Do constituents know that the Board of Education budget is 67% of our town's spending? Do they know that Simsbury, Avon, and Granby Granby held their budget increases this year 2.99, 3.08, and 2.4% respectively? This compares to our request for 8.41% initially, and with the cuts that the Board of Finance proposed last night, that might go to about 6.6. I don't trust my math, you shouldn't either. Um if constituents did know, and they soon will know, that Canton spends, for example, $2,200 more per student per year than the town of Camp of Simsbury. The cost in Canton 27 or 21,751 versus Simsbury 23,000 other way around. Sorry. Simsbury 21,751, Canton 23,946. This added cost might be acceptable if our teachers were paid more or our class sizes were smaller, but this is not the case. Nor is our performance better. In fact, I think there's plenty of evidence that our schools are not standing up to the level of other schools in our area.
Our recipient is a remarkable person who is kind, intelligent, hard-working, empathetic, and thoughtful. This fall, our recipient will attend Villanova University to pursue a degree in economics. Please join me in congratulating this year's business education award recipient, Connor Ray Ball. [applause] >> [applause] >> Next, I'd like to recognize our outstanding student in the discipline of accounting. This student has earned recognition from the Connecticut Society of CPAs. This student is exceptionally hardworking, intelligent, humble, and kind, and has made a lasting impression both in and outside of the classroom. One teacher shared, "There was a true partnership in the classroom through active engagement, thoughtful questioning, and consistent uh consistent positive contributions to class discussions. This fall, our recipient will attend Bentley University to pursue a degree in accounting and will work work towards becoming a CPA. Please join me in congratulating Steven Fit Fitz Morris as the recipient of the [applause] Society Award.
Up until now, we've been given the pieces of the puzzle. Our parents and parental figures give us pieces of support, discipline, and love. Teachers give us pieces of knowledge and curiosity. Coaches and mentors handed us pieces of discipline and perseverance and our friends gave us pieces of fun, laughter, and togetherness. You place the pieces down, not really knowing what the full picture is yet. You know, growing up, I used to think that I needed to complete the puzzle, have it all figured out by the time I graduated high school. I realize now that high school is just the first edge of the picture. One that keeps expanding from here. It's all coming together now, but we have the rest of our lives to figure out the rest of the picture. And the surprising thing is that the pieces we chose and where we place them are now completely up to us.
Class of 2026, as this chapter closes, another one begins. And if high school taught us anything, it is that nothing is handed to us. We earn it. We have proven that we can rise to challenges, support one another, and keep moving forward even when the path is uncertain. So, let us carry that strength with us. Let us honor where we come from by stepping boldly into where we are going. Congratulations, class of 2026. >> [cheering and applause] >> Now, please welcome our next senior speaker, Marlene Hernandez, who will >> [screaming and cheering] >> Marlene will be attending Loma Linda University this fall and studying nursing. Good evening, graduates, faculty, family, and friends. My name is Marlene Hernandez, and I am honored to stand before you as we celebrate the amazing class of 2026. Today marks a milestone we've long worked toward, and now that we're here, it feels bittersweet.
Francisco Alan Sanchez an emerging proficiency advanc Please Oh, by the Marie Garcia. Amy, you listen. Julia Lopez. IS PROFICIENCY. >> Alvin Moore. JOSE Arco efficiency ambassador. I can hear you from here. >> Miguel. Man, a cheater. Let us give another round of applause to our outstanding freshman awards. We now move on to our sophomore students who have continued to demonstrate hard responsibility and academic excellence. May we now recognize our sophomore together with their parents. Emeralds on the ground, principals on the road, high achiever in math, kindness champion award, and best in social studies. SAMANTHA, high achiever in math, high achiever in science, highest champion and technical skills assessment certificate for architectural drafting. A hint, principal of the world, high achiever in math, high achiever in science, kindness champion award, DSer Certificate for architectural drafting and best social STUDIES I have a certificate for culinary arts and serve Personal certificate Rodriguez.
Hearing none, uh my only thing is to echo Aaron's appreciation for you two for all the hard work. This was really spearheaded by you guys. Danielle, I know you did some extra work even to start it off. So, thank you very much for your time and effort in that. And for you guys to really spearhead this and carry it through and do those evaluations and and kind of expedite this process cuz we were up against the clock a little bit. So, we appreciate all of those efforts and um not going to get ahead, but presuming this goes the way everybody expects, you know, congratulations in a minute. So, I will entertain a motion to approve the addition of Claire Lindstrom and Arnaud Detolle to the office of board of student board members. So moved. So moved by Katie. Seconded by Rob. Rob [laughter] so moved.
That is legally what is allowable. You can't go any higher than that. Um and so we would recommend that the board approve the 10-cent lunch increase in price in both the lunches and breakfast. The total lunch price, by the way, is $3.25. Breakfast is $1.80. And I know for uh the ideal lunch price, the federal government has a target of about $4 in there. So we're still far below that uh that uh max target uh that's set by the Fed. Mr. Shepherd, thank you. Um did will this have any effect on um free and reduced um lunches for students? It will not. If you are free or reduced, that those prices the the reduced price will remain the same. And of course, if you're free, um that uh is where we get those reimbursement dollars from the federal government. All right, thank you. Any other questions?
He turned students into young people who wanted to lend a helping hand. He greatly impacted how our young people live their lives and contribute to the betterment of mankind. Mr. Mr. Werenberg truly is the Fred factor. The John Werenberg Award is given to a student who makes an effort to help other people and put others first. This year's recipient is Emory Harris. >> My daughter's going to love it. Next is Mr. Barry Kroan. Can you join me, Mr. Croissan? His award is given in honor of Mr. Krozan who retired from teaching and coaching after 44 years in Colombia Community Schools. Mr. Croissant represented integrity and respect. He treated everyone equally and placed others ahead of himself. He made every individual he met a better person and the school a better place. The recipient of this award demonstrates the qualities for su success in life modeled every day by Mr.
And I will also give thanks to Lana and Chuck and Aaron for meeting with me as well to help me through this process as we work with Antioch. So, thank you very much. go to year. So if we go to year to year, then that gives us time to or them guess to tweak if we need to change or >> Yeah. Especially in this one because it's a different different setup than what we've had before with adding some of the fees in there um and spelling them out the way that we did. So again, it gives us a minute to try it out, see how it works, and then see what adjustments we need to make moving forward. >> Um what is the facility usage fee? >> Yep. So, a lot of these are fees that we currently already pay. Um, and so for the bus side of it, we provide four loads of gravel annually.
And again, this is a very very cool uh donation. I've been told if it gets out who the private donor is that I'm in big trouble. Uh and there won't be a 2501st. So, um the request this evening is for the board to approve. will continue moving forward with the project and relating planning efforts uh contingent upon all applicable legal permitting insurance and safety requirements being satisfactorily met prior to the event. Um I also hope to work with the town and the park and see just just how big we can we can make this for the year. Um, I've been working here what 15 close to 15 years now and I don't ever remember there being Nightstown fireworks for the 4th of July. >> So, uh, pretty pretty excited about this one. And the donor is is going um above and beyond with the amount of fireworks.
Some of these things might be 10, 15, 20 years out. Some of them might be two or three years and some of them might be hey, what can we do right now? And that's the purpose of these documents. These have been developed. I think it's It's important to note that we've had a ton of feedback on these documents. Not just staff and administration. We had a needs assessment completed by Barton Cole Diliman several years ago. That was back I think almost 7 years ago now Steve. You probably remember that better than I do on the exact day. We took information from that assessment that was a district wide assessment. Our current architect that we've been working with on a lot of our recent projects, Farnam Miller, has provided feedback. We've also sought the advice of experts in the fields of HVAC and roofing to examine and evaluate those systems that are certainly high dollar systems to let us know, okay, what what the age of these items, what shape are they in, what preventive maintenance needs to be done.
Thank you for your understanding, Jamie Craft. Thank you, Dr. Daggett. And congratulations to Mrs. Craft. Um we're going to move on to item C3, recommendation for HCCS and Kenneth Hanson contracted services agreement for June of 2026. Um Mr. Allen and board, just because I know lots of questions will come in before I get to number three on the process uh to fill these two wonderful leaders at uh Flint Springs and Roanoke. Um Ms. Brown, our director of teaching learning, will be uh assembling a interview committees uh with um leaders from each of the buildings as well as community members. And our hope is that uh after posting that uh the interview committee will make a selection and bring forward, I would love that to be by the end of June. We'll see how that plays out, but just communicating the same message important when you have two um very important roles to fill.
Kylie Marino, fresh legs, running the ball up the field. She gets a head of steam. Nobody's really going to be able to stop her. Yep. As that happens the entire season. I'd like to see Kylie just keep taking that one in. >> Yep. Let Kylie get a head of steam and just keep going in. Good job by the freshman Pellegrino. And Ava Pellegrino will look to be getting the Spartans first attempt at an 8-meter attempt. Kind of a difficult angle for the righty. Sometimes they look to pass this off. She runs it in, goes up and over and puts the Spartans on the board. Good job by Ava Pellegrino to put the Spartans on the board. Tie it all up, one a piece with 4 minutes to go in the first quarter. Love to see that from Pellegrino. Big game. Young player, but ready for the moment.
Um and then we have Junior Ashley um from dental assistant who got first as well um at states and will be proceeding to compete at nationals in Atlanta, Georgia um first week of June. Um so these students had to go through the district exam um place first in the district and then go to states and place first in states to or in order to qualify to go nationals. Um so it is a huge accomplishment for them. their shop, their shop teachers. Um, and we're excited to see how Nationals goes. Um, [applause] we have um other students who placed out states. Do you have that? I don't know if I remember all of them off the top of >> you that I just won't remember. We did have so four states. Um, we leave Thursday after school and two overnights. Oh, is it not on? Sorry, I'm pretty loud.
We do have some schools that needs needs some some parking lot work. Um but all in all, uh once again, you got you got the north side, south side of Federal Street School. Um a lot of classrooms, um with the flood that we just had there, we're able to do uh the which was a classroom, which could be converted back over to classroom where the flood was, and that is the teacher uh teacher break room or coffee room. Um the classroom below, we got all new floors and completely completely done over, so that's in really nice shape. Uh the nurse's area, we put brand new floors in, so the floors are new in there. And then along with the basement, seeing the flooded out the basement, we're able to do a couple rooms over down there, which could now be used as a at least one of them could be used as a classroom, except that um the elevator doesn't go to the basement, so somebody that that uh needed handicap accessibility, we couldn't accommodate that, but it could be used as a breakout room or something um that could be uh helpful and definitely usable down there.
In fact, our middle school is under state oversight in an effort to improve its performance. We simply can't blame unfunded mandates as our neighboring communities bear the same burdens. Our problem is entirely related to our administrative structure for school district of our size. Since Superintendent Cases retirement a mere 3 years ago, we've added an assistant superintendent, a secretary to the assistant superintendent, a business manager, and assistant to the business manager to name just a few. All while our student enrollment continues to decline. What do we have to show for the added administrative overhead? Have we found any innovative ways to reduce costs? Have we found any innovative ways to improve our students' performance? If we have, I'm not aware of it. It sounds like someone's not doing their job and we're being asked to pay the costs. Thank you for your comment. Anybody else who would like to speak?
[applause] One more. Our final business award is the Susan Zwick Future Educator Award. This award is presented to a graduating senior who is pursuing a degree and career in education. This student exemplifies all that was meaningful to Mrs. Wick, including being a positive role model, possessing high moral character, having a caring personality, willingness to help others, and most importantly, demonstrating a passion for education and lifelong learning. The recipient of this year's award exemplifies all of these characteristics and more. Our recipient is thoughtful, hardworking, and will always brighten your day. Our recipient has a passion for education and working with children. In one of the reflection journals for our class, this student shared, "I've had a really positive experience in my elementary school classroom. I absolutely love my mentor teacher and I've learned so much from her. I knew I wanted to go into education before starting this experience and every day in the classroom has made me want to pursue education even more.
The pieces we've collected, the choices we made, and even our mistakes, they all form the puzzle. The puzzle that shapes the story of our lives. There's a quote from one of my favorite movies, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, that I really wanted to share with you guys. For what it's worth, it's never too late to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit. Start whenever you want. You can change or you can stay the same. There's no rules to this thing. We can make the best of it or make the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. And I hope you live a life that you're proud of. >> [cheering and applause] [snorts] >> And if you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength the strength to start all over again.
Through the perseverance, sacrifice, determination, and countless challenges, we made it. First, I would like to express my gratitude for the amazing staff and administrators here at Katella, as well as the Board of Trustees. Your guidance, encouragement, and belief in us every step of the way made this day possible. Even though this journey has been full of dreams and disappointments, I am grateful for all the beautiful moments it has brought. Along the way, I met some of the most amazing people. These girls have been with me through every high and low. I hope I have left a lasting impact on them. One day, I hope to become someone they look up to and inspire to be like. And one day, I will switch places with them and watch them walk this stage just as they are watching me today. Today is just one of many goals we will accomplish in our lives.
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