001thank you and welcome if we could all find our seats please we're going to open our ceremony with the traditional singers foreign thank you gentlemen now I'd like to welcome Mr Mike Juan to do our traditional blessing um [Music] graduates um I want to thank the promotional class for asking me to be here to do the opening and the closing today on this special day and I I shared with them the other day that it's every day not just for today but as they grow and learn and it's up to each one of us to help them along the way [Music] okay I'm gonna do my uh the poor directions um opening and also like I shared with uh promotional class you know I offer to the Heavens to the Sun to the clouds to
002everything around us because it's helping us grow but we're helping them grow foreign all right okay okay thank you and now we have Mr Enos with our national anthem um [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] won't you know [Music] birthday [Music] shares [Music] [Applause] good morning and welcome my name is Miss croskov I am one of the assistant principals here at Bob mckeevery secondary campus I'd like to welcome families students our governing our governing board and my esteemed colleagues and our superintendent Mr Diaz first of all I'd like to thank all of you for the opportunity that you have given us to work with your students and be a part of their life in their day-to-day life it is with great pleasure that we come together today to celebrate our eighth grade as they transition into
003high school with the celebration and promotion they will be embarking on a New Journey and we wish them the best thank you with that I would like to introduce our principal Miss Sudan [Applause] dyslexia Tanya Sudan and I am the bless I am blessed to serve as a principal here at BBQ Reese Middle School welcome to the class of 2020 class of 2027's eighth grade promotion I am so happy to see so many faces in the crowd as we celebrate yet another milestone in this class's educational Journey before I begin I would like to acknowledge our dignitaries that have joined us this morning our superintendent Ruben Diaz [Applause] our governing board for President Juan gundia and board members LMA Greasewood Sylvia Hendricks and Kathleen Vance and our guest our keynote speaker Miss Gabriela casadas Kelly
004and our administrators and teachers from the primary and intermediate campuses that joined us today [Applause] I'm going to turn this way to the class to the class of 2027 today we have all gathered here to celebrate you as you transition from middle to school to high school this is a significant transition in that you will have more choices in how you earn your high school diploma and how you will be able to dive deeper into the areas of Interest but most importantly every class counts in high school you will have to pass the class to earn the credit and you will need 22 credits in all the right areas to get to the next Milestone High School graduation it is also a time where you start to become serious about your plans after graduation because
005these next four years can help you prepare you for Success after you graduate as Walt Disney once said all their dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them dream big and work hard and I have no doubt that you will succeed in whatever you put your mind to Having the courage to pursue your dreams means that you cannot give up when it gets hard or when you feel discouraged or even because you do not like the work that you have to put in it means pushing through even when you don't want to because it is a part of the journey that will help you achieve your dream when those moments happen always always focus on the goals that you have for yourself Having the courage to pursue your dreams means taking
006risks trying new things and stepping out of your comfort zones you won't always know if something is for you or isn't for you unless you give it a shot you may surprise yourself and learn a new hobby skill or area of Interest use this time to explore every opportunity so you can begin to develop solid plans for your future and lastly Having the courage to pursue your dreams means that you must stand firm in the face of adversity when life gets tough and throws challenges and obstacles your way it means standing your ground in the face of naysayers who will discourage you put you down or stand in the way of your dreams always remember if you believe you can you will to achieve your goals you must believe in yourself first then you have
007to put in the work you will fail and you will make mistakes but those will only make you stronger and wiser so you'll have to get back up and keep moving forward this is how you get to where you want to go believe that you are capable enough worthy enough deserving enough to achieve everything you want to achieve in the life that you want to live those that love you and support you will encourage you to achieve those dreams they will push you to do better and be better even when you don't want to hear it and they will lift you up when times are hard because they too have endured and overcome challenges they will lend a helping hand to to help whenever they can because somewhere along the way they had help from
008one of their supporters surround yourself with those people thank those people when you have the chance but most importantly be that person to those closest to you so always remember it starts with you believe in your ability believe that you deserve love happiness and acceptance believe in your strength and believe that you can achieve great things and always believe in yourself I am so proud of all that you have accomplished thus far and I'm excited to see what you accomplish in the future of course I could not do this job alone so I'd like to thank Miss ansay Miss cross Cobb Mr Russell Miss Haley and Miss for Hernandez for their help and support and to our wonderful eighth grade teachers Miss Dalton Mr Lada Mr Jones Miss Aaron Martin and Miss covia Martin for
009guiding you to this moment and to all of our teachers and support staff here at the secondary campus that have contributed to your educational experience congratulations class of 2027. [Applause] thank you Miss sudam now I'd like to introduce Mr Ruben Diaz our superintendent [Applause] excuse me come on we could do better than that all right I'll go with that for now but we can do a lot better than that it is an honor and a privilege to serve Autumn brothers and sisters as a superintendent um it's been a short six months as a superintendent four years wrapping up almost four years um as an assistant superintendent and superintendent but today I want to give you a couple of words not only to my students but also to our community um first I want the three
010I want you to walk away with three words happiness success and health happiness success and health the first one about happiness when life brings when we wish you what I want and I will pray is for you guys to be happy however life will bring a lot of sadness in your life embrace it welcome it because what he does it reminds you when you're happy not to take it for granted and at this point part of your happiness it also depends on where you come from from your past and those are happening around you so I want you to please do me a favor I want you to stand up stand up and I want you to please help me give a hand to the very first teachers in your life your parents they're the
011very first teachers that actually what's right what's wrong how to respect others how to Embrace Life how to embrace the universe the people in front of you behind you and around you please give your mind to your family and the people that have been in your past thank you bye thank you the second one about success happiness and success my second prayer for all of you is success and in the process you will fail in the process you will struggle and that's called life life will embrace you with challenges because you can you can Embrace those challenges because they already gave you the first teachers that the skills that you needed the strength that you needed they needed and the love that you need to overcome any obstacle that comes your way Embrace every failure
012Embrace every challenge because it will only make you stronger don't let anybody else Define you it is every step that I take A very wise person told me if you can be successful for five minutes you will be successful for the rest of your life do what it takes to be successful for five minutes and when you're done start all over start your next five the next five minutes when you're done do your next five minutes life is only five minutes intervals that will allow you to be successful take advantage of those five minutes you will hear voices those voices are the voices of your parents and the voices of your teachers telling you that's right or you're oh that's wrong watch out do not ignore that voice in your heart in your mind because
013they're the ones the only ones that will save us the last one my last prayer for you is health Health it's the greatest uh gift that we have in life when we have the when we have our health we'll be able to overcome whatever it comes not only for ourselves but also those people around us in the process you will get sick but remember every time you get sick your body does magic it will recover do the do what's right just like I say life it's about five minutes at a time it's also about the five people that you're gonna hang around in your life if you're gonna hang around with the happiest person the five happiest person that will help you to be happy if you're around the five people that are more successful
014you will be successful if you're around five people that take care of themselves in the hearts their mind and soul you will take care of yourself because eventually our Sunset is going to come and the sunrise for you will start I pray for you to be successful forever I pray for you for even many generations to have success to have health and to be happy having said that congratulations I am very proud of you parents I'm very proud of you thank you for your support enjoy the rest of the the program foreign thank you superintendent Diaz now I'd like to introduce our board president Mr buendia is governing board president for the barbecue unit of High School District it is 100 an honor to be here this morning I want to firstly recognize my fellow
015board members who are here as well as our governing board clerk Miss Anna Marie Stevens who couldn't be here today but she definitely sends her best it is I think a thousand percent with gratitude that I think the the eighth grade class as well as all of our Guardians all of our parents everyone else who helped these children to become who they are thus far and who will continue to help them as they continue through their educational uh time with us here at Barbecue University School District the school district has definitely taken on a lot of and a really difficult challenge but one of the things that I'm very very grateful for especially within these last couple of years when it comes to the trials and the tribulations that we face as a people nonetheless
016the people that were actually here with our students or at least try to engage with our students in educational um successes couldn't have done that without you you the community you the people who are who are home or who at least try to do your best especially when they came to giving the education that these children need not only in just teaching them to get up or or to be ready but also when we asked you to be a a teacher to a degree as well during the times that we know we have virtual learning um it is it is again an honor as a board member to be of this community to understand that this community is and will and has always been here and it will continue to be but to also be
017at the level that we are when it comes to all of our student achievements our state uh state requirements and all of those things that we can stand for as a people for our students for our nation um and for all of you who are here this morning so I'm going to turn a little bit just to kind of speak to the to the children but I don't want to be rude to just letting you know so um I just want to say if there's anything that you take away from today please take away this as much as everyone has shared understand that education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change this world I think above all your education is so important and that you've made it thus far with all
018of the things that we have to deal with as a people with all of the things that you have to deal with as a single person in this world understand that being present showing up showing love and respect for your neighbor will change not only this world but this nation it will change your community and we want you here with us we need you here with us so please understand that from us as the governing board we try to engage and encourage love support acknowledgment because it does matter and you do so thank you so much congratulations and I cannot wait to see you walk across the the the next stage in four years thank you [Applause] thank you Mr buendia foreign to welcome our in-house celebrity and a long time friend of mine The
019Honorable Miss Gabriela casares Kelly [Applause] your friends will always keep you humble distinguished guests thank you for having me here as your guest speaker um hi my name is Gabriela casidis Kelly I'm from the communities of business which are located of course right here in beautiful Pima County I am the first Native American to hold unelected county-wide seat in Pima County thank you [Music] and I'm actually the only the fourth in the whole state to hold a county-wide seat at this level [Applause] but before I was an elected official I I was right here in the school district um I was a teacher at the Alternative High School I taught here um taught here freshman English and I was also the College and Career Readiness counselor which is the last job that I had right
020before I left to run for office and it was actually through the conversations that I had with principal Sudan about whether or not I should try whether or not I should jump and to see if my community would catch me and you did oh I I think it's really easy uh to see people's successes um and it's really easy to forget about failures um and I think that every single speaker that's been up here so far has talked about failures um and I definitely like to talk about mine I do not want to ever forget um where I've come from um and so whenever I talk about my educational journey I actually talk about what happened after eighth grade so I went to school k through eight at San Simon Elementary School and my freshman
021year of high school I decided to move to town I decided I wanted to live with my sister which was great except that I failed my entire freshman year of high school the entire thing except for PE I walked away with only PE credits I don't know how um when I was at Desert View High School I ditched a lot I didn't like being there I thought it was too many people it was too noisy it was every hallway looked the same it was too big and I hated being there so I chose not to be and because of that I failed the freshman year of high school uh the next year I moved to be with my brother and his family and there was a little more structure there I had to have a
022bedtime and I ended up cramming four years of high school into three um and I almost was successful at that except I needed one last math class in order to pass so they allowed me to walk in my high school graduation and I walked across that stage and I was the only one that had an empty diploma holder so that summer I took a class at Pima Community College and it was the only time that I was taking a math class and that was the only thing that I was taking and I was actually really good at it and I had an A in the class and it was amazing because it was the only thing that I had to focus on until I found out I was pregnant and my a went to a
023b and then I found out I was pregnant with twins and my B went to a c and I like to tell people I'm really glad there wasn't one more baby in there because one more surprise and I would have failed that semester and that's how I started my college career my college career started at Pima and I remember very vividly one semester in particular there was a day where I was bouncing one baby on my knee I had the other one in their little case and I was rocking my foot and then I was typing my essay that was due later that day with one hand and I was waiting for my boyfriend who's now my husband to just come get the baby that was my college experience and it was full of a
024lot of struggle it was full of cars breaking down on the side of the road it was full of electricity shut off notices coming in the mail it was having to go get a food box because the food stamps didn't make it the whole month and we were having to count change for a bag of rice that was a lot of struggle but I just kept showing up I just kept showing up to Pima and I I felt embarrassed being there um I didn't really know what I wanted to do when I grew up and at the same time I had just had babies so I was a grown-up and I didn't know what I wanted to do with my whole life and I was scared to talk to people about it I was scared
025and embarrassed and I thought that people would tell me that I needed to just stay home wait till my babies got a little older that's not what would have happened I know that now if I had told anybody they would have helped me but I didn't know that that was normal I didn't know that people struggled when they were going to school I thought everybody just did it and it was easy for them and I had no idea so I took classes at Pima until I ran out of classes to take at Pima there was literally like oh I took that I took that I took that and I needed to take other classes and so I had to transfer to the University of Arizona which I did and in order to register for classes
026at U of A you have to go through a special transfer orientation which I did and they put us in a computer lab and they said okay now you guys can go ahead and register and this whole classroom full of students everybody starts taking out sheets of paper they start clicking and they're typing away and everybody knows what to do except for me and I'm looking around in the room and I'm like did I miss something in the orientation I how does everybody know what to take and so I had a SpongeBob SquarePants moment where I'm like [Music] to raise my hand excuse me lady comes over and she says what do you need and I said I I don't know what classes to register for and she goes oh anything in your major minor
027and I'm like I don't I don't know what my major minor is and she kind of did one of these neck things just kind of with the Sass she goes honey you need to know you're a junior and I was so surprised because I had been so focused on my cars breaking down on the shutoff electricity notices about trying to find cheap diapers about getting food boxes that I had no idea that I had actually made progress on my degree and I was a junior at the University of Arizona I had no idea I continued to go to school and I continued to struggle there wasn't some magic thing that happened where I suddenly wasn't struggling I struggled the entire time and actually principal sudam and I were in some of those classes and she
028watched some of she watched my kids during one particular uh final where I couldn't get a babysitter and needed to do a presentation I was struggling and I graduated and my GPA wasn't great but I finished I had to petition to graduate and so I never really felt really great about it I didn't feel really accomplished I'm like yeah they probably just let me graduate so that I would get off campus like they were probably just tired of me so I after a few years and it wasn't really a good fit and then I found myself at Thon off of Community College at Von altham Community College I worked as a student support specialist and I helped students get registered for classes and I told them my story all the time about how you just
029keep showing up to classes and we will help you figure it out um and around five years in an administrator came and they said we have this money to send you to school if you want to get your master's degree we can fund you for your master's degree and I was like me do they know that I'm not smart do they know that I'm a bad student I'm not a good student I'm not going to be good at that I barely made it through high school I barely made it through Pima I barely graduated from the U of A and you want me to go for a master's degree that's ridiculous and so I turned down the money I turned down free money so maybe I wasn't that smart but a friend talked me into
030trying anyway and I was they asked me three different times my friends were pressuring me they were saying like no you're so smart you would be so good at this you are a great employee here you absolutely need to try for this and finally I got really annoyed and I'm like you know what bye I will show you how bad of a student I am go ahead fine so I applied to grad school and the very first semester I got all A's and I was like what I don't Ace me and then the next semester I got all A's and the next semester and I started to wonder about why like why am I suddenly doing so great at school and it was because I was working and I had a paycheck and my cars
031weren't falling apart every day and I didn't have electricity shut off notices anymore and I had food on the table and my kids were a little bit older and they were in school um and my husband would come into the bedroom when I was doing um homework and he would just like hand me a plate of food and walk out I had the support of my my supervisors at work they would let me take half a Friday off so that I could go work on my papers um and they would let me leave for class at a certain time um on the days when I had to go and be in person and be in class and so I had all of this support and I had all of my basic needs being met and
032so I was allowed to just focus on the work and so that's not always going to happen sometimes you're gonna have to be worrying about those electricity notices or your car breaking down in the middle of a final sometimes that's going to happen and you find ways to just keep showing up I finished at NAU I graduated in 2012 with a master's in educational leadership for Community College and higher education 4.0 GPA I graduated with honors I tell that story not to be chumskug even though you're probably thinking I'm stuck I tell that story because it's important for you to know that every single person is going to fail every single person is going to struggle every single person is going to feel overwhelmed and and need to cry it out and sometimes you're going
033to show up to things and you're going to be like I don't even know if I belong in this space or I've had so many absences I don't even know what's going on but the most important thing is to just continue to show up showing up like you did today for your eighth grade promotion and look at your family showing up for you to celebrate this day with you it makes it so special um I want my advice for you all is number one to not make a decision about whether or not you're going to be good at something before you even started do not take yourself out of the game without trying the other thing it's okay to fail everybody fails I have failed pick up you try again and the most important thing
034is continue to show up continue to show up even if you don't know what you're doing even if you don't know where you're going even if you're thinking do I really need to be here continue to show up it makes all the difference without those without showing up to Pima and to the U of A and to the into NAU I would not be able to have the position that I have now running for office it wasn't a position that was required but because I'm awesome and many people had so many issues qualified to run for office yes yes I am but they wanted to know well what what experience does she have what what does she bring to the table and I was able to talk about yes I can manage 42 staff members
035I manage whole classrooms yes I can manage a Workforce of this big because I've taken 60 students to California overnight yes um and and look and here's this piece of paper these degrees that show you that I have these qualifications and that was absolutely a factor in some people's decisions about whether or not to vote for me um and I also just want to remind you all I took a leap and I let my community catch me and my community caught me I am giving you the advice jump because your community is here and we will catch you [Applause] thank you Miss casadas Kelly now we'd like to introduce the class officers oh president zinico Joaquin [Applause] vice president Rosario Francisco [Applause] secretary Elisa Norris [Applause] representative Malia Donahue [Applause] and the historian Amani niece
036[Applause] now we're going to hear from our students Dan carella [Applause] foreign Shirley Harvey first off the class and I would like to thank our parents Guardians teachers and staff for their support to us throughout the school year you encourage us to stay determined towards our goal of starting and finishing the school year strongly the beginning of the school year was very slow very rough for me other than it's academically driven as I am now I chose to put myself around people that would distract me in my classes at what cause me to get grades I was not satisfied with this continued on for the rest of the first quarter around the last week of the first quarter a teacher would remind us how much time we had before the grades are due me being
037an extreme procrastinator I would wait until the last weeks of the quarter to decide to get my grades by the time the deadline for the grades came it was too late and I didn't do enough to get my grades to a place I was satisfied with I remember vaguely getting a letter for retention and being disappointed with my grades after this I decided to set myself a goal for the second quarter the goal wasn't very specific and was just to get good grades at the beginning of the second quarter I tried to separate myself from the group of people that had been distracting me the entire first quarter unfortunately I didn't get the progress I was looking for I again decided to surround myself with the same group of people that would hold me back
038academically I made little to no progress towards my goal until the School's football season started I did decide I decided to set myself a new goal get good enough grades since I knew I was a student first then an athlete I knew my academics would play a huge part in my Athletics this knowledge caused me to set the goal I set myself ultimately the football season itself had no effect on me but the effect the season had on my grades had satisfied me and at the quarter with grades that were good enough therefore I had achieved my goal and ended the quarter with good grades during our winter break I made myself a new year's resolution the resolution was to have better time management and to become less of a procrastinator I stayed committed to
039this goal as much as I could I stayed on top of my schoolwork by doing it the moment it was assigned I also realized there was a three hour gap after school a free time ahead I decided to stop being unproductive and decided that I would use this time to get assignments done and over with this time go this time Gap helped me massively every time I checked my grades I realized my grades had improved and I was satisfied and proud now I would like to encourage my classmates to take their academics more seriously now that we're moving on to high school the academic standards are much more challenging I would also like to encourage them to not be a huge procrastinator like myself as it can cause huge huge amounts of stress and I
040would like to end my speech with the quote stated by an anonymous individual we are braver than we believe smarter than we think and stronger than we seem this quote means that if we set our minds to something and have determination to a goal we can achieve it thank you [Applause] um now we'll have Miss sudam come up for presentation of certificates because she said these words oh she didn't tell me that all right I'd like to call up zanika Joaquin for the presentation of the gifts good the 8th grade class would like to thank everyone for attending our promotion ceremony we would especially like to thank Gabriella Castro's Kelly with the gift to show our appreciation for taking the time to come share words of inspiration [Applause] foreign [Applause] all right and now for
041the moment you have all been waiting for it'll be that presentation of the eighth grade certificates um please hold your applause until the end until all of our students have received their certificates um Jayden James Azale Antone [Music] Tanisha Nevaeh Izzy Adam Bustamante Christiana kachora denisia Carlos [Music] Amelia Alice Carmen [Music] Bethany Kylie Chavez Elias Chavez Kyla Rose Conde Laden Conde congratulations Peyton Conde Dan Jacob carella [Music] omara Cruz [Music] Demetria Daryl Malia Ashley Donahue [Music] amencio Lloyd Anthony Enos Starlin Flores oh thank you Nadia Aaliyah Francisco [Music] Rosaria bertina Francisco [Music] Laurel Frank Angelique Garcia [Music] Ariano Armando frastin Garcia [Music] Garcia star Gonzalez [Music] foreign Caravan Granado Braden Greg Chase Javier [Music] Kristen Allison Hendricks [Applause] [Music] Kayla Malik ezekia Hezekiah Hendrix [Music] Mario Joaquin Hendricks [Applause] [Music] Nevaeh Hendricks oh okay well
042Nolly Hendricks zanika Alex Joaquin Heavenly Ann Johnson Gary lavier Ariza Kateri Leon [Music] Lisette Lewis Mario Jacob Lewis [Music] Alani Angel Lopez thank you Talia Rainey Lopez [Music] Morel Martinez [Applause] Amani Marley Mis Sean James Michael Mendoza [Music] estavana Miracle Miguel [Music] Eva Lily Miguel [Applause] Tay Miguel yeah Josiah Solomon Moreno [Music] okay Marley star Nacho Elisa Norris Aiden William Ortega Devon Pedro princess Natalie Quinones [Music] yeah Marisol Ramirez foreign [Music] Edwin Eugene Smith [Music] Ezekiel Velasco [Applause] [Music] Alize Janae wieger aubrielle Wilson Yesenia Lynn sazuetta [Music] foreign and at this time I'd like to call up Mr Mike Huang to the stage for the closing blessing [Music] you're welcome [Music] foreign [Music] before [Music] I can't move [Music] forward [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] all right it is with great pride that I present to
043you all the class of 2027 let's hear it for our eighth grade promotes [Music] thank you all for joining us today there will be some cake out in the lobby area if you'd like to grab yourself a slice and with that said check [Music] the morning foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh foreign [Music] please