Coraggio Consulting
City of Fairfax School Board Work Session, Monday, May 19, 2025

Date: Monday, May 19, 2025
Place: City Hall, City of Fairfax, Virginia
Length: 2h 48m (video)
Official meeting video (city, Granicus): https://fairfax.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=13&clip_id=4207
Agenda: https://fairfax.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=13&clip_id=4207
Minutes: https://fairfax.granicus.com/MinutesViewer.php?view_id=13&clip_id=4207&doc_id=f22fc020-35b7-11f0-856f-005056a89546

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-13. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] I'd like to welcome everybody. Feel free to keep eating, get food. I am Carolyn Pitches, and I'm chair of the city school board.

[00:00:18] And I thought we could start our joint meeting because I recognize a lot of old members. But not old like you're old. And we have new school board members. So over here was Dan Phillips.

[00:00:36] Who's our assistant superintendent? Mr. Plottenberg, do you want to... I'm Jeff Plottenberg, I'm superintendent. I'm Sarah Kelsey, I'm a school board member. Christina Cesare, school board member. Amy Heckman, school board member and prep.

[00:00:54] Lauren Bartolet, I'm a school board member. I'm Mary Kate Chizunas, I'm the school board representative for the advisor. I'm Sarah Ross, I am the prep chair.

[00:01:12] I'm the prep vice chair. I'm Diane Gibson, I'm Katie McCammon, I'm the recreation manager. Okay, so the first thing on the agenda

[00:01:52] is to discuss the school use agreement between Crab and the city schools. I think everybody has a copy of it. It looks like this as cooperative agreement. It just discusses the use of the facilities and the fields mainly between our board and your board.

[00:02:20] And the only thing in the agreement that, um, is inaccurate is if you look at section four is the fees, it says that all the revenue that's collected for field use that Daniel's run in Providence and Catherine Johnson is held at the city school board office. It is not, um, they charge five. If you look on, well, I, uh, where's Barb. Where did she go? Okay, it's fine. So, Rich Wyant, they charge $5.50 per player, and that money

[00:02:58] is collected by Parks and Rec. So, Stacey, do you want to speak a little bit to this? Yes, and so I went through to just do an audit today of the fees that we've collected, because, of course, like, if we were to be collecting fees that exceed our maintenance expenses, then we would obviously share those with the school board and so in the last year our expenses have been just under thirteen thousand dollars or our revenue that we've collected has been just under thirteen thousand dollars and now each year we do spend just under six thousand dollars on the turf

[00:03:34] maintenance and g-max testing for the high school field and then we also pay bridge and then we've Also, last year we put $60,000 into the Providence Elementary irrigation system. So, at this point, we're definitely still, our maintenance costs are still exceeding our revenue.

[00:03:52] Okay. Speaking of the turf at Fairfax, Mr. Blottenberg, I can let you speak to this, but we, in our CIP, don't worry about it, CIP, we contribute $20,000 annually to the turf maintenance.

[00:04:10] I'm not sure how we just pay it. I don't know what we do. There it goes. It's just, it's always been part of the agreement. So, of course, we're all pulling from the same pot of money.

[00:04:29] We're just all transferring it from one entity to the other. So that money is somewhere. Yeah. And if I could, one of the most important things that was mentioned, that Stacy mentioned, is I used to oversee 26 other individual high schoolers with Kirk, and the GMAX testing, what that does is that tests the ground, and really it preserves the part of the percussions, the injuries, sprains, and breaks that occur on our fields, and so the spots are worn areas.

[00:05:02] Sometimes you can look down on a field in the middle of the season and you see around the goal area, field hockey, whatever it may be, you can see areas that are kind of worn, and that's really huge. And the city and Stacey and her team do an amazing job of making sure Fairfax High School is well maintained and well cared for.

[00:05:20] And I can certainly say that it's not the case across the rest of Fairfax County, but the city does take care of well. And I just want to commend you and your take on that. I can't take any credit for it, but I will say our crew is amazing. And when we actually had a turf expert here, and he came out and looked at our fields and said that the condition of them was nicer than some national football league fields that he had gone to work with.

[00:05:45] Because our guys routinely do all the cleaning and brushing in-house, and then we work with a company outside to do the additional cleaning where all the rubber gets pulled up and runs through the magnet, and then the GMax testing. Which is absorption of the field.

[00:06:01] And what that does is it extends the useful life of the field. And at the end of the day, it saves taxpayers dollars. So thank you so much for you and your team here. And Stacey, Rich had noted that we charge $5.50 per player.

[00:06:17] The county charges almost double that. Is that correct? $10 per player? Double check. I'm pretty... So my point is, is that something that Parks and Rec would look at?

[00:06:34] maybe because we have an increase that's been the cost the price charged or the cost to players for gosh as long as my kids are in their 20s and that's back then so is that something we might want to look at um maybe a two dollar a dollar increase to will it help with the i think so i think um one of the things you might want to look at for the fyi fyi 26 rates and levies were approved by the council but when we get to FY27 to look at rates and levies because for our

[00:07:09] multipurpose non-terf field in the city we don't charge anything for FBYC and a lot of places do like just for their sports organizations just a flat fee per player that helps offset some of those costs and so maybe looking at what we do for the school and then the rest of the fields in the city to see if we can do some more cost recovery on there. Okay I guess we can discuss that furthers anybody anybody over here anybody have any thoughts on charging

[00:07:41] okay that's I thought it was ten dollars and I mean it obviously it's up to you guys I'm just trying to think of ways that we can support you know more revenue for parks and rec I don't think it's unreasonable. The rates have not been raised. Like I said, probably at least 15 years.

[00:08:10] We can certainly propose it if that was what everyone was in for the FY27. Yeah. In some ways, I mean, I agree that it makes sense to, you know, incrementally increase. I mean, it also is probably for a benefit to remain slain from all of the counties. Exactly.

[00:08:31] Exactly. If we can find, like, a happy medium, I think that that, And FPYC is pretty affordable in terms of a youth organization, comparatively speaking. And I was going to say, like, as a parent, we don't know they're paying you anything for flair, so you raise it, it's not...

[00:08:51] That's what I was going to ask, it's part of, like, a... No, they basically say, this season is $175. Yeah. We just assume it goes with the jerseys and all, but, I mean, there's... yeah we could um we could look at doing something like uh seven or eight dollars so we're still competitive with the county we could meet with fpyc and just talk to them in advance so that they're they know when they're planning it out for their um okay upcoming season sounds good okay so

[00:09:28] so um so we charge um for the schools yes it's the same and then we do have different pricing because our community partners for our city fields get a better pricing rate, which is free, than our for-profit entities.

[00:09:46] For example, there's a lacrosse club that charges a couple thousand dollars per season because it's a competitive club. We're going to charge them fees to use the field. That is literally what I was thinking. My son played on it, and I was like, huh, what are you guys doing over here with all that money?

[00:10:01] Well, Ann and Jay always started using the Providence field because they don't have a whole lot of 90-foot fields. Yes. So we do charge. There's a couple different rates. So like Falls Church is the field this year. We charge them a school rate, so that's a lower rate than what we charge for private clubs.

[00:10:17] Yeah, Falls Church City Schools, their fields were, and Stacey and Dr. Noon and I sort of went around, and Stacey was kind enough. We figured out how to shift everybody around and fit them in right at the one hour that was available. Yeah, Stacey was very, and I, you know, we appreciate that.

[00:10:35] We haven't really worked that out so that you can get in there afterwards and F.U.Y.C. and everybody would be around the same time. Yeah, we appreciate that. Yes. Do we need to officially change this event? So what we'll do is we'll correct number four on the fees, and I'll have the clerk send it over to you, Stacey.

[00:10:58] Is that okay? Is there any other comment or questions on the school-PRAB co-operament? We were just discussing it.

[00:11:18] Sure.

[00:11:27] Yeah, so KJ Fields is the next thing on the agenda. We could just roll right into that. Where are, I mean, okay, so Catherine, I will just say, the fields have been in the PRAB CIP since at least 2010 because i was the proud rep to the school board in 2010 and it was on there and i know that it was approved to be done and then the previous the new council or the previous council kind of stopped

[00:12:02] it because they were concerned about health risks and then that's the last we heard of it i will just put in a plug for Katherine Johnson. Our PE department is quite limited in its space to hold any outdoor. It's not a great school site to have outdoor space. And that field is not usable year round. And if it was turf, we're happy, you know, we supported it. So I don't know where Where are we with that, Stacy?

[00:12:44] Sorry. So we have a great plan from Timmins, which includes two turf fields, the rubberized track, and the asphalted play area, which is in the center of the track, which was requested by the KJ athletics staff and the teachers.

[00:13:02] So because, as you all know, that site is primarily filled from the old school, and there's a number of stormwater problems and site problems, the- The estimated cost for the site was $10 million.

[00:13:19] And that is, unfortunately, mostly in things that you can't see. It's mostly in site work and stormwater. And so, like, doing something like taking away the track, because that was the question, like, oh, do we need the rubberized track?

[00:13:35] What if we took that off? It only takes off $250,000, so it's not even really a big number. It is a big number, but not within the scope of the project. And we would want to do the whole thing because the access to the back where the track is, you would have to go along the side of the turf field.

[00:13:51] And we will be putting the proposed plan included the rubberized track, the asphalted area, the two fields, and then a full gravel walk, like walking path around the outside that could be utilized by cross-country.

[00:14:07] And along the side by the tree line, that walking path would be wide enough for a vehicle to get in to do maintenance, like a standard size truck but in order to do the site work required for the track we need to bring in a much larger piece of equipment and so it would make the most sense to do the whole thing at once because you don't be messing up the car we already finished in the front in order to do the tracking back so at this point there was at one point four million dollars in the account there was two million dollars from ARPA and then an additional two I am not sure if that two of that has been reallocated the two from the ARPA are still there and then

[00:14:47] we would need to find the remaining funds to do the full site and the difference in cost between like doing a natural turf field and a synthetic turf field is also not that large because again the biggest cost is in fixing the site and doing stormwater there's quite a bit of trash underneath yes um okay I just wasn't sure we were moving forward with it because of the um the artificial turf situation as far as you know is that not an issue anymore i think there's some options to look at there but i would say our biggest hurdle right now is the money okay

[00:15:27] and we're we are short six million dollars depending on okay well yeah well so we actually swapped out some of the arpa money but it's still tagged so the original two million dollars we put that towards Vice Park and then put in too many dollars that's not actually ARPA money anymore but it's still tagged to swap yeah yeah so we were able to reallocate all the money from ARPA so they get spent okay so our is prob asking the school board to contribute

[00:16:05] yes I would say as you guys know like we definitely come out of a really tough budget year so it certainly wasn't the time for us to come in and ask for in fact giving back money yeah so as you guys were and I know that full at us and the county so you know I think if at this point I think it would be a stronger proposal if we could get the you know like the schools to contribute part and us to contribute part because it is a shared space but I would be uh-huh the middle school to use it during the day and for our school for our after school

[00:16:42] and then also extracurricular and FBYC sports to use it in the evening and weekends. Okay. My CIP friends over here, Mr. Plattenberg. You want to jump in, my friend? Is that going to be a possibility at any time?

[00:17:03] I mean, we just gave back money. We needed to cover Title IX problems. Do you have for context? I mean, could we? So what I'm asking is, Stacey, how long would the project take to complete? I would say once we're, it looks, I think their estimate was similar to something like vice part, probably 16 to 18 months.

[00:17:30] And actually less if we do synthetic turf, because a large part of a natural turf field is two growing cycles. Okay. Is that a chair? Yes, Miss Essary. Just a quick question for me, proposals for the cost, does that consider only artificial turf or is if we mix our turf grass does that reduce the cost she said it was slightly it increases the overall operating cost each year so that will increase that part and then we would need to install a larger fence around it

[00:18:04] because we would have to lock and unlock it based on weather so to your point artificial turf is the most playable that's the reason why people put it in some form of synthetic I should say and you know as was stated we get back over $1.3 million in total and a deferral of some of our projects in SAIP but certainly if the board should want to go ahead and include that I mean just like we talked about that's like 27 fees we've done our 26 capital improvement program we would have to go ahead and look at the 27 capital improvement

[00:18:44] programming certainly something that they can consider as well as it can truly I think shared use I think going forward I think it's incumbent upon all of us to figure out if there's any other possible ways that we can go ahead and fund a lot of these needs that we have, because the need is much greater than revenues and support. I would say that two of the projects that we gave money back from the CIP, one of them, when we redo the CIP, I don't know what next year's budget or FY27's budget cycle is going to look like, but we could

[00:19:21] definitely contribute the money we were going to put into that project into supporting the kj fields i'm sure we can we maybe maybe we can ask talk to jc also to sort of see if um you know what key things in terms of how we could maybe fund it um if it's 18 months to i feel like we could we have $4 million, like, how could we structure it in our CIPs?

[00:19:56] We don't necessarily have to put any money in FY27, but maybe in the out years. And then if we start the project, obviously, if the money's in the CIP, it would have to be funded to finish it. I am not a CIP guru, but...

[00:20:13] Well, that's pretty guru-ish. I think it would be a stronger proposal if they worked on it together and brought it to the council of our FY27 together as a guru. especially addressing the educational programming because we currently don't meet the current educational programming for athletics for PE and that's why we included the members of the staff at KJ yeah we use a lot of parking lot space for recess it's just it's not it's not a good situation in this conversation we've had a lot of conversations

[00:20:52] about equity of parks we know that in the city more of our parks are concentrated on the east side you have a greater proportion right across from Germantown you have condo or multi-family housing and we have a very small park and the equity of play in terms of if it's an artificial turf I feel that you get more usage out of it.

[00:21:29] Absolutely. I don't think that our board took any particular position on turf versus artificial versus natural turf last year. And neither did the former school board at that time.

[00:21:45] In the overall, we were interested in playability and equity as well as, I'm an FCPS alum. I went to Katherine Johnson. I remember how terrible that field was. yeah it's bad when i was there i hate i can't yeah and i do think that um because it's important to both entities to schools as well as the youth clubs and the neighborhoods because there really

[00:22:18] is not a lot of green space or park space on close to the providence katherine johnson that area i think we we kind of owe it to the community to find a way to to make this work and when the issue of turf came up um we did at that time discuss other alternatives other than the rubberized pellets but like there's like a sand um so but the yeah the rate of injury was much higher it was

[00:22:50] slippery when it rained it would wash away and it was much more difficult to to maintain so we supported traditional artificial turf um yes yes there's lots of different and more things that i knew that i knew existed for right and and we have to remember that a lot of the health issues that

[00:23:29] were cited in some studies were from professional athletes who practice on the turf five to eight hours a day um over the course of you know 20 years that's not going to be the case for kids who are in pe you know or playing a youth sport a couple of days of a week um and there's no there was no definitive findings that it was the turf that it was the coral a correlation for for some But Mr. Pottenberg, wasn't that sort of the understanding that it wasn't?

[00:24:08] But there are a lot of strong opinions still, and they persist. I mean, the health director for Fairfax County had stated that there was no correlation. That's why the whole county continues to confirm the rubber application. Right. Either way, synthetic turf of some sort definitely allows and attributes to greater playability.

[00:24:29] And all the issues that were brought up about access to parks and so forth, it makes a huge difference. And safety as well, because we've had, you know, where it kind of bogs out in certain parts of the field and so on. So, yeah, it's been an ongoing issue.

[00:24:45] So I would say, you know, back to number six of maintenance and enhancement. Yes, obviously the schools would have to be a part of that when it comes to Katherine Johnson. I'm not sure if we add it now or we wait till we actually start the project It can't I mean it doesn't there's really nothing to maintain right now But I will we can keep that in the notes that we we need to because we will have to figure out how to Sort of word that what verbiage we want, you know whose responsibility is what is it gonna?

[00:25:24] just be a financial responsibility on the part of the school board and then you all would maintain it or is it going to be some sort of shared agreement i think that would make our cip project stronger because of course with all these there's operational costs and so we can come in and say like okay we're going to we're going to partner up for the both the cip to install this but then looking forward this is our plan to maintain basic i think that's uh is everybody agreeable can i make it yes just because you brought it up with the track and you took it out

[00:25:58] i will say if we can keep the track oh we are no the only reason the track and having that cross-country thing because going to the cross-country this year and the track kj has the biggest teams both out of everybody like the first track meet we didn't even have everybody and we had 86 kids there yeah and it's like we we couldn't sit with the other teams we had And so it would be really beneficial if the track team could have a track.

[00:26:29] It doesn't make any sense to remove it, and I only bring it up because everyone's like, oh, you can take things out and save money. And it's like, well, when you have $10 million and taking out the track team, that's $250,000. I agree that's still a big number, but in comparison to the overall cost, it's really not worth it. And quite honestly, I think that the school would appreciate the track because they do, right now, they're using that one-sixth of a gravel oval we have out there.

[00:26:55] And I'm always surprised, like, all the walking tracks at our current parks are some of the highest-used facilities. Like, when you go to Draper, in the park, there's so many people. I used it when my kids closed it after. I think we all have used the one-edged Draper at some point.

[00:27:12] Even to discuss this point in the fall, like, even the high school, too, I mean, I will say $202,000 to provide that service is a great deal, I think. Well, I was going to say FPYC has a track.

[00:27:30] Do they have a cross-country, too? Okay, I knew they had a track, but I'm sure they would find it beneficial to have another place to practice and stuff. Oh, I think a ton of people would use it. I'm sure excited to take it out because it would be so hard to put it in. Yeah, yeah.

[00:27:46] Okay, so the other, the Stalnicker field at the high school, Fairfax High School, that is the other sort of area that we both sort of share.

[00:28:03] And as we stated, there is $20,000 in the CIP annually for the upkeep of the field. And obviously, I mean, maybe not obviously, but Fairbix High School has first right of refusal to the field for high school sports.

[00:28:25] And then after that, there's some sort of hierarchy. I'm never really sure who goes first and who goes last, but I'm sure Rich knows. Yeah, essentially it's like high school activities, then sponsored activities that get scheduled in, then we schedule in around that.

[00:28:45] And then the thing that bumps us is if the school activities, like the school sports, get rescheduled due to like a weekend or something like that. Oh, yeah. Okay. Is there anything specific on this agreement that anybody feels strongly about addressing or discussing?

[00:29:07] I don't know if everybody's ever had the opportunity to read the agreement. no this this is accurate I believe so Jeff do you want to talk about how the money is parceled out well there's a portion of the distribution from actually the maintenance portion that's put in there and then a subcomponent that goes

[00:29:46] to the schools pay for any kind of custodial fee or any kind of supports How, but does Parks and Rec have to, like, how do we, how is that charged?

[00:30:03] Are you guys charged? I don't know. Or is it just the organization that schedules the field? Just the organization that schedules it. I know, like, long-running the 4th of July, there's been no fee for that. Yeah. Well, yeah, Rich handles any of the fees for an organization utilizing the field.

[00:30:22] Okay. And obviously, schools, it's free. Okay. So we will have a new scoreboard, a video scoreboard, at the high school in July, mid-July, this installation.

[00:30:41] And I think we probably, I know different organizations have access to it. We've got some pretty tight rules because the new scoreboard will be effectively assigned in the zoning world. We also have a ribbon scoreboard along the bottom for scorekeeping and timekeeping.

[00:30:57] So we probably, why don't we get it and then figure out how to manage it, you know, because we don't want to set anyone up for failure or to use it in a way that they're not supposed to. I think it's something we haven't had to deal with before, so just a precursor to it. Are the new bathrooms up at the top concession stand open?

[00:31:19] Yes. Okay, perfect. You're talking about trying to, that hasn't been there before for the 4th of July. Right, and we haven't done it yet, but we're renovating the one, the old restaurant building. Because, you know, the women's bathroom was along the back side facing Lion Run in the darks.

[00:31:37] And we should see everybody when you see that. So that's all going to be... Eventually, but not for the 4th of July. Not for the 4th of July. Don't get your hopes up. But there are some new bathrooms. I know that nothing goes that bad. Yeah, nothing goes that bad. But Dan, 4th of July had plumbing and the water and the toilets.

[00:31:55] As far as I know, everything is functional. And that all goes through Giselle, you know, at Fairfax High School. And I know you all already work with her. Stace, I think one thing to think about, too, they're not using those restrooms as much. For the most part, the ones at the top are the ones that are open. So just remember that as you get to those last conversations with Giselle.

[00:32:14] It's not that they're dysfunctional or anything like that, but we have been locking them. Yes. Yeah, we'll make sure that we communicate. That you have what you need. Yeah. And that they'll be sound and ready to go. Yeah. Just better. Yeah. Because not everyone will want to climb out of the stadium to go to the top.

[00:32:30] right right they are very nice yeah the effort yeah i know i would come out to the top too yeah and the the thing i always spend for the last 30 years the home crowd has had to walk down and walk back up so the visitors can do that too nice yeah okay um and green acres um did you want to discuss green acres yeah i think we were just hoping to get a little bit more information on what would what would trigger the building of a new elementary school because there's been kind of

[00:33:04] not there yeah we cannot i will just tell everybody we cannot build we can't renovate that building we can't build a new school on that site it is not a its location is problematic being in the back of that neighborhood um for buses and yeah it's one way in and out um the the actual acreage does not meet ed specs right now um you'd have yeah we would have to build up which would

[00:33:36] not make the neighborhood happy um so we had tried to well i had tried to trade that property for uh west over on west drive the park there and the prop i wanted the city to buy the property field from fairfax county that's right next to it because that's a much better location it's in between providence and daniel's run and i said you guys can have green acres we'll take this nobody fit on that offer um so currently we just hold the deed on that property um i'm aware that

[00:34:16] the building is in has some significant issues i'm assuming the roof is still probably needing some love yeah yeah there's two holes like we haven't wanted to put any real money into it because it's full potentially you know it's there's been this company held on it for an elementary school would be you know really happen but also that both the assessments the assessment that the schools didn't want prior to that all said it was not worthwhile to invest in

[00:34:50] the current facility the most cost effective would be to carry down it was similar to westmore um the the condition of back when we were looking at westmore to either do something with it as a community or level it which we that we ended up leveling it because it just was not a viable facility and it was obviously too expensive at the you know to and again we couldn't use that

[00:35:25] space as a school because of its sort of one way in and out. Yep. Green Acres is now sort of in that same place that Westmore was at that time back in 2010. Yeah I think it didn't come down it was still there in 2010. I believe we took it down in 2012. Yeah, it was very soon after that. So that's

[00:35:58] sort of a state of, you know, we are in a bad place with the school, elementary school renovations. The bond passed 70% and then the council didn't raise taxes enough to really support beyond the beginning design phase. So we're sort of in a weird place with that as well. And I had been looking into the private-public partnerships. And really the only thing the school board has that

[00:36:33] would attract a private partnership would be green acres. Other than that, we don't hold any other properties of value so that was that was really in theory the only use for green acres at the school board would have at this point we put the covenant on something else I'm guessing that like at an element like I know Providence is getting close to being more like a capacity but it's a

[00:37:10] lot of county students so before they built a new elementary school oh yeah Yes. Per the SSA, the Student Services Agreement, we will not, and the county is aware of this, we do not build an elementary school until we have no more capacity for city students.

[00:37:31] Meaning, if we removed all, what is it, almost 300 kids, 300 county kids out of Providence and still didn't have enough space for our city kids, that's when we would have to consider building a new school.

[00:37:50] Now, if we could get the renovations done, we would have four new classrooms at each school, which gives us a good amount of space. But again, right.

[00:38:06] So we're sort of just waiting to see what happens in terms of taxes basically, tax rate. I know that in the last few years the county has looked at adding, they've got like a school site reserved on 29 up here where you can not meet bad enough.

[00:38:31] Yeah, but the lake property is dead in the water. That will not happen. The neighbors, you can talk. I was at that meeting. Well, your point is correct.

[00:38:48] The county does own property. There's a cross, I think it was Bailin Road there, that little behind those tower apartments. That land is owned by Fairbanks and Public Schools. However, in order for them to have two access roads, they would have to get an egress pathway through the Park Authority property.

[00:39:10] And the former county representative of that area was not in favor of doing it. So they had shifted us to the Blake Lane property, and the community was pretty vociferous about not wanting that part to be addressed.

[00:39:27] So everything over that region kind of didn't want it. Right. And then COVID happened, and everybody's numbers came down, Providence came down to, it was around 88% capacity at that time. So we weren't as concerned about the county building a new elementary school The county has expressed an interest that when a new school is needed Partnering with the city on a school I don't know who will be on the school board Either school board at that time if that would be an option

[00:40:02] But we do have a lot of county properties within the city So, you know, that's for down the road that's for when I'm not here so but I don't believe I've always said I don't think we will need a new elementary school I I just don't in looking at the numbers over the last 20 years I don't see how we would get back to having 4,000

[00:40:37] kids in the city it just doesn't seem likely to me yes we are so i would say you're talking all the way for it not just yeah i'm talking yeah the elementary schools you know i would say once we you know the capacity on those buildings is each under a thousand so um we would have to have about two thousand elementary kids probably before we are at a place

[00:41:16] where we absolutely had to do something drastic. If we can get those extra. Yeah. Yeah, two of those classrooms to get rid of front trailers. Yeah. So those children are going to need somewhere to go before the next seven years.

[00:41:34] I don't know that it's going to hit two percent. Well, and keep in mind that two of the classrooms at each of the schools will replace trailers that are already at the schools. but i still don't we haven't been over 3100 kids in 20 years so and keep in mind that conversation that's total what the prefect county did was they went ahead and added on to mosaic right they added way more than the capacity they had at that school as a backup because of all this shit and then the whole delano project that is still moving forward what they were going to do is through boundary

[00:42:09] adjustments the theory if the creep kept pushing in that region they'd be able to boundary certain students to a mosaic county kids and boundary County kids off to tomorrow right it's not very close to but I don't think down lowering is a viable project still it's still going to be okay I I had heard that they oh you know what it was it was that before they were just going to renovate now it's It's like a full-blown.

[00:42:37] There's also the whole boundary study. The whole boundaries move. Then there's less things that happens. And it's a very, I think it's all very up here. Everything is very fluid right now. So, but, yeah. So, in terms of Green Acres, we are not, 100%, not going to use that building for a new school.

[00:42:59] We also don't have a... No, we don't have anything. So we definitely will not be able to do anything. With that facility, it would be a teardown, and then it would end up, we would have to find some way to get a road out on the backside.

[00:43:24] It would be a very costly project. Well, George Mason wants that property bad. Yeah, I mean, and I hate to say it, but don't get me wrong, like it has crossed my mind um and i actually our f-pack chair is here uh we were talking about the ppps and thinking like oh well who would be interested in doing something with green acres

[00:43:55] that would help us with the renovations and you know george mason is uh an entity that that that property is very valuable to them so but the neighbor I know Green Acres neighborhood has really strongly opposed that and everybody I think has respected that you know nobody wants they didn't want any college housing because I think there's a lot of rentals anyway to college students in a neighborhood that's also a lot of families so we all know some college

[00:44:34] kids in our lives, and we've been college kids, and don't necessarily want them, you know, living right next door. So, does anybody have anything else to discuss about Green Acres? Are you guys, I know the Senior Center is currently at Green Acres. Is it going to stay there, or for the time being? Well, yeah, for the time being, the long-term plan is, well, in Sherman Building gets approved, then it would move there and then we currently also lease to Main Street childcare which is kind of the city's right answer to head start right right

[00:45:12] start to file program and I do know I mean I know that there's been a lot of conversation around the Willard Sherwood project and looking at the tax increase I don't think it's going to support that school renovations I don't know what the that increase will support at this at this point and will the county if the

[00:45:46] city doesn't fund or isn't able to will the county then just create something with Willard on their own because they own that property

[00:46:19] At the present time, basically, Green Acres is to stay in its quo. Well, we don't do it. I mean, we don't maintain Green Acres. We just hold the deed of covenant. Well, yeah. But the city is supposed to do what?

[00:46:37] Sorry. No, go ahead. Go ahead. Well, they are maintaining it to keep it operational for the purposes that are currently being used there. We own it and maintain it. We just hold the deed of covenant. Right. And the ongoing, there's been some ongoing deferred maintenance because of its potential end of its, if the legislature would get bills, which was the plan that would, that would be moved out in FY20, at the end of this little year, sorry, so the end of 2029.

[00:47:11] And so that was kind of, I think when we think about like, do making big changes to Green Acres, that had always been like, oh, well, we shouldn't put that money there because we're moving out. Now we've kind of gotten to a place where we don't know if you're moving out. What's happening?

[00:47:29] Grab has not wanted to take any kind of strong position on this site because we know you guys have a covenant, you know, and that it's not, you know, like a... Yeah, I am. So we've wanted to have this conversation because it does keep coming back just as, like, you know, we're not the school board, we don't understand the demographics, so all the information we've provided this evening has been extremely edifying.

[00:47:57] for us you know but we wouldn't want to make we just need a space like the school school board just needs to have a property that's viable to build a school should we need to in 15 20 years um and i don't think anybody on the school board this school board school board before the school board is married to green acres it you know it was just it was sort of the last school board property standing um and i understand like it it's not a great facility for a senior center

[00:48:34] um i think it's fine for main street in some capacity just because it was an elementary school at one time but ideally like the facilities the ed specs on that place are ancient yes and i know um if the willow chairwood gets built in its current design main street will go after that rfp to have the space in there because the county is building a child care space and they're looking for an entity.

[00:49:02] Lions can start to take over that space. And since Main Street is already in the community, I think they have a strong ability to potentially get that. And then if something were to happen and the county were to build its own space, I think they intend to still build a child care space.

[00:49:19] Okay. So, I mean, I guess the long and the short of it is until we have, you know, until there's obviously some decision made about the joint venture with the county we we just hold tight on green acres and figure out you know what your needs are going to be and then you know work with the school board to figure out a way to you know give you all what you mean to me it just if they do go ahead with the Willard Sherwood project to me that

[00:49:58] space is better used as sort of a green space as some sort of field i mean we already use them for fields but um i because the building i think the building it's not worth it to put the money into the building if we don't have to that being said if we don't have a senior center well then i would say that the city should look at that property um because and maybe not that building but definitely the property to try to work out some sort of facility on it for seniors and in the process

[00:50:37] and we could work to find a different property for a school I know spaces you know land is at a premium in the city so does anybody have any other comments or questions about Green Acres It is a great resource for that I mean, like, my father That's why I knew your last name

[00:51:17] Yes Yeah, so I work at a lot of their long-term signing Matthew's slides do show up and Kelly mentioned this, it's really quite difficult to see.

[00:51:38] The director of transportation has told me personally that if he had kind of his way, he would connect Patriot Circle to Cyprus as an additional exit point. So I think the reason I mentioned Mr. Cantor's dreams about an external kind of way of funneling traffic out is that a lot of the folks I work with that are on campus other than the good people that are part of the city, they're just tone deaf about the issues that they cause.

[00:52:17] And it's just living on that south border of the city, just perpetual issues, you know, leaf blowing at 6 a.m. on a Sunday, and their generator testing at their public safety facilities, you know, Saturday morning at 5 a.m., things like that that happen right it's always yeah it's always yeah because I sat on the board with John forever and it's that has always you know he's always like yeah because he's right

[00:52:48] there he lives literally just off of yeah and and that's sort of why you know we've never um we know how the neighborhood feels about that property and George Mason and obviously since it's gotten so large, there's a lot more facilities now just beyond that tree line.

[00:53:13] So when the faculty and staff housing was built, there was a lot of difficulty over the impacts in the neighborhood. And then the physical plant itself had some defective kind of compressor equipment that would line and screech that we could all hear. And the facilities chair at the time, Thomas Calvin met with us at Green Acres, met with the neighborhood, and just was unapologetic. Yeah, it's been a difficult relationship, for sure. And it's my

[00:53:47] career, of course, so I'm careful about what I say. It's a safe space. But it's just a great deal of apprehension about the Mason environment. Oh yeah, and believe me, like that's not what, that's not what the school board wants. We just want them to renovate our building I do think it's important oh yeah but they don't yes I'm sure but I think

[00:54:25] it's always that they don't own it they know they don't own it they've been they've approached the That's not unusual. A number of times. You could just put an app down. Absolutely. Yes, you can. They're visioning their master plan. It's their proposal. So they'll just, like, a section of town will just be part of GMU. I mean, it's been on, yeah.

[00:54:42] Yeah, stalls are. Yes. I propose, like, and I try to put the bug up. It's not a single first school site, and it's acres to this, which it does. One of the things that we have a sort of a gap in programming in the city that would be an educational type of resource would be a nature center.

[00:55:04] Fairfax county has excellent major centers of programming for environmental education. I said this of course, I'm a high school science teacher and environmental educator person. So I got my start volunteering in the Fairfax county major center systems. So I have a huge spot in my heart for that kind of thing that can also be an educational resource to the community, a programming resource. People mentioned green space and a kind of, some kind of

[00:55:36] organized center that does not have to have high capacity but could include programming and storage and some restoration to the natural areas there. First I know people like to use the spaces as, you know, playing fields, but things like it, just golf course, or even a bluer trail, so using a natural meadow environment.

[00:55:59] There's a lot of options for restoring some of the biodiversity and also making it for each other. No, and I don't think anybody on the school board would be opposed.

[00:56:19] We just are, obviously, our main concern right now is renovating the schools. We have not been responsible in the city for saving for these renovations, unfortunately.

[00:56:35] We do have four buildings in the city, and they don't last forever, they don't meet ed specs forever um and until we understand that as residents um you know we're going to have some serious issues i my kids have gone through city schools they've been done they've been graduated for quite some time but the schools are i i mean they are the center of a community We raise, they, kids spend more time in their schools than at home.

[00:57:14] And we have to make sure that the facilities are able to educate them. So, you know, that's our first responsibility in terms of Green Acres.

[00:57:30] As I said, we would be happy to support anything. And if the city had a use for that, one, as long as they could give us another site, which i think is possible um but we also don't want to give anything up until we can be assured that you know the community voted to have the renovations to have this bond and we um we should honor our commitment to that um it it's going to make the school board look a little silly

[00:58:06] it's going to um it's just i'm just disappointed i'm just going to say it i'm very disappointed because we've all worked so hard to get the bond passed. We know, we've read the facilities assessment.

[00:58:26] The middle school and the high school are not far behind. And if we don't start sort of understanding that we have to maintain these buildings, then, you know, I venture to say we're going to be in a bad place in 10 years.

[00:58:46] so, but we'd be, like, we'd be happy to support whatever needs the city has, and, like, I grew up in, I went to high school in Reston, so the Walker Nature Center, Glenn Walker, that was his dad, who was a very good friend of mine, who, like, something like that, it's fantastic, you know, something like that, I'm sure the schools would, you know, wholehearted, the schools could visit something like that it would be a great I just feel like we could partner on some things and I think it's important for us to support one another you know

[00:59:23] because we do have a lot of shared interests crab and schools have a lot of shared interests and I honestly don't think that we communicate enough as boards But, you know, I think for myself, but I think also for, you know, my board and the whole, you know, we always really appreciate the opportunities that we have to, you know, have these face-to-face communications with the other boards and commissions and, you know, council or whoever.

[01:00:01] You know, because these opportunities for discussion are so valuable. And, you know, we talk a lot about how this is so intersectional, you know, that... Very much so, especially, I mean, I always feel like, especially with schools, was, you know, the summer programming and before and after school stuff and field use and building.

[01:00:24] I mean, I just feel like we, you know, it's important that we sort of support each other and keep the lines of communication open. Yeah, I mean, that's been a little, you know, for me as chair and I think as the board as a whole, just that because we're so intersectional, you know, these relationships are so bad.

[01:00:49] makes it all more important working and brings more power to what we're saying yes all right you know this board is it's not just one board saying oh this is what we want but it's hey it's this and it also has the backing of this and this and this and that might stacy that also answer it might be something we think about when we approach the katherine johnson project um is that we come to

[01:01:22] that as a united group yeah and I do think that when we do like the CIP presentation that maybe that's a time where we both come to you know we all come to the table and say this is a project that's important to this community and to and two ways you know for two different actually I mean it's not really two different you know students are the athletes and so it is all the same kids okay

[01:02:01] um he is here if anybody had any questions about yeah she did produce yes thank you thank you katie do you want to say a few words about your the the camp program this year right There's a lot on the schedule for tonight, so I just wanted to provide you guys some stuff information.

[01:02:24] I know a lot of you are probably familiar with the summer camp programs. So we have five traditional programs that we use the schools for to really get what happened to the space. And we do also provide specialty programs at Sherwood, and we'll talk about this summer.

[01:02:40] But some of our other spaces and parks and things as well are individual week programs. They're long traditions. Dan used to run these camps back in the day, so he's very familiar with them to me. We found a picture of him when he was a camp counselor. Oh, no way. Completely different guy. It's not you at all, is it?

[01:02:58] If you saw it, you'd know for sure it's not me. I begged Dan, crying, to let my, what was she, two and a half, and they wouldn't take anybody until they were three. I was like, you cannot, I can't have her home all summer. But the deal worked out really well for me. Most of the kids are going to continue to work with the schools So we do still offer like the sliding scale?

[01:03:29] Yeah, we do a sliding scale so we get 25, 50 or 75% off. A majority of people get 75% off, but we do have people that just qualify for that 25% and they're extremely happy because it's hugely helpful to them to be able to do that. A lot of like single parents qualify for like the 20 or 50% off even if they don't qualify.

[01:03:46] Or even if they have a good job and it still pays them well and they're still single parent working. Are there any new specialty programs this year that we can highlight? Yeah, we're doing a chess team this summer, and also we have two new art vendors.

[01:04:04] One is a mud skipper, which is more like clay and pottery, not like real pottery because it's all everywhere. And then just like a hard free-a-year-old, it's like all kinds of different themed art weeks they do. So I added those on this year along with our regular, traditional, or not traditional.

[01:04:24] The ones that we usually run, like the CFTC, the surf shop has a skate camp, we have a soccer camp, a variety of different options. We try to get, like, each week we try to have, like, different options that will kind of satisfy our kids, like, what they would possibly want to do. So we don't have, like, all sports camps one weekend or camp that week.

[01:04:41] So we try to set it up so that there's a little bit of everything for everyone. So we have nine weeks of summer camp this summer, six weeks of traditional camp, and then the rest of them we have special camps throughout. And what is the percentage filled for the traditional day camps as of right now?

[01:04:57] Do you know, is it on here? Yeah, so most of them are almost 700% or are in the, like, high 90s. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't look here. Because we take per session. Right. We do three-week and three-week or full summer session. At some point, they have done them in individual weeks before COVID.

[01:05:13] But it's really great for, like, the staff and everyone to really get to know the kids better if they're there for a longer period of time. Like, by the time a kid comes in on day one and is out, you know, five days later, they just learned their names and like barely anything about them so it's really great we have a lot of people that want to sign up for the full summer majority people do sign up for the full summer so we just kept it that way and it's great for our staff it's good for the kids and it's just for people rather than parents trying to sign up individual weeks they don't have to come every week if i go on vacation for a week but we just don't pro-rate it or anything right we try to keep it at an affordable cost so that it's back in the day we had

[01:05:55] um so it's our middle grades camp is actually like upper elementary so it's rising first at the element at the daniel horn in providence for rising fourth graders and then rising fifth through rising seventh graders at the middle grades camp and it's like kids that have been in middle school already essentially or at the teen center oh the teen adventure yeah yeah it's like rising eighth Okay, sorry, I said rising 5th to 7th on here, so that makes sense.

[01:06:21] Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, that makes way more sense now, I understand. And then my second, and I don't know if it's a question or more of a point, I don't know if you've been following the whole, like, middle school start times, and it's not going to affect next year. There's conversations in the following year, which would impact the before and after school that day longer in the mornings.

[01:06:41] Is that something that we need to adjust? So, we don't offer for the middle school right now. The only after school actually offers for Daniel's run just because we don't have the ability to bus kids or drive them or anything. It's not covering real cities insurance. Well, it could impact the hours of elementary school.

[01:06:59] They're changing the middle school start times. Yeah. But then some of the proposals were putting elementary school start times at like 9.40 a.m. Yeah, I counted. That'll never pass. Or 25 or 35. I don't think it'll pass.

[01:07:16] Just to put it on your radar. Yeah, I saw some of the, like, but I didn't say anything definitive yet, so I'm trying to keep up, and Dan keeps me in the loop of something crazy happening, so, um, but... Some of those were very crazy. Yeah, I feel like that FCPS has talked about that, like, a lot of times, and then nothing has ever really happened with it, so, but we'll adjust accordingly based off of, you know, what...

[01:07:39] Yeah, like, when they were changing, remember, they were changing the high school at start of time. They were like, oh, let's get this much money to change our entry? Oh, we're not going to do that. And then, like, 18 people signed up sometimes, and we have, like, 10 kids there. That's so true. That is the third time.

[01:07:57] That's kind of how it is now, but, you know, mostly kids are there every day after school. Some of them get picked up at 4, some get picked up at 6 o'clock, some of them not. So we just kind of, it's an ebb and flow. Yeah, and just know that this is the third time that they've brought up elementary start times over the years.

[01:08:16] One of these days, they're going to figure it out. They have no money. they figured it out a lot of money to change elementary start times there's a lot more elementary schools and bus routes so that's that's what's saving us right now so yes necessary capacity for your sure report after school is it at capacity or three staff members we try to keep a one-to-eight ratio it is just hard to find staff members. A lot of our staff members are based in, like, we'll know more of the students, but they have to be at work there. So, um, and the classroom that we're

[01:08:55] using at Charlotte currently can only take maybe a couple more kids, um, or it would be bursting at the seams someday. So, Sarah can attest, if you open the door sometimes, there might be a ball flying at you. So, it's a little tight in there. So, um, just based off the space, that's kind of where we're at right now. Um, I think two kids under, because someone got into SAC earlier, and then someone moved right the school year so i'm glad we usually are pretty full and we're almost well definitely full enough before and after school and then after school it's also been just the floor care options This is a fantastic program.

[01:09:29] My kids have been going to that since my younger servant's grade. She was a COVID kindergarten baby. But, yeah, they are phenomenal. I actually won sixth grade this year and I've gone all the way to kindergarten through sixth grade.

[01:09:45] So, we've done the whole elementary school. Not my mother. Some days I see them in there playing parties at the kindergarten. So, I'm like, oh, complacent as well. Yeah, it always ends up being a little okay wow yeah thank you guys always the last thing i want to say is that the fireworks are back in their original location yay we are trying to take something out of some of those trees

[01:10:20] zip it so sorry you have to come to the high school instead of your own house let's not bring up the trees please Okay, so we are going to continue with presentations to the school board.

[01:10:51] We have all our, oh, we have all of our committee members. One, um, Leslie's left. Yeah, okay. Um, I am actually, I know I've talked at the bottom, but Katie goes last every year, so I'm going to give Katie,

[01:11:08] Thanks everyone for having me again this year.

[01:11:37] Happy to be back and provide an update on a very busy and eventful year that FCPS has facilities-wise, at least that's FPAC's perception. We started out our year where we retooled our FPAC charter and decided to create a suite of memos each year for the school board because there has been so much movement and support from the FCPS school board to move things along very quickly

[01:12:14] to try to combat some of the backlog issues that they have with facility renovations. We are trying to be nimble and responsive to their needs, and so we are doing ad hoc memos for them that are getting compiled into our annual report every year.

[01:12:31] Because staff is moving so quickly on certain topics like P3s, different contracting mechanisms for all their construction work, Obviously, the boundaries, renovation queue that we felt like we had to kind of keep up with that task and we couldn't just wait to brief the school board once a year.

[01:12:55] So we now are going to be doing more iterative memos for the school board when they kind of ask for that, mostly through their subcommittee, which is the Comprehensive Planning and Development Subcommittee.

[01:13:13] So anyway, just that was a bit of a change. tried to implement early on this past fall and then just updating the charter or the bylaws which now we have to change to bylaws but that's neither here nor there um was quite the process more than i thought but um we did it so we're moving forward on that and then our other memo topics are listed on the handout that i provided um we are presenting to the fcps school board on

[01:13:48] like a Saturday retreat time ours is May 31st so I am feverishly trying to pull together the report for FPAC this year but our memo topics were p3 studies and just like a responsive memo on a p3 study that FCPS had hired a independent consultant to report on um and then staff fcps staff provided a response to that report and how

[01:14:22] the information that that independent consultant could use to implement it into fcps so staff provided a comment and then fpac provided a comment for the school board members so the things bulleted there talk about specifically related to p3s are high level designations and happy to chat through any of that if there's any interest in talking more in more detail about p3s our second memo was focused on the FCPS school board has

[01:14:59] a policy 8240 focuses on essentially procurement policies and how they want staff to work through a procurement process so staff is working through providing recommended recommended updates to the school board on this policy so f-pack because it had to do with procurement and contracting for their construction projects also provided some feedback to them our next memo is on construction cost reduction strategies we all know that FCPS is in

[01:15:38] dire straits to try to resolve some of their backlog there's the large backlog of school renovations so this past year the school board asked FPAC to try to continue to provide some creative and I guess creative and cost-saving benefits that could work for FCPS so there's things in here about the use of swing buildings have a having a better understanding of the FCPS buildings that

[01:16:15] owned but are not housing students right now and if there's flexibility in using those spaces and then just thinking about on-site swing spaces which that is where you put a temporary building on another part of a school campus and essentially either put a modular school there in place and Move your students over there while you're doing a renovation of construction or you build which is really difficult a brand new school

[01:16:53] Right next to the one that you are either renovating or tearing down and Some of these are very high in the sky ideas But part of the issue that FCPS has is that when you renovate schools with students in the school at that time it Further extends the renovation process by a couple years Distrupted to students it costs a ton more. So again, we're trying to offer some different cost Reduction measures so that was one topic and then our last topic was

[01:17:34] related to permitting strategies FCPS central office talked a lot about how they feel that the permitting process with the county has been difficult, takes a long time, so we did a deep dive into that process and tried to give some recommendations. And then at the bottom, I just have a list here of the potential memo topics that we are offering up to the school board for next year. I've only heard from one school board

[01:18:10] member there yet on which items they feel like they might be interested in hearing more from f-pack next on for next year so we're kind of waiting on that um but that was that was our that was our year a lot of moving parts but hopefully in the right direction katie so katie has a can you send this for the consultant's presentation because i think that

[01:18:46] would be really helpful for everybody who's really good to present me um katie and i have talked a little bit about some of the what she was talking about in terms of renovating building a new building somewhere else basically so to get a renovation done quicker we were just sort of she and I just sort of met with things through just because of our issues with our element of up in the air status

[01:19:24] I'm not an expert, but I'll share what I know.

[01:19:44] It was actually super helpful for me. So maybe, Mark, we look at, we don't have any more work sessions when school starts or it gets together.

[01:20:09] Could we look at a new one instead of a, because we don't typically have our meetings start until after Labor Day, but since school starts, could we just have a work session prior to, you know, whenever school goes, whatever that, I don't know what that is.

[01:20:31] I think it's the 18th. The 18th of May, then next, we can look at Katie. We can, obviously, we have, but we can look at first. Okay. Yeah, we're not as clearly slowing very much down.

[01:20:54] It would be good for us to have, so that we have, I think they're looking at similar sort of prospects.

[01:21:16] Does anybody have questions or comments or do you have any questions about the windows?

[01:21:33] Is that just for renovations, or is it more facilities management? yeah, so we were open for the FCPS school board to write memos on really whatever topics they want we had suggested the ones that are listed on the second page just from what we've been hearing being talked about related to boundaries related to some of the newer ideas FCPS staff are chasing things that

[01:22:08] we've heard from the community so but it covers like anything related to school campuses the CIP planning either for renovations in the next five years planning for what learning in K through 12 looks like 20 years from now like if the school system wanted us to say tell us what the future of education looks like so we can plan our schools to be the most functional for that educational

[01:22:43] system that is certainly within f-pack we have a couple mechanical engineers that are on f-pack who love to get in the weeds on maintenance and systems and so we do that too so I mean it kind of runs the gamut just like with any of our or other advisory committees where the topics can range.

[01:23:09] They're mostly power effects, just in the programming. Exciting times, transformation, no more table, laptops everywhere, plugs, power, Wi-Fi zooming through the air.

[01:23:27] Sorry, I'm getting carried away. But, yeah, I mean, that's definitely, there's a ton of A&E, like architectural and engineering firms that specialize in the designing of school facilities for not just present day but well into the future and how you can best service students you know because we probably all went to schools where there were there were like no windows like this but there's a reason why design components like this kind of come into play and it's because of

[01:24:01] you know people meeting and talking about what the future of education should be how you deploy that in curriculum, how you deploy that in helping teachers, and how you create great spaces. Are you the school from D.C.?

[01:24:26] No, I went to D.C. Yeah, South Wales, no walls. That was the theory, that you could collaborate easily, there was no walls, and it stood like a full style. So God help you get ADHD, because you're like learning from other teachers, or a bookcase, not your own book, kind of thing.

[01:24:49] Okay, thank you. You please, you don't have to. I'll save her a little bit. Okay, thanks. Julia, are you possible going second? Well, of course. So I was really happy. I'm really glad to have the opportunity to meet you all.

[01:25:06] I was nominated as the representative, and I was like, what am I supposed to do? Show up to the meetings and tell us what happens. And I'm like, but what do you want to know? So much happens. And so I had a lot of fun representing, like, you know, Fairfax City, really honored in MSLC.

[01:25:23] We really appreciate your time. Thank you. And so it took me a while, first and foremost, to get, like, you know, the acronym right. So we are the Minority Student Achievement Oversight Committee. Several times meeting people, what is MSLC? So I got it down now, and I'm looking forward to tell you everything that happened.

[01:25:42] So, you know, in the current climate, minority achievement, minority period is, like, you know, a touchy subject. So our year went like this. And we just finished the draft of our report, which we're presenting on the 31st with you. And it has been a fantastic year representing Fairfax City.

[01:26:02] And we had 10 meetings on the schedule. I was able to attend eight. The ninth is actually the last one. So I only missed one meeting. And by the second meeting, I was nominated to be the co-chair in training. So I also had the pleasure to attend weekly meetings, 30 minutes, every Monday.

[01:26:25] And it was really interesting to see, like, you know, how many members and how the great collaboration between the Fairfax County School staff, the community members, and other related stakeholders really pour into these committee meetings.

[01:26:43] You had some people that are members, like, that have been members for, like, 10 years, I would say, for some of them. And so we had some visits at some point at the very beginning. So you have the explanation to what the whole committee entails, the goals, the objectives, what the charge represents, and what pillars we're working under.

[01:27:04] And from that point, we built, like, subcommittees to identify what would be the best initiatives to align with the charge and its current standing. Because I think it's a strategic plan that lays, like, five years. And so now we had to put together these small committees to identify the actions that we're looking to implement as recommendations.

[01:27:24] So I sent a little table with a synopsis of everything that happened during each meeting. I feel kind of bad reading it out loud to you guys. So I'll just go straight to the meat and potatoes of potatoes.

[01:27:41] So pillar A, so we were brought together around the pillars and we all had to identify the problem state, oh wait, yeah, subcommittees set around the charge pillars and tests to identify a problem of practice.

[01:27:59] So pretty much we were trained not to come into the picture of that thinking pattern as, oh, we should do A, B, and C, but looking at it more as a problem of practice. And the committees had to identify what best initiative they would gather around and then ask for the appropriate data to really refine their thought.

[01:28:18] So pillar A, decided to focus on socio-emotional learning. Pillar B, standardizing student leadership opportunities. I was part of that pillar. Pillar C, staff retention. And pillar D, accountability for student being algebra, one ready by eighth grade.

[01:28:38] So we also had the visit of several very good representatives from Fairfax from the board in April. No, not in April. I think in December, they came and they spoke to their accomplishments from the last year's recommendations.

[01:28:55] So these are all on the email I sent, Ms. King. You have the hyperlink, actually, that can take you to the report. And that was a very, very good meeting. So I took so many notes, but I did not know what was actually relevant to Fairfax City.

[01:29:10] to your board and and with that i was like oh maybe there's something i should read to see how whatever we're discussing aligns with our priorities so i can get a better understanding of what really matters to the board but we did also this committee also focuses on advocating for the minorities at some point there were discussions to actually change the name from minority to marginalized because the scope is we've just felt like the word minority was really focusing was really focusing on the racial aspect of it while we focus more on the marginalized

[01:29:46] students the one that does not have enough food but still we chose to maintain the name because there's so many subcommittees uh for the transgender for so we're like okay it took a while for this name to be recognized and known and so we all voted against changing while the thought behind it was maybe officially expand beyond just racial boundaries because we had very good conversation on neurodivergence which is also and was part of the conversation and and so

[01:30:21] we had several very good conversations and i appreciate being part of a committee that really acknowledges all the layers without focusing just on the racial side of it also we were very passionate about the boundaries because the committee wrote a letter to say hey don't forget what you're defining these pieces and actually i attached the letter a snapshot of the letter to the email sent miss king if you want to look at it they take fantastic minutes so if you're ever interested it is i was impressed coming like you know working for the government and have no this

[01:30:57] really good um now as we came together all the groups issued recommendations and to be specific so for pillar a um the one focus on differentiated and culturally responsive learning uh environment which is the name of the pillar we issued two recommendations with four subcategories for one of those i could read them out to you or have them but that the document i have is still like the draft that is going through edits uh the second pillar homeschool and community

[01:31:32] partnership issued two recommendations the third pillar uh issued two recommendation one holding four subcategories so i was like how about we wrap it call it what it is and wrap it up at seven because at this point right it looks data and multiple layers and the last pillar focused on culture and equity excellence and accountability to recommendations so we are compiling up those actually at four o'clock i was at the fairfax county school building to finalize the presentation and to identify who speaks to what since i am a co-chair in uh training waiting i really want to

[01:32:12] call it but you'll see me up there and i'll try and and really speak to that but you know that whatever i do fairfax city is in my heart you guys raised my voice i'm so happy to see you and um yeah and that's that and funny story my son actually joined me by the third meeting and he was so interested that he became a member at large of the msaoc so and the nelson's where you have some commitment in whatever fairfax city needs you know support for that i felt like i was I was all over the place, I'm sorry, but I really didn't know what you wanted to hear.

[01:32:52] I do know that a lot of these committees, it's very broad. You talk about a lot of things over the years, and you come here, it's still sort of a draft form. You can't really share a final document. So we understand that. We just like to hear, because we can't, we're not a board of 12, we're a board of 5.

[01:33:12] So it's just great to know that we have representation on committees that we feel strongly. And passionate. Yeah. And it's nice that SCPS knows that we have city residents who are passionate about these and can contribute to these.

[01:33:33] You all are from the city. I can tell you they also appreciate that it's actually a resident that is speaking at the committee. Because a lot of times, like, you know, there's not enough residents to represent it, and you have staff that has to fill in, and that kind of impacts their credibility.

[01:33:52] So when I was nominated, like, you know, to be in training, they were all really, really, the staff, at least that supports the program, was really, really happy about it. And they really thank you very much. And beyond that, there is another letter, like, so with all the changes that occurred with the administration, as we're all aware, there was also a letter that was issued during our last meeting to, I think it's not officially pushed yet because we're still refining the language.

[01:34:27] we did it recently to really speak again on the importance of um because there's issues about pay where they're looking also to remove some specific staff i think the i actually sent a message to my son because he wasn't there on that meeting and i'm like do you know who your special advisor is and and apparently their positions are at risk and so the msoc drafted a very passionate letter where i was like and everyone was like let's be softer and i'm like this is an oversight committee

[01:35:02] we are the people we need to be forceful so the administrators that advocate for us say listen i can be the middleman but my community is hurting and my community is not pleased with the fact that it's very divisive to say this group will will get this much and this group will it's just creating a divide between the staff that plans and structures versus the staff that is in the school giving instructions so MSOC is also speaking very strongly and very loudly about that and I know that luckily Fairfax City always has a little bit more money thank you but I'm

[01:35:41] not telling them that we're hurting too thank you do you have any questions um do you have questions the one for the boundaries i'm right here and the image is not loading i would read it out loud to

[01:36:10] you yes and so i took a screenshot of it because um i was gonna do it on my military email and then i sent it to myself and then i sent it to myself again it was it was complicating my cat cart was not working when i was at home i was making i said yeah for my son so it was like it was epic but i i didn't know the the format really is is really nice and and next time i'll be if you choose to send me again yeah yeah okay that's always our last question and brenda is leaving us yes

[01:36:47] yeah and and i can say one of the things that i'm really proud of over the six years that I've been doing this is elevating Fairfax City to the other people on the board because they all were like wait what like Fairfax City has a school board I'm like yeah I represent the city school board and the other thing that I would love to get changed is the fact that not one of us has the ability to vote for a board of supervisors

[01:37:27] which is a problem yes exactly but um yeah so I'm I'm proud of being what yeah this is my daughter Olivia when I started you don't understand what I'm doing yes yes when I started um with Shaq she was in third grade and now she's going into ninth grade and I know so many SOLs she's like I was like, does anyone here have any decision power over canceling this?

[01:38:04] No. Nobody here does. I said, no, I don't think so. But, yes, we wouldn't really... Your chair. Co-chair for two years.

[01:38:24] You're now going to that co-chair position. It's fascinating how we are such a tiny city. And we have clearly such a strong... pressure Mary Kay. But it's just, I greatly appreciate it because I think part of the work is saying, hey, we are a part of you. Remember us here and the Lord and I have a similar interest in the boundaries of letter to be discussed on concerns. Boundaries are

[01:38:53] looking very specifically at not always what neighborhoods are and what they are. And if this, since now I know it's something that is really important to you, next year I will For sure, pay attention, push the voice, and be nicely loud.

[01:39:18] Nicely. Thank you. I would love to see the recommendations around Alpha 1 by 8. I have mixed feelings about that, just as a former math teacher.

[01:39:40] As a current one. I think pushing kids sometimes too hard, too fast. I get the sentiment, like, because oftentimes our marginalized students are left behind when it comes to advanced courses. That's something that I, that's very much supported in me.

[01:39:58] I'm trying to find ways. I'm just curious if there's anything that came out of the conversation. I can read it to you out loud. Whatever you want to do. Easy day. And so, if something doesn't sound right, I'll go tell him. And so, and I won't need my glasses, I promise.

[01:40:20] Let me get there. Okay, I'll pass, and I'll read it at the end. Oh, okay. Tag, you're it. Tag, you're it. Angelina, I would say that I think you and I would agree on that. It's that it's not that we are against trying to get kids into Algebra 1 by 8th grade as long as they have the appropriate supports prior to entering the course, not just we're going to say we have all these kids in Algebra 1, and then they don't master the learning target.

[01:40:55] You push them on to the next math course, and they don't have that strong foundation to be successful from there forward. Yeah, to add, I think that oftentimes, I think, you know, my youngest son is dyslexia, and I've seen the work that's been done around the reading initiatives in Virginia to help support dyslexia, and there's a lot of positive movement that's happened since then.

[01:41:21] I think we're leaving math kind of behind. The last primary is that we have this metric here that seems arbitrary to me without really understanding of what elementary, like what's happening in elementary math and supporting teachers, supporting kids and finding ways of lifting up marginalized populations so that they can reach advanced math, maybe not that eighth grade, but definitely in the high school setting so they can be successful, whatever they choose after their post-secondary.

[01:41:46] one of the members was a math teacher trust me I love it I'll read what you have and I will say also that in terms of elementary education for math teachers I do think that there is a gap you know our elementary school teachers are general and the problem is that was fine 20-30 years ago but now you know we have progressed so much

[01:42:17] with the math programs that they, you know, I think the system as a whole is by the training for those teachers, especially I would say in the fourth, fifth and sixth grade, before they get to those.

[01:42:35] And there was a lot of conversations also around the additional assistant teachers that are deployed in the schools and the funding that is kind of like, you know, going away that needs to be reinforced and enhanced for that. And so these also came up, but we had some strong Fairfax County representation in terms of leadership of Fairfax County, and we had some very detailed reports with the metrics and so on and so forth.

[01:43:06] But they were there, and they also listened to those points, and especially to a very, very vocal and passionate math teacher that was there. Actually, two. Okay. Tag, you're it.

[01:43:23] Okay. All right, so Brendan's our representative for Student Health Advisory Committee. Yep. And do you guys have access to the PowerPoint? Barb, do we? Okay. We have printed copies. Oh, yes, you do. Okay, perfect. We have printed copies. Yes. You have printed copies. We have the, we all are trusted.

[01:43:41] Yeah. Okay.

[01:43:53] Thank you. Sorry. Nice to meet you. And the report, you want the other one. the powerpoint side yeah and in the meantime we can go through with the paper so um so of course as you guys know every year i always like to start off with our purpose and um we're broad-based community representation parents students health professionals educators and others this year we

[01:44:27] had a person who's a neuroscientist um on there which was wonderful because we were talking about brain health. So that was really cool. There was a lot of really good representation. And as you can see from the next slide, we had a full roster with the exception of one person from food and nutrition services. So we had two students this year, which was really nice to have their perspective. So our charge was to continue its research on technology overuse, and we also explored the mental wellness of students.

[01:45:04] We focused on brain health, and because of the impact that sleep has on brain health and academic wellness, we also focused on sleep. The three key areas were fostering brain health for all, enabling preventive support for developing and maintaining brain health, and identifying innovations to pilot and evaluate brain health initiatives with students.

[01:45:31] So our research came from a variety of sources. So, of course, as always, we worked with the Youth Risk Survey, the Wellness Survey, CDC, Harvard University, National Sleep Foundation, and you can see it on the slides.

[01:45:47] We also had two really amazing speakers. One was Dr. Richard Freed, who's a licensed clinical psychologist, and he's the author of Better Than Real Life, which I have not yet read, but I am looking forward to reading it. And I think anyone who has questions about technology, that is a really important book to read. And you'll see why in the coming slides. The other person that we spoke with was Dr. Tara Thaygarajan. She is the founder of Sapien Labs. And she had a lot of really

[01:46:21] interesting perspectives as well the impact of technology overuse was is well documented well-rested brains learn in supportive environments and allow for the development of foundational academic skills joy for learning curiosity it also builds age-appropriate self-regulation and attention skills we found that increased utilization in all aspects of our lives in combination with a hectic frenzied achievement culture which is Fairfax County I think is a bit everybody

[01:46:58] is focused on achieving has created a lot of opportunity costs especially for our children both in home and in school so I like to talk about statistics first just to kind of ground everybody with where we are and so we have statistics on feeling, screen use, and sleep, and 25% felt persistent hopelessness or sadness, and this is for 8th, 10th, and 12th graders.

[01:47:30] The 29% of 6th graders reported feeling sad or hopeless every day for two or more weeks in the past year, and that was really interesting to find that there were more 6th graders that felt that way than the older students, and so that leads us to a recommendation that we make later on that you'll see. 9% considered suicide, 3% attempted suicide, 21% felt stress all the time, and then 45% of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders reported 3 or more hours of technology

[01:48:05] for non-school reported purposes, and 35% of 6th graders for that time. Sleep. So 6 to 12 year olds need 9 to 12 hours of sleep, and 13 to 18-year-olds need 8 to 10 hours of sleep, according to the CDC.

[01:48:23] Currently, only 32% of students obtain the recommended amount of sleep for 8th, 10th, and 12th graders, and that correlates to the other statistic identified that one-third of students obtain the recommended amount of sleep, and that can lead to more reactive behaviors, impulsive behaviors, more likely to experience depression and increased risk suicide so our three key recommendations each recommendation has some sub recommendations but each the first one was addressing the impacts of childhood sleep deprivation on student health and academic performance develop an

[01:49:03] intentional and age-appropriate technology use framework and create a division-wide culture of respect for and awareness of brain health so the very first one and if you can see she looks at very very tired and I think that especially right now during our SOL season that a lot of kids aren't sleeping or they're having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep the if you want to skip to the next slide so our first recommendation thank you the first recommendation is that we will collaborate with the Fairfax County Youth Survey team to obtain data regarding sleep habits for sixth graders because

[01:49:41] Currently it's only eighth tenth and twelfth graders for sleep. So we want We thought it would be helpful To have that information so that we can kind of figure out. Well, why are they experiencing more stress? Is it because they're struggling with less sleep?

[01:49:58] And then let's see the next next slide is That instructional teams will engage student groups to develop student-friendly materials The resources are available from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, and we were thinking they have lesson plans.

[01:50:19] They have all sorts of really cool stuff that can be incorporated. And I do know that FCPS is already doing things because I get text messages. I got one from her science teacher and her math and her reading saying, yes, but saying that, you know, hey, Olivia has an SOL tomorrow morning.

[01:50:39] Make sure she gets a good night's sleep. sure she eats a good breakfast so I know that they are doing things already but we're we're recommending that more things can be can be conveyed but having students be part of that process so that they also understand and buy into the fact that they need to have more sleep recommendation 1.3 is FCPS will provide families with easily accessible evidence-based healthy sleep strategies so things that can be given things like removing devices from bedrooms setting

[01:51:16] consistent times to improve sleep hygiene recommendation 1.4 that we will work with FCPS will work with teachers counselors and coaches and I thought this was really very interesting to promote the idea that getting enough sleep is a a competitive advantage because everybody is so competitive and achievement focus if we could change the mindset on the importance of sleep and get coaches to tell their their their athletes hey you need to get more sleep because you will recover more quickly you will feel better you

[01:51:56] will perform better if teachers could link it to hey you won't have you'll have you'll be able to Remember things more, you'll be able to make connections more. Counselors, connecting that to mental health and stress. The other thing we wanted to make sure, as long as we're continuing to have standard and daylight savings time, obviously there's a lot of accidents that happen right when the time changes happen.

[01:52:25] And, you know, that could be something that is also shared with parents to reiterate, you know, Hey, and I know a lot of parents do this with their young children. You know, they start moving the clock back so that it's not just this big, you know, right after.

[01:52:41] It's exhausting for everybody. The next one is 1.5. So FCPS will organize activities and discussions, perhaps student-led, during Sleep Awareness Week, which is in March to educate students about the impact and the effects of sleep on self-regulation, focus, stress management.

[01:53:08] So, yeah, and again, the goal is to have everyone see that an appropriate amount of sleep gives students a competitive advantage. So the next slide is just a placeholder for recommendation number two, developing an intentional and age-appropriate technology use framework.

[01:53:27] And you'll recognize this from last year because we brought it back to say, yes, every school, you know, this particular model, EdTech Triangle, we wanted to reinforce that we really do believe that it needs to be incorporated into FCPS's technology use guidelines.

[01:53:50] Oh, good. Okay. So the classroom expectations, if you want to skip to the next one. So these were the things that we were thinking. Laptops, iPads are only available with a targeted educational purpose. And we had conversations about laptop carts and do we really need one iPad or one, you know, and the bottom line came if we removed them, it would create equity issues.

[01:54:20] And we were like, no, no, we can't, we can't, we can't do that. But if we can make sure that use is intentional, then that solves a lot of the problems. You know, having, like brain breaks, the ones in my school, I work in a kindergarten classroom, and we use, you know, and I did some of them today, you know, with different, you know, movements, and you're getting the kids up, moving around.

[01:54:48] That's really great if it's one laptop, one screen, and everyone is focusing on that versus the individual screen. When lesson planning, prioritizing in-person engagement, use of analog, paper, pencil, tasks, physical manipulatives.

[01:55:05] And when EdTech resources are used, consider the EdTech Triangle. And you'll see from the next slide that EdTech Triangle, the two areas that we really want to focus on, transformative and supportive. So transformative, as we said last year, this will be a review, robotics, computer animation, website graphic design, things that really transform your way of thinking and help you grow in lots of different ways.

[01:55:32] Supportive is things that are not available in print, audiobooks, et cetera. The restrictive and the disruptive are ones that we don't want. Tech for tech's sake. People using technology for choice time or technology for recess. No. And every school is different, but we felt that if they had these guidelines, then it wouldn't be a matter of, well, our school does it this way.

[01:56:01] Everybody would be getting the same type of support. The next recommendation is that staff will disseminate proven technology support strategies through school and classroom newsletters, delay access to algorithmically mediated products where content presented is individualized based on previous access, So where they're manipulating you and tracking your use, like Snapchat and YouTube, things that they're going to give you ideas for.

[01:56:33] Oh, you might be interested in this kind of thing. You know, again, no tech in bedrooms, one central charging area for all the technology at home, parental code and code guidance, BARC. My daughter loves BARC.

[01:56:51] Gizmo, GAV. Prioritizing independent, if you want to skip to the next one, independent free play over screen time. And you can read the rest of them, but these are just some suggestions. Promote, yeah, promote intentional use of light speed.

[01:57:08] My first teacher didn't have that the whole entire year, and now she does. Yes, and it's a game changer. No, the whole entire year, until the fourth quarter, she didn't use it. Yeah, and it's a game changer. That teacher is also like a bad. Oh, okay. Kids were caught vaping, like vaping in class, so she didn't even see.

[01:57:23] Okay. Thank you. So, yeah, and life speed is a game changer because you can track what your kids are doing and how long. And, you know, my teacher will say, you know, so-and-so, I know you're only on this one, you know, SD Math for X number of minutes.

[01:57:42] So it's nice that there's those tracking where you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing kind of things. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. But kids find a way around those blocks, amazingly. The next slide, we suggested that FCPS will pilot a peer-led initiative support and educate students about strategies to minimize harm from technology to adolescent brains.

[01:58:12] And one of the examples that I thought was interesting was like a health and wellness club in partnership with a community sponsor or an advisor. And students can come together and brainstorm, problem solve, commit to healthier habits together. There's a couple of other links you guys take a look at.

[01:58:28] And then the third one is creating a division-wide culture of respect for an awareness of brain health. So the first recommendation is bell-to-bell phone-free school days for all grade levels.

[01:58:45] And I know that they just made this change. We submitted a letter on behalf of Shaq to the school board saying, bell-to-bell, we want bell-to-bell. We don't want lunch a time. Oh, your mommy did it.

[01:59:01] Your mommy did it. So we sent that formal letter. Was it even in high school? No, in high school, this is the, yeah, no. We wanted it for all, but that didn't happen. So if you look at the second, yes, yes, thank you, the rationale.

[01:59:22] So, again, with the rationale, addiction, social media is intentionally designed to get people hooked, get people to keep scrolling to get those rewards oh I met a new level you know who safety students are safer at school without their phones like if there's an emergency they're not spending time trying to take video of something happening they're getting to where they need to be and be safe they the mere presence of a smartphone impacts cognition learning and

[01:59:57] decision-making so academic achievement declines and then phones are experience blockers so the idea of having them out in lunchtime is disheartening to me because that's when kids are supposed to be talking and spending time with each other so and the quote that I pulled from our report was this one that the smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle which I think is quite cool it is Because it's 24/7 if you want it to be so Okay, we'll move continue moving along

[02:00:37] 3.1 the bell the bell Schools should ensure that classroom learning and social Time our free phone experiences from dr. Vivek Murphy Murphy And you can read the rest of that. I don't want to take up too much time pretty basic Okay, so this was the really interesting thing that Dr. Freed was talking about in his presentation about common sense media.

[02:01:06] And I use common sense media. I follow them. You know, when Olivia was 8, 9, 10 years old, I would use that for movies, for books, for whatever, you know, to give me an idea of what I should be exposing her to, what not exposing her to.

[02:01:26] And he enlightened us and said that Common Sense Media is financially invested in increasing or maintaining kids' screen time at home and school, which is counter to students' health and academic success. And so we recommend that FCPS removes it from its toolbox and replace it with other resources.

[02:01:48] It's a multimillion-dollar educational technology lobbying firm. They make money from ads on their websites, video games, apps, consumer tech. They share content that runs counter to current knowledge and evidence about kids in screen time. They have an article about five reasons you don't need to worry about kids in social media, but the CEO raises his own children with strict limits, so it's a do as I say, not as I do kind of situation.

[02:02:16] And they're also promoting the idea that family conflicts over screen time may be more harmful to a child's mental health than the screen time itself, which is problematic. So anyway, so you can see in the report more about why we're saying this.

[02:02:39] The other thing, the digital citizenship website on FCPS's website, it's really big, and it includes links to that curriculum. But we found that the home page was only accessed 473 times, and when you have a division of 183,000 students, that's surprising.

[02:02:59] And most users accessed the home page but did not dig deeper into the resource. The establishing expectations of home page was only accessed eight times, and the page regarding digital citizenship and teachers was accessed only one time.

[02:03:16] And so what we thought was we could include this new date, these new resources and incorporate them into morning meeting, responsive advisory periods, and then of course share those resources with families. The next one is incorporating social emotional learning programming in morning meeting and advisory sessions with fidelity in promoting equitable access.

[02:03:43] So, out of 172 elementary and high schools, only 39 schools have an SEL wellness set goal to support the comprehensive implementation of SEL practices. So, we wanted to make sure that people are using SEL and incorporating them in an equitable way and also with fidelity.

[02:04:14] The next slide, we suggest, we recommend that FCPS distribute messaging that supports foundational concepts of brain health, such as family and school partnerships are essential to ensure equity access and support. That social media should not be used for school communications, which is from BDOE.

[02:04:35] Parents should be encouraged to use Lightspeed because this is going to be a potential opt-out, so it's going to be an automatic everyone opt-in, which is going to be really amazing. For those families that don't access it now to be able to see, oh, this is what my daughter or my son is doing with their time.

[02:04:54] I think it's going to be a game changer to help people stay aware of everything. And we also wanted brain health messaging to be presented in existing forms, such as back to school nights, kindergarten orientation, fall festivals, things like that.

[02:05:13] and hoping that all of this stuff will help remove experience blockers, creating more in-person type of interactions. The next slide is 3.5.

[02:05:29] We wanted to add a statement to FCPS's wellness survey about implementation enforcement of technology guidelines and personal device use policy. So the school cell phone policy limits the impact expertly designed products that aims to maximize use and engagement and so we know that enforcing school phone policies can be difficult and so it's important to know how each school enforces it and if they don't enforce it

[02:06:04] and I mean I know from working in different different schools there a lot of times they're just trying to keep their heads afloat and if it's not the squeaky wheel, then we got to, you know, move on to something that's more impactful in their minds.

[02:06:22] But students talk and, you know, people know, oh, well, I can't do that in my school. Or, oh, yes, I can do this in my school. And the pilot program that took place with the Yonder pouches, the principals that participated said that it went really well. So I'm not sure What the process is for getting that to be implemented school district-wide?

[02:06:47] but I think that would be a helpful way to Incorporate enforcement because that's pretty tightly monitored. You can't get your phone out of a yonder patch Throughout the day 3.6. This is our last recommendation And we wanted to add technology use and sleep habit questionnaires questions to the FCPS student experience survey

[02:07:13] And so we were talking about thinking about this past month how close is each statement to what you experience in your classes. My school iPad laptop distracts me from my teacher. My school iPad helps me to learn.

[02:07:30] We found that some of the surveys, some of the questions that were, I don't know if it was in the wellness survey or the student experience survey, but some of the questions were like leading you to say good things. And instead, we want to know, don't guide me to it, I want to know what the answer is based on what the person's experiencing.

[02:07:54] And then for secondary, we talked about the amount of homework I have makes it hard for me to get to bed on time. And on a regular school day, I often use my laptop for things other than schoolwork during class, like games, social media, or online shopping.

[02:08:13] So we want to see, do people, because we know, I mean, you can see it on Lightspeed. Why are you doing this? We want to know what their perception is of their use. they're working on the proposed charge tonight actually they're meeting at 6:30 today as well so um so that will stay tuned you will you will um uh hear more from me once the report is done um and then the last slide that i have for you guys is the um slide for our web page and our

[02:08:47] facebook page so um and this way if you want it shouldn't say 22 to 23 so i must not i just must have used the old link. But if you go to SHAC and FCPS, you'll see everybody's list, all of our minutes, if you want to dive into all of that. So, I'm sorry if it was a little long. No, no, no.

[02:09:11] It's always a lot. Yeah. In particular, it's always a little bit. The report on that was a long one just because it was a new, but it had the prevalence of it, like zero to 60.

[02:09:30] In light, yeah, and the popcorn lungs and all the other. That and the use of it in schools. Yes. Actually, in classrooms, you could turn the main pad down so there was no. Yeah, well, like she was saying a couple of minutes ago about.

[02:09:47] Spanish tea is not a good one. Okay, okay, okay. But that just goes to show you, you know, it's happening in schools. Because it's been on my to-do list to install it for forever and I haven't done it and she's like, it's all my to-do and bring it your reminder Yes, and honestly being on the Shack Committee every month when I first heard about Lightspeed I would do the same thing, I would go home and say, I have to do this

[02:10:24] and it was such a process to get Lightspeed that having it be an opt-out kind of thing would make it so much easier. So, any questions? Yeah, before all of you have...

[02:10:41] Well, I love all the issues you guys have on, but I was curious regarding who you guys are tall. I was curious if that discussion happened.

[02:11:07] We did not talk about that, but that's a good... And that's the key thing. Like, I know as a health and PE person, I have my... I now have my license in health and PE. one of the things that I heard from a principal was that they might be cutting health and PE teachers because more kids are taking online ninth grade PE and the reason why they're doing that is so that they can take more courses more you know so get get rid of this course so that I

[02:11:46] can take something that I wouldn't have time for otherwise so it's a very good question and like I said the achievement gap or the achievement focus it's just overwhelming which is why sleep as a competitive advantage would definitely be helpful but I will bring that back to my the committee to see you know if that's something that they can they can work on and just a comment on my

[02:12:18] so back when I created that course there was really two purpose for students whether it be their body size or their athletic ability to take through the regular environment.

[02:12:34] Right. And also for athletes, right, like kids who are already getting that athletic experience and it did either open their mind for them to take a different type of key track.

[02:12:52] They have, like, personal... Yes, they have, yeah, yoga, they've got... But now, as you said, now more and more kids are using it more and more each. Right, right, which is, yeah, you're just squeezing in.

[02:13:11] My friend's doing that, but she's taking algebra over the summer, and it's like $500. Yeah, and then you're paying. I did, my sister did tell me that the online one is very rigorous. And it's very difficult.

[02:13:27] You have to prove, yes, because you have to get your heart rate up. It is really, you can't just say, it's very hard. swimmer and he would fight he tried to run he could never get it and he was getting it online PE because of that that's terrible yeah so there are a lot of anyway yeah yeah I could I could go on but yes so I will follow up and let

[02:13:57] them know okay no in agreement yes it also just in the when they are playing sport and they're going to games and the game ends at nine and then you have to drive back from whatever far end of the county you're in and then they start homework and then they need to eat

[02:14:31] their second dinner and they need to have that come down time to go to sleep so i felt involved but some of them it's not there's not much they can do because the schedule is right right sol It all seems to happen at the exact same times as districts and regions.

[02:14:52] Yeah, AP classes, all the tests at the same time, framed in the same time frame. Yeah, it's a hard time of year when it all comes to play, it's all together, and then these are just overwhelmed and exhausted. Yeah, they are.

[02:15:08] One of my post tests is on the same week as my students. I had a quick review. So the one, the one question I have is thinking about the, I know you mentioned the honor pouches as a way of scaling cell phone use, is there any conversation around rethinking the consequences, Tony, why sort of structuring it in a way that it's maybe not as restricted quickly as the younger pouch, but maybe going staggered, where it phones away and then if a student repeatedly brings out their phone, then it escalates up to maybe a younger pouch.

[02:15:40] So not every student has a younger pouch, but maybe just a handful of students who are I'm just curious, I feel like that would be almost a better approach to meet a lot of needs there. And still get the message across that this is instructional time.

[02:15:56] I'm just curious if any of the conversations have happened. I know we, and I can't remember if it was this year or last year, but I do remember us talking about the concept of, you know, You have, like you just said, a kiddo that is not doing what they're supposed to be doing.

[02:16:17] They get a phone call home the first time. The second time is, you know, and that's why we want enforcement. We want to know how they're enforcing it because if they are doing this type of staggered and it's working for them, then other schools should find out so that they can emulate that as well.

[02:16:38] So you're in your thought. Train of thought is where we've thought. But I'll reiterate that to them. Yeah, absolutely. My only one was you're focused on the cell phones.

[02:16:55] But, like, my son doesn't have a cell phone, but he has a smartwatch. Right. And so we need to have, if you're doing a yonder patch, you still have to lock up the watch. Oh, absolutely. And that's the thing I think a lot of them don't stress is lock up the phone.

[02:17:11] that's fine. I'm still carrying my phone, so my watch still works. I can still text. Right. So that's the other thing we need, I think, to also address and to think about is what about those other devices that they can use? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

[02:17:30] Can you do that for the SLO? Yeah. So if you have any suggestions, please. Yes. I will. I'm going to do some hard thinking about that and um and then like i said i'm happy because my first um my first dive into it was november of 2019 in jan you know in march and then you know the next two years we all were like

[02:18:07] in little boxes you know and so i didn't get to see these people so there was a lot of um on the you know baptism by fire just run run you know learning and so I will be happy you know even after the person's is on the committee you know even if they're like I don't understand what what what's the institutional history of these people or this the process what because that was something that Phyllis Payne who was the co-chair was the chair for years and then was the co-chair with me

[02:18:43] and she opened up a whole like turn on the light for oh this is why this happens and this is how we do this and so I'm happy to be like an on-boarder for the fall winter whatever you guys need so yeah yeah you're welcome but I'm gonna I'm gonna miss um seeing you guys but I like I'm trying to get a health and PE job and so I know that once I do that as a career switcher then I have to do

[02:19:18] more training and so all of this so fingers crossed but all right well good luck to you thank you thank you yeah no you're welcome yes I'll stay we'll stay in touch because because I I will have opinions.

[02:19:37] And I firmly anticipate that I will be giving commentary for future Shaq. Now that I know that this committee exists for the purpose, and I can say one of the things, if I may take one minute of time, one of the things that I would love to do, and I didn't know if I could do it as a committee member, but I have a latex allergy.

[02:20:01] And the more exposure to latex, the more likely it's going to become anaphylactic. And balloons serve a big problem. I mean, they've gotten rid of gloves in schools, but latex balloons, the powder stays, the powder lingers.

[02:20:20] And if we could, balloon arches, so if we could have just Mylar balloons, Silverbrook, because I have an accommodation, So Silverbrook Elementary only uses Mylar balloons. And they love it because they're pretty.

[02:20:36] They come in different shapes and sizes, and they're better. Yes. They do last longer. So that is something that in the coming I'm going to propose. So keep that in mind is something.

[02:20:52] Yeah. So thank you, guys. Yes. We're going to go get some ice cream. Sorry. Yeah, I am sorry I'm missing yours. I'll be ready next time. Thanks, guys.

[02:21:10] Thank you. Thank you. I'm Mary Patricia Zunas. I was the Republican State Advisory Committee for Students with Disabilities this year. And that is actually what is called the SEA Act.

[02:21:26] It's a state-mandated committee. I hadn't missed the first thing and so they talked about the charge and they had to reorg the committee a lot as how large came back so it was quite the thing because they had to redo all the stuff very different the annual charge this year was that the ASCD will study and make recommendations in disability affirming practices in school community and encourage a strength-based approach

[02:22:05] educating students with disabilities and learning. Almost be anything, basically. And then what they were doing about two years ago, I guess, they were tasked with aligning the charge and the goals to the county. So what they did was they used the strategic plan kind of to the goals there to come up with the subcommittees.

[02:22:31] So we had a committee on like a strong start, a safe, supported, and empowered, academic growth and excellence, equitable access and opportunity, and leading for tomorrow's end. So the final report finalized today, literally, I got it like a 12th heartbeat, because we had the meeting last week to do the voting on it and stuff.

[02:22:58] And the report is quite a few pages long, but I mean, it's bigger than it looks because we've included like the public comment is in there, The questions that were sent to the Department of Special Ed or other divisions that, you know, we wanted answers for, hopefully, they put those in as an appendix and so on.

[02:23:20] Oh, another thing is this coming year, and it's ongoing, and we're hoping to get it decided at the next meeting. There's now a rule, I think, from the state of how big, and we're too big.

[02:23:39] We won't lose the city seat at all. It's more of the appointed things from various organizations like the League of Women Vote. And then the other thing is some of those positions have been there forever.

[02:23:56] What's also been talked about is you could change what some of those were, like the specific charge was in a particular area. Maybe you might want to bring in representatives from different groups for that because they may provide more insight for us to do that.

[02:24:13] But you have to decide ahead of time who you're going to invite. And then the problem is that they can't ignore changing the charge. So being asked, what do we do? You know, can we really do that or not? So I'm like, I haven't helped those who have fun in that community who have to decide that.

[02:24:32] Because it's like, okay, you have to divorce the person from this. Because, you know, yes, we know X may have wonderful insight that have sat on this community forever. But maybe we need a different group. So one of the big things was to continue from, that we reiterate, that they reiterate from a prior year was to conduct regular audits of the progress toward the AIR report, which is the American Institute for Research Recommendations, to enable further opportunities for innovation and increase transparency across special education.

[02:25:10] The Goal 1, the points for Goal 1, which is strong start between K-12, all schools, there's a pilot program with like community schools, I forget who they are, which is like more wraparound services, and talking about expanding that maybe to more Title 1 schools.

[02:25:30] and that's where you more apparently is on the outside stuff and here title ones I mean some of that already I know occurred at Providence as a title one I know general run is no longer I think that drop yeah so another thing is part of that was the expanded access to inclusive pre-k programs for all eligible students and then another point that they made on that was they'd like to see ESOL services expanded in title one schools particularly in pre-k classes currently kind

[02:26:03] in title one but not at that age level all the way across another thing there was the partner with colleges and universities to develop programs to recruit and prepare staff to support those initiatives for goal two the safe supported included in power was to include enhanced access to like self emotional behavioral mental physical health services you know include a comprehensive of review of all of that and the weighted formula.

[02:26:37] What they meant by the weighted formula was knowing how many special ed kids there are. Like if you've got, you're saying X percentage of kids have a mental health problem, knowing how much that is of the total percentage of special ed students versus the percentage of the total number of students that are similar to maybe a higher propensity of special ed students.

[02:27:03] Goal three was academic growth and excellence, and that was actually the subcommittee that I landed on. And one of our big things was to consider alternative service delivery models for, like, special ed services in advanced classes. Like, you know, how do we get more special ed in advanced classes?

[02:27:21] You know, there's kids that have IEPs that want to take, like, an AP or an honors class. And a lot of times it's like, well, we only have team taught in general ed. So there's some proposals in here to do that, like, maybe some kind of hybrid model where, you know, there's kids doing honors work in a team taught class and kids doing general ed.

[02:27:42] know if that's possible so that was a big thing you possibly increasing dual enrollment options online self-pace for certain classes maybe some kids can do a higher advanced work but they need more time to do it they don't want to be somebody else noticing another big thing we had universal

[02:28:14] design was a big issue in there for selected co-curricular and activities and looking at you You know, just looking at team taught, you know, the best practices for what are good models, you know, what works in different places.

[02:28:33] And we have some stuff in here on that. Another big thing in that area was to create clear objectives and standardize curriculum for the strategies for success. Classes that a lot of special ed kids are put in to help with their goal setting, prioritizing, time management, you know, organization.

[02:28:52] Because you hear of some schools that do a great job with it, then I hear people complaining more if I study them. So, you know, that was a big thing that popped up. Another thing we really thought was trying to promote teachers with disabilities to promote more teachers. And I think there was something where, like, the county at times has, like, made outreach efforts to recruit at, like, Gallaudet, or, like, right in our backyard, so that, you know, students that have disabilities seek like them for a success in doing that, you know, and issue.

[02:29:33] You know, focus on, like, peer mentoring, like, peer helper groups and stuff was another idea that was thought of. also using the FCPS as a grow your own program to get like to try to include staff and using that to possibly bring in students with disabilities to like other structural support positions and I know like I'm not sure if it's at Fairfax but it's a part of the one of the academies I think where it's like a future teacher thing and like where kids go and work with teachers in classes

[02:30:08] and I know like I think both of my daughters teachers have one mission I think one doesn't know the student, I think one student is with the teacher when she's in the other English class, but my youngest daughter was talking about the student teacher that, you know, the high school, you know, and she was a Providence student herself at one point in time, so, you know, Emma thinks that's really nice. So, yeah, I think that's kind of a neat program to go on with that. You know, also help promote, like,

[02:30:46] interdisciplinary learning so students can see connections among subjects and deeper understanding, help students to set their, like, own goals, especially as they get older. Another part of that we talked about was using the parent liaisons to help address, like, higher levels of equity, like, to help parents who maybe don't speak English or parents that are new in this particular, to understand, like, what services they're out there.

[02:31:18] You may not know the academy is available and, you know, not everybody potentially should go to college. We need something to repair your air conditioner. And they're not going to get out so overseas. So people get to know what we actually have.

[02:31:38] Did they ever talk about, I know we have Abbott, but they explored the possibility of having like an EF coach that goes, you know, a point EF coach that goes home by an EF coach in one building, but somebody who could work with students in various areas.

[02:32:05] we talked about that because i know that they're becoming more prevalent and then goal four was equitable access and opportunity that was the focus um implement data tracking regarding students that were exempt from literacy to identify exemption patterns across the first student groups they want to develop a division-wide method there should be a division-wide method to monitor

[02:32:44] literacy progress to student exemptions, ensuring accountability for literacy development through alternate methods. Consider exemption data when selecting locations for early childhood inclusion programs. They also talked about concussion baseline testing vendors. Oh, another thing that was really kind of good in that part was to provide training for staff and families along with updates to CSTARs so that the necessary accommodations for student

[02:33:22] participation extracurricular activities are also included in the IE. I think that gets forgotten a lot. And they're also hoping as an inclusion college to provide targeted professional development and parent resources focused on best practices that promote a mindset of presumed competence and increased time spent in general education settings for students that were replaced in more restrictive environments. And one thing I think that was really interesting that probably goes along with that, the parent, the, what used to be called the parent resource

[02:33:58] Now the Family Resource Center, the director of that came to a lot of meetings and presented on what webinars were upcoming, and there is a lot of resources available online to families there. Families can go in and get help with, you know, get information on different things.

[02:34:15] They also have some like online, they're like online things with links to provide out to different things with books, so it's kind of like a dynamic document. It reminds me, I mean, I'm a librarian by trade, it reminds me of what was called Pathfinder that makes sense yeah so they have those there's a lot of material there I believe they can even send like if you can't get over there and you want to borrow a book they can put the book over to your school which is pretty cool and I'm like because like at first I didn't realize I'm like oh my kiddiagnosis is like dyslexia stuff I'm like I could have saved myself a lot of money to take my

[02:34:52] side goal 5 was leading for tomorrow's innovation and one of the points that That was use the career transition services, staff and employment transition represents to collect and identify best practices.

[02:35:08] Continue to use multiple methods of communication to keep students and families informed. Make sure to include information about post-FCPS transition services as early as middle school. Those were like the big ones this year. There's more detail out in there.

[02:35:24] One thing I thought that they did was really good, and they talked about trying to maybe do more of it. People can come and testify at the beginning of each meeting and make public comments. And in January we had a thing, I think Christina and Lauren came and unfortunately I couldn't attend that meeting because it was the night of the Providence Orchestra concert she might get through it. And it was a town hall type format and they had quite a good time. And I think that's where a lot of the public comments and most of those came from that night.

[02:35:52] And we had a few other people, you know, we might get, there were nights we had, there were even nobody, but I think that, that was a really good idea when they came up with that. I know they're hoping to do it at least once next, maybe twice a day.

[02:36:09] And we did this, we did vote on the charge for next year.

[02:36:22] Next year's charge is going to be, it's going to be related to, I know, it sounds. Well, right after that. Yeah. Yeah.

[02:36:38] they can consider a number of different topics we had a chance to propose what we thought would be then we had a vote when they were like about five choices there and then we came back then they give up like the top two and how everybody vote again we did all that online so the collaborative charges and then the following recommendations of 25 26 charges for the 25 26 program year ASCD will examine current practices within FCPS regarding data collection and progress learning for students with disabilities and learning differences in vision.

[02:37:16] Using evidence-based and research-based models, ASCD will make recommendations for improving measurable outcomes for students by understanding the source data collected and used by staff to recommend programs and services, monitoring progress of multi-year special education improvement projects, and empowering families and students to engage more effectively in educational planning So, you know, there's a number of ways I think they can eventually take that and do in some other stuff.

[02:37:47] Because, like, one of the other things, the community engagement piece was the second place topic was working more of, like, community engagement, family liaison, under, you know, underserved folks. So, some of that can be pooled in there. Some of those folks may be really, like, because there's so much thrown at you in an IEP meeting here.

[02:38:13] huh, what, what, what, yeah. So, that was quite interesting. Okay, Betty. I have two comments. My first comment was, I agree, it was powerful, and it was the same story.

[02:38:37] There was just not thought of the state.

[02:43:38] And I'm like, oh yeah, we all know that. It's always been that way. Give me something better. I just want to second the town hall. Yeah. But the one thing I do wonder, and a conversation that's been around this week for a couple years, I'm not sure if I'm saying the last one.

[02:44:14] Thinking about, you know, the training toward staff, understanding students with disabilities, particularly in sort of twice exceptional, where you have a student disability with advanced and has that, I felt different, but I didn't, like, is there-- - There was a little bit in there of, like, trying to figure out pushing toward the classes like advanced, like there being advanced classes and stuff.

[02:44:41] We were both probably in a discussion on, like, you know, the algebra thing did come up, you know, that that was good, you know, like, okay, if you're going to do that, you're going to have to have, like, team-taught algebra 1, you mean team-taught, you know, honors 7, you know, the pre-algebra 1, so that did come up, I don't think that made it all the way to the report there, but, yeah, the algebra 1 thing was brought up, which is interesting, it's interesting that they're really pushing that, because I'm like, I don't know.

[02:45:11] Well, even to add, like, the, you know, well, that's, I definitely want to make sure we get started. Yeah, because they definitely do, but there was, there is a little something in the area about, you know, having differentiating and honors and coming up with something for, like, being able to help with it.

[02:45:32] I think the tween language didn't really end up work there, but I know there was, like, stuff brought up about it and stuff, that, you know, something has to be done there, too. I think my emphasis, though, is more on definitely staff awareness of how, like, once we're in this classroom, how do we support?

[02:45:51] I think that's definitely something just to keep, I think, just serving up once we give it to the end, how do we continue to do that? And I would be hopeful that I think some of that might be, you know, I think some people were definitely thinking along those lines of, like, with the data collection piece, like, okay, it's better data can be collected.

[02:46:21] No, I'm good. Thank you. I know, again, yours is another committee that gives a lot of information. Yeah. And it seems to broaden every year.

[02:46:37] It does, and it's a huge committee. It is a huge committee. There's like 37 people, or actually I think it was even more than that. They did also have like a student representative. There's like region representatives, representative appointed by the school board.

[02:46:52] It took me a while to even figure out, like, what in the world is the makeup here? of like because they were they do a weird thing where you have like green signs for some things and there's no signs for certain others that's interesting maybe and then there is a board member who's like appointed as a liaison member which is right right right i don't know who is it this - It was Rachel's size one, I think she's been in a lot.

[02:47:26] - Yeah, she made a couple of the meetings. Definitely not, I know this last one. Now the last one she did have her director person do it all in like virtually. We had one virtual meeting, because we had a meeting canceled by Snow, so we ended up getting permission to do a virtual meeting.

[02:47:47] - Was she physically attended, or? - Ah, she was there like, you know, I think she was there in January. It did at least come to that, yeah, and another one, but yeah. All right, well, thank you, and have a great evening.

[02:48:06] Thank you. Okay, that's correct. All right, I will adjourn at 826.

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