Special Board Meeting — May 16, 2023

Right hand over your heart. Ready, begin.

Can you hear me?

Yes? There you go. I didn't think so. Those of you that know me know I have a cheer voice. So thank you, everyone, for being here this evening. Thank you, President Ayala Quintero, board members, Superintendent Kelly, cabinet and community. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Sonia Bellinga. I'm the Director of Multilingual Education and Family Engagement. And this is our annual recognition of our students who have earned the State Seal of Biliteracy. So the State Seal of Biliteracy, by definition, recognizes high school graduates who've attained high level of proficiency in speaking, reading, and writing in one or more languages in addition to English. Now there's criteria. And so we've had many students who have been working on their criteria for many years. CASP is one of the criteria. They have to show proficiency in one or more languages and through one of the following. So you can earn the Seal of Biliteracy as a senior. through your AP exam, through your four-year course of study, passing the SAT II, and our district partners with two companies, Avant and Alta, so that we can recognize many different languages other than the courses that are offered through Spanish, Latin, and French. So there are a lot of purposes and benefits to the State Seal of Biliteracy. Obviously, it promotes language instruction and the study of languages. It also strengthens intergroup relationships. We value diversity in our district and we want to honor all the multiple languages and the cultures within our beautiful district community. It also provides universities a method to recognize and give academic credit to applicants, so it's wonderful for your college application, and that's the reason we had an early recognition in October. Of course, it prepares you with another language, with 21st century skills, and it certifies biliteracy and triliteracy. So last fall, we identified 170 students that were on the path to earning the Seal of Biliteracy, and they were recognized at a ceremony by our county office. And so there's a picture of some of the students. Tonight, we celebrate 166 seniors in nine different languages. So Arabic, Chinese and Mandarin, French, Hindi, Korean, Latin, Spanish, and Indonesian. So we're going to begin with Citrus Valley High School, so I need your attention students. We would like our Citrus Valley candidates to line up over here. And then we're going to have you come up on the stage. We will help you. We'll call your name. When you hear your name, you'll come up to the stage. You'll get a certificate. And we want you to stay on the stage so we can get a nice picture. We ask that all the parents and families are patient with the picture opportunity. So let's have Citrus Valley please come over here to my right for seal of illiteracy. And not all students attend this evening. So we'll go ahead and read their names. And we'll provide certificates to those that are here. Okay, with that, Principal from Citrus Valley, Macy McHugh.

Good evening. I am very proud and honored to be able to celebrate our students who have earned the Seal of Biliteracy at Citrus Valley High School this evening. This is something that takes a lot of work, a lot of patience, a lot of studying, and a lot of perseverance, and a skill that we know is going to continue to help them be successful as they move to the next part of their journey. So congratulations to, in Chinese, Jolene Bakalova, Jerica Ju, and Daniel Lin. Earning the Seal of Biliteracy in French is Claire Lewis. In Latin, Robert Rivera. And so I'm assuming we're all waiting for Spanish. Here we go. Congratulations to Annette Alfaro, Benita Babin, Kalani Daniel. Itzel Del Rio. Sarai Garcia. Stacy Gubar. Sean Kisling. Colin Loveland. Jaylene Martinez. Alejandro Manchaca. Ashton Peloquin. Elise Perkins. Julian Ramos, Stacy Rojas, Ethan Romero, Sofia Romero Gaona, Esmeralda Torres Lopez, and Emily Zamorano. Again, congratulations to our Citrus Valley High School students.

Thank you. And now I present our principal, Mr. Robert Clary from Redlands East Valley High School.

Good evening. Thank you everyone for being here tonight. We have 40 students that we're going to recognize. Let's start off with. Oh. We need our Seal of Biliteracy students from Redlands East Valley. You'll line up here on my right. There they are. There we go. I'll get going with this exceptional group. Earning the syllabi of literacy in Chinese tonight, we have Bill Wang. Earning the syllabi of literacy in Latin, we have Cameron Leene. And Aditya Vanswala. Earning the Seal of Biliteracy in French, we have Thomas Bruner. Hunter Carnes. Evelyn O'Brien. Ruth Quesada. And Ryan Rodriguez. Yeah, a few more names on this one. I can hear you guys over there. And earning the syllabi literacy in Spanish, Raul Atreya. Caroline Campa Escorza. Grace Campos. Tito Solis Medina. Gregory Cofield. Alan Conchas Castaneda. Justice Cosper. Emma Guerrero. Celine Hill. Sam Ibiseta. Alison Haraghi. Adrian Juarez Hernandez. Corey Kalufi. Victoria Lee. Alyssa Lopez. Elijah Lozano. Aparna Manicaratu. Matthew Mejia. Emma Miller. Adrian Ocampo Jacobo. Isabella Homos. Carissa Perez. Mauricio Pliego. Jasmine Rivera. Phillip Soriano. Audrey Stanton. Emily Stanton. Eliana Valentino. Andres Ventura. Beston Watts. Kelly Welch. Delaney Werner. And Garrett Westwick. Congratulations to all the Redlands East Valley High School winners. Great things.

Well done. This is gonna be interesting.

So I think what we'll do is we'll take a little pause. Uh-oh, where's the clip? Where's the clip? Oh, there it is. Yeah, maybe we'll take a little pause at Latin and take a picture.

And before we do that, we'll let them go off the stage.

Okay, I'll explain it to them.

Okay, thank you. So let's have our students from Redlands High School please line up over here to my right. And our Spanish students earning tonight, you'll be towards the end of the line, just if that helps you out.

Where you at? Where you at? With that long A.

Okay, next up we have our assistant principal from Redlands High School, Rachel Rehage.

All right, we have over 100 kids in eight languages from RHS this year. In Arabic, Shams Alsamari. In Hindi, Aditi Patola. In Korean, Arun Lee. Rorun Lee. And Rachel Shin. In Mandarin, Eric Chen. Echen Gao. And Ethan Kwan. In French, Chayumi Amashariki. Shuhini Chatterjee. Claudia Costineau. Finndak Zaidi. Nina Zurek. An Indonesian, Kelly Carnfendi. Grace Mangasong. Sarah Salim. Timothy Tendin. In Latin, Vincent Blancas. Tristan Harberts, Ifarta Sinaga, Alicia Sinaga, and Kane Smith. In Spanish, Mohand Adami, Anthony Aguilar, Anthony Alegre, Nathan Alegre, Wendy Alvarez Mateo Ananya Anand Shelby Andrade Jocelyn Arenas Salazar. Aiden Ariant. Alexandra Arroyo. Ava Avila. Aaron Batista. Jacob Bennett. Lizbeth Bettencourt Barrios. Daniella Cervantes. Norman Chokma. Benjamin Chambie Perez. Mia Davila. Faith Dino. Richard Diaz De Leon. Ricardo Diaz De Leon, sorry. Daniella Escobar-Main. Daniel Estrada. Isabella Farroki. Genesis Garcia. Jacob Garcia. Maria Gattaca. Catherine Grondinos. Diego Guzman. Charlize Halim. Ayanna Harris. Michael Hernandez. Aaron Hill. Gavin Huang. Andrew Humiston. Ryan Gee. Rylan Joy. Hallie Keating. Elizabeth Keitel. Brandon Kirk. Laura Lassificar. Sebastian Landa. Asher Lawson. Rosalyn Lopez. Viviana Lopez. Jennifer Lopez-Avalos. Jason Lowe. Layla Magana. Lauren Massey. Jazzy Mejia. Eli Mendez, Ellie Mendez. Esmeralda Morales. Lizbeth Moran. Ethan Namsong. Shreya Narayayan. Alicia Nikki Jullo. Yahira Oliva Paez. Deani Ortiz. Benjamin Otter. Maraj Parekh. Madeline Pearl. Sebastian Ramirez. Joshua Ramirez Rios. Mahogany Rodriguez. Daniella Salazar. Nicholas Sangari. Brian Sierra. Varun Sharashiva. Janelle Suarez. Orian Tahaja. Joey Chong. Montserrat Vargas. Robert Vanegas. Nia Vijay. Miledy Viacana. Owen Walker. Jaden Wee. And Richard Zabala. And Ryan Sanchez. Brian Sanchez.

No, go ahead and bring them up.

We have three students who are trilingual. In Arabic and Spanish, Doha Sawaka. In Indonesian and French, Andrea Adam. And in Korean and Spanish, Muse Choi.

Let's give one more round of applause for our amazing students. Thank you, thank you. Also, we want to say thank you to the world language teachers for supporting the students, the parents, everyone for just encouraging them to learn a new language. And extra kudos to the students who are also CELA biliteracy and avid tonight. So congratulations to everyone.

Sorry, Julie.

You get my mess. And there's the speaker.

Yep, we got it. Thank you. Very good. Oh, good evening. Good evening, board president and board members, superintendent, and cabinet. It is my honor to be here tonight for, I don't know, about the 10th time, 10 years in a row now, to recognize another incredible class graduating AVID students. Because of the unwavering commitment of our board for the AVID program across the district, the program continues to thrive every year. It's got some incredible teachers who stand behind it with unwavering support for their students, being there to help them reach all of their goals and potential. Tonight you're gonna see all that they have accomplished. You'll see it on the slide, you'll see it in the numbers that are sitting in the audience, and I'm very excited for this opportunity. The first thing I want to say, in addition to the thank you very much for your support, is a few of the things that AVID has accomplished. Every year we have to, AVID is part of our LCAP, and so we have to come up with, we have to show our metrics. accomplishing great things with AVID. So what you can see here is that we have a national demonstration school. That is Redlands East Valley High School. And we actually have, we also have a site of distinction at the middle school level, and that's Cope Middle School. You can tell with the data up here, academically, AVID makes a significant difference for all of our students. Once I get off the stage, you're gonna see the difference it's made for them for their futures. But for us as a district, we're looking at things like the academics. They perform far better than many of the other student groups at school. Being in the AVID program, they walk away with achieving 5% higher grades in math, 10% higher grades in English than their non-AVID peers. And on top of that, AVID students achieve 22% higher on the SBAC in math, and 5% higher grades on, sorry, I shouldn't say grades, higher on SBAC in English, higher than their non-ABID peers. So we're pretty proud of all of the academic accomplishments you have achieved this year. I can't get started without first recognizing the ABID coordinators. ABID coordinators, obviously, coordinate the program on their campus. But they commit a week of time in the summertime to plan and get trained. They spend all year at other trainings, coordinating the program on their campus, supporting the teen teachers that are also supporting the kids in the classroom. They do a lot of amazing things. Most importantly, they connect with the kids, and they're a go-to person for the students who are here tonight to be recognized. So I do want a big shout-out for the AVID coordinators that are here tonight. Gonna go ahead and get started and start with the first AVID coordinator, and that would be Luanne Perry for Orange Rope.

Yeah, you can do it. That would be great. Thanks.

Ooh, that's bright. Hi. Thank you, members of the board. Today, I stand before you as a proud AVID coordinator to present to you the exceptional graduating seniors from Orangewood Continuation High School. As so many students hear from all these different schools, many of these remarkable individuals have not only conquered the challenges of foster care, homelessness, poverty, or learning English as a second language, but have done so with the resilience that's truly awe-inspiring. Orangewood is a continuation school. While their GPAs might not shine brightly on paper, and the lack of AP classes may be evident, they have embodied the essence of our school's mascot, the dragon, as they've fearlessly faced and triumphed over the adversity that life has thrown their way. As our AVID program has nurtured and guided these students, they have developed invaluable skills that extend far beyond the traditional classroom. Through AVID, they have cultivated a strong sense of self-discipline, critical thinking, and organizational abilities. They've learned to navigate the complexities of their lives, taking charge of their educational journeys and embracing a college-going mindset, and have done so in a safe and really fun family environment. Today we celebrate not only their academic achievements, but also their personal triumphs. We honor their courage to persevere, their unwavering resolve to rise above their circumstances, and their remarkable ability to embrace education as a means of creating a brighter future. They are living proof that Orangewood Continuation High School is not just a place for academic recovery, but a nurturing ground where dragons are born and empowered to soar. Allow me to show you some of the opportunities they have experienced this year. This is our field trip to Mount San Jacinto Community College that has many unique opportunities for them, and Valley Community College. They are writing, whoa, where'd you go? Can you go back a little bit? Okay, one more, thanks. Go ahead. Thank you. They are writing TRFs, and they present their vision boards. Every three weeks, we gain and graduate new students at Orange Wood, and our AVID students speak to our incoming Orange Wood students and encourage them to apply for AVID because we look for potential, not just performance. We have collaborative study groups. We learn about different degrees and certifications. Go ahead. We visit STEAM classes and learn about careers in robotics. We learn about, we become acquainted in degrees in welding and auto mechanics. And the best one is our field trip to Whitewater Preserve where there is no cell phone service. And it is. And the best part, nope, can you go back one? Go back, where'd it go? We missed one. It showed them applying for college, they're doing their college applications. Okay, but here are our graduates. As I say your name, would you just please briefly stand? Nevaeh Rojas. She's been in AVID for two years, and contrary to what her slide shows, she just informed me she will be a member of the US Navy. Forever Lujan. Forever has been in AVID for five years and will be attending Crafton Hills Community College. Rohan Khan has been in AVID for two years. He will also be attending Crafton Hills Community College. Andrew Baca has been in AVID for seven years. He is going to be studying welding and auto mechanics in the San Bernardino Valley College. And Siri Romo is going to Victor Valley Community College and has been in AVID for two years. Yaslin De La Rosa has been in AVID for six years and will be attending CBU. This is Anaya's third year in AVID, and she will be attending Crafton Hills Community College. Smirna Ejaz. This is her first year in AVID, and she will also be at Crafton Hills. Stephanie Cardenas is attending San Bernardino Valley College and is going to be studying nursing. I almost said Bailey. Jenna Gilliam, sorry. She was part of Alan Asido's very first sixth grade AVID class at Cope Middle School. And she is attending Crafton Hills Community College. Charlie Gonzalez has been in AVID two years and will be attending Valley College. Blesson Thomas, Oops. Blessen. Thank you, Blessen. She's been in AVID for three years and will be attending Crafton Community College. Natalie Lopez. This is her first year in AVID and will be attending Valley College. Desiree Antiveros. This is her first year in AVID and she will be attending Crafton Hills. Carolina Cadena, who I think you know, Mr. O'Neill. She is currently attending Arizona State University. Martin de la Luz. This is his first year in AVID and will be attending San Bernardino Valley College. Kevin Camby. This is his second year in AVID and will be studying at San Bernardino Valley College. David Rayford. His first year in AVID and he will be attending both Crafton Hills and San Bernardino Valley College. Nevaeh Griego. She is going to San Bernardino Valley College, and this is her second year in AVID. And Matthew Mendez, his second year in AVID, and he is going to be attending Crafton Hills Community College. We're very, very proud of you, Orange Wood Dragons.

Thank you.

All right, I'd like to get started next. Started next, let me try that again. The next school up would be Redlands East Valley. And there is so much school spirit I don't even have a chance to say. Coordinator, Jayna Bailey, who took this school to the national demonstration status and has worked very hard for like 15, 20 years on this, right? It's been a while.

Yeah.

Good evening, everybody. So 20 years ago, I was nine months pregnant with my son and We had all of eight seniors, and we were one of the only schools in all the district to have AVID, one of two. And we were pleading our case to keep this program afloat, and we pled to you, and thankfully you guys gave us a chance. And look how many seniors we have today. We went from eight seniors to 122. So. Seniors, can you all please stand? This is amazing. Look at all these people. Come on, Stevie. Come on, Orangewood, RHS. Look at all the people here. Good job. So, just to get started. We've done a lot in the last four years. Our seniors were freshmen when we became a national demo school two weeks before the pandemic hit. And many of them were involved in being part of the student panels even as freshmen, leading our recruitment rallies and leading all sorts of other engagements like CSG tutorials and everything like that and all these trainings. So we are so grateful to our freshmen who are now seniors for taking on that role of leadership and making us shine. So this year, our AVID team led 10 breakout sessions. Six was all led by our team and led a PD day on Wicker Strategies in November. We also implemented a Wicker Bingo competition, where we had 142 entries from teachers, 62% participated in the Wicker Bingo, and 83% say that they intentionally implement Wicker strategies into their lesson plans, and that includes the district-wide goal of focused note-taking. We currently are in the middle of a survey with all of our staff, and most of them have completed that survey so we can get more data on this information. Oh, I was supposed to click that. Sorry, thank you. Okay, so 73% of our staff is WICR-trained, and I've already explained all of those wonderful things, but I do want to ask the people who took AP or dual enrollment to please stand. So for the sake of time, we want everyone to see how hard our students have worked by taking these very rigorous courses in college classes, because it requires a lot of extra time of them. And I know that we won't be able to say individually how many AP classes people are doing, but we wanted you to be recognized for that. Our Seal of Biliteracy students, will you please stand? We have two RIMS Avid Scholar winners. Will you please stand? They will be earning an extra $1,500. Our Dell Scholar winners, will you please stand? So for Dell Scholars, there's only 300 in the nation that get this scholarship. It's $20,000 plus a laptop computer. So it's a pretty big deal. Of the 50 graduates that we have this year, they were accepted to 322 four-year colleges, and they were offered $2,340,000 in scholarships and grant money. Just these 50 kids alone. Okay, so here are our leaders and historians. Starting with Catherine Anaya. She's been an avid. for four years, and is attending UC Santa Barbara. I know we love everybody, but we're going to just wait until the end.

Okay, thanks.

You do want to leave early, right? Okay. So, Shaylin McClain. Six years in AVID, attending Cal State East Bay in the fall. Mariana Galvan, seven years in the program, attending La Sierra University, will be playing volleyball there. Bella Reeves, four years in the program, Chico State. Edwin Basurto, five years in the program, attending UC Riverside in the fall. Annika Fadi, seven years in the program, attending Cal State Fullerton in the fall. Giselle Sierra, three years in the program, attending San Francisco State in the fall, and she's one of our Dell Scholar winners. Trinity Urango, six years in the program, attending Cal State San Bernardino. Nylea Williams, six years in the program, attending Riverside Community College. Winta Andem, seven years, attending Long Beach State. Leonel Avila, four years in the program, Cal Poly Pomona. Gabriel Azacar, four years in the program, University of Redlands. Just side note, most of the students getting into the University of Redlands have all qualified for Cal Grant A, which means all their tuition is covered, so. Raymar Benier, seven years in the program, UC Riverside. Eileen Bandera, four years in the program, Cal State San Bernardino. Marissa Berrios, Grand Canyon, six years in the program. Paulina Buenrostro, two years in the program, Cal State San Bernardino. Garrett Byer. Oh, goodness. Four and a half years in the program, Cal State San Bernardino. Jabez Caldera. Six years in the program, University of Redlands. Carolyn Campa Esporza. Four years in the program, Cal State Fullerton. Vanessa Desmeritz. Seven years in the program, Chico State. Isaiah Dooley. Four years in the program, UC Riverside. Yeah, I'm okay with this. Mia Francis. Hannah Edwards. Four years in the program, University of Redlands. This is what we did in Zoom when we wanted to clap. We did this, right? Remember that? And it's also sign language, yes. Mia Francis, four years in the program, San Bernardino Valley College. Ryder Freeman, two years in the program, Crafton Hills College. Paul Garcia, four years in the program, Cal State San Bernardino. Myla Gibson, four years in the program, Cal State East Bay, also our athlete of the year. And I also got to teach her brother too, like 10, 12, 13 years ago. Okay, next is Alberto Gonzalez Jr. Six years in the program, Cal State San Bernardino. Star goalie on the soccer team, just saying. Alyssa Gonzalez. Six years in the program, Cal State San Bernardino. Selene Hill. Two years in the program, UC Berkeley. Kayla Jimenez, six years in the program, University of Redlands. Adrian Juarez Hernandez, he will be enlisting in the Navy. Trent Leary, seven years in the program, Crafton Hills College. Alyssa Lopez, three years in the program, Cal State San Bernardino. Jordan Lopez, six years in the program, Grand Canyon University. Natalie Lopez, six years, Cal State LA, excuse me. Alexander Marquis, six years in the program, Cal State Channel Islands. Isaac Miller, Seven years in the program, West Cliff University to play baseball on a scholarship. Ella Morales, seven years in the program, Cal State San Marcos. Kayden Nelson, four years, Sac State. Davin Porto, three years in the program, Cal State San Marcos. Jenna Ramirez, four years in the program, Cal State San Marcos and RIMS Avid Scholar. Janine Rivera, seven years in the program, Cal State San Bernardino. Pearl Rodriguez, four years in the program, Cal State San Bernardino. Brooke Rowan, accepted to 23 four-year colleges. Seven years in the program, Cal State Fullerton. Derek Soriano. Two years in the program, Cal State Los Angeles. Hey! Braden Smith. Three years in the program, RCC or Crafton Hills. And Alicia Swanson, seven years in the program, Grand Canyon University. Pharrell Safreeza, he's currently at CIF for Badminton. Six years in the program, UC Riverside. I've taught three of his siblings. Eva Falteras, four years in the program, Crafton Hills College. Chivo is also at Batman CIF. He came to America Middle School and had to learn English in a short period of time. He barely spoke as a freshman. He has no problem speaking now. Four years in the program, UC Santa Barbara. Our new stadium, folks, thank you for that. Mr. Clary, are you here? He might have left, it's okay. But I wanted to just say a few words about Mr. Clary. He's going to be retiring and he was such a support system for us. First of all, I sent my kid to Clement and he basically rolled out the red carpet for my kid and I think he would have done that for anyone. The sense of community that he established at Clement, the sense of community that he established at REV, came at a perfect time, and he was always open to trying new things and being inclusive of all, and we wouldn't have made it past that hump in regards to national demo if it weren't for him. His wife even made freshly baked muffins on the day of demo, so we're gonna miss Robert Clary a lot, so he's amazing. Thank you, and thank you for my dream job. This is really Something I look forward to every single day. Thank you.

All right. And now if I could have two amazing co-coordinators from Redlands High School, Jamie Ochoa and Melanie Mitchell.

You guys want to do one?

Good evening. Good evening members of the board, Interim Superintendent Kelly, and all of our seniors and families here tonight. My name is Jamie Ochoa. I'm one of the co-coordinators here at RHS.

And I'm Melanie Mitchell. So we wanted to highlight a few things in our program from this year. We held a college month and college application day where all of our AVID students participated and non-AVID students participated in applying for colleges and getting help from representatives from the different campuses and they participated in financial aid workshops and received the help that they need to apply during the school day. We had a spring picnic for our AVID students and our 10th graders held a college fair. They did college projects and you can see they held a college fair for our 9th graders. We participated in several field trips. We're going on one tomorrow, our last one of the year for our ninth and 10th graders to U of R and our students got to tour many campuses and then participate in lots of bonding events like Abbot Night at the Clippers and participating or going to the Ontario Rain game. Our students are encouraged to participate in lots of community service, and some of our most recent community service participation included the Optimus Games and the Redlands Bike Classic. One of our seniors created Hugs for Pugs, where students donated materials for pets and animals at the Yucaipa Animal Shelter. And that she had a good turnout with the donations that she was able to give to the shelter. Our focus this year as an AVID site team, we wanted to focus on instruction and we were able to provide our staff with a PD. And we had over 50% of the teachers at RHS participate in the beginning of the year. where we utilized and engaged them in different WICR strategies. They participated in a philosophical chairs just like our students did and learned a lot about what our AVID students are doing and were able to take those tools into their own classrooms. We upped our recruitment plan for this year and we were able to visit different eighth grade schools to recruit and recruit in-house for our current ninth and 10th graders getting some new AVID students in the program. We had a shift in our leadership this year with our admin and counselor, but we were pretty flexible and were doing great and building that community and building our AVID program with our numbers of AVID students.

Some highlights with our AVID graduates. We have 46 seniors. This is our biggest senior class that we've had. We added a new elective teacher, Mrs. Brittany Freibot. And our new administrator is Rachel Rehage. We're glad to have Rachel along board with us. And we will also have a new counselor coming to join us at RHS next year, Shante Dawson. RHS maintained four college tutors from Cal State San Bernardino, UCR, and Cal Baptist University. So some of our future endeavors include upping our enrollment numbers overall. And for next year, our retention is going from 46 seniors to 52. So we've grown our site team as well, adding more teachers. We have a representative from every department on our avid site team. And we did our training with our RHS staff. We continue to promote equity and excellence as we collaborate with REV and Citrus Valley on a recruitment day in 2024. Some things that I do want to highlight.

Go back two slides. Yes.

Some things that I do want to highlight, too. If you took an AP or dual enrollment class, please stand. Yay. And if you earn the Seal of Biliteracy, please stand. And if your name is Rosalyn Lopez and you got the Rims-Avis Scholarship, stay standing. Great job, Rosalyn. Rosalyn is who started Hugs for Pugs. Okay, and now for our seniors, our senior slides here. Vincent Rivera. We'll go ahead and wait till the end. I know, Vincent, stay standing. It's all right, it's all right. Six years in AVID, attending Riverside Community College. Trevor Sandlin has been in AVID for four years and is joining the U.S. Air Force. Aaron Adhikari has been in AVID for four years and will be attending Crafton Hills College. Trevor Hernandez has been in AVID for two years and will be attending Crafton Community College. Sherry Cindy has been in AVID for four years and will be attending UC Riverside. Haley Croker has been in AVID for four years and will be attending Crafton Hills College. Oruma Igbako will be attending Crafton Hills College and has been in AVID for four years. Monique Salas has been in AVID for seven years since COPE and will be attending Riverside Community College. Michael Hernandez, also a seven-year AVID student from COPE, he will be attending Cal Baptist University. Manuel Amador, seven year AVID student from Cope and he will be attending Crafton Hills College. Kylie Lockhart has been in AVID for seven years from Cope and will be attending FIDM. Juliana Amameda has been in AVID for seven years for four years and will be attending Cal State San Bernardino. Joey Gill has been in AVID for seven years and will be attending Crafton Hills College. He's also been accepted in Teresa. Juan Isidoro has been in AVID for two years and will be attending Crafton Hills College. Jordan Eden has been in AVID for seven years and will be attending Orange Coast College. Jason Velasquez has been in AVID for four years and will be attending Crafton Hills College. Janelle Suarez has been in AVID for five years and will be attending Riverside Community College. Jayla Smith has been an Avid for four years and will be attending Riverside Community College. Ian Smith will be attending UC Riverside and has been an Avid for four years. Ella Maffei has been an Avid for four years and will be attending UC Riverside. Daniela Salazar has been in AVID for four years and has enlisted in the US Navy. Cyrus Trimbinski has been in AVID for seven years and will be attending Cal State LA. Christina Ortega has been in AVID for three years and will be attending University of Redlands. Vincent Blancas has been in AVID for four years. Vincent Blancas has been in AVID for four years and will be attending Cal State Long Beach. Here's his slide, I promise. Jenna Uribe. Avid, for seven years, Jenna will be attending Crafton Hills College. Justine Tovar has been in Avid for four years and will be attending Riverside Community College. Alexandra Arroyo has been in Avid for four years and will be attending UC Riverside. Sebastian Landa has been in Avid for four years and will be attending UC Riverside. Samantha Thomas has been in AVID for six years and will be attending San Bernardino Valley College. Saul Cervantes has been in AVID for five years and will be attending Crafton Hills College. Samantha Gutierrez has been in AVID for six years and will be attending Cal Baptist University. Rosalyn Lopez has been an avid for six years and will be attending University of California Santa Cruz. Malati Vikana has been an avid for five years and will be attending UC Santa Barbara. Mahogany Rodriguez has been an avid for six years and will be attending Cal State LA. Kiala Mylani Jose, I'm used to using her nickname, has been in AVID for four years and will be attending La Sierra University. Kane Smith has been in AVID for five years and will be attending Cal State San Bernardino. Kaylee Ellis has been in AVID for seven years and will be attending UC Santa Cruz. Josiah Ambries has been an avid for two years and will be attending Crafton Hills College. Jocelyn Arena Salazar has been an avid for seven years since Beatty Middle School and has enlisted into the Navy in nuclear engineering. Jesus Portillo Gomez has been in AVID for seven years and will be attending Crafton Hills College. Jennifer Cervantes has been in AVID for four years and will be attending Cal State San Bernardino. Jacob Ambries has been in AVID for six years and will be attending the University of Redlands. Daniela Cervantes has been in AVID for four years and will be attending Crafton Hills College. Itzel Sandoval has been in AVID for six years and will be attending Cal State San Marcos. Brianne Aguilar has been in AVID for six years and will be attending Crafton Hills College. And Amane Lockett has been an avid for five years and will be attending Riverside Community College. Congratulations, seniors. Thank you, members of the board.

All right, ladies. Last but by no means least, we have Citrus Valley. They are also co-coordinators, which makes the program even stronger. And that is Sarah Keller and Becky Gidcomb.

Good evening Superintendent Kelly, school board members, administrators, teachers, support staff, family members, friends, and of course AVID students. We are so excited to celebrate our AVID program and our AVID seniors tonight. I'd like to highlight some of the successes our AVID program has experienced this year on a school-wide scale, and then I will invite our senior AVID teacher and my co-coordinator, Becky Gidcombe, to share some specifics about our AVID senior class before we introduce and individually recognize our AVID senior scholars. On a school-wide level, Citrus Valley High School had three areas of focus for AVID during the 2022-2023 school year. Foster a strong college-going culture and presence, increase the percentage of AVID-trained staff, and explore the needs of our staff concerning our work with essential questions so that we can further deepen learning for all students through the lens of academic rigor. Our college application submission day was a collaborative effort with the career center and our counselors, and we happen to have our new avid counselor here tonight, Mr. Ruben Montero. Counselors, okay. Our AVID program worked closely with the Career Center and Counseling to host the school-wide culminating event. Students were provided various opportunities to receive school-wide support, not just our AVID students, and guidance with their college applications and financial aid leading up to the event. The college application submission event was held on November 15th. Students who submitted their applications or those who still needed assistance that day were encouraged to attend and to also invite their families to celebrate their next steps into adulthood. Students and their loved ones were provided with refreshments, a t-shirt to promote our college application submission date in Citrus Valley black and gold colors, and a photo booth. You'll see some of those in a minute. The event gained quite a bit of attention and will only continue to grow. Of course, our scholars applied to several colleges, which means they will receive and did receive more than one admissions acceptance. Although our scholars are accepted to several colleges, May 1st is the day they are required to commit to just one college and is known nationally as College Commitment Day. Any student who missed our application submission day in the fall was celebrated at lunch during our school-wide commitment day. Our other two goals to increase avid trained staff and the use of essential questions to increase rigor tied together intuitively. We were able to send seven teachers to formal avid training. We surveyed our staff on essential questions and were able to gain some valuable feedback from student samples that will drive our work with essential questions school-wide next year as we begin our work toward earning the site of distinction certification in the next few years. There's a lot to celebrate this year at Citrus Valley School-wide, and I am also thrilled to announce that our AVID recruitment efforts, collaboratively, have certainly paid off this spring. Our AVID program is beginning to bounce back post-pandemic, while we have just one section of AVID seniors this year, and we love them. Okay. We will have two sections of seniors next year, and our incoming senior incoming freshmen classes will increase from two sections to three, possibly four sections of incoming freshmen. There we go, okay. Our AVID students have had some amazing opportunities and experiences this year. These experiences are part of what makes AVID so special and memorable. After a two-year hiatus, we were able to bring back our AVID college tour, also often known as the junior overnighter. Our four-day, three-night tour of over 10 universities is the crown jewel of field trips for our students. And it only cost them $100 this year thanks to administrative support and fundraising. So four days for $100 is pretty awesome. We had 40 students participate in our Overnighter, but that was not the only experience these students were fortunate enough to have access to this year. Students were able to visit Vanguard University in the fall before our Avid Night at Knott's Berry Farm. They toured Claremont, McKenna, and Harvey Med colleges in conjunction with our Avid Night at the LA Clippers game with RHS. Lots of fun. Our Blackhawks gave back to our community by participating in Optimus games at RHS. And next week, we will top off the year with our formal tour of the University of Redlands, complete with a ropes team building course and lunch in the dining commons. Now, I'd like to introduce my Co-coordinator Becky Gidcomb, who will share some of the specifics about our fantastic AVID senior class.

Okay, so first of all, again, thank you very much for this opportunity for us to be here tonight, and thank you for continuing to support the AVID program. One of the things that I wanted to point out to this particular class is, I know we talked a little bit about this in class, but these were the freshmen that were mostly in my biology course at the time when we went on the pandemic, and I had told them, it's just a cold, everybody's getting a little overly dramatic, we'll be back at the end of spring break, and that spring break turned into like two years, right? So I'm very proud of this class for being resilient and sticking with the program throughout the whole, you know, your whole time there through Zoom and all the fun stuff that we went through. This year we have 27 seniors. I can't even say enough. 100% of them have been accepted to a college or university, and 100% of them will be attending one of their choices. And the really cool part is that a lot of them are going to be local, so we'll be able to keep in touch and be tutors. Yes, thank you. For our seniors, we have earned over 500 million, 500 million, wow, 500,000 in just scholarships alone. That's not including the FAFSA financial aid and stuff. So over half a million dollars in money that they earn because they're scholars, they're amazing individuals, they're athletes, they're, you know, they've earned that extra money to help them get through college. Why am I so nervous? Okay, breathe.

Which is that?

Oh, yeah. Okay, well, okay. Seniors participated in many extracurricular activities. In fact, some of our seniors are not here tonight because they are on their dress rehearsal for their spring showcase. We participated in athletics, student government, choir, cheer, ASB, link crew, athletics, clubs. One of our seniors, we said that she was the president of like every club on campus. You know who you are. So our kids are not just doing academics, you know, they're taking AP courses, they're taking dual enrollment, but they're also well-rounded individuals and I'm very proud of each and every single one of them. Okay, let's present the seniors. How do we do this? There we go. Okay, so our first senior here is Ayana Escalante. She's not here this evening. She was an avid for, now I've lost it, four years? Yeah, she was an avid for three years, I'm sorry, three years. She will be attending Crafton Hills College in the fall, and then she'll be transferring to Cal State Fullerton, okay?

And next up is Alana Ulibarri, four years in AVID. Wow, you got some fans. And will be attending University of Redlands.

This is Alejandro Garcia, and this is Slim, his dog. He was in AVID for seven years and will be attending Crafton Hills in the fall.

Okay, next up we have Alex Lara. He can't be here tonight. He is actually at Citrus Valley doing our performing arts showcase. He was in AVID for six years and will be attending Crafton Hills College.

This is Andrew Beltran, our ray of sunshine. Four years in AVID and he will be attending Riverside Community College.

Ashley Chung, one of three Ashleys that we have in a row. Three years of AVID and will be attending UC Riverside School of Business in the fall.

And then Ashley Gonzalez. Ashley is a sibling. I've had her sisters and we're family and it's all good. Seven years in AVID and will be going to UCSB.

Okay. Ashley Pham, four years in AVID and attending Cal State San Bernardino in the fall.

And Asia. Asia Stewart. You're in my way. Four years in AVID, attending UCR in the fall.

Aubrey Loera. Four years in AVID, attending Cal State San Bernardino in the fall.

Aya Hamad, seven years in AVID, attending Cal Baptist University.

Brittany Nguyen, five years in AVID, attending Cal State University, San Bernardino.

Ms. Cece, Ms. Cece Robinson, Shareena Robinson, seven years in AVID, attending Cal State San Bernardino in the fall.

Dia Herbara, Four years in AVID, attending California State University Fullerton in the fall. Go Titans.

Esteban Matute with Zeus. Six years in AVID, attending Crafton Hills in the fall.

Jayla McDaniel. Five years in AVID and attending Cal State San Marcos in the fall.

James Noda. Six years in AVID, attending Cal State San Bernardino in the fall.

Keith Ching, four years in AVID. He's not here. Oh, okay. And attending Crockton Hills College.

Okay, this is Nathaniel. I can't with his last name. Okay, Nathaniel, four years in AVID, attending Cal State San Bernardino in the fall. What'd I do? Oh, there we go. Rosales.

Mark Rosales, both a Rev and Citrus Valley AVID family member, so that's why he's getting love from both sides. Six years in AVID and attending San Bernardino Valley College.

Pedro Alcarez, also doing the spring showcase right now, five years in AVID, attending Riverside Community College.

Ryan Kolunga, four years in AVID, attending Grand Canyon University in the fall.

This is Ryan Ziegler, six years in AVID, attending Crafton Hills College.

Serena Almanza, seven years in AVID, attending Crafton Hills College.

Serene Serra, four years in AVID, attending California State University San Bernardino.

Stacy Rojas, three years in AVID, attending California State University San Bernardino in the fall.

Also, Seal of Biliteracy. And Tamara Langster, last but not least.

Last of the Langsters.

Last of the Langsters. Four years in AVID, attending Chafee in the fall.

Oh, that's it. OK. And then you get the closing remarks. OK.

Again, I'd like to thank the board for seeing the wisdom in continuing to fund this program. It's something that, like Ms. Bailey said, it's something that's near and dear to my heart, and I really appreciate the opportunity to be able to be here tonight and share my seniors with you. Thank you.

If we could just big shout out for all of our avid seniors here tonight. We're incredibly proud of the accomplishments you have made and we wish you all the luck in the world. You don't need it. You've got the skill now. You know what you need to do. Thank you.

It has been a long night.

Congratulations family and students. Oh, I'm next. OK, you know what? You're going to have to listen to your elder for a second. I'm the elder up here, I believe. I'm going to time him. You're going to time me. 50 years ago, I was at the U of R as a college student. And I will give you some little words of advice from an old guy. First of all, I have a question for myself. Where did the last 50 years go? You're going to find out, students. Time flies. So I think your last four years, when you think about starting your high school experience, does that time seem like that now? All of a sudden, we're racing up on graduation. So just remember that. Listen to your elders. They've been through it. You don't have to do what they say, but at least listen to them. And I'm going to tell you something. When you start college, they didn't have it when I went to college, but if they had, I would have taken it. Take a class on time management and study strategies. Your teachers have been working really hard. We're out of time already? All right. I'm almost done. I get the hint. It's like the Academy Awards, right? They just play you off. So if they offer a class in time management and study strategies, usually just a one quarter, one semester class, it's well worth it. Well worth it. I would encourage you to do that because you have learned a lot of strategies from your teachers, but college is a new game. So I would encourage you to do that. And by all means, participate in your on campus activities. So once in a lifetime experience. It's hard to go back and do it later. So make sure you do that. And you know what? You're not alone in this journey. Your AVID teachers, your parents, your family members, your siblings, they're all rooting for you. Don't be afraid to ask for help and get some advice during this time in your life. They're there for you. They love you. We love you and we're very proud of you. And thank you so much to the AVID teachers.

I'm just obsessed with being a part of it tonight. Congratulations to all the students on achieving your academic goals through advancement via individual determination. I also want to say to the I am in awe of you, your hard work, your diligence, and determination have certainly paid off. And thank you to some people in this industry for all that you do to make this happen in Congress. And thank you to all of my students, teachers, at all of our schools, with your help and support.

And I know this is something that a lot of guys are working towards.