Cannon and the Margaret Johnson Memorial Awards. Each year, these awards are given to two sixth grade students. And given such a stellar group of students that we have this year, it wasn't easy to choose just one for both of those awards from core special education and special areas teachers. The first award is given in memory of Margaret Johnson to a student who exemplifies outstanding citizenship and character who's a conscientious worker in all academic and unified arts areas and who demonstrates appropriate conduct and a positive attitude. I'm pleased to announce that this year's recipient of the Margaret Johnson award is Jack Patson. Our final award of the evening is given in memory of Jamie El Cannan to a student who best exemplifies all-around qualities of excellence. The areas of excellence demonstrated by Jamie Elcan were academic learning, music, art, personality, sportsmanship, and citizenship. And I'm pleased to announce that this year the recipient of the Jamie Elcan All-American Award is Colin Bon.
>> Yeah. So we had to um in order for us to meet the state criteria, if we didn't increase our budget by at least $850,000, then we would have had an issue. We incre The town increased the budget by 6.7 million. So, we're well beyond that $850,000 threshold that might have got us in trouble. Um and so you know they they can uh the town rather than go through the budget process again and try and renegotiate these terms they can simply reduce the mill rate uh reduce the tax burden by the money that they received from the state. Now in the budget deliberation process there was high degree of confidence that we would be see receiving some money. Um I don't think anybody anticipated 1.5 million but there was some money right. So when they did their original budget deliberation rather than reducing our budget any further, they budgeted a $250,000 uh you know uh uh grant from the state.
Everyone plays a huge role in making Pine Creek great, and you all aren't appreciated enough. Thank you to security for keeping us safe so that we can learn and always making us laugh when we walk in and out of school. Another big thank you to our custodians for working tirelessly behind the scenes to keep our hallways and classrooms clean. Please know how appreciated you are and please know how grateful we are to have you. As seniors, we also can't forget to shout out the attendance office for being here to call us out for all those family situations in the past month or so. Now, it would be silly to stand up here and speak without thanking the leaders responsible for running Pine Creek High School. To our admin, you are the backbone of this school and you make everything that we hope to achieve possible.
Thank you all of you for being here tonight. Um if please help me welcome our sto from our high school, Bubble Giver High School. Let's give him a round of applause. Please join me. and please take it away. >> Uh, hi everybody. Um, I'm very nerdy for saying that. >> Um, today we're going to be doing a report on what we have done these past this school year. And uh, yeah. Uh um hi, my name is Hayes. I am the class president of uh 2029 and for this school year. >> Hello, I'm Zebra Miguel, the vice president. Hello, my name is Julia Sugendo. I am the secretary. Hello, my name is Carter Lopez and I'm the treasur. >> And our representatives are uh Aaliyah Antonio and Melody Sulk. Our main goals for class of 2029 were building school spirit and um raising funds for our senior year and representing our class positively.
She has a great sense of humor. Rita brings unique ideas to her team. It is a pleasure to have her on the BR elementary campus. Congratulations, Rita. >> Thank you. >> I'm just going to add to that. Rita always has a smile on her face. She's so positive and happy and kind and she has a really great way of connecting with children. She cares about the kids. She makes sure that they feel loved and cared for and accepted. So, we're so grateful for Miss Rita Wilhight. >> Thank you, Miss Will height, for all you do. Um, next we are going to do our employee of the month. Uh, Mr. Grace, >> I don't see Selena here tonight. Um, so I'm going to say what one of her co-workers uh sent me about her. So Selena is not a person of many words. And the uh Miss Jesse, who she's an aid in her class, is also not a person of just a whole bunch of words.
So, we continue to be very, very proud of our athletes and their participation. Colt summer academic support and enrichment camp space is still available. So, sign up as soon as possible. If you haven't heard from your teachers to get kids signed up, please contact your teachers or Mrs. Curtis in the front office. School facilities project updates. The roofing is completed with the exception of middle school gyms. The new roof hatches have been installed. Painters should be coming out this week to paint the new down spots and boxes. And the final walkthrough will be in two weeks. So, thank you, Mr. Schubert, for keeping these contractors on their toes and getting the work completed. Our state testing results, May 15th, this Friday, we'll get our third grade ELA and math reports. And on May 22nd, we'll receive our fourth through 8th grade. So, drum roll. It's always a suspense as we wait for the data to come in, but we um we know that our kids are going to continue to show what they know.
The FastBridge winter screening window took place between November 24th and December 12th. The winter percentage of first through third grade students scoring at the 50th percentile was the same as it was in the previous year. And to meet our goal of 27% for first through um third grade students, we need to increase oral reading fluency by 7%. And when we think about oral reading fluency, we just want to remind you that that is where students are reading. Um we are measuring how smoothly they can read, how accurately they can read, and that's important as a foundation for that reading comprehension. So, when teachers are listening to their students, they can then ensure that they are including other components of literacy to help their children become proficient readers. Again, you can see our Sankey graph um illustrated here. We can see that 74 students increased in proficiency.
Your partnership has made meaningful differences in the lives of our students and families. Your contributions provide not only essential resources, but also hope, stability, and opportunity. Valley Bloom exemplifies the power of community action. Thank you for being such an important part of our work. And here's what you've done for the homeless and education support. You've given gift cards, uh groceries, gas, clothing gift cards, school supplies, snack bags for students including summer school, prom tickets, Thanksgiving holiday meals for five families, holiday Angel Tree gift cards, graduation gift cards, 10 youth on their own on their own senior side. Senior youth on their own student scholarships up to $8,000 to two recipients for that. Operation School Bell. Back to school shopping events target 90 preschool through sixth grade students from Title 1 schools receive clothing and and shoes. $100 per student, which equals $9,000. And then the GPS district spelling bee.
And thank you board members for engaging and fitting in where you could. That's that's a collective effort. So, I'm really proud of you. And one other event that I just remember the it was University Park. >> I was going to say the CSK >> the CSK >> the pancake >> pancake breakfast. Yeah. Made it to that. Dr. Hall, myself and Superintendent and Dr. M. He's not here, is he? >> Yeah. He brought his daughter. So, that was a nice event. Uh, that's not AP Ali. >> Yes, she's here for something else. >> Oh, it is AP Ali. Oh, I'm sorry. Assistant principal of Ketta Scott Pnemon Elementary. I'm sorry, but she was there and she did she did a tremendous job mcing and coordinate things there. So, kudos to you. I didn't I said that looked like these headlights not the greatest. Okay. But you did a tremendous job just mcing and whatever all you did in uh commemoration of 20 years CSK being a high performance school.
But, I guess my question is do you think 0.2 is enough? I don't think so. I don't think we're going to ask for more. I was even thinking 0.2 was maybe not going to fly and just 0.1, but it would at least allow a joint band program to exist. Could, you know, obviously there'd be other creative solutions for lessons and learning to play, but at least they would have a band that then at the end of the year they can come together for the joint concert. And not lose a year. Can I ask a question? So, I know that one of the pain points in the elementary school hearing from John and Rob is that we had five specials 2 years ago, I guess, right? Was it 2 years ago? And so, each day the teachers would have like a little prep period or break or something.
Congratulations to all the students. Welld deserved and we're all very proud of you. Uh we hope to hear more from you in the next six years. You have a great job. And to the parents and grandparents that are here tonight, uh thank you to you for the support you give to to your students to our students. Uh makes a big difference. I want to take a few pictures. So this is what since we're in the auditorium, we do this the right way. If we can have all the students come up on stage, the board will join you. in our staff that we have a lot of them. So you can come up and join us also staff. Oh, the board. >> So, we have one more award. The students are lining up. We had one student just walk in. >> So, we want to make sure that we give that student what they deserve.
Like I said, it turned out to be 1.5 million. So $250,000 has already been kind of baked into the state the town uh budget. But, um, like I said, I believe tonight they're going to, you know, push that up even further. I don't know if there's any other questions on the state money or on the dollars. So, like I said, we had these um adjustments that are coming in and I wanted to talk a little bit about uh one in particular and that is with Kim retiring at Darcy. So I think you know uh for a good many years uh we've worked really hard on focusing on strategies that that pay dividends uh for our students and good outcomes for our kids. So back in 2016, you know, that really started with complex thinking and social emotional learning and really focusing on uh high quality instruction.
Your diligence and dedication to this school are unmatched and it speaks volumes. We truly appreciate the countless hours, the honest conversations, and the spirit you've brought to Pine Creek. The lifelong memories we've made here are thanks to you and your support. Finally, I want to extend our utmost gratitude to Miss Cornelio and Miss Macintosh. It goes without saying that the course of our educational journeys was set in place thanks to their guidance. Miss Macintosh has been with us since the very beginning and has continued with us every step of the way. and we could not have asked for a better role model. Her authenticity taught us to be genuine, to chase what we love, and to let passion fuel us. Miss Cornelio, besides single-handedly changing futures for those of us heading to college, jobs, careers, missions, and other post-graduate plans, taught us that the most important thing of all, above test scores, above classes, is your character.
Uh we've already begun planning for our senior trip and that includes eligibility requirements. Um we set initial fundraising goals. We also held class meetings. Uh our class participated in school and community events including um our senior night, our spooky stem and stories and our And we supported the school activities through concessions and fundraisers. Um, what we've done so far was we we made a float on senior night and our Duke and Duchess were our Duke was um Justin Anton. And then our Duchess was Adrian um Anton. Uh it was it was very hard cuz you know it was wind very windy and everything and but we have fun. We have fun and yeah. Uh here's two photos from when we had a sale. This this top one here that's from like I think the Halloween one and the other one's from Bobo Day. Yeah. This year we made from fundraising and selling $1,262.
But Selena is a person that works really hard for our district. She works in our self-contained sped at the high school. Um, she has worked with transportation, she has worked with maintenance, she does summer maintenance, she's kind of a person that's just always around. Um, so Miss Jesse writes that Selena is a caring co-worker who always puts others before herself. She will step in to help whenever and wherever she is needed. Even when dealing with her own day-to-day challenges, she shows up and puts the kids first, helping us think of fun foods to cook on Fridays with the class. She works hard and is willing to step up whenever a co-orker needs help. So, Selena Alex. >> All right. And next, we would like to recognize our May volunteer of the month. Um, so here we come. Looks like uh Miss Butler and Miss Yanos.
And hot off the press, I just added this. Um Mrs. Carrie Deo was super excited to let me know that we have our um students who participated in the B Sunrise Play Sunsmart poster drawing contest to increase the awareness of sun safety and skin cancer prevention. So all of these students listed were semifinalists. Aptton Adams, Kiara, Ariano, Bella, Hale, Daniel, Zachary, Sweeney, Ala Valencia, Madison Wat, and Bennett Zable were all finalists. Are any of them here in the house? No. So, we have um their work will be displayed in the semi- finalist booklet, but we have a huge congratulations goes out to seventh grader Aspen Spindle. She's the overall winner of the Sunrise poster contest out of all that were received. So, they're going to get three baseline um tickets to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Um so, we're super excited. So, congratulations to our talented artistic students.
The majority of our students, over 1,100 of them stayed the same and 115 students decreased in proficiency. Interim measure 4.3, this is the percentage of students who score at the 50th percentile on the FastBridge early reading composite, that this will increase from 19% on the kindergarten early reading composite in May of '25 to 32% on the first grade early reading composite in May of '26. This particular screening window was uh took place between November 24th and December 12th. The percentage uh that we saw with our students that time was higher than it was the previous year by 4%. In order to meet our goal of 32%, we need to increase reading fluency by 13% and um for early reading composite in first grade, this is really measuring those foundational literacy skills, things like letter sounds, phonemic awareness, decoding, um and early word reading, similar to what we shared with you with goal three.
You provide trophies, gift cards, check in with students and families on the night of the event. And more importantly, what you give us is your heart. And we love that. You give us your time, your energy, your devotion to our students. And um that sets the example for our whole community. So we appreciate you. Susie would like to give you guys something here. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what happens when a group of people get together and truly care about kids. You get an organization like Valley Bloom. Please give them a hand. >> [applause] >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you for being such a great honor. >> Come on. Get back in line again. >> Okay. >> Thanks again to Valley View. >> [applause] >> And do we have someone from um Dr. Hood, come on up. GCA principal, give him a hand.
So thank you so much. Thank you doc for participating and I saw you eat a piece of bacon. Okay. I just want to let you know. All right. All right. Thank you for the updates. Uh administrative updates back to you, superintendent. >> All right. Uh you stole some of my thunder on some of these. However, I've got um someone special here that you saw. It's um Miss Maya Ali. She is the assistant principal over at Mon. And I asked her to come tonight because I as I share with my FYI, they did a really cool thing at Mon. They went back to having the kids just ride bicycles back to school. And um the parents that I talked to there, they said, "Wow, this just brings back the old days, old school." And everyone was just so delighted with that. So, we did send our videographer there to capture that.
Um and now we only have four. We had four this year, right? There's four. And then is next year dropping to three or are we still going to have four? So, if we did this, it'll be four next year. So, if we added this band back, this 8 hours, let's say we can swing the 8 hours for $15,000. If we add this 8 hours back, could it be a special so that these teachers would have their five back. It would only be for the fifth grade teachers. Yeah, but I I don't I don't think [clears throat] it's treated as a special the same way It's only for the kids that already have their lessons. She's not proposing that everybody would be pulled out of class everybody that did it would be pulled out at the same time to go with the teacher. Wouldn't that just be fifth grade?