Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Meeting, Thursday, January 12, 2023

Date: Thursday, January 12, 2023
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 2h 8m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgJKFGaOzlQ
Official School Board page (FCPS): https://www.fcps.edu/about-fcps/leadership/school-board

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 2026-11-04. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:56] board members please take your seats board members please take your seats this january 12th 2023

[00:12:26] regular meeting of the fairfax county school board will now come to order please stand for the pledge of allegiance a moment of silence and a performance of the national anthem by annandale singers under

[00:12:36] the direction of patrick vaughn that was beautiful dr anderson and i are so proud of our shared

[00:16:23] annandale high school choral group what a beautiful rendition thank you that was beautiful agenda item 3.02 announcements if you'd like to review a copy of the agenda and any agenda item that is being discussed tonight that information may be found at the back of the auditorium or on the website at fcps.edu backslash school board backslash board docs tonight's meeting is being broadcast on channel 99 and live streamed on the website at fcps.edu backslash tv backslash channel

[00:16:56] 99. I call on Ms. Togby for an announcement. National Mentoring Month is January. National Mentoring Month highlights mentoring and the positive impact it can have on young lives. This month-long outreach campaign focuses national attention on the need for mentors as well as how each of us individuals, businesses, government agencies, schools, faith communities, and nonprofits can work together to increase the numbers of mentors and assure brighter mentors and their mentees have shown to encourage young people to stay in school

[00:17:33] achieve personal growth believe in themselves and live up to their potential we have a tremendous need for mentors at all levels in FCPS if you would like to learn more about how you can mentor a student please visit FCPS dot edu and search become a mentor and make a difference in a child's life today and of course i'd love to welcome the boy scout troop number 702 from annandale troop number 702 is attending tonight's board meeting to earn their community citizenship merit badge so let's all give a little

[00:18:05] round of applause thanks for being here guys thank you and welcome welcome thank you for joining us tonight. Agenda item 3.03, Human Trafficking Awareness Month resolution. I call on Ms. Corbett Sanders for the resolution. Thank you, Madam Chair. Whereas every year since 2010, the President has dedicated the month of January to raise awareness about human trafficking and to educate the public about how to identify and prevent this crime, the U.S. Department of State raises awareness of human

[00:18:44] trafficking domestically and abroad through U.S. embassies and consulates. Whereas human trafficking remains a largely unperceived threat to the students of Fairfax County and parents are encouraged to learn more about the signs and risks of human trafficking and talk about them with their children. And whereas human traffickers are known to target not only middle and high school teens, but even elementary school students, so that victims have been identified from every high school and multiple middle and elementary schools across the county.

[00:19:19] With teens and younger children stalked physically at locations such as shopping malls and bus stops, and online through all social media, particularly those applications that offer anonymity, and whereas new trafficking victims continue to come from a wide variety of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, and many students do not recognize the warning signs when they or their friends are being groomed and manipulated by new so-called friends until it's too late to escape with victims trapped by threats of violence and exposure and often by physical abuse.

[00:19:56] And whereas Fairfax County Public Schools continues to teach teen sex trafficking prevention curriculum in grades 6 through 12, which serves as a model for other jurisdictions and has made notable progress in raising awareness of the threat and steps students can take to mitigate it, and whereas student groups, educators, parents, medical professionals, law enforcement, officials, civic organizations, and the business community have all stepped forward to emphasize the importance of bringing awareness about teen sex trafficking to young people and desire to further mobilize students and others in the community to progress toward

[00:20:34] an environment where this crime is not tolerated and its victims receive the full support of the community now therefore be it resolved that the fairfax county school board joins the fairfax county board of supervisors in recognizing the month of january 2023 as human trafficking awareness month in fairfax county and supports the efforts of all those who are seeking to eliminate human trafficking and its impact on our community is there a second miss mclaughlin miss corbett sanders would you like to speak to your resolution yes thank you madam chair i will be very brief

[00:21:13] what i'd like to speak to is the importance of everybody understanding the threat of human trafficking it does not limit itself to certain neighborhoods or certain economic situations it is It is pervasive and it is something that is critical for parents and guardians to understand the risk and take action.

[00:21:34] Know what your children are doing online. Engage with them. Talk to them about your concerns and the threats of this vile, vile crime. I appreciate my colleagues for supporting this resolution and I encourage each and every one of us to become advocates to educate our families and our community members about this threat. We are already doing it through our school's curriculum. Thank you. Ms. McLaughlin, would you like to speak to your second? Just briefly, I would like to say that I greatly

[00:22:12] appreciate that for many years during my time on the board, Fairfax County Schools has been very proactive in trying to work with our staff and our families and our students to raise awareness on human trafficking and I know that several years ago our FLE Family Life Education Advisory Committee also worked with staff on a video that was produced by FCPS to really help students understand and recognize what human trafficking is but that has been some years ago and so Dr.

[00:22:47] Reed I would just say that I I know with you being new to the district I would welcome checking in with our staff on the efforts we've done to date and might there be more things that you as superintendent and we as the board can continue to proactively bring the best and best practices to this effort because any and every child who's impacted by this is devastating to them their families in our community thank you seeing no other board members who

[00:23:24] wish to speak I will call for the vote. All those in favor please raise your hand. Ms. Marin, Ms. Amish, Ms. Tolan, Ms. Corbett Sanders, Ms. Jernak Koufax, Ms. McLaughlin, Dr. Anderson, Ms. Bukarski, Ms. Keyes-Gamara, Mr. Frisch, and Ms. Cohen. That vote passes with Ms. Marin away from the table. I'm sorry. I apologize. I saw the empty chair. My apologies Ms. Marin. We will go on to the next order of business community participation. Speakers must limit their remarks to no more than two minutes in length at the conclusion of two minutes the microphone or video

[00:24:02] will be turned off school board members will be listening but not responding to individual speakers the school board will not hear statements involving issues that have been scheduled for public hearings such as a capital improvement program budget and boundaries comments targeting criticizing or attacking individual students are not permitted during public meetings complaints regarding school-based employees should be directed to the appropriate school principal or other school officials speakers should refrain from using personally identifiable information in connection with an individual student or school-based employee. Additionally, speakers should be respectful and observe proper decorum in their statements, avoiding profanity,

[00:24:40] inappropriate gestures, shouting, and comments that run counter to the spirit and letter of the school division's non-discrimination policy. All statements should be directed to the school board and speakers should remain at the podium until concluding their remarks. As a reminder, speaker substitutions are not permitted. A speaker may not yield their time to another individual before or during their remarks. Shouting and outbursts from the audience will not be tolerated. We are very grateful for those who have come to speak to us today and thank you for your cooperation. Our first

[00:25:11] speaker is Steve Tunley followed by Jeff Shapiro. Steve Tunley. Jeff Shapiro followed by Theodore Geis. Theodore Geis followed by Kim Lacabaugh. Good evening everyone. I'm here to talk about the recent stories and allegations about Thomas Jefferson High School and withholding merit

[00:25:47] aides for many students. I was shocked to hear about, you know, I'm not going to talk about this. You know what? It sucks that the mayor aides were withhold and you know what? We should do something about it. That should not happen. But the other problem is that no one in the community is willing to do anything about it either. All they do is just sit there and complain because no one even wants to meet in the middle. We know, I think that we should meet in the middle because, you know, there's people of all different varying ideologies and perspectives and you know they should be heard you know that's why I wrote a op-ed last year about this because I thought that there's too much polarization in the community and not

[00:26:26] some and not enough unity in education which there should be you know I was thankful for the people that helped me with this for you guys for listening and taking the time to speak with me Miss Nomani for helping me write it and with input from other people in the community like the NAACP but you know what some people still don't want to take it I want to say there were some people that were ashamed and accused me of being a puppet for conservative voices to talk about my issues, especially Vanessa Hall and Robert Rugby. Shame. I was not speaking on anyone's behalf,

[00:26:59] was not speaking on anyone's behalf. I think that it is unnecessary that there has to be this much. I get that there are people fighting on both sides, but you know, we've done nothing to bring them together. Not one thing. And the TJ thing, that's just one thing that opened Pandora's box again and I really think that it's time that we create a task force or something because this is a big issue in the community even though I'm not a student in FCPS anymore I know the difference and I know that parents always teach students to be nice to each other be kind to each other but it's so hypocritical when half the adults in this in this room not let alone this county can't

[00:27:36] even sit to each other for five minutes and wonder what the hell is going on thank you our next speaker is Kim Lacobal followed by Andrew Fay. Good evening. I speak to you all tonight as a private citizen, a mom who has had three kids attend Fairfax City public schools, which I'm very proud of. But that's even though I'm the executive director of Reset 180, an anti-trafficking organization in Reston, Virginia, who serves to care for the survivors that are our clients,

[00:28:17] but we also build awareness in the community and disrupt the demand for trafficking in our community. The federal definition of trafficking is when a person is induced to provide commercial sex or forced labor through force, fraud, or coercion. If a child under 18 is providing sex or forced labor, it is automatically defined as trafficking. There's no such thing as a child sex worker. They are victims of trafficking. Using cutting-edge technology, my organization has received data showing that in January 2021, 650 people were sold online for commercial sex

[00:28:54] within a 50-mile radius of Ruston. That same information we were pulling again in October 21, it grew to 3,694. March of 2022, 8,152. October of last year, it skyrocketed. 15,660 people sold online for commercial sex within a 50-mile radius of our office in Ruston, Virginia.

[00:29:23] This is a local problem. I want to show you a map. You may not be able to see it very clearly, but this is from the National Trafficking Hotline. These hot red spots is where trafficking is the worst. We are in one of the worst locations. It goes down the 95 corridor. In 2017, Virginia was number six in the nation for active federal human trafficking cases. And Fairfax County is one of the worst places in Virginia. Approximately 5,100 students attend school within 1,000 feet of

[00:29:58] trafficking. Thank you. Our next speaker is Andrew Fay, followed by Matthew Shemp. Andrew Fay. Matthew Shemp, followed by Vanessa Hall. Good evening. My name is Matt Shemp. I'm the father of a first grader at Claremont Elementary. I'm an FBI agent, tactical instructor, and active shooter program,

[00:30:34] I'm sorry reduction program instructor. I have also been part of the tactical response to several mass shooting incidents including the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting in which 17 students were killed. I've come tonight to highlight the issue of elementary school safety one to which we have collectively become complacent. We as a county should be able to say that we are acting responsibly to keep our youngest students safe but to honestly say that we need to enact change based on some uncomfortable but factual truths. First violence targeting elementary schools is a real problem and will increase. Historically, school violence follows watershed events. In 1999, we hoped Columbine was an outlier. Instead, it opened the door for dozens of school shootings

[00:31:13] since. Likewise, we hope the 2012 Sandy Hook tragedy was an isolated incident. It has proven instead to be the start of a pattern of external violence targeting our youngest, most starkly seen in the loss of 19 children last year in Nivaldi. That pattern of violence will continue. Second, national data unequivocally shows the only safeguard with a real chance of saving lives in a school shooting is having law enforcement present at the school before the shooting begins.

[00:31:36] nationally a three-minute police response time is considered very good at Uvalde by the three-minute mark over a hundred rounds have been fired the sad truth is by the time the police arrive it's already too late the only way around that is to have an SRO on scene beforehand embarrassingly many of our neighboring school districts have recognized the reality of this threat and have already taken action in 2022 Prince William County placed security specialists at their elementaries Loudoun County is progressing on a plan to place SROs at elementary schools by 2024 even private schools like st. Louis up the road that received no public funding have found resources to employ constantly present security officers. In Fairfax County, we seem to have adopted a strategy of hope. We hope it won't

[00:32:16] be our school next time, our kids. Certainly, resources are finite, and Fairfax County Police have many responsibilities. But as someone who has witnessed such carnage in person, I'm here to tell you, hope is a bad plan. Thank you. Our next speaker is Vanessa Hall, followed by Stacey Langton.

[00:32:34] First of all, I would love Mr. Geist to talk to me and Mr. Rigby personally. He's never spoken to us and anything said about us, particularly by Ms. Namani, does not have a wit of truth.

[00:32:52] And I'm really sad that she's videoing all of this to put out there and provide her version of a narrative. It is what it is. Sorry. My speech is actually, I submitted it. I'm not going to get through the whole thing. But I do want to talk about the fact that those who pit equity against merit are pretending that they're mutually exclusive.

[00:33:17] If merit's the quality of being good and deserving to be praised or rewarded, then each student should have merit in the eyes of our school, no matter their PSAT scores. Unfortunately, some only focus on test scores to determine merit, which leaves disabled, dyslexic, English language learners, and so many others behind.

[00:33:35] My dyslexic child does not test well, as reflected by her low SOLs, but she has great grades, works hard, is happy, and is, most importantly, kind to others. When she applies to college, I want schools to look at the whole child, not just some arbitrary score.

[00:33:51] Even my son, whose scores are off the charts, should not be judged just by his PSATs. My kids are more than their test scores. All of our kids are more than their test scores. I do want you to pursue equal outcomes for every student without exceptions, because we as a community should work towards the very best outcomes for each and every student.

[00:34:13] To achieve that goal, equity comes into play, giving each student the support and resources they need, whether it's reading support, team-taught classes, extra testing time, etc. Equity recognizes that we do not all start from the same place and that additional resources can bring students up.

[00:34:30] Equity means meeting each student by name and by need to ensure that they can succeed in school and life. This is hard but necessary work. I feel blessed to be in a school system that treats both my AAP and IEP kids with respect. Thank you. Our next speaker is Stacey Langton.

[00:34:53] Political operative Asra Nomani claims principal Anne Bonitatibus intentionally withheld and hid awards due to equity policy and discriminated against Asians and wants her fired.

[00:35:17] Asra deceptively conflated national merit scholars with commended students and doesn't show the equity policy because it doesn't exist. Yet the complaining parent, Shauna Yasher, acknowledged the, quote, unforeseen shipping delay due to inadequate postage, which delayed the entire process, and that TJ used to have a ceremony, but attendance was low, so it didn't continue.

[00:35:40] Asra called the principal a privileged white woman, which is as racist as calling a black person uppity. This smear campaign is not Asra's first. Where does the principal go to get her reputation back? I've heard from TJ parents who were smeared by Asra on social media for their support of changes to the admission policy. My family was smeared when I spoke against candidate Harry Jackson mocking an autistic teen. Where do we all go to get our reputations back? Here's how deep the rabbit hole goes on Asra's false narrative. Asra and Jackson work for billionaire Heather Higgins, CEO of

[00:36:16] Dark Money Funded Independent Women's Network, which provides Fox News guests. Asra, Harry, Yasher, and Glenn Miller are involved the past two years in the TJ admissions lawsuit. They have a vested interest in the public perception of their case and have weaponized the media to harm the school's reputation.

[00:36:33] I'm on record warning the GOP about her since last January. It's shameful her fake news got a Republican AG to play the race card from the bottom of the deck. He called it state-sanctioned racism against Asians. Thousands of taxpayer dollars wasted on an investigation based on a political dirty trick using their Alinsky tactics of by any means necessary that will no doubt embarrass Republicans with the outcome. All because OSRA wants what amounts to a participation trophy.

[00:37:03] These are not conservative values. We do not lie to win. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jennifer Linton-Tidd, followed by George Becerra. Jennifer, George Becerra, followed by OSRA Namani.

[00:37:24] Good evening and happy new year, Superintendent Reed and school board members. I would like to talk about two items this evening. First, as you're close to entering the second half of the school year, you'll have some big items that need to be voted on by May or June. They are the strategic plan and the equity policy. I appreciate Dr. Reed giving continuous updates at board meetings on the strategic plan work. I also suggest that at the same time these updates are given, can there be continuous updates on the equity policy work? Makes sense to bridge the two because the strategic plan is equity centric.

[00:37:57] Second, as Dr. Reed's first full year is winding down, there are many questions that will be answered in the second half of the year, especially at the end. Like, when will the FCPS organizational changes occur and be announced? Which offices will potentially move to other departments or maybe new offices departments will be formed? Also, when will the new deputy superintendent be chosen?

[00:38:15] Will this hire coincide with the new chief equity officer? On this front, how about just hiring now Dr. Nardis King, who has been doing this work for over a year? On top of all this, the board must create a performance appraisal for Dr. Reed. My logical guess is that the performance appraisal will be based on the strategic plan that you will vote in.

[00:38:32] As I have stated for many years also, make the superintendent's performance appraisal summary, which was required by law to be public, easily visible and accessible to the community on the FCPS website instead of buried it in the board docs. Again, the summary, not the actual appraisal, which is personnel matters.

[00:38:49] Thank you for your time. Best of luck during this budget cycle and see you all February 17th. Thank you. Our next speaker is Asra Namani, followed by Norma Margulies. So I'm so honored to be here with this wonderful Boy Scout troop.

[00:39:24] I was a Boy Scout mom. My son did not have a dad, so I was the mom who went out on the hikes, pretended I could hike as much as you guys could. It was an honor. You guys know you're here for your award, your badge.

[00:39:43] One of the oaths of the Boy Scouts is to be, what is it, morally straight, isn't it? I want to give you a lesson, a lesson that I have learned over these last few years as a mom, and it makes my heart tremble to look at these faces that have been witnessed, and I turn my own camera on them because you need to know who they are.

[00:40:08] I am an immigrant mom. My son went to TJ. Please address the board as per the public comments. My son went to TJ, and I love and honor these children that are here, and I honor them. And my son was one of the mostly majority Asian kids, much like this troop here tonight.

[00:40:31] These are the children, I am certain, of the immigrant families that have been part of our TJ community. But what happened? What happened? In that fall of 2020, my son got an award that I did not know about. This is the envelope that Fabio Zuluaga sent to me.

[00:40:51] It is not in here. This is not some participation trophy. John Foster here has hired a law firm to investigate this case. They have not called me.

[00:41:07] I called you, Elaine Tholen. I wrote to you. You have not written back to me. I emailed every single one of you. Young children, adults are not always going to be morally straight. You must follow your hearts. Ms. Namani, please address the board.

[00:41:26] Thank you. Our next speaker is Norma Margulies. Our next speaker is Norma Margulies. I think that the withholding of the National Merit Commandment Awards is a scandal.

[00:41:59] It's a scandal that transcends our political views. It's a scandal that transcends our views even about the admission process to Thomas Jefferson and the changes that you implement. So the delay, if you just put it from the perspective of what a competent and diligent administration should do is a serious failure, a miserable failure.

[00:42:24] Because we should assume, we should always assume that administration is competent and they are aware of the deadlines and they should provide the notifications of these awards. it's up to the families it's up to the students who work hard who work hard to decide whether or not they are going to include that award i i am honestly taken aback shocked to be honest to see how a group that supported the elimination to the admission test to tj are supporting are diminishing the hard work of these students 1.5 million students took that sum three the three

[00:43:02] percent top the reserve that award they should receive the notification on time period that shouldn't be a question for anybody here and it shouldn't be politicized and the responsible for that should be a sanction accordingly right so it is it's but but once again the board has remained silent the board doesn't say anything about it and we have some schools that are acknowledging the problem so and at the same time we are learning that you hire a contractor for $455,000

[00:43:35] we sold sole source so again I would like to request an audit of the the school board and I would like to reiterate my support for those students who were not notified on time it is not a fabrication it is real thank you that was our final speaker thank you agenda item 4.02

[00:44:05] strategic plan update i call on dr reed for the strategic plan update chair seizmerheiser chair seizmerheiser may be recognized please yes miss mayor i just have a question and i'm not sure chair if this is a question for you but just in terms of our public comment section and perhaps this is something we could come back to with information the recording of our um participants

[00:44:42] in the audience who are under age what are our rules about that miss namani please order please Ms. Namani, please. Ms. Marin, to answer your -- Ms. Namani, please, you are out of order, Ms. Namani.

[00:45:09] Ms. Namani, this is out of order. Ms. Marin, to answer your question, we will take a look at that at a later date and get some -- I also want -- and thank you, Chair. I also just want to reflect, we do have a student on our dais, so just wondering, you know, in the filming of minors, I know we've tried to adjust our policies about not including students' name to protect their identity, so I would love for our board to please just take a look at that when we have time.

[00:45:35] - Thank you, Ms. Mayor. We'll take a look at that and get back to you on that. Agenda item 4.02, strategic plan update. I will call on Dr. Reed for that update.

[00:45:54] Go ahead, Dr. Reed. - Thank you, Madam Chair. So our strategic planning update, thank you. I appreciated Mr. Becerra's acknowledgement and summary and also appreciated Ms. Derenak-Kovacs and our chair, Ms. Sizemore-Heiser being present today.

[00:46:17] We had quite a large group of people. I believe in the 140 range today, working on a variety of student data points as well as beginning to refine goal statements. And we had a chance today to review the student surveys and student focus group information, as well as other data.

[00:46:38] So pretty exciting times. And we're getting a lot closer to formulating goal statements. Laura, if you could go to the next slide, please. All right, well, maybe the next one, there you go. want to make sure that I share our student centering assumptions because as we know our strategic plan really is centered both with student voice and the student experience. Ms. Togby was there as well today and I really hope that we stay in that space of really focusing on what's best for each and every one of our students. I wanted to remind the board in terms of our assumptions that

[00:47:16] underlie this work, that we want to maintain equally high expectations for each and every one of our students. It's important that we think about how each and every student is able to achieve their full unique and limitless potential.

[00:47:32] No student has a barrier or roadblock that would prevent them from achieving what we believe that they can and what their families are counting on in terms of their achievement. And also that each and every student acquires the skills that will enable them to be successful as they leave Fairfax County Public Schools and enter this world yet to be imagined.

[00:47:54] And finally, I want to remind the board that our work and one of our student-centering assumptions is aligned to our One Fairfax policy. And I've had a chance to go back and review that, which was developed and jointly adopted by Fairfax County Public Schools and our county in November of 2017 which now sounds at six years ago so just want to remind us of those centering assumptions so if we can go to the next one Laura please so our student perception data results are in and we had a chance to look at those today we want to make sure

[00:48:30] we further quantify our data in terms of perspective and we've committed to our core planning team to do that but again we have continued to update our website with our strategic planning work so looking forward to our community forums coming up Laura I think we have dates on the next slide I really appreciate the amount of time and investment that Mitu and his team as well as each of you are going to have as we're out in the community quite a bit almost every night probably through the end of January and February we're going to be very busy I

[00:49:08] want to make sure that everyone knows that they have an opportunity to attend these and we encourage our community to come out staff students and community members as well as families we will provide child care and interpretive services at these events and the registration link for these is live now and additional communications will be forthcoming so Laura I think we've got one last slide on this we want to encourage all of our community our students staff family members business leaders to stay connected with our

[00:49:43] strategic planning work I had an opportunity to speak with our economic development council with the county this afternoon and one of the big questions was how do we partner to support economic and workforce development here in fairfax county it's an important topic our economy relies on our capacity to partner and i know they have a high interest in our planning work as they're doing parallel work at the county level in terms of economic development so that's our strategic plan update and i encourage folks to stay connected so madam chair that's it thank you dr reed and i know i speak for my colleagues

[00:50:20] that we're all very excited about this work and we're excited about the community engagement as well having said that I will move on to agenda item 4.03 academic matters and I'll call on you again Dr. Reed to share your update thank you madam chair and I also would be remiss if I didn't mention we're going to do a work session on the strategic planning process coming up where each of you as a board member all of us will be reviewing all the data that our strategic planning team has had a chance to review so this evening I thought it would be helpful and actually our team and instructional services thought it would be helpful as well to

[00:50:59] share just a couple slides about the Virginia growth assessment updates as these are relatively new there if you want to go to the next slide please Laura 2021 legislation which was very recent required content testing both in the fall and the winter so when you hear some of our staff talking about how challenging it is because learning time is in some cases been diminished because we've added these assessments these are a requirement from the Virginia Department of Education so the there are no passing or failing scores

[00:51:38] so we're really I don't know I think our our team's working hard to figure out how best to use the data because we weren't able to and I correct me if I'm wrong Noel but I believe we were not we didn't receive the fall data in time even prior to the winter assessments is that correct so one of the things I know and that's not a criticism I think the Department of Education is trying to support formative assessments and I know the governor has a high interest in success around academic achievement and recovery from the pandemic so I think the point of the growth assessments are to be able to assess in the fall adjust

[00:52:16] instruction and then see growth in the winter and adjust instruction so that by the time exams occur in the spring our students are better ready the system right now is still not quite where we want it to be because obviously for formative assessment to be effective you need the results before you take the next test so we hope that that's going to be coming soon and we expect future guidance let's take the next slide Laura please thank you I thought it would be helpful and for us to just take a sample look at what a student's family will be

[00:52:53] receiving often we say the family's gonna get a report and we don't necessarily see what that is I want to say that I think our instructional services team dr. Presidio Noel Clemenco and the team have done a really nice job and vetras and I were working on this today in combining both the fall and winter in one communication to families rather than sending the fall information we which we just got at the same time our young people are being tested in the winter so families will receive this one document in the next couple actually within the next eight weeks we're going to be providing these custom score

[00:53:32] reports to families which combine these assessments so I don't know about you but if I'm a family I can't wait because I want to have a chance to see how my student in third through eighth grade is doing and I think it's really exciting that our staffs put this together so these data tables are going to have some outcomes around key math and key reading outcomes and those really when we think about academic acceleration after the recent pandemic we really are trying to focus on our basics and reading and mathematics so this is going to be great

[00:54:06] information for our families and staff next slide please no Laura just want to share that I know the question I'm gonna get is how are we doing compared to the rest of the Commonwealth because here in FCPS as a premier division we're always taking a look at how we can be our be our very best for our students and families so I do want to say that we can see that our students in general are outperforming students from the state in the fall but we can't really make firm projections about spring because it's not clear yet exactly how these they

[00:54:44] haven't been normed to the spring assessments but our SOL tests hopefully are going to show some increases I do want to share it last slide and this is essentially the rough score and reading of courses in maroon mathematics is and I'm not sure what that color is I'll have to ask Petrus maybe a teal but the percentiles grades three through eight go down on the left side and obviously the highlighted columns are the highest percentiles so

[00:55:21] we are outperforming Virginia the Commonwealth in every area on every grade level so I just thought that was a nice celebration this evening to really give a high five to all our educators who are working so hard right now and all our students who are working so hard and the families to support them that I think it's great news that grades three through eight we're not gonna if not out of the park at least out of the infield in our reading and math scores so we're thrilled about that with more than 50% performing the top two quartiles reading

[00:55:56] 60.4 in mathematics 62.1 so there you have it there is the academic matters moment and I'm happy to answer any questions from the board thank you I have a couple board members who wish to ask questions miss Bukarski followed by Dr. Anderson yeah thank you Dr. Reed for this and I will be quick as I know we have more to talk about tonight one of the things I've heard from some of my schools and teachers in particular and you spoke a little bit about this that you know the scores didn't come in time to actually be useful and I understand

[00:56:32] the reasoning behind you know giving these assessments and I think it's sound reasoning and I think our teachers also agree that it's sound reasoning but I've been told that they have not been given the resources to actually interpret some of these results and the time needed to sit down so they're actually useful for for planning so I don't know you know if you have anything to say about that but I did want to raise this concern because I have heard it in different schools at this point in time no I I think you raise a good point I think the idea of

[00:57:10] formative assessment is best practice for sure in terms of student agency and efficacy and with our talented staff they're able to take data and really make it actionable what we're struggling with right now and particularly at the elementary level is planning time and I think that's not a new conversation but the planning time and then I think just the time the assessments have taken and then getting the information so late we've lost honestly a couple months where we could have been doing intervention work but we didn't have the results back yet now having said that in Fairfax County our educators have their

[00:57:46] own internal classroom assessments and obviously are utilizing curriculum and I think our staff are rarely surprised because they know the progress and where our young people are this is another tool though that I thought as a board and as a community we need to be aware of and hopefully in the coming time these assessments will be turned around more quickly or perhaps you know our educators will be able to utilize their assessments only because these are required so I think sometimes great ideas not well resourced don't feel like great ideas and that's exactly where I was going to end on that I hope in our

[00:58:25] conversations with our elected officials and the conversations you have that that concern is raised and I know it will be also probably part of the conversation with our calendar the last question comment that I had I've brought up a couple of times about how across the division we need to make sure that we We are sharing this information with parents in a consistent way around the same time.

[00:58:53] Can you tell me is that part of the plan or is this decision being left up to schools as to how and when to communicate? It's within the next eight weeks and I believe our regional assistant superintendents will be working collaboratively to be sending this information at roughly the same time.

[00:59:12] Laura if you want to bring back up the sample score report one of the things that we're thrilled with instructional services is it's going to be the same report that every family gets so I'm counting on our principals and I know we know that our young people are on soccer teams the score report thanks Laura soccer teams together basketball they're rowing running right and they compare notes and if I my family got the score report and anyhow so we want to try to do that as close TO THE SAME TIME AS POSSIBLE AND I THINK THAT'S GREAT I REALLY APPRECIATE THIS BECAUSE THAT'S ANOTHER CONCERN THAT I HEAR FROM PARENTS LIKE YOU KNOW SOME GET IT SOME DON'T I DON'T

[00:59:51] REALLY KNOW WHAT IT MEANS SO KUDOS TO THAT I THINK IT'S GOING TO BE VERY HELPFUL THANK YOU YOU BET THANK YOU DR. ANDERSON THANK YOU I ALSO WANT TO ECHO THE FACT THAT I DID HEAR THE SAME FEEDBACK FROM INDIVIDUALS AT OUR SCHOOLS IN THE MESA DISTRICT THAT THEY DID NOT RECEIVE THIS in a timely enough manner to do something with but I'm glad to hear that there's going to be a plan for rolling it out it's a great report and I'm looking at it but I think the key piece will be what is it that we expect parents to do about this how are we going to guide them to take a look at

[01:00:27] this and to some parents are going to want to help their children and we need to plan for that in addition to if we're not getting the guidance from the state how are we going to guide all of our teachers across the division to work with this data now that it's here because that's I'm a fifth grade parent and an eighth grade parent I fall in all the buckets and my first question to those people will be what is your plan well it's a great question Dr. Anderson I think if I'm a parent I'm going to probably and just because I happen to love math I'm going to look at the math

[01:01:01] right now and I'm going to say that if my student in the fall and winter isn't making some progress I'm gonna want to maybe check in with my student and then the teacher to say golly You know in the fall they actually had more questions right than the winter right because we want to see as we move to the Right that our students ought to be doing a little better in the winter than they did in the fall theoretically And then the second thing as a parent I might do is look at the breakout we have number sense computation measurement probability and so forth and

[01:01:34] I might sit down and just say, you know, if we can have some practice problems in those areas, that might be great. I also want to call out Dr. Wilson and our instructional team are really full court press right now on hiring in-person tutors for after school, particularly at our elementary schools.

[01:01:55] that's our commitment this spring not the spring this winter to make sure we've done everything we can to provide in-person tutoring as part of after school enrichment for our elementary school students so I would also encourage families to consider that as an option as we move forward in terms of looking at these school reports and I expect that likely our instructional service department will also be putting out some or pushing out some sort of RESOURCES THAT WOULD ALIGN WITH POTENTIALLY THOSE CATEGORIES BECAUSE THAT'S THE NEXT QUESTION PARENTS ARE GOING TO ASK RIGHT LIKE WHAT CAN I DO TO WORK ON YOU KNOW MEASUREMENT AND GEOMETRY AND LIKE WHO WOULDN'T WANT TO DO

[01:02:34] THAT 24/7 SO A LOT OF PEOPLE BELIEVE IT OR NOT WOULD NOT WANT TO DO THAT BUT I THINK IT'S JUST REALLY KEY THAT WE HAVE EXPECTATIONS THAT EVERY ONE OF OUR SCHOOLS ARE GOING TO MEET IT SHOULDN'T BE THAT THOSE YOU KNOW OVER HERE GET THE ADDITIONAL SUPPORTS OR THESE DON'T AND I REALLY want to be sure that our teachers are ready to have that conversation it really shouldn't be that the parents have to reach out to the teachers and say hey this is what i noticed if the teachers notice that they should also be reaching out to parents to say hey this is what we've noticed and this is what we're going to do about it whether it's accompanying this report or it's a conversation

[01:03:12] i think that key is that piece is important because all this data without action is pretty much meaningless yes ma'am the other piece that i'm going to ask about and i continually ask about kind of offering data in this way I appreciate the state comparison by grade level I would love to see how does it show up by pyramid do we have that consistency of performance across the division if that's possible to provide we can we'll do a follow-up with that on a Monday letter oh thank you that would be very helpful the other thing that I'd like to to raise because I hear

[01:03:50] hear this constantly and again former school person I saw this and I know it's exponentially more acute currently if you could just kind of speak to our public out here and walk them through how many assessments are our students in grades three to eight embarking on during a school year and as much as you could couch it kind of during the periods maybe first quarter second quarter third quarter that would be helpful because I want people to get a sense of how much time is devoted to the administration of assessments.

[01:04:22] Well, thank you, Dr. Anderson. And I don't know if I can do that list justice this evening. And Noelle, do you feel like you could sort of take a stab at it? And if not, I don't want to put people on the spot, but if we can at least provide some input, but we can also provide further.

[01:04:37] I think to your point, if we spend more time weighing it and less time teaching, right, that we really, our educators know where students are in general. So I do think we need to take a look at the number. But, Noel?

[01:04:54] Yeah, and I would just add, you know, this assessment was added last year as a fall assessment, and then this year a fall and a winter. So we've been growing into this over the last two years, and obviously it leads to the spring SOL, which I would call kind of an assessment stream, right, that's really measuring students on our standards of learning.

[01:05:11] We do have other assessments that students take. As you know, at elementary we use the iReady really as a measure of foundational skills. it measures something a little bit different we certainly we have data and understanding if kids are performing on the foundational skills how that transfers to passing the sols but it's important to measure measure both of those things we do have some smaller diagnostic tests with our new reading program that certainly were new to teachers this year so you may have heard that gosh the bga and the new literacy assessments because there's something about things being new as well there's a stress and attention around that and really trying to figure out how to to fit

[01:05:50] them all in strategically and what makes sense there's also obviously things that as we move through the year students who are struggling sometimes have more progress monitoring so they're doing things in winter that some of the kids aren't doing we have lead a testing for ESOL students so I'm that's just giving you a little bit of a snapshot that there is a lot of assessment and we look at it with our principal groups every year in our region our region leaders trying to say what can we eliminate what can we really determine who are the best and most needed students to do it and we'll continue to do that thank you so much Noel for that information and I raise it because I think it's an important point for consideration I really think there

[01:06:29] has to be a deeper review not just amongst the principal group but made a little bit more public to the board and to the community at large in terms of what the weight what the burden of assessment is on our students and our teachers who are feeling the crunch of not having time right to instruct and we have a lot of other challenges in our calendars that really cut down on the time that they have to provide instruction to students so thank you for that I think that's the bulk of my yeah I think to your point we need to do more

[01:07:02] teaching than testing thank you miss Corbett Sanders I like that more teaching than testing. Thank you. And thank you for this presentation. As you know, when I first heard about the VGA scores coming out, I sent you and others a note saying we need to see these ASAP.

[01:07:26] And so I really appreciate you sharing this with us. I do think it's really important that one chart that shows this is what each parent can expect to see. But the second chart, which shows data in context is always important and it can be a little confusing because if you only look at the top line you see that in the 50 to 74 percent percentile the va tests are 25 but the fcps is

[01:07:58] below 25 but the reason that is is because of how high the 75 to 99 percentile is and so when you add And the 50 to 74 and the 75 to 99, that is a pretty big delta between where FCPS is performing versus the rest of the state.

[01:08:23] And I think it's really important for us when we talk about this is to perhaps have even a footnote that says when you're looking at an individual column, you have to look at those additive with the other columns there. I do think it's very helpful to have the macro level but I think it would be very helpful also following up on Dr. Anderson's question to have each of the board members get a review of what's happening in their individual the schools located in their magisterial district

[01:08:57] and obviously the at-larges seeing it across the county. And when we send out the individual reports to families, if we could almost have a second sheet which says, and these are the resources available to you to support your child in their learning, and please talk with your local teacher or your principal about how you can access all of these resources, because some will want the online option of Tutor.com.

[01:09:30] Others benefit more from a one-on-one with the tutor or in a small group tutoring session. And so what -- if we can give that information and empower parents with all of the resources available to them, I think that would be helpful. Yes, ma'am.

[01:09:46] I think -- Thank you. The other thing we are hoping, I think, down the road also is utilizing -- we have a large faith leader group that now meets every two months, and they have a lot of tutoring programs as well at many of our houses of worship and one of our commitments is to share resources so that when students are there for tutoring they're utilizing resources that match concerns that we've identified right so that there's really intentional strategic intervention both with academics as well as mental health supports so we're really trying to build that strong tight

[01:10:25] community for all of our students our next stop is SAT classrooms as well and after-school programs having access to resources that are going to support our students in these core reading and math areas so I would actually suggest I love the fact that you're building this web of resources but I think it's also important that when we communicate with our families that we talk about that web of resources which includes not only those through the school system but locally I know I've been very active with the opportunity neighborhoods and

[01:11:01] our ventures and community in the Mount Vernon district to make sure that they kind of partner with us so thank you thank you miss Toland yes thank you for the information I am really excited to hear about this collaboration of resources i think it's a great idea and i'll bring it to my opportunity neighborhood in herndon um i think that'll be a great place they'll be really appreciative of this i also wanted to comment on this particularly and one of the previous slides where it was showed the breakdown

[01:11:40] of the questions and so the subject areas so that families could really focus in with their student on areas for improvement um i had our program manager for tutor.com make a presentation to the pta leaders across strainsville fairly recently and i was astounded at the resources in tutor.com and then have gotten some incredible feedback even from some of those pta leaders that went home and used it with their kids i would think that with this very specific information

[01:12:12] And Noel, maybe you can comment that it would be, families would be able to pretty easily go to Tudor.com and get very specific information on these areas. Thanks, Ms. Toll.

[01:12:28] And Tudor.com has been a really great partner at being responsive to FCPS. You know, when we first started to work with them, we, you know, we were very clear on our new approach to literacy, for example. Very clear on SOLs, you know, Virginia State Standards, which is what this assessment represents.

[01:12:44] And they are very willing to partner with us in those kinds of things so that it could be very targeted in that way. I think that would be one of the ways that would be available to parents to support their students. Great. That's a great idea. So I really like the idea, too, of the list, you know, getting that list of resources, Tutor.com, just being one of them out to our families.

[01:13:06] Thank you. And thank you, Dr. Reed, for that update. I know we're looking forward to hearing more at our strategic planning retreat. February and more we have a lot of data to dive through there so I'm really excited to see that and so I'm gonna move on to agenda item 4.04 but before I call on Miss Togby on behalf of the board I would like to just say a hearty congratulations for your acceptance to Brown University congratulations Miss Togby it is well deserved and I cannot wait when I go

[01:13:45] visit my son in Boston to visit you in Providence. Congratulations. Thank you so much. And on that note, I will call on Ms. Togby. Thank you. Thank you. You guys are really kind. I appreciate it. Good evening, everyone, and happy Thursday. I can't believe I haven't spoken to you all since last year. Sorry. I have to give a shout out to my math teacher, Ms. Temple, who did that for like the first week we were back.

[01:14:17] I wanted to talk a little bit about course accessibility, specifically in terms to our online campuses. So we had a little bit over a school year online, virtually. And although we were learning from home, most of us probably from our bedrooms, I can still say there were a lot of skills that we still adapted.

[01:14:37] I can say that I'm now not only a pro at using Google Docs, but also Word, which I never thought I would say. And there are a lot of classes that, like, students will gain interest in because it's on their course offering sheet at their base school.

[01:14:53] But let's say not enough students sign up, then they're going to maybe turn to the online course load. And, like, let's say they look at that course sheet, and the course that they were interested isn't offered online either. Then there's kind of like a little heartbreak, because, you know, that's a class that I was really interested in taking.

[01:15:11] so even though we had all this time online in my opinion like our course selection method doesn't necessarily meet the post um pandemic world that we're in if that makes any sense because even though courses are still largely self-directed outside of lectures they only occur once a week so an english class would probably meet at 5 p.m on a tuesday night um so in turn students kind of look at the online campus as if it wasn't anywhere or like remotely

[01:15:46] near traditional school if that makes any sense so instead of meeting one time a week and kind of working yourself what if we met more than one time a week what if there were office hours on a specific day things like that just even though they're online doesn't mean that that can stop them from getting additional resources from that one teacher um and then of course something i was also thinking about was in a sense we're kind of limiting them but at the same time we still want to encourage them to go out and take these other opportunities that we offer them uh in regards

[01:16:22] to our strategic planning process i'm super excited to announce that there are a couple student voice opportunities to participate in as we take the next steps into the community forums which dr reed mentioned earlier. Registration is open so please stay connected. Earlier today I got to reconvene with table 17 at the core planning team meeting. We discussed the strengths and concerns within our county with multiple community stakeholders, faculty members, and students. We also talked about goals and we worked to group them while also ensuring that everyone was being

[01:16:58] represented at the table I can certainly say that the experiences of our students were not only being voiced but were taken as a priority everywhere all around and I can't stress that importance enough I also wanted to mention that the last few days my heart has really been with the South County community my school community we are hurting right now but I know that we will make it through this. Reminders have been going through our building that even though life

[01:17:34] is short tell your people that you love them and that we are of course still stallion strong so thank you so much for your time and let's have a great week. Thanks FCPS. Thank you Ms. Togby and I know I can speak for my colleagues when I say all of our hearts and thoughts and prayers are with South County and their families and the staff and students there especially so thank you for bringing that up agenda item 4.05 superintendent matters i will call on dr reed thank you madam

[01:18:06] chair um and thanks miss togby it's uh loss and grief are never never easy um since last we met um december 16th actually i attended um an amazing basketball game at madison high school that came down to the last second um and uh just fabulous sportsmanship and just a great example of i think competitive Fairfax spirit. I also was able last week to spend some time at Mountain View High School with Ms. Bukarski and got to meet with the administrative staff and students, learned a little about environmental

[01:18:46] science and also some contemporary issues and topics, but just a really fabulous faculty collaboration meeting as well. We got to pop into just really excellent work happening at Mountain View. Last week, we also hosted our second meeting of our faith-based community leaders, lots of partnerships, which I've talked a little bit about. We're planning to partner with our mental health supports and training for youth leaders, as well as academic supports, and just really having a sense of how we come

[01:19:21] together as a community because we know learning happens best in community. Last week I also had a chance last Wednesday evening to go into Washington D.C. to the Lincoln Theater to attend the Posse Scholar Awards. We had, Fairfax County Public Schools had 24 Posse Scholars this year, so from 15 of our high schools.

[01:19:42] And I just want to really lift our young scholars up. This foundation I had not heard of before this fall, and I'm just so inspired. The Posse Foundation is a national nonprofit that partners with select colleges and universities, founded in 1989 and it provides student scholarships and leadership training and provides full scholarships to more than 10,000 students nationally and experiences for post-secondary education.

[01:20:15] And Posse scholars have a 90% college graduation rate, which is significantly higher than students who attend college just in general, which as we know, persistence matters, right? So this foundation is doing fabulous work.

[01:20:30] So congratulations to our 24 Fairfax County scholars that earned this honor. Last night I had a chance to meet with the FLECAC committee and discuss some of our family life education topics, strategic planning meetings.

[01:20:45] I spent a lot of time with our budget team recently and we'll present the budget this evening. And this afternoon, visited with our Fairfax County Economic Development Authority and their discussion around planning as well. So, and then most recently, actually Wednesday of this week, I was also on the phone with the CEO and president of the National Merit Scholarship Foundation, as well as the CEO for the College Board, talking about how best to move forward in terms of having layered communication and notification strategies not just here in Fairfax but

[01:21:22] regionally and nationally so we'll be more to hear about that in the coming days so thank you madam chair thank you dr. Reed I look forward to hearing that and I look forward also one of my colleagues to see the proposed budget so without further ado agenda item 4.06 I call on dr. Reed for the presentation on the fiscal year 24 proposed budget all right thank you madam chair and I want

[01:22:00] to say it should go without saying that the budget work the lion's share and I mean big lion's share of this work should go to our budget team assistant superintendent Lee Burden and her team Alice Whittington and I don't know is Matthew Matthews in the back Matthew Norton and just a fabulous team and they they just do outstanding work so I just want to give it up for them here just A BIT, OUR FINANCE TEAM AND MARTY SMITH, OUR CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER, JUST COORDINATES ALL OF THAT WORK IN A REALLY THOUGHTFUL WAY.

[01:22:40] AND YOU CAN'T DO BUDGET WITHOUT A FULL TEAM. SO THERE'S BEEN A LOT OF INPUT FROM MANY QUARTERS TO BUILD THIS BUDGET. SO IF WE COULD USE THE SLIDES THAT ARE -- YEAH, THERE WE GO, LAURA. So I want to share that this evening I'm really pleased to present the 24 proposed budget for Fairfax County Public Schools and it's an exciting evening as it's the first budget I'll be presenting here in Fairfax County.

[01:23:06] I had an opportunity to present it to leadership and principals this afternoon which was I think our practice run. So hopefully it will be perhaps more thoughtful this evening.

[01:23:22] So I want to share the background that the Virginia code mandates that it is the duty of the superintendent with the approval of the school board to prepare a budget that has an estimate of the amount of money deemed to be needed to support the school division and this is commonly referred to as a needs based budget.

[01:23:41] I think one of the things that's important to remember is that as we are able to really commit to our strategic plan in May then we will be further enabled to actually have what we would call a needs based resource allocation process that's really aligned with the goals of the division. So we're really excited about continuing this journey that emphasizes each and every student receiving the mountaintop educational experience that Fairfax is known for. So next slide. I don't know is it you Matthew or Laura.

[01:24:18] Okay, there you go. Thank you. So I want to share that this evening, if I had to break down the budget into really the key elements, I think one of the keys is that we want to make sure we have competitive compensation, not just to recruit our staff, but also to retain in particular our most experienced staff, we want to make sure we are closing achievement gaps for all of our students.

[01:24:44] we want to account for enrollment growth because we are now in a space where we are continuing to grow which in this case is requiring formulaic adjustments to staffing which i'll talk about in a few minutes it's also important that we think about investments in early literacy our science of reading commitment as well as pre-k expansion i think we've spent a lot of time discussing in our strategic plan and with our county colleagues and partners that currently we're only serving 37% of our income eligible early learners our third three

[01:25:20] year olds to five year olds and we know that if we're going to effectively close achievement gaps in this county it's best done at the youngest age for our children our youngest learners will learn most quickly and if they can come to kindergarten better prepared that's going to be good for them and good also for our county we also want to think about the multi-year initiatives that have been started that are very important to continue and these continue to be in the area of our jet goals our advanced academics we're sort of moving

[01:25:56] up our HR system replacements and then also looking at security initiatives that I'll be speaking a little more about in terms of the achievement gaps um that's a wide data point and also includes our students with special needs and a lot of the work that needs to be done around inclusive practices and providing opportunities for our students to to have the best possible outcomes that we can have so our demographics i believe

[01:26:30] are the next slide just a reminder to our board and our community about who we are as fairfax county we are the largest division of course in virginia and the data is i think compelling around our demographics and just want to share those data points with you currently our operating budget totals 3.5 billion dollars and nearly 86 percent of the budget is spent on instruction So I think one of the things Fairfax County can be exceptionally proud of is

[01:27:06] the focus of our financial initiatives are primarily spent on instruction. So which is very important as a percentage of the FY 24 projected enrollment. I want to remind our board that we are planning for close to 35% of our students being eligible for free or reduced price meals and 35% of 180,000 makes a very large school division in many places so we have a number of students that qualify and perhaps don't have access to resources that might

[01:27:43] enhance their journey with us 20% of our students in the coming year are planned to require ESOL students which as you see the numbers the demographics and raw numbers would be close to 37,000 of our students are English as a second language learners and then 15.7 close to 16% of our students represented by 28,000 are going to be students requiring special services so we have a lot of competing interests but we're exciting about the process the progress we're

[01:28:19] making our energy star and jet goals are on the left and just a reminder that we have upped our number to 40 in terms of purple star schools so next slide our Our proposed summary for budget for this year, we're asking for a county transfer request of 159.6 million, which is 7% over the transfer request from our FY23 budget.

[01:28:45] And as a total budget add, including state monies, we're asking for 249, or actually will be a net increase of 249.6 million, which is 7.6% over the approved budget from the prior year.

[01:29:01] proposed budget focuses on again compensation investments in early literacy and so forth which I'll be sharing in a moment and to support these investments we believe that the hundred and fifty nine point six million is a reasonable ask of our county so we will move to the more specific slides and I think it's one of the things we've recognized as we've looked at comparative charts for salary for educators is that we're going to be providing a market scale adjustment for all of our employees and this is estimated at this

[01:29:38] point at 3% we're also looking at a step increase for all eligible employees which provides an average increase of 2.2 2% and then there's a retention bonus that has come out from the Commonwealth so that employees are eligible for a 1% retention bonus if they were hired in Fairfax County during fiscal year 23 and remain with Fairfax County in fiscal year 24 we're also I'm recommending that we have a step extension for all scales which would

[01:30:13] mean we have had a bit of a freeze on that last step for our most experienced staff and as we looked at comparative salary schedules which we'll look at in our work session that's upcoming where I'll be able to present more data I I think this is critical to retain our most experienced staff in a variety of roles the teacher leadership stipends at elementary school will now mirror secondary schools where we have department chair and collaborative team leads and other stipends that are available

[01:30:49] and at the elementary school we haven't yet done that but we have grade level teams and And multi-tiered systems of support teams, as well as content teams and afterschool activities. And I think it's critical.

[01:31:05] One of the things that's very important to me is that our staff who are teachers who want to stay in the classroom need to have opportunities to have leadership positions and take on other roles and still be able to be educators in the classroom without needing to leave the classroom for some pay stipend increase so I really we want to retain our very best educators who would like to stay in the classroom at the high school level the counselors have an extended contract has been a request so that we have counselors available in the summer as families move in to support

[01:31:40] smooth transitions the family liaison positions over two years it's the intent to have full positions with benefits for our family liaisons but one of the this year's budget we're actually establishing that those dedicated positions with benefits at each of our 42 title one schools first and you'll see there's not a financial impact but it's my understanding that it's through this process that you authorize the position authority and as we move into the year two of this and we provide that at the remaining schools that

[01:32:19] are not title one there will be a cost to that but some of this again is a position authority for this year and we're excited because the value and work of our family liaisons is just really critical particularly now the benefits rate changes and base savings in terms of position turnover provide some savings and then in the bottom light blue box you can see that we do believe our special education teacher extended day contracts that are currently funded in FY23 with ESSER III will continue to be funded with ESSER III in fiscal year 24.

[01:32:59] Laura, thank you. Enrollment growth as I mentioned earlier is going is projected to continue representing an increase of 83 million dollars due to the 676.2 positions we'll need to add.

[01:33:17] Enrollment adjustments are going to be, they are characterized by also adding up the number of special education services, students eligible for free and reduced lunch meals and receiving ESOL services. They all have different formulas that will drive staff numbers.

[01:33:34] So that's a significant investment. escalation for utilities facilities inflation etc also have implications as well as recurring baseline adjustments and transfers to other funds examples of which are school construction the ace fund and the debt service fund due to savings from refinancing so next slide some of our multi-year investments i just want to remind us that we've started on a path in some cases over time which

[01:34:07] makes financial sense our joint environmental task force year two investments will continue with planning to support continued support of our electric bus fleet safe routes of schools and get to green positions we also have our hr infrastructure one of the the technology and software processes we'd like to accelerate that a bit and get that moving sooner as it's a key in our recruitment and staff management work we also I believe it's very important to set aside monies to contemplate our AIR special

[01:34:47] education report as well as the office of civil rights compensatory services requirements and expectations. So we've set aside money for that in terms of learning loss created by our COVID pandemic conditions. The year three of our advanced academic programs will continue to be funded so that our students in our advanced academic programs continue to have the experience that's necessary for them to achieve their fullest potential. And we're looking to continue the Innovation project at Lewis High School in its second year.

[01:35:25] So next thank you and these are further identified investments. These are as the board and the community has committed to our equitable access to literacy plan. We want to make sure we have monies in place to support the purchase of materials.

[01:35:45] Once the Commonwealth comes out with their approved material list. Our department and task force stands ready to work on that, and we want to make sure we have funds set aside to purchase those materials. We have money set aside for achievement gap closing strategies, which will also likely be very connected to the goals that our community comes up with in our strategic planning process currently underway.

[01:36:11] We want to make sure that once that plan has the board's support and commitment in May, That we have some resources set aside to actually execute the plan to achieve those goals Our cyber security work continues to be a process and growth and while that department has grown significantly In the last several years, we know we need to continue investments to keep our students staff and information Safe our early childhood expansion again. This goes back to our pre-k Work I believe is critical as we only are serving 37% of our income eligible students

[01:36:48] So this will enable us to add additional pre-k classrooms within our current core budget employee background checks also has been a topic we've discussed this year and are committed to in terms of safety I also want to begin a journey into exploring middle school athletics I think we talk about I know right we talk about mental health we talk about social-emotional learning and one of the things we know is that when young people are outside and active and part of a team part of a group of people that

[01:37:23] notice when they show up or don't or have a commitment or an activity or a connection that's to a school and activity that they are feeling better are healthier and the mental health is improved so I think it's important that we think of root causes to our well-being and so we're excited to contemplate at least coming forward with cross-country in the fall and outdoor track in the spring for our middle schoolers that are not that don't have a cost attached so that all students have an opportunity to be part of something a

[01:38:03] a team at the middle level and so that's a stake in the ground for this first year and the lighthouse schools pilot is with the international society of technology education we're going to set up lighthouse schools as well as training for our technology support team in schools and I think it's important to point out we can't just have a budget that's focused on fighting fires we have to have some part allocated to thinking and being future focused because the future is critical for us to think about with all of the

[01:38:40] possibilities so I'm excited about the lighthouse schools pilot and other grants that may connect to that our safety and security we're committing to coverage at at least an officer in each region to support our elementary schools as a responsive officer I think we heard this evening the concerns raised about elementary schools and this is a start at actually beginning to provide responsive coverage to our elementary schools by region so let's take a look

[01:39:15] at the revenue overview and again just a reminder to the board that the hundred $179.6 million represents an increase of 7% from the FY23-approved transfer.

[01:39:31] That sales tax and state aid will be $84.1 million, federal $1.6 million, and our beginning balance and other revenue at $4.2 million to make up our $3.5 billion budget for FY24.

[01:39:46] I'll be providing more detail again at the work session. this is essentially an overview so last slide just a reminder to be involved to our community our students our staff there's a lot of budget discussion yet to come this evening is sort of my opportunity to put priorities that I think will best suit our young people as we take our next steps in our journey here in Fairfax County Public Schools so madam chair there is the budget PRESENTATION FOR FY24 THANK YOU DR. REED AND BEFORE I TURN IT TO

[01:40:23] OUR BUDGET CHAIR TO GIVE A FEW REMARKS I JUST WANT TO REMIND OUR COLLEAGUES THAT WE DO HAVE TWO WORK SESSIONS SCHEDULED ON THIS BUDGET IN JANUARY AND THE VOTE IS NOT SCHEDULED TILL FEBRUARY 23rd AND WE ALSO HAVE A PUBLIC HEARING SCHEDULED SO IF YOU SAID THAT DR.

[01:40:39] REED IF YOU WANT TO GO AHEAD AND TAKE YOUR SEAT AND MISS TOLAN AS BUDGET CHAIR I'D LIKE TO CALL ON YOU TO GIVE A FEW REMARKS THANK YOU I I want to thank Dr. Reed, Lee Burden, and the budget team for doing just what we asked them to do.

[01:40:57] After our motion in November, they went to work and came up with this proposed budget that hits on many, if not all, of the strategic priorities we discussed at our October budget work session. As we have discussed, we all have specific budget items that we would like to see included, but it is not possible to include everything.

[01:41:19] So I especially with a new superintendent, so especially with a new superintendent that is still learning about our district, and an ongoing strategic plan with considerable public and FCPS staff and student input, board members, I'm asking you as we move forward through the process to keep your views high level and strategic.

[01:41:41] Dr. Reed has presented tonight a creative way to accomplish some of our strategic needs. In addition, please realize that many of the very specific items that we talked about in October are CIP items, one-time items that we can address in our FY23 year end, or items we already have in our recurring budgets.

[01:42:04] In October, here is what we identified as strategic budget needs. I'm just going to remind us of that, and how they are being addressed in this budget. Workforce, hiring, development, and retention. We saw in this budget a market scale adjustment, a step increase, a 1% retention bonus from the state for our new employees, and a step extension for all skills to help us retain our most senior and experienced educators. Provision of a contracted position with benefits for every

[01:42:39] parent liaison at our Title I schools. And note that our special education teachers are getting the extended contracts that they are that they've had and they will continue to get this through our ESSER funding. Also huge priority student academic success. We are continuing our addition of full time advanced academic resource teachers at every elementary school and middle school for the third year to finish this initiative. We are continuing to fund our innovation project at Lewis High

[01:43:13] School. We are continuing our work on literacy for all students and expansion of early childhood. Something clearly being identified in our strategic planning process. I was super excited about the FCPS Lighthouse Schools pilot and the digital teaching and learning that that will bring to our students and teachers.

[01:43:33] Also, student wellness. Extension of the high school counselor contract allows for resources to be available to our students and families during the summer. And middle school athletics, something new and creative. I have to say, I went to a meeting of Raising Student Voices at Longfellow long before you were hired, Dr. Reed, and asked the kids if they could ask a new superintendent for one thing, what would it be?

[01:44:00] And the first one was middle school athletics, so here we are. We also asked in the fall for Access for All, really focusing on that. And please note, colleagues, that much of our enrollment growth that we talked about is in ESOL and special education students.

[01:44:18] So a large piece of that $65 million is earmarked to help those students. In addition, we are adding funds to provide more compensatory services to our special education students and meet some of the things in the AIR report. Facility services and wise investments.

[01:44:38] Automation of workflow and HR to support the hiring of new employees is key. Support for electric buses, safe routes to school, and other sustainability initiatives is in here, along with employee background checks safety and security personnel for elementary schools to better utilize the safety and security personnel across all of our regions and add an additional level of surveillance and a personnel that can respond to school security questions or events more investment in cyber security so i've sort of divvied up the budget into all of those

[01:45:16] buckets that we talked about in the fall and with that miss bokarski i'm going to turn um over to you for some comment yeah thank you to um our budget chair and of course our budget team um and dr reid for this um presentation tonight i will just add i think uh miss um totally did a good job kind of walking us and connecting to the priorities that we had identified a couple of months ago when we directed the superintendent to build a budget based on those priorities just want to remind the board and the public of our budget process we have two

[01:45:55] more budget work sessions planned for January 17th and January 24th where the board will discuss their proposed budget so if any of our school board members have any specific questions that staff will answer or miss Tolan and I can answer and we do not have time for tonight but would like to talk before for these work sessions, please do reach out.

[01:46:21] We also have a public budget hearing set for January 23rd. This is the best opportunity for our public to provide us with input on the fiscal year 24 proposed budget, as well as through email and calls.

[01:46:37] You may sign up to speak for two minutes, either in person at Luther Jackson Middle School or live virtually, and the signup list is now open. We will adopt this next budget on February 23rd, the advertised, and hope to have any budget amendments for fiscal year 24 that the board needs, perhaps by then, if able.

[01:47:00] It's important that we do convey to our board of supervisors our needs. So any initiatives that school board members would like to introduce would be an amendment to the proposed budget and should be offered for discussion before the 23rd.

[01:47:16] ALL PROPOSED AMENDMENTS SHOULD BE VETTED BY THE BUDGET OFFICE FOR LANGUAGE AND COSTING PRIOR TO INTRODUCTION TO AID IN THE PROCESS FOR CONSENSUS. PLEASE FORWARD ANY RECOMMENDMENT AMENDMENTS TO THE BOARD, DR. REED AND TO LEE BURDEN.

[01:47:33] WE WILL MEET JOINTLY WITH THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS ON THE BUDGET ON FEBRUARY 28TH TO DISCUSS AND AS WELL AS THE TAX RATE WILL BE PART OF THESE DISCUSSIONS AS WE CONTINUE OUR COLLABORATION with them again thank you to our budget team dr reed and our budget chair and i look forward to the lively conversations that i know we will be having in the next few months thank you and just i'm excited to see the many opportunities that we have to discuss the budget so i'm going to call on a couple colleagues who have their hands up ms cohen and then ms cohen thank you so much i really

[01:48:11] appreciate it um i know that we're going to have some opportunities to take a deeper dive here but I did just want to say thank you so much to Ms. Tolan and Ms. Pekarski. I know how hard you all have been working. And thank you to Dr. Reed and Ms. Burden and team for listening to our many concerns and somehow figuring out how to pull them together in, I know, a world where there's a million demands and a constituency for each line item in the budget. So thank you so much.

[01:48:43] A couple of things I did just want to point out as huge wins, the extension of our contracts for our SPED teachers, especially given that we were asking them now to do considerably more work and just trying to recognize what extra they do and the extra mile that they always go.

[01:49:05] And so being able to extend that for at least another year is just, that's the commitment that we need to make. The other is the idea of starting our counselors earlier, having one in the building. I hope that this is the beginning of some conversations that we also have about changing some of our registration practices, especially for our military families, to make that transition a lot easier.

[01:49:29] And so getting to have a point person who can help them with that is huge. So I'm thrilled about that. The step increase, adding a step to all the scales and a retention bonus. I hope that our employees are hearing that tonight and feeling like we appreciate them and that we're showing them also recognition of figuring out how to better leverage our ESPITs and recognizing the incredible work that they do for us as well.

[01:49:58] And last but not least, I'm thrilled about the middle school athletics piece, but I also hope that this can be the beginning of some conversations that we have about adding an adapted, um, athletics program here in FCPS. So thank you again. I look forward to digging into this all together. Um, but just wanted to, uh, really say how much I appreciate all of the hard work that went into this. So thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Frisch. Sorry about that. Um,

[01:50:35] I appreciate the presentation tonight and all the work that's gone into it thus far. Um, uh, I, too, want to praise the work that's been done around staff compensation, and I'm very intrigued by many of the identified investments and other ideas that the superintendent has brought.

[01:50:56] Particularly grateful to see the foresight of putting money aside early for the equitable access to literacy plan for our science of reading approach that we've been pushing for the last couple years, and also for our JET goals, which we know offer long-term savings.

[01:51:11] In fact, I noticed in the budget materials this year that, you know, we've been saying for the last two years that our conservation efforts have led to a savings annually of $8 million, which goes right back in the classrooms. But it's now $9 million.

[01:51:29] So that's tremendous. So I look forward to furthering these conversations at the work sessions and our meetings with the superintendent. Thank you. Ms. Marin? Well, you had me at middle school sports. not that that's you know I just you know I think about where I grew up and the sports were there and it's something that um I just think is so missed here but another thing that I reflect on in the budget is you know where I grew up the property taxes were three times what they were

[01:52:01] here but I had a classroom of 18 peers and um you know I think that you get what you pay for And I know that this is a significant ask, but we are going to get an incredible investment. And what I appreciate about your budget, too, is that it's not just about this year, it's multi-year.

[01:52:21] So I'm eager to work to make this happen, and we'll come with more questions when we next meet. Thank you. Thank you. And Ms. Togby, I know you wanted to speak as well, so I don't see any of the board members who wish to speak. So Ms. Togby, please go. Thank you.

[01:52:36] Thank you to our budget team co-chairs, Dr. Raiden and the leadership team. I can't imagine what the process was like putting this all together so thank you and just know that I really appreciate it. For starters if I could if I could hug a budget I would hug this budget with the counselors. I think it's really cool that we're expanding their contract and specifically their days because I know that back to school process like it's just it's a lot. And then the first thing that I thought about was when it said on page three, the focus is on competitive

[01:53:15] compensation for all of our employees, specifically for recruitment and retainment. I was wondering if any of this would also go to, let's say, mental health resources, because I know that could also play a factor in employee retainment, because let's say you're burnt out, you're not really going to love your job anymore. And then with early childhood expansion, I know the goal is to accommodate 10 additional classroom spaces and I was wondering are any of these projected to be placed in specific elementary schools or have we considered certain partnerships maybe even with

[01:53:50] like government centers so like rec centers and things like that and then with middle school athletics I mean like wow that's just so amazing part of me wishes I was in middle school again

[01:54:01] Thanks Miss Togmi I'll respond about the elementary schools we do have some ideas but we didn't want to talk about that this evening until we've talked to them to the elementary principals and so forth so thank you wonderful thank you and I appreciate and I'm looking forward to all of our conversations I just want to say thank you to our budget team and our budget chair and vice chair for all your hard work and and looking forward to the robust conversations I know we'll have so agenda item 5.0

[01:54:36] 02 fiscal year 23 mid-year budget I will call on Ms. Tolan for the motion. I move that the school board approve revenue and expenditure changes reflected in the FY 23 mid-year budget review as detailed in the agenda item. Is there a second? I will second that. Thank you. Ms.

[01:54:59] Pekarski. Thank you Ms. Tolan. Would I just speak to your motion? Just briefly I think that this mid-year budget review is pretty straightforward we had an opportunity to discuss it some before we left on our winter break there are just four items that we are moving some money into our staffing reserve which I know I was out at one of my elementary schools the other day and you know this school is seeing they're getting new kids literally every day so re-establishing our staffing

[01:55:36] reserves so that they have the potential of hiring some staff even this late into the school year is imperative. We also Dr. Reed had the foresight to start our special education compensatory services fund which we saw some more activity around that in our proposed budget this evening.

[01:55:55] You know that's something that we absolutely need to do to support our special education students. And then we had relatively small amounts for warehouse rack shelving replacements which is you know our shelving has just gotten to the end of its life and we need to just take care of that.

[01:56:15] And I think many of us on the board are fans of the Trades for Tomorrow program and so this small amount of funding just $128,000 allows us to have I think it was five or six additional interns actually participate in that program.

[01:56:31] So just a reminder, those are the four items that we are adjusting the $6.2 million into, and I hope that we will support that. Thank you. Ms. Bukarski, would you like to speak to your second?

[01:56:47] Very briefly, I will just say I believe these are prudent allocations for one-time funds of areas of need that we also have identified, so I urge my colleagues to support this tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. McLaughlin?

[01:57:04] yes before we vote I do want to follow up with one of the questions I had asked two weeks ago about where we stand with food nutritional services as the board's aware we did a 10 million dollar bailout where we sent money over there and the question was whether or not you know we will get money back from that grant fund and as we're also aware in this mid-year budget there is a six hundred thousand dollar Delta in funds lower or lesser

[01:57:43] funds and so you know I just continue to be concerned especially when we don't have our salad bars up and running and we are continuing to hear from families concerns about the food that we are serving so dr. Reed do we have an update update on that? Just a moment, Ms. McLaughlin, Ms. Burden. Yes, we checked with the VDOE and they confirmed that the federal law prohibits us paying back the operating fund for the funds that were

[01:58:19] provided as a supplement to be able to have pay continuity for all of our staff during the pandemic apparently if you are going to provide a supplement it has to be characterized as a loan and then appear on your balance sheets and income statements all of those things as a liability that the fund is carrying if the intention is that it is to be paid back so in the future if we have to do a supplement again which I hope we don't we most certainly would include language that would

[01:58:57] allow us to do that for any prospective supplemental funding. Thank you, Dr. Reed. I just feel the need to say this because you weren't here when this all happened. My colleagues know I was very loud and very clear about my disappointment to the superintendent that Prince William and Loudon had reserves that were not depleted.

[01:59:18] Fairfax County depleted all of their reserves, and then we had to take $10 million of operating funds from our taxpayers and poured into a fund now that, as Ms. Burden noted, we now can't get back. And so, you know, I know it was the pandemic, and I want to give grace, but I hope this serves as a very helpful lessons learned for you and your team that this board really relies on its administration to do this. When the superintendent wanted to do the bailout, we should have done our due diligence then. We shouldn't have found ourselves finding out now that we can't get the

[01:59:58] money back out. It's really, really disappointing. So my colleagues, I'm sorry. I just felt that we never follow up with some of the things that happen, and we will bear to repeat it if we don't understand. The second thing that gives me pause about this mid-year budget is trying to understand that we're at a 74 million dollar projection of fewer funds in ERFC and I don't remember us talking about that but I would like to understand because the mid-year helps us to understand what we maybe have to do for corrective action

[02:00:34] so we don't find ourselves at the end of the year and 74 million is 74 million so dr. Reed I know we're short on time the board had hoped to go back into closed I don't even know if that's going to happen now so my colleagues I'm not expecting us to get all this information tonight but um it gives me pause to frankly vote yes for this mid-year budget when i don't understand what this 74 million is going to mean for us and you know just why why we didn't have the conversations to understand it better before we

[02:01:10] vote so miss does anybody can anybody explain why we're looking at 74 million hold on miss Ms. McLaughlin, did you want to respond? Yes, I'll respond. Thank you, Ms. McLaughlin.

[02:01:26] Mr. Smith or Ms. Burden, do you want to respond to the concern around the ERFC, please? Yeah, I believe, I mean, I'll need to do some research on it, but I believe historically we do see a reduction at mid-year, and it's just a timing issue that that may not be where we end up at the conclusion of the year.

[02:01:49] But we can research that. you know hook up with mr. Martinez and get you an answer on that miss burden I think one of the questions is is this a pattern that's a year-over-year pattern that sort of like tax collections in my prior state there were certain times of the year where you had significant funds and then you know there was a rhythm to that a cadence so is this is this a year-over-year predictive flow or is this unusual I guess is the question or do we know that I don't think it's unusual but i will need to check okay so ms mclaughlin will have a response in the monday

[02:02:28] letter to that marty i was just going to add that it in terms of the how the quarters end and coincide with our mid-year processes it's it's an annual uh process and mr martinez provides that full report annually to the board uh to explain where we are uh in the fourth quarter of the year So, Dr. Reid, I just want to make clear for you, my colleagues, that if we come to the end of the year and that $74 million isn't just a, you know, how the quarters end and there's a loss.

[02:03:04] Would you like to go back? Your time was up. That's fine. Okay. Dr. Reid, would you like to respond? Sure. I'd be happy to respond. We're not going to wait until the end of the year. We're going to get an answer by the end of the week. I understand your concern because you know in the description we do talk about a lower projected investment income and so that would certainly given the economy right now give us pause that it may not be a you know sort of a cycle it may just be the economy is down and that's an income but we will get an answer here within the next week so thank you for the question.

[02:03:42] Thank you. Dr. Anderson. Thank you. Just a very brief question regarding the FY 2023 revenue adjustment, Ms. Burden, the beginning balance of 4.7, which are due to expenditure, expenditure adjustments that were made after the final budget and some tuition increases from Fairfax City.

[02:04:09] Can you speak a little bit to how come this was not included in the first quarter the first quarter I'm sorry this is the mid-year yes the first quarter and funds of what is it now in this mid-year I just reviewed that I think I don't I can't remember the date some point in December or November we don't do a first quarter review the mid-year is the first one I'm so sorry the year end the year end that we approved in September how come this wasn't captured since this came in probably in the

[02:04:47] summer because that's what the mid-year is for is to pick up things that happened after year-end was completed so the sales tax the increase in sales tax that we got and expenditure reductions happened after the year-end was closed and so we have to pick those up and get them into the next year's budget and and that's what the mid-year does okay thank you thank you Dr. Anderson Ms.

[02:05:20] Togby did you want to ask a question on this no worries it happens all the time I just wanted to make sure all right well did you have a response to Dr. Reed are you just had a look on your face I want to make sure I wasn't missing something you know it's just no I was just thinking well given that I don't see any board members wishing to speak I will go ahead and call for the vote the motion is on the screen all those in favor please raise your hand Ms. Bukarski Dr. Anderson Ms. McLaughlin

[02:05:53] Ms. Derenak Koufax Ms. Corbett Sanders Ms. Toland Ms. Omesh Ms. Marin Ms. Keyes Gamara Mr. Frisch and Ms. Cohen that motion passes wonderful thank you thank you to our budget team agenda item six consent agenda are adopted rules of parliamentary procedure Robert's rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval of the board by a single motion many items listed have gone through board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board meeting member excuse me prior to the

[02:06:32] meeting the consent agenda items are on the screen is there any objection to approving the consent agenda hearing and seeing no objection the consent agenda is approved agenda item seven new business The following are new business agenda items.

[02:06:47] There will not be a vote on these items this evening, but action is scheduled at a future meeting. The new business items are on the screen. Without objection, I would like to skip board matters for today. Seeing no objection, we will skip board matters.

[02:07:04] We will adjourn back into close until 10:00 p.m. So we will go back into close, excuse me, until 10:00 p.m. and then we'll adjourn the meeting after that.

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