Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Work Session, Wednesday, May 31, 2023

Date: Wednesday, May 31, 2023
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 2h 39m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1Szg3m6byA
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.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[00:00:11] - All right, thank you very much. We are doing our committee reports. Oh, before I get started, I need to make a motion. Ms. Cohen has submitted a written request to virtually attend today's work session due to a medical conflict. All those in favor of approving this request, raise your hand, please.

[00:00:31] Those opposed? All right, that is approved. All right, our first report for today is for the Minority Student Achievement Oversight Committee. and I will turn it over to our guest. Would you like to introduce yourselves before we get started?

[00:00:49] Thank you. - I am the co-chair this year, along with Dr. Sharonda Farish, and our co-chair in waiting, Ms. Tabitha Temple, guru, George Becerra, who everyone knows.

[00:01:17] I represent the, I'm on the committee representing the Franconia District. - Hi, my school board, Farnack, Colfax. - So the MSAOC are a large group, volunteers.

[00:01:39] This group is very dedicated to their passion. As seen here today, they showed up in support. Everybody wave over there.

[00:01:55] Those are some of our members. I'm not gonna introduce the members by name, but please.

[00:02:10] But we see here, These are our school board district representatives. I wanna thank the school board for their dedicated appointees. And also want to thank and recognize our wonderfully bright student representative who is graduating soon and off to New York to Barnard College next year.

[00:02:42] Here are our, I always want to recognize and thank our community members representing organizations and various educator. associations also would like to recognize and thank those that are fcps staff with us there are things that are not on the list that i do want to thank and recognize and that's

[00:03:21] dr king and dr presidio um thank you for your time this year thank you for your ear thank you for your thoughts um it was greatly appreciated as i said on this slide there um there's the staff you see the principals from each school level and reps from each region of cps services departments now at the top of the list and not just because her last name starts with an a and the list is in alphabetical order but she's at the top of my list and that is our

[00:04:01] staff liaison um miss kim amenabar i publicly want to thank you for the outstanding job that you did this year um void to fill so we couldn't have done it without you um thank you for all this thank you for all your emails and meeting notes and calendar invites and touch base meetings just

[00:04:39] everything outstanding job um we certainly appreciate it and that void that i alluded to this is the the first year in three decades that this presentation is going on without him um yeah so uh next oh go back to the other slide so i'm speaking of dr b um dr lawrence bussey

[00:05:19] this year was definitely different definitely different um without him he was greatly missed we missed that smile we missed his laugh his personality his candor his ability to analyze data and shrink it down into palatable bites so hopefully this report

[00:05:48] honors his legacy we try to go on and we just want to respect the the work that he put in tirelessly for all these many years so with that i i do also want to thank the the school board because um as you know we created an equity award in its honor and i see that you all have included that in your email communications getting the word out there about the award so i just wanted

[00:06:23] to say thank you uh for doing that thank you thank you okay we'll go to charge okay so there's our charge for the year we broke it down like as I said the committee is large so we broke it down into subcommittees which we've done in the past and the subcommittees are the ones that did the work to pull the report together for their area of expertise and it may not even been the area of

[00:07:01] expertise but it is now so you have the report as in the past we'll use this time together to highlight our findings and recommendations so the areas of focus we have it into four areas partnership and engagement school environment school operations and teaching and learning that's what's broken down by the subcommittee as a committee as a whole we do have one collective finding and

[00:07:35] that's around the chief equity officer I'm sorry next slide there we go yep That's around the chief equity officer. That position has been an interim position since January of 2022, and to date, it hasn't been advertised for a permanent hire yet.

[00:07:59] and not having a permanent person hired for this role leads to work without long-term plan sends the message or at least gives the perception that equity is not a priority for a division, which we know is not the case with everything going on with the equity policy and the strategic plan.

[00:08:20] But as the MSALC, our recommendation is basically let's get somebody hired for that position and ideally by the start of next school year. I'll go on to our first subcommittee topic under the partnership and engagement.

[00:08:46] The goal is simply to build a collaborative relationship between families and schools as active partners for the purposes of student success. The findings is that the family engagement practices in FCPS do not consistently demonstrate cultural responsiveness, nor do they meet the needs of families from minority groups.

[00:09:07] Currently, the division does not have a systematic approach to supporting families, opportunities for capacity, connection, self-efficacy, or leadership. The recommendations for that would be to create a centrally funded family enrichment institute for families of students in the ESOL program at Title I schools with intent of building their capacity to support their children's educational success.

[00:09:38] addition to that is to develop a culturally responsive and intentional framework to share information understanding of the school system with all families through diverse communication methods this plan would include creating a full-time staff member in the OCCR to lead this initiative and create a system of information sharing to build strong partnerships between home and school all those words basically simply to say put meaningful partnerships with families, build trust, value culture, and heritage and foster inclusion.

[00:10:17] For the school environment, that focus or the lens in which the committee viewed that was to view is to operationalize equity through funding, school-based resources that use data to inform continuous improvement that strengthens student achievement.

[00:10:49] So they were still dealing with, for the lack of a better term, the fallout from COVID-19. The pandemic impacted not only academic achievement, but also emotional well-being.

[00:11:10] And we know it'll be years before we see what the true impact really is, especially to the younger kids that are elementary age as they matriculate through the school system.

[00:11:26] So the recommendation around that specific bullet point is to create a multi-tiered school-specific mental health approach led by the Department of Student Services, which could include, for example, monthly check-ins during their advisory or homeroom, a biannual student check-in by the wellness and school leadership team, And creating a comprehensive mental health resource for students and families that's easily accessible.

[00:12:05] Creating these opportunities for students to discuss how, doing this creates opportunities for the students to discuss how they're doing. And also gives them an opportunity to learn self and community care techniques. And lastly, FCPS currently has equity leads in each school.

[00:12:33] And ideally, there are equity leads in each school. However, they are not full-time positions. Those leads are doing other things. They are teachers, they are administrators, and then the other hat they wear is that they are the equity lead.

[00:12:55] We would like to see or establish an equity lead position to foster culturally responsive learning environments, beginning next school year so we would our recommendation is to do this through a pilot program with at least one school in each region the big ask would be to put it in every school but we know one that wouldn't be feasible by next year and two i don't know who would pay for that

[00:13:28] but eventually uh as the years go on down the road we would like to see that in in every school But next year, if we could pilot a program, at least one school in every region. And I am going to turn this next portion over to Dr. Farish.

[00:13:52] Sure. I'll move and talk about our third focus, which was school operations. Our findings, MSAOC's findings, were there were fewer qualified applicants this year. And FCPS needed more teachers.

[00:14:09] um this reduced pool of qualified teachers it affected our students it in fact it had a huge impact on students that were disproportionately represented so our recommendation for next school year is to implement the call me mr program and standardize the hiring process for instructional

[00:14:37] position positions that mirror the centralized online pdr system and our fourth focus was teaching and learning um we really really took a a deep dive and i know that subcommittee worked hard because we have a lot here um we took a really took a deep dive into this i know our last meeting last year we talked a lot about um avid in our programs but um we really really want to improve

[00:15:13] the disparities in achievement and experiences the division needs to increase access to programming and opportunities for advanced coursework for students who are from populations that are historically underrepresented. We believe that following the following findings and recommendations support our superintendent Dr. Michelle Reed reads her words where she said the work we do as a school division is not about the 13 years we have with our students but

[00:15:43] the trajectory of our students after they leave us our recommendations we are asking for the cao to centrally fund 0.17 staffing for avid coordinators at all avid school sites and a dedicated allocation of centrally funded staffing for avid elective teacher positions we're also asking for the cao to approve title three funding to implement avid excel and three fcps in three

[00:16:20] fcps middle schools as a two-year pilot program we're asking for staffing of five work-based learning resource teachers and isd by region to increase access to high quality work-based learning experiences. We'd like to maintain and fund the current six staff positions on the ISD mathematics team to continue expanding that algebra access in E3 networks, improving the rigor of the general education math

[00:16:56] curriculum. We'd like to provide an elementary math resource teacher in every elementary school and we'd like to expand access to full-time services at all FCPS middle schools through groupings with AAP slash honors courses.

[00:17:14] I think that's our conclusion. Thank you very much. At this time we will take questions from board members. If you'd like to, okay thank you. I have Ms.

[00:17:35] Corbett Sanders, Abrar Omesh, and Mr. Frisch. Thank you and thank you for your very comprehensive report. I know this year was particularly hard for the MSAOC Dr. Bussey is certainly somebody who we all miss, and his memory is a blessing to every one of us who had the pleasure of working with him.

[00:18:00] I have a couple of questions, because when I went through your report, there's an expression, you just put more people on the job and that will solve the problem. And I guess my concern is that we do not have an ability to keep just adding more staff.

[00:18:18] We saw that already this year with the Board of Supervisors, and we certainly are seeing it at the state level. And with the budget deal that will probably be approved at the federal level tonight, they are capping growth at the Department of Education funding to no more than 1% per annum.

[00:18:39] So the budget picture is bleak. So I guess my question is, did you look at, instead of just adding more resources, restructuring resources to make suggestions such as, you know, we have the OCCR recommendation as well as the family resource recommendation.

[00:19:00] Well, we have a family resource center that does quite a bit, but maybe it's not as effective as we need it to be or that we need additional resources. So I, for one, understand the need, but I think we need to be more creative in how we satisfy that.

[00:19:18] Similarly, I was very glad to see your focus on the AVID program. Many of us had the pleasure of being at Gunston Elementary, which actually is the only elementary school in the county that has AVID at the elementary school level.

[00:19:35] And I like to say the AVID skills are just basic, essential life skills for lifelong learners. And so did you look at, instead of having an avid lead, having a focus on ensuring that the avid pedagogy was used in every building across the county and expanding what has already been done at Gunston?

[00:20:02] And then the third area, the math resource teachers in each of our elementary schools. It was my impression that we had already made that commitment to have math resource teachers at a minimum in all of our Title I schools, but I thought we were putting them in each of our schools, and if not, I'd like to understand what we need to do, Because similar to our literacy leads, we should be looking at our math leads.

[00:20:32] Because if we wait until our kids are in middle school to have algebraic readiness, I would say we are too late. So any comments on that? I'm going to try to tackle your first one on the budget.

[00:20:49] And, of course, I don't think – sorry if the report made you feel that staffing is the answer. I think it was more to just suggestions of how we can improve, where could be some deficiencies. But I think in terms of the budget, I think we talked about this year, one of the focus since last year also with the strategic plan and equity and where we wrote our charges is coming up with this new restructuring, reorganization, coming up with what Dr. Reed will happen and accountability pieces that we have not seen and how do we measure what's working or not as a volunteer group.

[00:21:21] So I think that's a consistent message we said, and especially if some of the OEs have not been publicly shown, that it's hard for our group to mention those. One thing is we do have budgeting items that we could answer tentatively, but in terms of looking into those things, it's how to group a strategic plan, restructuring, accountability, when it's going to change in the next couple months, then how do we answer that as a charge throughout the year?

[00:21:50] I'm not trying to table it, but I'm just trying to tackle the issue of what we can do as a volunteer group. And I appreciate that. I just think that we need, as a system, to be much more strategic. And I would also say that each and every one of our staff have a lead role in ensuring that we achieve our equity goals.

[00:22:15] And we've also put an extra AP in our schools. and so I'm wondering where we actually put the responsibility and the accountability. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Corbett-Sanders. Ms. Omesh? Yeah, thank you and let me start by thanking everybody who came, you know, Kenny, Sharanda, Tabitha, George, definitely a familiar face, Kim for your support, but then also everybody who came out. I think it's just a testament to the importance of this work and frankly sometimes the the frustration of just like generations having to kind of fight for the same thing. So I just want to

[00:22:51] express that appreciation and and offer that validation because a lot of this is long overdue and will continue to be until it happens but nonetheless I just wanted to ask you shared a number of findings what was the data that was made available to you if any in being able to arrive at these priorities which one specific any of them or any of them yeah yeah I think each subgroup and you guys

[00:23:29] can can jump in like they all had one data source that we use for school environment is the school voices the student voices survey so we look through that data especially to support the mental health recommendations and students talking about not feeling safe not feeling well not feeling a sense of belonging in addition to the data like myself I'm a parent of a student who attends Lewis High School. There's my baby back over there. I have a student that attends Lorton

[00:24:03] Station Elementary School. So we do have a number of parents that also share their experiences to lend itself to the data such as the Student Voices data. Was there anything? Yeah. Okay. No, I appreciate you outlining that. You know, Dr. Reed, I'll bring to your attention. One of the

[00:24:40] things I was the liaison, I don't know if it was last year or the year before, the work never stops, but in feeling that maybe the data made available to the committee wasn't as much as it could have been to really help them identify and prioritize what is key that the data is speaking to.

[00:25:00] No doubt they do their best with what they have, and it's a really useful report, but I want to make sure that's not an access issue in the future because I remember long wait times or just never getting it if it's been requested, et cetera. George, I don't know if you want to say anything about that.

[00:25:18] It's been a difficult year because obviously Dr. Bussey had the institutional knowledge and you were to turn to, and especially as a person that we turn to. But I'm not going to use that as an excuse. I think that's something I worried about. And one of the first things I said to this group and to Dr. Presidio is making sure that data is there.

[00:25:37] I think we've always advocated for the data folks to be on MSAOC. We said that for many years, not because we want more people. it's because we've always had a good relationship and we always want to come to this board with the data so we're not coming out of the field. So that is something that you brought up. I think it's also in terms of, if we're going to be honest here, in terms of our membership, it rotating with your one-year assignments now that you've started a couple years, that does affect advisory committees and their higher rotation. But no, it's something that we've asked or what I've heard from the subcommittees, they have gotten, you know, but I think at the

[00:26:13] same time, though, with this changing knowledge of data in different systems out there, we need to relearn that. So I think that's something, yes, it's a learning curve, but we're not because of improper resources or improper or walls. Dr. Presidio, Dr. King, and Kim have been gracious when it's come from the body. I don't want this to be, I think Dr. B has said this, he doesn't want from staff given to the membership so it has to come from the community and that that that advocacy

[00:26:46] is there uh was like so and i will say on each subcommittee we did have some pretty knowledgeable folks sitting on those those subcommittees making these recommendations like they're doing the work some of them on a daily basis and so you know i think that um they are recommended just with their background knowledge and what they you know what they're doing on a daily basis they were able to to get some of the data that they needed.

[00:27:13] - Oh yeah, no, let me be loud and clear that that's not meant to undermine the findings. I'm more so saying I wanna make sure channels are open to help expand on the opportunity that exists here. 'Cause I know I noticed, I appreciated that you mentioned Dr. Presidio, even though he wasn't on the slide, but I wanna say two years ago, a year ago, the official liaisons to the committee are the chief academic officer and the chief equity officer.

[00:27:39] That was a board directive. So I want to make sure Dr. Reed, you're aware of that too, because part of the intention is that collaboration in the most important space, right? And to give this the priority and the importance that it deserves and that we all say we give to it, right? So no, I appreciate that.

[00:27:55] And nonetheless, some of the issues y'all spotlight, speak for themselves, numbers or no numbers, right? It's like that bad, but you know just from experiential information. So I appreciate that. I did want to speak to specifically the piece on partnership and engagement recommendations.

[00:28:16] I want to echo the importance of that in what we've seen in other committees as well. I will continue to bring up the number. We're $98 million short on what the language and translation teams have identified as a need for our kids. And I know these are two suggestions.

[00:28:34] Having a full-time OCCR person, that dovetails right in there with what that need is. We're not translating things on a regular basis at the school level or there are really long timelines, like wait times. Even as a board member, it took a month to get something translated that I needed, let alone on the school level when it's, you know, you need a principal's newsletter, you know, within the week, right?

[00:28:53] Because otherwise it's outdated, et cetera. That is my time. Ms. Kizomar, I'll take a go back if we get the chance. But there's a lot more to unpack here, and I'm just overall grateful to y'all continuing to elevate it and bear the flag. Thank you. Thanks, Ms. Omesh. I will do just a quick time check. We have until 5:30. Our time is two minutes, not three, at least according to the clock. I'll just follow the clock. And I did want to give Dr.

[00:29:19] Reid an opportunity to dovetail into the conversation with respect to ongoing work, so perhaps that will help how we think about moving forward. So I'll build on what Dr. Henry was just saying so we actually have a committee um several members are here um mr henry of course

[00:29:58] and dr henry we have an expansion plan for avid and i think it's a robust plan and it's going to be a plan that deepens that work and not just sort of spreads it around but really plants and provides roots for that i understand the staff the culturally responsive and intentional framework that we just discussed. We've done some organizational fine tuning to make sure that that work is a priority work with other departments within community relations and community engagement. With regard to the chief equity officer, we're going with the national search. So rather than HR, we're going

[00:30:37] with a national recruiting firm that is recruiting for that position. It's our intent that that position be filled in time to start the academic year and hopefully by August. In terms of some of the other work I know the MTSS work around the school environment recommendations. Dr. Presidio has a team working on MTSS work specifically related to that. I would one thing that would help us I think in thinking about the equity lead position is a job description. What are we asking the person to do. So in other words, what is the body of work we need to get done? Because

[00:31:17] to Ms. Corbett Sanders' point, if we understood that body of work, it could be that there are people currently employed that we could shift some duties around to give those responsibilities more visibility and make that job doable. So that would help, I think, staff in thinking about that. The Call Me Mr. program that came up as I was coming into the division, I asked Dr. Wilson to connect with that program to talk about providing the research they have and to give us, you know, three to five current clients so we could speak with them to look

[00:31:52] at what the impact, you know, how many candidates were they effectively able to hire. It took quite a few months for someone to call her back from the program, and when someone AND FINALLY DID, I BELIEVE THEY'RE STILL NEGOTIATING HOW WE CAN CONTACT CLIENTS BECAUSE ONE OF THE CONCERNS I HAD IS IT WAS A $500,000 COMMITMENT AND WE WANTED TO MAKE SURE THAT WHOEVER WE'RE GOING TO START WORKING WITH, MAYBE WE COULD START A PILOT IN SMALLER FIRST AFTER SPEAKING TO CLIENTS. SO WE'RE VERY INTERESTED IN PARTNERING, BUT WE NEED A LITTLE MORE INFORMATION FOR THAT TYPE OF A COMMITMENT.

[00:32:31] AND THEN TEACHING AND LEARNING. Ah, we are -- the AVID program, 100% believe that's important. The work-based learning resource staffing, I would need to connect with instructional services a little more about that.

[00:32:50] Algebra access, we -- absolutely a priority. We know that's an Office of Civil Rights track data point. That's one of the goals that secondary schools need to be responsive to in the strategic plan which will be annually reported to the board as very transparently the resource teacher is not in all elementary schools i believe it's in most title one schools but not all um approximately it's in a hundred schools it's in about 100 out of 141 yeah okay um so there you have it that's an update thank you miss keys camara thank you just wanted to have that context for everybody

[00:33:31] All right, next we have Mr. Frisch, and after that, Ms. Pakarski. Thank you. I think if our friends in Richmond would get their budget done, and maybe they lift the support cap, we'd have some extra money for staffing. But I only have two minutes, and that's not enough time to hold my breath.

[00:33:50] One thing that I want to say about our advisory committees at the top here is that the work is incredibly, you know, time-intensive that you all go through. And a while ago, the board, through its public engagement committee, went through a process to more clearly assist the committees, not only with onboarding new members and determining their charge, and then following it through to the end where it's reported back to the board, and you get iterations of updates on progress.

[00:34:24] So hopefully we'll hear that in the months ahead, and it'll shift the work of these committees a bit. I'd also like to say that as this board moves towards measuring its work through our forthcoming strategic plan, it would be great if every committee's future charges also aligned with the strategic plan.

[00:34:41] So be sure to analyze that for -- as I've been going through the report from you all, I've been marking things like, oh, that aligns really well with the strategic plan. For example, one of the things that caught my eye was the Family Enrichment Institutes.

[00:35:00] So I was reading the portion in the report and it talked about following the Coates Family Academy model. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? I want to call up Ms. Elaine if you'll come up to the...

[00:35:21] That is 100% here, I'm sorry, this is 100% her. yes yeah the the coats Academy model I was a model instituted for the past two years in partnership with family and school partnerships as well as a little futuro which is a nonprofit and what caught our eye about that specific project and that specific way of engaging families it was their kind of

[00:35:58] grassroots approach to family engagement and really validating and inviting families as they are and in kind of building their capacity and also amplifying their voice and in a way bringing them into the school culture you know in a kind of in a very organic way and we felt that that was a very good way to really capture the essence of our families, of our multicultural families,

[00:36:37] and those families who traditionally haven't had access. The program at COATS was extremely successful. The first year, they had about 16 families attend. The second year, they had 26 families attend.

[00:36:55] The program that Edo Futuro offers is really very, very wide. You know, they're working with families on language acquisition, understanding the school system, building their resumes, understanding how to actually work with their children and support their children's education from the home front.

[00:37:18] And they also have plenty of opportunities. They offer the families meals so they can come with their kids to the school. So in my years working in the school system doing family engagement, I felt that that approach really, really works.

[00:37:37] Even though it's small, you know, it isn't like, it's very small and it's one parent and one family at a time. Over time, it's very, very effective. And so the idea would be from our committee was to say, well, why don't we try this as one per region and see how it goes and then track it, you know, one or two years.

[00:38:04] And it would be funded, hopefully centrally funded, not a lot of money at all, and kind of partner with Edo Futuro so that Edo Futuro can provide the services and then we can provide other services because we have the capacity in the schools to provide other, whatever the school needs.

[00:38:26] So we would work with the schools specifically to say what is it that you need? Where is it that you need support with these families? And then partner with other Futuro and give them what they need. And involve the teachers who are already there. The art teacher, the reading specialist, the librarian, whoever, math teachers, bring in arts-based program to it.

[00:38:48] Give families the opportunity. All right? Sure? Any other questions? I'm sure I'll have many, but I only have 30 seconds left.

[00:39:04] So in terms of our chief equity officer, I'm looking forward to seeing who we land on and how they might use the position, how they might interact. If our strategic plan is based with equity pillars, I'll be interested to see how the new chief equity officer is integrated into that approach.

[00:39:23] And finally, Rob Perez, my appointee for a few years now, has his final child graduating from high school at Falls Church this year, so he is leaving us, and I very much appreciate his service to Providence District families over the years.

[00:39:44] He has been a great asset to the school division in many ways, especially on MSAOC, and he will be missed, and we are actively looking for his replacement. So thank you. Thank you, and I concur with that about Rob.

[00:40:04] Thank you. Thank you for being here and for the report. I apologize I was late. I have to love 66. Actually, Dr. Reed answered several of my questions and then my colleagues shared some of the other notes that I had taken, especially when it came to adding staff. Obviously that's an issue. It's hard right now. Thank you for that conversation. I do think it's It's concerning that our qualified applicant pool of diverse teachers has gone down.

[00:40:40] I'd love to know how that data compares to our overall pool, because as you say, there's been a steady decline, so it's hard right now, period.

[00:40:56] But because of the deficits we had to begin with, this is super concerning, but I would love to just have some more information around that to see where we are. I love the Family Enrichment Institutes. When I used to teach I used to do this myself.

[00:41:13] I was an ESOL teacher with a couple of other teachers on our free time. We would you know plan and do everything and it was highly effective so I'm glad to see that in your report and I'd love to see how we could have access to that. I was actually coincidentally enough speaking to a high school teacher the other day she was a special education teacher but in a school who also does have a lot of ESOL students and this is exactly I asked her what's the one thing you need what would make a big difference for these kids she said this this exact thing

[00:41:52] so I thought that was very powerful the date I just want to say dr. Reed I know my time is almost up I've actually heard this from some other folks in some other committees this year and it's been a cause of frustration so you know I know everybody's busy but these people all give us their time and expertise and we want to make sure they have the information they need thank you thank you thank you Ms. Bukarski next we have Ms. Tolan and then Ms. Darnak-Koufax

[00:42:25] I got you a huge thank you to all of you for the work that you've done putting all of this together there's a few things I was super excited about I I'm really excited about the Family Enrichment Institute and Coates is a Duranesville school so Dr. Reed and I had the the chance to meet with the family liaison at Coates Solange McPherson who I think that was part of you know her brainstorm and hear about what they have been doing, and it's just so exciting.

[00:43:00] And then, interestingly, I had a discussion with Heather, I think she's hiding right over there, our Drainsville rep to MSAOC, about the fact that you had this in your report. And the next day, I was in a meeting with a Cornerstones education committee, and they were talking about how could we engage families a little bit more,

[00:43:23] You know, how could we reach out to them? And so I described the COATS, you know, model to them and they were in the fact that you had it in your report and they were so excited. So it's just another example of, you know, various community groups all seeing the same, you know, kind of thing, like Ms. McCarthy was just talking about the high school teachers. So I definitely would be excited to look into this as something that we could enrich.

[00:43:49] My questions on Call Me Mr. have been answered, so I will just move on to say also a huge fan of AVID. I was at the Gunston event and then just observing it at Marshall High School and Herndon High School and the amazing things it has done for the kids there.

[00:44:05] Certainly support, you know, the work that you're doing. The other comment I wanted to make, I guess as budget chair, we are thinking about, you know, just diving into these reports and looking too at, you know, a missed submission. I've been talking about really trying to get an idea of what are some budget priorities coming out of this so I'm taking good notes and will probably come back to you just to make sure I've got you know what maybe some of we could work together and whatever some of your highest priorities after the discussion today from a you know budget perspective so we can just kind of you know keep

[00:44:39] track and and put it forward so I'll look forward to that conversation thank Thank you, Ms. Tolan. Next, we've had a request for a switch, so Ms. Marin, if you -- That's fine. Thank you. So thank you, Mr. White, Dr. Farish, and Ms. Temple. I was actually in your seats in about 2005 to '10 when I was appointed to MSAOC, long before I even had kids, because I was very interested in what the school division was doing to support all of our students, and it was Dr. Busse that gave me lots of lessons on patience as

[00:45:14] someone early in my career. And at that time, the product of the MSAOC was to create the parent handbook. That was our big thing. And when we moved from paper to digital to translating copies, you can see the arc of the work over all this time. And now here we are, seeing a new arc of work. And when I, you know, I have the privilege of sitting on the board and seeing some of the pieces connect that the public might not see, and certainly some things that are behind the scenes, but what I see are some really big pieces connecting.

[00:45:46] And so we've got, you know, the chief equity officer that we're looking to hire, the equity policy that's been in the wings for quite some time. The strategic plan I do believe and expect will really help bring this together so that it's not let's focus now on this group of students and the next group of students.

[00:46:03] I think also that, you know, even I was thinking back to just recently when we put into place the new family engagement policy and having the conversation that even the number of Title I schools has changed in our school division because of the federal allotment and how that perspective then influences parent engagement because it's not just our parents of families that are low income, but all parents these days need a different kind of engagement.

[00:46:25] So all these things together, this kind of -- and the concierge services. This is a conversation I too have had that can we just focus on those students that really need this connectivity in addition to the greater equity that we must have. And so my question though, I wanted to reflect on that to all of you because I know what it's like to spend time to give all this input and just what I'm seeing in this arc of things.

[00:46:45] But the question is mostly for Mr. Becerra and perhaps some others. But knowing that we just have almost completed the strategic planning process and the MSAOC and our other committees were given the opportunity to give input, I'm just wondering if you were able to engage and what you thought about that process in terms of where it could help us better do a community engagement process for creating that equity policy.

[00:47:06] Are there good lessons we can do when it comes to creating that equity policy? Thank you. If I understand your question correctly is how do I rate, how did I feel, how did I rate this UG planning process? Or how was the MAOC, you know, included and how and what best practices would you like to see repeated as we create a new equity policy in terms of community engagement, community input, community accountability?

[00:47:33] That was the biggest piece. I think with your new CEO position, that has to be part of the answer. Thank you, Dr. Reed and school board for allowing MSAOC to be on that panel. Improvement, yes.

[00:47:49] Better than a portion of your graduate, yes. Does it need improvement? Yes. Do I see some of the same similar players? Yes. But I also need this as a county answer, the chief equity officer at their end and also at the schools.

[00:48:06] I like the community forums, but also, too, I see the same similar players in certain districts. I'm probably the only member of the CPA core planning team that went to different ones. Call me crazy or not, but I get to learn Fairfax County that way and who advocates.

[00:48:28] It's better. It's not there. I'm not going to lie to you. But it's a good start from Dr. Reed. Ambitious goal in less than 10 months. The biggest piece is the accountability piece of how you implement the strategic plan so every person who's at that bus stop at midnight getting a ride home gets to feel that their child is being looked for educated and cared for but they don't have to be there if you can answer that or if I can help on that that's the key it has to be work every day I'm not sure here the preach here I think you guys know the

[00:49:06] answer but I'd like to see the school system do the same thing that the county did when they did their strategic plan they had a mailer out at each of their residents that they had addresses for I didn't see one of that but I know you've had that discussion at the beginning of the year about this about making sure kids live in their residence right that one mailer at the beginning that's what i would have liked to

[00:49:29] see so ms cohen i i missed the last speaker um i think maybe the mic wasn't on so i'm so sorry

[00:51:00] if i repeat anything that you said um i i really boy after george i'm not quite sure that i can add anything other than to say um i'm looking forward to um a time when when that is the case um i i did just want to mention a couple of areas that were highlighted in the report that i was so appreciative of um and in particular as a parent this kid went through avid um for a little bit it is just such an amazing program and i just want to remind us about being so careful not to silo

[00:51:39] things we have some teachers who are just raring to go to bring our special ed population into avid instead of segregating them into strategies for success we have some who are ready to combine hand in hand with our east hall teachers and really make this a push the avid teacher at key middle school is just using just firing on all cylinders about how do we get the entire staff trained in avid practices and principles so that it can be applicable to all

[00:52:14] of our kids and so i think in some cases you know we are limiting some of the innovation that if we would look school by school and really talk to each each of those teachers they see it firsthand about how this program can just be so transformative for so many of our kids um the other thing i was just going to mention dr reeds you had mentioned that you attended the eip graduation and i didn't get to do that this year um stupid covid but i um i have in the past and it's amazing and i think

[00:52:53] george mason would be very interested to help expand that i know dr henry's on it i see that my time is up but thank you all so much for what you do and i'm excited about the future thank you ms cohen feel better ms darin at clefax yes i i want to thank you all for your hard work your your professional work, your detailed work on this.

[00:53:14] The report is really amazing, and thank you all for the time spent on this. And I do wanna thank you, Kenny, for stepping up to chair, and thank you for representing Franconia so well. Very much appreciated.

[00:53:29] I do wanna say that I, you know, when I say this, it's not just words that equity has been a priority for us. I think that was evident in a lot of our strategic planning opportunities, a lot of what we do. We are very dedicated to getting somebody in that position.

[00:53:46] Dr. King, you have done an amazing job. She's not here, but she has done an amazing job for us in the interim. Avid for all, absolutely. I have been a big proponent of that for a long time. It is such a, it provides such a strategic way to break down your ability to look at your work overall.

[00:54:09] And so the more we've been talking about that for a long time. The access to eighth grade algebra as well. The Family Enrichment Institute sound wonderful. And Karen and I attended a thing we all read together and there's a lot of little programs out there like that Dr. Reed that I think we need to understand and grow on once we find out if funding is available or not for this.

[00:54:36] And then I have a quick question. On page 17 of the report, you talk about expanding access to full-time services for all FCPS middle schools through heterogeneous grouping. But then on page four of the report, that's on your presentation, but on page four of your report, you talk about, you recommend all middle schools provide access to full-time academic program, thus eliminating the current AAP level four center model in middle schools.

[00:55:07] I am trying to understand which one it is, what do you mean, and... - Okay, Margo?

[00:55:25] - We have a brain trust, so we let our expertise, yep. - I'm Margo Dickey, I'm the Advanced Academic Programs Advisory Committee representative to the MSAOC. So I think, I am an FCPS employee, I also work in the Advanced Academic Programs Office.

[00:55:45] So I believe the direction that we're trying to go from the MSAOC perspective and the perspective of the Advanced Academic Programs Office and all of FCPS is to really expand access. And we've been expanding access in the elementary programs. We have local level four in almost every elementary school now.

[00:56:04] I think we have 16 left to come on board. And with that expansion, we have an opportunity in our middle schools to expand services also. There is no middle school curriculum for AAP. It's all sectioned into honors courses or AAP courses where they follow strategies and pacing that might be a little bit different, but it's not a different curriculum.

[00:56:27] So we do have an opportunity and it would provide students with the opportunity to stay within their high school pyramid, an opportunity to build those friendships with students who they have maybe gone to elementary school with and will go to high school with. And we have an opportunity to make sure all kids have that access in the middle school level so with many children accessing local level four we think that they can also access that kind of local level four model in the middle school where they might be grouped with other students of similar abilities so it doesn't necessarily need to eliminate the center model but it could so there are lots of different pathways we could

[00:57:03] take we could open up a local level four in every school we could open up a local level four and keep the centers where parents would still have a choice or we could say no we don't need to have that anymore we have programming in our schools that we believe in and we could have children go to their base middle school and access that service okay thank thank you that's helpful i think you know before we eliminate any of our programs that have been successful i think we need to talk about that but i am absolutely for more access i was the one that talked about getting advanced

[00:57:39] academic resource teachers in all of the elementary schools and we've been doing that and we finally finished that in this budget so access for all absolutely um not yet ready to say let's eliminate programming but thank you you're staring at campus can i add to that um i think that's the harder question right what you're bringing up right that you've advocated and make sure there's distinction between over your years of service here but also too from the community that we represent too is that basic question of why do i need to bust my child out of my area for the same level of services i'm not saying that's you but i'm just trying to tell you the average person

[00:58:17] why do i my child has to go outside to break their friendships choose friends or academics sometimes that's the bigger question you put it nicely i'm just gonna put in nice terms in real terms all right thank you um we would have to make a decision whether we want to have go backs i'll take my turn in just a second um it's past 5 30 but i do want to follow up on that thank you for being here um because i know there's been discussion policy wise uh across the nation

[00:58:55] really as to how best to deliver um these services and i know that there are neighboring areas um that do it do it differently um and so is is the next step for you to would that include looking at some of those you know i i feel like the board needs information to be able to even consider what direction to take i know i was a part yes if i could maybe help answer that question a little bit um what well let me okay i'll finish the question okay um basically i'd like to know what other

[00:59:32] districts are doing and if the board can get an idea of kind of where the best practices and what the what the research is saying yeah we could do that as staff we'd be happy to do that but i would say and i think margot said it really well at the beginning of her remarks is that we're continuing to look at opportunities to expand you know access for students in their base schools just as george said right and we've had a very successful local level four program at the the elementary model. And we're, you know, just in the beginning stages of starting to think about

[01:00:08] what a similar program might be able to look like at the middle school model. We're not having any conversations about eliminating programs or having any forced choices for parents, but we do understand that there's, you know, a strong need and desire to have as much access as we can in our base school.

[01:00:26] So that's really kind of where we're at is just at the preliminary stages of thinking about what a model could look like at the middle school level. We definitely can get you information on what other districts are doing. As you can imagine, when we looked at the advanced academic study that we did a couple years ago, there's a wide variety of practices across the country.

[01:00:44] And I mean, not to hold us up as the exemplar, but I do want to just point out again that there were a lot of commendations in that external program review of some of the things that we're doing around equity and access here in Fairfax. We know we've got a lot more work to do, but there's a lot of school systems that would love to be able to offer the programming that we offer right now.

[01:01:04] So we'd be happy to get that additional information for the board. Is that part of the next step to get the or is this just an ongoing continuum of discussion in your office? Like I said, we're just at the initial stages of, you know, trying to think about what that could look like.

[01:01:22] So we have not mapped out a timeline or a process or anything for that at this point. Okay. My overall concern is just the board getting information as we're having these discussions because we've already, I think, made statements that we want that greater access.

[01:01:41] Absolutely. So if we can understand what that looks like, what that can look like and what the considerations are, I think the board being informed might be very helpful. No, it would be critical. We just haven't put anything really together yet. so I'd have to work with Dr. Reed and the board chair to talk about when we could share information with the board when it would be appropriate, but we'd be happy to do that.

[01:02:02] But at this point, we're not in a position to do that yet. - Okay, thank you. You want me to call on Dr. Reed? Oh, oh, oh, oh, come forward.

[01:02:25] - Good evening everyone, I'm Lynette Henry, and thank you for the opportunity to be a part of MSALC. I'll just take about 10 seconds. everybody mentioned AVID, and thank you very much. We know the difference it's making. And I wanted to share, we're not looking just the expansion of AVID in Title I, and also looking to bring AVID at cell to really support our long-term English learners.

[01:02:44] But we already have AVID coordinators in our schools, and we already have AVID elective teachers. One of the problems we are seeing is that principals are saying they don't have the planning time or staffing. We're losing our AVID elective teachers. We've lost our AVID coordinators.

[01:03:01] We could really take AVID school-wide if we could pay all of, not pay, provide a 0.17 staffing, that planning time for all of our AVID coordinators. The school board did approve in 2020 for 12 schools, but all our other AVID schools don't have that.

[01:03:17] And that's what we're asking, to just provide that for all our AVID coordinators, so we can take this school-wide. And so it's not just in the AVID elective class, but the AVID coordinators are trained to be able to take this school-wide. and that's why we invite you to our CCI visit so you can see that. Our AVID elective teachers, we need the staffing for them because we're losing our teachers, and we have more students.

[01:03:39] We've increased 89%. That's how much we've increased the number of students in AVID, but now we're losing our elective teachers because the principals don't necessarily are able to provide that staffing when they have to also provide it for the core content areas. So those are some of the things that we're really asking you for.

[01:03:56] Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share. Don't go anywhere. So I did have the pleasure of being present when you guys did the whole full report, and I'm really sorry that the whole board didn't get to see what I saw, but I did share with Dr. Reed that information earlier because I would like from here overall, I think a lot of excellent things have been said,

[01:04:26] But with respect to the teaching and instruction section that I believe you presented, it would be great to have some priorities within those, Dr. Reed. I hope I'm not overstepping my bounds by asking that if you could give us some feedback or how you might find that helpful.

[01:04:44] I think that, you know, my hope in giving that to you early, I didn't give it to you as early as I should have, but I did give it to you early, was to kind of figure out how it can fit into our discussions with respect to the strategic plan and ongoing budget discussions.

[01:05:01] And so one of the frustrations I think we have had over the years with MSAOC is these guys have done absolutely excellent research. But what does that mean in terms of board direction? And so I'm hoping perhaps we can bridge that gap.

[01:05:18] And, you know, Dr. Reed, you're in charge of operations. But that would be my suggestion, and I look forward to how you might want to proceed. But I just think this work has been amazing the whole time I've been on the board. And I think if we can bring it into our regular thinking, that might be very helpful.

[01:05:43] Thank you. All right, well, I know some people asked for go-backs. Was there anybody that felt like a burning need? We can give you 30 seconds, okay? If it's just one person, I'm going to let Ms. Omesh speak.

[01:06:00] Go ahead. Thank you. I definitely support the conversation that was going on and hope, Dr. Reed, that you can flag that for future action. I just wanted to pick up, you guys mentioned Call Me Mister. I guess I just wanted to ask where that lives at this point because I know that the funding from the last budget was, rather than going to Call Me Mister, was reapportioned to an internal project that we were meant to develop in HR for diversity recruiting and whatnot.

[01:06:27] I don't know, I guess Sherry's not here, but I don't know, Dr. Reed, if you're aware of that or where that lives right now. - Yeah, I mentioned earlier that Dr. Wilson did attempt to reach out to the Call Me Mister programs. The money's still identified near Mark to be partnering with that program, but it took a number of months for her to hear back from the program and our ask was that they would provide names of clients that they had worked with so we could look at the research, right?

[01:06:57] How many hires, because we were talking $500,000. We're still, as late as probably several weeks ago, we're still waiting on getting that client list and having HR connect with folks. So I think what we were leaning towards was trying to pilot something at a smaller level, like taking it one year at a time to make sure that we're getting the return on investment that we want and data in terms of hiring. So it's still in play, but it's been a bit of a challenge to

[01:07:29] connect with program staff. Go ahead. You need a microphone. Yeah. Good evening, everyone. I am Laverne Henson. I am so grateful to be here. And one of the areas that I wanted to say, we are leveraging MSAOC and HRAC. So some of those services that I'm hearing in MSAOC are some of the services that we are helping in HRAC, which is the Human Resource Advisory Committee.

[01:08:07] And part of that, as it relates to the Call Me Mister, under TAMS, TAMS is working under that, and Ms. Mitsico, she has been working very hard with Clemson University. Okay, Clemson is the one that is like the clearinghouse for that.

[01:08:27] And so a lot of those different universities have to go through Clemson to get to that whole process. So MISICO has been working very hard with them to get those other universities like Howard University, Duke University, a lot of the universities in the areas and in D.C.

[01:08:49] So I just wanted to add that to it. No, thank you. Thank you for that. In addition to Call Me Mister, I know that we were speaking to another portion. That money was pulled away from that to be used on an internal thing. That's what I'm asking about.

[01:09:05] The money actually is being held there because our hope was to contract with the Call Me Mr. program, so I know that they're still trying to work out a partnership, but we need some data on that, and Dr. Wilson, as I said, has been continuing to follow up on that.

[01:09:22] Okay, that's not my recollection, but I know that's the end of my time. All right, I want to thank this committee for always bringing us, provoking, oh, Mr. Becerra would you you're going to provoke us not here now I just want to I thanks Kenny for leaving a couple seconds here to thank how we had talked on not last remarks just one remarks I'd like to say is to thank dr. Reed she made equity policy the first topic as a new superintendent in July she will either end under your guide and leadership with the passing equity

[01:10:01] policy either the last meeting of this school year or the first meeting in the next year. So I want to thank her and you all for that. So it's time coming. And so I wanted to thank other people I'd like to thank here is not in any order you, Ms. Karen Keyes-Gamara, for being our liaison this year. Ms. Karen Corbett-Sanders, Ms. Omish, Aurora Omish, and also Megan McLaughlin.

[01:10:34] As you know, you have better things you're going to be doing and grander things after here. So I want to thank you as a committee over the last decade, right, that you put your time in helping us out from the small steps to the bigger items and the real conversations.

[01:10:55] One last item to thank is to thank Dr. Ivey for your years of service. When I first got on, it was you and Dr. Noonan, right, or Superintendent Noonan right now.

[01:11:14] And I asked Dr. Bussey, who's that lady? It's a good lady, George, you need to know. So just want to thank you for your years of service. Thank you personally for this past year for consoling, advising, giving me hints, hearing me out, venting.

[01:11:37] You know, there's a lot of people here I can think on the venting part. I usually turn over and just lay it out sometimes, Dr. Presidio. So, but I wanted to thank you for your years of service, me personally. And I know you're not going to go anywhere. So we always have advisors on the side.

[01:11:55] we can turn to so thank you all right thank you George we will look to finish the equity policy at this point I think it's scheduled for June 20th election day so I'm not sure how many people will be able to participate but hopefully we'll get through that that is the end of our session thank oh I just want to

[01:12:20] thank the entire committee. That's what I wanted to say. Thank you. Members, and thank you all for

[01:13:11] being here. We are now at agenda item number two on our committee reports, and we are now going to hear from the Foundation for Applied Technical Education, or as we call it, FATE, so we don't get tongue-tied, your annual report. Thank you. Good evening, Madam Chair, the members of the board, and Dr. Reed. My name is Kayvon Jabori, and I'm the president of FATE, which, as you mentioned, it's Foundation for Applied Technical Education, Incorporated. I'm a professional engineer

[01:13:49] and the owner of KJN Associates, a civil engineering firm in Fairfax, Virginia, since 1996. I was introduced to FATE in 2017 by Mr. Reed Dudley, who is a life member of the FATE board and I was very excited about joining the board and in 2018 I became a member of the board of directors and for the past two years I've been the

[01:14:22] president. Next slide please. FATE is a nonprofit organization it specializes in sponsoring several career and technical education programs to develop the participating students technical skills in Fairfax County. Our board of directors is comprised of 15 members. The individuals listed on the on this slide are the members of our board. The three main programs that we

[01:14:57] support include residential construction, student auto sales, and entrepreneurship. FATE also supports the Fairfax County Adult and Community the education apprenticeship by offering academic credit and scholarships.

[01:15:17] I am happy to report to you that we had a very exciting and fruitful year again. Next slide, please. First, our residential construction program had another very good year to date.

[01:15:36] We have sold 11 student-built homes in Spring Village State's residential construction program for a collective total of more than $10 million. Our first house, Lot 1, was sold in April of 2010 for $750,000.

[01:15:58] In 2022, our 11th lot was sold for over $1.3 million. We are very proud of these figures. Our 12th lot at 7429 Foundation Way, went on the market very recently at 1.274, $1,274,000, and it's on track to go to settlement on June 13th in less than two weeks.

[01:16:31] As a matter of fact, today there was a walkthrough with the new prospective owner, and evidently it went fairly well. So we're very excited about that. Our next lot, lot 13, is in a permit granting process with the Fairfax County.

[01:16:52] Lot 14 through 18 are having new geotechnical report generated for their foundation designs to prepare for building permit applications. We're still on track for building one house a year.

[01:17:13] We fell behind during the COVID a little bit, that we're doing our best to catch up. Currently, the students are receiving on-the-job training building eight by 12 sheds that will be sold upon completion.

[01:17:29] I personally have visited the site and seen them in action. It's a very exciting project. It sounds nominal, but the sheds are not just a box. They have windows and they learn how to build things.

[01:17:47] Next slide, please. Our student auto sales had an exceptional year to my surprise and excitement, to be honest. In student auto sales, donated vehicles provide real-world training to our 13 automotive programs.

[01:18:07] Donated vehicles are either repaired or resold or are used as student training vehicles. Our student auto sales dealership is at Marshall Academy. Marshall Academy is the only Virginia high school sponsored automotive dealership.

[01:18:30] By the end of the third quarter of 2022-23 school year, 170 vehicles were donated to the program and 107 were sold, totaling nearly $141,000.

[01:18:45] We are confident these figures will be surpassed by the end of the school year. I am also very excited to report that the Business and Community Development Office has partnership with SAS to accept donated cars from Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority to support that.

[01:19:09] The SAS program took a huge leap forward this year. 170 vehicles were donated to the program as of April of 2022 and 104, I'm sorry, I believe that should be 2023, yes, it is April of 2023, and 142 were sold nearly for, were surpassed for old figures, surpassed $256,000.

[01:19:49] Nearly $162,000 of the proceeds were returned to the schools for program improvements, tools, and other needs. To make the public aware of our student auto sales program, we had one of the vehicles wrapped with SAS advertisement as shown in this slide.

[01:20:14] periodically, the vehicle travels to a different location to ensure exposure. Next slide, please. The other program of ours, Entrepreneurship Program that FAIT provides, this program also provides program enhancement grants to support students in the Marketing and Entrepreneurship Program Market Days.

[01:20:43] Market Days are real-world opportunities for students to showcase their business plan products. On market day, the community is welcome to visit the schools to support the student entrepreneurs.

[01:20:58] The high school that we supported this year were Centerville, Chantilly, Fairfax, Herndon, McLean, Oakston, South County, and Woodson.

[01:21:15] Next slide, please. For program enhancement grants, FATE received four applications and supported one grant request financially.

[01:21:30] Miss Anne Wardensky, the marketing teacher from Lake Braddock High School, proposed Upcycle Fashion Show, which incorporates upcycling products to remain environmentally aware, accelerate the fashion design program that we started this school year, requires students to sit and stay within their budget, allows students creativity and application of marketing and design skills.

[01:22:06] The resale of upcycled clothing will fund this program for following years. The requested funding of $1,250 was granted for this program this year also.

[01:22:23] Next slide, please. The students scholarships that FATE awarded included two academic scholarships to entrepreneurship students for $2,500 each, awarded one $2,500 scholarship to an electrical engineering student.

[01:22:46] FATE awarded two $1,000 each tool scholarships for electrical engineering and one $1,000 tool scholarship for automotive technology. And the adult and community education ACE apprenticeship awarded $1,500 academic credit and $1,000 tool scholarship to one student pursuing HVAC and refrigeration.

[01:23:18] The total for school year '22-'23 scholarship funding was $13,000. Next slide, please. There is no, okay.

[01:23:34] As with any endeavor, there are challenges that we need to overcome. To have a seamless transition from our phase two construction at Spring Village States to phase three, the hopeful new one, the biggest challenge fate faces is identifying the phase three residential construction site.

[01:23:59] In five short years, Spring Village States is scheduled for built out. As viable sites for development are becoming increasingly scarce in Fairfax County, FATE must work closely with the Fairfax County School Board, the supervisor, the Fairfax, and the leadership of Fairfax County Schools to identify a property in Fairfax County suitable for the program to continue.

[01:24:26] The FATE Board of Directors is open to all ideas. We discussed this briefly last year, if you all remember. Being, we're open to universal design as we're using at Spring Village states right now, single-family construction, townhomes, multifamily developments.

[01:24:47] We also briefly discuss possibly moving into commercial work, which we need to rebrand ourselves if we are to do that. But we're open to it if that is the way we want to go. The new site must house the construction office and classrooms, support years of student learning, and residential construction that provides valuable learning opportunity for students and meets the needs of the greater Fairfax community.

[01:25:18] In closing, I would like to extend my gratitude and appreciation to all the FATE board members and the Fairfax County School System employees involved in the FATE's programs for all of their efforts and contributions.

[01:25:34] Without their help and their input, we could not have survived, including this lady next to me. She has been a positive and a half to our organization since last year.

[01:25:50] Madam Chair, members of the board, Dr. Reed, I thank you again for your time and opportunity you've given me to present you with this report. If there are any questions or additional information I can provide, feel free.

[01:26:07] - Thank you, Mr. Jaboury. We really appreciate you and your time your role as president of this organization um we do have several board members that will have questions and i'm going to start off with my colleague karen corbett sanders thank you although i think mr frisch was up first you sure okay just didn't want to jump the queue thank you all so much for everything you do um i had the pleasure of presenting at a conference in florida and people

[01:26:38] were in awe of the work of fate, especially our car dealership and the fact that the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority was donating cars to us and people were quickly taking notes and trying to figure out if Chicago, Atlanta, and other large cities could start doing something similarly. I did want to make sure that all of our colleagues know that the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority is donating another batch of cars on June 8th at and it will be at

[01:27:15] Braddock Secondary. So for those that can make it, I think that's going to be a great opportunity. We appreciate that partnership. I did want to talk a little bit about the future of our housing build, in particular because of the concerns that we have five years left at the Springfield location but at the same time this county has a focus on ensuring that we preserve and increase workforce housing and affordable housing across the county including that they are purchasing

[01:27:51] different swaths of land apartment buildings that they're converting over as well as looking at how we address the challenges of some of our mobile home parks i was thinking about this in the context of the work you all have done with the little houses as well as your discussion about possibly doing something with the um with apartment or with commercial real estate which we know is a high vacancy rate is there um additional work that you need we need to do to ensure that you have that relationship with the board of supervisors and the people that are doing this work on housing

[01:28:31] if you think that would be an area that our partnership could be strengthened and i am out of time um one thing i would like to ask a question to make sure that i understood your question correctly are you talking about tiny houses project that we took a attempt at i toured some of your tiny house a tiny house that you built four five six years ago it's been a while and i

[01:29:09] hear that you're now building sheds so maybe there's some way that we can move from sheds back to tiny houses and address a critical need in our accounting of course as i mentioned we are very open to ideas so we can get the students learn how to construct and build houses and so forth the board felt and we got some feedbacks that that tiny house project itself did not lend itself to be a fruitful endeavor we can always try it

[01:29:48] again and it probably may be under the current atmosphere maybe a worthwhile endeavor but we as you know we we got rid of the one that we had because it sat there and nothing happened to it and it was a loss well okay no just to finish that statement um the adu policy got adopted after uh you all did the tiny house so i think that there that time

[01:30:27] has moved on and there may be some more receptivity um we also have a marketing department within our cte or a curriculum so maybe we can relook at that a little bit and i'd be happy to provide some intros i'll be happy to to go along with it mr frisch yeah i don't know what the solution is to finding uh space for building more houses and selling more houses but i do know that the school system pardon me is in the process of uh taking another look at how we contract for our school

[01:31:06] renovation and construction projects and perhaps it's worth exploring the possibility of somehow writing into the contracts that we would have experiential learning opportunities for students and then you have something that happens every single year it just happens we always have a construction project happening somewhere um so i think that's probably worth exploring on our end especially since we're in the midst of trying to figure out better ways of contracting to save money um and to share uh the burden of increased costs with our with our contractors um any thoughts on that it's not quite the same as building and selling but it's certainly

[01:31:44] building the goal is to teach students as long as they learn fate's board is is willing to go along no issue being a consulting engineer myself if the the school board elects to continue the so-called residential construction and But an opportunity, maybe, maybe, there are challenges there, what I'm about to say, is to get into redeveloping infill lots.

[01:32:23] Because that is, you know, Fairfax County is running out of open land. And it has become a very common thing that we have areas that are getting revitalized, the housing in it.

[01:32:38] The challenge we have is if we're going to have a so-called campus that we house a trailer so there are classrooms run from it and then we have a few sites that they're all in the same vicinity nearby, there are opportunities that maybe a few houses could be purchased and then reworked that way.

[01:33:01] But what the board is concerned about is the fact of having classrooms on site. There may be an opportunity that we use a building of a community type that Fairfax County has access to, to use it during the work hours as a classroom, maybe.

[01:33:27] We have looked at our board members, those who are a part of the real estate community, the real estate community, we have looked into things. Things are cost prohibitive to purchase. People are very ambitious with what they want out of their properties.

[01:33:46] And in my opinion, some of it isn't worth it for the money they're asking. Appreciate that answer. Any comment from staff on the possibility of exploring how we can incorporate this work with our school renovation and construction projects?

[01:34:02] I think conceptually it's something that we could look at I think as we look at different methods of construction procurement it'd be much easier to incorporate this into the criteria but we'd have to we couldn't do what we're doing now so I think it's it's absolutely something that could be put out there yeah I mean the timing couldn't be better in terms of I know you all are exploring different ways of cost sharing and everything else so I think

[01:34:41] it's worth exploring I do want to give kudos on the automotive work I've been to Marshall Academy a few times and a few other schools with automotive shops and it's always impressive it's like hunting they they use every piece of the vehicles that are donated for some reason right you will find the shell of a car and you're like oh is that on its way out they're like no we're putting an engine in it. I'm like, it doesn't have wheels, but we're learning how to put an engine in.

[01:35:10] So it is a fantastic program. And this figure of $140,000 already through the third quarter is just very impressive. So I'm excited to see what more we can do there. I was at Falls Church recently, and they were talking about the new equipment they're getting as part of the renovation. So anything we can do to support these programs is worthwhile. I appreciate your work on this? Sure. I just would like to add that Lyman Rose has played a significant role in that

[01:35:41] program moving forward and being very positive. And also Jeff Crenshaw, the previous subcommittee chair, he was instrumental in getting certain things done. Ms. Tolan. Yes, thank you for this very exciting work. It's always a pleasure to tour the house and dream about maybe moving in.

[01:36:12] But just quickly a couple of questions. I noticed just throughout the presentation you had like some grants to the program and the program enhancement grants and a $13,000 amount for scholarships. How do you raise funds you know for those types of things? The funds if i'm not mistaken um i i am not too involved with the subcommittees that do those but they are

[01:36:50] the proceeds from from either the construction sales or other programs that we have that we we put aside a certain amount of money for grants and scholarships thanks um and then of course mr first got my brain moving um you know and just we just celebrated the 20-year anniversary Culver Run Elementary School and I just recall so 20 years ago the school district was deciding

[01:37:25] between two pieces of property to put that school the other property was deemed too small for an elementary school so I'm just very curious if we look back at our maps and Mr. Fianchel has stepped out of all of the property that we own and maybe you've already done this you know there's that property on shesu road in great falls that was at one time at least owned by the school district so is are those possible you're not in your heads like you've already checked this all out yes i

[01:38:00] certainly will not speak for design and construction and and they're they but i had a conversation with them about is there any possibility of anything that we already have and some of the pockets of land that we already have are are small or or in very non-technical terms um not not the right they're they're on a slope or there are different zoning requirements there there are all kinds of things that made those areas very very challenging we might be able to build one house on on this one and then we'd have to move pretty far away there were there were challenges among the ones they were looking at but we had a conversation and looked into that and they were going to continue

[01:38:39] exploring. Thank you. Thanks for all the work. Ms. Omesh. Thank you and thank you again for all this great work. I did want to just ask if you don't mind at the beginning giving a little bit about how the results you've shared have changed over time, what you've seen differently, whether successes or perhaps the areas of improvement from last year. Are you specifically asking about the residential construction or? I was thinking about the car one as well,

[01:39:19] the auto program as well, but whatever you're able to speak to. The auto program success to Jeff Rose's credit was in my opinion, his aggressiveness is his vision to move things around and just get behind it more aggressively.

[01:39:47] With the residential piece, we still have five more lots that we need to develop. So with the current project, we're okay for a while, but as has been mentioned, getting the next phase ready, especially if we go with the residential, the challenge is gonna be getting it rezoned and getting it shovel ready, so to speak.

[01:40:19] Some of the comments that were made, depending on the areas that we look for, like in Great Falls, Fairfax County is not too keen on subdividing in Great Falls.

[01:40:41] That is a challenge if we're gonna go with smaller lots. We get into zoning districts that larger lots are allowed, we can't have too many houses. If it's a residential conservation five acre minimum, how much land are we going to buy to build a house a year?

[01:41:04] That is a challenge. Not that we can't overcome it somehow. So those are the types of problems we have. Then we get into larger lots. They are typically, typically, not always, on well and septic. So, you know, different challenges come into play. But it's all learning for students.

[01:41:31] Sure. This might be a dumb question, but at the risk of a possible idea, have you all talked about or considered like renovation projects? Is that not within the portfolio of what's possible for what kids can work on? We have not spoken about it on the board. I suspect partly because we're branding ourselves or have branded ourselves as a residential construction. And we've been for 40 years,

[01:42:07] we've been building new, but we can look into it. Sure. Yeah, I guess I'm just thinking long, long term, especially if you're having a challenge with finding land and, you know, setting up new projects it might be an area is there something immediately prohibitive my renovation you mean interior work renovation or because what I was trying to insinuate with infill lot redevelopment was it could be looked upon as renovation you tear the existing house down and in a way that is

[01:42:45] renovation I know for a while Fairfax County had some parcels that were they were sitting unused and it was like uninhabitable housing that I before I was a part of fate I have I had some involvements doing demolition plans for

[01:43:19] them um if there are more of those available maybe we can reveal redevelop those but again I emphasize fate does not have an issue rebranding themselves as to something else mm-hmm yeah I mean I think that the scope of what the renovation projects would look like we'll just be guided by what you all see as possible but it might be an area to explore and look into the feasibility of for consideration I don't know if it's a stretch too far to even think of I think it'd be really cool to see students working on school renovations, too.

[01:43:55] I mean, the kind of investment in their community that that might breed is interesting. I know that's not residential, but something, again, to explore if we're thinking of new ways to be creative about their construction, skill building. Redoing schools, if those projects are available, is a grand idea.

[01:44:18] I personally as a current president, I don't have any issues moving away from residential construction. I would like the board members to know that I am not stuck to residential construction. All I am saying is that's how we have been branding ourselves for 40 plus years.

[01:44:37] Yeah, I mean, I'd love to hear colleagues, you know, thoughts around that. I'm sure there will be child labor concerns, but nonetheless, I think there's something really special about building the school that, you know, you go to or contributing to that community piece. So maybe looking at the pros and cons and giving it more thought than just an idea at the table could be something. Absolutely. I will bring it up to the board. I appreciate that.

[01:45:06] I also wanted to just ask how this matches up to the extent that we know, and maybe the staff might know more, I'm not sure, but of enrollment and wait lists in some of these programs. I know there's just a high interest for construction specifically and auto that's one thing I'll build another piece because my time's almost up um like Herndon for example that school you know that community has a long wait list for the auto program right they want a car lift there but why does Marshall get one and not them right it's just thinking about how we make these decisions and I'm

[01:45:42] curious about what you all see on your end and you know how much of a dearth perhaps an opportunity there is. Yeah, it's interesting. We've seen really excellent auto tech numbers across all the programs. Is it 11? 13? I was counting JROTC the other day. 13 programs, and all of them were looking at a wait list for next year, which hasn't happened in a while, even before COVID.

[01:46:13] So that was really exciting to see that rebound. Auto collision has done really well, whereas construction is not full and it does not typically fill up or have a waitlist so it's finding that balance it's also looking at what programs can we find a space for to build it's not just can we buy the auto lift or the car lift it's do we have a big enough space or facility or can we add on to this building or find a building nearby to put it in so the expansions are possible and all of the things are possible and the students are certainly interested in auto tech in some of our various

[01:46:52] trades areas have been filling up in the last couple of years that haven't traditionally electrical has seen great numbers HVAC has been filling up collision things like that so looking at where those trends are and where those students are and what schools are interested in building those programs and then how can we build them out moving forward it's my time but Thank you.

[01:47:14] Dr. Reed, you have a question? Well, I was just thinking if we're, thank you, Mr. Nutt-Kovex. I think we were talking about the sheds, the building of those. And I just, I know this past Monday I shared the list for all of our outdoor stadium restroom facilities, which are kind of shed-like in their size.

[01:47:32] And that might be, I mean, I know there's a real sense of urgency around getting those built. So that might be something. And then the second thing I just thought about, I recently attended a crew, One of the big regattas on the Occoquan. And one of the things that's restricting more schools from being able to participate is the lack of space in the crew house and the thinking around, you know, building another crew house in that area.

[01:47:57] So a wonder I had is I wonder if the park authority or our parks department has facilities that maybe need to be built that wouldn't be, you know, there wouldn't be something we'd have to sell, but they'd be something the community would be using. So just curious about those two topics.

[01:48:15] - They are all grand ideas and very viable. I believe my interactions with the staff who trains the students, transportation to, we need to be cognizant of the safety of the students getting transported to the facilities.

[01:48:41] That is a concern. - Another consideration is the funding. We sell million dollar homes once a year, that goes right back into our program so we are absolutely open to any experiential learning opportunities that we have for our students and we also need to look to the future of sustainable funding so bringing in money through the sale of our residents residential construction program has been our earner our highest earner our auto sales does bring in money but not in the same amount per

[01:49:16] year as you can see by the figures. So while we're open to any opportunities, we do need to also consider the funding for the future. Ms. Keeskamara. Yes, thank you. I'm glad to hear your concerns regarding particularly the construction opportunities. I think those are things that we really need to think about in terms of one, how parents perceive them, how the community might

[01:49:51] perceive students being more involved in maintenance as opposed to what they're doing now so i i just think i hope that we'll look at that one thing that is floating kind of through my thoughts right now is um the idea of one fairfax right and um it would be interesting to me to kind of combine the idea of public policy working with the county affordable housing things as opposed to

[01:50:25] you know the tiny houses is one thing but there's a move toward and a significant need for affordable housing and i'm so i'm wondering if there could be a partnership and i know this is more work and just a idea uh there could be a partnership with the county uh in terms of our students being involved in that and it could also be a learning experience with respect to you know the idea of what types of that's kind of land use planning it's you know local services it's a number of policy considerations um that our our young people could actually be involved in and so i just

[01:51:04] submit that as a as another possibility of all the things that have been presented to you and i do thank you i've toured a number of these homes um and and they're fantastic so i just kind of what so many of our kids are trying to figure out how to figure out certainly they want a skill but they're also socially conscious and so perhaps this is an opportunity to bridge those two things thanks excuse kumar i offered to provide the introduction to them to our regional housing

[01:51:35] authority any other colleagues before i take my turn all right um again thank you and thanks to staff you are amazing i always um this uh this property sits in my district so i remember the first time going to see this house and i remember dr reed um it was probably my first term on the board had no idea that this this kind of learning was was happening but more so it was the actual

[01:52:12] stories that were told to me with families showing immense pride in what they were children were able to do teachers telling me this is the only thing that helped this child graduate those stories need to be heard they cannot be lost i know this is another heavy lift that you're but we've been again i've been on the board 12 years we've been talking about there's a cliff there's a cliff well the cliff is getting closer and we don't have a solution yet and i appreciate everybody's solution

[01:52:44] and i appreciate um mr jabouri your ability to take things back to the board and be so open but i do think there is an immense pride in putting a new residential property together if it's a tear down and you're starting anew but yes this one is populated by students in and close to that property a lot of students from lewis high school edison high school and so on so you know i hope we can get this and work with county partners and continue this conversation with the

[01:53:19] board and make certain this happens not to leave out the automotive thing i donated too many vans through the years and just watch them get torn apart and they actually told me they sold one I don't know how given what we had put it through as a family but again I thank you I cannot be a bigger fan of what you all do and your partnership and we just appreciate you and we are going to work to ensure that this programming continues some way or another so thank you all. The only

[01:53:55] Anything I would like to add in regards with the tiny house project, if we decide to go that way. To the best of my knowledge, in other states, there are communities that have tiny houses in them.

[01:54:11] Even with this revamp of the zoning ordinance, I am not sure, to the best of my knowledge, and this is my forte, I should know this concretely, but I don't want to commit to it.

[01:54:28] Tiny houses being used currently can be used as an accessory structure and not a living course. - Not as a primary residence. - Correct. So we need to talk to Fairfax County Zoning Office, see if we can get something rezoned or there is some verbiage in the zoning ordinance that we can have a development is like a trailer park, there are tiny houses, that's perfect. But again, being

[01:55:07] a land development consultant, I don't think today sitting here I can confidently say this is the route that is viable going forward at this time. Yes, and I understand that living here in Fairfax my whole life and what the community tends to seem to want. I have seen tiny houses on some of my larger projects they're being used as an office as an accessory structure not a living course thank you thank you for sharing that with us and educating us

[01:55:38] more all right any go backs no I actually had a question and I was like maybe I'll give it up if nobody wants to talk but I actually just wanted to ask what the relationship is like with educate Fairfax obviously that I mean that's our partnership arm they set up all these relationships with different institutions I was especially thinking about it for Herndon which I don't want to get lost because they are really eager to get that car lift but yeah perhaps if not if there isn't one that that would be a great place to take a

[01:56:12] next step yes and through ISD we stay very connected with them and then tangentially keep the board abreast but we can certainly explore that further for other board opportunities to connect yeah no I think especially given the what you shared earlier long wait lists and whatnot of interest that we're seeing more recently you know that's a potential area where partnerships have been invested in for a long time they are aware of potentially other ones so you all don't have to like do the same work again anyway look forward to hearing how that goes in the future opportunity thank you well thank you all

[01:56:52] thank you for being here and as I said we will continue to work because we want this partnership to continue because it's the right thing for our students some of them this is what they need and this is what they need to move forward So thank you all for your time tonight. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you everyone

[01:57:13] We will take a five-minute break until we get to f pack members. Let's go ahead and get started with our Final report of the evening. I'm very excited to have my

[01:57:52] Facilities Planning Advisory Committee friends here this evening to fill us in on their reports With that, I'll let you guys take it away. Okay. Thank you. Ms. Tolan. Hi everyone My name is Katie Herman. I am this year's FPAC Chair, so the Facilities Planning Advisory Council.

[01:58:16] I am joined here with Dan Abramoff, who is the Vice Chair for FPAC and the Mason District Representative. I am the representative appointed by the City of Fairfax. So again, thank you for the invitation for us to come and share the work that FPAC has been engaging in for the past year.

[01:58:42] just a brief summary of what we'll be covering today for our discussion. I thought I'd just reintroduce to you the 13 F-PAC members, and then I'll quickly remind you all of how our annual report is organized, then discuss the items F-PAC members have been researching through our annual charge, and finally discuss the resulting recommendations.

[01:59:06] And I'd also like the opportunity to chat through our possible annual charge for next year so here are our 13 f-pack members hopefully you've had a chance to meet with your appointed member this year if you haven't maybe during the summer time when folks have a break you can reach out to your appointee and have a chance to reconnect okay so a quick summary of

[01:59:39] how our report is organized we have a two-page executive summary and then this year we also have included our 16 recommendations. The main portion of the report includes a summary of each topic area, and then the recommendations the FPAC developed, finally with a corresponding detailed report that includes our analysis.

[02:00:08] So this slide shows our current annual charge, which we have framed our report around. It's, like I mentioned, kind of our guiding light for the year for the topics we researched, the speakers we invited to our meetings, and our general conversations and questions that we would ask back to FCPS staff.

[02:00:33] FPAC decided at its first meeting in September to combine the major maintenance and renovation queue topics into one workgroup and report its findings in one combined item, which is shown as the second bullet there.

[02:00:50] And for the next few slides, I'll be listing and showing the recommendations that FPAC has for the school board for our topic areas, but I am not going to read them individually. However, I will summarize them. So this is our first topic area and one that we've focused on for quite a bit of our conversations, which is long-range planning, and for us this year, that included continuing to develop the long-range vision for FCPS school facilities and guiding through that.

[02:01:24] This work group continued to evaluate the effect of changing demographics and societal trends on the needs that could be met by FCPS school facilities.

[02:01:40] over the past 40 years FCPS the FCPS system has seen an almost doubling in its student population which is required a strong and steady program of constructing new facilities and renovating existing facilities FCPS clearly desires that its facilities provide a safe and comfortable academic academic learning environment and accommodate each student's needs in a modern properly equipped facility and as close as possible to their home. So we recommend also we also recommended the enhancement or future enhancements to

[02:02:18] the energy conservation investment program to hopefully maximize reinvestment for facility projects. Next this group developed six targeted recommendations for the board's consideration. For this topic we asked ourselves how can FCPS implement enhancements to major maintenance and asset management while advising FCPS on the evaluation of the school facility renovation queue. Overall, this subcommittee found that our previous FPAC reports had highlighted the need and rationale for additional funding for

[02:02:56] facility renovations and maintenance and that FCPS has been relatively successful in obtaining capital funding for new facilities, but that these investments need to be protected by providing associated funding to properly maintain them.

[02:03:13] Next is our school boundary policy topic in which FPAC has been discussing in our annual reports for several years. We continue to see this as an opportunity to advise and assist in the development and implementation of updated boundary policies. So overall we strongly encourage FCPS to determine the next steps towards establishing boundary change criteria and then develop a policy to help guide FCPS through the implementation of that process. As part of this process FCPS could consider

[02:03:52] innovative education technologies to help alleviate school facility capacity issues and more strongly consider targeted boundary studies for portions of the county that are expected to have residential growth.

[02:04:09] FPAC sees environmental sustainability as an important link to our other charge topics like long-term facility visioning and major maintenance. So for this year, FPAC assessed how FCPS can incorporate and evaluate the Joint Environmental Task Force, the JET goals, and achieve greater energy efficiency and environmental sustainability through its facilities.

[02:04:36] FPAC supports FCPS on and condense FCPS on the growth of the Get to Green program in recent years and its commitment to achieve the JET goals. The graphic visual that you see here is one of the main images from the JET report and shows those goals mapped out as well.

[02:05:04] However, FPAC continues to encourage FCPS to track and report its progress in these programs to stakeholders and the public on a regular basis. And FCPS could benefit from recent real estate trends to look for innovative facility planning actions that would take advantage of existing buildings on the market that may be suitable for school sites.

[02:05:32] Lastly, our bylaws for FPAC hadn't been updated in a few years. And while most of the changes were editorial in nature, we chose to go ahead and perform a few revisions to them. We used a previously completed study, or I'm sorry, survey that FPAC members participated in about a year ago.

[02:05:53] And this exercise helped inform our recommendations on the updates of the bylaws, as well as how FPAC should move forward as a council in the upcoming years. Getting there.

[02:06:08] We're almost done. I did want to highlight some of our additional work that we did this year at the request of several board members, as well as as well as FCPS staff. In addition to all of our research and meetings that we held and our annual retreat and site visits, we also helped pretty significantly with these three items as as a council review.

[02:06:36] And so we provided several rounds of review to the CIP public engagement process, which were discussed during several school board subcommittee meetings of the Comprehensive Planning Development Committee, CPDC. And as a reminder, this is the framework that FCPS staff developed to provide consistent, frequent, and targeted engagement and outreach materials for new school construction projects and major renovations.

[02:07:02] Then in February, or this past February, FPAC members participated in a series of meetings regarding the initial planning to review the renovation queue criteria. Discussions with FPAC members and available school board members were held to gauge which renovation queue criteria could be important to the division and considerations for possible revisions to current and or new criteria.

[02:07:30] and we look forward to this project progressing this year. We also participated in the strategic plan core planning team and several of our FPAC members also attended other public engagement meetings throughout the county and throughout that process. So for our charge next year we in our in our annual report we proposed these four items most of these topics are very similar to our previous set of

[02:08:06] annual charge topics but we wanted to look forward and that's because we look forward to continuing to pursue various concepts and we are certainly open to new topics or ideas at your discretion and direction and that was it i just lastly wanted to say and give a thank you to a couple staff members at fcps for their assistance and support this year specifically jessica gillis and brandon saadhi who were instrumental in helping us with so many logistics in the background and behind

[02:08:44] the scenes i'm really not sure we would have been able to achieve and complete what we did without their support so i wanted to say a special thank you to them and okay thank you and we do have some board members with questions so we'll start with hearing corbett sanders followed by mr frisch

[02:09:08] we do that again mr frisch all right um first thank you for the work on this i know all the effort that went into it and you know i hope as we embark on a new strategic plan in the years ahead that we can continue to align the work of all of our advisory committees along the lines of what the strategic plan is looking for to that end some of the things that jumped out to me as things that i will be looking for uh in the future and with our superintendent

[02:09:46] innovative site locations for schools is an absolute must there's just not real estate across the count there may be for a few schools but in our especially in our dense communities there's just not space so i'm very much looking forward to that second i'd remind everybody who might be watching at home that we don't have jet goals anymore we have jet directives from the school board so they have the weight of the school board behind them third i'm interested when you talk about the renovation queue i know that most all board members were invited to participate in discussion with the consultants working on some ideas for the renovation queue was fpac involved

[02:10:23] in that at all yes we did have an opportunity to meet with with that consultant and with fcp of cps staff in the room and then as well as school boards and school board members as they were available great um and then finally one thing that might be interesting to pursue as a is part of the charge next year is we we don't live in the same environment that we did pre-covered when it especially when it comes to construction and so figuring out if there are innovative things

[02:10:58] being done across the country to um do this work now that construction costs and labor costs are are are what they are which is significantly more you know I think it'd be interesting to dig into that some and quite helpful frankly as we have you know we just approved language for our bond on the ballot this year and it includes ten million dollars for inflation related cost increases you know here we thought all this extra money from the county was going to go towards maybe building one or two more school renovation projects every bond

[02:11:34] And it's getting gobbled up by the projects that we already have so goodbye ability to shorten that construction window And it might even go up past 37 years. So any help on that front would be greatly appreciated I think by colleagues and staff I was gonna say Would you like a comment? Yes, sure. So related to The last point about costs and obviously that's being felt across the industry So, you know, unfortunately, you're not alone in that

[02:12:07] And there are some pieces in our report that talk about that energy investment program and how considering some enhancements to what's already being done and built upon what the information that the facilities group has, that that may be a good mechanism to start from.

[02:12:29] So I'll mention that and we will continue to provide guidance on that. Dan, did you want to? I'll just add one other thing on that. you know, it's become paramount to work with the county on efficiently getting projects through their process, which is a huge bottleneck right now.

[02:12:49] You know, the school board is treated the same as any other developer off the street, so there's no, you know, preference or timeframe or anything else, so as projects go through the process, know the clock is ticking and costs are increasing as that happens so whatever you can do with your board of supervisor partners and your help would be greatly appreciated and i was just going to

[02:13:24] add one more thing related to like innovation innovative facility locations we have a section in our report that encourages the the examination of current office space that may be available if The need for a new facility would require some new space, additional square footage.

[02:13:49] Office repurposing is obviously a lot of the construction and building industry is looking at that. Thank you very much. Ms. Cora Sanders. Yes, thank you, and thank you for all that you and your whole team do.

[02:14:07] FPAC just is an amazing group of dedicated individuals, and I appreciate all you do. dan i think this is your last year you will certainly be missed um your contributions have uh stretched back to before i was on the board so um you sure made a great uh appointment there miss darinak koufax um so i have a couple of questions um one is uh i would love to know more about what you all did with your bylaws and if you could share that the second is um when are we going to see the act or the outcome of all of those great conversations we had on the queue

[02:14:46] and third did you all look at or should you be looking at as we expand the availability of pre-k that's going to put pressure on our capacity in many of our schools and so i'd like to better understand if we add say two pre-k classrooms or four pre-k classrooms in each one of our buildings what does that do for the need to perhaps change our boundaries and things like that and then finally have you done any work on the long-run incremental cost of transportation when we have

[02:15:25] students bypassing multiple schools to get to the school in which they attend that's my list so i i do believe that the transportation concerns could be um something we look into next year since you've pointed that out and um you know without evaluating that with other fpac members i would say that that could be a piece of the boundary policy conversations that we could

[02:16:02] have in that maybe a boundary shift could alleviate quite a bit of the transportation concerns that may be occurring in certain parts of the county so we can look into that there i'm particularly sensitive since we have a bus driver shortage i'll take a couple of those we we have looked at transportation in years past and again it does seem to be mainly tied into the boundary issues you know there is some low hanging fruit there that could be resolved with you know some some attendance islands and some other things

[02:16:41] that we could look at, which hasn't happened. With respect to pre-K and I may need Chuck's assistance on this, I'm fairly certain that we are adding two classrooms to every renovation project that's underway at this point.

[02:16:58] The problem is, of course, with the 37-year renovation queue, it may be a long time before we really build out capacity that we need without doing something more innovative and you know I think dr. Reed has mentioned a couple possibilities with regard to that so as far as the bylaws go we really didn't change my it was more it was really like Katie said editorial we made it more general neutral we did some some other

[02:17:31] things that um you know hadn't been looked at in about 12 years so nothing we didn't really change our structure or way of doing things at all but and i will add on to what dan said we did like i said last year we went through an exercise to have conversations about are we operating in a way that's reflective of the bylaws for one thing but then do we see the need for adjusting roles within our team or in other pieces like that and really i think what we found was that we felt like we were

[02:18:11] in lockstep still with the bylaws and that they were serving us well but that we did want to do a brief refresh and one final thing on the renovation queue criteria it's my understanding that that project may be somewhat paused till the strategic plan is official but um that's the last I heard on that so Dan's correct so the one of the recommendations from the

[02:18:44] consultant was to pause till the strategic plan was finalized so the the criteria development is paused but the primary piece of what we'd all talked about was moving forward with a condition assessment so that we're working to continue to move that to actually happening so they will take our Does he understand?

[02:19:10] Yes. Yeah. Okay. I mean, so that's a critical piece because it's the objective criteria that we'll need regardless of what we end up with. I guess my concern about putting it on pause is that the summer is the perfect time to actually do a condition assessment of each of our buildings, and we have about 16 days before our buildings are empty, and those that don't have summer programming will be vacant for the two months but others won't and so i am a little concerned that we're not doing that

[02:19:44] condition assessment now okay so i guess i wasn't clear in that our intent is to move forward with the condition assessment now not the development of the ultimate criteria is what we've put a pause on okay okay so i would encourage in looking at next year that you um also look at the pre-k in fast tracking that as well as the transportation piece and just so everybody knows pre-k with two

[02:20:16] classrooms is equal to about 16 kids i believe it might get to 20 or 22 per school could use more thank you and thank you to the team um for your great work i especially appreciate that you slugged through the bylaws and made that happen um i i wanted to build off of this set of questions with the renovation queue so the strategic plan is is done at this point is that something that

[02:20:53] can be picked up soon it could be i mean it we we really deliberately kind of moved it back uh until we could get past the development of the plan and then we'll have to re-engage with the consultant um so i i've received their some of their interim thoughts based on our meetings and really haven't been able to get into it my focus has been on trying to push the condition assessment forward i mean that's because that's a preliminary step is it's to me it's the most essential step

[02:21:27] that has to happen is we have to know the condition of all of our facilities or how long sorry if you already just said this how long will that take i don't have a final deadline on it yet but like just a rough it's it's a months long exercise because it's not only looking at the facilities It's using the data that we already have and then weaving it together for each facility.

[02:21:55] So, I mean, we have a large amount of asset data already, so I don't need them to go figure that part out. But I need them to go look at the pieces that aren't, you know, the questions that are still remaining after they review that. Is that like all 198 buildings?

[02:22:12] Every facility. Okay. Yeah, I mean, that's massive. I guess in the meantime, probably, you know, reengaging with the contractor or like setting a future time to do that would make sense. Only because that was just so important. And I remember in achieving our equity objectives, right, and doing this in a streamlined way that has the whole county in mind with every decision.

[02:22:35] I wanted to, I think you fully expect that I'm going to bring this up, the boundary policy piece. I know last year we had talked about this. I guess my understanding was that it ended up being thrown back into board slash staff's court. Do we have updates on where?

[02:22:52] Because I continue to think about that consultant. They came back with the findings and the recommendations. They haven't been adopted. But the idea was like, what's the staff response slash board willingness, I think, around that? Does anybody know where we are? Is that back at us?

[02:23:09] The same moment happened last year, by the way. I was in a different seat. Fair, fair. No. I mean, we're continuing to. Go ahead. morning and I would say that and and I know that whenever I say this though that we are continually working with the board so that we can bring recommendations back but I believe that it it would be helpful to to get a

[02:23:44] little more guidance in terms of how we might bring that back to the board moving forward I know that I've had some conversations with dr. Reed about some of this and so we could possibly be having some future conversations about that madam vice chair can we schedule like a work session or something i mean this has just been kicked down the you know road okay it makes a lot of sense in a time when eight people are leaving the board to finally tackle this one and you know get it done um so yeah i look forward to hearing more about the date

[02:24:24] that is set for that um it will not happen before the end of this vice chair's term i can tell you every day is filled so in the fall i don't know we'll see fair enough um okay um i mean i guess that's just such an important again this was a conversation that was i mean dr reed maybe you don't have the benefit of this memory but you know that this was a conversation that was being had literally before we even those of us who've been serving four-year terms uh before we even got on

[02:25:00] the board we got on the board it actually was discussed by the board before us so some folks remember that. It got controversial. People put it away. They hired a consultant to kind of give it as much of an objective view as can be possible. They came back with their recommendation findings.

[02:25:16] They presented them to us right here at this table. I want to say at least two years ago. Chuck, when was that? Do you remember? Right? Okay. Two years ago? Good. I can't believe I got that right. But okay. And then that's it. It just sat. And the problem is we have to get that policy done of how we're going to prioritize the boundary changes before we can even talk about the other important step of like maybe a county-wide assessment or like what are we going to consider in terms of how we do these boundary changes moving forward and when we look at this handy dandy map that you guys remind us of here it's obvious that there's some need there right like

[02:25:56] there are areas that are way overcrowded compared to others with capacity and whatnot so I don't know Dr. Reed I feel like this is one of those things that maybe hopefully after well we don't even know board elections are going to happen chair vice chair whatever but wherever we land to just elevate the priority level on it because I'm worried that with a new board I don't know what will happen and the political will has to be there frankly and not everyone is willing to do that so eight people leaving is a great time.

[02:26:25] That's my time but appreciate all the work you all have done and I know it's been a collective frustration. Well I think on the topic of boundaries we just had a conversation about this yesterday that part of the challenge is the boundaries have been tinkered with so many times and they've solved maybe an immediate issue but they've actually created a bigger problem just several years down the road so we've actually by sort of mini managing boundaries we've created

[02:27:02] more challenges so it's my understanding it's been roughly 40 years since we've done the last division-wide boundary work 38 sorry my my uh my uh apologies roughly 40 yeah so i think it feels like um we're not rushing into this and so it's an opportunity for us to be thoughtful and it is a it is a high priority we've talked about this summer really just commandeering the cafeteria putting tables together and laying maps out to make sense with transportation and facilities

[02:27:40] because we've had a i've received emails from staff also around class size and it's really dependent on what school and what the facility looks like because many of our school class sizes are limited by the number of rooms because of the student enrollment so we have really inequitable class sizes inequitable times on buses there's a variety of issues that we can no longer i think

[02:28:05] solve in one-off conversations so it is a priority we're on it i'm going to follow up on this because this is the way i believe i remember it this is something that a previous board did find they wanted there was a study done where recommendations were you know for how to deal with it were based upon capacity building age and transportation we did away with boundary light because boundary

[02:28:42] light was causing problems but then there was also community engagement and community engagement while they're like get rid of trailers they were like oh but if you're gonna move me add more trailers um that's the way i remember it this board saw that study and that's where it was it's not a chair or vice chair it's a collective body and um we chose at that point to listen to what the community had said and um then we are but this is something we are going to be looking at

[02:29:16] in our equity policy i believe so there will be time ahead for that and um so that's where that lies um and i would like to take credit for you dan but i know you're a mason appointee but thank you for all of your work and thank all of you for for your hard work um i think uh you know there are lots of um oh michelle what's that statement you use that i like to target rich environment that

[02:29:50] i like to poke a little fun of you about because it's a very positive way to say you know we got a lot of work to do and this is a big challenge and this is one that the community must be involved with and so we hear you and we we see you and i just do appreciate your work i know sometimes it might seem like groundhog day but we are listening we are understanding and we do appreciate your time that you've spent with us and mr fanshaw we do appreciate your time that you have shared with us and uh we know we're on borrowed time but thank you i'm trying we're trying we're all trying

[02:30:31] thank you thank you any other board members questions comments all right i of course have a a few. I do want to follow up on the question around the boundaries. I think because having been on this board now, I'm working on my second potential boundary adjustment. You know, we're looking very closely at programs of boundaries with Kent Gardens Elementary School. You know, we did something with McLean and Langley. And, you know, even though that was, you know, looking at

[02:31:06] a small number of our schools, I think we were able to, using the current boundary policy, which was really not that bad once we took out the ability to do those, what do we call them?

[02:31:22] Well boundary lights or administrative boundaries, I think is what it was called, administrative boundaries, where it was without community input. So now we're clearly following the current boundary policy for everything that we've been doing and I think I've had some success.

[02:31:42] So I just want to throw that out on the table, because my community has been very involved. And also, I wanted to just go back to this, the addition of capacity with renovations, and hope that we could look at that a little bit more closely. We have some situations, I'm thinking of Armstrong maybe in particular, where it's a relatively small school population, but we're adding some significant square footage in the renovation.

[02:32:08] And do we really only have room for two preschool classes at that facility? That's just one example that maybe we should look at a little bit more closely to see if we do have room for more pre-K classrooms at some of these schools.

[02:32:25] I wanted to ask you guys to maybe talk a tiny bit about -- we've had some conversations in FPAC about the incredible expertise that we have on the committee and how as we look at different topics that are important to the school district how we might you know utilize you in special task forces so one of the pieces I think that we'd like to look into for next year as part of that long-range planning topic area

[02:32:55] would be to reassess how f-pack weeks feedback from other industry industries uh who aren't present on fpac and how we can engage with them more closely and so we've had a couple ideas that i think we would like to flesh out maybe one day having a workshop not only just for fpac members obviously but for fcps school board members or fcps staff to attend to just hear

[02:33:31] some of the latest innovative design components whether that's classroom design building layout design site layout design hvac and mechanical design mental health design within the school building footprint so we've we've been talking loosely about some of those different kinds of ideas and i think that's something that we hope to flesh out further this upcoming year i don't know dan if you had anything to add yeah i think you know we also want the flexibility you you know, not only to address our charge,

[02:34:09] but as things come along that may require some, you know, immediate feedback, which Chuck kind of, you know, handed us a couple of those this year, which I think was helpful in developing maybe an RFP or some other type of thing, which given the expertise on FPAC was, we were able to hone in on some of the salient items to include in that.

[02:34:34] And certainly we can help with, you know, anything that comes along so if you do end up doing something with boundaries we're happy to to engage you know however however we can mr. Fanshawe so I'll I will say that being on the seat instead of that seat has has given me a different perspective and you know the effect is a resource for for me and for

[02:35:10] position so I mean and unfortunately you have to learn to know what you need to find out and I thought it would be very easy but you know it took many months in the position to then really understand all right this is how I can start using them more effectively so I'll say that you know the the spin-up for whoever comes after me will be shorter because I'll be advising them what they need to

[02:35:40] do so they don't have to relearn um what i did but thank you dan and katie great thank you miss kewin we haven't forgotten you thank you for hanging in there we'd love to hear from you i can use the carl fresh line of my arm was getting really tired um i just wanted to add you know i think in terms of especially aligning with the strategic plan um and the conversations we're having that i think that fpac can play such a big piece in helping us be more inclusive because

[02:36:20] you guys can help us figure out accessibility and i think it's both in design and construction with new construction and renovation but the piece that i see maybe that fpac again if you're willing to and i know that your plate is quite full but is is figuring out like what we already have we know that we have an issue with accessible playgrounds not having enough and in particular if we're going to start adding preschool inclusive preschool models um everywhere i you know i'm hopeful that

[02:36:52] we're going to have um you know playgrounds they can actually use and um i also sent the sensory calming spaces have we done any kind of assessment of what those look like how they're being implemented who has them um and then the last thing i would mention i think several of us got involved with this but we have some um issues with our handicap parking spaces and so if somebody can take a look at those especially when looking at the kiss and ride patterns and the flow we wind

[02:37:27] up cutting off accessibility to the limited handicap spots that we have so again i know some of this falls um neatly in um mr fanshaw's purview some of it not quite as much um but i think if fpac could just with an eye to that and all of the um incredible knowledge base that lives on fpac i i'm just hoping that we can do a much better job of that yeah we'll certainly i think a

[02:38:05] couple of those pieces could fit nicely into a few of our annual charge items next year so we'll Thank you. And thank you for bringing that up, Ms. Cohen. I did mention to them we had a nice email sent today outlining a number of the accessibility items that could be included in some of the FPAC work, so I'll make sure you have that email as well. Anyone else? Comments? Ms. Amesh?

[02:38:39] Yeah, I'm done with the FPAC part, so thank you guys very much. This is actually just for the broader committee work moving forward for us. I know at the budget meeting we discussed trying to cost each of these as we discussed them so that we're aware of what it's going to mean and know the stakes.

[02:38:56] This meeting was a short turnaround after the budget meeting, obviously, so it was a challenge to have those here. But if each board member can just remember, for those who are liaisons to various committees, In advance of our actual committee presentation to just touch base with the committee and try to get those budget items budget questions submitted as soon as possible to staff so that they can have the appropriate time to bring those forward. I know we've already done that with the HREC, but I think that would be helpful for us when we have these conversations. And hopefully that would be presented like as a part of this too. Thanks.

[02:39:32] All right, it's been a long afternoon. Thank you so much for all of your work, and thank you, Mr. Fanshawe.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Coraggio Consulting · aguyonx.com