Our outstanding senior girl. I'm not sure if she's here, but she deserves our applause. Muhammad Kala Muhammad [Applause] All righty. Our boys team had three seniors that contributed an awful lot. Every one of the boys and girls, the total five are all going on to higher education of some sort. on boys cross country. The individual who's winning this outstanding senior award truly is one of our all-time greats. He's not just great as you know him in the building and the school district as one of the brightest athletes we've ever produced, but he's going to an exceptional college. And I'd love to be around another 20 years to see what he accomplishes in his life. His dedication is unescribable. Lamar Ali [Applause] [Music] All right, moving into the winter. Coach Val, girls and boys swimming.
So when we uh reflected on this some of some responses in preparation for 2025 uh first we want to continue to unpack the best practices cited within the Illinois comprehensive literacy plan. Um we're excited to do that along with our other elementary schools this year as we launch that in August as an entire district. Uh in addition uh we want to more frequently monitor student growth and reading. Uh certainly that's done in a for in an informal sense in every classroom, but we want to do it in a more formal sense within our PLC teams. Uh so we're going to look to develop common formative assessments and more frequently uh look at the data uh so we can better predict what our map growth will look like. Uh some of our accomplishments around our goal of sense of belonging. Uh we built community through our schoolwide student centered events we had.
Accommodations may be granted. Schools would be required to have a policy educating students about the social, emotional, and physical harms of social media use. The study act put students and their mental health first. By restricting cell phones during the school day and raising the bar for social media companies, we are taking bold steps to create learning environments free from distraction and digital landscape that prioritizes the well-being of our youth. This bill is a commitment to both education and mental health for our young people, ensuring they have the tools to succeed without unnecessary harm. That is a quote right from our attorney our attorney general Andrea Joy Campbell, which she feels very very strongly about this. you know, our our schools school environments need to really feel like a learning engaging environment for our youth and it's hard when they have access to these um electronic devices be it cell phones, tablets or whatever the case is.
[Applause] [Music] Uh, good evening everyone. Just want to say congratulations all the seniors in the room for your hard work and dedication throughout the years. Um we had a few seniors Paris Royal Ranatada just sorry Ranada and James Yasmin Mills Maria Ramirez Na Rivera and most importantly our senior MVP Jaylen Rivera. Congratulations. [Music] for the boy side. Uh we have one senior boy dedicated, showing up every single day, gave everything to swimming his four years. Not didn't say much, but said a lot with the work ethic and everything that he did in the water each and every day. Our voice here be Benjamin Santana. [Music] Next up is Coach Getta in boys wrestling. [Music] Welcome guys. Today we are coming together to honor our outstanding senior class of wrestlers. Uh one that's going to left an unforgettable mark on our new program. uh Edward Jativa, Joshua Martinez, Jason Gel, Justin Geria, Isaac Kazamski, Nick Doctor, and Joe Gletto.
Uh you can see in the pictures on the right uh we had a March Madness tournament of books. So alongside the basketball March Madness um all of our students K through five had different books in part of a bracket that they read got to vote on. Um and those were displayed around the hallways. So I know my first graders loved to see what everyone else was reading. Um we also had a super fun clue mystery game. So there was a clue given every day and the kids had to work together try to uncover whatever the mystery was. Um and they loved that as well. Um we also introduced something called the keys to resolving conflict which is a process um kind of built to develop resilience uh in our students when they encounter conflicts with their peers. So teaching them a very clear process to resolve that conflict independently when to seek adult support and help.
It's distracting and we need to really get them engaging with their peers, engaging with their teaching teachers and engaging in the learning community as a whole. This mandates all public schools to establish policies on student use of electronic devices during school. So from right from bell to bell. Okay. Students will not have physical access to their devices during school hours. Accommodations will be made as needed. And the bill also calls on social media companies to implement changes that protect youth. For instance, age verification, reduction in addictive features. Now that makes sense, right? That makes sense. If there is a youth account, a youth account should have a reduction in addictive features, but they don't. So, age ratification, things of things of this nature is what really we're hoping to help raise the attention on, especially for towards social media companies. really hold them accountable for the detrimental effects that that it is having on on our youth.
Uh let's not forget these guys won numerals awards throughout the four years. They were building block for all every single championship one. They were county champions. They won big North public school dual team championships and they won the state sectionals last year as well. Uh now as we move on they leave behind just not just an empty spot but also a legacy and culture. Okay. Hard dedication, really hardworking kids that these younger kids are already noticing how much they're going to miss him next year. Um it was a hard to pick MVP this year. uh from Justin who was the last kid winning the state championship against BCTI to Isaac Kazamski who went one match away from placing in states this year with 38 [Music] wins to Nick Doctor and Joey Galetta. who both accomplished 100 wins in their [Applause] careers with Nick setting the record of pins.
Uh we intentionally found ways to increase our student leadership positions. So we had students leading our morning announcements, uh morning greeters. We had some kids wearing like the little grizzly what it paw. I don't know. My kids love to give them a high five in the mornings. Um and then student focus groups, which you'll hear about in a minute. Um and then we've always done behavior boosts, but we tried to really kind of amp them or ramp them up to promote that positive culture. Yeah. So, our sense of belonging goal was to move from 77% to 80% uh on the overall survey. Uh the survey has one question that is about uh sense of belonging, but then there's the greater uh series of questions within the survey which gives us kind of a sense of belonging score. Um with that that larger number, we did not make the goal that we were hoping for.
The cell phones and social media kits um social media and school kits model uh first one would be a model cell phone policy and it has clear rules even enforcement support for students and staff. Number two would be guide for creating community norms, education, and engaging families, students, and communities. Because let's all let's all, you know, be honest. If my teenager rides the bus to school, I feel safer with my teenager having his phone on him, riding the bus to school in case of an emergency. But does my teenager need his phone in school? I personally don't believe that he does. If it's an emergency, just like back in the old days when I was in high school and middle school and elementary school, you know, access used to use to use the phone. So there are ways that we can, you know, work together with our educators, with our schools to help support this so that hopefully we can see a little bit of a re-engagement in our youth, in their academics, in their peer relationships.
Incredible. 96 pins in high school career, which is high school record in [Applause] pushing. and Joey, my son, a little hardheaded taking a year off, taking a gap year, set a record with 425 points, wrestling three different weight classes against the best competition, [Applause] like I said, it was very difficult to decide, but the most consistent kid who wrestled four years on varsity. Nick [Applause] Do hopefully one year. All right, next up the real coach Kleta and girls wrestling. [Applause] [Music] Last year at this dinner, we had the pleasure of honoring NJ Martinez, who is now thriving at the Naval Academy. Today we are here to recognize two senior female wrestlers, Jesse Nuan and Samara [Applause] Monahan. When MJ graduated last year, we only had Samaro as the team who suffered broken collarbone injury and couldn't compete. But Sam came back. She attended every summer practice and even mobilized more of her friends.
Uh but once again, we we dug into the data and found some celebrations. Uh first off, uh 11% increase in students who were feeling more understood by the adults at school. Uh in addition, there was an 11% increase in the students uh uh with IEPs who felt a sense of belonging at Grace McQueen. Um and just kind of not formal data, but um we talked about those student focus groups. Um and it was great just face to face hearing from students saying, "Yeah, I do feel a a greater sense of belonging." And then they would tell us, "Oh, you know, those leadership roles are really cool. We look forward to doing those and we're in fifth grade." And the special events they would talk about uh with me uh showed that on an informal sense that we were going in the right direction for sense of belonging.
Section one would be the policy, and that's examining popular cell phone policies. whe whether it would be a bellto bell off and away or limited use. Now I believe this is um per like the districts. I'm not sure if this is exactly across the board or uniform in every situation but I think certain districts are doing different things. Um then we have the model bell-to-bell policy which is a there's a sample here outlining the key components of a success successful policy. Considerations for choosing and implementing the policy that works best for your community. So it's not all going to be onesizefitsall for every school, for every, you know, for every student. Figure out what works for your community. Figure out what works for your child. Figure out what works for your family member or the youth in your lives that you care care deeply about.
Together with MJ's inspiring legacy, we were able to build the first varsity girls wrestling team in Clifton High School. And what a year it was. We competed in dozen of events and I'm happy to say that more than half of our Navis wrestlers finished with a winning record. And also as a team we achieved a winning record as well. We beat tough opponents like Natley, Carney and Sparta. I also want to thank Coach Galetta, his dedicated staff and also the entire boys wrestling team for for their support. Coach Vleta, you have been instrumental in this athlete development. I never thought I'd say this, but I have a lot to learn from you. [Applause] We are proud to share that Jesse and Nuan will be attending Princeton University and our Catherine Samra Monahan will be heading to Montlair State. I also want to acknowledge our hardworking manager Jayen of Espinosela.
Um we plan to continue a lot of that work. Uh so we're going to look to target those subgroups who report the lower sense of belonging. Um and uh because those student focus groups seem to be so meaningful to students to give them that student voice. Uh I'm looking to increase those. We were do we did them uh once or twice a trimester and we're we're looking to do it monthly at least uh for next year. Uh it's just a great time where I sit down with students during uh their lunch or the recess. Uh we ask some poignant questions and uh they give some great answers. A lot of the improvements we made this year at Grace McQueen were based off of the the results of the student focus groups. All right. So, we also have a lot that we're excited to celebrate uh this year at Grace McWain.
Figure out what might help them disengage from social media and engage with their peers or engage in with their academics so that we can better support their mental health moving forward. Section two, creating a community norm. Some sample community norms and considerations are showcasing what norms may look like, providing a starting point for communities. You know, it might be that um a particular school, particular district has a um you know, they know what their community is. They know what their student comm community is, but working together to find out what suits their students best. Um, that's what really this this is is really understanding what are the norms, what are the needs of your community, what are the needs of your student community and really finding a way to help them implement this. And you know, as a parent, I I support, you know, working with our educators, working with our schools, our our school districts, our school communities, because they are the ones that are seeing it on a day-to-day basis, and they're seeing how students and youth are disengaged from learning and also disengaged from peers.
So, just a few of those things like Mr. Mov talked about, we have the high levels of proficiency in our MAP, both ELA and math. Um the increased literacy culture in our building from K to 5. Uh those new leadership opportunities like they mentioned. Um, and then just really working to establish some new traditions, um, and make some cultural changes just to make our kids feel like they belong. So, that's it. Thank you for the opportunity for letting us share a little bit about, uh, Grace McQueen tonight.
implementation framework from planning to launch or and and educating and engaging with all members of your community to establish shared expectations to support youth well-being. And I think a big a big piece of this as well is ask let's ask our youth let's ask our teams you know let's get some feedback from them get their voice let's hear from them about what they think would work because really we're we're here to implement this for their for their benefit. Let's really get them engaged in the conversation and in the framework to develop something as a community that they can all agree upon or you know as best agree upon community guidelines implementing digital media literacy when and how to incorporate how teachers can support digital digital media literacy but not also you know just teachers but us as well. Community, family, uh how families can support one another on digital media literacy, some key mindset shifts for educators to best support students.
[Applause] Any questions? Yep. So, um, just out of curiosity, did you find any contributing factors as to why the third and fourth graders didn't meet the goals? Um, that's some that's something with the data being so fresh that we're still still looking into. Um, but uh we couldn't find one particular uh piece of data to tell us that, you know, an instructional practice that was done or not done within the classroom that would have uh correlated to that data. And then as far as sense of belonging. Do you know what caused I think was it a was it a kind of a decline? Was it 80% to 72? What what caused that? Um that so it what was interesting is that we were asking in in the student focus groups we would ask them like hey we noticed that you know this is going down from fall to winter um you know and and talked with them about it and we couldn't pinpoint a specific uh thing that that would would change that for them.