Um, so we've spent a lot of time reviewing these start times is what might be possible. Um, I think you both know, you both been on the board a long time. Ann Harrian has frequently been a proponent of following the science around school start times for high schoolers. Um, which is pretty strong about the fact that 7:30 start time does a lot of damage to the body. Um, we're sensitive to that. Um, and you know there are a lot of variables that go into making these decisions and I think that's one of them. What we are just initiating tonight is here are some different options to look at. Here are some of the the costs of these options. Um, you know, obviously our transportation has a cost regardless of what we do. Um but having a shift does have a little bit of a cost um associated with it.
So, I'm going to come around the front. I'd like to first call up Principal Dave Kimble to join me. worship today. Come on in. I need you to take photos. So, the first person is Carara Soliva and Brody Weber. Come on up. [Applause] Once we get the first ones, anybody pay attention? [Applause] Okay, next up I need our Rogers Park principal, Dr. Christy Zelina. Come on up. [Applause] And will Chloe roll uh roll on and Alex pins up. Please come on up. [Applause] Thank you. We have our Westside Middle School principal, uh, Interum Mike Glint. Come on up, please. [Applause] And the two winners at Westside are Charlie Atkinson and Giani Rosa, who cannot be here tonight uh due to try out. So come on up, Charlie. Congratulations. [Applause] Okay. And next up, gonna have Dan Donovan from Danbury High School come [Applause] up. Right.
Appreciate that. But thank you for taking that job. Um next up, I'm going to ask if there are any members of the public that want to give public comment. Seeing none, um we will move on to our agenda where we are going to start with the superintendent's report and the AMS presentation.
A huge thank you also to the countless student and faculty volunteers who stepped in to help. This is an inspiring number of people who have given their time for these events. Please know how profoundly grateful I am for you graduates. I hope that you also feel this sense of gratitude tonight. Gratitude for your families, your teachers, coaches, mentors, and friends who have helped guide you to this moment. Please take the time to thank them and let them know that they are appreciated. I am now pleased to present to you the Essex Northshore Agricultural and Technical School District School Committee Chairperson, Mr. Mark Stout of Marblehead. [Applause] That's good luck.
Uh even if we just kept the same proposal, the same time schedule because we need in conservative figures more buses to facilitate kids around town just because of walking distances and stuff. Now none of this will be totally resolved until we know what the um redistricting study says and we're still going through that. Uh so we won't really know the the fiscal impact until that's resolved. But um I think this gives us a real sense and if we can nail down the start times for the schools then we can start to think about staffing and what you know because teachers may want to think about going to another building but if that time doesn't drive with my lifestyle then maybe I won't and um it impacts families and our staffing and so we want to try and get this resolved ASAP. At the same time, we want to be able to provide the community ample time to review and provide feedback.
And the two winners at Danbury High School are Amanda Magna Magnago and Christopher Borges. Congratulations. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Okay, one more for the cave awards. And can I please have uh Danielle Espazito, our guidance teacher, and Kyle Tracola from ACE. Principal John Weber can make it tonight. Okay, so we have Randy Espanol and Emily Vasquez. Come on [Applause] up. [Applause] Congratulations. Congratulations. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Okay. Offering this microphone here. Uh so our next um our next group is uh receiving the reward from the Western Connecticut Superintendent Association. Um, this Western Connecticut Superintendent Association hosts an award ceremony for outstanding students in each school district based on three criteria. Community service, service to others, academic prowess, so relative ability, and leadership service to the school community. The following students were selected by our principles and recognized as at the recent WCSA and we invited them back here for an additional board of ed recognition.
Good evening everyone. I'm super excited tonight to be here and to not be the one speaking. Um, I have four amazing eighth grade students here who are going to talk about the work they did to run playbook workshops with um, students over the past um, four weeks or so. We did two workshops. They're going to they're going to speak and tell you all about it. Um, and I think Grady is also going to share a little bit about the work he did with Project 351 and the um, project that he did um, through that organization as well. So, come on up, guys. Hello everybody. Hi. Uh, I'm Grady and I led the playbook workshops. And with the project 351 project that I participated in, I we held a clothing drive at our school and we collected 25 bags of clothing. And with the playbook workshops, uh, Sammy Levenson, uh, huge thanks to him.
Good evening everyone. Fellow school committee members, superintendent Dr. Heidi Richio, Assistant Superintendent Shannon Donnelly, administration, faculty and staff, class of 25, parents and extended family members. It is indeed my honor and pleasure to represent the entire 20 member school committee in celebrating all of the accomplishments and honors of the class of 25 who are graduating today from the finest agricultural and technical high school in the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Graduates, I want you to rest assured that the administration, faculty, and staff of Essex Northshore have prepared you to be highly productive members of the 21st century economy and to be lifelong learners. The school committee wishes all of you every success in life and wants you to know that you will always be part of the Essex Northshore family. As well, the school committee wishes to acknowledge and thank the faculty and staff who are retiring or moving on in their professional careers this year.
So, tonight is just a kickoff. It is just the, you know, the point of here's the information. And we intentionally have multiple proposals out there so that nobody is saying, well, here's what the board is doing next year. Even if we put it out as a proposal, if there's only one that's going to be, you know, misinterpreted. So there are a lump number of proposals here in Emily's presentation. Um and that's kind of the background for it. Uh so kind of jumping into this the current state of affairs and where we are right now. Cheshure has a three- tier busing system uh where Cheshire High School is going first and then we have some of the elementary schools in Dodd and then a third tier with Highland and Norton. Uh, and sharing this just because a lot of it's a lot of school districts do a two to three tier model.
And I please have once again, Principal Dave Pimble from Broadview Middle School. Come on [Applause] up. Can I Okay. Well, we have Emily Pitman and Ashley [Applause] Galupa. Accept their award for them and give them. Thank you. Okay, from Rogers Park again, Dr. Christy Alita, come on [Applause] up. And here we have Sophia Calfano and Anthony [Applause] Martini. [Music] Congratulations. Okay. High School dance out of it again, please. I got to wait in the hallway. And we have Deselle Swift and Henry Chen. [Applause] This is This is [Music] and Westside Middle School. Principal Michael, come on back up. [Applause] Okay. And could we have Esmeralda, Esmeralda Dcasta, and Kayla? [Applause] A go. Perfect. [Music] And last but not least again, Ace Daniela, come on back [Applause] up. And these two are no strangers to the board. Ariana West and Ava Stell. [Applause] I could not be here tonight.
He handwrit hand handw wrote all of the um scenarios and stuff that we did straight from the playbook website just so we could do it at our middle school even even though he's a high school senior. And Miss Makuchi who is here, she let us use her classroom for both of the workshops which was a which was very helpful so that we didn't have to find another place to do it. Um, I participated in the Zoom meetings where I was taught on how and how to lead the playbook workshops and uh we a bunch of people came and talked to us on the zooms. Um, playbook is a workshop that trains kids for real life scenarios and to be a leader in their community. And during the workshops, I opened it up and then I introduced Vidant who uh led Hello everyone, my name is Vidant Absangi and I had the opportunity to lead the icebreers during our second playbook workshop.
We want you to know that the contributions that you have made to the success of our students have been so greatly appreciated by all of us. The school committee wishes to credit and thank Superintendent Richio, Assistant Superintendent Donnelly, the entire administrative team, and our highly qualified and dedicated academic and CTA faculty members for having afforded the class of 25 every opportunity to excel in their chosen area of specialization. faculty and staff. Your dedication, professionalism, and the thousands of hours spent with our students, molding them into the exceptional young adults sitting before us tonight is so greatly appreciated by all of us. Last, but certainly not least, the school committee wishes to acknowledge and thank the parents and extended families of all our students. Graduates, please don't ever lose sight of the fact that it was your parents who guided, inspired, nurtured, and loved you unconditionally to get you all to this milestone in your young lives.
Um, and we do this for a number of reasons. There are some financial constraints. Uh, and you can see here on the left is kind of where all of our schools are laid out currently. And on the right is our districting map, which Jeff shared, you know, that that's going to um change as we open new schools. And we have a plan for getting three proposals in the fall for potential redistricting plans. So you can see the bus times. Another thing is, you know, we're cutting it kind of close with running CHS dismissal and then the second tier uh 35 minutes later. Um so just some of the current challenges we're experiencing with bus times, especially if you're looking at the redistricting map and we have route 10 kind of cutting across diagonally. So but this is where we are right now with our our buses.
I just want to say thank you to all the parents. Um the work that you put in every day parenting these amazing students uh does not go unnoticed. Uh you have one of the greatest influences more so than we do on a daily basis. So we thank you for all the time that you've spent shaping them and guiding them and uh thank you for bringing them here tonight for school night. We appreciate you. Some of you had to do this for the second time. So, thank you very much. Give yourselves a round of [Applause] applause. Before we enter into uh public participation, would anyone like to leave so we get into our business? Thank you, student. Thank [Music] you. Congratulations. [Music] You do such a good job. [Music] I don't think You're ready?
For the activity, we showed students a series of zoomed in images and asked them to guess what each object was. Once the full image was revealed, we discussed how our initial guesses could be completely different from reality. Just like how our just like how people can have different perspectives and interpretations, this fun and interactive game helped us connect to one of the key themes of our workshop, understanding and respecting diverse web viewpoints. Thank you. Hi, my name is Claire Jakes. At the playbook workshop, I led the agree disagree segment. During this, people would move to one side of the room depending on their stances on topics. We discussed if students agreed or disagreed with statements about race, leadership, religion, and gender. It was really interesting to see their different stances on these topics. Hi, I'm Katie Smith and in the playbook workshops, we ran scenarios that represented real life problems and true issues that people face.
Graduates, never underestimate the power of your voice, your dreams, and your actions. This world needs thoughtful, courageous leaders, and we believe that you are ready to meet that challenge. Congratulations, class of 25. Go forward with confidence and know that we are cheering you on every step of the way. Thank you and enjoy the festivities. At this time, it is indeed my great pleasure to introduce to you the finest superintendent in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Dr. Heidi T. Richio. [Music] Congratulations to the class of 2025. You are here because you lived our mission of academic and technical excellence. It certainly is a great day to be a Hawk. Over the past four years, Essex Tech has given you more than a schedule of classes. It's given you opportunities. opportunities to grow, to try, to lead, to fail, and to get back up again. Some opportunities looked like a challenge.
Um and then here's just some of the projections for the uh new enrollment. uh with Barnum in play. You can see Barnham's pretty close to where Darcy was, so it's not changing much of the map, but we still have Route 10 cutting across all of our schools. Uh and just where we project that enrollment is going to be at each school with changing obviously notable changes are Highland, which is going to go down, um and then having Barnum. So leveling out the elementary schools a bit more, which will in turn change just how bus routes work because we aren't so heavily loaded at one of our elementary schools. So uh in addition to the schools you see here, we're also transporting to St. Bridget's where we have five buses, Lyman Hall two buses, Wilcox three buses, and the Sound School one bus. So there's a lot that's happening with our transportation.
The board welcomes public participation and ask that speakers please limit their comments to three minutes. Speakers may offer objective comments of school operations and programs that concern them. The board will not permit any expression of personal complaints or defamatory comments about board of education personnel and students nor against any person connected with the Danbury public school system. Thank you. First person is Lopez. [Music] Good evening, board um board of education. My name is Christiana Javi and I'm a senior at Danbury High School. And my name is Emily Lopez Gibbons. I'm also a senior at the American High School. Um, so we're here tonight not just as students, but as voices for hundreds of our peers. Students who are doing their best to reach college, but are missing one important thing, which is support to prepare for the SAT. The SAT still plays a big role in college admissions and scholarships.
Everyone would participate and share in their small groups how they would react to to the scenario, but also had volunteers share to the whole group what their views were and what they discussed. The scenarios were very diverse and covered many present topics in today's society like race, religion, and gender. So I think important to note for these four is that playbook workshops are normally run by high school students for middle school students and CME came and ran the first workshop for us and really took the lead. Um, and then due to his schedule with AP testing and and other senior commitments, he was not able to come back. And these four did not hesitate at all to step up and and take the lead to run just among their own peers of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders um and lead really tough conversations on difficult topics.
Some looked like a spark. Some didn't look much at all, but every single one of them was a building block. The building block will take you some to college as you further your education in fields such as aerospace engineering, veterary medicine, architecture, cyber security, and more. Others will continue in the Nighthawks program to earn their journeyman license, enter the military, or enter the workforce in fields such as cosmetology, culinary arts, and landscaping. At Essex Tech, we celebrate all of these choices. We hope you feel prepared to take that next step in your journey. Opportunities will not stop now. life will continue to present them. Some big, some small. But it's your decision to take them. Choose to take them. That choice, what you say yes to, what you work for, that's what will shape your future. Tom Brady once said, and I quote, "To be successful at anything, you don't have to be special.