I'd like to invite our board president, Mr. Rodney Hopkins, to the podium. [Applause] Thank you, Mr. on behalf of the Yahoo United School District govern as having met the requirements for promotion. Students, this moment marks the culmination of years of effort, learning, and growth. We commend your hard work and perseverance, and we look forward to all that you will achieve as you move on to high school. Congratulations to the class of 2029. [Applause] Thank you, Mr. Hopkins. We would like to recognize a few students whose academic excellence stood out in specific subject areas. These individuals have demonstrated remarkable understanding, consistent effort, and a true passion for learning. Please welcome our middle school teachers who will present the special awards for best in English language arts, social studies, science, and math.
Thank you to our alumni who have come to join us tonight. And of course, thank you to the student class of 2025. [Applause] Today we celebrate not just this milestone but a powerful journey that you have had here at PDSD. This journey has been filled with challenges. You've had growth. You've had laughter. And you've had a whole lot of energy that you've brought to PTSD. Remember this year's theme was the energy bus. And today I want to take just a few minutes to explain to everyone else here what energy you have brought to me and to PDSD. First Salvador You have reminded us, all of us, about friendships, about building connections with each and every one of us. And I want to thank you for that, for that lesson. Jazelle, there you are. Oh, hi. You have such a beautiful energy. You're full of grace and you will as you walk along this journey, you take a moment and identify the beauty in life and that energy radiates from you.
They follow the rules, but they find a way to make it fun and challenging and they push limits. And what I mean by that is we don't just live by all of your houses. It's a bit of a commute to get here. And this year, some of our eighth grade boys decided that they were going to cruise to school on their bikes every day. And that's a great representation of what this class is. They think outside the box and they push boundaries in positive good ways that impact people around them. And now seventh graders are competing with them to see who can get here first in the morning. And it's great because they're all getting physical exercise and that's what this class does. And we'll hear a lot more about that when we do sports because they just push limits um the whole class. And so I love that cruiser mentality in the right direction.
Good morning. And can I tell you what a year it's been? Um, I would like to thank Miss Smith for taking over the last seven weeks um due to a family emergency and she has done amazing things with your students and um I'm so happy that she was able to do it and that your kids loved her as much as they loved me. So, it was a good transition. [Applause] I'd also like to thank my team.
And what that means is that if a student has a um identified disability on an IEP, we do report that to the state and the state does have additional dollars in their funding formula. These funding formulas were set in the 80s. Um a couple of these areas have been updated since then. The most recent was uh developmental delay, emotional disability, uh mild intellectual. This area, I don't know if you can see my mouse. I don't think you can. Um this funding of weight went from point it used to be 09, it is now. 29. So not a big increase, uh but an increase. Uh and again, these are most of these weights were set in the 80s and have not been updated since then. Um in addition on the same report you will also find our ELLL data for our ELELLL uh English language learner students and then our free and reduced which we do get a little tiny bit of funding for those students.
What what title could you win there? Uh state junior high or national junior high champ. Are you you going to bring it back for us? Had a boy. Give him a hand. Congratulations. Joey right up front here. Right in the middle. Right here. One more time for Joey or Andreas. Andreas, sorry. Still stuck in Iowa with Joey. Now, next we have Battle of the Books. Where are Raise your hand if you're the Battle of the Bookers. All right. I'm gonna call you up by school. Okay. And um first off, the first place winner was Greenfield Elementary. They couldn't make it tonight. They have talent night, so these kids can read and sing, I guess. I don't know. Uh but we do have our second place and our third place team. Our second place team uh is from Neely Traditional, Kelly Fairchild, Librarian. Come on up.
My name is Amari Holiday, and it was my absolute pleasure serving you all as senior class president. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my mom, my dad, my awesome friends and family for all their support in my endeavors in high school and moving forward. Thank you all so much for being there for me through the darkest times. I love you all. The senior class and our amazing sponsor, Mr. Marshall, worked hard for our success on all our events like homecoming, senior sunrise, and our epic senior sunset. And that gave us the opportunity to get a gift for the school that benefits every student at Washington. The class of 2025 has gifted the school four brand new custom lunch tables and custom trash cans under a brand new ramada. We value inclusivity at Washington High School and we believe that everyone belongs. We feel that these tables can bring students together to socialize and enjoy lunch together.
Laura Arita, Glendale Union High School District governing board member will present these honored graduates with a medallion of distinction for their for their exceptional academic achievement. Students, as I call your name, please come forward. Jose Aldama [Applause] Joshua Catsman, [Applause] Caleb Lester Sturgeon, Mario Olivera, [Applause] Antonio Suero, [Applause] Charvin [Applause] Vu and Naomi Walsh. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to present the top 1% of students for the graduating class of [Applause] 2025.
So, thank you. Don't Don't go anywhere. Don't go anywhere. You guys are There's gonna be a photo op here. That's [Laughter] great. Congratulations. Oh, more. There's more. [Laughter] Nice job. All right. And last but not least, uh tonight we are honoring Gina Greenwald, the retiring principal of Hooverwood Elementary School after 11 years of service to the district. Don't we want her at the podium? Yeah. Yeah. So, Gina, could you please come to the podium? You got to get up there. So before you speak, Steve, would you like to share some words? Sure. Yeah. Steve, what is this guy gonna say? No. Um, people may not know this, but I actually was a young 23-year-old the first time I met Gina. I was a first year teacher and she was probably a third, fourth year teacher maybe, I don't know, probably. She taught young. She taught junior grade books.
Come back. We'll come back to you, Olivia. Olivia, too. Um, maybe going to the zoo for child development, too. Um, I had a lot more opportunities this year, like being a roar mentor, and I went on a lot more field trips. So, yeah. I like the Spanish field trip when we went down to the city and ate at that one restaurant. I forgot what it was called. Cafe Baba Baba Aria. And then we got to see like the salsa dancers. It was so fun. I'll say making new friends. Making new friends. Are any of these new friends standing around us right now? No, I've known them since kindergarten, unfortunately. What are you looking forward to next year as juniors? Having fun and not breaking any bones? Probably like a wrestling season and also just being a year closer to graduating. Probably next fall because it's marching band, flag football, and hopefully I'll be hosting a Spaniard.
Uh so you're going to see this probably go into deficit by the end of the fiscal year. Overall, we still are projecting a slight surplus. Uh but I am anticipating that surplus probably being under a million dollars uh with our education fund uh remaining uh u strong as it is. Uh couple of notes fund 20 if the board will recall that's one of the funds that we have been challenged before for having a cash balance that's too high. Uh so not it's probably a positive that we're drawing that down. Uh and keep in mind with our amended budget, we're going to shift more of those funds to to capital improvement to bring that cash balance down. Transportation, uh we know that our transportation department has done a phenomenal job of hiring new drivers. That comes with an awful lot of training, anywhere between uh 120 and 160 hours of training per driver.
And there are a lot of books. Thank you video. And there is some bonus feature daily. You can listen to today's news and temperature. Right here is the app. So you can listen to um sleep sounds, music, books, and control the Yoda player too. Radio. You can press the right knob and listen to some music. There is some accessories. Yo player jacket. You can use the jacket to protect your yoto player. The yod player travel case. The travel case can be used for traveling and keeping your Yoda player No. So here's the reference where we got uh on the website the Yoda player website where we got some of our knowledge and our photos. So over here you can see where we got our website from. And uh this is where we got some of our knowledge and photos. We got most of our knowledge from exploring from the Yoda player that we have.
Uh so that is something that has been on our radar. As far as expenses, uh you'll see we're right along in line uh with uh salaries. Uh notice that'll catch back up after we do the summer acral pays. um actual year-to- date other objects uh is slightly above the projection. We look at our month-end fund balances, you'll see uh you'll see that we're still outpacing where we were at from the previous year uh with the healthy cash balance in our uh operating funds. When we look at this year or this uh past month compared to the prior uh month of last year, you'll see uh how the the two compare. uh you'll see that the current year is running higher with local and state resources overall compared to the previous year. Uh and expenditures were also running slightly higher with the exception of purchase services.
And then Mr. Omar Roar if you come on up here and Coach Posey uh just come on up here and I'll go ahead and talk about you. Omar is our back-to- back uh FC, formerly FIFA state champion esports. We started the program. Congratulations to you. So, we started this program as a club, right? Then we transitioned into an IHSA uh activity. Uh this is our second year. We've had two consecutive state championships during that time frame. Um Omar is in rarified air at the high school. We've only had three, himself included, uh, student athletes who who won consecutive state titles. Shelley McBride, who's honestly probably our most decorated uh, student athlete. And then Rashad Hbert, who won back-to-back uh, state titles in hurdles at the uh, state meet and now obviously Omar Romo and his prowess in FC. So, congratulations to Omar and Mr. Posie.
Great job by Ashlin to get out of that. uh with bases loaded, a number of walks, they're able to uh you know get a ball in play, get a fly ball, get under it, get out of the inning. What are you doing next? a little faster than I thought. No problem. Got Brooks pitching for Hopkins. Looks like he's got some good heat on the ball. Also sailing right in there. Stone Park field is actually in really good shape. This field gets flooded a lot. A lot of um I've been out here with putting the dry powder out there to soop up all the rain after uh these rainstorms and it just stays for a long time. But the field actually looks great. Lawn looks cut. We're getting ready. First up for Ashlin is their pitcher Ryan Pasaka. Paris having another conversation with the catcher like he did uh he did when Ashland uh was at the top of the inning.
Students must have permissions from their parents to participate. Senior job fair. On May 1st, GLTS held a senior job fair. Representatives from various industries talked to senior students who had the options to bring copies of their resumes which could be used to apply on spot. Senior events. Senior prom will be held on June 2nd at Castleton in Woodham, New Hampshire. Seniors will also have a senior trip to Six Flags on June 4th. Graduation Graduation will be held June 5th, 2025 at 8 at 6:00 p.m. on the football field. There is no gathering limit and anyone can come. In addition to the in-person ceremony, there will be a live stream to accommodate anyone who cannot attend. The live stream can be found there on the there's a link there. See you next year. Have a great summer everyone. Thank you guys. I understand Mirror is graduating.
[Applause] The next award is the presidential award for educational excellence. The purpose of this award is to recognize academic success in the classroom. To be eligible for this award, a student must maintain a minimum GPA of 3.5 or higher and must have scored in the 89 85th percentile or higher in the fastbridge math or reading. Our first student, Jace Allen, Charlotte Deck, Cash Hanley, Maya King, [Applause] Jackson Nessen, [Applause] [Music] Austin [Applause] Grievous, Grace Renie, [Applause] Jace Repper, [Applause] Brazen [Applause] Spring, Elena Wong, [Applause] and Marshall [Applause] right. We'll now recognize two students for the Kansas High School Activities Association Citizen Citizenship Award. This award is voted on by the staff of Burlington Middle School. The criteria for this award are shows respects respect for all citizens, school, community, flag, and country. Demonstrates tolerance and respect for the beliefs and convictions of others. Assumes a responsibility to build school and community pride through active participation in various projects and shows a reverence for life.
Good evening everyone. My name is Donna Williams and I am the English language arts teacher for middle school. And the person who has done the best over the last two years that we have been in middle school has been dedicated. Uh she has been consistent and she has always strived to do her best in everything that she does. Best in ELA for this year is Val Valentina Ramirez.
Thank you for teaching me that lesson, Alyssa. Let me find you. There you are. It's hard to see up here with all these lights. You have such a bright You've been a bright shining star this year and for many of the years that you've spent at PDSD. You have such an optimistic way about you and thank you so much for being such a great shining light with some dark times that we've had. Thank you so [Applause] much, Josh. You have such an adventurous spirit. Adventure lives in your heart. And I wish that I had that energy because as you go out of this building, you're leaving your comfort zone. And thank you for teaching me that lesson. Your energy is so great. Thank you, Isaiah. You are someone who represents the heart of what it means to grow on a journey. You remind me that it's not where we start that matters, but it's where we continue to go on our way to becoming our best selves.
So congratulations guys. I'm really proud of you. I didn't forget that I would like all of our staff members, continental staff members who are in the house, please stand. Teachers that are in the house, please stand. We couldn't do it without all of our staff members and support staff. Thank you. Thank you. All right, welcome everyone. So my speech for all of you eighth graders was made specifically with you all in mind. So forgive me to all of you because you forgive forgive me please because this is with their own lingo. So it it might be hard to understand but I think they'll understand it. All right. AO8 grade class of 2025. Yeah, for real. You all are actually graduating. No way. This is just a level up. This is This isn't just a level up. This is the glow up. You all went from tiny sixth grade NPCs.