Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Meeting, Thursday, January 25, 2024

Date: Thursday, January 25, 2024
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 3h 13m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaftF1IFIDI
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 2026-11-02. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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

[00:02:33] Board members, please take your seats.

[00:03:38] This January 25th, 2024 regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board will now come to order. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance followed by a moment of silence and the performance of the National Anthem by the Aldrin Elementary School Chorus

[00:03:58] under the direction of Becky Sowers and Lee Marie Peterson.

[00:05:38] Can we have another round of applause for those students?

[00:06:04] That was great. And I apologize for us getting started 15 minutes late tonight. So we will move on with the agenda. Agenda item 2.02, Certification of Closed Meeting Compliance.

[00:06:20] In order to comply with section 2.2-3712 of the Code of Virginia, it is necessary for the board to certify that since the Fairfax County School Board convened a closed meeting on January 25th, 2024, to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements, and only such business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the board during the closed meeting.

[00:06:49] Do I have a motion? Dr. Anderson, is there a second? Ms. Lady, all those in favor? Ms. Sizemore-Heiser, Mr. McDaniel, Mr. McElveen, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Marin, Dr. Anderson, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Moon, and myself, that's unanimous for those present at the table.

[00:07:13] Item 2.03, confirmation of action taken and closed. I call on Ms. Anderson for the motion. I move to deny the grievance appeal of the employee that was considered on the written record in closed session and to confirm the step four decision of the division superintendent's hearing officer and to seal the portion of the personnel record discussed in closed session.

[00:07:37] Is there a second? Ms. St. John Cunning. All those in favor? Ms. Sizemore-Heiser, Mr. McDaniel, Mr. McElveen, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Marin, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Moon, and myself.

[00:07:52] All those opposed? Dr. Anderson, abstentions? All right, that passes. I call on Ms. Lady for a motion.

[00:08:10] I move to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who assaulted a staff member at school and to confirm the disciplinary decision of the division superintendent. Is there a second? Dr. Anderson, all those in favor? Ms. Sizemore-Hyser, Mr. McDaniel, Mr. McElveen, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Marin, Dr. Anderson, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Moon, and myself.

[00:08:30] That is unanimous for those present. I call on Ms. Dixit for a motion. I move the board authorize legal counsel to settle the matter discussed in closed session according to the terms and conditions covered in closed session.

[00:08:50] - Nope, you're reading motion three, please. - Okay, sorry. I move to grant the school reassignment appeal of a student who assaulted a staff member at school and to overturn the discipline decision of the division superintendent.

[00:09:06] - Is there a second, Ms. Marin? - Oh, second, I'm sorry. - I'm sorry, Ms. Sizemoreheiser, I forgot. Yes, all those in favor, Ms. Sizemore-Hyser, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Marin, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Dixit and myself, all those opposed, Mr. McElveen, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning, Dr. Anderson and Mr. Moon.

[00:09:31] The motion passes. All right, I call on Ms. Anderson for a motion. - I move that the board authorize legal counsel to settle the matter discussed in closed session according to the terms and condition covered in closed session. - Is there a second?

[00:09:47] - I second. - Ms. Marin. All those in favor, Ms. Sizemore-Hyser, Mr. McDaniel, Mr. McIlveen, Ms. Lady, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Marin, Dr. Anderson, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Moon, and myself. That's unanimous for all members present at the table.

[00:10:05] I call on Ms. Anderson for a motion. - I move that the board approve the contract award to Application Software Technology, LLC, and authorize the division superintendent or the director of the Office of Procurement Services to execute, deliver, and administer the contract on behalf of the school board.

[00:10:23] - Is there a second? - I second. - Ms. Marin, all those in favor? Ms. Sizemore-Hyzer, Mr. McDaniel, Mr. McIlveen, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Marin, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Moon, and myself. All those opposed, abstaining?

[00:10:39] Dr. Anderson, the motion passes. All right, item 2.04 announcements. Mr. Dunn has submitted a written request to attend this evening's meeting virtually due to a personal conflict. All those in favor of approving Mr. Dunn's request, please raise your hand.

[00:10:57] Ms. Sizemore Heiser, Mr. McDaniel, Mr. McElveen, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. Jen Cunning, Ms. Marin, Dr. Anderson, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Moon and myself, that's unanimous for all members present at the table. Mr. Dunn, can you please confirm your audio and visual work?

[00:11:14] - Mr. Dunn is not currently on yet. - He's not online yet? All right, thank you. We will come back to that when he is. All right, item 2.0, I'm sorry. If you would like to review a copy of the agenda and any agenda item that is being discussed tonight, that information may be found in the back of the auditorium or on the website fcps.edu slash school board slash board docs.

[00:11:42] Tonight's meeting is being broadcast on Channel 99 and live streamed on the website fcps.edu slash tv slash ch99. Item 2.05, proclamation honoring Michelle Leite. I call on Dr. Anderson for proclamation. Good evening.

[00:12:01] Whereas, Michelle Leet dedicated her life to the pursuit of a more just and equitable society, tirelessly working to dismantle barriers and championing the rights of all individuals, regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic status.

[00:12:19] And whereas, Michelle has been a beacon of light, a passionate champion, and an unwavering advocate for civil rights, justice, equality, and community empowerment. an active member of the Fairfax County National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP, serving on its executive committee since 2013 and elected to serve as president for the 23-24 term.

[00:12:50] And whereas, Michelle devoted considerable time and effort to public education, promoting family engagement, working to ensure every child's voice is heard as she served as PTA President at Wayanoke Elementary, Holmes Middle School and Edison High School and as the Vice President of Training of the Virginia PTA and the Fairfax County Council of PTAs.

[00:13:22] And whereas, Michelle was a remarkable leader with a deep commitment to improving her community. She served as a Fairfax County NAACP delegate to the Virginia State Conference, NAACP Convention and the National NAACP Convention multiple times.

[00:13:40] She stood as a guiding force, inspiring those around her with compassion, empathy, and a profound understanding of the systemic issues that impede progress towards a just and equal society. And whereas, Michelle's legacy shall forever live in the hearts and mind of those she touched, leaving an indelible mark on our community.

[00:14:04] Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board mourns the loss of a true champion, celebrates the extraordinary life of Michelle Leite, and commits to carrying forward her vision of a world where civil rights, justice, and equality are not mere aspirations, I'm sorry, are not mere aspirations, but lived realities for all.

[00:14:27] - Is there a second? - I second. - Dr. Anderson, would you like to speak to your proclamation? - Yes, I would. Michelle's Leet's recent and sudden passing left a gaping hole, not only in the lives of her family, who are with us this evening, but in the Fairfax County community.

[00:14:47] As you heard from the proclamation, Michelle was involved in many aspects of our county. She was an incredible leader, which was evidence in our schools. She served in the PTAs of each of the schools attended by her children.

[00:15:02] She was a PTA president of Weyanoke, of Holmes, and of Edison High School. Michelle served as the FCC PTA secretary from 2014 to 2016. She served as VP of training from 2016 to 2020.

[00:15:21] She served as VP of communications from 2020 to 2022. And she served as the SCIP liaison from 2020 to 2022. Michelle served the NOVA District PTA on its nominating committee from 2015 to 2016.

[00:15:40] As its District Communications Chair and member of the Reflection Committee, she served in that role from 2016 to 2018, and she served as District Assistant Director from 2018 to 2020.

[00:15:57] She served as the Virginia PTA as its VP of Training from 2019 to 2022. Recently, I learned that Michelle has served as president of three different organizations simultaneously, which spoke to her strong capacity for work at a high level and underscores her impressive organizational skills, one that very few possess.

[00:16:26] Michelle served as president of Jack and Jill of America, which is an organization committed to the development of youth leadership skills in the African-American community. Michelle's most prominent and public-facing leadership role in Fairfax County was her service as the president of the NAACP, a tenure which was prematurely and abruptly ended by her passing. I hope you were counting the number of times that I used the terms served or service.

[00:16:57] And no, it's not because I don't own or know how to use a thesaurus. It's because service was exemplified in the life of Michelle Leet. She gave so much to her community, and I'm beyond honored to be able to present this proclamation, which is a very small gesture in recognition to the time, to the talent, to the energy that she offered to the children of Fairfax County and to the Fairfax County community she led to elevate to justice and equity. To her daughter, Sidney Simon, her husband,

[00:17:33] Mr. Simon, her family and friends who are in the audience and here with us this evening, thank you for being here with us, and thank you for sharing Michelle Leet with us. Mr. Fresh, would you like to speak to your second? Thank you.

[00:17:48] First, I want to thank Ms. Leet's family and friends and fellow good troublemakers for joining us tonight. As our board not only mourns, but also celebrates the remarkable life of Michelle Leet. Her passing has left a profound void in our community, But her legacy, as the proclamation states, is a beacon of justice and equality, which will forever brighten our path forward if we allow it to.

[00:18:19] Michelle's life was a testament to her unwavering commitment to a just and equitable society. As an active member of the Fairfax County NAACP since 2013 and its president until her death earlier this month, she was a passionate champion for civil rights.

[00:18:35] Her dedication was not just a professional commitment, it was a personal crusade to ensure that every individual is treated with dignity and respect. Members of this board saw that commitment firsthand when Michelle raised her voice in defense of our educators, students, and families at the height of attacks on public education and our school system.

[00:18:57] Her unwavering support was hardly surprising. Michelle understood that our future lies in the hands of our children, and she worked tirelessly to amplify their voices. As PTA president at the schools, Dr. Anderson mentioned, and as both a leader in the Virginia PTA and the Fairfax County Council PTAs, she was a formidable advocate for family engagement and educational equity.

[00:19:24] Her leadership transcended local boundaries here in Fairfax, not only on the PTA, but in the NAACP as well. She had a profound understanding of the systemic issues we face as a society, and she tackled them with a rare blend of passion and pragmatism.

[00:19:41] Michelle's legacy lives on in everyone whose lives she touched, her family, friends, colleagues, and the countless lives of those she impacted in Fairfax County, Virginia, and the nation. She leaves behind a community that is infinitely richer for her contributions to the world, that is brighter because of her presence.

[00:20:02] As we celebrate Michelle's life, we also pledge to carry forward her vision, A world where, as the proclamation states, civil rights, justice, and equality are not just aspirations, but lived realities for all. Thank you, Michelle, for everything. You will be profoundly missed, but you will never be forgotten.

[00:20:21] - Thank you, Mr. Frisch. If there are any other board members who may wish to speak. Seeing no others, I will call for the vote. All those in favor, please raise your hand. That's Ms. Sizemore-Heiser, Mr. McElveen. Excuse me, I think it's unanimous.

[00:20:36] I would just say it's unanimous. And I see Mr. Dunyett is not at the table. So that vote is unanimous. I'd like to invite family members, staff, and community members who are here this evening in support of Ms. Leith's proclamation to please join the board for a photo

[00:20:49] at the front of the dais.

[00:23:57] - Mr. Frisch, Mr. Dunn is now online. - Thank you. Mr. Dunn, could you check your audio and visuals for us please?

[00:24:15] I know sometimes this can be difficult. We'll try him again soon. All right, item 3.01, community participation. The next order of business is community participation. We welcome all community members who are here and those who signed up to speak this evening.

[00:24:35] Community members can sign up to provide comments at school board regular business meetings and public hearings on the school board's website. At regular business meetings, speakers may address any school-related issue except those that have been scheduled for public hearings, such as the Capital Improvement Program, budget, and boundaries.

[00:24:53] Comments targeting, criticizing, or attacking individual students are not permitted during public meetings. Complaints regarding school-based employees should be directed to the appropriate school principal or other school officials. Speakers should not use personally identifiable information in connection with an individual student or school-based employee.

[00:25:11] Additionally, speakers should be respectful and observe proper decorum in their statements, avoiding profanity, inappropriate gestures, shouting, and comments that run counter to the spirit and letter of the school division's nondiscrimination policy, which protects students and staff from discrimination based on race, age, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national origin, marital status, and disability.

[00:25:34] Speakers must limit their remarks to no more than two minutes, direct their comments to the school board, and should remain at the podium until concluding their remarks. Additionally, only the speakers may stand at the podium. They may not be joined by others. Speaker substitutions are not permitted. A speaker may not yield their time to another individual.

[00:25:51] At the conclusion of two minutes, the microphone or video will be turned off. School board members will be listening, but not responding. We ask audience members to be respectful of one another. Shouting and outbursts will not be tolerated. Audience members should hold their applause until the conclusion of a speaker's remarks and remain at their seats, including when video recording or taking photos.

[00:26:11] We are grateful to those who have come here to speak to us today and thank you for your cooperation. Madam Clerk, please call the first speaker. - Becky Sowers.

[00:26:30] - Hello, thank you for this opportunity. - My name is Becky Sowers. I'm a music therapist and a music educator in the county. I've been in the county since 2004. I'm here tonight representing music and something I find as an inequity in our support.

[00:26:46] Through my years here in Fairfax County, I've given many professional developments on the area of music with our special needs population, our exceptional students. And after I give these, I always receive numerous emails asking for more help from our music teachers.

[00:27:05] Now I know our teachers deserve better. The Virginia Administration Code requires that students in K-6 receive general music, and we've provided adaptive PE for many years, but we've not done that for music.

[00:27:21] And I'm not saying we need to put music on IEPs. I am, all of the students' IEPs, but what I am saying is that our county's in desperate need of resource positions to help train and support our general music educators.

[00:27:37] Our self-contained students have a classroom teacher with a specific degree and special training in order to hold that position. Our music teachers don't have that, but they are still expected to teach those classes multiple times a week. Can you imagine the difference? If it would make in the quality of the life of our students, if they were supported and they could enhance the learning they're already doing in their classrooms, they could find ways that only music can reach certain areas.

[00:28:06] I know a goal of Dr. Reeds is to keep our best teachers here in Fairfax County. And our music teachers are some of the best, but some of the comments I've received have been, I don't know, I feel lost. And I'm thinking of career switching. So in order to keep these best teachers, I'm asking to consider a position as a resource for music and special education.

[00:28:30] And that's it, thank you. - Jenna White. - Good evening. I'm speaking tonight as the Vice President of Communications for the Fairfax County Council PTA.

[00:28:50] Our board consists of eight officers and another 20 board members. We are a large board and the largest council PTA in the state of Virginia with 100, representing 170 PTAs just in Fairfax County and close to 40,000 members.

[00:29:06] It's on behalf of this board, the FCC PTA board and these 40,000 members that we thank you Dr. Anderson for bringing forth the proclamation to honor Michelle Leet and to the entire board for supporting it. It isn't easy to talk about Michelle and honor her in less than two minutes. When I came on the FCC PTA board back in 2017, at that time Michelle was already a long time PTA leader and a legend. As we know getting people to run non-profit organizations for no pay or as volunteers is a hard recruit but Michelle never said I did my part or I've already done my turn.

[00:29:42] she was always ready to say yes as dr anderson outlined her many pta positions over the years you may have caught that many of them were at the same time so not only was she running three different organizations but within one of them she was serving at every level the local level the local unit the council level the district level and the state level during her eulogy it was noted that michelle was the type of leader that was there for the work not the title or any recognition. I remember meetings where she would say, hang on, I got to run two other meetings right now as well. I imagined her at a massive command center where she was doing the work of

[00:30:21] her many roles. No one can figure out how she did it. I also remember her saying before a meeting, I wish I could just take one night off to read a book for fun. I didn't want to confess that I was going to skip a meeting later that week to go to book club, and I'd actually read the book. She was a powerful leader, but full of grace. She did the work day in and day out to live out her commitments.

[00:30:41] Tonight, let's think about the work that she's done and how we can honor her. Let's make her legacy one that lives on. Elizabeth Shieland.

[00:31:02] Hello, my name is Elizabeth Shieland. I am an ESOL teacher with the Adult Community Education Program, also known as ACE. We teach in schools throughout Fairfax County.

[00:31:19] I typically teach at Bryant High School, but I have also taught at Edison High School. We have morning and evening programs, some afternoon and weekend classes too. I'm here to tell you a little bit about our program, why it's important to FCPS, and why I enjoy my job.

[00:31:37] We teach adults of all ages, the youngest being 18 years and with no upper age limit. The majority of our students are immigrants, all of them working and raising families and making their lives here. Our students are our neighbors, living, working, and serving throughout our community.

[00:31:55] Many of our students are parents and caregivers of FCPS students. Still others become FCPS employees after acquiring English proficiency, working as cafeteria workers, custodians, paraprofessionals, and administrative staff, to name a few.

[00:32:12] Some of our students have never been or scarcely been to school until they came to ACE. Some have never completed their education in their home countries. We're here to help all of them learn English and live successful lives here. We teach all levels of English, from literacy to advanced.

[00:32:29] Learning English with us is more than just a vocabulary and grammar. Our English lessons are designed to help our students integrate and become active members of our communities. I am proud of the work I do. I'm proud of my colleagues. I'm proud of my students.

[00:32:47] It's an honor to do this work, and I hope you agree. Thank you for supporting this critical FCPS program. George Becerra, Vanessa Hall.

[00:33:20] Hi, all. Sorry, I missed the CIP meeting last week. My name is Vanessa Hall, I have two children in FCPS. I'm also the Vice President of Ford Public Education and the Co-Chair of FCPS Pride, but I'm speaking on behalf of myself tonight. First, welcome to your second regular meeting.

[00:33:37] It's good to see you. I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for being competent, kind, knowledgeable, and skilled enough for this job. I look forward to seeing the next four years under your leadership, and I hope that our our county will come together and support you.

[00:33:53] But also, I want us to be accountability partners, because to make really good change, you need partners on the way. Second, I want to thank you for being brave enough to run. Anyone watching the last three years might have balked, but not you, so thank you for not running, not running away, but actually running and winning.

[00:34:12] Please know that our school system will need you to continue to be brave for all of us in Fairfax County. Speaking of bravery, I'd like to thank you from the deepest part of my heart for honoring Michelle Leet. Michelle Leet was known to so many of us as a fiercely brave woman who fought cancer as hard as she fought segregationists.

[00:34:31] And yes, she fought segregationists in this century, and if you don't believe me, read the article about her in The Root. It's a game changer and it makes you really understand a lot of things. As you say, she was a champion for civil rights. I'm deeply saddened by her passing, yet I'm proud to have heard her speak and watch her in action in the NAACP and our community.

[00:34:54] She fought for every single child and adult in this county as hard as she would fight for her own family. And my heart truly breaks for her family to lose her so soon. Those of us who care about our public schools, families, educators, and students should take a page from her book to give back to the community and fight for civil rights and human rights for every single person so that each person knows they're valued and valuable so that they can be their authentic selves while they forge authentic and critical change in our schools.

[00:35:22] Thank you. Sujatha Hampton.

[00:35:41] Good evening, everyone. I did not come prepared to speak. I wasn't planning to speak, but then people asked me to. And so here I am. So allow me to just do my best here. First, I want to say hello to all of you.

[00:35:58] I am the vice president of the Fairfax County NAACP and the current education chair. I've worked with many of you before in several capacities, and I am looking forward to working with everyone who is new and that I don't know on the board on behalf of all of our children in the county.

[00:36:15] So thank you very much for, again, like Vanessa said, daring to run in this climate. I know that wasn't easy, and I know you all faced a lot of horrible vitriolic stuff while you were running for office, I appreciate that. Second, I do want to thank you and thank Ms. Anderson for-- Dr. Anderson, rather, for the proclamation in honor of our dear Michelle Leet.

[00:36:42] She really was one of a kind, rare, as you've heard everybody say. But I want to remind everyone that that particular meeting that I think Carl spoke to where she stood out here in the rally and she missed a word, she misspoke. And for that, the way that she was lampooned, the way that she was, the racist death threats that came into the branch on the daily, many, many emails, phone calls, et cetera, and the bravery.

[00:37:11] And, you know, I got very upset, you know, just saying, I'm so sorry that this happened to you. And she said, I have been through so much. I have had cancer. I have lost a child. I'm not worried about this. She was a very, very brave person.

[00:37:26] And I really thank you for honoring her, not only her service, which was extraordinary, but truly a person. You just don't find people like that. I don't know what we're going to do, honestly. I don't know how. She's very difficult to replace. And I wanted to thank you for doing that. And I'm almost out of time, but I think that that suffices.

[00:37:45] Thank you so much. Mr. Chair, that was our last public speaker. Thank you. Agenda Item 3.02, Academic Matters. I call on Dr. Reid.

[00:38:02] But before she gets to the microphone, I want to do a point of privilege here. Mr. Dunn, can you test your audio and visual?

[00:38:18] Perhaps the clerk can get in touch with him and see if he's having a technical issue. Thank you. Go ahead, Dr. Reed. All right. Thank you, Mr. Frisch. This evening, I am thrilled to bring Academic Matters with the discussion of academic advising and advanced coursework.

[00:38:40] And one of the things as we're making course selections here in the next month or so for next year, it's a prime time to have an opportunity to remind our community about how our courses actually line up and the wide array and variety of courses that we offer here in Fairfax County.

[00:39:01] The academic advising and course selection is underway for the 24-25 school year. And I started our leadership team meeting this week with announcing that next week we are in February. So this year is flying by.

[00:39:17] Anyhow, I just want to remind our community, we have so many opportunities here in Fairfax County for our students and the wide variety of elective courses. We really want to encourage our students and families to explore those programs of study and think about all the possibilities that are available to our students.

[00:39:37] Reminder to the community watching that our strategic plan goal three includes a focus on an evidence of progression towards the successful completion of advanced coursework. And we're defining that for purposes this evening as AP courses, IB courses, dual enrollment courses, and career and technical education courses.

[00:39:58] We know that our students find their way to different gifts and ways to use their potential. And there's a lot of excitement, we believe, when students are afforded access and opportunity. And those are key tenets, as you know, in our strategic plan.

[00:40:15] also want to remind folks that each of our middle schools offer numerous honors level courses across content areas. We want to make sure that as we think about what advanced coursework options mean that we think about the again APIB and dual enrollment.

[00:40:34] So each of these provide post-secondary level instruction and we have numerous partnerships with our local post-secondary institutions. our Northern Virginia Community College, George Mason University, and James Madison University, which, honestly, we see tremendous growth as well in our dual enrollment course offerings, and many are available at our base high schools, our high school academies, and also our FCPS online academy. There are numerous benefits of advanced course work. We want our students to

[00:41:12] always think about challenging themselves and also really moving to where their passion leads them. So we want to make sure we have opportunities to experience this rigorous course material. And also there's a financial aspect for students who are able to earn college credits while still in high school.

[00:41:33] And that's, I think, an exciting opportunity for our students, as well as our staff, to have the opportunity to be part of learning communities that are transitioning both K-12 and post-secondary. As we think about the Fairfax County Public School investment in these college level opportunities.

[00:41:51] As a division, we've really put our money where our mission is. And that is to say that we certainly are funding the first six AP and IB courses for any student enrolled in AP or IB courses. And also, we have, as a result of board feedback, really made a point of talking about students who receive free and reduced lunch meals or who qualify do not need to pay for AP or IB exam fees for those courses after the first six.

[00:42:20] And those dual enrollment courses with Northern Virginia are available at no cost, of course, to our students. So, we want to make sure as well that we strike a balance with course selection. I remember my late mom talking about all things in moderation.

[00:42:38] So, we want to make sure our students recognize that their personal health and well-being is important, extracurriculars, other commitments both at home and in the community, and we want to make sure that while we know rigorous coursework is important, that students communicate with their families about their capacity to be involved in rigorous course materials, check in with counselors, teachers, a trusted adult, and just make sure that this is something, a path forward that you as a student or you as a family want to support for your student.

[00:43:11] There is a graduation requirements and course planning website that we're excited about as well, So please have an opportunity if you're watching this evening, take a look at this website and check your school's course catalog and you'll get more information about this course selection process.

[00:43:27] So Mr. Frisch, those are academic matters this evening. Thank you very much. We will get started with Ms. Sizemoreheiser. Oh, it wasn't expecting to go first, but I'm excited.

[00:43:42] Dr. Reid, I really appreciate the presentation. I really appreciate the conversation on advanced coursework because I know this is really very well aligned to the strategic plan. We talked a lot about access to advanced coursework in many of the conversations as well as in the goals. But I wanted to lift up something that was in previous conversations that I know, you know, the previous board had had around advanced coursework is not just advanced coursework in AP, IB, or DE, right?

[00:44:09] But in many areas, STEM, business, arts, right? Are we, you know, ensuring our students have access to advance coursework in areas of interest and strength, right? So I would love to get an idea of what is the access students have to AP, IB, and DE, but also to some more, you know, computer science, technology, web design, STEM, business, arts, academy programs.

[00:44:34] I know we've often talked about that, and I want to make sure that doesn't get missed. I think sometimes we have in our goals a conversation about the breadth of advanced coursework, and then in our presentations, we go back to talk about AP, IB, and DE. So I wanted to see your thoughts for her.

[00:44:49] - Yeah, thank you for that. And if we, my video support here, if we can go back to the first text slide, I think we did talk a little bit about those courses. I think to your point though, we could highlight those further.

[00:45:05] I think the AP, IB, and I think we want to go back to academic advising and course selection, which was the first slide. But I think we also, I think the dual enrollment AP and IB provides some type of college intervention credit. So I think that's likely the reason for a little more conversation.

[00:45:25] But you're absolutely correct. I think we have rich, rigorous, and robust courses really across curriculum areas. If I may sort of follow up on that, and I just see the look on your face, you know I would. The reason I bring that up is because I did see that on the slide, but that slide just talks about access to electives.

[00:45:41] It doesn't actually talk about access to advanced electives as opposed to just electives, and that's the point I'm trying to make, right? And sometimes in talking to people, there maybe could be room for a greater understanding of the difference between advanced guitar ensemble and guitar one, right?

[00:46:00] And advanced orchestra, and so I want to be really careful that in our conversations here, we don't conflate advanced academic course with access to electives. Fair point. And that's the point I was trying to lift up. more about advanced electives as well as advanced academics.

[00:46:18] Yes, ma'am. So, thank you for that. I appreciate it. In addition to that, I would love to see, maybe this is a conversation for our state legislative program next fall, but there seems to be a tension at the state between wanting to add more requirements for graduation classes as well as of the things I've heard lifted up, which is the importance of career and technical education and supporting that.

[00:46:39] And I'm wondering if there's something in our legislative package to lift up to say sometimes those two things are in conflict right if we add more graduation requirements such as I've heard conversations of four years of PE or foreign language things things it then takes away electives for students to be able to pursue career or technical education electives and maybe I don't know where our conversations I just want to put that in the air to something to think about and I don't know where my time is I had one more point to make the other thing I would love to see in this and this is my last point is a conversation about the when we talk about access to electives

[00:47:17] and advanced coursework the barriers that are in place as well both in terms of physical access to academies ease of getting there what's actually at each school but also when you look at our special education students and the fact that they lose electives in order to get support for executive functioning or social skills and i think that needs to be an important part of the conversation I'll stop there.

[00:47:38] I welcome comments if you have any, but I'll stop there. Well, I think part of the strategic plan is as we think about excellence, equity, and opportunity, right, we really need to be thoughtful about where students have that equitable opportunity because we do have parts of the county, as you know, that don't have access to the full range of elective courses and advanced elective courses or dual enrollment AP or IB courses by virtue of where they live and transportation availability.

[00:48:10] We also know that some of our academy courses, students give up a class to travel, which gets in the way also of the opportunity. So, we have our work cut out for us over the next several years. And so, my expectation is, and I'm sure yours as well, is that by 2030, that these programs are much more equitably distributed and students, regardless of their neighborhood, are able to access those.

[00:48:32] I bring that up because in the Braddock District, I don't think we have an academy program. So, thank you. Let's move. Thank you, Ms. Sizemore-Hyser. Mr. McDaniel. Thank you. The slide that's titled "Investing in College Opportunities," there's a bullet that talks about the DE at NOVA, there's no cost to our students.

[00:48:54] What about for George Mason and James Madison? Well, I'm going to guess that by virtue of the omission of that information that there is a cost, but I'm going to defer to Dr. Presidio. No, it's an excellent question. question. And there is a small administrative cost. I don't know exactly what it is off the top of my head, but we've worked really hard in partnership with Northern Virginia Community College to make sure that those courses, which are the courses most frequently accessed by our students, are free and available at no charge. And the follow-up question then is, for that administrative fee,

[00:49:28] is that waived for kids on free and reduced lunch? Yes, I believe it would be. Dr. Presidio, is it? I'd have to double check on that because, again, that's the university's policy. It's not an FCPS policy, so I'd have to double check on that. Let's double check so we can get that in tomorrow's Friday letter, please.

[00:49:48] Thank you. That was all. You bet. Thank you, Mr. McDaniel. Dr. Anderson? This was on the whole time. Thank you. One of the things that you talked about, and thank you, again, for saying that.

[00:50:07] If you remember Mr. Frisch, when we went to Falls Church High School, that was one of the points that the students raised with us. And in turn, we raised it with Dr. Reed and she was able to do something about that. So very appreciative. How does one go about accessing that resource?

[00:50:23] Because what I would not want to see as the plan is for that student who's on free and reduced lunch to go to the counselor and say, hey, I'm on free and reduced lunch. Can I get the seventh exam? Because one, our students are not going to do that. And two, it's just probably not the most dignified process.

[00:50:42] What's the plan for the access for our students who want to take advantage of this? So I will defer to Dr. Presidio in terms of for the beyond six AP or IB exams that we are committed to paying for. We've indicated that our students on free reduced lunch are able to access any further exams free.

[00:51:04] What is the process for accessing that? And if it's a process that we may need to work on, I'll commit to making sure we work on that. Yeah, the testing coordinators at the schools work with the students and families that need to have that additional financial support.

[00:51:22] We could provide a little bit more information since we're going to have some follow ups in the Friday letter anyway about procedurally how that works. I'm so sorry. I kind of miss what you said. You said you'd provide some more. I said the the testing coordinators at the schools are able to work with our students and families to make sure that the students have that access if they do qualify for it.

[00:51:42] And we could provide a little bit more details about the procedures on that in the Friday letter since we're going to have a few follow ups. That would be very important to me because what I don't want is to have those students pretty much doing the Oliver Twist with the testing coordinators, you know, can they have another one? So thank you for that.

[00:51:59] The other question that I wanted to talk about, as our parents are watching and hopefully enjoying this meeting, can you talk a little bit in terms of What is the difference between AP and IB? Well, they're two separate programs. Advanced Placement is run by the College Board.

[00:52:17] And you take a course, you can take -- they're content-based, essentially. AP Environmental Studies, for example, would be Environmental Science or AP Environmental Science. AP Biology, AP Chem, AP Physics, AP Calc.

[00:52:34] They're very content-driven. And there are over 50 AP courses you can actually take. And most recently, AP has added a capstone project actually for both academic and CTE. I don't know if we're offering the CTE capstone.

[00:52:51] We are, it looks like. Whereas IB courses in general lead to an IB diploma. So it's more of a holistic program approach. But they both involve external scored exams, which are not scored by staff within our school.

[00:53:08] So, there are external standards and external syllabus, which are then really calibrated externally. So, our students get scored on an external rating scale, whereas dual enrollment is taught and scored by our staff within the classrooms here.

[00:53:30] So, those are kind of the differences. But essentially, AP is designed to simulate post-secondary level or quality work as is IB and dual enrollment. They have those schools in common. Thank you.

[00:53:46] The reason why I ask this is I happen to be in the Mason District where we have both offerings and parents are always wanting to have an understanding of, well, which is better, which is more beneficial to my child. So I don't know that I could say better than anyone.

[00:54:02] It's kind of like asking a mom, do you know, which is your favorite child. There's never a good answer to that question. No, there is not. Probably the one that didn't get a call home from school that day. But I would say that essentially for -- I would encourage families to perhaps look at universities that their students may be thinking of attending because some universities will accept some of those but not others.

[00:54:28] So I would maybe do our future homework on that. I think that some coursework is, how do I say, IB is probably more holistic, whereas AP maybe is a lot of broader breadth of content that's taught in a very accelerated amount of time.

[00:54:50] We don't currently offer Cambridge here in Fairfax County, which I'm nudging us to think a little about, and that's a little even more holistic than IB, but less pragmatic perhaps. And then dual enrollment is often very course by course.

[00:55:07] It doesn't lead to a particular capstone program, whereas IB leads to an IB diploma potentially, or AP just is really content driven. AP music theory is a fabulous class, AP psychology. It's just there are a lot of differences, and I think it's really your child's personality and drive for those particular courses.

[00:55:31] Thank you. One of the things that I encounter very often as parents maybe get the information a bit later in their children's high school career where it's really too late to engage in one of these programs because they finally have learned that there's some benefits to university, et cetera.

[00:55:49] How do we ensure that parents know early enough, that parent education piece? Because we have some parents who've gone to school here and they know the system, but I also represent many parents who do not. How do we help them early on so that they could plan out the four years before it's too late?

[00:56:04] Can you speak to what is available for our parents currently? - Well, I assume we're doing college and career readiness evenings. I would also, we have a website link that was included in the presentation.

[00:56:20] Having said all that, and I'll have Dr. Presidio respond in a minute here, this week I met with my student advisory council, superintendent advisory council, which is students from around the division. And one of the projects they're working on, and one of the asks they had of me was making sure that we talked about the importance of career-driven courses much younger than we do, which sort of dovetails with what you're saying.

[00:56:44] They actually wanted to begin in elementary school because they feel like there are important topics and important information that would be helpful for them, even as they think about electives in middle school. So I thought, oof, our students, of course, are breaking the ground for us.

[00:56:59] But Dr. Presidio, how do parents understand what the importance of courses are, and how early, and could we do something about that, please? - Yeah, I think you gave a number of examples. We do do the advising nights for families to come and hear about the curriculum and the course selection process.

[00:57:18] We do that at all of our schools. Obviously, we have information, again, that's available on the website. One thing that I would add, though, that Dr. Reed was kind of referencing, is we do have an academic and career plan that starts at the elementary grade levels, follows students through middle school and through high school.

[00:57:35] And that's supposed to be an annualized process for students and families to work through. Now that is not, and I see some head shaking, right? That is not currently implemented consistently from school to school. We've been working on that very hard, but there's a lot of things that we're asking staff members to find time to do and work into the day, which is a particular challenge at the elementary level.

[00:57:58] It's easier to do that, I think, when you think about middle school and high school where we have the advisory periods and a lot of that work can happen there. But we're definitely have the infrastructure to do that. And we do have that underway and in place, but we just need to continue to make sure that we can support schools with doing that consistently.

[00:58:16] So we've got some ideas about how to do that better. We've got more work to do, and we're certainly open to any new ideas that the community might have about how we can support parents understanding better. - Thank you, Dr. Anderson. From this point, I have no idea who's next because every light turned on.

[00:58:34] So I'm gonna go back and forth. Ms. Dixit. - Dr. Reid, thank you, Mr. Chair, Dr. Reid. I have many topics here. First starts with the middle school.

[00:58:50] And I know we focus a lot about high school and how we support our high school students with AP and IB and everything. But the two years, which go very fast, I feel like kids are just left like do these courses and then just go to high school and finish, you know, your degree, your diploma.

[00:59:08] I think that is the time to, you know, give them those advanced courses. And tell them about what's available for them. And even for the parents, like I remember doing those, you know, PTA, not PTA, parents, teachers meeting at the elementary school level.

[00:59:26] But it kind of stopped after that, after sixth grade. It's like your kids are, you just get the great grading. And I understand that school is trying to get these students to be independent, but they're really not thinking about what courses they should take in high school and in college and the path forward.

[00:59:46] So engaging parents, doing those parent-teachers meeting, I think that's the way we have to take those parents into conversations. because like some parents are very involved, they will do that for their kids and they'll do all the research available in the world but there are parents who just don't know and they're struggling to make a wage and they don't know how to help their students.

[01:00:07] That's one of my concerns. Yeah, thank you. So I think maybe a renewed focus, I think as Dr. Anderson said as well that middle school years is important, I would agree. So the second part would be again that there's a lot of pathways and I know dual enrollment is a huge success.

[01:00:28] A lot of students do that in high school. There are GMU classes available for high school students. They do it in the school, in the high school itself. But if the schools has like, you know, there's no more course left, those students are asked to go to GMU as a non-degree student, which is a cost of almost $2,000 for one course.

[01:00:51] And that's a substantial, some people can afford it, some can't, and that's basically, I'm just doing that right now, so I know the cost. So, I just feel like for a lot of families, that's a barrier who cannot afford to pay for a single course like that, and their students otherwise won't have a, you know, that you're basically not able to give them any course.

[01:01:14] That's my concern. That's my concern as well. Are we talking about a mathematics course? Yeah, then that is, we need to be able to provide a course that would meet any students needs advanced or otherwise, for sure. I mean, $2,000 is a clear barrier for families.

[01:01:30] Correct. And my last one would be, and real quick, I know we do algebra one in middle school. And it's very hard to do algebra one in elementary school. Even the student has highly progressed in math and they can do it. It's really, like, difficult.

[01:01:47] So some parents have, and myself too, we had difficulty doing that. and then you have to obviously take the school, the kid to the middle school and transport them back and forth. So that is something, we are seeing some student doing really well in any subject, they should be getting, I'm not just talking about math, and if it's science or something, they could be exposed to that higher level of biology or chemistry or physics at the elementary school level if they can.

[01:02:17] - All right, thank you, I will take that back to the team, so appreciate that. - Thank you, I apologize. Thank you, Ms. Dixit. Mr. McElveen. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, first of all, Dr. Reed, I'm very grateful for this presentation of the community about our longstanding investment in college-level opportunities.

[01:02:37] It's not something we talk about much, and some of the states will remember the days where, unfortunately, we had to deal with cutting the funding for our tests. And so, I'm glad that we've gotten that back in our budget over the year.

[01:02:53] As a graduate of our IB Diploma program at Marshall, I can tell you that that was a truly transformative experience for me and it's the reason I ended up in International Affairs. Just to kind of delve into the program a little bit, there are, as many know, there was a situation last year where one of our high schools tried to make the unilateral decision to eliminate the IB Diploma, or IB program.

[01:03:20] And luckily, that was stopped as a result board member advocacy as well as administrative stepping in but obviously that raised raised concerns for me and a lot of community members so the the issues I want to raise tonight are about the vertical articulation of our IB program and how we're looking at expanding it in the coming years so I think at this point we probably have about 7.5 IB high schools with Robinson offering a couple courses. That would be the point five. But can you give us a sense of how we are

[01:03:59] doing in terms of our vertical articulation in general with PYP, MYP, and onto the high school programs and how we are looking at expanding those going forward? Well, thank you, Mr. McElmean. I don't believe we have very many middle MYP or PYP programs in the division. I do know coming from divisions where we began those programs at the PYP and MYP level they really need to the application must come from the school so the school community has to be

[01:04:35] invested in wanting to do that it's not we're not going to grow the vertical articulation by announcing that this pyramid for example is going to do it the schools have to believe that that's something that they want to do that they will support doing. Having said that, I think that the PYP program and NYP program are fabulous, and they would obviously provide a great on-ramp to an IB program at the high school.

[01:05:05] Dr. Presidio, you probably have the exact numbers, and then perhaps any longitudinal work that's been done to grow those programs, or where we are on that, please. I don't have the history. So, first of all, Robinson actually has the full diploma program, and they have the middle years program as well.

[01:05:25] So, we have the middle years program at all of our feeder middle schools, except for in the Marshall Pyramid. That's the only area where we don't have the middle years program, and the middle years program is grades 7 through 10, right? So, it provides that complete articulation from middle school to high school, and then PYP, of course, is grades K through 6.

[01:05:46] We only have two PYP schools. A number of years ago, probably about eight to ten years at least ago, there was interest in the community and the board in trying to expand some of those programs so that we would have that vertical articulation.

[01:06:01] We weren't really able to garner all the necessary resources to be able to do it at that time due to a lot of fiscal constraints. All of the staff has to participate in professional development, which can be quite expensive. So those were some of the barriers to more rapid expansion. But the International Baccalaureate program lines up so well with, I think, what we're trying to do with Portrait of a Graduate, the learner profile, and those attributes of students in terms of the match between the Portrait of a Graduate attributes and learner profile is really tightly aligned.

[01:06:32] And a lot of the work that we're doing in our strategic plan is supported by those programs as well. So it would be great to have more of them, but that's kind of the current state of where we're at. Well, great. Let the administration know that you have a very strong advocate here for expanding those.

[01:06:50] I know it'll take resources and these programs are expensive, but hopefully now that the IB organization has moved to Wisconsin Avenue, it won't be as expensive to send people around the world for professional development. Thanks. Yes, sir.

[01:07:06] Thank you, Mr. McIveen. Mr. Moon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the presentation. I'm very happy to see that we are discussing academic meetings at a regular meeting to this extent. Glad to be part of that. And I have just a few questions to ask, starting with the graduation requirements as related to providing, you know, hoping to provide more options for electives to our students.

[01:07:34] Is there a difference between state graduation requirements for the hours in any fashion, Whether we have added more for, I think I know what the answer is, but for the public. Yes, we have added more. So, so, so, so that is within our own discretion to perhaps if we reduce certain requirements for our own standard, you know, we could provide our students more opportunities to take more electives, correct?

[01:08:08] I think that we have had that conversation. There are a couple of content areas where we are requiring a bit more. But perhaps you could elaborate, Dr. Presidio. No, we don't actually have a larger number of credit requirements.

[01:08:24] I think what actually happens is the identification of them. What's that? Go ahead. No, no, go ahead. Well, I was thinking of the identification. I think it was social studies. There was something where we had maybe not more requirements, but the defining or direction for certain courses that kind of leave out others.

[01:08:41] But I might have misunderstood that when it was explained to me. Yeah, we definitely go above and beyond the state standards of learning requirements in terms of what's embedded in our curriculum. I think the big -- the major difference is between the standard diploma and the advanced studies diploma.

[01:08:57] And when a student takes the advanced studies diploma and those 26 credit requirements taking, you know, four years in the core content areas, three years in world languages, the students that are doing that, they end up with a limited number of electives. And we have about 67% of our students, I think, division-wide pursuing the advanced studies diploma.

[01:09:17] So that's where I think that crunch for elective time is probably the most profound. - Okay, thank you. As to AP/IB exam fees, beyond first to six for students in poverty, would you be able to tell us a number of students that get taking the benefits of this if, you know, offer this, you know, benefit we are providing?

[01:09:49] We'll try to include some of that more precise in the Friday letter. The rough overall, when you think about AP, IB, and dual enrollment courses, and I think which includes CTE, is about 85% of our students completing those courses.

[01:10:05] But we'll try to break that down a little bit more by program type, if we can, for the Friday letter. And what are the exam fees like, amount-wise, AP, IB exam fees? uh what's the cost of those they vary a little bit between ap and ib um i think they're still under a hundred dollars but they're getting more and more expensive all the time and that's per exam because i i assume that it is more upper grade upper class students taking ap and ib exams as

[01:10:42] opposed to uh you know you know freshmen or sophomores some more juniors and seniors will take AP and IB. And when you take up to six, cost adds up, especially for those students in poverty.

[01:10:57] Yeah, absolutely. So the predominant number of students taking those courses are at the junior senior level, but we do have AP, IB courses with the associated exams that students can access at 10th grade and even in 9th grade in some special circumstances, but mostly 11th and 12th grade.

[01:11:14] I'll probably send this one in as a budget question, but I would want to know if you reduce that threshold to five and four and what the budgetary impacts would be for us. Yeah, we can do a lot more fiscal analysis on that for the board, for sure.

[01:11:30] The next one has to do with prerequisites for the AP World Languages. Are we requiring four years of world languages before we get to AP?

[01:11:47] So is your question about how many years of language do you need to have before you can access the AP or the IB? So I think the answer on that is it depends a little bit in terms of what that course sequence looks like. If the student starts in middle school, then it's quite easy for them to get to level four as a sophomore or junior and then get to those AP classes.

[01:12:09] If they don't start with the language at the middle school level, they start with level one as a freshman. It's harder to get to the AP or the IB level. But we have the opportunity for students to kind of move from level 3 to AP or IB in those instances if they think that that's going to be the best match for them in terms of what their academic goals are.

[01:12:30] So it's really an individual student choice. We're not prohibiting students from being able to do that. But you do have to be pretty advanced to skip that level from level 3 to AP or IB. but that will be up to the individual student's ability and their choice if they wanna do after level three, if they wanna go to AP.

[01:12:49] - Correct. - A word language. We do not prevent, prohibit by our own regulations, you know, students from, because I heard something otherwise from the community members. That is why I am bringing this one up to your attention.

[01:13:05] Whether there's misinformation out there or we are changing the opportunity that our students will have after level three? - Yeah, I think I was just conferring with Noelle, our assistant superintendent of instruction, and she was just reminding me that there were some questions and confusions, I think, in a couple of our school communities about that.

[01:13:31] And we have provided a guidance restating what I just said in terms of having the student and the family be able to make that determination to go from level three to AP. you be able to provide this in writing to both members so yeah we'll try to include that in the friday letter as well thank you thank you mr moon um miss lady thank you mr frisch um so a couple things first of all thank you for this presentation it's dear to my heart uh as a former director of student services um i'm going to try to address a couple things most importantly um i think it needs to be shared um that we are not able to do this with the fidelity that we were able to do it

[01:14:10] years ago um because our school counselors are very encumbered doing social work um and i say that just because um it's what they're doing they're they're not they don't have the time to do college academic advising like they used to um and we need to get back to that we have a college going culture um we have unique pathways um i would add that we have an everything is an elective in our course catalog except for something required for graduation so uh and it's endless the opportunities are endless the academic and career plan is an interesting thing sometimes i have found that when done with fidelity in earlier years some students have already determined that

[01:14:49] they're done with world language once they're done with 10th grade because of the requirements for standard or advanced studies diploma that makes me nervous because we do have institutions like university of delaware which is right across the border that will require you to have three of your years of world language in the high school level and they won't take middle school things like that that our colleges need to learn I also want to congratulate fairfax and thank you for creating pathways for teachers who want to teach dual enroll classes because nova requires 18 years in the discipline which is a barrier but we need to continue to add that I also want to commend fairfax on the online campus on the robust offerings that are there that also help students

[01:15:28] who are trying to access academy courses because they can still take seven but one of them might be an online course i want to encourage i i don't know this but i my sense is we do not have ap capstone at every one of our ap schools and we need to it is the premier class um it when when you when when high schools fill out the secondary school report which gets pulled through to colleges where our kids are applying it asks two questions at the top does your school have an ib program yes or no Does your school have AP capstone?

[01:16:00] And what they're sort of gauging there in the more selective realm is that if you have an AP capstone program, that is high-level research, which would prepare our students extremely well. The other thing I want to throw out is, yes, we do, for the standard diploma, we do require four years of history, and that's not the state.

[01:16:16] The state requires three. We require world one, world two, U.S., and government. And I would love to see that changed because I'd love to see more of our kids taking AP African-American history or taking European history, but freeing up one of those world histories for a different course. The last thing I want to say, too, is that all the research indicates that the earliest time in a child's career pathway in their schooling that they believe they can go to college, that they believe it's an option for them, is the best determinant of whether it happens.

[01:16:45] And I just want to share something we did in the Chantilly Pyramid that I would love to see happen everywhere, was we had a college day. During that college day, every single person in the pyramid who worked in schools wore a shirt from where they went to school and spent some time talking about that journey.

[01:17:00] Was it traditional? Was it nontraditional? We have kids from the high schools that went to middle schools and elementary schools that they had attended. It just really starts that dialogue for a lot of kids who might be in a situation like Dr. Anderson has talked about where perhaps their parents weren't able to go to college, but we can plant that seed early.

[01:17:18] So thank you. Thank you, Ms. Lady. Ms. Anderson. Nope. Oh, her line is off now. Okay. We're going to try this one more time. Mr. Dunn, will you check your microphone and video and then we'll let you have a turn?

[01:17:37] Yes, I am here. Okay, go ahead. Great. Thank you. So I'd like to commend the superintendent for this great presentation. My question is, this is kind of a fairly broad, high-level description of these programs, but there's no data in here indicating whether they are actually achieving their objectives, right?

[01:18:06] And I'd like to understand, has there been any evaluation in recent years of the suite of programs -- the slides aren't numbered -- but the one where it denotes honors, AP, IB, DE.

[01:18:22] If the goal is to provide a world-class education, put every child on a path to college if they're seeking higher education, has there been any evaluation by FCPS of both the cost effectiveness and whether these programs are meeting their objectives?

[01:18:40] - Thank you, Mr. Dunn. I think that's really the fundamental question, correct? One of the things we're gonna be working on with more intensity this year and in the coming years as we have more accountability for our new strategic plan is looking at the clearinghouse data, which actually examines where do our graduates go when they leave us in Fairfax County?

[01:19:02] In other words, the, you know, two years, four years, six years, eight years out, are they persisting in their trade school or their university or whatever they've chosen to do? And that's data that we need to make, I think, more transparent to our board and our community.

[01:19:20] So that's going to give us some real, I think, critical data on the effectiveness of all of our course taking patterns. We're also going to be taking a much tighter look at course taking patterns and where they lead in terms of where students actually register or what they actually do when they leave us.

[01:19:42] So the other data we do look at, I know, I'm sure, in Dr. Presidio's department is our pass rates for our AP and IB exams. It's very important to do -- it's not just enough that we have many students taking the exams, but we want to see how well they're doing.

[01:19:58] We know that minimally you have to have a three in most universities, a four or five, to make those AP credits portable, as well as IB course passing rates, right? So I think you're raising some good issues. And as we present further goal reports, we'll see that data broken out much more, much more.

[01:20:20] So, thank you for the question. Male Speaker: Thank you for your answer. You know, when I look at four programs, I'm reminded of the expression, a jack of all trades, a master of none. And, you know, I have seen in honors courses that my children have taken, and I've heard from other parents that, you know, honors is usually very similar to the general education curriculum.

[01:20:46] And so, there seems to be a lot of overlap there. And so, if we're going to have an honors program, I think it's important for it to be more differentiated. In terms of evaluation, I think it's not just important to look at passage rates on AP exams and IP exams, but whether consistent with the strategic plan, consistent with portrait of a graduate, AP and IB is serving our purposes.

[01:21:13] There's a growing number of colleges declining to provide college credit for AP. The IB program within the U.S. is not well-developed, not well-appreciated by most colleges. So due enrollment, I'm a huge fan because that does give transferable credit.

[01:21:31] And -- but I think there should be an evaluation of, you know, whether these programs are fulfilling their objectives or if we're doing lots of things because we've done lots of things in the past and we just feel like we should keep doing lots of things.

[01:21:47] You know, the feedback I've received on the IB program, even though I'm a huge fan of the IB program, having grown up overseas, is that it's not well implemented within FCPS. I'd welcome my colleagues' feedback if they have different information. And AP has become more and more crushing huge amounts of information into very little time, which doesn't necessarily align with the critical thinking goals for the portrait of a graduate.

[01:22:13] So I would like to see, you know, a cost evaluation, but also evaluation within systemic goals. I'd also like to see data showing participation by different socioeconomic groups, right? Is it being limited to, you know, certain demographic groups, or is it actually being open to all?

[01:22:36] And to the extent that we're creating segregated high schools through these programs, we need to look about how to make sure underrepresented groups have equal access. - Do you have any thoughts in response? - Mr. Dunn, your time is up, but I'll let the superintendent respond. - So I think those are all great questions, and I know staff are taking notes on those, and as we prepare our goal report that reflects on those, I believe that's goal five.

[01:23:00] We'll have some data, very specific, and we'll make sure we chart that. And if any other board members have questions to add to that, if you can get those to me sooner than later, we'll make sure our goal five report has that analysis.

[01:23:15] Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Miss St. John Cunning. Hi, thank you. Thank you, Dr. Reed, for your presentation. I also want to lift up programming that I feel is very valuable, not only because of the work I've done, but also because my children participated in it and our language immersion programs are -- I consider advanced programming for our kids.

[01:23:41] And when we talked about what Dr. Anderson said and what Miss Lady said, and we talk about early intervention being important, I think early inspiration is also important about bringing this possibility for college, for some of our students, particularly our underserved and marginalized communities who may already speak another language, and if they're in a dual immersion program and then go on to the middle school and high school and continue in those immersion, in those Spanish, or not those language, I would say in Spanish because that's what my children took, but those language classes, then that's tantamount to money because those kids place out of those tests in college

[01:24:20] and get their language credits. So, I just want to raise that up as a real strong programming offering that we have and that we express that to our families and parents, and particularly to those marginalized families, that it also allows them to retain their culture while -- and valuing it and seeing how it can help their children enter into are some of the advanced programming.

[01:24:47] And also as Ms. Sizemore, I think I've got it backwards there, but I usually look at her nameplate, but what she said about also lifting up our career and technical education programming for a lot of our students because I see a lot of success there.

[01:25:06] And so I really don't have a question. I just want to compliment that and say that we've got to start looking at that early inspiration for our kids so that they can see that if they take certain programs, it's going to help them get into their chosen path much easier.

[01:25:22] And I was going to say one more thing, but I forgot what I was going to say. So, but thank you very much. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Ms. St. John Cunning. Ms. Marin? Yeah, I just want to say this, as Mr. Frisch said, this hits pretty close to home for me because I've got a rising ninth grader.

[01:25:38] And so, I've been perusing our websites with our coursework pathways. And I think that's a really valuable resource that I hope our community and students and families look at that shows, you know, what you need to take to get the diplomas. And I'm glad that we're talking about some of these transition periods because that continues to be such a critical thing and I'd like to see more consistency, you know, whether to elementary to middle and middle to high, but especially around this part that is so critical with high school course selection.

[01:26:05] And AVID is such a great program, my own student in it. It's really helped us as a family, you know, do this for the first time. So I'm certainly eager to see us continue to keep moving forward with AVID and as a representative of the PYP middle years and high school IB program that is Dogwood Elementary, Langston Hughes Middle and South Lakes High School.

[01:26:28] It is really cool to see the trajectory and I was just at Dogwood last night actually as they were doing their literacy night. So I'd love to talk more about IB. I'm glad we could talk a little bit about it tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Marin. Dr. Anderson. Yes, thank you. Just a couple of follow-up questions.

[01:26:45] And thank you for giving us the opportunity to add some more information. And I'm not sure if I heard Mr. Moon talk about this, but I would definitely like to have the data regarding dual enrollment in terms of where students are who are accessing it and who are those students, what are their demographics.

[01:27:05] So please add that into your goal five. The other thing that I wanted to talk about as you're speaking about electives in this document is middle school electives. Are they the same across every single middle school? Are they consistent offerings, or do they differ? And if so, to what extent?

[01:27:21] I'm going to go out on a limb here and say they likely differ, but I don't know to what degree they differ. So, Dr. Presidio -- Do we have a list that every middle school must carry or offer? I'm so sorry, Dr. Anderson.

[01:27:36] I was side-barring a little bit. Would you mind repeating that? Can that not count against my little time? My question was around middle school electives. Is there a consistent expectation that each middle school will have a similar set of electives or is it depending on the school?

[01:27:51] How can how inconsistent are they or how alike are they in terms of what's offered? There's a lot of consistency, but there's some as well. I know that's really vague. We'd have to do kind of a course by course comparison chart probably for you on that. But there's a lot of consistency from school to school.

[01:28:08] A lot of the, you know, stem electives, a lot of world language electives. I would love to have that data be included in goal five, if at all possible, just to really get a sense behind the the feeling.

[01:28:24] The other thing that I wanted to ask about is middle school AAP centers versus honors that are provided at all of our middle schools. How are those different? How are the AAP centers different? The programming in the AAP centers versus the honors classes.

[01:28:41] Are they different? Are they the same? Yeah, I would have to defer to Dr. Presidio about our practice here. Yeah. Yeah. So the curriculum is absolutely the same. There's no difference between an honors course at a base school and an honors course at the middle school level at one of our AAP centers.

[01:29:00] The one of the, I guess, distinguishing characteristics of the center is that those students really are accessing those courses as a cohort, whereas at the base school some students who might take four classes other students might choose to take two or three so you don't have that same kind of cohort experience at the base schools that you would have at the aap center so the single difference between aap centers and honors and schools that don't have an ap center is the cohorting of students there's nothing else that is different not even in teacher preparation well teacher preparation can vary

[01:29:38] even among centers or among base schools so we have training for teachers and that are offering those classes but there could be some variety there the the main distinguishing characteristic i would say is the cohorting versus the non-cohorning experience that students would have i understood that there was a certification that teachers who teach aap classes in middle schools needed to secure that's really not a certification but maybe a course of study that is provided by FCPS yeah so we've offered a local endorsement is what we've referred to it historically but again there's a variety in terms of whether or not teachers have actually earned that

[01:30:17] endorsement and not across schools so we haven't you know that's not a hard and fast requirement to teach those courses and I think that worries me Dr. Reed said we have this local endorsement but there's not a hard and fast rule so to me there's no expectation that teachers who are supposed to be really prepared to challenge students who require that additional level of support are no different than everybody else if that's the case i think this really needs to be dug into a little bit more yes ma'am thank you dr anderson we will move on to

[01:30:54] agenda item 3.04 student representative matters unfortunately miss kareem can't be with us tonight so we will be skipping student representative matters agenda item 3.05 superintendent matters i call on dr reed well thank you mr prish and since i'm here and i'm going to be back here in two seconds i think i'll just stay here for superintendent matters without my notes so it's all right um i'll be brief tonight i know we have a number of topics but it's been an exciting couple weeks since last we met i've had a chance to attend a variety of

[01:31:27] different events visited several schools had a chance to visit with our SAC our student advisory committee today I had a chance to meet with our facilities staff advisory committee and our HSPA group our high school principals group so there's a lot of great work going on around the county also want to share that last week was a bit let's see a weather affected week and I just want to to thank our community, our staff, our students, and our families for their patience and their grace as we navigated snowfall.

[01:32:04] And it just -- I'm still getting used to having eight degrees last week, and it's going to be 70 tomorrow. I just -- it's -- yeah, they say the weather could get to 70 degrees tomorrow. And I have to say, this is a new experience for me. So on one day, we're calling, you know, snow, and then we're breaking out T-shirts and shorts the next week.

[01:32:25] So anyhow, it's been an exciting time and I'll just leave it there at this point. Thank you. Without objection, I'd like to return to agenda item 3.03 strategic plan, which I inadvertently skipped. I call on Dr. Reid. I was thinking I had time to scamper back.

[01:32:41] I do have an objection, so we could, I'm kidding. Go ahead, Dr. Reid. All right, so I am thrilled this evening to share, as you know, in our second meeting of every month, we have a highlight on our strategic plan. And it's a very short vignette, and it's an opportunity just to share some updates.

[01:33:00] So, as you recall, we recently reviewed Goal 1, and this is our strong start Pre-K, as well as transitions through the K-12 experience. We want to make sure that we do -- every student has a strong start. The measure we've picked this year in Goal 1 that's really important for us is the availability of pre-K programs, including inclusive pre-K, to meet our community needs.

[01:33:26] So we are excited to share some opportunities this evening. We also want to make sure that we reiterate the importance of inclusion at our pre-K level. It was earlier last fall we know we heard from a number of families about the importance of that, and honestly, the challenges that we've had here in the division in making sure we're providing inclusive preschool.

[01:33:49] So, we are working on a plan that's a multi-year plan to make sure that we, as you see the bullet points there, that we are indeed making good on our promise to have a robust and high quality inclusive preschool program. We know that working with typically developing peers as well as students who may have IEP needs, that those skills are so much more quickly learned at young, young ages.

[01:34:18] So we're excited, and research says that that's obviously the best way that we can program pre-K. I want to just remind the board and the community about the types of pre-K offering we traditionally have had here in Fairfax County, and also the current numbers that we have.

[01:34:35] And I think it is safe to say that we have a lot of room to improve our county's commitment to early childhood. We know last year that we were serving only 37% of our income eligible preschool children across the county.

[01:34:52] And that really is a data point that must be moved if we're going to really realize the world-class education opportunity for each and every student. So we thought we'd also take you into an inclusive preschool class at Belvedere Elementary School so we can have an opportunity to see our young preschoolers in action.

[01:35:16] So let's go ahead and roll tape, please.

[01:35:27] Inclusive pre-K classrooms are so important for our division because it allows us the opportunity to have children under the age of five learning together, both children with disabilities and without.

[01:35:45] So right now we are offering a variety of community experiences for our children. We have inclusion in classrooms. We have inclusive opportunities throughout the day where children can come together to learn and we're also offering community peer opportunities where we're inviting kids from the community to come into our classrooms. There are some interesting choices of things I thought lots of little people could do together. We plan weekly together to talk about the different learning experiences and what themes we're going to use. We as a

[01:36:19] preschool team work really hard to make sure that all students are that are in these inclusion opportunities are really getting a chance to show and learn new skills whether they're in the general education classroom or in the special education classroom. Everybody has strengths to contribute students with special needs have special needs in certain areas and they have great fantastic strengths in other areas and so coming together and learning that together we are better together we are stronger and learning that from the very

[01:36:53] young age is a wonderful way to prepare for life. To give our children that opportunity in an early childhood classroom, it's exciting, it's important for our community, it's important for our children. Excellent. Equity. And opportunity.

[01:37:17] So our youngest will lead us I think. I just want to say that we're not like a 100% there in our program model planning yet, but we have a sincere, deep commitment to making sure that we have a world-class inclusive preschool program as we evolve over the next several years.

[01:37:39] We are finalizing our comprehensive pre-K inclusion plan. In fact, I have a draft on my desk that I'll be taking with me tomorrow to read. And we've also taken a look at the details, our Virginia Department of Education as well as the U.S. Department of Ed and the Department of Health and Human Services have provided models.

[01:37:58] So we're looking at taking the best of those models and integrating those into a world-class model here. And those are several examples. So I want to close out our strategic plan moment with a reminder to stay informed.

[01:38:14] And staying informed is March 19th. You want to get plenty of rest prior to March 19th because we're going to be coming back for our goal 5 report on leading for tomorrow's innovation. And we are so excited in our planning of that opportunity. So, Mr. Frisch, that is our strategic planning report this evening.

[01:38:32] - Thank you so much, Dr. Anderson. - Thank you, just two quick things. It was really refreshing to see the group of teachers that are working together and bouncing ideas of each other, that synergy is really important, which is what makes me worry when we have single classes at schools because they lack that opportunity for to learn from each other in that community.

[01:38:55] So I just wanted to raise that as an as a thought for you. My main question, it's only one and it's more of a wondering and an ask for your plan as you are going to develop this plan for us to see in the near future, I would like for you to ensure that you have included the impact on facilities.

[01:39:15] I know I've said this before and I will say it again. We want to do good things, but we have to be, I think, very strategic in terms of how those good things happen. As you know, the entire fifth grade class of Buenoc is outside in trailers. That is not a good plan.

[01:39:31] And I want to make sure that as we're increasing access, that it doesn't offer it doesn't result in some of those unintended consequences that are not beneficial to our students and families. So I would like to ask for consideration for that to be part of your plan in terms of the facilities impact. Yes, ma'am.

[01:39:50] one of the things the team has been tasked with is creating a map of our county and the placement of all of the different programs around the county so that we can, for a variety of reasons, right, because everything is connected to transportation and facility size, so I know the team has been working on that and kind of what the impact is as we add programs around, but it's, so point taken, we will make sure that that's part of the conversation.

[01:40:18] And one last thing, just offering some some alternate ideas and strategies in terms of how can we utilize our underutilized spaces? We've talked about Graham Center. I know you visited it with me. You visited with Mr. Frisch.

[01:40:34] We have, you know, Lee Center. We have some spaces in our division that are not to their full capacity or can be repurposed in order to absorb some of these classes. I'd love to see that in your report as well. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Dr. Anderson.

[01:40:49] Ms. Seizmoorheiser. You know what's coming. I do. So first, to piggyback, because Dr. Anderson shared some of the thoughts that I had around, I'd love to get kind of a multi-year once you -- I know you're flushing out the plan still, so this isn't an expectation that you have this now or anytime soon.

[01:41:11] But as you flush out your plan, keep in mind the multi-year impact on both budget and facilities. Right. Right, because I would hate to have this great plan that we didn't either have the space nor money for, right? And I think as we're lifting up these issues, longer-term budget advocacy with our funding partners is important too.

[01:41:29] So I think that would be helpful. And then after you build out the plan with the implications, it would be helpful to us to have sort of an advocacy plan with our funders because obviously there's going to be budget implications and perhaps even CIP implications. So that's the first thing I wanted to lift up. And then I wanted to circle back to the reason I voted no on the Goal 1 report, which was the lack of data on the preschool autism class and I really appreciate your staff sending me follow-up questions around what is the inclusion plan for the preschool autism class and I still have questions about the new I understand you're still

[01:42:07] finishing out your plan so so the initial plan is to date right as to the inclusion of community students into the early childhood classes but inclusive learning opportunities for the preschool autism class and there's a separate but unequal inherent in those statements that worries me a bit and I I don't think that's the intention but that's how it comes across to me so I wanted to lift up as you're finalizing your plan that I really encourage you to look at preschool inclusion based on all of the children as opposed to which program a child is in you must have been a fly on our the wall of a recent

[01:42:46] meeting that we had because we I think words matter and we are talking about the programs as if they're very different and perhaps different abilities for inclusion. And I think we -- I will choose my words more wisely, and we will make sure that that's clear in the plan.

[01:43:05] Thank you. And like I said, I think obviously varies in how we can implement it, but I think it shouldn't vary based on what program a child is in. Yes, ma'am. And if the longer-term implications of keeping things separate plays out in many ways in our system that I can't speak to, but we just maybe saw a couple.

[01:43:28] The last thing I'm going to say is when we're looking at building out the inclusion model, I love the video. It was fantastic. I didn't count the minutes, but it seemed like there was a lot of minutes on the playground and not that many in the classroom.

[01:43:49] And one of the reasons I lift that up is that traditionally, where inclusion in elementary school has happened has been lunch and recess as a starting point. And those are often loud and chaotic. And so I would just encourage, again, it's based, I understand, on a two-minute video.

[01:44:06] So I'm not trying to draw any conclusions from that. It's just something I noticed. And I just wanted to mention that. Thank you. And I think there is, there has been a predisposition to having those be the times for inclusion.

[01:44:23] So I think as we refine our model moving forward, having a deeper understanding of that classroom time and how important that is is going to be considerably more important. So thank you, I appreciate all the work you've done so far. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Seismar Heiser.

[01:44:39] We have one more speaker before the next agenda item. Miss Dixit. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Dr. Reed. When I see this slide, which is assessing five CPS pre-K program and how many students are already enrolled in this 2000 students in the year 23, 24 in the pre-K program and then 2 to 2500 students in the the ECSE programs.

[01:45:07] That's like over 4,500 students. What I want to see is see their roadmap to success. Basically, if we are putting into, you know, bringing them to education early and, you know, that's the whole idea is that they perform well and then do better and they graduate.

[01:45:29] How do, how are we, can we do like a little, I would say, study sort of a thing that these students, these children will do better in their life as compared to students who don't go to a pre-K.

[01:45:44] Something that way, we can go to the universal pre-K, which we always thought that would be a good idea to do at FCPS. - Okay, so I want to be clear, I know the ask thinking about studying like longitudinally our children that are in pre-K and how they do compared to children who did not have access.

[01:46:06] Correct, and then how to perform in their elementary school and middle school, I mean, even that would be a great just to see their gradings and just open social emotional development. And I think it's a game changer, but the numbers or the stats will definitely help more.

[01:46:24] Thank you. Mr. McElveen. Well, this is the first time this new board has had the opportunity to speak to pre-K, so I just want to say that I'm so glad, Dr. Reid, that you and the prior board made this such an important priority in our strategic plan.

[01:46:45] So, I think that it sets us off on a good start. And I can't help but reflecting on the ghosts of Tammy Darenak-Koufax and Pat Hines, who really launched our board into these discussions 12, 13 years ago, and pushed up until the end, certainly in Tammy's case.

[01:47:05] You know, when I reflect on the numbers you presented, It's kind of like a renovation cycle. You expect them to go down over time, but they either stay flat or just get worse. So, we still have challenges in this area, and I do hope things will improve, but hope, obviously, is not a plan.

[01:47:28] As most folks know, the purpose of S.K.I.P.T., when it was founded, again, more than a decade ago, was to focus primarily on pre-K and space for pre-K programs.

[01:47:43] And for better or worse, SKIPP had lost that focus over the years. So I'm a bit disappointed in that. And to be frank, I think there was some sleight of hand by the Board of Supervisors in SKIPP losing that focus because they didn't want to push as hard as the school board did in terms of pre-K access.

[01:48:06] So we need to regain that focus. And I'm confident that with our new membership on SKIPT that we will push for that. So I would just leave with kind of a global question, which I know we will delve more into and you've discussed with the prior board.

[01:48:23] But just to set the stage for this new board, can you tell us a little bit about how space is looking countywide in terms of our pre-K expansion, potentially and what lies on the horizon there?

[01:48:39] So I think that that was when I first arrived in the county, that was the reason given for not having a more robust preschool program with space. I think what I've discovered in the year and a half-ish is that there is space, but it's in perhaps inconvenient spaces, which maybe make transportation more difficult.

[01:49:03] The space is not necessarily close to the children who we most need to get into the preschool in some areas in terms of some of our communities. We don't have space near our highest and tightly populous neighborhoods.

[01:49:19] So, it's interesting, I think, having a conversation about some schools that are more over-enrolled and some schools that are very under-enrolled and how we can utilize space in those schools differently. As Mr. Frisch was saying, we do have facilities that are not fully utilized, but again, in some cases, that's going to require resources to bring them up to at least a basic code to use for preschool.

[01:49:44] Or we have two or three classrooms in a particular school or two extra classrooms, and you don't get the teacher collaboration if you don't have several classrooms. However, we did drop a plan to add more classrooms each year and be able to find more classrooms each year because Child Find, as you know, we are required and we absolutely are committed to making sure we are enrolling and placing in program children who have special needs and need special supports.

[01:50:15] And if we're going to provide a truly robust inclusive program, we really want to match those numbers with typically developing students, some of whom could be tuition paying, right, and some of whom may be VPI preschoolers. But we want our preschool classrooms to really be blended well.

[01:50:35] Having said that, space eventually is going to be a constraint. So, I think our CIP is going to have to account for classroom space for preschool. There are some secondary schools or, and I mean middle or high schools that also have space that we may need to think about could we use several classrooms at a secondary school, for example.

[01:51:01] You know, I think there's nothing to -- in fact, we used to, is my understanding. And then, in some cases, we stopped doing that. We actually have preschool playgrounds at a couple of our secondary schools. So, I think there are a lot of opportunities. We just have to be really laser-focused on what's possible.

[01:51:20] Well, thank you again for that, and for your leadership on this. I look forward to moving forward. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. McElveen. I'm going to take a quick comment, and then we'll move onto the next agenda item. Speaking of proximity and need, Graham Road Community Building is in a community of need and is ready for us to take steps. And I enjoyed having our tour there and I see on the agenda tonight we're improving some or proving some improvements at the building.

[01:51:47] I forgot about Mr. Dunn, so he's next. And so I think to Mr. McElveen's point, You know, we've heard a little bit about the numbers that we'd have to accomplish over time. And it's time to connect that with the difficult part, which is even if we had the money for the numbers, how do we put them in the seats?

[01:52:08] So, or on the carpet, as the case may be. So thank you very much. Mr. Dunn. Mr. Thank you, Mr. Frisch. I want to lift up the fact that pre-K needs to be considered within the context of the SAC program, school-based childcare so that parents who, you know, work hourly shifts, whether daytime, nighttime, or what have you, have options for both before school and after school care for their pre-K children and children at older age levels in elementary school,

[01:52:47] because that's essential to provide access not just to children, but to make it feasible for parents. So I would ask that as my first question to Dr. Reed. But as my second question, I'd like to lift up the fact that we need to be thinking outside the box, not just looking at FCPS facilities.

[01:53:05] For example, I'd like to lift up my friend Shirley Ginwright, who has self-funded, with some charitable donations but not enough, a children's center at Creekside, which is, you know, has a lot of economically disadvantaged families.

[01:53:23] And she is -- I believe, Dr. Reed, you may have even visited there or other FCPS leadership may have visited there -- she has renovated a facility that could serve as a pre-K for certain hours of the day. I've spoken with other church leaders, nonprofit leaders in the Mount Vernon District and elsewhere who are eager, eager to work with FCPS to provide their facilities as locations for pre-K or for after-school mentoring or tutoring programs.

[01:53:48] So I would like to encourage FCPS not just to think about what facilities does FCPS own and operate, but other facilities that are in those communities that as Dr. Reed said, need to be accessible to the families that might have transportation and security. Thank you.

[01:54:04] - Thank you, Mr. Dunn. All right, moving on to agenda item 4.01, performance review, I call on Dr. Reed. - Okay, thank you, Mr. Frisch. And this is our executive expectation on instructional programs.

[01:54:20] So timely this evening, since we've been talking about instruction. If the -- thank you. So executive expectation nine, I just want to remind our board and our community that this is a monitoring report that talks about the need to maintain a program of instruction for all students that is aligned with the district's strategic plan goals and that this instructional program will offer innovative academic learning experiences that foster the strengths and meet the needs of each and every learner.

[01:54:54] Additionally, this program will implement professional practices that engage, empower, include, and challenge the whole learner through varied opportunities, including advanced electives, among other courses. So, at the time of this report, to the best of my knowledge, I am in compliance with the executive expectation associated with this topic and making what I would characterize as adequate progress in this area.

[01:55:22] So I'd like to begin by discussing and of course certifying that what I'm presenting is true as of this evening. So I want to begin by discussing how we deliver academic programs. We have aligned our academic curriculum and instruction to the Virginia Standards of Learning.

[01:55:41] We develop our pacing guides across core content areas, and they're designed to provide a high degree of direction and high-quality resources that guide instructional planning. To support the entire continuum of learning within the division, we do have a comprehensive special education program, as well as a program for English speakers of other languages.

[01:56:04] And those services are provided to support our students in accessing and making the most of learning opportunities. We also identify schools to receive Title I grant funds, currently 42 elementary and two middle school Title I schools, making that a total of 44 Title I schools here in Fairfax County.

[01:56:26] We highlight that we have advanced academic services or AAP courses and opportunities that are also incorporated into the curriculum to build on the portrait of a graduate skill set and offer world language instruction for K-12 students.

[01:56:42] We provide specific programs and services that foster global awareness, environmental literacy, civic engagement, and career readiness. And there are a variety of those that are listed there. Another important expectation in the division is to ensure the program's curriculum materials support equitable access and opportunity.

[01:57:02] We're doing some significant work at the moment around equitable access to literacy. And you've heard a lot about that in goal one. And the work that is going on that's really being led by Noel Clamenco and her team, which is really fabulous work.

[01:57:18] This plan includes explicit and systemic, evidence-based literacy instruction that's grounded in the science-based reading research. Additionally, we are offering high-impact tutoring this year, both with ESSER dollars, local dollars, and all-in for Virginia dollars.

[01:57:37] And this high-impact tutoring, actually, when I was out in schools this week, I've heard some positive impact. We have some substitute teachers and retired teachers who have come back to be tutors at the elementary. And it's exciting to see their energy and excitement about coming back and helping our young people.

[01:57:56] With regard to expectation three, we regularly review instructional materials and programs to make sure that there is a comprehensive and objective review of best practices. The evidence for expectation four demonstrates ensuring consistency.

[01:58:12] And I don't know, I think we're making progress there, but I don't think we're there yet in terms of consistency and instructional expectations across all schools and programs. What I would say is that we had a lot of discussion about this at the senior leadership, and we think that probably we do have a consistency in expectations, but not in the reality.

[01:58:35] So I think we're going to be working a little bit, not a little bit, we're working hard on ensuring that it's not just the stated expectation, but that we provide support to have a little bit more consistency. Our chief of schools position and our six region offices continue to work towards the consistent implementation of expectations.

[01:58:57] Another significant alignment effort is the school improvement and innovation plans, which are connected to goal three. And these are reviewed by regional assistant superintendents and also at the senior leadership level. And within each of these required areas, schools wrote measurable outcomes on data sets connected directly to our strategic plan.

[01:59:19] Additionally, beginning the school year, we had division leaders engaging in instructional rounds, which means they are actually visiting schools and classrooms to make sure that we're aligning and collaborating a shared purpose and understanding of best practice. Back at HSPA this morning, which is the high school principals group, Principal DeRose at Annandale High School, where we had the meeting, had a nice schedule and high school principals visited classrooms in Annandale to check out how our Adams were doing and their learning achievement work.

[01:59:53] And so there's just, I think, a lot of buzz this year about what's happening in our classrooms and the amazing work our students and staff are doing. In thinking about expectation five, how are we measuring our goals? We have begun developing baseline reports, which we shared for goal one most recently, and we will continue to provide those reports in detail, incorporating feedback from this evening.

[02:00:19] At the beginning of the year, I also want to remind folks that the FCPS grading policy for middle and high school has been updated with several changes, and it's continuing to be reviewed by our chief academic officer and a committee that he has pulled together.

[02:00:38] Work on expectation six is focused on strategic and intentional data collection. The dashboards that are being created are incredibly intense compared to where we've been on that topic. And also checking local and state expectations for assessment and data reporting.

[02:00:56] So, essentially the expectation seven, continuing the supportive portrait of a graduate presentations of learning, That will be continuing and expectation eight talks about the establishment of the neurodiversity specialist position along with the dyslexia specialist and twice exceptional 2E specialist working on supporting the implementation of inclusive and accessible instructional programs and practices.

[02:01:28] As well as we are going to bring back to you our special education enhancement plan which was the result of the AIR audit recently done and make sure that we're able to hit some of those data points. Expanding preschool inclusion, which we just spoke about, and continuing the pilot of our Twilight program, which is flexible scheduling at our high schools for credit recovery.

[02:01:52] So expectation nine, just a reminder that Fairfax County Public Schools has been recognized as a school division of innovation. And we continue to offer multiple college success programs. Expectation 10, core subjects are engaging in a basal adoption process every seven years when state standards are revised.

[02:02:14] And in fact, we're working at this very time to select a basal text, which I resisted asking about yesterday, even though I heard we're making great progress on that. But that will become, I think, more public very soon.

[02:02:33] And the new BASIL for K6 classrooms will be implemented for the 24-25 year. Finally, Expectation 11 directs our division to ensure families have access to educational resources and information. We have family-facing curriculum, which has been relatively new again this year.

[02:02:52] ParentVUE can be used. our family liaisons are invaluable with the work they do interfacing with our families and that Mr. Chairman is a conclusion of the monitoring report for executive expectations nine thank you Dr. Reed for the edification of the public this report was made available to the board about 10 days ago and has been online for about a week for public consumption we will get started with Dr.

[02:03:20] Dr. Anderson. Thank you. There's definitely a lot here to unpack, so I appreciate this information. One of the things that I think overall I struggled with, and parts of this, more parts than I would like, is that I was informed that something is happening, but I don't have the data to show the evidence that this thing is happening.

[02:03:44] And I know we had talked about this when we had the first EE a long while ago. And I'm just curious, how come data is missing in some crucial places? I'll just kind of start a little bit. Talking about the first area, delivering a rigorous -- delivering academic curriculum and a rigorous instructional program.

[02:04:05] Absolutely, we want that. But how are you determining how that's taking place? One of the things that I notice is a high degree of direction. What does that mean, a high degree of direction? Are there memos that say this is a staff expectation?

[02:04:21] You must do this. I'm struggling with understanding the language without some of the evidence behind it. So I'll let you answer that part. Sure. And thank you for raising that. I'm trying to identify where a high degree of direction. I apologize. Which page are we?

[02:04:36] Second bullet of number one. Okay. So this is on the planning and pacing guides. This is under number, I don't know, indicator one, where it talks about, I need to take off my glasses to see. Right, the planning and pacing guides. Yes, yes, yes.

[02:04:51] Right, so I think what's important to note there is we could certainly attach all of those, but they are online. And maybe in the future it would be helpful to attach an example of a planning and pacing guide. Not necessarily, because we can get that. But I think that's where I want to get to.

[02:05:08] There are a lot of things that are available. But are people utilizing them? Are they finding them helpful? and what is the impact of their use of those items? Because that's what's going to speak to the rigorous delivery of instruction.

[02:05:25] Well, remember that the executive expectations are the tools with which we're going to achieve the goals, which is the improved student achievement. So when we did the goal three report, for example, that's where you're going to see the detailed student outcomes, student achievement outcomes.

[02:05:44] I think to the question of our staff using the pacing guides, it is an expectation in the division that yes, they are using them. So I suppose, are you asking whether we should survey staff to see if they really are using them or? I don't know what I'm asking.

[02:06:00] I just want some evidence so that I could say, oh yes, there is a high degree of expectation of direction. Okay. I don't know how to evaluate that that's occurring, which is what I think we are doing here by trying to evaluate whether or not you are meeting expectations here.

[02:06:16] Well, I think the planning and pacing guides do exist, and there is, my understanding, a direction that we do use them in courses, so I could go back to the team and see if there's a way we could better, more publicly represent the amount of use or the effectiveness of the use of them.

[02:06:40] Thank you. I think the fourth bullet where you were talking about delivery of high levels of service. What does that look like? What is that? How do we know it's a high level of service versus a low level of service? Is this happening across the division?

[02:06:57] Again, just looking for some grounding. So, fourth bullet or the fourth? The fourth bullet still in this area. Still in this area. Okay. One, two, three, four.

[02:07:14] The ESOL services. They're individualized. they provide a scaffolded content based approach. I guess what we could do is include the model. I know online there's a link to that that's hyperlinked, the FCPS LIEP model.

[02:07:30] So that we tried to like embed those links so that you were able to click in to see what that model of high support would look like. Okay. And I think I have similar examples all throughout. And one that I was particularly interested in because I just think it's an exciting tool is the instructional rounds that are being conducted by the region office.

[02:07:57] I would love to get a sense of what they're finding, because again, that's a great tool, they're there. What are they seeing? Are they seeing that we're close? Are they seeing that we're not close? And of course, those findings are going to impact further professional development and other things, but I'd like to get a good sense of the activities happening and what comes out of that activity.

[02:08:18] Yes, ma'am, well, we can create a report on our instructional rounds and some feedback, and I can make sure we can get that to the board. - And I don't want to create like extra unrelated work, just kind of embedded to this part that deals with curriculum. And if it's offered as an opportunity to show that this expectation is being met, the data needs to be there in order for me to also agree with you.

[02:08:41] I have to see it and not just also just be told. - Yes, ma'am. - Thank you. One of the things I also wanted to talk about is challenging this is page three this is the second bullet from the top that speaks about challenging and supported and relevant opportunities to students to learn achieve etc and it also shows up for me at least under number two which is equitable access to various curriculum two examples are a big concern for me one we talked about it a little bit earlier

[02:09:16] doing enrollment academic academy classes that are not available so there's not an equitable access there but also in the mason district we have one middle school that has advanced academic programming and that is not equitable because parents either have to leave their communities in order to go to glasgow annandale pyramid does not have a an academic center neither does the false church pyramid it's just the justice pyramid i see these as not equitable opportunities that i would like to see you addressing in these conversations yes ma'am thank you dr anderson

[02:09:56] mr dunn uh thank you um i'd like to start with you know i'm a new member of the board and i would like to understand dr reed what you understand the function of the executive expectation reports is. It is an opportunity for us to report on the work the system or the division is doing in the specific area that we're being the specific expectation area in this case it's instructional program so going back to the board's governance manual the board has a number of

[02:10:34] criteria for meeting those operational expectations so what we're trying to do is be responsive and and show evidence of the work the division's doing to meet those. - Is it essentially, and again, I don't know the answer to these questions as a new board member.

[02:10:55] Is it intended to be a form of performance of a evaluation for you as superintendent? - I think it's under a performance review category. Obviously the performance of the division is linked to my performance. If we're not able to meet the goals of the plan, that would not be a positive reflection of my performance.

[02:11:16] So I think there's a fair connection. Mr. Okay, well, that's helpful for me to understand. You know, the reason I ask is because this report is very high level, you know, 10,000, 20,000 foot level, one bullet allocated to describe TJ, one bullet for advanced academic programs.

[02:11:39] there's no level of detail or data, as my colleague Dr. Anderson said, for me to be able to evaluate your performance or the system's performance. So while there are a number of hyperlinks, those hyperlinks go to fairly broad and nonspecific, nonsubstantive websites or webpages or other documents.

[02:12:08] So I would ask that if you're looking for us to assess your performance and the system's performance, it would be great to structure it with a before and after so that we can understand, you know, a year ago or five years ago, we were in this place, and now there's been change under your leadership, under Dr. Braebrand's leadership or whoever, so that, you know, that we can understand the trend lines.

[02:12:36] Because if we can't understand the trend, And I don't understand how we can judge whether you're being effective or ineffective, because just for me, a lot of this reads like a brochure rather than an actual report that I can make meaningful decisions on as a board member.

[02:12:55] So I would ask that, you know, more data be provided as exhibits or attachments to this and future reports. So that -- including before and after, so we can see trend lines over time. you know, not everything is going to go in the right direction. So understanding where we can actually move the system and where the school board needs to focus its attention, that's essential.

[02:13:18] Otherwise, we're just reading brochures and we're not able to provide -- to perform our oversight and monitoring function. And we can't direct you to enact changes that are not responsive -- that are responding to the emerging crises.

[02:13:34] I'll just take special education as an example. We have one third of our staff not properly licensed, right? We have special education teachers being burned out. We're having them being proposed to being reduced from 8.5 hours to eight hours per day. That -- we're about to face an unprecedented crisis in special education and our ability to meet the needs of these students.

[02:13:57] And yet, I don't see anything that's reported addressing that, which I would expect, since it deals with instructional services. So, again, that's just one issue. But I would expect, you know, up front, you know, these are the five major challenges that I need your help on board, right? And then we can have work sessions or forum topics on those to really dive in.

[02:14:16] But again, I don't -- I don't consider this -- you know, it's well-written, but I don't consider it actionable or useful. So again, I don't mean to be critical, but I'm trying to provide direction that I can't do my job if I don't have the information and data to do my job.

[02:14:34] - Thank you. - Yeah, thank you, Mr. Dunn, and I wanna clarify, and we certainly can provide more data, 'cause it certainly needs to be meaningful to you so that we can, you know, you can make decisions. I wanna clarify, though, and correct, there has been no decision about special education teacher days or salary or any of that at this point.

[02:15:01] So I wanna make sure that I correct that. I think that's misinformation. Also, we do have people licensed in our classroom. So, I just want to make sure to reassure the community that we do have licensed staff in teaching in our classrooms.

[02:15:19] I will say that our special education teachers, for sure, have had a difficult couple years with the OCR report and with the workload expectations. And so, absolutely, we need to work on recruiting more staff.

[02:15:34] So I appreciate that input. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Miss Anderson. I just wanted to say that I really appreciate the fact that you guys have acknowledged that consistency is an issue. I think that a lot of the things that we're noticing would become more moot points if we had consistency across the division in terms of how things were done at each individual school.

[02:16:00] Since we know that there is inconsistency, that's part of the reason that I think people are asking for more data. So I appreciate the fact that you guys have acknowledged that this is an area that we need to continue to work on. So, I just wanted to say that because I do think that that's kind of the loss leader, that if we kind of work on consistency across the board, that it becomes more transparent in terms of how everything is being done.

[02:16:22] And that's to say, I don't want the individual flavor of our schools to go away. I think that the communities that we build inside of our walls are essential to our success. However, there can be a little bit more consistency across the board. So, I appreciate the fact that you guys have recognized that.

[02:16:38] Yes, ma'am. Thank you very much. Ms. Sizemore-Hyser. Thank you. And I'll be brief. I just wanted to kind of talk a little bit about -- I really appreciate Mr. Dunn's questions. And, you know, we talked about a little bit in governance today, right, but this is a compliance report.

[02:16:54] So, some level, this is kind of -- and I think Ms. Anderson said it well today. This is the floor report, right? Like, are you meeting minimum requirements here? And then the goal reports on the strategic plan are kind of that ceiling of where have we been, where are we going, what are our goals?

[02:17:10] So it's, you know, this is, while the expectations, they were called operating expectations where the government's manual before, providing both reports is a fairly new process for me even and for this iteration of the board. So I think Mr. Dunn's questions are great to try to tease out sort of what are we expecting in this report versus goal reports.

[02:17:31] And I think that may be a further conversation with the board to align all of our expectations. And so I appreciate his questions. I just want to kind of lift that up as part of the tension. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Sizemore-Heiser. Ms. Lady.

[02:17:48] Thank you, Mr. Frisch. I certainly appreciate the comments of my colleagues, but I also have a great appreciation for the length of this document and its thoroughness. I really appreciated the hyperlinks because I clicked on several of them and thought to myself, wow, I should have read some of these things while I worked for this school system.

[02:18:07] But I also want to just remind my colleagues that sometimes when we ask, some of these asks then fall on teaching staff and people in buildings to produce you the data I think that you're trying to look for evidentially.

[02:18:23] And they're trying to teach. They're trying to teach. And I just want people to understand that the proof is in the pudding, as we say, right? We're going to have benchmarks. We're going to have measurements. But I just worry about the trickle-down of some of these requests and them falling on teachers.

[02:18:41] That's all. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Lady. Ms. Dixit. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dr. Reed, one of the pages, I think it's on page six, I believe, the portrait of graduate presentation of learning.

[02:18:59] It's an ongoing process for students to apply, reflect, and demonstrate evidence of growth. I struggle with this portrait of graduate term, which has been used by FCPS for over 10 years now almost.

[02:19:15] But in real sense, it's classrooms and with parents, it doesn't resonate what's happening with our students in terms of that. How is that Porter graduate really supporting my student? Is it an individualized approach or is it for just for the, okay, are we graduating more students?

[02:19:36] That's the, you know, that's the kind of goal here. But I want to understand what this particular point means to you and then I have another question about the Young Scholar Program. So, I think the portrait of a graduate has a long history.

[02:19:52] I believe Dr. Garza was here when that was developed. I know that, Dr. Presidio, do you want to -- I know this is something that you've worked a great deal on. Do you have a feel for what this is and how it -- how a family would say, I think to your point, Ms. Dixit, that the value and how we measure the value of that experience for our students.

[02:20:18] - Yeah, I really appreciate the question because we have had portrait of a graduate for almost 10 years now. And we're talking about it less and less and we probably need to be talking about it more and more because the portrait of a graduate is really about helping students develop those attributes that we know are gonna help them be successful in their K-12 experience, but are gonna carry forward and help them be future ready and successful post high school graduation, right?

[02:20:43] So developing strong communication skills, critical thinking skills, creative thinking skills, problem solving skills, collaboration skills, all of those skills that the research tells us that students are gonna be successful in post-secondary education and in the workforce and in life really need to have.

[02:20:59] So we embed portrait of a graduate skill development types of activities into our content curriculum and all of our content areas. But sometimes I think when we do that, gets hard for teachers maybe to even see it and it certainly is hard sometimes I think for students to see it and hard for parents to see it. So the evidence that we've provided in Dr. Reed's report here around those presentations of learning is an opportunity for students to be able to actually self-reflect on their skill development in those portrait of a graduate attributes, provide evidence of how they've grown in those areas, set goals for future growth, and

[02:21:36] and then get feedback from their teachers, and in some instances, even from their classmates and community members. So these are real public presentations based on student self-reflection about how they're developing with those portrait of a graduate attributes. And when we do these consistently in all of our schools, that public demonstration really helps, I think, the students understand their growth, but certainly families see that more explicitly as well.

[02:22:01] So we're really excited about this work and definitely want to continue it. I'd like to hear more about that because if right now if I ask 10 high school student what do you think about portrait of graduate in terms of your own education I don't think they will have an answer to like in like how we want them to answer.

[02:22:25] Second point would be the young scholar program I'm very excited to see that because I've always felt that FCPS is taking the AAP program used to be like the 2% or 1% students, which are the bright students.

[02:22:42] Now, a lot of students are in AAP program. It's no longer like that of a reach. But there are some students who are even getting bored in these AAP classes, and they need more stimulation and more challenge in their academic curriculum.

[02:23:01] So, is this what's going to address these students and make another pool of super achievers? So Young Scholars is a program that is in a variety of school divisions around the country and at times has a slightly different focus.

[02:23:18] So I'll have to defer again to Dr. Presidio about the specific focus for young scholars here because I don't know that that's the focus here. Yeah, so I think that's a great setup, Dr. Reed. So a lot of school divisions around the country are kind of doing what is referred to in the research base as talent development, right?

[02:23:35] How do we create more opportunities for access rigorous programs for students who maybe have barriers to accessing those programs based on a variety of factors in their life and our young scholars program does just that so it really looks at who are the students that have that potential we can see the potential that they have to succeed in the most rigorous classes whether it's at the elementary level all the way through high school and how can we really work with those students give them additional supports different enrichment experiences and opportunities so that they can enroll in advanced courses and be successful in those courses and we track that trajectory of students as they move from elementary school to

[02:24:14] middle school and high school so for example we might have a student who is a young scholar at elementary school and they weren't a level 4 AAP student but by the time that they get to middle school they're taking four honors classes which is really the equivalent of being a level 4 student and by the time they get to high school we can look at that designation and say these These are students that can succeed in the highest level courses, make sure that we're supporting them and enrolling in those courses and helping them to achieve success.

[02:24:42] So it's really an investment in talent development and making sure that our advanced academic programs are as accessible as possible to all students. Thank you for that information, and I'm also looking, going to look out for that program because I just, you know, we know child left behind type of a thing that we want to make sure we are tracking them just like you said all the way till you know high school and again that goes to back to my preschool the tracking thing i just feel like students just sometimes get lost in this big complex fcps system even though there's a special needs student or high achieving students

[02:25:21] or anything with who has iep we we just have to do a better job catering to all of them thank you Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Dixit. Mr. McElveen. Thank you.

[02:25:37] So, I appreciated Roshna mentioning the operational expectations, the OEs, which in the old days, I think were a form of the EEs. But I haven't gotten it straight in my head yet. So, I'm eager to get with the new vernacular.

[02:25:53] So, we'll see how that goes. But I appreciated Ms. Dixit's line of questioning about the portrait of a graduate. And I think it's a good time as a new group that we kind of take a step back and think about the history that has come before us in terms of these various programs and mechanisms.

[02:26:17] So, I really think the Portrait of a Graduate is what makes FCPS special and what makes me really proud to be here. So, going back to 2006, Mr. Moon was here at that time. Fairfax County took an important step in adopting the SAGs or the Student Achievement Goals which really set FCPS apart because those showed that we weren't just committed to academics. We were committed to academics but also essential life skills and responsibility to the community and the

[02:26:49] world. And following that in 2013 as Dr. Reed said when Karen Garza got here we took another step back and really tried to find what could best encapsulate what we want our graduates to be when they leave our system.

[02:27:08] So we convened a group of more than 70 community members. Yes, Dr. Reed, you did outdo them with your strategic plan committee. But we brought together a huge group of community members from all different backgrounds to help us come up with that.

[02:27:25] And in the end, the board spent many, many meetings tweaking that thing and making it as perfect as it could be. But I really think -- I really appreciate Sloan saying that, you know, we're talking about it less and less when really we should be talking about it more and more.

[02:27:43] And I would say it's one of the top achievements of this board and system over the past decade. Many people don't realize that our portrait of a graduate was taken and adopted by the state of Virginia. And it was also adopted by districts across the nation. So, again, something we should be proud of.

[02:28:00] Hopefully, Ms. Dixit, we can reinvigorate it and make sure that people are understanding what it means in every classroom. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. McIveen. Mr. Moon? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the presentation.

[02:28:15] You know, looking at your report, it's an enormous amount of work. And that we have 13 EEs. I'm just, you know, my head is spinning that how you are able to do for all teens, especially if you need to do this on an annual basis.

[02:28:34] Granted that this is first time, first one, first time will be probably more work than subsequent ones. And I'm hoping that you board, especially eight of us who didn't get to participate in coming up with this, could have an opportunity to have a better understanding of how this is supposed to work with a strategic plan and also, you know, at the end of the school year, you know, providing some much of evaluation of a superintendent's performance.

[02:29:06] But I don't know whether that is scheduled for the upcoming work session, you know, retreat or work session, but I'm hoping to have that opportunity. Looking at the language that over that introductory paragraph, that it has something that caught my eyes.

[02:29:29] meet the needs of each and every learner. And I was sort of trying to find how you interpreted the particular phrase, "needs of each and every learner." I mean, I don't see that.

[02:29:44] Please tell me if I missed it. How would you interpret that, "needs of each and every learner?" - So I think that the interpretation was based on what the board has characterized as the indicators because the board took time to review what the previous operational expectations were, I think, to Mr. McElveen's point.

[02:30:12] So that's what the last board did, is looked at those operational expectations that have been developed by a prior board and made some edits, and then those indicators were what we, as a system, were going to be responsive to, because those indicators would determine whether or not we were meeting the first paragraph goals.

[02:30:32] And if there's something we need to add to the indicators to be more transparent about each and every student, I think, you know, certainly we can have that conversation. But it's my understanding that making sure we're responsive to the indicators will lead us to achieving that first paragraph.

[02:30:51] It's not going to be an easy test, however, and all parents, all students want to be able to have their individual needs fully met whether that's doable, that's possible. I do not know, but that's a conversation I would like to have with the superintendent sometime. Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Moon. I'll take my turn.

[02:31:15] It is a lot of work, all these executive expectations and the goal reports and the strategic plan. And I think that's what's great about it, is that finally we have an opportunity for regular check-ins with you to judge accountability and fidelity to the strategic plan to see how we're doing to redirect when necessary as a team as a board and not as individuals because that is how executives function best is when they have clear direction from their governing board and then they report back to that board on that progress and and then it's up to us

[02:31:51] to look at this uh you know report that we're getting this monitoring report and decide whether it's meeting the expectations that were set out and if it's not to redirect and so i am extremely grateful to be in a in in the midst of a process that does that uh and to be having this conversation with my colleagues um at the work session next week um and i very much appreciated the conversation here and certainly have some food for thought before tuesday based on what everybody's been saying we do have one go back um dr anderson thank you just one more item that i wanted to to bring attention to.

[02:32:28] I think this one, more than any one of them, really clarifies kind of where I was coming in from. And this is still under number one. It's the bullet on page three that talks about FCPS offers. I think it's what, one, two, three, four, five. It's the fifth one on that page down.

[02:32:46] That says FCPS offers world languages, world languages instruction for K-12 students, including elementary, et cetera, et cetera. I think it would have been a better caveat say for some k-12 students because of our 142 elementary schools 55 of them have fless 17 of them have dual language and 72 or so have nothing and so it's a little bit of a misleading statement given our current state what i would love to have seen here as i'm meeting this expectation because

[02:33:23] we all want languages for all of our kids i think we've talked about that multiple times is you know we now have 72 schools with them and in the near future we'll have 90 schools then this is kind of the thinking it could still be a high level plan because this is not the plan for everything but that will show where we're heading because this statement as it stands it's not accurate for me given the data right and I you know the statement is we offer it but to your point I think what you're asking for is more specific data at which schools and if not at all, then what's the plan to get it to all?

[02:34:01] Am I hearing that correctly? And I don't need to necessarily know which schools because there's a list on the website with that. And I think a year ago, yesterday, we were talking about that very list because I saw the email that we were having conversations about that, Dr. Presidio, and the list hasn't really changed much.

[02:34:22] And we know this is a point of contention because that does not speak to equitable access. And it's a very glaring example. I think it's even more stark than the academies and some of the other things we can all point to. Right, and we've also talked about Science Olympiad, Math Olympiad, and so forth.

[02:34:38] So point taken, and I appreciate the very clear feedback this evening. We'll make that actionable. Now, Dr. Reid, we have a little bit more work to do. You're welcome to continue standing there. You've been there for quite a while, or you can take your seat. What is the next item? The next item on the agenda is 5.01 Financial Year 2025 Budget Priorities Resolution.

[02:35:00] Okay, so I think I don't need to be here for that. All right, thanks. All right, I call on Dr. Anderson for a motion.

[02:35:18] No, I'll put it up on my computer. I just was trying to do two things at the same time and not being successful. Yeah, I'm scrolling.

[02:35:39] All right, thank you. I have found my way. I move to direct the superintendent to develop a student-focused, equitable, and needs-based proposed budget for FY 2025, aligned to the division's strategic plan and inclusive of the board's strategic budget priorities of FCPS workforce recruitment and retention to include competitive compensation with consideration for differentiated pay for hard-to-fill positions such as teachers in Title I schools and special education teachers, student academic success, access to enrichment and mental health supports and the closing of achievement gaps,

[02:36:19] school safety and security, maintaining or lowering class sizes and accelerating expansion of preschool options, including inclusive preschool offerings, and increasing universal breakfast and lunch opportunities and reducing school meal debt.

[02:36:36] The superintendent's proposed budget should include the criteria and rationale utilized by staff to prioritize division needs and a response to to the school's, to the school board's resolution. - Is there a second, Mr. McDaniel?

[02:36:54] Dr. Anderson, would you like to speak to your motion? - Yes, I would. First, I wanted to just bring to attention the culmination of the work that goes into this motion. We started with the previous board and trying to coalesce the priorities of that entire board.

[02:37:11] And of course, redoing that work with this board, because it is important for us to give direction to the superintendent. The budget reflects our priorities. So we need to articulate what is important for us to review. But I think we also have come, as you will see, as you have seen in this motion, that we do realize that there are limitations, which is why asking the superintendent to offer how staff is prioritizing what is included in her budget, how staff is offering a rationale in terms of why did they include A and not B.

[02:37:45] I think it's really one of the most key and essential things that we have done, because we do have, we do know that we cannot do it all. So I'm very appreciative of the budget team, Ms. Widginton, and yes, there she is, Ms. Burden, for all of their work in helping to craft this motion, because they also had to sit down for one-on-ones with every single new board member.

[02:38:08] The first week of January, we literally started January 2. There was no break, because it's really important for all of the board members to have voice into this resolution. So I hope, Dr. Reed, that this is clear for you in terms of what the board is finding as priority and that you'll be able to provide your proposed budget and most importantly, really speak to the rationale as to why certain things are as they are in your proposal.

[02:38:36] - Yes, ma'am, they're clear. - Thank you, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel. - Briefly, I was made budget vice chair about two weeks ago which in my head is like five minutes ago. So I came in late to this process, but I've been very impressed with the progress so far in this language.

[02:38:55] I think it's important to realize that, you know, we all have our individual wants and desires and needs, and I think that we -- that staff and Dr. Anderson's budget chair has done a good job incorporating that as best as reasonably possible. One of the items that I know I'm going to be particularly focused on this budget cycle is ensuring that the budget is aligning with the strategic plan and that process as we go forward for not just this budget for future, but for future budgets as well, how that process is going to be laid out.

[02:39:26] So I'm happy to second this motion. Thank you. Seeing no other speakers, we can go to the vote. I will call for the vote. The motion is on the screen. All those in favor, Ms. Seizmoorheiser, Mr. McDaniel, Mr. McElveen, Ms. Leidy, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Marin, Dr. Anderson, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Moon, and I don't see Mr. Dunn on the screen.

[02:39:52] Ms. Mr. Dunn has departed. Dr. Okay, with Mr. Dunn away from the dais. The motion passes. The resolution passes. All right, I call on Dr. Anderson for a follow-on motion. Ms. Mr. Dunn is done.

[02:40:10] I move to direct the superintendent to present to the board by February 29, 2024, recommendations detailing scope, sequence, and timeline for a comprehensive and cyclical efficiency review aligned to the strategic plan of all division programs to include a rationale and prioritization of what can be accomplished to inform the annual budget process of FY26 and beyond.

[02:40:36] Thank you. Is there a second? Mr. McDaniel. Dr. Anderson, would you like to speak to your follow-on motion? Yes, briefly. I think Mr. McDonald started to speak about this a little while ago. While we do spend quite a bit of time giving our priorities to what the new asks are going to be, this is an opportunity for us to really delve into the base budget, to really determine how is it that we're currently spending our $3.5 million and how can we perhaps be more innovative in having a regular cycle of review.

[02:41:08] Just like we talked about having a regular cycle of review for staff positions because Because we tend to look at them after much advocacy. We need to have a regular cadence where we're taking a look at the job duties and whether or not things will be reclassified. So this is going to be the same application.

[02:41:27] This is a budget exercise. This is not an instructional exercise. So I want to make sure that that's articulated. But I think it's going to be very insightful and I'm really excited about the opportunities that exist for us. And this budget follow-on asks Dr. Reed to develop a plan because we have a huge organization.

[02:41:47] How can we chuck this work so that it is manageable, but yet so we still have opportunity to impact next year's budget? So I'm very excited to bring this forward. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Mr. McDaniel, would you like to speak to your second? Briefly again, I spoke a lot about this yesterday.

[02:42:02] I spent a lot of time yesterday on this. And I, this is, so budgets, in many instances, public budgeting can be an exercise of an iterative process and in layering on spending or in sometimes reductions.

[02:42:19] But what this exercise is designed to do is to be a lengthy, deep dive into operational spending. And the reality is this is going to take a long time, 18 to 24 months, if I had to guess. And I'm looking forward to being part of that process going forward because we owe it to, you know, the public, ourselves, our staff, the kids, families, to go through these exercises.

[02:42:46] And, again, I'm looking forward to seeing this develop over the next 18 to 24 months. Thank you, Mr. McDaniel. Ms. Anderson. I just wanted to speak to this quickly because I know it's getting late. But I wanted to say that I'm excited about this process for a number of different reasons.

[02:43:06] We are a new organization working together, and I think this is an opportunity for us to understand where all of our priorities lie. I'm the daughter of a longtime budget officer for the federal government, and she taught me at a very young age that anything you put in your budget is more important than anything you don't.

[02:43:27] And so I think that while I understand that this is a budget exercise, I do think that it's an important opportunity to look at what we're spending our money on and ensure that it aligns with our current priorities. So I am excited about this opportunity for us to start this process, and I hope it becomes a cyclical thing that happens at a regular cadence moving forward.

[02:43:50] Thank you, Ms. Anderson. Ms. Seizmoorheiser. Thank you. And I wanted to speak to this as well, just to kind of talk a little bit about some of the thinking that I had around supporting the follow on, you know, sort of building on Ms. Anderson's point as a new sort of group here as a new board and also having a new strategic plan.

[02:44:18] I think this is a really ripe opportunity to do the cyclical review of how is how what we're doing aligned with our strategic plan. And it actually fits neatly with what our previous board did when we started four years ago and got interrupted by this little thing called COVID, where we actually started doing a program review.

[02:44:38] And I'm sure Mr. Frisch, Ms. Marin, and Dr. Annis remember, we did several work sessions reviewing the program budget for the same sort of idea in mind of really doing a deeper dive into what we're doing, how efficient is it, how effective is it, you know, to keep that knowledge before our board in terms of are we really doing the best practices and being most effective with how we're spending our money.

[02:45:01] And we started that process as well. So I think with this new board and the new strategic plan, this is a good time to initiate this new process of that cyclical review to sort of tie all the ends together. So I'm glad that we're sort of restarting a process.

[02:45:18] And I'm glad that we're doing this iteration, especially with the new strategic plan. Because one of the things that I know our previous board, we inherited a really wonderful strategic plan and it was five years by the time we inherited it and we had wanted to dig into that when we started and also interrupted by the little thing called covid so now all of these things are coming together very nicely neatly to set this up for success so i'm excited to support it thank you miss sizemore heiser i will call for the vote on the motion which is on the screen all those in favor miss sizemore heiser mr mcdaniel mr

[02:45:52] McElveen, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Marin, Dr. Anderson, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Dixit, and Mr. Moon with Mr. done away from the table that passes with the unit that is unanimous for those in attendance. Thank you. We will move on to agenda item six, the consent agenda.

[02:46:14] Our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure, Roberts rules provide for a consent agenda. Nope, nope i'm wrong i apologize um agenda item 5.02 action item personnel appointments and separations i call on dr anderson for a motion thank you i move that the school board confirm the personnel appointments and separations for the period beginning october 1 2023 to december 31 2023 thank you is there a second miss marron dr anderson would you like to speak to your motion yes I would for a couple of reasons one I wanted to highlight to the board that this separation

[02:46:53] report looks very different from before that's why I wanted to pull it off so we can have an opportunity for conversation and I'm really hoping that Dr. Agnew Scott is going to be able to walk us through some of the differences from what we have received previously which was something that was raised back in September by me because I did not feel that that separation report was as helpful to give context.

[02:47:20] So I would love for you to orient the board a little bit to this new format. Thank you. I'd be happy to. So the revised format for the quarterly separations report provides a more comprehensive look at our separations across employee subgroups over a specified period of time.

[02:47:41] In this case, it is on a quarterly basis. The trend data provided helps us to determine if there's an upward or a downward trend within position categories. Next month, you will see further improvements in the monthly report to include monthly trend data within and across employee subgroups.

[02:48:04] So there are more changes to come. So this particular report does help us to identify again upward trends and anomalies and data to assist in identifying potential causes for these trends.

[02:48:21] So here are some things within this quarter that you will notice. There were a total of 350 separations and retirements across all positions in FCPS, represents about 1.5 percent of all full-time staff in FCPS. This is just one piece of information that you can pull from this report in the format that's presented here. Are there any other questions about the format? We're just happy that we were able to provide this report in the format that

[02:48:59] provides greater detail and um trend data across all categories thank you i also want to say i'm very grateful for the last two pages of this report that shows this multi-year look in terms of what occurred in the in the various quarters by employee group this is really invaluable i think it's really going to help the board to help determine how to allocate resources um those findings are going to be essential so i'm very appreciative of the work that you and your team put forward to put this together. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Miss Marin.

[02:49:36] I'm really pleased to see this new format. So thank you for bringing it into fruition. And thank you, Dr. Anderson, for raising it. Because this is something that I know I get asked about, you know, why are staff leaving? Are staff leaving at a higher rate than it used to be? And I think without this data, a lot of assumptions get made. And this was actually just included in a news article recently. And I think it's really grossly misunderstood. There's lots of reasons that people COME AND GO FROM JOBS, BUT WE ALSO WANT TO KNOW IF THERE'S A PARTICULAR REASON THAT PEOPLE ARE COMING AND GOING FROM OUR JOBS. SO I LOOK FORWARD TO THIS BEING THE NEW NORMAL. THANK YOU.

[02:50:13] THANK YOU, MS. MARIN. MR. MOON. THANK YOU, MR. CHAIRMAN. JUST A COUPLE OF QUICK QUESTIONS. MAYBE FIRST ONE GOES TO MR. FOSTER. LOOKING AT THE AGENDA, IT SAYS RELATED TO LEGAL REQUIREMENT.

[02:50:33] SO COULD YOU EXPLAIN WHAT THE LEGAL REQUIREMENT IS ON THIS ONE? i'm pulling up the uh the item here please bear with me um so my recollection is that there is a requirement that the separations and appointments be provided to the board in a regular report this is a quarterly report i don't have that code section at my fingertips but i think that is the

[02:51:11] basis for the legal requirement phase that school board has to take on action is that the public legal requirement that's correct okay could you could you tell us what separation mean i would look to miss uh dr uh agnew on the separation i understand what retirement is separation is just leaving us is that that's somebody voluntarily resigning quitting is that that is correct it It could be involuntary or voluntary separations

[02:51:51] or leaving the school district for one reason or another. - And even the voluntary leaving has to be approved by the board in this fashion. I'm just trying to understand why the board is being asked to approve this in a post.

[02:52:12] I mean, these things have already occurred in the past. If you can respond to that question right away, Could you provide us the reasoning later in writing? Thank you.

[02:52:32] - Thank you, Mr. Moon. All right, we will move to a vote. The motion is on the screen. All those in favor of the motion, Ms. Sizemore-Heiser, Mr. McDaniel, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Marin, Dr. Anderson, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Moon, and Ms. Lady is away from the table, and myself as well.

[02:52:57] It's unanimous for everybody who's at the table. All right, we will move on to agenda item six, consent agenda, our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure, Roberts rules, provide for consent agenda listing several items for approval of the board by a single motion. Many items listed have gone through board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance. Items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting. The consent agenda items are on the screen. Is there any objection to approving the consent agenda? Hearing and seeing no objection, the consent agenda is approved. Agenda item seven,

[02:53:34] NEW BUSINESS. THE FOLLOWING ARE NEW BUSINESS AGENDA ITEMS THERE WILL NOT BE A VOTE ON THESE ITEMS THIS EVENING BUT ACTION IS SCHEDULED FOR A FUTURE MEETING. THE NEW BUSINESS ITEMS ARE ON THE SCREEN. AGENDA ITEM 8 BOARD COMMITTEE REPORTS. I WILL NOW CALL ON THE FOLLOWING STANDING COMMITTEE CHAIRS TO SPEAK IF THEY HAVE ANYTHING TO REPORT. AUDIT COMMITTEE CHAIR MR. MCCAVEEN.

[02:53:57] THANK YOU MR. CHAIR. VERY BRIEFLY OUR AUDIT COMMITTEE CONVENED OUR FIRST MEETING OF THE NEW BOARD with our auditor general esther co presenting us with two reports one was a audit on food and nutrition services another was on was the annual report from her office so it's a great way to get started i would remind board members that the audit committee also deals with closed meeting topics and those will be presented to the full board for your consideration if you want to hear

[02:54:34] details of those items um so that's it thank you mr mckelveen uh governance committee chair miss sizemore heiser do you have anything to report um hot off the presses since governance met today for the first time um we have several items i'll be coming to the board for a work session on tuesday so look out for some more information from me and some more documents for me as well but we discussed the first order of business was really following up on the board motion from October I believe it was asking for this board to look at the executive expectation process so governance looked at the process and made a recommendation to continue with what we

[02:55:13] have in the governance manual and that will be discussed at the work session and then we also looked at board of virtual participation and voted to allow for virtual participation as we used to do it and that's also on new business and we'll be coming to the board for a vote and then we talked Also, continue to talk about this Treaty of Governance Manual and executive expectations.

[02:55:31] And again, more information will be coming from me on that in preparation for our work session on Tuesday. So I want to thank my fellow committee members, Mr. Moon, Ms. Anderson, and Mr. McDaniel. It was a very productive meeting. We got through a lot, and I thought it was a really good conversation. So looking forward to more productive work on governance.

[02:55:48] Thank you very much. Agenda item 9, board matters. Next on the agenda is board matters. I will call on each school board member to speak. Ms. Dixit. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to share it's been a busy couple of weeks in the school board and I have been learning a lot about FCPS activities, operations and policies.

[02:56:10] I have enjoyed the board retreat with the board of supervisors and looking forward to collaborating closely with them and continuing to build our strong partnerships together. I have a school visit next week to Stone Middle School with my colleague, Mr. Moon. I look forward to hearing from principal and staff directly on any challenges they face and watching our students in action.

[02:56:32] Congratulations to student Pratik from Rocky Run Middle School, Anaya from Katherine Johnson Middle School, and Krithi Sri from McNair Upper Elementary School and their robotics team gear shifters who will be heading to Sydney, Australia in July 2024 as one of the first LEGO League FLL representing the United States at the FLL Asia Pacific Open Championship.

[02:56:57] They placed first overall out of 59 teams in the 2023 first Lego League Virginia D.C. championship. Congrats to Sully District student Ryan Kim from Thomas Jefferson High School and all the eight FCPS students who were in the amongst the nation's top 300 teen scientists named the prestigious region region round science and math competition for high school seniors.

[02:57:25] I also wanted to encourage our community to please volunteer to be judges at the upcoming science and engineering fairs coming up in February and March. You will be we need your talent to inspire our student. More details to how to sign up will be coming in my February newsletter.

[02:57:43] I look forward to seeing you all at the school events, plays, concert in the upcoming weeks. Thank you and good night. Thank you, Miss Dixit. Miss Anderson. I'm going to be very short and sweet tonight because I'm going to give us back some of our time that we were a few minutes late.

[02:58:00] I just wanted to confirm to Dr. Anderson or I'm sorry Dr. Reid that curriculum nights are absolutely going strong. I was I was able to participate in one last night with my uprising ninth grader and we are in negotiations now for strong electives.

[02:58:19] And so I am deeply impressed with what our staff was able to put on, including an amazing panel at South County High School about just that was able to reiterate all the things that I also reiterate. So it was very helpful for me as a parent.

[02:58:35] So that's all going well, and I'm excited to see the next steps. Thank you, Miss Anderson. Miss St. John Cunning. Thank you.

[02:58:51] There's a lot I want to say, but I won't. So I want to thank, first of all, Principal Amanda Burke for inviting me and fellow board member Kyle McDaniel, as well as Region 3 Assistant Superintendent Ray Lynette to the Edison High School PTSA meeting this past Tuesday for a very informative presentation by our Chief of Safety and Security, Tom Vaccarello, which resulted in a very robust conversation with parents and community members, and there will definitely be follow-up meetings that were sponsored by the parents, and I'd love to see community coming together like that.

[02:59:23] Tomorrow, even though it's a day off for our kids, but in partnership with the Potomac Health Foundation, Sentara and Northern Virginia Family Services, Mount Vernon Woods Elementary is hosting the Sentara digital mammography van that will provide screenings from 9:00 to 12:00 p.m. for women in the community.

[02:59:41] Feel free to bring your insurance cards or reach out to Sentara to determine if you qualify for free services. I love that we're bringing health services into our marginalized communities. Mount Vernon High School Theater Arts presents the world premiere of Tales of Anansi on Friday, February 2nd.

[03:00:00] And finally, very pertinent because we were talking about career and technical programming at the Addison Academy is hosting its open house this Saturday, February 3rd, or on Saturday, February 3rd, from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The Academy is great.

[03:00:15] The offerings range basically from almost A to Z, starting with auto collision, construction tech, cosmetology, culinary arts, cyber and IT courses, electrical construction, teachers for tomorrow, and veterinary services.

[03:00:30] And these are just a limit. This is just a small sampling of what they offer. So I encourage people to go out and look at those programs because they really are fantastic. Thank you, Ms. H. Uncunning. Ms. Lady. Happy Virginia School Principals Week to all FCPS principals.

[03:00:48] And congratulations to our Region 1 new and outstanding principal nominees. New principal, Herndon Middle School's principal, Vareb. And outstanding principal is Dranesville Elementary School's principal, Gadley. I enjoyed being at both of their announcements earlier this morning.

[03:01:04] I attended the Chesterbrook Elementary School open house for families affected by the McLean Elementary boundary adjustment this afternoon. It was great to see so many families attending. Thank you to principal Stacy Kirkpatrick, her staff, and the student ambassadors who were so welcoming and shared a lot of information.

[03:01:20] All the schools involved in the boundary adjustment had an open house this afternoon are looking to make the transition as straightforward as possible. Looking for something to do during the winter? Many high schools and middle school concerts and plays are happening over the next few weeks. Tomorrow I will attend the competitive one-act production in the Liberty District Festival at Marshall High School.

[03:01:38] I'll be watching the one-act productions of our three Drainsville High Schools. Langley High School will go at 9:00 a.m., Herndon at 10:30, and then McLean at 2:15. Hope you can join me to root on our students and see some great acting. You can attend the last games and district tournaments for our high school winter sports as they finish up their seasons.

[03:01:57] Many Drainsville schools are also holding science nights in the coming weeks where you can have fun as a family learning science through hands-on experiments. They're also looking for middle school and high school volunteers. Also an update on McLean High School facilities projects, bathrooms, good news, the recently renovated bathrooms in the blue and green hallways are now open and work has started on the silver and yellow hall bathrooms.

[03:02:19] Those bathrooms will be closed while the work is being performed. Floors, more good news, the entire first floor is in the process of being retiled. The start date was scheduled for this week and should take three to four weeks to complete. All work will happen after school and on weekends. The halls will be clean and passable during school hours.

[03:02:37] And thank you to community members who shared their thoughts on the proposed capital improvement plan at last week's public hearing. I appreciated hearing from our Drainsville community. Sadam, a Drainsville Marshall High School student representing the Student Group Voter Initiative. Multiple members of the Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions and other community members gave their testimonies.

[03:02:55] The themes shared included the appreciation of the sustainability updates in the proposed CIP, but comments were made that we need to be more coordinated efforts within FCPS and the county to increase impacts of JET recommendations. We need more resources to add sustainability efforts beyond design and construction and prioritize more energy efficient systems in our schools like HVAC.

[03:03:17] So needing more information on careers and post high school plans, FCPS has two opportunities. The annual gap year fair will be on January 30th at Marshall High School from 6:00 to 8:30. And then the industry to industry, a career expo for high school students. Students will learn about a wide variety of potential career paths and post-secondary options.

[03:03:35] Students can register for this now. There'll be nightly virtual sessions from our February five to eight. And the in-person career fair will be held at the Dulles Expo Center on Saturday, February 17th. And finally, elementary language immersion applications are open and open houses are going on with Great Falls Elementary School holding their Japanese immersion open house January 30th.

[03:03:55] Thank you. - Thank you, Miss Lady. Thank you. First of all, congratulations to the Region 6 New Principal of the Year, Ingrid Badia, who is the Principal at Annandale Terrace in her second year.

[03:04:11] And also the Region 6 Principal of the Year goes to Mr. Sean DeRose at Annandale High School, as you were talking about Adams earlier. So thank you to both of those principals for all of your work and leadership, and your peers think very highly of the work that you're doing for our students.

[03:04:29] I've had a recent visit with the athletic trainer at Justice High School. It was quite a treat to be on the sidelines talking to him while watching my kid play basketball. So that was actually fun. So I have lots to talk to you about, Dr. Reid, regarding that visit because our athletic trainers and their fundraising efforts and the resources or lack of that they receive from the central office, It's quite a hindrance for some of our schools who rely solely on fundraising in order to get bandages for their athletes.

[03:05:04] I don't think that's a position that we need to be putting our schools in. So lots of details for you. I also want to say to the Glasgow community, I shared with you earlier this week in my newsletter, the tentative Glasgow boundary adjustment study.

[03:05:21] We are expecting meetings in March and April for the community to hear the recommendations from staff and a public hearing will be following in the next month. I'm really looking forward to that discussion because that community, Dr. Reed, has been quite anxious to understand what is it that we're doing and some of their concerns.

[03:05:42] I know that they'll be sharing those still coming to me as late as yesterday regarding AAP and whether or not that's going to be part of the discussion. And they're very concerned about that. And being that it's the only AAP center in all of Mason District, I think it's a unique situation for us to consider if that's even an opportunity.

[03:06:06] I do want to share that the dual language immersion, that the online application for the programs open this week. There's a virtual general program information that is being offered February 1 at 6:00 PM. Please visit the dual language immersion web page for more information.

[03:06:24] Applications are due February 15th for first grade applicants. Kindergarten applications are due March 4th. Similarly to Miss Lady, upcoming Mason District Theater, Falls Church High School is offering free admission to their student directed one act, one acts this weekend, tomorrow, which will be January 26th at 7:00 p.m. and also Saturday, January 27th at 2:00 p.m. It is free.

[03:06:54] And tickets are also available now for the TJ High School Theater's production of the SpongeBob musical. Show dates are February 1 through the 3rd and 9th through the 10th. Enjoy and good night. Thank you very much. Mr. McElveen.

[03:07:13] Pass, thanks. Thank you very much. Mr. McDaniel. Wrong button. I was going to pass, but I brought pies in. Before anybody goes home, you have to either take a piece of pie with you or eat a piece of pie, because I'm not going home with three one-half pieces, with three one-half pies.

[03:07:35] So that's it. No comment. No comment. Ms. Seismar-Hyser. Just briefly, a couple of things I wanted to lift up. The FCPS has many job fairs coming up. We have a food and nutrition job fair, a bus driver transportation job fair.

[03:07:53] And so please check those out, many sort of instructional job fairs. I think Lewis is holding an instructional job fair soon as well. So I wanted to lift those up. We're also holding a youth mental health first aid meeting. So please check that out online. and something that is something I've been advocating for for probably 10 years, so I'm really thrilled to see that our CTS, our Career and Transition Services, is doing a transition planning, the younger years, future planning for elementary and middle school students in special education, and I used to present on this at the special education conference, so I'm thrilled that we're reaching out to younger students

[03:08:32] because that transition planning is so important. So it is February 21st here at Luther Jackson, 6:30, So, and if you are an FCPS staff member who sign up, you can get two recertification points for attending. So, please attend. And then I will just end by saying Fairfax High, Cry Baby the Musical is coming up soon.

[03:08:51] Matilda Junior at Robinson Secondary School is coming up soon. And they have a sensory sensitive performance. So, check it out on their website. And West Springfield High School has their one acts that others have mentioned as well. And Irving has We Will Rock You. And something rotten is coming up at Lake Braddock.

[03:09:08] So lots of great theater coming up. Check it out. With that, thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Heiser. Mr. Moon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know I know the doctor has a very, very tough schedule and I have not given a heads up. But in case you can adjust your schedule Monday morning at 10:30, as Mr.

[03:09:28] Dixon mentioned, and will be visiting Stone Middle School, especially that I am I am looking forward to a chatting with a couple of phenomenal special education teachers, including the gentleman who's in a wheelchair himself with disabilities, but still taking care of our special education students.

[03:09:51] That's 10:30 in the morning. Thank you, Mr. Moon. Ms. Marin? Yes, well, it's been pretty delightful to be here this evening in person with the board in my role as vice chair next to Chairman Frisch.

[03:10:07] So thank you, everyone, for starting this journey together. And it's a very exciting time. There's lots of potential ahead of us. And learning to balance, you know, the board work and the magisterial work will take some grace from the public and my colleagues, so thank you for that.

[03:10:25] I really have appreciated this evening hearing from my colleagues who come from the front lines in our schools. And again, it's just very exciting to hear the different perspectives now on the board. and I think it's going to make our work even more powerful and meaningful. I had fun getting into the schools in this year already.

[03:10:43] I was at Madison for a gymnastics meet, which is so cool. So it was Madison, Southlakes, Herndon were competing, and I just couldn't believe these students were at school all day long, and then they're doing this incredible work, at seven, eight o'clock at night. And so I did bring my son. I give him the concession stand goodies, and that always gets him to an event.

[03:11:02] Being at Dogwood for the family literacy night, And then tomorrow is Broadway night at Southlakes High School that I'm really excited to attend. And I'm looking forward to the superintendent proposing to our budget because what gets funded gets done. So see you in two weeks for that. Very exciting stuff. And I hope the public tunes in because that's the heart of what we do and it's how we express our values to the community and make sure every child gets what they need.

[03:11:26] Thank you. - Thank you, Ms. Marron. I just want to take an opportunity to thank our incredible staff for tonight's meeting, the clerk's office, as well as our leadership team and the superintendent, we covered a lot of ground tonight on some very important subjects with a lot of incredible detail.

[03:11:43] And my head is off to all of you for pulling it all together for this meeting. So thank you very much. Since the last meeting, I've been down to Richmond to meet with delegates and senators and talk about our priorities as a school system and appreciate those meetings.

[03:11:58] I also enjoyed our joint retreat with the Board of Supervisors where we talked a lot about the ways we can collaborate together and on the critical issues facing our school division and our county partners last night i was at the providence district open house hosted by our supervisor dolly palchick at the jim scott community center and got to reconnect with many of our friends across providence district and leaders in the community and finally miss seizmerheiser has already mentioned this but fairfax academy is pulling off a production of crybaby the musical based off of one of my favorite John Waters movies and they are doing like a dinner theater

[03:12:35] thing on Friday and I will be there and very much looking forward to it and all the incredible shows that are coming up this year with the time that we've got left in the school year. So with that being said, I appreciate everybody's time and my colleagues especially.

[03:12:51] We are adjourned.

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