Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Work Session, Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Date: Tuesday, June 25, 2024
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 2h 42m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yER9RNMCzBc
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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[00:00:00] About five to seven minutes to hear an overview of the plan from our Auditor General, Esther Koh. And then we'll open things up for discussion. So Esther, over to you. Thank you, Mr. McLeffin. So good morning, everyone.

[00:00:15] So we are at this exciting point of the juncture to discuss about our next year audit plan, which is coming up in a few days because our school fiscal year starts on July 1st. So in the last school board meeting, I presented briefly about how we come up with the plan, which is the risk assessment, and then also give everyone highlights of the audit plan.

[00:00:41] So like Ryan mentioned, I am not going to go through as details as the presentations, but I just want to recap some of the important points, audit objective, et cetera, so that we can set up a time to start our discussion.

[00:00:57] So maybe going back to how we come up with the audit topics, so this year we have done a very thorough analysis which we call as a risk assessment to identify audit topics and then also to prioritize them.

[00:01:13] In our first round of looking at all the audit topics, we come up at 49, 50 topics. As you all can see, we are a team of eight and I just apologize, I forgot to introduce Danelle Moore, who is our Deputy Auditor General. Sorry about that, Danelle. So Danelle and I work very closely to come up with this risk assessment and the audit plan. So we're very proud and thank you for all the school board members. And then we also talked about audit committee citizen members. We have two and we got 14 responses. So we really appreciate all of your responses because they really mean a lot to us. And then we consider that. We also consider our

[00:01:53] FCPS employees feedback as well as we looked at the different types of risk, right, mainly on financial risk, reputational risk, and operational risk, and also our understanding of that topics before. And then with all this A to E listed here, we come up with our plan.

[00:02:12] So here is our plan. The one and two items are items that the board has already approved during the current year. So I think today we may not need to spend a lot of time to discuss the one and two here. And then for three through ten, some of them are recurring topics, right?

[00:02:33] Just like the business process audit, it is an audit that we do a lot on schools. We strongly encourage us to keep doing it because schools are the bread and butter for a K-12 education system. So it really gives us the avenue to go and check, for example, when there are changes in key positions, such as principals, finance technicians, or AA.

[00:02:57] So we strongly encourage us to keep that in our plan. And then for number four is the construction and renovation contracting process. Since there are more details on this one, I'm going to flip over to that slide.

[00:03:13] So how this presentation is set up is that towards the later part of the presentation, we included the snapshot of each topic. So for example, this one is for construction and renovation contracting process. So it's described what it is, it talks a little bit about the audit objective, right?

[00:03:33] Because even for one process, there are maybe 37 different ways to look at it. So here are what we plan to zoom in for this audit. So for example, for this one, we will be evaluating the controls and processes, meaning the checks and balances, the safe, the guardrails around how those contracting process is done.

[00:03:58] And we will also select sample of contracts to look at the procurement of it, and we also Also we looked at the contract management side of it. With the current organization structure, our understanding is that the chief of facilities and chief of operating office will be our major stakeholders who we work with during the audit.

[00:04:22] And then in terms of the timeline, you may notice that we put down five months for most of the audits, and this is for planning purpose only. And we may need to adjust that when we come closer to the audit. And then the other one is the hiring, critical process review.

[00:04:40] And I think all of us here in the room, not only at the table, but in the room would agree that having the right talents for FCPS is one of the key successful factor. So we really want to take this opportunity to look at the process and to making sure that the controls that we have now are really serving the ultimate purpose, ultimate goal of what we are trying to achieve.

[00:05:04] And then we want to identify what are the key controls, what are the redundant controls, and then to make recommendations to management to improve the process. And then the local school activity funds audit for this upcoming fiscal year is what we have been talking quite a bit.

[00:05:22] It is per the code, Virginia code. So it is something that we strongly encourage to continue in this upcoming year. And then number seven is procurement process. And we will include some of the relevant IT processes in it as well.

[00:05:37] So for this audit, the audit objective is laid out on this slide, where we will be focusing on the controls in place. And again, these are the checks and balances, and also what the policy and procedures ask management to do for procurement.

[00:05:55] And we will be focusing on the procurement life cycle. What does it mean is that when the needs have been assessed to be like required and then through the procurement contract awarding phase. This will be the timing that we will be focusing on.

[00:06:12] And then the key internal stakeholders will be what listed here. And one of the things that Danelle and I discussed and we developed that a little bit further is about the terms and conditions that come along with the procurement contract.

[00:06:27] We heard from the recent school board meetings that what is the process surrounding what terms and conditions to be used. So we would like to include that as part of the scope and which already just fully so included in the objective already.

[00:06:45] But I would like to highlight that because it seems to be the focus of the discussion lately about who really determined the risk appetite, right? Then you determine what terms and conditions that the system can agree into, and that will be part of this audit to consider.

[00:07:01] And then also I want to highlight with the reason, you know, the significance with the cyber security space, with what technology that we bring into the system, we understand that right now we have adopted sort of like a zero tolerance policy on the technology bringing in into the procurement process and we would like to also zoom in and to look into that and to see yes we need that but could we maybe, would there be some situation about creating different risk profile of the products, goods or services that we are doing

[00:07:38] so that we can have the process to be efficient and effective but also serving the needs of the system. This will be some of the areas that we would like to target on. And since terms and conditions will be part of this audit, we would like to also include the Office of Division Council as part of the internal stakeholders because they are key stakeholders in deciding what terms and conditions need to be included.

[00:08:04] So just want to spend more time to talk about this particular topic because I think, I know that there are a lot of interest in it. And then the other, the last one actually is the student disciplinary process. This is a process that my office has not been looking into it before, so we would like to include that as part of the audit plan for next fiscal year.

[00:08:26] We will continue with continuous monitoring to help us to identify the right samples. And again, I know that Danelle and I are the subject matter experts, we are the auditors. Sometimes though, auditing really depends on what samples you looked at, right?

[00:08:44] So with continuous monitoring, we really want to make smarter choices of what to select to look at, what areas may be the red flag, so that we can, hopefully we can service if there is anything that we can improve further in the system.

[00:09:02] And here are the different OHA other duties that we have, and I just want to highlight one here, which is the number two, fraud, waste and abuse inquiry. And again, I know I have said it many times, but I just cannot stop saying it is I really appreciate the collaboration with the school board to spread that this channel for us with the community members and also with our employees.

[00:09:25] We see the numbers have been increasing. It's really helped us to focus on what audit areas that we need to look at. So I really want to appreciate that. So with that, today is our work session and the school board approval is scheduled on July 11th.

[00:09:42] that's kind of the last slide that I want to go through so with that would like to hand the time back to the chair. Well thank you General Ko very well done and we appreciate the quick presentation also just want to thank you for waiting until 11:30 to present at our regular board meeting last week and thank you also to colleagues all 12 of you submitted items for consideration for this and And obviously there were 50 topics we wanted to address, but I think we've definitely hit on some of the key ones here.

[00:10:16] So with that, we'll begin with questions. So we'll start with Ms. Marin. MS. Great. I don't know that I have a question or just as comments. Indeed, I'm really glad that everyone got their input, and I do find the process to be really tight, and I appreciate the input and having the options and then winnowing it down.

[00:10:35] It's very quantitative, and I appreciate that. And I am really glad to see that there was so much consensus on some of the big things that we've been talking about, like construction and renovation, like procurement. The discipline will be an interesting thing, we've talked about that, I know there was less consensus about that one.

[00:10:51] But this is going to be really helpful, and I think it behooves us to use these and keep turning back to these reports. I know that I've shared them with new staff just to say, "Hey, this has been done." So really eager to see, and even HR, right? So we've got three huge things that have come up among this new board in the first six months.

[00:11:10] So thank you for focusing on this. It's going to be really, really useful. Great. Thanks, Ms. Marin. Dr. Anderson. Yes, thank you. I had a few questions regarding some of the upcoming audits, the hiring audit to start there.

[00:11:27] I can't find the page right now for some weird reason. now i'm anticipating that this will be focusing more on the processes call centers help centers how long it takes for candidates to be processed into actual hires do you anticipate that there will be any that you'll be looking at any of the other measures that were raised by msaoc the other day in terms of diversity of hiring the applicant pools are we hiring proportionally to the not just the applicants pool not just the pool of applicants that we're receiving

[00:12:06] here but to the candidates that are available period do you think that will be part of your considerations yeah thank you dr anderson we definitely will consider that right because as a system we should have processes in place to ensure that there is a representative candidates in the pool, which should mirror our county, the citizen participation, so we can check our process.

[00:12:37] I will defer it to Danielle as well, because she will be leading that audit, to really think about what kind of the checks and balances we have within the system to ensure some of the key considerations, including what you have mentioned, Dr. Anderson, is including in the consideration process to come up with the appropriate processes that can capture those considerations.

[00:13:01] And I'm not sure how you would go about gathering this data, but I would be very interested to know if 10% of individuals coming out with teacher certifications are male, then I would expect 10% to be applying for our jobs and 10% to be hired for our jobs.

[00:13:19] So I'd like to see that thread in addition to how does it compare with our own demographics here so that's the piece i wanted to raise thank you secondarily you were talking there's a slide here regarding procurement is this going to be inclusive of the different types of procurement because currently we do was a design build plan that one but i know there's been a lot of conversation particularly in cpdc regarding cmr and i can't remember the third design bill that's what we do now but there were two others dr reed i don't know if it's coming to you but

[00:13:55] it's escaping me right now I I don't recall the acronym but I think it's different genre of the same process but will you be looking into the different types of procurement processes that could be available for FCPS to look into utilizing or which is not that is that not part of your work yeah thank you for the question so we this upcoming year we have two contracting related topics that we propose for the school board to consider so I think what Dr. Anderson you're describing will feed more with the profile for the construction and

[00:14:33] renovation contracting process because within the system we really have two major like different offices handle procurement one is under the Department of Financial Services that handle the purchase of goods and services which is the Office of Procurement Services then there's also within I believe is our chief operating office team. They handle the procurement for construction and renovation, which I think is what Dr. Anderson you are referring to. So I just pulled that slide up on the screen that one of the

[00:15:10] actually laid out under the objective number three is to see benchmark industry standards related to contract mechanism. So we didn't, it's on slide 12, So we didn't really say the three mechanism here because we want to be all-inclusive.

[00:15:28] So we want to benchmark with other K-12 to see what they are using, what the industry is using, what FCPS currently using right now is that the most effective and efficient method. So that will be part of the scope of work. So it will get captured. Thank you.

[00:15:43] And you also mentioned that I think it's slide 15 that legal will be one of the internal stakeholders. you've made that addition because my copy doesn't have them as yes yes thank you thank you so per kind of like when we unfold this topic more and try to understand maybe where the call the challenges and concerns from the school board may come from we hear discussion about the terms and conditions right for example in the reason work session we talked about one of the leads right like so where is the risk appetite? At the end of the day to us as an auditor our

[00:16:21] understanding is that is a negotiation process right between FCPS and the vendors so how do FCPS make decisions of what is acceptable and what is not we think that can fit into this audit topic and and and as my our understanding is that Division Council is a key stakeholders in reviewing the terms and conditions of the contract. So we think that it will be a good addition. Okay, wonderful. Thank you.

[00:16:51] And my last question is the student disciplinary process review. I believe that is slide 16. Will that also be inclusive? And if it's not, I'm asking for consideration for there to be some data that speaks to the rates of appeals as per the number of students that are going to the hearings office and then what happens in those appeals are they upheld are they not upheld if we can get just some contextual data because i don't think we've ever had the opportunity to have those collections and it's always helpful to know where are we where do we go as a division when it comes to these

[00:17:29] appeals because they're not necessarily in a vacuum so if that's not part of the work i would appreciate a consideration for that yeah um i i think we haven't done a detailed planning discussion about what exactly to be included yet Dr. Anderson but I assume because as part of our protocol in conducting an audit we will do analysis of existing data so what you mentioned I think we can consider you know to to collect the data points and then to see like how we can present it you know in a way that that can fulfill kind of like some of the concerns and challenges that the

[00:18:07] school board members have seen so I think we can certainly consider that But Dano, anything else to add on that? Okay. No, nothing to add, but definitely taking those into consideration. Thank you. I appreciate it. Those were my only points. Next we have Ms. St. John Cunning.

[00:18:28] So thank you for your audit report, and it's a great beginning for us to look at. And as you said, you don't have things planned yet necessarily. You don't have the full plan laid out on how you're going to be doing some of these audits.

[00:18:44] So would you be open to taking feedback, just as Dr. Anderson brought up, on certain issues, on certain, like for example, a student disciplinary, the hiring. Are you open to feedback from the board in terms of things we might want to see in those audit reports?

[00:19:00] Yeah, thank you for the question. And maybe let me clarify what I meant by not having the details in the report yet. So the process is that we are now having present to the board is more like at a macro level of the planning of what to be included.

[00:19:18] So for example, for the student disciplinary process, we have the framework of the objective laid out, right? That I'm just using it as an example, if you don't mind, that we are going to evaluate the disciplinary process, including appeals to ensure compliance with different things, right?

[00:19:37] and I think the key words here is also across FCPS so we want to ensure the fidelity of implementation across all the schools and then to also to reveal the effectiveness of the controls are they really working for the intention sometimes it's not like to have for the sake of just have a rules right like we have to ensure that that is working for the desired outcome we also want to benchmark with other districts to see if there is anything we can learn from them right in our

[00:20:09] practice so in today's presentation is is set out the framework of what we are going to look at but what we haven't yet look into are the details underneath it right so what do we really mean by benchmarking for example we don't really know what is available in the industry until we get into it and start you know maybe reaching out to the wavy school districts the or even outside of virginia right or dc area so those are the things that we don't know don't have exactly yet right

[00:20:42] now but we do have the framework developed thank you and um i i too am interested in um looking at our hiring practices and looking at the recommendations from the msaoc um and as you move forward with that also looking at what our school division is planning to implement because i know that there are movements to plan to implement some of those recommendations as you're looking at that uh also back to the hiring just because of constituent um concerns that have

[00:21:19] come to me about how we do background checks uh how we conduct them comparison with other jurisdictions in terms of our hiring practices what's effective and what isn't effective and how we can improve that and I'm raising that as something that has come to me several times several times by constituents sure we would definitely consider that looking at the benchmark not benchmarking sorry the background checking so I as I would anticipate and then I'll please correct me if it's not right therefore the hiring process we will start from the

[00:21:56] beginning right we will looked at how we collect the the applications right what is the the the advertisement from that I mean to the actual hiring of our employees so I would assume that that background check would be part of that process so absolutely okay seeing no further questions or comments I think we can conclude the session thank you general ko we appreciate it and we look

[00:22:34] forward to seeing the results of this plan next year. Thank you. I appreciate everyone. Board members, given that we've ended early, we will take a break until 1 p.m. and then we will resume. So we're in recess until 1 p.m. Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. Welcome to the second part of our work session today. We will be discussing policy 8130, the boundary policy. Before I begin, just a reminder, both the latest draft of the policy and a PowerPoint that will walk us through the policy we're supposed

[00:24:10] on board docs on Friday. So hopefully everyone on the board has had a chance to see it as well as the public. Before we begin, I'm going to do -- read an opening statement as well as some introductory remarks regarding the boundary work and then we will -- I will walk through the slides that we have and then we'll open it up to board questions and comments.

[00:24:29] So first of all, thank you to everybody in the room for joining us for today's all-day work session. Thank you to the audience for coming as well. Some opening statements. While the board work sessions are public meetings they are not open for public comment if you would like to address the board we encourage you to visit the school board website for more information about community participation at our regular meetings similar to our regular meetings we ask members of the public to observe the following decorum standards please silence all electronic devices

[00:24:58] hold on sorry sorry i've got a pop-up that won't go away thank you please silence all electronic devices no outbursts including shouting or speaking out during the work session will be tolerated individuals who disrupt the work session will receive one warning warning from security staff if you require a second warning you'll be asked to leave the proceeding you are welcome to continue watching the work session via the live stream please refrain refrain from applause until the

[00:25:32] end of the session no signs larger than 8.5 by 11 letter size piece of paper are permitted all individuals must be seated no standing is will be allowed no furniture may be added or removed from the room nor may be moved around no seats will be saved and if you leave the room we cannot guarantee that you'll be able to re-enter if we have reached room capacity. If you have exited, have belongings in the room, but cannot re-enter due to capacity limitations, please let security know and they'll be happy to help retrieve your belongings. We know the community gathered here and watching online are passionate about the boundary policy topic and we very much appreciate the

[00:26:09] community's interest and the time they've taken to join us today. Please remember that we're conducting board business today and need the time and space to do so. While part of our agenda involves considering changes to policy 8130, no school boundary adjustments have been suggested. If adjustments are proposed by the superintendent, there will be robust community engagement. If you would like to provide input to the board or to share your thoughts about the policy or other topics, you may reach out to the board via our website, www.fcps.edu backslash school-board backslash school-board dash members or via community participation at fcps.edu.

[00:26:45] Thank you again for joining us today. We appreciate your presence. All right, so what I'd like to do, if we can go ahead and put the slides up, Madam Clerk, thank you. I'm going to give a few introductory remarks regarding the work on Boundary Policy 8130 and then review the slides for the rest of the board and the public, and then we'll take comments and questions from the board.

[00:27:07] So, as an introduction, the Boundary Policy Review, Policy 8130, specifies the criteria and process for boundary adjustments. is an overarching guiding document it is not specifying any particular boundary changes the implementation of this policy will belong to the superintendent as is the implementation of all board policies with proper board oversight today we will walk through a brief policy history of the policy including the 2018 and 2019 work and the current governance committee work that started in february and then we'll also walk through a comparison of the current policy 8130

[00:27:45] draft sorry the current policy 8130 and the updated draft that we are discussing today as board members speak or ask questions please direct any questions regarding the governance committee work to either myself or miss anderson as the co-meeting manager any questions that are for staff please direct to dr reid to answer here is the outcome that we're hoping for from today we will use the next step process for board members to write out any changes substantive changes they wish to add to policy 8130 outside of grammatic or stylistic edits that are still needed to be made the clerk will share the next steps document folks will have 48 hours to post their suggested changes

[00:28:25] due thursday by 5 p.m then board members will have till sunday end of day to vote in the next steps governance will meet monday assuming we have quorum to incorporate changes and circulate an updated draft to the board my understanding is the current plan is for the policy to go to new business and a board vote at a regular meeting that we schedule by our chair and vice chair so that is kind of where we are the process for today's meeting and uh the next steps that we hope to do if we could go to the next slide please madam clerk this is just an overview of what's

[00:29:01] happened to date and a little bit of history of the policy so we are reviewing a draft update to boundary policy 8130 for possible approval the governance committee regularly reviews policies usually in a five-year cycle for updates and this is part of our regular review the boundary policy specifies the criteria and process by which board school boundaries are set or adjusted it does not define any particular school boundary it was first approved in 1986 no holistic review of boundaries or this policy from my understanding has occurred in nearly four decades there have been reviews but in terms of a holistic review it's been decades of

[00:29:36] boundaries obviously things are very different now than they were in 1986 our Our current policy has processes and criteria in place that allow for the superintendent to propose or enact boundary changes.

[00:29:51] We are simply updating those processes to be up to date with the current needs of our school system. This is not on the slide, this is my comments to go along with the slide. We are currently updating those processes to be up to date with the current needs of our school system and in line with the current best practices as recommended by MGT, the outside consultant hired by the board in 2019 to research, conduct community engagement, then recommend best practices in boundary policy which was presented to the board in December of 2021. There are many concerns that the community has raised up regarding temporary classrooms in

[00:30:26] structural program locations overcrowding facility renovation timelines and costs and transportation and a better current policy would help address many of these community concerns. Again no specific boundary changes are proposed or part of this policy review as is the case for all policies.

[00:30:42] In general, policy set criteria, the implementation or changes from those policies are part of the superintendent's work. So, I will then walk through the slides of the history of the current rounds of the policies, the benefit of a good policy, and the current changes that are being proposed side by side with the current version.

[00:31:03] Before I begin, I would want to say a thank you to our governance committee members, Ms. Anderson, Mr. Moon, and Mr. McDaniel, for all their thoughtful and hard work over these several months, as well as the various board members who have attended governance committee meetings over the several months. I think all of your voices and thoughtfulness has really helped to create a good project here. Given the importance of this policy, the committee also made sure that we circulated previous drafts in both March and April to the entire board with governance committee members calling individual board members to solicit feedback on each draft to take back to the governance committee as we did our rounds of updating the draft policy. We also based our

[00:31:41] updated the draft policy on the best practices recommended by MGT, which both reviewed the research around best practices, reviewed what other systems were doing, as well as conducted community engagement in coming up with their best practices. I hope that by keeping the board members informed and soliciting feedback in multiple points along the way, that you will all feel that this Governance Committee draft presented today incorporates not just the best thinking of the Governance Committee, but also your best thinking along the way.

[00:32:08] I appreciate the community engagement during this policy revision, during MGT's work, and hope that this policy will reflect all of that work and your best thinking to date. If we could go to the next slide, please. Just some benefits of the up-to-date policy as presented by MGT.

[00:32:25] It shows that good boundary decisions could be linked to better student achievement, instructional quality, budget optimization, student well-being, as well as efficient and effective use of resources in our end capacity. Next slide, please.

[00:32:41] A little bit of the history. about this previously of policy 8130 it was first adopted in july 1986 the last revision was may 2013 i am not clear the the level of that revision but that was the last one in 2018 the school board began a review of this policy and held four work sessions that were open to the public 2019 the board requested superintendent hire a consultant to identify best practices and engage in community discussion. That work took place in 2020 and I believe in 2021 but at least in 2020. In 2021 they held three virtual meetings to share information about boundary policy review and

[00:33:19] collect stakeholder input. In December 14th 21 MGT presented the final report including the best practice review report and the study report to the school board at a work session. At that point given the work the focus on return to school during COVID-19 additional work was paused. In addition to during that time we hired a new superintendent and we had a new board so in january 2024 the board voted to restart this review of policy 8130 and sent the policy to the governance committee to revise and bring a draft back to the board next slide please these are the dates of the 2024

[00:33:56] governance committee review again this work started in 2018 but this is the the dates that the governance committee reviewed this policy in 2024 as you can see we met in february march twice in April, twice in May, and again in June. So again, thank you for my governance committee.

[00:34:13] I know this was a lot of work, so thank you for doing that. All the meetings were open to the public, and public notice was provided. Next slide, please. I just want to summarize a little bit of the impact of the proposed policy changes. Of course, there's more than this, but just a few things that this policy does that is different than the previous policy version. It clearly states implementation belongs to the division superintendent. It provides for a five-year cyclical review which is something that was recommended by the MGT best practices study as well as something that's done by other school systems to maximize effective use of facilities and delivery of excellent education. It prioritizes the critical criteria

[00:34:51] including proximity to a school that must be followed with additional criteria recommended for potential consideration in a shall and may framework. Generally what it states is that certain criteria shall be considered by the superintendent and additional criteria may be considered by the superintendent it strengthens the public input process and engagement requirements it also strengthens board oversight by requiring full school board approval of any adjustment except for temporary emergencies so any permanent adjustment requires school board approval next slide please so in the next few slides we'll review the current policy and the proposed changes

[00:35:29] and next steps next slide please so i'm just going to kind of walk through some of the changes in each section/topic. I really try to do these slides via topic, sort of purpose, policy authority, et cetera, to compare. They're not always in the same sections of each policy, but it's the same topic. Just for reference, the latest draft of the policy was also posted on board docs on Friday. So people in the public watching in the live stream or later on can follow along as well as these slides. So the purpose is very similar in both documents. We sort of

[00:36:06] streamlined a little bit but beyond that it's very very similar so outlining considerations opening closing schools assigning students to schools a question did come up about opening or closing schools or programs and whether this policy would then cover program closing or where we should have programs and in governance we talked about this doesn't really talk about access to programs but it does there are times when we may need a new program in a certain area that might affect capacity of a school. So for example if there's a critical mass of special education students who

[00:36:43] needed an enhanced autism class in a certain area that would involve having to place that program in that area and that might impact the capacity of that school. So that was what we were thinking when we mentioned programs and of course opening or closing a school would impact the capacity of the school and the need for boundary adjustments. Next section please. The policy authority as there There is a Virginia state code that gives the authority to the school board to consolidate schools, redistricting, adoption of school principles.

[00:37:12] We made it clear that the superintendent is responsible for implementing the policy, as with all policies, but we made that clear in this policy. And we cited the state code that gives the school board's authority over the consolidation and redistricting, as well as adoption of student assignment plans.

[00:37:28] Next slide, please. So side by side comparisons we there was a section that kind of has the overarching goal around assignment of students section for we've both drafted section for. You can see, I won't read it to you kind of the summary of the current policy, as well as a summary of the new policy we just were trying to clarify that the goal is really about operational excellence and efficiency for a world class school system.

[00:37:57] across the division so in the previous policy it really it didn't really talk about the importance of operational excellence we clarified that next slide please continuing of this section four the current policy is the same as is before what we talked about some of the overall reasons for the assignment of students operational effectiveness instructional effectiveness facility overcrowding we took many of those things and put them in our criteria framework so we they weren't duplicative in two different parts of the policy.

[00:38:30] So we kept the overall goal a little more vague, a little more broad, I should say, and put some of the more specific criteria in one section to make it clear. We did add a section here that was moved from a different part of the section, as well as something that was recommended by the MGT reports around serving schools and programs that serve the geographical areas where they live and the statements from our magisterial districts and postal addresses, some of those were recommendations from the MGT report.

[00:38:57] and we just moved the specific criteria as you can see in that last bullet on the new draft. We put all of that in the following section rather than having it in two different sections. The previous policy had in section four and I believe in section five, sorry, six, seven, and eight, and we kind of combined those.

[00:39:13] So if we go to the next section, please. So you can kind of see the current policy in the new draft. The current policy had three different types of boundary adjustment types in three different sections. was an administrative which was allowed the superintendent to act with consultation but did not require a board vote when less than five percent of the students were affected some of the criteria that listed was emergency public need new housing this was the process that we did not continue in our new draft there was an expedited process for the superintendent which

[00:39:47] is less than 15 percent again with consultation and public meetings in the affected community A board vote is required per the current policy but a public hearing was not required as part of this and this was less than 15 percent. That 15 percent number is a magic number quote unquote because it is a number that the state code requires that any boundary changes that affect 15 percent or more students by state code must be voted on by the board. The state code does not require votes when it's less than 15 percent. Our policy is more stringent than the state code. Our current policy is more stringent where it only allows for in our current policy adjustments

[00:40:23] to be made for less than five percent our new draft does not allow for any adjustments to be made without board vote except for temporary emergency so we made it more stringent than the current policy is in terms of boundary adjustments the third that the current policy allows is standard and this mirrors the state code if it's greater than 15 percent of students affected public hearing public comment is required as well as the board vote so in our new draft you can see the one of the major changes is adding a comprehensive review every five years so the board vote required that comprehensive review was recommended both by mgt in its best practices study

[00:40:59] as well as something that many other school systems already have in place we had two off cycle adjustments that will be off cycle from that five-year comprehensive review an emergency when due to sort of a catastrophe it's temporary so the situations we had in mind for this was let's say say there's a fire at a school that renders the building uninhabitable, either wholly or partially, obviously you want to make sure that those students who would go to that school have a place to continue their education so there would be a temporary change where those students were assigned.

[00:41:30] That temporary change would not require a board vote unless that change became permanent. If that change would have to become permanent, it would follow an expedited process. You can see in the policy even with emergency temporary changes, there is regular reporting required from the superintendent to the board to keep the board up to date on the status of those changes for those students.

[00:41:52] So then we added an expedited process. This was if there is some need to change boundaries in between the every five-year cyclical review, such as an unexpected change in the population that's zoned for a certain school, if there's New housing that wasn't anticipated, people that moved into a certain area that wasn't anticipated, need for new programming, such as I mentioned, special education program, AAP programming, that came up in between those five years.

[00:42:24] The superintendent is authorized to act. However, that act requires public meetings and a board vote. The public engagement section is moved to section five. The previous policy didn't spell out public engagement as robustly as the committee would like, so we created a separate section just on public engagement to enhance that public engagement section. So that will be in the new Section 5 of the new policy draft.

[00:42:46] So I know I'm walking through a lot, but hopefully you all had a chance to review these and the policy itself. So next slide, please. So the criteria for boundary changes. In the current draft, the criteria was listed in Section 4, which is the overall goal, as well as in Section 10. And it wasn't really clear to the committee which criteria should be followed.

[00:43:09] So we took we removed all of the criteria and put it in section 4 and 7 related to the sick reviews as well as Additional criteria in the previous section. It was in section 9 In the in the current version right now the implementation was in section 9 in no priority order So it listed a slew of criteria, but without sort of determining which of those would take priority or not So it was really give a lot more leeway to the superintendent for recommending adjustments and gave less sort of guidance the superintendent around that you can see the second bullet adjustments made with respect without

[00:43:47] respect to magistral district or postal addresses that was moved up in our or in section 4 in the new draft so that was that's a continuation it was just moved to the overarching goal so as well as the not affect the same and then the proposed sections 4 and 7 are where we split up our criteria for boundary changes. We implemented a shall/may framework to give some prioritization to the superintendent to recommend boundary changes. We streamlined the criteria so that way it wasn't such a long list and required board approval for the five-year cyclical review. Some of the priority criteria, excuse me, the shall be

[00:44:25] used by the superintendent to propose any boundary adjustments would be access to programming, enrollment, capacity, proximity, and transportation. So the goal really was making sure our students had access to program make sure that they could what was our capacity for our buildings to maximize the efficient use of our resources and ensuring efficient and effective transportation and keeping our students close to their schools we realized that each school community and each school needs can also be unique and so we wanted to give the superintendent a little more leeway to look at additional criteria that may be more impactful for certain school communities so this additional criteria may be used

[00:45:03] by the superintendent in proposing boundaries that additional criteria is keeping schools aligned with their pyramids minimizing disruption supporting family involvement reducing the use of temporary spaces promoting stability and minimizing costs the family involvement one thing we really talked a lot about is that certain communities had better access to transportation than others so that would be unique to each school community and so we try to give a little more guidance to our superintendent in sort of splitting up the priority priority criteria that that shall be used that must be used by the superintendent in proposing any permanent changes and then others

[00:45:39] that can be used based on the unique needs of each school and each community all right next slide please the current section is the same as the previous slide that's why it's in gray the proposed section we actually split up our criteria into the five-year cyclical review and we talked about off-cycle and expedited. So the emergency adjustment, the first off-cycle adjustment is temporary, and it's really for catastrophic emergency temporary changes, like I mentioned to fire, things like that. Board approval is not required unless the change is to become permanent.

[00:46:13] If the change is to become permanent, it follows the same process as the expedited adjustments. So the expedited adjustments, the next one, requires board approval. The criteria that we listed was new unoccupied housing to avoid school overcrowding transportation issues that the estimated membership of a school substantially exceeds the program capacity program changes as i mentioned earlier the need to create new programs in certain parts of the county schools opening and closing unforeseen construction related challenges or delays so we really tried to streamline the reasons that the superintendent would be allowed to propose

[00:46:51] adjustments in those off cycle and the reason for that is that if we have a five-year cyclical review the hope is that the need for um off cycle adjustments that were sort of seemed a little more ad hoc and maybe less predictable would be reduced and we'd have more predictable so families could better plan as well as we could better utilize our capacity in this era of limited resources and limited funding so um and also just allow for better predictability and changes all right let's next slide please the next thing we talked about was phasing and again a side-by-side

[00:47:27] comparison the current policy our phasing is in section 11 and you can read some of the requirements for phasing it says whenever possible adjustment implant through attrition and phasing the school board may approve parents may at the discretion of the school board there's a lot of may that we felt in here so we decided to sort of streamline our phasing to give a little more leeway to the superintendent and what she recommends for phasing knowing that every boundary adjustment outside of temporary would require a board vote so the guidelines we gave is that we're still allowing for for attrition and phasing and the main thing the governance committee really wanted

[00:48:04] is consistency of phasing what we had heard is around the county some schools were allowed much more robust facing than others we wanted parents and families to know that there would be consistency so that way they would know what to expect if there was a need for a boundary change next slide so public notice um there was in the current policy in different sections there was public hearings required by state code that has stayed the same because the state code requires that public hearing for 15 or more it did not require public hearing for administrative or expedited boundary adjustments for expedited the current policy did ask for meetings in affected community

[00:48:41] but there was really no hearing required before we knew what the affected community was going to be it was once we knew that you might be affected there's some meetings required but we really wanted to have robust community engagement not just after we had some sense of which communities might be affected but even before when we're looking at just the review of boundaries in general so and again for the current policy there are meetings required in the affected communities for expedited adjustments but for those administrative adjustments for less than five percent there weren't meetings required by the current policy and we felt like any permanent changes required more robust community engagement and that was a big goal of the governance committee to tight to enhance that community engagement process before

[00:49:21] any permanent changes were made so we looked at the community engagement in three different buckets it was the cyclical review the every five-year review the expedited adjustments that are the permanent expedited and then the off-cycle emergency adjustments so the first this slide we'll talk about just the cyclical review and we'll talk about the other ones in the next slide so for cyclical review the results must be made public of the review presented to the board and the community and that was a change community engagement is required before during and after any comprehensive review we specified in person and virtual meetings as well as electronic

[00:49:58] communications we really tried to specify the types of community engagement that would be required in and also we we asked for additional meetings outreach surveys in each pyramid before the changes are proposed and before they're finalized so we kind of looked at as a funnel when the cyclical review is is being contemplated every five years there'll be engagement in each region before the review starts and during and after the review is done once the review is finalized then we'll have an idea which pyramids may be affected so before any changes are proposed and finalized there are additional meetings outreach and surveys in each effective pyramid so we wanted to make sure the

[00:50:37] entire community could be engaged in the review and then effective communities have additional engagement before any changes that impact those communities are made and then again the public hearing is the same requirement with per virginia code but because we did all those additional community engagements we changed it to seven days versus 10 days public notice because we added so much additional engagement around that cyclical review next slide please again the current policy is the same as the previous slide that's why it's in gray the new draft we then turn to expedited adjustments so we split the community engagement per each type of change for the expedited

[00:51:14] adjustments we require public engagement in the affected pyramids before during and after proposals are made we specified in-person virtual surveys and other outreach these are the ones that are adjustments that are made in between those five-year cyclical reviews that will be permanent adjustments for temporary emergency adjustments public hearing is not required because again we want to make sure that if a school burns down or other sort of catastrophic emergencies we can get the kiddos in a learning environment as soon as possible there is requirements around keeping the board updated, and if any of those temporary changes may become permanent, it defaults to the expedited process, in which case the community engagements will need to occur as per the expedited process.

[00:51:53] So one of the big goals was to really strengthen and specify the community engagement required for any boundary changes that will be permanent. Next slide, please. So this is the last slide of the presentation. Again, I've tried to go through this very quickly, so we leave enough time for board comment.

[00:52:11] But the next steps is today we're going to discuss the governance draft. finalize the policy after board discussion usually utilizing the next steps process and then after public notice via new business at a preceding meeting the full board will vote at a regular business meeting after the draft is finalized for those who are not as familiar with that process we normally post on new business that um things that we'll be voting on an upcoming meeting so they'll be posted on new business no action will be taken that we'll be voting on this at an upcoming meeting and then after that's posted on a new business at either the next or a following meeting the school board could vote on this draft once the policy is adopted if it's adopted the

[00:52:50] superintendent will update this implement this updated policy with the robust community engagement it requires before boundary adjustments as required by the policy so again to summarize i want to thank my governance committee colleagues for all of their hard work and for the other colleagues who came to our meetings for all of your input as well as the input given in between i really tried to to make sure we engaged all of you, 'cause I know this is a very important policy.

[00:53:14] It has been many years in this update, it's been many years in the making starting in 2018. And I hope I can speak for my governance committee colleagues in saying one of our overarching goals was to tighten up and ensure more robust board approval of any permanent changes and increase public engagement along that as well as streamline the criteria by which boundary changes proposals can be made.

[00:53:36] So having said that, I will be happy to turn it over to my colleagues for questions. As a reminder, if you have questions about what the Governance Committee did, please direct those to either Ms. Anderson or myself as meeting managers. If you have staff-related questions, please direct those to Dr. Reed. As a reminder, the policy just specifies the criteria and the process.

[00:53:55] We are not looking at any proposed or possible boundary changes at this moment. That will be part of the implementation whenever we get to that. We're going to start going through anybody that has their placard up in just a second, but I do have some comments from our colleague that couldn't be here today, Miss Lady, so I wanted to go ahead and share those first and then we'll go on to everybody seated at the table.

[00:54:19] Her comments are, "I understand that the boundary adjustments are a sensitive topic for many in our community. I want to ensure my constituents that your concerns have been heard and shared with my colleagues on the board. From my understanding, Fairfax County Public Schools, FCPS, has never conducted a full boundary study and much has changed in our community.

[00:54:37] With a student population of 183,000 students, it's essential to ensure that our policies and boundaries reflect our current needs and realities. The primary goal of updating the boundary policy is to maintain and improve the operational excellence and efficiency of our school system.

[00:54:53] By doing so, we can continue to provide the world-class education that FCPS is known for. As part of this comprehensive review, facilities should be evaluating land owned by FCPS. This involves critical thinking and being creative problem solvers to maximize the use of our existing properties.

[00:55:12] By doing so, we may be able to find innovative solutions to address overcrowding and optimize the placement of new programs and facilities, ensuring that all students have access to high-quality educational environments. One of the key benefits of revising policy 8130 is addressing issues of overcrowding under enrollment, split feeder schools, and attendance islands.

[00:55:33] Balancing enrollment across the division allows us utilize our facilities more effectively reducing the need for temporary classrooms and ensuring that all students learn in a safe and well equipped environment this also supports equitable access to educational programs and resources including optimal class sizes modern facilities and equitable program placement which is the cornerstone of our commitment to all students under updating the boundary policy should help us optimize our should also help us optimize our budget by making thoughtful boundary adjustments we can prioritize funding for essential maintenance

[00:56:10] safety and security needs and reduce the long intervals between major renovations this financial prudence ensures that all that our resources are effect are used effectively benefiting all students in the wider community we also are focused on the well-being of our students shorter commute commutes which are a potential result of boundary adjustments can significantly impact students' daily lives, contributing to better sleep, reduce stress, and more time for extracurricular activities. Maintaining neighborhood schools and minimizing disruptions for students' educational programs. Just a reminder, please, to let our board members do their

[00:56:50] work and please keep outbursts to a minimum. Thank you. Are also priorities as they help foster strong social connections and community bonds. We have been committed to engaging with the community throughout the process up to this point, we will continue to do so. Your input is valuable and we will ensure that there are ample opportunities for you to share your thoughts and concerns. Public hearings, consultations and transparent communication will be integral to our approach. We acknowledge that changes to school boundaries can be challenging. However, the need for this work is clear. A comprehensive boundary review will enable us to address the current and future needs of our growing student population. We appreciate your

[00:57:28] understanding and cooperation as we undertake the important work to enhance the educational experience for all students in Fairfax County. Together we can ensure that FCPS continues to be a leader in providing high quality education and support for every student. Okay, so Dr. Anderson. As a reminder please. Okay, I'm going to jump in. First of all, I do want to say thank you to the Governance Committee because I had the opportunity to attend most of your meetings and where you started from where you are now is a result of a lot of work.

[00:58:07] So that has to be acknowledged, and I appreciate some of the feedback that you've incorporated from those of us who are not on the committee. Secondly, I'm really looking forward to a robust conversation with my colleagues. Everything that I'm going to be placing on the table, I'd like to hear from all of you, whether or not you are on the governance committee, because this policy belongs to each and every one of us. And so I want your thinking to inform how I view this work. So I'm looking forward to a really good discussion. I do want to start with what I think is the most important piece. And Mr.

[00:58:42] Smith, you're not going to be surprised by this because I've raised it at every CIP since I got on the board. It should not be the responsibility of the school board members to raise questions regarding um boundary um i'm sorry capacity etc it should not because we're essentially lay people however we do have to respond to it when staff raises it and we have to provide our stamp on it because as i shared at the last governance meeting we represent a whole community the people who've elected us we're here to represent their voice so i'm happy that i see that every stage now

[00:59:19] includes board approval without us having the opportunity for approval we don't have the opportunity for conversation and that piece was really missing for me in the previous drafts but i'm glad that that's over i'm just going to run through some of these things here and whatever i don't get to please add me to a go back page one where it says implementation of this policy is delegated by the school board to the division superintendent i've shared this before every policy is delegated to the superintendent i think this is redundant i don't think it's necessary but it's really not a hill for me to die on but the thing is this if we're going to

[00:59:56] embed it here it should be embedded in every policy but every policy is delegated to the superintendent um moving to page two i i think i'm a little unclear on section four second paragraph community engagement shall occur prior to the implementation as um as per regulation, as per law, which is 15%. But we're not necessarily saying that. The 15% here is just a caveat for a public hearing. There's robust community engagement that's not necessarily a hearing. That essentially provides the same opportunity for the community

[01:00:36] to share. Can somebody please confirm that for me? Yes, we were just trying to cite the code requirements, but there's additional requirements that we have in our policy. Okay, thank you. Going to page three, one of the things here that I think we really need to consider, and this is speaking to my colleagues, is really honing in on what is the driver of this. The driver of any of this work is capacity. It's enrollment. So that second bullet, that says enrollment capacity, I think should be the overarching driver. It shouldn't be one of the components. It should be the component that moves everything else.

[01:01:14] so my advocacy is for that to be added above and please add me for go back miss Maren thank you I do want to thank the Governance Committee for this work you know policy review is a tenant of this board and my duty is an elected and sworn officer of the school board in the laws of Virginia so every board policy is to be reviewed and updated every five years to review it as needed updated as needed and you know I've said that many times you know our work is about the policy. We set the policy based on the will of the community and the

[01:01:52] superintendent carries that out. This is just one of a dozens of policies that the board oversees and manages in helping to oversee this multi-billion dollar entity that has 200 facilities. So to not review this policy is to ignore the challenges and opportunities in front of us. All FCPS kids deserve better.

[01:02:10] This policy very rightly provides the criteria by which to make decisions. having it clear, public, and prioritized is what will lead to the best decisions when needed. This is a better policy than what currently exists. I'd like to share why I support cyclical boundary review. The number one thing, if I could do anything in public education, would be to decrease class sizes because a smaller student to teacher ratio is going to produce the best outcomes for students. In my community and in my own family, we've had elementary school class size is at 29, 31, even above 31. We've had fires in science labs because of

[01:02:49] overcrowding. Personal connections between teachers and students is what produces the best outcomes. When we think about especially the emotional needs, the social-emotional concerns lately, knowing that a teacher and a student have a personal relationship, that is going to help them with instruction, not to mention the actual instruction. We've heard from teachers, they have large workloads, it's hard to provide that personalized instruction.

[01:03:11] operational improvements the fact and data of the CIP updated annually with five-year projections of needs and investments shows the inefficiencies of where students are enrolled overcrowding and under enrollment to spend money building new spaces when we have underutilized spaces is a bad use of taxpayer money we cannot seek additional money from our funders if we aren't maximizing our current investments I will leave it at that for now and look forward to further discussion mr. I think the st. John Cunningham and mr.

[01:03:49] done I just want to address a concern that was brought up by dr. Anderson on the establishment of the school boundaries and the priorities the sentence that precedes the list of the bullets is that it would be considered in no particular order and I mentioned that because when we were having discussions and one-on-ones this was brought up to me and it was clarified by the board member that was with this saying that those bullets are all to be

[01:04:18] considered, but in no particular order. And I was satisfied with that. Mr. Dunn. Today we have economically disadvantaged children who ride past two or three elementary schools to get to their destination. I don't know in what world people live where that's okay. Today we spend $170 million because we have so many children riding buses for so many hours per day. I don't know in what

[01:04:53] world that's fiscally responsible. We have a 42-year renovation cycle. 42 years. Think about how many technologies have come and gone in the last 40 years. And we have class sizes that in some schools are 15 kids and other schools are near 30. All of that is not okay. We also have attendance islands. We have split feeders all across our county that are the result of progressively kicking this can down the road. I've heard that we should just spend more money

[01:05:29] to increase the capacity of schools that are over capacity. That doesn't solve the problem of schools that are under capacity and it's fiscally irresponsible. I made a commitment to make sure that we are achieving maximum return on investment for our taxpayers at a time when the state is underfunding us by more than half a billion dollars per year. If our government is underfunding special education for decades. I will not support proposals that are wasted resources and also result in wasteful spending. This is a prudential exercise to ensure effective

[01:06:05] capacity utilization of our existing resources so we can avoid further property tax increases to support a growing school budget. It also makes sure that every child has a world-class education in a modern classroom in a modern school building with modern facilities. That's what this achieves.

[01:06:22] And if you don't understand that I'm happy to discuss offline Please keep the disruptions to a zero. Thank you, Mr. Fresh. All right so I appreciate the presentation particularly the excuse me the portion that compares the past or the current policy with the suggested improvements and One of the areas that I was hopeful as this process went forward that would be maintained

[01:06:56] And isn't and I'll tell you why I'm okay with it in in where we've landed is that in the current policy if followed through on Consistently the superintendent can make I'm going to speak in generalities most boundary adjustments And if they are under 15% they do not have to consult the board The updated policy removes that discretion for the most part requiring board approval of these changes.

[01:07:27] On its face, that would be enough for me to say, I don't wanna do this policy change, except for one thing. The addition of the cyclical boundary change, boundary holistic analysis, is a huge enough win for all of the issues that have already been described, you know, efficiency, fiduciary responsibility, more stable boundaries, et cetera, that I'm willing to put more of an operational burden on the superintendent to get that.

[01:08:01] And, you know, there are other things in here that are also extremely valuable. Significantly more community engagement, more thoughtful approach to it. And I think those are things that we should be striving towards. So, you know, when I ran in 2019, 2020, I talked a little bit about, like, we should have a BRAC commission, you know, where you get people that come and study these things, and the impetus for that thinking was that it should be something the community grows to expect on a cycle, and this suggested approach does that, while also heightening board oversight

[01:08:38] and community engagement. The other thing I would say is that because we are directing the superintendent to do something on a cyclical basis, rather than, as Dr. Anderson mentioned, and this is something I think we've complained about every single meeting we've ever had about boundaries that board members should ever be expected to bring these things forward it should be the operational experts that are doing it and that's a huge win for the system as well so as it currently stands and we'll see where we end up but as it currently stands I support the draft as written and I'm you know eager to hear what my colleagues

[01:09:16] think as well the things that are most important to me are maintaining the cyclical holistic review, ensuring that the board has heightened oversight, ensuring that we've increased our community engagement, and as long as those things are maintained I'm comfortable. Thanks. Ms. Dixit. Thank you Governance Committee for your work. So I will speak about my own district where we have major overcrowding in our high schools and other school, middle schools

[01:09:52] too and there is nothing you can do and there are other schools which are under like under enrolled so example of rachel carson and rocky run right so a lot of people know about those two schools rachel carson has is is too many kids overcrowded and rocky run has a dwindling down enrollment year after year they're losing resources these are great schools they both are aap center schools and provide equal programming. My own child went to Rocky Run and now I'm hearing from

[01:10:27] parents and the school, the teachers, that they're, you know, they're losing resources because they're having less enrollment and that problem is, can be fixed because actually they both are, you know, you know, close by, not too far from each other. And the other thing I would say is Chantilly High School, Centerville High School. They are both overcrowded. They're all in my district. And I'm speaking from behalf of the students. So let's send letters to the school board and emailed us

[01:11:03] and to me and my other colleagues that there is no space in Chantilly High School. They are not able to take any more students because they're at capacity or more than capacity. I can go on and on in the issues where we can discuss this in length, but I just wanted to address some of those issues in my community where I've lived for 20 plus years.

[01:11:27] My own children have gone to schools much further away from my home basically just because of the boundary, and I did not know why it is done that way and why I was just a parent, and today I'm seeing that, oh, all right, so last 40 years, no boundary change has been done in FCPS. Maybe that's a reason. So I just want to see we have to look at FCPS in every areas and that is where I am bringing the voice of my community. Thanks. Okay, so I'm going to go ahead

[01:12:01] and take my turn and then Ms. Sizemoreheiser is going to take hers. I agree with my colleague Dr. Anderson. I absolutely believe that this should not be a political process. I believe that we need to look at the schools over time and figure out the best way best place for our kids to go.

[01:12:19] I also grew up here and I understand fully the boat that we're in and that we are in. I am trying hard to keep myself in the not knowing because there are schools that are in our districts that haven't been looked at in a very long time. I do have a question for Dr. Eden just a second, but I would ask us all to stay in that place for a little bit where it's okay that we don't know exactly where all the boundaries are going to end up we over time from what I understand we have built school after school partially the positions where the schools were built was because our county

[01:12:52] used to be far more concentrated closer to the beltway and we have not shifted over time to ensure that we can make sure that we have room for schools that are further out to the west which is causing overcrowding in those areas so we need a creative solution that doesn't involve just moving a little bit at a time because of the fact that that is what's causing the exacerbated issue that's going on so one of the first questions i have related to all of this is to dr reed if we stay with the current existing policy and are the board and many many members of

[01:13:30] the community have expressed concern related to both attendance islands and split feeders Are those things able to be addressed with the existing policy that we have? So they are able to be addressed, but just very differently, right?

[01:13:47] Much more slowly. I don't think a holistic review is generally practical within the given current policy. I think it doesn't allow for the five-year cyclical review, which would enable us to be able to plan forward, I think, more thoughtfully.

[01:14:04] because one of the things that as we've looked back and I've had a chance to review documents over the last 30 years, some of the changes we've made as one-off changes have actually created more problems in another neighborhood, right? Like, so what we fixed today became a bigger problem tomorrow.

[01:14:22] And I think the idea of being able to look out in five-year increments would really benefit the division because it's expensive and it's, I think, problematic because we've moved some families multiple times and other families never, right? So there's just a real, how do I say, they're often discrepant outcomes, and so I think fine-tuning the policy would enable us to be more thoughtful about the process.

[01:14:52] - I have, thank you. I have said to many of my colleagues and to several members of the community that I actually don't think all that many of our kids are not in the place that they need to be. So I am hopeful that we can move forward with an adjustment in this initial review, which I understand will be the most potentially problematic.

[01:15:13] I am hopeful that we can go through that with the open mind enough to realize that we have the opportunity here to kind of set ourselves up in the future so that these types of conversations and this angst won't happen because that five-year review gives us the space to plan and it lets people understand where, Because honestly, we don't know where our next population growth spot is going to be for whatever reason.

[01:15:39] So I am hopeful for this. We've worked hard as a committee to ensure that we listen to lots of input from both all members of the community and also our colleagues. So I am proud of the work that we've done, and I think we have a very strong policy.

[01:16:02] Before I take my turn, I'll let Mr. Moon and then Mr. McLevine take their turns. Thank you. I didn't want to take an opportunity away from you to speak first but thank you thank you I will do that as a member of Governance Committee I want to thank my colleagues on the committee for you know investing a lot of their time and efforts to come up with something in my view very reasonable to send over to the full board so the full board could have a discussion how do you want how do you want to have additional Governance Committee meetings on this because I knew that

[01:16:39] you know the other eight colleagues of mine on the full board will probably come back with some other suggestions for us to consider so so with that with that in a couple of things as someone who had served a little longer than my other colleagues on the board that when we say that you know we have not had a you know boundary change for a long time we know that we had boundary changes whether it it is of a scare that you deem, my colleagues may deem probably need it, and we didn't.

[01:17:17] That's a matter of someone's perspective. We could have a difference in opinion. And in that, personally as a board member, participated in many important, at times, contentious and boundary change decisions.

[01:17:35] I know how hard that can be. You know, sometimes, you know, just emotions and feelings and, you know, coming up. You could feel, you know, you walk in the room and having a discussion. You can feel it.

[01:17:51] And, you know, what I'm hoping is, I think that this was something that I brought up at the last governance committee meeting is this. You know, people will ask, because I want to be able to provide, whether through policy or regulations or in combination, As much transparency to the community as possible as to how we're going to approach this.

[01:18:15] Whenever we see a boundary change is needed, when someone says that person has something on that person's mind, that belief. So that's a triggering point. What will trigger boundary change conversation?

[01:18:32] that triggering points. Policy itself is silent because a lot of times in the policy, when you craft a policy, you want to remain on a global level. But those details should go into regulations. And I will look to superintendent because superintendent is responsible for crafting regulations. Current regulation is very silent about that. What will actually trigger?

[01:18:58] When we talk about capacity in women, what are I talking about? Are you considering 120% as overcapacity that will trigger? Are you considering 105% as overcapacity and they will trigger? When we talk about, could I have just 15 seconds before I put my cell phone back, is when we talk about underutilized building capacity, are you talking about 90% as underutilized?

[01:19:25] Are you talking about 75%? what will trigger? They will require changes in who will be attending certain school. Those in my mind need to go into regulations to be transparent to the community. And I want to hear from the superintendent on her thought how she's gonna tackle this regulation, drafting, crafting, regulation is gonna be done. So I would say that the policy drives the regulation. So once

[01:20:02] Once there's agreement and approval of a policy, then we'll get to work on the regulation. Currently, the initiation comes from a board member for the boundary review of a certain area. So, I think at this point, once the policy is complete, then we'll sit down and look at the regulation possibilities.

[01:20:25] There are a number of factors that I still want to make sure are fleshed out, and so So I'm listening closely this afternoon, because what those factors are, and if they're at all rank ordered, will be important in terms of crafting that regulation.

[01:20:41] I'll provide some phone, go back. Mr. McIlvain. Thank you. And I'm glad to have this conversation. This is the first of these that I've been able to be a part of as a non-committee member. So thank you all for your work on this.

[01:20:58] I think the policy as it currently reads is far superior to earlier iterations. So I'm glad to have seen that improvement. I do want to talk a little bit about expectations here and say that we've gotten a lot of letters from the community, and I empathize with a lot of those letters because when I ran for office last year, this was not something that I ran on.

[01:21:27] It was not even a campaign issue at that time. So as a member of the public, when I got on this board, I was a bit shocked and frustrated that this was coming before us. That being said, I do have a couple of questions.

[01:21:42] The first is, and it may be an issue of semantics, but we talk in here about a cyclical review. Is there a difference between a cyclical review and a countywide boundary study? I think the county-wide boundary study is part of that cyclical review, but that would be the implementation that we left up to Dr. Reed.

[01:22:05] So the idea is that we would review the boundaries holistically across the county every five years. I imagine a boundary study, but that would be part of that review in terms of similar to what Mr. Moon had said in terms of regulation. How would that review look, I think, is a process that still needs to be fleshed out by the superintendent.

[01:22:23] But the idea would be, I imagine it would take that into account, a county-wide boundary policy review. But I don't want to speak for the superintendent in her implementation. Does that answer your question? I don't think so, but I don't know if it can be answered. The the problem I have is I do not disappoint support Countywide boundary studies. I do not support what has been termed by f-pack over the years is the nuclear option I think it throws our community and to absolute disarray. It creates the consternation that we're seeing kind of

[01:22:59] This is still a public work session and the board needs to do its work. Please keep your and I'm not saying that as an applause line I'm just saying that you know it's one board member. I do not support countywide boundary studies and whether it's semantics or not I would just like more clarity on the cyclical review versus countywide boundary study What I get one of the question mr. Mac sure yeah my interest from the governance committee conversation My understanding is review is looking holistically at our boundaries i don't i guess i don't know what you mean by boundary study to know what the difference right like again i think it's semantics whether there are any boundary changes proposed out of that review

[01:23:36] will depend on the review right because there may be a review done every five years and as we get into that process we may come back and say we're good they may come back and say these are the areas that we want to look into you know that may be impacted right and that's for the public engagement so i it's hard to answer that question without knowing what the definition of counterweight boundary study would be versus a review so to me it's looking at it saying are there any changes that we think might need to be happening or not okay um the second question i have is and you know just as is context i have always supported

[01:24:11] magisterial district members when they've brought forth concerns from their communities i think as an at-large member you know i think it's incumbent upon us to review boundary situations on our own but ultimately i have always deferred to the magisterial district member because they they know their community even better than I do.

[01:24:30] We had a situation earlier this year where my colleague sitting next to me, Dr. Anderson, brought forward a request for a review of the Glasgow boundary. And again, I was shocked and dismayed that only three members of this board supported that at that time.

[01:24:48] And the explanation that was used was that we had to deal with this policy first. So my question, and I don't know if anyone can answer this, now that we are in the end stages of this, can we then go back to Dr. Anderson's community and pursue what she was seeking from us?

[01:25:05] I don't think I can answer that question with this because it depends on what the policy is. It would depend on whether that falls into an off-cycle review or not an off-cycle review. So I think that's in the implementation. So I don't have an answer to whether that can be brought back up again. So, I mean, yeah, and I would ask Dr. Reed the same question, but how long are we going to keep kicking things down the road, whether it's middle school start times, district member requested boundary changes.

[01:25:34] I want us to move forward with the work of the board without being hamstrung by this. I don't know if Dr. Reed has any comments. - Sure, the middle school start time work is in process right now and is scheduled, it's actually proceeding on schedule, so that's moving forward.

[01:25:54] The process for the Glasgow -- I can't remember what it was called exactly, but the small or expedited or relook was put on hold, is my understanding, as we explored a more holistic policy, because it actually involved more schools than initially, I think, we thought.

[01:26:14] That was one piece of it. The other piece is, as we look at a holistic review, it would become part of that five-year cycle, but to Ms. Sizemore-Hyser's point, depending on how the board lands on this policy, I don't know where that would then fit in the newly revised policy, whether it would fit under expedited or I just don't know where it would land, but wherever it would land, once this policy is revised and approved, then we would proceed, Dr. Anderson could proceed with whatever course of action she would want to take based on whatever the policy was at the time.

[01:26:53] Mr. McDaniel? Scribbling nuts still. I think this policy is a significant step forward for the better. The work of the Governance Committee that I've been a part of, I'm generally comfortable with where the policy is.

[01:27:15] My concern, or rather my priority in this process, has been the public input and public engagement piece. I think the conversation we had last time was another step forward, and we're there, I think. We're very close. You know, the vast majority of this county of residents don't have kids in our schools, and it's still my responsibility to represent those folks as well.

[01:27:43] When our schools succeed, our entire county succeeds, and when our schools fail, our entire county fails. So I don't view this as strictly a school's issue. I view this as a county-wide issue that impacts every person that calls Fairfax County home.

[01:27:58] the current policy is very good, but I want to draw a distinction for my colleagues and then a proposal. Right now we have in this policy a public engagement process that is at the region and then down to the pyramid level. That's a very narrow audience that we're reaching out to, a school's audience that we're reaching out to, and there is a difference between inviting the public to a town hall versus inviting the public to have a seat at the table, and I think that we need to take this a little bit farther and invite the public to also have a seat at the table and specifically

[01:28:33] if we're going to do cyclical reviews every five years the public needs to have a bigger seat at the table as opposed to a region or as opposed to a if you could please hold your applause to the end others will ask for folks to to leave the space we do need to finish our work thank you as opposed to a region or pyramid level meeting so what i would be very interested to see is during the five-year review if that is in fact the number that we settle on an ad hoc public advisory committee that the super i would defer to the superintendent on

[01:29:09] what that would look like just as she pulls together advisory committees already those that's the point where the public needs to have a seat at the table and that would be my proposal i'll put some language in next steps for that but that's kind of where i am so please please don't

[01:29:30] Make us remind again. So I appreciate that thought Mr. I appreciate that Mr. McDaniel. I just want to address that comment. I think that's what we were looking at as part of the implementation process would be similar. We talked about this in governance. You may not have been at that meeting, but we similar we talked about what similar to the process we use for the strategic plan having some of these committees as part of Dr. Reed's process. The reason why we specified region and pyramid is we wanted to make sure communities to that level were drilled down into it wasn't just

[01:30:09] school communities and regions that's why we didn't specify school communities we just wanted to be that drill down of community level engagement right so if the pyramid it could be anybody in that pyramid as opposed to any of that region so that's one of the big reasons i don't mind putting it in there but just so you know from the conversations that was sort of anticipated as part of the ad hoc review itself would be community engagement in that process um i wanted to kind of mention a couple things just in terms of this policy. I know I think one of my colleagues mentioned that this wasn't something as a campaign issue in 2023. It was a huge campaign issue in

[01:30:44] 2019. I got many many questions asked me about trailers, the concerns about security in trailers, the concerns about school safety with students and the over-reliance on trailers and I think I remember in the last in 2023 I got some questions about trailers and some statements made about how the number of trailers hadn't gone down as much as people would have liked to see. So that was one of the big community concerns that was raised to me around needing to look at capacity.

[01:31:10] I do agree that enrollment in capacity is important, but I think one of the big differences between the bullets in no particular order for the cyclical review and enrollment in capacity as the number one or a top priority is because we don't need a trigger. We're often looking for things that would trigger a boundary adjustment, right, because there was no sort of consistent process for boundary adjustments.

[01:31:31] When you don't need that trigger, because those bullets are under the cyclical review, the review itself is the trigger to look at the review. What we in the committee wanted to do was say, all right, in that review, these are the criteria -- if you notice, they're in alphabetical order -- that we thought was important that the student had to look at in that review.

[01:31:51] If we didn't have a cyclical review, I would agree that enrollment capacity is the most important and should be that trigger, but I do think programming and proximity are also really important as someone whose students went out of their pyramid for both of their programming it was a huge issue both transportation wise and just community wise and mental health wise so i think those other words are really important considerations um but i think taking the trigger out is a shift in thinking around how we look at the criteria for this um i want to also mention one of the big things that sort of you know i think one of my colleagues mentioned that this has

[01:32:30] been looked at boundaries haven't looked at before and they absolutely have been however i don't believe we've done a holistic review boundaries looking at the entire county for what's best for as the county as a whole since 1986 and that i think is really important one of the things that people mention to me a lot is overcrowding there's a lot of studies and research about the impact of overcrowding on education and i'll take a go back on some of these pieces okay we're gonna go to go back, and I believe we're going to go to two minutes. We'll stay at three for now, and then

[01:33:07] we'll see if we can, as we get closer. Dr. Anderson. Thank you. Just kind of picking up where I left off. Going back to page three, where it says that the superintendent shall prioritize the following criteria. I stand by my statement. You can't prioritize everything. Something has to be more important than the others, and so I really want to go back to having the enrollment capacity be the main prioritization this has also been supported by fpac during their report to us just last week i also want to share that um we receive a lot of communication and we know that this and

[01:33:45] the work of the boundary policy this holistic review is supported by many organizations including the hispanic education association including the minority student achievement oversight committee msaoc which is probably what most people are familiar with they are in high support of this work so i want to be sure that i articulated that also on page three the last bullet we have in the policy that says support optimal family involvement i'm asking for a very small change there family caregiver because we do know not all of our students live with family

[01:34:24] members, but there's somebody who is caring for them who may be interested in this work. Moving to page four, I want to talk about phasing -- or did I go ahead of myself? Nope, I'm going to go back to page three.

[01:34:39] Access to programming. Dr. Reid, what is your understanding of this component as it stands currently, of that bullet? Dr. So, I think that there are a variety of possible definitions.

[01:34:55] One I think that we've discussed very recently is access to academy courses and certain career and technical career and college ready courses. We have some pyramids that have access to a significant number of those courses and other pyramids that have virtually no access to those courses.

[01:35:14] So I think that it's really important as we think about our entire county that if we have courses students want and we have extensive wait lists. At some schools we have some students that have to give up a period of their courses for a travel period to get to a school which then affects their ability if they can't take summer courses because they have to work they're not able to take those classes. So I think we need to make sure that our students can access programming regardless of the neighborhood they live in and that's I think that's very important. Do you also see this area giving you opportunities to expand AAP? For example, Ms. Dixit

[01:35:53] talked about how in her area there's two AAP centers. In the Mason District there's only one. Students have to leave their neighborhood to access that AAP center. Does this give you, as you read it currently, latitude to establish additional centers? I think it's clear that AAP programming just as we have special education programs that some students need to leave and travel across or outside their pyramid and then at vulnerable ages right in adolescence then be returned to schools where and they have no relationships because they've been bussed out of pyramid and

[01:36:33] away from their peers and their neighborhood friends to be in a program some distance away and then they're bussed back with the need then to build relationships as well as transition back to class whether students are an AAP or have an IEP or have career programming we're very inconsistent across the county in the availability so to answer the question yes I believe that first bullet and that's why I think it's so in some ways I would characterize it as symbiotic right with the capacity question they come in tandem because how

[01:37:12] we place programs actually affects the capacity of certain schools. And so I just -- I think that first bullet's critical in thinking about AAP, special education programs, preschool programs, career and college readiness programs, access to dual enrollment opportunities, access to staff sharing of advanced math and science courses when you get to linear algebra, differential equations where you don't have enough courses perhaps in one school, the proximity school to school to share staff members with a certain level of expertise, all of those are really,

[01:37:49] I think, key programming considerations that are currently affecting students in the county right now and not in a positive way. So thank you for that, yes. The other question, do you believe that this language as it stands also gives you latitude to create 6th, 7th, and 8th grade middle schools rather than to make that change?

[01:38:11] Because right now, we only have three middle schools in the entire county that have 6th grades in them. The other 6th graders are in elementary schools. Glasgow, Holmes, and Poe are it. Do you think this gives you latitude to start to make plans to have other middle schools change their grade configurations as well?

[01:38:30] Yes, ma'am. I do believe it enables us to look at a scenario that would increase the number of middle schools that have sixth grade. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to now go to page four to phasing. One of the things here that I think we need more direction is phasing where it says when possible adjustments under this policy shall be implemented through attrition. We know we've seen phasing happen very differently across the division. And our policy is our communication with the superintendent in terms of how she likes to phrase it, her swim lanes.

[01:39:05] So I would like for us to be a little tighter in our language here, because attrition, let's say if you're having some sort of boundary adjustment at an elementary school, you could say it's by attrition, so everybody who grades K all the way up to 6 continue with it, or you could say you're beginning in third grade level.

[01:39:25] that's a very different experience similarly with middle school similarly with high school I'd like for us to get a little tighter here and I would like a go-back because most of my points have not been made Miss Marin so this is totally Miley and I love the policy stuff some of you who know me well know that but look what's happening here is business as usual or really it should be business as usual because the board supposed to review our policies every five years and so there shouldn't be any shock that the board is working on a policy review. In addition to this policy, at the top of my list are reviewing the policies

[01:40:01] that govern grading, homework, student rights and responsibilities. We can only do so much at a time. But all of those are overdue for a review reflecting today's opportunities and challenges for students. I've received more communications lately from constituents about grading than anything else regarding policies. In response to any shock or frustration, I'll say that what I find shocking and frustrating is not having this work be done on time by previous boards, and I accept some of that responsibility because I was on the previous board.

[01:40:32] We were also a little bit busy trying to survive a pandemic, but we still managed to review policies on time and make dents and create new policies. So no one's pulling any punches here. I really, you know, colleagues, this is our work, you know, this attention to policy review, and again, I think the Governance Committee dug in and they did this work and they shared it with us like that worked really well like that's how we're supposed to do the work so um you know let's not shy away from that you know the example that happened with Mason district is an exact symptom of the problem we had a school board member who is a dynamite advocate who did the work worked with our community and brought it to the board but that's not equitable and that's not

[01:41:12] fair and it's not consistent and it's not necessarily database either there's we're supposed to have the superintendent be able to tell us how to make those changes based on data. So example, split feeders for me, that's a big thing. So I have Wolf Trap Elementary. All those kids go to Kilmer Middle School. So Wolf Trap's in Madison Pyramid, Kilmer is in Marshall Pyramid.

[01:41:32] Then all those Kilmer kids, some of them go back to Madison Pyramid and some of them go to Marshall Pyramid. This is the number one thing I hear about from my constituents. It's a double split feeder. So the toll of the cohort of kids and families who come together and split apart and maybe come back together, plus the fact that our pyramids are set up to have the best advantage of instructional planning.

[01:41:56] So if you have a student going in and out of pyramids, that's to a detriment to that student. Having a boundary policy that focuses on the instructional experience of students and this group of criteria to eliminate things like split feeders, this is so overdue. So I just wanted to share from the 100 mil perspective that this aligns with what I'm hearing from my community.

[01:42:23] It was mentioned that FCPS examining school boundaries is a quote-unquote nuclear option.

[01:42:43] As the liaison to the Facilities Planning Advisory Committee for this year, I can state that's indisputably untrue. In fact, if you look at the FPAC report, FPAC actually endorses a comprehensive approach to reviewing school boundaries, including open communications policy and outreach plan to engage with the community.

[01:43:07] They recommend proceeding as currently discussed, and so there should be no implication to the contrary. Dr. Reed, I'd like to ask, Is there any cost-effective and fiscally responsible alternative to a comprehensive boundary adjustment in order to address undercapacity and overcapacity schools in Fairfax County?

[01:43:31] No, sir. Can you address the potential impact of boundary adjustments on chronic absenteeism? So, you know, as you know, we've made a lot of progress on chronic absenteeism this year.

[01:43:48] We've worked really, really hard, our staff, principals, staff, families, and we've improved that. I do think that what I mentioned earlier about students moving out of Pyramid and then back in at critical times can be problematic for chronic absenteeism.

[01:44:07] I also think that it's important to think about students' connection to activities in athletics, theater, after-school sports, after-school clubs. And when there's too great a distance between home and school for whatever reason, that does create barriers to participation, which in turn can affect negatively absenteeism.

[01:44:34] So I think that boundaries done thoughtfully and well could support strong attendance. Thank you. Does FCPS have as a goal to increase the number of grade 6 through 8 middle schools?

[01:44:51] We don't currently have a goal of that nature. We currently have a 42-year renovation queue. You've been in many other school districts nationwide. Is that the norm? And what is the impact on students of having such a long renovation queue?

[01:45:10] No, sir, that's not the norm. I think the potential impact is that buildings are less new, right? The systems that support them. We've had recently, honestly, a number of elevator issues because some of the elevators in our older buildings are struggling, and we're struggling to get parts for them, which creates hardships for students or staff who require the use of elevators.

[01:45:35] That's been an issue. HVAC systems across the division, obviously, as our weather is warm at times, it's certainly created challenges, but we do have a longer than normal renovation cycle, for sure. Do you know what the industry standard is?

[01:45:53] I know it evolves, and I'm not aware of it specifically today. No, sir. Okay. How would you characterize our infrastructure? You talked about HVAC. What about playgrounds and asphalt and buildings? How would you characterize them relative to nationwide standards and school systems where you've served in different capacities?

[01:46:13] It's a tough question. I would have to say that there are significant improvements that I think I would expect within playgrounds, namely ADA accessibility for all children that attend a particular school, which we're working on.

[01:46:34] begun that process here very recently. I also think that our fields, our athletic facilities, there currently isn't a queue, which I think speaks volumes, honestly, that we don't currently have a queue for athletic facilities, nor are they generally included in the bonding for a new facility. So I know our community has provided a great deal of support to provide for those facilities where communities are able to and then i know there are some communities that have had a harder time providing if you will athletic facilities maybe concession stands

[01:47:11] and we're still working on the permitting for stadium bathrooms which is an anomaly i think here i don't know how else to say that do you feel that this policy if adopted would result in a more effective utilization of resources allowing you to address some of those infrastructure challenges? I think if we I think one of the things that we need to be really thoughtful about mystics that brought up rocky run middle school and one of the things we have to be really careful about is not renovating or adding space to schools that perhaps we don't have the student population

[01:47:47] that necessarily would attend that and I think because our renovation cycle is such a lagging cycle that very often what we think is going to be important today by the time the money's bonded and by the time we have the opportunity to renovate, it may not have the same need that it did at the time we initially made the plan, if that makes sense.

[01:48:07] So I think having a comprehensive look at the county and boundaries every five years should help us make, I hope, choices that better reflect the demographics in terms of enrollment patterns of our students and families.

[01:48:25] because we have some schools, I know one of the Greenbrier schools, and I got it wrong last time, has received over 70 new students since winter break. And for an elementary school that's a significant number of students. So we just want to make sure that in our planning that we don't renovate buildings and add space where we don't need it, but that we do renovate buildings that we actually do need the space. I would also say that to the point around, particularly at the elementary level. I think much of our high school boundary likely won't shift much. It's our elementary that, as I look around the

[01:49:02] county, has the longest bus drives generally for our youngest children. And when I think about our young children and families that want to be a part of that school community, it's very difficult for some families to travel the distance. If they could just go to their closest to elementary school, there's much more family engagement which goes to your point around higher student attendance and honestly you could translate that into achievement when it's a neighborhood school. And my last question is this FCPS hired an outside consulting firm MGT to conduct a study a number of years ago.

[01:49:39] Do you know if they recommended a cyclical review every five years? Yes sir they did. In fact I pulled that up thinking someone would ask me. It was their recommendation number seven. Sorry last Next question, do you believe that this policy is consistent with the MGT study recommendations?

[01:49:55] Yes, sir. Ms. Dixit. Thank you for the discussion and very engaging discussion. I did want to say that the reason we did not go for any other boundary change in between and when my personally at my area there was significant overcrowding and did not support any other boundary change because again everybody as a board wanted to look at a holistic way

[01:50:27] of at the at the boundary. I did want to address something that we cannot improve a school which is 120 percent at capacity. Where do we send our kids? Do you want us because if the community is going to support us we're going to obviously move forward with this.

[01:50:47] But the thing is we cannot send our kids to Loudon and other counties and tell them no So we have to accept any child who lives in that boundary. So the school gets overcrowded and overcrowded more and more. And we're seeing that in Western High School, Western High side of Fairfax County.

[01:51:05] And we have been talking about Fairfax Western High School for over a decade now, 10 years. We don't even have a location for it right now. So this is becoming more of an urgency, more than like, okay, let's just see it next year, next year.

[01:51:22] because I believe it's escalating. Again, I want to say that there's school in my district which are really suffering because of that, and those are my constituents. I'm looking out for them, thanks.

[01:51:38] - Mr. Moon. - Thank you for another three minutes. I ran out of time, and last time I was making a point on a triggering point. I'm gonna reemphasize the need to be as transparent as possible to the community, and to provide them in the certainty what they can expect.

[01:52:03] And that should go into regulations because in the policy discussion, the board members do not have all the data and do not have all the time in the world to be able to discuss those in detail. And that should go into a superintendent's office to be able to do that.

[01:52:20] Why do I say that? Because in every boundary adjustment decisions that I went through as a board member, When it comes to the board, when it comes to those community, to get the community input, we provide them with the data.

[01:52:37] We provide them with the numbers. Capacity numbers, please. Capacity numbers, why we are recommending this change, this option will provide this and that.

[01:52:54] Those, we'll look at the capacity numbers. Why under our regulations or policy, We want to look at if school is over capacity by this. We'll look at that. We'll look at the proximity. One's proximity may be different from other board members' proximity.

[01:53:14] A board member may accept, or a community member may accept 30 miles for elementary school, except for wires. Some others say this, way too long. So all depends, but providing some transparency in the regulation, committee members will be able to see, ah, if we have to travel that far, it may be subject to boundary adjustment.

[01:53:39] So that kind of information, detail, need to be placed in regulations. I think that also requires, I think the last time at the governance committee meeting, I mean, I asked the superintendent, when superintendents works on the regulations, what was her plan in engaging, getting paid back from the community, and I believe what she, you know, how she responded to the question, which I appreciated.

[01:54:06] So whether it's access to programming, enrollment capacity, proximity and transportation, which the Governance Committee considered to be the criteria the superintendent must consider, that giving, providing more detail into regulation is what I believe the superintendent will need to do if this is adopted by the full board.

[01:54:26] Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and take my turn, and then I'm going to pass the mic over. Okay, so the first thing I want to say is this was something that I was not quiet about during the campaign. I absolutely knew that this was coming.

[01:54:43] You can look at the district lines. You can look at our capacity numbers, and you had to know that something was on the horizon. So when I was asked specifically, what do you think the most difficult thing is that you're going to encounter during your time on the board? I said boundaries 100% of the time.

[01:54:59] I was very transparent during the whole time to speak to Mr. Moon's point. We have rural areas in our county like we that that's what makes us cool right and so I would never suggest part of the the reason that there is some amount of flexibility in the guidance on in the policy level is because each of our communities is going to be a little different as to what's expected in my district I

[01:55:24] I have Clifton. Clifton doesn't have an have an elementary school close by. They don't have a high school close by. It's going to require busing for those kids. And so I would never suggest that it has to be one standard fit all fit all because we are not a standard high school. We're not a standard county. The other question that I had for you is you said something very interesting and I will admit fully I've been working so hard on the policy that I did not dig into the regulations related to school boundaries. Is it currently in the boundary that the board board members have to bring forward capacity concerns it's it's the

[01:56:01] practice since i've been here i don't know what the practice was prior to my arrival can we check i mean if it is not in policy and it's not in regulation um and it's just practice and it's no longer working for us that that could change correct if the board wishes it to change it could certainly change yes ma'am i i get very concerned about things that we're doing because they've been the way we've done them forever. And so I would not want us to rest on our laurels just because it's the way we've always done things. So I would hope that we don't stand in the way of progress

[01:56:32] and can get some traction on some of these things. Thank you. I will take my turn. I really appreciate the conversation around data, around transparency. That was a large part of what we talked on the Governance Committee was increasing transparency, increasing public engagement. It's one of the of the reasons we spelled out, you know, much more than the previous policy did, the drill down of the public engagement that we would have. And I think the anticipation was as the superintendent built out the process for the policy review, much of that process would be embedded in regulations. So I appreciate the conversation around that as well, because

[01:57:10] we do want to make sure as we've done other boundary changes, the ad hoc based on data that continues in our policy. And I think one of the things I wanted, I started to mention my last turn was around I think some of my colleagues brought it up around the 42-year renovation cycle and the fact that athletic facilities aren't even included in that renovation queue. I've heard a lot from people in my community about the concern around how long it takes even for major maintenance. My understanding is the bond funds that we have have us on a 42-year renovation

[01:57:44] cycle for schools and so because of that sometimes schools and because of the length of time it takes to renovate my understanding and please correct me if I'm wrong Dr. Reed is that sometimes schools are opening already to over capacity because of the gap between the planning and the data and the actual finishing of building the school or sometimes schools are opening for a certain capacity and then the enrollment numbers don't fit that and so it is difficult to build our way out of this issue especially given the amount of money we get for bonds has this at 42 years and i believe the bond funding doesn't cover all of our major maintenance needs is that correct dr reed that's correct yes ma'am so and i've heard that from school systems i've toured some schools

[01:58:24] in my district where it's freezing in one part of the building and really hot in another. There's roofs falling apart and concerns about how are we even making sure our maintenance is done. I mean when you talk about school safety, right, you want to make sure the kids are in buildings where the roof isn't falling down, right, as a basic, basic starting point. Ms. Seismar, I want to assure you there are no roofs currently already fall down. Yes, I appreciate that and so I want to make sure that, you know, as we looked at this, this was something that was brought up quite a bit to me. The split feeder issue is another issue that I see in Braddock. One of the schools it is

[01:59:00] a double split feeder as well where the AAP students go out of their pyramid for AAP for elementary school but then again back to a different pyramid for AAP in middle school. So that does impact. We learned a lot more since the last time this was done about the importance of belonging and connection and family engagement to student educational opt. And so I think that's really important factor to look at um i really appreciate the comments of all my colleagues on this this is the the hope i had for this work session is that we would take this policy that we did a lot of work on and find kind of hopefully the final different tweaks that board members wanted to bring and i think that's what i'm hearing today so i appreciate all that i'll

[01:59:39] continue to listen as we take this back um to governance and um i just want to say this is something that is not something that i think that we all want to do just because we recognize as stewards of the system and what we've been voted to do, this is an important part of effectively, efficiently utilizing our resources and ensuring an excellent education for our students. Ms. St. John Cunning. Thank you.

[02:00:06] I do appreciate my colleague bringing up the change about including family or caregiver into the policy. I think that that's important. And I do just want to reiterate that even though I didn't run on it, it came up as a big discussion, boundary changes in my district because we do have a lot of island situations and a lot of under and over capacity situations.

[02:00:29] I actually lived through a boundary change when my children were little, and I know how contentious and how emotional it can be. And I respect that our large members respect the Magisterial District's members' advice.

[02:00:50] Having said this, because I've lived through this and because I've been an advocate, I know that there were certain areas where we were advocating for boundary changes in previous boards that we're not going to do it unless it's done holistically. And those were boards that two of our colleagues sat on previously.

[02:01:06] So there's a push and pull of either we do it piecemeal or we do it holistically. This is not an easy undertaking for any of us. we understand exactly what's involved in it but at the bottom line even though I am a representative for the Franconia Magisterial District I have to look at the whole and I respect not only our at-large members but I have visited the districts of some of my other members because we are only as strong as our whole is and I want to thank the board for doing the work that they've done the

[02:01:44] Governance Committee for doing the work that they've done I want to thank you for being inclusive. I want to thank you for doing one-on-one calls with all of us to get our feedback, which I know in other committee situations that has not happened as robustly because you were very intentional about this. I know I had one-on-one conversations a lot with Mr. Moon, you divided and conquered. I mean, the governance committee, the governance committee divided and conquered and talked to us individually and really took a lot of what you see in this

[02:02:20] document is feedback that came back from all of us. I also want to thank you for letting a lot of us sit at the table during your governance committee meetings and letting us speak, which I know is not common practice, because you really wanted to have the voice. In terms of transparency and data, a lot of the data is already out there. All of our meetings have to be open to the public.

[02:02:44] There have been seven meetings previous to this that have always been open to the public, and all the data is available on board docs, so the majority of the data is out there. No one's trying to hide anything, and we're not going to be acting absence of data.

[02:03:03] I understand that this is difficult, but I really am – I'll stop. Dr. Anderson. Yes, thank you.

[02:03:17] I'm not sure what our process is but I want to make sure that I share that on page four with the phasing I will be offering some language around this because I think how we treat elementary is very different from how we would treat students at a middle school when it comes to boundary or even at a high school for all of what that offers. So I think this needs to be tighter and I will be submitting some language. I don't know if this is going back to governance or whatever but that is going to be coming. I also want to support what Mr. McDaniel has shared about ensuring that we're being very clear with our community.

[02:03:51] I said this in the Governance Committee last week. Even with this meeting, while this is our work to go through this policy, there's space for us to hear from the individuals that are sitting here because they're standing up with signs that I can't read.

[02:04:06] But we have to create a space for them to give us their feedback on this before we finalize it. because so as look the more that we hear the easier it is to move forward at least on my part and i'm not saying we're going to agree i'm just saying we're going to provide an opportunity to listen so i hope that that's part of these um considerations as well um just kind of going back to some of the earlier conversations this review is more like an evaluation i i it's just an assessment it's a request for information and when the information is provided then there'll be some sort of plan that is developed there's nothing wrong with looking and seeing are there things

[02:04:46] that you need to change on a very regular basis i've worked in multiple school divisions this is the only one where boundaries are so static i've never seen that before yes we don't want our kids going to three or four different schools during their elementary years but things happen schools become overcrowded buildings are built etc so it has to be part of the process and our kids that We can manage a process that does not hurt them.

[02:05:15] Hearing that the superintendent has just shared, at least that's what I believe I heard from Mr. Dunn's questions, that we don't have any plans or any goals of re-changing the configurations of our middle schools, I'm going to go back to Glasgow Homes and Poe. The plan that was put before the board was an adjustment between those three schools.

[02:05:36] One school sits at nearly 1800. Another school sits at about 800. They can only change with each other. They cannot be part of a holistic boundary adjustment because we can't go out to Frost. Frost only has seven and eight. We can't even go to Luther Jackson, which services some Mason district students. They can only switch with each other. I cannot stress this enough. So this holistic review will have zero impact on what happens at Glasgow because of the current configuration and until that changes they are not going to be part of a holistic review that is

[02:06:14] far-reaching because they can only switch with each other so i do want to put that on the table as to whenever this is complete for that to be a conversation that comes up sooner rather than later because it's a community that actually wants this to happen they're not fighting us on it and i just have a couple more things on the last go back did you want to say something i just want to to clarify my response to Mr. Dunn. Mr. Dunn asked if I had a goal I believe or if the division had a goal for the number of middle schools we were converting or something and there are no current goals but I am running the scenario of schools to be middle schools at 6, 7, 8 so we could call

[02:06:54] those plans but even though there's not a goal because there is an educational blueprint that's very more common than not nationally that does include middle schools of 6, 7, and 8th grade for a variety of reasons. Ms. Marin? Being able to switch themselves that's information for me and so we really need to understand that and this continuous theme of oh but Mason has a different

[02:07:28] setup like we've got to continue to keep that in the mix and address it and make sure it's equitable. The point about static boundaries is so true so if you go to Loudon's website Loudon Public Schools and I just google Loudon Public Schools school boundary locator what comes up it literally says it's for informational purposes only the provided attendance zone or attendance founding information is only valid for the stated school year and is subject to change what fairfax does is an anomaly and it sucks up our resources it is not a best practice how we're doing things so i just wanted to state that i also it's i love when the public comes to participate

[02:08:08] i i hope that more will happen we're here all the time in empty rooms um in our school board meetings, you know, we have lots of empty seats every two weeks. So, you know, there's lots of opportunities to help find solutions and work together. It's not an all or nothing, but doing nothing is not an option right now. Continuing to be static is not an option because it's not serving our kids the best way. So I'm sitting here to do something, and I think that we're doing a very thoughtful approach. I think it's this board's responsibility to do this work. So I will

[02:08:46] continue moving forward and I hope that the community can be partners in that as we create something better and continue to change because again even as I said I think this morning look at this now we're gonna have seven early release Mondays we're looking at changing middle school start times I mean when I got elected in 2020 we were just considering whether to put laptops in middle schoolers hands and months later everyone got a laptop things change and And we've got to keep moving and adapting to it with the community with us.

[02:09:15] So I continue to support this. And, yep, thanks. I'm going to go ahead and take a turn real fast, and then I'm going to pass the mic over. What Loudoun County's website says is the same thing ours says.

[02:09:32] It does say that boundaries are evaluated every year. It's just whether or not we actually move through with actually doing something about what we know is true. If you read through the CIP, you know we understand which schools are over capacity. We know which schools are under capacity.

[02:09:49] We do this process every year. So now we just have to do something with the information and the robust data that we've been collecting for years. The other thing that I will say is I don't solely agree with you that Glasgow can only move to other 6th through 8th grade.

[02:10:06] You're only talking about 6th graders that can't move. So if you have a sixth grader that is currently in a 678 middle school, I agree with you. They need to stay in a 678 middle school. But that doesn't mean that a fifth grader that hasn't entered middle school yet at all has to go to that configuration.

[02:10:27] They can actually go to another elementary school if they want to, that is sixth grade. So I don't necessarily, well, the same way that any of this would happen, right? So we have to look at the boundaries and figure out where the kids logically need to go.

[02:10:42] But the reason I voted no on Glasgow to begin with is the fact that I wanted us to have the flexibility of being able to actually look at the map without current lines written down so that we don't have to move kids three times within a certain you know span of schools it's very likely that you're right that they're going to end up staying in the rough general area we don't know that's what I was saying before we all walk in and look at the map and we think we know what the answers are going to be and we don't because we need the we need to have the time to actually look at this holistically in order to be able to figure out what the path forward is

[02:11:21] So that's in my opinion what this policy gives us is the time and space to do that work So I appreciate I'll kind of pick up where you left off I guess I'm confused if there needs to be changes for let's say the two secondary schools that are in the Braddock district Now I'm not saying that they would be couldn't those seventh and eighth graders go to a standalone middle school Like I guess couldn't a sixth grader from Glasgow go to a elementary school if that's what the change I mean, I think this is getting the implementation But I'm not quite sure I understand why they have to stay in that model in the same way I know there's been changes between Robinson and Woodson, right?

[02:11:57] And Woodson is a standalone, Irving Woodson Middle School, and Robinson is a secondary. I guess I'm just confused by that statement. Well, yes, ma'am. I think the inference is if you're in a pyramid or a region that only has six, seven, eights, then all of the elementaries within that pyramid would only be K-5.

[02:12:18] So that's the premise, I think, or the context for the statement. I think the continuing statement was, if we looked beyond that pyramid or beyond that region, we would find other elementary schools that were K-6. So I think sometimes both can be true at the same time, and both statements are true, and in a holistic review, a sixth-grader, Holmes, Poe, or Glasgow might, in fact, end up at a sixth-grade at an elementary school that's outside one of those pyramids, if that makes

[02:12:52] sense. However, in the holistic review, we may find, we don't know yet what we will see based on a full dropping of a net looking at all positioning enrollments. And I think that that kind of gets my point, right? I think we need to look at programming, right? But one of the factors is access to programming. And I would argue that 6th graders in middle school or 7th and 8th graders in a secondary school may have different access to programming than 6th graders in an elementary school or 6th or 7th and 8th graders who are in a standalone middle school.

[02:13:23] I can tell you my children had much more access to programming in a secondary school, especially my musician child, than in a standalone middle school. So I think those are some of the unique qualities that we have around the county that we need to take into account. I believe, and correct me if this information is incorrect, back when the sixth graders were put into middle school in the Mason District, I believe in the late 90s, it was considered a pilot program that was piloted there and potentially to be expanded or not.

[02:13:49] My understanding is we're an outlier in Fairfax County. the surrounding counties around us all have sixth grade and middle school. So I just wonder if this is a broader programming kind of conversation that obviously has overlays in that holistic review, but I don't know if that's part of that holistic review since access to programming is one of the bullets.

[02:14:06] And you may be able to answer that yet, but just a thought. I think I can answer it because Dr. Anderson asked whether that first bullet would enable us to take a look at that, and my response is yes, in fact, it would. And there's a great deal of research that having sixth grade in a middle school provides more access to programs that you would not find in an elementary school very clearly, particularly around mathematics, science, the arts, and career and college classes. And it is true, we're an outlier, not just regionally, but nationally in that

[02:14:40] area. Having said that, I think there's a great deal of work yet to be done in terms looking at a scenario about whether that would even be possible. Furthermore, I think there's a large discussion to Mr. Dunn's point around boundaries and engagement, absenteeism, and I think when you have middle schools that have two grade levels, seventh and eighth grade, every year you turn your student body over by 50 percent and that's a constant churn that middle schools that have at

[02:15:16] least three years have less of that churn and are able to build a different type of culture and climate for adolescents of that age band which is what the middle school national research has a large number of studies around that topic so I think there are a variety of reasons why it's important for us to look at that scenario in our county right now we have a lot of young people transitioning in from the military from around the world and foreign service and other companies who are excited to start middle school in sixth grade only to find out that they're actually going to go back to elementary school.

[02:15:53] Their parents may be kind of sighing gratitude or a little bit, but it's a topic. It's not our most pressing topic, but it's certainly an opportunity. And I think I just want to end -- well, I will just say as a personal experience, that actually happened to me.

[02:16:11] My parents moved schools when I was going into sixth grade, which is middle school then and due to budget cuts, the school district I moved into put, sorry, going into seventh grade, and the school district I moved into put seventh grade in elementary school. So I had seventh grade in elementary school, and I remember crying at not being able to take the elective. So personally, I did live through that. But I will say overall, like, I just want to say this is hard work, but there are a lot of benefits that can come to looking holistically at how are we providing education benefits to our students in terms of bus times, being with their community, being in

[02:16:47] classrooms that are not overcrowded, that have direct data-driven ties to student achievement. And I don't believe I was elected to do the easy work. I was elected to do all the work that needs to be done to make our school system excellent. So I appreciate all the hard work. I appreciate the comments. As a reminder, the process for if there are any suggestions of changes to utilize the next steps process that our clerk has sent out so we will um any change you want to make please put on the next steps in 48 hours and we'll have board members give their consensus on those next steps before the governance meeting but i think that we've come up with a very reasonable policy

[02:17:24] that looks holistically at the needs of our system in a time sensitive manner that doesn't then take 10 years to address an issue while communities wait so thank you to the committee members. Mr. Moon? Thank you. Dr. Anderson, Dr. Anderson, I was going to throw my support for your advocacy in classical middle school, which I supported at the time that it's regrettable that the rest of the board saw it different ways, and because I believe that even

[02:18:02] with a comprehensive review, we'll come back to the same suggestion that you would come back. It It would just be delay of justice for a few years for the students at the Glasgow Middle School and in other students in Mason District.

[02:18:18] That's how I saw. So I just wanted to note that you are taking a right approach, especially as a Magical District Board member, and that you still have my support. Dr. Anderson.

[02:18:34] Thank you. I very much appreciate that. And I think that's also one of the things that I think that's the reason why Mr. McElveen says, at large members, they defer to the magisterial. I don't know, Sully. I have no idea what's going on there. So I really rely on your feedback in terms of what's happening.

[02:18:55] Every single school that is based in the Mason District, every single elementary, is a K-5. So what are we going to do now? Move them out? Because we have some schools that are so central in the Mason District, there's no place for those students to go. They couldn't possibly go to the edges to go to sixth grade elsewhere. We will always have this issue unless we have a uniform middle school configuration in the district. And frankly, I've been a teacher and I've been an administrator and a school principal and a K-5 and a K-6 and a 7-8 and a 6-7-8. Makes no difference to me, really. It really absolutely does not because there's

[02:19:33] pros and cons of each. What we need to have is a uniform approach in Fairfax County, whatever that is. But we are not there yet. As Melanie, Ms. Marin just said a little while ago, doing nothing is not an option. So doing nothing for my community is not an option. While these plans are well and good, but they are years out and we have a tired principal, a tired staff, and frankly a tired community who is sick and tired of having their kids walk elbow to elbow in the hallway when there There is relief to be found nearby, and they want it.

[02:20:12] That is why I continue to fight for this. That is why I will continue to bring this back up, and I will be bringing it back up in the near future as new business because I have the option to do that. You could keep saying no every time I bring it up, but I'm going to be bringing it back up, so I want to make sure that that's articulated here.

[02:20:28] The other thing that I wanted to be sure that we kind of distinctly -- we need to distinguish when we're talking about renovations, not all renovations necessarily mean an expansion of the school. Some renovations is just updating whatever is happening, but I think most of ours result in adding additional square footage, and I know that's the piece that Ms. Zabinski is working on, and it will help just to situate some of these conversations a little bit better.

[02:20:57] Just kind of looking ahead as to next steps, Dr. Reed, we're here, we have this policy, whenever it is that we vote on it, then you will build the regulation and then ultimately the implementation plan in terms of how this will be produced. Can you just kind of talk a little bit about that? I'll be building an implementation plan to meet whatever the expectation of the policy is. And updates to the regulation? Are these going to be happening in tandem?

[02:21:27] If we see updates that need to be done to the regulation as a result of the policy that's approved those would be updated they're not always regulations aren't always updated when policies are updated but we definitely would review the regulation in light of whatever the policy revisions would be and craft an implementation plan thank you and the last piece I want to share because Miss Anderson had asked the CIP actually articulates the school board members bring forward these things it may not be in the policy but it's on CIP I don't

[02:22:03] know page 34 or something like that nope that's my time mr. Frisch thank you I want to reiterate something that a colleague mentioned I've had conversations with constituents who are in crowded schools who talk about how great it must be to be in a school that is under capacity because sometimes we don't think through what that means for the students in that school and so one thing that mistakes it recognized in her community and I've seen it in my own is

[02:22:37] um is that when a school is starved of attendance it's also starved of different opportunities that other schools have and so it is just as incumbent upon us to deal with the problem of overcrowding as it is for us to deal with the problem of under capacity or under utilization as it relates to k-5 and 6-8 i wish that my middle schools in my district had what is considered to be the best practice. There is a certain logic to understanding that if one of our strategic plan goals is algebra by 8th grade, the longer we have to get them in the pipeline for that,

[02:23:15] and consequently, why do we have the strategic plan objective of algebra by 8th grade? It's because it sets them up for success with advanced math in high school, which sets them up for success in college and their post high school careers. And so these things are all interrelated, AND I HOPE AND I WILL GLADLY HELP ADVOCATE FOR AS MUCH AS WE CAN MOVING TOWARDS A K-5-6-8 MODEL BECAUSE IT IS THE BEST PRACTICE AND WE LOSE A GREAT DEAL BUT THESE STUDENTS SHOW UP IN MIDDLE

[02:23:51] SCHOOL AND BEFORE THEY'RE EVEN REALLY KNOWN THEY'RE ON THEIR WAY OUT AND WE CAN DO SO MUCH MORE WITH THEM IF WE HAVE THEM FOR THREE YEARS IN THAT MIDDLE SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT AND I LOOK forward to supporting whatever work I can to make sure that we're allowing all students in Fairfax County to take advantage of that opportunity.

[02:24:12] Ms. Dixit. So I'm picking up from from Mr. Frisch said that this is a great opportunity if you look into a K to middle school starting from sixth grade right for the more if we look into that direction more so ever we have to look at our holistic boundary because Rachel Carson cannot take any sixth grader it's like they just don't have the capacity. And I know, Dr. Anderson, you said about there are schools means expansion, sometimes we talk about renovation. There are schools, and I'll give you an example of Chantilly

[02:24:46] again, there is no space left to build. They are like landlocked, they have community homes, the homes behind and the library in the front of the, you know, in busy intersections and stuff like that. There is, they just cannot add more classrooms. So if they need to, you know, if If nothing is to be done there, then I have walked the halls, and I welcome other board members who can come one day to Chantilly, and Ms. Anderson, I went there.

[02:25:15] The classes are so tight that kids were not able to move. If something had to happen, they would be falling on each other to get out of the class. So we are seeing that, and then we are seeing those letters and emails, students saying that they have all this issue going on in their school.

[02:25:32] So I bring this up again, bringing this up again, like Dr. Anderson is advocating for Mason, I do that for Sully because we do have an overpopulation in our area and we need to address that. Sometimes Sully is kind of in the corner, people forget about it, but I'm here to make it hard. Thank you.

[02:25:52] I'm going to go ahead and take my turn. One thing I will say is we saw a great presentation last night on the importance of pre-K. And I know fully and completely that the only way that we are going to be able to fully fit pre-K into our schools is to by actually pursuing the model of making sure that we can move sixth grade up into middle school.

[02:26:15] I'm not against that in any way. I actually think it's a robust plan. I love that idea. My concern is the secondary schools. I as someone who graduated from Lake Braddock, I would be very concerned about sending my sixth grader in with seniors, just to be quite honest. So we do have unique school circumstances in lots of different areas within our county. I wanted to make clear to Dr. Anderson, it's not that I don't support ensuring that the schools in Mason District are right sized. My concern is, is that I also have three schools

[02:26:51] schools in mind that are significantly over capacity. And so what I want us to be able to stop doing is having it be a battle to try to figure out whose we're going to take care of first. The whole idea here is the reason that I didn't want to move forward with just looking at Glasgow is that it eliminates the possibility of looking at other things at the same time. And so I want to make sure because I have no idea. Yes, I understand that the schools smack dab in the middle of Mason District are landlocked and will likely stay in same model but i have zero idea of whether or not other elementary schools will actually get

[02:27:26] redistricted into another pyramid and so that was the whole reason that i wanted us to go forward with this work to figure out whether or not we can actually reduce capacity or reduce the the program or the enrollment by actually realigning some of the pyramids as dr reed spoke to the to the need um to do that with within the elementary school systems um so i i like all of my the rest of my colleagues i support at least looking at k through five and six through eight as a possibility as someone who recently had a sixth grader i can tell you that there are a whole lot of differences

[02:28:02] between kindergarten and sixth grade um so i definitely think that it's a good idea to kind of put them with the kids that it makes the most sense to do so so just briefly we had lots of um turns and and the governance committee talked at length about this i just wanted to say a couple things about um there are so many conversations data-driven conversation of best practices we're having one right now about where sixth grade belongs and the best practice around that and how we're an outlier i think about some of the schools that are significantly overcrowded where it doesn't just impact the number of kids in the classroom which is a significant impact but also the use of

[02:28:39] the facilities there's schools where um and i think lake products one of them where kids are having lunch at 10 o'clock in the morning or almost 1 30 in the afternoon because there's one cafeteria amongst six grades as an example that that's happening in elementary schools as well they're overcrowded they're having to share the cafeteria space the gym space the so there is and same with the under crowding i've heard from some schools that are under that they don't have the um the mass to have a advanced math class we used to call compacted math i'm sure they still call it that because there isn't enough of a population that has an impact on the students who need that program or that enrichment at their schools, so I think there's a lot for both that we can address,

[02:29:17] and there is a ton of data in our CIP, there's a ton of data in best practices, and I think I'm going to just finish by saying something that really intrigued me about you from the time that you came here and started working with you, and you have that Dr. Reed face because you don't quite know what's coming, but it's a statement you always make about the importance of remaining a little bit more curious, right, and I think there is a lot of concern, understandable, and angst, because a lot of people, I think, and I know I'll speak for myself, think about what we've done in the past for boundaries and kind of put that on what this might look like going forward, because that's what we know, right? It's been since 1986. So that's

[02:29:57] what this community knows for decades. And I think the value of being a little more curious about all the amazing things that could come if we do this hard work is really important. And we're talking about it here already, right? The value of sixth grade from family engagement, from the things that we know now lead to student outcomes and achievement for programs where students could access an elementary school for eating at a time that you should be eating. I mean, Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So I just would encourage all of us and the community to remain a little bit curious about

[02:30:32] what this could entail for being that beacon school system on a hill. Thank you. Dr. Anderson. Yes and these will be my last comments. Dr. Presidio I think was here. One of the things that might be helpful for this board when we were looking at perhaps returning, well not returning, doing something with sixth grade students in the Mason District back in 21-22, there was a white paper that was developed that gave some of the scholarly reports regarding its

[02:31:06] benefits maybe that's helpful to to this group since it's already been developed again i don't have any dog in that fight i just want consistency i think any and all of it can can work um so i wanted to raise that secondly i also wanted to raise the continuing issue with glasgow not only with all of things that that i've explained it's also the only aap center in all of mason district so there's an additional layer and um yes it was again i've learned quite a bit going down

[02:31:37] this journey it was a pilot program in 1991-92 which the board voted on in 1990 and then in 1991 voted to expand and it never happened it never was even evaluated until i started raising it in 21. that's the only other time it's been looked at even people who currently are working now had no memory of what had occurred at that point. And also, again, I'm beating this horse to death, but I'm just going to do it. You know, my daughter has lunch at 1025 as a sixth grader in Glasgow,

[02:32:14] and that speaks to what you're saying. And I don't really, I don't really cotton to the idea of if we can't do all of it, we can't do any of it. That doesn't work for me. Sometimes we have to go in smaller chunks and and that's kind of the approach that I've seen here because we can't do everybody we can't do this school and again this school is kind of tailor-made to be its own little grouping as current and I know I walk those halls I walk Mason District on a daily basis and I would like for us to kind of move away from if we can't do everybody we can't do any of the people because

[02:32:52] there's no equity in that not for a community that is highly disadvantaged in the way that much of the Glasgow community is. Thank you. Ms. St. John Cunning. Okay since I didn't have my thoughts organized and I just was rambling last time I what I do want to finish off with is this as I mentioned before my community went through this and we survived. My kids went through this the families went through this. I've worked in mostly elementary schools but also some middle

[02:33:29] high schools for the past 26 years most of the schools that i've worked at are the are the schools that people a lot of times would not want their children to go to and i want to remind this board and i want to remind the community that people are listening teachers are listening staff is listening our students are listening and when you talk about some schools not being a school that is worth your child to go to, what is the message you are sending to those teachers,

[02:34:07] to that staff, to those families, and to those students in those schools? I've worked in those schools. I have seen the most amazing, dedicated staff members. I've seen amazing things going on.

[02:34:24] I've seen children thrive. I've seen families thrive. I moved to Fairfax County, not for a specific school but for Fairfax County public schools. When I found out that the school that my children could walk to was not my base school because it was one of those schools and that I had the golden ticket for my kids to drive past three schools to get to that really good school and I chose not to send them there, people were surprised. I never regretted that decision. Best decision I

[02:35:02] ever made for my children. I just want you to realize that all of our Fairfax County schools are great schools. Do they have challenges? Absolutely. This policy is designed to equitably handle those challenges and I fully support this policy because it's the right thing for our community, for our teachers, our staff, but most importantly for our students. Mr. Dunn. Anyone Everyone watching at home would think that this is a discussion about middle school's

[02:35:42] grades six through eight, so thank you, Dr. Anderson, for taking us a little bit off message. But fundamentally for me, this is about money and resources and effectively using that money and resources.

[02:35:59] We have been underfunded by tens of millions of dollars per year, perhaps more, by the federal government for decades for special education. We are underfunded on an annual basis, an annual basis by the state to the tune of $568.7 million.

[02:36:16] That's a huge amount of money. And as a result, Fairfax County taxpayers have had to make up the difference through higher property taxes. And the primary beneficiary of that is the school system. It represents over 50% of the annual expenditures of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.

[02:36:38] For me, we have a sacred obligation to listen to our constituents, but also to expend those resources in an efficient manner. When we have school buildings that are way underutilized, that is not consistent with fiscal responsibilities, not consistent with efficient use of resources.

[02:37:04] We should not be building new buildings when we have plenty of buildings already. this measure alone will probably go a long way towards eliminating uh trailers modular units within our county there was a major campaign for that just five to ten years ago and it affected significant reductions but not their elimination my goal is every kid should learn in a brick school building or maybe concrete block depending on the design um but you know i i really want the best modernized classrooms and so i am pursuing every option on the table available to us within

[02:37:39] the fiscal constraints we have to make sure that our students learn in modern classrooms and buildings and have the best athletic facilities bar none consistent with the wealth of our county consistent what someone living outside of fairfax county would expect to see arriving at our doors and i'd also like to echo my colleague's point every single student uh has access in our county right now to a great school my my children also attended that school the school that realtors warned people not to move so that they wouldn't have to go there um the school where half

[02:38:17] the uh population comes from the quote-unquote wrong side of the tracks so i just want to say we have to support our communities and and i believe strong schools make strong communities and vice versa so i believe this will go a long way towards being fiscally responsible ensuring efficient use of our resources, minimizing or avoiding property tax increases, and allowing every child to gain a world-class education in our school system.

[02:38:48] Ms. Marin. Yeah, in the vein of, you know, continuing to inform the public about this process, you know, at times I've tried to help educate people about, you know, the capital improvement program and that the tax dollars we collect through that add up to our $3.8 billion budget actually don't go to building buildings that's the bond that we vote on every year and how that money works or things like you know though well the great schools is what mentioned what brings us up but I just want to say there's so

[02:39:26] much to this that is based on tradition and what we think we know and the more we can focus on data and what's true the better things are going to be and I

[02:39:34] just I have to because great schools from interpreting our data because the

[02:40:11] state already interprets our data and that's the truest data if you want to just look at the demographics. We've had elementary schools with grade schools ratings of three have the elementary school principal of the year in FCPS so you know just in this vein of continuing to widen class with a smaller number of kids than a crowded classroom in what some may think is the best school because the instructional experience is just going to be so much better when we

[02:40:49] that small community learning experience. Thank you. I see no more placards. Seeing no other placards, I'll take a minute to make sure none of my other colleagues want to speak and we'll just sort of talk through next steps for this process.

[02:41:08] I want to first thank everybody for my colleagues again on the governance committee, my colleagues on the board, and for the community members who have shown up at our meetings, who have written to us, who have spoken. We really value, honestly value the engagement of our community our community is one reason why we made sure it was much more robust in this version of the policy draft that we have and so we thank you for your time we know you're busy and we appreciate it and thank you for letting us do our work we really really appreciate that as well the next steps for this is that the clerk I may have already but should circulate the next steps document if there are changes to the policy that you would like to see please put that on

[02:41:46] the next steps document and then the deadline for those potential changes on next steps will be Thursday at 5 p.m. at that point if board members want to give some consensus on what is post on the next steps document by Sunday end of day then the governance committee can take a look at that at our meeting on Monday to make any final revisions to this draft after that it will be turned back over to our chair to schedule for a next new business and a vote but again this has been seven meetings over the course of several months and I really appreciate all of the work and comments from both the colleagues on the committee and colleagues

[02:42:24] on the board as well as the input from the community. I look forward to having a stronger policy in place to turn over to our superintendent for the implementation and regulations that will follow from it. So thank you very much for the interest. Thank you very much for your time. And with that, this meeting is adjourned.

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