Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Work Session, Tuesday, May 23, 2023

Date: Tuesday, May 23, 2023
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 3h 24m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mWq46VjzbY
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 2026-11-03. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:02] Ms. Tolan and Ms. Keyes-Gamara have submitted written requests to virtually attend today's work session due to personal conflicts. All those in favor of approving this request? Thank you.

[00:00:17] That is all. I think everybody has agreed to that. So no one has opposed and no one has abstained. You want to jump in? So good evening, everybody. As you know, we have two parts to this evening's work session.

[00:00:35] And so without further ado, I will manage this portion of the work session. So board members, if you wish to speak, please put your nameplate up on an angle so I can see that you want to be recognized.

[00:00:51] And then we will move to the second portion where Dr. Anderson will manage the SRNR work session. So here we go. will kick it over to our staff to begin the introductions and what's being presented to us.

[00:01:09] Thank you very much. Ms. McLaughlin and board Dr. Reed, good evening. My name is Lisa Pilsen. I'm the director of early childhood curriculum and grant management this evening. I'm here with you with our parent policy committee. We have our chair and our treasurer and they will go ahead and introduce themselves. Before we begin, I do want to thank them profusely for all of their hard work their dedication and commitment to our program and our families thank you very much ladies your work has been absolutely amazing thank you good evening and welcome my name is

[00:01:48] jen lindsay and i am the chairperson of the fcps pre-k and early head start policy committee i would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support for this program and for the opportunity to address you this evening on behalf of the program and the parents involved i'm honored to speak on behalf of Pre-K and Early Head Start, along with our director Lisa Pilsen, joining with the staff and other committee members. Good evening everyone.

[00:02:12] Thank you for giving me this opportunity. My name is Vivian Conquer, treasurer of the FCBS Pre-K and Early Head Start Policy Committee. So what does the program do or what is the program about? These are the services the program provided daily for the Pre-K and Early Head Start. Quality service. The FCBS Pre-K an early head stop EHS program provides high quality comprehensive services to children ages 6 weeks to 5 years and a pregnant woman from income

[00:02:51] eligible family living in Fairfax County. Students in the program develop the social, emotional, and foundational academic skills necessary for success in kindergarten. Cumulatedly total of 1,964 preschooler, infants, and a toddler served in a high-quality instruction throughout their 2022-2023 school years.

[00:03:17] Sorry. Parent education. Of the 1,964 preschools and infants and toddlers served, 100% of the families were provided with supports of opportunities for health, nutrition, and parenting education. For example, Ready Rosie, which provides support with family engagement and school readiness.

[00:03:35] With the relationship building, family services staff provide support with in-home services to build a healthy communication boundary between school and home such as meetings conferences and through encouragement of in-person volunteering teaching teams completed a home visit for every child at the beginning and the end of the school year to build stronger partnership with family and staff medical and dental home parents and supporters in finding and establishing consistent medical and dental provider they can visit for school entrance requirement and as ongoing source

[00:04:10] of prevented and in primary care early invention 150 children were supported through the child fine referral process inclusive placement opportunity were expanded through the opening of two inclusive classrooms the family engagement parents took part in in-person and virtual volunteer opportunities such as allowing parents to chaperone field trips and ongoing policy committee meetings providing 885 volunteer hours multi-tiered system of support mtss students Students received high-quality in-person classroom instruction and additional supports when identified

[00:04:48] through MTSS for process for educational, social, and emotional needs of the families and students. Nutrition and a life skill. Families receive informational education on healthy choices to make decisions supported of their children's physical health and wellness.

[00:05:09] Students receive nutritious meals and snacks in the classroom each day, including students with dietary restrictions, such as food allergies, religious dietary practices, and other special needs. Primer-informed support.

[00:05:24] All teachers and staff were provided with training or education to support families who may have experienced trauma. - Quality instruction. FCPS provided high-quality coaching to teachers and instructional assistants so they can provide high-quality instruction.

[00:05:41] In addition to all young learners' equitable access literacy and FCPS STEAM and engineering practices through open-end materials and authentic problem-solving scenarios. The social-emotional learning, social-emotional learning is embedded into the pre-k and early Head Start curriculum and is also taught through conscious discipline and second-step lesson and games. The program provides federally require comprehensive services to children and their family in the areas of eligibility, recruitment, selection, enrollment, and

[00:06:16] attendance, also known as ERSEA, governance, family services, health and nutrition, education, mental health, and a disability to help them be successful and hit a variety of challenges they may face. Next slide, please. FCPS Pre-K and Early Head Start received 5,000 applications for the school year of 22 to

[00:06:43] We had 1,849 spots available. Of those applications, 1,819 students were enrolled in physical year 2022. For the physical year 2023, we had 1,840 enrolled with 1,874 spots available. Due to over-income, too young, too old, or lack of transportation, the program was unable to fill all funded spots.

[00:07:07] We currently have 288 students on the wait list, and we've supported 150 children through the child find process. Now I want you to really look at this map. This map brought more clarification of what our children in the five regions are doing or facing.

[00:07:26] The map on this page indicates the location of programs serving children in the full-day center based on family child care in Fairfax County. The dots on the map indicate the location of center or school-based programs. The shading on the map represents the percentage of children in each pyramid of the FCPS entered kindergarten without a pre-K experience.

[00:07:46] As you can tell when you look at the map, many students and families went without pre-K experiences with social-emotional, developmental, educational, learning experience to be screened for additional support. The reasoning for entering kindergarten without pre-K experience may be due to lack of financial resource, lack of transportation, and the numbers of pre-K classrooms or facilities available.

[00:08:07] Here are some highlights of services that pre-K and early health staff provided for the students and families. In the area of social-emotional learning, the program provided material support to the family who have experienced loss and trauma into immigration, such as greetbacks and welcome backs.

[00:08:31] The program used conscious discipline and second-step lessons and videos. The program held a social-emotional support group of its staff and incorporate trauma-informed practices in all areas of service.

[00:08:47] For children, as young as in the pre-K and early head start program, they need lots of support and guidance to learn about who they are, what they are feeling, and what to do with their feelings. For December, all of a sudden, my son refused to go to school for no reason, was given all the excuses to avoid to attend the school.

[00:09:10] A happy, excited kid, who was very active and happy to go to school every day, think the school started, and after five months, he felt school is boring. I had to listen to him to make sure he's matter, and help him with what's positive about going to school every day, and help him to talk about them every day.

[00:09:34] I can only imagine level of support teaching team and other staff provide to meet the needs of the classroom with full of students every day. For families, the program offers both voucher and in-person options through eligible process as they determine if the family qualify to receive pre-K services.

[00:09:58] During the enrollment process, over 300 families who reported concern were contacted and children were screened. Families were encouraged to be involved in a children education through family center meeting, policy committee meetings, and home visit.

[00:10:17] More family access ReadyRosi online parenting program than ever. And we hope adequate resources are allocated by the school system for the program to continue to provide all mentioned services.

[00:10:32] Throughout the 2022-2023 school year, FCPS pre-K and Early Head Start parents had the opportunity to serve on the Parent Policy Committee, the PPC. An advisory committee to the FCPS superintendent, PPC meetings were held in person and virtually this year. Parents were selected at each pre-K and Early Head Start site to be representatives to the PPC. At the beginning of the school year, we started with 100 plus volunteers, which were representatives to serve as parent leaders to their base school in five regions in the Fairfax County, either as a regional representative or alternate representative.

[00:11:11] Parent policy committee duties included the executive board members teaming together to schedule, facilitate Robert's Rule of Order and planning events so parents, staff, governance staff and children can become more involved and invested in the children's social, emotional and educational development along with growing demands children's need.

[00:11:29] The executive board members met virtually and in person along with planning meetings and creating agendas for staff and parents. Regional representatives attend Parent Policy Committee, representing one of five FCPS Regents, to guide decisions about the program by providing feedback and voting on matters pertaining to education, budget, and operational standards.

[00:11:50] We have six community representatives representing five community-based agencies. We have English Powerment Center, ANOVA Partnership for Healthier Communities, Second Story, Anthem Help Keepers Plus, and UnitedHealthcare. And we have six policy council committees to attend policy council meetings to serve as a bridge between FCPS pre-K, EHS, and with Office for Children.

[00:12:16] In order to become the PPC committee member, all members have to commit to attend quality meetings in-person and virtual, attend in-person school-based meetings, communicate with family service partners, share ideas, and make decisions.

[00:12:33] I would like to introduce our Parent Policy Committee Executive Board. My name is Jen Lindsey, I'm the chairperson. We had Vice Chair Nicola Richards, the Secretary Cindy Montoya, the Treasurer Vivian Kunkel, and Parliamentarian Manetta Smith.

[00:12:54] Next. I want to thank all of our executive board members in the policy council who presented, who is presenting the school board meeting and everyone that took part in presenting this. Next.

[00:13:11] Okay, for our recommendations. One recommendation that we have is to provide an additional teaming staff member each pre-k classroom. This would support staffing coverage for pre-k teachers, IAs, to have their duty-free lunch as well as lower the adult-child ratio to ensure high quality pre-k experience while meeting and involving needs of students enrolling in the program. For example, my son, who attends a pre-k classroom in one of our FCPS schools, the importance of consistency of a positive role model and scheduling for my son and others is a must. When the calendar calls for so

[00:13:49] many days off especially in the beginning of the start of school or even short breaks like the weekend it can be hard transition for students and parents and staff alike to be honest the first month was such a transition for my son i almost pulled him from the program when the main teacher was gone due to sickness or scheduling needs and just having a teacher assistant there and having a substitute was very hard when unfortunately they both were gone for the children there was meltdowns in the halls and in the classrooms they definitely needed more assistance. Our second recommendation: to include pre-k classrooms in the TTT

[00:14:27] staffing project school so that the pre-k students, so the pre-k students I'm sorry, can be included in special classes like PE, art, and music. This would ensure the pre-k teachers have dedicated planning time. Although the grant provides sub funds for weekly teacher planning time, the availability for substitutes has subsequently decreased resulting in inconsistent substitutes coverage for teachers planning time. This also ties into having more staff help and more time for children to explore more. This was also especially hard not over for my child but for others to spend the entire day and somewhat

[00:15:04] outside in one classroom. The children need the whole experience when being a part of the pre-k and early head start program which also helps the teachers and staff with more planning times and breaks for both teachers and children. Our other recommendation that we're asking for was provide additional early Childhood Center office staffing, specializing in areas of early childhood mental health and behavior support to build the capacity of teaching teams and to provide trauma-informed support to students and families. All of this, unfortunately, cannot fall under the teacher as the ratio demands for allotted agenda time, educational needs for children. We need the extra support so teachers

[00:15:43] and children can have the emotional support for the children in need and children attending the class and quality time in school. This is a continued problem of practice. We're asking for, We're asking the board to provide access to bus transportation for all pre-K students in FCPS.

[00:16:00] Even though not being served at their base school, many families lack bus transportation for pre-K, especially if only space available is not at their base school. Without transportation, those families who are unable to provide their own transportation are unable to accept FCPS spot. When asking for this, we're hoping you see how important attending school is and how much lack of transportation can affect the efforts of parents trying to give their children the opportunity they need to attend school. I myself live within walking distance which is a length and I want you to really think about this one or one and a half miles that's four to six times around a track to

[00:16:37] put it in a better perspective. There are children outside of the walking distance who do not have transportation who are currently in need of the pre-k experience. Parents are trying to provide their children with the education and social and emotional development they will need in everyday life. I would like to thank the school board again for this opportunity to speak in front of you and and we hope you can consider our recommendations for the Pre-K and Early Head Start and FCPS.

[00:17:03] Thank you. Great. Thank you so much for the presentation. Before I move to board member questions, I did want to highlight that as we were looking at the PowerPoint presentation and then the actual printed report, we did not see the written recommendations that you just covered at the end.

[00:17:23] So I don't know if it just didn't make it into the page. Oh, we're looking at it. in the full inside the full report okay so that was a for some reason her her copy doesn't have that on there so we were concerned nobody had it okay that's good to know that's it no no apologies just glad to know it's it's in there okay good because that's the heart the meat and potatoes of the whole thing it correct and we're hoping you can yeah well again thank you so much for not only your service but also for presenting here this evening I do see

[00:18:02] that just about every board member is going to be asking questions so uh we'll go ahead and get started um i have ms darinette koufax followed by mr frisch and then laura jane cohen thank you so much for being here tonight and thank you for your time throughout the year um we really appreciate the work that you're doing and this report was so professional and so comprehensive and very clear so we do appreciate that very much um i guess i will start with my question um have you priced out and this might be for staff, the cost associated with some of the recommendations.

[00:18:39] I'm going to start with transportation. No, the transportation cost has not been priced out, and it's not so much a cost situation, it's the location. So transportation is provided for all the children who are within the school's boundaries.

[00:18:59] It's just a matter of the location of need and where a child lives. If there's a school in that boundary that does not have pre-K transporting outside of the boundary, that may or may not be feasible.

[00:19:14] So that has not been, it has not been priced out, but we can get that information. Okay. I think that part's important. And I will speak specifically about the heat map that we have here. And where you see, just so you ladies know what I represent, I represent the regions of the pyramids of Edison, Hayfield, Mount Vernon, West Potomac, and Lewis.

[00:19:41] So all of those have high needs for some 30, both Lewis and Mount Vernon pyramids, 35% or greater. So if you can just, I think I know the answer, but for the public's sake, talk to us a little bit about when you say the percentage of students without pre-K experience, what are the reasons for that?

[00:20:05] Some of it is what you started talking about in your last thing, the sites are not available. Some of the sites not available, some is parental choice, transiency, there's a plethora of reasons. Sometimes it's information, parents don't know what's available to them.

[00:20:21] especially whenever they're moving new to the area moving from another country there's there's or from another state they may or may not know what's accessible to them but one of them we do know is the availability of pre-k classrooms and the number of slots available at each school.

[00:20:39] Okay. And we as a board have committed to this when we adopt the strategic plan. That is one of our goals. So we are looking forward to that, as well as there is a site on the Route 1 corridor, which this board has also said we're going to look at the planning stages, the one in the Pinewood Lakes, which is supposed to be an elementary school.

[00:21:03] So I want you to know that we are aware of these situations and we are looking forward to making certain that we are moving in the right direction. And we understand the value, the real value of a quality pre-K education and what it means to you as parents as well as what it means to your children when they come to our doors ready to learn and in a place where they are comfortable.

[00:21:29] like you said the transitions and some of that is already complete they're learning all of those growth skills so I guess my other thing would be other cost barriers to some of these recommendations have you priced out any of them in the current one in it particularly because we would have to gradually do this so talking about additional staffing for each pre-k classroom is that something you could build upon or is that something you have thought out or priced out so it's an ask from our policy council I can't speak

[00:22:08] to what they've priced out but knowing that it's a it's roughly $50,000 for an instructional assistant that would be the full compensation package and whenever you're looking at about a hundred and it would be a hundred and 16 classrooms for next year so 116 classrooms times fifty thousand dollars would be about your your mark okay for that additional it's additional instructional assistant per class one of the things that would be um a possibility to make things to support with it maybe the ask of one

[00:22:45] additional instructional assistant per teaching team versus per school versus per classroom that person may be able to rotate through so that would give a lower clock a lower cost versus um and how many how many how many centers would that be instead of 116 positions it would be how many so that would be we'll be in 64 schools 64 schools okay all right um i have no further questions at this time but again thank you so much for this um excellent report thank you

[00:23:23] Thank you, Ms. Derenak-Koufax. We now have Mr. Frisch, Ms. Cohen, and then Ms. Tolan. Thank you. First thing I want to do is point out in the map that there are, there's at least one pyramid that is over 35%, and the colors don't go dark enough to account for that.

[00:23:45] So when we're looking at need, the map even ends before it shows the totality of the need. want to talk a little bit about some of the numbers when we look at the number of applications 5,000 that obviously doesn't represent the totality of the need looking at the map how many students is this accounting for when you say when you're so if for example the Marshall Pyramid has 15% of students

[00:24:20] showing up for kindergarten without pre-K. Herndon has 38%. Those percentages are fixed to a certain number. Absolutely. How many kindergartners are showing up in our school system without pre-K? Without a pre-K experience? So for 2023 with no pre-K experience, so first of all, for kindergartners coming into kindergarten with pre-K, with, I'm sorry, total, total enrollment 12,005 and these are the numbers from that's with pre-k or without this is our total

[00:24:57] our total 12,005 that's 100 of our kindergartners in february so this is our february enrollment pool of the 12,005 2,900 of those students did not have a pre-k experience and that's in the entire school division 2,900 county-wide all right um i'm interested from the superintendent looking at the goals that we see in this report how do they align with the strategic plan or your vision for

[00:25:31] the future you're talking about the goals or the recommendations um right now we are really struggling in fact we at cabinet this morning discussed all of the new preschool program classrooms were opening this fall that we currently have no staff slated for so i think our priority right now is to make sure that our classes are staffed to the current ratios for us to start the year because we've grown lisa i'm going to say over 40 preschool classrooms division

[00:26:07] wide that are the result of child find yes so that's a significant number so i think one of the things in terms of a priority would be to make sure we're funded from the get-go i think the outcomes in the report are absolutely in alignment mr fish with where we want to go i think we're going to have to use our current resources for example in the sel and mental health support i think we have staff that are doing that now for k-12 that we need to bridge to support pre-k so i think that that the knowledge is in the division we just need to maybe have that team connect with lisa's team to provide more direct support

[00:26:47] but the outcomes are certainly in alignment because i know when we visit schools together You're always looking for places where we can locate classrooms. Speaking of ChildFind, 150 students identified by ChildFind, is that the full number of kids who need extra support that are arriving in our system?

[00:27:11] And do all of those students have any access to inclusive settings? So you're asking two questions. Yep. the number of children that are being identified for special education support through our child find children in which we are going through the testing process with them that are brought to our attention the number of children that are found eligible are being serviced in some way shape or form whether that child is being serviced within a pre-k classroom whether they are referred for

[00:27:47] self-contained into a self-contained setting or if it's a child that has gone through child find however they are not in preschool at all and it's a some families that's their preference they would prefer prefer to receive services in the home they're received they receive services there or in other situations where a resource teacher goes to a classroom where um so say for instance a child that's in a child care center a resource teacher through child find would support them i don't

[00:28:20] want to speak a hundred percent to that because that's really not my wheelhouse that is um the departments of special services it's special ed um i happen to have a couple nuggets of knowledge because i did i myself put my own children through through child find so um that's the information from there in terms of children that are receiving class space we have about 200 i have excuse me while i consult my my technology there we go so we have about 252 children currently with

[00:28:56] disabilities that are serviced in our pre-k program and those are children that are serviced out of in the general education setting some of the students about 153 they have sped resource teachers that are coming in to the classroom and giving them services so those would be our ECCB teachers they teach half day in a self-contained setting and then they provide special education services to a child in a pre-k classroom then we have about 85 students that are dually enrolled so that dual enrollment is they attend a the gen ed setting for half of the day and then go to an ECCB or a

[00:29:35] self-contained setting for the other half of the school day see what else we We do have inclusion classrooms. We have five inclusion, I'm sorry, not five, we have seven ESIP programs.

[00:29:51] So in our ESIP programs, that's where the teacher is duly certified for special education, pre-K, and gen ed. And we have five of those, seven classes where five of the students have an IEP and eight students do not.

[00:30:06] Do you have any idea what the transportation situation is for those classrooms? So our students that are in a specialized program, I can't speak to that, like if they're self-contained.

[00:30:21] Students that attend our program, I can't say if they're a child that qualifies for transportation or not. If they do, they get the transportation. If it's a child that some families choose to drive, whatever the case may be. Children who are, say for instance, they attend half day in pre-K, half day in ECCB, they are transported through transportation okay at that midway point well i and the 252 that you identify as having special education services those are not all from child find they're they're

[00:30:57] either child find or referrals from the classroom teacher all right uh i appreciate it and i very much thank you for your service on the committee and anybody else who's here thank you very much i think this is going to help us a lot as we deliberate on how to meet the needs of the community knowing that we still need significant support from uh you know our county and state partners as well as any grant money we can get our hands on of course thank you thank you mr frisch uh ms cohen followed by ms tolan followed by um ms pokarski thank you i i'm glad to follow

[00:31:32] up on that yeah i you know we'll flag at we i feel like we keep having this conversation and and no disrespect whatsoever meant to francine furby who does a great job but our transportation seems to be limiting the limiting factor in like every single arena we keep saying about placement of kids and um ability to attend pre-k i just we you know i don't know what it is but i feel like we've got to come up with some other solution if it's working with wmata if it's working with the fairfax connector if it's you know i don't i don't know the answer but there's got to be an answer

[00:32:10] where we're able to get kids where they need to be because just not being able to get them there i mean talk about the inequity and in that and then we you know bus kids to aap but that's a whole other story um i was going to ask at acsd this came up last week um that i guess in the past that we'd had some partnership programs with community organizations that would do as you discuss like a dual enrollment half day half day kind of program and it sounded like there are several schools where that was the case for years and then and

[00:32:46] we used to transport in between and we've stopped doing that have you all heard any has anyone come to you about that I'm sorry I don't have okay let me send people your way I will connect you sure because now their kids are getting a partial day program and there's no way they can make that work with work so we don't we don't want to do that um another question i had of community of preschools and we keep hearing a lot about inclusive preschools of course we've all um had a lot of great testimony at the board level about it but in in our home school like in cherry run for example our our program

[00:33:24] our pack program had community kids always that it brought in making an inclusive setting and an awesome opportunity for parents to be able to have their kids in an incredible preschool setting how many of our schools and of course when it's your kid's school you think that's how it's done um and since of course being on the board i've learned that's not the case do we have any sense of what what pre-k programs are using a community kids kind of model in helping to round out some of those classes so that we can make the full number of classes for kids thank you so much that's a

[00:34:02] great question and we were actually i was talking about this with denise forest um and mike bloom and dr boyd last week that is something i don't know the exact i can't answer the number then the question in terms of the exact number of families that receive that but it's definitely something that we are looking to actively employ as a possibility to create more inclusive opportunities for children especially in our schools where based on the population that they serve traditionally

[00:34:35] they're not going to have a um a high number of families that would qualify for the pre-k program due to income eligibility so in a school that they only have a pack program at say a wolf trap or a westbrier some a school of that particular caliber that might be a great opportunity to have community models be a part of the program that would be great i would love for us to learn more about that and how we can how we can support that um you know another question i have when we look at the transportation issue i think several of us had contacts over the last

[00:35:13] couple years from the folks at bull run elementary um who are located at bull run and talked about you know the the frustration of the bull run that's an area we see on the map that has huge need but then no access to public transportation anywhere near the site and so i know for years we talked about do we move it where do we move it how do we you know and i think we see in that whole side and i'm stealing a little bit this is more stella's domain than mine of the area but we have almost nothing located in that region five area and so i wondered is that due to

[00:35:52] income eligibility is it due to just not having enough physical space oh sorry my time definitely go back if you don't mind so yes income eligibility and we are opening so that's region five we do have an additional pre-k classroom that's slated to open at um eagle view elementary school that's an as a part of the expansion um and there's an e-sip classroom and no they're not very close to one another there is a pre-k class at Virginia run but it's just one there's there's not a high

[00:36:29] population of families that need that particular service and I don't know what other opportunities would that we could best fit put out there if we have the the site where their families are getting screened and things of that nature public transportation is critical I agree okay I have Ms. Tolan, followed by Ms. Bukarski, and then Ms. Omash.

[00:36:59] - Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Ms. Pilsen, I wanted to just ask you, in conjunction with some George Mason colleagues, gave a very impassioned presentation to the skipped committee a couple of months ago about the parent engagement and the importance of parent engagement.

[00:37:20] And so I was super excited to see the parent council here today. I'm sure that's part of that work. I was wondering if you could explain a little bit about that work and how it ties with what you have presented here today, because I think that's where some of your maps and things are coming from.

[00:37:36] It might be interesting for the public to know about that partnership. Can you repeat your question, Ms. Tolan? I had a hard time hearing you. Okay, I'm sorry. I was just trying to highlight the partnership that you have with George Mason to work on some of these family engagement things around pre-K.

[00:37:57] I know you gave a presentation to Skip a couple of months ago, and I was just asking a little bit more about how that fits with what we're talking about today. Yes, so the partnership with George Mason is parent empowerment, and for there to be that opportunity for parents to express their particular needs and being empowered to advocate for particular services.

[00:38:28] And that's through the Office for Children partnership with FCPS and looking at ways where the traditional pre-K opportunities that we do have available, and it's not just pre-K and child care from the school system, but also the child care that's in family home daycare centers and also our regular, you know, your kinder care, things of that nature.

[00:38:54] Some of those programs do not meet the needs that families have whenever it comes to child care needed beyond the traditional workday of 9 to 5, parents being empowered to do that particular work. And I'm continuing to collaborate with our Office for Children colleagues to discuss ideas that we could potentially present moving forward to create those nontraditional options for families.

[00:39:24] Thank you. I also wanted to go back to something that Dr. Reed said when she mentioned we've got some things going on, you know, within our schools already, and that there are opportunities for collaboration.

[00:39:40] I know I represent the Herndon Pyramid, which is a pyramid with high need, and so a number of our schools there, I'm thinking particularly of Coates Elementary, they are running kind of a parent college or, you know, a way to really educate parents about school and how parents can help.

[00:40:01] And so I think some, you know, I just mentioned that some conversations with them perhaps might help you with some of the work that you're doing at the pre-K level too. I mean, in many cases, they may be the same families, you know, with pre-K students and elementary school students.

[00:40:16] I know where I just had a conversation with my MSAOC representative today also, and they're very focused on family enrichment opportunities. So I think it's important for us to make sure that you guys are all collaborating on these incredible efforts to work with our families.

[00:40:35] Absolutely. And that also ties into the work with the neighborhood network groups through Office for Children. The information that is being provided to families in those particular avenues. There's a lot of information and through our comprehensive services in our program, there's a lot of information to get to parents and making sure that we're reaching them in the right ways is definitely imperative so that they have a lot of information.

[00:41:07] have access great the only other thing I just wanted to clarify the 5,000 I didn't quite catch this the 5,000 people who applied I know some of them applied they weren't eligible but how many of those 5,000 people were actually eligible and could not participate I will have staff get that exact number for you um I don't have that that exact number okay apologize all right I was just thinking I don't have the numbers in front of me but it was like 1800-ish 1820 I actually

[00:41:44] participated there were 300 on the waiting list I wonder if that's it or are there hundreds hundreds of other people that are in that application pool so so if I can get that information that would be great yes we can get that information for you thank you thank you Ms. Tolan Ms. Bukarski thank you for your work and for being here today most of my questions have actually been answered but I want to kind of look at the map a little bit to make sure that I understand

[00:42:17] exactly what it's reporting I see the percentages and of course population is quite different so do we have some wrong numbers so that we understand in context kind of what this means across regions and pyramids I do have some raw numbers unfortunately I don't have my laptop sitting in front of me to be able to give those to you we do have the breakdown of how many children and percentage of children that enter pre-k enter kindergarten without a pre-k

[00:42:56] experience and to take that a step further we have children that are entering pre-k without a pre-k experience that would not qualify for the program right and and taking it a step further and looking at the number of children that are entering pre-k I'm sorry entering kindergarten without a pre-k experience who qualify for free and reduced meals there is those students would most likely qualify for our VPI program or for head start so looking at those numbers and we do have those we can get those to you yeah I think that

[00:43:31] would be very helpful to kind of you know for us to see what the disparities are and, you know, what programs could serve. I mean, just so we understand exactly what we're looking at. I would like to see that. I think I had asked last year, too. So if you can, I would love to kind of delve into that. I think it's important to note that no matter where we are in this county, there is great need. And I think sometimes, you know, in our conversations that gets lost, but I look at Region 5 where I am and you look at, you know, 25%, like those

[00:44:10] are very high numbers, you know, and so that's where I'd like to see that population break down and there are not a lot of sites and there is not public transportation out there, which is yet another, you know, so I'm excited that we're looking at this, excuse me, our strategic plan and that you know follow on that we did or whatever the budget amendment last year but I don't want us to forget the entire county that all of these kids you know I don't want us to get stuck in that percentage because

[00:44:49] every one of these kids is worthy of that experience and should have access can you talk a little bit more about the income eligibility like is there any like any space for advocacy for us when it comes to what that looks like I would I would think we're using some kind of federal standard at least for the yes yeah yes so the VPI threshold is 200% of the federal party line okay and we can

[00:45:24] depending on certain circumstances we can go higher however with VPI only fit we can only 15 percent of our population can be above that that 200 okay so that's not that's not a lot no we do and and in thinking about we're in fairfax county yes it's expensive to live here and we have families who they could be above the 350 threshold they could and not qualify for

[00:45:57] anything however that's whenever families are are stuck with a choice um is there opportunity for advocacy for alternative subsidy I think the board would be a great voice to advocate for that at the state level advocating for a threshold being higher than 200% that may help us catch more families it's it's difficult to say and given that we're in the state of Virginia the income yeah the income disparities are very different what the income is like here is not going to be

[00:46:36] the same as it is in Emporia. Virginia is very different. Yeah, well, you answered that. That was actually where I was kind of getting to, so you answered that. Yeah, thank you for your work. Obviously, we have a long way to go, and I am looking forward to the strategic plan being a help in that, but we cannot do this alone in Fairfax County, and I look forward to seeing that information. Thank you. You did have a question about a specific number that I do want to circle back to. So when we talk about the number of children, this is not by, it's not broken down

[00:47:15] by regions or pyramids, but collectively. This is based on that 200% eligibility. Who are those students that are starting kindergarten without a pre-K experience and qualify for free or reduced meals is 1740 so we have 1740 students that would qualify for our program that are entering kindergarten without a pre-k experience thank you okay board members i do want to just give a time check because as you know the second portion of our work session is going to be very extensive on

[00:47:55] the annual sr and r review so uh we're technically slated to wrap up in about eight minutes and i still have uh five board members remaining so i do hope that we can um maybe tighten up our our time maybe uh look at what are the most important comments you want to share on what you've heard and then we can always follow up with more questions from um staff and our panelists not trying to tell you how to handle your turns but just watching the clock um it is mizomish followed

[00:48:31] by Ms. Seizmerheiser, then Karen Kieskamara and Dr. Anderson. Yeah, Ms. Lindsay, Ms. Kunkel, thank you so much for your presentation and Ms. Pilsen certainly for supporting their work. A couple of things, I guess as we talk about the, specifically the bus transportation costs, but really everything, you know, one of the recommendations is this position for a support person.

[00:48:56] You know, Dr. Reed, I'm reflective of how, you know, some advocacy, very minor advocacy on athletic trainers or fine arts stipends led to an instant budget item, you know, one million for fine arts, half a million for athletic trainers, that reflected itself.

[00:49:15] and you know this position in my mind is a comparable not going to say less more important perhaps more important piece so I just want to be reflective of that and how we make decisions on the budget and what we consider a priority not to say athletic trainers and fine arts are not important but I want to see a method to how we do that so perhaps you know I don't know if you want to comment after I make this next point but so on the bus transportation piece we're all concerned about it. It came up last year you guys had the same recommendation in your presentation,

[00:49:51] and I am mindful that you all are expecting me to say it, but we still pay over six million dollars to bus kids across the county for AAP centers that they might have in their own schools. And that's for over 5,000 kids that we justify bussing them out of their school community despite them having a program in-house in most cases for over 50 43 sites so I am mindful that this is a much smaller ask for less than 2,000 kids and you know I think that if our transportation folks are able to do that

[00:50:28] then I don't see why we can't easily transfer this money over in cases where the program is available at the school level so I just wanted to highlight that and kind of emphasize the importance of taking a look at this and just equity on the whole when we think about how we choose to fund or not fund this.

[00:50:47] I don't know, Dr. Reid, maybe I know that as we move with the strategic plan, this is obviously a core component in what we've chosen to center. So I imagine those kinds of decisions will be made in the coming years, with or without me. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on just those two pieces.

[00:51:03] Sure. And thank you, Ms. Lamesh. I think I would like to hear from Lisa and the team, who are the students that weren't able to be transported, where did they live, and where was it they were headed? Because I'm not sure what the scope of what the ask is without that level of data, so I'll want that.

[00:51:23] Secondly, I think that we also need to look at location for the early childhood programs. If the location was accessible, transportation wouldn't be an issue, right? so i how do we mitigate this because we have thousands of uh littles that are not being served this is not you know just a small group of of children this is um a significant issue but the those that the transportation wasn't able to provide i want to know where they were and where were we trying to get them and it could be we haven't sat down to diagram that right maybe it's the hour of the program i know we talked about that in cabinet too because buses are freed up at at certain times of the day,

[00:52:03] where transportation would be much more manageable. So maybe it's the program time and design that also could make a big difference, right? There are a number of solutions that we could work to resolve if we have an understanding of the scope of the concern. So I'm happy to sit down with transportation in early childhood and take a look at that.

[00:52:21] - Yeah, and to be clear, I know this is a shared priority. I mean, I know you feel very strongly about this. - Oh, 100%. - Yeah, 100%. - I don't know, Ms. Pilsen or anyone else, even if it's just qualitative, If you have a sense, just for our own intuition around it. So, I don't have an exact number.

[00:52:38] That's fine. At how many children that we have that they don't accept our program based on transportation. We know how many families that are accessing the transportation, but not how many did not. And that's something that my team is working on tracking moving forward.

[00:52:56] Is that the extent of the concern? Just those who are not enrolling? As related for transportation, yes. Well, that's one of them. And for some families, it's a matter of the hours. They need 6 to 6 care, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.

[00:53:15] So they don't have the before work care or the after work care for their children. There's varying reasons. Sure. And there's families that they apply, but they're not eligible for the program.

[00:53:31] Yeah. I mean, I don't know, Dr. Reed, maybe this is an opportunity to even leverage this team, you know, if we want to be a little innovative and change things up, rather than have them come provide the same recommendations every year that we know are an issue, maybe we can have them work with staff on being creative and finding solutions to these specific, maybe it's transportation this year, whatever it is, and that way we can move towards something that can be adopted the following year.

[00:53:57] - Thank you, and I appreciate Lisa's staff, and I think we have staff here that can work with the team for sure. I think we have a shared interest in doing this well. We know that if we're gonna close achievement gaps, the younger we start, the more likely it is to happen. - Right, but that it's like, we're gonna tackle this.

[00:54:13] This is gonna get done this year, we're gonna figure out how, rather than let's just take a look at it every year. - And Ms. Omesh, I would be remissed if I did not share that there has been a lot of gains. So that's why the transportation piece was not put as one of the top three recommendations, but just as a continued problem of practice.

[00:54:33] We've been very strategic in putting our, for example, adding the pre-K programs to schools that may have a special education program in their site that broadens that radius for transportation and provides an opportunity for an inclusive experience for some children.

[00:54:54] Also, making sure that when we're placing children, they're in sites that have an AAP Center or a program in Enhanced Autism Center, a program that does provide transportation beyond the boundaries, that does create a broader scope.

[00:55:13] Our colleagues in facilities and transportation have been very supportive and accommodating and helpful in making rerouting situations where we've had families enroll later to make things happen for children to be able to access the program.

[00:55:30] The number of spaces is also a contributor sometimes. So the transportation piece, I wouldn't feel good about sitting here and saying, transportation like isn't doing their part we're all doing our part it's a heavy lift and we also have to think about there might be a spot available but where that child lives and where that spot's available it's not appropriate to have the child on the bus for that long so there's a lot of things that we have to take into consideration and your passion is really appreciated thank you so much yeah miss omish we spent this morning at cabinet um with miss furby's uh presentation on school

[00:56:05] bell times i think we're adjusting 15 to 20 schools to accommodate transportation for preschool so i know our transportation that's why i'm saying i need to know who these kids are where they are living and where the program is because their transportation's gone to great lengths to accommodate um getting our preschoolers to class so i appreciate lisa what you added there yeah and no doubt i appreciate that i know that's my time i'll take a go back if we are and are going to give those but um thank you great um so i do have ms sizemar heiser followed by karen keys gamara

[00:56:44] and then dr anderson thank you and many of my questions have been asked and answered so i will try to be brief being mindful of time um i just wanted to ask i was a little confused so um to clarify you said that we have seven inclusive classrooms right now east of classrooms five

[00:57:04] students with IEPs, eight that do not, right? In my back of the envelope math, that's 91 students total, 35 with IEPs, and you don't need to confirm my math for me, but that's just kind of my back, but then earlier somewhere you said there are 252 kids with disabilities in pre-K and gen ed, and 153 SPED teachers fit in, so I wasn't sure how that fit with the inclusive classrooms. Are those in non-inclusive classrooms, but then there's 252 in gen ed?

[00:57:31] Those are non-inclusive classrooms. How are they non-inclusive gen ed? I'm confused. Well, you know what? That is, you know, you've fixed our vernacular. It is inclusive, absolutely. There are students that have IEPs that are, they're in this general education setting.

[00:57:47] They're not served in a self-contained program is what I'm saying. So they're in private preschools? No, they're in pre-K. Yes, and. Yes, they're in our pre-K. Okay. And they have an IEP.

[00:58:03] and they receive services, our resource teachers from our community-based programs, they provide the services to the children in the general education setting. So it didn't seem like those were included in the 90, in the 35 with IEPs in the inclusive preschools.

[00:58:21] That's why I'm confused with the math. If we say 252 with disabilities are served in gen ed preschools, but there's only seven inclusive classrooms with 35. I don't know, 35 and 252 aren't the same to me. So I was just very confused by those two different, are those not considered inclusive preschools?

[00:58:39] What's the difference? - It's a program model that we've been piloting. - Okay, that's what I was trying to get. That's what I was trying to, 'cause to me if you're included, you're included, right? - Yes, absolutely. - So that's what I was trying to understand, that difference. So there's a particular program that you have for inclusive preschools that you have seven current sites.

[00:58:56] - That we've been piloting. Okay, I just wanted to make sure I was understanding that correctly. So what's the difference between the program and the ones that are in gen ed? So the difference is there's, this teacher is dually certified, so they're not receiving their services from someone else.

[00:59:16] Somebody's not coming in, that teacher is dually certified in the classroom that's with the child all day. So there's no push in from that disability? No. Okay, no push in, no pull out. I just, because it's a small number, right, but if we're doing inclusion in other settings, I think it's important to lift that up, is why I was trying to bring that up.

[00:59:32] Absolutely right. You're absolutely right. So, yes, it is happening in other settings. It just looks different. Okay. And then I did want to lift up, I think it is important to advocate, you know, I'm really glad pre-K is a strong part of our strategic plan, But, you know, I think somebody says we need partnerships around this, right?

[00:59:50] Because I think the numbers you share, that 1740 students, I believe, qualify for the program. That's more than half of the students who are entering kindergarten without pre-K. Because I wrote down 2023 are entering kindergarten without pre-K in 1740.

[01:00:07] 2,900 are entering without pre-K. So it's still about half. It's about a little more than half. So that's a large number. I'm just wondering what we can do on advocacy around that with our partners as well to lift that issue up I think that's an important piece. I wanted to mention Because again, I think this is an important priority But again schools can't do this alone and so as we're looking at our Advocacy and maybe our legislative package and things I think some of this these data points are really important to lift up So I wanted to flag that And then I was wondering when you look at the heat map right in the in the access and also you talk about screenings and who's bringing their, either referring their children

[01:00:46] for screenings or who's being, are you looking at based on demographics, are you looking at sort of when we're looking for family engagement outreach, are we working with, you know, different equity teams and cultural competency around that and looking at cultural barriers as well to accessing pre-K, because I think it's an important piece to look at.

[01:01:03] When you're asking about screenings, what exactly do you mean? Well, my time is up, but I'll clarify the question, just screenings for either special education eligibility or people who are reaching out to say hey i might qualify for this preschool program you know how much of that are we doing in a way that's culturally competent given our changing demographics to make sure that all of our families we're engaging our families in a way that will um so it'd be just interesting to have some demographic data and i'll stop because i'm beyond my time but thank you thank you ms seismer heiser um i have ms keys kamara followed by dr

[01:01:35] yes thank you um i unfortunately i'm not able to turn my um camera on i just received a notice but i want to thank you guys for bringing such an excellent report and um allowing us to highlight on something that is really really critical if i could just ask a few questions you may have addressed this forgive me can you tell me the number of children that are in the program that come from child uh recommendations from child find we have two let me get the exact number hold on i

[01:02:12] have to look at my sticky dr keys keys mark in one second i appreciate the elevation although most times doctor i mean attorneys are called doctor but i appreciate it thank you so we have um 252 students that have been found eligible for support in our program through childbind okay um and are

[01:02:40] we identifying the number of students that are esau no we don't okay um has that been difficult or you know i guess as i look at our demographics i'm thinking if that's a me we want to make sure that we're providing teachers that can address that that community are you talking about english as a second language yes ma'am supports okay um we do work collaboratively with the esau office

[01:03:19] whenever families complete the paperwork we know if there's a language other than english spoken in the home through the application process um but in terms of having a specific program dedicated in the same respect as identification for special education services we do not follow those same practices we provide those services in the classroom for all children because the vast

[01:03:51] majority of our children have english as a second language okay okay well i was asking that because we've had a lot of conversation with strategic with the strategic plan and there's a focus on on preschool and identifying what those needs are i think in our conversations is is helpful um i see a recommendation you're also asking for an additional team staff member is that specifically for planning only or is is there an additional need the additional need is is to provide that

[01:04:28] reduced ratio for the student to adult time, that time, attention. We are continuing to see significant big behaviors with our children that are coming to school and needs for interventions and supports and things of that nature. And that explicit time for one-on-one attention or time to model and teach and reteach particular skills with children, it does take away an adult out of an equation so it's for that reason that we're requesting an

[01:05:05] additional staff member okay part of the reason i asked that question is i'm wondering if there is a specific plan for for example behavior intervention specialists is that part of the staffing that you're considering so we have we're asking for the additional mental health staffing that that would be a skill set that we would be seeking out and staff that would support teachers on that resource base with strategies and skills to support children who are still learning to

[01:05:40] develop how to express themselves oh i think this is absolutely critical i guess where i'm trying to go is as we're looking at the strategic plan if we can incorporate what those specific needs are i I feel like this perhaps may be the tip of the iceberg if I'm reading this correctly in terms of it sounds as though the issues we're seeing in K through 12, we're getting, they're starting very early and this is an opportunity for true intervention.

[01:06:14] And so I'm wondering if perhaps those needs need to be included when we talk about our strategic plan. And if you had to identify what those were, I hate to put you on the spot, or perhaps you can tell us that later, but I'm wondering if it would be helpful to start from there so that we can include that in our discussions going forward.

[01:06:38] I think that it would be a great opportunity for that comprehensive early intervention to include mental health and behavior supports as additional staffing for pre-K.

[01:06:57] That would benefit children, not just in the pre-K program, but beyond. Okay. And if you had to identify an area where a location and or transportation were most needed is, I'm sorry if I missed it in the report, are you able to tell us that now or at a later time?

[01:07:17] A specific area? I don't have that information where I'm not able to tell you at this time where we have the most request for, we have need that is not able to be satisfied due to transportation being a barrier.

[01:07:36] Okay. All right. Well, Dr. Reed, I'd like to follow up on this to make sure we're trying to address those concerns. Otherwise, we're just delaying when we hear about the concerns. So perhaps that's another way to address this is to identify those early problems that we can address here and or be prepared for when those kids arrive in K-12. Thank you.

[01:08:04] Thank you, Ms. Keyes-Gamara. I do want to just alert my colleagues that we're running almost 15 minutes behind. Dr. Anderson and I will quickly take our turn, and then we really need to move on to the SR&R portion of the work session, and we are going to allow a five-minute break because we're going to be here for about three and a half hours total is what we were slated for.

[01:08:32] Thank you so much for the support and all this informative presentation. I just wanted to talk a little bit about the page three and the report that spoke to vacancies. It said that 129 students were on the waiting list because of turnover.

[01:08:50] Can you speak a little bit more specifically in terms of how many vacancies you are experiencing and where those may be located? So we do have some vacancies that right now all of our positions are filled.

[01:09:09] We had vacancies that were filled with the teacher residence program for this current school year. And as we're looking to next year, we're hiring just like everyone else is. We do have to maintain a wait list as a requirement of the grant.

[01:09:28] And the reason for that is whenever a child, if a child moves out, leaves the program for whatever reason, we have children to fill those slots that are now vacant within 30 days.

[01:09:44] Thank you. I've been hearing a little bit in this conversation regarding the certification of teachers. So my understanding that the certification for the teachers in these programs are similarly to our K-5 teachers? So for the pre-K -- No.

[01:10:00] There's a licensure. There's a license. Yes. Yes. The same exact licensure. They may be just early childhood. Early childhood. Exactly. Thank you. So Dr. Reed, just speaking to the recruitment efforts, are we including this part of our work when we are recruiting to staff our schools and our classrooms?

[01:10:20] Yes, we are. And I think Lisa is a key piece of that, but I know that Dr. Wilson and her team are -- and our principals. We heard this morning from principals who have multiple openings for the fall and are actively recruiting. Thank you. Ms. Pilsen, you also spoke a little bit ago in terms of parents electing to not have their students participate, even though they may have been secured a spot. Hours is one of the things that you mentioned. Is there anything else that would lead a parent that you know of that have led parents to not take their spots? Not at this

[01:10:57] time off the top of my head some of our families it's cultural whenever they find out it's a full day and they have to come every day that might be problematic there may be situations where a child is family dynamics they're with one parent for X many days of the week the other parent the other days of the week one of the parents don't don't live in the county those are contributors to some anecdotes for why families either exit the program or deny the service. Thank you for that. You know, as a school board member who represents Falls Church,

[01:11:34] Justice, and Annandale, pretty much they're very dark on these charts. So I'm particularly vested in ensuring that we have the supports where the needs show up the greatest, because we know that's going to have the most exponential consequences as our students matriculate into the K and to kindergarten. So I'm also going to throw my voice in the chorus of ensuring that we have all this data because I want to be able to take some of this and run with it, but I feel like I'm missing a lot of information. So I would love for the work of the committee is tremendous, but I would love

[01:12:14] for a little bit more staff support when it comes to getting some of the data around some of the questions that we've asked just so it's more easily actionable by the time we get here. One of the things that I also wanted to say very quickly, the recommendations, I think I was a little surprised that there was not a recommendation for community partnerships because as you've heard, we cannot do this alone and we do know that the county has a significant program, preschool program, so I wonder do you see space for maybe next time to include a recommendation that speaks to strengthening those partnerships and how we can get to some of these items

[01:12:53] because again, FCPS cannot do this alone. - Absolutely. - And I also agree with what Ms. O'Mesh shared regarding transportation. There is some space for us to really talk about how we prioritize and how do we center what is the most important to us because we know resources are limited.

[01:13:17] We only have so much to go around. How do we make sure that we are getting the most bang for our buck? If this is it, then we need to really make some tough decisions in terms of how we budget and I'm looking forward to that conversation. My time's up. Thank you Dr. Anderson. I think the first question I want to ask on page three of the report, just clarity I think for the board, the public, and Dr. Reed as we do figure out how we move forward with our commitment to this. In the second line it's well the first line says we're spending about 29 million dollars actually close to 30 million for the

[01:13:55] total funding. The cost per child for pre-K is $18,000. The cost per child for early head start is $34,000 per child per year. So, you know, I do think that we really should as a board have more detail from the superintendent on just those costs because I know we talk about this year after year. Parents in Fairfax County can send their child to one of our, you know, in-state universities and not face a tuition cost at that high. I know that the average cost for

[01:14:34] our students now, I guess we are closing in on 19 to 20,000 for Fairfax County schools, but the early head start number is stark, and I think we need to understand that, and I think some of it has to do with its full daycare beyond just child care. The other thing that I would really like to understand, Dr. Reed, from your team taking these numbers, and by the way, to compliment everyone who worked on this report. It is excellent and really appreciate the information and hard work. But I would like to understand, you know, what, if any, local funds we're getting

[01:15:13] from the Board of Supervisors. I mean, are they paying us, you know, money based on our pre-K enrollment numbers or is that 100% honest do they fund us only on our kindergarten through 12th grade students were funded through the grant the funds that are provided from the grant okay so to be clear again talking about budget numbers and everybody is the grant 30 million dollars so it covers everything no the grant is not 30 million dollars the grant or VPI and the braided

[01:15:52] funding yet so the total grant for this for the 24 FY 23 six million eight hundred and sixty eight thousand four hundred four hundred and ninety four dollars and ninety cents okay so we'll round up to seven million dollar grant on a almost thirty million dollar price tag yes and the rest is covered by FCPS budget so this is from VPI there's also the Head Start CFCP grants there's There's other grant funds as well.

[01:16:28] So we have the 100% match. So the match from the FCPS operational budget, it is substantial, and it's substantial to ensure the quality of the program that we run.

[01:16:47] So Dr. Reid, I would say that I think for intentionality and strategic focus and effort going forward, we really do need to build this into a future work session for the board. As a founding member of the SKIPT, which was created as a successful youth policy team, this was like the number one thing that we were supposed to commit to, and now it's been like a decade.

[01:17:14] So I do want to finally capture something that Ms. Omesh said about the cost of AAP bus transportation at almost $6 million, and the fact that also this upcoming budget with the athletic trainers and performing arts staffing, there's no question to what Ms. Omish is saying.

[01:17:36] We're not trying to pit programs against one another, and I wouldn't want to have a conversation about AAP transportation versus pre-K transportation, but I do think that we've got to start to understand that any time we bring new funding, new opportunities, knowing that we have unfunded commitments um and goals on pre-k um it's i it's very timely that we're going to have the budget vote um in two nights because i plan to make that pretty much my statements about how do we go

[01:18:10] forward looking at this holistically um because there are so many competing needs and we have to see all the needs together and then prioritize them accordingly so with that um we are um as i said running a tad behind but i still want to give you guys five minutes to stretch your legs and um so we will come back exactly at 6 30. please come maybe even a few minutes early

[01:18:37] thank you again to everyone here who joined us um for this presentation thank you so without any further ado because we know this will yield a lot of conversation we are going to turn it over to DR. BOYD AND TEAM TO BEGIN WITH THEIR ABBREVIATED PRESENTATION. FOLKS, PLEASE PUT YOUR PLACARDS

[01:19:10] DOWN SO THAT WE CAN PROPERLY TRACK THOSE WHO ARE NEW SPEAKERS. THANK YOU. THANK YOU, DR. ANDERSON, AND GOOD EVENING. THIS EVENING HERE WITH ME I HAVE DR. SHANNON ANDERSON WHO IS THE COORDINATOR FOR STUDENT EQUITY -- STUDENT CONDUCT AND EQUITY. I ALWAYS GET THE TITLE MESSED UP.

[01:19:32] EQUITY AND STUDENT CONDUCT. DR. ANDERSON PROVIDES LEADERSHIP FOR THE SRNR. I'M ALSO JOINED by Dr. Michael Axler, who's the interim acting director for intervention and prevention services. As Dr. Anderson shared, we are going to just very quickly share a few updates that we've made to the draft SRNR related documents since the May 11th school board presentation. A couple of revisions that we have that we want to go over with you from the 11th May 11th presentation are relative to value statements, the bias and harassment

[01:20:08] reporting process, the discriminatory harassment definition, an added responsibility for supporting our safe school communities as it relates to bystander expectations. We've also made some revisions to the draft dress code and made a proposed draft to the dress code policy. Additional revisions since our last time together also include some revisions to substance misuse responses. And then certainly we welcome your questions, discussion and feedback very quickly looking at our value statements. I will not read them to you. They're shown on the screen, but we did make some revisions to ensure that

[01:20:47] the value statements were more concise and to ensure our wording really articulated the message that we wanted to convey. Another piece relative to the value statements that we did revise is really wanting to make sure that we uplifted the very first statement, ensuring that we truly do support fostering safe schools that are free from harassment, drugs, marginalization, weapons and other forms of violence. That was critical feedback to receive from some stakeholder groups. And so we did elevate that since our last time together. Looking at the bias and harassment process reporting process,

[01:21:24] we initially had some language in the draft document that spoke to a pending process uh relative to bias and reporting excuse me bias and harassment reporting. We've since deleted that reference in the draft srnr because it is still in development from a multidisciplinary group and we want to make sure that when it's incorporated it's finalized that it's been thoroughly vetted and that we can fully respond to questions for you. We do want to make sure that at this time we do elevate and clarify that that doesn't mean that We're disbanding processes for students reporting concerns about bias and harassment.

[01:22:03] We still do have two mechanisms outlined in the students' rights and responsibilities. One, regarding the right to an equal opportunity, and two, regarding the right to express or voice concerns, and the respective reporting processes are articulated and outlined in the draft SR&R.

[01:22:25] The next piece, we just want to highlight one minor revision to the definition of discriminatory harassment. Um, we omitted, um, inadvertently sexual orientation. And so you see that that is underlined and is included in the definition of discriminatory harassment. Also, we thank you all for your feedback regarding the importance of coming to school every day and really making sure all stakeholders are aware of what chronic absenteeism is and its impact. Um, while we had language regarding chronic absenteeism in our family guide, it was not expressly in the SRNR. And again, because of the importance

[01:23:04] around attending school daily, we have incorporated the language herein into the actual regulation that defines what chronic absenteeism is, outlines potential ramifications for students as well as schools relative to chronic absenteeism, and really uplifts partnering with the school to address any concerns that families might have relative to daily school attendance. Another component that we incorporated based on some feedback received on our last time together is really making sure that we have that collective responsibility and everybody really having onus of ensuring we have

[01:23:41] safe schools. Certainly we don't want students to get involved in any infractions, but we do want students more or less if you see something, say something. So really reporting that information to adults. And so we have incorporated a responsibility in the draft SRNR regarding supporting safe schools more or less the bystander expectations for our young people. The next area, just an update is a relative to the dress code. Um, one of the pieces we talked and I see Miss Marin has the, um, I call it a place mat in front of her where we outline some work that was done or looked at from

[01:24:19] various school divisions. The staff did an analysis and we just wanted to highlight a few things in areas where we're similar to some of the other school divisions that are in the Washington area school boards group as well as some other large divisions and some places where we differ. So just very quickly, we included goal statements and value statements in our right in our draft code regulation or dress code, excuse me, regulation. And that's something that is common amongst a number of the dress codes that we reviewed. We we also explicitly listed what the expected adult responses was

[01:24:54] another common factor. We are omitting the broad subjective language in terms of skin reference that currently exists, and that was a shift that we saw across many of the school divisions that we reviewed. We also, as like many others, had gender neutral expectations in the draft code and also prohibiting items that depict weapons, drugs, profanities, symbols, and things like that that would cause a substantial disruption. Some places where we differed is that we explicitly named parts of the body that if exposed, um, constituted a

[01:25:32] violation. Um, while many school divisions, um, don't have that broad subjective component anymore, some are silent on skin references. And so we thought that we really needed to be explicit else. Uh, it leaves many things into question and to have disparate implement implementation across our school division, particularly with us being so large. So we did want to expressly name the parts of the body that if exposed would constitute a violation. Um, the pieces, the other piece and this also was something that amongst discussion with various stakeholder groups, both at the leadership team cabinet level principal groups was something that

[01:26:11] was common amongst the discussion was language around whether midriff would be exposed. We did not prohibitively exclude midriff and as shared in our May 11th time together, we shared that we really looked at safety and causing a substantial disruption as the level or the bar to exclude something as opposed to including it. And so we're silent there. Some other school divisions expressly prohibited midriff or they use language such as covering the body from the neckline to the mid to the midline or mid that things of that nature. Um So those were some of the takeaways. But again, we

[01:26:50] really wanted to undergird it with we want to have safe schools. We don't want to certainly infringe upon parents and guardians rights to have that decision making authority with their children. But we do want to have some consistent expectations across the division as we move forward. Again, thank you so much. We we looked at the dress code policy because it had not been reviewed in some time. And so we did propose some draft language to revise the dress code policy which is a more broad piece and includes our values in the goal of the dress code but also direct stakeholders to the

[01:27:26] regulation for details such that if there are revisions that we are able to be revised the regulation and wouldn't necessarily have to go back into the policy as well. A couple of other things in the dress code regulations specifically that were revised since our last time together, we removed mention of headwear in optional attire. And the reason we remove that is previously in earlier iterations of the draft. We had a prohibition on hats through multiple levels of stakeholder engagement. We subsequently removed the prohibition on hats. And so there no longer was a need to say what type of

[01:28:03] head where one could wear because there was no longer a prohibition on hats and other headwear. So we removed that. We also removed the exception that was in parentheses in association with undergarments that said visible waistbands or straps on undergarments would be in the prohibited section. One thing I do want to make a pause and a note again just to give as Mr. Frisch shared just a little insight into the discussion around things that were considered. We did have discussion around whether to include the language

[01:28:36] about expressly excluding straps and things like that, but we decided to, instead of putting that in there, to have that more as an administrator training piece, because, and some folks may know it's trendy, to have certain parts of your undergarments to show, and I'll just leave it like that, and we didn't want to elevate that as much, but we certainly would not want administrators pursuing students who may have straps inadvertently shown under their clothes because of just the way it fits, things like that our students are wrong. So I did want to pause there to

[01:29:14] just explain that piece. And it was actually inadvertently left in there on the May 11th meeting. Again, based on again, lots of robust discussion with a number of stakeholders around that topic. But I wanted to qualify that statement. Also on this slide, we added reference that nothing should obscure one's face. We want to make sure that in the event of an emergency, we can always identify students. You can see that you can see Michelle Boyd's face and know that it's Michelle Boyd in a particular situation. And so while students are able to wear hoods, jackets, things like that, they can wear them so

[01:29:51] long as it does not obscure their face. And that again goes hand in hand with

[01:29:57] the next bullet. And please note that we have and also with sunglasses, but we have made an indication here with sunglasses and also an indication relative to the overall dress code that if students have accommodations, whether they're for medical reasons, special education reasons, etc, that they would be able to work through those respective teams for those accommodations and access substance misuse responses. We did make a couple of revisions here and we had a lot of robust discussion. This was one of

[01:30:36] of the things that we had engaged in some discussion with a number of our administrators and other stakeholders. But we really wanted to go back and spend some concerted time talking about this issue. Um, certainly we have been very active within the schools and also with our county partners about really saying that, you know, we were working um, visually to combat the opioid pandemic that's impacting us. And we also know why opioids are on an extreme and a continuum of drugs, that there are other gateway drugs that we don't want our students engaging in either.

[01:31:07] And so we had a lot of discussion around our responses as such that really speaks to the importance of not engaging in these behaviors and also around the supports. And so we did make some revisions. So for alcohol and other drug violations, students would be suspended from activities at the elementary, middle, and high school level.

[01:31:31] I do know that there's been some correspondence with many board members as well as the superintendent relative to what that might look like at elementary school, particularly as it relates to the PTA and our jurisdiction or ability to restrict participation in those activities. And we look forward to hearing your feedback. I just want to share again some behind the slides thinking is that as we talk about substance misuse and the importance of that for our middle school and our high school students, we would hope that we would not have those issues with our younger students at the elementary.

[01:32:07] Certainly we hope we don't have it with any student, but really wanting to make sure that we really uplift the importance of not engaging in substance misuse with all of our students. So that's just a little bit of the backdrop there. The next piece distribution of alcohol. It currently in the srnr is a mandatory referral to the division superintendent. That's not the level that that it's listed at in the model guidance. That was more of a local discretionary piece. Um, and there was thinking that a five day suspension with the option to refer to the division superintendent taking into

[01:32:43] consideration. Is this Michelle's first situation of distributing alcohol and things like that? Because oftentimes the students are returned to the school and really wanting to make sure again, knowing that it's an important piece, but being able to have that that five day suspension instead of going to the hearing office and being out of school, potentially it could be a lot longer depending upon a number of cases and things like that. And so just thinking about that cumulative impact there again, want to be clear that we are not diminishing the significance of distributing alcohol. We are very clear that that is not acceptable or appropriate behavior. But wanting to

[01:33:22] think about what things may be self self imposed and lengthening the time that for some things that truly need to go to the hearings office, we could be backlogging that process on the next slide regarding substance misuse. It talks about first or first and second first response and our second and subsequent response to use in possession of marijuana THC oil and inhalants. We currently have and we have the interventions pieces that continue to be in place. But on the slide for brevity, I just listed the things that were changing. So please do note that the

[01:33:59] alcohol and other drug interventions, those pieces remain in effect for substance misuse violations. But for our first response, instead of the two-day, up to two days in-school suspension, it would be a two-day out-of-school suspension. Again, feedback from our administrators and our data just is not indicative that our in-school suspension response is appropriate.

[01:34:25] And we also know that sanctions in and of themselves without the instruction or redirection won't change behavior. And so we want to be clear about that. But we also want to make sure that our response is appropriate for the significance of the infraction for second and subsequent offenses regarding a possession for again marijuana, TAC oil and inhalants. Instead of it being an up to two days of in school suspension, it would be up to five days, excuse me, up to two days of out of school suspension, it would be up to five days out of school suspension.

[01:34:57] Again, drugs in schools are serious. They impact the learning. They impact students ability and desire to be feel safe and welcome in our schools. Um, and we really want to make sure that we are, um, aligning our responses with the level of the infraction. Uh, the next piece regarding substance misuse is that being under the influence will result in a two day suspension from

[01:35:22] school instead of a two-day in-school suspension. Again, same justification. We understand that over the years we've, you know, really wanted to focus on restorative and keeping our students in school, and we still do have that belief. We have not thrown that out. Again, however, we want to make sure that our students are safe and that we are defining a very clear and firm line about drug-free schools. We've just listed the materials that are posted on board docs that have been updated, and just thank you so much for your time and attention as we provided these updates, and we look forward

[01:35:59] to your discussion and questions and feedback. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Boyd. We have lots to cover, so we're going to jump in. Mr. Frisch, followed by Ms. Bukarski. Thank you, and thank you to staff for all their work on this. Jumping right in, let's get to the PTA question. On pages 39, 41, and 42, we indicate that the school division would prohibit students from participating in PTA after-school programs. If we're allowed to tell the PTA what to do, what else can we tell them to do? Can we ask them to help other PTAs that don't have as much money? Can we ask

[01:36:38] them to, my point here is that what authority do we have over PTAs? And wouldn't this violate FERPA? Thank you. So we certainly would not be divulging information to PTA personnel because they, again, it would be a FERPA violation. They don't have that right to know information about students we will take this feedback into consideration and we'll have some additional discussions with council again the thinking behind this is little Michelle boy comes to school under the influence of whatever it might be at

[01:37:18] eight o'clock and I come back at five o'clock and participate in the school player I participate in an activity and so again that's the thinking around that and again aligning it with the expectations for our middle school students and our high school students, and again, understanding developmental and age differences, but the same concept of if you're engaging in drugs and alcohol in school, that you don't have the same benefits or perks, if you will, and that's probably a bad term, to engage in those extracurriculars or fun things that we know oftentimes our PTAs provide or after-school

[01:37:55] clubs and activities provide, but we have made note of the concerns that have been shared via email we'll follow up with counseling and certainly take all of that under advisement just to further underscore the point I mean where would it stop why not talk to soccer leagues that use our facilities you know and tell them that they can't participate in this in the soccer league or whatever I just don't see how this is enforceable and and I would very much like to have councils opinion on it and I think many members of the board would probably support removing it. Moving on to the dress code on page three of the regulation it says

[01:38:32] that enforcement should be reasonably discreet yet that phrase does not appear in the definitions. Can you tell me what reasonably discreet means? On page three number C3. One second. Thank you so when we talk about and we skip past the the piece that we had included in our May 11th document but we do have some information that follows that under three enforcement must be reasonably

[01:39:08] discrete students are not to be shamed or required to required excuse me to undress or display their body in front of others shaming includes the kneeling or bending down to check attire and fit measuring straps etc and so those are the things that are prohibitive we're saying is that and also addressing students in places in that next last sentence where others can't reasonably here. And so if there's a violation, when we talk about being discreet, if this is a classroom, I don't say, Michelle Reed, your shirt doesn't meet the dress code violations. I just use you Dr. Reed as an example. Instead, an

[01:39:46] appropriate way would be to pull Michelle Reed to the, and she does meet the dress code regulation for clarity purposes. But if she didn't, would be to pull her to the side and just have that conversation about what the dress code indicates in a manner so that she's not again embarrassed in front of peers that it's a discreet and i'm not asking her to can i see this show me that and those things so i guess for that section we would probably do better to define what reasonably discreet is rather than what it is not because later in the s in the in the regulation on page five we have some definitions and the body

[01:40:22] shaming definition here is much more succinct than the the very large definition that we have in the actual resident regulation it's usually the other way around so we should look at that it's also missing the definition of body positive language it's just a term there with no glossary definition so we should probably address that too and unless that's just an aired do you all have a definition for that we'll follow up but more or less it's making sure that we're not making statements that would be offensive about ones one way or

[01:40:58] the other about one size weight etc really making sure and that's that's essential for anything that we're doing an address code that the code is what the code is regardless of one size stature etc okay back do that thank you back to the SRNR on page 42 in the footnote it reads principles or their designees are required to notify the parent guardian of any student who is involved in an alleged bullying incident of the alleged incident within one business day of hearing of such allegation um two things one how does the business day apply to weekends or holidays

[01:41:34] and two what's the responsibility of the educator or staff member uh for notification uh how long do they have to wait if if they're reporting up to the principal how long do they have to do that and so i'm going back um thank you mr frish i'm going back to our um our reference in our slides in the may 11th and we'll need to make sure that the the verbiage is correct there um for bullying the language should be that um uh principals or their designees are required to notify the parent

[01:42:14] or guardian of any student who is involved in an alleged bullying incident of the alleged incident within 24 hours of learning of such allegation. And that's not FCPS language. That is legislation. That's Senate Bill 1072, House Bill 1592.

[01:42:31] So we'll make sure it shouldn't say business day, so we'll need to make that correction. We did talk about this with the administrators, and there was expressed concern regarding on the weekends they're with their families. They're not always engaged. They're not constantly on the clock.

[01:42:48] So there was concern about that. Certainly, we'll have to provide feedback to the legislation, but once they learn about it, once I open my email as a parent, excuse me, principal, I'm now aware, and I have 24 hours, the clock begins to tick the moment that I open that email, that I pick up that phone call, that the parent or whomever notifies me, and again, that's legislation, and so we'll have to follow up regarding operationalization of that, but that's not.

[01:43:13] Are educators considered designees? are principals or their designees so typically that's assistant principals and how long do the people witnessing the bullying have to report it up to the principal and their designee that's not outlined in the legislation so it could be weeks until it's brought to the attention of the principal or their designee and then the countdown that might be something that we need to address because just as we have abuse reporting guidelines when it involves an adult we should

[01:43:52] certainly have something that requires some kind of parallel notification probably just as best practice it should probably align with that policy thank you that's it for now thank you thank you sir miss Bukarski yeah thank you there is a ton to go through here last year I brought up concerns that we had heard from teachers and from parents that it just felt like bad behavior for lack of a you know better word was being excused

[01:44:30] and there were no discipline standards and I've continued to hear that and it's a conversation I've had with dr. Reed I appreciate our conversations in that as one board member I'd like to make it clear for anybody principals or anybody else who is listening, consequences for breaking rules are needed for children.

[01:44:57] It is a form of structure, and it's teaching them to be productive adults, but it's imperative that they're developmentally appropriate. And that is always the piece that I think we try to focus on, and, you know, so I will get to that in a little bit because I have questions about some of these updates when it comes to appropriateness but before we get there can we talk about what the process is for making changes to the srnr every year how do you come about basically where you land yes thank you

[01:45:35] so we engage with a number of different stakeholder groups this year we talk with principals associations parent teacher associations advisory school board advisory groups student advisory council organizations we had community forums we talked with our cabinet and lt and we also did a survey and that's prior to um engaging with you all as board members and so we try and get input from a variety of persons um certainly um everyone made everyone in each of those uh different categories that i just spoke of certainly everyone may not participate in that

[01:46:14] but we try to get feedback from a variety of different stakeholders so that we can see things through different lenses and so that is a process that pretty much begins October November of a school year in preparation for our discussions in May. So while you're undergoing that process however you kind of lead it so the folks that are participating do not get to benefit from speaking with each other and hearing the concerns that they may have is that correct or not necessarily in the meetings when there are meetings with some of these groups it's open

[01:46:51] conversations and dialogue and so if we're in a that's to say principals association or teacher association meeting I have been at the opportunity to hear what you're saying if you're speaking and vice versa which is unique from engaging in a survey where you're just submitting your own thoughts okay but then it's your it's principals here are other principals they don't hear parents. Okay, so long way of saying this is something that I, Ms. Sizemore-Heiser and I had actually talked with Dr. Reed about an idea of having a committee that actually talks about these, and she said, well, that's actually something that I, would you speak to that, Dr. Reed, our

[01:47:29] conversation? Yes, ma'am. I share that that's what I was more familiar with, is a larger committee that has multiple stakeholders at the table, of course, with legal counsel as well, because a lot of that cross-conversation is really helpful in understanding what the concerns are what always did that with our head of counseling as well so dr axler i know has been part of that dr anderson has been part of that just to make sure that we're following best practices as well because we don't want to embark on student rights and responsibilities conversations that

[01:48:06] aren't going to mirror best practice and we also always want to take a look at data what is our trend data in terms of how our school the SRNRs are working to keep our schools safe places for learning. So what we often will find in that setting is if the data is not showing the impact we had hoped then we have to think about that in the coming year. What do we need to do differently because continuing with the same consequences and the behavior is escalating is not going to serve us well so but to your point a cross-section of stakeholders that are on

[01:48:45] a sitting or standing committee with counsel I think is something that might benefit our process thank you dr. Reed so I'm one board member who would like to see that and I'd love to hear what others on this board think you know if it's a if I need to put in a follow-on I will however I think this would be a superintendent committee and probably that is not necessary but I do think that that should be the way forward I say this every year the SRNR is too long but I can't give you good ideas about how to shorten it but I do think it's it's

[01:49:24] just too long now moving into oh go ahead yeah I also respond I want to say not only is it too long but the process is so long quite honestly i mean i think dr boyd has many many responsibilities has been working on this since the beginning of the school year and i think the that's another advantage of having a stakeholder group which has a finite meeting schedule that's a review group it really shouldn't be this lengthy every single year um because it's uh anyhow so So that's another benefit.

[01:49:59] I'm on board with that because Dr. Boyd's talents are definitely needed elsewhere. Going into the suspensions for the drug, you know, I -- we don't need or want drugs in our schools.

[01:50:17] However, we know that mental health is a direct correlation to substance abuse. I'm out of time almost. And I'm worried if we are punishing these kids. So I'd like to know where that came from, and later I'd like to know how that compares to physical altercations, and are these being punished differently?

[01:50:45] Thank you. So very briefly, the concerns around substance misuse have been concerns from our building level staff, both administrators and teachers, and quite frankly some of our families too. I know that many of you all have received email correspondence that students are fearful to go in bathrooms because their kids are engaging in substance misuse in there.

[01:51:09] And so that's not something that we just pivoted quickly on. That feedback and those concerns were shared on last year, and we kind of stayed the course with what our substance misuse responses were from the previous year. And it continued to be elevated this year, particularly as we've engaged with more significant ramifications, quite frankly, around some of the substance misuse violations in terms of the significant harm that's come to kids.

[01:51:38] And so that's why we engaged in that really additional elongated discussion with our building leaders and with staff around perhaps what we had the last two years. perhaps we thought again trying to minimize exclusionary practices um at all for all the reasons that we all know so i won't go into them um but it just being you know less than typically would be a fight two days of in-school suspension is typically less than what you would get for a fight we'll put you on a go back ms poproski looks like you have more um ms marron followed by ms cohen yes thank you i want to talk mostly about suspension and the leveled responses to

[01:52:18] student behaviors especially in the most aggrievous one at the highest level. So with suspension, out of school suspension, I can understand sometimes there's some time that students may need to kind of cool down. But when we're talking about two, five days of kids just sitting out of school, you know, is that the best way to discipline children and have them understand?

[01:52:38] So that is something I think when we talk about more work needed, I think we need to to talk about that. And is there a parental or family component to that? Is there restorative justice? I just feel like saying kids are not going to be in school because they've done something that isn't the best choice is not teaching them.

[01:52:55] The leveled response to student behavior, so I have to look, it's BSC15 and it's under category B, the behaviors of safety of concern in creating unsafe conditions for student staff and other visitors, so that's page 21. So this is about inciting or causing a substantial disturbance to the operation of the school or the safety of staff and students.

[01:53:16] my mind immediately goes to false threats of harm in our schools, whether it's a student unfortunately or an outside threat, but we know that there have been instances where there's rumors that grow into threats that disrupt the whole school day and, you know, students are scared, staff are scared.

[01:53:34] I would like to see a level five response in place for that because if we're going to talk about, you know, if students need to know they can't joke about guns, they can't joke about shooting, if they're joking about harming themselves and it's really a joke, but when it comes to the guns and I'm going to shoot the school or everyone's going to die tomorrow, that to me is level five. You can't mess around with that. I think that tracks with how we have addressed those threats, but it's not codified here. I think too that

[01:54:08] Level five should include, so this is further down, that this could get, this could include a, this behavior, if it's a level five, can result in a reassignment to a different school. Because that is something that if you go up the hearings or the discipline process and you get to that point, the board has levied decisions based on that.

[01:54:31] But that's not anywhere in here. I love the idea of the task force or the committee, the superintendent, because I would really love to see if parents in general understand that some of these behaviors can elevate to the point of a school board hearing review and ultimately a student's transfer to a different school. So real quickly I say, related to PTA events, is it anywhere in here that says that if a student is ill from school they can't participate in after-school activities, whether it's the music concert or their after-stool club, you know, if it's scouts or some other outside party, but do we even have anything in there? And then I would think

[01:55:06] that relates to any PTA events. Yes, bullying reporting, Carl, just like we did the child abuse reporting policy, how to report that data dashboard, including SRO making arrests. There's no language on this anywhere. And I like the Jess Code, but we're very, very specific in our FCPS way.

[01:55:24] Okay, that was a whole lot. Are you looking for a response from Dr. Reed to Dr. Ford? Not right now. Okay, so we're going to move on to Ms. Cohen.

[01:55:39] so much um i did want to just start with the with a glow um that i appreciate the removal of the failure to be in one's assigned place as a category i like that you guys further drilled down on what that means i think that was one of those that it was not intentional but easy to misuse and now it's very clear are you in the class where you're supposed to be or are you somewhere where you are not supposed to be that's not related to any um anything that anyone told you to do in school and so i i appreciate you broke it into two more specific categories i think that's helpful

[01:56:17] okay well thank you commonwealth of virginia um the other uh in number two um my my number two is in bs06 um there is a bringing unauthorized persons to school or allowing unauthorized persons to enter the building one thing that i'm hearing and i bet other board members are too is that kids are opening doors to let uber eats door dash everything in and principals when they see it are confiscating it and you know telling kids you can get it at the end of the day which

[01:56:54] has caused disruption but i would like to see something in bs06 because it's not just allowing them to enter the building it is opening a door you that is the number one way we can keep our kids safe we talk about all these gun violence prevention measures if we will keep people from opening the door we would do a world of good and so i would love to see i'm hearing it from all my principals high school level i'd really like us to see either maybe that's a separate number or it's a piece of further reform refining that i would i would really appreciate that um another

[01:57:31] thing i wanted to ask in bsc 19-6 uh which is on um sorry looking looking page 25 um and then we have the same thing with rb4 um i was confused about why those would not go to a title nine we reference other things of a sexual nature and we've said that title nine office needs to be involved and so i wondered why the physical contact of a sexual nature padding body parts pinching tugging

[01:58:11] clothing and then rb4 talks about if i can find that one um rb4 mentioned saying or writing either directly or through electronic communication sexually suggestive comments innuendos propositions or other remarks of a sexual nature i wondered why both of those wouldn't have the designation to go to title nine. Thank you. So, um, the superscript six is listed there. Um, and the description next to that is on a bit, excuse me, bottom of page 22, where it indicates these behaviors do not include conduct

[01:58:47] that could, um, that could constitute sexual harassment within the title of within the scope of title nine prohibition of sex discrimination for information on reporting sexual harassment. And then it refers you to the particular reg. But I certainly would invite Mr. Foster to provide any additional language from the seat of counsel. Mr. Foster? Because I think that's unclear. I think what the reference to me is that that's saying these are not sexually harassable. They're not sexual harassment when I think all of us could definitely say that those could they could include sexual harassment in the

[01:59:25] content. Ms. Cohen, yes. Certainly I can look at the language and work with the DSS team and this board to update it. I certainly can do that. Mr. Fosso, can you also respond to the PTA piece? I think the first speaker, Mr. Frisch, had mentioned something and I failed to call on you to speak to that. Right. So I will look into that as well. I did not, to be honest, come prepared to speak to this evening but we will look into it as was requested and report back to the

[01:59:59] board. Thank you. Ms. Corrine looks like you look you need to go back. Ms. Seismolheiser, I'm sorry Ms. Omeish followed by Ms. Seismolheiser. Thank you so much and there's certainly more here than we're gonna be able to digest I think in one work session but I just I wanted to ask you know Dr. Boyd I know in the last meeting you had presented to us and we had the opportunity to comment on what we were looking forward to so I didn't see any of that reflected and just wanted to you the opportunity i don't know if you had the chance to consider any of it yes so there were

[02:00:32] uh and let me pull up my notes here give me one moment there were a number of things that we um that were discussed on last meeting that we considered some of which are included some of which are not included um a couple of things just and if you want me to go through the list i can um and again i apologize i didn't make a notation of which board member made which comment, and so we did list them. There was discussion around considering including language

[02:01:08] that explicitly addressed recourse or action relative to gun threats. We did add information regarding threats, but all threats are addressed through a risk assessment process, whether it includes the involvement of a gun or not a gun. We do have different codes that respond to whether it's written or verbal but in all cases the risk assessments are part of the action that follows and then additional disciplinary action can occur so those threats and our response would be the same whether it was involving a gun or another threat so that's one of those pieces so

[02:01:45] we did highlight additional language for risk assessments in the language but we didn't carve out gun because that's included in all threats another piece that was asked or that was addressed at our last meeting was a request to differentiate explicitly the differences between possession of a gun if it's not a weapon or a bb gun in our family guide there is a definition of quote unquote other weapons and that includes bb guns and that also includes things that are lookalikes our responses to other weapons are leveled and so they do have a a broad ability for

[02:02:19] administrators to respond based on a unique incidence so if i brought in a toy gun and i I wasn't using it in that manner. That might be different than if I brought in a BB gun and the principal being able to respond. So there are those distinctions. But in the SRNR and the definition, again, of other weapon, that includes a broad brush of things that could be listed there.

[02:02:40] And I can, for brevity, I won't read that, but I'm certainly happy to follow up. Maybe we can pause there. I'll come back to this list because I want to address that specific one. I particularly brought up water guns because that was a case that was brought to my attention and I tried to find it still I think guides principles to do the same thing where BB guns real guns whatever are kind of in this page 44 you know five weapons violations section where it lists paintball guns BB guns under weapons I guess I it references the code in some places which only refers to stun guns so I don't know

[02:03:20] why we chose to include those in that category even if it's a paint gun or even a BB gun not to say that that's okay but still different than you know a firearm so yeah where we reference the code it's um where we say other weapons shall mean any object of any nature other than a statutory weapon and the statutory weapon is the one that's referred to in the code right and and what i saw and that was stun guns right and so that's where our definition goes on to say examples of other weapons include but shall not be limited to any knife of less than three inches um i can't

[02:03:57] say this one, nunchucks? Thank you for your understanding. Brass knuckles, spring stick, throwing star stun gun, taser, mace, pepper spray, ammunition, spring-loaded pellet gun, razor blade, studded accessories, studded collar, chain collar, similar article of clothing, any object that is designed to look like but not function as a statutory weapon such as an imitation handgun. Right. And I'm concerned about that because, okay, kid goes to Taekwondo class, has a nunchuck in their bag. I know it sounds scary, but they use, kids use these things in

[02:04:35] Taekwondo, you know, I mean, or water gun once again, right? Even, or paint gun, a paintball gun. They just don't realize that like that's something dangerous because they went on the weekend to paintballing with their friends. That to me has to be its own category. And we have to be able to give principals very clear guidance that there's got to at least be a conversation before a kid is because what it is is suspended for 10 days and recommended for expulsion. That's that's I mean help me understand that. Give me one second. I want to make sure we go and we refer directly to

[02:05:12] our SBAR codes and Dr. Anderson perhaps you can find it more quickly than I am. I'm looking for the SBAR code relative to other weapons and she's pulling that up and just while she does that Should we just go on to your next comment, Ms. Omeish?

[02:05:32] And then we'll come back to that one for the sake of time. Yeah, I see it. I found it. Okay, go ahead. Sorry, Dr. Anderson. It's B as in Bob, S, C as in Cat 27 on page 25. And possessing any weapon other than a firearm, that does have a broad brush of responses.

[02:05:51] It's a level 2 through a level 4 option. And so level 2 doesn't necessarily even mean suspension. And so, again, based on the unique circumstances, it does not always result in a referral to the hearing's office or even a suspension. Where is this?

[02:06:07] Page, it's BSC 27 on page 25 of the clean copy of the SR&R. Yeah, I saw that one. That references the code, right? Yes, and I thought I heard you to say that you had a concern about a one response despite the category.

[02:06:30] but here there are multiple responses that one can take, and again, as with all guidance given, when we have multiple responses is to take the unique circumstances into consideration and determining what's the appropriate response. No doubt. It's a range, right?

[02:06:45] But what I'm saying is I don't think principals have clear guidance because I'm getting cases where literally just a couple weeks ago, a kid for a water gun is going to the hearing's office and is suspended for 10 days. I don't want to see that, and I'm not allowed to see the video. I've been asking for weeks for this. So I think there's still, you know, not some, water guns not even mentioned in here.

[02:07:06] I think we've got to be explicit. Sure, and we're happy to follow up, particularly if there's other circumstances I'm not familiar about the case, if there are other things that were taken into consideration, but we're happy to follow up. Regardless of that case, though, I think we've got to be explicit here about water guns.

[02:07:23] I think we should delineate it so that there's consistency in how this is applied. And I think the 10-day suspension and recommendation for expulsion should not even be an option for these like toy guns. So anyway, I really hope that that can be changed without an amendment.

[02:07:39] I think it would just be a lot easier than having, you know, I think we all agree on this one. Okay, so the next piece is I want to understand why we got rid of the bias-related incident tool because I think that was a huge win for student rights and why that's not delineated here for families as an option. Dr. Reed, I don't know if you have to, I feel like that might be beyond your because it's a bigger conversation but whoever can touch on that um thank you miss omish i don't think we've done away with it i think it's not ready for prime time it's um it's a process that

[02:08:16] the teams are still working on is my understanding it's not that it's been done away with dr king do you want to comment on it please we've been working on this tool for almost the entire year it's been um challenging but we are at a space where we're ready for prime time to show and we and we will be reviewing with the team, but it's definitely not ready to go into SRNR now, and we'll start having conversations about where the appropriate placement is, because it's a tool where students will have the right to make a complaint against staff members,

[02:08:55] and we're not sure if it belongs in the SRNR at this time, but the conversation is still ongoing. - Do we know when it will be deployed? - So we were hopeful that it was gonna be deployed June right but we're still tweaking with language with legal counsel to make sure that it's legally sound because if it'll be ready for the following year I think I'd still like to see it somehow right if kids are gonna have access to it this is their SRNR for the following year I think that I don't know exactly

[02:09:33] the timeline from taking this document to print but I think that was the concern is that the details weren't going to be finalized prior to when this would need to go to print and it's something we can also share more publicly and broadly in the fall and something we can put on the website once it is completely flushed out.

[02:09:57] To actually have a robust campaign to make sure that the students understand their rights. We will put you in a go back and we will move on to Ms. Heismolheiser followed by Ms. Dernot-Koufax. Thank you and I appreciate the conversation I know you know there's there's a lot to dig to hear and there's a lot of materials that we just sort of got recently so I have some of my questions I may ask offline I do want to sort of lift up what Stella was talking about it's funny you said follow on motion literally at the same time I was thinking follow on motion so I do think there's space here Dr. Reed especially after you're finishing your first year to look at our

[02:10:35] SRNR process right to make sure that we are I think that cross communication is really important right because I think you know our principals may be seeing one thing and concerned and approaching it and our students may have other approaches our families may have things that they're seeing so I do think that is a really really important thing to look at at our SRNR process it can still come back as feedback to the board but you know I you know I have to live the question I would ask about the removal of straps I know as a child I was often

[02:11:09] shame for having my bra strap show. And I think taking it out sends a message also. So I'm kind of curious why we're intentionally taking it out as opposed to if we're not worried about it from an inadvertent showing, why does not leave it in there? So to be more explicit in our formal setting, it wasn't so much the bra straps, because that is of concern too, but it's the strap of certain undergarments.

[02:11:42] - You don't need to say any more, but. - Thank you so much. - I just think we, can we just say, I just think we need to be really careful because there is a long history of that happening to, and I think we need to be really, 'cause that's where my mind went first, and so if that's where my mind went first, I'm thinking that might be where other people's, and I won't show it, I show it with Dr. Reed about what I might have done as a high school student if this had happened then.

[02:12:07] So I think perhaps some explicitness around just say underwear and that would include it because I don't want to go back down that path for our female students. Or that's my only. - We're on the same page. We've been there, done that, yeah.

[02:12:23] - Yeah. So I just wanted to, you know, I totally want to respect what we need to maintain our school, but I just wanted to lift that up. That's what, and again, that's why I think that cross team is important, right? Because what your intention or thoughts were may not have been how I read it and that may be the same for others too.

[02:12:38] so just wanted to if you could start her clock back oh i'm sorry oh okay sorry i thought you're talking to me i'm like um my apologies i did not realize that um i think that's really important i lost my train of thought there for a second um i want to ask a question about um the bystander component there's a piece in here about bystanders and things that we expect to by standards and um

[02:13:14] and escalating behavior for videotaping but there's no sort of consequences listed in there so i'm just curious what the thoughts were around putting it there but no real teeth to it so the um and perhaps we just need to make the connections more clear um students are to still abide by the um i'm going to use the wrong phrase but it's okay um that the technology the what is it the - The cell phone call?

[02:13:48] - The appropriate use, acceptable use policy. - Oh, the digital use policy. - Yeah, acceptable use policy. Thank you, thank you. I'm scrabbling for words. - It's all good, it's late, Dr. Boyd, it's okay. - Yes, the acceptable use. And so we do have those ramifications around when students will be able to have our cell phones and things like that.

[02:14:06] The piece where it gets a little dicey is that our high schools, our high school students, as you all recall, are permitted to utilize cell phone devices in the hallway. So technically, for middle school and elementary school, if they were using cell phones in a hallway or for non-instructional situations, that would already align up with that.

[02:14:27] The only piece where that wouldn't necessarily be the clear case would be for high school students if they were using their phones or personally owned devices at lunch or in the hallway. And so we'll go back and think about that because the acceptable use covers the other pieces, but for the other levels, just not high school.

[02:14:43] So we'll follow up. That's a good point. Yeah, I just, it just seemed a little unclear to me in here, so I think maybe some more clarity is needed around that piece of it, and I, I listen, I appreciate the lifting up of, hey, look, if you see something or if you say something, right, but I think we need to maybe have some, some more work around how are we educating our students, training our students, what is, when you put it in an SR and R, it smacks to me of discipline, right, and while I definitely think we need to have bystander expectations, I just don't know if this is the right place or somewhere else, or if it's going to in a discipline code then what does that discipline look like right this and the piece too really when

[02:15:20] we talk about because we inserted it in the responsibility section um you know just to say you know you have rights to all these things but you're also responsible for this so it's meant to really just uplift what we would like students to do like some of the other responsibilities um but you know if somebody doesn't report that mr frish hit miss cohen um mr frish You know, if you didn't report that, you're not in trouble, but we're just asking that, hey, if you see something, that we all just kind of contribute to that piece.

[02:15:53] I know that when we talked about this before, there was concerns about the videotaping and a recording, and we know that that's an issue, so we continue to have to work on that digital citizenship piece with kids. And I think we all here are committed to making sure our schools are safe and, you know, safe learning and accepting learning environments.

[02:16:09] And I think I want to lift up what Ms. Bukarski said, right, you can have restorative justice, positive behavior interventions, and consequences. So I want to make sure we're clear that all of those are things we should be having as we teach our students and keep our environment safe. We'll put you on a go back. That was perfect timing. And we'll go Ms. Denmark-Koufax and then Ms. McLaughlin.

[02:16:29] Yes, I have additional concerns about the process this year. I feel I don't want to be overly critical. I just want to say we do need some structure. I feel like things have changed in this last year about this process, and we find ourselves, at least I find myself, with a lot of redlining and really not the ability to understand explicitly the why's or where force behind it.

[02:16:59] And this latest redline came late in the day today. So I will leave that there for future reference, Dr. Reed. I think it's important that this process, the expectations be outlined clearly and it's more defined than it was because it's evolved.

[02:17:21] The other one I have questions about, and it goes again to the body shaming of girls. and it still talks about it's in the regulation on the dress code 2613.12 expose underwear or undergarments whether due to transparency length or lack of coverage now you stayed at dr boyd earlier that you were talking about needing to have the training for people about this but i'm specifically talking about bralettes which are a very popular thing with young girls and lots of

[02:17:58] times the ones, you know, they'll wear the, say, razorback in the back and the lace shows, but you have a tank top over it. So what, that should not have consequences in my mind. So, so that's, that's connected to, I think what Ms. Sazmerheiser was showing, was saying, and that's the straps of undergarments, um, that would be not something that one would be disciplined for. But if I am, I just come into school and I have a jean jacket on and just my bra and my jean jacket is open, I'm in violation because I'm exposing my undergarments. But that's the piece there. So there's not a prohibition on bralette. And I guess, again,

[02:18:37] we can define, we don't have a prohibition on bralettes. We did not equate that with underwear. Okay. Because it would be exposed, though. It is an undergarment that would be exposed, number four. And so in our thinking, we didn't have bralettes as undergarments. And so I guess that goes back to the definition piece um okay i think that needs to be it it needs i think that needs to be explicit in the training for our our staff in principle because there's obviously a lot

[02:19:14] of chatter about the bralette um but uh and if there's desire if you know again this is a um an iterative process if you will and so if there's if there's desire or board support to expressly include or exclude bralettes we're happy to to hear that feedback again our our thinking uh was i go back to my initial statement is um if it doesn't present a safety concern or a substantial disruption to the environment we didn't prohibit it okay but you understand my

[02:19:53] concern about number four the way it's written because i don't think i do but what you're help me a little bit more okay i can keep i do have a photo i do have a photo well i have a photo here look a bralette is something oh you know what they are okay so it seems like some some colleagues don't have teenage girls but you wear it in in place of that undergarment sometimes but it's it's decorative so like lots of times you can wear a tank top with straps but there'll be the bra the bralettes will be showing out between the two straps and and again so i'm with you uh

[02:20:30] mr nakoufax i think that we need to determine collectively if we consider bralettes under garments or if we consider them tops because around the table i think we have a different understanding and again we're fine either way we just want to have a clear understanding of what the will of the group is in our development we did not consider bralettes undergarments right and and i appreciate that and i also appreciate your comments about if you wear that alone under a jean jacket you know i i get that but i'm talking about it in combination with

[02:21:08] other yeah the straps are straps of anything even a traditional undergarment um you feel that falls under the strap comment okay yes i just want to be clear with that because it yeah as i said i don't want three years ago we four years ago now we went did extensive revisions to make sure there was less girl shaming in the dress code and i don't want that to come back via little nuance things like this thank you thank you for that enlightening round

[02:21:46] miss tollen we'll go with you and then miss mclaughlin all right thank you um just a couple of things i wanted to also talk a little bit about the um the bystander expectations um mostly because uh we recently had a meeting in herndon it was around you know overdoses but the um the police officer that was there was very clear that um bystanders that reported an incident would not

[02:22:22] be you know held responsible um or people that remained at the scene to assist would not be held responsible and um then in further discussions with um some students in one of my high school leadership classes the kids are really concerned about that you know if something's happening something bad is happening and i hang around or i report it you know what's going to happen to me so I think you know I just I just say that do we need more explanation in there uh to maybe say this

[02:22:55] is not uh something that you would be disciplined for given that it is in the SRNR just to be to explain further thank you and I think that's what Miss um Sasmerheiser was saying I see the shaking of the heads we can make sure we add language around that um and again we want to make sure that we're clear because we understand that students are in different places with self-advocacy and levels of comfort um and dr avi may feel comfortable in doing that and dr axler might not be there so this is what we want everyone everyone to continue to do but um if they don't again there is no ramification negative ramification if you will if you do or if you don't so we want to be

[02:23:35] clear about that too thank you so much my only other comments are two of two other comments one is around the substance misuse responses and stepping those up I am not adverse to that I do think that is such a serious issue in our schools and we do need to have consequences I do though along with a couple of my colleagues mentioned you know have concerns about if you're suspending students what happens you know are they just sent home are there you know some ways that they can keep we make sure they keep up on their academics and that there is a teachable moment involved

[02:24:13] you know want to make sure that that's all you know happening and that we're not just sending kids home to be on their own for however many days so you know i want to make sure work is being done on that thank you miss holand so um in addition to the aod um the suspension students will certainly have the opportunity to continue to do their work and there's a number of other interventions that are listed in the srnr that it might be appropriate for a setting there might be a referral to a community agency, there might be a need to do a FBA or a BIP. There are a number of things that

[02:24:49] are at principal's disposal now in terms of that intervention, which is more of that education, teaching, problem-solving piece as opposed to the sanction. Or I should say in addition to the sanction would be a better phrase. Okay, I just think we need to be clear about that and I don't know if that's in your principal training or you know where that happens. Yes ma'am, we'll follow up on that um and then i do want to say i do support moving forward um having this um you know more of a task force perhaps to work on this as dr reed was describing to facilitate that cross

[02:25:25] um group communication i think that it would be important and if there's a way to shorten up the whole process i'm all for that too thank you very much thank you thanks for all your work on this thank you thank you ms mclaughlin all right um dr reed you know i always like to start at like macro level what what i sort of see the big picture is here first um everyone knows i've spent 12 years talking about reforming student discipline practices making sure they're not just restorative

[02:25:58] in nature but they are driven by research data evidence and what i'm really concerned about what's in front of us here is it is not about people having opinions it's what is the data showing us that works or doesn't work and i absolutely appreciate and respect our building principles for the jobs that they do which is to manage their buildings you have a very extensive leadership team and central office headquarters their jobs are to be subject matter experts

[02:26:32] doing the research bringing collecting the data from our buildings bringing it up recommending changes then we go engage our stakeholders but i'm a little worried that this year in particular feels like you guys did some stakeholder engagement you brought it back down to the buildings the buildings have what i understand is a wide array of ideas and and what's working and not and now some of the changes in front of this board which i think we're all sort of voicing some concerns is okay what data and evidence did we collect from 25 high schools from 22 plus middle

[02:27:11] schools to say what we're doing this year wasn't working so now we need to change this so um you know i'm particularly worried about this movement toward out of school suspensions we moved toward in-school suspensions because some of our most at-risk students do not need to be home unsupervised while their family members are working.

[02:27:35] They need to be in school, supervised, and hopefully being put on the right track with wraparound services. I mean, we also embraced tiered approach to discipline. And so I'm sort of looking at this going, how are we tiering this to, you know, least restrictive, less likely to send them out?

[02:27:55] So that's sort of my macro thinking on this one, tiered approach to discipline and having data to drive our decisions, having research to drive our decisions. And I will be honest, I don't feel like I've had anything from your administration telling me, well, the research tells us this is what's effective, so this is why we're making these changes. Cell phone usage, I will just tell you guys all again, I do not support a way for the day in middle schools. I think that it is a tool of communication between families and students. I like that it's not in the classroom. I don't want disrupting the classroom. But the idea that we have middle schoolers whose families can't reach them for the

[02:28:34] day. And with my last 10 seconds, I will say, it's my understanding that there is a parent in this room who's got called and told to come to school and get your child's cell phone during school hours. And that is not okay. I can't tell you how upsetting that was to me as a board member.

[02:28:52] I don't want to ever hear that our schools require parents to come during a business day to come pick up their child's phone. It is so disrespectful to our families. There are much more common sense ways to fix it, and I ran out of time.

[02:29:08] I'm going to go back. Yes. I know, but I would like an answer from Dr. Reed. What can we do to get the data, research, science, and best practice coming from your team before we find ourselves like we are here today? So I think the data around the topics that we're looking at in terms of drug use shows that drug use has continued to escalate this year.

[02:29:36] We've had more, okay, and we can certainly follow up. No, no, I just want to clarify. The data and research is by sending them home now, it'll suddenly be more effective than suspending them in school.

[02:29:51] Unless you can bring me data that shows when we sent them home, they weren't doing it, and when we kept them for in-school suspension, it kept happening, then we don't have any data. It's not just to try a different punishment. So I think the last couple years we've done in-school suspension, so I don't know that, and the drug issue just countrywide, not just in our county, has continued to escalate.

[02:30:19] So I don't know that we can compare data, but I will go back and ask staff to look at data when we did out of school suspensions here in the county and was our drug situation better than when we've the last two years i think it's been the last two years that we've not had out of school suspension and see if our impact on drug use in the buildings is better or less better i guess if that's the data you're looking at in terms of suspension out of school versus in school here i don't think that's what she's looking for because i'm just going to quickly so i could take my turn and then we get to the go backs. It's not just the information in terms of what we're

[02:30:57] seeing. It's best practices in terms of what is most effective. So I will let you marinate on that and I'll take my turn. And I'll use my go back for it. Yes. I kind of agree with what Megan is saying. There is a sense of looseness around this process this year. However, I do want to say I am hearing from parents who are wanting for there to be more structure and more security in our schools. I mean, you heard it from my schools for the last two meetings, and I've been hearing it all year, and also the high schools. I am hearing it from the principals in terms of what is

[02:31:35] happening is not working. There has to be a balance, but I don't think what we were doing is working. Maybe this is not it either, but there's a space for a conversation. I don't think we can continue to do what we have been doing. But this also makes me wonder a little bit, there's a hardening to this, and I know that's in response to what we're hearing from parents and from administrators in terms of having tools and strategies to change behavior. But it's ironic to me that on page seven of the presentation, and it's also in the documents, where we are talking about chronic absenteeism, where we're talking about how being absent from schools for more than

[02:32:14] 18 days really impacts student learning, but yet, and this includes suspensions, we are also adding to that. It's hard to read. I understand the issues, and it's challenging, but it just comes across as disingenuous, and not putting blame on anybody. It's just the place that we're in.

[02:32:34] I just wonder if we want to rethink that a little bit, and I have a whole list. I'm going to put myself on a go back. I do also want to speak to the consequences. I'm glad that it was raised by two board members. I also wondered as well if it's one thing to have consequences for a student who is filming, who is being an instigator, but I really wondered about the student who took no action because we have written it as an expectation. It's under the list of responsibility, And all of those carry a violation tone to it because it's under the same list as dress code and cell phones and et cetera.

[02:33:15] So if I am a student who took no action, do I have to, do I have to, that needs to be spelled out. I see you, I hear you, but that has to be spelled out. That's not what we want our kids to do. We want them to contribute to community, but it just comes across as if there will be something for you because we expect for you to engage.

[02:33:36] the body positive language. I think that's in here somewhere. I could not even pretend to tell you where at this point. Oh, it's in the policy. I'm really curious in terms of how are we going to prepare our staff to engage in body positive language when they're interacting with students. Really through our discussions and modeling, you know, I'm a proponent that many things are done best through modeling. So as we talk with our administrators about how would you address, you know, Riccardi if she is out of, you know, appropriate wear and just making sure that we don't say things like

[02:34:12] you're too big to wear that shirt that you're falling out of just some of those things. If parts of my body are exposed that are not in accordance with the dress code regulations, simply stating that the dress code indicates that buttocks can't be shown. I can, you know, see, and again, in a way, as I shared with Mr. Fish earlier in a way that is not doing that in front of others in a way that's still respectful and maintains that person's integrity. So it's that type of piece that engaging in those conversations and honestly you know even as we talk with our administrators and talk through the dress code many people are a little reluctant

[02:34:48] to address it anyway because you don't want to be said that you're the person that is now quote unquote creepy for saying certain things and things like that so making sure that we still again maintain that that learning environment but do so in a way that's respectful professional and and doesn't put anybody in a precarious place because we know folks are a little bit reluctant in this space and i appreciate that but a lot of your response to me was we're having conversations with the principals with the administrators usually these dress code violations don't come through them they're coming through staff

[02:35:24] how are we preparing staff to be appropriate in this way because we don't want them to be labeled as creepy either because i've worked in a school i've had male teachers who just refuse to touch it they'll literally just bring a child in front of me and say you see it you you talk about it and i know that exists how are we prepping staff in order to make these decisions or to have these changes and how they view girls and well students in this way sure so again that goes back to the training we do provide training materials for our principals in the same type of dialogue that we would engage with our principals it would be the expectation that when they're doing that turnkey

[02:36:03] training with their staff, that they're engaging in that discussion too. Okay, I will put myself on a go back because I still have two more pages. Folks, because it is 749, and there's no way I think we're going to be able to get through this in a manner that we want, but we will stick to two minutes for the next round. And we will start with Ms. Pekarski and then Ms. Cohen. Okay, thank you.

[02:36:31] yeah I'll try to be super fast yeah I wanted to to also agree with the PTA comment that came up I I think it's disrespectful to have that in here to our PTAs who do function as independent entities and we don't have control over them so I I'm in favor of taking that out just quickly the suspensions for the for the drugs yes we need drugs out of our schools yes we all agree I also have concerns between the in-school and out-of-school suspension I wonder does

[02:37:08] it have anything to do with staffing of in-school nothing no there was no discussion of staffing during any of our conversations okay so the reason that this concerns me most is that if there are substance abuse issues suspension is not going to fix it. So we are literally setting up these kids to come right back into school and violate again and eventually be kicked out or, you know, whatever. So I don't know what the answer is. I'll be honest. I don't know what the answer is because what

[02:37:44] they need is help. And this is not going to get to it. So I'm open to hearing if you know what the answer is, Dr. Reed. But to Ms. McLaughlin's point, we want kids in school at all costs. And maybe there is space to, and Ms. Cohen, I think, was going to bring this up. I don't want to steal her thunder, but making it a mandatory that you undergo, you know, whatever our substance

[02:38:20] abuse training is or course. I think that's no. The AOD, the alcohol and other drug intervention is in there, but it requires parental consent because there's an assessment that's given. And Dr. Axler, Stefan Maskell can speak more intelligently about that requirement. But that's why there's that component. And we did. And again, we all believe it's important, but we can't provide an assessment without uh parental participation and that assessment is key to providing the supports appropriate for for

[02:38:59] kids that are um having challenges with that and knowing um what level of referrals might be appropriate if we have that parental consent to additional supports and resources i'd like to see the data around who accepts that and who doesn't and if it was tied to harsher consequences maybe we would see you know a different outcome on whether or not people opt in and if it was provided during the day i i don't have enough time but i want to say physical violence is that an automatic suspension yes or no fighting for example no okay that's a problem for me when you're looking at

[02:39:37] drug violations as automatic suspensions when we know that these kids are addicted but hurting somebody putting your hands on them and being violent um and then you come right back

[02:39:49] the next day and your victim sees you, that's an issue. Thank you, Ms. Bakarski. I know it says two seconds, but they didn't start the time. So just Dr. Boykin, just for clarity, so fighting the results and no injury is a level one through four offense. And so again, level one and level two don't include suspension. Level three could include suspension. Level four could include suspension. So just as a follow up, it's a range of one through four. I don't have time to delve deeper, but I want to. Maybe. Maybe. 30 seconds. Yeah.

[02:40:19] Ms. Cohen and then Ms. Omeish. I'm going to take that up from a different perspective. I am hearing from our staff repeatedly that they feel like students there's no consequences when students are physically injuring them and we have a lot of people who are leaving the profession especially in some of our schools with kids who are in deeper crisis. I don't understand why BESO2A has grade level expectations, but BES02, which is just assaulting a person other than a staff

[02:40:53] member, is not leveled by grade. Can somebody speak to that? We can follow up and refer to our model guidance here, and we'll follow up back on that one for you. And I would just tell you there's an awful lot of sixth graders who are bigger than a lot of our teachers at some of our school. So I would really like us to look at BES-02A and BES-04, which is striking staff.

[02:41:21] That's leveled at the younger ages, again, through six. I would argue that's K-3 maybe, because our kids are really... You know what? If my memory serves me correctly, and I'll have to go back to my notes to see if this is one of the ones that last year we proposed changing to K-3, where there's case six and there was not support for that and now is that correct okay well i would encourage um that be brought up again to my colleagues because the feedback i think so many

[02:41:55] of us are getting are the teachers are being significantly hurt and anyway whole other issue with workman's comp number two um i agree with stella wholeheartedly i am very concerned what we do and what onus we put back on parents to just say your kid has a marijuana infraction we're or sending them home for two days.

[02:42:14] There was so much intentionality and work done in doing it. I know ISS isn't working, so I, like Stella, agree 100%. I am not saying go back. I'm saying can we stretch our brains and see what we can figure out. And if ISS looks like some sort of without an assessment, if it's a presentation by staffs, if it's our sort of scared straight or silent no more, if it's, but we're hearing, and Meg and I heard it at Lake Braddock this week, the ISS does not work.

[02:42:42] The suspension does not work. I don't know the answer. And I'm sorry to put that on you all. But I agree. The other is chronic illness with absenteeism. I just wanted to make sure that we are not punishing parents and students who have very legitimate reasons, mental, physical health, why they cannot be in school. So I didn't know how to caveat that.

[02:43:05] And just as a clarification, when you say punishing them, so the chronic absenteeism piece, as long as they're enrolled in school for students who are homebound, and so they, because of that physical piece, and they're receiving homebound, they're counted as present, even though they're physically at home.

[02:43:20] But if Michelle has something that may be chronic and it pops up every couple of weeks and I have a situation that I'm out three or four days, even though that's an excused absence, that does count as Michelle being chronically absent if I hit that 10%. And again, that's not local. That's how the state calculates chronic absenteeism.

[02:43:39] So we need to work on that at the state level. Ms. Omeish. Yeah, thank you. Just circling back on the bias-related incident thing, you know, I think if it's prepared to be deployed by next year, and I'm sure that the team is doing a great job with what it's going to be, at least that we reflect that in the SRNR that will also be for next year.

[02:44:04] So I'd love for us to maintain that language. I understand the concern, but it doesn't seem like the timing is actually an issue. Any response? I am not sure where it was originally in the SRNR before it was taken out.

[02:44:24] So in the SRNR, there was a placeholder that a process was coming, and I know that persons want to make sure when they're voting on something that they're knowledgeable and aware of what that process looks like before it's included. And to my knowledge, it's not at a place where those details are available, so we're not able to include that or to be able to respond definitively to questions that one might have.

[02:44:51] And so that's why it was removed, so that persons can make informed decisions when casting their votes as to whether they support whatever final version of the draft SRNR is in June. Right, but this will be ready by June 20-something when we vote on this, right? I mean, half a month.

[02:45:12] I would have to check with colleagues. I'm not able to provide that information at this time. well dr. King you're heading that up well when will the do you think the process for the bias reporting tool have passed legal and be ready to actually share with the board we got the updated information from legal already we've turned it over to the vendor to update the process and once we're at the will of the vendor they said it would take a couple of weeks so I don't have an exact date but they did say a couple of weeks I can circle back with them and see if I can get a

[02:45:47] specific date for you. Sure. But I guess where I'm like the hang up here is in including language that tells students they have that as a right and an option. It's not in delineating the actual program, right? The program will be ready for students by the time they start in August next year. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. So why would we remove that language then? If the board is comfortable with our including a general statement, we're happy to do so. Okay. I mean, I think in just saying that this is available to students to report, I don't see the harm of

[02:46:25] that, maybe colleagues can speak to it, but since we know it'll be ready for next year. The other piece I was going to speak to was, given, you know, Rosh and Tammy, a couple of other comments, I'm a little worried about just unintended consequences of these, you know, some of these are significant changes. I was thinking even just for one, like where we said, first of all, how we define private parts is inconsistent throughout the document.

[02:46:52] I found three different ways that we do it. So that's something we probably have to address. But then, like, if we say something like chest, I was like, okay, so if a kid is running track and, like, a boy takes his shirt off running track, like, is that chest? And I understand the intent of, like, trying to be inclusive and neutral, but I think we have to be thoughtful of, like, again, unintended consequences of what is normal for kids, you know, versus what we're trying to do.

[02:47:18] So have we, have principles been a part of this process yet? Yes, we had in-depth discussion with principals, and there is, there are, excuse me, mixed fillings about the dress code. Some would like the explicit inclusion of prohibiting midriffs is probably the biggest one, if I would say so.

[02:47:48] Okay, can you comment on the chest thing? Like, am I reading that correctly? Yes, you're reading it correctly. You are. I mean, implementation wise, I just don't know. I feel like it's pretty. I've seen lots of guys taking their shirts off in high school. So I don't know. I mean, that's just something to think about, especially in a sports context in the weight room or like whatever, you know, I mean, and we can determine if we need to make a carve out for, you know, athletics and things like that. But I think what what we're pretty clear about is during the instructional day and in school, we would expect everybody to have on a shirt.

[02:48:22] so we can certainly look at adding language relative to the athletic forum yeah we might be able to get a couple more minutes to you in just a little bit so um besides more heiser and then miss mary thank you um several of my points have been made so i'll just kind of lift up some of these things that we're saying i i do think um as we're making some of these changes for for drug use i just i disagree with miss cohen and miss pikarski right like i understand in school suspension isn't working, but if we're just going to send these kids home automatically

[02:48:58] and we're not doing it for physical violence, you know, I think Ms. McLaughlin mentioned this earlier, I'd like to kind of see some data on the violence and I'd like to see some data on what's happening in our schools. Is it effective? Is it not effective in terms of how we're dealing with it right now? But I think maybe this is what the task force will look at next year, but I'm not sure holistically we're consistent in what, how we're punishing things right if we're you know I am uncomfortable if the student is is physically assaulting another

[02:49:34] student or a teacher and they're right back the next day I don't know what the solution is for some of these things but I'm also uncomfortable with the juxtaposition of you may have a drug disorder or drug addiction and you're home for five days by yourself I'm not sure that's going to help right but meanwhile you're back in school the next day potentially after a physical altercation I think there's some consistency issues here right and that that consistency issues perhaps is sending a message that we don't want to send right to and or release a message that's being heard of we take this really seriously but this not as much I don't know the answer to that but I

[02:50:11] think that's a look that we need to look at through our um it throughout the whole thing to say are we being consistent in how we are treating offenses are we sending messages that you have a drug addiction and it's really bad and we don't deal with it we're gonna send you home but if you physically assault somebody else, we're going to do all of these pieces. I believe in restorative justice. I believe in teaching. I believe in consequences and that right balance between, but I don't feel like holistically we've gone through that. And that's, I think, what we're all sitting here wrestling with a little bit. So my time is up. I just want to put that to you, Dr. Reed, to think about. And if you have any comments, I welcome them. Yeah, thank you,

[02:50:47] Ms. Sizemore-Hizer. I think what I heard Dr. Boyd saying is that if there is a physical altercation that results in injury, there is a discipline out of school, but I could be wrong. Could you clarify that, please? So I initially read the code for fighting when they're BSO3, fighting the use of physical violence between students and another person where there's minor injury determined. That's a level one through four. And again, levels three and four where suspension begins. Some of the infractions that I think was Miss Cohen or Miss

[02:51:24] Pekarski was on this side of the room reference and I'm sorry ladies was the assault and battery causing physical injury to us to a staff member and for students in grades K-6 that could be a level 2 or level 3 level 3 being where suspension begins for students in grades 4-6 it could also be at level 4 where also suspension is involved. And for students in grades 7 through 12, it's a level 5, which is an automatic referral to the division superintendent. And that's where a staff person

[02:51:57] is injured. And it continues on. But the long and short of it is that there are multiple levels for when someone is assaulting another person, whether it being a student or a staff person and some of the assault responses could not based on a level level one and two involve a suspension but they also again for the level three and four they could so there's that broad range whereas considered and comparing to the proposals around substance abuse it would begin

[02:52:33] at a level three which is in alignment with the model guidance which involves suspension And, again, that's where the team was looking at. So, again, looking at the model guidance, feedback, looking at our data, all of those pieces.

[02:52:52] Thank you very much, Ms. Marin, and then Ms. McLaughlin. Yeah, I just want to more fully speak to the idea of the bullying reporting protocols. So, Dr. Reed, back in 2020, we really tightened up the child abuse reporting policy and governance, and that made a big difference.

[02:53:08] And so I'm wondering, I agree with what Mr. Frisch said about, could we have a similar process for bullying, reporting? And I wonder how that is similar or different to what the emerging bias reporting system is. So just wanted to share that. It was a protocol. It was like a reporting protocol, basically.

[02:53:26] And that would be for students to student and students to staff member. I had a question for Mr. Foster regarding the definition of a BB gun. Are we required to say it's a BB gun instead of a gun when an incident happens per any kind of statutory definition?

[02:53:45] Yes, BB guns are treated differently from a firearm, for example, under the Virginia Code. Can you get closer to the microphone, please, Mr. Foster? I'm sorry, yeah, is that better? Okay, yeah, BB guns are treated differently from, you know, a firearm under the Virginia Code.

[02:54:04] And so specifically, BB guns are covered in Section 15.2-915.4 of the code. They're referred to as pneumatic guns, and the term pneumatic gun is then broken down further as a BB gun. And then there's also coverage of BB guns in Section 22.1-277.07.

[02:54:27] Thank you. I was just wondering, because for some folks, myself included, a gun is a gun is a gun. But if that's what the state says, is the differentiation, that's what it is. I do know recently in one of the high schools I represent, there was a senior activity where you had to go around with water guns and get your peers.

[02:54:45] So if a student's going to get expelled or have a suspension, there's got to be the clarity then of what is allowed. I also think in just a last piece about SROs and data dashboards, I would like to see more of a data dashboard around what's happening with our SRO activities especially as you know security needs arise if there is you know if we're going to go in that direction we've got to make sure that especially when it comes to arrests I'm not clear on what the school divisions approaches on arrests for an SRO or for a responding officer for a minor so I'd

[02:55:23] I'd like to know what our protocol is for that. I think that needs to be made clear. Thank you. - Again, Ms. McLaughlin. - Thank you, two things. Dr. Reed, on the bias reporting system, we're talking about either we find a program that exists in the United States and what its effect has been and its success rate, or we consider piloting it, but we absolutely have to know all the details before we would ever consider bringing it forward for the board's consideration and adopting it.

[02:55:53] We know when Governor Youngkin had his hotline for reporting on teachers, that was a chilling effect, and I do not want that for our teachers, so I think there's more to be done here than just simply considering it. On the issue of in-school out-of-school suspensions, particularly for drug use, I am so deeply dismayed that you are now the fourth superintendent.

[02:56:15] I have had to try and bring their awareness that right across the county line, Arlington Public Schools has had their second chance program for more than 15 years. It was created by the school board in collaboration with the board of supervisors, with their police, and their county prosecutor's office.

[02:56:35] It is highly successful. 90% of students in a first-time offense for substance abuse in Arlington, through their own data, showed they did not repeat offend. 90%. They require three days of the alcohol drug class.

[02:56:54] Parents also then have to do a three-hour class with their children. and then they have to do a 45-day-later booster pass. We've been doing something of our kind. In fact, ours is five days versus three days, and everybody bragged about FCPS going to five days. So to hear and sit here as someone who is championing this, and I'm sorry for my tone, but this is 12 years of fatigue, we have data.

[02:57:18] We have data through our Second Chance program that FCPS was so proud to implement finally. So I cannot support a boomerang back that now we've got to suspend kids out of school because anecdotally, we have drug and substance abuse going on more in our schools.

[02:57:35] As you said, that's happening across the country. What is our program doing? And if we're not doing well on it, but Arlington still is, then that's what I'm talking about. And the last thing I do have to read here is, "National research shows excluding students from the classroom leads to school avoidance, increases dropout potential, and increases the chance that those students will end up in the juvenile court system, period the end.

[02:58:03] I don't understand why it takes board members to be finding this information. Thank you. Did you want to respond to any of that? I would like to know what she thinks about Arlington. I don't know anything about the Arlington program, but I took notes, and we'll look into it tomorrow morning.

[02:58:20] When you have time. No, that's fine. If they've got a 90% stabilization rate, non-recidivism, obviously we would want to mirror that. And I didn't know we had a five-day program here. Did you know that, Dr. Boyd?

[02:58:36] And I think, you know, we discussed some things with principals, and this may be some of the pieces, too, that Ms. McLaughlin is referring to. Previously, there was a, I don't know the name of it, but a more kind of comprehensive, robust program for kids who needed alcohol and other drug intervention.

[02:59:04] And they went to a place that we had in one of our sites and they engaged in that program for multiple days and things like that. And there was some discussion even on last year about that program and about those supports. But that just didn't come to fruition for a variety of reasons.

[02:59:21] But we can have some additional discussions about that because the principals did provide some historical context around that program that was in place. Well, and I think part of the issue that has gotten a lot of discussion recently is if it's voluntary or if it's required. And I think at some point we have to put a stake in the ground about what we require if the data demonstrates that.

[02:59:44] No, no, I just want you to Arlington. No, no, but this is the clarification. Arlington says if you don't want to do the voluntary program, then you are doing out of school system. Ms. McLaughlin, let us get our turn. We might be able to get a couple more people in. I'm next. So this is what I want to share. I don't have any answers. I just want to say that I don't have any answers because if I did, I would offer them. I just have lots of questions. And what I'm here on the table, it's difficult because we want all of it to work. But we also have to realize that we do have students who don't go into our restrooms because of drug activity there.

[03:00:20] We have students who are hurting other students. I heard and I appreciated what you just shared, but that can be applicable to any student, whether it's a drug issue or a physical fighting issue. So none of our kids go home. If they're hitting staff, each other, engaging with each other in terms of drug activity in the classroom, I don't think that's, I don't have the answers. I just don't think it's realistic to think we are not going to suspend kids.

[03:00:51] Oh, and I'm not saying that's what you're saying. I'm just saying this is where we are. And we have these principals, these teachers, they are trying their best. And if we have tools and strategies for them that is provided to them, I know we're not holding anything back. But that's the situation. We're saying your schools have to be safe. Parents are saying this. Kids are saying this. And yet we're saying nobody could go home.

[03:01:17] If you hit a child, if you hit a teacher, if you engage in drug activity, we could find a reason for all of our kids why they shouldn't go home. And I'm not saying that they all should. We do have kids who have drug abuse issues, and those may be documented.

[03:01:33] We also have kids who have anger issues and cannot have, they don't have the emotional control to not strike out at others. We just have to realize that we are going to need to break eggs to make this omelet. So I just don't know what that's going to look like. But I still have all of the questions that I still had. But this is not going to be easy. But we can't have our cake and eat it too on this. I just don't see it.

[03:02:02] And Dr. Anderson, if I can just share, because I do appreciate what Ms. McLaughlin shared, and we all know that we're trying to, you know, nationally in the research, it talks about restorative practices and decreasing exclusionary practices, particularly because they have the preponderance to impact certain groups more than others, i.e. students with disabilities or African-American students, Hispanic, the same groups where we talk about our disproportionality pieces.

[03:02:29] And so, again, we're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, or that wasn't our intent, I would say. And to your point, there's a number of supports that are being provided. We have social workers, school counselors, school psychologists, numbers of folks wrapping their arms around kids, in addition to our substance abuse prevention specialists.

[03:02:50] But we do find ourselves in that place where we all just have to be mindful. If our kids come home, our own individual children, as we sit around the table and say, Mom, I couldn't use the bathroom because there were drugs going on.

[03:03:08] Mom, I got this. And that's probably the lighter call. We would all hate to have a different call that our kids are impacted because there are drugs in the school and they inadvertently take something that they think is something else. That's the call nobody wants to have.

[03:03:23] And so I'm not trying to do a whole scared straight thing with us around the table. but I think that we just have to be in a space that there's not going to be an easy answer. We just want to know what is our collective, because again, we know the research. Everybody around the table knows the research about exclusionary practices. We know about restorative.

[03:03:40] We also know some of our limitations as a result to substance misuse, which is why we are partnering with the county and other folks to see what are additional options that our families and kids can have. But it's a tough space, and we know that right now what's happening isn't good learning environment for kids and it's not safe. And again, we're open to the discussion, but we have to acknowledge what's before us that what we're doing now is not it. No, I appreciate that. Thank you.

[03:04:08] And I think that is my time. Are there any other board members who are burning to have another two minutes? I see two. Ms. McLaughlin and Ms. Omash. Dr. Boyd, I really appreciate what you said. And I do want to believe that our division is committed to restorative justice and scientifically proven tiered approach to discipline, but it's very frustrating because I feel like we're backsliding.

[03:04:35] And Dr. Reed, the only thing I can say is data drives decision-making, good decision-making. I'm hearing anecdotally drug use is up, recidivision is up. You know what? Bring me the data. I am not going to take anything that comes from, well, this is what we're hearing. This is what we're seeing. My dearest colleague next to me, we both might look at this differently, But if we have the same set of data in front of us, and if we can go get Arlington Public Schools data to see are they really succeeding still at the 90 percent, then what are we not doing here?

[03:05:10] But this has been a really, I think, challenging conversation to have because we're just hearing what people are seeing and experiencing. And I do not want to dismiss it, but every principal has a different experience. And if we can end up bringing them, what are we seeing across our 25 schools?

[03:05:29] Is their experience at this high school versus that one different? Bring the data, and then I think that we will be in a much better place to not only do the best for kids, but also to ensure that all families recognize that we are monitoring and adjusting.

[03:05:47] I'm not against refining, but I'll end on this one. Every good researcher knows and every good decision maker should know. You don't do things because there's a correlation. You do things based on causality, and I don't feel like I've seen the evidence of causality.

[03:06:04] I'm just hearing a lot of correlation, and we know the pandemic has messed things up. Kids were probably sitting home in virtual, and parents were working, and there was probably a lot of activity to, you know, self-medicate. i mean there's a lot of things and i've run out of time and to everybody please know my tone has just been because i've just been fighting it a long time but i don't mean any disrespect um i am going to have mr not koufax go first because she didn't have a second turn and then missile mish thank you um i i do appreciate what you said and i think dr reed i do agree with miss mclaughlin

[03:06:44] the data needs to come my data comes from my district and speaking to my with my regional teams and i represent schools in two different um two different regions and one of my regions has serious issues and i just like all my colleagues around the table am unsure what is the best consequence but i know i am very concerned and my data is real it's not antidotal but it isn't in

[03:07:23] form in a form that i could share with my colleagues you know what i'm saying like i it is not in a place where i can say there were these issues associated with poor behavioral choices there are these issues that were associated with drugs and this is what happened so I think it is important that we come to a place where we do understand that collectively as a board, because in one of my other regions that I represent, I'm not seeing that, but I'm seeing it

[03:08:03] in one part. So I can't really say, other than right now, all I can say is this is what I'm hearing from my RAS because I don't have a piece of paper to hand to my colleague and say, this is really happening and how can we address this? And how can we also institute the support in a positive way, but also in a way that says your child needs assistance and we're here to

[03:08:36] help your child? But I don't know what our limits are as a board for that or as a system, I should say because we're we're making decisions but it's all of you who will execute it and how we can do that because that's those are the two places where i think we need the data to share collectively to actually know what's happening and how can we as a system partner with our families who may be reluctant for a multitude of reasons to get the help their kids need thank you miss Dana Koufax, is there a response or feedback?

[03:09:13] We can have the data tomorrow because we've been looking at it. We can provide it to you tomorrow. Thank you. Mr. Frisch. I'll be very interested to see the data because in researching our forum topic from earlier in the month, everything that I looked at indicated that use of illicit drugs over the last couple of years has been at historic lows across the country.

[03:09:37] and that the thing that is different is that drug overdoses have increased among young people because almost exclusively because of fentanyl. According to the county's opioid dashboard, the first three months of this year had nearly as many non-fatal overdoses of young people as the entirety of last year, and that is almost exclusively because of fentanyl.

[03:10:02] And so if hard drug use is at historic lows and holding steady, but overdoses are increasing almost exclusively because of fentanyl, my two informed by this logic assumptions are that most of what we're talking about is misuse of prescription medication.

[03:10:22] It's also marijuana. And that for the most part, whatever message is getting conveyed about hard drugs is having an impact. The question is, because fentanyl can be in just about anything, we're seeing that impact much more severely.

[03:10:42] And that makes us feel like drug use is skyrocketing when it may not be skyrocketing. I'll be interested to see what the data is. Maybe we're doing a better job of catching people than we used to be. But even our own county data doesn't show an increase in drug use. It shows an increase in overdoses.

[03:11:01] Thank you. Ms. Somesh. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And I just wanted to add, I think we have to be mindful of what data doesn't exist as well, because I don't know that we've been tracking this as carefully as we do now, just given how and who is affected.

[03:11:17] Going back, Dr. Boyd, earlier you were reciting kind of the list of things you responded to from the public meeting. If you could just go back to that. Go back to that page. And we ended on weapons.

[03:11:34] The next item that was brought up, and again, please forgive me for not knowing which board member suggested this, was a request to consider having the parent notification requirement prior to questioning that's in place for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities to be applied to all students.

[03:11:53] We did think about this. I remember last year during our SRNR review process, there was a request to have parental consent, and we talked about how that just wouldn't be operational. While this request isn't to suggest parental consent but to provide parental notice, We think that there might be some operational challenges to that, as oftentimes I need to talk to a student to find out what's going on, who's involved, to just get an assessment of it.

[03:12:24] And I might not know until after I'm talking with Melanie that, oh, now that you happen to be in my line of sight there, that the infraction is something that could be a suspendable offense. But it wasn't until I actually engaged with her in that way.

[03:12:40] We did consult some of Mr. Foster's team. Legally, there wouldn't be anything that would prohibit us from doing that. I just think that in terms of we just have some concerns in terms of making that consistent and being operationalized across the number of students who could be involved in an incident and trying to respond timely.

[03:13:03] while we know that notice could be a phone call and so one would say well how long michelle does i really take to run up to the hall and make a phone call but if there are seven or eight different kids there and i'm trying to call and trying to get in the car that that could impact those things so yeah that's fair i guess can it be retroactive where like a parent can expunge if you will a testimony that a kid made after um that may be looped to the next piece and i'll see and i think maybe Ms. Elmes you may have asked about for procedural errors considering ceasing disciplinary

[03:13:39] actions if there was a procedural errors made in the course of the disciplinary process. Again we did consult counsel and we could pursue two different options. One that the hearing officer could find the referral unwarranted and permit the student to immediately resume class and modify the student's discipline record accordingly or remand the student disciplinary case back to the school to correct the procedural error particularly in cases where the student's misconduct poses a significant risk to others in the school environment and the procedural error can be reasonably

[03:14:16] remedied okay i i think that's better than where we're at i mean what i guess what hesitance did you have in adopting that no that's that's that's the language that we talked to that that's an option that we could take and again um i think that that accounts for some of the concerns that we talked about um in our may 11th situation where in those very significant and serious incidents that we wouldn't want to just disbar the discipline but we would want to correct it so i think to your earlier question that part two would be the piece about um being able to

[03:14:52] adjust that that component i see but that's not necessarily the parents call right that's like the hearings office deciding that. Correct. Okay. Can it be the parent too? Like if a kid wrote, you know, those papers we see where they write up like, I did this and I saw this person and whatever, whatever, and the parent is aware of it and now the kid's in trouble because of what they wrote, can the parent not say, I want this eliminated? I was not, I did not consent to my child being interrogated essentially. We'd have to go back and double check again. The concern, that concern with pulling all of that information is just in those various serious incidents and we

[03:15:28] want let me start by saying we want our administrators to follow the process right so we're not excusing that however we don't want to just discard particularly those very serious discipline incidents because there was a procedure or a technical error so so that's why those two carve outs were drafted as some options that we could consider okay I guess where I'm struggling is like okay first of all it's designating it as an error right if a parent was not it did not consent to their child testifying that should be considered an error but right now it's not

[03:16:06] so if it goes to the hearings office and the hearings office gets to look at the procedural errors and say okay we're not taking this case because there wasn't due process or whatever that's not even going to be an issue because we don't consider it an error right correct so how I guess the parent consent I mean because we do it for kids with special needs so we don't have parent consent we have parent notice right for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities when there's um consideration or the potential that a student could potentially be suspended okay so can we do the same thing and that goes back to my to my first concern that

[03:16:46] really in terms of operationalizing that um that might i lost 10 seconds and i wasn't speaking might cause some nuances come on now you'll be fine i'm gonna take it back all right sorry go ahead no that that was all that was it okay so if we're gonna go with the minimum thing which you You just said the option to either remand or, you know, consider unwarranted.

[03:17:08] Where is that adopted? Have we adopted that? We have not. We had not had the opportunity to go back and talk with leadership. We've been working with counsel on this draft language. So that's why Dr. Reed probably looked like, that's the first time I'm hearing that. That's because we were drafting that, and these were in our operational notes.

[03:17:25] We need to just go back and follow up, but we did look into that. If we could just take a pause here. I know you've got more. I think all of us have more. It is exactly 8.30. One of the things that I think I'm here, well, I think our next time together. I just want to know when that's coming, because that's coming somewhere, somehow.

[03:17:43] Okay, hold on one second. One of the things that I want to make sure that we speak about in this room before we head out is the next time that we're supposed to talk about this SRNR is June 26th, when we are voting for it. By looking around the table, I think there's a lot of reticence in terms of being ready for that.

[03:18:03] So I will leave it to the two of you to engage and wrestle with, because there's a lot of, and you don't have to answer anything tonight. I'm just going to say that there's several things that people have said that they aren't able to come to for various reasons, so we're going to have to really think about how we manage that.

[03:18:21] It's fine. It's just for you all to go back and ponder. It just seems to be a lot of uneasiness in the room and readiness for the 26th. We seem to not be as close as I think we would have liked to be after this evening. Very quickly, Dr. Boyd, if you could please respond to Ms. Omacia's question in terms of when that is likely to happen.

[03:18:42] We'll follow up with leadership this week and we'll follow up with you. I'd like to maybe get a consensus as to, does everybody in this room want another work session on the SR&R? Because I know that's the sense you're getting, but I don't know if that's a consensus for people in the room.

[03:19:01] That's a great way of getting it. Who would like to have another work session on SR&R? Can I clarify something? Assuming that there are going to be some kind of revisions, responses, whatever to everything. I don't want to just have this conversation again. Well, there was a lot said tonight, so can we show consensus?

[03:19:20] and if we don't have seven-- - Let's answer the question first. Are you gonna have more information for us or is it just another conversation? - I think I need some clarity to go back to staff on which topics that we need to go back and bring you information. The two issues really primarily have been the dress code discussion and the exclusion from school or not for the drug and alcohol, the substance misuse.

[03:19:47] I don't know if those are both still a concern. I don't know if they're-- and the assault behavior. I think the assault-- so those are the three, right? Assault, drug and alcohol, misuse, and the dress code.

[03:20:03] So I don't know that I've gotten direction on what to go back and rewrite in those cases, to be honest. So I would like a little summary, maybe from you all, as kind of what you want me to take back to staff to work as a rewrite that would-- I don't know if there is-- Can we do this in Next Steps? Is it okay if we do this? Because I didn't hear anything I said reflected.

[03:20:25] Is it okay if we do this in Next Steps and have the board members vote like usual? Well, I think Christina did send the Next Steps document out earlier, so we have the opportunity to do that. We've long since strayed away from using Next Steps, but there's no reason why we cannot use it.

[03:20:40] And I think having some time to kind of pull back and think to really articulate what we'd like for the superintendent to have staff reflect on may not be a bad idea. as the other meeting manager i'd like to propose something different i i don't find that our next steps work because it's when people enter it when people saw it got entered when they vote on if they vote at all and then you have to get the seven you have to hope seven participated i would rather from what dr reed said is that dr anderson and i as the meeting managers just say raise your hand if you'd like dr reed to go get the data and bring back any recommendations that she like i mean dr

[03:21:16] to read what we're looking for from you operationally is take the Arlington Public Schools racism rates your staff was was going to recommend this now you went got some data from our school division you got data from their school division do you stand by what you guys are recommending as of today or are you going to bring something back and say otherwise but I think we have to have to come back together to see that so yes Mr. Fish other people may not feel as strongly about and I get the problem with next steps, but that's our problem that we create on our own. I think next

[03:21:56] steps works if we say it's now Tuesday. It feels like Thursday. It's Tuesday. Everybody has to have their next steps in by X date. And on that date, people will vote. Not this, you go in once and you never come back. And if the clerk has to help track us down to vote on it, that's fine. But that's the most efficient way of capturing everybody's intention here and not just one individual or another. And I certainly wasn't presenting like, okay, vote on mine and then we're done. All right, folks, because I don't, I'm hoping we don't sit around here for the next 20 minutes to talk about what our next steps are going to be. Can we just please engage in the

[03:22:35] process that we have? And based on that process, then we will figure out whatever, I hate to say this, the next steps will be from the next steps, whether it's another meeting, whether it's additional information. And we will take that back with the next step because it could be two by twos. There's lots of options. Lots of options. So it is Tuesday. Can we say we will be done by next steps on Thursday, voting by Friday? No, because I personally have travel and I'm completely not even able to log on to anything on Friday. Okay, so it is still Tuesday. We can do

[03:23:12] Four business days, two business days to get your next steps in, two business days to vote. So then next Tuesday to vote. That will be fine because then we can discuss it next week's chair. Perfect. Okay, so please get your next steps in by Tuesday. I'm sorry, by Thursday. Vote by next Tuesday.

[03:23:30] Are we good with that? Well, you can count Friday and Monday. We are going to go with the Thursday-Tuesday plan. Monday's a holiday. Good night, people. Remember Thursday.

[03:23:47] I will send a backup, but I don't want to. Okay, we will go to Thursday, Tuesday plan. We'll Thursday, Tuesday, the TNT.

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