So, there were a lot of examples like that. Um, students did see connections between their schoolwork and everyday life and they also highlighted connections between content areas. So, we did have a lot of students that talked about how something that they're talking about in their math class showed up in their science class. There was a lot of STEM connections. There were also a lot of connections um in terms of the humanities. So, we saw some of those links kind of naturally come out of um those discussions. And when we asked them about their perfect class, they kind of we kind of pieced all that together and this is essentially what they came up with that they wanted something that kind of got them right from the start a hook or kind of grounded them in the lesson that day. um some type of refresher from the previous court for the previous class.
We actually reduced it to 2.5 million dollars. We kept basically safety and compliance updates. The town council approved 3.3 million dollars because they added the 800,000 for the track. So they actually approved our reduced ask. But ultimately we only realized 1.7 million of that because we had the two items that failed at referendum. So I'm naming that because you know it starts high but as we see in the process you know the every stage there's a little bit of a cut. But we're not putting 1.6 million dollars up for referendum. I tried to be sensitive to you know putting multiple things up. We saw what happened last time but I do think that the loading dock is a safety issue. Mark, Tim you got to see it in action. Um It's lovely. Yeah. So, um other things on here that I want to any changes that might have been made.
It takes positioning yourself into opportunities of change. And it takes a sense of vulnerability and humility to work on your own growth. To quote Martin Luther King Jr., "An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity." So, I ask you this, Savannah. What is the change that you want to see? As we close out, please remember to never settle, stay true to yourself, and do not lose that fire in your belly, or like our beloved Señora Portillo, never lose the ganas. There is a great expression that says, "To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did." So, do not let the ideas that you never acted on, or the talents you didn't use, stare back at you in the mirror. Class of 2026, thank you for lasting impression on me.
Robby Siddiqui. Carlos Urizar Cordova. Travis Sharp. Rihanna Eimar. Laura Serrano. Chai-Yun Tsai. Emmanuel Santos Salvador. Victoria Trujillo. >> [cheering] >> Randy Santos Gonzalez. >> [screaming] >> Nia Tran. >> [cheering] >> Melanie Santillan Guerra. Mi Tran. Arthur Sanders. >> [cheering] >> Leslie Torres. >> [screaming] [cheering] >> Matthew Sanchez. Ruby Torres. Alexis Sanchez. Mario Torres. Elijah Washington. Louise Tech. Muskaan Kaur. >> [screaming] [cheering] >> Shaun Worley. Alejandra Viera Brendan Wong >> [screaming] [cheering] >> Christina Carla Villanueva Zhi Chi Wong Alexis Villanueva >> [screaming] [cheering] >> Sawyer Curtis Woodrum Kevin Vidal Hernandez Viali Yu Aliyah Vega Sophia Young >> [screaming] >> Owen Trevino Maxwell Young >> [cheering] >> Nicholas Brown April Zuniga Angel Berestain >> [screaming and cheering] >> Ruby Zuniga Jacob Taylor >> [cheering] >> Skylar Van >> Dominion Maddy Erozunne E. >> [cheering] [screaming] >> Ariel Sutliff. >> [cheering] >> Class of 2026, please rise. >> [cheering] [applause] [cheering] [applause and cheering] [cheering] [screaming] >> Please welcome to the Board of Trustees member Ron Hoshi who will now certify the class.
They will travel to Irvine High School this Saturday, this Saturday for the chance to advance to the Division 6 finals. Golf has CIF championships this week and finished fifth out of the 18 teams. Congratulations to a very successful season. Before I'd like before I close, I'd like to introduce someone who I know will do amazing an amazing job continuing continuing these updates next year. Taylor Rasque is hardworking, dedicated, and truly cares about what's going on at Granite Hills High School. I'm excited to see all the great things she'll accomplish next year. So, at this time, I'd officially like to introduce next year's Granite Hills High School GC president, Taylor Rasque. I'm Taylor and I am super excited to be here next year and I'm super excited to fill Jill's position even though I probably won't do as well. Um, and I'm super excited to give you guys all the newest updates about our beloved Granite Hills High School.
She embraced the art, food, and traditions of each place. she called home. Jan was a loving mother, grandmother, and devoted partner to a successful international banking executive. While in the Philippines, she and her husband adopted four children, my siblings and I, before moving to Chico to raise uh our family in a close-knit community. Jan was known for her creativity and warmth. She expressed herself through photography, cooking, and a deep appreciation for art, especially the Asian art she collected abroad. She found joy in simple pleasures from time with family at uh Minnesota cabin to caring for many pets at home. Jan was defined by her generosity. She was deeply committed to her community and passionate about supporting women in education. She believed in uplifting others and creating opportunities whenever possible. Tonight, we honor her legacy by recognizing a student who embodies her values, determination, curiosity, and a commitment to making a difference.
So, we literally spend the summer counting pencils. Uh and we always need thousands. It's like, you know, thousands of pencils. Uh the other way is if you don't, you know, have time to do that, you can make a financial donation, and we will we will do [clears throat] the heavy lifting and go the and uh we do house this program in the summer for dropping off at A1 Affordable Construction, but it's not like I want anybody to go there and drop off there. So, we need to spread out the you know, the work because we can't just rely on them. They do still have to run a business. They do give us their basement to use during the summer, so we ask the Key Club, we ask other volunteers to come and put all this stuff together. Then, it gets delivered to our schools, and we do that strategically.
All South Jersey Honors Orchestra. Nice. >> [applause] >> Sophia DeGiulious. South Jersey Honors Orchestra. >> [applause] >> Faith Fisicaro. South Jersey Honors Orchestra. >> [applause] >> Yeah, I know. I know. She's like it's like it runs in the family, doesn't >> [applause] >> Congrats, babe. Yeah. Then we have Charlotte Gomez, South Jersey Honors Orchestra. >> [applause] >> Austin Lu, South Jersey Honors Orchestra. >> [applause] >> And Justin Lu, South Jersey Honors Orchestra. >> [applause] >> All right, listen. I love your first name, by the way. All right. Awesome. Awesome. Then we have Elizabeth Miller, South Jersey Honors Orchestra. >> [applause] >> Hannah Wang, South Jersey Honors Orchestra. >> [applause] >> David Yang, South Jersey Honors Orchestra. >> [applause] >> Arnav Sahoo, South Jersey Honors Orchestra. Coming back up a second time. >> [applause] >> Jeffrey Stork, South Jersey Honors Orchestra. >> [applause] >> All right.
But the truth is, I wish we all didn't have to meet new people and drift apart. I feel like the most liked of everyone I've ever loved and I've loved all of you and your presence. I believe this is the most bittersweet feeling I've ever felt in my life. After all, you guys have been in my life since kindergarten for the most part. And these people people are all I've ever known. I wish you all the best and I hope you all succeed. Whether you take different paths than what you attempt to do or whether you exceed in your profession, I hope you all grow to be marvelous men and women. Lastly, to all my seniors, whether we were friends or not, other friends I made at this very school, teachers, staff, and people who have seen me grow, please don't become strangers. Thank you, Audrey.
>> [music] >> So, hold on for a moment. If we're not scared of opponents, then with what we have, [music] we can own it. We just plant the seed and keep growing it. And when that light shines in the morning, you'll still be waking up yawning. But, we'll be smiling like we expected [music] a sweet victory one method. >> [music] [music] >> One faith and one restart. We can reboot the whole chart before it all falls apart. So, >> [music] >> stand up, shout it out. Sing loud so the world [music] can't drown us out before we depart. Let's leave a mark cuz the light shines brighter in the dark. When we scream, [music] our lips don't make [singing] a sound. We march with feet on solid ground. We [music] walk where no one wants to go [singing] on this [music] old traveled road. When we scream, our lips don't make a sound.
And how much can even be said about gasoline? I've seen the news. I know what we've done to Iraq and Venezuela when it comes to oil reserves. And like many people, when I heard about all of these horrible things committed in the name of my comfort, my first thought was okay, this is terrible, but what am I supposed to do about it? I I my own problems. I don't have free health care, like much of my generation, I don't think I'll ever own a home, and it cost me $30 just in gas to get to this venue. And for a while and I realized that in many ways our lives are paradoxical. We are both the exploiters and the exploited. The wolf and the sheep. And for a while that realization was crushing. Because how do you confront a system you are both benefiting from and trapped inside of?
Some of you have chosen to serve our country in the military or serve a mission for your church. And some of you are stepping into steady and rewarding careers. That is the story of your class. Not just success, but growth. Growth is not always easy. It requires effort, resilience, and the willingness to keep going when things feel uncertain. And that is exactly what you have done. I hope you leave Mirana High School knowing this. You are capable in growth of growth in every stage of life. Keep learning. Keep pushing yourselves. Stay curious and never become comfortable with standing still because the same determination that brought you here today will carry you forward into whatever is next. It has been an honor to watch you grow over these past four years, and I am incredibly proud of who you have become. As you walk across the stage and step into your future, don't just measure your success by what you achieve.
So next year as we celebrate the 10th annual, I really encourage you to come. It will just fill your heart full of blue. Um and I need help to be there. Well, thank you. Anything else? Move along. Correspondence. I don't see any of that. All right. So, we're going on to our consent agenda. Dr. O, if you Yes, we have quite the list, but that's because we've got a lot of things going on in the summer. Um we've got the following resig- uh resignations, and this is an updated list from what was posted previously. Um we've got Carrie Stein, CHS math teacher. She is going to be going to O'Fallon. Patrick Baker will be going to Dupo. That's CHS PE. Matthew Dooley has put in for his four year. He's in the pipeline, so he will be retirement at the end of the 209-30 school year.
So, this doesn't mean we're leaving students without resources, but if we can, we're pulling back to class sets. If we have novels, which this year is English language arts at the secondary level, so we have novels. That is typically if you have, and I know several of you have kids that have gone through the high school, right? If you're in some of those higher level courses, sometimes you've had multiple novels that have been necessary. There are still times when we need to prioritize buying consumable novels. Kids still need paper at some points, but whenever possible, we're going to invest in hardcover sets that we can check out and reuse from year to year. Which means this year we may have a higher level or a higher expense, but Romeo and Juliet, we are not going to stop teaching. And a student doesn't need to annotate every novel.
Uh and when we looked at that, a majority of our discipline during a passing period happened at the Um we are very confident that our students can move throughout the building even with 5 minutes. So, we're going to to cut that back again and get some of that instructional time back. You'll notice the interesting thing here that I want to explain um with the zero and ninth period intervention. Those are not scheduled classes. Those will be built into our morning and afternoon duties that our teachers provide to have intervention labs. One of the biggest thing that we've struggled with is our career center and work-based learning kids who leave before student resource time right now. And how do we get intervention to them when they need it? We don't want to keep them back from going to work-based learning, to go into the career center, but we still need to make sure that they're getting through their classes here.
I saw something online that the MLB hasn't seen a player, like a position player, throw left or maybe it might have been a pitcher throw lefty and and bat from the right side in quite some time, which I thought was an interesting little fun fact. Well, and and you're not going to find that probably ever again now that we have a DH in in both the National League and the American League. But, yeah, that that is a that is a fun fact to see uh that the lefty pitchers would still [music] bat righty. Two balls and one strike here. That one is upstairs as Welch did show bunt for a moment there. Yeah, I'm I'm wondering if she's trying to just sneak on base here. That was a late late show. We'll see if she shows again trying to see if she can catch the the clocker sleeping a little bit.
Hearing none, we move to our consent calendar. Um I believe there is a call for motion for grants resolution. Is that correct? Okay. I will entertain that motion. Miss Collina. Move that the Cheshire Board of Education approve the consent calendar as presented. Is there a second? Dr. Harrigan. All those in favor of the motion that is on the floor. One, two, three. Unanimous. Thank you. We move to committee reports. First up, curriculum. Miss Collina. We are reporting tonight on two curriculum meetings. One held on April 20th and one on May 18th. Um I'll quickly uh go through them. >> [snorts] >> We had um informational items on our April 20th Board of Education Curriculum Committee that included the Crosby uh the Cheshire High School DECA National Conference um in Atlanta, Georgia that several of our students attended. Um this was April 25th to 29th and Principal Hanlon shared um the uh the event about the event, the regional competitions.
Um and then leading into the lesson, some type of again hands-on group based activity where everyone was involved in some way. Um and they also recognized the benefit of having a little bit of homework um either as a review of what they did in that class or as a preview into what would be coming next. Um so that was some of the feedback that we took from those groups. Um after that we went to our faculty meeting and we met the groups that met with the students we met with um teachers also in small groups so that we had the opportunity to share this feedback with them. Um and I think that they appreciated hearing it from the student perspective because it's not often that after a lesson you say like how did that go? Um so they liked having the opportunity to hear about what actually goes on in the classroom and not just what their intent of it was.
Just looking really quick. Um one thing is row nine, the Dodd Middle School, the athletic field upgrade. We had $50,000 in year one originally for design work and then $300,000 in year two. I just pushed that all into year one. There's been a lot of talk about our fields um and access to fields, especially at Dodd. There's like some drainage issues and um it makes Yeah, it makes playability of the fields really difficult. Um so, instead of separating that into design and the actual I just put it all together. Um And then the other pieces of this, the like I said, the power equipment for Barnum and Norton was removed from this and other than that >> Where are you right now? I'm just kind of looking around here to see the other changes that I'd written in the email about about changes. Um which I just printed out.
It has been a pleasure to serve you as your principal. Felicidades. Class of 2026, we have arrived at the moment you have all been waiting for. At this time, we ask that dignitaries and those assisting with the awarding of diplomas to go to their places. Mrs. Alvarez and Mr. Olivas will now read the names of the class of 2026 graduating seniors. Please respect each of our graduates and hold your applause until all the names have been read. At this time, will the first first row please stand and begin to make their way to the stage. Thank you. Clase de 2026, ha llegado el momento que todos ustedes han estado esperando. En este momento solicitamos a los dignatarios y a quienes colaboraron en la entrega de diplomas que ocupen sus lugares. La señora Alvarez y el señor Olivas leerán los nombres de los estudiantes de último año de la clase de 2026.