Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Meeting, Tuesday, June 27, 2023

Date: Tuesday, June 27, 2023
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 6h 52m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgOCGWxnR1k
Official School Board page (FCPS): https://www.fcps.edu/about-fcps/leadership/school-board

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-11-03. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:02:46] We are scheduled to start at two, so I don't know if colleagues are gathering around or if somebody can provide an update as to what's happening. I'm just here, ready for whatever. Yeah, no, I know. Thanks.

[00:03:05] It's actually kind of nice just to sit for a second and not have to deal with things. Fair. Melanie, you might have to switch your source of audio. We can't hear you.

[00:03:29] Hi, good afternoon. Great, thank you.

[00:08:55] Ms. Omesh, it's Christina. We're waiting on quorum. We're at six right now. Awesome. Thanks for the update.

[00:10:39] Six, seven. Alright, my friends, we're going to go ahead and get started. We've got quorum. Long time no see to everybody on the other end of the table. I know you missed us. A couple of quick administrative things. First, Ms. Omeche has submitted a written request to virtually attend today's work session due to a personal conflict. All those in favor of approving this request? That's unanimous with who's here.

[00:11:09] Ms. Marin 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. All right. That's everybody at the table. Can we do a quick mic check for Ms. Omash and then Ms. Marin? Hi, everybody. It's a holy day for us, so I appreciate the indulgence. Hi, good afternoon. Thank you. Thanks.

[00:11:40] All right, well, we'll go ahead and get started. I know that this has been long anticipated, long awaited. Folks are very excited to hear more. And so I will go ahead and turn it over to Dr. Boyd and Dr. Presidio, whoever's starting us off.

[00:11:57] Thank you so much, Miss Cohen. First of all, thank you for the opportunity to give an update on where we are on the draft special education enhancement plan. I want to publicly thank the many, many people that have contributed to the plan, and certainly I would not begin to try to name names because inevitably you forget someone.

[00:12:20] And so I certainly just want to graciously thank persons who participated on the multiple teams, and those names are included in the enhancement plan booklet. and also want to thank the implementation co-chairs that are present today in the front here and along the side table.

[00:12:37] I see that we now have the presentation up, and we'll go fairly quickly so that we can engage in dialogue about the implementation plans and the full plan as it is. As you know, we began embarking upon developing a comprehensive special education enhancement plan as a result of the external review that was conducted by AIR across two separate school years.

[00:13:02] The result from that AIR review was 19 recommendations, and so the plan set forth to not only address those 19 recommendations, but to also look to see how we could really increase the excellence in education for all students in FCPS, particularly for students with IEPs and 504 plans.

[00:13:21] So that is the intent of the plan. Also, the plan is centered around four areas, instruction and inclusive practices, special education processes, communication and engagement, and staff capacity. And those four goal areas were really gleaned from the recommendations included in AIR's report which is hyperlinked to board docs. We have a couple of resources and we'll talk just through the slides briefly and then we can shift to actually looking into the booklet. We have a couple of resources that were developed as we compiled this plan. The first is

[00:13:57] a special education enhancement plan booklet. This particular resource is intended for all stakeholders internal and external to provide really a comprehensive review or overview of the plan, the goals, the objectives, and also our metrics, along with some key terminology to ensure common understanding.

[00:14:19] That document is posted to board docs, and I'll just share that the team made some slight refinements on today, and so we did repost that, or it's in the process of being reposted right now, so that's available for your review. And again, in there, it includes all of the information in a more user-friendly version than our tracking or implementation documents that are listed second.

[00:14:45] The second piece that we've developed are those detailed implementation plans that talk about positions, anticipated budgets. And that document or version of the document really is intended for internal progress monitoring. but we did want to share that with the public in case that supports anybody's viewer preference or learning style. So we included both of those on board docs. In looking at the implementation plan, as we receive feedback from many stakeholders, much of the conversation really rested upon how will we ensure that all of the many things listed in the plan

[00:15:24] would get done. So we just want to share very briefly that there really will be some coordinated implementation ahead. Just as a quick glimpse, special services is serving and has representatives on various strategic plan teams to ensure that the work and included in the enhancement plan is embedded into the overall work of the strategic plan. So that we're all have a this work, as you know, supports the strategic plan, but to make sure that we don't have two different things or two different processes going that there really is clear communication and expectations across the many department schools and our community. And so that work is already beginning to get underway. We're

[00:16:04] also in DSS partnering very closely with the region office. As we talk about implementation fidelity, the regions really serve as a key stronghold in making sure that what's written gets done and really engaging with departments around supports that might need to be differentiated for some schools or or staff to make sure those those staff are supported appropriately. Um, and finally, um, another piece that we know was an often a question or something that was really uplifted was when and how will progress be reported to the public? And so certainly we defer to both Dr. Reed and the school board and

[00:16:41] determining the cadence. Um, but we know that it's certainly the expectation that we would be transparent in this process and will be prepared to provide updates and the cadence that is determined by that leadership body. I next want to take a moment and introduce Dr. Bateman. Dr. Bateman is one of the AIR researchers that partnered with us. You all may remember Allison Gandhi. She started with us and she did a great job supporting us and they brought on some additional support and Dr. Bateman can certainly give you some background information because he certainly has a plethora of experience in special

[00:17:18] Education. He has served on the steering committee and has also reviewed the plan. And I have included a portion of a quote from Dr. Bateman on the screen, but I know I want to give space and give room for Dr. Bateman to give some remarks regarding the plan. So it's my pleasure to turn the floor over to Dr. Bateman. I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you. And I appreciate the first, let me tell you how sincerely I appreciate what you are trying to do in your division the ai recommendations were yes there were detailed and there was a lot of them and

[00:17:57] sometimes when we find that divisions or districts in other states get these recommendations they sometimes ignore them what i'm really pleased with is first you paid attention to all the recommendations and i and i sincerely mean this having worked across many different states and many different venues that you guys what you're trying to do is truly trying to reshape special education so that it provides not only appropriate services for students eligible but also so it allows for equitable participation from their parents and provides for a better working environment for the teachers and staff who actually provide those services if you are able to

[00:18:35] implement just even half of the recommendations over the next year and a half you are going to dramatically change what goes on your division and clearly you're clearly a leader of what's going on within the commonwealth already but you're going to change dramatically what you're doing and i just i just want to let you know that i've enjoyed i've enjoyed the meetings i've enjoyed the work back and forth but what has impressed me so much is the amount of input you've received from stakeholders and all i can tell you that i have participated in many of these different meetings as a part of what your division is going through is the stakeholder input has been vital you have

[00:19:11] representation and commitment from a lot of different stakeholders and the buy-in from all these individuals and from what they represent is truly incredible. So I'm looking forward to seeing what this does and I really sincerely hope that other divisions would try to do this and try to change what's going on. VDOE does not provide a lot of guidance on many things relating to special education. Just look for instance your guidance that you provided relating to COVID compensatory education versus what VDOE provided. Parents are served better by what your division is doing and this guidance is going to go a long way towards helping provide what's the needs things like this

[00:19:48] so I'm first I'm really pleased that the recommendations are not just sitting on a shelf but they're actually that people have paid attention to them and stakeholders have read them and paid close attention to what the implementation that is necessary for this and I really do applaud what's going on and please let me know what I can do to be of assistance thank you Dr Bateman and again we wanted to be brief and I want to just get some direction from the board we can certainly take this opportunity to walk through the special education enhancement plan booklet or we can open it to the floor to questions or feedback and again we're happy to follow any guidance that

[00:20:24] you want to put forward yeah happy to to go to some questions and then if you feel like there's a gap where we need to a little more from you we can fill it back in that way um first on our list we have miss keys gamora followed by mr frisch well i i actually was going to ask them to do if if it's i submit this to the fellow board members but i i would like an overview of their these recommendations uh the special education enhancement plan i think that might help guide

[00:21:00] some of our questions that's my view i submit that to everybody else do you want the walk through with the air recommendations as they kind of whatever summary they want to give us is fine with me but this is a lot yeah i don't disagree with that i just want to be mindful of time to make sure we still have time for questions too so if we can get some time guidance to staff that might be helpful all right we will keep an eye on it i know that we are slated for four i would imagine that uh there'll probably be a a decent uh hour-ish of questions probably so um maybe as

[00:21:38] high level as is you can keep it i'm happy to go uh swiftly um if you can put up the enhancement plan booklet, and we'll just talk through and walk through just a bit as we're transitioning. And again, there's been some, if you already have printed, I know some persons like the printed version. If you already have the printed version of the book and you want to reference that, that's fine. There are, again, some slight tweaks that we've made here, but I'm happy to highlight those as we walk. So if we go to the next page, just scroll down, we want to just highlight

[00:22:13] our mission, vision, and core values. Certainly the mission, vision, and core values, for really a specific to special education. And we really wanted to make sure that we uplifted some key terms. You'll see when you look at if we keep going to the next page, I'm sorry, keep going. There we go. You'll see that there really are some key think key pieces as we look at our vision into what's our ideal state. We certainly want to not just be a good division, but we want to be that premier division to again, the location the place that other leas look at and say we want to do what fairfax is doing to support students

[00:22:51] with disabilities and to get the outcomes that fairfax is getting and so that's certainly our our vision and also making sure that students with disabilities those again just being more specific with ieps and 504 plans that when they leave fcps that they have a plethora of opportunities available to them so they're able to navigate higher education a world of work whatever that version of success looks like for the particular student.

[00:23:17] Certainly, as you look at our mission, we want to certainly engage with families, making sure we're providing quality and specialized instruction for our students and that we have staff that are educated and supported. And the piece that we really want to lean into are really these core values because that really speaks to the heart of what we do and how we feel about what we do in our commitment. And so you'll You'll see terms like inclusivity, collective responsibility, equity, engagement, focusing on strengths and consistency, and certainly there's a description, but I think that those words, we've heard some of those terms last night as we reviewed the equity policy, as

[00:23:54] we talk about just having an inclusive environment for all students, whether it's based on gender identity and all different types of diversity, these are the elements or values that we want to lift up so that everybody sees feel seen value and heard in our community. So that was the first part of the enhancement plan work. As we go to the next page is very briefly it's an overview of the four goals again under those four bucket areas and we are focusing again on the instruction and inclusive practices. We know that we have to make sure that there's access and opportunity for

[00:24:32] students with ieps and 504 plans and we want to make sure that they have access in the least restrictive environment as we've had conversations around this table we've talked about wanting to make sure that there's access to advanced coursework to electives to extracurricular activities and so that's really the essence of what's happening here and how we support staff and making sure that we implement those high leverage practices universal design for learning and differentiated instruction specialized instruction to remove barriers for our students so that they can demonstrate their knowledge and what they know and goal two we're focused

[00:25:09] on special education processes this one was intended specifically to make sure that we were compliant with the regulations part of the review indicated some opportunities for us in that area and so while many of the other pieces are more specifically outcome or content driven this particular item, while it supports that, really does focus on our arm as we have an obligation as a LEA to make sure we're compliant with state and federal special education regulations.

[00:25:38] Goal three, that communication and engagement really talks about ensuring that we're able to engage authentically and effectively with a variety of stakeholders, whether it's between central office staff and school-based staff, school-based staff and families and students, and deals a lot with how we engage with folks, making sure that we have accessible dialogue and engagement, and also making sure that it supports our diverse language reflections that are across our community. And last but not least, certainly staff capacity.

[00:26:13] You've heard a lot about staff workload over particularly this last year, but we know that if you went back and pulled a special education teacher from 1970, 1980, if you just jumped every 10 years, um, inevitably, especially a teacher would tell you that they're overworked. They feel they feel stretched because they have that instructional and compliance responsibility. And so really a lot of work in this area really looks at assessing that workload and determining what additional supports are needed so that we can retain, um, and really attract teachers, um, to ensure that we have a highly effective workforce to support students. And we know that folks won't stay with us if

[00:26:51] they're burnt out or if they feel like the workload is unmanageable and so that's really a heavy emphasis there in that particular area. The next section if we just keep scrolling down and I'll just just give a version of one of the sections if we go down to the next page for each goal area there's an overview if we'll stop right there yes an overview of the objectives and the goal that's associated so within instruction instruction and inclusive practice you can see the three objectives or focus points within that goal. So instructional practices,

[00:27:31] inclusive opportunities and post-secondary outcomes and intervention and MTSS or multi-tiered systems of support. Also on that page, we've highlighted the different metrics of success that will be looked at as we implement those action items for that specific goal area.

[00:27:51] And that same framework or structure is illustrated across each goal area. So if we move down to special ed processes, you'll see that those objectives really focus around IEP development, understanding and engagement with our families in the special ed process, and data collection, documentation, and reporting.

[00:28:13] And then goal three are communication. Those key goal areas are around our objectives, accessible communication, interpretation and translation and communication and engagement frameworks and protocols. And last but not least, that staff capacity element where certainly our staff that engaged with us engaged heavily around this piece was really around hiring and retention, professional development and caseload and workload. The next piece that we included, one is part of the feedback that we received really throughout the process, whether it was in steering committees, implementation committees, whether it was feedback from various

[00:28:51] stakeholder groups was making sure that we define terminology. And I know that I can't remember whether it's Ms. McLaughlin, but I know someone around this table talks about the educational jargon. So really making sure that as we use some of these terms that we define what those terms are so that there's that collective understanding. And we still acknowledge that even with the key terms here, that probably we want to be very mindful and thoughtful about how we even engage and share with the community this plan in a very user friendly format um that breaks down probably even further the language here and last but not

[00:29:27] least in this booklet are the implementation plans that really outline all of the actions to accomplish the goals um and those are stated and again last but not least we certainly thank all of the implementation teams steering committees stakeholder groups that gave feedback because that really did help us to continuously refine um even as late as today continuously refine the the document that's here and while we know that we never reached perfection because we're human we think that we've really made some progress and that the actions that are outlined will really position us to move the marker and get closer to that that that excellence where we want to be

[00:30:06] well thank you I have to say that I'm extremely grateful to everyone here and and to our board as, you know, I didn't know when I was audit chair that we could get to this point with, and as a co-author of this study, I'm really grateful for where we are today.

[00:30:37] But I'm very aware of some of the things that we have experienced. Really, we've received a lot of information along the way, and I mentioned some of my concerns last night.

[00:30:53] um having talked to a number of folks over especially over the last several months who have been very very vocal about how our staff are feeling i know how family members have been feeling and so i i'm seeing um various interests here we're in the middle of a teacher shortage particularly with stresses on our sped staff members and families who have been waiting for these changes to be implemented when i look at those two what may be diametrically opposed

[00:31:28] interests at times what appears to be critical to me is that communications plan and how we can manage expectations as well as monitor as we go along because the fact of the matter is all of this cannot be done at one time um so can you speak a little bit to the priorities and how we can set up the structures so that commute so that the community understands we're taking these things seriously but it is it i imagine it has to be in stages um and so i i don't want people to get

[00:32:08] frustrated along the way whether they're staff members or community members so i'll start there thank you so much miss keys gamara um certainly um we're trying to balance a couple of perspectives So certainly we know that we can't expect teachers to learn everything and do everything tomorrow.

[00:32:26] Even though we want the results tomorrow, we all do, we know that it's not realistic for us to expect teachers to absorb all the new learning and practice that's incorporated here and the new learning and practice that's incorporated or will be incorporated in our strategic plan.

[00:32:44] So as we balance the need to want to move fast we also sometimes have to move slow to move fast and so what we've done is we've really broken out the work and the new learning or revised learning across years and so we're actually just for our own management and monitoring piece and also as we share with teachers are developing a year by year summary so that folks would understand what is it that you're expecting us to learn from the enhanced plan this year so again and looking at this very very raw draft as we look at

[00:33:20] instruction and inclusive practices on next year for 2023-2024 we would be elevating high leverage practices universal design for learning and least restrictive environment in special education processes for next year we will be elevating secondary transition the following year 24-25 we will be highlighting co-teaching MTSS specialized reading and math training that intense collaboration with families and IEP progress reporting. And then the list goes on and on. So really wanting to make sure that as we look at, yes, if you flip through those pages, it will be overwhelming to your eyes and to your mind. But really wanting to break it down and make

[00:33:59] it visible for teachers and for administrators and for the community about what we're doing and when we're doing it and the reason that we really have to be methodical about our process so that we don't inappropriately expect everybody to do things tomorrow and then fall short of that expectation. We want to make sure that we have realistic expectations stretched, but realistic.

[00:34:22] So, excellent. I would love to see that in a slide. I'm not sure it was in there, but I also think more than a slide, I think it needs to be there for the community. Throughout the time period, Dr. Reed, I don't know if we've thought about what ongoing communication will look like with the community as we are addressing things right so that the parent at any time can say oh this is where we are this is why i'm not seeing it in my school yet i read this this is why we're not there so before we run out of time the other part of this is there seems

[00:35:01] to be significant budgetary implications by a number of things and so i'd like to know the plan for how we're going to address those i can mention a few of those things that are in here or you probably know them better than i do um but you know i'm really concerned about the community looking at this and saying okay it's all fixed now right and our staff members feeling that extreme pressure knowing that this is this is really building a whole new culture absolutely um so um thank you miss thank you miss kizomara so one of the pieces that um you'll note and we put the

[00:35:39] notation in the enhancement plan book is that we understand that again, we a number of items are budget neutral. We were changed the cost to zero cost because we know everything is at a cost. Someone is doing something. So we changed that no cost to budget neutral, meaning for a number of items we were not requesting any additional dollars. Um but some costs do are associated with the budget. Um and at the same time, we recognize that while there's we're We're hopeful that there will be support for the intent and the essence of the plan.

[00:36:12] We know that the budget is an annual process. We know that there has to be a really systematic and strategic process about looking at what budget priorities are each year. And so we have made a notation in the booklet that these are things that we're hoping to do, but those items associated with the budget are contingent upon funding availability through that annual budgetary process.

[00:36:35] Two seconds. that can be part of the communication as well yes ma'am all right two quick notes uh before we move on to mr frisch we will i my assumption is going to be that everybody's going to be a go back so what we'll do is um we'll just keep the list and go back the same through and if folks don't want it um then you won't have to use your time saying you want to go back the other is to let you know that the live stream is not working on youtube right now we think it's probably weather related but I just want for the community to know that it is being recorded so this will be accessed so that has not been affected but if you saw us scurrying around like crazy people it was just

[00:37:14] because the live feed is not working so we'll certainly make sure that it's available to folks and I know our amazing IT people are on it and trying to somehow make it work. Next we have Mr. Frisch followed by Ms. McLaughlin. Thank you and I appreciate all the work that's gone into this not only from staff but from the community um is there any rhyme or reason to the ordering of the objectives yes well the objectives no no to the objectives yes to the action so the objectives were just three objectives and so we could have moved the objectives around anyway but within

[00:37:53] each objective um those action items are ordered uh chronologically yeah um so in my assessment there's competing issues at play here where we continue to load up staff with more responsibility and more work because we need to do different things but we don't have more people and at the same time we'd like to be doing different things to bring in more people and reduce workload and those are competing priorities and it concerns me because i think one of the biggest ways that

[00:38:29] we could make an impact on that is to take seriously the idea of differentiated pay scales for our special education teachers so when i look at the objectives and actions there are a couple actions that speak to that right and unfortunately they are assessments of possible solutions rather than following through on the solution right so even if we took action let's look at action 1.2.4 conducted desk audit to determine if a separate pay scale is warranted for special

[00:39:04] education staff at public separate schools, new standards of practice. I'll let you speak to what that means in a second but the date associated is June 30th 2025 which means even if we adopted it it's already missed the budget season for that calendar year so the best we could hope to do if we adopted it that day would be implementation for the school year 26-27. There's another desk audit action 1.4.4 that would look at a separate pay scale warranted for non-instructionally licensed professionals and that's for June 30th

[00:39:41] 2026 which means we wouldn't even we implemented that on that day would be school year 27 28 at the earliest how can we do a better job of prioritizing what will have the largest impact having more people and developing a way to you you know, stop ban putting band-aids on the problem, you know, extended contracts, bonuses, you know, signing bonuses, retention bonuses, all those things are great, but they are a symptom of the problem of a lack of personnel. If we can figure out a way to solve that problem, a lot

[00:40:17] of other things fall into place. How do we prioritize this more essential work? Thank you, Mr. Frisch. So a couple of things we try to be mindful of when drafting the plan and also when identifying what that target date would be. So some of the other and we're working and looking in staff capacity. I'm just for those that may be following along. Part of the piece when we do the assessment, there are some actions that speak to providing planning days for our special ed teachers at the elementary level and providing reduced teaching periods for

[00:40:51] our secondary teachers. That's something that is scheduled to occur earlier than the looking at the desk audit that would be helpful really in addressing the workload, but also comes at a very significant cost, just being very candid and it's listed there. And one of the things that we know that while the need to have staff to attract staff and retain staff, that's an immediate need because it's going to be difficult to do the work if we don't have the people right. So it's kind of the chicken or the egg thing that we know we can't enact or propose all of those very high ticket items associated with

[00:41:29] workload because a lot of the work and staff capacity to reduce workload has a high ticket value item because it often requires more people because it's hard to think of what teachers can't do. If a teacher, a special ed teacher, walk through their day, there's not a lot that they could not do. They have to teach students. They have to do case management. They have to communicate with families. They have to take data collection. So if they're not doing it, someone else has to do it. Um and so we wanted to stagger um those very again cost um cost

[00:42:03] significant um actions across time. Um so some earlier supports do come earlier but we know again looking at the budget and looking where we may be in each year um we can't do everything at once and even trying to do we realize that I'm trying to do some of the things that are incorporated here even with that stretch plan we know that it's it's optimistic and and we are stretching but we feel it's important to really advocate um and to make the workload more manageable for staff so that we have those effective staff for our students without staff we just can't do it

[00:42:40] oh yes i'm sorry oh yes and we certainly so again we can adjust the desk audit time frame and we probably needed to communicate this just a little bit differently but the idea was having the desk audit completed and being able to make those recommendations by this time we can certainly do the desk audit where we're looking at what is the work what is the function of those special ed teachers and is that um the compensation that they're receiving um does that match what we're asking them to do um and so we certainly can do that earlier we just know that enacting uh results or making a recommendation to enact results of that desk audit that we um assume um just knowing

[00:43:20] what we know about about the work um will result in a recommendation for increased compensation that we know that that again that implementation um is going to have to be stretched from some of the other pieces there but certainly to your point we certainly can advance the work of the actual desk audit and um so that we can have that information ahead of time for a projection to say in fy 25 or fy 27 we want to enact the results of that but perhaps we can and move that up to something being done on next school year i think it's imperative to know what we're can we get five

[00:43:58] seconds back from my microphone not being on thank you so that we know what we are potentially getting ourselves into because the accommodating of the workload more planning time etc is not solving the problem right we're saying we know that you're burdened with so much extra work and we're not going to take that work off your shoulders we're just going to make you do it in a more effective way and that's not an acceptable solution so I'll talk with colleagues about uh support for moving up the this is just investigating the possible solution we should be doing that next year and and we're happy to adjust that um adjust that time frame

[00:44:38] happy to do that thank you miss cohen i think there are a couple pieces here that are important to think about that are happening simultaneously uh one we're thinking of planning time and um sort of relieving workload and pressure. Two, we're thinking of salary enhancements, right?

[00:45:06] This idea of bonuses to stay, bonuses to come. We've added the 30 minutes for extra planning for our teachers in the special education departments for this coming year. Two years ago, I believe you added the elementary special ed department chairs to take duties from our elementary special education teacher and a really bold support move quite honestly and so a wonder is not just a desk audit of what current teachers in a current model are doing but what would a more inclusive

[00:45:42] model look like that we might not be able to do a current desk audit on right so we have to be as I think about this and Dr. Boyd and I as we've looked at through the documents and the committee work there's a tension between trying to resolve issues with a current model and then When do we sort of leap to a balcony and look at what a new model might look like that might also do all the things we want done and improve outcomes for students that may not require adding staff for these reasons, but rather those reasons.

[00:46:17] So I'm just, in my mind, I'm kind of sitting and thinking, if we do the problem solving with the current model, we won't have any resources to do a new model, right? So it's just at what point does that thinking intersect, and when does it seem like it's actually going to happen?

[00:46:34] I think, Mr. Frisch, to your point, because if it's so far out there, we can't really conceive of it actually happening. So I get both sides. I'm just kind of listening, and that's what's kind of playing through my mind. So thank you, Ms. Cohen. All right, we have Ms. McLaughlin followed by Ms. Sizemoreheiser.

[00:46:54] Thank you. Dr. Reed, one of the things that I've often said in my tenure is that we don't exist in a vacuum or a bubble. And so there are school divisions all around the country. Have we, whether using through AIR or our own leadership team, looked at other school divisions that are best in class in special education delivery that we can learn from?

[00:47:22] Thank you, Ms. McLaughlin. So AIR did provide us with some recommendations around staff capacity, and that's where that workload, caseload assessment comes from. Also, Montgomery County does provide planning days or IEP days for their special education teachers, and I believe it's seven or eight that they provide as a relief to support those pieces.

[00:47:50] And so that's some information that we have gleaned. And I certainly can speak because I implemented and I used as a special ed teacher those planning days. It was extremely helpful when I worked in Montgomery County. And I was actually I didn't need all my days and was able to lend my days. I don't guess you lend them. I guess you give them give them to a colleague who was new or needed some additional time. And so that certainly provided a relief in terms of distress and the preparation that goes into those case management pieces. So, and again, AIR provided a number of different strategies and reports as part

[00:48:27] of that supplementary support that they provided, and that was one of the areas that they did, and we implemented a number of the recommended actions in the plan. Yeah, I think for creating a sense of hope for our teachers, for our families, we would go very far as a school division if every time we

[00:48:45] identified a successful practice in another public school system to identify it, talk about what the results were, and why we're going to be adopting and implementing it. And I think it would also give the board a lot of comfort to say, this has been researched, there's the evidence, there's the best practice that we can identify with. So I think that as much as we can do that, you know, that that will be helpful. I also had asked colleagues that Dr. Boyd gave a great response to how we're going to have a time frame and rolling that out we absolutely need that even

[00:49:23] if it's draft and even it were toward change but when you responded Ms. Kees-Gamara that was very helpful to me to understand in what is a exceptionally comprehensive plan and you know echo the comments and appreciation for staff and our community for building this out the other thing that I would say to Mr. Frisch's comment is we always have to be mindful of our budget calendar to when our execution is. So I would be very supportive of anything that talks about moving those dates and getting us inside of the budget funding cycle for that. I do know that, Dr. Reed,

[00:50:02] the other thing when we talk about workload, I think that we're going to have to have metrics for explaining that because we have a lot of faculty in a lot of other areas outside of special ed who are also feeling overwhelmed and overburdened with time, and that's not just classroom teachers.

[00:50:20] I know our speech-language pathologists have talked about how they are drowning, and so I think, again, we need to be having those focus group conversations with the staff, finding out real real-time, what is it that's not working? What are the solutions they could bring to the table?

[00:50:41] Dr. Boyd, as you drew on your own experience, and that informs you as a leader, I think we need to continue to have that pipeline there. And then I will just reiterate my concerns from the other day. I know we all very much want to get at these solutions as quickly as possible to impact kids as quickly as possible, but 300 vacancies already anticipated for SPED. We've got to be mindful that if we do something outside of the neighboring jurisdictions that is so amazing, but so demanding,

[00:51:18] we will have a tough time recruiting because they will not want to come where they look at this as being even more overburdening. So I'll take a go back, but that's what's weighing on my mind as well. - Thank you, any responses to any of that?

[00:51:39] - Agreed. - Well said. All right, Ms. Sizemore Leiser, followed by Ms. Corbett Sanders. - So I have eight pages of bullet notes, so I won't be able to get through all of those for today.

[00:51:55] So a couple of big picture comments. First, I very much appreciate the staff burnout and we need to take that into account and there are staff vacancies. But this is, in similar to our strategic plan, this is a unique moment in time really reimagine special education and around the country that is really needed to be done.

[00:52:14] So I think looking at best practices is great, but I don't know if there's any other school division that really is doing this -- there's pieces that are good, right? But overall, I think doing it well in a holistic way. And I think this and the detail of this gives us the opportunity to be that lighthouse division to really lead the country in doing it well.

[00:52:36] And I think that's important to ground in best practices, look at what other systems are doing, but understand that what needs to be done for special education and the gaps that we've had forever is needs to really have a, just almost like a blow it up and start again, right?

[00:52:52] And I know how you keep the ship going while creating a new ship, right? So that's my first comment. My second comment would be that I, in the core, the big picture comment, in the core values and the mission I don't see this is very much the with a medical model focus it's about access you mentioned student strengths which I appreciate but so much of the core values are about needs it's a medical model like I wish there was something infused in here and Dr. Reed I've seen some of your work around that as well around the social model right talking about how we all need to adapt our environments and our mindsets right I know there's mutual

[00:53:32] responsibility, but that model, that mindset isn't there, right? There's, yes, you mentioned strengths, but it's about outcomes and needs, and even when you talk about inclusion, it's access. Those are medical model terms, right? The civil rights model is not here. Like, this is a civil right, and I think that needs to be named and lifted up explicitly, right? Access to your least restrictive environment in a way where you can be fully part of the community is a civil right, and that's missing. So that's my big picture comment on the core values. I really appreciate the work and the

[00:54:03] It's incredible, so I don't want to take away from that, but the mindset is a medical model, and that is not going to move us forward. I'll pause. Thank you, Ms. Sezmerheiser. We added, and again, I apologize for the delay. We made some, again, refinements on today, and we did add some professional development around, if you're looking at the booklet from Board Docs, Action 2.4.2 in the Instruction and Inclusive Practices Plan.

[00:54:36] and we added the definition. So the action, let me go back a little bit. Action 2.4.2 speaks about providing that professional development to staff really around the social model of disability and also making sure that we've defined what that is in a glossary of terms because we realize it might not be as explicit.

[00:55:00] When we're talking about students feeling included, welcome, seen, value, heard, We know that in years of yesterday, we will refer to terms of handicap as something that the environment places on a person, right? And so sometimes we handicap individuals by placing restrictions or not removing barriers so that those persons can demonstrate their success.

[00:55:25] And so in this, in that professional development, which really goes to that culture piece, equity piece, cultural responsiveness, and all of those pieces really talking about our need and our commitment, and really our, I don't know another synonym to say, but a duty to ensure that we are creating those environments such that students, all students, can demonstrate their success, whether it's in academic settings, whether it's in extracurricular settings, all of those pieces, and it's what we do and how we go about doing what we do that is impactful about that.

[00:56:02] So we did add some language in that round there. And that was just posted today, so none of us had a chance to really see that at all. I apologize. We need to see this sooner, honestly. This is super important work and really dense, and it was posted today. I apologize. Thank you. So I appreciate that. I think it needs to be upfront and explicit, not buried in a tactic.

[00:56:23] I appreciate it's there, but if that's not in the core mission or value, that comes across as a medical model. I think that's really important to lift up if we want this to be groundbreaking. If we want to just fix what we have, this is fantastic. So I'm just going to lift that up. I wanted to mention many, many things, but I'm a little concerned that we're using indicator 14 and 13 to measure transitions because those indicators are about post-secondary transition, but the goal is related to transitions at every level.

[00:56:49] So how do you plan to measure successful transitions at every level? Thank you. So we do have, again, in looking in special education, that Indicator 14 does look at when students exit high school or finish their experience with us, how many of those students are competitively employed, engaged in training, higher education, things like that.

[00:57:13] really speaks to have that connection to how we prepare them to be successful in those environments. We do have actions within the plan, within that special education processes implementation plan or section that talks about transitions between levels.

[00:57:30] We know that particularly as students may go from pre-K to kindergarten, from elementary to middle school, that's huge. Not to discount the shift between other levels, but that's typically where there's a really huge shift in experience for both students and families and then again from middle school to high school that we have some really clear expectations around what that's going to look like in fcps we know that that varies from building the building but a part of the piece that we wanted to elevate and uplift in this plan is where things wouldn't wouldn't be by happens chance right whether you just happen to be at a school that really has some systematic and

[00:58:07] coordinated transitions from elementary to middle or if you would just happen to be at one that doesn't and so that's that piece there between grade levels that we're working to incorporate and i've got three seconds so i'll say i know it's in the tactics but i was asking specifically for measures because what get measures get what is what gets done so that doesn't quite answer my question but i appreciate that it's in the tactics and i will take like two go backs we have you down for 15. Ms. Corbett Sanders followed by Ms. Marin. Thank you and thank you

[00:58:41] very much for your work on this. I know that when we initially introduced the forum topic to do a comprehensive review this was part of what I envisioned. Having said that I'm a little concerned and i'm i'm so glad miss Sizemore hyzer went before me because when we talk about the vision um and there there's not a clear articulation of the vision in the document so then i went to your new pamphlet or booklet is what it's called and in your vision what i consider to be the most

[00:59:20] important part of the vision for our students in fairfax county for our our exceptional students with differing abilities is inclusion and there is no reference to inclusion in that vision statement and so i would urge that we actually make sure we have that in the vision statement because i think that's a core part of who we are we actually don't even really address it until we get to a core value but a core value doesn't have the same impact the second piece that that I wanna talk a little bit about is the need for innovation,

[00:59:58] which I think follows nicely from what Ms. Sizemore-Heiser mentioned. And when I look at the project management plan in the 2.7.5 through 2.7.12 series, there are reviews of programming and adjustment of programming.

[01:00:16] That's precisely my concern, is that we haven't looked at this from an innovation model. We've looked at it from a stovepipe model. And we first address the needs of the CDER and Quandr programming, and then we look at Davis and Pulley, or actually Key and Kilmer, CDER, Quandr, Davis, Pulley, and there's no reference to the STEP program either.

[01:00:38] But, pardon me? - Go ahead, sir. - Okay, and so my concern is that one of the things that we've talked a lot about is innovation, and what we don't have here is that innovation spirit or model.

[01:00:54] And so, I know you have it in your head, but we do need to be able to articulate it, and I would say that a key component is the inclusion piece. And then the final piece is, I think that a lot of this, what we plan on doing with differentiated compensation, which I fully support, I think we need to understand that in the context of the ongoing collective bargaining.

[01:01:18] And so, this should be built in, and I'm not quite sure why we would be waiting until a multiyear rollout if that collective bargaining is going on now. So those are just a kind of a top part, and I know I only have 13 seconds, so I'll cede it back and come for a go back.

[01:01:35] But I'd like some responses, please. - Yes, thank you. So a couple of things on the, and looking in the instruction implementation plan for action 2.72, and really all of the actions within two-point tactics between 2.7, That review of the program is looking at how do we do things different.

[01:01:58] So we have to kind of know where our existing strengths and opportunities exist to know what we might need to do differently. And actually, some of that review has already begun on this year, specifically with Burke and CSS, our CSS program.

[01:02:13] So we can certainly revise that language to make sure it's explicit, that it's not trying to stay within the existing box, but we have to know what our box looks like to see what are the goals and what are we really trying to achieve and how we need to do that differently. What are those opportunities for us?

[01:02:31] - I had given back, but I'm taking my eight seconds. I think you need to have an explicit action which says when are we gonna tie all of these things together to come out with an innovative solution.

[01:02:46] - Thank you. - Thank you. And my other question didn't get answered regarding the vision statement. Oh, we made a note. We can go back and review that. I was trying to follow, take our notes, and I have great note takers here.

[01:03:02] Thank you. I have Ms. Marin followed by Ms. Bukarski. Hi, good afternoon. So I'm just trying to refresh myself on the timeline of this work. And it is very unfortunate that the meetings were posted today.

[01:03:21] I don't, my feeling is that we keep getting more information. We're getting questions from advocates in the board. They're kind of being answered, but it's like a deluge of information now. So this is, I have these questions for the superintendent.

[01:03:40] What is your approach for embedding the SEEP, the special enhancement plan metrics into the strategic plan? What are the decisions? Because if I'm recalling, well, when I look at the SEEP and I look at the last dozens of pages here from somewhere in the 20s onward. I can't even scroll fast enough. Implementation plan details. So from page 18 onward, it lists this meticulous timeline. But I know that I sat at that table the last time we talked about SEEP and said, how reasonable is it to do all these things, especially since a lot of them were predicated on hiring staff

[01:04:20] that we know is unavailable. And I'm also recalling Dr. Bateman's remarks at the start this conversation who said if we were even doing some of these it would be a success so again you know my question to you dr reed is what is your approach for embedding seep metrics into the strategic plan and what are the decisions and when will these decisions be made because it seems like everything is in here but that doesn't seem feasible the other thing i want to point out is for goal four goal one and four especially it says dr presidio as our chief academic officer

[01:04:59] and dr um gosh who is it now i'm blanking uh one of our other chiefs um and and miss boy dr boyd our sponsors the chief actually equity officer should also be a sponsor um then we're looking at a cultural of collective responsibility inclusive practices as goal one states and similarly for what goal four states implementing consistent practices and protocols to ensure all instructional staff are highly effective so really my question again is to dr reed what's the approach

[01:05:37] for attacking this work in a realistic way um where's the chief equity officer's role in this and i'll just close by saying the things i most often hear from parents are bemoaning that they have to advocate so often for their kids and that teachers are just overwhelmed so if those are our two biggest things how did they show up dr reed in your decision making thank you miss marron um i think that some of this work is going to be showing up in the pillars around using data um

[01:06:12] and working with our families obviously uh in terms of the measurements for others um other parts of this we have if you remember the 12 strategies there we haven't provided that um i don't think recently as an update but we have a champion for each of the 12 strategies that sit under those pillars and much of this report is going to sit there in terms of staffing and um communication and connection i don't honestly know how much of this report again this is a plan

[01:06:47] that is being brought forward for your consideration as a board I don't know that every single one of these tasks on that date is even possible to do quite honestly so and I don't know there's not like a how do I want to say this they're not prioritized necessarily so because I think it's we still have some decisions to make I guess for lack of a better term but the student outcomes are going to be reflected in the goals of the strategic plan and the measurements the staffing pieces here are likely to sit in the pillar so in terms of situating it that's how i would see

[01:07:26] that at this time okay thank you well i want to reiterate what are the decisions this is now the second time we've received this whole gamut and i know i'm just about out of time when are the decisions being made because the school year is among us i'd like to see your best thinking on what to prioritize here okay um i mean not at this moment but oh good that to me is the is the work yeah no and i i think what i probably would tear apart these pages literally not figuratively um and put them out on a table right because you've got to look at um i would argue these are by goal

[01:08:05] and i need to look at it by year and what are all the things we think we're going to do in this year and this year and this year and then what would a budget look like that would support that and then what can the system sustain right as are we going to be able to if we're talking about adding staff i will tell you that adding the special education department chairs at elementary is a fabulous support move and it took 141 teachers out of the classroom that were serving students so we've got to think about even great decisions for good for good purpose create then in a new set of challenges

[01:08:41] so I just want to make sure that as we look at this work over time that we don't inadvertently create a challenge that's not resolvable by solving a shorter term task so I just want to kind of stay not just by goal but also by a year I guess and in the next week or two probably we'll have a little more time to sit down with staff and really map that out what's if there are budget neutral things those are going to be i think um easier to pull off the page unless they're time intensive uh because time is a valuable resource as well but i i think we're going to need to sit

[01:09:18] down and look at that a little i think today's conversation is to kind of get a feel for the board's appetite about which things you think are critical and obviously that's going to hold sway with our decision making as well unless you say go forth and come back with what you're actually going to do um which i mean i don't cutting to the chase um that may be a piece of that but this is responsive to the 19 recommendations in the four goal areas but that's a tough question miss marron thank you um i think as you saw the nods around the table i my my feeling and we can

[01:09:58] take a consensus if we'd like to at the end but is that in order to prove this I think we would have to see exactly that what's what's next. All right Ms. Bukarski and I don't think I have anybody else who has put up there in a bar. Oh okay all right Dr. Reed yeah go ahead. Well the other thing Ms. Merrim what you didn't indicate but what I'm thinking about now for just a minute is also the policy governance conversation we were having and what you're in a way asking for is a um

[01:10:33] monitoring report right like what would the plan that the superintendent would bring forward based on this information in this conversation that i think is actually actionable and that's not work that the current team sitting with us has necessarily done but that's really what you're looking for right in a sense and then you would say that either meets what we think appropriate progress is or it doesn't but that's a really clear and concrete plan so I put that out there as an intersection to the work that we've been discussing so okay thank you Ms. Marin you actually got exactly to where I my number one question was and what you said is exactly what I'd like to see

[01:11:12] I think this is good it's it's helpful it's deeply deeply operational so I'm not sure what kind of feedback I can give you in that space on these actions that go on and timelines that I cannot I don't know I don't know if you can do this I don't know when you can do this I have no way of gauging that so I can give you absolutely zero feedback on that I appreciate all the work it's a ton of work but I'm really looking for that next piece that you spoke to so I want to have something to

[01:11:48] say that that helps you. You know, I think we need to acknowledge that none of this is going to be fixed overnight. I mean, you know, we're talking visionary and we're talking changing systems, but we have very basic issues of access. I mean, basic, basic issues. I don't think we can even get to that piece before we fix a lot of that. And I definitely think we have the capacity and the people needed to fix that if we prioritize, you know, and help people get to where they need to

[01:12:25] get. So I think, you know, for me, that's very important. I really would like to see that, you know, even gauging from our own experience. I just wanted my kid to have access to some of these things. And with that, I guess one very detailed question, where or are we even going to access things like um electives because you know that's a big issue and and maybe i just did not see that here yes ma'am so let me do my control fine that's the quickest way for me to get it to

[01:13:00] it um we do have in um as we talk about supporting that instruction we talk about um accessing uh electives so we talk about providing alternate excuse me alternatives to strategies for success um specifically by not having to give up an elective course and we also do as we're talking about monitoring lre we talk about students accessing advanced courses we also want to ask also one of our metrics that we added is a percent of students accessing those general

[01:13:35] ed electives and also monitoring our students with disabilities and their engagement in extracurricular and co-curricular activities so as we talk about the inclusive practices and access across not only just the academic pieces but that kind of expanded supports around the academic piece for the school community that's great thank you i just wanted to make sure that that was somewhere because that's a big issue um you know i'm looking at all this it's so much um two things and and some people have kind of gotten to this but maybe you can offer a little bit more how do we how are we going to um approach communicating with our staff

[01:14:14] about all of this, why the need, what this means for them, the timelines. I think that's really important if we want buy-in and morale not to just totally tank. Yeah, thank you very much for that question.

[01:14:33] That's a very good point. So we always start when we're communicating anything or any change initiative with your center and your staff are your centerpiece to this communication plan. So we'd start with the communications there. This would need to be multifaceted to make sure that we're really getting to our staff and really communicating the why and what is needed and their buy-in for this as well.

[01:14:56] It would need two-way engagement as well as just the direct communication, so you'd need to make sure you've got opportunities for them to ask questions, get some feedback and get their questions and their maybe concerns sort of addressed immediately.

[01:15:14] Once you've got that buy-in, then you can start to go further out to your broader community thanks I think that two-way communication is going to be critical so that as we you know go through this we have we adapt to what we're seeing real time anyway I am worried you know others have brought this up I do worry just because people where people are I you know I don't have that magic answer but I am worried and I guess one last question just what does accountability for this look like you know there's got to be many different you know parts to that but can you speak

[01:15:53] a little bit to it sure thank you um miss pokarski so a number of things that we um elevate in some of the actions here but really it's applicable across the um the document and all the actions we know that from the department level we provide guidance and support professional development and coaching but it's really incumbent that we partner closely with the region office who supports um you know working directly with school-based leaders who are you know working closely with staff and having that ongoing communication we've enhanced um some of those communications this year and really expanding those we've done a lot more um partnership as we've looked at the

[01:16:30] implementation of the um covet 19 compensatory education plan just rattles off my brain that way um um and really the partnership with the region office in terms of um who needs additional support where we are progress monitoring percent completion etc etc and those are the same type of partnerships that we want to make sure that we have moving forward um so again that it's not oh we ask them or they need help and so that we're really being active and purposeful and intentional and um having the region office to partner to make sure that we're having that implementation fidelity and and also making sure that we are revising how we support um schools we can't just

[01:17:10] do that everybody gets a bit on this day a bit on that day really making sure we uh leverage our human capital in a different way to really be targeted around the identified work that's prioritized for a given school year thank you i mean this is just so um expansive that you know the accountability structures are going to be crucial and at the end of the day you know top to bottom it's it's just very important so i'm very excited for the next piece of this thank you thank you okay go ahead yeah um i am really surprised at how much in lockstep i am with

[01:17:49] my colleagues i think since rational care and melanie stella just building towards kind of my concerns um i guess you know i'm hearing dr reed i know you shared you're looking for the board's appetite and what to take on and whatnot but then you know a couple work sessions ahead here now i'm i'm confused as to why we're not here to have the same conversation we had like a few months ago or a few months before that and i think i was really hopeful to see some progress and i know that you know one of the glaring thing last time was that these need to be outlined as smart goals things that are measurable and actually traceable i see that

[01:18:26] we've added dates you know a dollar amount to most of them uh and then in a responsible office but i don't know that that's moving us much further along especially in putting in place a realistic implementable thing i think i don't know dr reed maybe this is a miscommunication or a mismatch and kind of understanding what this is but if i'm not wrong i think the board is expecting implementing all of these uh within reason which is why we're like hello this is not realistic and we need to prioritize because the idea is to be responsive to all of the recommendations that

[01:18:59] came from air and all the findings that the community you know ultimately uh spoke to so because they're all gaps and problems right so the idea is okay we're going to address them this is the plan to address them we're not necessarily picking and choosing and my understanding of the timeline put in place here is that we're going to do it which then leads us to this is unrealistic i i was just looking at you know and not even like the whole tactic just for specific actions 16 million 16 million 22 13 24 24 13 22. like if we're setting this up for success i don't want us to be making promises to the community like oh look at this

[01:19:38] amazing thing and we've been selling this for years at this point we're going to do this special ed enhancement stuff we're going to fix all these problems and then we're setting goals that each one of these actions is its own project and i can appreciate you know dr reed you were saying like maybe that means you need a monitoring plan or some something for the accountability piece that i know stella just spoke to too but then if it's its own project i i think we it almost requires its own sub plan like we're throwing it on an office and saying by this date it's going to be done but i don't i mean i don't know i i think that there are major gaps there and i dr boyd

[01:20:14] you're leaving now moving on to a different position but you set the vision in place and put this plan presumably with the understanding that it's realistic so i i just i don't know what to make of this and i guess i also don't want us to be like lying to the community and putting this out and and not even being close to a place where we can meet it uh so i want to just hear kind of what what we're going to do to make that realistic and then dr reed i really don't want to have a future conversation about this where you're not on the same page with staff and then you know on board with where this is headed because that's the whole point of doing this

[01:20:51] right like the board is i mean we're going to provide input on the pieces where it's a fully fleshed out plan not on where we're kind of stuck on not even knowing what we're doing well thank Thank you, Ms. Amish. I think you've nailed the polarity here. The polarity is to be responsive to all 19 recommendations is to create a plan that I'm not sure we can execute, to be quite honest with you, in terms of the finance for these solutions, right? Can we respond to the 19

[01:21:23] recommendations with solutions that are less costly? Maybe, right? But these -- and we have to find a way to do that, right? Because the outcomes for students have to be improved. I think this comprehensive enhancement plan is responsive to the AIR report. So that was a goal, and I believe this is a responsive plan. I believe I'm on the same page with staff on that. What staff and I have not sat down to do is to say, well, given this comprehensive plan and the cost, which of these things are the most critical in year one, year two, year three, year four? And that's, I guess,

[01:22:01] our next step and i apologize if you expected that today um because we're not ready to to be that specific today um and i think we're on the same page about that too it's not the right page but we're on the same page um but i will certainly take that back and work with staff to provide that um understanding we've already finished our budget cycle right so we're looking a year out so what we're going to have to do in this first year is look at those things that um are time neutral and budget neutral that are going to have the largest impact at this time right to decrease the sense

[01:22:35] of overwhelmingness for staff to increase outcomes for students and to have our community feel like we're going to do the things we say we're going to do so i mean i don't know how to sum it up any different but i do think we're on the same page about being responsive to the report however within the realm of reality in terms of what we say we're going to do i don't know that we're ready to map this to um action plans uh for like two months from now um so that is a target we certainly can reach in terms of which things can we get going now versus um how do i want to say layer uh for

[01:23:14] the coming years it's my time but i definitely want to go back we've got you down uh all right uh mr erinak koufax followed by miss tollen thank you um i do want to thank staff for your work here it was obviously thought out as far as being as dr reed said responsive to the plan and what needs to happen and i think maybe the confusion or or frustration i'll be real is is that maybe that's not we what we as a board understood what was happening right and you know being on this board

[01:23:53] for so long we used to do a lot of this where you would come to us with this plan and it would be millions and millions of dollars right to get this done and now maybe that was just our misunderstanding of where we were going to be today because i do think there is as you said it's responsive to the plan the plan had 19 recommendations which in itself is a large amount and now there's pages of what to do for each of those recommendations so i do appreciate that and and I appreciate you outlining it for us.

[01:24:32] So I guess today was just the beginning, right? Today was the beginning, and I know it's not the beginning because we've been on this for a little while. I mean, you know, I've been through audit and all of those, and I know this plan has been out here for a while.

[01:24:48] But I guess today is that time where we have to prioritize, look at monies on hand, like you just said, because that's what you can do immediately. what's budget neutral and what will be impactful. And then going to that next level for a year out, putting it with the budget, seeing where it fits in our strategic plan, how we can put that there.

[01:25:12] I think this shows we have a long way to go, but I also do have to say we have been that system. We built it and people came. And we have a good special education. We have a lot of excellent special education programming, so I would hesitate to say that, you know, I hear from our parents, and I know the frustration, but I also hear from our parents that this system has saved their child.

[01:25:45] So I think we need to be mindful of where we are, where we have been, how we got here because we were so good and so excellent, but where we need to go is also, you know, what everybody needs to do is do progress forward.

[01:26:01] You can be at a good spot for some, but we're not in a perfect spot for others, and that's how we have to move forward. So, you know, I think in general we're all in that same place, so I think, Dr. Reed, for us, it is now time for you to regroup with his team and see what you can do this year.

[01:26:20] Start planning with the next, when we get to the next, you know, budget cycle, which comes up right after the summer. We do it right away now. And then plug this into your strategic plan, goals, and objectives. So we're doing all, we're ready to launch.

[01:26:37] It's just that today, I think, is a little frustrating because of expectations. Right. No, and I think managing expectations is going to be really important because I feel like, as we're being very frank this afternoon, which I appreciate, I think staff wanted to make sure they came with every possible response to address all 19 recommendations.

[01:27:02] and remembering that there were also there was other feedback to staff during this process. Now, having said that, we also need to, I think, be very realistic about this. There's some fabulous work here and some really good direction.

[01:27:20] And what we now need to do, I think, is put this between now and 2030, which pieces logically launch in context with all the other work that's happening in the division. But this is a priority right now, and we have heard that loud and clear, and it's a priority to staff, it's a priority for me.

[01:27:38] And we will put together something I think that we will be doing this year. Again, as we talked a little bit about policy governance, I think I'll have to write something that means, how do I say, that you'll have to determine if it's appropriately responsive.

[01:27:56] And if not, then we go back to the drawing board until it's right. And, you know, that's pretty transparent. So, all right. Yeah, I'm very happy to follow every, the conversations here today because I do think that, you know, we are uniquely poised.

[01:28:19] Like, you know, I was on the audit team at the time that we first started saying, oh, my gosh, you know, can audit really be the group that, you know, spearheads this? It's the first time we ever did that. And, you know, and I think we did that successfully.

[01:28:35] And we have some really, really great work to show, you know, with the air report and then all of these documents that support that. I also really appreciate the, I think that now that we're at the point where a strategic plan is just in place, we're all in a great position to start thinking really big picture, and we're hungry for some innovation.

[01:28:57] And we feel, you know, and I think that looking at all the data and information that we have here and the people that are sitting around the table, I think we can do that. You know, we have the firepower here to be innovative. So, you know, I was just also just looking and thinking, you know, we talked about, okay, well, now we're trying to do this, we're trying to be innovative, and we're trying to do this planning, but at the same time, we have tens of thousands of special needs kids that we need to be serving today. So, you know, how do we do that in parallel? So, you know, I've been thinking about that, and I really was

[01:29:32] looking at your goal one that you have here and that this is all focused around improved outcomes for students with disabilities and you have a very long you have 15 measures of success in there and I look down to the measures and I think these are probably all pieces of data that we collect already it's just a matter of you know maybe figuring out which ones are the most important that we need to be looking at short term or how do we group them and fit them in with the strategic plan goals so that the measurements kind of work together, you know, that's what

[01:30:12] I'm kind of thinking about there. How do we do that just to make sure that as we're trying to do all of this work in parallel, we are really centering in on those students and making sure that those outcomes are happening. One of the things I wanted to hear about is how are we potentially combining looking at these measures and moving this forward with our um our school improvement planning i know we've talked a lot about that too and how we're really looking at those plans trying to look at those plans quarterly and working with the schools you know and their the regions so i'd love to hear a

[01:30:48] little bit about that coordination that we would have in place certainly i think that um certainly our schools are able to um you know we all have to look at that student achievement um piece and

[01:31:04] progress, subgroup progress. Many of our schools, we know that there's really that achievement gap between students with disabilities and their peers. And even as you look at all of our schools, there's still that disparity. And so much of this work, while we're talking about whether it's social inclusion and kids filling included in the school, whether it's the academic supports so that they can access the material, be in those rigorous coursework, those outcomes will manifest in that particular subgroup data as we look at goal three of that of the strategic plan and also too when we talk about

[01:31:39] that strong start for our younger learners in here is the work around preschool and incorporating increasing or expanding our inclusive preschool that I know we've talked about around this table so much of the work truly is aligned and depending upon the school's data but I think that these actions will really help as each school looks at where they're where they are and where they want to go, specifically as it relates to students with disabilities, that this will help forge and guide the work that they're doing within their respective buildings to increase achievement and outcomes.

[01:32:09] And I know outcomes is a broad word, but when we say achievement, we don't just mean test scores. We mean so much more. So I'm using that piece. And then I see Dr. Presidio is reaching for the mic. Just real briefly, I would add, I mean, one of the other things that we're doing in addition to what Dr. Boyd was saying is kind of pre-populating data sets for the schools to be able to look at so they don't have to go and find the data that we know that it's accurate that you know as we're doing those quarterly reviews they're looking at the most you know recent data so a lot of those measures that are in goal one are going to be included in those data packets not all of it because it's not all quantitative you know an assessment data that we're looking at but a lot of it is going to be really incorporated right into those pre-packaged data reports that we're

[01:32:48] building for each school we're also building a lot of resources and supports for schools they go through that needs assessment process when they're building the plans this summer looking at their data and seeing some of those gaps to have resources and ideas and strategies to build into their school improvement plan. That's great and then that review that quarterly review if you're not seeing an impact then you can do something about it and that's part of that whole innovation planning as well. I also just wanted to point out you know we did have a follow-on motion with our budget for a salary review for all staff

[01:33:25] So, you know, I certainly hope, you know, all of our special education staff are included in that, you know, and that, of course, coordinates very nicely with, you know, what we have here in this plan. In addition, you know, we've been doing in our budget small amounts, small amounts, you know, with the compensatory services, et cetera.

[01:33:48] So prioritizing and figuring out what we need to do moving forward has already been said. Thank you. I think one of the things to your question, Ms. Tolan, about the school plans and Dr. Presidio, Marcy Neal, the Regions, Noelle, Clamenco, the teams have really been working to align the plans with the strategic plan.

[01:34:12] And I think I know some of the goals we've talked about in here around communication goals, communications about transitions, access to coursework. A lot of the measurements currently sit in the strategic plan, and we need to make sure they apply to all students, and not just some students.

[01:34:28] So we want to make sure we disaggregate data. We learned that in the core planning team. There were times we didn't have data sets for students on IEPs or 504 plans. So we just need to make sure that in all of our work that each and every student is seen, right, and their work is seen and their progress is taken care of.

[01:34:46] So the other thing I want to share is that in bigger, broader bodies of work, like our curriculum adoption, Ms. Klimenko and I were talking about that with our decoding dyslexia community advocates earlier today around the look at basal materials at elementary for our early literacy work.

[01:35:04] Well, we want to make sure those materials fit a UDL or a universal design for learning so they're accessible for all students. So I think what we want to try to make sure is that we filter decisions that are strategic to the benefit of each and every student.

[01:35:20] And that's really important. That's a cornerstone of the equity policy approved last night that we don't want to order materials and then go, oh, now we need to do something with these materials so they work better for this group of students or that group of students. want to be thoughtful ahead of time so i think those are the ways we're trying to be really intentional teeing up my next question um my first question i i do want to say thank you first of all i know that this has been a um sometimes painful process um for everybody involved in it and you

[01:35:57] know i i do appreciate like the comprehensive way um with which we're trying to you know change course correction on like the qe2 right like this i i recognize that this is going to be sometimes incremental sometimes going to be massive we talk about low-hanging fruit but sometimes we have not been able to get to low-hanging fruit because our baskets are full from picking up what's on the ground let alone be able to actually harvest what's out there and i think we have all felt that as

[01:36:31] parents as board members um everybody is constantly trying to do the right thing by our kids but the collective guidance of how we plan together and make sure that everybody's not doing this and everybody's not doing this um you know i think we've let our staff and our kids down um in that way and and very unintentionally because everybody's working past maximum capacity so i i so appreciate the idea of how do you take all that is good and wonderful about this system

[01:37:06] and you know you have i know three parents sitting here who give you a very hard time as our kids went through the system um but you know to to miss corbett sanders and or mr not koufax's point um you know i wouldn't have wanted my child to be anywhere else and so My argument would be that how do we use this, or my plea would be, as a foundation for rebuilding trust with our community, with our families, with our staff, because they see this as more work.

[01:37:43] And I think our families feel like they still are not communicated to and with in a way that makes them comprehensively understand, okay, what is the plan? what's the plan this year, what's the plan five years from now, what's the plan 10 years from now.

[01:37:59] And as I said, you got three board members who this work is too late for our kids. They're all done with FCPS now. And we started these conversations long before you all were a part of this team. And so sometimes I know you hear and feel our frustration because of that. So I guess my first question would be um i envision this i think we all envision this as a living breathing document and so how will we really actively engage on the front end you know our groups

[01:38:35] like acsd how will we use them in continually refining the seep well i think that one of the things we're going to need to do is craft the year-over-year plan and then clearly walk it through acsd and septa and other affinity or advocacy groups that you traditionally work with and our staff right our staff need to feel like it's representative of work that is the work and

[01:39:11] it's important work i will also say in some ways probably the biggest shift we need isn't going to be financial it's going to be more of a mindset shift about what's possible i think when you've gotten into habits of doing things for so long we don't question why we keep doing it that way whatever the it is right so i just think probably the biggest um let's say the biggest uh lever that's going to promote the most significant uh shift um is going to be a shift in our thinking

[01:39:49] about what's possible and i am trying in my mind to think about how to how to jump start that on this topic right we have a few topics to contemplate in that space but because there's a certain level of energy right like doing hard work is it's exhilarating if it's work you feel is valuable i think it's often work that's emotionally draining that's exhausting when you don't see like you're you know able to make the progress you want to make so we have a lot to think about that's not about budget and not about you know program and bonuses and that

[01:40:27] type of thing I think those are important by themselves so they're not going to get us where we want to be in terms of being that lighthouse division so I think we'll go back to staff and I think we need to collaborate with our instructional staff our teachers principals our instructional aids folks that are working directly with our kids and our families and because some of the solutions they're suggesting aren't about budget right so I think we have to remember to that there's a lot possible that's it's just costly different right so anyhow kind of a random series of thoughts but there you go I do also want

[01:41:05] to put a quick plug in if we can use this summer to educate our parents about what the IP is gonna look like when you walk in not just using PRC like use our meet with SEPTA meet with ACSD put things online that are recorded you know all of the just so everybody knows what they're walking into because I think it's been done very well in piecemeal places but let's we can't over communicate it is what I'm saying when people walk in there is no such thing as over communicating yes ma'am all right I know that we are at a

[01:41:42] crossroads of time here 341 oh son of a biscuit we're supposed to go until four I know we started about 15 minutes late so i would ask my colleagues can we live with a minute and a half of go backs and see where we get no i'm getting nos and yeses all together all right let's try a minute and a half with the goal of go go backs and also know we're going to get another crack at this because we're asking them to come back with a prioritization list um so this is not the end all be all of the

[01:42:17] seep. So we will start. I know Ms. Keys-Gamara had to step out, so I'm just going to beg your indulgence that when she comes back in, we'll throw her back into the list since she was first in the go-backs. That means we start with Mr. Frisch and followed by Ms. McLaughlin. All right, Ms. McLaughlin followed by Ms. Seismarheiser. Great, thanks. Dr. Reed, the one thing I wanted to clarify is from my remarks, in order to innovate and be a lighthouse district, We have to first know, because innovation is to create new methods and practices and products.

[01:42:55] So we have to know what is out there. So did AIR or did our school division identify among the 19 recommendations? Is anyone else in the country doing it? I believe AIR did provide us some exemplars.

[01:43:14] And Dr. Boyd, I don't know what those are directly. I didn't review the exemplars. Okay, so AAR provided us with some research-based information on reducing staff workload. As we talked in the, I believe it was October or November session, that was something that we really, you know, even in thinking within our own group, we're really stretched on trying to figure out how we make it less hard and still get great outcomes.

[01:43:40] And so, again, they provided us with some guidance around that, and we certainly utilize that information to inform the draft here. And certainly networking and collaborating with colleagues in an area that we have associations with. But we use a lot of that research-based information.

[01:43:56] I also, to add to that, have certainly met either in conferences or other work in other places with people who I would say are experts in this field of inclusion in particular. And there's a lot of work that can be done that isn't necessarily a budget increase in terms of how we utilize staff and their roles.

[01:44:18] But again, that's a shift for Fairfax because of how we've utilized certain staff positions. So it's a conversation that will require, I think, perhaps a way for us to present that information to staff in ways to think about other possibilities.

[01:44:37] But there are best practices out there. There's no question. Yeah, I'll just simplify my question. I believe in being a lighthouse district. I believe in innovating, but in order to be strategic with our time, we should have a consultant who can tell us, is there any school division in the country who's doing this work? What are they?

[01:44:57] And learn from it before we go and innovate, because you don't have to create a wheel if a wheel already exists. So that was the crux of my question. The second thing is we learned from the spring distance learning challenges of this school division that if you don't have project management planning you will fail in your execution and that was one of things that we talked about with you and you bring in expertise so i would say to this amazingly comprehensive plan i think a lot of the questions i'm hearing is let's make sure we have a robust project management plan for the execution

[01:45:31] of this work and the again the strategic identification of what's mission critical what can we do right away and then scaffold from there and uh you know i really do appreciate that you couldn't bring it all in together all at once um and i'm i'm really supportive of you and your team for the work you're trying to do here and happy to have since we've got the benefit of air on online here if any commentary about what they did to try to do some benchmarking to your to

[01:46:06] question Ms. McLaughlin I do one probably one minute is we looked at a lot of different school divisions and districts across the nation who are already doing these things and one thing we found is there are districts and divisions who are doing parts of this but I can't find or we couldn't find one district division that's doing all of this and so that that that's an important characteristic and we listed off those those divisions as a part of the report to include that so that that they are listed so we can go easily go back to them for additional guidance and recommendations about

[01:46:45] pros cons things they would do differently that's my point picking the best of the best of all of them to build the 19 that you've given us thank you excellent thank you uh miss sizemore heiser followed by miss corbett sanders all right um a couple things on the big picture piece um the mindset shift i'm so glad you lifted that up dr re because that's what i was trying to get at with the models I was talking about, and I appreciate my colleague mentioned inclusion.

[01:47:15] It's just not here, and I appreciate there's a tension between being really responsive to the recommendations, which were based on making better what we're already doing, and this desire to be innovative, and I get that, but that's what I see.

[01:47:30] We can do the work, we're doing the work, but the mindset is the biggest barrier to doing work well and consistently that's so i mean what i i guess when you come back whatever you're looking at this right like i look at this this way we're trying to fix our plane right like i think stella said i just want my kid to access what they need you know they can access right so fix the plane fly the plane which means do it well and build a brown groundbreaking new plane so i guess having some sense of how this all fits into those pieces or if those are the pieces right and what the

[01:48:06] timeline of that looks like and how realistic it is and how it's in alignment with the strategic plan, and then what's the accountability and reporting cadence on that. That's kind of what I, I know it's easier said than done, but I think that's kind of what I see. Otherwise we have some great tactics here, but I don't know how it fits into that fix-fly-build model. That's the best way I can describe it. So that's my first thought. A couple of specific pieces. On

[01:48:36] On tactic 2.4, you talk about social inclusion, but there's really not much about the hidden curriculum and social, like we talk about self-determination, but that understanding of socialization, I mean, in the materials that I've sent you, there's so much online about that's one of the biggest barriers to post-secondary success, and I see my time's already up, so I will need a go-go back.

[01:48:55] We put you down. All right. Any comments on that piece of it? I think again, as we were looking to draft the plan, looking that not all of the subject matter that's going to be within the professional development and coaching is explicitly listed here, and wanting to make sure that while we want to, you know, really be comprehensive, we know that we couldn't put everything in here, right? And so really just thinking about how we prioritize, look at the work and things like that. And a number of the pieces around, you know, as we talk about mindset,

[01:49:31] When we talk about things like LRE, when we talk about things like UDL and high leverage practices, it's all grounded in the piece of we as educators have to think differently about how do we check ourselves about how am I potentially, likely unintentionally, serving as a barrier potentially to students being successful in this space?

[01:49:52] How can I change my practice to make sure that all students are able to be successful within whatever setting it might be? And so a lot of that is undergirded. But again, just trying to find that balance of we know it's overwhelming to look at, you know, and even we try to put it in a user viewer friendly format.

[01:50:10] It's still a lot. It's 20 some odd, 30 pages. And trying to figure out how to find that balance of not listing everything. When we talk about the subject matter, it's going to be incorporated into that professional development. I appreciate that, but it's pretty missing throughout on that piece of it, the social skill side of it.

[01:50:36] All right, Ms. Corbin Sanders, followed by Ms. Merritt. I have 90 seconds, right? So this is how I see the challenge before us. We have the challenge of taking those 19 recommendations and developing and implementing a plan that addresses them.

[01:50:55] We have the secondary challenge of meeting the needs of all of those students whom were impacted by covid and the ocr voluntary resolution is aimed to address some of that but we also have the third piece which is that time is ticking for these kids in particular our older kids so i would ask if we could have a kind of triage how we approach this work in a way that addresses the most immediate needs this summer of giving a bit more flexibility in

[01:51:35] how we meet our families and our kids where they're at for an inclusion model that may look different than what we've seen before they may have a hybrid of supports that includes the work that we do and the work that others in the serve in other service providers provide to our student success and so that's what i would like is to kind of think a bit more innovatively about it and then i would also like two things one is to look at how we can ensure that assistive devices

[01:52:10] that our families need our children need to communicate are more intentionally pushed out and the professional development done on it and that we look at artificial intelligence solutions to help with some of the iep work that you all are looking to reimagine that's my 90. no elaborate response just we're taking notes and we'll just take all of that and in considerations we go back

[01:52:42] and refine it and revitalize well um i think triaging is good um i'm just trying to yes we will do that um because obviously we have it reminds me of our decoding dyslexia conversation we have students in secondary who aren't getting the benefit necessarily of the early literacy and how do we intervene to support our students as they exit our system while we build a system for our students entering the system i think is what you're saying so it's a different iteration of the

[01:53:21] fix the plane fly the plane and build a new plane it's triage the plane parts while you're doing all three so i'm just trying to it feels a little like a jenga um yes ma'am i'm sorry and that works right i think um just as one thing as i kind of think and listen um i think one of the things that will

[01:53:57] be helpful for us you know certainly we'll be able to put all of the actions you know so we can see very clearly what are we looking at for year one to be able to filter through what's viable and things like that but i think the piece where it's going to be important again for that trust piece that transparency piece is how do we determine what's most important because as we talk about prioritizing depending upon even within stakeholder groups within families family a may say you need to do one through three first because that's so important based on my perspective where i'm

[01:54:33] positioned with my kid my contacts parent two may say no 11 through 15 are so critically important staff may say this certainly we can identify what some some things are but i think that um we just have to be mindful and be transparent that regardless of how the prioritization falls out somebody may say that didn't meet my need and i think that just in terms of thinking about next steps how we galvanize and how we really make sure things are implemented and followed through on to make sure that there's a clear process that's transparent so that people understand how we got

[01:55:08] there and that is transparent as to what comes first not minimizing the importance of anything because i think that we all agree all of the work is important um but we can't do everything at the same time so that's just would be that's just something that's really just spinning around consistently in my head thank you uh melanie and then stella yeah i'm just gonna underscore again that we just need to start making some headway i mean again anything in this report if we do it is something and yes we should prioritize it but you know we've seen dr reed that you have executed

[01:55:44] a process to create a strategic plan so i am confident that you will do this what i continue to be kind of um just curious about is how there could be such a big disconnect and perhaps because the strategic plan was such a behemoth but i just i also think it reflects some of the issues we have when it comes to equity and looking at our students needs how is it that you know we're going to say okay all these students need these things and we're going to look at it in this silo um i don't know i'm just perplexed at why it's um so bifurcated and now we're going to have to figure out

[01:56:24] or wait for another plan and work that in again i'm confident that it will get done eventually but you know again we can't just other these kids and figure out what because it's got to be so integrative and we talk about the inclusion like that's how this was supposed to be so you know we just have a lot of work to do and um i look to the strategic plan as a model of how you could approach this i don't know what else to add other than let's please get going i agree i think what

[01:56:58] we're what we're facing right now i think is a bit of a collision of arrows in the division right we worked really hard to craft a strategic plan that would be inclusive of the needs of each and every student and also support our staff and our families in the meantime we've had this audit process around this particular program area that's clearly been a source of frustration for quite a little while and so we then have the audit findings coming in at the same time and i i guess if the division moving forward, Ms. Marin, is one that stays focused on our strategic plan and aligned

[01:57:38] with the goals that we've set both as a community and as a board for our future 2030 work. We shouldn't need the number of audits around topics such as this to stay on course because it'll be embedded in the work we're doing. But right now we've got this audit project that's coming in at same time um which we're going to be responsive to so i i also heard the message just get going so yes ma'am we're on it okay thank you uh miss omash and then miss tollen yeah um so dr boyd i

[01:58:15] heard you saying that kind of there's this um conundrum with when it comes to how you prioritize given that every stakeholder group is going to have you know uh their own level of urgency around whichever one of these um i guess i i'm trying to think of it i want to marry both the conversation on prioritization and framing actually and trying to get somewhere with this so maybe you know when we think of this in terms of equity right and i and i think dr reed this is something just division-wide we need to do better in terms of folding this in so that when we fix that vision

[01:58:51] statement it's not just like getting the wording right but it's really thinking about how we ended up with what we have and what's underlying why it's not something else um because that's the organic product of what we are right now right so um because the equity piece ends up getting to that social part that rajna was talking about earlier or just that culture shift the mindset the the less tangible pieces of values really um and and so in getting in thinking about those two pieces together what i'm thinking of some combination of like i'm talking like maslow

[01:59:27] hierarchy of needs type where on the most basic level access right like if people don't even know what their rights are people don't even know what they've agreed upon when it comes to access to ieps language etc then services then maybe affirmation like things like the books and whatnot library offerings i saw that on the list then the evaluation piece like collecting data might not be as important right now to access right there's a hierarchy of needs and then with feasibility like those are the two key pieces right it's it's how urgent is this and we have to think from an equitable perspective in assigning that urgency and then the feasibility and some

[02:00:04] balance between those two things yields what becomes our priority in the next few years so dr board maybe i see that's my time but that's something to start with in terms of like how we we might arrive at this because there are some things here that are objectively more urgent and there are things that are more subjective and will depend on the person but I think getting those objective ones at the very least is a starting point. Thank you Ms. Sinesh. Thanks I'll piggy up I will agree that none of these are nice to have and I don't want anybody to look at this report

[02:00:43] and think that there's any of this is nice to have this is all need to have all of them are important. Some are more urgent than others of kids who actually are not able to access the curriculum. I would argue that's the most urgent need that we have. You know, we we with the equity plan had a lovely picture of somebody accessing their AAC device. And I think I know, you know, that we have had many conversations together about the lack of access to that over the summer, the lack of training for staff. So it is not lost on me that that was the image that you chose to use

[02:01:21] when we talked about the equity plan. So I do, I guess a little bit, I am in disagreement that all of these things are flying separately. I mean, I think they are all part and parcel of one another. You can't have the equity plan without these metrics. We are failing on some of them. We are incredibly successful at some others. My question, I guess, would be when we look at some of these indicators, too, though, I want us to really be mindful of what we are measuring. So when we say graduation, right, we've had all had this conversation about what does it mean? Is it on time

[02:02:01] graduation? Is it what kind of diploma are kids graduating with? Because that is a measure and we have it in our strategic plan. So how does that come back? You know, things that include surveys of students with disabilities. I would love to get some feedback about what really happens with those. How many of our students with disabilities are filling these out? And if they are filling them out, you're still sampling a subset of population with extremely divergent needs.

[02:02:32] So I worry about that as an indicator because I don't know with fidelity how we can say this is a communication that is two-way. So I'll be excited when we make the path forward to also be able, I think, as a board and a community to do a deeper dive on how we are measuring it and what are the indicators. We are, shockingly, only two minutes over. I know that Ms. Sizemoreheiser will never forgive me if she doesn't get a go, go, go, go, go, go back. So you get a minute and a half and it's only because I love you and uh is anyone else dying to have another go back

[02:03:11] oh I'm so impressed oh all right Ms. McLaughlin all right so you guys have three minutes to make it happen you then you all right I'll be quick yes on the measures we do these these measures are measuring what we used to do we need to measure what we want to do um post-secondary when you're looking at Davis step etc what are the explicit plans of making sure there's Structures in place for kids to access the standard and advanced diploma while accessing this post-secondary.

[02:03:40] I didn't see that in here, and I think that's super important. It shouldn't be either/or, including SOL remediation as needed. AAC device, why are we waiting this long to create the training for AAC and other modalities? It's like two years just to create the training. That training should have been created yesterday.

[02:03:56] Family engagement, not just communication. Saw a lot in here about communication, not as much about engagement. In particular, easy to understand, transition booklets, all these booklets. Alignment with strategic plan. Super important. Why is the Chief Equity Officer not one of the champions here? I don't understand the siloing.

[02:04:13] I'll take responsibility for that and we'll correct it. I've got more and then you can speak. Project management plan for the fly, fix, build with parachutes model as I'm calling it. I think it would be really helpful. I'm hearing that from people of what we're going to do now in alignment with the plan and it would be helpful to have that reporting cadence as well.

[02:04:34] and then I'll pause here and you want to say something I'm good thank you okay I can't and then the progress reports we've got to get away from the one to five ratings for those measurements on the progress reports because no one knows what in the heck they mean and what they really relate to so I think we really need to look at our progress reports the whole measurements indicators section of it tactic 2.3 lots of folks on preschool and just LR not really specifics on inclusion and social inclusion so that surprised me um I think I will stop here

[02:05:11] because it's all very very tactical and if you're going to relook at this anyway it seems silly to dig into specifics but overall I will look at mindset culture who's involved measurements because what to measure what gets done and the project managing plan and equity oh you did okay all right Ms. McLaughlin followed by Ms. Bekarski and then we're gonna let you poor people leave the Great. Dr. Reed, I was just going to sort of emphasize, again, how I hope we will continue to better utilize our region offices to take the workload challenges off of our school-based staff.

[02:05:49] So if we're talking about things like the data collection and the analysis, because Dr. Boyd had mentioned our SPED teachers are teaching, they're doing case management, but then if we're doing the things like the data collection and the data analysis and then what do you do with the data, I really do think that that is a way when we're looking at the limitations of the pipeline of special education teachers.

[02:06:14] Like, I'm still really concerned, as you said, that it was great that we created these special education elementary school chairs, but then that meant pulling them out of the classroom. So when we look at our Delta had been 150 SPED teachers at the beginning of the prior year, and now we're at 300.

[02:06:31] Well, there's your 150 in the pipeline that we took out for good reason, but these are the things where having a project management plan, again, as you know, is saying, okay, here are all of the competing operational needs that we have, and even in the plan itself, if we move the Rubik's Cube this way, what does it throw off?

[02:06:57] And then I'll reiterate because I didn't hear an answer. I remain very concerned that we in the Northern Virginia area are the only ones with the VRA on compensatory services. And now we're going to have this. And I would like a response, not now, but as a follow up to this, what is your team doing to take into account that with this plan and with the VRA, how are we going to address the fact that we're still competing?

[02:07:28] with these Northern Virginia school districts for the same pool of teachers. And that goes to the communications that I think Helen talked about. Why come to us? Because we're going to have a big selling job. Ms. Bukarski, and then my apologies, I missed Ms. Omash's hand. Well, I'll be fast. I just want to acknowledge all the work that you all have done, because this is obviously very thoughtful and has taken a very long time and very detailed, and I'm excited for what comes next. So thank you

[02:08:02] for your work. I appreciate it. Ms. Omeish? Yeah, I guess I just wanted to follow up on perhaps either developing some kind of metric or having some kind of tool, whether that is like a equity based hierarchy of needs situation and feasibility calculation or not. What thoughts, if any, are around that? I don't know if Mr. Bateman, if you guys even have a way of doing that in general, that is a best practice, I think it'd be insightful. But otherwise, hearing from staff, you know, how we plan to proceed if it's not something like that. So Mr. Bateman, maybe you go ahead yeah there there are ways of helping with that and i'd be happy to talk with you

[02:08:42] offline about that okay staff i i would like personally to hear a couple of the ways from mr bateman um help our thinking hold on i'll be there right there um my wife wants me to take off i saw i apologize is that we you need there there are comparisons there are models that we've used in looking at other districts across the nation that i think we could use with you guys to help with that and you don't have to recreate a model you don't have to create a survey there are already

[02:09:20] things that are already existing out there that can be beneficial to exist for that so um i'm not quite directly saying which specific ones but i know of ones that we can get to you as a part of this great no that's a huge help and if your wife is calling you and you need to go i know we're past four o'clock um but i did you know on a related note dr reid i think whatever those materials are we have to have that in concert with whatever's going on on the equity side of things because that's how we're going to continue to fall into what i guess ration described as the medical model earlier if we're not thinking about it as that culture shift as that inclusive thing and i want

[02:09:57] to ask about the inclusion part because i know you said that there are models and whatnot that you can offer i know how everyone have asked for it at every work session you've had so far but can you elaborate a little bit more on what that would look like because i think if i if i can dare speak for folks uh i've heard it from most people on the around the table at this point i think it's a core value a common priority there are a lot of university partnership models around the country that look at inclusion there are a variety of authors julie coston comes to mind that's written principal handbooks around inclusion as well as looking at inclusion models and the reallocation

[02:10:35] of staff and positions any i mean i think julie would be somebody that could provide a session or an explanation or conversation around that. There are a variety of, as I said, university models. I think there's team teaching. There is teaching that's either push in, pull out. There's just a variety of ways. There's implementing UDL across curriculum, which are high leverage universal instructional strategies. I think there are infinite possibilities

[02:11:11] to provide inclusive experiences and not limit those to, you know, recess or music or recess or -- you know, but really have meaningful -- we would call it meaningful inclusion. I think when Julie talks with families and staff, it's not enough just to say we've got a student in a general ed classroom that has an IEP, but is their authentic learning experience students, one that is a value add for that child and the other students in the room.

[02:11:43] Our classrooms are better learning spaces when each and every student has that authentic learning experience and there's a tremendous amount of research. We don't need to do more research on that. It's in. It works. It's best for kids. I'm happy to go through some of those models.

[02:11:58] I also want to say if we haven't been practicing those, it's going to take a while for people here to see what that looks like so what's in my head right now isn't about finding out what inclusion looks like it's more around change management like how do we get folks there and excitedly there that's really more of the leadership challenge right now that i'm contemplating is project management and change management because we know we don't need to guess about this we know it's the right thing to do so yeah i mean i figured and so in that case

[02:12:34] can we expect that the next conversation we have some framework plan as to how we're going to get to that inclusive place because I on page 18 of this I saw the inclusive practices plan is supposed to be updated to with our changes Dr. Boyd I don't know if you can speak to what your intention is with that but thank you Ms. Elmesh the inclusive inclusive practices plan is a plan that every LEA submits to the Department of Education to really increase inclusive opportunities and outcomes for students, that was submitted and was required to be submitted prior to the

[02:13:09] completion of this enhancement plan. And again, in order to make sure that we don't have a number of different plans that don't have the same work or potentially have competing interests, once this plan is finalized, that inclusive practices plan will be updated and resubmitted to the State Department so that they will know what work we're doing, specifically in FCPS to increase inclusive opportunities and outcomes for students right and that's the part I'm asking about that update so can we expect there to be some framework for how we're going

[02:13:44] to get to inclusion at the next board conversation that will be included in that update so I think we what it sounds like what we've talked about today is really looking at the proposed actions year by year cumulatively across the plans in one place to prioritize what work would be done and And again, much of this work, particularly that in the instruction and special education processes implementation plans, centers on inclusive practices.

[02:14:14] And so once we prioritize that work, then we can certainly specify what that plan will look like in FCPS for next year and for the years to come. And we can work with Dr. Reed, just putting it on your lap with the new chair and vice chair about scheduling whatever the next step is. Yes, ma'am. Ms. Keyes-Gamara, I want to be respectful. Did you want to have a go back? I do, with the understanding that I may not have heard

[02:14:46] something. I think where I want to land, Dr. Reed, is, and it sounds like everybody, based on the summary I just received from my esteemed colleague, we're kind of on the same page in terms of making sure the community is informed my biggest concern is people's expectations right and so i think miss pokarski is correct most of this is much of this is operational but the part where i think the board has some role is to say how we are making sure that the community is brought along and that

[02:15:25] you know i think perhaps one of the first things is to identify what are those budget items that are not neutral and and and those are the goals in terms of notifying forgive me if i'm being repetitive um but those are the goals in terms of notifying the community and then where we're beginning i'm wondering if you need a follow-on motion of some sort or direction from the board with respect to these are the goals that we would like to make sure the community is informed on um thank you miss kees kamara i think i would defer to you and the board as a body in terms of a follow

[02:16:03] on motion okay well i just wanted to be clear because i think if we define what those are and i'm happy to work with someone or you know your staff and as well as the board to identify what things people can expect initially one i think needs to be the budget and then where you will begin i don't think the board determines where you begin but i do think um that is an important communication point and and uh perhaps set up a structure for that i think that's all i have

[02:16:39] right now thank you let me read my notes there is a next steps document ms eisemore hyzer was just letting us know um if we want to put that in there i do i i agree that i think i think we have all agreed that there needs to be another there needs to be another conversation um around this um well i think that's a little different than what i just said because i i'm concerned about you know the community has been saying we have these 19 recommendations how do we get these

[02:17:14] things done um there's a budgetary impact and there's also where the superintendent is going to begin only she can determine that um but it being communicated is what i'm concerned about so i'm not sure that that fits within a next step document i think i there's a lot of discussion around the table i mean i i i think that the idea would be that we are putting this back in your lap

[02:17:47] to determine what those are um and then coming back to us and and and we would obviously like to be a part of a plan of you know how how we inform the community what those what those next steps will be um that meet with everybody's expectation okay um so can i check for understanding um i'm to come back to you with a plan of what we're actually going to do and i'm coming back to you

[02:18:22] before we communicate it to the community or i'm coming back to you with the plan and a communication plan or am I coming back to you with a plan that we've already started communicating to the community about or I'm just wanting to check for understanding because I think after the 13th you all are leaving on a recess and we're of course going to be working on this which August, I don't know, we're going to start the school year probably upcoming and if we're going to do staff PD or make some shifts, I'm not sure it's going to be prudent to wait for you to come back from recess to confirm the plan right like so i just want to check for

[02:19:01] understanding here no yeah i think putting forward you know what you want to do operationally you've been amazing about communicating things in the monday letter things like that but i i agree that i think we're not asking for approval of a communications plan but i would think that the board members would like to see that and the folks i think the vast majority of us unfortunately work over that we're over that break of a month um so people will be able to communicate with you about their two cents um i know we're over on time i do just want to say thank you so much i

[02:19:38] i know it is sometimes hard to sit there and listen to us pick this apart we are picking it apart because it is in totality amazing i mean we have this big huge plan about how to go forward and we're all very excited about that i hope that our enthusiasm for it is not lost sometimes in trying to be uh direct and efficient in our questioning so thank you so much to you and your staff and everybody for all of the work that has gone into this this is an unbelievable first

[02:20:14] step and first step in a series of like five million first steps i understand but thank you you so much and we look forward to uh what's next all right for my board members that means we are 20 minutes behind um i know how every 25 minute break is that you said all right 25 minute break

[02:20:38] so we'll see you back here at 4 45 4 45 all right school board members we are running 25 minutes

[02:55:21] behind so i think we need to get started okay we are here to hear from our advisory committee APAC thank you all for joining us sorry we are a little bit late before we get started I pledge of allegiance nope I don't see mr. Frisch is he I know yeah I guess we're gonna have to wait because I don't see him on there please somebody

[02:55:59] speak up if you see him yeah we're going to yep we're good I'm gonna go ahead to hand it over to you to introduce yourselves. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much. Do you have our slides prepared? Thank you. Alright, good evening school board members, Dr. Reed, community members. We are here tonight to present the Advanced Academic Program Advisory Committee's annual report. I'm sorry, now

[02:56:39] that I said that I'm gonna stop you because I see Mr. Frisch, so I just I need to vote him in. Mr. Frisch has submitted a written request to virtually attend today's work session due to personal conflict. All those in favor of approving the request raise your hands. Raise your hands. Okay that's unanimous with everybody at the table. Thank you. Sorry. No worries. So my name is Dr. Holly Glaser and I am currently an assistant professor of elementary education at George Mason University. I served as the co-chair along with my colleague here. I'm a former FCPS teacher as well as a former elementary school advanced

[02:57:17] academic resource teacher at Riverside here in Fairfax, and I'm a future FCPS parent. I have a daughter who will be starting kindergarten in 2024. Hi, I'm Camille Burden. I am representing board member Omish, and I was a former middle school department chair at Holmes Middle School.

[02:57:42] I had a brain fart and went to Arlington for a year, and now I'm back, and I'm going to be the AART NYP coordinator at Glasgow in the fall. And we also have with us Kirsten Maloney who is the coordinator for advanced academic programs for the county as well as Lawrence Randolph who is the middle school specialist for academic programs for the county. Advanced academics sorry. Okay so this is our agenda for the evening. For our evening's presentation we're just going to take you through

[02:58:18] the process, the charge, and our process and our focus as well as our findings. And we would like to ask that you hold your questions to the end of the presentation please so here we are so since there had been a number of years before secondary had done any research in this area for academic advanced academics last year our charge was advanced academic opportunities to study advanced academic opportunities and research based approaches to honors coursework

[02:58:52] at the middle school level and due to the scope of the the charge as well as the challenges clearly that we faced in 2021-2022 school year, we decided as a committee to approach this as a two-year charge. So the first year served as our foundation for our work, which centered on understanding research around best practices, while the research conducted in the second year pushed us into a deeper study and looking at forcing us to consider school-based

[02:59:26] qualitative data and to help us make recommendations for the FCPS Middle School Honors Model. So in year two, our charge was to identify and examine approaches and expectations common in the FCPS middle school honors model and the need for growth in our division.

[02:59:56] Sorry about that. In year one, so last year, the first thing that we did is we approached the committee and we said, what are your questions regarding the charge? What are your need-to-knows? And so we collected all the questions from our committee members, and we categorized them, and we settled on three areas of focus where all the questions sort of fell.

[03:00:18] And so one of the areas of focus was equity and excellence. Another was curriculum and advanced differentiation. Another was matching programs to diverse student needs. From there, as a committee, we did a literature review related to each of these areas of focus.

[03:00:35] We got into small groups. Each group had a particular focus that they worked on for the entire year. We also had three invited presentations. We had Dr. Joy Lawson Davis come in to present about equitable middle school programming. We had Dr. Amy Hunter come in to talk about advanced differentiation in math.

[03:00:53] And then we also had a panel of what was then a first-year middle school AARTs come in and talk about the work that they were doing with honors in middle school. In our second year, we did write up a report in our first year that we were unable to present to the school board.

[03:01:10] So in our second year what we did is we took the findings from year one's, our quote unquote best practices that we identified from the literature and from these presentations, and we used that framework to try to get a small snapshot of what was happening in Fairfax County Public Schools.

[03:01:28] So we invited panel presentations from four different groups, groups of middle school teachers. We asked some ARTs to come back as well as instructional coaches. We called them the school-based instructional leaders as well as the department chairs. We also had the school-based administrators come in and then the content specialists from the District Office of Curriculum and Instruction. And in addition to that Dr. Randolph interviewed some students at different middle schools across the county and so we wove in their voices audio recordings and quotes from these interviews into the presentations that we had over the

[03:02:07] course of these four months. I do think it's really important for you to understand that this was a very high level assessment of the current state of Fairfax. There were maybe four to five people on each panel. We did try to have diverse representation in terms of regions, whether or not the educators were from, had a local level four, not a local level four, a regular level four, or just honors courses and local level four as well.

[03:02:39] So we had diverse representation across who came to see us. And again, this is just a sample. They don't speak for everybody. So I just want to throw that out there. As a result, we have made some recommendations in terms of how we might make some improvements in terms of our consistency, in terms of expectations and implementation, in terms of the curriculum, and then academic advising as well.

[03:03:10] So we're going to frame the rest of the evening around these three areas of focus. So we're going to present our findings through these original three areas: curriculum and differentiation, equity and excellence, and matching program approach to diverse student needs. the findings that we're going to present for each of these areas of focus will be accompanied by what we observed for each of these areas in Fairfax County right now, so you can kind of get a snapshot of what's going on.

[03:03:36] All right, so for the first area of focus, curriculum and differentiation. While advanced learners tend to be academically and intellectually advanced beyond their peers of similar age and experience, they present a broad spectrum of strengths, interests, background experiences, learning abilities, and social-emotional needs as part of their asynchronous development.

[03:03:59] Maximizing advanced learners' potential during the middle school years requires evidence-based, differentiated curriculum and instruction developed for students with high intellectual abilities. Each of our findings in this focus area guide our thinking about best practices in curriculum and differentiation for advanced learners.

[03:04:15] So the first topic is -- the first finding topic is around curriculum. based curriculum, when purposefully differentiated, can meet the needs of advanced learners. So from our research in year one, we found that curriculum that was adapted to meet the needs of our advanced learners requires differentiation of content, learning tasks and environments, instructional approaches, assessments, and products.

[03:04:38] The differentiation features framework that we read about offers four research-based approaches to implementing curriculum for advanced learners, and this includes adjusting the frequency and intensity of acceleration complexity depth and creative opportunity to meet the student's individual needs so what's currently happening in fairfax related to this finding in their presentation during year one of this work the middle school arts described their work coaching teachers to implement high quality advanced curriculum as being hindered by current gaps in understanding the hallmarks of curriculum for advanced learners as well as the lack of a of the district-wide honors framework.

[03:05:16] They identified the need for additional clarity around expectations for honors curriculum, student outcomes, and recommended practices and assessments that would meet the advanced differentiation needs of students in honors courses. This was echoed by what we heard from our panel groups in year two, in which we noted that consistency and uniformity in curricula and extensions being used in honors courses varies by content area and course.

[03:05:42] And there were certainly bright spots from what we heard from our panel group members, but I think it's important here to note that the implementation was inconsistent. In some cases, teachers and our school-based collaborative learning teams are individually defining how honors courses are taught and with what resources.

[03:06:02] The second finding was related to differentiation in particular, and this one is differentiating up ensures that the curriculum is different and not more for advanced learners. So from our research in Year 1, we found that rather than teaching age or grade-based standards and then just adding more, so by that I mean like more homework, more problems, more adding more and more and more to do, advanced students need curricula that is purposefully designed to maximize their growth and learning potential.

[03:06:32] So in other words, differentiating for advanced learning needs isn't just a collection of strategies or add-ons to the regular curriculum. It's a teaching model where teachers are proactively planning curriculum and instruction in response to what students need.

[03:06:47] In Fairfax, the AAP office has developed the Differentiating Up tool to support professional learning within collaborative learning teams, and this tool provides considerations for how teams can adjust curriculum to increase rigor and relevance, modify structure and pacing, and build student autonomy.

[03:07:05] According to the Instructional Leader and Middle School Teacher Panel Groups from Year 2. Differentiation is occurring in honors classrooms, but implementation, again, is inconsistent, and teachers are struggling to meet a wide range of student needs. Multiple students, teachers, and instructional leaders spoke of honors courses as having a higher workload than standard courses, indicating that there's a clear definition of effective differentiation and that the emphasis on curriculum that is different and not more volume is something that needs additional clarification.

[03:07:41] The third finding was related to professional learning. As we know, professional learning is critical, and in particular to differentiating for advanced learners' needs. So our research from year one indicated that effectively differentiating instruction for advanced learners means that you have to understand students' needs, you have to respond to those students' needs, and then you need to continuously monitor whether or not you're actually meeting those needs to drive further instruction.

[03:08:07] So the quality of the differentiation and the fidelity of implementation matters greatly, as you can imagine, and the traditional model of differentiation where most people are focusing on scaffolding for deficits does not meet the needs of our advanced learners who really need us to be differentiating up.

[03:08:25] So in FCPS, the new part-time middle school ART position, thank you school board, provides opportunities for job-embedded ongoing professional learning for teachers and administrators. ARTs model best practices, co-teach, provide resources, coach individual teachers, plan with collaborative learning teams, and align district and school goals with evidence-based practices.

[03:08:49] The AAP office also provides professional learning in the form of academy courses and institutes. And then, of course, something else that's relevant is FCPS policy R3335.10 that requires teachers who teach five or more sections of advanced academic courses, so that could be a combination of honors and advanced academics like the level four courses, to obtain their state or county endorsement in advanced academics.

[03:09:16] However, there is a lack of push for teachers to get their endorsement and various stakeholders have requested that this FCPS policy be revisited and that threshold be lowered to teaching two or more sections of advanced learners to push more people to to to get that endorsement and then finally the fourth finding was around administrator support a strong commitment to differentiating up by administration is key to its success so unsurprisingly research from year one demonstrated that school leaders beliefs and level of support play a key role in teachers willingness and success and effective differentiation teachers need administrator support they need

[03:09:55] resources they need professional learning opportunities they need emotional support, they need understanding of the challenges, they need a focus on school vision to help teachers engage in this process. So ARTs from multiple FCPS middle schools confirmed that strong administrator support is needed to ensure that their role as coach is maximized to build staff capacity to meet the AAP goals of developing talent and differentiating for the needs of advanced learners.

[03:10:23] In our panels from year two, middle school administrators provided examples of professional learning that they have supported. However, time was a concern for the teacher and school-based instructional leader panels, particularly in trying to balance the high level of engagement in ongoing professional learning with a current heavy focus on testing requirements and student interventions. Lack of time exacerbates the issue that few teachers of honors courses

[03:10:48] hold an AAP or advanced academics endorsement. So our second area, I feel like, according to our committee's 2021-2022 research review of honors, best practices, and category of equity and excellence. So in the first area of honors courses, address advanced learners needing to have courses that meet their need, their content area strength. So in our research of the first

[03:11:24] year, the best practice would be that we provide multiple pathways for advanced learners to engage challenging curriculum so that means removing the barriers for students to do so and when we looked at and what is going on in the division school-based instructional leaders and middle school administrators share the perspective that differentiating up along with scaffolding should be provided in every classroom including honors and we look at our second area extracurricular experiences address differences and opportunities to learn what we found in And our first year of research is that students who are hindered by poverty and other barriers

[03:12:02] may be faced with limited access to educational opportunities beyond the school day. So that providing extracurricular opportunities provide a solution to that challenge. So unfortunately, some of the things we discovered this year from our panel is that although middle schools have a structure for offering additional extracurricular experiences to students, the lack of discussion around them from the panels this year may indicate that they are underutilized in terms of addressing differences and opportunities to learn.

[03:12:35] So in the next area, as far as students from historically underrepresented groups enrolled in honors courses should be supported in developing a sense of belonging and a scholarly identity. The best practice then would be to show that students see themselves in the curriculum, they have a sense of belonging and feel their identity as an honor student is being developed and that teachers then must have a student's unique social and emotional needs at hand or as a center and a focus. So what we found in our county is that several middle schools with AART seem to be struggling to engage and motivate students in their honors courses,

[03:13:14] centering that issue on their students rather than reflecting on their own teaching. in that fourth area of professional learning to support the goals of equity and excellence in honors coursework best practice would be to provide professional learning for teachers and administrative administrators to help support the access to and retention of underrepresented students in honors courses additionally school counselors that are tasked with course placement would benefit professional learning in order to match students academic needs to the courses without restricting access to honors coursework so again and what we found

[03:13:51] this year is that based on the comments from our middle school teachers and widespread support for there's widespread support and adoption of and professional learning in the young stylers model so there's that need to better understand and get a deeper understanding of what that model really looks like and the benefits of it for at the secondary level so in the fifth area engaging families and student advocacy and support strengthens opportunities for advanced learners So schools have the responsibility of making sure that families aren't informed via culturally responsive means.

[03:14:27] Family engagement should be both continual and an active pursuit by educators. And what we find is that in middle schools with AARTs, family engagement activities and events were held this year on topics such as honors course selection, college readiness, strategies for success, and study skills.

[03:14:46] skills. So, now we're at our third one, our findings for matching programs to student needs. Our high-quality middle school education and gifted education share much in common, so that best practices traditionally and historically, there has been some tension between principles of middle school education and gifted education, but the two have beliefs about what, common beliefs about what constitutes high-quality instruction. What we find and found this year Fairfax County is that middle school teachers recognize the importance of inquiry, collaboration,

[03:15:25] autonomy, choice, interdisciplinary classes, and concept-based instruction when discussing honors and standards courses. Teacher versus the student-centeredness, there needs to be more work as far as the -- there's a dichotomy between that understanding of more work and less work, and teachers' understanding range from believing that dichotomy exists or that mutually exclusive relationship between the two to a broad gap in understanding of the unique needs of advanced learners in the second area cluster groups grouping sets up middle school honors courses for success so advanced

[03:16:02] learners are best served when we use strategic grouping practices what we find here in our county is that co-teaching and that would be an honors teacher with an esau teacher for example or a special education teacher with an aart when available this allows at least one teacher to better differentiate their instruction however these opportunities are limited due to staffing and scheduling or can be the third area grouping practices must be accompanied by effective differentiation strategies while cluster grouping helps teachers to better manage the diverse learning needs and most school honors classes teachers still still need to effectively

[03:16:41] differentiate instruction to meet the wide range of advanced learners in these classes and what we found this year is while all panelists recognize that there is a need for differentiation and honors courses, they identified some challenges. One being planning time.

[03:16:57] Another being time to practice in professional learning for increased rigor and offering scaffolds. And the other being a lack of co-teaching and collaboration opportunities. And the fourth area of rigorous math instruction demonstrates how to balance differentiation strategies.

[03:17:15] So best practice would be the four hallmark approaches of effective research-based gifted curriculum models, which are acceleration, complexity, depth, and creative opportunity. And what we found is that the focus on scaffolds, extensions, and work volume meets two of the four features of differentiation, acceleration, and complexity, with less focus on the other two as far as depth and creativity.

[03:17:39] And there was more focus on the need for scaffolding and behavior managing than differentiating up. The middle school ART role has the potential to support both talent development and differentiation to meet the needs of advanced learners. So middle school ART role provides an opportunity for job-embedded professional learning and support that can build classroom teacher capacity to meet the needs of advanced learners. And our middle school administrators, school-based instructional leaders, and middle school teachers in the schools with ARTs noted the importance of this role in coaching teachers, offering site-based professional learning, participating in collaborative

[03:18:18] learning teams and co-teaching and modeling to support implementation of curricula and strategies that support the needs of advanced learners. The biggest barrier to reaching these goals was time and just juggling demands. Presented before you are eight foundational components of high-quality honors coursework identified by the committee in year one. So by looking at middle school honors coursework from various perspectives, the committee uncovered these foundational principles that underlie high quality honors programs

[03:18:56] such as advanced curricula differentiation and grouping practices supported by meeting the needs of advanced learners, designing programs with both equity and excellence in mind, and matching programs to develop diverse student talents and interests.

[03:19:11] Middle School Honors coursework offers a broad range of students access to advanced curriculum differentiated through depth, complexity, creativity, and acceleration that honors individual students' specific needs, interests, and strengths. Honors courses in FCPS are accessible to students who have been previously identified for levels two through four AAP in elementary school, as well as any student with strengths or interests in a specific core content area.

[03:19:37] High quality honors courses must include skillful differentiation of content to meet a wide range of learner needs from supportive to extension, and this requires investment in professional learning for teachers and administrators. Broad access to honors coursework coupled with family engagement strategies, appropriate academic advising and extracurricular enrichment focused opportunities all play a role in fostering the district's goal of talent development for all students at the middle school level.

[03:20:05] In order to effectively match programming approaches to such diverse student needs, middle school honors courses must be of sufficient quality and rigor to develop talent among students who may not have previously been identified advanced academic services and sufficiently flexible so that teachers can differentiate instruction to meet the needs of advanced learners so again we leverage heavily our new middle school aert positions to support both of this talent development and differentiation for advanced learners in the middle school years so in light of these foundational components of

[03:20:45] high quality honors that we identified in year one and that we investigated in year two the committee has developed a list of recommended priorities. We recognize that this is sort of a huge long list and we would just love to see any of these things happen.

[03:21:01] We did take a vote and these are actually listed in order in our opinion from APAC in order of priority. So the first thing that we listed and we know again this is a long shot because it costs a lot of money is staffing all middle schools with a full-time ART. So I know that the plan right now is to staff middle all middle schools with a part-time ART by this upcoming school year we decided to put this in here anyway just because that full-time right now the part-time ARTs are doing fantastic work with the time that they have but their roles are being split they're

[03:21:38] either split between being the ART and the IB coordinator within the same school or they're split between two different schools and there's just so many different teachers, administrators, families, students that they're having to support. So we really do feel strongly that we can increase this job embedded professional learning that we saw across multiple findings by staffing middle schools with the 1.0 ART. I do want to just say that there are even middle school administrators who believe in this enough that they are funding the other half of the

[03:22:12] position right now so that they can have a 1.0 full-time AART next year. So you can talk to those principals and get some more feedback from them if you'd like, but it's important enough that those principals are choosing to do that with their money. The next priority is to support cohesion around honors course expectations through an honors curriculum framework. So here this is already sort of in the works. There is, but this here, it's already Lawrence, right, y'all are, Dr. Randolph, sorry, y'all are in the process of creating this honors framework

[03:22:50] right now, and it will just have clear definitions and expectations for honors in each content area. The third recommendation is to strengthen skills and implementation of strategies for differentiating up. So this goes back again to that professional learning and supporting teachers and differentiating by providing this professional learning, but as we saw, there were a lot of -- there's limitations around time. How can we create this time for teachers to engage, not only in, like, attending the professional learning, but being coached to return to make sure it's not just about, I attended this professional learning on differentiation

[03:23:28] and now all of a sudden I know how to differentiate for my students. We need that sort of follow up. Again, I go back to the full-time middle school ART. That is what they can do. That's their job they can coach. The fourth recommended priority is to increase secondary teachers enrollment, participation, and completion in the available professional learning that's related to advanced academics. FCPS is privileged to have so many professional learning opportunities for its teachers. So we just need to increase this enrollment in the professional learning or think about ways that we can develop additional professional learning that is going to meet

[03:24:05] the needs of the teachers in our classrooms and the students in our schools. So some of the ideas we had for this was integrating advanced academic topics within other district professional learning, so during summer curriculum development, department chair meetings, et cetera, and then continuing to revisit some professional learning opportunities, not just around the academic needs of our advanced learners, but also their social emotional needs as well.

[03:24:35] And then the next recommendation that we have is to expand administrative and leadership support for teacher readiness to meet the needs of advanced learners. So going back to the FCPS policy around teachers, a lot of teachers not having the advanced academic endorsement, and they're only being required if they are teaching a certain number of advanced academic or honors courses, we would like to recommend that teachers who teach two or more AAP, whether that be advanced academic or honors courses, that they be required within a certain amount of time to earn this advanced academic or gifted endorsement. That's

[03:25:15] a heavy ask. It could be a heavy ask of teachers. And so, again, I go back to staffing all middle schools with a 1.0 ART because it is embedded professional learning. You don't have to leave your school to go attend. Someone is there who can coach you. So I'm going to keep coming back to to that. And then, in addition, supporting administrators in building a master calendar that's supporting those co-teaching opportunities. I didn't realize when I turned my head that would go away. Okay. And then monitoring school goals related to staff enrollment and available

[03:25:51] professional learning offerings. The AAP office can provide a list of teachers who do hold the advanced academic or the gift endorsement to principals, and then having the administrators be willing to follow up and make sure that their teachers are sticking to the policy, whatever that policy may be.

[03:26:11] And then incorporating time for teachers to attend and plan the AAP professional learning that happens throughout the school year and in the summer. Finally, creating middle school schedules with cluster grouping in mind. This can be difficult, but we do know that research defines cluster grouping as scheduling six to eight students who have similar academic needs in the same classroom so that they have an academic peer group.

[03:26:34] This can maximize instructional planning time and the delivery of differentiating up for advanced learners. So it's a win-win, but it's all about scheduling. And then encouraging middle school administrators to increase team-taught honors and designated advanced academic courses so that we can provide access to our twice exceptional students and are multilingual learners, so they are receiving the supports, the services, the accommodations that they need, along with being able to meet their advanced learning needs, and then also encouraging teachers to utilize flexible grouping strategies within their classrooms.

[03:27:10] Elementary schools do it, middle schools can do it as well. Focus on wraparound practices is our last one. So working with the middle school directors of student services to ensure that there is consistent academic advising practices that is supporting family engagement in selecting honors coursework across middle schools. That we are increasing family engagement to recruit students to participate in extracurricular opportunities that help them see themselves as scholars. We saw with the equity and excellence findings that that scholar identity piece was really important. And these talent development opportunities will not only enhance the core

[03:27:47] curriculum, but it will also help these students recognize their diverse talents and foster a sense of group belonging. And then maximizing opportunities within advisory periods to close the gaps in opportunities to learn.

[03:28:03] Thank you. Oh, I forgot a really important slide, actually. We would like to acknowledge so many different people, and there's so many people on here that it's actually quite small, as you can see. We had a number over the last couple of years of middle school staff who have come in to to present on the expert panels who have served on our committee as well.

[03:28:27] So I just want to call out all of these. You can see all the different middle schools that have been represented here. We have middle school students that allowed us to interview them. We had Dr. Joy Lawson Davis who came in as a speaker presenter. We've had two different school board liaisons who we have really appreciated.

[03:28:43] And then numerous central office staff who have come in to our meetings every month to either present or just support us as we are as we're doing our work thank you thank you thank you for the presentation thank you for your hard work this is a very hard-working committee I have a list and we are going to start with Ms.

[03:29:08] McLaughlin followed by Ms. Omesh thank you it's gonna be tough to do in three minutes I do want to say that you have so much in this to your report that I I would probably need an hour just myself to kind of peel back some of your recommendations.

[03:29:26] So I guess I will say, Dr. Reed, one concern I have in the recommendation is it's saying the honors curriculum framework is needed for honors course cohesion and expectation. If you or Dr. Reed or someone on our team can explain that a little bit better, that's almost alarming to me to think we wouldn't have cohesion and expectations in our honors courses so someone can elaborate that would be great oh i'll just speak to that currently our guides include extensions in the in the guides and i do think that

[03:30:05] with the turnover that may have happened during the pandemic and some of the ways that instruction shifted and that we're trying to shift it back i think some of that may have gotten lost in time so i think some of it is around that and then i do think that there's also each content area in the disciplines has their own flavor of how they do things and i do think it can be confusing when different content areas might have different ways of defining what rigor might look like so dr randolph has been reading leading a group that has been meeting this year

[03:30:43] with all the content specialists from middle school and high school so that we can make sure that the ways that we're defining it we can talk about that consistently across all of our all of our folks um and so that's that is something that is in progress right now and i don't know dr randolph if would you want to add anything about the work of that group so far um the only thing i would add to that is again as kirsten mentioned we have a bunch of specialists and coordinators who have taken this on and we've been meeting monthly so really look at each of the content areas and to make sure that our teachers are able to get the resources that

[03:31:22] they absolutely need in order to differentiate for advanced learners and both honors and a designated courses so we've done a lot of work in regards to hearing from student voices for that particular document as well as going into schools to see what's going on in honors courses as well as again hearing from teachers and administrators on what they feel they need in order to be successful in instructing honors courses so that's ongoing work and we'll continue in the fall. We have a lot of, a lot more courses, classes in order to get into, to see, you know, what other resources are needed to support our teachers and hopefully bring some

[03:32:02] more stakeholders to the table to review that document before it's ready to come to the school board to view. I would just add, I mean, I see it as an opportunity to reset. There's a lot of things that I think we learned in the pandemic about what to trim and instruction has been shifting for the past you know two decades in terms of going from a very direct instruction approach to a more student-centered approach and i think all of this falls in line with ways we we can reset in a lot of ways so i feel like that and the having the advanced academic resource

[03:32:33] teacher provides a lot of opportunity to reset in this area and i think you know dr randolph can probably give you countless examples of ways that the advanced academic resource teachers have been able to advance that work in schools to make sure that teachers are tuning into some of the resources that we do have in terms of our extensions that are available and creating even more to build off of the things that we have. Thank you. Gosh, Dr. Reid again, I think I probably have more questions

[03:33:07] than answers from listening to these recommendations. I'm trying to not have a premature reaction. But right now, what I've been listening and hearing, including the reaction about how the pandemic affected quality honors course instruction, the first thing going through my mind is I'm glad my children have already graduated. And that's a painful thing for me to say.

[03:33:31] The beauty of the honors course offerings was that when kids hit middle school and high school, If they wanted, desired, or had, and/or the capacity to learn in the breadth and depth and pacing at an honors course through open enrollment that I've been one of the biggest champions of doing.

[03:33:53] I'm sorry, Ms. Heiser-Heiser, I'm actually asking the superintendent a question. So I'm just going to pause my time. It would be helpful because I wanted to ask her the question. So yeah, no, you can ask her. We just paused the clock. I was literally talking with her.

[03:34:09] So I just, well, if it's time sensitive, I recommend you ask her. It's okay, Megan, go. Okay. So Dr. Reed, what's concerning to me is that we're considered a premier school system, and the honors instruction that it's differentiated for honors learning shouldn't be this complicated.

[03:34:34] It's either, we have standard curriculum that we want all our children to learn. Then we have honors differentiation for students who want to go depth, breadth, and rigor, and pacing, And it's open enrollment for all children who feel ready and able with the supports of their parents and the school division to do that.

[03:34:51] And then when they get to high school, it's, again, standard honors and advanced courses, AP and IB. And so I guess as I hear this presentation that FCPS is focused on this student-centered, individualized differentiation within a differentiated class, I'm just thinking about what I've heard from our teachers, which is it is so difficult with large class sizes, 30, 35 kids, and now they have to have student-centered, individualized learning.

[03:35:22] I wonder why people are saying to us, help. The beauty, again, of having these courses was so then there is that collective learning. And being on this board, I don't know whenever I greenlit that we would move from direct instruction in a collective environment and then that it would now be student-centered and individualized because then a teacher has to figure out how to teach to 35 different individuals in an individualized way and in public schools with size the size classes we have i don't know

[03:35:55] how that gets done so i don't know if if sloan or noel or someone i'll be happy yeah i'd be happy to jump in um so first of all i just want to thank the committee for their report and and be honest that we were very excited that the committee would take on really doing a deep look at our honors curriculum. Not because we thought it was a disaster or that there was chaos, but because we really felt like it was an opportunity to take a harder look at what was happening in the honors level. It's so preparatory to those high school experiences, as you know. We do, as Ms. Maloney

[03:36:31] was saying, we have extensions, right? We have extensions, so that is the additional learning that is expected when you're in an honors course. What we don't have, or what they were speaking of, is kind of an organizing framework across the four curriculums. So the students who are in honors class, they are getting a level of rigor.

[03:36:50] And when we talk about student-centered, it doesn't mean individualized, it doesn't mean every student's getting their own thing, but as you think about us opening access, you think about our two E students, we do need to scaffold for students who are in honors classes. It's not every single student who is in an honors class needs exactly the same thing.

[03:37:08] Do they need the same content? Yes, should they have the same expectations? Yes, but how they get there sometimes can be different. So the work of this committee has really allowed us to take a harder look and bring in some of the research-based best practices and hear from the schools and use our community members to really think about, well, what should honors look like as we're moving forward and as we really want to bring more fidelity, 'cause I think with our ARTs, we saw it as an opportunity to really have that job embedded professional development and raise the rigor and the consistency across the division.

[03:37:43] So it's not that we want chaos and it's individualized or that we're really trying to make some sort of newfangled curriculum. It's really about, I think, raising the rigor, providing clarity and consistency and fidelity.

[03:38:02] - Thank you, Noelle, that's extremely helpful. I appreciate that. - Okay, Ms. McLaughlin, Ms. Alvesh? Yeah, Dr. Glazer, Ms. Burden, thank you both so much for the presentation, and Dr. Randolph and Ms. Maloney as well for your help and support to the group.

[03:38:22] Ms. Burden, I'm especially proud to see you co-chairing the committee this year. In any case, I did have a couple of questions specifically kind of on this differentiation, differentiating up piece. and I know that one of you shared earlier that the goal is to have different, not more.

[03:38:42] Can you give some examples of what that might look like or flesh out a little bit further? Yeah, how that might manifest in a particular concept or subject area?

[03:39:03] Yeah, thank you. Got it right here. We have a very long report, I think, as Ms. McLaughlin said. So one of the things that we were talking about in terms of differentiation for advanced learners is recognizing that they have a need to learn at a faster pace, explore content more deeply, make connections within and across content areas, grapple with provocative questions, and have more autonomy in their learning. So it's obviously not more work, more volume,

[03:39:42] it's just different work the the thinking that they're being asked to do is a little bit different so in order to be able to do this we need teachers who are assessing their students and using that information to guide their instruction to figure out what is it that they specifically need and what they don't need is more work they need different work i hope yeah no i did see you flesh that out in the um report but i guess i'm thinking of like a substantive example just to

[03:40:15] bring it home you know like does that mean when teaching i don't know like uh linear algebra like i mean i guess this is before that but um you know like a concept can you can you give it give me an example um so one example is this summer um the young scholars program is piggybacking a lot off

[03:40:53] of the English Language Arts Summer Curriculum. However, for differentiation purposes, we're using the gifted curriculum of ME/UE in order to embed some higher critical thinking resources into those lessons so that students who are young scholars can access those thinking routines.

[03:41:17] So it's different for our young scholars this summer they're using that text in order to expand upon the stories. It's not more for them, it's just different approaches to how they are getting to the end result. And I'll just add IU MiWi is a research-based curriculum unit from Vanderbilt University, which has a Center for Gifted Ed at it. One of the hallmarks of it that teachers can use to plan is a wheel that goes into multiple higher-level reasoning skills. Something to be really clear about is

[03:41:53] higher level reasoning skills we want to be in every single course, but the feature of the wheel that makes it especially appropriate for this differentiation is how you can layer certain higher level things on top of one another so that the complex, everybody's going to have higher level thinking, but it can become more complex based on student need. So instead of giving more problems, we are giving a more challenging question or allowing for more independence.

[03:42:18] Do you mean between like presenting the concept or the rule and like the conclusion, like in a math class i'm not trying to put you guys on the spot i'm actually really trying to um understand exactly what you guys are trying to do uh in the sense that so like if a poem is read in english class right like okay kids are all going to be interpreting identifying literary devices and trying to understand what do they mean but but what is what does something like that look like in a in a uh regular if you will classroom and in an honors classroom so we feel

[03:42:56] Yeah, and that might be something, an area that we could do better. I know that there have been past presentations where we kind of present what are, you know, what would this standard look like in a gen ed classroom and what would the extension look like in honors.

[03:43:11] I think for your example about the poem, I would go to the wheel where there are questions that you're going to use with student groups when they're going through and analyzing that poem. And when I'm planning as a teacher for what those questions are, they all should have higher level thinking, but some of them are going to layer multiple different skills on top of one another to add complexity.

[03:43:33] For math, for example, an example I know is, you know, you might want to give students a rich task in terms of, you know, here is a plot of land that we need to purpose for the community in a certain way. And that can be a real great problem approach that we want for every student, but the information that students are given and how scaffolded that information is can meet their needs in terms of a lot of scaffolding and a lot of direction will help guide them through the process, whereas with an honors class you would probably want more independence or more complex calculations that would need to take place in order to work on that problem.

[03:44:11] Yeah, like less steps to the conclusion maybe. Okay, I got closer, but not entirely a full picture, but I appreciate that explanation. I guess why I'm asking is because I'm trying to figure out how does that relate to like AAP, which is still offered in middle school, right?

[03:44:37] Because you guys are talking about honors in the report, but anything you can offer in terms of how that's differentiated. And then the question, frankly, that remains with me, too, is like, what makes that so impossible to reach even kids in regular classes, right?

[03:44:55] Like that higher level of thinking and whatnot, if it's a different curriculum and helps them get there. So if you want to comment on either of those pieces, especially the first part with the AAP versus honors, I'd appreciate it. So in terms of the difference between AAP and honors, so honors is one of the levels of service that's provided through the advanced academic program.

[03:45:20] So what would be considered like full-time or level four services in elementary school that continues all the way up through middle school. And so you have students who are placed in a designated advanced academics classroom if they've been level four identified and they stay in that classroom all the way up through the end of middle school.

[03:45:40] Honors classes in middle school should have the same curriculum as the middle school advanced academic classes, but in terms of the students that comprise that class, these are students because you can self-select into honors. These could be students who maybe have never had any part-time advanced academic services.

[03:46:00] Maybe they received level two or level three services in elementary school. Maybe they were in the level four program in elementary school in full-time advanced academic services, but then they chose not to go to their center middle school and -- or didn't want to stick within the same cohort, and so they decided to take a few honors courses here and there, and then regular general education courses and the others.

[03:46:23] So honors is just one of the pathways through which students' advanced academic needs are met through the advanced academic program. So in a way, it could be used as part-time or full-time advanced academic services, depending on how many honors classes you're taking at the middle school level. Yeah, I mean, I think I was honing in on that curriculum piece. I know how they're deployed. Obviously, there are different programs. AAP, too. I mean, some people are in, you know, reading, and some people are in math and whatnot. But yeah, so are you saying it's the same curriculum, right? Yes. I mean, that's,

[03:47:01] to my colleagues, I guess that's strange, right? Because we continue, I mean, we continue busing kids to AAP centers, and certain middle schools are AAP centers, but they're offered honors, too. so that's something really is a point of reflection in terms of operational waste and resources that maybe don't need to be spent unless there's a clear reason but i'm not hearing one from the from the group but the last question is just those middle schoolers if you noticed any comments from their interviews about the social impacts maybe of the segregation piece i remember that being a very poignant part of my middle school experience but um i'd love to hear any any thoughts or anything that you guys may have heard from the interviews about how this the

[03:47:41] division socially impacts them. Okay. Ms. Omesh, I did give you quite a bit of extra time, just wanted you to know, and Dr. Presidio would like to answer that. Just real briefly, I was just going to mention, because I see how many placards are up, and this report is essentially a two-year report that's very lengthy, and I just want to make the offer to any board members, if you'd like to discuss it in more detail with staff, we're happy to do that, and we can probably let our committee reps answer most of the questions but we're happy to follow up individually two-by-twos with folks because I know there's a lot of

[03:48:15] questions thank you and they just answer that my last question yeah the middle school interviews no there were they didn't mention anything about the segregation we were more focused on what supports they were receiving and honors courses yeah thank you okay yep I saw them okay thank you we're gonna go on to

[03:48:46] Ms. Keyes-Gamara, Dr. Anderson, and I do want to be mindful of the time. It's 5:50, and maybe, you know, when you're answering, maybe one person can answer, because I want to make sure everybody has a ton of questions. Obviously, all the placards went up very quickly. Go ahead.

[03:49:03] Thank you. I really appreciate this information, first of all. Thank you for your hard work. You said something kind of in the middle of the presentation with respect to some middle schools feeling, not feeling as though they were getting the same level of rigor.

[03:49:21] And that is of concern to me, if I understood it correctly. And if so, how can we specifically address that concern? And does that also suggest, and I don't think you said this, but I'm going to extrapolate a little bit beyond what you did say, as to whether that suggests we should be having these programs everywhere and what oversight will

[03:49:52] help us to have the level of fidelity where we don't have that possible disparity. You don't think you said that? The students felt? Repeat what you think you said. I could have misunderstood.

[03:50:20] I was up a little late last night. You don't think you said that? Okay. Okay. Well, let me, I'll, I'll, I can handle, I can rephrase the question. It was Ms. Burton? It was Ms. Burton because I noted it okay i will rephrase the question to assist in your hopefully in your interpretation of this do you perceive there to be a differentiate a distinction between the levels of or even

[03:51:00] students perceive our families perceive a differentiation in the level of rigor in some of our programs per various middle schools so i can't i don't perceive it um and if and if that's what you heard me say um i'm i don't recall and not to question anything you're saying i just don't perceive it myself or have enough information to respond to that okay this may be the best way to answer your question i apologize i'll keep rephrasing until i get what i want um because i'm not that

[03:51:36] tired um in the event that we wanted to check the level of rigor in our middle schools for our various programs to make sure that we're achieving the level of fidelity that we think is necessary what might you recommend to achieve that? I think the work of AAP and particularly Dr. Randolph already having these groups and cohort groups is a way to have that accountability. And I think the work that he's already doing and continuing to do will meet that need. So it's that constant

[03:52:13] check-in. I think that's speaking to what your question is as far as how do you have some level accountability among the middle schools and correct me if i'm wrong no no this is a discussion we're good okay um i can say having spoken to families across the county there is that perception so i'm trying to figure out how to get to that and maybe maybe i should maybe i should direct my question to dr reed or i don't know if you want to address it but i'm trying to figure out

[03:52:47] how do we get to the perception that these programs are not always created equal depending on what middle school we're talking about i was just going to jump in if i can for just a second and and just say i think that that is maybe at the heart of this report right like really trying to investigate where we are with middle school honors where we are with rigor create a framework that we could hold up and that we could use to look at programs and and try and get that fidelity because i think it is challenging across the 25 middle schools right across all the different

[03:53:25] subject areas across the center model the schools that cluster group the honors four classes one class right there's a lot of different variations the way this plays out in middle school at this time and i think having a framework and having the consistent resource of the art's and the work that that lawrence has started i think is going to bring us a lot closer to be able to to answer your question and then move forward. Are RAS is a part of that process of trying to achieve that level of fidelity? So I would not say that they're part of it now but I do think that as you know as

[03:54:03] we look at our new structure with a sorry with a chief of school just trying to with the chief of schools and really thinking about how we're all going to work together as we move forward I think there's just a ton of opportunity with this work. Okay I think you're looking for some time I'll give you some time back but that is my overall concern. I think these programs need to be not only available in all of our schools but parents need to know they don't have to move across the county to have access to

[03:54:40] those programs. Thank you. Dr. Anderson followed by Ms. Cohen. Thank you I think I'm going to go out of order and start kind of where you left off a little bit, Ms. Keyes-Gamara. One of the things that we talked about in this room was providing transparency to parents around the academic work.

[03:55:03] They were very nicely posted on the website. I know as a parent myself, I look at it religiously. How do we articulate the same type of transparency when it comes to the honors versus the AAP courses versus the general classes? Would a parent see, if they were to go on the website, my child is in 8th grade AP English, if I reviewed that curriculum, or what's available, rather, because I know not everything is available, would that look different from a parent whose child is in general English courses?

[03:55:36] Can somebody kind of articulate for me what the difference possibly could be from the public-facing documents that we provide? It is not currently on the website that way. At the elementary level, we have done work to put side-by-side the extended standards to articulate that at the elementary level.

[03:55:58] And I think that's the vision with doing this also with the work that Dr. Randolph is leading with the content specialists. Okay, I'm going to put a pin. I'll be right there. Also, speaking about access, it would be remiss if I didn't share that. And looking at all of the 25 middle schools across FCPS, there's only one high school pyramid where there's no middle school with an AEP center.

[03:56:22] That's the Annandale High School Pyramid. And the others are spit feeders, so it comes across as being available. But there's nothing available in the Annandale Pyramid at all. Well, thank you for sharing that, so I'll elevate those as well.

[03:56:39] well, that becomes an issue. That becomes an issue for those families who have to leave their communities to access the academic supports that we're saying that their children need. And parents should not be put in that position. So I'm going to stop there. Now I'm going to go back to my list here as I had it organized.

[03:56:59] Thank you for all of your work. Very excited to see you here. One of the things that you talked about were, and that was at the very beginning, and I don't remember which one of you said this, is when teachers are doing the planning, sometimes the work falls on one teacher or perhaps a team of teachers to determine what the rigor would be in these classes.

[03:57:22] What recommendations do you have on that? Would it be more consistent if it were the work of the AART, or would it be more consistent if that was more centrally developed? So I think that was one of our recommended priorities.

[03:57:40] one of the reasons why we want to develop the honors curriculum framework to make that so it's not individually or collaborative learning teams trying to figure all this out but have a dedicated make let's make it clear the expectations and the curriculum that's supposed to be used here okay so that would be central so it gets to the 25 schools in one way the other piece that I wanted to talk about dr. Edie knows this because about a year and a half ago we had a very long conversation she's not here anymore about the endorsements

[03:58:08] of teachers who are instructing the AAP classes. That is not monitored centrally in any way. That is left up to the principals to determine. I love the recommendation that this should be lowered from five classes to two sections, from five sections to two sections, because we are not going to be able to put enough people to support everybody at everything that they can do. But what we can do is raise the expertise of the people that we do have. And I think through this very robust endorsement process, we can achieve that.

[03:58:38] I would love to hear, Dr. Reed, how can we make this the responsibility of central office to, one, monitor, well, one, require, because it's not right now, to monitor, to ensure that the teachers are trained to engage in the great work that they've articulated that need to happen in these classes.

[03:58:58] So I would have to defer to Dr. Presidio on that. I'm not sure what the PD plan for teachers entails or what. I know there are, what, 40 modules? Not the PD plan, the endorsement, because right now it's left up to the principals to check.

[03:59:13] I gave you a long, long. Oh, so sorry. I just wanted to articulate what the question was. Right. Yeah, I mean, I think the short answer is, you know, there's a multitude of professional development requirements or, you know, options for people to participate in.

[03:59:30] and we're constantly fighting a limited amount of time and resources to make sure that these things can happen. So if it's the will of the board that that's a requirement for teachers to teach those courses, then we're gonna have to reprioritize our budget and our professional development time to make sure that teachers are able to do that.

[03:59:49] We haven't done that in the past because we've been trying to balance a lot of competing needs for a lot of different professional development requirements for teachers. And that's why we've had flexibility and try to incentivize it happening. And that's why we have the variability that we have right now. I think as we look at the implementation of the new strategic plan and the professional development priorities that we have there, there's gonna be a lot of things that are gonna emerge as other critical needs for professional learning.

[04:00:15] We were just obviously having a lot of conversations earlier about the special education enhancement plan and all of the work that we need to do there around inclusive practices. We have the science of reading work that we're doing. It's just a lot of different expectations that we have and a limited amount of time and money to do it all.

[04:00:30] Thank you, Dr. Percudio. Okay, so we have one, two, three, four, at least five people that need to speak. We're supposed to end at six. We were 25 minutes late, so my suggestion would be please if you can direct your questions to this report and our wonderful people here.

[04:00:51] Obviously, there's a lot of interest about this topic that I think we need to take up in another space and time. Ms. Cohen, followed by Ms. Dernak-Koufax. Agreed. I appreciate that. I will actually keep going a little bit on what Dr. Anderson said and really piggyback with what Dr. Presidio just said.

[04:01:10] So, you know, we were just learning in ACSD about that we do some reimbursement for SPED certification. It sounds like we no longer do all of the reimbursement for folks to get certified in SPED. I wondered, could you all elaborate?

[04:01:26] Same with your gifted education certification. Do we give money towards that certification? - So if teachers would like to get the FCPS endorsement in advanced academics, it's completely free.

[04:01:45] We teach the courses to the academy, and so I teach multiple classes myself, and they have to complete 12 credits. Six credit hours have to be academy courses, And the other six credits can be professional development and/or academy courses.

[04:02:01] So again, we offer it completely free, and it's also counting towards the salary credit. Awesome. Okay, that's super helpful. Also what's our role? I know we have the benefit of getting to have you here from GMU, but we've had this conversation with special ed too, right?

[04:02:20] What are the licensure and certification requirements at an undergraduate and graduate school in terms of trying to bring more special education knowledge, AAP knowledge? So how can we have an impact with secondary learning institutions to make sure that some folks – because to your point, Dr. Presidio, once we get them, man, you're awfully busy.

[04:02:50] So is there a way that we can add some more on the back end of the requirements before you walk across the stage? We were just talking about this before this meeting, actually. We were saying establishing some -- we already have a school-university partnerships here in Fairfax with -- between George Mason and Fairfax.

[04:03:14] We have a vibrant professional development schools network, but I think we have some very unique needs in teacher education and in just in we're dealing with a teacher shortage right now and there's a lot there's a lot of that could happen if we continue to build and strengthen the partnership that we already have with Fairfax County Schools so I was talking to Noelle earlier about who to maybe contact so we can try to get these a better alignment I'm thinking even statewide too like what could we do to change and then I guess to go a little

[04:03:54] bit further with that you know I think there lies some frustration I heard it a little bit with dr. Anderson and some of us that there's really good research out there about that a lot of these techniques and tools for advanced learners do amazing things no matter how you're accessing the curriculum and so I guess to your point of do we do we get to a point where we say some piece of this is required in how you get it.

[04:04:23] It's really, it's interesting, obviously that's an operational decision, but it's an interesting thought of how do we, instead of just incentivizing it, if we know that it is good for everyone, is this a skill set that we want our teachers to have?

[04:04:41] And I would argue that that knowledge, you know, makes you a better teacher, makes your classroom environment. I mean, these are all good things that are coming out of this, but I do recognize, to your point, one more thing is one more thing. So I guess I would just put out to kind of as a board, you know, to be able to give some feedback to Dr. Reed about, you know, how we feel about that.

[04:05:08] The last thing I just wanna say super administratively is, and we need this for all our committees, so I don't know the right answer yet, but I am horrified by the attendance of my appointee. And so I wonder if there's a place at some point in the year that you could let school board members know if their folks are not showing up because I'm ashamed by the attendance.

[04:05:32] So my apologies that Springfield was not at the table at these meetings, you all deserve that. So my apologies. - Ms. Sternak-Koufax followed by Ms. Toland. - Thank you. I was happy to be the board liaison for the first year so thank you all it's good to see this excellent report I will tell you Dr. Reed I'll still be here till December and I will be putting in the budget while you start planning the need for the middle school the one advanced academic resource teacher we did that with and we're seeing good results in the elementary school we have

[04:06:12] a 0.5 that was added to that where we started with title one moved on down the line got advanced academic resource teachers in all of our elementary schools it took about four years i believe kirsten is that right three three years three years my budget chair right here knows that and so i think you know with 29 middle schools all of them right now should have 0.5 so if we can look at that in in budgetary terms because you're all saying to us that this is extremely important, right?

[04:06:42] This could be one of those coaching opportunities. Laura Jane, I think it's really important we look at this and again, Dr. Reed thinking about this and Kirsten and your team helping her because we talk about equity and identifying potential and if the teachers are not trained in, you know, have that advanced academic endorsement, how can they see what may be potential and I think that's really important for that.

[04:07:13] I did have a question on the extracurriculars and we funded those manipulatives and you said you don't think they were being utilized as much as possible. So if we could talk about that, is that a lack of teachers?

[04:07:29] - I would actually have to look up the data on the middle school use. I know overall we have a lot of positive results about the Lego use, So thank you all for the, like, the kids were super excited about the robotics. So I do know across elementary and middle there was broad use. I would have to dig down into the data on middle school specifically.

[04:07:46] We did have conversations with the after-school programs folks. And I think there's just some common after-school programming things. Yeah, that goes back to everything we talk about. And I can add to that. We had a couple of schools who were struggling to get students to stay after-school, middle schoolers.

[04:08:05] So the principals worked with the AARTs at the middle school to offer it during the day. So there are a couple of middle schools that are offering an advisory period using the Lego robotics. Good. I think that's an excellent way to utilize them as well as I think that whole transition is making one of you, a couple of you had said helping kids feel like they're scholars.

[04:08:30] And I think that's really important, particularly in middle school. That's something that's hard. I appreciate the talk of cluster grouping and for my last 42 seconds, I'll just go a little personal. You know, one of the colleagues called it segregation.

[04:08:47] It's really not segregation, it's grouping of like learners and cluster grouping is a best practice and you guys can tell me if that's wrong. Cluster grouping is a best practice. So I think that's, you know, for those places where we don't have those, the middle school centers, I will say with both of my kids that participated, we didn't leave our community.

[04:09:13] We broadened it. We broadened our community by going outside of my pyramid, and I don't think that was a horrible thing. And Laura-Jane, I'm sorry to do this to you, but I will say my attendee attended every single one.

[04:09:28] And my attendee, let me tell you, my attendee is my third, my son's third grade advanced academic resource, advanced academic teacher. Your time is up, but I'll say she was lovely. She is lovely. She is, my son is 28 years old, still his favorite teacher.

[04:09:47] So Pat Potter. She had nice things to say about you too, Ms. Darnak-Kovacs. Ms. Tolan followed by Ms. Corbett Sanders. Okay, I'm happy to follow that because I don't often tell personal stories, but I'm going to do that and bring in this context. So I have a son that was not accepted to the Advanced Academic Program for third grade.

[04:10:08] So as a family, at that point, we decided he was in a school of Japanese immersion. So we decided to really focus on Japanese immersion and what other opportunities we had for him. At that time in his elementary school, we had a very part-time Advanced Academic Resource teacher.

[04:10:24] So thank goodness he had Japanese immersion because that was something additional. And a little bit of the pullout wasn't nearly enough. And so we were fortunate as a family that we could augment his learning with camps and special programs and Hopkins and all of these things.

[04:10:45] And this is one of those kids that by five was telling jokes that adults found hilarious. Five and six year olds, not so hilarious. So when you talk about the social emotional needs these kids too it is super super important and cannot be overlooked middle school was a bit better he was taking all honors courses they had geometry online at that point in time lots of parents thought that was horrible i mean it's funny to look back on that now and think we could

[04:11:20] complain about an online course thank goodness he had that no aart all right so in honors i think at that point in time was more work and not differentiated like you're talking about so what you're talking about is so so important and um the student-centered learning that we have moved toward over the last you know years he would have just benefited so much from that um versus you know our previous kind of learning situation so i really really appreciate that you've brought that forward

[04:11:54] as well. He went, did go on to TJ, and for the first time as a parent, it was the first time I ever saw him challenged academically. Now, he could have very easily been challenged also at, in the Langley High School, you know, AP program, not saying that, you know, it's only TJ, but, you know, I, those, there are kids, you know, finally in high school, he felt like he could tell a joke and somebody else might laugh, you know, and he sort of found his people and just, you know, incredible things happened. So, you know, he did fine, but the things that you're

[04:12:32] talking about resonate so much for me that we just have a cadre of kids that really, really need this. I'm super excited that we have local level four. Also at our elementary schools, you know, he could have really benefited from going in and out of that, but those things weren't available. So I'm just so excited to have you talk about these opportunities and think about how we can grow all of these things that you're talking about.

[04:12:58] Mr. Koufax, I will definitely support you in looking. I have principals that are paying for that other half of the AART and others that really, really want to. So I think that would be super helpful in really looking at those jobs and what they do and making sure that those people can be coaching the way they need to be for all of our staff with that embedded job.

[04:13:21] Learning is important. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry, I know. Didn't want to cut you off. It is 6:15, folks just want to keep that top of mind. Ms. Corbett Sanders, followed by Mr. Frisch. - I'll try to give you some time back. Couple of questions. On page 16 of your report, you talk about rigorous math and differentiation.

[04:13:39] Happens to be a passion of mine. I think some of you all may know this. My daughter stayed at her base school with the promise that we would have advanced math and then it got yanked. And so I hired a math professor from a local university to provide math club at my home for 10 kids that became 15 kids and they all did advanced math and middle and high school so what does that mean when you say rigorous math and differentiation you can stop like the

[04:14:16] time is just to clarify we have some schools that have the highest level is geometry we have other schools that have algebra 2 trig we had when my kids were going through, my oldest, the highest level she could get at middle school was algebra.

[04:14:50] Are you asking to further explain what that part means? Yeah. What's the plan? What's the deal? So, I mean, I think it goes to the point of, you know, a lot of folks don't, they're like, what makes the courses different? There was a very easy framework put out by Van Tasselbaska and Brown that the committee read about and used that had four Hallmark features of accelerating, changing the pace of things, the depth and complexity, which we talked a little bit about, how you would change features of that around. I don't know if I'm going where you want me to go

[04:15:24] with it. Okay, can you rephrase? What I wanted you to say was we've looked across the county and there is a difference in what is available for advanced math, depending on which pyramid you're in and we're going to work to ensure that we have a consistency of availability of advanced math offering at every middle school in the county. That's what I wanted to hear. So now that it's not there I hope that we can move in that direction because it is pretty important. It's kind of like

[04:15:59] what Ms. Toland said about oh well it's online which even we didn't even have that. So I mean to clarify and I don't know if Noelle wants to chime in we've I mean we partner with the math office to do to collect data on that every year and that has been getting becoming accessible at more and more schools this number here was really about the different not more of what we do when we actually have advanced math because what we don't want is just racing through skills without understanding about it so number four was a was a different angle on what we were trying to say

[04:16:35] Well, I still stand on we probably want the same level of advanced offerings everywhere. Second thing, after-school programming, and you suggested that you were having a challenge in certain schools.

[04:16:53] The challenge might be caused by certain middle schools that every child in the school is on a bus to get to the school. And so, therefore, their ability to stay after school is a challenge. And so until we fix that problem, we might want to ensure that that's the school that gets after-school buses to make sure that our kids can stay because otherwise there's no walking to be had.

[04:17:25] And then the other piece is the young scholars funding. Did you take a look at that to see whether or not you needed more young scholars funding at the middle school level? because typically it's you know we did correct the young scholars funding imbalance at the elementary school level what do we do we need to do something at the middle we've had we are start we are this we were talking about honors in this report so I didn't come with data about that but we do we have been collecting data about how the schools are using the per pupil allocation and they I mean

[04:18:03] they are putting it to good use I would have to look I think one thing just anecdotally that I've heard is when there's not a large number of young scholars at a school that perhaps they don't have enough to do what they want to do but at schools where there is where there are a lot of identified young scholars I think we've heard that they have ample money to do programs so if you take for it if you take for example Glasgow Middle School so Glasgow and Luther Jackson they have one of the largest budgets when it comes to advanced academics they're able to do like a whole week long summer program right now that they are currently running where if you have another school that may not

[04:18:41] have a lot of young scholars they may struggle to do one field trip during the school year so there's some discrepancy across the county when it comes to the number of students that are identified well that's an important thing to know because there are certainly schools that have similar populations as Glasgow and Luther Jackson and if they're not having similar numbers of kids identified we might want to look at what's happening in the pipeline for identifying kids um and with that because i know time is short i'm giving you 24 seconds back

[04:19:17] thank you we are almost 30 minutes late um mr frisch followed by miss sizemore heiser thank you um first i want to thank uh heejin chu our uh providence district representative on the committee uh who's departing after a year of service we're very grateful to have him um i know that we are short on time i will just say that i'll be following up with the superintendent because I'm curious about how some of this might fit into our strategic plan, particularly around how we can

[04:19:53] have more fidelity of professional development for the folks who are instructing students with advanced academics and honors programming. That seems to be an area where we might be able to make some progress and have a desired impact. So I look forward to having those conversations and i will leave it at that because we are more than i'm sure ms pokarski will say 33 minutes past the time now so we will be soon thank you appreciate that ms sizemore heiser thank you given the shortage of time and that many of my questions and thoughts have been asked i'll

[04:20:31] um try to keep this brief uh one thing i wanted to mention is when you talk about the extracurriculars right and the and the need for more extracurriculars for um some of our students have we looked at I'm looking at public-private partnerships for some of those, working with our companies in the, especially some of our tech companies in the area. I know I've met with several people who are business leaders, and they're really, there's a lot of people who really want to come and help. And I know maybe Jay Grant or Educate Fairfax, there's structures that we have, but that's just a thought that I think that would really help fill a gap that we have with people.

[04:21:07] and a lot of companies now will give people time to go do sort of community service. So I think this is, and even mentorships, right, when you talk about seeing themselves as scholars, it's an opportunity for mentorship. So I just want to put that out there as a solution that might be budget neutral and very effective for some of the extracurriculars.

[04:21:27] And then when we look at AARTs and expanding middle school AARTs, I'm just, you know, I'd love to see maybe as part of our cadence of operational expectations, however they would end up landing on those, around sort of what have we seen through the benefits of the AARTs, and I know there's a lot, but I'd just like to see some data and reporting on what have we seen with the expansion of AARTs in middle school, and how could that then be, you know, the good things that were happening, how could that be translated to middle school, what would that look like? And then when we talk about the sort of inconsistency that I think I'm hearing from you all, or you're hearing about the implementation of

[04:22:02] honors classes in middle school, you know, I'd love to see, you know, a plan of how our ARTs can maybe work together or with central office to address that specific issue because I agree we want an honors course to have, to be differentiated and look the same, you know, or have the same level of quality from school to school.

[04:22:22] So I just, I'd love to see more, maybe some thought around the roles of the ARTs across schools on that too, as well as sort of in schools. don't know if I'll pause to see if you had a comment or thought on that. I will say that the AARTs do come to central office once a month and we provide them with professional development and they are tasked with going back to their schools and pushing into honors courses and supporting those teachers and so Kirsten and I have gone over several times to see what our AARTs are doing in middle school and several of them have taken us to courses that they are supporting teachers. I will also note that because of the middle school AARTs we were able to increase some

[04:23:00] some of our sections of academy courses. For example, Differentiating Up is an academy course that we teach, and historically, it's always been filled by elementary teachers, and we'll have a sprinkle of middle school teachers here and there. This summer, we were actually able to have an entire section just with middle school teachers because of the advocacy that our AARTs are doing to get teachers into these courses.

[04:23:24] Great. I know they're doing great work. I'd just love to see some more information on that, just to get a sense of what's going on and maybe where there's room for making sure that consistency happens if the ARTs have a role in that. So that was just sort of my thinking. And then for a time, I won't share my two personal stories around this, but I very much believe in the importance of reaching all learners and providing all learners.

[04:23:45] I think what Ms. Darinette Koufax said and a couple others said, I think Ms. Tolan shared about making sure we meet the needs of all learners. You know, it's really important. And then you mentioned some of the wraparound supports, and I think it got lifted up around some of the social supports and executive functioning supports as well, and I'm just going to put a plug in, this came up with ACSD.

[04:24:03] This is why it's so important, I think, to really look at embedding those within intervention or advisory blocks because every student can benefit from these supports. And I think too often they've been siloed for this group or for that group, and then it would help free up the electives, which is a special ed issue. It would provide supports for every student without having to sort of say, oh, this student versus -- and you can always do more differentiation, but I think that would kind of get to everybody.

[04:24:26] And I think you're lifting up that it's beneficial to many populations. I know my time is up. Okay, thank you. I will cede most of my time to Ms. Kiesgamara, who wanted to share something on a question that may be helpful to everybody.

[04:24:42] But I will just say, thank you, number one. You are all wonderful. Out of all this, I think what jumps out at me the most is the necessity to tighten up these expectations in this curriculum, you know, framework for our honors courses.

[04:24:59] And I'm excited that you may just be bringing in a person who could help us maybe do some of that. It's critical. It's critical when we talk about equity. So anyway, I will save the rest of it, Ms. Keyes-Gamara, and then we're going to close out.

[04:25:16] thank you everyone again thank you really quickly miss Sizemore heiser raised a question about working with educate fairfax and i'm not sure everybody knows that they they have started a new program to support steam type programs and to specifically raise funds to coordinate so that may be something going forward that we can be more intentional about so you'll be hearing more about that but that is their latest campaign very exciting um thank you everyone on behalf of the board sorry we kept you waiting uh we'll take a couple of minutes transition and then we'll get

[04:25:55] started with shack i believe is next good good evening everybody um i would like to welcome you

[04:36:23] here to uh the next session we have our annual advisory report coming from the school health advisory committee and I want to first say that having been this year's liaison I truly enjoyed working with the committee when you see the report and the work they've done it's just really remarkable and so I want to convey my deepest appreciation to the two co-chairs which I'll be turning it over to you to do formal introductions for yourselves and the team that's here with

[04:37:00] you this evening at the front. I appreciate your patience. As you know, it's very difficult. We started at 2:00 this afternoon after concluding at 1:00 a.m. from our other meeting. So for staff and board members, it's been quite a marathon. So I appreciate everybody being awake and alert and engaged. And so without further ado, I turn it over to our two co-chairs for introductions and presentation.

[04:37:29] I think we are going to quickly turn it over. Did you want to go first? Oh, okay. Happy to go then. Hi, thank you for having us today. I will be referring to my notes a lot enough the best public speaker. So, my name is Alana Juergen-Doniger. I'm a parent of two FCPS students with one starting this fall.

[04:37:49] I'm the Springfield District Representative to Shack and also one of this year's co-chairs along with my wonderful co-chair, Brenda, who will introduce herself as she discusses the next slide. We wanted to start by saying thank you to Leah and Saray and all of the other people who've helped us, along with Debbie, for being such great partners and facilitators to the committee.

[04:38:08] Thank you to all of our committee members for all their hard work this year. - Thank you, thank you, sorry, for all their hard work this year. And a personal thank you to my amazing Springfield District School Board member, Laura Jane Cohen, for giving me the opportunity to be her representative, so thank you. Before delving into our presentation, we thought it made sense to explain at the outset the ways in which our work this year and our recommendations coming out of that work align with the new strategic plan.

[04:38:32] Due to our roles as SCAC committee co-chairs, Brenda and I had the privilege to be a part of the core strategy team. We hope that after reading our report and listening to today's presentation, you will see how SCAC's recommendations align with every single one of the five strategic plan goals as well as one of the pillars.

[04:38:47] Goal one mentions that every student will develop curiosity and a joy for learning. As experience and data show, these traits often develop away from a computer screen, especially and particularly a joy of learning. Goal 2 prioritizes student health and well-being. Too much screen time can interrupt connections between students and also between students and teachers, harming both learning and mental health, not to mention the physical side effects on eyes and body from hours and hours of staring at computer screens. Goal 3 mentions that students will acquire critical and creative thinking skills. Although computers are one tool for using and applying critical and creative thinking skills, they are not always the best tool. Goal 4 is about equity and about how every student will

[04:39:24] have access to high quality academic programming resources. We all know how much disparity there can be between schools with respect to the resources that are provided to students. Educational technology or ed tech is no different. For example, some elementary schools encourage students to do most of their work online or they have teachers who rely heavily on videos to teach.

[04:39:41] Other elementary schools have classrooms with very little screen time where students instead mostly engage in traditional learning discussion hands-on activities. Even within a school screen time varies greatly depending on which teacher a student gets. Goal five is about being ready to thrive after high school with the skills to navigate, adapt, and innovate for the future. When most people hear a goal like this, they may think of technology, but although students must be agile with technology, the core skills of adaptability and innovation are not best developed by spending class time on screens. In her May presentation to the school board about the strategic plan, Dr. Reed talked about the school system needing to prepare the incoming class of kindergartners, the class of 2036, for the jobs and careers that will greet them

[04:40:19] when they graduate high school, jobs that don't yet exist and that maybe we can't even imagine today. Technology is evolving at such a rapid pace. Computer skills learned in elementary school now are unlikely to be the computer skills needed for the jobs of the future. Teaching children to navigate, adapt, and innovate are all critical and can be learned without the overuse of EdTech.

[04:40:35] Finally, looking to the four pillars of the strategic plan, pillar D is about creating a culture of equity, excellence, and accountability. Our recommendations align with all three of these items. In our report, we recommend steps that will provide students across FCPS with a more equitable approach to screen time, protecting them against screen time overuse at all grade levels. We recommend that FCPS practices more intentionality in its use of EdTech to ensure continued excellence in the education FCPS provides its students.

[04:41:01] We also make several recommendations towards creating structures and systems that allow for more visibility into how much screen time students are getting at school and to ensure that going forward, we as a system are doing our best to ensure a more mindful and healthy approach to in-school technology and so with that connection to the strategic plan i will turn it over to brenda okay thank you so my name is brenda sylvia torma this is my second year as the co-chair i've been on shack since uh november of 2019 um and i am the fairfax city school board's representative

[04:41:33] um and oh next slide um so just remind everybody um what our purpose is um just to that we assist with developing health policy in the school division and evaluate the status of school health health education the school environment and health services and that we are guided by evidence-based public health research and making decisions regarding school health so this year our charge was to learn more about the impact of technology use on student wellness including

[04:42:07] physical and mental health physical physical mental health physical activities social emotional well-being and sleep and we sought to understand best practices in the use of ed tech in schools for various age groups so we we spend a fair amount of time in the beginning of the beginning of the school year trying to identify where we wanted to go with with our charge in terms of who we wanted to invite to our meetings and alana identified two two folks from every school

[04:42:42] their names are blythe winslow and amy tyson they spoke in october two teachers from chantilly high school joe clement and matt miles they are the authors of a book called screen schooled they spoke in november january we had two people from fcps's educational technology department february we had miss donna de saulniers she's the manager of the school psychology services

[04:43:16] for fcps and she shared with us the school youth survey results and dr jenny radeski came in march and she's a developmental behavioral pediatrician and professor at the university of michigan medical school and the co-medical director of the new aap center of excellence on social media and youth mental health so what we did was we took what they said when we developed recommendations um from from them um due to the time constraints we will provide a brief overview of their presentations but you guys obviously can find more details in

[04:43:54] in our minutes, monthly minutes. - And Brenda, if I could just give you a time check. So given there's nine board members who are gonna wanna be asking questions, if you guys can do this portion in about 15 minutes, that should then give us time to ask you questions back.

[04:44:11] - Okay, so I'll be speedy. - Yeah, and even just the highlights are great. - Yeah, okay. So just to give you an idea of what EdTech Triangle is, it's a framework for education technology, best practices and is a research based model of healthy classroom technology use.

[04:44:31] It prioritizes student wellness, growth and development, and creating a positive classroom learning experience. Most studies, multiple studies have shown that direct teacher instruction is the most powerful tool and that human connection and relationships are crucial to learning.

[04:44:49] However, EdTech research is generated mostly by the same technology companies who are motivated to show positive outcomes. So we're gonna talk more in a moment about transformative and supportive types of technology. That's what EdTech Triangle emphasizes.

[04:45:07] And that basically teachers should strive to use screens when they're truly transformative or supportive. Next slide. Oh, thank you. So transformative examples, robotics, things that really produce a unique outcome or develops a high level skill.

[04:45:25] Supportive is it supports the students learning in helpful ways. And you can see the different examples. Restrictive is restricting the students from growing. So prioritizing typing over handwriting or using points-based learning games.

[04:45:41] Disruptive is disrupting learning and or breeding habitual use. So these can be things such as using screen time as a reward before behavior management or choice during free time. November, Joe Clement and Matt Miles, they reiterated that they were speaking on behalf of themselves and their own personal professional experiences, not on their employer.

[04:46:06] But they had written a book and they've had 30 years of experience in teaching and they shared with us some of their thoughts. And in addition to the data, research and news media coverage about the impact of technology overuse in children, They also shared their own personal experiences with students' increased depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, tech addiction, worse educational outcomes, reduced ability to focus, interact socially, reduced empathy, resilience, et cetera.

[04:46:38] They recommended that FCPS reevaluate students' amount of screen time and the types of educational technology. And they said that schools should be thoughtful unintentional in the frequency and utilization of technology and that it should center student equity while also providing meaningful education experiences and then i'll turn it over to alana and if you could just wait a moment alana i've been made aware that um one of our school board members rachna sizemarheiser has made a request to participate virtually so i just need to read

[04:47:16] that really quickly board members and get your approval ms sizemarheiser has submitted a written request to virtually attend this evening's work session due to a personal conflict all those in favor of approving her request and that is unanimous with all board members present thank you miss eismerheiser mic check hi thank you everybody i had to leave a little early for a personal conflict so thank you for letting me participate for the rest of the session virtually excellent okay carry on thank you thank you so in january we had a couple of um fcps employees come to give us kind of an overview of the lay of the land within fcps because we wanted to make

[04:47:54] sure we had a good understanding of how things worked. One of them was Dr. Keisha Valentine, who's a manager in Educational Technology Learning Partnerships, and the other one was Mr. Derek Kelly, who's a coordinator for in Educational Technology. And one thing they gave us an overview of is how EdTech resources are selected and deployed within FCPS. And so our understanding is that items come, like a particular program would come in, could be suggested by a teacher, could be suggested by a school, could be suggested by central office. It comes in, there's a committee of instructional staff that evaluates the possible resources to make sure that there is educational value there then it goes through IT and they kind of check boxes make sure it it's functional make sure

[04:48:33] there's security make sure there's privacy and assuming it meets everything then it gets added to the FCPS ecosystem once it's there there are various supports to help the teachers engage with it but then we asked later we kind of followed up after the meeting and said well who's making the decision to use it then. This is how it gets into the ecosystem but how is it decided to actually get used and that we were told the classroom teachers decide and that becomes relevant because then going back to the slide that you see in front of you, slide 8, we basically copied and pasted this from what we were shown by Dr. Valentine and Mr. Kelly and they had a slide that was titled "Nine Big Ideas

[04:49:11] for Immediate Balance and Wellness in the Classroom" and what was really cool and exciting about it is that it aligned very much with what we'd heard in October and November from experts in this field about kind of best practices in terms of using technology. And just to point you to a few of these, item three is use technology in a goal-directed and purposeful manner.

[04:49:33] Number seven, use routines to develop healthy habits for technology use. And number nine, actively monitor and mediate technology use. So this was, again, a slide, a framework that came from within FCPS, within the EdTech department. What we basically discovered is that the central office messaging doesn't seem to be making it to kind of the streets of FCPS, the classroom.

[04:49:53] So this information is there. I made a little graphic, like here's the central office messaging, here's a gap, and then here are the classrooms. So that's something that we'll kind of address later in our recommendations. And with that, I will turn it back over to Brenda. in february um donna desolniers came and she shared with us the fairfax uh risk the fairfax county youth survey and that is was administered in fall of 2021 to 8th 10th and 12th grade students

[04:50:26] and as you can see from the um from the slide 38 of fcps students um 8th 10th and 12th graders self-reported feeling persistent hopelessness and sadness 17 considered suicide six percent attempted suicide um 33 felt so sad or hopeless that they stopped engaging in regular activity for two or more weeks in the pre you know in the past year um so you can read the slide but basically we wanted to give you the the the understanding that the survey also showed that

[04:51:04] feelings of students persistent sadness hopelessness increased with the hours spent on screens in addition the survey has shown gradual increases since 2015 in the number of students who report feeling hopelessness so we have a breakdown of specific information but we felt that this was important regarding technology and the fact that they're spending so many hours on on screens that That was helpful information for us to have.

[04:51:34] And then in March, we had Dr. Radeski come. And just to mention her bio again, because we were so excited to get her. And that was actually one that both Dr. Reed and Ms. McLaughlin were able to join us for part of it. But she is a head of a research team at the Radeski Lab at the University of Michigan.

[04:51:51] She's a developmental behavioral pediatrician. She's a professor. And then in September 2022, the American Academy of Pediatrics, AAP, created a new center of excellence on social media and youth mental health. And she was chosen to launch and co-lead this. So she's right in the center of this type of work.

[04:52:10] There were some -- she kind of gave us an overview both of stuff she has done in her research and also stuff she has seen in her practice because she actually sees patients as well. Some interesting things where she talked about that there are some basic changes that can be made. them is that ad blockers can block age inappropriate content so just making sure that in the school system that those are correct so that they're working as they should be she mentioned schools turning off automatic search suggestions she actually showed us a screenshot of her son's search suggestions on his ann arbor public school computer like home search page and they were terrible so you know it's it's basic things like that she talked about how in her practice

[04:52:48] that she's come she she mentioned how there are individual human differences and how people deal with technology. And one issue that she sees a lot in her practice is that students are distracted by other tabs on school laptops during class. Then she also talked about from a developmental standpoint, and this is pretty important and central to her training, that the relationship between technology and mental health does not begin in adolescence. Positive intentional relationships with technology begin in preschool and kindergarten. The idea that you want to teach children coping skills that allow them later when they have challenges to cope on their own

[04:53:23] rather than turning to screens as a coping tool. And part of that is not using media in school for calming or distracting children. She showed us a really interesting study about, it was not in a school setting, it was a study that she'd run where when a child is being, it was a very complicated graph if you remember, but a child was being challenging and so the parents were more likely to give them a screen so then their behavior ends up getting more challenging. That's kind of like a negative feedback loop that can happen.

[04:53:51] So those were some of the things she said. And then she said for elementary learners, she used the word intentionally, and this was something that came up again and again and again across all of our speakers, that EdTech should be used intentionally in classrooms to support specific skills rather than by default or to keep kids busy. And the idea of, again, with this multi-tab approach, keeping EdTech focused on a single task and then closing computers rather than allowing multitasking while computers remain open.

[04:54:14] And just, she reminded us to center the child, not the technology so on to the next slide there were some additional topics that were covered by check this is oh there's a lot of information here so I will try to go as fast as I can one of them were light speed reports I think everyone is familiar with those that was something that one of the school board members specifically asked us look into what the uptake was so we checked in but thanks from our staff with IT that in January there were only around 5,000 FCPS parents or guardians receiving light speed reports which is not a lot So, you know, we looked at it and there's there was a tremendous amount of communication from FCPS.

[04:54:52] And yet, despite that communication, I think, you know, everyone's just so overloaded with information and there were just so many barriers to getting it. So you have to make a note of it or save the email and then you have to find the link of the email later. And then you have to provide information. You have to know the student's number when you create the create the report or request a report.

[04:55:11] You have to put in the enrolling parents information. Exactly. you get something wrong they just say you it all has to be perfectly correct and then if it is you start getting an email on a regular basis if it's not you don't get anything so then you have to remember again if you mess something up to go back and do it so there are a lot of barriers we talk about later one of our recommendations for this but basically make it easier it shouldn't be so hard and we think parents would enjoy having this information it's just that when the more barriers you create the harder it is to get it the second one look back at the fcps schools that were hardest hit by covid in spring 2022 um that was another thing that we looked into separately

[04:55:46] that was requested by the school board um if you there's a graph in our um in our report if you have the report handy we didn't we were trying to keep the slides as tight as possible but on page 10 of the report um the reason why we look back at spring 2022 is because that's when there were ten of covet cases in the system um you can see clearly by a graph of the year um and what we were trying to figure out is if there were certain schools it seemed like anecdotally there were were certain schools that were hit very hard. And we looked back and there were 12 schools that were hit the hardest by COVID in this time period. And just to kind of throw some data at you. So if you guys are familiar with red cap COVID cases, it's not all COVID cases. I know Brenda's done

[04:56:23] COVID casework. It's a certain subset. So when we give percentages of COVID cases, it's not actually total COVID, it's total red cap, which is a smaller subset of total COVID cases. So in those 12 schools within that spring window between spring break and the end of the school year, 14% or more of their school population had red cap COVID cases with them at time window. In contrast, more than half of FCPS schools had 5% or less of the school populations red capped. So there's a huge difference. We noticed that there are some schools that were just had so many more cases. So we worked with facilities again with help from our staff to look into what some commonalities might be if there were date of construction, date of

[04:57:02] renovation, air delivery system, footprint layout. We looked for kind of physical issues and we didn't see anything there. We tried to look into whether perhaps our air delivery systems are malfunctioning a lot. My children happen to go to one of those schools and the air delivery systems are malfunctioning a lot. So we got data on work requests for those schools, but we don't know how it compares to other schools. So we don't know how to compare the number of work requests from those schools to other schools. The other thing that we asked for was, and this is kind of in part two of the section of the report on page 11, we all learned kind of during COVID that one way of measuring whether there's good ventilation is CO2 monitoring.

[04:57:40] And that was something that FCPS facilities also started doing in that time period. And basically the way they use it is to see if their air delivery systems need fixing. So they kind of sporadically go around and do testing. And if they notice that the CO2 levels are high, the carbon dioxide levels are high, then they will go and try to fix the system and get them within range.

[04:57:59] So we found that in many of those 12 schools, they had readings over there. So what they would do is if there was a reading over 1150 parts per minute for over 30 minutes, then that would kind of flag it as something needs to be fixed and they needed to bring it back down. Our recommendations are consolidated within the report, but we recommended in this area that FCPS facilities engage in regular thorough and ongoing CO2 monitoring to ensure that our students have good indoor air quality.

[04:58:27] It was starting with those 12 schools and expanding out to other schools that might be identified as high risk. And then we also had a recommendation that FCPS change its testing standard because it told us that their testing standard was 1150 parts per minute. But this group, I learned so much during this process. There's something called OSHRAE, which is kind of the standard for air movement, and their industry benchmark is 1,000 parts per minute.

[04:58:48] So it was interesting that FCPS had a higher benchmark than OSHRAE's. So that's the look back at schools hit hard upside COVID, and I will pass it over to Brenda for the locked school bathrooms. And Alana, a couple of board members have asked if you can just clarify what red cap means.

[04:59:05] I will have Brenda do that, actually. Or Leah wants to take it over. I can do it. So red, so yeah. So I'm a COVID case manager at Chantilly High School and Chantilly Academy, in addition to all the other roles that I play.

[04:59:20] And REDCap basically is the students or staff who are on campus, whether it's at the school or at central office, they're on campus for 48 hours before their symptoms began. So it's not anyone, like somebody who has symptoms beginning on a Sunday at 3 in the afternoon or 4 in the afternoon, 48 hours before that was 3, 4 in the afternoon on Friday.

[04:59:49] If they weren't there Friday after 4, then it's not considered a case that's red-capped. And red-capped means you submit it to the health department and it goes on our list of, our online list, thank you, our online dashboard.

[05:00:06] So there's plenty of cases, like when I do COVID case management, there are plenty of cases that I still have to manage and tell people, hey, this is when you can return to school or this is when you can return to work. but that doesn't mean that I report it as a red cap. So the numbers on the dashboard are not all the numbers. They're just the numbers that took place when the people were on campus or at a school event. Does that make sense? It does. Thank you. Okay. And that was just to say that the numbers that we were able to check weren't. And so if we said, for instance, 14% of the school population, that was both students and staff that we looked at. If we said 14%, that doesn't mean that it was

[05:00:45] only 14% that had not only but only 14% that had COVID in that time period it was just it was higher than that but that was the the only number that we could track by these red cap cases and again we're not this is a look back at I think more ventilation and just I know a lot of you know COVID isn't the topic. In January of 2023 Opal Cohen who was our wonderful student um shock representative yes um she informed us that there were several fcps schools that were locking high school restrooms during the school day for the entire day um and that some students

[05:01:21] were being told to wait until they went home to use the restroom and of course shock recognizes that there's lots of serious safety security issues regarding um school bathrooms fentanyl overdoses, violence, sexual assault, vaping, vandalism, et cetera, but preventing access to school bathrooms, of course, is unhealthy for all students and potentially embarrassing or even dangerous for those with certain medical conditions.

[05:01:49] And it also contraindicates the students' rights and responsibilities, and so our recommendation would be to strongly recommend that FCPS ensure that students always have access to a nearby bathroom throughout the school day and of course there's lots of issues with that so but that's what we would like to see um these next two are very quick um elementary school lockdown videos this was something that was brought to our attention that we wanted to flag to all of you um there are certain rules from the state and again we had help from our staff

[05:02:21] tracking down information okay yeah um so we um sorry we um we found out so there are state requirements for lockdown drills. However, there is also starting this year, there is a new video that is being required by FCPS that was created by FCPS that is not required by the state. And it is being shown in all elementary schools as part of the mandatory lockdown drill. So prior to this year, schools handled it differently. This year, there is now a mandatory video. We heard concerns

[05:02:55] about the video. To see the video, it requires like parents to go to the school for safety reasons. So our recommendation to you all was if there's like a closed session or if there's a way for you all to watch the video without the public watching it with you, we would really like to recommend that you all watch it and then perhaps make a decision because we didn't feel like it was our place to do that, but we wanted to raise the issue further so that you all could view it.

[05:03:19] I think it's a very short like two to three minute video with a concern being that it's too scary and traumatic for elementary school students and so it's creating trauma by showing it to them. And then the last one is a potential partnership with Dr. Raduski. She's very graciously, as they do this work on this AAP Center of Excellence, they also have funding for it.

[05:03:38] They want to work with schools, and she's graciously agreed she'd be interested in working with our school district, so we just recommended that we follow up with her on that. And I've been in communication with her, sent her a final report, and she mentioned that one of the things that she's thinking about doing is developing a curriculum to teach more about kind of digital ecosystems and the manipulation that can happen within them, to teach high school students about that and about social media.

[05:04:05] And so that would be one area where she could partner with us, which actually aligns with one of our recommendations as well. So we might be able to work with her on that. Great. And just being a time check, we've got about 30 minutes left. So if you guys want to maybe, because board members are going to be asking a lot of questions about the report.

[05:04:23] So maybe what we'll do is just for the audience who might be watching home or later, maybe just read out the recommendations. Then we'll turn it to questions and we'll probably get to more details. Okay, so recommendation one is to improve the FCPS digital ecosystem to facilitate healthier technology use.

[05:04:44] We want to improve FCPS' EdTech screening process, which we discussed a little bit earlier, to make it more robust and to filter more at the front end. We want to make it easier for teachers to use audio options instead of just video options, for instance, a three-minute meditation break by audio instead of watching a video at the elementary school level.

[05:05:01] Center the student, not the technology. Basically, this would be reconsidering one-to-one at lower ages and also having elementary school students not take laptops home at night. 1d provide offline options to students who need or want them just putting that adding that to the SR&R that if they need offline options we'll provide that to them and then 1e is my absolute favorite but it's for detailed is use technology to combat the overuse of technology so there are there are things that we can do to basically use technology to work for us and combat some of this overuse recommendation 2 is to create a school culture of

[05:05:40] of intentional technology use, training teachers and staff on the downsides of EdTech. And the reason why we say downsides here is because we think that the benefits have been widely communicated and there has been kind of a culture of look at all these cool shiny toys online without much exposure of the fact that there can be downsides to that.

[05:05:57] There are benefits, but the reason why we say train on the downsides is because we don't think that's been done to date as much as it can be. How best to employ EdTech, how it's best used, and how to be intentional regarding its use. We recommend the use of the EdTech triangle to kind of rebalance the approach to screen time. Brenda talked about the triangle before with the idea being it's like a food pyramid.

[05:06:16] And so if you're using technology, try to use more of the better technology and less of the less helpful technology. 2B is to develop new technology use guidelines for teachers. Nothing that would be that expansive or complicated, just more like kind of a set of questions and it would kind of go really with 2C, a healthy technology use one pager.

[05:06:35] You know, questions like, what is this technology displacing in the classroom when you're using a screen program? You know, what are other choices for this? And then I will pass to Brenda for recommendation three. Okay, recommendation three, set district-wide guidelines for technology use by grade level.

[05:06:53] So currently, FCPS does not have guidelines for this, and use of ed tech in each classroom is based on the teacher's discretion. So the lack of guidelines can lead to disparities in classroom screen-based work, even for our youngest learners.

[05:07:09] So SHAC believes that FCPS should share the structured guidelines on maximum computer screen use by age level and that this would provide everyone with clear expectations and consistency across the county. It could be shared with teachers for classroom use, made available for families on the public webpage, and incorporated into a school improvement plan.

[05:07:31] Specifically, we looked at AAP's guidelines, which was children ages two to five should have at most one hour of high quality screen use daily. Now, this is a total cumulative amount of time. So if they're doing two hours at home and they're doing one hour in school, that's still three hours.

[05:07:52] That's still well above what is expected or proposed by the AAP. So in order to stay within the AAP-recommended screen time, we recommend that FCPS remove all one-to-one devices at the preschool and kindergarten level and not use screen time in school, specifically until Q4 of kindergarten.

[05:08:16] And we do have thoughts on how those devices could be used because we're not saying get rid of them. We're saying we can repurpose them. We also believe that FCPS should utilize the recommended guidelines from the EdTech Triangle to develop county-wide screen time limits across grade levels.

[05:08:46] Recommendation four, develop screen time visibility and accountability due to the decentralization of EdTech decision-making and the opacity of classrooms. It can be very challenging for parents, administrators, and instructional staff to know how much screen time students are getting. That was something that we've kind of talked about before, and that again falls in line with what we heard from multiple speakers, including Dr. Rodeski talking about how it's important to just have a sense for how much time they're spending online.

[05:09:13] So 4A, use an opt-out system for Lightspeed Parents Report, rather than the current burdensome opt-in system. And then if parents don't like getting them, they can opt out. There can be a button at the bottom to unsubscribe. That way parents can automatically, rather than jumping through all these hoops, be getting the Lightspeed reports that the school has already wanted to engage in. 4B is a new system. It would be kind of putting a structure in place. I know there's been a lot of talk about structures and systems, so creating internal reports to provide visibility within FCPS as to how much time students are spending on computers at school, because I think the reality is administrations at school oftentimes don't know what's going on at that level in the classroom, how much

[05:09:52] time students are spending on computers that's what i've found in my experience um you know we've been had the pleasure of working on the core strategy team and you know just encountering a lot of people and it just seems like you know it's hard for principals to keep up with going what's going on in every classroom so our idea was to again to use technology to curb technology and so there are systems available that could track and that could provide a report to the spits once a week um that would say like how many on like per a teacher's classroom for instance the elementary level or at any level really for a teacher like how many minutes on average per week not per day because some days will be more some days they'll

[05:10:30] be less but how many minutes per week is the average student in that class spending on the computer so it gives then visibility to administrators if there are certain teachers that are using screen time a lot and certain ones that aren't recommendation five would be educating students about the drawbacks of screen-based technology and this is an area where dr. Raduski indicated she might be able to work with us but basically educate students about the impact of too much technology use on their mental health personal wellness and learning as well as some of the invisible out to invisible aspects of edtech social media and other screen time that can make it hard to detach the parts that kind of hook them in and then we would also recommend updating the

[05:11:08] FCPS digital citizenship curriculum to include manipulative design as well as helpful alternatives to using screen time as a coping strategy and then last one. Recommendation six is to educate families about the drawbacks of screen-based technology, and that was something that was raised by one of our FCPS speakers. It was like, you know, if we're doing all this in school, we should also make sure that we, you know, provide parents the tools at home. So help build a culture of screen time balance both at home and at school. FCPS does have digital wellness resources, further promote them. And then also there are these, there's this nonprofit organization that provides this kind of screen-free week and we could try to you know

[05:11:49] promote the idea of doing like a screen-free school day where our alternatives are given and also families are provided with alternatives for after school so they can take it home as well and then back to brenda real quick yep real quick um so shack is also reiterating support for recommendations made from previous years um we're reiterating support for later morning start times for middle schools as well as setting friendly sleep friendly deadlines for online homework submission the default setting for fcps should be set for 9 p.m instead of midnight and then last

[05:12:24] but not least what everyone's waiting for what is our charge for next year um yeah so um we are using our charge from this year kind of like as a piggyback um so according to the u.s surgeon general recommended yes yes are recommended we have not been approved for that but this is what we're thinking um so dr murphy the surgeon general um he's saying that the country is facing a loneliness epidemic and that technology is a critical factor and why people all of all ages

[05:12:59] feel less connected um so what we're hoping to do is build upon the lessons learned and recommended actions from this year's charge of on edtech and identify strategies to help fcps implemented two of the six foundational pillars within the surgeon general's national strategy to advance social connection so those two pillars are reforming digital environments and cultivate a culture of connection and this recommended charge does relate directly to the fcps strategic plan but with goal two a safe supported included and empowered students and pillar a differentiated

[05:13:38] and culturally responsive learning environments and then this is where you guys can go for more information if you want to join our facebook page you're welcome to to do that as well wonderful well thank you both so much and to the entire shack advisory committee along with fcps staff WHO HELPED YOU PRODUCE THIS INCREDIBLE REPORT THIS YEAR.

[05:14:02] TO MY COLLEAGUES, AS YOU KNOW, WE ARE ALREADY RUNNING 35 MINUTES BEHIND. SO WITHOUT TOO MUCH OBJECTION, I WOULD RECOMMEND, SINCE THERE'S NINE OF US, WE JUST GO WITH A TWO-MINUTE TURN, MAYBE FOCUS MORE ON YOUR REACTION TO THE REPORT INSTEAD OF ASKING LOTS OF QUESTIONS BECAUSE WE CAN ALWAYS PUT YOU IN TOUCH WITH THE TWO CO-CHAIRS AND THAT WILL HOPEFULLY allow us to conclude by 7:35, which is where we anticipated based on the late start.

[05:14:34] So I have right now Dr. Anderson, followed by Ms. Omish and then Ms. Toland. - Not to not follow directions, but there's a question I do wanna ask this group that I was not very clear on. When you talked about, I believe it was page something, where you talked about centering equity, page seven.

[05:14:53] Can you give a little bit more detail in terms of what you meant there? Technology decision should center student equity. Okay, so for Screen School, for what Joe, Mr. Clement, and Mr. Miles was asking about, is that technology decision should center student equity while also providing meaningful educational opportunities.

[05:15:24] I'll have to go back to look at this. That was one of the quotes from the speakers. I see. And so we were trying to share their learnings. The theme of their conversation was just that, you know, students are getting very differentiated experiences, so I would assume that it went to that.

[05:15:46] Yeah, the overarching theme of their presentation, technology use decisions should center. Yeah, we can circle back with you on that, if that would be helpful. Okay. Sure, and now this is the part where I follow directions, to give my feedback. First of all, thank you for all of this work.

[05:16:03] So much of what you shared really just resonates with me. I think I was a huge proponent when we were in the pandemic, and our students needed to have access to the technology, but we're not in that landscape now, and I'm seeing just a very heavy dependency on the technology.

[05:16:20] If I see one more slide deck in my child's work, I think I'm just going to lose it, because there's opportunity to do it differently. I visited this wonderful program at Arlington, their Montessori program, where they were doing science of reading, similarly to what we observed at one of the elementary schools we visited, Dr. Reed, except it wasn't digital. It was hands-on, completely tactile, and it was a completely impactful experience. Same thing, just two different approaches. I would love to see us engage in more of that. I would also love to hear, and I didn't see it here, the Dr. Rudisky, if she talked about how does the impact of screen time, how does it influence

[05:16:59] students with ADHD? Because we know that there's a different thing there, and we have many students who have that that we need to be mindful of just kind of pulling back a little bit I hear your recommendations I read your recommendations and I am in fully alignment with what you've provided I want to go back and pivot to dr. Reid a little bit in terms of do you see space for us to develop expectations regarding the technology use in our classroom if so how would that occur let me start there I would assume we have some recommendations now no I'm I'm guessing we do, right?

[05:17:37] It's mostly where we go, not how long we spend at places that we're allowed to go. So we give a lot of guidance on the kinds of things students should be doing, and I think we're very much in alignment with SHAC. It's not about consumption. It's about creation and using the technology in impactful ways.

[05:17:54] We don't have, we do have some guidelines around time that are tight, but because the different uses and the different classes, very hard to just pinpoint a number and say like computers are off kids are using it in a small group or a large group it's hard to have a number but we do have screen time guidelines for decision making for teachers to use and i think the suggestion was a one pager we could maybe tighten it up for them i think i'd like to pivot away from the guidance and guidelines to expectations because that's what offers clarity and i love your concept of using technology to combat the use of technology i think sometimes there's a lack of awareness of how much time students are

[05:18:32] spending. I am one of those parents that she subscribes to light speed and I am on it every week. I get my report. I sit there with my son. Where were you? Why were you there? And why were you and when were you there? So it is very impactful to my family, particularly in terms of monitoring how much time is spent. But I am not there. I can only do it after the fact to say that, you know, I would just love to see some intention intentionality around curbing that.

[05:19:01] I think that's my time. Yeah, that is your time. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. We have Ms. Omash, Ms. Tolan, followed by Karen Keyes-Gamara. Yeah, happy to follow that. And thank you to the team at SHAC for all your hard work on such an important topic.

[05:19:18] I honestly think this is maybe, you know, Dr. Reed, governance chair, just some thought, and the governance chair is about to change, but just some thoughts to perhaps develop a policy around this, and maybe regulations can stem out of that. I really think it's about time. When we introduced the laptops during COVID, we made all these promises and told families not to worry and it's going to be regulated, but I don't think our deployment lived up to that commitment. And so, I mean, I think similarly in my school visits, I've been really surprised to see how many times I walk into a classroom and kids are doing something on a laptop. They're obviously meant to be a supplement, they're meant to be a tool at home,

[05:19:57] right to to be an equitable resource but uh certainly not something to replace what's possible in the classroom so i don't know dr reed maybe that there's an opportunity here to just start the development of a policy that addresses i mean all all recommendations here one through six i think could be components of that um so that's one that i feel strongly about even even to set minimums like what you know at least maybe it's a maximum once a week in in class use of a laptop or something like some kind of floor that's like we won't accept something more than that um to the

[05:20:32] point of expectations from dr anderson more so than just hey this is nice to do and i recognize there's like some gray area there of where it could be restrictive so we can be thoughtful and it might you know it could take time but i think we have to land there at some point um the other uh just two quick thoughts one the lockdown video i think that's an awesome opportunity for us to take a look i think there's i know just in conversations with my colleagues like this is one of those areas that we are concerned and trying to be more trauma-informed so i think that's a nice action item for us to perhaps take on or maybe staff can look into

[05:21:08] and the final piece is just in terms of the um the hopelessness and youth survey data and thinking about care and concern i know that one of our student reps in recent years had talked repeatedly about how kids that would miss weeks of school would never be asked about never contacted it was as if they didn't exist and i don't know i think that standardizing how we handle that dr reed might be also a really welcome you know um a step because i know some schools use technology and are really creative and follow up and others end up in the situation i just described so

[05:21:44] those are just some some thoughts about next steps appreciate all the hard work thank you Thank you, Ms. Amish, very much. Okay, I have Ms. Toland, Keith Gamara, and Pekarski. - Yes, so thank you very much.

[05:22:00] I did have a long conversation with Mary Roe Miller, who is my appointee about your report. So I'm super, super excited that you took on this topic of technology use because, you know, something that weighs heavily on me, we don't really understand, you know, what the impacts are.

[05:22:16] So I appreciate you looking into it. You know, I think there's a lot of great work that has been going on over the years. I'm happy you talked to Derek Kelly, you know, from ISD and the work that's happening there. You know, I appreciate what Noelle brought up. I think part of this too is we really need to look at the role of our ESPITs.

[05:22:36] And, you know, this comes up periodically, you know, and we hear that, you know, our specialists, you know, that are supposed to be coaching our teachers on how to use technology and what technology to use and when to use it are being pulled, you know, for various different roles in their schools and not really using those coaching positions.

[05:22:55] So I think as far as PD, that's a resource that we should really be looking into and making sure that we're utilizing as effectively as possible. I have done some shadowing of students and I think the benefit of that is that I sit in the class for the entire 90 minutes.

[05:23:15] And I sit in the back and I watch what's happening and I can see what's on the kids' screens if they're using the computers too, which is also very helpful. I'm not saying it's perfect, but I have actually been pleasantly surprised at the amount of different kinds of things, and this is in the high schools, okay?

[05:23:35] The different kinds of things that the kids are doing within that 90-minute period, not just sitting on the computer. They're working in small groups, they're doing a lab, they have some lecture, it really is kind of a mix, which I'm happy to see. Not that it's perfect, we have a long way to go and we need our ESPEs to help us with that.

[05:23:56] I did just wanna mention on the carbon dioxide testing, we did a lot of work on that just coming out of COVID. At McLean High School, we started this project. And so I know that our facilities folks are using our energy managers that regularly go out to every single school they provided them with carbon monoxide testing equipment.

[05:24:22] So I hope this is still happening. They are doing carbon monoxide testing at all of the schools as they're going out and testing the energy use as well. So it sounds like it might be stepped up from police.

[05:24:38] - And Ms. Tullen, after that, your time is long over. - So our understanding is that there wasn't a systemic or systematic approach to the testing. It's just kind of ad hoc here and there. And facilities seemed very stretched.

[05:24:53] So when Ms. McLaughlin asked us if there were areas that we thought might have budget impact, that was the two areas were really getting programs, the technology to fight the technology, and perhaps like an entry-level employee who was just going around for facilities and doing that. Because our understanding is that there is no systemic approach to that right now.

[05:25:12] We can look into that. Great. Thank you so much. Okay. Kees Gamara, Parkarski, Ms. Cohen. before i begin my time i just want to make one statement and that there's been a number we've mentioned a person who is an advisor repeatedly and the board can't be involved in those kind of decisions so i just thought i should mention that were you talking about um dr pedansky out in well i wasn't going to say the name okay it doesn't matter because she's grant funded we wouldn't be paying anything okay so but they have every right to be able to talk about the work i'm

[05:25:52] I'm not saying they don't. I am concerned about the perception. Right, but all they've done is they had someone who advised them and gave them information to then make recommendations about technology on kids.

[05:26:08] Then this goes to the superintendent. Superintendent or team can read the report and decide whatever they want to do with it. But I did hear them say that she's grant-funded, so this isn't a pitch for us to hire her as a consultant. That's correct? That is correct. It's an American Academy of Pediatrics Center of Excellence that's grant-funded.

[05:26:27] So the suggestion was not to have any budget impact. I appreciate that. However, that may not be with the public hears. And so I wanted to make a statement. Thank you. No, I very much appreciate that, Ms. Keith-Gamara. It's super helpful. Absolutely. It wasn't an accusation.

[05:26:44] Yeah, but I will say we have worked with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and that's been work we've done as well. Okay, my time. Alrighty, I thought I was being helpful. Okay.

[05:27:01] You are always helpful. Alright, I will be brief. As you were speaking about how students interact with technology in particular, I was wondering if you had any opportunity to look at or receive information regarding not just the connection to ADHD, but any kind of addictive behavior that may be addressed or occurring as we're looking at this issue that wasn't something that we specifically um that we specifically spoke with any of anybody

[05:27:36] about however um again dr odesky who um does the research and runs a practice um she talked and this is i'm just going to read from our report she said dr odesky spoke about individual human differences such as how children are wired differently and impacted differently by social media technology use in ed tech. In her practice, she hears from patients' parents that students are distracted by other tabs on school laptops during classes. That was how that came up, talking very generally, of course, about her practice and what she sees. But no, we did not specifically delve into that.

[05:28:06] Okay. Also, too, just, you know, with students, kiddos that have ADHD, they, of course, have less impulse control and your prefrontal cortex doesn't fully develop until your late 20s.

[05:28:23] So, you know, all of the stuff that the kids are looking at and being, you know, persuaded to be looking at through this manipulative design, it's all intended to get kids to stay on longer.

[05:28:41] So kids with ADHD would very likely have harder time managing that because they have less impulse control. And so not speaking, just speaking generally. And part of also what, you know, what Dr. Rodeski talked to us about with this digital ecosystem design wasn't, she didn't use the word addictive, but I think the word that they use a lot is hook.

[05:29:06] So a lot of these programs are designed to hook, you know, whether it's certain ed tech programs. She mentioned there have been lawsuits against Prodigy, but also a lot of social media. We all know there was that Frances Haugen woman who spoke out against Facebook.

[05:29:22] So that is a feature of a lot of these programs that's pretty well known, I think. And that's part of what we would like to add to the digital citizenship curriculum, just to be able to teach students more directly how these technology companies are out there trying to hook them.

[05:29:37] - So I think, I don't recall who said it, I'm sorry, But somebody mentioned, you know, how we might incorporate looking at our digital program and how, because we dove into it during the pandemic wholeheartedly, but now, you know, we perhaps can review making sure that we're addressing any possible negative impacts, which leads me to my second point, having to do with how we're involving parents in this conversation.

[05:30:07] I'm wondering if we can use some of this information, Dr. Reed, to perhaps create information online, et cetera, to let parents know how they can help and how they can participate in terms of controlling or just developing healthy relationships with technology.

[05:30:24] I can jump in here. We actually have quite a few resources online, everything from just information. Our digital resource curriculum actually has parent modules, modules they do alone, modules they do with their students, their sample contracts. If you want to have contracts with your kids around their cell phone use, we have lots. Typically, and I don't know if it happened this year at the special ed conference, we set up booths, we do presentations at any event where there's an opportunity to reach parents, we tend to do that. So there is a lot. Maybe we need to re-communicate that you know we communicate it once we communicate twice

[05:30:59] but we need to keep communicating it to families and I always worry and just generally I worry about the assessment the user friendliness of our site right and how easily a parent can find that information if I could just add to one of the in recommendation six where it says educate families about the the drawbacks of screen-based technology.

[05:31:25] I was so excited to see there is the Promoting Digital Wellness from October of 2022 from the FCPS Family Resource Center that they sponsored a 90-minute webinar. And it featured Bethany Demers, who is one of our SHAC committee members, as well as an ed tech specialist.

[05:31:44] And it shared the many challenges that social media and other online platforms pose to adolescents. So we were thinking in our report, said this could be modified so that it speaks directly to students and is included in the fcps digital citizenship curriculum um but i just thought oh how wonderful there are these resources why haven't i read them or why haven't i watched them but it was october of 2022 and that's when we started you know ramping up on this and i was like oh i wish i had known this so that we could have promoted it you know so but yeah so it's it's exciting that there is some some new stuff

[05:32:22] it's not just like stuff from 2020 it's it was october so um i was just wondering if there was a way that we could look at that and make it more accessible and then the last thing is what i'm hearing from you is building connectivity between people as opposed to technology And so any way that we can speak to how we support that and involve parents in that process, I think would be helpful.

[05:32:51] And I'd love for us to take the information you're providing us to achieve that, Dr. Reed or Noel. I think that's where we should be going, especially with the studies on loneliness, et cetera. So that would be, I'm hoping that we can use this to achieve some of that.

[05:33:12] There are a lot of kids that don't feel connected. Amen. Thank you, Ms. Kees-Gamara. That's a perfect point to end on. Ms. Bukarski, Ms. Cohen, and then any other board members who wish to speak? I don't see plaque. Oh, Ms. Daroni-Koufax. Okay. Okay, thank you for this report. I will say you asked for your reactions. My reactions were when FCPS on started, these are exactly the questions that I was pushing to admins at the time because I thought we would be here one day.

[05:33:44] And that day has been, we've been there long before today. But when we started our terms, I also started pushing the need for ensuring that we're using technology to actually enhance and give kids creative ways to learn and produce.

[05:34:06] And we're not doing that in every single classroom. You know, when I walk into a math classroom and every single kid is on a laptop. That is not appropriate, and it does happen, and I have seen it. Is that everywhere? No, absolutely not.

[05:34:22] I don't want that, and you know, some kids are doing amazing things, but it's not everywhere. I had brought up the limits in the past. I don't know if that's the answer either. I don't know how you do that, but we have to do something differently because these depression levels have been going up.

[05:34:41] There is, you know, they haven't quite yet reached the point of causation, but the correlation in the studies is well documented right now. So I do think it's a topic that we need to really seriously look at and try to figure out what we can do to help these kids.

[05:35:02] I was never a fan of the K-1 devices. I'll just say I'm still not. Kids need to write, kids need hands-on activities. develops their brain there's a reason why that's important i was really disappointed to see that one of the recommendations is a sleep friendly deadline for online submission this is something that i was talking to the superintendent about six years ago and was told that this is something that we could fix so the fact that it's not i just like kids need to sleep so that's unfortunate to

[05:35:38] here. Ms. Picarsi, thank you. I think, again, what you're referencing is when teachers are giving time deadlines that students can have until midnight to submit things, it causes some kids then to stay up that late in order to finish it versus a 9 to 10 p.m. Okay. So we now have Ms. Cohen followed by Ms. Daronette-Koufax. Thank you. Happy to follow that. And I think, you know it's a slippery slope there right because at the end of the day hopefully parents and guardians are involved in kids bedtime I will say with kids that have jobs and have sporting

[05:36:17] events and band and all of that our family has certainly made use of the 11 59 and 59 seconds turn in one child much more than the other so I hear you and you know I also feel like there is a piece that is parent responsibility and guardian responsibility about setting limits and bedtimes and the beauty of being able to turn the Wi-Fi off at the discretion is just such a powerful tool.

[05:36:48] I just first want to say a huge thank you to Alana, my amazing SHAC representative. I will tell you that Lightspeed really started because I had a constituent reach out who said, is there any way that I could know, you know, what my kindergartner is doing during the school day on their laptop? And I went to our then IT head who said, no, that's not possible. And luckily with the support of my colleagues, we figured out a way to change that answer. But that is because

[05:37:24] you said, I just would love to know what my kindergartner is doing. And that seemed like a very reasonable question so thank you for that um and then of course a huge shout out to the ever amazing opal cohen oh my gosh recent graduate from woodson high school uh amazing thank you opal if you're anywhere listening i can't wait to see what you do in the world um i do think the opportunity for partnering with parents in pta pto settings is huge here you know i got to i think many of my colleagues probably did too see screenagers through FCC PTA's license of it. So I think trying to work

[05:38:03] in the parent piece of when we talk about parent education other than just the parent resource center does an amazing job but I know we've tasked them with all kinds of things. I know my time's up but I just want to say super fast that I would be remiss not to say how important technology is for so many of our students especially assistive technology and assistive and augmentative communication devices so I just always want us to be careful when we have the larger conversation about technology to always make sure that we're remembering that the nuances in there thank you for that word just really quickly that is

[05:38:41] included in our report we just were rushing so much towards the end but we actually absolutely always make account for that population as well yeah wonderful thank you miss Dernak Koufax yes I just want to thank you for this report I could see it was well done and lots of thought went into it I want to thank my rep Jen Steiner I talked to her last week as far as what to expect and she wasn't able to be here tonight but so I I do think what you point out is

[05:39:17] there is a culture that is probably not monitored properly because it is so different from classroom to classroom that's what I'm hearing from my colleagues as well so I think Dr. Reed you know that's probably the thing we're going to have to look at and work on and you know add it to the strategic plan you know no I'm kidding but you know right that's getting deep but what I'm saying is is and and there are some things that you know for us the one-to- one device for those of us for there on the board it was an equity issue for a

[05:39:53] long time this one-to-one device now you're talking about our youngest learners and how that impacts them and I did some work on that when I was working with organization zero to three and how that yeah that I worked for them for a while so so I get that and I think I I wouldn't recommend taking it away because it's there but it has to be monitored in a very judicious fashion for our youngest learners.

[05:40:22] So I really do love your, you know, the ideas of a screen-free day, things like that. Ms. Clamenco, thank you so much for telling us what we have out there, and I think that's always the problem. We have so much, but, you know, do the parents engage with it?

[05:40:40] Do they understand? Do they do that? And I'm on your team as far as the kids with activities. I think that could be anxiety producing if we took that down to like a nine o'clock time frame. If you have activities or sports, you're not home sometimes till nine.

[05:40:56] And if you're, you know, a diligent student, that's going to cause you greater anxiety. But I get why you want to do it. So it's a balance, right? We're all talking about balancing act. I really do appreciate. I think it was very thoughtful, very well done. And I think there's plenty of things in there that we can use to work and move forward.

[05:41:15] So thank you so much. okay with no other board members i'll just take my final two minutes um i do want to again um convey how much i enjoyed uh being the liaison to the shack committee this year and i do want to echo something that miss pikarski said because um i remember when fcps first introduced the the fcps on program um and uh with the prior board there were many many many many of us around the table expressing concern to the superintendent at the time that how you use this as a tool

[05:41:54] if it is not done well then unfortunately students will find themselves with far too much screen time and what we are experiencing here in fcps is a national epidemic level of anxiety and depression And Ms. Bukarski, again, I liked your intentional language.

[05:42:15] Is it correlation? Is it causality? I think that we have a responsibility as a society to start understanding that. I know of individual cases where extraordinarily bright young people went off to college and their families had no idea that they were addicted to video games and they failed out of school.

[05:42:39] Extraordinarily bright, talented students. And so, you know, whether it's news programs, documenting that the software is meant to hook you in. And just like any type of addiction, you never know what the substance or the item might be.

[05:42:59] And, Dr. Reed, I do want to spotlight that we are very fortunate to have the Parent Resource Center and ISD doing all the things to bring information to our families. I think that we just need to probably work with our Office of Communications and Community Relations to really almost have this intentional continuous feed to our families on it.

[05:43:23] And the last thing I'll say is the classroom-by-classroom comments being made that teachers are best in class for using it as a tool and those who don't realize they have defaulted it as the other teacher in the classroom, I think we have to better utilize our principals, assistant principals, and anyone who's guiding and instructing teachers, instructional coaches.

[05:43:48] There's got to be a little more intentional review and mindfulness of it. So with that, we do have one more advisory group to present this evening. So again, thank you to everyone for your work on this. And staff will be providing a response, a formal response back to the committee, as well

[05:44:09] as to the board and we'll look forward to further dialogue with you have a great night we've saved

[05:46:19] the best for last yes ace is my favorite committee but i say that to all of my committees um so i would like to introduce ken balbuena who is the chair and i will allow him to introduce the rest of the team so that we can get into the business of the report because i know you'll have many questions so mr balbuena please take the floor thank you so much for this opportunity to come present the -- not the strategic plan -- present the annual report to all of you.

[05:46:48] Yeah, so -- The Strategic Ace Report. The Strategic Ace Report, which does reference the strategic plan throughout. So, very excited to be here. We've got our staff liaison is Karen. And actually, rather than me telling you, I'll just let them tell who they are.

[05:47:03] So, I'm Karen Williams. I'm a Director of Instructional Services and the Staff Liaison to the Ace Advisory Committee. Hi, I'm Rich Polly. I'm the Director of ESOL Services, and I supervise the adult ESOL program. And hi, everyone. Noelle Kamenko ISD. I've been talking from the side all day. I thought I might as well just come up to the table.

[05:47:25] And I also want to recognize Lois Passman, who is longtime member of the committee from the Mount Vernon District. And so she is our secretary this year and past chair, past vice chair. So institutional knowledge for the committee as a whole.

[05:47:43] Longest serving member since we won't say which year, but I do know that I do know the year, but I won't say the year. It's a long time. All right. So just as a refresher, since we are a little bit separate from the K to 12 system, there are three different particular programs that the ACE advisory committee has influence over in terms of advising. One, of course, is ACE. That seems pretty obvious. We also have Fairfax County Adult High School, which also includes the high school equivalency program, and then also adult ESOL, which we have rich here.

[05:48:17] So just to recap here, I can say that if you look at the annual report, you'll see that four out of the five recommendations from last year have seen very positive influence, and so we just want to thank the school board, of course, but also want to thank staff for being able to take the recommendations seriously and really just make an effort to continue to support ACE as much as possible.

[05:48:44] So that leads us to this year. So this year our charge was to work with the staff to leverage data and community resources, including business and community partnerships, to position ACE, Adult ESOL, and Fairfax County Adult High School programs and identifying and responding to the needs and skills gaps of our increasingly diverse community.

[05:49:04] So in order to do that, we divided into subcommittees, just like we did last year. We had a couple of changes in some of the subcommittee structures, but essentially we had a technology subcommittee completion to success, marketing and outreach subcommittee, and a strategic marketing.

[05:49:21] Those two are slightly different. One, the marketing and outreach is more of a direct engagement with organizations, whereas strategic marketing is more digital marketing, some public relations as well. And we get into that in greater detail about the differences in the report.

[05:49:37] And then we also have the data analysis subcommittee. Ms. Pekarski had appointed Dr. Saleem Miralagu, who, fantastic person, is a data scientist for Oracle, and just brought a lot to the committee.

[05:49:53] And he also has a report that he, as one of the attachments to our overall report, that I encourage the school board to take a look at, because there's a lot of great suggestions in there, which we will touch on. The last thing, this will make Mr. Frisch very happy, but the Annual Report Retrospect Ad Hoc Subcommittee, I went back and looked at some of the past school board comments, and I noticed that Mr. Frisch asked us the same exact thing, gave us the same exact advice two years in a row.

[05:50:24] So I was like, well, if we didn't listen to them the first time, perhaps we should go back and look at what the past comments were from the school board and how can we maybe take some of those items and bring them to the future and bring it to the next term for ACE and just really try and respect all of you and listen to what your feedback was and be able to address those in the future if we haven't addressed them already.

[05:50:49] Now, as far as some of the speakers, we wanted to have an alignment with the Career and Technical Education Committee, so we invited the committee chair, who also happens to be a Braddock District representative, so two Braddock District chairs. We worked very closely with RMR Marketing and Associates.

[05:51:07] That's the ACE marketing vendor that won the contract, won a bid that was put out by the ACE staff. And we also had some educational programs present to us, such as driver's education, accelerating workforce education, and Trades for Tomorrow.

[05:51:27] And then we also had Dr. Reed come and talk to us. So thank you for visiting us, Dr. Reed. We know that, just like Dr. Anderson, that we are your favorite committee. That's okay. All right. That's okay.

[05:51:47] It's all about equity. And I'll quote Animal Farm. All right. We did have a couple more recommendations than we did last year. We ended up having a total of nine recommendations. So the first one, we want to encourage a staff and encourage a school board to continue to seek alternative funding for ACE.

[05:52:11] I know when I was first asked to be on this committee and was appointed by Ms. McLaughlin, she wanted me to really look specifically at the financial side of ACE and, you know, are we self-sustaining? Are we doing everything we can to get to that position? So we were unsuccessful in getting a grant from the Department of Labor, but as what we heard from our ACE administrator, there were a lot of good lessons learned, and so we're continuing to encourage staff to look at those different alternative funding programs.

[05:52:40] Now, given that we are at Dillon State, we are also recommending to the school boards that you continue to, as you continue to advocate for FCPS at the state level, just continue to also remember, you know, the ACE programs and everything under the ACE Advisory Committee's purview, which may also include asking that some of the state taxes have a portion that comes back to education is allocated towards ACE.

[05:53:05] And that gets touched on a little bit in the report itself. Recommendation number two, leverage existing FCPS technologies such as Schoology by making them available to all instructors and students as a means of removing barriers and improving the online learning experience.

[05:53:22] We'll touch on that when we get to that dedicated slide. So recommendation number three is integrating the new registration system that also went out for bid and that is currently being evaluated. So integrate the new registration system into the larger FCPS enterprise-wide digital ecosystem and have the Department of Information Technology support this system financially and technically.

[05:53:45] And we'll get into the reasons why we are making that recommendation. Recommendation number four, as part of the implementation of the new registration system, collect data pertaining to education and career goals of ACE and adult ESOL students during registration process for comparison against end-of-course surveys to better measure the effectiveness of these programs.

[05:54:07] Recommendation 5, utilize the SCIP task force data and recommendations to strengthen the partnership with the Board of Supervisors in taking a cohesive approach towards addressing community education and skill development via FCPS's ACE infrastructure. Recommendation 6, continue supporting the review of adult and non-traditional programs to consider how all of our programs can best be utilized to support the needs of FCPS students in the greater community. Recommendation seven, increase the awareness of ACE and adult ESOL programs by engaging community agencies, nonprofits, and industry employers to leverage their

[05:54:43] stakeholders as a means of facilitating and increasing educational access and increasing enrollment. Recommendation eight, continue and consider expanding the partnership with RMR and associates, and using lessons learned from the strategic marketing campaign to optimize performance and maximize advertising dollars. And finally, recommendation number nine, explore opportunities to use machine learning using open source software when possible to predict student outcomes, create personalized learning paths, analyze student feedback and sentiment, automate tasks, and more efficiently respond to student inquiries, which may require hiring a data scientist position.

[05:55:21] Now, just to get into some of them, or before we get into some of them, we wanted to acknowledge the strategic plan. Now, some of the items here are not final language on the goals and pillars because we had to submit this report before the school board voted on the final language. So to keep that in mind, some of the wording may be slightly different.

[05:55:39] But nonetheless, we wanted to show how each one of our recommendations aligns with each one of the goals as well as the pillars for the strategic plan. And you can see that in number five, for example, it goes all the way across and touches every single one. So we're very happy that aligning with SCIP will align with each one of those goals and pillars.

[05:55:59] And I think I want to say that was actually your suggestion last year is to look at SCIP. So thank you for that. All right, so as far as recommendation number one, we did talk about this a little bit, looking at some of the tax revenues, looking at some of the state grants, but also continuing collaboration with the Board of Supervisors and some of the joint partnerships.

[05:56:22] We saw a lot of success with our programs over at the Wich Center, as well as the original Mount Vernon High School. For recommendation number two, one of the lessons that we learned is that while A students may have access to Schoology, they can't actually really access it. So that it might be available to them, but unless they have an fcps.edu email address, they can't get into the system. So there is an effort to allow us to be able to use that, but then there's still some restrictions that need to get worked through. The other barrier is also with Zoom, so all students

[05:56:59] can use Zoom, but it does take a lot of manual effort to be able to set up non-FCPS email addresses to get that invite. So a lot of the instructors are choosing some alternative sources instead of using Zoom, which we have a subscription to as a school system.

[05:57:15] Recommendation number three, integrating this new registration system into the larger ecosystem. so for that one it could streamline the transition from k to 12 and we really wanted to be sensitive about aligning ourselves with k to 12 systems both with the cte programs as well as in this case with some of the technology so it may require though a financial commitment for the it department to be able to maintain this but it would lead to some more efficient upfront work because we wouldn't have to stop everything that we're doing get a patch update for security purposes that maybe wasn't communicated down to the ACE programs as a requirement.

[05:57:56] All right, for our recommendation number four, once we implement this registration system, there's a lot of information we'd be able to capture during that registration period. And that includes what are some of the goals of students? We learned during last year's subcommittee work for the technology subcommittee that sometimes employers may tell, at least in the plumbing programs, some of their employers may tell students, "Okay, I want you to take all four classes in this particular program, get your certification," but others might say, "Well, I'm only going to fund one class for you." So from our perspective, it may look like a student had dropped out of the program, but in reality, their learning goal was a little bit different than what

[05:58:34] the other student who completed all four classes' learning goal was. But we don't know what those learning goals are, but it's hopefully something we can address as we move to this new registration system it could also develop a way for like a pipeline for alumni engagement so for skipped here i think everybody's pretty familiar with some of those recommendations for skip so we just are essentially one to align with all of those recommendations especially the report that they had on workforce development and that includes an educational component aligning it with students for youth and also organize or working with all the different

[05:59:09] organizations and just coordinating all those together for recommendation number six uh there was a proposal to perhaps restructure how the fairfax county adult high school is aligned and you know is it split out from uh like the the traditional programs that ace oversees and how does that work so i know that we did have joe thompson come and present to us and presented this plan i think you may have had a conversation with you dr reid but if he hasn't i think he was supposed to um so we wanted to just continue to continue to encourage there to be an examination

[05:59:46] of the alignment where is the best place for the adult high school where's best place for high school equivalency and we learned that there are some different requirements uh that are from the state that are a little bit different than i think what the county does and i'm not the expert to speak on what those differences are but perhaps staff can if there are questions that pertain to that for recommendation number seven for this one there's two different models that we were looking at one is the traditional model we continue to drop flyers off at different non-profits and encourage them to come take ace classes the second model is we develop partnerships with them and we

[06:00:20] bring ace classes to their sites we did that with united community we've done that with a couple of other organizations but the report list i think about six or seven maybe louis you can answer So that may be about six or seven different nonprofits that are good candidates for ACE partnerships.

[06:00:40] For recommendation number eight, there's a lot of good performance reports that RMR sent over to us that look at some of the click-through rates, some of the clicks that people have done. And we noticed that the online anytime program is an area of focus that's been very good for us.

[06:00:57] We've seen a lot of people are interested in what that program is. they're not tied to a specific time of day to take classes they can take it online anytime and we also encourage as the committee it tends to occur as the staff works with them rmr a little bit more in the second year of their contract to as they're focusing on social media and building a social media report to also consider linkedin you know that's a great natural alignment and not something that ace currently has and i think that ace would be able to benefit greatly from having a linkedin

[06:01:30] presence. And finally, we talked about this. There was a report that Dr. Miralagu had put together and his committee member, Susan Beeman, also put that together. But it's an attachment to our annual report. Highly encourage that the school board does look at that and consider ways that we can possibly use machine learning to benefit possibly not even just ACE programs, but also the K-12 system. He also included a long list of different open source software, so it would be a cost-neutral investment to the school board. The question around that, there may be some of the

[06:02:08] restrictions about using open source software, so that's just a consideration to be aware of. So as far as our ad hoc SOC committee, so some of the recommendations that they looked at last year are also included as an attachment to our annual report, and so we will be looking at those topics in the next term and encourage the chair for the next term whether it's me or someone else to prioritize those topics so some summaries and key takeaways before we get to questions so progress from past annual report recommendations they still have some issues they've been addressed to some extent but there are still some other things that we've learned that may need to be

[06:02:47] continued to be worked on so the ace adult esol and the fairfax county adult high school and hse programs we have opportunities to really leverage this new student registration system in many ways just more than classroom enrollment but also from student measurement, student success measurement, some of our marketing strategies and of course looking at that development of an alumni engagement strategy. Our strategic marketing and direct outreach should continue to be prioritized especially as we're promoting the online anytime classes and one of the advantages of the online anytime that I didn't mention is that there is very low overhead and we only pay when there's

[06:03:24] an enrollment. So if we advertise a class in person and we hire an instructor for that and the class doesn't run because we don't have enough enrollment, you know, we may end up, you know, taking some sort of financial hit or we could have opened that up to a different program and made some, generated some revenue by having another class offer that space. If we offer an online anytime program and nobody registers for that class, we don't get charged for that. We only get charged when someone actually enrolls it. And you can run a class with one student as opposed to an in-person class, which you can't do. Final key findings there. Number four,

[06:04:00] machine learning could greatly benefit not only ACE, but also the larger K-12 system, but it could require the hiring of specialized staff. And number five, we would want to continue to prioritize the strategic plan and all the work that we do. And we also want to align ourselves more with K-12. So that is our annual report and a quick summary. Dr. Anderson, I could do it. I could be concise. But with that, I'm happy to entertain any questions that the school board may have. Thank you so much. Not only are you very thorough, but you are very efficient. That was

[06:04:37] just under 15 minutes, leaving plenty of time for board conversation. I do want to say before we get into the questions we are very appreciative of the crosswalk to the strategic plan because it shows the alignment um we don't have all those arrows dr reed and miss cohen we don't have all those arrows going everywhere it shows that um the work of the ace committee is definitely in the same direction as where we're intending to move the division and so we have several board members right now so we are going to just jump in with miss omesh thank you and thank you so much as

[06:05:15] as Dr. Anderson said, for a thorough report, which was quite substantial, you know, in explanation and justification. I did want to just pick up a little bit where you left off on some of the pieces from last year, specifically kind of the technology challenges, integrating, I guess, a staff, their access to some of the resources and students and whatnot to help in the classroom, whether that's Schoology, Zoom, et cetera.

[06:05:45] I don't know if you were being diplomatic or kind or gracious, but I guess I want just a little bit more clarity around where the obstacles were so that we can potentially see where we might help. - Thank you for the question, Ms. Omeyes.

[06:06:00] I think one of the findings that we had is that for Schoology, students aren't always, if you don't have an FCPS email address, you cannot get into Schoology use that as a as a student information system and also again with zoom they can get access to zoom classes it just requires a lot of that manual effort and so it takes staff effort to be able to do that and that could be perhaps something that could be automated if there's a way to have a student with a non-fcps email address sort of entered into the larger fcps ecosystem somehow

[06:06:40] And then that address is almost, what's the word? It's not white-coated, but do you want to talk about? White-labeled. It's white-labeled, I think. And it can be, you know, it can be granted access to Schoology and to Zoom.

[06:06:54] Yeah, sorry. I meant with that next step. So in getting, I guess, I don't know if you guys had reached out to the IT department or, you know, to create like a, whatever they call it, sub-environment, I don't know, within the FCPS schools to be able to access it, or even for Zoom. I mean, there are ways to expand the permissions to allow folks to use it. So did you guys try that or not?

[06:07:21] I'll just take that question. We have worked with IT quite a bit to try to find best ways to help our adult students get into some of these programs. Basically, it's an authentication issue, so we have a couple of solutions that we're trying out and piloting, and we'll bring that to the committee for sure so that they can see it. Instructors, do you have access to Zoom? They can get their um their students online if if it is an online class so i wanted to make sure that's

[06:07:57] clear but schoology is specifically for the k-12 student um where it authenticate through this and so far we haven't found a great solution but i'm sure that the it department will continue to work with our staff to make that happen and i should add that the fairfax county adult high school students do have access to schoology it only affects ace and adult esau classes yeah i mean that's part of what i'm trying to understand is if the adult high school can access it you know

[06:08:30] why is there like a safety concern what's the limit they have email addresses right right but why they're registered students with fcps um through the student information system they are um high school um certificate or you know they're getting their high school diplomas through the the online campus. They are actually FCPS students. Our community members are not considered FCPS students. And so we have just the authentication issue at this point. And so I think if I'm hearing

[06:09:07] you correctly, Ms. Omeche, that's a takeaway for us is to work with IT to answer that question of why. Yeah, I mean, mostly because, you know, in the same way, domains are like, you know, these emails can be created temporarily too, right? So they could be, I mean, Mr. Safety has found solutions to a lot of things that we didn't think were possible before, and this seems like one of those that might have a solution like that. And then just to clarify, I heard you say that the Zoom part wasn't an issue, but was there like a kink or something in it that? It's just manual

[06:09:42] effort on the instructor's part to invite all the students. Rather than sending out a link like you normally would on a Zoom, you have to actually add each one of the students' email addresses. So it's a lot of manual effort on the instructor beyond preparing for teaching yeah yeah i mean i think those are important considerations um i heard you you say that you have already been working with the it department though and they have some possibilities that will come back to the ace committee is there a timeline for that or there's no particular timeline in mind but we do have

[06:10:19] active conversation with them i'm actually in my role with instructional services i'm part of the schoology um overall implementation team so we are looking for good solutions that are safe and secure for for all users and at this point our we're really concentrating on our long form classes those classes like the apprenticeship classes that go over many months so we in adult community ed we have some classes that are just a few um a few sessions long but others are you know multiple sessions so we are concentrating on our long form students like the ones in apprenticeship

[06:10:55] in some of our i.t um classes that in certificate classes so i'm confident that we'll find a solution in the in the fall time frame okay we'll look forward to hearing about that um from our members and then i know the website you had mentioned is underway right like you guys have the rfp and are looking at possibilities or did i misunderstand where we're at with that so if you've ever visited the ace registration system it's about 25 years old it's oh yeah yeah it's um

[06:11:29] we got a lot of feedback from our focus groups from our community members that said we need a new upgraded system we worked closely with the park service gathered a lot of requirements determined to go out to the rfp and we're now in an evaluation of the responses and hopefully we'll have a the solution in place, hopefully, by the end of July, and we'll be able to implement that and make it a much more easy registration type of system for our users, but also provide

[06:12:04] us the data in the back end that we really need to be able to figure out who's completing and how quickly they're getting through some of our programming. So, really excited, and we have several really good vendors that we'll be negotiating with.

[06:12:21] And Ms. Amesh, we did reference last year that there were other school systems in the area that also do not have student registration systems, and we made an update in our annual report of which systems still don't have a registration system and which systems may have adopted some sort of registration system and what that registration system looks like.

[06:12:41] I will say that there is a neighboring county that will remain nameless that you still have to email them, and then they will email you back a registration, a paper registration form that you then fill out and email back to them. So we are at least beyond that. We're not the worst, okay?

[06:12:58] Correct. Yeah, yeah. No, I just, I vividly remember this from last year's conversation, both the access and the modernization issues with the technology. So I'm happy to hear that it sounds like July and the fall are somewhat of a timeline to get this resolved. And hopefully next year they don't show up as recommendations again, because I want to make sure we're moving in a direction.

[06:13:16] You all spend a lot of work looking into this and coming up with thoughtful suggestions. And I want to make sure we're doing our part to push internally to get us there. So I'm grateful, Steph, for sharing that. Just the other piece, and I continue to want to be a little creative about how we move forward with this.

[06:13:34] know we talked about the county partnership in the past it really does seem like a place where their you know collaboration would be useful and in just doing some of the community work and um through some of the other offices in the county that they already have dr reed i think when you had first come on this came up actually and i remember we had discussed maybe the possibility of having a conversation with them alongside the budget conversation and other conversations i don't know if you had the chance to do that at all but i think a renewed opportunity this year you know would be great because this is just one of those places I really think there's opportunity thank

[06:14:10] you Ms. Omeish we'll let Dr. Reed respond and just so you know your clock wasn't started so you got the benefit of quite a bit of time so we'll take a pause there and let Dr. Reed respond I actually I saw my timer on zoom and I just ended so we're good it's fine it's fine Dr. Reed please thank you, Dr. Anderson. Ms. Elmish, I can't remember what the question was now. The question was county partnerships. County partnerships. I know that Dr. Presidio and Dr. Ivey are part of the SCIPPT team and that's really where the partnership around ACE is being discussed. So I don't know,

[06:14:49] is there an update, Dr. Presidio? If not, it's okay. I just didn't know if there was. I mean, I would just say I think the committee did a good job of kind of referencing that and one of the big areas of partnership right now is around opportunity youth as it pertains to the ace program and making sure that basically individuals in our community that are age 16 through 24 that might be under educated might have dropped out might be underemployed or unemployed are getting opportunities for continuing education job placement services and support and the ace team plays a really important role in that they mentioned part of the work that they do around

[06:15:24] apprenticeship programs, partnering with Supervisor Lusk in the WISH Center, which is an employment and re-education program in the Franconia district. So I mean, that's a really important partnership that's, I think, developing quite well and is going to have a really positive impact for some of the neediest individuals in our community.

[06:15:43] So that's just one big area that I would mention. Okay. Thank you very much, Dr. Presidio. Ms. McLaughlin. Thank you, Ken. I greatly appreciate the hard work you've put in as the chair of the committee, and you, your group, always does an amazing job bringing such meaningful information.

[06:16:09] I was wondering if the committee, because we have talked about the sustainability of ACE, and Dr. Reid, this predates your time, but in fact probably two superintendents ago, it was a recognition that we are funded K-12 and so while we absolutely see an extensive commitment to adult high school and to the ESOL services because language acquisition makes a stronger community and it is a real strength of ours but for the other community education classes there you know some of

[06:16:45] them where they don't where we we have seen that nova provides courses and certification and things over the years the question became how can ace then find the sweet spot of the offerings that aren't in nova but do enhance community education but it is self-sustaining so i want to be clear that my focus has always been on the non-adult high school the the non esol instruction like yeah

[06:17:15] But where has been sort of the analysis to look at how much money goes into those of us who get the course catalog and saying, hey, I hope you'll consider taking an ACE course. How much that is the cost to and the ROI on that?

[06:17:34] Is that something you guys have that information on or did staff give it to you? Not something that we have information on. It's something, though, that we did reference in our strategic marketing recommendation that for some of the materials that we provide, or actually it was not the strategic marketing, it was the outreach and marketing recommendation, we had referenced that some of those pieces could be customized depending on what kind of audience we're talking to.

[06:18:03] So rather than just having a, hey, here's everything that ACE has, come find what program is best for you. It's more like, oh, you might be interested in trades here. Let's give a trades one that's specifically, you know, designed for that. Do you need, you know, you need plumbing. Here's a plumbing thing.

[06:18:18] You want to learn more about office skills. Here's an office skills one. So we are trying to specifically target that. And I think that's also been part of the strategic marketing efforts as well. They're doing A-B testing. So for those not really familiar with the marketing terms there, so you send out two different messages and find out which one resonates better.

[06:18:37] So we are also learning from our strategic marketing side what people really are interested in, and we're looking at who we're targeting. I was looking at the report earlier from our latest RMR report that about three-fourths of our students are female, but we know that most of our trades programs are male.

[06:18:54] So that may be a recommendation we get back to RMR that, okay, well, what are we marketing to them? we marketing the relevant items and what are they clicking on what are they interested in so we are definitely trying to consider that and make sure that we are targeting as specifically as we can so we can have a good return on investment hopefully i answered your question no it's good i i think the key for me is that how the advisory committee can help the ace program continue to look at the the costs to run the program and to then you know this really being able to fulfill

[06:19:30] that desire for being cost-neutral and trying to, you know, as a board member, I'm always trying to understand each year when we do the annual report, where is the loss leaders for ACE? What is, what's, what's kind of year over year been the challenges financially to meeting that stated goal of being, you know, cost-neutral? Does somebody know, like, what even where we stand this year for being cost neutral? So we are looking at approximately a deficit of, I'm going to say

[06:20:08] about $600,000 is what the deficit is going to be. Interestingly, our enrollment is up over last year, but our finances are down. According to the report, staff does attribute it to there being more in-person classes than the online, so there's an increased overhead for that.

[06:20:25] I really appreciate that. I mean, Dr. Reed, I can't overstate, I mean, $600,000 overrun for a program that we have really said, I mean, what you can do for $600,000 to alleviate classroom overcrowding for the K-12 students, that is our mission and our funding, I don't think is a small number.

[06:20:43] So I just, I really hope this is going to be some intentionality from maybe our CFO to work with ACE, because there definitely needs to be, you know, a real understanding of what we do here, because that's real dollars.

[06:21:00] And then last thing I'll say is the Behind the Wheel program, my own family benefited from, and everything I've understood, it's so popular, we just, we don't have enough classes to meet the demand. And so any update on that? So we, do you want to answer that?

[06:21:18] We do have tremendous popularity. We have a waiting list at this point. We did have to retire three cars this year because of age. And we weren't able to then replace them because of just supply chain issues.

[06:21:41] So that was a bit of a bummer because we were hoping that we were adding just three brand new cars. we did have to take three out of commission for because they were over over their mileage but we are very popular we have the best safety record in the state for commercial and private the private the public anybody who offers behind the wheel we have the best safety record so we continue to grow that program we're also offering additional services now that probably didn't get a chance to

[06:22:12] benefit from but the parents for teen safe driving and also the um the uh temporary driver's license um testing is happening in our high schools now so that's that's brand new and the wait list number all right you know it varies by by location but we probably could fill we have about 50. i think we had about 50 the last time i looked so we're trying to get them at different locations so kids might want to be just at west potomac and they don't want to go to another site so we're trying to shift them around so and we only can have two kids in the car so that's another change

[06:22:49] over the last 10 years we used to be able to have three kids in the car now we can only have two according to state statute so if one kid doesn't come then the class has to can't go because you can't have just one kid in the car so that's been a challenge um so we're uh we're working through that thank you if i can sorry yeah exactly two kids and an adult if i can one of the students does not show up then you have to reschedule the whole session hmm thank you if I can shift gears

[06:23:24] no pun intended on drivers but if I can shift gears just slightly one one other thing I would encourage school board is as you're seeking reappointments I'd already mentioned about the increased you know value that Dr. Mimralagu had I love having board diversity on any committee and not not ethnic diversity but just skills diversity um and i think that one aspect that we are missing from our committee is someone with a financial background so as you are seeking um people to reappoint i would encourage to have somebody that can do exactly what miss mclaughlin was asking us

[06:24:02] to do well thank you for that plug and so we'll put that in the rear view and move on to miss keys gamara you're welcome i'll be here all night that was that was that was that was not appreciated okay i i will uh touch on just three things um one when i go online i was looking at what is on here about about ace and my guess is it hasn't been updated anytime recently that's my guess i could

[06:24:41] be wrong um but i'm hoping that we can find a way to clearly identify what your target audience is i'm not you don't necessarily have to answer that right now um but miss mclaughlin's comment about north nova versus us etc um may be critical to really think about who are we really trying to reach you know and so i'd like to um try to focus on what that is right because there is a niche i think for ace but have we defined it have we have we um taken authority or

[06:25:18] uh really focused on what that target area is okay um the other thing you mentioned since we were on driver ed um we do have auto programs in our schools and i'm wondering if there's a potential partnership there right where they help take care of our cars and you know we teach our kids to drive those very same cars so i don't know if that's a possibility i throw that as a wondering the final thing um is i'm also what you mentioned funds the need for funds

[06:25:51] we do have educate fairfax i don't recall that there is any um specific um has been any discussion about uh funding this type of program we are becoming more focused like focusing on steam But once you define your audience, I think we might want to look into how there could be a partnership there and there could be someone on that board to create community partners for you so that they would be specific about bringing funding to you.

[06:26:26] So those are my three suggestions, and I'm going to leave a minute on the table. Thank you for that. That's a great suggestion. We will definitely be looking into, once we start to identify our audience a little bit more, look at Educate Fairfax. I think, as I mentioned, the strategic marketing, we're really learning a lot about our audience and what their interests are. So it's very informational. I think our committee could also take it upon ourselves as a duty to look at the website and find ways that we can support ACE, perhaps rewriting some sections or making some recommendations to rewrite sections. That's not something that we have considered. And I think it's a good

[06:27:05] opportunity for us to do that as we are looking at the student registration system. Well, I mean, it's part of how you market yourself, right? And I know since I've been on the board, we've always tried to figure out how do we keep this program going and fund it.

[06:27:20] But part of it is just what is the image of ACE and, you know, who thinks about us and who are we targeting, et cetera. So I don't want to be repetitive, messing up my record. Just very quickly, Ms. Ababrena, would you be able to speak to the most, to the part of ACE that generates the most revenue?

[06:27:42] Because I know who we're trying to target and who helps to float the program can be two very different groups. So can you speak to that if you have that information handy? I do not have that. Do you have it, Karen? Well, I want to clarify my point. My point was not target those that bring in the money.

[06:28:01] I think there is a part of our community, in our business community, that probably cares about whoever that is that we are serving most, right? But they may not know that that's what we're doing. So getting that information out there so that they can then fund our, help to support our efforts is important.

[06:28:21] So there's a communication link that may be missing. Absolutely. I see. Thank you. All right, Ms. Cohen. Thank you. I'm glad Ms. Kiesgemar was reading my notes because I wrote the same thing about the auto tech.

[06:28:38] We have these cars. What an awesome way for them to be repurposed. I know that we make some money off of selling them, but I feel like maybe we could figure out some way to finagle a couple of them. The other thing just kind of in that vein, too, was we have these amazing DECA programs that the marketing kids are geniuses.

[06:29:00] They're winning state and national competitions. And so I wonder, instead of the committee trying to take on something like redesigning the website or how do we market, man, those kids are always up for team challenges. and they are crazy competitive um so i you know i don't know if that's a possibility but i think i'll probably almost all of the kids in that program have at some point been behind the wheel and so i think they have some sense of of ace at least a little bit um but anyway um i i did i don't have a lot of questions you know i i hope you all know that i'm an awfully big fan of ace i will

[06:29:40] tell you the one thing I'll leave with you is that my husband who is extremely sarcastic texted me last Friday after going with my son to pick up his driver's license and he said wow somebody really likes their job and I thought he meant that the person must have been you know Friday at 4 p.m. kind of you know not feeling it he was like no no I'm I'm really serious I don't know who was more excited about Lucas getting their driver's license Lucas or the lady who helped us at ace so um they really meant it and and he said like she so clearly loves her job and i i do have

[06:30:17] to say every person in our family that we've interacted with over the years from ace from a mom who took italian for all the good that did but um to you know our kids behind the wheel and all kinds of other summer and different programming i i will say to a person like i just want to be complimentary of the staff is just outstanding. So whatever, you know, you're putting in the drinking water, please continue to do so. And thank you for what you do. And I really do look forward. I appreciate all of the enthusiasm and work that you're trying to do to figure out what

[06:30:56] is that, what is that niche? You know, how are we providing these really important services? And I'm grateful to my colleagues. It's going to take some patience and some money for us as they figure, continue to figure that out. But I am grateful that you're there and grateful for all you do. And I will still put my plug in that I think we could be helping with on-time graduation rate in a significant way, maybe in some of our programs. So that's my two cents. Thank you.

[06:31:25] Thank you, Ms. Cohen. And that last point does align with one of the skip recommendations as well. So I do want to point out really quickly about the automotive idea. I think that is a great idea. Well, I'll encourage at least the ACE administrator to take a look at that. We touched a little bit on Trades for Tomorrow. I'm not an expert on that, but from what we put on the annual report, Trades for Tomorrow offers FCPS students paid service learning opportunities in the FCPS Department of Facilities and Transportation Services. They're able to

[06:31:57] participate in apprenticeship trade and industrial education opportunities in conjunction with the trades for tomorrow program. So it's a service learning opportunity. So we'll have to see whether or not working on automotive is something that can align with that and perhaps be a way to work on the cars. Oh, I meant we have a whole automotive program in our academies. So yeah, what would they get paid for it, though? Well, what's Dr. Reed will probably pay for it. Would you like to comment on that, Dr. Reed?

[06:32:31] I THINK YOU'VE JUST BEEN COMMITTED TO PAY FOR SOMETHING. THERE WE GO. OKAY. THANK YOU. MS. CORBETT SANDERS. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. YOU KNOW I LOVE YOUR REPORT EVERY YEAR.

[06:32:46] IT'S ALWAYS SO IMPORTANT FOR US TO HEAR FROM YOU. I AM A LITTLE CONCERNED ABOUT THE INCREASING DELTA, AND I HAVE RAISED THIS IN THE PAST OF THE IMPORTANCE OF LOOKING AT ALMOST A MATRIX THAT SHOWS WHAT YOU ALL ARE OFFERING, WHAT OUR PARKS ARE OFFERING, AND WHAT NORTHERN VIRGINIA COMMUNITY COLLEGE IS OFFERING.

[06:33:07] figuring out where there's some redundancies or more partnership you can do between them. But tonight I'm actually gonna focus on something different, which is importance of really looking at what you all are doing in the adult high school space and the ESOL and the re-imagining of our alternative schools.

[06:33:29] As that is some work that has been ongoing, but it seems to not necessarily be as inclusive as I think it needs to be adult ESOL the adult high school that is really important to kind of reimagine how we can utilize what you all are doing what we're doing as a school system and not have the redundancies but also provide these services in a more innovative way similar to the twilight um score the is it twilight school yeah

[06:34:07] twilight school which i've read about i haven't had a briefing on i look forward to hearing more about it as a board member but i think if we can look at that and then look at maybe where there might be some overlap that would be a good area for this for you all to focus with what um dr reed's organization could i ask rich maybe to speak to that i could speak to it but rich has been doing some really good work with joe thompson around just that maybe he could just give us a few highlights

[06:34:39] Sure. So we have been looking at, I guess, using both adult ESOL as well as our ESOL office to support students who are both at the adult high school for two different reasons.

[06:34:55] They might be getting an adult diploma, so a regular high school diploma that's either for adults, and they receive diplomas based on the year that they have initially started, ninth grade, so those diplomas look a little different depending on the age of the student, and also for high school equivalency or what's called the GED program.

[06:35:15] So we have started, and I believe that Mr. Thompson shared a little bit about we have a pilot program at Mount Vernon High School, for example, where we are administering the support classes for the GED in Spanish.

[06:35:32] So we have with students, it's not, it's at the Mount Vernon location, but not necessarily with all current Mount Vernon High School students. So we do have some students taking GED prep courses in Spanish, which is allowable, and it's a way that they can prepare for taking the GED in Spanish.

[06:35:54] We hope to expand that in the coming year. It seems like it's being very successful right now. - Well, that's fascinating. I'm glad to hear about it. I would love to get a deeper dive on it, given that that high school is located in my magisterial district.

[06:36:13] So if somebody could please update me on what that's all about, it would be great. And, you know, how many students are currently in it? How many students are projected to be in it? How many students are we, how are we marketing it?

[06:36:29] Where is it, you know, this is all new. And I really, it's interesting. And I know that we're also doing some of that work bryant and so if we could see where you know is that a totally separate population or is it one where there's some overlap um and the budget for it as well so it's yeah thank you thank you miss corbett sanders um is there not koufax yes i i want to thank you ken for this thank you team

[06:37:03] i appreciate it lois thank you and i also want to reach out to uh sean arthur's and tell him thank you he's my representative so a lot of my questions have been answered i think dr reed i think this making some kind of availability to the schoology you know if we can work on that i i some sub-compartmented way as miss omesh talked about i think that's important um i think um you know rich thank you for sharing that with us i think there's so much that we do that sometimes doesn't

[06:37:39] get to our level we don't we didn't know that so i think that's it's very exciting and you know um but in oh but overall um i think this um this programming has always been maybe because i took some classes or my kids took some classes it's always been programming it's been close to my heart because i feel as though you know there are there are needs for this program at different points in your life and also for a lot of our newcomers um to this this community or when you

[06:38:14] make transition points so i think what we need because we have not been i don't even want to use the we have not been financially profitable right in the way we want to be but you know so you need a basic i mean i'm not and i'm not exactly sure dr reed who this goes to if it's dr presidia or whatever but when you look at your basic marketing structure you look and expand upon what your your your money makers are so you can sustain that if you can like and if that's driver's ed or whatever that is expand upon that as much as we can so those classes that the community wants and needs

[06:38:52] like the esol classes or somebody who wants to take a class with their child or you know or photography classes i think these are wonderful offerings and that's why i have always been very reluctant but it's been many years where we haven't been at that point where we see their financial results that we need and we send and you know it look i mean six hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money but in our system it's still coverable you know in a two three point what billion seven billion dollar budget um because i think there are certain

[06:39:25] things you have to weigh like what do services do we provide to our our you know people who are in our system the kids who are doing the driver's ed as because we can't get that all through our own system and then what what is you know what does the community want and need and how are how are we doing dovetailing that so i think you know but that that's a that's a conversation where we have to decide um you know we have we have been we have been cons because i think we all see merit and what is done with these programming to community members at all ages and all levels we

[06:40:04] we want to continue that but if we can just get over this hump and I think Miss Cohen yeah I have a note here I just want to say utilizing resources that we produce to continue to doing this you know like that like I just whispered to the ladies I donated to minivans right so I don't know if minivans would be the right thing you would want to take two drivers you know but they're big and a lot of kids a lot of families have them so why not learn how to drive in a minivan but you know it's still something that you know I think it's

[06:40:41] important and so if anything anything that we currently source and can add to the profitability of this you know endeavor that is ace that we appreciate thank you mr. Koufax miss Tolan I wanted to ask just quickly about well I thought about the the Twilight High School program you know when you were talking earlier if there just are ways you know as we're thinking about how to really serve our population that needs more flexibility and you know getting those high school diplomas maybe that we can collaborate these programs can

[06:41:20] collaborate I was looking over here at the data analysis subcommittee reports and I think it's just really interesting I mean right now looking at you know machine learning and AI and how can we utilize these resources and and And so I'm just curious if you could give me a little more information or have you talked to, I'm sure, our own IT folks, you know, are looking at how do we use all of that for our own data and your dashboards and everything that you're looking at.

[06:41:50] I mean, even just the meeting between the committee and some of our IT folks might be, you know, super helpful to even get at your recommendation. you're saying maybe we would need a data scientist you know there might be a way if we're going to especially if we're going to do some more collaboration in some of these other areas with our our existing i.t program karen's shaking her head like yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so to have the committee talk with with our i.t department in our innovation areas because the the new members

[06:42:27] of the committee have brought a lot of rich understanding of this space you know that i that we didn't necessarily have before so i definitely think if um when we go forward for next year we'll have the it department come in and talk with us for sure well i'm putting words in their mouth but i will invite them to come and speak with the committee we have several members now of the committee who are um really engaged in this work and they're private in their actual jobs so you can tell when you read that report you're like whoa i know it's very enriching and i had many conversations with Salim and others and it kind of blew me away of what what the

[06:43:05] possibilities were so yeah and I appreciate that he also looked at the open-source software as much as possible because he was conscious about the cost mm-hmm exactly no thank you so much for everything that you've done really appreciate it it was stolen all right I'll quickly take my turn and I think we should be able to wrap up in the very next few minutes I'm just keeping up with my theme here he talked about like taking ace on the road a little bit and bringing some of the programs to various places can you give a little bit more detail in terms of where did you go and what did you decide how did you decide

[06:43:42] on those locations and what has been the yield in terms of participation so the short answer is we haven't gone to those places but we've identified places that we would encourage staff to go my my encouragement that I had to the subcommittee is just into the staff as well is that when they're looking at the programs look to see what is going to be the return on investment are we looking at 20 students of this partnership or are we looking at like three students so that's just my my advice that I had given I think Lois is probably a better

[06:44:16] person to answer that if Lois wanted to share some input actually it's sort of Actually, it's sort of the opposite, because what we tried in 2021 was bringing representatives from, in that case, was United Community, which used to be United Community Ministries, and two of the staff, the CEO and the program chair.

[06:44:49] We did a virtual Zoom, and they came as speakers to the meeting. And before they came to the meeting, I had sent to them material that United Community had generated the previous year and two years for the 50th anniversary and for some other events.

[06:45:15] And so we worked it so that they would, our committee would have copies of that literature. And the CEO and the program chair described the community and what kinds of classes, what kinds of needs.

[06:45:35] And that was in, I think, March of 21. And within four to six weeks, there were half a dozen people taking classes. And I don't know how they arranged it. I'm assuming they did it virtually or perhaps brought some instructors to the site because that was during the pandemic, March of 21, and the courses that they took, and I think they are mentioned in the report, were, there may have been some adult ESOL, but most of the classes were skill-based, workforce types of courses, and my understanding is that they

[06:46:12] were sequential maybe three courses that were sequenced so my goal is to try that out now with other what I call helping agencies because each of the magisterial districts has different helping agencies some of them are supported by the community funding pool some of them are supported by just lots Lots of fundraising, lots of fundraising, golf games, picnics, generating donations from the community.

[06:46:51] Thank you, Lois. I appreciate that. The reason why I raised this, I know that this is something we talked about. I can't remember if it was this year or last year, but the lack of access to some of these programmings just because of where they're located. So if there's a possibility for us to partner with the Twilight Program, bring the programs to where the need seems to appear, I think that's something to investigate because I do know that we have a lot of students in our area because of lack of transportation, that they're not able to access some of these programs.

[06:47:22] So shutting themselves out of the opportunity to learn a skill, to advance and learn and get a diploma. So I would love for that to continue to be part of the conversation of ACE. I appreciate that. And some of the other organizations we were looking at, I pulled it up in the report here, so it's Fairfax County Department of Family Services, Northern Virginia Family Service, Cornerstones, Committee for Helping Others, Good Shepherd Housing and Family Services, Lamb Center, and also the report does mention what Lois said, that many of them do benefit from Fairfax County's Consolidated Community Funding Pool Grants, and I know we just awarded some like this current fiscal year,

[06:48:00] so I think the next batch is going to be not next fiscal year, but the fiscal year after, but it does give us a lot of opportunity to reach out to these organizations, develop some foundations for some partnerships, and then be able to explore some grant funding opportunities that could be applied to ACES tuition. Thank you for that.

[06:48:17] My next inquiry is really to the superintendent because we've had this evening and in previous weeks great recommendations provided by these committees. And we're always super concerned about the timetable for a staff response and opportunity for the board to react.

[06:48:34] So I would love to hear from you. What do you see as the opportunity to respond to them? And if there are things that staff does not find to be feasible, but the board as a collective do, what is that process for us to advance some of these actions? But I'd love to kind of settle on the first part first.

[06:48:52] Sure. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. It's my understanding that traditionally the staff response is completed by end of August. And I see Dr. Presidio shaking his head. So I believe the staff response to the board will be end of August and to the committees. In terms of this year's budget, of course, it's done. So we're talking about it would be FY25, I guess, that we're talking about for future budget thoughts.

[06:49:20] So I guess we would be including that in our, you know, our thinking about budget moving forward next fall. I would also like to just plug in the opportunity for us to come back as a collective, maybe in a work session, just to talk about all of the staff responses.

[06:49:36] Because we often, we get the staff response, it's in an email, it's in the summer, school year begins, and everything is in the rearview mirror once again. I think bringing it back to a discussion, it doesn't have to be one hour per committee, just a general opportunity for us to raise the various things that the responses have generated or have missed that we want to be sure to highlight and to elevate it to move forward on.

[06:50:01] So I would like to pose that to the board to consider for us to have a robust discussion, because if we don't plan for the time, we don't really get the opportunity. And I know it's not intentional to act on these very important recommendations for all of these skillful people who've taken the time to be thoughtful to provide to us.

[06:50:21] So we need to build in that time. So that would be my ask of this group for August. Dr. Anderson may also recommend that the committee chairs also look at the staff responses. We did that for our report this year. Absolutely. And you've offered some very thoughtful things that I think we should consider for some other committees, just even going back and reviewing what the board has provided to you in the last two years.

[06:50:48] I'm like, did you watch all these videos? No, I had a subcommittee member do that. Okay, subcommittees, that's the mark. Did you have something you wanted to share, Ms. McLaughlin? Please. Yeah, no, just really quickly about your suggestion about the board coming back to review staff responses.

[06:51:06] I just want to be extremely mindful that with the school year starting into the middle of August now where we are at, I really do want to be one voice saying the focus needs to be reopening schools. And so, Dr. Reed, I would just say if it's really more reasonable that the new chair and vice chair look at something in early fall, but our focus has got to be on the schools first.

[06:51:34] And I'm not wedded to the time. I'm just wedded to the fact that we do do it because I think we've missed some opportunities to really be intentional and to react to the staff responses because it gets lost in the hustle and bustle of the time because we're opening schools.

[06:51:50] and that's where all of the attention is and should be rightfully very supportive of your ask thank you um i do want to say thank you to ken to um everyone in the committee lois you guys have worked so hard and we appreciate all of your work and you are super succinct so that's super appreciated as well good night all thank you good night good night everybody

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