Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Work Session, Tuesday, May 7, 2024

Date: Tuesday, May 7, 2024
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 2h 57m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8z2SebI_s4
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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[00:00:04] - Okay, good afternoon. We are here today for some more strategic plan fun, critical work, very exciting work. So we are gonna hear today the baseline report for strategic goal number four, which is our equitable access and opportunity goal.

[00:00:26] So you will find the report and the slides on our board docs page. And just a reminder, this is a snapshot of where we are to help propel where we're going to be. so with that i will turn it over to our presenters dr neely right miss neely dr reed thank you miss maren um this is our goal for presentation and i know the team has worked extraordinarily hard it's the fifth of five goal presentations that you'll have received this year which is a significant body of work and i think in some ways this is our most complex and most challenging goal it really

[00:01:03] gets to the heart of the work we do here in the division in the sense of perhaps the truest sense of excellence, equity, and opportunity. So I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Neal and the team to review the data we have.

[00:01:20] And then we're going to, I think, need to have a really thoughtful conversation about, and I have some sample drafts, about which of these content areas do we want to set targets around and the board's appetite for timing of those targets. So, at this point, I'd like to turn it over to Ms. Neal and the team and let's hear a little more about goal four.

[00:01:43] Thank you, Dr. Reid. If we could bring up the slides. Thank you. Good afternoon, board members. This is Dr. Reid's chair. This is our final baseline report for this year for our strategic plan and represents our starting point in this work.

[00:02:03] Our focus today of our presentation is on goal four, which is our equitable access and opportunity goal and while our previous presentations have focused heavily on student outcomes such as looking at students who are reading by third grade or on-time graduation or attendance, this report focuses heavily on the opportunities that are available to our students across the system. This report also highlights different patterns of participation by student groups within existing courses or program offerings. Our objectives for today are to provide the board with a starting point for the work to answer questions and to seek

[00:02:36] feedback on the direction. This is just a reminder our presentation today is focused on our course taking patterns and equity and extracurricular co-curricular and enrichment activities and again the report is going to provide a snapshot of courses and program offerings across the division student enrollment in those courses that are based on our goal form measures. While the information in this report is not going to look at every course and every program in every school it does provide insights into the areas of opportunity for the division again based on those goal four measures. It's important for us to consider as a division ways that we can

[00:03:15] provide equitable access to programs and courses and this may look like a core set of consistent opportunities and offerings that are available at every school as well as flexible ways we students can access things that are not available at their base school. The approaches we use as a division depend on a number of factors that we're going to share later in this presentation.

[00:03:36] Before we look at the data we do want to talk a little bit about the instructional day at the the elementary school just to sort of situate this information as well as the current ways that our students in middle and high school access courses. So at the elementary level our schools provide instruction in each of the core content areas including language arts, math, science, and social studies. Elementary instructional day also includes specials which include health and PE, music and art, and we know this may look different for some of our students in specialized programs. There's also additional music options like band and chorus and as

[00:04:12] students progress through elementary school. Time for enrichment, intervention, morning meeting, and recess all impact the daily schedule, which includes a total time allotment of 6 hours and 45 minutes. Schools are provided with minute allocations guidance based on BDOE requirements and/or FCPS guidance, and schools currently determine any additional specials like FLES or STEAM that they're able to incorporate based on a variety of factors such as available staffing and the needs of the school. At the secondary level, students have access to course offerings primarily students access courses available at

[00:04:50] their base school. FCPS has a set of standard and optional course offerings and middle and high schools advertise those standard course offerings and may also choose to advertise approved optional course offerings. There's a wide variety of optional courses available in secondary schools in the content areas and currently we have over 550 optional course offerings that are available to high school students that they can choose from by considering factors such as student interests, the availability of to secure staff with the necessary endorsements to teach a class, the necessary equipment and facilities needs and the overall needs of the school. So this results in a lot of choice for

[00:05:28] students as well as very variability in the course offerings across our schools. The FCPS online campus provides an additional avenue for students who are in middle and high school to access certain courses that may not be available to them at their base schools or they may not have access to given any kind of scheduling conflicts. So our high school students can enroll in these courses as a part of or in addition to their standard seven-period day and middle school students can take high school language and mathematics courses through the online campus. The online campus model is a 20% synchronous

[00:06:04] instruction model and an 80% asynchronous learning model and there's no cost for students to participate as long as it's part of their seven-period day. We also have available our high school academy programs that offer advanced technical and specialized courseworks to high school students across the division. This model provides students with access to courses that would be cost prohibitive to offer at all of our base schools.

[00:06:32] We currently have three academies in Region 5, that's Chantilly, Marshall, and Fairfax, two in Region 3, Edison and West Potomac, and one in Region 2, Falls Church. Some of our highly specialized courses such as construction technology or firefighting are also at satellite locations but attached to one of our six academies. It's important to note that some of our academies have wait lists and I know the board has certainly heard some of that feedback from our student representative in board meetings and some of those are driven by the requirements to remain under certain caps because of OSHA, Occupational Safety and Health Administration

[00:07:08] standards you do have within your report a detailed listing of all the academy course offerings and we've tried to denote where we see wait lists typically in courses in our academy programs finally i just want to draw attention to this in 2022 fcps contracted with an independent research partner to conduct a review of course offerings connected to the regional workforce opportunities and some of the bright spots of that study indicated strong alignment between fcps course offerings in the local and national labor market trends, and that FCPS generally exceeded

[00:07:47] other large national school districts in the number, availability, and type of career pathway offerings available. There were also some opportunities for growth and recommendations identified in the study, including expanding support and participation for students with disabilities and multilingual learners, expanding the availability of coursework in information Technology and Education Pathways. And as noted and as we've heard from our students, our students reporting some difficulty accessing courses where there's associated travel requirements. And the full link to the Career Pathways study is in the report, the full report.

[00:08:25] So the data you're going to see in this next section of the presentation visualizes courses that our base schools can offer in the areas of CTE, STEM, Fine Arts and World Languages that are based on the goal four measures in this section of the presentation we're going to look at some of the key areas where we see differences in student opportunity and access while this analysis does not review every program and every course offering it helps us understand where we see gaps as well as where we see opportunities as we look at the data in this section it's important to note the following this data represents our comprehensive middle school and high schools

[00:09:02] for secondary schools the offerings for middle school students and high school students have have been separated by level. The Thomas Jefferson data is not included in this course analysis in this specific section of the report given the specialized programming and curriculum at the school.

[00:09:18] And finally, it's important to note that our non-traditional programs and sites and centers are not included in this analysis, but a future action of the division is to consider how to further expand access and opportunity to a wider variety of electives for students enrolled in these programs.

[00:09:34] We're gonna begin by looking at some of the offerings at the middle school level. And you will see that at the large majority of schools, they're able to offer at least two electives in the areas of human services, STEM, and IT. On the slide, you can see the specific courses available at the middle schools that are associated with each of these areas or pathways.

[00:09:52] For example, IT courses at the middle school include computer exploration, coding, and computer solutions. When we think about fine and performing arts, we can see that there are high levels of two or more course offerings at the middle school in these curriculum areas.

[00:10:14] Moving to the high school level, all of our schools are able to offer at least one course in the areas of education and training and marketing and sales and services. With 96% of schools offering two or more education and training courses.

[00:10:32] We see that high schools offering at least one course in IT, engineering and computer science pathways on the screen in front of us. And as we look at the schools that are offering two or more in these pathways, we're seeing higher levels of variance. It's important to note that there are courses available through the FCPS online campus in all of these areas.

[00:10:51] And our high school academies provide access to engineering and IT courses. The appendix of the full report provides information on which specific academies house each of these programs. And finally, almost all high schools provided at least two different offerings in each of the fine and performing arts areas listed on the screens.

[00:11:13] And it's important to note that for some elective areas, such as a band or orchestra, a student may take the same course for multiple years and earn credit each year. So having multiple levels of a course does not prohibit a student from continuing their studies in this area. We're going to continue and look at some of the world language offerings that are available at the schools throughout Fairfax County.

[00:11:34] We're going to start by looking at the elementary level offerings where we have two different programs and we'd like to provide some context on each of those programs. Foreign Language in the Elementary School, or FLES, is a part of the specials offerings in an elementary school program which provides one hour a week of instruction, and this is currently available at 56 schools throughout Fairfax County. FLES is focused on meaningful and purposeful communication rather than grammatical mastery, and as well as it provides opportunities to explore the cultural aspects of a target language. Currently, when a school is interested in adding FLES as a special, the school would identify funding from their existing staffing and work with

[00:12:14] the World Language Team in the Instructional Services Department to receive support with community engagement process and this ensures their strong community and voice into the language selection at the school site additionally in fcps we offer dual language immersion programs or dli programs at 17 schools four of these programs are school-based and 13 are available to students division-wide as part of a lottery process students in dli programs engage with the target language via mathematics science and health curriculum instruction for approximately two hours each day. As students move to the middle school level, they can participate in world language

[00:12:50] courses, which are most commonly high school level courses. And then in high school, students may begin or continue to learn a language. Language offerings at each high school will vary based on the languages offered at the feeder schools, student enrollment, and available staffing. So as we begin to look at some of the data across our division, we'll start with the elementary school level and our FLESH programs. And as you can see on the slide, 56 schools currently have FLESS programs. The languages available through these programs are Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. And the percentage of Title I versus

[00:13:28] non-Title I elementary schools offering FLESS was similar at 38% and 40% respectively. At the middle school level, 96% of our middle schools were able to offer at least two different world languages, and the majority, or 62%, were able to offer at least three different world languages to students. It's important to note that the schools with the largest number of different language offerings were often secondary schools, where the size of the school or the economy of scale is a likely factor in their ability to offer more options to their students.

[00:14:01] And at the high school level during the baseline years, all schools in our division were able to offer three or more languages, with the majority of schools are 64% offering four or more world languages to their students. Our next section of data is going to look at patterns of enrollment and advanced coursework by student group to provide us with some insights into course taking patterns in these areas so first we're going to take a look at advanced mathematics in sixth grade at the elementary school level advanced mathematics allows elementary school students to accelerate in math sixth grade students taking advanced math access seventh grade math curriculum and take the

[00:14:39] seventh grade math sol during the baseline year we saw that 35 percent of all sixth grade students access advanced math. Multilingual learners, students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged students, Hispanic and black students access advanced math at significantly lower rates than the division average. This slide looks at the average number of honors courses as middle school student takes each year. At the middle school level we see that students overall completed an average of 2.1 honors courses each year and similar to the previous slide we see differences between student groups within this data

[00:15:17] set. And then finally this slide shows the average number of advanced courses high school students completed each year across the division and this would include all the weighted courses high school students have an opportunity to pursue. So on average high school students overall for the division we're completing 2.5 advanced courses each year and again in looking at this data similar to the previous slide we see differences between our student groups.

[00:15:42] The next section of our data is looks at student access to inclusive opportunities and supports. So in this slide, we look at the percentage of students with IEPs who are included in the general education setting for 80% or more of the day. As a part of the IDEA, our school divisions were required to report on whether we meet state-prescribed inclusion targets, which historically increase each year. So Indicator 5A of this specifically looks at inclusion starting in kindergarten through age 21. And in the most recently published VDOE report,

[00:16:20] which was school year 21-22, the state target for indicator 5A was 72.1%. During the baseline years, the percentage of students with an IEP included in the general education setting for 80% or more of the instructional day was 55%. There were also differences between student intersectionality groups with students with disabilities who were also multilingual learners having the lowest rates of inclusion. And then finally, this slide, and this is our final academic focus slide, takes a look at student participation in academic support classes which may limit a student's

[00:16:57] ability to take advantage of other elective offerings in the school. This data shows that 14 percent of our students in middle and high schools were accessing academic support classes during the baseline year and the percentage of multilingual learners students with disabilities Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students enrolled in support classes was significantly higher than the overall percentages for the division. The final section of information that we would like to present examines student access to extracurricular and enrichment opportunities.

[00:17:29] We know that these opportunities provide children with experiences that support their engagement, well-being, and connection to this school day. At the elementary school level, there is not currently an infrastructure for offering after-school enrichment opportunities for students. After-school enrichment programming at the elementary school relies heavily on community partners and parent organizations and often involves fees or require students to provide their own transportation the data presented on this slide provides information about a select set of enrichment activities at the elementary school and it does not include all of the offerings that

[00:18:07] may be available to students coding and robotics were offered most frequently across elementary schools but none of the select activities shown on the screen were being offered at the majority of our elementary schools during the baseline years when we think about programming available to students at the middle school level the middle school after school program provides a no cost after school programming to students in 27 school sites the after school program provides enrichment activities for students in the eight areas listed on the slide with individual programming varying

[00:18:39] by school location it's important to think about as we look at some of these participation numbers the number of times a middle school after school activity occurs throughout the year can vary based on the offering for example one of the schools we looked at offered 51 unique activities throughout the year and those activities met on average 18 times during the course of the school year but this included one-time only events like a gingerbread decorating club and as a former middle school principal the cupcake battle was what my favorite one-day activity I was I demanded to be the head judge and I was

[00:19:15] a very very thorough judge and yeah absolutely but we also see opportunities like a homework club that at the the school that we're speaking about met 104 times throughout the year so thinking about the participation it varies by activity so last year's student participation rates in our middle school after school program indicated that approximately 73% of middle school students have between one to nine days of engagement with the program and about a third of the students attended at least 10 or more days of middle school programming throughout the year and then finally

[00:19:52] will move to the high school level where clubs and activities are offered at all of our comprehensive high schools. After school high school activities include VHSL athletic and academic offerings, FCPS club sports like crew or rifle, performance groups, competitive clubs, FCPS student interest clubs, honor societies, and co-curricular activities. At the high school level, the vast majority of clubs are student interest clubs which are offered without stipends to our faculty sponsors. FCPS is not currently tracking student participation in clubs and non-athletic activities

[00:20:29] in a systemic way that can consistently be reported across our division. And this is something we know that we need to build out in future years as we work towards our goal four measures of equitable access to enrichment activities. And the need to consider this is ways that we can monitor how this data can support a school and looking at the student engagement and participation throughout the school day. The slide on the screen provides information about high school student participation in sports during the 2022-23 school year. It's important to note this is for athletics

[00:21:03] only and does not include any of our club sports or our VHSL academic activities. This data shows that 28% of high school students participated in VHL sports last year. Our multilingual learners, economically disadvantaged, Hispanic students, students with disabilities, and Asian students had lower rates than the division average for participation.

[00:21:26] Now we're going to take a look at strategies related to our Goal 4 report. So first of all, to look at current work as it relates to access to courses. Over the past several years, FCPS has worked to ensure that elementary schools students, no matter what school they attend, have access to advanced mathematics. Support has been provided to schools to develop delivery models, which have resulted in all elementary schools having access at grade six and 92 percent of our schools having access in grades three through six.

[00:21:59] To mitigate challenges that exist with offering certain courses, FCPS uses our six academy programs to offer certain specialized courses and programs as well as world languages. This model has some challenges with location and capacity, however it does allow FCPS to offer courses and programs that require specialized equipment and staff as well as providing access to courses that would not have sufficient enrollment to offer at individual schools.

[00:22:27] Similar opportunities are available through our online campus and this includes providing student access to less commonly taught world languages such as Arabic and Chinese. Another growing area of interest in the division is dual enrollment courses which provide college credit through Northern Virginia Community College. Securing teachers with the necessary credentials to teach dual enrollment can be challenging for our local schools and by being able to offer these through our online campus we can provide access to more students. And overall during the last three years we've seen significant growth in our online campus with a 74 percent increase in student enrollment. One of the key findings from the enhancement plan

[00:23:07] for students with disabilities is that students some students with IEPs have difficulty accessing advanced coursework or electives due to a lack of adequate in-class support. FCPS is responding to this finding in a couple different ways. First, we've begun the journey to provide professional development to administrators and teachers on universal design for learning or UDL, which is a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all students based on scientific insights into how students learn. It focuses on barriers being that those which exist in the learning environment and not the student and empowers our teachers to design with an inclusive

[00:23:45] mindset to ensure all students can be successful at this time approximately a thousand staff members have been trained and are currently in the process of building capacity among central office staff administrators and teachers to prepare for our division-wide launch in the fall additionally as a part of the special ed enhancement plan work we've developed a least restrictive environment tool to help ensure equity and consistency in school level programming the tool is used as a part of the iep process to ensure we're considering all the possible options to ensure a student is able to access learning in the least restrictive environment.

[00:24:19] We're also in the process of developing an LRE, a least restrictive environment dashboard, that will be able to share real-time data, individual school and division-wide, to monitor the amount of time students with disabilities are included in the regular classroom, which will help our monitoring and improvement efforts. Finally, the primary goal of our Young Scholars model is to identify and nurture advanced academic potential in students from historically underrepresented populations. Students are identified at local school levels and supported by our advanced academic resource teachers, classroom teachers, and counselors to open opportunities in both advanced academics and

[00:24:57] extracurriculars. As we look at strategies focused on supporting students with additional access to enrichment, as we shared in the presentation, we have a comprehensive middle school after-school program and this year FCPS introduced expanded middle school opportunities with the introduction of middle school sports. We are also doing some work at the elementary schools. So in order to ensure our students at Title I schools have access to enrichment activities after school, Central Title I dollars have been dedicated to fund both Math Olympiad and Science Olympiad in every Title I elementary school. These programs

[00:25:33] are intended to deepen math and science knowledge, improve problem-solving skills, and build an interest in pursuing these fields in school and beyond. Additionally, FCPS has a long-standing tradition to provide standard fine arts field trips to students in grades four and six. So in fourth grade students get to participate in an annual National Symphony Orchestra concert and in sixth grade students get to go participate in galleries such as the National Gallery of Art. These trips ensure all of our students have exposure to the wealth of cultural experiences and can nurture their appreciation of the fine arts. And finally, to ensure equitable access to summer enrichment, FCPS sets aside 30%

[00:26:13] of our seats in our summer enrichment programs to be tuition free for students in need. The information and data presented in this report shows areas of opportunity for us as a division. It shows that we need to revisit our expectations about what's available at all schools and available to students in flexible ways to align with our strategic plan. As we identify what should be available at all schools, we must consider things such as facilities and space that are required to offer different programs and courses. Thinking about staffing, whether or not we have sufficient teachers in a certain content

[00:26:50] area to teach a subject in every school, and whether or not our existing staffing models align to our strategic plan and support our desired outcomes. We have to think about the size of schools and whether or not schools have sufficient enrollment to sustain a certain number of course electives. We need to think about the types of technology solutions we have that allow kids to access courses in different ways. We have to have an understanding of what students are seeking access to that we can't currently give them, and then finally thinking about how our opportunities support students' future readiness in the world that they will enter

[00:27:25] after they graduate from FCPS. To accomplish this, FCPS will need to identify a core set of options available at every school that align with our strategic goals and the needs of our students. We may continue to have schools with unique programming, but also we will need to think about increasing those flexible opportunities for students to access things not available in their base school. This may look like enhancing existing models such as our academy model or online campus but also looking at other ways that we can leverage technology and other pathways to provide opportunities for students. It also means we need to address access barriers to existing

[00:28:05] opportunities for students and understanding and engaging with our stakeholders is a key part of this. This slide provides a draft approach of what this could look like and where we would look to set targets as a division around goal 4, ensuring a consistent threshold of access at all schools in the areas of world language, CTE, STEM, fine and performing arts, and enrichment. Targets would also look at increasing student access to advanced coursework, which is part of what we looked at in

[00:28:39] goal 3, students meeting the VDOE 5A target overall and for all student groups, which was identified as part of our Goal 2 draft metrics and improving access to specialized courses for students. Moving to expand a consistent set of offerings across schools requires us to have additional visibility into student course enrollment patterns and to seek student and community feedback to understand if there will be sufficient interest in certain courses or programs to sustain enrollment and if we see critical teaching vacancies in any areas

[00:29:16] we're looking to expand. Our roadmap to change would also include piloting different approaches to increase access. This is also going to require the division to do cost analysis to understand the financial and programming implications and to identify existing and new resource needs. This approach requires standardization and processes such as course selection. I know that's something that's come up in previous goal conversations and depending on these models it may also require some local or state advocacy and engagement with our community partners to provide these opportunities for students. So during

[00:29:53] this presentation we've shared information about the opportunities that are available for students across our system. And while this presentation only provides a snapshot, the data shows us that there is variability in the courses and programs offered and that different patterns of participation by student group within existing courses and programs already exists. The information that was shared today will allow us to continue the discussion about developing a consistent framework for determining and regularly reevaluating what electives and enrichment opportunities are the most important for all students to have access at their schools.

[00:30:28] It will not only help us stay focused on what is important for our current students in the division, but it will also allow us to keep an eye on the future needs of our FCPS students in our community. It can provide us with an opportunity to reimagine what the school day might look like for our students.

[00:30:43] The strategic plan and in many ways this goal help us define who we are as a school system what is most important to us and we're grateful for the opportunity to have that discussion today at this time i would like to turn it back over to the meeting managers okay thank you thank you for that presentation um i just i found it to be incredibly thorough i think the report is thorough um i like a lot of the um ideas moving forward so um but i'll wait to really take my turn and we'll start with uh dr anderson um thank you i i think the last time

[00:31:22] we were here i i did go on and on about how thorough and robust i thought the report was and plan um i think that was goal what two or three i i'm not feeling that way about this one and i want it to be um this is very different in a lot of ways for some for example and i know some of the data doesn't lend itself to be presented in that way but we're missing that three-year data that was supposed to be the the baseline um i didn't see it for the participation of middle school programming even though that's been going on for quite a while so i'd like to know how come

[00:31:57] we didn't see the same kind of presentation i'll start there so i i think one of the greatest challenges we have with this data is is being able to visualize over the three years so in some cases i'll give an example at the elementary school level because enrichment is being offered in various ways with parent organization partners that data just doesn't exist in a centralized ways. So in that case, we went to the principals and asked them to self-report their data where we had it available. We wanted to provide the most recent data on the middle school after school program. Certainly there is some three-year baseline data available in the

[00:32:33] full report as well. And I can find the page and point you to it as well, Dr. Anderson. But wherever we had the data available and it made sense to provide it in the three-year baseline, we did try to provide that. There's also some variability in terms of how course codes are used at the school levels which as we're trying to roll up and be able to share what does it look like across the division that it we had to look at where it made sense to try and present data in different ways okay thank you one of the other things that i saw was missing were the goals last time we sat here you talked about what the goals were for this year and what they could be

[00:33:10] in the future i didn't see anything here of that sort can you speak to that i think we have some examples of what goals could look like but we really felt like in some of these areas it's going to be important to hear from the board some priorities before we write goals for there would be a significant number of goals to write here for example world language is that something that the majority of the board wishes us to move forward with versus the arts versus the

[00:33:46] STEAM at elementary versus academic I mean there are just there is a lot in goal four and we can write goals I think the reality is we're not going to be able to write goals for every single data point that exists in this report and wanted to get a feel today before for example Thursday about which of those you want goals for and we did craft two examples but they're very rough examples I think both around world language at the elementary versus secondary but we're happy to write goals i think what we need to um and some of them were in there

[00:34:22] the inclusion goal was i think uh in there in the uh presentation clearly we want to increase i think we were clear about saying 100 of title one schools would have math and science olympiad actually next year we don't need to write a long goal statement because that's already been directed and the title one funds and schools are aware of that so i mean there's some things that we've just said this is going to happen and this is the year but then there are a number of other data points that i want to make sure we're headed in the right direction because the target or the

[00:34:57] measurements within goal four didn't stipulate content it just said increase courses so um i want to make sure we're increasing the courses that you expect us to increase okay so what i'm hearing is a nebulous measure led to a little bit less clear targeting so let's let's talk about I don't believe it's a nebulous measure I think it's a it goes as I started the presentation this afternoon I think this is really the core of our equity access and excellence work in a variety of content areas and

[00:35:32] I didn't want to presume which content areas you'd want to address first so I I don't know that it's nebulous as much as it is. I want to make sure we're strategic when we say this is going to be so. Well, then I'm going to jump in in an area in which that I believe is fairly low-hanging fruit and is inconsistent because I'm not sure what the message is that we're communicating to our parents and schools when we have 86 schools with no language options.

[00:36:01] You take the 17 for dual immersion, then you have 69 schools with zero language. What are we saying about our program that it has to be the onus is on the schools to help erect these FLETS programs? If we believe language is good and has merit and we have agreed to have not only language in 56 of the schools, but also have dual immersion in 17 of the schools, have we not shown that we've bought in as a system and this is a piece that is important for us to establish at every school?

[00:36:37] for whatever reason some time ago the progress of adding world language stopped i don't know why it stopped i don't know if it was a um just i don't know why it stopped but it didn't continue so and i assume there was an annual review of programs over many the last 10 years and for whatever reason we haven't continued adding schools so i don't know what decisions and i don't know which board or at what point that decision was made but um i could take no credit i came in with this

[00:37:12] iteration well and i i want to say that what we're looking at today is everyone's best thinking up until today right people have done the best they can to put programs in with limited resources and we recognize that we also one of the things i want to recognize at elementary is that it's not just financial it's also time and we need to think about how we're spending the time which i think becomes an even more valuable resource and if we're going to add language to all schools and steam to all schools that's instructional time and so we need to be thoughtful

[00:37:50] about and it's not a value judgment but we need to be thoughtful about what we're not going to do if we are going to do those things and i think what has been historic here is that at the school site those decisions have been determined and we're now in this place as a board and superintendent leadership team where we're saying are there some things that we think are so important that across the entire division we believe we have to scale up that thing whatever it is whether it's a rule in the sr or a course we think everyone should take or fill in the blank and i think that's the tension we're wrestling with right now well i i personally would like to see this as part

[00:38:28] of our goals because if we have 16 of the 42 title one elementary schools with language and if we have 56 of the 142 with FLESS it does make sense to me that the remainder of our schools have similar access because what we get in the Mason district and we're not in a place where most of our schools don't have it but we have many that do not have it grass always seems to be greener because there's an opportunity that their kids are not able to participate in and I'd like to think um based on this and also based on what i know in our community a second language is

[00:39:04] valued and so i see a space for us as a board and as a division to put a stake in the ground regarding language the other question that i want to ask and then i'd like to be added for go back please is when we're talking about having high quality programming i think it's on page one that this is articulated here how is that determination being made that our programs are equally of high quality across the board well i think that we're looking at common curriculum

[00:39:39] for example with the new basal resources for early literacy the ability to provide the same curricular resources in every classroom across the 141 elementary schools is one way to ensure that we have a similar level of high quality supporting all classrooms i think when you look at externally calibrated courses, AP, IB, dual enrollment. Those are other ways in which you could think about external calibration. I know that we're looking at some common assessments across the division and over time Fairfax has done that for many years in different ways, screeners and

[00:40:16] Lexia and those types of things. But I think it's a great question, right? Like we're always I think needing to interrogate is instruction in this content area in this school similar to the instruction in another school. And I think the tighter our alignment with our principals and regions and staff, the more likely it is we're going to be able to have that common definition.

[00:40:45] Ms. Anderson. Okay, so I'm going to beat the dead horse that I always beat. The extracurricular and elementary was definitely impacted by COVID. So the numbers that we are including for 2021 and 2022, as someone who is intimately involved with getting those programs off the ground we were significantly limited in what we were able to do in schools and we had robust programs that basically died after covid and could never be brought back to life so when we're looking at things like odyssey of the mind only at 18 schools it'd be awesome to figure out

[00:41:20] how many schools it was before because don't forget that covid weekend is when the odyssey performance actually got shut down so i i do think that this is something that we need to talk about more I love the fact that we're actually paying attention to the fact that it is parent groups most of the time that are offering our extracurriculars in in at the elementary level with varying success and with varying input from parents it always is a transportation issue for parents and significantly impacts just the volunteer base that you have at a school and so that is

[00:41:58] something that we absolutely should be looking forward. If we if we are acknowledging the importance of those activities then we do need to figure out how to support them in a different way that's equitable across the board. The other question that I had for you is if we are looking at schools that only offer one class of them and counting that as a hundred percent success is that just one section of that class? Is that a teacher teaching a full load of that class because I worry about looking at that as a check for access when we're actually we have

[00:42:35] no idea what the wait list we have no idea how many kids put that on their schedule requests and that kind of thing so if you could speak to that just a little bit I'd appreciate it. So in the count of data it's looking at were they teaching at least one course so they may have taught multiple sections of that course and you're right Ms. Anderson there you're going to see variants across schools but that's that's what the data is specifically looking at.

[00:42:57] Okay, I think that's something that we need to be looking at. We have that data related to which courses students are choosing, and I know that obviously principals are doing their best to staff the courses that kids want to take, but I also know, just from my own experience, that you've got the reason that you're choosing three or four options is because they know that they're not going to meet the need for one particular child.

[00:43:18] and so my I guess my point is can we really say that that's a check for access if the kids can't access the programming and so that's that's an asset aspect and then the last one that I'll squeeze in here is I would love to be able to look at cross-sectionality of data related to if we have a school that's offering six languages what are they not offering because that is a pretty significant thing and do we have a best practice determined that maybe six languages is too much and we really should be focusing on computer science or whatever is missing and so i would very much like to see how we're going to ensure that we're going to smooth that

[00:43:56] out across the board mr frisch thank you i appreciate the work that went into this uh some questions um the lre tool how are we ensuring how is that being used or will it be used to ensure that we are hitting our marks with least restrictive environment yeah so thank you for for that question.

[00:44:24] So we have been using that tool this year. We started using it this year and we've trained department chairs, we've trained elementary leads, we've trained case managers in how to use that tool.

[00:44:39] It is a new tool so sometimes right now we're still getting a little bit of criticism that maybe it's too complicated and we could simplify it and expedite it but we put it together the way that we put it together to be very intentional and deliberate that we were making sure that we were asking all the right questions before we said a student couldn't be successful in the general education environment.

[00:44:57] We were looking at all the different barriers to access and really brainstorming how we could remove those barriers so that the student could be successful in the general education setting. Our data has increased a little bit. It takes actually about two years for the state to certify our data. So we don't even have last year's data certified, but current data, our internal data says that we're at 60% on that indicator 5A right now.

[00:45:20] Now we still have a long way to go because we want to exceed the state target which is currently 72%. But using that tool, we really believe already is helping us to place more students in the general education setting. And we also are coupling that tool with a dashboard so that we can look at the placement decisions by school, by pyramid, by region, and we can track and monitor and see if we're actually making progress in terms of placing more students in the general environment.

[00:45:46] - Can you describe the tool? I think the only explanation we've heard today is that it offers a menu of options. So if we're in an IEP or you're embarking to use the tool in a situation, what happens? - So I haven't personally used it.

[00:46:02] Dawn is here. I don't know if you'd be willing to maybe come up and talk a little bit about the series of questions that are involved in that process. - Thank you, Miss Lady. The tool is not an IEP page.

[00:46:19] It's a separate document that staff is to use when we're talking about placement for students, which we do in just about every IEP, it is one page of demographics for, you know, what is current. And then the second page is around the discussion that is happening at the table.

[00:46:39] And it really goes back to the federal and state regulations and the requirement that we consider certain factors when we talk about LRE. I guess what I'm trying to do is get some level of detail about how this is moving the needle, because right now I haven't heard it.

[00:46:57] I understand, I've been told it's moving the needle. I just don't, I'm not clear on how. - What happens is in everything we do, there's frequently creep in our process and our actions. And it had been about six years since we really did any work with LRE as a division.

[00:47:19] And we had moved away sort of systemically from really considering those factors. they're listed at the top of the LRE page. And what this is having IEP teams do is dig in and have more robust conversations, kid by kid, IEP meeting by IEP meeting, with about that particular student's access, what they need, how that looks for them in each area of need that they have.

[00:47:50] And how does the dashboard impact that work? The dashboard is still in process. I received an updated copy of it today. It's not ready for consumption quite yet. But what that is going to allow us to do is look at school by school, demographic by demographic, level by level, disability by disability, to see where are we lagging, where do we have inequity, And then we'll be able to follow up with schools and regions and different groups.

[00:48:29] I may want to get more into that and then go back. Moving to another topic, we talked a little bit about resources of time and money as it pertains to what goals to go after as it relates to extracurriculars, et cetera.

[00:48:45] Two areas of question. One, I would hate to think the board would set priorities on that based on our assessment as board members as opposed to being presented with a here's like the hierarchy of impact that these various things could have.

[00:49:04] For example, this one might hit five or six different goals or different measures. I'd much rather have that kind of analysis so that we can make decisions based on that. Secondarily, I would love to know the efficacy of our language programs.

[00:49:20] I do not discount the need for offering language services and language courses for our students but what is the point if all they're doing is exiting after a year or two of a program and knowing five words in another language and no ability to show progress or are we measuring it right and if it isn't having the desired effect what is the language program that we should be using that will have the desired effect I don't want to expand FLESS or something else just because some schools don't have it what i would want to expand is something that will work um and so i you

[00:49:56] know i i'd be interested in thoughts around what i've just shared well i'll just speak to the language issue personally and say i mean i think those are great questions those are questions the previous boards have struggled with sometimes as well um and we've had you know conversations about the efficacy of the fless program in the past and as a result we've changed the focus of the program a couple different times just in my tenure in the school division where we're currently at with the program in terms of the program goals it's a 60 minute a week experience right so it's really

[00:50:36] really limited the amount of instructional time that students are getting so we focus more on kind of two primary goals one cultural competency and proficiency and really thinking about the ability for students to experience different components of a different culture than they're typically used to and we try to embed as much as we can about that particular language in the in the culture for that particular country into the school that is able to offer the flest program the second goal is really focused on basic communication skills and i would say to your point with 60 minutes a week i don't think that we can say we're necessarily accomplishing either one of those goals

[00:51:16] but as dr reed mentioned earlier these are all kind of it's it's a little bit of a zero-sum game and there are all kinds of trade-offs, right? The more minutes that we put into the FLES program, for example, to bolster our ability to reach those goals, those minutes are going to have to come from somewhere else because we're really pretty much maxed out in terms of the instructional time that we have in the elementary instructional day right now.

[00:51:39] So I do think to some degree, you know, we certainly can provide some recommendations to the board and we have provided, you know, some in the past. When we talk about expanding the number of minutes, though, that's where it gets really difficult because we've got to find the minutes from someplace else, and those are some of the places that we've stalled with this in the past.

[00:51:59] Or increasing the amount of time by just putting in additional staffing, but that's tremendously cost prohibitive to take that approach as opposed to trying to reduce the minutes someplace else. So that's typically where we've stalled on this question in the past, but we definitely we can provide the board with some more recommendations, maybe for some future action.

[00:52:19] You identified two goals. How are we measuring success on those goals? We don't have a great way to measure success on those. For our immersion programs, we do. We have assessments that we give to the students, and we can see the language growth and progression that they're making, but we're not really assessing consistently for the two goals that I mentioned for FLES? So, you know, in my head, it would make sense to look at what we have to offer and make choices based on what is going to have the biggest impact. I definitely want kids to have exposure to

[00:52:54] and learn other languages, but picking up a few words a year doesn't do that, if they're even picking up those few words a year. And the fact that we're not measuring these programs for the and you know reaching the goals that we've stated is highly concerning so I'll leave it there I think we should be hearing from staff and the superintendent on what our priorities should be and then we can kick the tires on that thank you mr. fish miss Sizemore hyzer oh dr. Reed I was gonna

[00:53:32] comment that I think when you think about time which maybe as I get older becomes the most the most important resource really effective instruction around math and literacy both require 90 minute blocks daily and we are not currently doing 90 minutes of math daily and I think not consistently doing 90 minutes of literacy either reading and writing across all classrooms so when you think about time those blocks really become sacrosanct and then we have to build around art science plus PE right so when you start to look at I think

[00:54:10] what I'm probably what I'm hearing is we need to go back and also build some sample schedules so that it is more transparently clear about what actually could be put in a day or every other day or however we want to piece that together but I hear the request for us to choose the goals and do the targets and I'm happy to do that. They're just extraordinarily broad but happy to do that so thank you miss Sizemore heiser i'm just going to pick up on where mr fresh left off because i

[00:54:45] had that in my notes as well that um when i recall from our strategic plan conversations when we sort of were talking about this goal what we really wanted is your educational expertise your staff's educational expertise when we talk about preparing students for the careers of the future right we talk about what's best practices in programming and extracurricular and co-curricular and enrichment like I can tell you what I think right I'm happy to do so you know I'm not short of opinions right but I want you to come to us the goal was equitable access to enrichment and opportunity I want your staff to come to us and say to best

[00:55:23] prepare our students for the future here's what we think you should prioritize and then we as a board can take that information have that conversation maybe we agree maybe we send you another direction but right now I feel like we're saying well these are all the things we're doing what do you want us to expand and again I can tell you but I'd rather you bring your education when your staff bring your educational expertise so I hope as you move forward that will be I would welcome that and I think that's what I'm hearing a little bit from mr. Frisch not to speak for him but I do that all the time anyway so so that's what I would just put that out there that whatever

[00:55:58] you recommend I'd like to hear so having said that I have a couple questions I am wondering why on slide 16 when we talk about availability and fine and performing arts high school elective programs I don't see guitar anywhere in there and I know we offer guitar at many of our schools we can happily provide that data for the board I'm just curious why it wasn't there in the first place we were trying to look at at least where schools either standard course offerings or courses where we had multiple courses available and we selected a section so we have lots of other things like jewelry making that didn't make the cut for what we put on here but trying to provide the board and

[00:56:37] understanding what it looks like so we're happy to provide the additional data well I understand I mean you have art and design courses I'm not looking for a breakdown of every individual course but there's a whole program there's often three to four courses offered for guitar right levels right so it feels like we're leaving a whole program out and I just you know I know it's not a hundred percent at every school which is why I would love to have that data and I've anecdotally from principals I'm hearing a lot of concerns about the guitar program and the covid bubble and what happened to that program so I do think it's a big miss to not have we're going to talk about when you talk about it right I was just gonna say I think mrs. Morheiser and there may be

[00:57:17] some interest from the board and understanding the current year course offerings because again this is a look back at baseline data and what schools are looking at for next year and that's something we can happily provide an analysis to the board on sure I mean I just think it even look back right where were we before were I think it's important I won't belabor the point but I do think when we're we just want to be accurate with what we're putting out there and same I would say with the CT and STEM I didn't see and I apologize if I missed it in the full report but I'd love to see broken out like information technology engineering computer science what are we offering specifically at high schools physically in person as opposed to access through an online

[00:57:55] academy or online or the Academy I think it's great we have those courses but obviously access for students to those is different right online you might have to pay if unless you're taking as a substitute class the academies there's some access to get there so I just love to see that split up to see what do we have at our schools as a and then in addition and if it's there I apologize if I missed it no just to clarify what's on slide 16 is courses that are offered at the base school and we wanted to just denote that the academies also provide access to those content areas in addition to what's offered at the base school. That's helpful because I read it as this is all-inclusive so all right

[00:58:33] that's very helpful I appreciate that. I did want to bring up my 10 seconds the slide on inclusion the number you have is 55 percent however the report you're linking to in VDOE has 48.61 percent those numbers aren't consistent. So the data on the slide is the three-year baseline so it includes additional years and the most recent report posted on the VDOE website which is where we pulled the target just to reference is just the 21-22 report. So you're correct, Ms. Seismarheiser, they're not the same data points. Can I just make one quick statement about that and then I'll

[00:59:08] take a go back. I would recommend we do not include 2021 in our look back because that was mostly virtual. It doesn't seem like, kind of to your point, that would be a good one to look at. And just to make that clear, because it wasn't clear to me that, especially when you're referencing that form, what we're looking at. And I think we should look at the fact that in 2019 to 2020, it was 55 percent, and 2021-22 is 48 percent, so we're kind of going the wrong direction.

[00:59:33] I'll take my go back. Thank you. Mr. Moon. Thank you. Dr. Reed, you know, some of the some of the thoughts that I had as I was reviewing the report was sent to you last night via email.

[00:59:48] One thing that I want to share with my colleagues is that, you know, compared to the other reports, I mean, I didn't get to review the first two, because there was no last year, compared to the last two that I had spent more time reviewing.

[01:00:04] This one, even though this one contained, and this is something that Dr. Enderson already pointed out, you know, contained a lot of good data, but, you know, something I was really looking for was a target goal, specific goals, and how we're going to tackle those were missing.

[01:00:20] I get that probably was going to be so broad, and you could have done that. I think you were indicating that if the board wants, board directs you to do it, you could come up with some of the recommendations, but I know that, I think, you know, my colleagues will agree with me on this, that you are the professional educator, we are the professional staff.

[01:00:42] We want to see the best work of the board, the best work of the staff to be included in the report, and we could give our feedback. And then you could let us know we are wrong on some of our feedback, but that's the kind of a conversation we want you to have, and that's missing.

[01:00:59] I consider that to be disappointing. I don't know what the course of action will be from this point and on, but I wanted to share that thought of mine, which I shared with you last night with my colleagues today.

[01:01:18] And on a world language program, I began my service on the board about three decades ago. Over that three decades, we have made tremendous progress in terms of expanding opportunities. I think that's the right direction.

[01:01:34] Three decades ago, when it began, it wasn't that easy. It wasn't that easy. It was, you know, pushback, pushback from, you know, board members and staff and community, et cetera. But as I said, I think this is right direction as we are living in a global community, as the worlds come closer and closer, and our county becomes more and more diverse.

[01:01:57] And we have a lot of students already speaking multiple languages, and being able to provide them with additional opportunity to further improve their skills is, I think, critical. At one point, that FLAS program, The Progress of Progressive Stopped, I think Dr. Presidio pointed out the efficacy.

[01:02:20] Both members had some concerns about questions about efficacy of the program, and I get that whether 60 minutes is going to be enough. I began studying English back in Korea from seventh grade, and so when they offered, it was most of learning from book.

[01:02:38] Now the approach the Korean government has taken, you know, from about 20 years ago is drastically different. So kids start from elementary, third grade, and I just looked it up, and they are spending about one hour a day for foreign language from third grade and up.

[01:03:02] Even North Korea is offering from fourth grade. Something for us to think about. Thank you, Mr. Moon. Ms. St. John Cunningham? So following up on measuring for FLEX and foreign language, what measurements do you have for STEAM programs in elementary schools?

[01:03:25] So that's another area where it's not a division-wide program, and we really don't have division-wide program monitoring for it. So similar to the question Mr. Frisch asked about FLEX, students do get individual feedback, and parents get individual feedback via the report card process at the elementary level.

[01:03:49] but we're not doing large-scale data collection and assessment and evaluation on those programs. The reason I ask that question is because we all recognize the value of STEAM. I'm a great proponent of STEAM, and we know the value of that.

[01:04:06] We also know the value of a second language. And I wanted to have that comparison because I do know STEAM teachers do not provide grades. They provide feedback. And exposure is critical. The other question I want to talk about is what languages do we teach in FLEX?

[01:04:24] The reason I bring that up is that the third largest Spanish-speaking country in the world is the United States. And so if we're offering FLEX, would it not be to our benefit to target languages that are used greatly in our country?

[01:04:45] So it's another great point. And the majority of our FLEX programs, over 40 of the FLEX programs are in Spanish. We also have programs in other languages, the next largest being Chinese, Korean, French, German.

[01:05:03] So we offer a variety of language programs. And one of the things that previous boards really held as a priority and our community supported at the time was a diversification of language offerings because we are such a global community here in Fairfax County and because the workforce that students are going to go into is obviously global.

[01:05:23] So we tried to really look at what are the strategic languages identified by the U.S. government and the Department of Defense that our country would benefit from offering. And that's how we really chose a lot of those program language offerings. So we also offer Arabic, Russian. So there's a variety of different program languages that we're offering for world language.

[01:05:42] And we really tried to value that diversification. predominantly that the language the that's most commonly offered is Spanish because it is the language that also when we ask our stakeholders what are you most interested in learning that is always the highest when we when we survey students and families as well thank you for that that piggybacks on a question that I was going to ask and I'll just ask these two questions and get my response number one we were talking about getting direction from the superintendent because because I do believe that that's important but my

[01:06:21] other question is these are enrichment opportunities and to that extent is there any way that we capture community feedback because I think that's critical that we understand what our community wants and needs for their students and the other question I have in terms of CTE we know that there are waiting lists do we have the data of the waiting lists and for what programming so that as we do move forward we can look to see where we would choose to expand. And then the last thing I do want to say is that an enrichment opportunity doesn't

[01:06:55] necessarily always have to be measured. And I think that we have to realize that a lot of times these enrichment opportunities are broadening the scope of what our children are exposed to, and particularly our marginalized children have less opportunities for some of that enrichment.

[01:07:16] And I think that sometimes you take the joy out of those enrichment opportunities if you're consistently just trying to measure it. I'll speak to a little bit of what you've raised as questions.

[01:07:31] I think certainly the notion of community feedback being an important one and understanding. We obviously use community feedback as a part of when we're introducing new languages into schools. So understanding what the community wants, understanding what students and families want. One of the questions you asked, St. John's Cunningham, it was about the wait list.

[01:07:50] And so in Appendix B, you'll see information, at least for our academy offerings, where we see some of the wait lists. So some opportunities for us to think about where students don't have access. And certainly at schools, you know, individual schools, students may have to be shifted around from their first choice elective to a second choice elective, depending on space, depending on staffing.

[01:08:11] So there are various things that are also happening at local schools. Dr. Presidio. So just to add to that a little bit as well, because I don't think this is in the appendix necessarily. We have had an increase of interest and enrollment in our academy programs over the last three to five years.

[01:08:30] Pretty significant increase of around 70%. But we still have almost 50% of the students that want to enroll in academies not being able to enroll for lack of seat space, right? So there's interest there, even with the barriers of having that travel time and that travel distance.

[01:08:47] And we do need to find a way to open up more access in our academy programs. What, you know, I don't know exactly today what that solution is going to be. That's something we're going to have to work on to bring some different options to you. But there's a huge interest in those specialized programs that students can't access at their base schools. Mr. Dunn.

[01:09:11] I applaud the move to standardize academic offerings across FCPS because if you look at the current offerings, It seems there's a lot of initiatives over time got started and then didn't actually get carried through to full implementation.

[01:09:29] So you have a lot of stop and starts that get continued as business as usual for decades. What I did want to emphasize though, is as we move towards maybe an Aldi approach to our academic offerings rather than a Walmart approach of having 100 materials, we just have two, that we don't lose any of the richness that's reflected in diversity of our communities.

[01:09:54] So, and especially on world languages, I wanna echo my colleagues who have talked about the importance, not just as, well, now I have Google Translate, I don't need to learn world languages. It's also part of culture, it's also part of heritage, and also in the brain is the same pathways are used for STEM and music.

[01:10:10] So there's a lot of positive benefits. I'd also wanna echo my colleague who talked about an hour a day that that should be considered because I grew up in a country, Luxembourg, where every kid learns at least three or four languages by the time they're in middle school.

[01:10:25] So it's certainly feasible on a large scale where everyone's doing it. I also wanted to encourage us to look not just at keeping our language immersion programs as segregated, which they currently are, but moving to a whole school basis, which is a best practice for decades now and will benefit a greater number of people.

[01:10:47] I think we also need to keep in mind that language immersion, especially two-way, can be a way to integrate students, especially ESOL students, and benefit the community in many respects. I also wanted to just mention that, you know, you have a lot of great data in here, but I don't quite understand the plan.

[01:11:06] Like, when are we gonna get the next steps from this with like a standard schedule? What's the timeframe for that? - So this is our final of our baseline reports, which really wasn't intended to be the comprehensive plan for how we're doing this work.

[01:11:23] I think we're hearing in this discussion alone a need to have some better understanding and evaluation to share with the board of the effectiveness of some of the programming to be able to make some of those recommendations to the board. So that's work that we'll have to do to bring back what's a more significant plan and recommendations in terms of how we address this baseline data.

[01:11:42] And when? I imagine that this is probably the most complex one because I think we're going to need to see some cost analysis that's going to need to happen, an understanding of some different models that we can use to approach this, as Dr. Reed was sharing, we can provide some different elementary school instructional day models when we're looking at this.

[01:12:07] The implications of adding something, as Ms. Anderson was saying, if students aren't enrolled in one place, they're enrolled something else, so this all connects. I think we have a need to do some additional data analysis to understand course taking patterns for students. Where are students starting?

[01:12:22] Where are they progressing through? What's that looking like? I think Mr. Frisch raised that question about, are students starting in a language and continuing on? So I imagine this will be one of those more comprehensive plans that we'll have to bring to the board at a later date of next school year.

[01:12:38] - And September, May, do you have a timeframe? - I don't think I can commit us to a timeframe this afternoon, Mr. Dunn. - Dr. Reed, do you have a sense? - Well, you know, we've worked really hard for almost two years to get an RFP done to have someone work with us on the course taking pattern data.

[01:12:59] So I think we're finally at the place where we're gonna be able to get that work started. It's taken quite a little while to work our way through procurement, rightfully so. I mean, this is important. So that work will begin in July.

[01:13:16] be working with our high school principals on that. I think for the other goals and targets, there's some that we've set and some that we're going to, I'm hearing the board wants me to come back with a more significant plan. I would guess, you know, by the end of the school year, we certainly need to have something, a plan in place, given our budget situation, to come up with a plan that's also budget neutral will be challenging but it's going to be reassigning people right in the next several years so we'll continue to work

[01:13:52] on that so I hopefully by the end of June we can have something more clear for you thank you I also want to say FLESS is a waste of time the only reason we still have it is classroom planning time for teachers language immersion is not effective as it should be I mean I think mr. Presidio knows that the data shows kids aren't becoming fluent unfortunately even though valuable for many reasons so so we we do need to focus on efficacy but I also think we need to highlight that for many of our especially less economically advantaged

[01:14:29] students who are mobile among many of our schools as they have housing instability having a standardized curriculum where they can plug into the same courses the same content as they move from school to school is very valuable and will ultimately help to make sure that those students receive a world-class education.

[01:14:48] Thank you. Ms. Marin. I'm glad all of this is out in the open. I feel about this data the way I do about the JLARC study. We all knew what it was and now it's written in front of us and we had in front of us data in this board and was it 2021 about world language and I am very devastated about that data, and I just want something done about it. Let's decide what to do, and if our kids need to read and do math first, then let's just name it and say we'll start world language later

[01:15:23] in elementary or in middle, but Dr. Reed, you've often said we're a system of schools, not a school system, and I know you are getting us there, but the more we can say that we are making intentional decisions that are also different from the past, I think it will actually happen and take hold. I I saw someone this weekend, she graduated from FCPS 20 years ago, was shocked when I told her about our levels of poverty, about the size of our school system.

[01:15:53] We need to keep this communications up that we are in a different space, not only with our membership, but in time. And, you know, the whole landscape of literacy just changed in the country. And so now we're committing to that. Well, that means that we're going to have to.

[01:16:09] So when you say budget neutral, maybe it's not budget neutral. Maybe it's a budget surplus because we're cutting stuff back, or maybe it's going to take some more funding, but until you cost it out, we can't make that decision. There was a point in here I wanted to raise. There was something about student interest and student voice, and, you know, when we talked about this in the meeting managers' meeting, how can we know what students want if they've never even experienced it?

[01:16:32] And so students have their interests, but again, as the educated adults with professions and data in this, you know, areas, I mean, this is where that inequity comes in. So I fully support, I mean, we're not trying to standardize, we're trying to make the quality and access consistent.

[01:16:48] And again, maybe 20 years ago, you could have a school with six languages, world languages taught. But we also might not have had the kinds of diverse populations that we have where I look at my own kids and their friends are from all over the world. So there's different communities that, you know, the way that our community is now that could really change how we're seeing you know FLESS offering cultural experiences and we just go to any of our international nights at our schools you know it's it's happening and then what we're doing with even with our literacy curriculum is that has the cultural relevance and the civics and that that's

[01:17:26] coming in there so let's just cut what's not working and focus on what is I think I think, yeah, not having obvious goals and measures of world language is really not, it can't continue like that.

[01:17:44] There was also a data point about the number of sixth grade students, about a third of sixth grade students are enrolled in sixth grade advanced math. Is that a good amount or not? Should we have more? There needs to be some more analysis of what we're seeing and is it on the path to where we want to be or not? Thank you.

[01:18:06] - All right, I'll take my turn. First of all, I wanna sort of give grace to staff and to Dr. Reed, 'cause I actually do appreciate wanting to hear our feedback before prioritizing, but I also want to indicate and reiterate that you are the professionals, you are the experts.

[01:18:26] And having said that, I'm gonna be bold myself and tell you some of my direct asks. We have a numeracy and literacy problem. When you look at the budget questions we got from the Board of Supervisors, when you look at the budget questions we sent you, a lot of it had to do with the fidelity of how we're recovering from COVID.

[01:18:45] And so given the fact that we've just adopted new language arch basal instruction, given the fact that to do things well, 90 minutes of literacy, 90 minutes of numeracy is essential, I could care less about FLESS. I grew up in this county.

[01:19:00] I have lived here my entire life. When I talk to friends of mine who have children in FLESS, It is like a laughing stock that six years later, they can say, you know, me amo Robin, I don't know.

[01:19:17] Like, it's nothing, okay? And I'm not, I understand that language is best acquired the earlier we expose children to it, but we need them to acquire the English language, which is our primary language, and that's where our literacy and numeracy is. So I have frustrations with that.

[01:19:33] also have frustrations with the fidelity of pyramids. German has died on the vine at most of our high schools. Do we have a German immersion program? I think we do. Why? It's feeding nothing. We also, with certain languages at the high school level, we're giving people the opportunity to school shop because only this school, which maybe happens to be a number one in someone's eyes, offers said language. I think we need to get rid of that stuff.

[01:20:00] We need to save money because we need to put the money where our mouth is and that is to make sure that we close Achievement gaps, so that's a big big thing for me and then steam. We didn't have steam 20 years ago We didn't technology. It's passed me by sitting in this room I mean there's been more created in this this hour, right? We have to have steam as a school system classroom in our elementary schools, because it's going to uplift the arts, but it's also going to uplift science and math and coding and all those other things that, I'm sorry,

[01:20:35] are more essential to translating into future success than for someone who is only fluent in one language, because most of our students are already fluent in more than one language, and we're now trying to push them to a third. I think we need to put our energy in those directions so that was those were not questions but but you sounded like you wanted some directive so I'm gonna be bold and put it out there and I will take my go back when it's my turn and I'll touch on some other things in the

[01:21:08] report so at this point I think our first go back is to dr. Anderson I don't know if I can follow that but I think that's kind of the frustration in the room doctorate we have nothing to respond to and we are looking for you to to say hey numeracy literacy that matters so we need to spend our time elsewhere because you're right there's only so many hours in the day so knowing that if you had your druthers what would take pref what would take precedence and you do have your druthers i do i right now we still don't

[01:21:47] have all third graders reading and i think that's a priority so what i'm hearing from you is let's prioritize english and math and maybe flesh not right now if i had to make that choice that's what what I would choose. And that would be the case in every single one of our elementary schools. Yes.

[01:22:07] So let's go to sixth grade reading, the basal. You know where I'm going with this. I'm still waiting for information. If we're saying 90 minutes is what K-6 needs, how are we going to address the fact that the six in the middle at my three schools in the Mason District are only going to get 90 minutes every other day? And a third of the curriculum has been cut off because of the structure? Speak to that, please. Yes, ma'am. I've had a conversation with staff about that topic, and it's my expectation that the curriculum is not adjusted for the sixth grade in those three

[01:22:43] schools, that they will be receiving all the components of the curriculum. In the current structure of block scheduling? They're going to be working within that structure to utilize time differently. We've looked at the advisory and intervention block time, and I expect the plan back for my review this week. And I would love to hear that plan. The other thing that's kind of hot topic in my area that I want to raise because it's consistent with the topics here, which is opportunity and access to enrichment. Is it your directive or guidance that in one of our middle

[01:23:22] schools in order to address some of the literacy concerns that students, certain students, would be double-blocked for ELD support and double-blocked for language arts support, leaving zero electives?

[01:23:37] I have not made that directive. I think electives are critical, and I think we have to be able to provide literacy instruction so that our young people can read and write effectively, and I think we can do both. Eliminating electives is not a best practice.

[01:23:55] Well, I'm glad to hear that we can do both because at Poe Middle School right now, there's no electives for a good chunk of our students that is planned for next year. And my worry is that the ship will leave the station and then we will be told that we can't undo the staffing.

[01:24:14] And so we'll have a core number of kids, hundreds of them, who will then be impacting this elective's enrichment access. And I do have more questions, so I'd like to go back because we still have two hours. Was that three minutes? A few minute go back.

[01:24:31] Can we just do three minutes? We have two hours. Yeah, let's do three minutes. Add a minute, please. And then we'll do three minutes on the first go back. Thank you. If I'd like to hear regarding the situation that I just raised at Poe. I would have to go and study that.

[01:24:50] I have not heard that. So I'm happy to visit with Dr. Ponce and Dr. Presidio to evaluate those schedules. I'm not aware of that plan in place unless you have data this afternoon. Well, I don't have complete data this afternoon.

[01:25:06] I was just going to mention that we are working on that. The region office and ISD are working on that. There's a lot of different factors that go into the student's schedule. So we're finishing up collecting the data. I was just talking to Dr. Boyd on the phone about this last night. The ESOL team has been working with her today, and she's obviously working with the principal at Poe.

[01:25:26] So we'll have some updates on that very soon. Okay, looking forward to it. So that's two sets of information I'd like to have. Here's my other ask, and I think I've mentioned this a little bit throughout the other goal reports. Dr. Anderson? Yes?

[01:25:41] I think Dr. Reed wanted to add something to that. You said two parts of data. I know you wanted the one about the curriculum. Middle school, sixth grade. Middle school, sixth grade, and reading, and then the post situation for the double blocking. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you. The other piece, and I'll probably spend the rest of my 45 seconds on this, is as we've been walking through these reports, one of the things that particularly in the last report that I was adamant about is the fact that I didn't think the goals were robust enough for this next school year.

[01:26:14] This is a disproportionality. What I don't see being presented, and maybe this is a next year's, and if it's not, I'm asking for this consideration. Since this is a seven-year strategic plan by which you expect for all of the bodies to be at the places that we want them to be, I would like to see that arc.

[01:26:33] What are the goals for each of these seven years? I'd like to see the full complement of what that would look like. Is this something that is feasible? Yes, ma'am, it is. In fact, I don't know that we would call it an arc. more of a straight line uh from where the you know y-axis is currently years being on the x-axis axis and then 100 for the demographic so it's a it's a straight line and then i mean i can share that with you thursday evening we've got several examples i know we've drawn that out on multiple occasions so happy to provide that yeah i think that should just be an embedded component of these

[01:27:10] reports because parts of this report it always says this is a seven year journey that seven year needs to be mapped out those seven years need to be mapped out miss anderson so i am actually of the opinion that i'm okay with the plan being that we need more time to talk about these things if i had to guess based on the conversation so far i'm thinking that we uncovered a whole lot more here than we expected to uncover and i think that bringing this back early in the school year next year as the as the report to look at early on would be awesome as a way to

[01:27:46] to do more of a deep dive related to all of the different components of of these types of programs intentionally and so looking at data across schools to figure out how many kids are waitlisted and all those things i think that before we come up with a plan having a full breadth of understanding because i certainly don't want to tell you to bring a rock and then tell you it's the wrong one I don't want to waste staff's time with any of that, so I think it's really important that we get a full look at everything that we need to understand in order to go forward with confidence.

[01:28:21] And I noticed something very interesting, and it flipped back and forth between the 2.0s and the percentages, which was hard to track, but I noticed something interesting. And I'm trying to guess whether or not I'm right we have seen we see the disproportionality or the disparity get worse with math as as kids get older so they're taking few fewer classes but we we don't see as significant a disparity with science and so I am very interested in to know what we're doing with science that's different than what we're doing with math to figure out how to to pull those

[01:29:00] disparities down so as we look forward i don't know if this is steam i don't know if this is just access to science activities i i have a feeling based on my my personal world that it probably is um looking at i and i will say i am never going to suggest that all fless programs are not worth their time and us giving time to staff members to provide the planning that is necessary for elementary age teachers is essential and so if we are not going to provide flesh we do need to

[01:29:36] provide something that could be the equivalent of a steam lab for math it could be the equivalent i mean i think that this is the moment that we need to get a little bit more creative but i don't want to kill the flavor that is important to different schools so we have to figure out how to create consistency and allow schools to shine and what they're shining in and so i would love to see us walk that line carefully and not pull stuff back just for the sake of pulling it back if a particular school is doing an amazing job and maybe we need to talk about how they're doing an amazing job and share that because i don't think uh miss st john cunning and i both have

[01:30:16] had experience with amazing steam teachers that are doing phenomenal work and we need to highlight those types of shining stars across our county so that other people see how it's possible and that is i would love to see more of that if i could just make one brief comment and response because i really appreciate those comments and i think just for the community and everybody listening you mentioned the importance of everybody having a common understanding that our specials in our elementary school whether it's fles whether it's steam whether it's art music or pe that's how teachers at the elementary level get their planning time right so um we've built that into

[01:30:54] the schedule that way and that's another factor that we need to take into consideration if we're making any changes to elementary programming is making sure that we can cover that that need for additional planning time mr frisch picking up where that left off that does not mean however that we should keep something just because we need planning time it means that we should figure out planning time and what best supports the students right and so um look our educators are and folks who are offering programming are giving us exactly what we're asking for we're just not asking for

[01:31:30] the right thing um and everything that we should be doing or everything that we should be doing is worth measuring to see if we're doing it right uh and to see if it's having the you know reaching the ultimate objectives that we have if we don't have clear goals for stem or steam we should um realizing of course the younger the kids are maybe some of those those things are less clear but at least we should have goals for them on fless i don't think anybody at this table thinks we shouldn't offer foreign languages to students. I think FLESS is deceptively named for what our students are getting. Based on descriptions, I think it is

[01:32:09] something that could be offered monthly or quarterly. If we're looking to expose students to culture and language, I think that is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. But short of determining what is the overall objective and how do we get there I've not heard anything other than it's nice that we're doing it that points in that direction I want our kids to be fluent in other languages but people are under this misconception that FLESS is getting them there or we'll get them there eventually and I have no evidence to support that so we need to clearly communicate what the goals of anything around this subject matter is I

[01:32:49] think we need to rename what it is so that it's clearly communicating what we're teaching and we need to measure and we need to make time for literacy and make time for numeracy like the superintendent and others have said that does not mean we walk away from figuring out a path for students into foreign languages we just need to define what that path is measure for its success because that's what is required of us if we're going to move these numbers oh I have a whole minute left how would a I'm not going to ask you to get into what a

[01:33:26] a plan would look like if this is the direction we go. But I am interested in if that is the direction we go. Obviously, that's not something, well, maybe it is, that can change for next school year. But I'm interested what kind of a transition like that would require. So if I could ask, when you say a transition like that, from where we are to what? To the future that I think you defined, where we're giving students 90 minutes of math, 90 minutes of literacy. Well, I think

[01:33:57] I think we're working toward that for literacy next year because that's how we're presenting the basal materials because they're designed to be used over that period of time because we know that's best practice across the nation. That's not unique to us. I don't think we're going to make that transition in numeracy next year. I think that's something that will, I think that's something we're going to set targets around. And quite honestly, it's the same teachers that are going to be doing both. So I want to make sure we understand as we sit around the table here that our elementary school teacher are going to be having one of the heaviest lifts next year with a brand new curriculum

[01:34:31] and we've not had a basal curriculum in almost 30 years so that is a huge lift so one of the things I know is that if the work that we're committed to over the next seven years is going to be sustainable and take root and be our work and not just be kind of a drive-by initiative we have to really center in that one that one expectation for the coming year and I I don't think it's prudent to contemplate adding time to numeracy at the same time.

[01:35:02] I think that's where we've shown the chart on several occasions about year over year over year. There are different things that we're going to be in development stage versus implementing versus monitoring. I think the coming year, big lift of elementary staff.

[01:35:19] Now, having said that, and again, I'm supportive of children having a second language for sure. How we go about that and where we situate that, if we're also situating STEAM labs or STEAM instruction and adding to math core time will require, I think, collaboration with our educators, our teachers, our principals, and our central office staff to make sure that each year that we build, we want to make sure that

[01:35:51] literacy curriculum really takes root before we then layer another initiative on our elementary team. So I just want us, as we think about the seven-year journey, several of you have mentioned it, it's not everything in year one or people will run with their hair on fire, right? It's thinking about what can we do in the first year and then how do we build on it and build on it so when we're four years out. I think I had this conversation with a couple of folks this morning.

[01:36:20] We look back and think, wow, we've come a long way. And it's real. It's going to be sustainable. It's taken root. So to answer your question about from here to next year, literacy, huge lift. I think as you are out in classrooms, you're going to see our elementary staff, reading coaches, Title I support. It's all hands on deck on that curriculum. And middle school, I think we're going to be looking at the algebra in eighth grade as well as making sure we have similar content across the board. Once we begin working with our collaborator around course taking patterns,

[01:36:57] we're really looking at seven through 12. And I think as we look at, I think we're going to see some shifts in registration next winter for the following year. That's my expectation. How much of a shift, I'll have to commit pen to paper. I have it on my study wall at home, I don't know that I'm ready to put that out there yet but I guess we're going to be sooner than later. I don't know if that answers your question. Partially yeah and I don't think anybody's expecting everything to be changed for next year but what it sounds like is that there could be a multi-year plan that prioritizes literacy to get to 90 minutes then it prioritizes math to get to 90 minutes that prioritizes finding out a solution for

[01:37:37] planning and what we can do for foreign languages whether it's early exposure and eventual fluency, how that gets plugged in there. We can do all of it. We just can't do it all at once. I'd love to see a plan for that. Thank you, Mr. Frisch. Mr. McElveen, he hasn't had a first term. Thank you. So unfortunately, I feel like I've walked into this room into what is a coordinated attack on world language programs. And frankly, I want to know where it's coming from. Is it coming from you, Dr. Reed? Or is it coming from board members? Have board members directed you to do

[01:38:16] this? Leaders don't cut and run. Leaders fix problems when they're broken. I have completely lost respect for many people in this room based on this conversation. Chronic underfunding of the FLES program and inability to expand when it was board direction to expand it countywide in 2014 is not our fault. It is the fault of the school system leaders, okay? Over my dead body am I going

[01:38:55] to see the defunding and elimination of a world language program when we're supposed to be going the other direction. I am furious right now. I don't know what I walked into. There was no nothing nothing was told told to us to expect something like this. Mr. Moon is over here talking about the importance of world language in his life. I can talk to you about the importance of world language in my life and it was in spite of FCPS not providing it. Ms. Sizemore

[01:39:30] Heiser. Can I ask for 30 seconds before I start just to get the air clear a

[01:39:36] little bit we want to well why don't we take a like a 10 minute break thank you before we get

[01:40:10] back into um hearing go backs from board members um dr reed had prepared for us uh some documents that she wants to um talk about at the moment thank you thank you miss lady i did want to share um i had asked the team to create two types of planned formats that might be multi-year rollouts of a particular initiative. And the initiative that I chose to highlight was actually

[01:40:42] the expansion of our FLESS program. And what I did in this format for the FLESS expansion was to utilize the data on the top, which would illustrate, if you will, the access and opportunity goals. And then what we did in the chart is staff took the year 24-25 and ran it through 2030 to look at what we could reasonably do if we wanted to get 100% of our elementary schools to have a FLES program connected. And so what we did is try to identify some

[01:41:19] notes, some supports that would be necessary in the right column. And as you can see, it It would be really the full expansion of 86 new sites, which we carved up into four years of 17 schools each, and then that would finish in the 29-30 school year with an addition of 18 schools.

[01:41:40] So this is an example, or I'd say put the draft watermark across it, of what it could look like if we were contemplating the expansion of FLESS, because that was kind of one of first topics we wanted to present as an equity access and opportunity target. So I wanted to share that format. And then the second page was again in the area of world language.

[01:42:05] I wanted to share what could happen if we picked a data point. In this case what we said as a team, staff said that we would, if we set as a goal to offer a minimum of of four languages, world languages in each school, what would we need to do to get there?

[01:42:26] So again, what you'll see, this is more of a narrative example, but again, it has fall of '24 where we would be doing some stakeholder meetings, feedback collection. Fall of '25, we might look at variable enrollment courses where we have currently fewer than four, or courses maybe that were waning in enrollment.

[01:42:48] Are there alternative delivery methods? We don't know. So fall of '25, we would look at this. Spring of '26, again, look at academic advising and staffing. And in this particular case, we were looking at the fall of '26 to begin offering a minimum of four world languages at every high school.

[01:43:05] So these were two -- I wanted you to look at these as two examples. One, obviously a priority on expanding world language. And two, look at what the format of a plan and what you might expect as we look at other data points vis-a-vis STEAM or computer science or the arts, guitar was mentioned, whatever the course that we feel like is not consistently scaled across the division, what we would do is create a slide that would have the data that would illustrate that dissonance and And then a multi-year plan with notes.

[01:43:44] And I guess I just want some feedback this afternoon, is this what you would want to see in terms of our picking off the different course patterns, or do you want more detail with that?

[01:44:01] And maybe that's something we get to at the end if we have time, but I just wanted to share these are two examples of plans that I had staff write around, again, the expansion of rural languages. So thank you. you for preparing and sharing those I'm gonna get back to the order of go backs and miss Sizemore Heiser thank you I'm if you don't mind I'll take my other go back and maybe comment on this a little bit later big picture wise this is what I wanted to share I know I asked the specific questions I have more specific questions but big picture and Dr. Reed you and I've talked about this before but I really feel like we're at an inflection point in public education

[01:44:38] coming out of COVID I studied history this seems very similar to me to the time period from like the 1880s to the 1920s in terms of the advancement of technology, the rapidly changing world due to technology with lights and radio and the world in 1910 to 1920 was very different than the world in 1950 when we were starting to talk about space exploration even, right? And I feel like we're in that same point here. So whether it's world languages, whether it's FLUSS, whether it's STEAM, like what do we need to consistently offer for our students to be

[01:45:17] prepared for the 2050 world because I don't want them to fall behind in the way that I feel people did then too. It's a repeat, including a pandemic, a repeat of history. So that's my big picture question and I'll be honest where my frustration is that we don't have that recommendation, right?

[01:45:36] Great that we have a plan on how to expand whatever it is we want to expand, But is it environmental science and sustainability? Is it STEAM? It seems to me that the skills that separate human beings from AI are the soft skills in the arts, and it seems to me that technology is being infused in just about everything in the world.

[01:45:55] However, I also understand that the world is becoming more globalized, and languages are important. So it seems to me, again, from my seat, but we are Fairfax County, we're in this place in an inflection point of public education.

[01:46:12] What do we need to consistently offer from your educational expertise for our students to be the leaders and innovators and creators and be able to do that in a world where technology is going to rapidly make 2050 very different than what we imagine now?

[01:46:28] That's my question. That's what I wanted to see in this. Well, right now, we know that being able to read and write are fundamental skills. We know that math limits 84% of our career choices today.

[01:46:43] So we know that those three content areas are core to a solid Fairfax County public school education. Once we can master those core skills, it's not unlike jazz music, right? The rule provides for improvisation. So I think we know electives, the arts are critical, languages are critical, social studies, science and its application.

[01:47:06] I think what we're trying to figure out is what is that natural rhythm that's developmentally appropriate that has young people on the edge of their competence because that's where we learn and it also fosters those critical thinking skills and ability to work together and collaborate and that's and fit it in a school day with adequate planning for staff so um and still be able to pay our staff what we know we need to to retain and recruit quality educators so i think that the challenge really is there are still core basic skills that must be learned I

[01:47:43] think whatever we put in front of young people has to keep them curious a little bit longer to dr. Anderson's point taking away electives at this point is not not gonna get us there I think more I think there's a lot of excitement around the possibilities of externships that not all learning happens within a classroom and thinking about different modalities for that so I I don't know that I have specific answers for all topics about 22nd century learning but I

[01:48:21] will say it's those courses that enable children to develop strong skills in reading writing mathematics and then fully experience the arts athletics activities, hands-on career and machining, skilled trades. I mean, there's a lot out there right now, and when you think about AI, this is the first time in our country that AI is replacing white-collar positions, and so often the type of work that AI or machines replaced or technology replaced were assembly lines, right, car, building, those types of positions, and now we have AI

[01:49:00] in operating arenas, operating theaters in hospitals. We have AI reading scans. We have AI crafting legal memos. I mean, it's just the world is rapidly shifting. So to your point, I think the skills for a 22nd century education after the foundation is mastered are evolving rapidly, and we can't continue to plan for our past. I've said that. And that's what I wanted to lift up. I agree with numeracy, I totally agree with you. The reason I'm not focusing on that here because that seems to me that's part of goal three, right? Goal three is focused on academic, core

[01:49:39] academics. This is specifically focused on enrichment opportunities, right? So that's why I wanted to focus that conversation because that's what this goal is about. So when we're talking outside of, of course, numeracy and literacy, right? But we looked at that in goal three, mathematics. Putting that aside specifically on the after that portion, which is what this goal is getting to, we can't do it all. We're not funded to do it all anymore, right? And we don't have the time to do it all. So I want to know when my whole goal is always what is going to best set up our

[01:50:13] kids for success after they leave us, right? What should we be offering consistently because we can't do it all that will best set them up in the world they're going to enter? I can tell you from what I think, I think it's, I think STEAM is vitally important to that because technology is infusing everything and arts provides a lot of skills that doesn't mean other things aren't important but i am one person who's observing the world and a board member with a lot of experience but i'm looking to your team for that that's what i want to know right well and i think i know mr dunn has brought up the topic of forensics right debate that's something that should be accessible

[01:50:50] to every high school student just hands down um in terms of enrichment it's the ability to develop up an argument to persuasively have a conversation in a civil and thoughtful way I think crew and access to that I think the middle school sports and activities these are all spaces where young people work together where they're not on their phone they're not dragging a laptop around the track with them they're engaging and they're present with their peers in healthy activities and with a sense of belonging I think math and science olympiads and odyssey of the mind and

[01:51:24] And all of those activities allow our young people to develop fully as young adults. Having said that, we haven't kept great data as a division on those activities. I don't know what that says other than probably, you know, we're not state testing on those activities, right, which is where we tend to keep our data.

[01:51:46] Are those activities more and more important? Absolutely. So I think this baseline report, there was a lot of time just hunting down data points that we now can actually say we're gonna make progress from. So I get the, this has been a really helpful conversation this afternoon for both me, I know, and for our staff.

[01:52:06] So I appreciate the direction and I appreciate it. So thank you. - Mr. Moon. - Thank you. Another thought that I shared with Dr. Reelest now, which I wanna share with my colleagues, is about, you know, access, equitable access to extracurricular and other activities.

[01:52:27] I know we have a former colleague of mine, Dr. Emery, sitting in this room, who was former chairman of the school board, who had devoted the last more than two decades for our students after school activities, among other things. Thank you for your dedication over so many years that as many of my colleagues have had opportunities to meet with and talk with even in a private school students. I have seen many private school students having more access to more activities and I always

[01:53:05] wondered about why couldn't we provide similar opportunity for our students. I see students in those schools who may not be really good at what they are involved in doing but they still enjoy doing what they are doing and they are doing so many things whether it's a theater arts or singing or playing you know several sports that are really good at doing those but they are enjoying doing that they are given opportunities where our schools in our system we are unable to provide the same kind of

[01:53:44] opportunity for our kids even I'm gonna compare even if we have you know high schools we have schools as large as close to 3,000 versus another probably half of that size and opportunities for our students to be engaged in some of more competitive activities are not the same you will have only one varsity football team you're going to have a one varsity a baseball team you're going to have the best dancers and singers in theater arts programs actually perform twice a

[01:54:21] year versus those who may not be as good and I'm not a dancer but I love to learn how to dance and be able to you know find some opportunity to be in front of other people because I enjoy doing it and why not Dr. Lee I do think you're I think as I read the the notes last night what you were referring to is no cut in some ways right like a student has an interest in playing basketball they get to be on a team right we could have seven teams instead of one team

[01:54:57] which is much more of the European model or overseas right they because they do clubs sports and not if you will school based I love that idea at least through eighth grade right and I would hope maybe even through ninth I think our facilities are a challenge for that but I think that there are activities that's why we started with cross-country and track at the middle school because anybody could turn out and be on the team we you know it's not going to be more or less difficult if we had 30 or more or less runners. So I think the more often or if we

[01:55:32] we talked a little about this earlier today about theater you know if you couldn't be on the maybe on the cast you could be on the technical crew or the stage crew or maybe there are backups to the backups of the roles. I know that a lot of times they have understudies but I don't know if a fourth understudy if you're only doing so many you know performances um but i think your point's well taken i think when a student tries out for something sometimes and doesn't make it they never try out again right and they find maybe things that are not as healthy to do so i think that's part of

[01:56:08] our goal in this school is to try to find as many activities to provide that there's something for every student that they have a passion about where they can feel that sense of connection And as we enumerate all the different types of clubs and activities and sports, theater, whatever it is, our goal eventually would be to have every FCPS student connected in some way.

[01:56:35] So in goal four, when we talk about equitable access and opportunity, that's something I consider to be equitable access and opportunity. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you.

[01:56:50] Ms. St. John-Cunning? As someone who has worked in the schools, they can mark their bingo card for that. AND HAS BEEN VERY ACTIVE IN PROVIDING ENRICHMENT OPPORTUNITIES FOR STUDENTS IN MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES.

[01:57:08] I WANT TO HELP CALIBRATE OUR BOARD. WE'RE ASKING A LOT OF QUESTIONS OF STAFF, AND AS ONE OF MY COLLEAGUES MENTIONED, BASICALLY IT'S GOING TO COME DOWN TO SOME REALLY TOUGH DECISIONS BECAUSE THERE ARE FACTORS IN HERE THAT WE ALL HAVE TO CONSIDER.

[01:57:25] Number one the space for any of these enrichment opportunities to to occur in our schools Do we have the space and capacity? To who provides these enrichment opportunities? We don't have data because sometimes it's provided by the community or outside people does the school take ownership of this?

[01:57:45] If outside providers are providing that how can we have them provide that data? Which brings us to money, you know, how can we afford this? A lot of our programming is supported by boosters and depending on how robust a booster club is That determines what's happening I'll tell you that I went to several plays this weekend and there was a great difference in terms of sets costumes Everything that was going on that stage and it was all due to Some schools having very robust boosters clubs and some having absolutely none

[01:58:21] Having said that it did not affect the heart and performance of those students Again the other factor we're going to have to look at is time are these enrichment opportunities provided within the school day or out of school Activities, so I appreciate all of this discussion. I think it's critical. I think it's important I think that we all wish we could provide every single opportunity across the board to every student and and we should aim for that But these are all critical factors And I think we also have to you know at this point the budget constraints We're facing is let our Board of Supervisors know

[01:59:01] We can't provide some of these things you expect our kids to be getting Because a lot of it requires funding if it's going to be equitable. Thank you. Mr. Dunn. Mm-hmm. I want to be careful because There's been a couple comments that really concern me about saying world languages need to be set aside so kids learn English.

[01:59:26] That couldn't be more contrary to the evidence, and I'm always following the data. The more languages you learn, the better your literacy. So just so we're all on the same page that world languages actually make you better at reading in English, that point should be clear.

[01:59:43] Second, we have too many honors programs, honors AP, IB, dual enrollment. I hope this assessment includes some recommendations to maybe skinny that down to something that actually gives college credit. But as we standardize and narrow down our selection of our offerings of electives, we also need to look at CTE because a third or more of our kids are not gonna go to college or at least won't benefit from college other than maybe getting a lot of debt.

[02:00:12] So expanding those programs so that more kids can graduate from high school ready to enter the workforce. I talk to plumbing companies, I talk to electrical companies. They're ready to hire and they're ready to hire in big numbers. I wanna make sure we don't become too technology focused because when people got excited about the invention of the car, we tore down all of our great cities and now we have parking lots.

[02:00:35] If you had asked me four years ago, we would have all shifted our school curriculum to the metaverse, but what a terrible failure that would have been. So I don't wanna get excited about flying cars, I wanna get excited about things that actually are conducive to us as humans. We should be learning cursive again because kids learn when they take notes. We should make sure that kids have the opportunity to engage in leadership programs like Lewis or CTE because that's what the disadvantaged kids are most excited about. That's why they come to school. And so let's not get too excited about the future. Let's focus on critical thinking, literacy, numeracy, world languages, which

[02:01:13] actually will help us to defend our democracy at a time when it's on the brink. We're one year away from seeing if we're going to even have a democracy. So I'm just focused on not reading, writing, arithmetic, but actually the same stuff that I learned is probably the stuff these kids should learn too. And as for STEAM, I love STEAM. I don't know what it means. No one can tell me what it means. It's STEM plus the arts, which just seems to be the standard school curriculum we were supposed to be learning all along is it coding coding was big 10 years ago is that what we mean today i don't know it's not graded it just seems to be another add-on like

[02:01:49] flesh so if we're going to have something in the schools let's have it mean something have it and actually know what we're trying to teach the kids within the steam construct and i also want to hold up music band orchestra all of those things are essential and i can tell you that's something kids get very excited about. Of course, having, you know, my three kids all learn on the same viola was a painful experience as a parent, but it was enriching to them, and now two of my three are dedicated piano players because of the music enrichment in their lives. Thank

[02:02:21] you. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Ms. Marin. Oh, good. I'm happy to follow Mr. Dunn's very passionate set of ideas. So I think a number of us have said, you know, we're in a different time in education, how we're part of education, and many of us bemoan the whole, you know, agrarian-centered schedule that we're trying to move away from.

[02:02:43] You know, AI and technology, that's real. I want to mention, too, teaching outside, we haven't mentioned that at all, but like research literally shows that even if you look at a tree from a window, you will perform better on tests than if you didn't.

[02:02:59] So again, how do we integrate this stuff and stop making it into, well, that's a get to green thing, and this is a flesh thing, and this is a -- but the thing about literacy, and I will push back on this, is that, you know, as a mom of a dyslexic kiddo who's still trying to nail down all these difficult rules in English, he is -- it's hard to learn a second language.

[02:03:18] So what does the research say? I'd like to learn more. And this really gets me to, you know, an ask of Dr. Reed, but also for your consideration. You know, I think, again, like in aspiring for these more in-depth conversations, could our work session topics have more of that high impact view? Like what -- so world language instruction. What's the best practice and approach at what levels in funding? Because we can look to Europe all we want and abroad all we want, but we all know that they don't have the same funding structure and they often don't have the same kind of diversity that we have. Also, what's the best practice for those with reading disabilities? I think there's also some other things. State accreditation. There's a whole thing going on right now with

[02:03:58] that, and that's going to impact what we can do, right, and some of the limits, but how we're going to work to do our Fairfax thing and make sure we give our kids what they need. The universal design for learning, we're kind of throwing that term around a lot, like, what does that really mean? How does that involve a year? Computer science instruction, I agree with what was said. Are we talking coding? Are we talking, you know, cyber tech things? You know, what are we talking about? But, like, how could we as a board understand what the options are and what the superintendent thinks is possible, and then we actually say, okay when we talk about computer science like this is what we think every student should know and be able to do. I also think like even teacher licensure

[02:04:34] comes into play. How do we have a letter from a teacher who's not teaching with us anymore because she was a preschool teacher at one of the best early childhood ed colleges in the country and her degree even though she is about my age doesn't transfer and she can't get the provisional license to work and now she's leaving. So like we all this stuff could inform that. But at the end of the day, it's got to be measure, measure, measure. We measure that we're implementing it with fidelity, and we measure that it's having an effect. We should not be doing anything that we don't measure. Thank you. Thank

[02:05:12] you. I'll take my turn, and I'm going to piggyback on it as well, because I just want to be clear. When I knocked on doors, all I heard about was COVID learning loss. I personally wish I'd continue taking Spanish in college. I wish I were bilingual. I believe strongly that the earlier we introduce more languages to our children, it's fantastic. I'm not against that. I'm just trying to say that in the absence of the money to do everything with fidelity, that we need to make sure we do numeracy and literacy. And then everything builds upon that. I'm very grateful for Dr. Reed's sharing of a process to implement and get flesh everywhere. The other thing I want

[02:05:50] to say is, right now, STEAM is owned by individual schools and not measured. Right now, FLESS is owned by individual schools and not measured. What I'm asking for, again, is that if we're going to do these things with fidelity, the system must own them, and the system must measure them. And if they're not meeting the effectiveness, then we need to pivot or we need to look at a different way of doing it. So I'm really sort of echoing what my colleague had to say around this just in terms of you know when is the best what level is the best time to introduce world language and what approach so I just want

[02:06:29] to want to point that out because I do and I will tell you even with my own children and any kids I talk to I tell them you're going to be so much more marketable if you're fluent in a second language so if you start something please don't stop it after you get to three years and get that advanced studies diploma. I want to talk about CTE for a second and looking at the chart around wait lists and then maybe perhaps under enrollment. Like for example, and I've got to log back in to find it, but it seemed to me that there may have been a particular course that was over enrolled at two academies but had seats in

[02:07:06] another academy. You know, is there a way to offer kids to go to a different one? I know that your school is designated for if you're going to take BetScience and you go to Oakton, then you go to Chantilly for that. The other thing is I've talked about this and I honestly want to know and this is a question I'd like to be addressed now. Within CTE, are we looking at a zero period and a nine period?

[02:07:27] Where like zero period you could come in and you get auto tech from 7:00 to 7:45 every day? Or we could do a nine period, but we have to give AT contracts. Have we looked into that for the over-subscribes? Especially our, it's a lot of the areas like auto tech, auto collision, carpentry, places like that, especially that have OSHA limits on the number of students.

[02:07:48] I don't know if Jen wants to add anything to this, but I would just say a couple things. We do have the ability for students, often if they can't attend the particular academy that would be closest to them, to take that course if there's space available at another academy.

[02:08:06] That gets really difficult for transportation reasons when you think about some of the runs that that might mean across the county. We have talked and had some discussions about scheduling zero and ninth periods, but we haven't really put a plan in place to do that consistently across the division yet.

[02:08:22] So that's something that we, you know, still could work on. I hope we'll do that because the other one I didn't talk about was ASL. And for a lot of our students who have learning differences, you know, for them to get an advanced studies diploma, that's the appropriate language, if you will, for them.

[02:08:40] I don't know if we're not properly recruiting teachers to teach ASL, because I just see that there's a huge wait list for that. I'm not sure if it's a wait list online as well. But I think we could, at a minimum, start by asking some of our teachers where the courses were most oversubscribed at our academies, would you be willing to teach a zero period as a starting point to whether we can maybe do it next year?

[02:09:02] And I'll take another go back later. Yeah, I mean, we definitely can be more strategic about that. I mean, in the example that you gave, that teacher would require, I'm assuming, the extended contract for that additional period, the AT contract. So, you know, again, the teacher would have to be willing to do that.

[02:09:17] But, I mean, we have not implemented that as a strategic strategy yet. Thank you. Dr. Anderson. Thank you. I think this conversation has meandered to a question that I've asked multiple times regarding other things.

[02:09:35] whether it be FLESC, whether it be STEAM, whether it be AART, whether it be young scholars, how are we measuring the impact? And first of all, ideally, what is the expectation? I appreciate seeing this. This would have been helpful as part of the presentation.

[02:09:52] But what I would like to see on here is what are the desired outcomes? What is it that we expect to have and how will we measure that? I think that's important for anything that we do. And it made me wonder, you were talking about the vendor to come and do the cost-taking pattern investigation.

[02:10:10] Can you talk about what the scope of that work will include? Would it include some of the things we've been discussing this afternoon? Yes, it will. It will include, it's really at the high school level. It's not the elementary or middle school.

[02:10:26] It will back map to middle school, but not beyond that. And also we'll look at our clearinghouse data and what our students do when they leave us and their persistence. And we're sort of in two year, four year, six years out from graduation reports.

[02:10:47] Thank you. Speaking of back mapping, one of the things that I know some of us, particularly the prior board, had had a lot of conversation about is how ready our kids are for some of the science and technology work. and the opportunity to have science olympiad to have math olympiad at the elementary level I think or robotics whatever has great impact it cannot be as scattershot as it is right now what Miss Anderson described what Miss St. John Cummings describes is what I see every day when the parents can the school does but when the parents are unable the school does not and that is not how we should have that should not be what happens in our system and we have that way too often being

[02:11:27] the case um the second sheet that you distributed which is talking about world languages that there will be a minimum of four and checking the heat map and the in the report every school has a minimum of four did i miss something so when there are heritage world language offerings so for example we have a spanish for fluent speakers class or a spanish for heritage speakers class and a spanish class we are counting that as one language offering okay so when you when you take out those and in those areas where we have heritage speaker options, you get down to

[02:12:03] any, yes. And again, that's the baseline year data that you're looking at versus the current year data we included for the HEMA. And that's actually one of my other questions. What is the difference between the two? The baseline data is looking at the three years. Oh, sorry. Spanish has a heritage language and Spanish for. I will let Dr. Presidio answer that. Okay.

[02:12:23] Well, I appreciate that. I'm not sure I entirely understand the question. So when we're looking at the data and the slides that we provided that is taking at okay go ahead heritage spanish has a heritage for heritage speakers and regular spanish are these two different things oh i apologize you're asking the difference between those two courses my apologies so um if a student might have some um familiarity with the heritage language maybe uh family members you know grandparents or parents might speak that language but they're not fluent in it but they do have some vocabulary. They do have some abilities to communicate in that language. They're

[02:13:01] more advanced in that language than a student who's never taken that language before and been exposed to it. So lots of times our ESOL students, for example, our multilingual learners would enroll in those heritage speaker courses. And we have that available across all three levels, elementary, middle, and high? Not elementary, no. Not elementary. So are there different sets of expectations for the course if it's a heritage language or it's just the collection of kids that makes it different yeah i mean the curriculum is more accelerated than a level one course would be but i mean essentially i mean the expectations would be would be similar and so right now you're counting this as two but if we were okay as one as one yeah but if we were to tease that out

[02:13:40] everybody would show up as four correct okay thank you um i think that's interesting um one of the questions that i had i'm just going to dig into some of my things here um can you speak a little bit regarding honors honors courses. How are they different from AP centers outside of the grouping of students? Is the course itself any different? Is there training of teachers that is any different?

[02:14:14] If you could speak to that please. And I don't know if Noelle wants to add anything I'll give her the opportunity to but just just to start I would say so really the question is about our middle school honors curriculum and if there's any difference between the courses that have that honors designation and the courses that are taught in our advanced academic centers at the middle school centers. There's no difference. The curriculum is the same. A student who attends a middle school AAP Center would be required to enroll in all four core content area honors courses. At a middle school that

[02:14:49] is not an AAP Center, a student could choose to enroll in the same four core honors classes because our honors classes are open enrollment and anybody can choose to enroll in them, and they would have exposure to the same learning experiences as the students who took the four honors courses at the center.

[02:15:08] The main difference, I would say, at the center is that students are grouped together in a homogeneous environment with other students who are also level four identified, and they're staying with that cohort of students typically for two years in those four classes.

[02:15:23] They might not have all the same classmates every period every year, but it's a cohort of students. They develop those relationships in that learning community and that might not be the experience of a student who takes one or two or even four honors classes at a non-center-based middle school. And there's no expectation in terms of the teacher training for those who teach at the AP centers? I thought there was. There is some training and I don't know if Noel wants to add anything to that. A lot of our training is in the elementary curricular areas because that is a very different curriculum from our general education curriculum. We do have training at the middle

[02:16:00] school, but I don't know if you want to add in terms of the requirements of that training at the middle school level. Yes, thank you, and good afternoon. We do have academy courses that we run on a regular basis that look at all different facets of teaching advanced learners, and people who teach advanced academics a the majority of their day are expected to be taking those those courses and working towards a local endorsement so but it does vary because teachers sometimes don't teach all advanced academics classes sometimes they teach it one year and

[02:16:36] not the rest but we do have courses but they're also available to everyone and we have teachers from standard courses honors courses and advanced academics courses that take that take those academy opportunities so there's not a there's not one required course i would say but we do ask for people who are teaching at the at the centers to work towards that local endorsement is that mandatory or is it not an optional or is it a suggestion i would say that it is um encouraged and to do in over a period of time so and they have i think up to five years um so again it's

[02:17:15] harder to manage because sometimes teachers might teach those uh classes one year and the next year not teach those classes right so it is a little bit harder to and we do send information out we track that through our aap team and the other thank you so much the other question that i had regarding table seven that spoke about the average number of honors courses successfully completed how successfully described what are we looking for a c or better a d or better you pass the sols i believe it is c or better but we will go back and confirm that information

[02:17:51] i think that was my time miss anderson you touched on a hot spot for me so i have a question um i i think that this is an opportunity for consistency um to check for consistency because i can tell you from anecdotally from lots of different schools that our honors classes are not being taught in the same way as our aap classes and so if we are telling parents that the problem is is we are all comparing notes at the bus stop and so we need to make sure that we actually have fidelity and we're actually checking what's being done in those classes because i can

[02:18:28] tell you um for my honors he he was a level four that went all the way through elementary school but he's a level three and so we actually went in and um he didn't read a book for two years after having an intense reading opportunity in addition to doing 75 minutes of lexia a week outside of class for a grade so i can tell you for 100 sure that in at least in that circumstance that this is not consistent across the board and i would love to see us work towards that consistency. And I know I'm going to get yelled at for actually using my kids as examples. However,

[02:19:07] we are secret shoppers in a lot of different ways. For those of us who have kids in the system, this is something that I have repeatedly brought up in lots of different circumstances. But I would very much like us to see how we can work towards consistency. If we are telling parents that these are the same classes, we have Facebook groups, we're talking, we know that they're not.

[02:19:27] And so we've got to make sure that what we're actually doing at the school level is what we say we're doing. Ms. Heismar-Hyser. Ditto to that around consistency.

[02:19:46] I'm saying I experience the same thing as a parent, and I see it still in talking to other parents. So I won't repeat what you said. I'll just say ditto. I just wanted to go back for a couple reasons. One, I know you mentioned in the presentation and sort of looking forward about hybrid and flexible scheduling options.

[02:20:02] And I wanted to kind of Dr. Reed and staff mentioned that in talking to some principals, right, even if it's not extending contracts, I know that has a budgetary impact. If we can do a zero period or an eighth period where we have, where we slide certain contracts, especially elective teachers, maybe they come in and start in second or third, right, period and teach later in the day or start earlier and earlier, which would be, I think, a more budget neutral option, but it would allow for some of the maybe access to arts or other electives in a zero period or an eighth period.

[02:20:35] I think, and I hear a lot from parents and from principals that sometimes, you know, kids want to take these classes, but they also feel a lot of pressure around college to take a certain number of APs or other classes that think will look good for college, and this gives a little more flexibility to students. So I really like that idea.

[02:20:50] I'd love to see that idea, you know, and it could be a foreign language too. Like there's lots of things that could be used in that extra period. So I'd love to see some sort of plan around that and how we slide teacher contracts. more budget neutral but gives space for that so just an idea um i'm so glad dr anderson mentioned take away electives at poe because you know this is a drumbeat i've been beating for 15 years for special ed students and now if it's happening with ml students as well it's a real problem so and i i do think that i'm just put this out there when we're double blocking classes and then using intervention block and then we talk about the importance of connection and engagement how

[02:21:27] many of us would want to spend most of our day doing something we're bad at would we show back up there's a balance between helping kids get caught up and getting them engaged and i think for some of our most vulnerable groups we shift that balance too far in one direction so i thank you for bringing that up and i just it goes to other places um i wanted to mention a little bit about um so i had one other thing when we're looking at the elementary school offerings i'm so glad we're talking about science olympiad and math olympiad and robotics and coding i want to piggyback on what mr dunn said i don't want to forget there's a lot of our elementary schools

[02:22:06] who offer theater and offering a theater debate to also work on some of those alongside i'm fully supportive science olympiad and all those things we just can't lose that in that conversation because those are also skills so when we're looking at if we're looking at building an elementary school sort of consistency enrichment offerings i i would encourage us to look at all of the skills we think our students need then a prioritization of those skills and then figure out what that consistency looks like right and i think science and technology is right up there but we can't lose that critical thinking aspect too so and some of our schools

[02:22:44] have pretty good elementary school theater programs and others do not and so just something to put out i was surprised that was kind of missing from the list was it asked we didn't specifically ask about theater in our question we took sort of a sampling just to look across our schools to see where we saw consistency because a lot of them do have theater programs and but not all of them do so i was just surprised thank you mr dunn did you want to go back uh yes i just wanted to mention because i know we've been talking about uh measuring efficacy and and i'm all in

[02:23:22] favor of that but in some ways since we're talking about enrichment um you know i don't know how you measure how much music or art broadens your horizons right i mean some of these things aren't measurable and and critical thinking you can test it for it on the sol but you can't always measure it so i think we have to also have a balance because we have way too much testing right now which i think diminishes creativity um and and and so for as we're developing efficacy measures you know it good to have them but not overdo them um certainly we are overdoing them at the state

[02:23:58] level um and i also want to ask we have certain positions like orchestra that are centrally funded but others that aren't and i'm trying to understand what are what are the positions that are centrally funded and why and what are the positions that aren't and why aren't they well i think i owe you an email on that so i apologize um i actually think we took that and turned it into a budget question which is one of the reasons for the delay but i'll do my best to give you at at least a superficial answer now.

[02:24:29] Orchestra, and Noel might have to help me with this if I miss anything, but the orchestra question in terms of staffing that centrally at the elementary level is because it's such a small number of hours that any one teacher would spend at any one school.

[02:24:45] So they're itinerant and they go from place to place all over the county. It's more efficient for us to do that, do the scheduling and do the placement than it is for 142 elementary schools to try to figure out how to hire somebody at 0.17 and find another school to partner that with and make the schedule and do all of that.

[02:25:01] So that's one of the things that we've just tried to centralize for efficiency purposes really. - And if I can add, we actually, for orchestra, we do that at middle and high school as well because the demand is smaller than the other areas of the performing arts.

[02:25:18] So this doing, looking into the history for you, it's as long as anyone can remember that we've had central staffing. So we do the elementary for the band and the strings, but we also do the strings with the orchestra at middle and high school. So those are the only programs.

[02:25:34] We don't essentially place teachers, itinerant teachers, as we call them, for the other areas of the arts. I'd just like to suggest maybe reconsideration of that because I've been seeing at some schools in my district interest in theater decline, but parents are very excited about theater and and if you only have half a theater teacher you may not have a robust theater program so having more centrally funding for the arts make sure they they stay and and I also wanted to echo one of my colleagues said something about there's diminishing

[02:26:12] things dr. Anderson talked about diminishing electives and I'm also seeing that with the rise of AVID which is a great program I'm not knocking AVID at all but sometimes it's it's growing to such an extent that's crowding out other electives and that might be scheduling it might be other issues but just you know maintaining a balance so kids can pursue interests outside of the core curriculum or they might get excited and come to

[02:26:38] school for that extracurricular whether it's JROTC or you know theater or what have you. All right seeing no other cards for this go back I'll take my turn so I want to sorry Marcia Miss St. John honey yeah yeah I'm not used to sitting here I always sit on that side so again I'm just gonna go back and I know staff really can't answer this question coming

[02:27:15] from an elementary school that has had a theater program that has probably 40 years old but that was run independently by a teacher that was not paid and by help and support of other staff members and families. So when we talk about all these enrichment opportunities my question is who's gonna do it and who's gonna pay for it. Were you hoping for an answer to that? I'm just putting that out

[02:27:52] there because I think sometimes we talk about these things and we've got to calibrate what we can really do and we have to be honest about that because I my fear is that the public hears about all of this and then says well you're not doing what you're talking about but that's that's why i bring that up and that and and as someone that has seen the hard work that a lot of staff puts into this and we're talking about like if you have an extra hour how do you extend contract hours always we have so many staff members that work so much beyond their staff uh the contract hours and are not expecting work i mean compensation

[02:28:31] but that's just the reality that we have to calibrate and we all want everything but how is it going to happen where where's the people power and where's the money and and that's just i just want to make sure that we calibrate expectations for the public i'm calling you okay at this point i call on miss sizemore hyzer to share some reflections from mystics that is not here thank you and i have one quick thing of my own but i'll share just really quickly from mystics that she just wanted to share since she's not here that she wanted to emphasize that technology is changing rapidly with ai and quantum and it's not the futuristic thing we're talking

[02:29:11] about it's happening now and our students will be behind if they're not taught at school so i'm just sharing that on behalf of miss dixon those were statements and then she also said there's an equity concern as some parents can pay for those outside of school but others can't so she thinks it's important to consider that in our schools for equity reasons yep that's hers okay um i wanted to touch for a second on um extracurriculars and performing arts and i will uplift the fact that my uh uh chester brook elementary school will be doing shrek junior i'll be there tomorrow at 6 30.

[02:29:45] but really i want to talk about a couple things one um going back to what one of my colleagues shared earlier which is access at the high school level for more abilities to play athletics um one of the things when we were back in person and we were looking for the reality of cell and putting Trusted adults in front of kids long story short. I was I proposed the time that why can't we start with a zero period like Soccer right have kids who want to come early to school and play soccer and have some supervision Can we not do something similar with basketball?

[02:30:19] Can we not do something similar with volleyball? Can we not designate perhaps days or or have a season of this? And I'm bringing this up also because we have agreed to fund assistant athletic directors full-time And and we phased that in I believe last year's budget or maybe the budget prior because the school we used to have to pick up that other half of staffing Because what's also not captured here?

[02:30:41] Well, is a lot of the extracurriculars and clubs at the high school level and how often our kids are accessing them how often the clubs meet How students find out about the clubs and things like that. So I just would like to know Given the fact that they're full-time Who's who's managing what because they're directors of student activities, and they're not directors of student athletics having said that I think we can also do activities as a zero period You know and if when kids can come to school and do maybe even dance you talk about dance right like there's other types of things that I Can't fit in my schedule, but do I have a zero period opportunity to be an acapella group or be in a stand-up choir of sorts

[02:31:21] Or learn the guitar The other thing is when we talk about elementary and middle school and I've worked with a lot of students independently on this But maybe something more organ organized from from staff on down But you know I think that we are missing a huge opportunity when we have so many high school and middle school students Who could go to one level down and and and support an activity?

[02:31:46] They love you know I'm now at you know a middle school and I'm involved in you know science olympiad and there was no such thing at my elementary school. How do we find out who the kids are who would love to give back in that sort of way? How do we connect them? How do we badge them? How do we mentor them? And maybe it's something that's piloted, but I think that if there was a way to survey our kids, I think we would find we could uplift and afford to do this because it would be community service. It's part of their giving back. So I just think that that be something that we can we can look at that would be great and I'll stop there

[02:32:26] and I might take another go back but for now I'll go back to dr. Anderson thank you a couple of things and looking at the heritage language and thank you for showing that it does come across that Mount Vernon Lewis Annandale High School and Justice have three languages and yet according to this heat map Langley has seven how is that possible is it because they have that many more students are there minimums or is that school-based I just want to get a sense of this huge disparity yeah there's not one answer to that questions I mean size is one

[02:33:02] factor sometimes when the school is larger you've got more FTE and you can offer more programs so that's one factor sometimes it is you might have hired a teacher 20 years ago to start a program and that's a legacy program and we're continuing to run that program and another school maybe didn't have that same opportunity so some of us a little bit teacher dependent some of it is the the agreements the articulation agreements that we have from elementary middle and high school so in a pyramid if an elementary school is offering a language a less commonly taught language be it Chinese or Arabic that would be something that we make a commitment to those students and families that they're

[02:33:41] going to be able to continue to take as they progress from elementary to middle to high school so there's a lot of different factors that go into that there's not just just one and I get that and that makes sense but it just seems to be kind of a big gap in terms of what's sustainable how are seven languages sustainable and does the division have minimums does a class have to have X number or is that a decision that is made by the school well we have staffing and class size guidelines obviously so what happens typically in those less commonly taught languages where you might have smaller numbers of students in a particular level like a level four or a level five usually we'll

[02:34:17] combined levels so a teacher might offer a level three level four combination class which typically you don't see offered in the more commonly taught languages like spanish but you do see that pretty typically in the less commonly taught languages so we have class size guidelines but you know we don't have a division rule right now in terms of like the minimum number or the maximum number of languages that a school could or should offer i'm just wondering how do we expand the opportunity for the schools that don't given if their numbers are proportional in terms of student enrollment because that's the only variable that would seem to make sense to me that would impact

[02:34:56] how many languages are offered. The other thing that I don't think we talked about quite a bit even though it came up and I did make the same observation that I think some of the other members talked about is the academy expansion. I don't see here any disaggregated data as to where the students are coming from who participate in the academies. And I'm also wondering when I look at the list that is on page B2 and B3, Fairfax has a lot of academies. How did that come to be?

[02:35:28] These are all great questions without simple answers. So again, if Jen or Noel want to add anything onto this, I would say a couple things on the academies. Fairfax tends to be more centrally relocated, had more facility space, so when we've had the opportunity to expand programs, it has made sense to put those additional academy programs there.

[02:35:50] To your earlier question, we do know because of the transportation challenges that students face with academies, what tends to happen is that if you attend a base school that has an academy program, the enrollment of students from that base school and that academy is typically larger than other feeder base schools that would go into that academy, and that just makes sense, but it raises other access and equity issues around who's really getting the opportunity to benefit maximally from those academy programs.

[02:36:20] So we're going to have to think about how do we get some of these highly specialized programs and courses offered to students closer to their base school or in different formats like we've talked about, using technology to make some of those connections, because we definitely have a lot of students that every year try to sign up for the academy programs and aren't able to access those classes for a variety of reasons.

[02:36:42] Is there a minimum that you would require from a school of students to be transported to the academy? No. So if there is one student at Addendale High School that wants to go to the academy at Edison, that student will have transportation? So, Jen, can you tell us what our business rules are on the transportation runs?

[02:37:02] Typically. We lost Mr. Mewix. Oh, no, there he is. He's ready. He's ready to help us with this one, too. Typically, a general rule is if there are five students from one school traveling at the same time to that academy location, then an academy transportation shuttle would be requested.

[02:37:20] So you need a minimum of five? Yep, going to the same place at the same time. But not per class, per academy. Right. So what happens when you have three? What are those kids expected to do? They don't drive or their parents can't pick them up?

[02:37:37] transportation available so they would pursue other electives whether it's at that same Academy that has transportation available and another block that may work or whether it's at another Academy that may have transportation available to them or if it's at their base school so that's where it would turn to the next options for the students okay so I want to pick up on that I hear a lot of the conversation regarding old period and nine period and I've been talking about it all year for our students who participate in AVID for the same reason that you've just mentioned because it really locks them out of other opportunity. If these things come to fruition, please keep

[02:38:13] in mind the consideration for transportation because we can't continue to only provide access to those who can get there. If it's an old period, if we're making a commitment to it, it has to come with some additional support for some of our students because some of them absent the bus that we provide, that's it because we know when they miss that bus, also stay home so I want to make sure to bring that into the consideration one of the things I would like to see because I know not all of the academy programs are created equal some of them require a huge amount of infrastructure you know the HVAC the the the car thing at Falls Church

[02:38:52] you know huge thing so I know that it's not as easy to replicate that kind of intense program everywhere, but there are some that I would consider to be more portable. And I would like to see which ones are so that we can recreate those at the base schools. It's the beginning of a plan for expansion. I would like to see that be part of what your team develops, Dr.

[02:39:16] Reed. Is that a possibility? Yeah, no, it absolutely is a possibility. And we did some preliminary work on that and discussion with the previous board when we looked at the career pathway study. And, you know, the recommendation at that time was to really look at expansion of two pathways to prioritize information technology kind of slash computer science and education preparation. And so, you know, those would be two areas that I think are fairly portable. Some of the technology classes, not as much, but those would be two areas that we probably would continue to try to prioritize. But we can work on a more developed plan to share with the board for

[02:39:53] feedback. I would absolutely love that. Thank you. Ms. Seismerheiser. Thank you. I just want to one last thing to mention a couple things first i really appreciate one of my colleagues mentioning that you know a lot of parents want theater programs but the you know the numbers are going down i really and one thing i just wanted to give a little history um lesson on that is that i believe some of this is resulting from the covet bubble one of the things that happened and i will say i argued very strongly against this but when covet hit fcps a lot a lot of our athletics to to continue in person, but did not allow our fine arts to continue in person.

[02:40:33] And if everyone's tried to learn guitar over Zoom or teach a guitar ensemble over Zoom or chorus over Zoom with the lags, I said at the time, and I've said it since, there's going to be a six-year COVID bubble because of what happened at elementary school. Even when we came back in person, and Dr. Persuna, you probably remember me saying, why haven't we restarted chorus at some of these elementary schools?

[02:40:54] And even though there was directives from the top, and it created a long-term COVID bubble that I think we're still dealing with. And you even see at some of our schools, our eighth graders in chorus, there's 10 of them. And in seventh grade, there's 35. So if we as at Fairfax County want to have a robots arts programming, we have to deal with this COVID bubble 'cause we're still in the middle of it.

[02:41:15] And if we don't deal with it, we're gonna be losing teachers that we may not be able to get back. So I just wanted to mention that's part of what's going on. And it's just the way we treated athletics versus performing arts. You weren't here then, Dr. Reed, but it was a big frustration of mine. And I don't think we should be mindful of what it's done to our programs and how we can support to make sure it doesn't further hurt them.

[02:41:37] And that's probably not the only program, but that's one. I'm a big supporter of the zero period with transportation. We're a big supporter of hybrid schedules because we've got to do things budget neutral. And that's the last thing I want to say. Like, all of this is wonderful. And I know we want to do all of this.

[02:41:54] And I agree with my colleague who says, who's going to do it and how are we going to pay for it? And I'd be remiss if I didn't put out in the public air the realities of our funding situation may mean that we either had to get really creative or we just can't do all of this. And that's just real, right?

[02:42:09] And it's, you know, it's underfunding from the state. It's realities of what our budget situation is. And so we've got to decide. We have to make some hard choices, which is why I keep mentioning we need to have guidance from you all as our experts as to what is it that we need to prioritize to be the best of what we can be for what we're funded for and that's what I wanted to mention is that I think it's important to have that prioritization and that sort of best practices research behind that prioritization so I'll leave it at that thank you okay so piggybacking on

[02:42:49] something one of my colleagues just talked about the data regarding students who cannot go to an academy because of transportation can we just perhaps get that information I'm just curious to because I do think I'm hoping that most of us get to five and then if we're not then can that not become part of the selection process for Academy acceptance because I feel like it's very randomized like a lottery there was a time when students completed an intent form as to why they wanted to take the course and that was read and taken into account and then we decided we weren't like an admissions office and so it just became like a lottery what I want to do is I

[02:43:27] want to make sure the kids coming from these particular schools who can't get to five that we go and find out where they wait listed and perhaps put them in for someone else who they're in the school and they don't need transportation because we need to uplift the fact that we need to eliminate the barrier and so I don't think if we study in depth we're going to eliminate the barrier to access which is needs to be one of our priorities and then the other thing is I don't know the threshold for some of these that are under enrolled For example, I mean, I think practical nursing is fantastic, but none of them have an asterisk, and we have three programs.

[02:44:04] With the need to add certain things, and I don't know what that price point is, like HVAC is only at Edison, it's oversubscribed every year, electricity is only at Edison. How hard is it to put that at other academies? What does that take to build a lab? And again, that's fantastic for people with proximity to Edison, but just like proximity to something that's only at Chantilly or only at Fairfax benefits a different student.

[02:44:28] I just think we need to think more because as one of my other colleagues said earlier and we all know, the demographics in our county have changed drastically. And if I'm correct, the reason we have so many world languages in our academies is because to be a governor's STEM academy with the state, we had to teach core classes in our academies.

[02:44:47] Is that still the case? Dan, can you help with that one? If not, that's fine. I'll have to look at that when I wasn't aware that that was the reason for adding languages to the academy I believe it was more about language expansion So I I can follow up on the governor's school application and and specific requirements Okay, cuz I just remember when I was at Chantilly We were the first to become the governor stem and Joan Ozdegon was there at the time And we tried to add math and world language to fulfill that so that's where that history is coming from and

[02:45:22] Yeah, I mean I think that we also I watched the pendulum swing going back to our college-going culture, where we added all of these college-bound courses in our academies, and a lot of those are in health sciences.

[02:45:37] And so I would suggest that if something doesn't lead to an industry certification, but is simply a course, I'm not going to name any, but if we have an academic equivalent at all of our base schools, perhaps that's some classroom space that we can take back and move to more more traditional courses that are clearly oversubscribed that we need lab space for.

[02:46:01] Just something to think about because our demographics have changed, and we all know that we've moved from you need a college degree to get almost any job to a skills-based industry where if we can give students the skills they need via a certification, that's great, but if they're college-bound anyways, then perhaps they just stay at their base school and take their hard sciences there and other things like that.

[02:46:25] Okay, next set of go-backs, Dr. Anderson. Sorry, Mr. Dunn. I just wanted to echo what Ms. Lady said because, you know, I was at Lewis High School this weekend for one of their wonderful play.

[02:46:45] And it was mentioned that many, you know, a quarter of students or more are working 20 to 40 hours on top of school. And so to have them come into school, it's a success.

[02:47:06] Their chronic absenteeism is lower than I thought it would be. And so kudos to their leadership. But we also need to be helping those students to be preparing for careers that will pay better than minimum wage.

[02:47:21] And so when I talk about a world-class education for all kids, it's preparing them either for the workforce or for higher education or the military. And so I think we need to frankly come up with a better word than CTE.

[02:47:37] I don't, no one knows, I didn't know what CTE was. You know, even when my kids were doing JROTC for years. You know, ready for work, ready for college seems to be better verbiage, but you can come up with whatever you like. But really, also marketing it better because I've talked to Dr. Reed about this.

[02:47:55] They're great academy programs. have no idea of what's going on at the academies even in my district because there's nothing on the website about it um and and that needs to be fixed and i think if we actually the the fact that we're oversubscribed for our programs when there's no information available about them if we actually marketed them effectively think about what that demand might actually be right if you're not advertising and you have more than 50 percent of kids wanting to attend then if you advertise effectively we need to plan for that just like we're planning for for pre-k like really help our community because those are also jobs that aren't under threat from ai or whatever i mean ai is

[02:48:31] never going to fix my water heater right so um or mow my lawn you know i wish right but um but uh that'll probably be the robot apocalypse so uh anyhow so jobs that you know pay well give people a living wage and allow them to live and enjoy the quality life in our community all right thank you couple of more things on pages of 16 and 17 you offered some really interesting data is that available by region of by school have you found it to be consistent

[02:49:02] we don't have the data currently available in the report by region but certainly something we could follow up I would very much be interested in that also teachers for tomorrow also not noticing it is part of every school I know we're trying to put forth effort to grow our own that is low-hanging fruit would be beneficial exponentially that should be a program that we have in every single high school and I did not see that on the chart. I will say that I believe it's been offered at every single high school and students don't

[02:49:40] want to sign up for it. They don't want to be teachers. Well hang on. You've hurt my heart. I should say they're not sufficient numbers signing up to warrant the staffing of the program and I think we've gone back I mean I will defer to Dr. Presidio because I think there were a couple that we're gonna cancel a year ago and we said let's keep trying and we were able to eek out a few more students but it can motivate people to join the world of work that doesn't pay them much and says you'll do everything well just

[02:50:14] just to add because all of that is true and we are offering the the class in 15 high schools currently, and I think we have about 400 students enrolled. So, you know, that's growth from where we were a couple years ago, and we continue to advertise the class in all of our schools, and our administrators are working hard to try to get students interested because we all know how critical it is for, you know, folks to come into this profession. So it's something we're still committed to, and we've seen growth, and hopefully those numbers will continue to grow over time. Well, let's continue to incentivize them to join the ranks here. Yeah, and I will say,

[02:50:52] i mean the classes are fabulous we watch the students in mount vernon students for recently at one of the elementary so the program's fabulous the teachers teaching in it are fabulous i just think there are probably a whole host of reasons um as to why um the sections aren't filling in the way we would hope so i i wonder i know this is something that ms marron mentioned a little while ago when during graduation when we recognize students who are going into the services maybe a recognition for people who are going to be the frontline teachers might be another

[02:51:25] opportunity just to get it out there so i'll just put that there um when we're talking about the resources you mentioned earlier there's you know there's not enough time to go around to do all of the things that we want to do at the schools i will also argue that we don't have enough financial resources to do all of the things that we want to do that is never going to be possible but we have to come into that space where we make some of those decisions in terms of what will we no longer do because it doesn't serve us to repurpose those funds into the things that we believe will have greater yield so i am so very interested in having that conversation in the

[02:52:01] public way and one where we could see the breadcrumbs in terms of we stopped doing this so we could do this i don't think since i've been on the board i've been satisfied with seeing that that connection so i invite you to do that so that maybe we can actualize some of the things that we've talked about here today um similarly with best practices i know we've fallen into at least my in my observation we've fallen into the place where we just say well this is best practice i'd like to see a little bit more homework with that rather than just saying it's best practice i'd like for the research to be to accompany that statement because i could sit here

[02:52:37] and say it's best practice that i eat snickers all day but i don't think that makes sense if if there's no research that goes with that. So I'm just asking when we bring forward whatever it is that is the strategy or initiative that is best practice, that we have the scholarship that denotes that it is.

[02:53:04] - Mr. Dunn, did you wanna go back? So I wanna, I'll take my turn again. I was thinking about the number of our students who are working and they need to work as part of helping their family survive. You know, I know when I started in the school system a long time ago that we had robust co-op programs.

[02:53:27] It was very commonplace that our students were taking certain courses and then based on their jobs within an industry they were getting credit for their hours worked. I saw that basically fall into nothing during my time at Chantilly.

[02:53:43] And now there's apprenticeship and internship, but we're talking like one or two kids are doing that so I'm wondering if we are and again you know the goal is that our kids come to school they take seven periods they have a great experience in our schools but our demographics have changed one of the most difficult things is when a student doesn't get an Academy course they want especially if the two credit course to sit with that student and beg them to pick something that has a seat in it versus talking them through do they work do they have a job could we put them on a waiver full-day schedule where they're actually done after you know right before last block and they don't go to seventh and eighth

[02:54:19] period and they get credit for elective time if you will credits for doing their work I think that that's been lost over time as we as we really really really pushed for college-going culture and all the research certainly indicates that if you get that four-year degree and you secure employment with that that your earning potential is usually better however we're very aware of there are a lot of industries where you don't need that at all where you can make way more more than people with that so-called piece of paper, so it would be nice if we could go back to looking at that.

[02:54:52] To that end, I know we haven't talked a lot about academic advising, which is how we expose kids to our coursework. It's been my experience that students and their parents are looking for certain types of courses that come to top of mind, but they don't really go through the entire course selection sheet and say, "Let's read about every single course.

[02:55:10] Maybe there's a pathway here we're not aware of or something we're not aware of doing. And so to that end, and I've talked about this, that when we do academic advising with our students, that I believe it takes time. I think that students deserve a minimum of 15 to 20 minutes with their school counselor to talk through that.

[02:55:29] There are certainly situations where I've found kids hypothetically enrolled in photo two because they think it's going to be their consecutive elective, but yet they're planning to take through AP Spanish, which would be Spanish four and AP is your consecutive. Or they're planning to do teachers for tomorrow, one and two, which is your consecutive.

[02:55:47] So I don't think sometimes there's the time, and again, I will defend counselors forever and ever because of the demands on their time and tell you that they're doing a lot of social work and, again, this is a funding issue. We certainly need more money for support services, but we need to figure out how to help our students understand questions that they're not asking and be proactive around how they navigate accessing curriculum and creating a four-year plan.

[02:56:15] All right, seeing no other placards up. It's 4:14 and we're adjourned.

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