And Massachusetts is not good about passing laws on this type of thing. Um but, if we you have more people that know and the more people that are talking about it, um the the better our chances are It's like the quick thing and and support the companies that are um like [clears throat] there's lots of stores popping up, the refill stores, where you can bring your even if it's a plastic bottle, you're not buying a new one to refill your shampoos. I you know, I can switch everything out of your kitchen and your bathroom and uh and the the clothing places that are making natural fibers or now seaweed fibers and whatnot. Um but, there's, you know, in Lexington, Concord, uh Newton, um, uh, you know, the chemicals in your plastic wrap is getting into your food. So, doing as much bulk purchasing and whatnot and supporting those companies so that becomes a viable, uh, business cuz they're all scraping by.
Um, it provides a summary of the compounds that were identified above applicable mass DEP standards from the 2022 to 2025 groundwater and soil gas sampling for air and soil I'm sorry, from the 2022 to 2025 groundwater and soil gas sampling. And we also have sampling for air and soil from the 2010 phase two comprehensive site assessment and the 22 to 25 sampling. So, we have quite a bit of testing that's been done here. Um, the RAM report that you have on record has all the compounds that were identified. Tonight, we're just talking about the ones that exceed safety standards that are required to be um, addressed for the soil management de watering. Um, uh, again, the information we're providing here is specifically prepared by Mr. Campbell and uh, he's done the sampling for the site, which again, is the RAM report. Um, we looked at air, water, and soil.
And we were also able to have other grades and classes come and visit and see their presentations. And students were able to explain their animals. They were also did a fairy tale unit. Here's third grade, and they were learning about the universe in one of their units. Um they did a lot of peer reading together, annotating and making sure that they were able to have um open dialogue and discussion about the reading um answering inferential and questions in terms of um putting things in order, time, space. fourth grade. Um they opened up with a unit on um it was a narrative about an individual who had polio and I didn't learn this until they told me is that the creator of the game Candyland invented the game uh for patients in the polio unit. Um so they started their unit by learning about polio about the author and then they finished their unit by playing the game Candyland.
They would still have to do that. But we talked about Hampshire and Franklin County and all of us have had these discussions prior to the the number of just human beings who live here, right? And while I was in Northampton on Friday big big dog down in Hampshire County and I jokingly say we're the big big boy up here, right? Okay. We're the big dog here at 17,000, 18,000 people. They're the big one at 34. Right? One more step down to Springfield at 150. Like this the scale just goes bang bang bang, right? I mean, your suburbs of Springfield maybe not right turn, but your smaller cities even at Chicopee 55,000, right? Like there's just a lot of human beings who work there. And albeit not the end of the world for a drive from 91 Springfield to here 40, 45 minutes. If people can find things closer to their home for quality of life, they do it just for time of commuting.
I asked her to compare it to the state. She said we were on par with the state and I thought we were still at 15% as of like this year. So, I didn't actually think it was growing, but what you had spoken to or what Robin Adams spoken to I thought was uh, kids moving through the system. So, kids would be getting uh, testing out and then new kids test in. I'm just curious trying to reconcile what I thought I heard you say with what I thought I understood. Yeah. And I could be way off base on this. Just trying to >> Yeah. So, for Cheshire Mhm. um, we used to have around 10% and that number has steadily climbed. The percentage of across state is also steadily climbed. I think statewide we're encroaching like 18% or something. And we're under that. We are under that.
I've also developed professional technology skills like keyboarding, formatting business letters, and reconciling bank statements. Through projects, we get to create our own ideas, like building a business concept, interviewing a business owner, or developing products and marketing strategies. I think this work feels authentic, and gives us opportunities to apply what we learn to real-life situations. All right, and one last one. Hi, my name is Tyler Lutini. I'm a sophomore at Cheshire High School, and I've taken two courses in the business department. The two courses I've taken are Intro to Business and Personal Finance. There are two experiences that really stood out to me um while taking these classes, and they were interviewing the owner and founder of an insurance company, and then creating my own business plan called Showbox, a temperature-controlled lunchbox designed to keep food at the right temperature. During the interview project, I had the opportunity to meet with the owner and founder, and learn a lot about how the insurance industry actually operates, and how a business like that is built and run.
Isaiah Elmore. >> [applause] >> Isaiah is most proud of becoming kind to people. Cadence Faircloth. >> [cheering] >> CADENCE WAS ON THE HIGH HONOR ROLL and will receive an academic letter. Cadence is most proud of her improvements in her artistic skills. CHLOE FERRARA. >> [applause] >> CHLOE WAS ON THE HIGH HONOR ROLL and will receive an academic letter. Chloe is most proud of how much effort she has put into her sports and her assignments during middle school. Alex Fink. >> [applause] >> Alex was above the 90th percentile and reading. Alex is most proud of the friends that he has made during middle school. Elijah Glaze. >> [applause] >> Elijah is most proud of making good friends throughout middle school. Samuel Griffith. >> [applause] >> Samuel is most proud of maintaining his friendships. Aubrey Goller. >> [applause] >> Aubrey is was on the honor roll and will receive an academic letter.
I'm just being realistic with all of you, okay? This was What did he or she used to teach? What are he What is he or she certified in? Where can they help? Because what we were doing is we were trying to keep a team that was here as much people as as many people as possible for the needs of of our students. That's the reality. Now as we get to this point and we look at enrollments, we look at some money is coming back. I don't even know where the title money is going to be, right? They just took away the Blue Ribbon program, right? So, I mean there's different things that are happening. So, we are in limbo still. So, what I'm saying to you is this, the promise that I'm making to the community and the staff and this board knows it is that we're still going to get to work moving forward.
In a race, it's just as important to look behind you as it is in front. But for us, its purpose is not to avoid being passed, but rather to appreciate how far we've come. We should look back with gratitude for those who've helped us come so far. Our parents for picking out our outfits before we knew it was good for us. Our teachers for doing a good job that's not always given its student merit. And the landscapers for bringing an end to the flood on campus freshman year. We should look in the rear view this evening with our pride being tempered by humility. Because truth be told, none of us would be here tonight if we were on our own. For me, I'd be stuck in the Taco Bell parking lot after locking my keys in the car for the second time in a week.
uh they've been talking with um Heather about a group that kind of explores like how are we supporting our like members of like the LGBTQIA community but I don't know where that landed. I don't know if that landed as in like this group was going to be doing that or there be a subgroup but that was something. Well, if and sorry to jump in, but >> my experience thus far has been it's been struggling to get stood up and so it my assumption is this group will continue next year and my best recommendation if the group's willing to take it on is that um I know there's one other person in the district that had an interest in working on it um you know Heather could certainly join us exeicio um you know for any meetings related to that um and then I think it's one of your staff members is the other staff member who's interested in being a part of that conversation.
Congratulations. >> [applause] >> Congratulations. Thank you. Oh. Thank you so much. All right. Where am I? And I just I just want to welcome you and um acknowledge that this is a one-year term that is um filling the spot of Beth Morley who resigned um recently and um so we welcome you and we'll bring you up to speed as fast as we can. Thank you so much. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Okay. Now we have Okay. Next up, I'm looking for nominations for our president pro tem. So we do our We have Let me start over. She said I didn't say that anything either. We have to do a board reorganization every year to elect our president and vice president and secretary. We do this every year for to give people a chance to have these different offices and for us to reaffirm this is what we're looking to do moving forward.
This is the similar one Courtney talked about. These are our students that are on our zero to one list. So, students who are on kind of our list of identified either by staff as having zero or one relationships or are self-identified as having zero or one, ninth graders are very overrepresented in that in that data because they've been with us less time, and so we know that those relationships build as grades progress. This is by gender. This mirrors what our staff said, too. Um we are really proud of the work that our females are doing and how connected our female students are, but we do have work to do on ensuring that our males are represented in leadership roles and feeling connected to our school community, and we continue to lean into that as a leadership team. By race and ethnicity, this also mirrors exactly um our black students across both buildings report feeling um the most connected, report the highest number of positive relationships, just like staff.
We had two people from each grade level across the district come here to district office and we really worked on trying to figure out, you know, what our purpose for report cards was. And so, we worked through those types of things and then based on that feedback, we came up with the recommendation to um eliminate the grade piece in third through fifth grade. So, that's kind of where we're at right now. Um we did a lot of research on other districts. We were the only district that was doing it or is doing it that way. Um and it did cause, you know, the teachers to have and parents to be confused on some things, you know, like you're oh, they got an A, but they only got a one. Well, you know, cuz grades traditional grades are a culmination of a lot of things, whereas the mastery of a standard is comparatively to that standard.
Well, I'll echo that. Thank you seems like um it's small compared to the um care and concern and love and uh education that you've given our students. Um but it's big from the place in our hearts that really Avon is differentiated by our quality students and our quality teachers and staff. Um and so I agree with that. Thank you. We have uh 391 years of experience that walk out of our schools today. Um and that is not a dent. That's a big old crunch on the side of the car because uh that kind of know-how um and that kind of educational prowess and that kind uh that amount of uh care and concern for our kiddos, that's a lot of experience leaving us. Um but I will say that having retired 2 years ago, just be aware because I am far busier now than I ever was when I was actually holding down a full-time job.
And at this time, um we would I would recommend to you that we appoint Dr. Ashley Collins as our next assistant superintendent for HR. Thank you, Dr. Phillips. We've heard the recommendation from administration. Uh before the board takes action, we like to give the public opportunity to make comment. If there's anyone here this evening that would like to make a comment on this recommendation from the administration. Seeing that there are no comments, I'd ask board members if there's a motion. I make a motion to approve the recommendation for Dr. Ashley Collins as assistant superintendent of HR. Second. Thank you, Ms. Wheeldon and Mr. Major.
>> And I'm Brady Smith. I was more part of the testing, building, and documentation part of the group. And then, you can see we have two other members, Cameron Rider and Nathaniel Whitaker. They couldn't be here. They have other obligations. >> Okay, so this is our survey data. And if any of you have been to a pep session, you've seen the T-shirt cannon. If we were running it uh last year. I know we're running it this year. We did. Mr. Thompson had to do it. Um but so, on the left there, that's a new survey that we sent out this year seeing how much school spirit the students and faculty thought that we had. And in the middle, we thought or we asked them if they thought the T-shirt cannon boosted it. And as you can see, those are both really good numbers. But I mean, so the one on the left indicates that we don't have enough school spirit, but if you compare our numbers to when the T-shirt before the T-shirt cannon, it's a lot better than it was.
It always works out. >> It does. No doubt in my mind it'll work out. Any questions for Catherine? Thank you, Catherine. Claims. We have claims to announce. Is there a motion to approve the claims? I will approve the claims as I make a motion to approve the claims as presented. Second. I'll second.
So, you're really getting 10% of your grade is on kids you no longer have anymore. Any other questions? So, SATs are offered here for all students, is that correct? It's It's [snorts] mandatory. Um so, every school has to give the SAT. >> [snorts] >> It's different than when I was in school, so I wasn't sure you know, if that's going to be required, do we offer it here, so. And then, what were you saying about the CTE? It was scratched off, doesn't count. For 11th and 12th grade, any career tech ed classes, so like uh like agriculture classes, business, that was initially considered a success indicator, but it's not. It is for freshmen and sophomores, but not for juniors and seniors. So, how does that affect like Impact Institute students, or Those are still dual credit, so dual credit still is a success indicator, so that shouldn't have a huge impact on that.
Any discussion? >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed? Motion passes 6. We didn't do anything about the revisions. Do >> we need to accept the revisions? >> Well, you you approved the revisions, but you or you accepted the revisions for the agenda, but you didn't approve it, including the revision. So, yeah, make a motion to approve the revisions to the first packet. >> I move we approve the additions to additions to the personal revisions. Second. >> Moved by Gina, seconded by Amy to approve the revisions to the personnel packet.
And the only high school that placed and placed first place was our girls right here. Uh they got $10,000 for their seed fund uh for their business. Um, and a little bit about like their business. You guys can find them on the web at Gluccoare. Um, but I don't know if you guys have questions for them. Um, but it's pretty phenomenal where they're going to do with it. Um, but I am going to present their white coat, uh, which is very common for any PLTW, biomedical science students to receive after they've completed the four years. While we're bringing in our next group, our next great group is the Business Professionals of America team. They can come on in. Um while they're walking in, for anyone who missed it, the name of um the the invention from our last group is called Glucco. So, if you have time, look that up on YouTube.