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Accent on Byron Excellence

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On the evening of January 26, the Byron Board of Education hosted a virtual Accent on Excellence celebration in order to honor district students and staff.

Show Transcript

Good evening everyone my name is Christina Lynde and I'm the School Board president on behalf of the entire board of education it's my extreme privilege to welcome you to tonight's Accent on Excellence this has been quite an unusual school year and I think we've been very fortunate to be able to offer our families the choice between in person and remote learning in addition to navigating the pandemic our district has also been advocating to keep Illinois nuclear power plants open these outside factors can often dictate how we spend our time and where we give our focus in my opinion events like this tonight are more important than ever to help us all remember the why and the who of our district tonight we're going to recognize some students and staff have done some extraordinary things over the first semester to kick things off I'd like to introduce mr. Jim Kann our athletic director good evening everybody my name is Jim Kann, I'm the activities director here at Byron High School it's my privilege to recognize our fall activity members and athletes that excelled we are fortunate to have activities as we look back very fortunate to have full seasons so tonight we're going to recognize those that excelled in their activity to start off at we are going to talk about the music world and the ILMEA All State winners to recognize the choir All State winners mrs. Amy Harn thank you Jim so I I get to recognize six individuals this year who have reached the top honor in music on becoming Allstate musicians in the choir world this event started out very similar that it does every year and we prepared for auditions but are auditions this year we're different because they were not in person every student had to prepare the audition and we had had to record them this year had to record all of their skills and their song selections and we had to learn how to splice them together and put them in a final product and put them on YouTube and then connect it to their nomination on the website so we got through that process and they were selected to the district event which was a virtual event this year and then from their scores their audition they were selected for All-State this year I had six students selected the top four students from each voice part are selected to be in the honors choir this year I had Sophie Tucker as a soprano 2 and Hope Cornett as a soprano 1 make the honors choir Our all state musicians they scored in the top 8 from each District from each voice part Isaac Mondello as base one he is a two-time all state winner he made it down to State last year Tyler mroczek as a tenor 2 Casey McKnight as an alto 1 and Amanda Camling as an alto 2 so I we are still waiting to find out if we are going to have a virtual event or a live event for their final Allstate Festival We'll find out on February 15th if we all get to be in person or not thank you Amy let me switch over thank you Amy and now for the ILMEA band members and to introduce those mrs. Natalie Haas hello good evening thank you for again for this opportunity thank you Mr. Kann and Mr. Barton and school board for still trying to give us a chance to honor our kids for their hard work throughout this year even though this everybody knows it's been really different similar to the choir audition system the band system was again the same way where they had to record instead of play their auditions live we did learn a lot about recording in addition to what Mrs. Harn said in that I think there's a lot more pressure to record something because when you're going to an audition can you get one shot to do it right where when you make a recording you can continue to record and record and record a record until you're happy with it and I know that the band students all recorded their their material numerous times until they were happy with the final product to submit in one thing that I just want to stress and I know a lot of these students that are being recognized have done this is that instead of deciding to just take a year off because they don't know if they're normal festival or event is still going to take place these students still worked for a very long time on this music the band music takes months and months to work and I know that most students who make Districts take private lessons and certainly there is 99% chance that every student who makes all stated in the in the band and Orchestra program is taking private lessons outside School on their instrument it's a lot of work and I'm very proud of the students who auditioned for districts and without knowing whether the reward would happen or not and then we are so hopeful that we'll still get to do the All State Festival they did postpone it until the end of May and like Mrs. Harn said we will find out next month if they decide for sure to do it but this year the two students who qualified for Allstate are both French horn players we have a sophomore Alana Haas on the French Horn and then also senior Nate Dyck on a French horn and this is also Nate's second year in a row for qualifying for Allstate and in addition to them qualifying for All State just a little bit of details about exactly how they get there and how many go we don't know every year the number of students on each instrument that are going to make it but on a typical year there are probably 32 to 40 French Horn students from the whole state that make it to the All-State convention and we know this year the numbers could be smaller we also know that there were at least 100 French horn's who made the district of their own District so of that 100 we we think our students are in the top quarter of the French horn players in the state so I'm very proud of them and very excited and hopeful that they will get to have their Festival in May thank you Natalie and I I say Natalie and Amy your passion during covid made this possible cuz we had a ton of mitigations to work through and with the help of people working on ventilation and all those different things to be able to do though so thank you for that we did have a student reach a national level and to introduce that award Mrs. Amy Harn yeah there she is just to go along with the mitigation's we I was going to say we practice under the lights outside and we had our tents and that helped us prepare for all of our fall events Jaden Newton was one who was able to last year she made the All-State choir last year and because she made the All-State choir she was able to audition for the national Federation of music educators natural Ensemble she had to prepare something a piece of music that was selected by the committee and she had to record it and it was right during covid it was when we were everybody was stay at home so she had to do all the prepare for preparation for this on her own she had to do the recording on her own so everything was Jaden's. Jaden's doing to get her into this National event she submitted that and found out in June that she was selected to the National Honor Choir unfortunately she found out in August that it was not going to be held in person it was to be held in person in November down in Florida over a span of four days but they did pull off a virtual event the first weekend in January so Jaden was online had virtual choir rehearsals online and her final product she had to by last Friday she had to record herself singing these songs she said that was very difficult to do cuz she had to use tracks that she had to be very specific with and Friday she had to submit that and in March we will get to see the final production of the Honor Choir with all of the kids put together with their recording so that would be very fun so I congratulate Jaden on her National Honor good evening my name is Petrece Klein and I'm the assistant principal at Byron Middle School I would like to recognize our students of the month off for the first semester these students were recognized for their outstanding work in the classroom and for their commitment to the school community throughout the semester for September we have in 6th grade Alannah Bauer 7th grade Cole Kretzinger and an eighth grade Morgan Nelson that's student of the month for September for October our students of the month 6th grade Myla Draheim 7th grader Kendall Gamlin and 8th grade Sadie Stoll for November are students of the month or Caliegh Rybicki 7th grade Molly Wheeler and 8th grade Skylar Palmgren and for December the students of the month for 6th grade Ashley Potter 7th grade Tim Starwalt and 8th grade Gianna Franchi congratulations to all our students of the month good evening everyone my name is Jay Mullens I'm the High School Principal here at the Byron high school I have the honor of recognizing our students of the month for the first semester when you look at the students of the month in high school you look at the acronym Pride which talks about P for perseverance R for respect I as in Integrity D as in Duty and E as in Empathy the following students who have won the student of the month award and these student we'll have their pictures placed up in lights down in the cafeteria they also received two monetary awards one from Byron Bank and one from Stillman Bank they also get preferential parking which this month and next month is a a big deal to these guys because it's pretty cold outside so the parking spots are right up front by the building so without further ado our September students of the month for Byron high school for 9th grade Gavin Remof 10th grade Lily Swiech 11th grade Tori Kuzlik and 12th grade on Anna Freedlund for the October students of the month we had for 9th grade Faith Rakowski 10th grade Lauryn Shank 11th grade Addie Ebersohl in 12th grade Aydin Coffey Our November Students of the month at Byron High School 9th grade Abby Baker I'm sorry 10th grade Sydney Smith 11th grade Jake Lenz and 12th grade Olivia Ebens and for this past month of December for 9th grade Reese Little 10th grade Shannon McHale 11th grade Taylor Nelson in 12th grade Eric Detig Congratulations Byron high school students of the month our next Awards come from the fall Sports of cross-country we're fortunate enough to have a season that went to the state sectional level one short of having a state meet we did have an individual that would have qualified and to introduce her mr. Mike McHale thank you Mr. Kann My extreme honor to talk a little bit about Rebecca Starwalt she had a great junior year obviously we had a lot of the things to overcome with the with the with the season she did a great job training over the summer had a great amount of success she helped lead the team to the sectionals down in the IHSA sectionals and she qualified as an individual for the state meet as Jim said we didn't have a state meet luckily an independent company actually ran an unofficial state meet and Rebecca received a an invite to that so she was able to run in the last race of the year with the best runners in the state of Illinois did a great job there she was an all-conference cross country Runner and as I said an unofficial State qualifier but in any other year she would have been a state qualifier so congratulations to Rebecca Starwalt on a great junior year thank you Mike our next group also in the fall had a tremendous season and I'm going to turn it over to coach Adam Gura you know Siri so just got done with practice bare with me for a moment trying to find some light I don't know if you can see me or not so literally just got done practice okay so yes we are we had an unbelievable season we went undefeated in dual meets we had one invite we had the Jefferson invite and we actually ended up winning that for the second year in a row there we go show my face so we won that for the second year in a row we came into sectionals as a probably the top team to beat we ended up winning sectionals and the second closest team was about 80 points behind us so we we really dominated over the course of this season we had three sectional Champions we had a Kate Schilling who won sectionals in the 200 IM and the 100 fly Audrey Kilmer was the sectional Champion the 200 free and Lacey Long was the sectional Champion dives of those I believe Kate has a state cut time which placed her 21st and I believe Audrey Kilmer's 200 free placed her 22nd in the entire State that's one of the difficult things about swims we're all one class so you look at everybody that were we're swimming against everybody that was underneath them was from very large schools like Evanston New Trier so on and so forth so incredible effort if you look at sectionals as well almost every single one of our girls that were on our team every event placed 6th or better so they would have placed Podium on every single event except for I think one of our girls would I mean they were 7 so that's pretty incredible to see they did a fantastic job this year given the circumstances I think it's pretty awesome to that considering we are pulling from I believe 7 schools this season we only had one kid quarantine and that was right at the beginning of the year we had no cases of covid I thought Mr Kann ran an exceptional sectionals here a well-oiled machine moving kids in and out I really think in spite of the circumstances we had an incredible season and super proud of these girls next we would like to recognize the Illinois State Board of Education those who Excel Award winners from Byron Middle School winning the award of a meritorious service for student support Personnel is Mrs. Katie Bull Katie was recognized for this award not only for her exemplary nursing skills but also for the relationship she has in building with our students on a daily basis she's caring and firm when she needs to be so students don't just hang out in her office those that like to make trips down there to try to go home Katie does a great job of knowing and reading them and building those relationships knowing when they need to stay at school and when they truly should be going home she builds those great relationships with the students and really steps up and takes on additional duties such as last spring during our quarantine and our remote learning as we were scrambling we had students that we hadn't heard from or we were really trying to connect with and Katie stepped right in and took individual students on and she took two or three students and made connections with them and really worked on even the academics with them for students that were struggling so just steps up in all areas and we can't say enough and how fortunate we all are and to have Mrs. Katie Bull at Byron Middle School so congratulations to Katie. Hello! my name is Steve Stewart I'm the principal at Mary Morgan Elementary School we also had an individual that was nominated and won the award of Merit for the category of classroom teacher and that was Ashley McGarry Ashley like Katie Bull builds quality relationships with her students in her classroom she is does a great job in the classroom always willing to help on committee she's on the PLC committee she's served in the school Improvement plan committee and she really goes above and beyond to help any stakeholder within the School District in this very trying time in the last spring and this fall she is also served as the BEA Union president which is a feat in itself in a non-covid year but in a covid you're navigating many of the different aspects of of things in the district she did a wonderful job and just want to congratulate Mrs. McGarry on this very deserving award thank you good evening I'm school superintendent Buster Barton and it's my honor to recognize another Those Who Excel recipient in the category of community volunteer and that is Mrs. Christine Lynde who is receiving Award of Excellence on the highest award you can get through the Those Who Excel program Most of you probably are aware Mrs. Lynde serves as the Byron School Board president in that roll she is Championed District transparency District engagement fiscal responsibility as well as really an unbending desire to improve opportunities for kids in addition to that she also serves as the Byron music boosters president when she's not doing that she serves on a multi-county board called the Northwest Illinois Association board which is again a multi County Board that aims at providing supports and services to special-needs students all throughout Northwest Illinois when she's not serving in those capacities she also volunteers for numerous committees literally dozens whether it's building level district-level or community-based level committee she's quick to stand up and provide any effort that she can and in addition to that she also finds herself in our school buildings volunteering her time supporting our students and our staff so I would like to officially recognize and congratulate Mrs. Lynde on her Award of Excellence through Those Who Excel I also have a staff member I would like to recognize for Those Who Excel for Educational Service personal meritorious service Caroline Wiley Carolyn is one of our custodians in our building and in order to be considered for this award you have to have three letters of recommendation submitted for this so I want to read one of our lettters here that was submitted for her the rule of Byron system relies on its staff members to perform duties and fill roles these acting individuals pull to a wide variety of responsibilities attained to physical Financial personal relational and systemic needs frequently titles are assigned to recognize and categorize faithful workers unfortunately made individuals feel their days grinding out behind the scenes are left without recognition no matter how hard they work or how amazing of a job they do I'm truly honored to write this letter for Mrs. Carolyn Wylie in consideration for Those Who Excel Award Throughout my 8 years on the Byron School District Carolyn has been a foundational piece of the District I've seen Carolyn work diligently and effectively to make our school a better place She's established herself over the years as a positive role model that staff can count on and I struggle to adequately put into words how valuable she is to our school. I've worked with several talented individuals throughout my 10 years as an administrator but Carolyn separated herself from the rest. Carolyn's abilities have always been apparent in her. in her performance as she relates well and works well with staff in a collaborative manner she's always willing to go the extra mile assisting anyone to make their tasks easier while putting her own needs on the back burner Carolyn's will do attitude is extremely refreshing in today's hurried atmosphere no matter what is occurring throughout the day. Carolyn is ready and willing to lend a helping hand for any endeavor that the schools involved with Carolyn has such a passion for service and she truly enjoys making your day better there's no doubt how much she cares for individual success and overall well being. Mrs. Wylie's been serving the students and staff at Byron's throughout my 10 years and before she's unmistakably an extremely special individual who comes around once in a lifetime I know I've never been associated with someone who's so loved in the way Carolyn is In my respect and appreciation she is shown by her stake holders is unique and most certainly deserved. so once again congratulations Mrs. Carolyn Wiley for a well-deserved honor Thank you for all you do for us. all right I think I get to bring up the rear of the Those Who Excel I'm really honored to be able to recognize a great team and to highlight some of the work that this team has done its our Mary Morgan autism team this team has achieved highest award that's given from the Illinois state board in their category the team is made up of the teacher Emily Hoppe the social worker Megan Skidmore our occupational therapist Heather Rigden are speech pathologist speech pathologist excuse me Kris Bielskis our physical therapist Mary Wheaton are paraprofessionals in the program are Stephanie Lange Sarah Johnson Penny Welte and Jamie Wrasse  like Jay I'd like to take a quick second and highlight a few of the comments from the nomination letters this was from a parent in the program I'm forever indebted to Emily and the team for giving my daughter a gift Emily and her team worked tirelessly with every child and family within the classroom I never have to worry if she is safe and never have to worry if she will be left behind I know when she goes to school she is loved as fiercely and is dedicated as she is at home the classroom gives these children a place to be themselves in a world that tells them they must conform the classroom excepts them and applauds every one of their accomplishments most of all Emily and her team strive to ensure that each of these kids know an feel that they are little Heroes the team has given families hope with a diagnosis that before may have wiped all of that away the team Emily are without a doubt the light of our family our family is needed and I'm so proud have my daughter and their classroom so congratulations to our Mary Morgan autism team on their Excellence award for those who Excel the next award we would like to recognize is there Earl Reum award recognized tonight mrs. Martha Reilly Byron Middle School math teacher she was a national finalist for the Earl Reum award through the National Association of Workshop directors National finalists for this prestigious award are selected for their recognition at the regional level there are only eight regions throughout the nation and they include all 50 states and the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico Mrs. Reilly was a region 5 representative which consisted of Six States Illinois Iowa Indiana Nebraska Ohio and West Virginia the Earl Reum Award seeks to support student leadership opportunities throughout the honoring Educators who actively support the growth of their colleagues and peers her continued efforts to provide professional development even through the pandemic and virtually the summer of providing her colleagues support and professional development Mrs. Riley certainly is deserving of this recognition and we appreciate all of her hard work congratulations to Mrs Reilly The next award that we would like to recognize today or tonight is the pre k gold circle of quality award and that goes to the teacher Jenny Peterson it is a honor that the State gives to pre-k programs there's an evaluator that comes in every year and evaluates every aspect of the pre-k program she observes Jenny teaching also reviews very strictly all of the paper work that goes along with the pre-k program there are four different levels for the for the Pre-K gold circle of quality licensed bronze silver and gold I'd like to congratulate Mrs Peterson on reaching the gold level for the second time I believe in her teaching tenure here at Mary Morgan the award you exceed the quality benchmarks on learning environment instructional quality teaching quality administrative standards and training and education this is a very hard award to get and I really appreciate mrs. Peterson's hard work and meeting all of those benchmarks for this award of Excellence thank you Mrs Peterson now we're going to go through each school had an opportunity to nominate some some folks in each building and as we navigate the pandemic from March 13th I believe until today the first one I'm going to honor here is is one that the school nurse Stacey Kilmer goes unnoticed many years for what she does but this year of all years she above and beyond what is asked of a school nurse we're asking her to take care of the students of Mary Morgan we're asking her to contact trace covid cases we're asking her to monitor covid rooms We're asking her to do many many things that are outside a typical year of a school nurse along with taking care of the general needs of the Mary Morgan student population. I truly appreciate working with nurse Kilmer and she definitely deserves this honor tonight so thank you Mrs. Kilmer our next one is our full-time sub this year with the pandemic each School building was able to hire a full-time temporary substitute you've probably seen Michelle Irwin in many of the buildings throughout the years she is now in in Mary Morgan everyday and for many weeks she was in a different room every day taking a taking care of a fourth grade classroom one day taking care of a resource room the next and she did that with with no complaint I would text her and say I need you here and she said I'll be there she even worked in other buildings when they needed some self-help so I truly appreciate Michelle Irwin at Mary Morgan and all throughout the district and she did a great job and we appreciate having her around to help us this school year this one is kind of just with Mary Morgan as we were looking at opening up the school building over the summer when we got the guidance from the state we needed to figure out remote sections and so we Mrs. Hogan myself and Mr. Barton we we started looking at Staffing and what would have to happen this some people needed to take out we needed to make a change and some people had to take on different responsibilities and the folks on the screen here have done that with Grace and hard work and they really made a school Community out of a remote section I'll stop in and see you them and I'll be on a zoom just like today and the kids are very excited I probably never seen them in the building except for maybe a picture day and the kids that are in their classes are doing the same things they are in person and getting quality education day in and day out and I know it was a stress and I know it was hard work at the beginning they do a wonderful job kindergarten Meg Franklin moves from our interventionist to our kindergarten remote section Josie Lindsey is our first grade remote teacher Ashley McGarry is our second grade remote teacher Elise mcneff went from ESL to our third grade remote teacher Brooke Kamp was our technology teacher last year and she was moved to be a remote section for 4th grade and Melissa Reecher our fifth grade remote teacher these teachers have done a wonderful job to go above and beyond everyday with the new remote instruction and they were pivotal when we had to go to some adaptive pauses they helped the masses at Mary Morgan navigate the first one making a second one even easier and better so I thank them tremendously for their hard work in every way getting ready to go at Mary Morgan are custodial staff is being asked to do many things that are above and beyond they're being asked to sanitize differently more stringent some of them are asked to wipe down double or triple the amount of desks and tables for a lunch hours to feed our students Mary Morgan some of them at our building are helping supervise the classrooms that students are eating and at times helping supervise the the lunchrooms putting down arrows at the beginning of the Year moving desk to make them 6 feet apart or at least as far apart as we can in a in each individual classroom measuring out different distances so the Mary Morgan custodial staff works very hard and I wanted to thank each and every one of them are we have Janet Blumeyer, head custodian Clorinda Corkran and Brent Koeller are the ones that help at the lunch room and during the day Melane Halstead is second shift and Shaun Bastian is the night custodian don't see him very often but I know he does a lot of work at night up in the 4th and 5th grade Wing so I thank each and every one of you guys for all of your hard work to get the school year going and keep it going so I appreciate that Lastly, it's the front office staff and looks different there's a lot of plexiglass in between folks not as many people in the office not as many visitors but the two ladies on the screen Amy Ewald and Julie Holland work very very hard at the beginning and throughout the year to keep the school running in a in a positive manner I've never Julia was new this year scheduling was different with remote sections with a lot of different things Amy with a lot of different assigning Subs I'd text her on a Sunday and say can you help me fill two spots and on a Sunday she said I'll do my best and on Monday morning more often then not all the spots would be filled so I truly appreciate these ladies and for their hard work keeping the school year going and making a very positive one so thank you very much everyone from Mary Morgan I appreciate all of your assistance thank you all right the staff of Byron Middle School you're going to hear many of many similar things I'm good at many of the words that mr. Stewart mentioned as well about the stay Middle School I'm in the roles and responsibilities that they play as well first we have our school nurse mrs. Katie Bull the amount of work that she does in the morning just to get the doors open is unbelievable temperature checks to the quarantining to the phone calls to the contact tracing working with the health department sometimes Fielding those not-so-nice phone calls having to make those phone calls letting parents know unfortunately that their child has maybe been in close contact and those are tough phone calls to make and always does it with a smile always a team player and has just really done a tremendous amount as mr. Stewart said just to keep the school open and going each and every day and does so and makes it a fun working environment as well so that's Mrs. Bull Next, we have our full-time substitute mrs. Carrie Bell Carrie can work two or three jobs sometimes in the day sometimes she can be two or three different people sometimes she's not even sure where she's going until right before she gets there she's learned how to zoom in and be a remote teacher then go back to in person and then a different period go pick up somebody's remote class she's so flexible and she's all over our building she's really a part of our staff and we greatly appreciate all the work that Carrie does and again always with a smile and always asking where she can help out or where she's needed so very appreciative and a warm welcome to our building Carrie Bell are custodial staff again echoing many of the words that mr. Stewart said they're really doing it all to keep the building open each and every day from wiping down in between class periods to even the beginning of the year to getting the school year started with the taping providing all the PPE that we needed in our buildings making sure we had everything getting gloves to teachers when they run out the wipes the lunch rooms we have 2 lunchrooms two separate facilities running right now in our cafeteria and in our gym getting all those cleaned out so PE can come in after lunch period is over there doing lots of extra work and it definitely is noticed and appreciated for all of their time and effort so thank you so much for the custodial staff at Byron Middle School they are our head custodian is Mr. Dan Wilmarth Jodi Shepherd and Mary Beth Featherston our ladies in our front office Jeannie Ferencak and this is Cathy Bein again always welcoming people with a warm smile the students come in they they are never a bother to our ladies that can be in the middle of a phone call and a crisis situation in the students come in and they're always there to help them taking the phone calls and again sometimes the frustrate the frustrated parents trying to figure out when their child is getting out of quarantine or you know what what's going on with the remote class why they can't get on and they handle these phone calls with grace and we're very appreciative of them Mrs. Ferencak takes care of all of our attendance and again that can be very trying with to figure out who's remote who's in person who's in quarantine who called in sick and in juggling that and going in each class period making sure the teachers are entering attendance getting them in remote or if they are in person so that's a constant juggling act as well and greatly appreciated for all the work that Mrs. Ferencak does. Mrs. Behn came in new this year and walked into quite a position as well with scheduling so she really worked Lots before the school year even started to get our student schedules and to learn a new system and just really extraordinary circumstances and she came in didn't complain cam in extra hours came in on Saturdays I know before the school year started just in crunch time to get our schedules taken care of and really did a great job that and then finally The Substitute she works tirelessly to make sure that we have people in our in our classrooms for our students each and every day as well calling, shuffling juggling people from classrooms and doing it all taken care of the subs that are building and again I know that requires time sometimes outside of the school day as well so thank you to them to those two ladies and now you will hear about the great High School staff Thank you, Mrs. Klein so one of the first person to recognize at the high school is our school nurse as well Mary Kate Rasmussen Mary Kay is one of our truly unsung hero's. she not only takes care of kids and their needs throughout the school day but she also takes care of our staff whenever something pops up with a staff member as well. This year she's been called upon to do so many more duties than what is normal for her position one thing that she has spear headed has been the lead contact with the ogle county health department she's very meticulous in taking notes and reporting back to them she also has the pleasure of or not the pleasure of contacting the families when something happens that they need to be quarantined. and those phone calls can be very very difficult but she's handled them all with class and grace she also goes around and does our contact tracing takes our students to our quarantine room monitors are quarintine room she's always going around the hallways trying to take care of someone or something normally she puts in a lot of time but this year she's gone well above that usually leaving once it's dark outside just because she's trying to communicate with all the families So, Mary Cay Rasmussen thank you for all your hard work and your efforts this year we greatly appreciate all you've done for us. next person I'd like to recognize is our full-time sub mrs. Cindy Elsbury as most people know being a substitute teacher is not an easy task especially being a substitute teacher in a different classroom disciplined with very expectations can be almost impossible you never know when you're going to see I'm sorry you never know where you're going to see her next you could be in the office she could be in the student services office the gym the lunchroom the classroom science math art she's all over the place the list can go on and on Without Cindy this year are high school operations probably would have cease and desist if we had one of our administrative assistants on a extended leave and Cindy jumped right in and helped out with with the school as far as calling Subs paperwork helping anybody that needed help with whatever it was while she was doing that she was also grading papers developing curriculum taking calls from people to try to help out things developing pacing guides for courses I mean I can go on and on there's there's this lady is truly amazing person I don't think I've met anybody like her really good at everything we've been very lucky to have her so Cindy thank you very much for all you've done for us this year we couldn't have done it without you next I'd also like to recognize our custodial staff once again you're going to be redundant but every year is very challenging every new year is really challenging this year's been an exception if you would have told me back in August we would have our doors open and operate the way that we did I would have told you were crazy and the reason why were you able to do that was cuz these folks you see on the screen here they've been instrumental in trying to us keeping our doors open Us open our doors they've gone above and beyond with PPE supplies going around and disinfecting pretty much every surface in the building as Mr. Stewart said double triple time going to different classrooms and helping teachers at times clean supervising hallways supervising lunch rooms at the high school issue we have three different lunchrooms and had to set that up and tear down and set that back up and that's a huge task they even went about going to each classroom with a meter stick or yardstick and measuring out six feet between each desk in every single class room and making sure we were following social distancing protocols. So, for that I thank you guys without your guys help and hard work done this year there's no way we could be operating at all this year in and kids being in person and in getting the education their getting right now so I want to thank Eric Rojas Garret Adkins Mark Bileto Matt Corcoran Melanie Gipson Marvin Sweger and Carolyn Wiley thank you for all your hard work. and effort. Like I said without you guys would have been closed a long time ago and last but not least I'd like to recognize her BHS food pantry and these three ladies Nikki Yerly Susan Freyer and Caryn Hoover I want to share a quick story with you guys Three ladies came to me a few years back and said they had an idea they want to pitch and then they have told me that one in five families in our school district needs support and I said ok well, all of our kids need support, right? and they said no extra support we have families that at times don't have food on the table so at that time they had told me a story about a couple of students that have become homeless decided that was enough and they were going to do something about it So, they wanted to start a food pantry for families in need in our community In they have since commandeered one of our conference rooms and have transformed it into a mini grocery store the food pantry started this school year assisting 7 families on a weekly basis they currently send weekly bags of groceries hygiene items and $15 food vouchers to Felker Foods for perishable items to 11 families across our district and currently in contact with 2 others who may be in need the covid 19 crisis made this more important then ever. they also provide snacks and breakfast items to children in all of our schools which amounts to about a 100 to 150 snacks per week the food pantry runs on 100% donations thank you to everyone who assisted our food pantry with donations without those donations this couldn't be possible Our archieve work program students make up the grocery bags the vouchers and they deliver to families who are in quarantine or shut in for health Reasons so I also wanted to thank our students who helped out with the with the food pantry in delivering these items the ladies to run a food pantry work tirelessly to ensure families in need have food on their table and for this and many other reasons I would like to acknowledge Susan Freyer Nikki Yerly and Karen Hoover thank you for all you do for our community Finally I have a couple quick Slides I'd like to share because they're two significant accomplishments that warrant recognition First this is really congratulations to everyone our students our staff our families and that is our district was running in thoroughly the top 8 percent of Illinois number one in our region an overall grade of A I'm not going to speak at length on this but if you look into this award it encapsulates a lot of stuff and that's a reflection of our stakeholders working in tandem to support what's most important to us our kids the next one was that next one was that and that was our Byron High School qualified for a silver badge the first time in at least my history that we've ever qualified for US News & World Report silver badge that's significant because one again we haven't qualified for that we've had bronze in the past but it's also a reflection of a lot of people working together so I'd like to congratulate our high school staff also prior to turning it over to Mrs. Lynde to wrap this up I'd just like to thank everyone for their continued effort on behalf of our kids whether you are a student tonight being honored or a staff member or parent listening to it thank you congratulations and we wish you well as you wrap up this next semester thank you once again on behalf of the Byron Board of Education I'd like to thank everyone for taking time out of their evening to help us celebrate good things are happening in our district despite the pandemic our students and staff are continuing to achieve great things I'd like to extended special thank you to our board recording secretary Mrs. Christine Zinke who put together tonights slides and I'd like to thank all of our administrators and our presenters for helping to make tonight possible please remember this recording that we recorded tonight's presentation and it will be available on our website in case you'd like to share the celebration with someone who wasn't able to attend tonight's zoom so thanks again and good night

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