Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Meeting — Committee Reports, Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Date: Tuesday, September 26, 2023
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 1h 54m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJN1GyMLTek
Official School Board page (FCPS): https://www.fcps.edu/about-fcps/leadership/school-board

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

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[00:00:03] It is necessary for the board to certify that since the Fairfax County School Board convened a closed session on September 26th, 2023, to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the board during the closed meeting.

[00:00:31] Do I have a motion? Dr. Anderson in a second, Ms. Karen Corbett-Sanders. All those in favor, Mr. Frisch, Ms. Corbett-Sanders, Ms. Keyes-Gamara, Ms. Tolan, Ms. Seismerheiser, Dr. Anderson, and Ms. Cohen.

[00:00:55] All right, that passes. Why don't we go ahead and turn it over to our wonderful career and technical education advisor? We have to do the motion. What's that? Oh, there's a second. I call on Ms. Cohen for a motion.

[00:01:11] I move that the chair of the school board be authorized to execute on behalf of the board the contract for chief operating officer as discussed in closed meeting. Is there a second? I second. All in favor? Oh, sorry.

[00:01:31] Ms. Sizemore-Heiser, Ms. Tolan, Ms. Cohen, myself, Ms. Marin, all opposed. Dr. Anderson and Ms. Keese-Gamara, abstentions. Ms. Corbett-Sanders? Ms. O'Mish, do you want to?

[00:01:49] I'm in favor. Okay. We'll put her in favor. That passes. I'll turn it over to Ms. Marin. Okay. Where are we? introduce everybody. Sorry, I deigned to take a break and buy a break, so I'm sorry, but I'm thrilled to see you. Welcome. Let me just pull up my note, give you one second. My apologies. I had misunderstood the, I thought it was a virtual participation vote, so I'll just abstain. So,

[00:02:23] Ms. Clerk, is that clear? No objections to change the vote from Ms. Omeish? No? Great, okay. we're good thank you thank you madam clerk so today we have with us our career a technical education advisory committee which i've had the pleasure of being on for two years and so i've really gotten to see how the work progresses and i think what they have provided is a really sensible set of recommendations and someone might have counseled them to be as budget neutral as possible so i do think that that reflects i do want to point out that

[00:03:01] They are very actual recommendations, and some are legislative even. So I hope that we can pay particular attention to those as we think about the upcoming fall events with our legislators and getting their ear. I know Mr. Varconi has been very involved with that, so perhaps he can speak to that even more.

[00:03:19] And I wonder what our staff can do to help us even as we look to November as take your legislators' school day, perhaps an opportunity to bring them. I know you have something scheduled to bring some school board members out on a day trip. So perhaps you can also reference that to make sure everybody has received that invitation even orally to hear it to be sure they can come if they can.

[00:03:42] So with that, we'll go ahead and turn it over to you. And can we just do a, I'm sorry, I don't have my time check in front of me, but so we're clear on presentation time and time for questions, which I know we'll have. Does anyone have it? just we have we have until three o'clock oh boy okay we will be assisting okay great thank you please go ahead ah thank you so much Melanie and let me just start by saying that Melanie has been a fantastic partner to the committee over the last two years so we definitely thank you good

[00:04:16] afternoon everyone my name is Alexa Krizelle and I have had the privilege of sitting on SeaTac on and off for almost my entire child's life of 13 years. 14 years. Sorry, he's 14 now. And last year and this year, I am serving as chair. And today, I have the privilege of being flanked by Whitney Ketledge and Irv Veracone, who is our vice chair and has served as our vice

[00:04:47] chair for not only this year as well as last year and Jen Glazer. They will be backing me up when I can't answer everything. So it is a pleasure to be here. I think we can go ahead and go to the next slide. Oh, that's me. I'm learning my way. And here's where tech is going to fail on me. Okay, I think we need a next slide assist because my clicker all of a sudden is not working. There it is. Okay. So we have had our committee charge

[00:05:24] For a couple of years now, and of course, under COVID, it has been evolving to really be mindful of the workspace that our students are going to be going into. As we know out in the workforce today, businesses are still batting around.

[00:05:42] What is the workplace of the future? And that's something that's going to face our students as well, entering into many roles that will be maintained as virtual or even hybrid or those going back to the office. And that's something that they need to have the skills to think about, as well as the coursework that they will take.

[00:06:03] So last year, Joe and I as chair, you know, maintained this committee charge, as I said. So I think it's serving us well. We are continuing forward as we go into 2023-2024. next slide if i can make it progress none of this would be wouldn't be possible without the work of our committee members who come from across all of the districts as school board representatives as well as the richness in which ctac is granted from our community business and industry partners

[00:06:39] i think uh i'll do a little bragging and i'll say that our community and partners are really a strong engine for this committee. They bring forward what is going out there in today's workforce into the committee in a very powerful and meaningful way as we study the issues that we decide to focus on as a committee along with Whitney's team and guidance. Again, this is just I want to say thank you to our committee members and just appreciate the

[00:07:15] vision that they have had over the numerous years into the pipeline that we are developing for the future. So what do we do this year in our committee activities? Just a couple things here to highlight.

[00:07:32] Every year we do have a couple of new members who join us on the committee, particularly as Whitney and her team take a thoughtful look at our industry distribution on the committee and bringing forward expertise to fill gaps and things that they come down the pipeline.

[00:07:50] I think the other thing to highlight again is just we've had a fantastic year with Melanie and all the insights and connectivity that she brought in from the school board. And I think the biggest highlight that we really celebrated as we are really coming out of the post-COVID world for us as a team was the return to bring back the tours of the academies and our high schools with the rich career programs because until you can get out there and really see

[00:08:28] what our students are doing and if you have never had the tour experience by these students they are some of the most eloquent and just wonderful students and they know their they know their stuff so with that i would piggyback off of what melanie said and remind everybody that this year on october 12th our second thursday of the month we are going out to the western side of the county to chantilly academy for our first school visit of the year and the academy experience is

[00:09:05] are just exceptional to go to. So those are some of our key committee activities. I think here on this highlight slide, this is the impact of these programs.

[00:09:21] You know, you see large numbers of 63,000 students enrolled in either one or multiple CTE courses. And, you know, I think over the years as a committee, the thing that we've talked a lot about is telling the story of what CTE is and it's not, you know, what a lot of people think of it as, it's really grown and I think one piece that really exemplifies it is the dual enrollment capability within CTE. We've got 2100 students who are taking college level programs, dual

[00:10:00] enrolled in Northern Virginia Community College experiences and coming out with workforce ready skills that along with our credentialing program is just amazing you know as we look at the the rise of ai the continuing technology needs that we have workplaces are reassessing where they start the skill line the bachelor degree experience is changing and if you think

[00:10:34] about the average corporation, most of them are offering up to between five and ten thousand dollars to send their students and give tuition reimbursement so that they can get them working right away and then give them the support that they need to get the education as part of their workforce experience.

[00:10:55] So I think these highlights really talk about the impact, particularly the credentials experience that our students have had. And it all starts at the beginning of the pipeline. Whitney's team has just done an extraordinary job looking at the littlest of our students, starting in elementary school with the summer camp programs. It's really grown, and that's also a target area for the middle school students, right? And in our report, that was something that we really wanted to focus on is building that starting pipeline and understanding of

[00:11:33] what's available. So how do we get to, you know, the mindset starting as early as elementary school? And you'll see that as we go through the rest of the report with things like the career bus initiative. So really starting to think about that totality of life cycle.

[00:11:56] So the three areas this year that our teams went into from a subcommittee perspective, some were a continuation of previous years, but I think one of the items that I think we're most proud of is really taking a hard look at what it means for equitable access to all learning and how that comes into play with CTE.

[00:12:23] Our business and industry partnerships, which is an incredibly active area and critical to CTE, something that's a carryover that we continue to delve into, but the equity and access in the early engagement was a heavy focus of this year because FCPS, we have fantastic stats over, what is it, 93% graduation rate.

[00:12:47] We started to really wonder what happens to the 6%, 7% who aren't graduating, how do we tackle that from a CTE perspective, and then again at the beginning of the pipeline. So what we're going to step you through is the recommendations that the committee came up in each area.

[00:13:08] And before we go into the specific business and industry, I do want to make mention of something that Melanie said at the start, which is to take a view. One of the things in addition to each subcommittee we were intentional about is -- and thanks Thanks to Irv's work on this. He is our -- what's the right word? I don't want to say lobbyist in the committee, but he's our partner with the state advocate, yes, advocate with the state and all of you. He does such a fantastic job, and he has been the engine for some of these recommendations. So, you know, one of the things that we really thought about is

[00:13:47] we need to get the exposure broader, right? So that's where our Chantilly experience in October 12th is coming in to really -- we do have a couple of state legislators coming with us on that visit as well as Karen. So we're very excited about that. But the other piece that we did want to put on paper that we think is something that is needed some focus is the you know the design and experience of being a high school

[00:14:22] student in Fairfax County and the notion of what it means to have a standard and advanced diploma I as a parent whom I'm going through this very experience while I appreciate the advanced diploma and the value that it has I'm having conversations with my student right now about do we go for that third year foreign language or do we take the fact that you think you want to build airplanes for a living and expose

[00:14:53] you to more cte experiences and as a parent i can tell you that that dilemma and how it is encased in the fcps experience is very nerve-wracking because it seems like you must get the advanced diploma or you're not getting the best experience and so we know this is a very big topic in terms of who's involved and what it looks like but as a committee we felt that it was very important to put that down to say that you know when

[00:15:30] we did the world language initiative that was one state of the world we are now entering a technological state of the world and do we need our government And to look at that standard that has been established.

[00:15:47] So with that, our three committee areas of business and industry partnerships, this, as I said, has always been a great focus for us. And what we wanted to call out here is providing consistent and equitable access to information.

[00:16:08] We know that FCPS staff and organization do their best to communicate, but I think we have to be around this table and admit that if you are in one part of the county, you may not have the same communication experience as if you are in another part of the county, and so we really wanted to point out that how FCPS school to school and region to region communicates the work-based learning activities, has an opportunity to provide greater consistency.

[00:16:45] And also, when you think about internships and all of that information, I'm dealing with the Woodson Padlet right now. I'm tech savvy, but oh, it's overwhelming. And I'm wondering, As a Woodson parent, am I still seeing the same internship possibilities as somebody over in Chantilly, you know, right?

[00:17:11] And so our business and industry community leads have really put a focus on can we get something centralized up from a database perspective to get that information consistency across all schools.

[00:17:30] engagement in CTE. You know, we touched upon a little bit of this, but again, Whitney and team are already starting on some of this. But how do you bring this to the littlest learners in our community? Where do you start that pipeline? And so they have secured, and I want to emphasize this because I think the committee, the thing that we struggle with as a committee the most is the amount of grant funding that CTE has to do to get their job done. And so as we get into some of the access and equity

[00:18:09] items, we are going to touch upon some areas of opportunity for budget planning. But we've got a career bus started thanks to Whitney's and their team's efforts. And really taking this idea of how do you bring the non-classroom experience to our students across the county? How do you give them that kinesthetic experience about what it means to be in a career, right? And then I think at the higher level for our high school students, we're looking, you know, we wanted to propose this

[00:18:46] idea of a career book, you know, some way that our students could really start to preview The careers are out there and a way that they connect with students. I think the thing coming out of COVID and being in COVID is, you know, how we really use the virtual experience to its maximum.

[00:19:06] You know, certainly it presented a lot of struggles, but there's also a lot of opportunities. We're no longer just Fairfax County. Who else can we talk to across the world? And how do we bring that experience to our students, right? How do you bring to a student who's thinking about something, who's excited about data and data science, how do they comprehend what it means to be a data scientist today?

[00:19:32] You need to bring that forward, so this idea of a career book, and I think it feels very similar to some of the already work that's happening in Naviance. Again, I'll share my experience. I'm going in and with my son and looking at college selection, you know, that ability to dive in, see the stats, the information, watch videos, hear from students who are on campus, who are in the role, taking that up a notch to the career level.

[00:19:59] So these are some of our early engagement ideas that we wanted to put in to the report. My magic wand is no longer working. magic space that I'm supposed to that and lastly is our access and equity and again I think you know I'm I'm really very proud of this work because I value

[00:20:34] the attention that it brings to our students who are in you know they're fantastic students and I know you know I follow Roshna and and everything that that as an example that she has been through from the student experience and I think you know really again so much comes from putting things down on paper seeing the the problems we know about them but then to say that we really want to focus on them was much of the committee's work and so you know if you

[00:21:14] think about the students who are not just this what I would position as the standard student you know doesn't have an IEP right doesn't have need extra time right that student experience is very different than when you need an IEP you're in special education you speak another language and what we hear most commonly is they have other activities and that take up time and so again is Is there an opportunity to look at the education experience of these groups and be better at

[00:21:53] the way that we do education? Be efficient at the way the education experience is done. And so we know when you take a tour of an academy and a CTE experience, the number one thing that students who provide that store tell us is, I am doing things that I don't do in my other classes.

[00:22:14] I am doing project based learning. I am doing math and science and, you know, tasks all together. So how do you acknowledge that type of learning that's going on in that experience to maybe create opportunities for students who have other needs?

[00:22:35] How do you create that spark in that student that we see when we give the tours of the academies that can't be had because they're so loaded on all of the requirements that they need. So we're asking to kind of look into that and explore what the possibilities.

[00:22:56] And then a general equity access opportunity. And I'm in it. I'm at Woodson, great school, but I'm about to pivot and I think I'm going to need to go to an academy to do the experience that i need to have for my student and we know that when you make that decision chances are your students are giving up an extra course but even more concerning is that right now in the funding model uh in in the operations is there's not always a one-to-one

[00:23:31] transportation support to get to the academy i have seen things at edis i think it's edison academy that I'm like, my student would totally benefit, but there's actually not bus transportation aligned to that. So that's a funding gap. The other thing that I want to call attention to, and then I'm going to put the mic on Whitney to really speak to this, is the enrichment that incurs in the supplemental activities, right? Oftentimes that students who are really involved in the CTE programs they're not only doing that but they're doing the

[00:24:10] competitions and the state competitions and somebody needs to serve in those roles and that's teachers other places in the state those individuals are getting stipends then there's also the work-based learning specialist which I'm going to let Whitney talk to and in order to talk about the equity which I I just touched upon the support for special education in ESL. So Whitney, I'm going to let you expand on those. Hold her not to put me on the spot, but she did it anyway. Yeah, we've been

[00:24:47] asked a few times about fiscal questions and we have our work-based learning specialists grant funded and they're not allowed to be grant funded any further. So as we spend a lot of time engaging in triple CRI accreditation work and working with schools our specialists are with schools almost every day and so those are gaps that we're concerned about filling when those grant funded positions go away and then I think SPED and ESOL support is not a surprise especially at our academies we hear from the academies frequently and from our career and transition friends

[00:25:22] that the ratio is not always fully staffed for the academy support teachers and the ESOL support teachers in the academy but they're seeing their enrollment and the needs increase. So that request had come from our CTS friends straight to CTEC as well. Thanks Whitney and I think one that we don't want to leave off is this year at the start of this session in September for the first time and I want to say about two or three years Whitney came with new course offerings right and one in

[00:25:59] particular I'm very excited about, which is the aviation one, but that all needs support too to make sure that those can be operationalized and well supported, so I didn't want to forget that. Alright, I see our time. I want to leave enough of a buffer. I touched upon the Virginia government one, so I think we are in good shape, so I'm going to leave it there and take questions. The team will take questions. Thank you so much. We'll start with Ms. Seismar followed by Ms. Corbett Sanders.

[00:26:30] MS. Great. Thank you. And thank you for this really excellent report and the excellent recommendations. I think they're all things that we've talked about individually with you all as well as talked about for the years. I wanted to lift up a couple things that I heard, one from my colleagues.

[00:26:46] I know we talked about our legislative package earlier, but I do wonder if there's more space to put in the legislative package, asking the state to give more broader requirements that could fulfill the advanced diploma, right? So CTE, I know we have world language.

[00:27:02] It may be computer science. I just think when we're looking at what are the skills that our students need now, what are the skills that they need to be successful in college and careers, maybe there's some space to ask for -- because I know I'm talking to parents. They say that advanced diploma is often the barrier for their kids taking CTE classes because there's so many other things that they have to take.

[00:27:22] So how can we look at maybe broadening the definition of what an advanced diploma means in this current day and age is something to look at without losing the concept of an advanced diploma. So that's the first thing. I love the access and equity piece that you lifted up, and I wanted just to lift up, you know, and thank you for, you know, it is a real thought of mine of how do we make sure that all of our students, one, have consistent CTE coursework and experiences in their schools.

[00:27:48] Like, what does it look like for us, and I'm looking at you, Dr. Reed, to say this is what every school should have, right, as we're implementing that strategic plan, what fits into that. And as we look at sort of that developing student strengths model that we talked about in the strategic plan, I think these courses are a big part of that because I think access to CTE and the academies is part of helping students foster some of their strengths. So I think that's a really important piece to look at, especially that enrichment piece because that's where you really get to do it, right? You get to dig into the work you've learned and you get excited about it. And the last thing I wanted to lift up, if I have 17 seconds is when we look at early exposure looking at career books

[00:28:27] using videos for elementary school students to see what different jobs are as well as potentially a survey class in middle school or maybe embedded in one of the middle school classes that are offered to say here's what CTE even is and what's out there so they have an idea before they're going to high school I will stop because I see my time is up but I'm really excited about your report so thank you for your hard work okay miss Corbett Sanders followed by miss Thank you very much and glad to follow.

[00:28:54] So a couple things, one, I hope everybody heard the number 65,000 are of individual enrollments in classes. That doesn't count for the double enrollments of multiple students. So I think we do need to unpack that data a bit more but also emphasize the importance, especially in light of what we all saw with the state CCRI accreditation metric, it is all that much more important. And giving these courses dual enrollment credit will also give

[00:29:31] a little bit of a boost to parents who might not necessarily understand or emphasize the importance of these CTE courses. Finally, I'm wondering if -- there are two things. One is, I'm wondering if, you know, we send all of our middle schoolers to Finance Park. I've always wondered why we send them all to Finance Park, which a lot of that could be done online with virtual programming, but we don't send them to the local academies so that they can explore academy programs and so perhaps we need to rethink how we do those some of that

[00:30:09] exploration and then there is a I'm I haven't asked to my colleagues on this board and that is November is take your legislature to school month and we all do that to varying degrees it would be great if we could expand our take your late legislator to school month to each one of us going to an Academy program with legislators because I think that there is a misunderstanding at of the sheer level of investment that Fairfax County makes into its CTE programs I had the pleasure of actually presenting at a national conference and the number of

[00:30:47] people who came up to me from very large districts who said wow what you guys are doing is really amazing and what people fail to realize is each one of these industry credentials our kids get is worth $10,000 in real salary and And so when we talk to parents, we should be talking to them about that.

[00:31:05] And they can be stacked. Ms. Cohen, followed by Dr. Anderson. Thank you. I love the idea of if we could create a career park, I think our kids would just eat that up. And maybe we could work with the county and partners and all of that good.

[00:31:25] Maybe use some of that unfilled office space that we keep talking about. Yes, I want to just piggyback a little bit on what Rachna said, that our SPED kids get absolutely disadvantaged is the nicest way I can say it about middle school electives. And so if your kid is stuck in power math, if your kid is stuck in strategies for success, you never have the opportunity in middle school to take a CTE class. And our kids come, and it's like the perfect opportunity because you feel like once you hit ninth grade, you're supposed to know what you're going to do and take courses that path out the rest of your life when

[00:32:03] you're 14. And so we have got to stop that practice. We have to let our special ed kids have these kinds of opportunities at the middle school level. Um, and I appreciate what you said about the standard diploma. My parental guidance would be to parents let go of the advanced diploma. If that is not the right thing for your kid, call the schools that your kid is interested in. When we called VCU and said, Hey, we have a kid that wants to go into art school. Should they take this extra studio art class or should they take a fourth year of math and they said well the math is not going to mean anything to us

[00:32:37] so it was a very easy conversation then to let go of that because that wasn't something that was going to get um our kid to accomplish the goals so i would just i think we all have this notion as parents that advanced diploma like is some like everyone should have it and and some kids absolutely that is a hundred percent their path but man i bet there's a lot more kids who we parents push them into the third year of language or the whatever um because we don't understand what a standard diploma means so i i would love us to get to have that conversation

[00:33:12] because when you call a school like vcu and say something about advanced diploma they have no idea what you're talking about yeah they're like here's the here's what this here's what we take this is what your kid needs and so we just have to have that conversation as a community too this is not just on the schools at all i don't know if it's appropriate for me for to jump off a comment but i i there was one thing we also wanted to add from our presentation on that and and it comes to like the counselor role and education in that because you know counselors are a great point

[00:33:47] of contact they do a great job but you know coming home from my student it was counselor came and talked about you know the importance of advanced diploma so as we think about those work days and those you know activities on on how counselors position because remember i'm a very embedded and active parent so i take heed with your advice that's what we're doing but if we think on the other spectrum we've got to have the school sources there to support and deliver the

[00:34:20] the consistent message across the board i agree with you both just saying dr anderson and followed by Ms. Karen Keyes-Gamara. Thank you. I don't want to belabor the point of what's been said because I'm in full agreement of all of the three previous speakers but I do want to highlight a couple of things and then lift up some other issues. In terms of our legislative agenda I'm definitely all in for us to have that engagement for expansion because we do know that the advanced diploma is not the only route for many of our students. I also want to kind of I really want

[00:34:58] to make sure that I'm raising the point of opportunities for our students, our special education students who are slotted in other classes, as well as our ESOL students, our ELL students who are slotted in classes and do not have the opportunity to participate in electives and having a period where they can even travel become something that is impossible.

[00:35:23] So I'm wondering, Dr. Reed, two things. One, have we ever explored the opportunity of an O period so that our students have a little bit more flexibility in their schedule for travel? In other states where I have worked, that has been an opportunity? And whether it's a PE class or just a more general class that can be done earlier than the regular day, I would love to hear how that could be expanded.

[00:35:50] I also know that at TJ, they have the eighth period that may also provide the same access to our students. So I would love to hear your consideration on that point. The other point that I also would want to hear about is transportation.

[00:36:06] Even if a child has the opportunity in their schedule, they may not be transported. If there's not five students from that school, it is then left up to the parents to transport. I'm not sure how many parents can... you know, take off at noon and go transfer their kids from school A to school B.

[00:36:25] So I'm really looking to see how can we be more creative and not shutting opportunities for our students in that way. And I'll wait to hear from you before I finish. - Thank you, Dr. Anderson. The transportation question is a bit of an enigma, right?

[00:36:42] There's some schools that are the proximal distance to the academy isn't even practical, even if we had a vehicle to drive them. So I think it's the re-situation or relocation of programming or redistribution, however we want to characterize that, I think that has great merit.

[00:37:04] I also, in terms of the number of periods in the day, I too have experience with the zero or the O period, zero and after period actually. So I really think that that's something we could explore.

[00:37:22] - Thank you. The other issue that I want to raise, and I would be remiss if I did not, is the number of our students who I think the slide said 17 students currently have full-time employment with the facilities office.

[00:37:37] It's not here. I couldn't rather find it, but I remember seeing it on the slide. I know that our facility staff that are so stretched very thinly, literally plugging the holes in our aging buildings and our suffering systems would love to have that number be increased.

[00:37:53] have kids that are interested we have a we have the jobs available I want to I would love to see some real and intentional effort to increasing those numbers and I think that has to happen through what much of my what much of my colleagues have already stated which is how are we exposing students to the possibility of CTE that it's not a less than program but it is a robust program that is available and that will prepare them for the jobs of the future that piece we are shooting ourselves in the foot by not growing that piece we're more intentional about oh it's time yes

[00:38:31] okay i'll stop right there it's time i'm so sorry we're doing great at speed talking ms keys gamara followed by ms tolan first of all thank you for um this excellent report i always get excited because this is one of the things my own kids got excited about right and uh we didn't have as much of a transportation as perhaps problem as perhaps others there was a bus that went behind to travel to the Academy program they didn't necessarily want to get on it but there was a bus available but the two things that I do want to talk about Dr. Reed is just really I think what we're hearing

[00:39:10] is there needs to be a culture shifted how and we've talked a little bit about this so what does education in the future look like right and it's not always going to be this person wanting to go to Virginia Tech or William & Mary or Harvard or Yale whatever that is and so how do we begin a conversation with the community to say this is this is what the world's going to look like and an FCPS is prepared for that so I'm just wondering how we can position ourselves communication wise to start that conversation not just with our

[00:39:44] students as early as possible but with our parents i think that in the long run is going to help reduce some of the mental health concerns that come from just the atmosphere of the competition in some of our schools so that's number number one um that i wanted to meet and i can take a breath there if you'd like to say something or not yes stop my clock i had more time so thank you miss I think there's a tension in the conversation today, right?

[00:40:18] There's a conversation around standard versus advanced diploma, which, by the way, one of the metrics you're asking me to do is increase the number of students achieving the advanced diploma. Remember, that's a measurement that's actually in the strategic plan. So there's a tension.

[00:40:35] And then recognizing that career aspirations that don't include a four-year degree are equivalently aspirational and require actually significant achievement.

[00:40:51] We've long looked at the entry level reading required in a technical field is actually higher than the Lexile reading level of a freshman at the university level. So we're not talking about differential preparation for young people, we're talking about maintaining the same high expectations for students, regardless of their choices when they leave us.

[00:41:11] So I think if we can stay in that context, we also need to recognize that one of the most significant factors for countries who come out of the COVID pandemic most quickly is the alignment of educational goals to national workforce goals. And that's where I think the idea around aviation and the significant number of workforce goal needs in our country and abroad around that area is so critical.

[00:41:36] and the better we can match our workforce needs as a nation and as a region to our portrait of a graduate skills and our achievement i think then we're going to be able to be more successful and to that end i'll be in the next couple weeks also we're working on introducing some composite score statements if you will or composite scores that we can hold ourselves as a community accountable because I think that as we lead this work it isn't it has to include flexibility for all students around access but also understanding that it's we're still talking high achievement

[00:42:14] levels here that are required for both computation and reading. I'm glad you said that because I don't think that's the perception and that's part of the culture change that I think has to be a part of our communications plan in addition to I think I heard some of my colleagues talk about improving access to these programs I think these two things work together because if your parents are thinking this is the only way to success then I'm going to push my child in that way we cause all sorts of problems and so I'm thinking perhaps that we as a board can look at these things a little bit down the road to look at that communications culture

[00:42:51] change and improving access. Thank you Ms. Keith-Gumara. Ms. Toland followed by Mr. Frisch. Thank you. Thank you for this report and information. This is super helpful just in thinking about the future for our kids. Definitely support looking into, you know, talking a little bit more with the state on diplomas and requirements. I know that we have a great example of that already with the work in

[00:43:26] the Edison Academy that you know where the kids are doing this combination of three years of math science technology you know there was a lot a lot of discussion with the state and changing the diploma requirements or just adjusting them so that the kids could go through that program so I would definitely support that I love the career book software idea and videos I know our science team has a whole fifth grade unit on your different scientists and they've got all kinds of videos on, you know, who the scientists are and what they do and different careers.

[00:44:01] And, you know, so I know you've done a lot of work on that already. It's just nice to think about putting it all into one place. As far as access, that's a big issue on a lot of fronts. And one of the things besides my husband and I were putting our heads together, we did start a, we did the first step of a program review and locations and what's where, you know, a couple of years ago.

[00:44:27] you know the board kind of decided not to like keep moving forward with that but there's a lot of information there already I know Dr. Presidio has that so and we can take a look at that I mean from a drain cell perspective I'd love to take my legislator to work at an academy I don't have an academy so you know as far as you know kids in dreams will that are considering you know engineering degrees or you know our career cybersecurity etc you know we don't necessarily have that opportunity available to them it very easily I know we're working really hard on transport and class certain classes at certain

[00:45:06] schools and that maybe that's the way we need to go to make sure that kids all over the county have this kind of work available to them thank you Ms. Toland school board members is trying to keep the two minutes Mr. Frisch followed by Ms. Omesh thank you lots of discussion today about what the state could be doing to help us and perhaps we'll have some really strong advocates with firsthand experience in the new General Assembly who can help in that front. I think the conversation around exposure to our programs is incredibly important

[00:45:42] because that's one of the ones that we have the most power to impact, right? And so I love the idea of a career park. I don't remember which colleague mentioned that, but I think it's a really great idea. I also think, you know, I've been thinking a lot about what we do at Back to School Night, since we've just, you know, come on the other side of that. And in addition to the videos that they do show, I really think that a young student's exposure to these types of opportunities is really shaped by the parents' interest in them

[00:46:14] at a young age, right? And so anything we can do to sell parents on these being wonderful paths for their kids is important. So working with OCCR perhaps to come up with some, for lack of a better word, advertisements that can be run at the beginning of our back-to-school nights, especially in elementary and middle school, to let parents know what's available to them. We send emails, we send text messages, they get enough newsletters to clog their inboxes. When you have a captive audience, you should take advantage of the opportunity to share important information

[00:46:49] with them. And this seems like one of those items that we should be sharing broadly. So I appreciate everybody's service to the community and to the board on the committee this year and look forward to working with you all in the year ahead. Thanks, Mr. Fresh. Ms. Omeish? Yeah, I want to start by thanking everyone, Ms. Glazer, Ms. Ketchledge, obviously for supporting the committee. Ms. Kressel and Irv Arconi, good to see you. Thank you all so much for everything you've been doing to bring this together, I guess when I think about career and technical education, and I know that we've come to this table many times, and we've discussed what the committee has

[00:47:25] brought forward, and there's always the hope that that goes somewhere in action, and I'll renew that hope this year. I try to think of the problem is obviously multifaceted, and there are certainly the components of getting folks to buy in and be interested, which to me, on the one hand, there's the piece of making sure it's competitive post-secondary right like families have to be convinced that the way that it's set up it's easy to access and then also that it will give them that competitive edge and and our

[00:48:04] framing of what it offers whether that's certifications right which I know was available in some programs or even in the in the in the case where for those families who have post-secondary plans of traditional college and whatnot that that it can be competitive there, too, because I think there's still a subset where it's a trade-off, right?

[00:48:24] I think someone talked about the advanced diploma earlier. That's kind of a whole subset of the population that probably won't ever be able to consider this because their aims are elsewhere in a way that this won't allow, right? I mean, it's becoming to the point of are you taking the 13 APs or is it, you know, one or two APs less that won't make you competitive for certain arenas?

[00:48:48] So I think I want to name that. want to just recognize that we haven't necessarily problem solved in that space of seeing where the overlaps could be. I think the eighth period idea could be, you know, an option. But when I think of equity and access, I don't want to just frame it as this is a higher dropout population, this is sold for them, but if we're to make it something that is competitive for all, is a good opportunity that everyone can benefit from, then it will naturally be attractive to those populations as well right um rather than kind of the benevolent savior who's like offering these things to the folks who can't do everything else i think that there's a bit of an i'm hopeful for an attitude

[00:49:27] shift maybe a little bit um on that uh i do see that's my time but um i wanted to piggyback off miss kizomara as well on the flexible scheduling meeting kids where they're at right now we have kids that work full-time we can't say the problem is that they're not interested when we haven't conceptualized schools of the future dr reed as you've articulated but putting in that into the ground? You know, how are we working around kids' schedules and making this a realistic option for them rather than just an aspiration? And I know we're on the same page on some of that, but I don't know, Dr. Reed, what you imagine the next steps to be from here, just to try to make sure

[00:50:02] it's not only platitudes and conversation. So I think that the team, the CTE team, Dr. Presidio and his group likely survey students. We have master schedule requests, I think, that come in annually we're going to be looking at those again I think the challenge is you know the distribution of opportunities and courses and some of the things students don't even know to request right so that may exist somewhere else but because they don't see it or having an exposure so I think the team obviously is making some recommendations and we'll put their heads together to

[00:50:42] have a plan of action which we can share with you academic matters maybe sometime it could be you never know we I think we did a recent one on CTE I think the part of our challenge is when you do so many things and you can point to all these programs it masks that they're not available or accessible by all right so we're in a way the victim of our own amazing good work because you very few play very few divisions are gonna be able to showcase as many different programs and students still don't have equitable access to them so I

[00:51:17] So I think that that's our challenge is how to take that next step and bring it to scale. We've talked a lot about this idea about being tactical and strategic. And when we have a proof of concept, we pilot things, but we have to bring it to a proof of concept to then bring it to scale.

[00:51:33] And sometimes I think we've maybe stayed in the pilot phase at times and could bring some programs to scale based on student interest and marketability in terms of the career goals that those paths might have. We want to be careful, too, not to have terminal career path courses for students. Thank you. Mr. Netkovax? Thank you. And thank you all for your help and your report. You know how I've always appreciated the career and technical education. I am privileged

[00:52:12] to have several academies in my area and they provide our students who have varied educational needs to meet those head-on and so thank you all for doing what you do I do think a couple things that we spoke of I might want to just clarify some points at least the way I see it when we talk about eighth period in TJ. TJ is an eighth period for social and it's extracurricular and clubs. It is not another point in time to allow students education as you will. It is a free period which would be nice and you

[00:52:52] know I think we've tried to do that in some places but we haven't with not some places by through that the period where's like a whole old homeroom. What's the name of it? I can't even advisory period. Sometimes we do that there, but it is not what TJ has. Well, I like the idea of a career park. I don't know if anybody has been to Finance Park recently, but basically students do learn about the decisions that they make with their education will have an impact in their future career. They also learn about principles of saving, investing, and budgeting. I would say something

[00:53:28] like that is something that could be enhanced. If you haven't been to Finance Park, I think that's important. So I wanted to point that out there. But I do want to come back here to this report and say, you know, I think Dr. Reed described it well. There is a tension there because we have so many things that there's also always going to be the thing that my kids talk about is FOMO, fear of missing out of their options, right? And we have a wealth of opportunities for our kids. And while not every kid can get to everything, like my daughter, who is a working actress and producer in New York City could never get to the academy because it would have taken

[00:54:08] three class periods out of her day to get there. And that was not something she wanted to do. So I just caution my colleagues that, you know, appreciate the wealth, understand that not everybody can do everything all the time. But as long as what I would like to have Dr. Reed is within reach reasonable reach children our children our students to have the opportunity to explore those opportunities and we don't have that now so thank you all again thank you I will

[00:54:43] provide the final remarks as our next committee is queued up to speak but I do agree with what's been said in terms of schedule I see it already with my middle schooler and talking with her friends and family they also end really early and they probably don't want a longer school day but it is does end very early and parents would certainly like to see their students doing something enriching in those hours. Students having to travel also a big issue in finding the transportation and not even just totally ruling out great programs like the home-building program at Edison. I don't have a single constituent even though it includes 15 different high schools. Not one of them is someone I represent because they're not going to truck down from

[00:55:21] the northern part of the county down to the southern part of the county. I think too we mentioned the potential software and I think Alexa did you mention Naviance so that's something again one of those consistency with access and opportunities I don't think my clocks going well go as quickly as possible but like we have that that toolkit or we have that software how can we do that more and even like I've rarely seen my student use it and she's in eighth grade so I think a lot of this goes to that planning for students like do they know they're where they're headed as early as the end of sixth grade as seven just generally you know I mean are they starting to explore those options the

[00:55:57] parents understand what the path is so I agree with a lot of what my colleagues said so with that I'll take a breath after that speed discussion but thank you so much and your recommendations are great and I know I'm going to share them so thank you and we'll just pause while we switch our distinguished guests

[00:56:19] so I'm really excited to start off our conversation here from the presentation

[00:59:08] we have from the Human Resources Advisory Committee, HRAC. I want to start off by thanking Ms. Laverne Henson, who has been the chair of the committee, volunteered, voluntold, I don't know which one it was, but we're grateful for your time. And then, of course, Mr. Mambaka, who was a subcommittee chair this time, but has been a longtime committee member and has given way too many hours, really, for the job description of this committee role.

[00:59:30] So thank you all for joining us. And then I know Dr. Wilson, yeah, there she is, who has been an asset to the team. Especially given we had some board meeting conflicts with HREC, so I wasn't always available to be present as much as I wanted to, but certainly virtually.

[00:59:48] And I wanted to just flag for folks, before we get started with the presentation, of course, you all remember we wanted to make sure we put our intention in the space that we want to think about the ways to put into action the suggestions and recommendations of the committees.

[01:00:07] And so colleagues you'll find a document already placed at your desk, which it's not an official document just yet The numbers are all tentative, but to give us a feel for what the budget asks might be associated with each of these Pieces you'll recall that was something we wanted to try it was new as of last but for this budget cycle So that we again are intentional about considering these for future action But just clarifying again that that's tentative for now So with that, I will pass it on to Ms. Henson and Mr. Bambaca. Thank you so much.

[01:00:39] Hope I have it on. Good evening. Good evening, everyone. I am LaVarne Henson, and I am flanked with Mr. Leonard Bambaca. I've always used this term for much is given, much is required. My first committee started in October, and so I started there under my rep, which is Mrs. Karen Keyes-Gamara, and I do appreciate her offering me this opportunity.

[01:01:11] But I think the committee took it seriously when I said for much is given, much is required, because they immediately made me the chair. So with that, I'm doing the very best that we can, and we had such an awesome committee.

[01:01:28] It was a committee of 13 members from different districts. We had five to six different community partners. We met on the first month of each month, starting in October to May. From there, we had Dr. Wilson and her directors to attend, and we were definitely, had the leadership of Ms. Abra Omash from the school board that helped us out to make this happen.

[01:02:00] We were scheduled to brief, so I'm gonna put my glasses on so I can make sure I can understand. We were scheduled to brief this in June and it was postponed to the day. Therefore, our expectation was for the school board to approve our phase one framework, which was for the summertime frame.

[01:02:20] And for phase two to be approved for this year, this school year, to conduct the analysis that support Fairfax County Strategic Plan and Pillar C in upcoming budget priorities. Then later authorized the design, and this slide is not what I'm talking to right now, we'll get to that.

[01:02:39] And then later authorized the design, the pilot implementation and program execution in 2025. The committee was tasked with identifying if the current services rendered by HR should continue, discontinue, create something new, or realign externally to other organizations.

[01:03:02] The committee focused its efforts on fact-finding where the Fairfax County Public School could demonstrate a caring culture within its recruitment, retention, and sustainment of a diverse workforce.

[01:03:17] The outcome of the committee work was done in a June report, and you should have all have received that report. It was a five-phased approach framework that highlighted whether employees felt like they belong, were part of the school system that had a competitive edge over its neighboring jurisdiction, and attract top talents.

[01:03:39] Our finding resulted in HR having 101 services that should be considered for candidate care, culture of belonging, and competitiveness. With 46 of those services to continue, one of them to be discontinued, 31 to start new, and 23 for realignment outside of HR.

[01:04:06] Next slide, please. So we want to start with where are we now? So where are we now? Started with 22-23, okay? So we took a look at reassessing the organizational structure, focusing on hiring, sustain for and care of employees, meeting the needs of a diverse student population and workforce.

[01:04:29] And we did that by contacting the community, the schools, employees, research, discovery, whatever. If it was a voice to be spoken to, we spoke to that person to find out what was going on within Fairfax County Human Resources.

[01:04:46] Next slide, please. So how do we get there? We were looking to get there by utilizing the charge that was provided to us. that charge was to make sure that we can become more efficient and responsive to applicants and meeting the needs of the candidates we wanted to make sure under candidate care that we could recruit and retain talented talented top talent individuals in fairfax county public schools we wanted to promote a culture of belonging and responsiveness to ensure that staff members

[01:05:21] thrived in every workspace now belonging is one thing but being valued is another thing and that is the piece i think that we were a little bit not sure that we were tapping into that value because you can belong somewhere but not actually be valued in what you're doing and saying and then we want to move to the next slide which we'll tell you about where we want to be so there are three key areas that we wanted to be we wanted to make sure that um hr and fairfax county public

[01:05:58] schools could say hey this is a premier workspace this is a premier workforce that we have competitive it is a competitive school system you can come here and know that you are being paid at a price that is invaluable that is caring belonging and it's a culture that values everything that you're doing from the as my mother used to say the rooter to the tutor so with that we looked at there are various areas that should be a desired outcome for this and that desired outcome should encompass

[01:06:34] training people it should encompass transferring the current current business model you cannot continue to do business as usual inspect a different outcome so we that model need to be revamped a little bit create a framework for future expansion next slide please so before we go there i want to make sure that i that that we understand when we talk about transformation from a current business model that we understand that the employees that are being hired such as yourself myself and anybody else they are not coming here looking for that watch and a retirement package

[01:07:14] at the end you have these millennials and gen x that are coming looking for something different So we have to consider those things when we're looking at hiring, and making sure that HR is looking at all of the nuances of hiring a different breed, and I'll say this, a different breed of employees at this state of our lives.

[01:07:38] So as I said, HR consisted of 13 committee members. We broke out our committees based on three areas, like I said, the caring, and we had a lead for that. We had the culture of belonging.

[01:07:53] We had a lead for that. We had a lead for competition, I mean competitiveness. Each one of those leads took on each one of the different areas of responsibilities by each one of HR directors.

[01:08:09] And they went in and did a thorough investigation, if you will, discovery of what is it that needs to change? What is it that needs to stay the same?

[01:08:21] What can be removed? What is, where is the redundancy there? Okay. Next slide. We recognize we could not do it all along. We had to make sure that each one that was assigned to a, a school board member that they were communicating back to them. I didn't do a good job and I'll, and I'll be the first to say that. So Ms. Keys, I do apologize in public. I apologize in public, but that we are communicating back to our school board members on what is and what is not going on in hr because we're all affected by it i don't care who you are you are

[01:08:58] affected by it so we recognize that it is paramount also dr wilson and her staff they were phenomenal in leading and guiding us into each one of those divisions so we could not have done what we did what we did without them next slide please the focus areas then it was tam acquisition was talent acquisition, business services, business benefits service, equity employee relationship, office labor relationship. So we looked at each and every one of those and we went through and

[01:09:34] said, hey, what is it that they are overdoing it? What is it that they're doing that they could be doing differently? Since that report, the office has changed. We were aware that in July that that office would change and reorg and a lot of that we we do believe and i hope that this was the case it was some of our work that uh caused that change next slide so as you can see that was a renaming in some of the areas but like talent acquisition was renamed to office office of talent acquisition

[01:10:09] office of employment services state business benefit services benefit service was the one that was realigned to finance okay next slide please so here is the framework that we tried to put in place this framework is a five-phase framework and what we did we went through those 101 services that i just talked about and in each one of those services we did the due diligence of looking at them from um an eye of does it make sense if they had to do a desk audit today could

[01:10:44] they justify this employee if they had to do a desk audit tomorrow could they justify this employee going away will this impact the students and their commune and the community what type of turnover what type of work would it require to get this done i'm about the people i'm about the process and the tools and the technologies that support each and every one of those so that was phase one phase two was doing the analysis making sure we had surveys making sure we had a swot

[01:11:19] analysis putting in a budget that would support what we did in phase one getting the concurrence from hr making sure that once we identify what those services hr concurred with it not only did they concur with it making sure that they understood where we were coming from this was a collaborative effort it was not done in a vacuum making sure that when we got to the analysis that you the school board understood exactly what we were looking at what are those services

[01:11:53] we did a racy chart that should have been in that that document now that could be scrubbed a little bit more to make sure who is responsible who's accountable who's consulted and who's involved who's informed so once we understand that when we move those services to the that particular organization then you follow the money that's where your money on who is going to either receive those funds or extract those from hr okay so phase two would take care of all that phase

[01:12:29] three then once we had an approval in phase two we would go to phase three phase three would allow us to do the infrastructure those kinds of a design of what we're looking at for each at each and every one of those services and then under phase five uh implement a pilot program and and dr reed i did hear what you said about the pilot making sure that that is it is scalable and that is something we would take into consideration as well and then going into phase five with the execution. That execution piece was to make to ensure that those organizations, those schools,

[01:13:07] those people, those anybody who's needed is a need service, not just pushing it out there. It is a need. Next slide, please. As I said, our recommendation, we have went through those. We have 46 services continued one discontinued 31 new starts and 23 services that are being realigned next slide so looking at the approval we were the follow-on approval under phase two on the follow-on approval from 23 to 24 on out was to approve the design and the budget that that is associated with

[01:13:47] it we did not do a budget that was associated with this particular process what we did do was a swag understanding that people processes and tool advertisement you know those kinds of things would be taken into consideration under the next phase those things would would amount to if if you will approximately if I was a betting woman I would say you know and I and I'm not a cost estimate estimator so we would you do that due diligence under

[01:14:23] phase two and I don't want to call out any numbers not having done that so the next thing is the pilot plan the campaign plan we'd want to make sure we had a campaign plan a communication plan that was thorough enough that would go out to the the community at large next slide questions um one of the things i did not talk about is the reasoning the the rationale there was a lot of communication in the areas and i'm going to let leonard talk about some of the reasons for change what people were saying that you know they

[01:15:02] were either not satisfied feeling cared or not satisfied feeling that there's a competition those kinds of things. Leonard? Speaking more generally treetop level, the whole concept was what is it feeling like? How do the employees feel in the building?

[01:15:23] And it came down to not just belonging but being valued. What types of things provide value? What items of those involve money? What types of items or aspects of that involve a change of philosophy? One of the things that we talked about was a change in our situation here from where we were 15, 20 years ago. There was a time when, with the book Good to Great, getting the right people on the bus. You made sure that you get the right people on the bus. For every opening, there's going to be seven or eight people coming in, and you just basically redraw from the deck if you need to. Well, that deck, that redraw

[01:16:02] isn't there. So we have to change our approach to how do we work with the people we have? How do we leverage them in a way that brings them honestly on board and works with their strengths and manages their areas for growth as best we can.

[01:16:19] And so we were talking, there was a lot of discussion about ways that you can incorporate people meaningfully into the decisions. So, and I may be going a little bit further or whatever, but what we wanted to do is we wanted to talk about a culture change as well too, and not just a structure change, not

[01:16:37] just financial supports, which are very important, but also change in the way people experience this in the building with that not only were we looking at that we did recognize a lot of things did happen over the summer. There were some good things that came out of this. There was the the realignment that I talked about a few minutes ago. Then there was the hiring of international qualified teachers. Okay. There was also the opening school year

[01:17:10] with a school year to be opened and with about 90 percent or greater of teachers being available to teach. So there was some hiring. There was a program where they were going through looking at some of the training for teacher training and being able to bring those teachers into the fold that have been sitting back wanting to make sure that, hey, can I get into the classroom? Can I do this can I work in these areas so a lot of things did happen over the summer so we are we are pleased to know that those did come to fruition and with that I'll

[01:17:48] take questions that is all I have at this moment Thank You Ms. Henson and as you pointed out I know this is a unique year where Dr. Wilson was coming on and there was some really valuable collaboration both sides of trying to really be productive of what can we do so I appreciate all the parties involved And I know Dr. Reed is carefully looking at HR herself.

[01:18:11] Okay, so we will go ahead with Ms. Keys-Gamara, followed by Ms. Tolan. Thank you. Well, I want to thank our presenters for an excellent report. I am not the liaison right now, but I was a few years ago.

[01:18:26] I was actually very impressed by this committee. It's full of HR professionals. I mean, they're not just having conversations, in which they are having conversations. they're stakeholders but they're also qualified individuals and they know what they're looking at and so i really appreciate your willingness to bring your professionality and your acumen your understanding of the field to help us to grow so i want to start there um you you talked a lot about belonging your categories were you made a distinction between belonging and being valued

[01:19:07] And I really do believe that is at the crux of what I have been hearing from some of our employees. And so I really look forward to, I appreciate what was provided, but looking forward to hearing more about that. And I'm hoping, I'm sure, Dr. Reed, you're utilizing some of the information they've been able to gather.

[01:19:28] In the course of your goals, or you're trying to fulfill these goals or do this evaluation, which sounds a little bit like an audit that we didn't really pay for, so that's kind of awesome, but were you able to look at our attrition rates, identify any of those areas where perhaps we had needed more hires or where we were losing people or anything like that?

[01:19:54] So we did look at a report that showed, if you have the report, the report that shows that the attrition, this was from 17 to 22-23, and it showed where you had less blacks, African-Americans, you had more whites that were being hired during that period.

[01:20:22] But if you look at where we are today, that change based on the new hires that have come about. So you have a change in the employees that are coming about. Now, the question becomes, why are these, what causes change?

[01:20:47] Are people leaving for various reasons? Are they leaving because of retirement? and COVID and all of those things. Well, there were many, many, many different reasons. And in those many different reasons, we do have a list of those. And those many different reasons could be at any company, any organizations. It was not just indicative of a school system, if you will, okay, a Fairfax County school system. So I do not have a chart that I could show you where those

[01:21:21] changes are but i do know that in in hr they they are looking at that if they don't already have it in place so some of the reasons changing career lack of support from the school leadership lack of recognition retirement options salary pay students conduct and safety temporary assignment workloads and just a host of things burnt out you had environments where i work involuntary departure initiated by fairfax county public school lack of recognition and those kinds

[01:22:01] of things but the actual numbers i would have to defer to dr wilson if she has that information and while we're looking at it i'm also interested in if there were any particular positions where we had some concerns in terms of attrition rates well i'll tell you one of the um i i i was so blessed to be able to help out in some of the areas of hr this summer and one of the areas that i did notice um there was quite a few um special needs teachers there was a stark raven you know hey we

[01:22:37] need these and and there is a gap here please can you find us some special need teachers we need special-need teachers so we were hearing that for some of the principals. I could also add to that point the overall numbers are across the county but going to your question we need to be able to come to hot spots by particular job descriptions and also particular locations whether it's a community or a particular school and so although we're an HR advisory committee this really is a whole school system issue where we need to take a look at why are we losing

[01:23:14] these people at this site as well so there can be you can fight of these targeted concerns that either by job description or community or even I can speak to that as well so we are looking school by school and region by region we're looking at turnover rates so that we can determine are there patterns are there trends that are setting up at some of these locations with this year we did

[01:23:50] take on the administer administration of state interviews I think when I first came to Fairfax last year about this time a little bit earlier I talked to you about say interviews and the importance of those those surveys and so we were able to pilot that this year and that also gave us quite a bit of insight as to what you know what are the things that people value why are people deciding to stay and of course

[01:24:25] that helps us to go at this from a proactive strategy or standpoint to determine what what are the things that we need to continue to do and also what are the things that we need to change to prevent individuals from leaving FCPS.

[01:24:44] So those are some of the things that we're doing to make sure that we're reaching out and we're listening to what our employees are saying so that we can improve as a district. Well, I do appreciate that.

[01:25:00] I realize this is an advisory committee and this is more your job. So I'm glad to see the collaboration. that was one of the things that I was impressed with, was that it wasn't just our stakeholders, but our staff members were literally taking that input into consideration.

[01:25:17] So moving forward, I would like to look a little bit more closely, and I'm wrapping up, a little more closely to maybe some areas, particularly principals, et cetera, since that might be a way that we can make sure we're supporting our communities.

[01:25:34] Thank you. - All right, Ms. Corbett Sanders, followed by Dr. Anderson. - Yes, I wanted to first thank you so much for your excellent work. One thing that I didn't see, and it's kind of connected to the prior presentation, which is our Teach for Tomorrow program, and how we're linking the career and technical education work in Fairfax County to the work of the recruitment, not only for our teachers,

[01:26:07] but also looking at more supports for career switchers per the JLARC study that just came out, as well as for some of our operational employees, including what I don't remember as having, but we know that there is a universal shortage of CDL drivers.

[01:26:30] I know they have to be 18 years old to actually get their license, but is there something we can be doing to create the pipeline for one of a better term? - So I'll speak to that one as well.

[01:26:47] So I'll speak to the CDL driver conversation. We're actually increasing our efforts and going to community colleges and other places where we might be able to secure viable bus drivers.

[01:27:12] Fortunately, this year, we were able to secure drivers for every route for this year. So we opened school in a great place, but of course we want to continue to deepen the pool of drivers.

[01:27:29] So we're going through extraordinary lengths to deepen that pool so that we have those individuals available. So the second part of your question, and I have to remember what it was, the maintenance and operational supports, including construction, major maintenance.

[01:27:57] And then the third area is on teachers and teacher preparation, not only for our students that are in our classrooms today, but our IAs and supporting that transition? So for operational, this past year was our first year having an operational job fair, and we continue to, we want to put that in place again.

[01:28:23] We had rave reviews as a result, so we were able to secure a good number of operational employees through that fair. But not only that, we are always talking about teacher recruitment, and that is definitely important, but we also have our operational staff, and there are many vacancies across the school district, so we want to make sure that we provide the same effort in that area.

[01:28:52] So just this past week, I received a report from our Office of Talent Acquisition, and they reported they have been traveling to HBCUs, so not just for teachers, but also for IT staff.

[01:29:13] So getting to some of these students who are graduating without experience, but looking for that first job, well, FCPS can provide that opportunity for them. So getting into colleges and universities, not only for teaching staff, but also for operational staff as well.

[01:29:33] So we're broadening our horizons in that vein. And then on to the Grow Your Own, which is pretty much encapsulates the IAs and also the fact that, you know, the number of viable teachers who are coming out of the traditional programs, that number is dwindling.

[01:29:56] So we have to find new and creative ways to build that pipeline. And so that's where the teacher trainee or former, you know, the teacher residents, as they were named the prior year, that's where that has come into play.

[01:30:14] And also, we've been looking at ways to entice our IAs if they're interested in going into teaching, providing them opportunities as well to go into the teaching profession.

[01:30:32] So we haven't had a lot of time to talk about this, but it has been out there in the news about ITeach. And so we were, I think we were the first school district in Virginia to put an application and we were accepted.

[01:30:48] So that's something else is coming, which will allow our teachers the ability to, well, anyone who's interested in going into the teaching profession, the ability to do so at a very low cost.

[01:31:04] We're looking at, I don't want to quote, but it's a very, very low cost for an individual to go into the teaching profession. Can I ask that the board be sent information on iTeach?

[01:31:20] Because I probably missed it, but hopefully if you can resend it if it has already been sent and otherwise just send it, it would be great. Absolutely. And then finally, the question I have is regarding what are we doing?

[01:31:40] We have a very large cadre of personnel who leave our classrooms but still stay within FCPS. What are we doing to incent them to go back into our classrooms? I just wanted to interject because there's a broader theme that's there as well.

[01:32:11] We have one person on our team, Lisa Griffin from the Braddock District, who is an amazing HR expert. And she has impressed on all of us the importance of looking at the entire arc, going from age 15 to age 75. And to be able to identify what do people need, what would we need to be able to incite interest, to be able to leverage that talent, later on to be able to hire that talent, later on to be able to develop it, later on to be able to retain it, And then even after retirement, to be able to leverage those resources or go through to the IA pool or the substitute pool,

[01:32:50] which I've also seen a lot of emails come through as well, too, in order to be able to do that. So we as a committee have been looking more and more at that entire arc, and Lisa's been a big advocate of looking at it that way. she's requested that we start looking at putting together an alumni if you will alumni program where we we will actually mentor um those new coming in those that would be coming in as new look at some of that when we you know get through the next phase if you will i do also want to add

[01:33:28] in um you know to the retiree piece that was one of our focal points this year as we were entering into the new school year reaching out and just reminding our retirees that they can come back and they can teach and have a viable second career and be able to retain their their vrs retirement and also and also be able to acquire a full-time teaching salary so it does end up being a very

[01:34:07] lucrative opportunity for those who are interested in returning back to Fairfax, and that's what we were calling that, return to Fairfax. That's all.

[01:34:23] Corp. Anderson, you're done. Okay. Dr. Anderson, followed by Mr. Frisch. Thank you so much, and thank you for all of this work, Leonard, always a pleasure. I'm going to kind of go into this document that was provided because I just have a couple of questions there as I'm trying to make sense of how to digest this really good data this is okay let me just actually just ask the question instead of me saying what I think it is how do you want us to utilize this document

[01:34:57] that was provided the budget one that is a very very draft if you will so it was just more of an overview okay okay it's an overview until we do the due DILIGENCE IN THE PHASE TWO FOR THE ANALYSIS TO SUPPORT THE BUDGET.

[01:35:19] I SEE. AND THE ENTIRETY OF WHAT'S IN THIS DOCUMENT IS THE TOTAL THAT'S ON PAGE THREE, WHICH IS 565,000? ESTIMATE. OKAY. ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU. THERE'S SOMETHING HERE THAT REALLY CAUGHT MY EYE. IT'S ACTUALLY ONE OF YOUR FIRST RECOMMENDATIONS TO SHORTEN THE TIME FROM HIRING DECISION TO ACTUAL JOB OFFER.

[01:35:39] I know this is a point that's been of conversation in multiple settings. Can you give me a sense of what's optimal? What's industry standard? Because I don't know what I'm shooting at here. Is it a week? Is it two weeks? What is reasonable?

[01:35:55] And is there kind of a standard that we should be shooting for? So in terms of a standard, I can't, you know, I don't have that to speak to in front of me. but I can say that in Fairfax we are in a unique situation.

[01:36:15] It is not the most optimal situation because of the HCM dilemma that we have. Of course, you all are aware that we are in dire need of a new human capital management software system, and so of course we're in the process of moving in that direction.

[01:36:36] So in the meantime, we're working to bridge the gap between our current software and the new software that will provide us a much more streamlined process. And so what we're doing in the meantime, we're doing process flow analyses to look at the flows as they occur within the technology that we currently have, and also making sure that we're optimizing the functionality that we have today.

[01:37:08] So we're in the process of doing those audits and looking at what the current hiring timeframe is. And then once we get that baseline, then we can work to see what we can do to streamline. But of course, where we're gonna see the most optimal performance is when we transition over and integrate into the new performance, the new software, which will be hopefully soon.

[01:37:34] - Okay, thank you. I wasn't sure what the baseline is either, but I know that it's long. I was actually very surprised to hear you say that this is the first year that we've had an operational job fair. That is very surprising. I thought we would have certainly have had various efforts because we have been recruiting bus drivers for the last several years.

[01:37:55] But I'm glad that it's happening. I was just surprised by it. Yes, so in terms of operational, the process, there's normally a requirement for a panel so this year we were able to relax that requirement and actually you know extend to you know a fair setting and so that's probably what has prevented us from the in the past from doing something like this very similar now to how we hire teachers principals are the program managers and they can okay wonderful thank you I wanted to ask a

[01:38:31] question regarding this report. I don't have a page number, but it's the section that speaks to culture of belonging. There's something here that says revisit and leverage 360 feedback from students, colleagues, parents, and community members. Can you share a little bit more in terms of what you mean here? Microphone. In part, it's taking the existing evaluation system and feedback systems that are there in order to incorporate responses. For the teacher evaluation, and I

[01:39:06] can speak to that as a retired teacher, to be able to be assessed with a broader range of perspectives. There are things that perhaps the administration does not see that we do in the classroom and with our students on an ongoing basis, to be able to get more of a holistic approach.

[01:39:27] But to be able to, again, for administrators, there is already a 360 approach similar to to make that more robust, more meaningful and so that participants and their staff participants have more faith in that as well too and that it doesn't just go into some file somewhere.

[01:39:43] So where we have existing things in place, existing structures in place to go ahead and reinforce that and to enhance it and in the evaluation cycle for staff members to be able to incorporate other inputs besides documents that we submit for the evaluation process or just whatever the administrator happens to see us as that person's coming into our classroom.

[01:40:09] Thank you for that. I'd love to speak with you about this more because I'm wondering since we have this process available already for our administrators, we don't have a similar process for region office leadership. We don't have a similar process for central office leadership or for our superintendent.

[01:40:25] I see this as a space where we can really grow and expand to be more wholesome in our evaluations um processes thank you thanks yeah um mr frish followed by ms cohen thank you um i often think that this committee is like the canary in the coal mine committee uh surfacing very important things for us uh to be focused on um very much appreciate your service on the committee as well as mimi dash my representative for her decades of service to fcps um on the subject of training, one thing that has always irked me, I think, is because of the nature of the work,

[01:41:04] we just add to it, right? And you'll often hear staff rightly complain about the number of things that they have to complete in, you know, the training modules. And, you know, in any employment setting, I think there's a balance between the utility of the technology offering the training, right and the impactfulness of the actual training and um i've done you know all the trainings that i'm required to do and then some and i often feel as if those trainings don't

[01:41:42] amount to much right you barely have to pay attention to a lot of them to to breeze through them um i'm curious if there's ever been discussions about what best practices are around the training versus checking a box for legal reasons not in our committee meeting we have not done that yet but that is as you can see those were the three areas that we wanted to focus on training being number one and the level of training i just finished my training 25 september

[01:42:14] so so uh and i did go push push push so with that let me finish with this please so so with that we do understand that there's different levels of training. We were talking about if more training for teachers, but there will be different levels of training, which is one of those skills that could potentially be moved outside of HR if it's not already outside of HR. It's outside of HR,

[01:42:49] yes. And that was what we ran into. There were things that were overlapping. We were focusing on the experience of the staff members. What are the staff members experiencing? Professional development being one of them.

[01:43:04] But because this is a human resources committee, then it got moved out of HR. And so we were told, well, we as HR can't, that's not our bailiwick. But then that's where we need to find a way to make sure that these needs get identified and communicated out to the other agencies so that within the school system that we're not working in our silos.

[01:43:27] And in response to the nature of the training, I will say since I've been in Fairfax 30 years now, Fairfax has a well-deserved reputation of training its people well. Keeping them is another story, but we train our people very, very well.

[01:43:45] The essence of it is not the rote training that we have to do. You're right, it's not very valuable, but it's the interpersonal training. It's the mentorships. official and even more valuable the unofficial mentorships which you really only get by a culture of belonging where you have people feel like as if there's a stake in what's going on and they have the discretion and the time to work with their colleagues to get there and i would like to add on to that um with your you're right on target um as far as the collaboration is is concerned and uh hr recognizes the importance of the collaborations especially with professional

[01:44:24] learning so the professional learning and HR have regular meetings so that we are able to advise on, well, we collect a lot of data. We need to be able to act on that data and while we might not have the ability or oversight within HR, we do have the ability to communicate to other offices.

[01:44:48] So you're correct, the communication is vital in that collaboration. you. Finally, in my 30 or so seconds left, with a looming federal government shutdown on the potential horizon, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask your opinion about federal employees signing up to become substitute teachers while they might be furloughed or not receiving paychecks. Seems to be

[01:45:17] a perfect opportunity for them to, you know, join us in the school system. Yeah. That was a great opportunity for an advertisement for our substitute program or a substitute teaching opportunities certainly this this would be an an excellent opportunity for you know a short-term stint or long-term if someone decides to remain on with us as a substitute that is definitely an option it's a very simple process

[01:45:56] So if anyone is interested in becoming a substitute for Fairfax County Public Schools, simply visit our website and, you know, we will assist you every step of the way through that application process. Well, perhaps HRAC and our HR department can have like a virtual job fair or a substitute teacher fair.

[01:46:18] I know we had an in-person one before, but whatever we can do to get the word out, I think our representatives on the committee are valuable resources in the community. We should do anything we can to get this word out as soon as possible. I can come back to you. We just have one more, and then that's okay.

[01:46:39] Ms. Cohen? And I'll just put in the plug, Wednesdays, right, at 2 o'clock. every Wednesday there's like a new substitute virtual training that happens I just sent that to my child in college who is gonna have a lot of free time so there's a lot of information that's been coming out you guys have been doing a great job of trying to recruit folks to sub the one thing though I did just want to mention about the surveys and evaluation and I know that we have this conversation a lot about survey fatigue because it isn't just hr it's this department

[01:47:18] it's that department it's us as a school board it's um you know and i know sometimes those stack on but one comment that i continue to hear back is that people don't know the results and so it is difficult when you are looking at school culture for example and and you've given your feedback and and you don't ever hear back you know it's delivered to their to the principal and they have an opportunity to have those conversations with the community and without

[01:47:52] but when you don't get the when you don't get to see some version of it at least i think it's hard to feel as an employee if you feel like communication is the number one issue with your principal and you think other people do you don't it is frustrating when you don't have that information come back to you that yes we hear that this is an issue and this is something that we're going to be working with your principal and i recognize that it is incredibly difficult because all of that also plays into personnel issues and i i know we have to be careful with that but when

[01:48:29] we're talking about school culture and school climate i think it is very hard because you so often feel like you are on an island alone and because people are afraid to be truthful sometimes that you just don't see the point in in filling out those surveys and participating in that process so i'm i just leave that there i don't i wish i had a solution for you but um people would would like to know what comes of those and how they're utilized even if they don't get a summary that is a topic of survey fatigue did come up um does come up every year on our committee as we

[01:49:05] talk about how do we get meaningful information back are we are we over surveying people are there other alternatives where we could do where we can go ahead and if we've got 30 questions we want to look can we farm it out to six and six and six randomly and collate it collectively so that it's not so burdensome that's so we look at that again we come back to the same thing as you said it's not just HR sending these out it's not just HR operations but others as well too so we would need to take a more holistic approach to your point about timely feedback it would need to be done I would recommend and

[01:49:43] this is we that was not what we talked about but I would say what you don't want to do is add 15 minutes to a faculty meeting in order to be able to talk about these things the teachers would not be receptive to that but to be able to have something that says just like the benefit statement we have thank you for being an employee in Fairfax this is what your compensation really is in total that same type of thing saying you know coming out say if you just took a survey we thank you for your time these are the results you could look at then person could self-direct their way to it great thank you it looks like Miss Tolan wants to go and then I'll come back to I promise okay I'll be

[01:50:20] quick and thank you I was gonna ask a question about culture because that's so important and I think people would like to know like what are the top couple things we could do to improve our culture but then I also and I'm not sure this is necessarily under the purview of this committee but we've done so many things over the past couple of years sort of more than band-aiding but really trying to you know raise the salary of our bus drivers for example raising the salary of you know particular pay bands you know and so we've asked for sort of

[01:50:56] an overview of where are we competitive and not competitive and overview of salaries and moving forward can you tell me where like where we are with that or what our plans are around that so every year there is a cyclical review and we have not done a comprehensive review of course that is a very large undertaking we talked a little bit about this last year about about our approach without veering outside of my lane and i see lee back there i know that's more so her

[01:51:34] wheelhouse in terms of the budgeting for that but we are constantly looking at the market and making sure that we are competitive and so you know this past year we looked at a particular group of employees um and then we um based on that that information we provided recommendations so you know all of that is dependent on the budget and how much of that we would be able to um you know to impact based on those results but every year there's a a group of individuals that we

[01:52:13] systematically review and just make sure that those individuals are or the not the individuals but the positions are competitive in terms of the market. I know I didn't answer. That's a very loaded question as to where we stand because there are different scales that we would have to consider, and some scales are more competitive than others.

[01:52:40] And I know it's a huge project, so it's something we need to look at as part of our budget process. Thank you so much for all of your work. Appreciate it. Thank you. It looks like we only have one go back. Ms. Corbett-Sanders. I will be very quick, and it really is to piggyback on what Mr. Frisch said about the possibility of a shutdown of the federal government.

[01:53:04] And what I think would be very helpful for this board is for somebody to dust off the plan that we had last time. But also, we need an answer as to whether or not people that were qualified as substitutes, and it's been, I think, four years now, three years?

[01:53:25] Okay, thank you. But whether they could be just recertified quickly. And we also had certain fast-track approaches to getting people to be able to be substitutes based on security clearances and background checks that were already existing.

[01:53:44] And so if we could have that this week, I think one of the things that you would want to be able to do, And I would leave this to the chair and vice chair is to make an announcement with HR or with actually Dr. Reed on Tuesday, on Monday morning, because that's when we would be facing the reality of a shutdown.

[01:54:04] And for families that are right on the edge financially, it is critical that they have that opportunity. And I'm sure you all have all that material because a lot of work went into it. That should be easy to action. Great.

[01:54:20] Well, thank you all for a wonderful discussion and for the presentation and all your hard work over the year. some over the summer. We appreciate that and I think that's the end of our meeting so we're adjourned. Thanks.

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