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

Date: Thursday, April 25, 2024
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 4h 50m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXtpfFJc04Q
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 2026-11-01. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:03:46] Good evening, all. I apologize. The board is running a little bit behind. The meeting will start tonight at approximately 7.20. I greatly apologize.

[00:16:12] My personal laptop. I got confused because my personal laptop is on the other side.

[00:17:26] Oh, that's okay. With a different plug.

[00:17:50] Board members, please take your seats. This April 25th, 2024 regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board will now come to order.

[00:19:39] Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by a moment of silence and a performance of the National Anthem by the FCPS Parent Orchestra under the direction of Austin Johnson and Annie Ray. I pledge of allegiance to the flag.

[00:20:08] Now we get to see where all the talented kiddos that we see week after week get their talents from, hard work and maybe a little from the parents.

[00:22:14] Give it up for one more time.

[00:22:24] Ms. Anderson has submitted a written request to attend this evening's meeting virtually due to a personal conflict. All those in favor of approving Ms. Anderson's request, please raise your hand. Mr. McDaniel, Mr. McElveen, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Marin, Mr. Dunn, Dr. Anderson, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Moon, and myself.

[00:22:46] Will the clerk read the vote? That is 10-0. The motion passes. Thank you. Ms. Anderson, would you test your microphone? Hi, guys. All right, we hear you loud and clear. Ms. Sizemore-Heiser has submitted a written request to attend this evening's meeting virtually due to a personal conflict.

[00:23:06] All those in favor of approving Ms. Sizemore Heiser's request, please raise your hand. Mr. McDaniel, Mr. McElveen, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Marin, Mr. Dunn, Dr. Anderson, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Moon, and myself. Will the clerk read the vote? That is also 10-0. The motion passes.

[00:23:24] All right. Ms. Sizemore Heiser, will you test your microphone? Hello. Good evening, everybody. All right. We hear you loud and clear. We'd like to take a moment to recognize Ms. Carolyn Pitches, City of Fairfax School Board Chair, Ms. Stacey Hall and Ms. Rachel McQuillan, also from the City of Fairfax School Board, and Mr. Jeff Plattenberg, the Superintendent of the City of Fairfax Public Schools.

[00:23:53] Are they here? I thought I saw them. Where are they? They're right in front of me. Stand up. There we go. 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 at the back of the auditorium or on the website fcps.edu/schoolboard/boarddocs.

[00:24:18] Tonight's meeting is being broadcast on channel 99 and live streamed on the website fcps.edu/tv/ch99. This is a reminder that school board members will no longer make remarks about a proclamation when it is presented for a board vote. They may choose to make remarks during their board matters at the end of the meeting.

[00:24:38] Agenda item 2.05 Holocaust Remembrance Proclamation, I call on Ms. Dixit for a proclamation. whereas the holocaust was the government-sponsored systemic slaughter of six million jews who were targeted by the nazis for extermination for the final solution directive resulting in the alleviation of 66 of the jewish population and whereas for holocaust survivor and nobel prize winner elie weisel is not an example of man's human inhumanity to man it was a man inhumanity

[00:25:15] to Jews. And whereas the Holocaust was a genocide that specifically and intentionally targeted Jews powered by the anti-Semitism based on tropes and conspiracies perpetrated per million millennia in societies. And whereas the distinguishing factor of the Holocaust in the internalization of genocide to exterminate mass quantities of Jews as efficiency as possible including using gas chambers and whereas between 1933 and 1945 Nazi Germany and its

[00:25:53] collaborators also targeted Roma people with disabilities and polls for destruction or decimation based on racial ethnic or national reasons and millions more also suffered grievous oppression and death including homosexual person Jehovah's Witnesses Soviet prisoners of war and political descendants and various education about about the Holocaust is a prime method to ensure such atrocities never hack again occur reversing growing anti-semitism and consider that Holocaust survivors and their descendants including those

[00:26:30] were the first generation from survivors live here now in our FCPS and Fairfax County and various in FCPS student receive Holocaust education largely in grades 7 10 and 11 as per alignment with state social studies standard for which FCPS educator receive professional development with content from organizations such as the Jewish Community Relations Council, Capital Jewish Museum and the Virginia Holocaust Museum and the Anne Frank

[00:27:03] Museum, Smithsonian and Echoes and Reflections and more. Now therefore be it resolved that the The Fairfax County School Board proclaims May 6 2024 as Holocaust Remembrance Day in the memory of victims of the Holocaust and the legacy from which learning continues.

[00:27:23] And therefore be it further resolved that the Fairfax County School Board encourages every member of our community to set aside moment of their time each year to consider that over six million people murdered. the heinous result of unfettered hatred and personal commitment to be up upstanders for all people's freedom and right to live in peace.

[00:27:48] - Is there a second, Mr. McElveen? I will call for a vote. All those in favor, Mr. McDaniel, Mr. McElveen, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Marin, Mr. Dunn, Dr. Anderson, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Moon, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Sizemore Heiser and myself, that is unanimous.

[00:28:08] Congratulations. All right. Agenda Item 2.04, Autism Affirmation Proclamation. I think that's you, Mr. Chair.

[00:28:32] I'm aware. Thank you. I call on the chair for a proclamation.

[00:28:48] Thank you. We've not had to do that yet as a pair, so well done. All right. Whereas Autism Spectrum Disorder is a developmental difference that affects communication and social interaction, but also presents with unique strengths in such areas as focus, memory, visual perception, logical thinking, persistence, mathematics, music, creativity, and more.

[00:29:11] And whereas 1 in 36 children in the United States is diagnosed with ASD, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC. And whereas students on the autism spectrum bring valuable perspectives and a wealth of talents to our classrooms, enriching the learning environment for all students.

[00:29:31] And whereas Fairfax County Public Schools is committed to fostering a welcoming and inclusive learning environment in which all students, including those with ASD, feel supported, respected, and empowered to reach their full potential. And whereas early intervention, inclusion practices, acceptance, understanding, and access to appropriate support and services are crucial to improve outcomes for and the success of students with ASD.

[00:29:55] and whereas by celebrating neurodiversity making space for neurodivergent norms in school culture promoting understanding and adapting the educational environment to support diverse ways of learning we can create more inclusive school community for all including students with asd now therefore be it resolved the fairfax county school board does hereby proclaim april 2024 is autism affirmation month to celebrate the diverse strengths and talents of people with asd promote affirmation AND UNDERSTANDING OF ASD AND NEURODIVERGENCE THROUGHOUT THE SCHOOL COMMUNITY ADVOCATE FOR INCLUSIVE PRACTICES AND SUPPORT SERVICES THAT EMPOWER STUDENTS WITH ASD TO THRIVE SO WE CAN

[00:30:33] CREATE A LEARNING ENVIRONMENT WHERE ALL STUDENTS FEEL VALUED AND CELEBRATED FOR THEIR UNIQUE CONTRIBUTIONS IS THERE A SECOND SECOND MS HEISEMORE HEISER I WILL CALL FOR THE VOTE ALL THOSE IN FAVOR BELIEVE THAT IS UNANIMOUS AT THE TABLE AND ONLINE THANK YOU ALL RIGHT Agenda item 2.05, National Board Certified Teachers, actually, wait a minute, I jumped ahead a little bit, so our wonderful educators are going to have to wait a few more minutes, I apologize.

[00:31:11] I would like to invite all those in support of the Autism Affirmation Proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the dais.

[00:32:05] I would like to invite all those in support of the Holocaust Remembrance Day Proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the dais.

[00:33:23] All right. Agenda Item 2.04, National Board Certified Teachers Recognition. Good evening and welcome members of the school board leadership team, honorees, and guests. We are pleased to recognize the Fairfax County Public Schools teachers who have earned or renewed national board certification for the 2023-24 school year.

[00:34:24] On behalf of the Fairfax County School Board is my pleasure to also welcome members of the City of Fairfax School Board with us this evening to celebrate the accomplishments of teachers from Catherine Johnson Middle School and Daniels Run Elementary School. Joining us our school board chair, Miss Carolyn Pitches, and our superintendent, their superintendent, Jeff Plattenberg.

[00:34:46] So please welcome them. It is my great honor on behalf of the Fairfax County School Board to recognize our national board certified teachers for their dedication and contributions to the education of our students. And now I would like to introduce Division Superintendent Dr. Michelle Reed. Thank you, Chairman Frisch. Good evening and I would like to congratulate each of you on achieving or renewing your National Board Certification. The National Board Certification is a rigorous and prestigious achievement and we're really

[00:35:25] proud of you and proud that you're here as we honor your commitment to this profession and the commitment to excellence i know it's a lot of work whether you renewed or your initial and just uh wow amongst everything else we're doing um just really appreciate and i'm inspired so to you our 2024 honorees you're part of a very elite group of education professionals who can say they have achieved national board certification over the last 23 years Over 500 teachers in Fairfax County have earned national board certification.

[00:36:04] As classroom teachers, you are 38 of the 218 currently teaching in Fairfax County public schools. That's impressive. So national board certification embodies everything we hope to see in our teachers. This group of educators, you here in front of us, have demonstrated your commitment to high quality instruction, equity, family engagement, collaboration, and self-reflection at a national level. Thank you for sharing your gifts with the students, staff, and families of FCPS. It's very much appreciated. And now I would like to welcome two of our instructors from the

[00:36:39] National Board Certification course, Faiza Alam and Sabra Devers, to read the names of our honorees. Thank you. At this time we will recognize the teachers who have achieved National Board Certification. We invite you to use the QR code to access the digital program for more information about each of our honorees. Honorees, when your name is called, please stand and remain standing

[00:37:16] until all honorees are called. Anita Aberle, Bethany Farrell, Rachel Grover, Suzette Henry, Amy Lansman, Maura Madigan, Eileen Mavity Hoffman, Paul Mock, Aaron O'Connor, Lauren Paz Soldan,

[00:37:48] Lindsay Rusnick, Elizabeth Snyder, Stephanie Stewart, and Estefania Vargos-Claros. Thank you. Please join me in recognizing the accomplishments of all our new National Board Certified Teachers.

[00:38:07] Congratulations.

[00:38:17] Be seated. Good evening, school board members and Dr. Reid.

[00:38:37] It's a pleasure to be here with this esteemed group of teachers. The following National Board Certified Teachers are renewed their certificates. Honorees, when your name is called, please stand to be recognized AND REMAIN STANDING UNTIL ALL HONORES ARE CALLED.

[00:38:53] NICOLATA ABBOTT, CARMEN ANDERSON, LAUREN CHUN, SEBRA DEVERS, KATHERINE DE VILLA, CHRISTINE ELSENNER, ANNE-MARIE HANNAPOL, SIFANIE HITZ, CHRISTINA RUSSELL, MAGNO SARTORIO, GITA SRIDHARAN, JACQUELINE WALSH.

[00:39:26] ADDITIONALLY, WE WOULD ALSO LIKE TO HONOR THE FOLLOWING INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE BEING RECOGNIZED FOR RENEWING THEIR NATIONAL BOARD CERTIFICATION, BUT WE'RE UNABLE TO BE HERE THIS EVENING. Laura Bailey, Charlie Burtz, Amy Hill, Anthony Petras, Karen Roman, Jamie Swatsky, Alicia St. Jean, Rosalyn Cipher, and Michelle Wright.

[00:39:53] Congratulations to our renewed National Board teachers. Thank you.

[00:40:15] At this time we will take three photos, the first with all honorees, the second with all newly certified honorees, and the third with honorees and representatives from Fairfax City schools. At this time, we would like to invite the school board members of the Fairfax City School Board and Superintendent Plattenberg and leadership team to come to the dais for a photo with the new

[00:40:40] and renewed National Board Certified Teachers. At this time, we would like to invite the school board

[00:43:24] members of the Fairfax City School Board and Superintendent Plattenberg leadership team and principals and school administrators to remain at the dais for a photo with the new National Board

[00:43:35] certified teachers all right i need the renewed nationally national board certified to switch

[00:44:49] school administrators if you would like to join your uh recertified teachers please do at this

[00:46:40] time we would like to invite the members of the fairfax city school board with our fairfax county school board and superintendent plattenburg to remain at the dais for a photo with the fairfax

[00:46:50] city national board certified teachers board member board members please return to your seats

[00:48:35] All right, Agenda Item 3.01 Community Participation.

[00:49:06] The next order of business is community participation, pardon me. We welcome all community members who are here and those who signed up to speak this evening. Additional information about signing up to provide comments at school board regular business meetings and public hearings can be found on the school board's website.

[00:49:23] During the signup process, community members acknowledged they were informed of the school board's expectations for proper decorum when providing comments. These expectations are also available online and with the printed agenda and meeting materials at the back of the room. We ask audience members to be respectful of one another.

[00:49:39] Shouting and outbursts will not be tolerated. Please hold your applause until the conclusion of a speaker's remarks. Audience members may not join speakers at the podium and should remain at their seats, including when recording video or taking photos. We are grateful to those who have come to speak to us today and thank you for your cooperation.

[00:49:57] School board members will be listening but not responding. - Madam Clerk, please call the first speaker. - Olivia Bradley.

[00:50:17] - I'm back. - Hi, I'm Olivia Bradley from WSCS. Remember me? I'm still asking for a day to learn about disabilities like ADHD, autism, and dyslexia. I've been super busy brainstorming ways to convince you in my school to support my idea.

[00:50:36] Guess what? My school's PTA is planning a walk in my shoes day. I'm super excited because older kids told me they did it before COVID and loved it. I can't even remember what I ate for lunch. Although with my ADHD meds, I don't always like to eat lunch, so that makes it harder.

[00:50:56] Anyway, the fact that they still remember years later says a lot. I talked to Miss Kathy Tran and her daughter Charlotte, who did a petition a few years ago. It gave me the idea to start my own. In two weeks, I nearly got 700 signatures.

[00:51:11] That's a lot considering I'm only eight. Look at all these papers. Something cool also happened while I was getting signatures. So many kids with and without the idea wanted to happen. We're kids asking for kind and inclusive schools. Why wouldn't you want that? Everyone who agrees with me, please raise your hands.

[00:51:30] See, everyone wants this. I think everyone would be all about if you could get Emma Watson come speak. So let's work together so every school in FCPS can learn about neurodiversity. There are so many neurodiverse people and I want everyone to feel safe, happy, understood, and loved.

[00:51:47] So let's all do this so I can live happily ever after and we can all change the world. Brandon Spratt.

[00:52:09] Good evening, school board members. My name is Brandon Spratt, and I'm a senior at Woodson High School. I understand that you guys have a lot of important matters on your plate, but I'm here to talk about the baseball field, and here's why that's important too.

[00:52:29] So the field and the facilities are like home to the team, and when the team doesn't have a home, it makes it a lot harder for us to succeed. And so this is like the field essentially teaches us how to be better disciplined as playing on a team and teaches you self-management.

[00:52:45] And I can attest to that as I take five AP courses and I'm planning to go to William & Mary next year. And so thank you. Along with that, like being able to take the field and play on a team, I'm able to, you know, still self-manage and be the person that I am.

[00:53:03] And it also creates a sense of community as you have these people that have your back and they'll always help you when you need them. And so I'm asking to help improve the field because I worry about the people that are coming after me. As a senior, this doesn't affect me too much, but I want the kids that are coming after me to have a similar experience that I have today.

[00:53:24] Now, these benefits are only decreasing as our field continues to get worse. And I don't want to have to be the one to take away a kid's dream of continuing to play baseball in college if they don't have the right facilities and have to spend a fifth of practice just cleaning the field. And I understand that FCPS tries to be very fair and equitable, but our facilities haven't been updated in a long time while other schools are continuing to get renovations.

[00:53:50] And so I'm asking you guys to help us fix our home so we can continue being a good team and that we can all learn the lessons that I learned while playing baseball. Thank you so much for your time. Kina McEvoy.

[00:54:10] Good evening. My name is Kina McEvoy, and I'm a parent of three FCPS graduates and previously worked as a physical therapist in the division. I'm a member of Fair Play Screen Time Action Network and their Screens in Schools work group, and I'm a certified digital wellness educator.

[00:54:28] During the school day, FCPS allows our high school students to carry a device that Dr. Anna Lembke, Stanford psychiatrist, has called the modern-day hypodermic needle. Smartphones were designed to hijack brain chemistry, divert attention, and maximize engagement with their products. Smartphones are blockers of life and school experiences that are critical for healthy development.

[00:54:47] The prevental cortex of an adolescent is immature and cannot be expected to handle the distractions of a smartphone. Dr. Murthy, the US Surgeon General, has advised us that social media has devastating negative impacts on the mental health of teenagers. He also advises that parents cannot be expected to handle these challenges on their own.

[00:55:05] Teachers are frustrated that student attention is disastrously fragmented as they receive hundreds of notifications on their phones during the school day A disturbing number of which are taxed from their parents. Parents are frustrated with school and classroom smartphone policies that do not go far enough and that are inconsistently enforced.

[00:55:21] This is a collective action problem and a crisis for students that we cannot ignore. It is based on research that shows clear correlation and causality of the impact of smartphones on students' mental health, sleep, and academic achievement. In social psychologist Jonathan Haidt's new book, The Anxious Generation, he outlines the harms of a phone-based childhood and school experience.

[00:55:41] High school students deserve much more than families and educators who only throw their hands in the air in resignation. This is a time for authentic conversations, reliance on scientific evidence, and experts in this field. Please show respect for teachers, families, and students by acknowledging the devastating opportunity costs and disruptions that smartphones create for our schools.

[00:56:00] Like a growing number of schools across the country, Fairfax County leadership teams must establish high school phone policies that are evidence-based and enforced, and must educate their staff and families about steps we must collectively take together when we know better we have to bravely do better killian kelly my name is killian kelly i'm the mother of a current

[00:56:37] junior at woodson high school and i have a son who's a sophomore in college and graduated from woodson thank you for giving me another opportunity to speak for over two years i've been requesting that woodson high school baseball facilities be update to reflect what every other high school at FCPS has. In 2009 when Woodson had its last remodel the baseball fields were not renovated because they ran out of money. Why wasn't Woodson put on a list to remodel their baseball field when the economy was better in later years? So what is the process with FCPS facilities on updates when a school does not get a complete renovation? Does Woodson really need to wait until 2035?

[00:57:15] We all understand that the class of 2035 is in kindergarten right now. So current day toddlers might be able to see a renovated woodson baseball facility i know that when it comes to adding cameras and security to schools at fcps the schools that are not due for a remodel for a long time get moved up the list schools that are expected to be renovated in the coming years will get their cameras during the remodel that seems like a smart fiscally sound policy so what are the policies for sports fields waiting for 2035 seems excessive what will it take for these baseball players to

[00:57:51] get a dugout the whole team can fit in what will it take to be able to watch a game and see the whole field a few weeks ago our volunteer scorekeeper had to leave the game midway through i stepped in to score i sat on the bleachers but every time the ball went to first base or right field i had to ask other parents what happened or i ran over to the first base side past the dugouts to see if the ball was caught because i didn't know i was scoring the game i did not get that one spot the one spot where you can see the whole field on saturday we are hosting our annual hitathon from 10 a.m to 1 p.m i invite you to stop by and see our facilities please come oh if you

[00:58:30] can't make it saturday we have a game on monday night it's our senior night come see what they've been playing on please play the video testimony of student number one hi my name is raymond rivera i'm a junior varsity player for woodson baseball i'm the class of 2026 and i play center field Some problems we have here at Woodson is for example the dugouts. There's barely enough room to fit a 20 to 23 man roster full of big kids with equipment. Here we have hooks just for just

[00:59:09] for a couple kids just to put their basic necessities of baseball on. This is a major problem because if you look at baseball fields such as South County, West Potomac, Robinson, their dugouts are really well developed. They can fit every player, every coach, every any baseball thing you could ever think of. Another problem we have here is the outfield. The drainage here is not very good. I would know because I've almost torn my ACL from it. I know if you ask any other outfielder, they would probably agree to you. That's just a few of the problems we have

[00:59:44] here, so thank you for your time. Please play the video testimony of Julie Reynolds. Hi, my name is Julie Reynolds. I'm Dean Reynolds. And I'm the mom of three boys in the Woodson Pyramid. I have an 11th grader, 9th grader, and 5th grader all play baseball, so I spend a lot of time at this field and other fields in the county. We are presenting today some of the issues that we have with the field. We know that we were due for a renovation back in 2009, and that ran out of money, so a lot

[01:00:20] of the things that need to be addressed have not been addressed. In my opinion, the bleachers are one of the major problems here at the field. You can see over here, that is what the visitors have, and this is what the home team has for bleachers the home bleachers are actually pushed as far close to the fence as possible so that they don't fall down that hill over there and the bleachers aren't much better they're kind of about to fall down a hill so in my opinion we should work on getting a large stadium kind of seating behind home plate it would provide better sight lines

[01:00:59] and also be a lot safer and provide more seating for both the home and the away team. And then Dean's going to talk a little bit about the bleacher or about the dugouts since he is a player and spends more time on that side of the field. So the dugouts, they're the original dugouts and to be quite frank they're extremely small.

[01:01:18] We are not able to fit all of our gear and ourselves in here. This is probably built for like a 10-man team and we're a 20-man team so it's just not big enough. What will happen a lot is we will have half of our bags in here and we'll run out of room so we'll put half of our bags outside and because of that we'll have to like we'll have to fit you know two halves of the bags inside and outside and no one will have anywhere to sit because of all the bags it would also be nice if we had an enclosure here to the just provide a little bit more safety to the players

[01:01:54] while they are waiting to bat for the rest of the players please play the video testimony of Amy Quigley hello school board members my name is Amy Quigley and I'm a parent of children that attend Woodson High School here in Fairfax County I have four children my oldest graduated from college my next son is a junior in college I have a senior daughter at Woodson High School right now and I have a son that's a freshman at Woodson High School. My son, the youngest one, currently

[01:02:32] plays on the JV baseball team, and all of my children have been athletes at Woodson High School, and I volunteer a lot of my time helping in different sports and classroom activities as well. I'm curious of why the school, when the school was remodeled in 2009, why the baseball fields were not included or why there was never money allocated to that in future years. My older son who's a junior in college, when he played baseball, I was shocked at the quality of the fields. Some of the fields have been updated a little bit, but the surrounding area is just a

[01:03:09] mess. You know, I volunteer for the concessions. It floods. If there's a lot of rain or things get ruined. My husband, his announcer for the team, and he sits up in the press box and they can't see the home plate. They kind of have to lean out of the press box to be able to see what's happening. The dugouts are really small. You know, my son loves playing baseball, and I've been to a lot of fields around Fairfax County, private and public, and I'm just kind of sad that Woodson, this great school that I thought, oh, it's remodeled in 2009, right before my kids all start

[01:03:47] going to school there, it's going to be wonderful, and that's not the case for the baseball fields. So why are the baseball fields left behind is my question I want to ask to you. Is there any money allocated that we could remodel our our area can we move the press box could we have bleachers that are safe for visitors and for families to come chair fish that was our last public speaker the video was suspended because she went

[01:04:22] over the two minutes so we cut it at two agenda item 4.01 student representative matter representative matters I call miss crimp thank you mr. Frisch. Good evening, everybody. Over the past few weeks, I've had the opportunity to engage with students from different parts of Fairfax County, each bringing unique perspectives based on their individual school experiences. Our initial discussions were centered around the classes we plan to take for the following school year. The conversation began with typical courses like IB literature and AP government. However, the discussion took a surprising turn when one student

[01:04:59] mentioned she was enrolled in a dental class at Falls Church Academy. Many of us were intrigued as we hadn't heard of such a class before. She described how the class offered hands-on experience including the actual use of dental chairs. Another student shared her experiences from a similar dental class at Chantilly High School highlighting the activities she had participated in.

[01:05:20] This sparked a deeper conversation about the disparities and resources and experiences between the same courses offered at different schools. This This overall discussion highlighted a significant gap in awareness among students regarding the availability of specialized academy classes that offer practical, real-world experience.

[01:05:41] When asked how these students discovered these classes, most students mentioned learning about them through a parent or a friend, and this made me consider those students who might not have such connections or resources. It's clear that while information about these academy classes is available, often listed on school websites not many students are actively seeking it out.

[01:06:03] There seems to be a communication disconnect that could be bridged by more proactive outreach from the schools themselves. A potential solution could be to host academy speaker events where students can come to various schools to talk about their experiences in these specialized classes.

[01:06:18] Such events could not only raise awareness but also inspire more students to explore these opportunities. Moreover, the differing experiences in the same class, but at different high schools, highlighted another issue. Despite being in the same course, the quality of their experiences varied greatly due to resource availability.

[01:06:37] This discrepancy highlights that no student's educational opportunities should be limited by their location within Fairfax County. And this conversation doesn't just pertain to academy classes. It extends to other courses as well. Recently, I spoke with students from my high school who described how their leadership class operates, and I was taken aback by the differences compared to my own experience, which largely seemed to hinge on the teacher's approach.

[01:07:02] It highlights the critical role of having passionate teachers. When educators are passionate, their enthusiasm naturally transfers to their students, fostering a more engaged and inspired classroom environment. This idea connects to a recent event I attended focused on Portrait of a Graduate, also known as POG.

[01:07:20] The event emphasized the importance of these foundational skills, which are surface level, but are essential for workplace readiness. It was highlighted that 47% of these skills developed in childhood persist into adulthood. By instilling POG skills like communication, collaboration, creativity, and resilience in students early on, we significantly benefit their future capabilities.

[01:07:45] And it's crucial to recognize that while technical abilities can be taught later in life, Soft skills are best cultivated early and they are harder to instill as one ages on. However, there's a prevalent stigma around POG among students and teachers, often viewed as a waste of time.

[01:08:01] And this misconception needs addressing as recognizing and utilizing these skills is crucial. To combat this stigma, the change should start within the teachers. When teachers are passionate about their subjects, their students become passionate too. The passion in educators often stems from being well compensated, treated respectfully, and provided with opportunities for professional development.

[01:08:25] At this event centered on POG, a diverse group of Fairfax County public school staff, including teachers, administrators, and instructional assistants, came together. This gathering was a vibrant exchange of ideas where participants shared insights and true inspiration from one another fueling their passion.

[01:08:41] A few students who attended the event expressed feeling more valued as is afterwards, and he noted that the dedication and enthusiasm of the staff at the conference truly demonstrated how committed they are to their roles and to positively impacting the lives of our students.

[01:08:58] Returning to the issue of limited awareness, I'd like to emphasize a concern I've encountered. Many students are not familiar with resources like Hazel Health and Tudor.com. Even among those who are aware, there's a lack of understanding about what these services entail, how to access them, and the benefits they offer. Often, students might feel intimidated or simply reluctant to try something new. By enhancing our efforts to educate and demonstrate the value and functionality of these resources, we could significantly boost their usage and the overall awareness among students. In my remarks posted on BoardDocs, I've highlighted several data points,

[01:09:36] though I'll focus on two significant ones here. Out of the 180,000 students in Fairfax County, Only 8,000 have utilized the excellent service provided by Tudor.com. Moreover, among those who have used it, an overwhelming 95% would recommend it to their peers.

[01:09:55] This clearly indicates that the issue is not with the quality of the service, but rather the lack of awareness and understanding of how beneficial this resource could be. And while I don't have specific data for Hazel Health, my discussions with students reveal a similar trend. Many are surprised when I mention it, highlighting yet another example of this awareness gap.

[01:10:16] Although I've discussed many topics tonight, the main point I hope you take away is that Fairfax County offers abundant resources and opportunities. However, the effective distribution and awareness of those benefits can only be improved with the commitment and passion of our educators.

[01:10:33] Thank you. Thank you, as always, Ms. Corrine. Excuse me. Agenda item 5.01, Certification of Closed Meeting Compliance.

[01:10:48] In order to comply with section 2.2-3712 D 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 April 25th, 2024, to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the board during the closed meeting.

[01:11:15] Do I have a motion? Dr. Anderson, is there a second? MISS LADY. ALL THOSE IN FAVOR, PLEASE RAISE YOUR HAND. MR. MCDANIEL, MR. MCELVEEN, MS. LADY, MS. ST. JOHN CUNNING, MS. MARIN, MR. DUNN, DR. ANDERSON, MS. DIXET, MR. MOON, AND CAN OUR COLLEAGUES VIRTUALLY VERBALIZE THEIR VOTES BECAUSE WE CAN'T SEE YOU ON THE SCREEN?

[01:11:40] MS. EISEMO-HEYZER, YES. MISS LADY, ANDERSON, YES. ALL RIGHT. THAT IS UNANIMOUS FOR ALL BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT. - Agenda item 5.02, confirmation of action taken in closed.

[01:11:56] I call on Ms. Lady for a motion. - I move that the chair of the school board be authorized to execute on behalf of the board, the contract for chief of human resources. - Is there a second? - I second. - Ms. St. John Cunning. All those in favor, Mr. McDaniel, Mr. McElveen, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Marin, Dr. Anderson, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Moon, myself and our colleagues online, will you verbalize your votes?

[01:12:24] - Sandy Anderson, yes. ALL RIGHT. THAT IS UNANIMOUS FOR ALL BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT.

[01:12:39] AGENDA ITEM 5.03, STRATEGIC GOAL 2 BASELINE REPORT. I CALL ON DR. REED FOR A PRESENTATION OF THE STRATEGIC GOAL 2 BASELINE REPORT. THANK YOU, CHAIRMAN FRISH.

[01:13:09] THERE WE GO. I AM TALL ENOUGH. SO THE GOAL 2 PRESENTATION THIS EVENING I AM EXCITED TO BRING TO YOU. And if we could go ahead and bring up the PowerPoint, OK, sorry.

[01:13:29] One of the things that we're particularly excited-- oh, thanks, Christina, I might trip over it. I just want to remind the board and the community that on April 2, the board had a public work session to discuss this goal to report. It's the fourth of a series of five work sessions that the board is holding this year to discuss the goal reports of our new strategic plan.

[01:13:52] The purpose of tonight's presentation is to provide a high-level summary. The actual report is attached to the agenda, so this is really a high-level summary of work we've already discussed at an extensive work session. So in looking at the goals, this is goal two, which is the safe, supported, included, and empowered goal.

[01:14:17] So just a reminder that there is a seven-year strategic plan adopted between 23 and 30. And it just was adopted in June of 23. So we're excited to present these five student-centered goals. And this evening, again, I'll give a high-level look at goal two.

[01:14:35] I want to remind the board and community that we're identifying what we consider high leverage measures as part of goal two. The two that we are reporting on this evening at a high level are around discipline, disproportionality, and chronic absenteeism.

[01:14:56] These are two goals that we've worked extensively with within our schools through the course of this year. With regard to chronic absenteeism, I want to make sure I frame how our Commonwealth is defining that at this time.

[01:15:12] Missing just 10% of school negatively affects a student's academic performance. To break that down, that's about two days a month. So I think the research also is clear that regular school attendance in elementary school improves the chances a student will read on grade level, and students who attend 90% or more of the school year are more likely to graduate on time from high school.

[01:15:38] So let's take a little bit of a look at our attendance and chronic absenteeism. Again, the term chronic absenteeism really comes from missing 10% or more, which is about two days a month or more, of the school year. And what I think is not clear for our community is that this includes excused and unexcused absences.

[01:16:01] So this is anything from, you know, having strep throat or tearing an ACL to going to a family event with an excused absence, right, like it's across the board. So it's different from truancy, which we often think about with chronic absenteeism.

[01:16:20] Truancy is something that's an unexcused absence. And this particular data point, chronic absenteeism does not differentiate. So when we look at the key accountability metrics in this baseline report, as you can LOOK ON THE SLIDE, WE DO HAVE 87% OF OUR STUDENTS WERE ABSENT FOR LESS THAN 10%.

[01:16:42] SO THAT'S A STRONG SCORE. HOWEVER, WE DO HAVE 64% OF SCHOOLS THAT HAVE AT LEAST 85% OF STUDENTS WHO ARE ABSENT LESS THAN 10% OF THE SCHOOL YEAR. AND THERE IS AN 8-POINT DIFFERENCE AMONG STUDENT GROUPS WITH REGARD TO THIS DATA POINT.

[01:17:01] SO AS WE LOOK AT THIS, ONE OF THE THINGS THAT AS A BOARD WE'VE TALKED A LOT ABOUT IS WHAT DOES OUR DATA TELL US AROUND ATTENDANCE IN TERMS OF DIFFERENT STUDENT DEMOGRAPHIC GROUPS? AND, AGAIN, WHAT REALLY I THINK COMES OUT STRONGLY, AND IT'S NOT, I THINK, INFORMATION THAT WOULD BE COMPLETELY SURPRISING, BUT OUR ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED STUDENTS TEND TO HAVE THE HIGHEST percent of absences for less than 10 percent of the school year so or excuse

[01:17:38] me the lowest percent for those absent less than 10 percent and when we look at how Fairfax County is doing versus Virginia one of the things I feel good about is in general looks like Fairfax County is exceeding the data points for commonwealth in general in fact in some cases significantly so we're really proud of the work the energy and the focus our staff students and families have on this data point when we think about attendance by student groups we've often talked at the board what is the intersectionality for students and their

[01:18:17] attendance so we've also taken a close look at students that have other um challenges at times and also we want to recognize um that we have a number of students who really truly have health concerns that create needs for um school absences right they have health concerns and i i think at times we've also been trying to be really sensitive to parent concerns around not having such a high pressure focus on attendance for a student that really has health issues and can't be in school so there's a sweet spot here that we're

[01:18:56] really trying to hit to make sure that while we talk about the importance of attendance and reinforce the need to be in class we recognize that there are children for whom attendance is a significant challenge so looking at our Fairfax County Public Schools the baseline again we our denominator would be the total number of schools and so we say that we do have 126 out of 198 that have at least 85 percent of students attending regularly, which is roughly 63 percent as a baseline at this time.

[01:19:31] So as we think about improving chronic absenteeism, let's take a look at some of the strategies that we've employed as a division. The number one strategy I think is communication, making sure that our families know about what the expectations are.

[01:19:46] And remember, chronic absenteeism last spring was put forward by the Commonwealth as part of school accreditation. So that put attendance and absenteeism front and center to maintain accreditation for our schools. And I think a lot of our parents, as we're finding this year, that that's information that hadn't previously been the case and important to make sure we share.

[01:20:09] We also have a dashboard around attendance that is visible division-wide and also at the school level in a variety of partnerships to engage families and students as well as scheduling and required conferences uh and attendance plans in some cases for our students who are struggling a bit with attendance some examples of strategies that we're developing in addition to the ones i just mentioned are all of these on this particular slide we're also i think we're kind of wrestling a bit with what is a traditional school day look like

[01:20:48] and what are traditional school times you know we recently profiled our spring sprouts program at the last board meeting where we had students come in during spring break really to try to make up for some work that they had missed and to make sure we had an opportunity to get back into that school rhythm and we also are looking at ways to utilize before school and after school time to help our students reclaim attendance days we're going to continue collaboration with families

[01:21:20] community partners and so forth as we continue to move forward to work on attendance so and now I want to look at our second measure which is discipline disproportionality which really is a it's a state calculated data point as well which is why we are addressing it in the manner in which we are addressing it because we're utilizing the ways in which the reporting structure occurs for the Commonwealth so we're going to look at disproportionality for both discipline referrals as well as out-of-school

[01:21:55] suspensions so when we take a look at that it's interesting I think to look at six percent of our students had at least one discipline referral that's six percent of our almost 183,000 students there was two times the risk of a discipline referral for student groups with the highest risk ratios as compared to other student groups. We also had 1% of all students that had at least one suspension. Remember we're looking at referrals and suspensions. So that's 1%

[01:22:31] of 183,000 students were suspended at least once. This also indicated there was a three-time risk of suspension for students that had the highest risk ratio as compared to all other students.

[01:22:49] So if we look at our referrals by student groups, again, what we note is that the percent number and risk ratio for discipline referrals, again, this is not suspensions, this is referrals.

[01:23:06] And we can see where we have higher risk ratios and lower risk ratios. And it's my understanding that we need to be close to 1, is that correct, Ms. Neal? If we're at 1, there's no risk ratio. In other words, we're right about where we need to be.

[01:23:22] The state begins to address concerns at 3. So in this situation, in referrals, we have no demographic student group that has hit the threshold for concern at the Commonwealth level.

[01:23:38] So let's take a look at suspensions by student group. And in this case, we're actually moving, again, the ideal space, according to the Commonwealth, is at 1.0 for the suspension risk ratio.

[01:23:54] And the state begins to draw concern at 3, again, for a risk ratio, or 3 times the risk. So we're close at 2.9 but in all other areas certainly not at 3 o'clock or 3 o'clock not at 3 for the risk ratio.

[01:24:13] When we look at single discipline incidents what we want to note here is that discipline really is intended to provide supports for students to learn to make better choices in the future. And this slide shows us the percent of students having only one discipline referral out of all of those with a discipline referral.

[01:24:35] So as shown on the previous slide, there were 11,406 students in Fairfax County that had a discipline referral in the baseline out of 183,000. And of those 11,000, which is 6%, 58% or 6,579 had only one discipline referral.

[01:24:55] It's a lot of math. So then if we look at improving discipline disproportionality some high leverage strategies I want to share that we're working on as a division. We do have our RDD initiative or the reduction of disproportionate discipline initiative which is implementing proactive practices using the multi tiered system of support as As well as really visiting schools, they're using evidence-based responsive classroom models

[01:25:30] to implement school-wide morning meeting and closing circles, or responsive advisory meetings at middle and secondary, middle and high schools, and the effort to really work on implementing proactive practices to address these strategies.

[01:25:48] Examples of strategies that we're really working on developing is kind of enhancing a lot of our current tools. I will say for a division this size, the percentages of students that are being disciplined, it's really low for a division this size, to be at 1% for a suspension for one day.

[01:26:08] So I think what we're really working on here is how do we look at that data across the division and make wise choices about supplying resourced tools and options for students who who find themselves making choices that they perhaps regret.

[01:26:26] So that would be the goal to report. So, Mr. Chair, thank you. - Thank you, Dr. Reed. And before we open up for comments, just a reminder that we discussed this report for several hours in a work session on April 2nd.

[01:26:47] And anybody watching at home is welcome to find that discussion on YouTube. SUGGEST WATCHING US IN DOUBLE SPEED, MAKES IT A LITTLE QUICKER, ALL RIGHT, WE WILL START WITH DR. ANDERSON FOLLOWED BY MR. MCCAVEEN. THANK YOU, ONE OF THE -- AND THANK YOU FOR THIS AND I DID APPRECIATE THE VERY LENGTHY DISCUSSION THAT WE HAD DURING OUR WORK SESSIONS. I'D LIKE FOR YOU TO SPEAK A LITTLE BIT TO THE NEXT STEPS, PARTICULARLY THE NEXT STEP REGARDING THE DISPROPORTIONALITY TARGETS. CAN YOU GIVE JUST KIND OF AN UPDATE BECAUSE I RAISED

[01:27:21] THIS DURING THE WORK SESSION AS A POINT OF ISSUE BECAUSE I DID NOT FEEL THAT THE CURRENT TARGET WAS SUFFICIENTLY COMMUNICATING THE URGENCY AROUND THIS AND DID NOT SEEM TO SET US UP IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE THE GOAL THAT IS DESIRED BY THE END OF THE STRATEGIC PLAN LIFESPAN OF SEVEN YEARS.

[01:27:47] SO THANK YOU FOR THAT QUESTION AND I HAD NOTES WHICH I DON'T HAVE HERE SO I'M GOING to have to defer to Miss Neil to clarify the distinction of the I think it was the 1% right the the goal being 1% and it's not a percent it's the 0.1 being equivalent to 5% but I'm going to defer to the explanation because somehow that didn't make it into my notebook.

[01:28:16] That's correct Dr. Reed so in looking at a 0.1 that's a 0.1 effect size so in the research that When we set the 5% targets for all of the other metrics for year one, it's equivalent to a 0.1 effect size. So the targets were set to be consistent with how all of the remaining year one targets were set.

[01:28:36] Again, we set these at the beginning of the year without having all of this data to show that we are working towards progress in year one. And it is our full intention, as we shared in the addendum that was shared in the last goal report the board voted on, to relook and reset all of the targets based on our end of year goals to get all of our students to 100% by the end of this.

[01:28:57] So for our risk ratios, that would be looking at that one number. No, thank you. I appreciate that response. And I think my struggle continues to remain the same. We have two areas in this goal report. And the disproportionality-- the disproportionality and the student that it impacts.

[01:29:15] That is a high number of students in the place where I serve. I'm really struggling to find a way to support this goal report with that number in mind. I do understand the math, but it does not communicate the sense of urgency that we need to communicate to our families.

[01:29:32] It, I think, creates a safety gap for a particular for the kids who fall into that category. and if you were to pull up the chart it's it's the kids who are essentially very often underserved and and so I'm not going to belabor the point because I think I shared all of my back of the envelope math at the work session but I'm not going to be in support of this goal report this evening thank you Dr. Anderson Mr. McElwain thank you Mr. Chair and thank you for the presentation Dr.

[01:30:04] Reed so just a couple questions for you so we are seeing coming out of the pandemic that chronic absenteeism is not a FCPS problem alone. It is a societal problem. It affects every district in the country. So have we given any thought to comparing our data nationwide and how that might look?

[01:30:25] So I know the team has been benchmarking and looking across the country. Not all states define chronic absenteeism similarly. There are a number of states that separate excused and unexcused absences.

[01:30:42] So I think for our purposes, we did do-- I'm trying to remember on the chart here-- we are doing better than other divisions in the Commonwealth, which is to say that on page eight, slide eight, across the board in general, our students are attending more often than other students in the Commonwealth.

[01:31:04] When we look across the country, I'm not sure how much uh specific data we would have miss neil um and maybe there's other there are other states we could look at but we did look across virginia we did do some looking to see national data there's a lot of national data that was pre-pandemic not a lot of national data but obviously we're seeing sort of the growing as you're saying mr mcqueving in the nationwide concern about students not attending and some of the differences but we can do some follow-up for the board on that um i would just add that i think that's probably a good news story i think

[01:31:40] in terms of the work that we're doing partnering with outside organizations it goes well beyond just a text message or you know a home visit now and then second question is on messaging so a lot has changed coming out of the pandemic but there's also a lot of confusion I think among families among students about health standards right what constitutes being sick when should we come to school when should we not come to school who nih fairfax county department of health probably all have different standards for that it's just been very confusing so

[01:32:21] i guess the ultimate question is should we be sending kids to school if they're sneezing or coughing and how do we define that change from the pandemic you know it's probably one of the best questions, right? Because there was a time where if there was a sneeze, well, there still is a time everyone kind of turns and looks, right? But what we now I believe the health restrictions are many of them are no longer present, right? If you have a fever, of course, we're still not to send children to school with a fever. But sneezing with no fever

[01:32:59] and no other symptoms, certainly, I mean, our allergy season is in full swing, too. we would encourage students to continue to come to school um but i don't know that we've received direct guidance on health symptoms much as we did during the covet time so dr presidio you oversee our health miss smalls and so forth i don't believe we've received the kind of time sensitive information along those lines could you or dr edmunds heard share anything you may have on that yeah no i think as you i think you summed it up really well the cdc has lifted a lot of the

[01:33:38] restrictions that they had in place obviously during the pandemic and our ongoing conversations with the health department the main guidance that we try to provide is that if you have flu-like symptoms we would encourage you to stay home but again we defer to parents and families to make those decisions so what's in the best interest of their children but we are encouraging students to Attend school whenever possible is really the message because during the pandemic and right after the pandemic We were communicating a lot of additional safety measures many of those have been lifted So really the guidance right now is flu-like symptoms. We would encourage you to stay home. That's helpful. It's also very broad

[01:34:18] And so I think as a system It's appreciated dr. Presidio. I think as a system We need to have clear communication just as we did during the pandemic. We need to have that now

[01:34:30] So I'll leave it there. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Mr. McElveen. Mr. Dunn. Thank you. So this is a great presentation. So thank you for that. You know, part of focus needs to be on the educators, because when there's chronic absenteeism, we're asking our teachers in the post-pandemic world to provide, you know, every opportunity to allow the kid to catch up academically.

[01:35:04] And while I applaud that, rolling grade books in these situations mean that teachers have to constantly create makeup work, create extra tests. It's a severe burden on teachers who are already struggling with burnout in the post-pandemic world. So I'd like to ask, what are you doing to help the teachers who are, you know, complying with the mandate issued by FCPS and the school board, but aren't necessarily receiving the extra support?

[01:35:31] So, I think to answer that question, I know that we're providing tools. We have an attendance team that's been led by several central office staff.

[01:35:50] And we have our Office of School Support has been providing support for attendance strategies. There isn't a, I don't know that we're, excuse me.

[01:36:05] of course on cue I have to sneeze anyhow allergies but I don't know that we've addressed the challenge of having to continue to create makeup work we are pleased that I believe 180 of our schools have improved attendance from last year so we feel like we're making progress and hopefully there's a little less of that makeup work and so forth but I think that's a good question I think it's something we need to explore further

[01:36:36] I'd also like to note that, you know, the presentation says 64 percent of schools have less than 85 percent of students absent less than 10 percent of the school year, which is a very confusing way of if you look at it from the reverse, we have 36 percent of our schools or 72 schools approximately out of 199 where more than 15 percent of students are missing more than 15 percent of the school year.

[01:37:02] And, you know, more than 15 percent, it could be anywhere between 15 or 50, right, or 99 percent. Who knows? So I really would love to get that data to say how big is our problem because 72 schools out of 199, that's a pretty huge number.

[01:37:21] And, you know, which schools are these? Where are they? I'd like to know. Are they my schools? Are they other, or Mason District? Are they Providence District? Where are they? And then what is the action plan to get them up to par? I know that you presented during academic matters a couple months ago on the centralized support, and the pilot program was enormously successful, I recall.

[01:37:44] And you had provided a list later on of the schools that you were helping. And so I just want to make sure that in the budget, we're allocating enough dollars so that every school of these 72 gets that centralized support to achieve not just, you know, a couple percentage points, but radical reductions in the absenteeism, especially for those students most in need. And finally, I just wanted to note the outsize, you know, in multiple presentations, I do feel we're failing an entire generation of Hispanic students. Every presentation,

[01:38:21] whether it's disciplinary, absenteeism, they're just so far below. You know, if you look at the percentage, it's by 20%, and it's significantly different than any other category of student. We really have to do more to ensure that we're not creating a generational underclass here.

[01:38:42] And so I do ask for you to consider creating an action plan targeting Hispanics and making sure that across all academic achievement areas, absenteeism, et cetera, that we're really doing everything we can as a community to lift up this community, engage them, many of whom don't have English as their first language, so that they have the same opportunities as everyone else and can receive a world-class education.

[01:39:10] Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Mr. Moon.

[01:39:23] now it's working right okay good thank you mr chairman dr we thank you for the presentation uh i plan to support the motion support support the report uh you have provided us with enough data and also set a long-term and short-term goals i'm hoping that we will do all that we can to achieve those scores at the same time something that i uh stated at the work session i i want to to repeat at this meeting is that while we try, while we are, you know, putting a lot

[01:40:00] of efforts to reduce the gaps amongst the groups, at the same time, you should not forget the fact that, you know, students in all different groups need to improve their attendance and also their behaviors as well.

[01:40:16] Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Moon. Mr. McDaniel. Quick question. On slide 17, when we're talking about the suspension risk ratios, I believe you had said anything that's three or greater gets the state's attention?

[01:40:33] That would be correct. So could you speak to students with disabilities? Because it looks like they have a three. That's correct. So Ms. Neal can speak to that because that is obviously a three is a concern.

[01:40:50] I'll start, and Dr. King may want to add as well. when video is looking at risk ratios they're looking at three years consistently at being at a risk ratio of three or higher before they intervene with the school's division I don't know dr. King if there's anything you want to add right now our numbers represent one year and so we're working on that that's a target for us in our RDD groups and I'm sorry in our RDD process with our schools that we're supporting so if I'm understanding it correctly the state

[01:41:28] steps in if for three years correct it's a three or greater okay this is just one year that's that is correct okay thank you and I think also what dr. King is saying is I'm guessing the economically disadvantaged and our students with disabilities as you look at those numbers 2.9 and 3.0 would be our high priority focus groups right now to make sure that we are doing everything we can to address the data because we don't want a second year much less a third thank you mr mcdaniel

[01:42:01] uh i will take a turn and then we'll hear from our student rep um so uh i know that we were mr fresh i had my hand up also oh i'm sorry i didn't see that miss sizemore heiser go ahead sorry i just wanted to brief i apologize i know it's hard on the screen so i just wanted to i i completely appreciate the conversation i appreciate my colleague mentioning the 3.0 because that was one of my questions as well i wanted to say i agree with my colleague about the generation of students that we're that we're losing i wanted to mention that when we look at the data across

[01:42:36] discipline suspensions and absenteeism the students i think that are having consistently the biggest issues are our economic disadvantage our multilingual and our students with disabilities in particularly economic disadvantage and students disabilities so i don't have to reiterate how How can I talk about the generation of students with disabilities we're losing?

[01:42:55] And you can see the numbers are quite high. So I just wanted to mention that, that there are several students that, chronically, for decades, we have gaps we need to close and we need to be really careful because I see some of these numbers going in the wrong direction.

[01:43:10] Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Sizemore-Heiser. And I apologize again. I'll take my turn. Oh, you're fine. All right. So we received binders I think from Dr. Ponce that broke out some of the absentee data based on the dashboards that you all are using to monitor in real time the work that's being done at the school level and just to kind of put it in how it how it's used y'all can see in a school where they performed last year and you're monitoring in real time to see if it's tracking in the right or wrong direction as we go throughout this school

[01:43:47] year and in the in the documents that i received from for schools providence district um you know i was able to see the schools that were in level three um whether they were going in the right direction in the wrong direction and i believe almost all of the schools of mine that were uh to be concerned about were going in the right direction at least compared to last year and so the herculean task that has been undertaken by the school division to move those numbers in in the right direction cannot be underestimated.

[01:44:17] Staff visiting school at Mr. McLean reference these practices, visiting, you know, students at home and families at home, making phone calls, sending text messages. And I think those all need to continue. We'll be considering a follow on motion tonight that also encourages it in the school division to put a stake in the ground for the practices we can be doing inside the school that make the school a more welcoming, inclusive and engaging environment so that students want to be in the classroom as well.

[01:44:47] And so I look forward to that conversation as we continue this. But kudos to every single staff person who has been a part of this. It is a huge deal. I think if and when we do get data nationally, we will see that we're performing very well compared to national peers.

[01:45:04] Just looking at how we're doing in Virginia is a good story to tell and the work that's being done to get us there. So thank you very much. Thank you. I see Ms. Anderson has her hand up and then we will go our student representative miss anderson um i was under the impression that this is a three year of miss anderson you're you broke up can you repeat yourself i'm so sorry i'm in a bad

[01:45:39] spot and related to maybe turn your camera off okay hold on okay let me try again is that better yes okay perfect um i was under the impression that this was a three-year average of percentages and so i was hoping that we could speak to the fact that this is actually three years of data rather than and so how does it break out per year and how close we are related to the percentages so uh dr king or miss neal yes i definitely misspoke um dr reed it is a baseline average of three years right but i don't have the information for breaking it down by by year at this time but

[01:46:17] we can get that information for the board and i think the state is just looking at it was this the first year the state is looking at that or that's what I want to make sure that this is our baseline year this is our baseline year and we have not according to dr. Anderson our dr. Anderson in our office that the state has not been looking at it closely but we are monitoring very closely I think this is a situation and thank you dr. King mr. chair that we're trying to be on a leading indicator and not a lagging indicator because we recognize as a division as a leadership team and we know as a board that that's an expectation that we not be

[01:46:58] disproportionate in our discipline so i think more to come on that in terms of when the state is going to be actually looking at it more closely but these are guides i think that the state has put out so thank you mrs anderson thank you very much thank you miss anderson miss crim so chronic absenteeism and goal number two is something SAC actually worked on in the presentation a few months ago and one of our findings was that the high schools with the internship opportunities that have seniors leave

[01:47:35] school for the last few weeks have increased attendance rates like TJ and West Poe and one of our recommendations was expanding that internship opportunity to all high schools so I was wondering if you had any updates on that or if we're exploring that so I know that you had a chance to present both to myself and also to our leadership team and so I think that that's something the leadership team will be studying I don't know if we can say it's causal for the last couple weeks of the senior year right that whether that's causal for attendance 9 10 on 11 but I do think that it's a fundamental piece

[01:48:14] especially at high school is wanting to be there right the relevance so I really appreciated the presentation and more to come on that topic yeah got it and then one of our other findings was that during the mask year when we were transitioning from fully online to back in person students still had the option to attend virtually if they were sick with covid and like you mentioned in the report that health is one of the biggest challenges for students even being in school so would it be possible to have students still attend virtually if

[01:48:50] health is one of the challenges that's keeping them from being in school at this time I don't believe there's a methodology to do that we do have an online Academy that does allow students that are going to be missing significant time to you know participate in but at this time we don't have a hybrid option Okay. And then just to reiterate, one of our recommendations was that transportation is another big challenge that keeps students from being in school.

[01:49:25] And right now the radius for transportation is cut off at 1.5 miles. So if you're 1.5 miles within the radius of your school, you don't get provided a school bus. And the SAC recommended that. We reduced that to one mile.

[01:49:42] And that was the high school radius? yeah right because it is one mile for elementary school yeah and then our recommendation for elementary was to reduce it to 0.5 I think there's merit in that and often we're looking at the radius not as a bird flies right like students can't walk sometimes that mile and a half but I do think there is some traction on that topic and hopefully we'll be able to mitigate that we also know that I think in your presentation it's a longer radius if students have certain schools they want to travel to, and we really need to eliminate that inequity. So I appreciate you raising that. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Karim. You got a

[01:50:22] joke out of the superintendent, so congratulations. It doesn't happen very often, so mark that. Mr. Dunfer, go back. I'd like to just highlight that one of the things that I think will be that will contribute positively to reducing chronic absenteeism is the revision of our school boundaries because many of our more disadvantaged communities don't attend schools that they can walk and bike to.

[01:50:56] I know that's true in Mount Vernon District. I know it's true in other places in our county. And so if you miss the one bus, you may have a family with transportation insecurity and be unable to travel to school. So having local schools, neighborhood schools will actually mean that even if you do miss the bus, You can still get there just by walking or biking, and I think that will strengthen the ties between the community and the school Secondly, I wanted to highlight something Miss Karim said

[01:51:29] Which is I thought was right on point which is that you know there are many programs CTE programs in particular that are very excellent in high quality in nature, but very few seats, and they're also very poorly known because the FCPS website really doesn't have any meaningful information about it. And most students, and Ms. Karim attested to this, aren't even aware of them. So I'd like to

[01:52:02] encourage that instead of being focused on moving kids to higher education, which is definitely one option, that we also expand CTE and put it on an equal footing with higher education as preparing kids for immediate entry, being ready to work, not just ready for college.

[01:52:25] And there are many employers in my district and the county in Northern Virginia who would be happy to employ fully certified, fully trained, whether it's a plumber or a cyber security professional. So I just ask, I have found very quickly that students participating in these programs are much more engaged in their work because they may not enjoy the abstract subjects, but they do like learning a job that will pay them a living wage.

[01:52:54] Thank you, Mr. Dunn. I think you'll hear more about our work in that area with Goal 4, which is our next goal coming up. So you raise a valid point. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. I call on Miss Lady for a motion.

[01:53:14] I move the school board approve the Goal 2 baseline report as the division's starting point for the work toward achieving the goals in our strategic plan 2023 to 2030. Is there a second Ms. St. John Cunning? Ms. Lady, would you like to speak to your motion? Not at this moment, thanks.

[01:53:33] Thank you. Ms. St. John Cunning, would you like to speak to your second? Now, I think we got it. We had an excellent presentation. All right. Seeing no other board members wishing to speak, I will call for a vote for the motion that is on the screen. All those in favor, please raise your hand. Mr. McDaniel, Mr. McElveen, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Marin, Mr. Dunn, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Moon, Ms. Sizemore-Heiser, Ms. Anderson, are you there?

[01:54:08] Okay. And Ms. Anderson and myself. All those opposed? Dr. Anderson, any abstentions? Will the clerk read the vote? The vote is 11-1. The motion passes. Thank you very much. All right. I call on Ms. Sizemore-Heiser for a follow-on motion. Thank you. I move that the school board direct the superintendent to add measure a student academic inclusion and engagement as an additional early identified priority and revise the goal to report to include baseline data comma current and

[01:54:44] future high leverage strategies for achieving measure a including but not limited to plans for fcps to meet the requirements of virginia department of education's video ease indicator five and six similar to the detail and strategies designated for measures dnf and bring this additional goal to report content to the board for a vote no later than July 11th 2024. Is there a second? I second. Mr. Frisch. Ms. Seismar-Heiser would you like to speak to your motion? Yes thank you. I fully support measure D and F as priorities which is why I voted for the report

[01:55:18] but measure A engagement and inclusion needs to be an early priority also. I appreciate the conversation that I've had with my board with my colleagues and I appreciate Mr. Frisch working on this with me. Honestly, I feel like I don't need to say much after this Olivia's made such a compelling case for the importance of inclusion and acceptance during public comment. But honestly, her words reinforce why we need to prioritize Measure A, inclusion and engagement, especially given FCPS's long-time inadequate performance on BDOE's Indicators 5 and 6. Research shows that inclusion has a positive impact on academic, behavioral, chronic absenteeism, disproportionality,

[01:55:56] and long-term incomes for students with disabilities and for all populations. We can see the data just presented shows some of the greatest gaps are for students with disabilities, and yet inclusion, LRE, the least restrictive environment, an area by which FCPS underperforms in state standards as compared to the surrounding jurisdictions, is not an area that was for some reason identified as an early priority.

[01:56:22] We heard the data earlier that shows that FCPS is actually doing better than the Commonwealth in some of the two, in measures D and F, which were lifted as an early priority, but inclusion as measured by indicators five and six was not. And I would ask my board colleagues to say that we should also include inclusion and engagement as an early indicator with the same robust plans, high leverage plans as for D and F.

[01:56:47] The LRE mandate that is in indicators five and six is based on decades of experience and research that shows that inclusive settings the maximum extent appropriate within a continuum services improves outcomes if we really are serious for improving these outcomes and in particular those are the greatest gaps we need to prioritize measure a academic inclusion and engagement alongside d and f especially since inclusion engagement will lead to better school attendance and less discipline disproportionality as one of our advocates state plainly stated without early intentional and meaningful efforts to meet lre

[01:57:27] targets as the fcps should expect slow progress in any in preventing discipline just disproportionate discipline and improving attendance of students with disabilities i really hope my colleagues will support efforts to elevate measure a inclusion and engagement for all students with an aim to set fcps on a path to meet the lre targets as identified by vdoe it is also in alignment with the recommendations from acsd the ar special education report and the most recent student advisory council recommendations so i thank you for your conversations and i thank you for your

[01:58:03] support thank you ms seismorheiser mr frisch would you like to speak to your second yes just for a second i appreciate working with ms seismorheiser on this and the comments we've received from the community and from our partners at septa because inclusion and engagement are essential to meeting the expectations we all have for for the school system not only as it relates to students in SPECIAL EDUCATION BUT ALSO FOR THE GOALS THAT WE'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT THIS EVENING AND SO I LOOK FORWARD TO THE ADDENDUM BEING PREPARED FOR THIS REPORT ON THESE ISSUES AND LOOK FORWARD TO

[01:58:40] HAVING ANOTHER DISCUSSION WHEN WE HAVE THAT REPORT AND THE BOARD CAN APPROVE IT AT THAT TIME ASSUMING THAT IT IS IN LINE WITH WHAT THESE EXPECTATIONS ARE SO VERY MUCH APPRECIATE ALL THE WORK THAT STAFF IS DOING AND WILL DO TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN THANK YOU ARE THERE ANY OTHER BOARD MEMBERS WHO WISH TO SPEAK? SEEING NONE, I WILL GO AHEAD AND CALL FOR THE VOTE. ALL THOSE IN FAVOR OF THE MOTION WHICH IS ON THE SCREEN, PLEASE RAISE YOUR HAND. I SEE THAT IS UNANIMOUS

[01:59:15] AT THE DAIS AND TWO ONLINE. THANK YOU. THE MOTION PASSES. ALL RIGHT. AGENDA ITEM 5.04, 2024-25 IDEA SPECIAL EDUCATION ANNUAL PLAN. I CALL ON DR. REED FOR A BRIEF PRESENTATION.

[01:59:35] Thank you Mr. Chair. I'm going to talk just for a couple moments about the annual IDEA plan for local special education Part B flow through application and report. And I will start with the first slide and then ask Dr. Edmonds Hurd to complete the presentation. In the annual plan, if we can go to the next slide please this is required by law and it is submitted each year to

[02:00:12] vdoe and it does outline our planned use of the idea grant funding so there's a link here for those of you watching at home if you'd like to have an opportunity to go in and look you just would hit that link so dr edmunds heard thank you dr reed and good evening everyone so i'll continue with the introduction that Dr. Reed gave that we'll be referring to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act as IDEA throughout the presentation and it refers to the Individuals with Disabilities Education

[02:00:49] Act of 2004. Fairfax County Public Schools is required by state and federal law to submit an IDEA annual plan to the Virginia Department of Education and in this plan we must demonstrate its eligibility to receive a flow-through through allocation from the state's federal IDEA Part B grant award. IDEA Part B refers to the provisions related to formula grants that assist states in providing a free and appropriate public education or FAPE in the least restrictive environment or LRE for children

[02:01:22] with disabilities ages 3 through 21 inclusive. The plan also outlines how FCPS plans to use the IDEA funding for special education services provided to identify to identify children with disabilities and as Dr. Reid said the link there is provided on the slides takes you to the VDOE public website which provides a lot of good information next slide please thank you at the At the state level, IDEA compliance is governed by the Code of Virginia 8VAC20-81-230D.

[02:02:01] FCPS must ensure that all children with disabilities that is responsible for, including children that are placed in private schools, are provided certain rights and protections. The Code of Virginia also requires that the IDEA annual plan be reviewed by the school Division's local advisory board, which is our advisory committee for students with disabilities or the ACSD. The IDEA annual plan was presented to the ACSD already on March the 13th. The Code of Virginia also requires the FCPS school board approval of the IDEA annual plan prior

[02:02:36] to the submission to VDOE. During this presentation, I will be highlighting some of the components for the IDEA annual plan this year the IDEA annual plan is due on May the 10th on 2024 next slide please there are two IDEA part B awards section 611 funds eligible K through 12 special education activities and coordinated early intervening services or CEIS section 619 funds eligible preschool activities

[02:03:11] FCPS projects the IDEA grant awards will be for $41.0 million for Section 611 and 0.9 million for Section 619, which is preschool, for a total of $41.9 million, approximately 5% of the total FCPS special education 24 through 25 proposed budget.

[02:03:34] Just as a reminder, the total federal and state contribution is less than 20% of that that's covered in our special education budget itself. The 2024-25 IDEA annual plan assumes FCPS will receive awards similar to what was received last year.

[02:03:52] The IDEA annual plan is a formal agreement between the FCPS School Board and the Virginia Department of Education for implementing federal and state laws and regulations governing special education services. Only the VDOE approves the IDEA annual plan to ensure proper grant reimbursement. FCPS can only spend what was agreed to in the plan. The 2004 2025 IDEA annual plan covers the federal grant period from July 1st 2024 through September the 30th

[02:04:25] 2026. Next slide please. So in terms of the required components for the plan each year typically in December VDOE releases a superintendent's memo that details under the provisions of the IDEA what local school districts are required to submit the video provides Virginia school divisions the 2024 2025 IDEA annual plan requirements along with the standard workbook to use when developing and submitted the IDEA grant application and report on implementation

[02:05:01] the required components are listed on this slide as you can see above for the purpose of the presentation I will just be highlighting the key required components we have also provided you with copy of the standard workbook and will be referencing those when you may find where you may also find additional information addressed in the presentation so this is from workbook page one so the policy statement I'm sorry next slide please so policy statements FCPS must have established policies procedures and programs that are administered to comply with IDEA and these include federal IDEA

[02:05:37] regulations, VDOE established practices and procedures for IDEA compliance, and these are detailed in the 21 policy statements that are detailed on page 1 through 2 of the workbook. Statement of insurances. IDEA eligibility includes FCPS's ability to certify assurances.

[02:06:00] Examples of the insurances include items such as responsibility for controlling grant funds, Maintaining required grant information or documentation, restricting the use of grant funding to acceptable activities under IDEA, maintenance of effort, maintaining a proportionate set-aside for children with disabilities that are parentally placed in a private school.

[02:06:25] To be eligible for IDEA grant funds, FCPS must also provide 16 assurances regarding the use of and responsibility for the grant funds and would need to identify any barriers to accessing special education programs on the basis of gender, race, national origin, color, disability, and age. It is also important to note that FCPS must report on the implementation of the prior year's plan in the IDEA grant application. In FCPS, flow-through funds for school year 22-23

[02:07:03] were used to support activities related to two major goals for students with disabilities. One was the provision of appropriate identification, evaluation, therapeutic, and instructional services, and the other was for providing child fines, screening, and evaluation services for students grades ages 2 through 5. In the next four slides, you'll see the reported data for the number of services, number of students served, and other key data points related to implementation of of special education activities during the 2022 23 school year.

[02:07:38] So that that previous slide showed the data in terms of what was done. It also outlined the number of FTAs, FTEs that were used as well.

[02:07:57] And the majority of the positions that were funded by the 611 were school based, for example, of the 253 FTAs deporting K through 12 special education, 226 of those as FTEs or 89% were special education teachers.

[02:08:13] So the majority of this funding does go towards school-based positions. Okay. Now onto the next slide. Thank you. The 24-25 IDEA annual plan application contains a report on prior year implementation. The data used for that report is based on the fiscal year 23, school year 22-23 actuals.

[02:08:35] The additional periods continued in this chart are for informational purposes only. From this chart you can see trends in the number of special education services provided and enrollment for students with disabilities the number of students with disabilities included in the IDEA annual plan reflects FCPS's enrolled students contracted services students as well as homeschooled and private school students and next slide please

[02:09:05] this also continues to exemplify the report on the implementation of the school years plan where it shows the number of preschoolers who were screened for suspected disabilities during that time period evaluations of preschool aged children as well as the preschool aged children that were eligible for special education services during that time and next slide please and that continues to do the same thing where it shows the psychological evaluations which

[02:09:41] were conducted, as well as social work, sociocultural assessments that were completed on students, and speech and language evaluation. Maintenance of effort is the requirement that school divisions spend from state and local funds an amount equal to or greater than the amount spent for special education and related services in the prior fiscal year. As part of the IDEA annual plan, VDOE obtains information to see whether a school district is projected to meet its maintenance of

[02:10:16] effort. This data is based on the overall special education program, not just the $41.9 million grant. There are four maintenance of efforts tests that VDOE uses to see if a district is projected to meet its special education MOE requirements. MOE considers state and local funding only. For fiscal year 2023, state and local funding totaled approximately $6105.1 million. FCPS has consistently met its special education maintenance of effort requirement and the 24/25

[02:10:50] application projects that we will meet it as well thank you the annual plan requests information on the divisions budget relative to coordinated early intervening services or CEIS and proportionate set-aside requirements so we're going to discuss what those are as well divisions that are not mandated to provide comprehensive coordinated early intervention services or CEIS may choose to voluntarily set aside up to 15% of their IDEA award for CEIS. FCPS voluntarily sets aside

[02:11:29] CEIS funding of $6.3 million or the 15% maximum allowed to provide support for students who are not currently identified as needing special education or related services. CEIS funding CII's funds supplemented the cost of behavioral, social and emotional development programs such as implementing a PBIS or positive behavior approach, specialized attendance interventions, restorative justice program, alcohol, tobacco and other drugs or ATOD intervention services, psychology and social work services.

[02:12:06] And here you can see the positions that were funded by the CEIS allocation. It enables FCPS to provide early intervening services and implement evidence-based practices. The CEIS funds staff 42.6 FTEs who work directly with or in support of interventions for our general education students.

[02:12:30] And here you see that breakdown of those positions. And next slide, please. Local school districts must expend funds to provide special education and related services for parentally placed private school children with disabilities enrolled in private schools located within the district.

[02:12:53] Private school students are eligible for related services such as OT, PT, and speech through an individualized service plan or an ISP. As previously shared, proportionate set aside, or PSA, is one of the assurances that FCPS must provide in order to receive federal funding.

[02:13:12] VDOE provides the formula FCPS must use to calculate the required special education proportionate set aside. Next slide, please. Thank you. So this section 611 K through 12 budget totals for 41.0 million and the section 619 preschool budget totals not 0.9 million.

[02:13:38] The set aside for CEIS is 6.3 million which is the 15% maximum and the mandatory proportionate set aside totals 0.3 million and next slide please. So in closing here is the timeline for submitting the IDEA annual plan for 2425.

[02:13:57] As required, we reviewed the annual plan with the Advisory Committee for Students with Disabilities or ACSD, Fairfax County's Local Special Education Advisory Committee, SEAC, on March the 13th. And the school board action and requested approval is scheduled for today, of course.

[02:14:14] And to be eligible to receive the projected $41.9 million in IDEA grant funding, we must submit the annual plan no later than May 10th. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. I call on Ms. Marin for a motion. I move that the school board approved the 2024 2025 special education annual plan Part B flow through application section 611 section 611 Part B and section 619 preschool Part B grant funding application as detailed in the agenda item.

[02:14:45] Is there a second second Mr. McDaniel. Miss Marin would you like to speak to your motion. I would please thank you FCPS provides a robust special education services to nearly 30,000 students in Fairfax county that is 16.3 percent of our student body an increase since 2020 when such students accounted for 14.7 percent so that's 30 000 children then the individuals with disabilities act the idea directs public school divisions to develop an individualized education program for students who have been determined eligible for special ed services it was first passed in 1975 and 1990 is

[02:15:22] the iteration that we know and use today now back in 1975 the federal government guaranteed committed to fund 40 percent of the excess of special education costs so what it costs to go above and beyond a general education to serve students with identified special needs so that they may receive a free and appropriate public education or FAPE so they can thrive to their fullest ability so that is a law stating the federal government covers 40 percent of the costs and yet currently in Fairfax County federal funding covers just 9.7 percent of FCPS costs to provide these special EDUCATION SERVICES IDENTIFIED AS NEEDED NOT 40 PERCENT AS PER THE LAW BUT BARELY 10 PERCENT

[02:15:59] IF THE LAW WAS FULLY FUNDED FAIRFAC STUDENTS WOULD RECEIVE 112 MILLION DOLLARS MORE RIGHT NOW THAT'S PER NOVEMBER 2023 DATA OVERALL FEDERAL MONEY ACCOUNTS FOR 1.3 PERCENT OF THE PROPOSED FCS BUDGET FOR FY25 WHICH PUTS A TREMENDOUS STRAIN ON OUR LOCAL TAXPAYERS THAT IS JUST 51 POINT MILLION DOLLARS OF THE 3 BILLION DOLLAR INVESTMENT IT TAKES TO PROVIDE EXCELLENT EDUCATION and be among the largest employers in Virginia.

[02:16:26] And let's not forget what the J-LOC report showed, which is that FCPS is due $345 million in this budget cycle from state funding to serve all students, also under law. Now, I do have to say about the U.S. Department of Education, which is my former employer, that the federal budget for public education is just $79 billion.

[02:16:44] In comparison for the current fiscal year, the Department of Defense has a budget that is over 10 times the amount of that U.S. Department of Education budget. that is $841 billion, and we cannot get full funding of IDEA. Now, because we are Fairfax, we are going to meet the tenets of the law, and I know this as a school board member and as a parent, but it should not be this difficult.

[02:17:07] So I know that we have to do this per law, but it must be said that we are being held to a standard for which we are not being funded for. So thank you, Dr. Reed and Dr. Erdman's... THANK YOU FOR YOUR DETAILED AND PASSIONATE WORK AND I KNOW WE WILL MEET THIS BUT IT IS THE COMMUNITY NEEDS TO KNOW WHAT A STRAIN THIS IS TO DO THIS WORK WITHOUT THE PROPER FUNDING. MR. MCDANIEL WOULD YOU LIKE TO SPEAK TO YOUR SECOND? NOPE. THANK YOU. MR. DUNN.

[02:17:37] THANK YOU. I WOULD LIKE TO ECHO THE WONDERFUL REMARKS THAT WERE JUST PROVIDED BY MY COLLEAGUE. AND I WOULD LIKE TO ASK RIGHT NOW THERE ARE AROUND 300 POSITIONS THAT ARE FUNDED BY THE FEDERAL government. Do you know if we actually received the full allocation that we're supposed to receive from the federal government, how many FTEs would be federally funded? That's a great question. I can definitely find out that information for you. I'm not exactly sure how many it would be with that

[02:18:15] funding if it was provided. But it would be a much higher percentage. Oh, definitely. Much higher percentage. And how many FTEs are there right now? I believe there are 2,400 special education and teachers but how many FTEs beyond just teachers are dedicated to the special education program we'll get back to you on that with a specific number for the Friday letter tomorrow. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Dunn we will go

[02:18:52] to a vote. All those in favor of the motion on the screen please raise your hand Mr. McDaniel Mr. McIlveen Miss Lady Miss St. John Cunning Miss Marin Mr. Dunn Dr. Anderson Miss Dixit Mr. Moon Miss Anderson Miss Seismar Heiser and myself. That is unanimous. Thank you very much. All right. Agenda item 5.05. Adopting the Community

[02:19:19] Advisory Committee Operating Manual. I call on Ms. Anderson for a motion. I move to send the Advisory Committee Operating Manual, the related sections of the Strategic Governance Manual and Policy 1710 to the Public Engagement Committee, PEC, and direct PEC to gather feedback from the board's advisory committee chairs and bring final recommendations to the board for a vote no later than June 27th 2024 is there a

[02:19:59] second miss Sizemore heiser miss Anderson would you like to speak to your motion I would honestly I was really excited to be part of the committee and the board that was able to bring the community advisory committee operating manual across the finish line the public engagement committee or PEC has and many school board members have worked on this for about the last three years. This is a process that started with input collected from our committees and to create a document that reflects clear direction from our board to our community volunteers that do such important work for

[02:20:34] for our board and our community. Late this winter we had a work session that outlined the proposed governance manual changes and gave our current board the chance to provide feedback on the operating manual from that work session the board sent the operating manual to peck for the final adjustments which peck accomplished are at the march and april meetings we had hoped that we could come back to the board for we hoped it could come back to the board for a vote which would have allowed the timeline to ensure that peck would could develop the training related to the operating manual for next terms committee members unfortunately despite the ongoing process all spring there have been

[02:21:12] concerns brought forward in the last few days that suggest that there would be that it would be better to send the work back to peck again for to continue to work and to return to the board at the end of june for the vote peck is determined to get this document right so we will continue to work towards that goal thank you miss anderson miss sizemar heiser would you like to speak to your second yeah um sure i just wanted to sort of give a little history since this started with a forum topic that was brought by a colleague of mine and i in back in 2020 about and it came out of the genesis many of us on who are on the board now had served as long-term members of some of our

[02:21:51] advisory committees and our advisory committees do wonderful work volunteer unpaid to provide expert advice to the school board on a variety of topics but one thing that many committee members as well as board members who were former committee members lifted up is that our advisor there is not consistent expectations for the advisory committees for the reports for what we expect from the chairs what we expect the members members talked about how there wasn't a training they weren't quite sure what to do so we developed the forum topic to send the tech to develop an operating manual

[02:22:24] that had never existed before this operating manual was the first draft was completed in 2021 then um it was finally in that initial year that we spent drafting it we reached out to all of our committees to get feedback on what they would like to see in an operating manual that'll help them be consistent with their work there are also issues that came up around how do we add or remove community organizations from committees how do we make sure that staff liaisons are consistent in staff expectations and how they support the committees all of that went into this very lengthy operating manual that we spent years developing which included significant feedback from

[02:23:03] our committees in the development of it in that first year um i know it went through in duration with uh our chair was when he was chair of peck working on the governance manual as well as finalizing the operating manual it came back to peck this year to do a few little operates do a few little tweaks to it um to make sure there's an alignment with the strategic plan which was done last fall it went to work session as mrs anderson said so this is many years in the making and the idea behind this is to both be responsive to what many committee members at the time had brought to our attention as well as what we experienced which is we want to make sure that our community members were spending their time and our boards relying on their expertise can do

[02:23:42] in the way that provides is effective efficient clear for our members clear for board clear for the staff and and ends with a consistent product that we can find actionable and usable it is um while i appreciate that we want to make sure we get this perfect with every voice heard there's also sometimes a desire to make to maybe get it done and implement it so we can so we can have continuous improvement on the efforts of our committees so um we will take it back to peck um and i appreciate the front picture miss anderson being willing to continue

[02:24:19] to work on this even though she wasn't even on the board when it was first approved so i appreciate all of her hard work and the committee's hard work to gather feedback from the advisory committees one thing i did want to mention is that the advisory committees exist to advise the school board so it'll be wonderful to get their feedback but at the end of the day we have to as a board decide what is it that we expect from our advisory committees and how is it that we want to receive that information so i hope that can finalize those i hope the board can support peck in its hard work so many committee members work very hard on this and we can take this one more round i am a little SAD ABOUT SOME OF THE WORK THAT WILL GET POSTPONED INCLUDING MS KARIM'S FORUM TOPIC WHILE WE CONTINUE

[02:24:59] TO WORK ON THIS SO THANK YOU THANK YOU MS SEISMORHEISER DR. ANDERSON THANK YOU I HOPE I DON'T REPEAT WHAT MS SEISMORHEISER JUST SAID BECAUSE I HAD A LITTLE BIT OF TROUBLE HEARING HER DURING HER PRESENTATION BUT I AM VERY GRATEFUL THAT WE HAVE LANDED IN THIS SPACE I KNOW THAT WE ARE ALL ANXIOUS AND EAGER TO HAVE THIS MATERIALS THESE MATERIALS AVAILABLE FOR OUR COMMUNITY for our committees to use because they have asked for it we we also want it but i think it's really important to focus in on the fact that it is better to take a little bit more time and get it

[02:25:35] right than to rush through and leave out those individuals who since you know last night have been reaching out to all of us regarding the fact that they wanted to have an opportunity to have input. I think PC did a wonderful job in getting together a great framework, but that framework needed to just be looked at a little bit more. So I want to encourage with the next iteration that we pay attention to the fact that we can get it circulated to the board so that we can give feedback and that we get it posted in a timely manner so that our community, they're not rushing

[02:26:11] to review it. Because up until I think right now, we have about eight of the nine advisory members sharing concerns I'm the advisory I'm the board liaison to ACE and there were some highlights that Mr. Balbuena who is the chair of ACE shared with me that would have never dawned on me as a board member but as the chair of that committee for I think now the third year he has that insight and that's what I want us to take advantage of we're very grateful for the work that those committee members put into this and I'm just really I'm very excited that we have the opportunity to just take a step back and be inclusive with them and

[02:26:50] be more transparent in this process because I don't think they saw a way in. I also want to encourage all of us I think are liaisons to a committee. Let's just make sure we double down and double check with them that they have this document and that they've provided their feedback so we don't miss anyone.

[02:27:07] I will be doing the same with Mr. Balbuena for ACE and I encourage all of you to do the same for your committees. happy to support this motion. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Mr. McIveen. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll just echo everything that Dr. Anderson has said. As she referenced, you know, in the past day we've had seven of our nine advisory committees come to us with concerns about this work. And I'm grateful to George Becerra, who's in the audience, as well as the other members of our advisory committees who reached out and just ensured that this board is taking their important INPUT INTO ACCOUNT. I AM ALSO GRATEFUL TO THE WILLINGNESS

[02:27:47] OF OUR PEC AND GOVERNANCE COLLEAGUES TO ENSURE THAT OUR ADVISORY COMMITTEES ARE CONSULTED DEEPLY ON THIS WORK AND THAT THEIR FEEDBACK IS INCLUDED IN THIS WORK PRODUCT. SO THANKS TO EVERYONE FOR CONTINUING THIS IMPORTANT PROCESS.

[02:28:04] THANK YOU, MR. MCELVEEN. I JUST WANTED TO SAY HOW MUCH I APPRECIATE all the work done by all of our advisory committees who represent citizens who have stepped forward to dedicate significant time with no pay and little or no fanfare, and they devote enormous

[02:28:38] time, effort, and resources to support FCPS in its effort to preserve the legacy of excellence while expanding opportunities for all children. And just on my own behalf, I'd like to say how much I've learned from all of the advisory committees and their members, both current and previous, because I've been reading through historic reports, previously in a report submitted.

[02:29:10] And I think they will continue to benefit us in the coming years, so pausing to listen to their feedback on this important operating manual, which I would also like to applaud the PEC for developing this over many years, so it represents a significant innovation and improvement I think will greatly benefit both FCPS and the arrangement that we have with our advisory committees to constantly seek input from the community through this formal mechanism so that we aren't operating in a vacuum but instead have the insight of

[02:29:46] the best and brightest, those of us who are volunteering on an unpaid basis to help our even long beyond when they have children in the system. So thank you again for everything they do. Thank you, Mr. Dunn.

[02:30:06] Ms. St. John Cunning. I want to thank all the work that the previous board did and the current board did and for the new board members we're learning about the process. I want to thank the flexibility that was done on a turn of a dime and I want to compliment my colleagues on that with offering a workable process where we could hear the voices of our community and our advisory board members as a community school coordinator and family liaison.

[02:30:38] I think that community voice is crucial and I think we've made space for this. The other people I would like to thank are the staff that help support these advisory committees because a lot of times questions come to them and they provide that work as well to help inform our advisory committees as they move forward.

[02:30:59] And I'm really grateful that everybody was very flexible and that they listened. And I think that's what this board is all about. Thank you, Ms. St. Jen Cunning. I will take a turn and then we'll take a go back. For people who are not part of our advisory committees or members of this board and might be wondering what on earth we are talking about, the school board has a variety of what is currently called citizen advisory committees.

[02:31:27] on a variety of topics from advanced academics to special education to family life education to minority student achievement and many others.

[02:31:43] And each of us on this board nominate members of our community to serve on those committees and there are other members of those committees as well. They work on an annual charge. They report back to this board on their recommendations around those annual charges. And then in a perfect world, the board considers those recommendations and staff reports back on what is feasible for implementation.

[02:32:08] Things have not always worked out that way. And over the years, anybody who's had the privilege of serving on one of these committees can tell you that they put in a lot of work and it's not always recognized with a response.

[02:32:25] And so this work began years ago. So I was trying to keep track of the number of PEC chairs who have worked on this, and I believe it's like five or six. I believe Ms. Seizmorheiser, myself, Ms. McLaughlin, Ms. Seizmorheiser again, Ms. Cohen, Laura Jane Cohen, Delegate Cohen, and so on.

[02:32:48] And so many, many members worked on this. And the goal of this operating manual is to bring clarity of purpose around all the different functions of these entities. From the onboarding of new members who have often just been put into the committees without much information about how they're going to function, to the creation of the annual charge, to the monthly work of these committees, to the roles of the members and the roles of the staff liaisons and the chairs and the school board member liaisons and how the annual report gets created and presented to the board and how staff follows up on that report so that we're

[02:33:25] not in this constant cycle of cramming all of these conversations into the very end of a school year and then really not getting to the meat and potatoes of responding to those reports and something that constitutes meaning. And so I'm hopeful that this motion will result in that conversation coming to fruition in June so that this process can be put in place for the following school year.

[02:33:49] And I appreciate everybody who has shared their thoughts and opinions on this and the great hard work of everybody on this board who has worked on it and all the staff who have contributed their thoughts and opinions as well. I call Ms. Sizemore Heiser for a go back. Yeah, just quickly, I wanted to, in listening to the comments at the dais, I wanted to slip one thing up, and that is we did have a work session on this about two months ago, and the hope was that perhaps, you know, many of the advisory committee appointees or colleagues that have reached out to appointees get the feedback at that point that was what the thought of the committee was or that was was my

[02:34:29] thought so i asked since we're deferring this yet one more time that perhaps if board members would like to reach out to their appointees that we do it perhaps not a week before but earlier so that way it can help us as a committee member ensure that we are making this perfect um so if that's it it's an ask i put out to my colleagues that um if you want to reach out to your committee members if there are concerns or comments or feedback that we get it sooner rather than later because that was kind of the hope of the work section so um i appreciate the chance to have one more chance that we've had to get more community engagement on this as i said it was pretty robust when we

[02:35:07] started this process so i'm glad that we can have at the end but if you all can help us out then we can put this to bed and move on to the other work that's pending okay thank you ms eismar heiser dr anderson um yes thank you one of the things that i will do because again the the timeliness AS TO WHEN THE DOCUMENTS WERE POSTED DID NOT ALLOW ME TO DO MY MOST FULSOME WORK, BUT I WILL, MS.

[02:35:33] SIZEMORHEISER, AS YOU HAVE MENTIONED, I WILL ENSURE THAT I GET MY COMMENTS TO YOU. I WOULD LOVE AT SOME POINT, IF THIS MOTION PASSES, TO HEAR FROM MS. ANDERSON AS THE CHAIR OF PEC AS TO THE TIMELINE REGARDING WHEN WILL WE PROVIDE THAT OUTREACH to the committees when we will expect for their feedback to be received to PEC.

[02:35:59] And I would like to also ensure that whatever is now the revised product to what has been developed so far, that is circulated with the board. So we have eyes on it. Because I think the work session did a great job of setting the broad strokes.

[02:36:15] What it didn't have is the actual document. And I think that's where I personally struggled with not seeing the broad strokes implemented in the directives that are outlined in the operating manual. I think once we have that piece and we can all put eyes on it and it can be posted in a timely manner for our community members to view it, we will probably have a much more expedient vote on the matter.

[02:36:44] So I would appreciate-- once you have your head wrapped around this, Miss Anderson to just kind of share a quick timeline with us. Thank you, Dr. Anderson, Miss Anderson, I just wanted to clarify just a few things.

[02:37:02] First, the work session had multiple versions of the documents. The governance manual changes that were presented in the work session have not changed since the work session. So those have been available for about 90 days. So that has not changed at all.

[02:37:19] The only thing that changed was the actual operating manual, that was published with all the other meeting information on friday and so that was the only that was the only disconnect that's going on but we will absolutely make sure i'm going to talk with my colleagues on the committee and determine what our our new approach is going to be to all this and so we will figure out what the timeline is and make sure that the rest of our our um board members know thank you miss anderson we will go to a vote miss sizemarheiser your hand is up i don't know if you wanted to go back yeah just briefly i just

[02:37:55] wanted to bring up that um my recollection from the work session was that most of these documents in pretty much these forms were posted then and the charge then to peck was to um make the few true minor changes in the work session so i would just ask my colleagues i don't want to have to kind of be back here in june so if you can help us out by making it really clear as to what your expectations are um in terms of um you know if it's going back to peck it's going to be circulated back to the board, but just it would be helpful to be really clear about that because I think

[02:38:30] that the committee was confused, or maybe it wasn't, that the changes from the work session that was then designated to PEG were pretty minor between then. So it would be helpful, and maybe this is an offline conversation, but it would be helpful to be really clear. Thank you.

[02:38:48] We'll go ahead and vote. All those in favor of the motion on the screen, please raise your hand. Mr. McDaniel, Mr. McElveen, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Marin, Mr. Dunn, Dr. Anderson, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Moon, Ms. Seizmoorheiser, Ms. Anderson and myself. That is unanimous. Thank you. The motion passes. All right. Agenda item 6.01, performance review, facilities and transportation EL11 monitoring report. I call on Dr. Reed.

[02:39:17] Thank you, Mr. Chair. So for the executive limitation on facilities and transportation, and we'll go ahead and begin that um and at this time this is one of two monitoring reports this

[02:39:51] evening and this is the one we can go ahead um thank you and uh review facilities and transportation um i want to again reiterate that at the time of this report to the best of my knowledge information and belief the information gathered by staff and the evidence i believe supports COMPLIANCE WITH THE BOARD'S EXECUTIVE LIMITATION ASSOCIATED WITH THIS TOPIC AND THIS EVENING I'D LIKE TO SHARE SOME HIGHLIGHTS. ESSENTIALLY THERE ARE SEVEN AREAS OF EXECUTIVE LIMITATION

[02:40:23] 11 AND ALL PARTS OF ITEM 1 CAN BE SEEN HERE. ALL PARTS OF ITEM 2 CAN BE SEEN HERE. I THINK WE HAVE SOME INTERESTING OPPORTUNITIES OBVIOUSLY IN TERMS OF LOOKING AT OUR FACILITIES AND transportation as we look at the remaining items three through seven they have less detail but that I do want to share that the entire monitoring report is attached for those watching online or those excited to look for it perhaps

[02:41:01] tomorrow so if we want to take them essentially number by number one of the things that is the first requirement in the executive limitation is to ensure we have classroom capacity and infrastructure to meet instructional programs student community needs across the division and one of the ways we do this is by collaboratively looking at guidelines for high-performance schools and another area we want to think about improving student health and performance

[02:41:34] is creating a more sustainable learning environment as well some examples of These have included the use of energy efficient lighting, higher efficiency HVAC systems, solar-powered hot water heaters, and projects now exploring all electric appliances, photovoltaic panels in the future, which are connected to our solar initiatives, and by providing a utility infrastructure for EV charging stations for our fleet vehicles.

[02:42:07] A number of you were able to join us at our EPA event recently where we received 42 new electric buses, which will require an infrastructure, obviously, for charging. As I move to number two, just a reminder that, excuse me, the second item in this executive limitation says that we'll maintain an objectively prioritized capital improvement plan, which is the CIP.

[02:42:34] I believe this week, I want to say it might have only been yesterday, I did send the CIP follow-on motion updates to you through e-mail and will also include those in the Friday letter.

[02:42:49] Summary of needs for five years and an overview explanation of cost analysis is also included in this plan. In FY23 there were 106 projects, and in FY24 there were 64 projects as of the fall of 2024.

[02:43:07] You can see the breakdown of the types of replacement projects shown here as well as in our CIP plan. Item number three talks about safe, clean, and effectively and efficiently maintained facilities, which would help them enable their intended lifespan.

[02:43:27] It's important that we think about routine preventive and corrective building and grounds maintenance services, facility infrastructure repair and replacement, energy conservation and sustainability in the design and performance of our facilities.

[02:43:42] The office of facilities management is currently organized into four sections as noted on the slide and each of these provides personalized and specialized services I should say to staff and students in each of these four areas is really key to the success of facilities management.

[02:44:03] Item number four begins to talk a little bit about transportation and making sure that transportation to and from school is safe, accessible, efficient, and equitable. We look at ridership data and adjust bus routes, also prevent overcrowding, continuously evaluating ROUTES AND AS OUR STUDENT BOARD MEMBER MENTIONED THIS EVENING, WE'RE ALSO LOOKING AT LENGTH OF ROUTES BECAUSE WE KNOW THAT'S IMPORTANT. MR. DUNN ALSO SHARED HOW LONG OUR ROUTES ARE.

[02:44:32] I THINK YOU COULD SAY CONNECTED TO OUR BOUNDARIES. SO I THINK THE WORK THAT WE'RE CONTEMPLATING IN THAT ARENA WILL HAVE AN IMPACT ON THIS AREA. WE ALSO INVEST IN ONGOING TRAINING AND CERTIFICATION FOR OUR DRIVERS AND OUR ATTENDANCE. AND WE PRIORITIZE STUDENT SAFETY WITH THAT.

[02:44:52] WE DO CONDUCT RIDE ALONGS WITH OUR 1300 DRIVERS THROUGHOUT THE YEAR. WE ALSO HAVE ESTABLISHED PROCEDURES TO GUARANTEE TRANSPORTATION FOR OUR HOMELESS STUDENTS. SO ITEM NUMBER FIVE IS REALLY A TOPIC AROUND THE USE OF FACILITIES AT A REASONABLE NET COST TO OUR SCHOOL SYSTEM AS LONG AS SAFETY STUDENT FUNCTIONS AND INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAM ARE NOT COMPROMISED.

[02:45:19] AND WE USE GUIDELINES TO ADMINISTER THIS CONSTANTLY AND THERE'S SOME DATA ON THIS SLIDE. I THINK ONE OF THE KEY AREAS OF DATA IS THAT APPROXIMATELY 80% OF ALL NON-FCPS USAGE IN FCPS IS DONE BY FAIRFAX COUNTY.

[02:45:36] I THINK THAT'S A SIGNIFICANT DATA POINT. FAIRFAX COUNTY THROUGHOUT 2023 HAD OVER 1 MILLION HOURS OF COMMUNITY USE IN OUR SCHOOLS AND SPACES AND FIELDS. a lot. The reported participation in these programs was more than 286,000 participants, again, a large majority of which were FCPS students. So item six continues to think about transparent and ongoing communication. We're looking at upgrading our Here Comes the Bus app.

[02:46:12] And we're also really thinking about how to develop a more robust communication plan for all major construction projects and our work done i believe we completed the capital projects delivery committee that actually worked on community engagement for the cip and i believe number seven is our last item here for this executive limitation and it is about operating an innovative self-supporting child nutrition program i think this is one of our real

[02:46:49] showcase data points our new food and nutrition services director executive director has done a fabulous job we've also hired an executive chef last month we've developed and launched 20 new scratch made recipes in an effort to making sure we have much healthier food we've seen participation in breakfast increase by 20 percent and lunch by four percent year over year we now have salad bars in all elementary schools in the spring of 2023 and in all schools as of now we've transitioned

[02:47:28] in utensils which is actually projected to reduce almost 40 000 pounds of plastic each year so just really a lot of excitement around this particular part of the executive limitation and at this time mr chairman this concludes the summary of the monitoring report for executive limitation 11 facilities and transportation thank you thank you dr reed i call mr dunn uh thank you dr reed um i really appreciated this um presentation and uh i'm

[02:48:05] really excited about um your leadership and the leadership of mr manski i think we're in very capable hands and on especially on facilities and i'm excited about uh the transition because we're at an inflection point and i was up until uh three in the morning last night reading the 186 page uh uh follow-on motion report um and digging into the numbers um i do have a big

[02:48:40] question about whether flint hill elementary really has 290 million dollars of infrastructure improvements so can we start there so mr dunn first before miss samansky answers your question it was impressive as i bounded out of bed at 4 45 this morning to have an opportunity to review the detailed uh questions so we're going to get answers for all those miss samansky can you comment on flint hill sure i can comment on flint hill that was an actual typo we had the vrfs have a total uh dollar value but then we applied that to all the individual vrfs

[02:49:18] so that number is actually somewhere around the 2.9 million range and i will be updating the document okay so that would bring the total for infrastructure replacement from 599 million down to closer to okay and so we'll be it cuts it in half roughly okay so that just because we've been panicking about 600 million now we only need to panic about 300 million so if you could just anything more than 10 million in that report just make sure it's supposed to be seven i mean there's some very big numbers i also cited in some of my questions um so i just want to make sure those get

[02:49:56] verified there's one that was 70 million for something that's not even a school i think it's a bus depot and i've i've been there was a voting location and there's not much there yeah we'll be reviewing it's still in the conceptual phase and be providing updates to those couple of typos okay that would be much appreciated so the 186 page report is not within the is not within here the executive limitation report which I I think there should have been some reference to it because some things that mr. Manske is doing I think deserve mention such as beginning a transition

[02:50:33] away from design bid build which is an outdated procurement methodology to design building construction management at risk which will accelerate time frames for construction and save a whole lot of money which frees up money for other projects but there was also a lot of data in there that was alarming for example playground equipment over 50% of our playground equipment is past its useful life and you know many other high touch items high visibility need to addressed. So I look forward to working with you and Ms. Somancy, supported by CPDC and FPAC,

[02:51:10] to address those issues, as well as I appreciate your support for the transition to electric school buses. And I applaud your staff for getting that very significant grant of 16 million to enable, you know, I think the largest electric school bus, at least in the state, if not the country.

[02:51:29] AND I HOPE THAT WE'LL CONTINUE TO APPLY FOR MANY MORE GRANTS AND EXPAND THOSE OPPORTUNITIES. AND ONE THING -- I'LL GO BACK. THANK YOU, MR. DUNN. ALL RIGHT. DR. ANDERSON. THANK YOU. I DO WANT TO PIGGYBACK ON WHAT MR. DUNN SAID BECAUSE I DO FEEL FAIRLY EXCITED BECAUSE I THINK WE ARE AT THE POINT WHERE WE ARE ABOUT TO MAKE A TURN. I DON'T THINK WE'RE THERE YET, BUT I AM VERY MUCH EXCITED BY THE POSSIBILITY. I SEE IT. BUT RIGHT NOW,

[02:52:05] in terms of evaluating where we are currently, current state, I have some questions. One of the things that I would love for you to speak to that I see here, at least on page four of the report, where you talked about our process for the renovation queue, etc.

[02:52:27] You didn't talk about what the new plan is for the process in terms of securing a vendor. Can you at least illuminate the public that there will be more to come on this end? Yes, ma'am, we can.

[02:52:43] Ms. Szymanski, would you take that, please? I think we're on slide four, which is number two. Sure, and I just really want to echo what you're saying, Dr. Anderson. We did talk about what we're currently doing, but we are in the process of developing a scope of work to hire a vendor to do a new renovation queue.

[02:53:03] And, again, we're going to be using all of our best practices and what we've been collecting thus far and work on that. I would expect that to go, it's going to go into procurement later this spring and hopefully have a solicitation out this summer.

[02:53:20] And thank you. And I raise that because I want to make sure that I highlight that we are not yet there because we know the queue that we're using right now is not meeting our needs. So while it may have some criteria, I know you actually mentioned this at our work session around this when we had the CIP that, you know, in looking into your crystal ball in the future and what may be in the new queue, schools that are currently in the queue right now may not even meet that threshold.

[02:53:45] And I think we have the appetite at that point to have that conversation once that work has been done. So again, that's good work to come. The other piece that I also want to be sure that I highlight as you're talking about facilities for students to To to work to learn and is just kind of the increase of trailers that we've had And I know we're getting the growth in various places just you know some quick back-of-the-envelope math we have 564 trailers this year, and we had 543 last year

[02:54:22] And again, the growth is going to be what it is, and we're trying to find ways to deal with that. But what I'm hoping can come with that are some of the other measures that will enhance safety at our schools. Because we know sometimes when we place trailers, Wayanoke being one of them, there was a security issue because it was too accessible to the public.

[02:54:41] So maybe coming in advance with the planning on fencing, we also had that issue at Wayanoke where the fire alarm could not be heard at the trailers. And it happened at a time where parents were there and couldn't understand why the rest of the building had been evacuating except for the ones in the trailers.

[02:55:00] If we could just kind of plan for those other things when we are faced with those difficult and obviously undesired things of adding trailers to our building, I think it will just continue to enhance our confidence that the safety and security is here.

[02:55:19] I had one more thing that I wanted to share.

[02:55:36] I'm not sure I could find it right now, but I'd like to go back. Oh, I found it. All right. Mr. McDaniel.

[02:55:54] Question. I remember back in, I think, January, Mr. McElveen, I believe, asked this question. I wanted to give you an update on the solar-ready roofs. Is there any update on that? I know there was some roadblocks. Right. We ran into some connectivity agreement challenges, I believe, with Dominion Energy.

[02:56:16] And Ms. Szymanski, I know, in fact, I just saw an email across my desk today on that topic. Would you illuminate us on, wait, that's two in one night, illuminate us on what's current, maybe three, on this topic? Sure. I mean, there's a lot to really discuss on this topic, and I'm happy to follow up with more robust information.

[02:56:37] But Dr. Reed, you're correct. We had been under contract on two power purchase agreements to do solar installs, one at Mason Crest, one at Annandale. And then Dominion Power put in a dark fiber interconnection fee that was exponentially growing the cost of the project.

[02:56:54] So that's currently under review with the FCC. FCPS, we provided public comment. The county did a letter as well. So that's in review. And while we're doing that, we are trying to look at ways to still make advancements in this work. So we actually, moving some operating funds around, we're doing a pilot installation of solar on the roof at Sideburn Support Center.

[02:57:18] It's a little bit smaller of an installation, so it's under that threshold for needing that interconnection fee. So we think it's a good way to pilot the work, get the experience of designing it, permitting it, implementing it, and even maintaining it, especially with the proximity to our maintenance center. With that, we're also looking at ways to get creative, expanding on the power purchase agreements.

[02:57:39] We're asking those solar vendors to review some of our roofs that are advantageous and seeing if there's ways to do smaller installations that are under that connectivity requirement. So we actually just got back proposals for nine more schools to expand this work.

[02:57:55] Right now, we're having a third-party engineer review the proposals to make sure that they're financially viable. And if they look good, then we can continue on with that work as we hopefully get good news from Dominion to even expand that and move on to even bigger installations.

[02:58:14] Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McDaniel. Ms. Dixit. Thank you, Dr. Reed. I just have one question. We have been talking about the Western High School and acquisition for a very long time. And I think it's been 10 years since the county and like the school board and the FCPS is talking about it.

[02:58:35] I believe between you and Janice is very capable to people. We can make it happen. And we are really looking to get this done soon because we have a lot of overcrowding, growing population at the western side of Fairfax.

[02:58:55] So that is correct. We're actually, I think, within 120 students, roughly, of 183,000. So we just are continuing to grow. I know our property acquisition team is working, continuing to look for a site that we could afford and that would be large enough.

[02:59:13] Ms. Szymanski, any update on a site for the Western High School? - No updates on an actual candidate for a site. And then yes, to confirm in a previous CIP, some funding was set aside for the land acquisition piece. - So funding was set aside, but no site has been identified.

[02:59:34] - The money spent, you know, put site in a bucket like this not being used is really money should have you know either go to any other other cause I feel we need to have a plan to with a set date in mind or goal in mind that this is the timeline we should give ourselves or just find another way to you know use the funding because year after year we will we cannot take that funds over as we could use it in a better way yes ma'am thank you Thank you, Ms. Dixit.

[03:00:11] Mr. McIlveen. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And speaking of facilities, we are freezing up here. I don't know if anyone can do anything about that. I had to go back and change clothes because it's that bad. So earlier tonight, we were talking about the proliferation of chiefs.

[03:00:29] And I know, you know, one of the important changes that was made was to break up the COO position into two separate positions, which I think was the right call. I do think there are some times and I've seen this in the community where the left hand is not speaking to the right hand and things are just as one board member I don't know where to go and I think our community is having a similar issue and that's I hope just growing pains and hopefully something we that we can come out of but that's a concern I'm seeing at the ground level right now.

[03:01:02] One of the pieces you raised in the report was on community use I'm going to emphasize it again. I think the decision that this Board made in a prior iteration of which I was part to require insurance on those that use our facilities is a extreme barrier to our community groups and something that I hope we can revisit soon. There's one item on consent agenda which I did not pull off, you're welcome, tonight about our Eagle Bank contract, and I think

[03:01:37] this is an appropriate time to speak to that, where I think we continue to throw money at Eagle Bank Arena, at DAR, and it's long past time that we look at finding a facility and building a facility in Fairfax County that can accommodate our graduations, and I think over the long term it will pay for itself, given that we're throwing millions of dollars every year at these other institutions.

[03:02:04] And I do want to end with some praise for your work on that last slide. We've been in many meetings over the years, and we've made so much progress. You have made so much progress. And I do just want to highlight your leadership, Marty's leadership, Sean Sacco's leadership, Melissa D'Angelo's leadership on bringing our food services to the next level.

[03:02:29] We still have work to do on our scratch cooking that's a work in progress but I know we have the right leadership in place to get us to the right place. And the last thing I will raise is composting not a surprise.

[03:02:46] We have a lot of work to do there. We do have schools doing good work but we need a centralized program so we are not putting the burden on individual schools for that. Thank you. Yes sir. Thank you. okay thank you mr moon thank you mr chairman i have a question or two regarding number five that's a community use uh with the fees that we charge for the community use you know my

[03:03:21] question has to do with this uh the board directed directed a you to provide a community use of facilities at a reasonable net cost reasonable net cost i understand that you provided response earlier this afternoon that about a year ago our oaz you know provide us information regarding uh the information regarding our fees compared to uh surrounding districts prince william loudon county are very much comparable we may be comparable but that doesn't

[03:03:59] still answer whether that is a reasonable net cost you know especially a one of the major complaints that I hear from some not all you know our communities really appreciate the fact that we are you know letting community use to a certain extent one million hours you said that that that is great but you know especially with a custodial fees you know uh you know there are community members who feel the community users who feel that we are double charging triple charging when there is

[03:04:35] more than one event going on in school facility at the same time we're not necessarily providing more custodians but we are charging each event separately for all those custodial fees could you comment on that yes sir so i think um first of all you know we did do the attorney or the auditor general's uh review and did find the rate comparisons with prince william and loudon we were very comparable we also looked at the support and custodial fees that are assessed

[03:05:10] and reimbursed dollar for dollar at the median custodial overtime rate of forty dollars per hour the total collected in school year 23 24 was 1.7 million additional fees for participation at two dollars per participant were collected as well totaling 119 000. i think it's important to note our fees to the county have not been increased since before 2016 the county however is charging users a higher amount than the amount charged by FCPS so

[03:05:44] there's sort of a the fee structure that is being set is set by the county for a number of activities that we actually didn't raise our charge but the county did, I will also say that about 80% of all community use is by nonprofit users, which would be an example of HOAs, 501C3s, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, so forth.

[03:06:11] And the nonprofit groups are only charged a space rental fee per hour, which is minimal. And if they're collecting money during their usage, the support custodial fees would be charged where required. SO I THINK THAT THE CUSTODIAL FEES, IT APPEARS THAT THEY SEEM REASONABLE AND WE TRY TO MINIMIZE THOSE COSTS.

[03:06:35] I THINK I COULD DO MORE RESEARCH ON THAT IF YOU WOULD LIKE THAT. WOULD YOU PLEASE? YES, SIR. JUST ONE MORE QUESTION THAT I HAVE WITH THE COMMUNITY USE IS, YOU KNOW, DR. As you are aware recent meeting with a couple of county supervisors, county staff and committee members.

[03:06:58] There have been some complaint lodged against us basically about cancellations of the facilities. Could you address that? Yes, sir. And I appreciate you bringing that up.

[03:07:14] I know that's a topic that's been alive and well with our athletic council, who's raised those concerns. I do have our chief operating officer, Andy Muick, who also supports our food and nutrition service. I want to call that out.

[03:07:29] But Mr. Muick, do you have some data points, I think, regarding the cancellations that I think might be helpful to put into context the scope of the challenge? Yes, ma'am. Mr. Moon, you know, in the 18-month period that ended back in December, they had scheduled 205,000 events, and we had to cancel 5,200.

[03:07:54] So, you know, right around 2.5%. And that's where we've been hovering. This last quarter, January through March, it creeped up a little bit to 3% because we had some renovations that started early, so we had to cancel some stuff unscheduled. And we're working really hard with the RASs and the executive principals to provide guidance and coaching to the schools so that they don't just cancel on a whim that they work with our community use team.

[03:08:23] And we work with Neighborhood Community Services over on Chairman McKay's team to figure out ways to share space. And I think it's a new effort that we're doing, and we should see some positive benefits from that down the road. But even even with that, you know, we're really focusing hard on those Last three days of cancellations to where I know that was a really sore spot with the community as well And we're talking with chairman mckay's team about some options on how we can maybe Mitigate that even better. So hopefully we'll see some good benefits going down the road. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you, mr

[03:09:03] Moon, I will take a turn First, I do want to thank Ms. Szymanski for what is, at least in my time on the board, the most extensive follow-on motion response document that we've ever received. I will say that I was sleeping last night and was not reading it until 3 o'clock in the morning.

[03:09:25] And so if Phyllis Payne, one of our sleep advocates and proponent of middle school start times, is watching, please know that I was not up that late reading. I will read it over the weekend. But it is a good example of the of the hard work that Miss Szymanski and her team are doing to make sure that we're riding the ship on these issues One area that I want to talk about that we've talked a little bit about is the timing of our CIP And this is something I'd like to explore in the year ahead right now the CIP because of the timing of bonds Falls at the same time We're working on the budget and the legislative agenda and all the other stuff at the beginning of the calendar year

[03:10:02] And the only reason we do it at that time is because of the timing of bonds that seems like a surmountable challenge to move the cip to a time when everybody can have more time to focus on it so i look forward to trying to come up with a way to do that maybe push it to the other side of the year and figure out a way to address the bond issue separately the issue of solar we were stalled on that for years and we get a new superintendent who is you know meets with advocates meets with board members and hears about the challenges we've been facing

[03:10:37] and in a matter of weeks and months we were moving again and then along came a powerful monopoly which will remain nameless um and uh no because what they've what they're talking about sounds far scarier dark fiber um sounds far more scary and essentially what that has done all over the commonwealth of virginia has made it so that municipalities and school divisions are struggling TO RISK MOVING FORWARD WITH SOLAR AND OTHER ENERGY CONSERVATION MEASURES IN THEIR BUILDINGS AND IN THEIR BUS FLEETS OR RUN THE RISK OF STARTING A PROJECT ONLY TO FIND OUT THAT THEY'RE

[03:11:16] GOING TO BE PAYING HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS IN FEES THAT THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE TO PAY. AND SO I GIVE KUDOS TO THE STATE CORPORATION COMMISSION FOR STANDING UP TO THIS UNNAMED MONOPOLY AND HOPE THEY CONTINUE TO DO SO DESPITE THE PRESSURE THAT THEY'RE GETTING FROM very powerful people um and so fingers crossed on that front um as for the western high school um this is something that we've we've allocated funding for on on two previous bonds um because it's a high school you can't just get all the funding on one bond for for even for purchasing

[03:11:53] the property and so i know that various different ideas for property purchasing has been kicked around over the years it'd be great to have a more focused conversation even in two by twos for interested board members you may ask why do i care about something that would probably impact centerville and chantilly more than it would providence district where we're sitting right now but i have students who go to oakton high school who would probably go to the new western high school if there was room and capacity and that's how weird our boundaries are in this county when oakton high school reopened after its extensive renovation and it is beautiful if you've not been there and i'll just finish my point it opened at well over capacity and so if

[03:12:32] WE CAN SOLVE THIS WESTERN HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE, WE CAN SOLVE A LOT OF DOWNSTREAM ISSUES AS WELL. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I'LL BE VOTING IN FAVOR OF COMPLIANCE ON THIS. ALL RIGHT. MS. MARIN. THANK YOU. THIS IS FANTASTIC. SO THANK YOU. AND I LIKE THAT IT'S ALSO TALKING ABOUT OUR COMMUNITY USE. THAT'S A BIG THING. THE BOARD, I THINK WE HAD AN AUDIT DONE OF COMMUNITY USE AND IT WAS ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS I SENT MR. MUICK WHEN HE ARRIVED. YOU KNOW, I DO WANT TO TOUCH ON SOME OF THE THINGS THAT seem ancillary to instruction but aren't we heard tonight about the athletic fields and you know we've talked a lot about the renovation queue but i haven't heard um talk about or plans for how we

[03:13:08] ensure that our athletic facilities are up to date so that is something and also playgrounds it was mentioned before that some are dilapidated but we have a really uneven way of playgrounds getting renovated some ptas run it you run fundraisers we've got kids doing fundraisers you know what is the deal with the playgrounds um and then the renovation queue you know i i know we've had discussions at the dais about this um when we were doing the cip but it it just doesn't i think we can do better especially with the um the innovations and best practices that

[03:13:43] are being raised so um i'd love to hear either now or the future and i'll put it on my form but we've got to make these ancillary instructional spaces work oh and recess for especially like middle school we got these kids going I saw some kids and they're like you know we keep we have nowhere to go so let's give them some place you know fun to be and high schoolers too need nice places okay so thank you for raising that and we I know Ms. Szymanski's team is looking at I've asked for an athletic field cue because we don't currently have honestly a process for

[03:14:19] determining next up other than the connections to the renovations as well as the playgrounds we're looking at playgrounds at elementary are to elementary as athletic fields are to secondary so i think that those cues are in the queue and miss samanski do we have an eta for when we think we're going to have a draft of those sure we kind of talked through at a high level some of the assumptions we were using in the methodology in a previous friday letter and we plan on actually implementing that methodology over the summer so it's our goal to go out starting with the high

[03:14:58] schools getting facility staff in coordination with our athletic activities staff to go out do visual inspections meet with school staff to sort of get a lay of the land on where we are with the physical conditions of all them and develop a list from there and then we've started to put together what pricing options and what that plan could look like so i'd gotten that thank you miss samansky we actually are going to have i believe an intern in the department this summer whose task it's going to be to work on this queue for playgrounds and athletic fields and come back

[03:15:35] so by end of summer we should have some scenarios to run by you as a board to look at that's That's fabulous and I'll just raise my advocacy again to get our outdoor classrooms moving. I hear there's they're stalled somewhere and it's not necessarily on our side of the house in the county.

[03:15:53] But that's a preview for later to come the academic matters about get to green because the board has committed we've it's funded. It's got to get done. Yes ma'am. Thank you. Miss Marin Miss St. John Cunning. So I'd also like to talk about playgrounds and primarily about preschool playgrounds.

[03:16:13] There are a lot of our elementary schools that when they did have their playgrounds, they didn't have a pre-K program, and now they do. And so they either don't have a pre-K -- well, they don't have a pre-K playground, and that raises security issues because a lot of times those younger kids are in the larger playground that is not built for them.

[03:16:36] So in terms of safety for them, but also security because the pre-K playgrounds do have fences around them that help maintain to not runoff. So that's just something that I'd like to know about the queue, about those schools that now do have preschools and when those schools will get pre-K playgrounds, if we could find out how that queue works is something that's of interest to me.

[03:17:04] And on a positive note, I was interviewed at Lewis High School and Forrest, who was interviewing me asked all the students what she should ask and I just want to tell her that I tell you that I was very happy to say that we have a new executive chef because they all wanted to ask me what are you going to do to improve school lunches so I told her I would definitely try to find out if they could come sample some of the lunches.

[03:17:33] So thank you Miss St. John Cunningham we'll work on a preschool playground queue which is not something we had been discussing and doesn't currently exist so we'll look at uh perhaps our internal even be busier um to create a cue for that because i i agree with you um having a fenced more secure preschool playground is important thank you miss st john cunning uh we have a couple uh miss anderson just really fast i wanted to reiterate how how much i appreciate all the things that we that i've heard you talk about already tonight um related to creating an

[03:18:09] athletics queue because we have many many members of our community not just those who have been advocating so strongly on our community participation but we definitely have athletic facilities that need to be addressed and i would love to to a way to be able to speak intelligently when we have booster clubs come and talk to us and things like that and i absolutely agree that we need to identify space for the western high school and would be very interested in having those discussions as i have already done so so i would love to continue that but thank you so much

[03:18:39] for for all this work and we appear to have lost miss anderson no you're good you're good all right thank you very much miss anderson all right we'll take a couple go backs uh mr dunn um i wanted to ask ev chargers uh i haven't seen any at gatehouse or any schools is that at all in any facilities plans so i can answer that one right now for renovations we don't have the actual evs in the

[03:19:15] scope but we're trying to build them as ev ready so it just makes sense while you're building a brand new parking lot go ahead and run conduit under so in the event we can build them we don't have to rip all up that new work because i believe right now that the evs that we do have in place are grants through dominion so right now we don't have them in our scopes but we are building them to be ready thank you um there's been some talk about a western high school uh new to the board we have falling or steady enrollment uh we have a bubble coming through uh more people at the

[03:19:50] older age than the younger age is there a business case to actually have a western high school if we fix school boundaries and allocate people according to capacity well i think that uh the western high school was launched the project the funding was launched I want to say roughly 10 years ago ish when our enrollment was higher to your point I will say however our enrollment pattern this year continues to rise even this past week each week it's continuing to rise and we're probably going to break

[03:20:27] 183 thousand very shortly it's hard to know what the summer will bring but we have had a number of neighborhoods continue to turn over and a number of families moving into the county having said that the boundaries very much so are going to be if we you know are able to move forward with them could very well level out a number of the seats so I think we haven't started that work yet but as we look at the demographics moving forward we'd have to take a look

[03:21:03] at the cohort survival rate of each grade level right moving through with whatever the multiplier factor is for new enrollment immigrating into the county and or take into consideration those immigrating out of the county so i don't know that i could answer it directly this evening one of the challenges we have is the western side of the county is much more crowded in our schools than the central or eastern side so whether or not the boundaries could sweep that far across the county um is a question yet to be answered i i just hope we keep an open mind because that would

[03:21:41] create a 200 to 300 million dollar hit to our school bonds uh over time uh i also want to ask about espc's and escos um there you know there's reference in the el uh report to uh you know high high-efficiency HVAC systems and such, and ESPCs and ESCOs can offer opportunities without any upfront investment by FCPS to actually obtain much upgraded systems that are paid for over time simply out of the rates that we would be paying already provided by third-party vendors.

[03:22:16] So, is FCPS looking to rapidly expand its use of these procurement vehicles, or what's its position right now? Yes, sir. So, Ms. Szymanski? Sure, and some of this I might actually need to come back and provide you guys with more information.

[03:22:34] But we are actually writing the ESPEC contract by the county, so we've engaged with an engineering firm, CMTA. They're actually going and looking at the first five group of schools and looking at some admin centers, too.

[03:22:50] And so we expect to have their proposals, I'd say, within the next few weeks. The question I need to get back to you is on the requirement for some upfront costs. And so that's part of the proposal that we'll get from the ESCO contractor.

[03:23:07] Okay. And I'd just like to end by saying, you know, the number one issue I hear about from students is food. And I applaud everything you're doing with scratch kitchens and things like that. I hope that FCPS can, you know, look to our friends in Europe who seem to provide, you know, six-course meals every day to their children.

[03:23:29] And I don't know what they do. I've never studied that at all. But hopefully we can have some engagement through, you know, National School Board Association or otherwise to to learn about those best practices and and bring them here so kids can have more than, you know, pizza and chicken fingers. Thank you. Yes, sir. Are you talking about Europe? Is that what you said?

[03:23:49] Yeah, yeah. You know, in a lot of places in Europe, I have a they actually go home for lunch, right? THEY BECAUSE IN MANY PLACES THAT'S A PRACTICE WHICH WOULD NOT BE PRACTICAL HERE BUT I DO WE WILL MR. MUIC STUDY SOME OF THE MODELS IN EUROPE AND SEE WHAT WE CAN DO. THANK YOU MR. DUNN. DR. ANDERSON.

[03:24:12] THANK YOU ONE OF THE THINGS THAT I WANTED TO RAISE WAS THE REGARDING OUR FACILITIES OUR CUSTODEANS DO A FABULOUS JOB BUT SOMETIMES WE PUT THEM IN A POSITION WHERE THEY'RE NOT PROPERLY STAFFED BECAUSE OF A RENOVATION THAT HAS EXPANDED SQUARE FOOTAGE AND THE WAY THAT OUR CIP works there's a lapse I know Mr. Smith you and I have talked about this quite a bit but would you mind explaining it to the board in terms of how do we catch up to having the right staffing for custodians based on renovations in the CIP cycles I missed the first part of the question I apologize

[03:24:45] I was just hoping you could speak to when we have a renovation that has expanded the square footage of a school we don't automatically change the staffing of the custodial staff we don't change the ratio of the custodial staff rather it has to wait to be captured in the cip and then be captured in the next next year's budget creating a gap i guess i'm explaining it creating a gap for our custodians so they have this period of time which can be up to two years where they're struggling to keep up with the expanded square footage because we haven't caught up i want to raise this because i'd like for us to to look at this because it has been an issue that has been

[03:25:25] raised to me quite a bit thank you mr smith um any time dr anderson the other piece that i wanted to raise is regarding safety for maintenance there was a lot of conversation here i mean a lot of information here in terms of having our maintenance go out and respond to things but i do know because again of the staffing mr muick sometimes the maintenance individuals who would go out with a helper they're going out alone creating a safety issue because they may be stuck in a room and they ARE FALLING OFF A LADDER AND THEY'RE ALONE. I'M NOT ASKING FOR AN ANSWER RIGHT NOW BUT I

[03:26:00] WANT TO RAISE THIS FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION. THE OTHER THING THAT I WANT TO REALLY HIGHLIGHT IS HOW I THINK THE COMMUNICATION REGARDING RENOVATION AND CONSTRUCTION HAS BEEN ENHANCED WITH OUR COMMUNITY. THE ENGAGEMENT PLAN THAT CPDC SPENT THE BETTER PART OF A YEAR, maybe a year plus working on has been a game changer and I'm glad to see that it was highlighted in your report because my schools were schools that were able to pilot it as we go along because my schools were also the schools that had some issues regarding that.

[03:26:37] So I really want to say thank you to Ms. Zeminski's team and prior to her Mr. Fanshawe for getting us over the hump and I cannot stress enough how important it will be to continue to communicate that out the other thing that I do want to give a big glow to is the food the food nutrition we know it's working well but the kids still are not accessing it as much you know I have people in my house why keep saying go eat that food it is good may I just finish really quickly one of the questions that I wanted to ask mr. Mewick was regarding the electric buses

[03:27:15] from our previous from the person previously in your seat it was a a challenge to have electric buses that can go far because of the charge and the amount of time that the charges will hold. How are we going to address that? What I understood needed to happen is more depots because right now we could only have Lorton and one more area over in Springfield.

[03:27:41] What's that? And so it is not going to be, we can't expand the buses across the division because we don't have the charging stations at enough places can you speak to that please yes ma'am I think it's also a fact that there's not enough time between the morning runs and when they have to start doing their afternoon runs to fully charge it as well so it's that you know it's that time distance how long it takes to recharge so even if you had more chargers there you still couldn't solve the problem because the bus wouldn't be ready to go back out on the afternoon runs and I raise this because the next time we do this hopefully we have some responses to this

[03:28:16] And just one more thing, we have a lot of the tents that we used during COVID that schools were using for lunches and even instructional activities, a lot of them are standing empty at current. The tents.

[03:28:34] Oh, the tents. Yes. And there's chairs and benches that have been procured, but I think they've been largely abandoned or highly underutilized. I just want to raise that for some conversation because it was a significant investment, and outdoor lunches is always a treat.

[03:28:53] And I think there's some space for us to take greater advantage of that. I'm going to just run through these last two things. The high school that we're talking about, Western High School, I'm not sure if everybody who's new to the board is aware we do have the Cub Run facility.

[03:29:10] That belongs to FCPS. It has been leased to the park authority. It just may be in the least comes up I think 2031 so it's an opportunity to take a look at that as Space for a school. I know it's a rec center currently, but it's our facility and we have needs. Can you wrap it up? Yep I'm ready gotten like an extra two minutes. No, I'm just wrapping it up I do want to say one of the things that is really Close to my heart and is causing me Concerned when it comes to this is the situation that we have at Glasgow, but the capacity and the buses we have 47 BUSSES IN A VERY SMALL AREA, AND THAT IS NOT SAFE.

[03:29:49] DR. ANDERSON, I REALLY NEED YOU TO WRAP IT UP. DONE. GIVE YOU A DOUBLE TURN. ALL RIGHT. MR. MACKAWEEN. SOME GOOD NEWS ON THIS FRONT. THE TEMPERATURE HAS COME PERCEPTIBLY UP. SO THANK YOU TO OUR FACILITY STAFF FOR THAT, AND TO MARTY, WHO I THINK TURNED UP THE THERMOSTAT.

[03:30:04] SO SINCE WE'VE COVERED EVERYTHING ELSE, I DID WANT TO TALK ABOUT TREE CANOPY. SO I HAD THE OPPORTUNITY THIS PAST WEEK TO GO TO BRADIC ELEMENTARY'S EVENT PARTNERING with Casey's Trees, where they're getting a total of 50 new trees on the school property for free.

[03:30:21] It's part of a federal grant that that organization is getting $9 million for. I'm hopeful that we can continue partnering with them, as well as any other organizations to increase our tree canopy, because to Ms. St. John Cunning's point, a lot of our playgrounds and particularly our pre-K playgrounds are blasted in full sun.

[03:30:46] They don't have the shade. We know that putting trees on our facilities increases, improves air quality. Electric buses are expensive. Trees can be free, as we've seen, and they also beautify our property. So my only question would be, do we have any thoughts or plans on tree canopy?

[03:31:08] I know that there are a variety of partnerships, even with the county i think there's an arbor day event that i think is tomorrow actually that several of us will be at um and so i think that uh we're certainly supportive of any possible way to add trees to campuses i don't know that we have a tree queue um or a tree canopy queue i I'm looking at Ms. Szymanski and can I think verify we don't however um we could so we can have the

[03:31:43] intern if there's time this summer identified tree canopy locations I mean I think it's important right we're we're smiling a bit but it is important well and I think there's money out there so right we can take advantage of um thank you and happy earth day yes sir thank you I'll take one quick go back and then we'll be done and we'll take a vote on the subject of electric buses.

[03:32:08] My understanding is that we have electric buses operating in all six regions of FCPS and I would note that our previous board chair Elaine Tolanen and I had an opportunity to visit the bus depot in Montgomery County where they have initiated a full transition of their 1100 school bus fleet. We have 1,600 school buses. And there are several hundred buses into this transition because the way that they've decided to go about doing this is through a project with Highland Electric where they lease the buses rather than buying them and then pay by the mile.

[03:32:46] And then that means that at the end of the day, they don't end up spending more money on the electric buses than they did on the diesel buses that they would have sold at the end of that life cycle of the bus anyways. One of the things that we would benefit from is the fact that we only have two bus depots because our buses are required to be all over the county as a result of only having those two depots. We would have to put charging infrastructure around the county, but that's beneficial to us. In Montgomery County, they've got the depots and that's it. They don't park their buses all over the county. And so they've had issues. One of the things that they have to contend with is how strong the batteries are, etc. If we do a full transition, including

[03:33:25] with infrastructure, we shouldn't have those problems if we continue to up locate our buses around the county. That means our charging infrastructure has to expand with the number of buses as we expand as well. So that's just a plug for electric buses because they're one of my passion projects and I wanted to make sure people know that it is the right move to be taking. So, all right, we will go ahead and take a vote on, actually, no, I HAVE TO CALL ON A MOTION. THANK YOU. YES. I CALL ON MR.

[03:33:55] MCDANIEL FOR A MOTION. I MOVE THE SCHOOL BOARD FINES THE SUPERINTENDENT HAS MADE ADEQUATE PROGRESS TOWARDS COMPLIANCE OF EXECUTIVE LIMITATION 11 FACILITIES AND TRANSPORTATION. IS THERE A SECOND? SECOND. THANK YOU, MS. LADY. MR. MCDANIEL, WOULD YOU LIKE TO SPEAK TO YOUR MOTION? ABSOLUTELY NOT. THERE HAVE BEEN PLENTY OF COMMENTS MADE AND I'M HAPPY TO MOVE APPROVAL. MS. LADY, WOULD YOU LIKE TO SPEAK TO YOUR SECOND? NO, NO, THANK YOU. ALL RIGHT. SEEING other speakers I call for a vote on the motion on the screen all those in favor please raise your

[03:34:30] hand Mr. McDaniel, Mr. McElveen, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Marin, Mr. Dunn, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Moon, Ms. Sizemore Heiser, Ms. Anderson and myself all those opposed Dr. Anderson will the clerk read the vote it's 11-1 the motion passes thank you uh agenda item 6.02 performance review safety and AND SECURITY MONITORING REPORT I CALL ON DR. REID. THANK YOU MR. CHAIR.

[03:35:00] SO EXECUTIVE LIMITATION 13 IS SAFETY AND SECURITY AND AGAIN THIS IN GENERAL STATES THAT THE SUPERINTENDENT SHOULD NOT FAIL TO DEVELOP AND IMPLEMENT PLANS TO ENSURE STUDENTS AND STAFF ARE PROVIDED WITH A SAFE AND SECURE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT AND WORK ENVIRONMENT THAT SUPPORTS STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT. AGAIN I WANT TO REITERATE THAT AT THE TIME OF THIS This report to the best of my knowledge, information and belief, the information gathered by staff and that I'll be presenting this evening is supports compliance with the board's executive limitation associated with this topic.

[03:35:36] So in sharing some of the highlights, I also want to give a big shout out to staff who put both the last executive limitation together and this one. We have our chief safety and security officer Tom Vaccarello here as well as other senior leadership to support this executive limitation.

[03:35:54] There are seven areas of executive limitation 13, and again, the full report is online, the full monitoring report for those watching at home. The remaining items in EL 13, there are a total of seven.

[03:36:10] This is the first item which has a number of sub bullets. When we go to the next slide, you'll see items two through seven, and this makes up essentially the targets for EL 13. So as we move to looking at number one the first requirement is this development of procedures and there are many ways you can actually do this to start. It's important to note that every school develops a crisis management plan that outlines procedures for emergencies and takes into consideration accessibility needs of students and staff. We exceed

[03:36:48] here in Fairfax County Public Schools we exceed school-based staff safety training compliance by conducting annual safety and security training at all schools and we also have an anonymous safety tip line which you see on the slide in front of you continuing through item number one we note that we have evacuation drills a monthly crash review board ride-alongs and recurring refresher training as well as pre trip inspections and our buses are outfitted with lifts and specialized equipment that are utilized to safely transport

[03:37:24] students who may have specific and special needs continuing through we're gonna actually walk through some of the ways we ensure safety at school sites through visitor protocols we have these protocols posted on websites as well as visitor control being monitored through an electronic door access system all All visitors to Fairfax County Public Schools follow a registration process utilizing the visitor management system and only authorized visitors are allowed in the buildings.

[03:37:56] To close out item one from this EL, we'll take a look at some of the ways in which we ensure safety during emergency weather conditions and events, including but not limited to severe thunderstorms, high winds, excessive heat and snow or icy conditions.

[03:38:14] We have weather. All schools are equipped with a system-wide weather radio. Alerts are sent in the event of extreme weather, and the Office of the Chief Operating Officer leads a severe weather team to determine school operating status.

[03:38:31] Office of Facilities Management also responds to all weather-related emergencies. Moving on to Item 2, we look at how we implement procedures to ensure safety of students and staff. A reminder that it's Regulation 5970 that ensures student safety on field trips, and these field trips must all be approved by the principal, and unusual field trips require review from risk management.

[03:38:59] We have to have sufficient numbers of staff that accompany trips and comprehensive field trip forms are in place, as well as weather monitoring and response processes for field trips are established. THIS IS ACTUALLY QUITE IMPORTANT AS OFTEN WE HAVE FIELD TRIPS OUT ON THE ROAD SOMEWHERE WHEN WE HAVE POTENTIAL SEVERE WEATHER ALERTS.

[03:39:22] MOVING TO ITEM THREE. THIS IS ABOUT PROVIDING THE APPROPRIATE TRAINING FOR STAFF AND STUDENTS ON SAFETY AND SECURITY PROCEDURES AS WELL AS CRISIS PREVENTION AND MANAGEMENT. SCHOOL-BASED TEAMS PARTICIPATE IN ANNUAL TABLE TOP CRISIS MANAGEMENT TRAINING WHICH IS CONDUCTED BY THE OFFICE OF SAFETY AND SECURITY.

[03:39:43] These are modified yearly to meet unique needs of the team and current events. We also have mandatory drills for a number of topic areas. And the Office of Safety and Security conducts after action reviews following emergency responses.

[03:40:01] So moving on to four, we develop and communicate procedures for the reporting of criminal activity as well as suspected child abuse and neglect. And a reminder that all FCPS employees have responsibilities under both state and FCPS policy to report suspected case of child abuse and neglect to Child Protective Services.

[03:40:25] In addition, there are regulations around a number of other legal and criminal related offenses. Item number five talks about implementing routine staff background checks. You might recall that we upgraded or updated this regulation about a year ago, and we have SINCE BEEN DOING A CONTINUING CONDITION OF EMPLOYMENT CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECK PROCESS THAT ANNUALLY OR PERIODICALLY MONITORS FOR UNREPORTED POSSIBLE CRIMINAL RECORD ACTIVITY.

[03:40:59] CURRENTLY ALSO AS A CHANGE TO THAT REGULATION A YEAR AGO, ALL APPLICANTS ARE REQUIRED TO COMPLETE A SELF DISCLOSURE QUESTIONAIR FORM AS PART OF THIS PROCESS. One of the things that we added as well is employees must disclose any kind of criminal charge at this point.

[03:41:18] Finally, the Virginia code requires law enforcement agencies to make notifications, which in this case are notifications of any arrest to the division superintendent or in our case also the chief safety and security office.

[03:41:35] And then of course I notify you as a board as soon as I'm aware of that. Item number six, just another reminder that we do provide age-appropriate safety and security curriculum for students. We have safety training videos, which we're updating this year.

[03:41:52] I know we've had some feedback about the developmentally appropriate nature of some of our lockdown drill videos, but I know those are being looked at for review prior to next year. student rights and responsibilities document also is something that is clarified and students do participate in lessons about this and our health curriculum includes a variety of topics and lessons related to student safety and well-being lastly item 7 focuses on our efforts to manage new and emerging cyber attacks which have affected many public and private institutions across

[03:42:30] ACROSS THE COUNTRY, THE FCPS DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ESTABLISHED A COMPREHENSIVE PROGRAM AND OFFICE OF CYBERSECURITY TO FOCUS ON THIS WORK. OFFICE OF CYBERSECURITY AND TECH TEAM HAS ADOPTED THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY CYBERSECURITY FRAMEWORK AND CONTINUES TO IMPLEMENT CYBERSECURITY CONTROLS.

[03:42:57] SO AT THIS TIME, MR. CHAIRMAN, THIS CONCLUDES THE SUMMARY OF THE MONITORING REPORT FOR EXECUTIVE LIMITATION 13, SAFETY AND SECURITY, WITH A REMINDER THAT THE FULL MONITORING REPORT IS POSTED. THANK YOU. THESE REPORTS ARE POSTED WELL IN ADVANCE OF THESE MEETINGS.

[03:43:14] SO IF YOU'RE AT HOME LOOKING THEM UP AND REALIZING THEY'RE QUITE LARGE, THEY'RE AVAILABLE EARLIER. ALL RIGHT. WE HAVE DR. ANDERSON. THANK YOU. I DO WANT TO START WITH SOME HIGHLIGHTS.

[03:43:31] The background checks I think has been a huge improvement over what we've had in the past and obviously we know what happens when that is not in place. So thank you for getting right on that as it occurred. I also want to give some kudos to the cybersecurity plan.

[03:43:50] I know that office has been expanded and there's been exercises and strategies being provided for us to try to counter that as much as possible. So thank you for that. But this is an area for me I think even though the other one I did it the other EL that we've just completed I didn't vote in favor for of it because I know of current status versus what I think will be in the new year.

[03:44:13] I was very excited about that one. This one I'm a little bit less so because of some of the issues that I will be sharing with you. One of the things that we've talked about a number of times is communication. And I know that's all through this document in terms of being having timely communication with our parents and families when issues occur at schools that has not been the case in many of my schools over many times and we've talked about this a lot where we know students have cell phones we know students as soon as they run home they're going to have that conversation with their parents we need to beat them when things are occurring

[03:44:52] and we've had stretches where things have occurred at Justice High School at Anandale high school at Glasgow and parents are not aware until much later. So there has to be some greater sense of urgency, some plans with templates, whatever it is that your team needs to have for that communication to be more timely.

[03:45:12] One of the things that I wanted to raise here is an issue that I think we're having with our SRO at one of our high schools because that's been listed here. How does the division deal with SROs who are chronically absent regularly, week in, week out, at a school that desperately needs their support?

[03:45:33] So Mr. Vaccarello, can you provide a response for that, please? Thank you. I will tell you that within the MOU, if the SRO, I believe it's going to be gone more than two days, that the police department, that local district, is required to supply one of the officers from that station.

[03:45:56] Principals are told they can contact the supervisor if it becomes chronic and they work through the issue to get a replacement or work on that attendant. So they work through the local station as best they can, but there are situations where there could be no SRO in the building for a couple of days, at worst.

[03:46:13] And it's been a couple of days almost every week at the high school in question, and I invite you to have that conversation with Ms. Broman, who's a regional assistant superintendent. And it's gotten to be such an issue. She is talking to the chief of the police, and so I don't think that should be her role if we have the same OU.

[03:46:31] So I do invite you to follow up on that. The other issue that was raised in here regarding crossing guards, crossing guards are fast and quickly disappearing, and they're not necessarily replaced. Sometimes there's a police officer directing traffic, and sometimes there's not, and yet it was a point here.

[03:46:48] I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW WHAT THAT CONVERSATION HAS BEEN WITH THE COUNTY IN ORDER TO HAVE SOME BETTER COMMUNICATION OR A DIFFERENT PLAN BECAUSE THEY ARE BEING PULLED A LOT. I MEAN, REMOVED ALTOGETHER. AND I THINK, CAN YOU REFER TO WHICH SLIDE WE'RE TALKING ABOUT CROSSING GUARDS ON?

[03:47:10] I DIDN'T WRITE THE PAGE NUMBER. SO, MR. BACCARELLO, DO YOU HAVE A CROSSING GUARD UPDATE? SO THERE'S A COUPLE LEVELS TO THIS. SO THERE WAS AN INITIAL REMOVAL OF CROSSING GUARDS AT A NUMBERED TEN OR SO THROUGHOUT THE COUNTY THAT WE WORKED THROUGH WHERE THE POLICE DEPARTMENT DECIDED THAT THE CROSSING GUARD CRITERIA IS NO LONGER BEING MET AT THOSE CROSSINGS.

[03:47:35] THEY WERE REMOVED. THAT'S ONE SCENARIO. THAT SCENARIO IS CARRIED ON IN THE NEWS AS WELL AS IT RELATES TO THE TOWN OF VIENNA WHERE THE FAIRFAX COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT HAD PROFFERED THAT THEY WERE GOING TO BE REMOVING those crossing guards and ask the vienna police department to take those over that i understand the board of supervisors is entertaining that as a motion to discuss it was taken off the table and they will be at least addressing how they're going to do that and they are going to stop the removal of those crossing guards we also are looking towards what does the next school year look like for the annual review that the police department does for all of our crossing

[03:48:14] guards this is in the area of determining whether they fit the criteria for a crossing guard or not dr. Anderson you brought up another topic which is probably more chronic because it's every day crossing guards there's somewhat of a staffing shortage although I can't speak for the police department it is their program there is somewhat of a shortage much like much like bus drivers so there are times when a crossing guard cannot make a crossing or it's not staff that a patrol officer has to be called to do that it takes away from police assets and there are times

[03:48:49] that because of police activity there's no crossing guard that shows up those are addressed immediately out of my office to the school liaison commander if the local office is brought into into the conversation and they're generally corrected that next day it's not anything that's negligent I believe it's priority calls we're working on that as best best we can but there are instances

[03:49:12] I'll admit it sometimes there is a crossing guard and sometimes there there's a police officer there and at times there's nobody there and that is quite an issue. The third thing that I want to raise is a staffing ratio of security assistance. This is something I've been talking about for a number of years and it was added to last May's omnibus that we approve with the following with the budget and I still don't see a staffing ratio that is based on need rather than just level and we have the data.

[03:49:43] I would like to hear in terms of how can we move forward on the knowing that we have some middle schools that are larger than high schools and don't get their staffing. Thank you for the question. So we did provide a Friday letter of what our current situation is with what we have at both high schools and middle schools. We won't go through those numbers. They are what they are. They're a default. They've been around for a decade plus. They have not changed.

[03:50:10] And there's no real formula to that other than a certain amount goes to certain schools and is pretty much even across the board. We are obviously in the middle of our independent security review where we are addressing what those staffing levels should be because it was brought up in the security review.

[03:50:29] So we've had at least thrown to a spreadsheet some of the criteria we're going to use to look at what would be the staffing formula. we're finding that there really is no formula that's best practice as a matter of fact the study commented that you you might not be able to find it but we're looking at things like square footage outbuildings acreage number of doors uh metrics like that it's not a completed product it will be completed uh with our review and final review of the security review and those findings so unfortunately i don't have that right now that formula but i expect it by the summer i think but that was my time, so I'll pick up on and go back.

[03:51:10] Thank you. Ms. Dixit. Thank you, Dr. Reed, for the presentation. My concern was, again, and I've maybe shared with you before, as well as the drug use and the fentanyl crisis we have in our schools. We can do the best we can, I know, with the resources we do, but there are other organizations which are sort of non-profit and government agencies which can collaborate with FCPS and bring some additional programs and support, educate the students and parents.

[03:51:45] I believe DEA has a program, Phil Can Kill, and they did a lot of posters and other awareness things with them. So I'd love to get some of those connections here and have that maybe will be helpful.

[03:52:03] And the other thing I was looking at, If there's any budget need according to that, then we can discuss the board. But I think some of these resources are at no cost to FCPS. So that would be something. Yes, ma'am. We've actually had the DEA in to do several community nights.

[03:52:23] And they've also done several assemblies at our high school. So I think they're great partners. And we can certainly work on expanding that relationship. There's another one which I mentioned is LEED, which is law enforcement against drug and violence.

[03:52:39] They're nationwide, not a non-profit. The violence part is the added peer, which is, again, we are seeing an increased violence in our schools and just in the community, outside the school, students getting into violent activities.

[03:52:56] So that would be good to have maybe that connection as well. So I'll be happy to share more information. I THINK IT'S A GREAT IDEA AND YOU'RE CORRECT, MANY OF THESE ARE PHILANTHROPIC PARTNERS WHICH IT'S NOT A COST. THANK YOU, MR. DUNN.

[03:53:12] THANK YOU, DR. REED. I'D LIKE TO COMPLIMENT YOU AND YOUR TEAM, MR. VACCARELLA IN PARTICULAR, FOR THE RECENT GREAT WORK WITH THE FAKE BOMB THREATS ACROSS THE COUNTY AND MANY OTHER INCIDENTS WHERE I'VE SEEN YOU AND YOUR TEAM DO A GREAT JOB OF KEEPING OUR STUDENTS AND OUR STAFF SAFE.

[03:53:34] One thing I want to raise is what is the exact state of our cybersecurity protection because, you know, there are so many communities and school divisions across the country around the world that are being held hostage at different times from criminals in Eastern Europe or elsewhere where they seize control of our systems.

[03:53:58] And what I see in the report is just that there's regular briefings on movement toward progress towards organizational objectives, but doesn't say, like, are we safe, are we not safe, or what the yardstick is. So, thank you, Mr. Dunn.

[03:54:13] I don't know that, as in any safety and security topic, we're ever 100%, you know, safe and secure. I will say that we've certainly established industry standard protections and protocols. I think an example would be on multifactor authentication continues to evolve.

[03:54:34] I think we've been somewhat known for our phishing expeditions in terms of trying to make email, trying to get our habits around email to be more defensive oriented. We did this year for the first time put out mandatory cybersecurity professional development module for all staff in the division and that's a first this year.

[03:54:59] So I think that the cybersecurity team continues to work very hard to -- we recently, I think, as I noted, we did upgrades to our VPN, and we did have to take that down for several days, but we're able to get that back up and make sure that that was safe.

[03:55:20] So I think we're doing a lot of work in that area, and I think some of the types of controls I know Mr. Foster has suggested we provide you under a different cover because of the security nature of the topic.

[03:55:36] Thank you. I think the biggest weakness I see in our school safety and security is the SRNR. I think it's a hodgepodge of a document that is framed kind of as a glossary, but if I'm a parent, especially a parent who's new to the United States or English, not my first language, if I look at this, I will have no idea that there is a progressive disciplinary system, right?

[03:56:08] And the range of punishments from least severe to most severe, and then the acts or omissions that could cause my child to become, you know, punished at any range, I think it's absolutely imperative that SNR be approached as a you know from a blank slate and say how can we communicate most effectively with our community and also how can we provide our educators and administrators who have complained to me frequently that they don't have the tools in their toolbox to actually address student misconduct so how can we also address growing threats such as use of AI to

[03:56:47] threaten peers with fake nude images so we I think we have to have a clear and concise document so that as we ask people to sign acknowledgement forms we have to actually know what they're acknowledging and but that's something I'll be looking to work with you over the next year not not this year since the time is running short yes sir thank you mr. Dunn mr. McIlveen just a couple QUICK POINTS. SO THE FIRST IS A QUESTION ON OUR VESTIBULES. SO THIS WAS ONE OF THE LAST ACTIONS

[03:57:23] THAT MR. MOON TOOK IN DECEMBER 2019 WAS TO PUT FORWARD THE PLAN FOR VESTIBULES. WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE CURRENT STATUS AND ITS COMPLETION? SO WE HAVE THREE PHASES FOR VESTIBULE IMPLEMENTATION THAT HAVE GONE OUT TO BID AND EACH OF THOSE BUNDLES IF YOU WILL INCLUDES A NUMBER OF SCHOOLS MS SEMENSKY DO YOU WANT TO COMMENT WITHOUT NAMING SCHOOLS SURE YES WE DID A GROUPING OF SCHOOLS AND BROKE THEM OUT INTO THREE SEPARATE PROCUREMENTS AND YOU MAY HAVE SEEN IN THE

[03:57:58] LAST BOARD MEETING IT WAS ON THE CONSENT AGENDA FOR APPROVAL SO THAT'S BEEN APPROVED THE VENDORS ARE BEING ONBOARDED THEY'RE ACTUALLY ALL DEVELOPING INDIVIDUAL SCHOOL SCHEDULES BECAUSE EACH PROJECT IS GOING TO BE A LITTLE UNIQUE SOME ARE MORE COMPLEX THAN OTHERS WE EXPECT TO GET THOSE school schedules in the next two weeks I believe in the meantime my staff is working with the schools bringing up that communication and then again for the actual implementation it will vary from school to school depending on the complexity our goal is to have all of them completed by February of next year

[03:58:33] for those first round and those I believe were 15 I would need to get back TO YOU ON THE NUMBER I BELIEVE IT'S IN AROUND THE 22. 22. OKAY. SO MR. VACCAROLA DO YOU KNOW WHAT THOSE THREE BUNDLES HOW FAR THEY GET US IN OUR VESTIBULE? I DON'T. I'LL DEFER THE REST OF MY TIME TO MS. ZEMANSKI. I THINK I'LL GET BACK TO YOU. I WOULD BE GUESSING AT THE NUMBERS. YEAH. AND I THINK I THINK THE DATE I SAW IN A FRIDAY LETTER WAS 2016 AT SOME POINT.

[03:59:12] completion of those three rounds so i don't know if that is correct or not but i just reiteration would be helpful 2026 what did i say oh my god okay yeah well that would have been nice if we completed it then um the the only last thing i have is a uh comment you know i'm i'm so glad we've rolled out the the tabletop exercises at schools um that's a relatively uh new innovation and much appreciated as one board member i would love the opportunity either to have the board PARTICIPATE IN ONE AMONG OURSELVES OR AN INVITATION TO ONE OF THOSE BECAUSE I THINK IT'S

[03:59:48] BENEFICIAL FOR US TO KNOW WHAT THE PROCESS IS AT SCHOOLS WHEN EVENTS OCCUR YES SIR WE'LL MAKE SURE YOU GET AN INVITATION THANK YOU MR. MCELVEEN MS SIZEMORE HEISER THANK YOU UM I APPRECIATE IT AND I APPRECIATE THE THE DETAILED PRESENTATION AND ALL THE INFORMATION THERE'S A COUPLE THINGS I WANTED TO MENTION WHEN WE'RE LOOKING AT NUMBER SEVEN ON THE COMPREHENSIVE CYBER SECURITY PLAN i'm really glad to hear that we've adopted the national institute of standards and technologies framework but i do think you know it might be good for us to at some point look at what we

[04:00:26] have in our policies around data security and information security and see if there's some updates we need to do in our policies to match some of the work that we're doing around tracking our organizational cyber security maturity our expectations so just something to think about you you know, in my role as Governance Chair, to look at whether our policies are matching the work and sort of the realities of the world of cybersecurity and ransomware attacks that we live in now.

[04:00:53] So that's the first thing I just wanted to mention as we're looking down the road towards really having a robust policies and then regulations coming out of those policies around protecting ourselves from cybersecurity attacks and ensuring that we have the right infrastructure in place to do that.

[04:01:11] The other thing I wanted to thank you, Dr. Reed, for the work that you've done. I know you've met with several of our constituents and stakeholders around ensuring more safe and equitable access for people with disabilities to be able to not just have to be in a staging area, but be able to actually leave the location alongside their other peers.

[04:01:35] So I appreciate the work you've done to find slides and other types of ways that we can be a leader in ensuring that in a fire that there aren't some people who are waiting in a certain spot while other people get to leave the building.

[04:01:51] So thank you for that work. I just wanted to mention that. - Thank you. - Any comments or thoughts about a cybersecurity policy? I just wanted to see. I know if you wanna think about it and come back later, that's fine, I just wanted to mention that. - I think probably we should take a look at what we have and perhaps the model policies

[04:02:09] LOOK AT HOW TO BEST INTEGRATE THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGIES FRAMEWORK AS WELL AS THE CENTER FOR INTERNET SECURITY CONTROLS I THINK IT WOULD BE REALLY IMPORTANT TO INTEGRATE THOSE SO I APPRECIATE YOU RAISING THAT THANK YOU VERY MUCH I APPRECIATE IT THANK YOU MS SIZEMORE HEISER MS ST JOHN CUNNING SO I WANT TO THANK YOU FOR THE PRESENTATION AND THANK THE STAFF FOR IMPLEMENTING A LOT OF THIS IS THIS IS SOMETHING THAT I KNOW FROM WORKING IN OUR BUILDINGS THAT IS taken very seriously by everyone and there's a lot of fidelity in this area

[04:02:50] which i'm happy to tell the public um i do want to mention that in terms of communication and timely communication of things going on in schools and what i've seen in situations happening in my district is precisely because kids have phones they will start texting their families about things that are going on before administrators have the ability to follow what is a template of procedures and I think we have to remember that we don't want to fan the flames of all of this texting and messaging, which sometimes is not correct.

[04:03:25] And so sometimes I know that the message that goes out to the community comes out a little bit later, but it's done in an abundance of caution to make sure that what does come out is accurate and is not misrepresented and is not fanning the flames. And short of, you know, really restricting cell phone usage by our kids, I think that that's just going to be a problem that is going to be hard to manage. And as the responsible parties in the school, we have to make sure that the messaging that comes out is accurate, even if it's a little bit later. And I know personally speaking with principals in the schools

[04:04:02] that I've had to deal with these issues is that they will not release anything until they have all the facts. But the community is getting a lot of information and a lot of it sometimes this misinformation um and i have no idea how we can fix that i think um we continue to work on that as a goal and uh i know our communications team and our principals have a desire to get things out as soon as humanly possible and um we are continuing to work to improve that thank you

[04:04:37] miss st john cunning i'll take a turn um so i know that we're doing a great job with cyber security because uh on two different weeks in the last month i've received con phone calls from board members saying did you just send me an email saying to call you and i hadn't so people are using phishing uh techniques to try and uh fish uh for school board member contact so if you receive an email from me saying please call me i did not send that email i would just call you

[04:05:11] Yeah. And so I've been happy to mark an email from myself in my inbox as a phishing attempt to get myself to call me. So I appreciate the work that's being done there. And now there's a quick, easy drop down in our outlook that makes it very easy, too. And I've won several awards from Microsoft Outlook for catching phishing attempts. So I appreciate that. I would also note we mentioned in here our abuse and neglect reporting policy, which I want to make sure the community is aware. State law, state code in Virginia requires that abuse and neglect be

[04:05:51] reported to CPS, Child Protective Services. Our policy as a school board goes a step further and requires not only reporting to CPS, but also to a superior within the school system. So we have a dual reporting so that things don't get missed, and it's good to see that we've instituted the proper training around that. The last thing I'd say is kind of a bridge between this and the last EL because these things are interrelated. I would love to see collaboration between our security folks and OSS and our facilities team around ed specs and what specific things, especially as we

[04:06:30] think more about what our renovation queue is going to be and what projects we're going to be UNDERTAKING ARE OUR ED SPEC UP TO WHERE THEY NEED TO BE BASED ON THE REVIEW THAT MR. VACCARELLO AND HIS TEAM HAVE BEEN DOING WITH OUR CONSULTANTS YOU KNOW THAT'S SOMETHING THAT I'D LOVE FOR US TO THINK ABOUT AS WE GO FORWARD WITH THESE OTHER INITIATIVES YES SIR ALL RIGHT THAT'S IT FOR ME WE HAVE A COUPLE GO BACKS DR. ANDERSON UM THANK YOU JUST KIND OF GETTING BACK TO THE STAFFING RATIO MR. VACCARELLO I I APPRECIATE WHAT YOU'VE SHARED BUT ONE OF THE the things that I did not hear is needs because we do know because you've sent

[04:07:10] the discipline data we have some more incidents in some schools than we have another in others how are we using that to help inform staffing in addition to student enrollment I think acreage and the number of doors all of those are really good measures but I think those other two also need to make part to be PART OF YOUR CRITERIA. ONE OF THE THINGS I ALSO WANT TO TALK ABOUT IS THE LOCKDOWN VIDEOS FOR THE PAST TWO YEARS LITERALLY SINCE DECEMBER OF 2022 I'VE BEEN HAVING THIS CONVERSATION WITH STAFF REGARDING HOW TRAUMATIZING THEY HAVE BEEN AND I KNOW THAT THERE WAS INTENT FOR IT TO BE

[04:07:50] FOR THOSE VIDEOS TO BE REVIEWED AND UPDATED LAST YEAR BUT THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN WHERE ARE WE WITH THAT FOR THIS YEAR um Dr. Presidio is it your office or Mr. Vaccarello's office I think Mr. Axler was somewhat involved but Mr. Vaccarello it's my office and it's for this next school year so the 24 25 the board will be able to see them I think you even mentioned the board needs to kind of sign off on them of course that's even at a minute at a minimum it's the elementary school video for sure right and I think that's the video that's been of concern because it tends to

[04:08:28] have adults and just some images that are more frightening and I don't think are having the results that we want for students to have in lockdown preparation. One of the things that I'd like to ask you, Dr. Reed, as we talk about risk assessments, I think the division does a great job of having assessments for our students.

[04:08:46] What efforts do we have for staff? So we are in the process of crafting a regulation, updating a regulation to make sure we have risk assessment procedures for staff as well.

[04:09:04] Because that's important because they also are in our building and impact what takes place. Yes, ma'am. One of the things that I don't think I saw in your report because it does speak to safety and security for many of our families is the impact of the trust policy.

[04:09:20] IN MANY BUILDINGS THAT I WALK INTO, IT IS LARGELY INVISIBLE. SO IT SEEMS LIKE THE TRUST POLICY WE REFERENCED IN A DIFFERENT EXECUTIVE LIMITATION, TRYING TO REMEMBER WHICH ONE IT WAS IN, I CAN'T REMEMBER RIGHT NOW, BUT DO YOU HAVE A PARTICULAR QUESTION ABOUT THE TRUST POLICY WE CAN ANSWER TONIGHT? JUST THE IMPACT ON SAFETY AND SECURITY BECAUSE FOR SOME OF OUR FAMILIES THAT'S IMPORTANT FOR THEM TO BE ABLE TO ENTER OUR BUILDINGS AND ENGAGE with us. Correct. And I just didn't see any mention here. I will make sure I add something about that or at least identify where we've spoken to it. Thank

[04:09:59] you and similarly to Miss Dixit I have to raise the issues that are in front of us in my district on a very regular basis and perhaps in some others you know bathroom activity, vaping, students not using the restrooms, principals needing to shut down bathrooms because they don't have enough personnel to to MONITOR THEM. I'D LIKE TO SEE A LITTLE BIT MORE INTENTIONALITY IN THESE REPORTS TO ADDRESS THOSE KINDS OF ISSUES BECAUSE THOSE ARE THE VERY BASIC NEEDS OF OUR COMMUNITY AND WHEN WE'RE TALKING ABOUT SAFETY AND SECURITY, THAT'S WHAT PEOPLE WERE RESPONDING BECAUSE I DO HAVE PEOPLE WHO

[04:10:35] DID GO AND LOOK AT THIS REPORT BECAUSE I TALK ABOUT IT ALL OF THE TIME AND THEY DON'T SEE THAT INFORMATION AND THOSE ARE THE THINGS THAT ARE THE MOST PROBLEMATIC FOR THEM AT CURRENT. it. Thank you Dr. Anderson. Mr. Dunn. I wanted to encourage Mr. Vaccarello, several years ago when I led the design and construction committee for the West Potomac capacity enhancement, there was someone who looked at whether there's a staffing ratio and he found one and nationally recommended I think from the National Association of School Resource Officers. So I encourage

[04:11:13] you to look at that and may I can connect the two of you. But I did want to highlight there are many parent concerns community concerns about drugs fentanyl and all of these things but you mentioned earlier and i just wanted to give you an opportunity to post we have one of the lowest instance of discipline even though the fears are heightened it's kind of like crime rates we're at historically low crime rates but concerns are still high in the public so um can you just take a minute to talk to elaborate on what you mentioned earlier that fcps is one of the safest school systems in the nation for a system of this size

[04:11:50] I thank you Mr. Don and I would agree I think when we were looking at 1% of 183,000 students had been suspended from school that that is an unbelievable data point it really just is so I I think about and even the discipline referral at 6% that's it really is a significant data point so I would say that regardless and there clearly are concerns but I would say Fairfax County Public Schools is one of the safest school divisions even not

[04:12:26] just of this size but of almost any size when you think about percentage of incidents that are occurring thank you um can you give an update on there had been a pilot of the evil you know replacement for metal detectors and also provide an update for the public benefit on on the pilot of vaping detectors and bathrooms which I believe were found to basically not work yes sir so the evolve is a software for weapons detection that we have been negotiating

[04:13:02] a contract with actually and also wanting to make sure that the settings that we would need to utilize are going to be optimal and actually doing what the product says it will do so we're working to confirm the outputs for that PRODUCT AND YOU'RE CORRECT, WE DID PILOT IT AT A FOOTBALL GAME, ACTUALLY I BELIEVE AT LANGLEY, IS IT LANGLEY OR MCLAIN? IT WAS LANGLEY, THANK YOU. LANGLEY HIGH SCHOOL LAST FALL, IT WAS THE LAST GAME OF THE SEASON AND WE FELT LIKE IT WASN'T ONEROUS IN TERMS OF ITS USAGE AND NEEDS. SO THAT'S STILL SOMETHING THAT MR.

[04:13:40] VACCARELLO AND OUR PURCHASING PROCUREMENT DEPARTMENT AND LEGAL DEPARTMENT ARE WALKING THROUGH. with regard to the vaping detectors we've had those set up in several of our schools and really they've not had the deterred effect that we would have brought you know possibly hoped for so I think what we don't want to do is throw resources at solutions that aren't really materially benefiting the situation and if they are materially benefiting the situation then of course we want to invest in those if they're reasonable to invest in and when you go back to think about honestly

[04:14:19] our core mission around making sure all our third graders are reading and our you know eighth graders minimally are in algebra and so forth um we want to make sure we're using these dollars wisely um and that the products that we're contemplating investing in work um because there's i think there's some question in both those areas at this time and and finally i just want to thank you for the events that you and your team have organized to highlight the risks of fentanyl including with parents of children who have lost their lives to fentanyl those have been widely attended and had profound influence even outside the people who directly

[04:14:58] attended them and i think your leadership has been exemplary in that respect so i want to thank you for that thank you thank you mr dunn i now call on miss dixit for a motion i move the school board finds that the superintendent has made adequate progress towards compliance with executive limitation number 13 safety and security is there a second second mr mckelveen miss dixit would you like to speak to your motion no i think we covered it all thank you thank you mr mckelveen would you like to speak to your second no sir thanks thank you all right seeing no additional speakers we

[04:15:37] will go ahead and take the vote all those in favor of the motion on the screen please raise your hand mr mckelveen miss lady miss st john cunning miss marron mr dunn miss dixit mr moon miss sizemore hyzer miss anderson and myself all those opposed dr anderson who's away from the table okay uh will the with uh any abstentions will the clerk read the vote it's 10-1 with

[04:16:09] mr mcdaniel away from the table and the motion passes all right thank you we will now uh take a 15-minute recess for board members to complete the optional form and the clerk

[04:16:25] will collect them. Board members please return to your seats board members

[04:25:45] please return to your seats board members your seats are getting cold

[04:28:17] please return to them I mean all right thank you everybody we'll get back to it

[04:29:59] Agenda item 7.01 policy review facilities and transportation EL11 as a reminder no policy changes are required at the meeting if there are policy changes they can be made at any time including now at the meeting but like our other work it would be great to tip off colleagues in advance if you have changes to make so that we can have a proper discussion the next order of business is the policy review for executive limitation 11 facilities and

[04:30:33] and transportation el 11 following the board's vote in september 2023 and our vote at the february 8th regular meeting each year the board will review each of the 13 executive limitations at the time monitoring report is provided to determine if any revisions are needed moving forward the board may also review any of the executive limitations at any time uh change is needed at this time board members may provide comments on executive limitation 11 facilities and transportation to determine if any revisions are needed all right I call on Dr. Anderson for a

[04:31:10] motion I move that the school board maintains executive limitation 11 facilities and transportation as it is currently detailed in the strategic governance manual thank you Dr. Anderson is there a second Mr. Moon Dr. Anderson would you like to speak to your motion all right Mr. Moon would you like to speak to your second all right thank you all those in favor of the motion on the screen please raise your hand. Mr. McElvain, Ms. Laney, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Mairn.

[04:31:41] Excuse me. Yes. Sheriff Frick, we didn't ask if anyone else had a comment. I'm sorry, I didn't see a hand up. I apologize. No, I apologize. I had my hand up on this one. All right. We will rewind the tape. Sorry about that. Ms. Seizemarheiser, go ahead. Yeah, just briefly, I wanted, it's not a change that needs to be made today, but I just wanted to mention that as we're looking at how we've as dr reed has looked at perhaps you know flattening out her structure with we split up facilities um you know and some of the work that you've done on one

[04:32:16] chief into two and that and when i look at el 11 it's really quite broad and covers quite a lot of areas so so food for thought maybe something to send to governance or maybe an ad hoc committee but i do think this one may benefit from splitting into two different because it is so big and so abroad from facilities to transportation to even food so I think it was sort of modeled after our new way our facilities department used to be structured so I think we may want to eventually look at restructuring this. Thank you Ms. Sizemore-Heiser. All right seeing no other comments

[04:32:55] we will go ahead on the vote. All those in favor of the motion as written on the screen Mr. McElveen, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Marin, Mr. Dunn, Dr. Anderson, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Moon, Ms. Anderson, myself, all those opposed, Ms. Sizemore-Hyser, any abstentions?

[04:33:25] Will the clerk read the vote? It is 10-1, and Mr. McDaniel is not present. The motion passes. The motion passes. Agenda item 7.02, policy review, safety and security, EL-13.

[04:33:41] The next order of business is the policy review for executive limitation 13, safety and security, EL-13. At this time, I now invite board members who would like to suggest revisions to Executive Limitation 13 to make comments. Seeing none, I call on Mr. McElveen for a motion.

[04:34:00] I move that the school board maintains Executive Limitation 13 safety and security as it currently detailed in the Strategic Governance Manual. Is there a second? Mr. Dunn. Mr. McElveen, would you like to speak to your motion? No, thanks.

[04:34:16] Mr. Dunn, would you like to speak to your second? Thank you. Seeing no other speakers, I will call for the vote for the motion on the screen. All those in favor, please raise your hand. Mr. McElveen, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Marin, Mr. Dunn, Dr. Anderson, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Moon, Ms. Anderson, and Ms. Sizemore-Heiser, and myself.

[04:34:38] That is unanimous with Mr. McDaniel away from the table. Agenda item 8.0, that passes. Agenda item 8.01, Academic Matters. I call on Dr. Reed. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is exciting this evening to be able to present our FCPS Get to Green program, as this past Monday was Earth Day.

[04:35:04] And we thought it would be a great time to highlight our FCPS Get to Green initiative, which began in 2009. Hard to believe it is now 15 years later. But we really appreciate the vision of our board and community in 2009.

[04:35:21] report that as of 23-24 this school year we have get to green resource teachers supporting 270 school-based get to green leaders in developing implementing action plans that engage students in environmental stewardship as we think about elevating student voice the mission of get to green is to empower students to become environmentally literate global citizens who are equipped to provide leadership in protecting our planet this is a high interest topic for our students we get to green support students environmental

[04:35:57] learning in a number of different ways including student green teams outdoor learning experiences and developing environmental literacy skills through programming at their school sites get to green also provides our students with a sense of belonging by elevating student voice and response to community interest and needs and facilitates space where young people's opinions matter and I will say on Tuesday I visited four of our elementary schools and at two of them there was a really strong gardening group going on actually utilizing our COVID tents that Dr. Anderson mentioned because they were putting soil out and

[04:36:36] pots and garden tools and so forth they were also creating pollinator gardens so So there's just some really exciting outdoor work. Collaboration is key to maximizing the impact of our Get to Green initiative.

[04:36:51] We have cross-departmental collaboration that provides students with these learning experiences which are so important and also reinforcing portrait of a graduate attributes. For example, our Get to Green teams also use school-specific data dashboards from our Get to green websites to conduct audits and identify areas for improvement in regards to waste management and energy conservation so we really appreciate the cross-departmental work that makes this partner or makes this possible we have a number of get to green partners and many community members are part of this

[04:37:30] recently get to green was recognized with the Virginia Association of counties environmental achievement award in conjunction with the Fairfax County Stormwater Watershed staff. So this Get to Green team also supports the work of the Joint Environmental Task Force, or JET, which is a partnership between the school board and the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. Also, you may be familiar with the National Wildlife Federation EcoSchool's U.S. Green Flag Recognition Program, and we currently

[04:38:03] have 117 FCPS schools that participate in this program. Our Get to Green organization we have leaders at the school level as well as an office team and as a result of the budget support from the board last year these resource teachers support leads that receive a stipend in each of our schools you can see that the region is well supported in this area the teachers are able to provide a high level of support to these school-based leads to create ongoing professional

[04:38:42] development also continues and for example this past monday the get to green team hosted their first ever get to green leader symposium to coincide with earth day and it brought together the school leaders from all across the division to share their growth celebrate successes and learn from each other the strategic plan also is a part of the connection to get to green work and the mission of Get to Green does connect with all four of the pillars. We're excited that student experiences have increased across the county and we're currently collecting data through a district

[04:39:18] wide survey about student participating projects. So we really appreciate the board prioritizing this work. It's important to our students and our community and that Mr. Chair is academic matters for this evening. Thank you Dr. Reed. At this time I invite board members who may have comments. Mr.

[04:39:37] Thank you very quickly just want to say how impressive all this work is but also to say how extremely well resourced Get to Green is and it's something that I think should serve as a model for other programs in IS that are perhaps less resourced but just as important to make sure that all of our students receive access to.

[04:40:08] The other piece, the equity piece is on stipends. I do think we need to look at how get to green stipends compared to other stipends teachers are getting at the school level because, again, we don't want to prioritize some programs over others and make sure that there's equity in how we administer these programs.

[04:40:29] Thanks. Sir. Thank you, Mr. McIlvain. Seeing no other comments, we'll move on to agenda item 8.02, strategic plan update. Dr. Reed what do you have for us? Well I mean it's just our cup runneth over this evening and this is an opportunity again to harken back to our last update for the strategic plan which featured our spring sprouts and what we want to do this evening is take another look at that spring sprout experience and we want to go ahead and move to the there we go. A reminder that the student

[04:41:05] measure which came out of goal two around student attendance and absentee rates at this point we have last month our last board meeting we presented uh an overview on spring sprouts and what we have for you this month is actually taking you to the spring sprouts classroom so let's take a look at

[04:41:27] what we did in spring sprouts madam chair or madam clerk please play it at Fairfax County Public schools, we are continuing to explore different strategies to help reduce chronic ascension, including flexible scheduling opportunities. When the Virginia Department of Education

[04:42:05] recently announced an attendance recovery program in which students can attend school outside of the school day to receive credit for missed school days, we wasted no time preparing a pilot program for spring break called spring sprouts by elementary schools with high chronic ascension when identified to participate in the program excellent okay now if you want her to move remember you have to code it you have to program it so we were given amazing content so we were given day by day lessons central office planned an amazing field trip

[04:42:40] to the botanical gardens for us all it's like a camp experience and they're not just having fun they're learning. So that flower is going to grow from a seed and then it will have what? They're learning how a seed turns into a plant. They've also gotten to plant some pansies out front as a school beautification project, where they were able to tell us about the roots of the flowers, the stems, the leaves of the flowers. The kindergarten class even added some worms to help the soil. So if you want broccoli, can you raise your hand? A parent dropping a child off said, thank you so much for having this. You know, my son has been sick so much this year, and it just

[04:43:17] means the world to me that he is able to come and do extra. Principal Sheehee here at Highville Valley shared that a student came in this morning and put his hands in the air and was like, yes, I love school. How did they like to feel? Oh my gosh, they were so excited yesterday. We had 138 total students who were learning for 3146.5 total hours during spring break. This was exciting and a really nimble response to data points that we know we can do something about if we put our shoulder to the challenges that we have ahead of us. I have just been so inspired and I'm so excited

[04:43:56] and proud of Team FCPS for actually looking at our data and responding to it in real time and enabling our youngest students to really get some quality learning this spring break and while spring sprout sessions are not a substitute for the learning loss that comes with missing an entire day of school it is a way to bolster the connections our students have with school this feeling of connectedness this being in relationship is critical for getting our young learners back on track with regular attendance a lot of sprouting there

[04:44:35] that's it thank you dr. Reed you're up next for superintendent matters unless you'd like to skip this week you know given the time I'm sorry we have a request dr. Anderson yes I just have a comment this is a very exciting video and I obviously it warmed all of our hearts but I did want to raise in this forum because I do want to make sure that there's clarity around this and what your intentions will be moving forward a couple of weeks ago we had a very

[04:45:13] robust discussion regarding the basal resources and how that would be rolled out to our schools and I asked the question regarding our six in the middle because they haven't the instructional hours that the rest of our sixth graders world elementary schools have and so in following up with the staff it was very disheartening to hear that the plan would be to remove a third of the units which is three of the six of the nine units one would be pushed into social studies to untrained teachers

[04:45:49] and two would be entirely eliminated and secondarily Dr. Anderson I'm not sure this is germane to the sprouts it is it's an academic matter and secondarily it's the other piece where our those students will have only 90 minutes every other day instead of the 90 minutes every day that everybody else is being afforded to so I want to be sure that that this academic matter is raised to your attention and that we are addressing it before the rollout happens because this cannot be

[04:46:22] THE PLAN. FOR THE RECORD THIS IS NOT ACADEMIC MATTERS. ACADEMIC MATTERS WAS THE LAST AGENDA ITEM. THIS IS THE STRATEGIC PLAN UPDATE. THE STRATEGIC PLAN IS READING AND MATH BY THIRD GRADE SO IT STILL FITS. ALL RIGHT. I APPRECIATE BRINGING THAT TO MY ATTENTION THIS WEEK AND I WILL WORK WITH STAFF ON THAT IN THE COMING WEEK. THANK YOU DR. ANDERSON OR AND DR. REED. WOULD YOU LIKE TO SKIP SUPERINTENDENT MATTERS THIS EVENING. I THINK IN INTEREST OF THE TIME UNLESS YES I WOULD PREFER TO SKIP THAT. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. ALL RIGHT.

[04:46:57] agenda item nine consent agenda our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure roberts rules provide for a 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 10 new business the following are new business items there it will

[04:47:35] not be a vote on these items this evening but action is scheduled for a future meeting agenda item 11 board committee reports i will now call on the following i will i'm not comfortable skipping it unless i've asked people if we're going to skip it so i will call on the following standing committees uh if they'd like to offer an update they are not obligated to offer an update if they'd like to skip uh cpdc uh chairman dunn all right governance committee miss sizemore heiser

[04:48:12] given the late hour and the fact that i think i've shared updates with the whole board i'll go ahead and skip for tonight thank you uh pec chair miss anderson we've already discussed what pecs been working on so no need for further update thank you skipped uh dr anderson and miss st john cunning we will catch up next time all right thank you uh without objection we will skip agenda item 12 Board Matters. All right. This meeting at 11:48 is adjourned.

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