'm sure he would have a whole long speech about literature and books and blah blah blah blah. But we're just going to play a song called American Idiot. Don't want to be an America. [Music] The solid [Music] America dreams of tomorrow.
Um and so I uh this has been a privilege for me to work here for the last 20 years uh in various roles as you mentioned but um the last nine as superintendent and I I really look forward to the next nine. Um so thank you very much. Thank you Dr. Solen.
I wish I could talk publicly each about every single one of you, but my parents already know I talk too much. So, I'll chat with you individually. Just know that you guys have my whole heart forever. Now to my fellow seniors. We've laughed together, struggled together, and grown up together. Some of us met in middle school. Some of us met just this year. But we've all been a part of something special. This chapter is closing, but the next page is starting right now. Wherever life takes you, whether it's college, work, the military, or something still unfolding, I hope you never forget you're not just classmates, that you're my people. And no matter where we go, a part of us will always be connected through this place, through Aspen. So let's step into what's next with not fear, but with faith. And let's carry with us always, just like my forever buddies did.
So, can this move closer to this? Well, if if it did, then there wouldn't be enough room when you open the door. would be a landing. You wouldn't you don't have a door there though cuz it's not enclosed anymore. Well, they want to keep the door that door's been there forever. They want to keep it there just for sound. So, there's like um a lot of sound downstairs. The whole idea the whole idea of the basement is to have that be the place where they can go crazy and then upstairs not get trashed. Not that those boys would ever crash. This the door at the bottom of the stairs wouldn't Oh, no. Of course, because it's an open stair now, right? Um, if you leave that door at the top in place, if it's propped open, which it invariably will be, is it going to interfere with egress from the vestibule or is that because you had it swinging the other way in the first game?
No, no, this is Oh, this is still I'm sorry. Can we go down? I'm sorry. This is still safety teacher. just to see how it compares to the kids. There isn't one. Okay, here's well-being though, which kind of fits some of that. Uhif well-being is 55%, but some of those are pretty high. Um, I'm not particularly surprised by number four because we've been pushing people really hard this year to uh uh, you know, be outside their comfort zone and um, uh, so I I'm not surprised that we have, you know, in the middle that sometimes frustrated, exhausted. You had the exhausted and the exhausted. Absolutely. It's also if she did you just do this uh at the beginning of April. Yeah. Getting towards the just before testing. Before testing. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So everybody was tired. Yeah. Um although question five is pretty positive compared to those two previous ones.
So, we do have to do the bridge loan. You don't need it right now. You have plenty of cash for the work you're doing at this moment, but to get you all the way through the project, you do. So we we will need to do the full just pay an interest on money we don't need. I understand completely but we will keep it as short as humanly possible and I may be back you remember last year we had a special board meeting to minimize that that time period out. We we may be back doing exactly that again. So I promise we will uh we will keep it as minimal as we can. Appreciate it. Thank you.
That's enough to argue. America. [Music] I'm not a part of the redneck [Music] agenda. Let's take a look. [Music] tomorrow everybody. [Music] of [Music] course by stereot. [Applause] [Music] America [Music] tomorrow you [Music] [Applause] The next song we have for y'all is The Ch by Fuba Mac. If you guys know Fuba Mac, everybody knows Fleetwood Mac. [Music] Listen to the wind. Watch the sun. [Music] Stand your love in your [Music] eyes. And if you love me, you will begin. If you will never [Music] again the wind blows. Oh, [Music] down in the [Music] shadow and the light. [Music] again. I'll be [Music] breaking the same [Music] [Applause] [Music] Yeah. Come on. [Music] High. Baby. [Music] down. Hey [Music] Are you [Music] you never [Music] Good night. Everybody [Music] never late. [Music] around [Music] sleep right away. May the Lord have mercy. [Music] There [Music] she goes.
Okay, next item on the agenda will be our presentations. This is kind of my favorite time before we move on to the presentations. I did not forget my student leaders in front of me here. I think this is your last report. Make it a good one. Pressure's on. Testing. All right. All right. So, good evening every Oh, did you say it was our our last report, lady? This is our last report. We have one more. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. All right. No pressure. Yeah. also make a good one. Unless you don't want It's on June 12th, the next meeting. So, I'm kidding. I think we have an event planned. That's graduation for anyone who's unaware. Senior skip day on June 12th. Is that what you're saying? Yes, you don't. Okay. All right. So, we seniors are gearing up for some final events to finish the school year off with a bang.
Aaron, Gracie, Gerbanzo, my jiu-jitsu family, and my beloved family have always done for me. Thank you. Nice. Nicely done, Carter. Join me in welcoming our final student speaker, Amaya Thomas. Class of 2025, we made it. Take a second and look around at your fellow graduates. That's right, I said it. Graduates. Now, after 12 years of waking up early and spending 40 plus hours a week at school, we get to make decisions for ourselves. This brings us to the million-dollar question. What are we going to do now? Truthfully, none of us know. And that's okay. Hey, I mean, we all made it here, so I'm I'd say we're doing pretty well already. This is our time to make mistakes and try new things. So, yes, go ahead and try that new makeup look or new clothing style. Why? Because you can. And you're the only person who can truly judge you.
Yeah, we we man I manage that facility. My company manages that facility on a day-to-day basis and I can tell you that that door has an automatic closer on it and it is kept closed that that is um not something that's allowed to be propped open. Could it be done occasionally? Yes. But it's it's rare and it's not allowed to be propped open. I believe that we have um well I know that there's a monitored fire system there. Uh there is not a hold open sensor on that door either that would allow it to be propped and held open under the um alarm system. I know in the in the last variance we had talked you know instead of having you're showing it coming up three three three rises at the bottom landing I think we were talking more like one or two and the three of them makes it so the headroom is so tight there you know but that's the only way it would that's that's because there's not enough room to to go any um further towards the exterior wall right there wouldn't be enough room for a code compliant landing I believe even with a winder in there.
Um uh sixes too. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. 82% there. I really like 12 and 13. Yes. Yeah, they're both very high. Yeah. Okay. And that's demographic information in that last part. Show us the family surveys please. Pretty please. It's interesting to me that barriers to engagement has 81% um and yet it falls in only in the 20 to 20 39th percentile relative to the rest of the to nationally. Um and I don't quite know what that means. Um, that we really think it's 19% instead of 81%. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's pretty good size barriers to Yeah. And we have the breakdowns, right? Yeah. Yeah. Let's see the breakdown. No, I think it's pretty positive. It's a lot more positive than the 81%. Depending on what the 81% really means. Well, some of these items down here, I mean, because that's an average. So, you know, somewhere down here there's something that's not quite as positive as these first uh three.
Any questions? All right. Well, I can see the floor to Princess Diana and Lincoln. I can't quite tell what's going on with her. Our our school has a wax museum and so they're they've done some research and now they're going to perform a little wax museum for us. I like Thank you very much. Thank you, Miss Noble. And Miss Noble also made a mention of arbitrage, what that was for everybody that's not familiar. uh we could actually borrow money cheaper than we could invest it. So what the school district did is we borrowed more money than we needed or money as we needed it. We invested in the meantime so we made a little bit profit on the money. So So thank you. I know arbitrage is a little bit confusing to a lot of people. So borrow a little less. Exactly. So we're trying to do whatever we can to keep your tax dollars down and working hard for you.
[Music] Hey, [Music] [Applause] Thank you. [Applause] How did you like that call back that told you about the earthquake and it boom? That was a surprise song, right? All right. Um, one final thing. Thank you as always for all your support. We really appreciate it. Without you, we wouldn't have an audience. Um, and I wouldn't have kids to teach. Uh, one last thing. I I believe I already said we will have be having a rock festival on June 6th. So, if you like what these guys are doing that, we have like another 10 songs to add to that. So, we'll be playing along with a couple other Tanto bands. But thank you very much for coming tonight and have a good [Applause] [Music]
We'll have our awards convocation on the 20th, our honor court ceremony on the 23rd, our senior picnic on the 30th, and of course, graduation on June 12th. Speaking of which, thank you to the C CHS PTO and Cher community for organizing and sponsoring our annual postgra post-graduation all night grad party. Now, obviously, we can't be the only ones having fun during this time of year. That is why starting on Monday, students and teachers will be competing in Chester High's first spirit week. Organized by the student senate and the National Honor Society, spirit week pits each class against each other and their teachers in many activities and dressup themes. The team with the most points by the end of the week will win. Our sports team our sports teams seem to know all about that competitive spirit. All of our spring sports teams have either already qu qualified for or are on track to qualify for their CIA state tournaments.
The best thing about leaving high school is that you get a fresh start. If you didn't like the person that you were in high school, become that person you want to be. You set your own boundaries. So don't limit yourself because you're afraid of failing. News flash, failing is how we learn. So the failure and mistakes we make now will help guide us in as we grow into adults. However it goes, this is the start of the rest of our lives. Whether you're going into college, the military, trade school, or straight into the work force, we are the future of our country. We are the next generation of lawyers, doctors, teachers, and all other occupations society approves or not. This may be a scary statement for our older generations here, but in my eyes, as much as a rebellious generation we are, we are also determined to make sure all people are treated well.
Well, winders aren't very safe. I mean, that's Well, I guess the wrong two. I might be calling it the wrong name, but if it's if the landing is cut in half and the landing is turned into two steps, right? theor the theoretically if that were to happen we'd go from 5'8 to um another 9 in or 7 in. So we would be at 64 you know 63 something like that which I believe is still under the required head height for a stairway. Yeah, believe me, I tried a million different versions of this. Yeah, except moving the top right back. Well, I I I to me that's you're not really supposed to do that anyways. But there's a door if there's a door there. But I mean, you're saying you're making the subway safer, but then you're also saying you're leaving the door there. Well, I think that's if you if you didn't have the door there.
Uh so, question four. So you would pull that pull that down. Yeah. But it's still positive. Yeah, it is. Okay. Then going down. Keep going. See, these are all when I went through this. This was all very positive. And they're almost all up, you know, in this whole set. They're almost all up from the fall survey. Um, which is nice. Okay.
So all right and we'll move on to our building report. I think that's what everybody's here for. Thank you. Um, Parkview participated in the socket to cancer event this year. This is the first year we've done it uh for Kelsey's Hope Foundation to help kids with cancer. Um, at the end of April, students were provided a yellow sock that they could decorate however they'd like and fill a sock with cash and loose change. So, you see the middle picture up there. Those were uh our three winners, I believe, for decorating their socks. We had all kinds of different uh unique decorations. Um Parkview students and families had five days to collect uh cash and coins and they collected $6,464.65 in those five days, which is amazing. Uh Gail from the foundation, she sent me a message saying, "We're excited to share that Park View has officially joined an exclusive group.
Several of our teams are ranked among the top 10 in Connecticut. Back at CHS, freshman, sophomores, and juniors are getting ready to elect next year's student government officers. On June 4th, all candidates will be giving speeches in front of their peers, and voting will begin the same day. To end off the month of May on a comedic note, the Aries production, How to Survive Being in a Shakespeare play, will be performed on May 30th and 31st at 7 p.m. in the John H. Thorp auditorium. This show takes the audience on a journey across many of Shakespeare's stories, but with a slightly different perspective. We hope to see you all there supporting the cast and crew of Aries in what will be the seniors' final show at CHS. Okay, little disclaimer. We actually thought that this was our last board meeting and so did I. That's why I said that.
As long as our our generation keeps up that flame and fire we have, I truly believe we will do great things. Class of 2025, it is our turn to take on the world. [Applause] Thank you, Amaya. And thank you to our three student speakers. They tell the story of Aspen Valley incredibly well. Few words from me. First off, good morning. You guys look great. You did it. Aspen Valley graduates, families, friends, and our incredible staff, Superintendent Habber, our board of education members. Today we gather to celebrate not just a milestone but a profound testament to our students resilience, determination, and unwavering spirit that defines this extraordinary class. Aspen Valley is not your typical high school. And you are not typical students. Is that a true statement? Yeah. School didn't come easy for any of you. At some point, you, your family, a teacher, a school counselor, a friend, suggested Aspen Valley High School as a layer of support to reach the ultimate goal you are experiencing today, high school graduation.