Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Meeting, Thursday, July 18, 2024

Date: Thursday, July 18, 2024
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 5h 49m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vx9cWAmF1M
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 2026-10-31. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:03:55] Board members, please take your seats.

[00:04:38] This July 18th, 2024, regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board will now come to order. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by a moment of silence and a performance of the National Anthem by West Springfield High School student Ruby Carlin.

[00:04:54] - I pledge allegiance.

[00:06:53] - We hear another round of applause for our incredibly talented student. Agenda item 2.02, announcements. Miss Lady has submitted a written request to attend this evening's meeting virtually due to a personal conflict.

[00:07:11] All those in favor of approving Miss Lady's request, Miss St. John Cunning, Mr. Moon, Mr. Dunn, Miss Sizemore Heiser, Miss Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Dr. Anderson, Miss Dixit, and Miss Marin, and myself. That's unanimous for board members present.

[00:07:27] Miss Lady, will you test your microphone? We will test her when she is connected.

[00:07:44] Mr. McIlveen regrets that he is unable to attend tonight's meeting, he is leading a 27-day tour of China with recent FCPS graduates that was arranged prior to the scheduling of this meeting. If you would like to review a copy of the agenda and any agenda item that is being discussed tonight, that information may be found in the back of the auditorium or on the website at fcps.edu/schoolboard/boarddocs.

[00:08:08] Tonight's meeting is being broadcast on Channel 99 live streamed on the website fcps.edu slash tv slash ch99 this is a reminder that the school board members will no longer make remarks about a proclamation when it is presented to the board for a vote they may choose to make such remarks during board matters agenda item 3 2.03 honoring penny gross proclamation i call on mr moon for a proclamation thank you mr chairman i have a proclamation honoring Penny Gross, a longtime friend of mine, retiring from FCPS. Whereas,

[00:08:44] Penny Gross exemplified outstanding leadership and extraordinary dedication throughout her tenure in Fairfax County Public Schools, leaving an indelible mark on FCPS. And whereas, Ms. Gross has more than 20 years of experience as an educator at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. She began her exceptional instructional career as a teacher in the Houston Independent School District and the District of Columbia Public Schools System, and started her career in FCPS as a first grade Spanish Emergent

[00:09:22] teacher at Ravensworth Elementary School in 1996. And whereas Ms. Cross served as assistant principal of a Hondon High School and Robinson Secondary School, and and has served as a principal of a key middle school classical middle school justice high school and lake breadrock secondary school and whereas as the executive principal for school improvement in reason two miss gross mentored and supported school-based leaders and facilitated professional

[00:09:55] development in the annandale forest church justice marshall mcclain pyramids and thomas jefferson high school for science and technology and whereas ms cross was appointed reason for assistant superintendent in 2021 and has led student achievement assessment hiring of principals and promoting positive capable and diverse leaders across the center of your lake bradock robinson south county and west springfield pyramids and whereas as a military spouse ms cross utilized her

[00:10:34] own experience and understandings to address the challenges present for the many military-connected youth and families across region four. And whereas, Ms. Gross's career reflects her commitment to fostering educational excellence and equity. She leaves behind the legacy that every student deserves access and opportunity to attain the highest quality education possible. And whereas, As during her illustrious career as an educator, Ms. Gross has on numerous awards and honors

[00:11:10] including the Parliamentary-named Penny Gross Leadership Award, top-rated principal, and the Educator of the Year. And whereas Ms. Gross holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Spanish from the University of Virginia and a master's degree in education leadership and policy studies from Virginia Tech.

[00:11:33] And whereas, while teaching Spanish in District of Columbia, Ms. Gross was also waiting tables at the Outback Steakhouse. One of her customers turned out to be her own FCPS middle school Spanish teacher, who recruited her to come back home.

[00:11:52] 25 years later, with a detour to New York and Chicago along the way, Ms. Gross is looking forward to following a lesson her father unintentionally taught her, retire early and spend the years ahead on the things that brings joy.

[00:12:09] Now, therefore, be resolved that the Fairfax County School Board extends its highest commendation and deepest appreciation to Penny Gross for her outstanding and unwavering service to Fairfax County Public Schools and to the students and citizens of this community.

[00:12:27] So I move. - Thank you, Mr. Moon. Is there a second? - Second. - Thank you, Dr. Anderson. I'll call for the vote. those in favor. Ms. Marin, Ms. Dixit, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Sizemoreheiser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Ms. St. John Cunning, and Ms. Lady, and myself. That is unanimous. Congratulations.

[00:12:53] I would like to welcome Penny Gross and invite all those who support the proclamation to please join

[00:13:06] the board for a photo at the front of the dais. Ms. Lady, could we have you test your microphone?

[00:15:28] we hear you loud and clear thank you agenda item 3.01 community participation I would like to take an opportunity to acknowledge our former student representative Rita Kareem who is with us tonight somewhere there she is the next order of business is community participation we welcome all community members who are here and those who signed up to speak this evening additional information about signing up to provide comments at school board regular business meetings and public hearings can be found on the school

[00:16:05] board's website during the signup process community members acknowledge they were informed of the school board's expectations for proper decorum when providing comments. These expectations are also provided online and with the printed agenda and meeting materials in the back of the room. We ask audience members to be respectful of one another.

[00:16:22] Shouting and outbursts will not be tolerated. Please hold your applause until the conclusion of a speaker's remarks. Audience members may not join speakers at the podium and should remain at their seats, including when recording video or taking photos. We are grateful to those who have come to speak to us today and thank you for your cooperation.

[00:16:38] School board members will be listening but not responding. Madam Clerk, please call the first speaker. - Isabella Olveson.

[00:16:58] - Folks, please hold your applause until our speaker's concluded. You run the risk of running into their time. Thank you. - Fairfax Matters. My name is Isabella Olveson and I am a rising seventh grader who is about to attend Cooper Middle School.

[00:17:13] This upcoming year represents an exciting milestone in my life. However, there's a significant concern that I need to address. As an AAP student, I am a high achiever. I value consistency as it helps me to maintain order in my life. In addition to working hard in school, I'm a member of the swim team, basketball team, choir, band, and safety patrol captain, and recently was awarded the President's Award for Educational Excellence and the Optimist Award.

[00:17:41] The one thing I didn't plan for was the need to potentially change schools either during my time at Cooper Middle School or when I'm in high school. The revisions to policy 8130 make that more likely. Not only would I have to leave school that I have dreamed about attending since moving from New Jersey to Virginia, but I'm afraid that I'll also have to leave behind friends I've grown close to.

[00:18:02] Friends that I play basketball and swim with. These people are more than just friends to me. They're like my extended family. We've shared countless victories, defeats, and cherished memories together. The stability provided by these friendships have been essential to my adjustment and happiness here in Virginia.

[00:18:18] While I understand that change is an inevitable part of life and can lead to new opportunities, I also believe that stability is crucial, especially during these formative years. Constantly changing schools can disrupt not just my academic journey, but also my social life and the extracurricular activities I am passionate about.

[00:18:36] I hope we can find a solution that allows students like me to benefit from advanced academic programs without the constant disruption of changing schools. It's important for us to have a sense of belonging and continuity, which are vital for our academic success and overall wellbeing.

[00:18:53] Thank you for listening and understanding my concerns. I hope we can work together to ensure that all students receive the stability and support they need to thrive in one united Fairfax.

[00:19:23] - Student number two.

[00:19:40] - Hi, I'm Mia, a Fairfax County student focused on global citizenship. Our curriculum emphasizes diverse perspectives, rights, responsibilities, and community impact. Learning isn't just from textbooks, it's through community.

[00:19:57] relationships where global citizenship is modeled. Teachers encourage critical thinking and respectful dialogue. In our supportive classrooms, we feel safe to express ourselves and recognize the privilege of our education. Connecting with peers and teachers makes us part of something bigger.

[00:20:14] It's disappointing that children directly impacted by school changes are often not consulted, as our relationships are crucial to understanding and shaping our community. Losing the support network would be devastating to our growth as a global citizens in FCPS.

[00:20:41] - Student number three. - Good evening. I am a resident of Great Falls and currently a student at Cooper Middle School.

[00:20:58] Tonight, I'd like to give you a student's perspective on the negative impacts on our student community due to the potential rezoning of schools. First, the main reason I like going to Cooper Middle School is because of the many friends and classmates there with whom I interact with constantly. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, Friendships can positively impact students' academic performances and grade point average by providing emotional support and reducing stress, thereby leading to improved focus and better concentration on studies.

[00:21:28] My friends have helped me with many things I couldn't have done alone, and without them I would feel very alone and stressed. Second, there are various school clubs and activities I am currently involved in at Cooper. For example, I do Science Olympiad and Band. Science Olympiad is an event that builds knowledge and collaboration skills, and I have devoted many hours to it.

[00:21:47] It requires teamwork and dedication and having friends to help greatly increases efficiency. As you may know, Cooper Middle School's band program is one of the best in the state and I am lucky enough to be in the highest band where we can play high school level pieces and partake in trips that have mostly never been done before.

[00:22:04] For instance, going to Chicago to play in the Midwest conference was one of the best experiences I've ever had. After spending so much time practicing, having that taken away is something that I, along with many others, would never forget. Lastly, as you know, the pandemic has caused a psychological crisis among students.

[00:22:24] Sitting over a computer for extended periods to learn is not something I want to do again. I'm grateful for living relatively close to many of my friends because hanging out with them was reassuring during a time of crisis. Middle school gave me a lot more responsibilities, thus making me feel more stressed.

[00:22:42] If you care about our emotional well being and the bond of our community and our academic performance it would be best to give a careful consideration and get feedback from the community. Thank you. Harash Mehta.

[00:23:04] Respected board members good evening. I'm an individual. I moved from Bethesda County New York about three years ago.

[00:23:21] A decision to move here was based on a lot of engagement with people who live in this community. The schools my kid would go to and the kind of education they would receive. I'm not talking of the value of homes. I'm talking of the dreams that we've given our kids. My kid is preparing hard to get into the Langley swim team.

[00:23:39] She swims four, five days a week sometimes, one and a half hours a year. Schools become good because parents invest in the schools with the kids. By adding a level of disruption, which is probably unwarranted, under the pretext that we are trying to optimize the school system, looks like a little unthought-of process.

[00:24:03] I'm an auditor by training. If I get in the school system, I'll find out a hundred places where you have fraud, waste, and abuse that you can stop. It's not just like me. You can hire a million consultants who will find fraud, waste, and abuse. A school relocation or disruptive, anything that's disruptive to the life of a child, should be the place of last recourse.

[00:24:23] It should not be a primary approach. When we say just 15%, 15% is a huge number. When you look at schools like Langley or McLean, almost 250 or 300 kids will get relocated. It's almost like saying my kid will get into a school team, which she's worked so hard for, and after one or two years, she might be asked to relocate to another team.

[00:24:43] How is she going to build relationships? How is she going to grow? How is she going to believe in the concept of government when government has left a short change at the early age of 12 or 10? Please think about this. You're representing us without taking us or taking our thoughts into consideration if you make such changes.

[00:25:05] I think that representation is not fair. Please do consider very carefully your decision about this policy change, thank you.

[00:25:26] - Courtney Dinkins, Courtney Dinkins.

[00:25:43] - Good evening members of the board. I need you to close your eyes for a few moments and envision a workplace where you feel safe, where you feel honored, where you feel validated. Now I want you to keep that in mind every time you walk into an FCPS building as an instructional assistant, a special education teacher, a general education teacher, a cafeteria worker, custodian a bus driver or security guard you have worked so hard to make a difference in kiddos lives yet every day and every time you walk into a building start up your bus go into a kitchen or classroom you have no idea what awaits you will you be validated if you voice a concern

[00:26:21] will you be heard or thrown to the wolves you call your principal or vice principal better yet if a kiddo bites you or scratches you even hits you to the point of having to go to the er will Will anyone support you? With this contract, yes, it's about money, but it's also about our rights as FCPS employees.

[00:26:41] It's the admin who greet us every day who want to know they matter. It's the custodians who help run a building in god-awful heat during the summer who just want better working conditions. It's about the IAs who work in special education who want hazard pay and better training to protect ourselves.

[00:26:59] Now open your eyes. As we celebrate this huge win in over 50 years, this is why we matter. This is why our voice matters. This is why we are happy, extremely happy to have a seat at the table and discuss what matters to FCPS employees.

[00:27:17] All of us. Thank you. Arthur Olveson.

[00:27:37] My name is Arthur Olveson and I'm a member of the Board of Directors for Fairfax Matters. Thank you to the community for your presence here today and to the school board who have so graciously provided us with the opportunity to speak here and share a proposal for everyone to consider of one united fairfax one united fairfax is a proposal to form a public and private partnership which will provide the means by which we can permanently address the myriad of challenges currently facing fairfax county and its citizens we understand that such a proposal takes time to consider and that's why fairfax matters is asking the school board for a one-month pause in voting to revise policy 8130 as an act of good faith this provides us with enough time to seek feedback regarding our comprehensive plan from the community as part of this pause we propose the following

[00:28:16] actions action one in a meeting with the school board we partner to craft objectives and key results with a target date of one month out based on school board's upcoming recess action two work begins immediately with major corporations seeking to generate short medium and long-term investments with the intent of generating equal and equitable outcomes for all of fairfax county students examples of such long-term investments include the creation of new schools expanded schools state-of-the-art recreation fields and facilities and as many after-school programs as we can possibly create action three the school board and fairfax matters works together with the community to put this proposal to a formal vote on the ballot as early as possible this ensures all groups are held accountable while also allowing the voices of all the great citizens of fairfax

[00:28:55] county to be heard if these actions are completed and the one united fairfax proposal proves to be agreeable to the school board then fairfax matters kindly requests the school board commit to indefinitely pausing any revisions to policy 8130 in favor of focusing on one united fairfax and leverage the existing policy to address key concerns with schools requiring immediate attention, such as Glasgow.

[00:29:14] We propose this to the board in a sign of solidarity, because as Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." We also propose this to the board based on actual case study and corresponding playbook, which has been playing out for the last 10 years by the world's largest financial services institution and JPMorgan Chase in close partnership with the city of Detroit.

[00:29:33] We are confident in this plan's success. We can only hope to achieve this success if we unite, as one united Fairfax.

[00:29:59] Emily Vanderhoff. - Good evening, Chair Frisch, Dr. Reed, and members of the board. My name is Emily Vanderhoff. I'm an FCPS teacher and a proud member of my union, FCFT.

[00:30:14] I first wanna mark the momentous occasion of the certification of the election results that will confirm FEU as the exclusive agent representing the instructional and operational bargaining units. One of my first public comments to this board was February 20th, 2020, when the board voted to remove language opposing collective bargaining in the state and federal legislative program.

[00:30:33] Thank you, Mr. Frisch, for bringing that. um look how far we have come uh fcps employees have just secured the largest public sector union election win in decades i'm grateful for a board that accepts the will of employees to have a seat at the table and look forward to what we accomplish in this new era i next want to speak to the boundary policy 8130. i read the current policy and the proposed draft and watched the 2021 work session i support the board's plan for a comprehensive review of division-wide boundaries and urge you not to delay tonight's planned vote.

[00:31:04] Dr. Rita shared that it has been since at least 1986, when the policy was written, that a district-wide boundary adjustment has taken place. Think of how Fairfax has changed in over 40 years. First of all, I was born in that time. We cannot keep making one-off tweaks when a systemic review with an equity lens is needed.

[00:31:23] I also support the plan to complete a review, a review, mind you, every five years, which the MGT consultants shared commonly is commonly used and best practice. This does not mean that every school will change boundaries every five years, but hopefully a regular review will help the district stay responsive to new developments and population shifts. I appreciate that the draft policy specifies community engagement at every step of the comprehensive review. Additional engagement is also outlined with each community considered for adjustments. I trust that the district will take lessons learned from Bucknell to ensure that impacted

[00:32:02] communities will be actively engaged in decisions about their schools from the start thank you please observe proper decorum for all speakers Kathleen Gillette

[00:32:23] Mallard good evening board it's a lovely evening outside I'm glad to say but I

[00:33:04] decided to come this evening I didn't realize that you all would be addressing FC policy 8 1 3 0 revisions this policy dictates how school geographic boundaries can be changed. As I entered tonight, I was handed a flyer requesting a pause in the revisions. Someone asked why a pause? Why is a pause needed? The response was because sufficient data has not been collected in order for you to make that decision. This dovetail with the topic

[00:33:42] that I was going to talk to you about tonight, that is the human trafficking. I think you remember January 2022 you all passed a resolution on human trafficking and in that resolution you self-admitted every high school in Fairfax County many middle schools in Fairfax County and some elementary schools in Fairfax County have had reports of human trafficking this is data that parents need to have

[00:34:16] so I the other the other issue I was going to talk about is the boundaries between parents and the school board and the schools because sometimes those boundaries are exceeded I have a handout which I will not quote any of the stuff that you're teaching the kids from grade six where they are in now this is not family life education it's emotional social health in intense sex trafficking

[00:34:49] video includes a screen saying victims are forced to have sex with up to 30 customers a day. This is a traumatic video that you are in. Ryan St. Pierre. Thanks for having me. Today we gather as a

[00:35:25] community concerned with the future stability of our schools, families, and businesses. Recent studies underscore the challenges our students face. Losses in learning, increased anxiety and depression, and socialization issues post-COVID. These findings emphasize the critical need for stability and thoughtful decision-making in educational policy the proposed revisions to policy 8130 demand our attention they threaten to introduce uncertainty through frequent frequent boundary changes disrupting communities and compounding existing challenges our students deserve better than policies that overlook the impact on their education and well-being we urge the

[00:36:05] board to pause the revision of policy 8130 until meaningful community engagement occurs this includes acquiring sharing and analyzing unbiased data that can be effectively used to inform decisions transparency and boundary adjustments is crucial shifting districts should be based on clear data driven criteria and be the last resort after exhausting other alternatives stability is paramount for our students and families central to a thriving school environment and community cohesion as we consider the long-term implications of dress draft policy 8130 we must ensure that any changes align with our collective commitment to educational excellence and community

[00:36:44] well-being in conclusion the strength of our school system is foundational to Fairfax County's appeal to its and its ability to attract and retain families and businesses let us prioritize stability and community engagement in shaping the future of our schools we respectfully call upon the board to heed these concerns and ensure that our children's educational journey remains

[00:37:07] stable and prosperous by pausing on the 81:30 revision thank you the Rhea

[00:37:26] Hussain. Good evening my name is the Raya Hussain. I'm a mother of six children all attending for fast County public schools. I'm here on the behalf of my community Muslim and interfaith as a concerned parents to address the concern about passing the pilot program for gender ideology and teaching children

[00:38:04] about sex to FCPS elementary school children. According the first amendment you may have personal belief but you may not impose them upon others. Referencing During last year's FCPS parent survey, the majority chose not to pass gender ideology education and sex education to school curriculum.

[00:38:22] My second point is the concern about the availability of sexually inappropriate contents of books available in FCPS libraries. Those books are not just sexually exploiting children, but also offends and touches our core values as Muslims. The books specifically being this book is gay, gender, queer, and all boys are in blue.

[00:38:41] want school to be educational and nurturing children from all walks of life while respecting all beliefs thank you edward phillips good evening thank you for this opportunity i am ed phillips from the great fall citizens association or gfca gfca is a non-profit all-volunteer community

[00:39:18] organization with a long history of community advocacy in the fairfax county why is gfca asking for a pause in the boundary change policy update when there's no immediate proposal to physically adjust the boundaries because it is our observation that Fairfax County Public Schools holistic review of its boundary policy it has not engaged with the community to gain meaningful inputs on what prioritized policy criteria should be used to determine boundary changes

[00:39:53] The prioritized criteria that you are considering tonight and the methodology you use can largely predetermine the boundary changes across the entire community without meaningful inputs from students, parents, businesses, and communities.

[00:40:12] Now's the time to pause. Recommend you get inputs from all your stakeholders. The strength and quality of our successful community-based schools system is a significant factor in attracting people to Fairfax County and a primary considerations for families with children and those who plan to establish their families here.

[00:40:35] The draft policy 8130.8 threatens that appeal. Once again, GFCA respectfully asks the board to pause its action, create more opportunity to engage with the entire county on this critical policy. Thank you.

[00:40:57] John Smith.

[00:41:17] We didn't always have public schools. The process of establishing local public schools was an exercise in community building. The actions of local people coming together to run their schools, to build schoolhouses, to hire teachers, and to collect taxes.

[00:41:32] This helped forge a powerful sense of community through common investment in the children. Large school systems came into existence via the consolidation of smaller community-centric schools into larger and more operationally effective facilities. consolidation resulted in systems that fundamentally are still community-based in legacy school boundaries largely reflect that if the superintendent directs a boundary study without priority consideration for the existing community centric architecture and instead is optimized around the proposed four alternative prior primary criteria the boundary map will bear very little

[00:42:12] resemblance to the existing map this is an unequivocal certainty and the difference will be staggered when the public first sees a conceptual boundary map in the in work product or final form the public oh cry will be deafening this map will be will be more than seemingly benign words on a piece of paper it will visually and powerfully represent the very real impact to every child parent teacher and homeowner the initiative will most certainly fail to the public opposition I asked the board to look beyond your ideological vision of this

[00:42:47] effort and understand that as constructed it can work in theory only also please revisit mgt consultants boundary policy best practices page three three overriding principles must always take precedence stability ensure that boundary policy causes the least disruption by

[00:43:09] for students and families thank you julianne link julianne link vanessa hall stephanie valeri

[00:43:43] good evening i'd like to talk about resilience when we bring up questions where we want to understand what's going to happen or what our children will experience we get told it's okay they're resilient resilience is what happens when you face adversity it's how you survive and maintain psychological well-being it needs to be developed it's not something that you just are

[00:44:21] born with it's built through community it's built through consistency it's built through predictability When a child comes to their parents and says, what's going to happen next year? I heard they might change our boundaries and I can't tell them an answer.

[00:44:37] That does not build confidence. It does not build stability. It doesn't give that child a sense that the adults in their lives are able to give them any kind of comfort. So when we come to you to ask those questions, to try to be able to take them back to our children and you tell us it's OK.

[00:44:59] they'll be resilient, they'll be all right. That's not enough. We need to know what's going on. We're not telling you what to do. We're not trying to tell you you can't do something. We just want to understand. We want you to tell us what you're considering, why you're considering it, what else you're considering.

[00:45:20] Because we are a community. Every single thing that we do impacts each other. We have spent a lot of time focused on our own pyramids and I think that we need to do better. We need to understand how what happens at one impacts another. Part of what I've learned in all the research in the last just about a month has showed me that we aren't doing the best we can.

[00:45:43] We want what's right for all of the kids. Nobody in this room holding up a sign wants you to favor one school over another. We want you to consider what our options are and we want to know so that we can help. we have a community that is full please play student number one's video testimony

[00:46:19] chairman fish school board members and superintendent dr rey hi my name is mia and i'm a freshman at centerville high school i'm here tonight to talk to you about the policy on school boundaries it's time for the school board to vote in the changes proposed tonight for this policy this policy has not been reviewed or edited in 40 plus years these proposed edits are from a different lens, which it should be, not from a Fairfax County from the 1980s. I have a unique student perspective on this matter because I have attended six SCPS schools from kindergarten to now

[00:46:55] which have been located in half of all the regions. There are sometimes no logic of why some of my schools were overcrowded and some out of underground. What students do see are some schools are in poor condition and some are good, some schools are a majority of certain races and some schools are majority of other races. These differences affect opportunities, achievement, mental health, and a sense of belonging and worth. Also, why do some students have to travel so far to go to school or pass another similar school on their way to their school? It's time for the superintendent to review this policy with these new directions and to not follow old processes.

[00:47:33] It's called being efficient and being modern. Most of last week's speakers commented a lot about data-driven decisions or asking where are the facts. I agree with all this but this will be in the next phase of this boundary discussion when the superintendent comes back to the board with potential changes or not. Last week I heard speakers say these policy edits were done without notice of transparency. You all started being school board members this past January and from what I could read all of your meetings have been public and posted. I may not be on the same side as most of the speakers last week and this week. Remember, there are over 100,000 FCPS families

[00:48:10] that you represent and not just 1,500 from one group. Thank you. Please observe proper decorum, especially when dealing with our students. Please play the video testimony of Robert Rigby Jr.

[00:48:32] Good evening, friends. My name is Robert Rigby. I record this in advance of the meeting with the hopes that all speakers speak with charity and kindness to all people, residents, and children of this county.

[00:48:48] I first want to express that I've taught or substituted in every district in this county. I want to express the need to alleviate the overcrowding all over the county. I myself have experienced it most at Glasgow Middle School.

[00:49:06] I want to say that I support policy 8130 as proposed and all that comes with it. I also support the proposal from Dr. Riccardi Anderson.

[00:49:22] I do this for several reasons. Because they increase transparency, because they will bring the actual boundary changes into the light and we'll have them when they come up for much public discussion and it makes it more accountable because these boundary changes are made by our elected school board members who are accountable to us, their constituents in Fairfax County. I think they should be done every five years because many, many things change over the course of five years rather than doing

[00:50:02] please pause the video can you please hang on a second please observe decorum or security will ask you to leave can we please take the video back to where it was interrupted

[00:50:21] many many things change over the course of five years rather than doing it piecemeal doing it piecemeal periodically in little bits and drops has gotten us to the really dreadful situation that we're in where there's vast overcrowded throughout this county so again I support policy

[00:51:00] 8130 and I support the proposal by Dr. Riccardi Anderson thank you for listening to me. Chair Fish that is our last public speaker. Thank you. Agenda item 4.04 student representative matters I call on Ms. Sawant. Thank you Mr. Chair. First I'd like the students who came tonight who came here to voice your concerns on policy 8130 your voices matter and I truly appreciate your bravery

[00:51:38] an initiative in speaking in front of the board for some brief updates within this past week I had the honor of attending and speaking on a panel for the chief academic office kickoff centered on strategies to foster a collaborative environment that ensures success of different learners under the strategic plan I think it's super important to recognize the whole office for all that goes into powering our teachers and classrooms from developing curriculum in the instructional services department and serving students with IEPs in the Department of Special Services so if you're here tonight or watching online, thank you. One main topic that we discussed was creative ways in which we can build connections and orchestrate success in FCPS throughout

[00:52:16] the school year. One resounding takeaway is the importance of networking between departments and for students this means networking between regions and between schools and having opportunities for students to talk about their FCPS experiences outside of board meetings. At the Superintendent's Advisory Council meeting that I attended in April, attended by students from each high school. It was so interesting to hear the various student experiences about extracurricular activities, scheduling, and grading that varied from school to school. I hope to extend these connections through implementing student town halls to get student feedback within the next year. I'd also like to

[00:52:52] discuss the impact of Virginia Senate Bill 707 which took place on July 1st. This bill permits each middle school, public middle school, and high school to establish career and technical education student organizations or CTSO's regardless of whether the schools offer career and technical education or CTE classes. This includes organizations like DECA, FBLA, TSA, HOSA, FCCLA, FFA, SkillsUSA, and Educators Rising. This policy change will positively affect students in FCPS by allowing them to join these CTSO organizations even if

[00:53:29] they don't have space in their schedules or the prerequisites to take the once required CTE courses. I spoke with a student who was interested in participating in the TSA challenges but couldn't because he didn't have room in his schedule for the prerequisite CTE course. Another high school student I talked to was interested in the business CTSOs like FBLA and DECA that have events like that but wasn't able to participate in these clubs because she hadn't taken a business class. However with this new legislation these students will now have the opportunity to explore and engage in several CTSOs. This policy aligns with strategic plan goal 5 which is ensuring that every student will

[00:54:06] graduate after high school with the skills to navigate, adapt, and innovate for a sustainable future. Measure A of goal 5 specifically mentions the importance of the availability and accessibility of multiple pathways and work-based learning opportunities such as CTSOs. CTE courses and CTSOs are vital in preparing our students for their future careers and providing them with learning experiences in competing through these organizations. By expanding access to these opportunities and removing the barrier of having to take a class I know that this will positively affect student readiness for a career post-graduation. Looking ahead the citizen advisory committee student

[00:54:45] nominations are to be finalized once school begins with interviews taking place this week and next. I hope that everyone has a restful cool summer as I know it's hot outside and a great start to the school year which starts in a little less under the month and we'll see you thereafter. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:55:00] Agenda item 5.01 action item certification of closed meeting compliance since we have to return to closed meeting we will come back later to do this portion of the agenda agenda item 5.02 action item confirmation of action taken and closed the same thing we will come back to that when we return from closed agenda item 5.03 action item amend policy 8130 local school boundaries program assignments and school closings I call Ms. Sizemore Heiser for a motion I move that the school board amend policy 8130 local

[00:55:37] school boundaries program assignments and school closings as detailed in the agenda item attachment on board docs is there a second I second miss Sizemore Heiser would you like to speak to your motion yes thank you as chair of the Governance Committee I would like to offer my sincere thanks to my colleagues on the committee and other board colleagues who came to our meetings for their hard work over the seven meetings we've had since February and the board for its thoughtful deliberations in conducting its first thorough review in nearly four decades of FCPS's policy for making school boundary adjustments I I also appreciate the community who's shown a great deal of interest and spoken to us as the community voices from across the county are very important to us in making our decisions.

[00:56:16] To reiterate, tonight's action is the approval of revisions to the boundary policy. No boundary adjustments are currently being considered. With the approval of this update, FCPS will have the tools to solve significant long-standing problems that have long been raised by the community, including overcrowded classrooms and schools, transportation issues, safety concerns from the use of trailers, staffing problems, split feeders, and much, much more. These new changes include a much more robust public engagement process before, during, and after decisions are

[00:56:51] made, a specific set of priority criteria for the superintendent to use to evaluate the need for for any boundary changes which include enrollment, capacity, transportation time, transportation in general, proximity of students to schools, and access to programming.

[00:57:10] Enhanced benefits for students in terms of better instructional quality, shorter commutes, smaller class sizes, stronger social connections for themselves and their families and caregivers, and greater access to facilities and programs, and effective and efficient use of our resources, and greater oversight as the school board must approve all adjustments except those related to a true emergency this review began in 2018 with four public work sessions in 2018 and 2019 the board directed the superintendent then dr braebrand in 2019 to hire an outside consultant to identify boundary best practices and engage the community

[00:57:49] in 2021 mgt held three public virtual community meetings and collected community input and present its report to the school board in a public work session the work was paused due to covid creating a new strategic plan and hiring a new superintendent the board resumed this work in february 2024 with seven public meetings through the governance committee a public work session with the full school board and posted twice on regular public meeting agendas as new business before the vote today if this passes it'll be up to the superintendent to start the robust implementation

[00:58:22] process which includes significant public engagement i want to thank the board for doing this very difficult work i want to thank the community for their voices in this process and sharing their respect their perspectives and i want to thank everybody for their love of our public schools please observe proper decorum security will ask you to leave thank you despite the nose i do believe people all love our public schools it has been a long and thoughtful process and i

[00:59:01] truly believe this revised policy will lead to better education for all of our students across the county. If you cannot if you cannot remain quiet security will ask you to leave the room and you can observe the meeting from the overflow. Thank you for the thoughtful work and engagement and I look forward to hearing comments from my colleagues. Thank you Ms. Seismerheiser. Ms. Anderson.

[00:59:27] So as we can hear this evening we all understand that this is a sensitive topic. I've heard from several people that I don't, that I take this lightly. It's not true. I grew up here. I went to high school here. I understand the situation that we're in. I've watched it happen. And what I will say respectfully is that we have paused. We paused for six years during the, during the pandemic to, to create the opportunity for all of us to have the stability during that time.

[01:00:02] During that time, we have 44 schools that are over capacity or will be by 2029. We have 22 schools that have attendance islands. We have 44 schools that are split feeders.

[01:00:18] These are the things that my constituents are bringing to me as concerns. This is the reason that we are taking this work on. We understand. We want to listen to you. But I want to share a few things about the differences between the previous policy and this one.

[01:00:42] The previous policy, we could move 5% of your children at any time. Yes, we could through administrative boundary changes that were suspended several years ago because of the problems that they caused.

[01:00:59] This is not a call and repeat. Please remain in decorum. Do not speak. We also review boundaries every year. We look at capacity every year. Our statistics last year were 99.9% accurate.

[01:01:19] It's published every year. So I understand where we are, and I am looking forward to where we can go when we engage with the public comment at the appropriate moment. Thank you, Ms. Anderson.

[01:01:37] Dr. Anderson, I need to confirm that this is on. Have the lights been changed? Okay, Dr. Anderson, go ahead. - It's okay, if Mr. McDaniel was first, he can go first. - I think you're good.

[01:01:56] - I believe. - As many of you have heard, because I've had the opportunity to speak on this topic, not only at the governance meetings, but also at the work session and prior to that, I've been speaking about boundaries for my community pretty much since I've gotten on the board from Glen Forrest to Glasgow.

[01:02:15] I take very seriously my role as a school board member. I take very seriously that I am here to be a representative of my community. It's not just to represent what Riccardi Anderson believes. And you all have been here, you have heard that my community is wanting a boundary adjustment for our schools that are overcrowded.

[01:02:34] We have Glasgow Middle School, which is larger than Lewis High School. And we have two schools right nearby with a much lower, I'm not going to speak over your voices. - If security could please help keep proper decorum.

[01:02:56] - I hope we can really be a little bit more productive this discussion because I sat here and listened to the speakers and took notes I'd like the same courtesy and I will not speak over anybody's voices so if you're going to speak I will completely stop and wait for my turn to assume whenever it is quiet as I was sharing with you I have a middle school in my community which is so overcrowded it is again larger than a high school that we have in the division and right nearby we have two other middle schools that are that are at much lower capacity. I have an elementary school, Park Lawn Elementary,

[01:03:33] which is a sea of modulars and trailers. We're talking probably about 40 to 45 trailers and modulars out there. My community is asking me to make those adjustments. I am here to be that voice to ask for those adjustments to be made. And also as many of you have seen from coming to the governance meetings I've been very vocal about the areas of the previous versions of the policy that I thought had shortcomings. The expedited um the expedited boundaries without board oversight I thought was a shortcoming and I didn't that was not okay with me and I continue to say that

[01:04:12] that is gone because we need to also be able to do our jobs. We can only do our jobs when we have a public conversation and that's when we bring what our communities are thinking into the discussion. if it's happening outside of this dais that means we don't get to raise the voice of our communities so that was one of my concerns that has been resolved my other issue with the initial um with the initial versions of the boundary policy was that the community engagement was not robust enough do i think we and i think the version that we have right now in terms of having a regional meeting

[01:04:47] a pyramid meeting before any changes are proposed after changes are proposed after the board approves whatever those changes are that is very good do i think there's space that we could maybe have come out the gate with things a little bit differently certainly we could always do things better in hindsight that's what you know 2020 is that benefit but we are in a good place with some of the things that have been outlined. Did I share that we needed to have a structured space

[01:05:20] for us to have some feedback on the policy itself? I did and we did not have that but I still believe that what we have right now will result in some good work and as the representative for Mason this is really necessary for us. Thank you Dr. Anderson. Mr. McDaniel. Dr. Anderson really summed up most of my comments, but I'm going to cut to the chase. I'm supporting the policy.

[01:05:55] There's four key things that I'm talking to my colleagues now because we've been going over this for a long time. There's four changes that, in my mind, make this policy leaps and bounds over what we currently have, what we're currently hamstrung with. The first item, the administrative adjustments, they're gone. Unless the school catches on fire, there is no such thing as an administrative adjustment anymore once this policy passes.

[01:06:23] It is gone. Every adjustment has to come to this board for a vote. The second thing is we are finally giving our staff something resembling some sort of guidance on some priorities, capacity, transportation, keeping communities together, aligning pyramids.

[01:06:39] You can go in the policy and read everything else. That does not exist in the current policy. It will exist in this new policy. We are going to have a conversation about boundaries every five years. Loudon does it every year. So to me, five years is somewhat reasonable.

[01:06:56] MTG said five, seven, ten. I'm comfortable with five years. And let me address that cyclical review. When I take my car into the shop and I get the oil change, it doesn't mean I swap the engine. It means I fix what's broken. Sometimes the mechanical say, hey, you know, you should think about these things, but we can defer that for now.

[01:07:16] But we might have to fix it next time you come in. That's a cyclical review, and that is exactly what this policy does. And the fourth item that this policy accomplishes is it significantly increases the public input.

[01:07:34] And I'll be bringing a follow-on motion after this vote that we have. But it significantly increases the amount of public input. And it gives our public, it gives our teachers, our parents, it gives everybody across Fairfax County much more of an insight into what we have to decide when we make these boundary decisions.

[01:07:54] So I'm supporting the policy and I'm looking forward to the discussion tonight. Thank you, Mr. McDaniel. Ms. Dixit. - Thank you, Mr. Chair. As a representative of Sully District, I just want to tell everyone we have severe overcrowding issues in our area, specifically with Chantilly High School.

[01:08:16] We have a school of capacity of 23, 2400 students. We have about more than 3000 students there. Parents, students have been emailing me. I'm a new board member. I have heard from the community that there's a need.

[01:08:32] The student who spoke here earlier from Centerville High School as well. That's my constituent again. I am speaking on behalf of my community and I feel that's a need with the amendments on this policy. It's definitely something worth pursuing.

[01:08:47] I'm supportive of my board fellow board members and I will be in support of this. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Mr. Moon. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I am not going to repeat what some of my colleagues have already stated.

[01:09:05] As a someone who has been serving on the school board for a long time, has gone through many different boundary changes, I can share with you with a certain that any time when you have a boundary change, this concern comes up.

[01:09:25] There are a lot of people, a lot of parents and members in the community who become very anxious. And there are a lot of people who simply do not want any change for their children and families for many different reasons. And I get that, I get that.

[01:09:42] But what you are dealing with tonight is policy change, not actual boundary. As a someone who had worked on prior policy review, this, what's being proposed right now tonight is an improvement over the current policy.

[01:10:02] But at the same time, at the same time, I'm sure they will be discussing the some amendments that will be presented to us by a some of our colleagues. I think that you know those discussion on those amendments will probably clarify some of the points, some of the concerns on the part of the committee members.

[01:10:22] But I want to ask a superintendent, sorry to put you on the spot, because you will be implementing the policy and the policy is adopted by the board. And there were a number of a number of speakers tonight there were many many emails that the board members all have received regarding not having enough data not sharing enough data we need to collect data first and also another concern is there has not been enough public engagement what is the public engagement process both such a policy

[01:10:59] and superintendents comes up with the regulations to implement a policy superintendent dr re what are your thoughts on the regulations you may be thinking of coming up with what are your thoughts on how we collect the data how we share the data how we use our data to come up with the recommendations and what about the public engagement process itself what do you have on your mind at this point in time so thank you for the question i think that we would definitely

[01:11:37] We would be looking at what the policy would have been that was approved and then we would be providing a project management plan following the approval of the policy in whatever form it is approved. You know, Dr. Reed, I'm so sorry. Because of applause from the audience, I missed the very first part of your statement.

[01:11:57] Would you mind repeating what you said? Please hold your applause so that we can all hear. I'll repeat myself again. I said that that was a good question and that following the approval of whatever the board determines on the policy, we'll be providing a project management plan publicly, which will include all the elements you've discussed, and that will include a public engagement plan, our data usage, how we're planning to use technology, the geo-positioning of students and residents as the transportation study.

[01:12:29] There are a variety of data points that will be intersecting this, many of which actually are currently published as part of our CIP process and working with our enrollment demographers as well. So we'll be publishing a rather comprehensive project management plan by the end of the summer, following whatever the parameters are that will be determined potentially this evening.

[01:12:51] - Thank you, appreciate your response. Could I ask just one more question regarding that? As you do that work, would you be able to collect, reflect upon the feedback that may be provided by the public? I apologize. Would you repeat that? What is the question?

[01:13:06] As you do their work, right, and and share with the public and with us by the end of the summer, would your would your work include getting feedback from the community members? I think there will be a plan within the plan, the project management plan for that feedback, for sure, because it has to be iterative.

[01:13:29] We have to think about how that will be rolled out. But that would be by the end of the month. The board will be on recess following tonight until the end of August. So I think when we bring the plan out, we'll try to get feedback in some ways, but there will be a significant amount of feedback that will be a part of the plan that's written within the plan.

[01:13:48] Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Moon. Mr. Dunn. So most of us are new school board members, 8 of the 12. And when I ran, I ran for one simple reason, because I wanted to make sure that every single child, every single child residing in the Mount Vernon district, which I represent, receives a world-class education in modern school buildings and facilities.

[01:14:18] All three of my children attended FCPS from first grade onwards, and my youngest graduated last year. I've been involved as a PTA dad, as an education advocate, as a Sunday school teacher, and so I've been on the front lines for over 20 years.

[01:14:38] My second commitment was not just a world-class education, but fiscal responsibility. We pay so much in taxes in Fairfax County. And the reason is because the state is underfunding Fairfax County by $568.7 million every year.

[01:15:01] There was a study done by JLARC, J-L-A-R-C, which is a think tank attached to the state legislator, state legislature, showing that we're being underfunded by that amount every year. So over decades, the reason you're paying higher property taxes is because we're not getting enough money from the state. We're also being shortchanged by the federal government, which back when the Students with Disabilities Act was passed in the 70s and 80s, promised to fund 40% of the cost of special education. Now it funds only a fraction of that. So we have to make the difference. And so the question is, do we have enough money to keep building new

[01:15:40] schools to keep expanding schools and the answer is no we don't that's a hard fact you can look at the 500 page budget that's online you can read the 500 page CIP that every year is reviewed and approved that's what I did for 10 years as an education advocate and I encourage you to get involved in and review for yourself we have a 42 year renovation cycle why because that renovation money comes from school bonds that are every election are approved by voters but we also have a triple-a credit rating and we can't borrow too much money or we'll

[01:16:18] lose that credit rating and we'll pay more in interest and you'll pay more in taxes so we have a limit of how much money can be brought in to make sure that every school is renovated in a timely manner 42 years is not the industry standards it's 20 to 25 years so we're way beyond and it's not because of mismanagement, it's because material costs have gone up, it's because of the procurement and construction methodologies that we're pursuing, and on my end and with my colleagues, we are doing everything we can to make our school system efficient and effective to bring

[01:16:55] in new money from the private sector through public-private partnerships and other means, and we're trying to make sure that your schools, all of our schools, countywide, are world-class and able to provide world class education with great teachers, great support staff, et cetera.

[01:17:11] So that's why I'll be voting today to support this motion so we can eliminate the abuses that were available through the old system where boundaries could be changed with no public input, with no vote of the school board. Now every single school board, every single change of any school boundary, anywhere in the county will require a full school board vote and public engagement, which is not currently the case.

[01:17:35] thank you thank you mr dunn miss st john cunning one wasn't turning turning on um can i ask the clerk to put up an infographic that i prepared thank you um we prepared this infographic my my staff did a wonderful job in 24 hours because i believe that there's a lot of misconception out there and i want you to see where we are in this process we are here the policy revision

[01:18:10] if you go to the next slide you see where there is public engagement and where there is the the conduct the conducting research solicit community input analysis impact draft plan and then we move forward i think that that's important because what i heard here tonight from everybody is community input you're going to have the opportunity to do that that's what you're going to have to at the next step we are at the first step but i want to shift the conversation a little bit everyone in this audience and everyone that has sent letters to me on both sides of this boundary

[01:18:48] issue be they individuals or organizations have one thing in common and we can't forget that they or should i say we all want what is best for our children our students our immediate community and our greater fairfax community look we need to stop talking about what is really important here as i said in our last work session on this our teachers our staff are listening our community

[01:19:22] is listening our children are listening and they're watching i can tell you that i have worked for 26 years in many of those school buildings that i have heard some people malign the students in those schools are curious capable and they are excelling those teachers and the staff in those buildings are amazing and they are going above and beyond. The teachers recognize each of the children and students uniqueness and their strength and they celebrate them not only for

[01:20:02] their academic achievements but also for their creativity, their resilience, their artistic abilities, compassion, critical thinking, skills, athletic abilities, sense of humor, and on and on. our schools and our students are not just school ratings and test scores the lewis high school lancers from my district are just as proud of being lancers as the langley high school saxons are they are just as proud of being fcps graduates and their families are proud of being fairfax

[01:20:36] county residents that's what we need to value the best of our own children but not only for the best Not only for the best of our own individual child, but for the best of every student. The best in our community, but also the best of all Fairfax.

[01:20:54] I challenge everyone in this room, everyone that has written me, to channel their energy and continue working on providing an excellent education for every single student, regardless of zip code. That is what this boundary policy is intended to address.

[01:21:12] That is why I support it. The concern about our tax base will take care of itself when instead of focusing our energy on property values, we focus on what is truly important human values. Thank you, Miss. Thank you, Miss St.

[01:21:29] John Cunning. Miss Marin. So I've always focused on on community schools, neighborhood schools. The data show that strong schools make a strong community. So the notion that the board is seeking to tear communities apart is simply unfounded.

[01:21:46] I think that 40 years is long enough to use an option that's available to use. heard speakers tonight asking the board to fully consider the options the board can't consider the options until we update this policy working on working on school divisions policies is the core part of our jobs as school board members this means creating updating and retiring policies in response to the current and projected challenges and opportunities they're data-based decisions working on public policy has actually been the focus of my entire career since getting my master's in public policy 20 years ago you know the school board is charged with seeing

[01:22:23] overseeing all policies and it's good news that the board is reviewing the policy it needs to be reviewed this is business as usual the school board does this all the time we are constantly reviewing policies this boundary policy simply seeks to make the process cyclical and transparent to clarify the criteria that the superintendent will or will not use or consider when recommending boundary changes for our vote and it will increase the board's oversight by requiring that board vote and requiring a massive amount of union engagement I would say a large but it's true a large portion of this policy talks about the community engagement that is all new language that's how much we value

[01:23:00] community input the superintendent can identify the opportunities where potential boundary changes can positively affect the educational experience and instructional achievement of instructional experience of our students as well as the use of facilities by our community boundary adjustments can positively affect instructional quality boundary adjustments can improve the operations of school facilities and maximize our limited financial resources our taxpayer dollars your taxpayer dollars i cannot ask our funders the board of supervisors to give us any more money from taxpayers

[01:23:36] when in real estate taxes when our facilities are busing them more when we have options that we we haven't yet used. This is why I'm also working on the other option to get the money from the state, 568.7 million, over half a billion dollars that the state is holding from us, and I invite you to use your advocacy to go to state electives and let's talk about what's going on to get that money. I'll speak later to the motions I'm co-sponsoring related to phasing, including to provide options to students as future adopted boundary changes are implemented. For now, I hope that those who are here and listening that you remain true

[01:24:14] advocates for our public schools for the hard work ahead. Lastly, please remember the children are watching right now. They are watching the behavior of adults in this room, booing student speakers, booing adults, booing elected officials from the national.

[01:24:30] I'll wait as well as my colleagues from the national arena to this dais, the examples of civic discourse are on display for all of us to take responsibility for. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Marin. Ms. Sawant. So I've only been here two weeks, but as a student, I speak for both sides of the coin, so I'm going to share both sides of the story right now.

[01:24:53] Last week, a student mentioned their mental health. When you are forced to go to a different school, it affects the way and your friends go to a different school. It hurts, and I agree with that. I agree that, you know, when you switch your policies and then you go to a different school, that hurts.

[01:25:08] But when I looked in and I read this policy, you do not have to move to that different boundary if you're already in that school there was a student here that spoke today that she was in AAP and she was at a school that she liked and she wanted to stay at that school and if you read this policy it actually said that if you're in the final two years of elementary school or if you're in a magnet program language immersion or receiving a special education program at one of these schools you can choose to move to the different boundary school or you can stay in that school if you continue to read this policy it also does say that students in 10 to 12 can also choose to remain in that school or move to a different school I agree that it is hard to move to a different school but when I

[01:25:48] represent all students I'm also representing students who come from high schools and middle schools that are overcrowded like Chantilly like Glasgow and I don't think it's fair that they have to be in those overcrowded schools and can't receive the same resources that someone in a school that isn't overcrowded can receive again I understand both sides of the coin I understand students that don't want to move that want to stay in the same boundary that they are in but there's also students who are in overcrowded schools who need options. And so those are just my two cents. Thank you, Ms. Sawant. Ms. Lady.

[01:26:21] Mr. Frisch, the primary goal of updating the Browning Policy is to maintain and improve the operational excellence and efficiency of our school system. By doing so, we can continue to provide the world-class education that FCPS is known for. The student population of 183,000 students is essential to ensure that our policies and boundaries reflect our current needs and realities. I've heard from several constituents that want to ensure that the revised policy reflects constituent requests to ensure robust implementation considerations and community engagement as my colleagues have shared the current draft requires more of both this is

[01:26:59] clearly articulated in the boundary policy presentation on slides 13 and 16 via a side-by-side comparison when operationalized the revisions of policy 8130 will require far more community engagement than the current version the entire board and staff are committed to engaging with the community throughout this process public hearings consultations and transparent communication will be integral to the process on the campaign trail families shared their frustration and fear due to their child's classroom being outside their school building because of overcapacity i could not agree with them more one of the key benefits of revising policy 8130 is addressing

[01:27:35] issues of overcrowding and under enrollment balancing enrollment across the division allows us to utilize our facilities more efficiently reducing the need for temporary classrooms there are currently 93 temporary classrooms slash trailers and 54 modular classrooms on campuses where drainsville students attend school this is outrageous this needs to be addressed and when talking about over capacity i have to mention the need to alleviate over capacity and address issues at mclean high school and specifically at coates elementary school but i have others

[01:28:10] in drainsville that are that are in great need of of being um dressed in terms of overcrowding i also have been listening to our teachers and staff who have posted about this work and i quote as a As a parent of kids who have been in overcapacity schools for most of their FCPS careers, as a staff member at an overcapacity school that's surrounded by undercapacity schools, I fully support this actual movement in this work.

[01:28:36] I got de-staffed from a school I love because the school's numbers kept dropping. That has empty classrooms while the school closest to me is currently adding trailers for additional space. Adjusting boundaries every once in a while makes sense. Another staff member shared, "My current school is overcrowded.

[01:28:52] We are in desperate need about boundary change. The issue with the current policy is that it is slow and piece by piece. Schools which are more affluent and vocal have historically been accommodated more. Meanwhile, less affluent schools who are less vocal are often overlooked and the situation is untenable.

[01:29:08] From what I understand, the current policy requires a board member to bring boundary issues to the attention of the rest of the board. I don't think it's a bad idea for the board to get a full picture of the boundaries and reevaluate based on the data. The mission of public schools is to ensure that all students receive an equitable educational experience.

[01:29:24] Without redistricting, students at overcrowded schools languish at schools where they can't access sports teams, drama, or highly desirable electives, while students at schools that are under-enrolled can't even field teams or offer certain electives. Also, I want to add that our focus has always been on the well-being of our students.

[01:29:41] Shorter commutes, which are a potential result of boundary adjustments, can significantly impact students' daily lives, contributing to better sleep, reduced stress, and more time for extra-cooker activities. Thank you, Ms. Lady. Sorry, your time is up. I'll take a go back.

[01:29:57] Anderson yes thank you a couple of things that I want to I wanted to add and then a question to the superintendent one of our students earlier talked about community and how impactful it has been for her to connect with her swim team her basketball team I have a part of my community that students are bused from far away and they have to drive literally past three schools in order to get to the school in which they're enrolled that is not community and I expect for this boundary work to address that. We also have students who would benefit so greatly from

[01:30:36] having greater access to programming. In the Mason District, we have one school that is a middle school AAP center, the aforementioned overcrowded Glasgow. I expect for the boundary work to have that conversation about that. We have students who are desperately wanting to access various academy classes that will literally be life-changing for them because when you walk out of those programs with a certificate it can mean that you can have a productive and a productive job right away but my students can't travel that far away and so they don't have that access i expect for

[01:31:14] that to also be in the conversation of the implementation one of the things that i want to ask dr reed which we talked about last week and i told you i would ask this because it is a conversation in the air potentially because we're not there yet we haven't run the numbers we haven't run the data so this is not a foregone conclusion but it is potentially something that could occur when and if these boundaries are adjusted there is a potential for schools to have greater concentrations of poverty what could be the implications for the management plan that

[01:31:53] you've just talked about to address that so i think we have schools with greater and lesser poverty today and I think the goal really is to think about I think as mr. Dunn was commenting we have efficiencies we can realize which free up resources to better support the classroom our teachers our students to continue to work on improved outcomes I also feel like in many cases it's our students who have the least advantage who are being bus the furthest and one of the things we see is that often then families when they need to engage for curriculum

[01:32:31] nights or be able to be part of that school community are not able to because their children are bused past three or four schools or they're at a distance where the family really realistically can't have the type of engagement that other families across the county are able to have so I think that the our schools really I think what if the community engagement is going to be something that's so core and important I know to this elected board and to our community that every neighborhood and every community in this county needs to be engaged because there are a number of communities in this county who have not

[01:33:07] seen or felt the equitable access to resources and programs that are possible if we do this work well this isn't a zero-sum game just because some of our students will gain from this doesn't mean that others will lose and the longer we approach this as a zero-sum game I think the more challenging this process will be. Thank you. I appreciate that. And also in the conversations this evening from our community who spoke to us, there were a lot of proposals for how we can continue, how we can work together. I hope that no matter what the decision that occurs here tonight, that we stay

[01:33:42] in that spirit of working together. Because I see this and I see the opportunity for us to talk about public partnerships, the P3s. That has to happen. So please don't abandon this effort if you are not in agreement with the decision that is made tonight because if we are really committed to all of our students we will continue to have these conversations and I'm looking forward to some of the motions that will be coming in a little while I hope that will address that. There are some places where our policy has been silent and it is on the phasing and my colleague and I we

[01:34:19] have several motions that will offer some additional information some greater clarity to the public. So I'm hoping we can get into that as soon as possible. Thank you Dr. Anderson. Mr. Dunn. 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 under capacity and over capacity schools in Fairfax County? No sir. Can you address the potential impact of boundary

[01:34:55] adjustments on chronic absenteeism? There's a great deal of research that indicates that neighborhood schools where children have better access and parents have better access actually increases attendance do you feel during our work session on June 25th I asked you if if this policy if adopted would result in a more effective utilization for resources and and you said and I quote I think much of our high school boundaries won't shift much is that

[01:35:29] still your opinion? I believe that yes. So what I can say to my constituents and to the county is that I believe you had also said that elementary schools depending on their attendance are more likely to change than high schools is that right? I believe given my observation to date that I believe that I think we're still going to look at the data but it appears to me that a lot of our transportation as we look at overruns and over routing it appears to be much more prevalent at the elementary level. And I can say that my wife and I bought our house 20 years ago for a specific

[01:36:07] elementary school Fort Hunt Elementary where half the kids are bused past two or three elementary schools to attend that school. There's a similar school in the southern part of my district Haley Elementary where the residents of Hagel Circle are bused past two or three elementary schools and those are communities suffering from transportation insecurity. So if the kids miss the bus, there's one bus and they're not attending school that day. And the data shows that if you miss 18 days of school per year, then your likelihood of graduating from high school, having a successful

[01:36:41] career, rapidly diminish. So I believe strongly that strong schools make strong communities and strong communities make strong schools. So we should have local schools, walkable, bikeable schools ideally or at least schools that are close enough so even if you don't own a car you can get to school reliably safely so every kid every single child in our county can receive a world-class education and given your assurances i'm confident that when we talk about middle schools and high schools the boundaries may shift somewhat but not dramatically and the elementary schools that will

[01:37:19] be primarily affected are those where students are being transported long distances and because I want to make sure that every school has a strong connection to local community and every family is able to engage, that's a part of this policy that I find very beneficial and I look forward to seeing that implemented once the lines are redrawn.

[01:37:43] Thank you, Mr. Dunn. I call on Dr. Anderson for an amendment. We are missing Ms. Mary.

[01:38:03] This is not the time for public participation. I appreciate that people have views of what board members say from the dais, but we don't well, we'll be happy to talk to you after the meeting. Thank you.

[01:38:24] I call on Dr. Anderson for an amendment. Thank you. This is in regards to elementary when I'm sorry, I move to amend policy 8130 to add the following language to Section 8, phasing of adjustments, elementary.

[01:38:48] When a boundary adjustment occurs at the elementary school level, Attendance of the new school boundary shall be mandatory, except for students in their final two years of elementary school, students with instructional program placements and language immersion and/or magnet programs, and students receiving site-specific special education services.

[01:39:10] Such students shall be given the option to remain at their current school or attend the school in the new boundary. These allowances shall not be applicable in the opening of a new school or in the closing of an existing school. Is there a second? A second. Miss Marin, Dr.

[01:39:27] Anderson, would you like to speak to your motion? Yes, I would. As I mentioned just a little while ago, our the proposed policy is silent in terms of what happens when there has to be a boundary adjustment. What happens to our students? So I have three motions that I'm going to be bringing forward for elementary, for middle and high school.

[01:39:47] Essentially, what this is saying to parents is that we're going to be clear that your students that are at the upper level of the elementary school for schools that are k5 in my area they are k5 it will be for fourth and fifth grade students for schools that are k6 which is in the bulk of fairfax county it will be the students from grades five and six this is to offer a little bit of cushion for our students but also to continue to expedite the process because the goals are to have the reduction in capacity. I think we need to be clear to the superintendent

[01:40:25] in terms of what is our expectation when it comes to moving students and phasing students out, because right now there is no language that is supportive of that in the boundary adjustment. And this also speaks to a lot of the things that we've heard tonight. Our students are saying mental health community so those are the things that will be addressed with this um with this amendment and i will save some of the rest of my comments for the middle and high school thank you dr anderson miss maron would you like to speak to your second yes thank you dr anderson for working to bring this option to our families you know we for me i have a child in elementary right

[01:41:03] now and i thought about the transitions year to year and you know elementary school kids largely have one classroom teacher in some schools they might have a few so they could have a fresh start but we still wanted to provide families the option to consider if they're at the upper grade levels of the school to stay so we hope that this brings a little bit of that comfort and options that we've heard some of our community members ask for. Thank You Miss Marin. Mr. McDaniel. Mr.

[01:41:38] Chairman I move to amend the amendment by striking the full text of the amendment and replacing with the Texas on the screen that reads when possible adjustments under this policy shall be implemented for attrition and limited phasing a grade-by-grade phasing of adjustments may be allowed for students beginning with the incoming class at the middle or high school levels when feasible and other phasing plans as appropriate to the individual boundary study may be allowed parents of rising sixth or fifth graders eighth graders and twelfth graders affected by a boundary change may be provided the option of having their students remain in the school they attended prior to the

[01:42:09] change. Is there a second? Second. Ms. Sizemore-Heiser. Mr. McDaniel, would you like to speak to your motion? I will. I want to say first, I agree with Dr. Anderson that the current draft is relatively silent on phasing. I mean, it is. I agree with that. I think the disagreement is going to be on how to address that. This language that I just moved to amend is from the current 8130 policy. It's the current language that we have been operating on for a while now. I have four concerns, and I've been going back and forth on the various phasing motions I'm just going to make comments on all of the phasing language that's being moved at the middle elementary at the elementary middle high school level I'm concerned that

[01:42:49] by boxing in our staff and our superintendent to very specific grade levels that we are effectively double booking seats and while that that may work on you know American Airlines double booking seats that's not going to work in public schools my second concern is transportation If we do allow phasing, if we require and force phasing to this extent, we're going to have to send two buses to neighborhoods because we're going to have to provide transportation, and we've already had extensive concerns about busing issues and transportation.

[01:43:21] the the third concern that i have here is and fundamentally and dr reed this may be a question for you if all of these phasing motions that that are coming up pass and they require phasing at six levels so the last two in uh elementary schools one in middle school potentially two middle school and three in high schools at six um in your expert opinion would that therefore drive the boundary so my question is if this passes and these amendments do pass as

[01:43:58] they're going to be proposed would that inherently drive the boundary conversation or effectively putting the cart before the horse so I think that that is possible because the how do I say the restrictions are they they could have a I think a chilling impact on the ability to actually look at the boundary shift in other words I could bring you a boundary shift that the community may want and that we may think makes sense but we can't actually execute because of a requirement for phasing and I think I certainly appreciate strong language

[01:44:36] that wherever possible we would absolutely take that into consideration I think if it's a have to I think it could negatively impact a decision down the road that we might want to make further I think that whatever scenario comes back before you, you still have the opportunity to send it back to me, I guess, to re-look at the phasing or re-look at other options.

[01:44:58] But I think we want to be able to look as wide as possible, and the potential of having six different requirements, I think, would be very challenging. Those might become an overriding topic rather than the actual boundary. Thank you, that's all.

[01:45:14] Thank you, Mr. McDaniel. Ms. Sizemore-Haiser, would you like to speak to your second? Yes, just briefly. I think one thing we want to talk about is this is really about a timing issue in terms of the phasing. We want to lock in and make it very clear in our policy that we want to allow for phasing as appropriate, as needed, and especially that last year of any school.

[01:45:35] However, if we at this point lock in seven years of phasing, it will then drive the data collections for the boundary. We need to do the community input, let Dr. Reed bring back her initial plan, and that That will then give us the full information we need in order to determine the phasing as opposed to having the phasing determine the boundary changes.

[01:45:57] In particular, I want to make sure that we have the transportation to do this as well. So this isn't a matter of no, this is a matter of this is the wrong timing for this. And so we can bring the language from the previous in to really talk about the importance of phasing and giving guidance around phasing and then as a placeholder now and then when we come back with the implementation plans and we can look at more prescriptive phasing.

[01:46:23] So thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Seismarheiser. Ms. Anderson. I just wanted to talk a little bit about the fact that I was one of the people who wanted a whole lot of consistency with phasing because I've seen phasing work differently in parts of our county compared to others.

[01:46:40] So I am in support of the amendment or the amendment to the amendment because I believe that it takes us back to a place that it does lock us in to a certain level of phasing but it allows us the flexibility to use that as a floor rather than a ceiling or as the requirement. So I think that this is something that I am also worried like my colleagues about transportation specifically I worry about long bus routes and and having to run them for for two separate schools so I am definitely in support of this. Thank you Miss Anderson. Miss Marin. Yes I'd like to again

[01:47:18] thank my colleague who proposed the original motion for working on this over several days and talking with the entire board and so I'm trying to get my head around this proposed changed right now as it's being presented to me it's not my preference on how I like to work what is absent from so much of this conversation is that some families want to change in schools that better meet their students and families needs there's this supposition that there will be you know people are going to take that option and they're all gonna leave Well, I could tell you we have split feeders: my Wolf Trap Elementary to Kilmer Middle to Marshall and Madison. That is the number one issue my

[01:47:54] constituents ask me about. Those families, I think, would be okay with switching so that their kids can stay, as we heard from our student, from middle school on through high school. Also, families already have choices. They're already leaving their schools for AAP, Magnet, Lottery, IB, AP. So the idea that everyone is going to oppose a change is really not founded and I really I really am frustrated about these suppositions about transportation and yet to be imagined boundary changes we don't know the data we've been asked for database

[01:48:30] we've been asked for we've been asked for database decisions and we will not know the data about transportation needs but I'll tell you what if we have neighborhood schools where kids are walking and biking to school we will have to use less buses so and I don't understand how we're double booking or double counting of seats when the language seeks to use attrition as a factor but if we only use attrition it's just going to slow it down this whole process of trying to create the optimal instructional experience and working environments for our staff so I strongly oppose this this this sub amendment on

[01:49:06] its content and also the way it's been brought up thank you miss Marin dr. Anderson. Thank you. The boundary policy is our opportunity as the policymakers well this policy and all other policies. It is our opportunity to give the superintendent what she likes to say her swim lanes. It is our communication. From that she creates an implementation plan and that is how to operationalize what we've said you should or you should not do. I could not be more opposed to this to this for so many reasons what this says to me is this we're going to have

[01:49:45] inconsistent practices in terms of who gets to stay and who gets to go we need to be 100% clear so what happens in Mason is what happens and Sully is what happens in Drainsville this does not allow us to do that furthermore I could be more against the fact that we have spent months talking up not even months years talking about how important it is for our students to build connections to make connections because those are the those are the things that avoid the

[01:50:23] misbehaviors to get attached to sports teams and we're saying if we have a a boundary adjustment only 12th graders will be able to remain that is anti the caring culture that we have that we're supposed to have here in Fairfax County I am vehemently against the fact that we're also saying that a student can go to seventh grade for middle school and pop over to go to another school for eighth grade I will not support that and my and my conversations with Dr. Reed

[01:51:02] last week when I decided to bring these motions when I was thinking about these motions I didn't even have language for elementary because my primary focus was a middle school in high school and one of the things that she said to me when I really pressed her to get her opinion is that when she has done boundary adjustments before when the kids start the school they end they finish at that school and I said that's great because that's an alignment with what I wanted to do for middle and high school because elementary I think is slightly different it could be up to seven years but saying that we're going to take it on a case-by-case basis but the language we're putting forward is only the top of

[01:51:41] the class can remain eighth grade twelfth grade I think that is not consistent with anything that we have said in terms of having kids jump around from schools after they finally have built connections especially at the high school level I could not even fathom a world where even my child who just finish ninth grade we'll start 10th grade someplace else starting all over again learning the school learning the teachers learning the rhythm and we would do this for 10th graders and 11th graders juniors who are in the middle of

[01:52:14] college applications we're going to say move this is not a responsible move yes what I have proposed and will continue to propose does it extend the we the redistricting, does it extend it by a year or two? It does, but I think our kids are worth it.

[01:52:35] Thank you Dr. Anderson. Mr. Moon? Thank you Mr. Chairman. I want to thank both Mr. McDaniel and Dr. Anderson for bringing respective amendments for discussion because by doing that way we can have this kind of discussion and public can hear us that how and why the board will have made certain decisions and that is how the democracy policy making works however at the same time Ms McDaniel and I wish that I had a little more time to a cogitate reflect upon your amendment to the

[01:53:15] amendment because it wasn't until like a half an hour before I had to come to the school board meeting that we had discussion but a one of the questions that I have on your proposal is about the very last sentence in there where it says if you see uh in the second line in the middle it says may be provided and i did ask you you didn't mean to say shall be provided but you said may be provided so that may not even be provided and your answer was if it could it was maybe my

[01:53:55] answer was may is not shall correct so it's a maybe so it may not even be provided so i would Actually point of order please the chair needs to recognize speakers state your point. I didn't hear you the chair needs to recognize speakers That's correct. Mr. Moon. Would you yield your time for an answer for mr. McDaniel? Yes, thank you May is permissive not compulsory. So may here is may be provided not guaranteed to be provided Okay, well, thank you. Thank you for clarification. Mr. McDaniel when the governance committee began its

[01:54:33] Collaboration discussion on this policy change. I favored Flexibility to the superintendent and to all of us in providing phasing However, over the course of leverage last several months given the level of Anxiety on the part of a community This is where I am tonight is I want to provide the more certainty to the community members To what to expect out of this phasing. So Mr. McDaniel thanks for bringing up so that we can have a discussion But I'm not gonna be able to support your amendment amendment. Thank you, mr. Moon. Mr. Dunn

[01:55:12] I would like to move to amend the amendment not to make it too complicated. I Would one second I Don't believe you can have a stacked amendment unlike a stacked motion So you'll have to wait until this passes or doesn't okay. Yes, so here's where I am There's no way I'm going to support a motion that does not include school board approval of a phasing plan.

[01:55:47] If we're not going to be specific, as Dr. Anderson has argued, then this language is not verbatim identical to the existing policy. The existing policy requires school board approval of a grade-by-grade phase-in of adjustments.

[01:56:06] And if we're having school board approval of every school boundary change, which is what's on the table, every school boundary change from here until ad infinitum, school board will have to approve, then we should also have a school board approval of every phasing plan so that we can listen to the voices of our constituents and make sure that what's being proposed by the superintendent for implementation is actually consistent with what our community needs.

[01:56:32] And so I will be proposing an amendment THAT WE ACTUALLY JUST STICK WITH THE EXISTING LANGUAGE OF 8130.7, THE EXISTING POLICY WITH RESPECT TO PHASING SO THAT THERE IS SCHOOL BOARD APPROVAL RATHER THAN TEMPLY DELEGATING THAT TO THE SUPERINTENDENT.

[01:56:50] THANK YOU, MR. DUNN. MS. LADY. THANK YOU. CERTAINLY A DIFFICULT CONVERSATION. ON THE ONE HAND, I CERTAINLY CAN UNDERSTAND VAGUE LANGUAGE SINCE ALL OF THE BOUNDARY ADJUSTMENTS need to come to the board um but i also know that uh in my experience um based on the previous um policy there were some adjustments that were uh very very limiting and some adjustments that were

[01:57:29] five to six grade levels um and i think that's um what my colleagues some of my colleagues are speaking to is they don't want inconsistency from jurisdiction to jurisdiction so um i actually um in theory, am more supportive of the amendment brought by Mr. McDaniel and Ms. Sizemore-Hyser because, however, I would do a friendly amendment and change the word may to will, because I do think that we need to guarantee the final grade level of every single level can remain at their

[01:58:08] school. But I also like the language that says, under the policy, shall be implemented, that it allows the superintendent to propose more phasing you know having said that i personally feel most strongly about high school um granted i spent the more majority of my career there but when kids start to develop relationships um as a former athlete who made varsity in two sports as a freshman at madison high school as you told me i had to move to oakton the following year i don't know that i would have made those same teams or held my positions because they will already have

[01:58:41] been established. Whether we're talking about robotics or drama or Model UN or forensics, you know, we do know that our kids, when they start ninth grade, they kind of have to start making their way within that school. And that's where they're building for many of our students who are college going or building their college going transcript. So, and I guess, you know, some of this might be related to the faith I have in our current superintendent who understands that at a deep level um so again i will eventually vote one direction or another um but i just you

[01:59:19] know my priority is at the high school level um i honestly don't see a need for phasing more than one grade in elementary school um and i don't see a need to to phase any more than than eighth graders at a middle school because middle school years are tough um i'd rather prioritize the high school um that's just my thoughts so i'll share that and we'll see where we end up with uh the different amendment votes thank you thank you miss lady um mr mcdaniel so a couple of items um my expectation was by putting this in this policy that it would come back as part of the five-year

[01:59:55] cyclical review for school board approval so um the point that was raised i think that that's a fair point to point out but my expectation is that by folding it into this policy that the phasing comes back as part of our cyclical review so it would come back to the board for school board approval and that was why there was tweaks from the old policy to the to this language was to reflect the more operationalization language that's in this policy so i agree with you uh that that is the case my expectation again is that the phasing comes back to this board for approval so i want

[02:00:28] to make that comment um dr reed i have a question for you if this policy passes and my amendment language passes and we make changes countywide and if the numbers show that every kid can be phased is that something that you're willing to do yes sir okay thank you thank you mr mcdaniel miss anderson i agree with my colleague that the phasing was absolutely part of the boundary plan so i do believe that the phasing would be considered as part of the review um the question

[02:01:04] that I do have though for Dr. Reed is when I'm putting you on the spot slightly so I apologize the amendment that was originally offered does not allow for any anyone past the two years the last two years of elementary school to stay put so if we are going towards that it may not happen with this first go-round but if the eventual goal is that every kid is able to finish the school that they start in this amendment doesn't do that am i reading that correctly the first or the second amendment the first amendment okay so again you don't believe the

[02:01:43] first amendment allows well if we lock in the last two years and we don't allow for anything further if we are so prescriptive that we don't allow for more it means that we don't have the opportunity to go beyond that it doesn't become the floor it becomes the ceiling which is why i was in And particularly as we're learning more about what this is going to look like over time, then I think that we need the flexibility and the language to create the consistency that we're talking about.

[02:02:12] Yes, ma'am. I would agree on that. And I do think that part of the project management plan I would envision, which would be similar to processes I've worked with in the past in rebounding divisions, would be a cadence of updates.

[02:02:29] And I think the picture will become clearer as we move through this process. And you may at some point, it may become clear enough to actually put some, how do I say, put some flags on certain topic areas.

[02:02:44] But right now, as we haven't begun that work yet countywide, it's difficult to do that. To your point, it could actually be a limiting factor. And that is specifically what I'm concerned about is that we, if I want the consistency for our schools. I am just as concerned as my colleagues about ensuring that schools in one area of the county are allowed. What I am also concerned about is if we have set six or seven years of kids locked into the schools, that potentially the work that we're doing to try to alleviate a problem could eventually actually create a larger issue when

[02:03:20] we have kids coming in and leaving or, you know, staying. So I would hate to go through THE PROCESS OF ALL THE HARD WORK THAT WE'RE DOING TO MAKE SURE THAT WE CAN FIX THIS POLICY AND COME OUT THE OTHER END WITH SCHOOLS THAT ARE STILL OVERCRODED. SO THAT IS WHY I WILL BE SUPPORTING THE SECOND AMENDMENT TO THE LANGUAGE. THANK YOU, MS. ANDERSON. MS. SEIZEMORE-HEISER.

[02:03:44] HI. THANK YOU. DR. REED, DO YOU KNOW AT THIS MOMENT IF WE PASSED THE AMENDMENT BROUGHT BY MY COLLEAGUES THAT WE WOULD BE ABLE TO PROVIDE ALL THE TRANSPORTATION NEEDED FOR STUDENTS WHO chose to move and students who chose to stay for eight grades? No, ma'am.

[02:04:00] I have no idea because we haven't modeled that. Nine grades, yeah. We haven't modeled transportation for that. Please observe proper decorum and allow the board to do its work. So if we were able to put in the alternate language proposed by my colleague Mr. McDaniel and myself here, it would signify to you, would you read us signifying to you that it's important to ensure that we allow for phasing whenever possible, and in particular in those last grades, but whenever possible, is that what that signifies to you?

[02:04:29] I believe it would. And I, you know, Dr. Anderson's correct. When we spoke last week, I think it is a high priority both for myself and I know for the board that we minimize disruption while we maximize space, efficiency and opportunity and access to programs.

[02:04:45] So it's not, I think leaving the language a little more flexible and allowing us to look at more options and keeping that still as a strong desire, I think we can still do both with the Second Amendment.

[02:05:00] Thank you. I also look at this as the prescribing all the years is a little premature. We want to make sure we have everything in place. And there's a space for that after you come back with your project plan and the first implementation plan to then figure out the phasing.

[02:05:16] Because we may be able to do more than what's being proposed, right? But we don't want to prescribe you into that now. Because then if you are required to do the phases proposed now, then you can't look at boundary plans that would allow for more phasing than that. Could you not likely that's correct because we're telling you this is the phasing period.

[02:05:35] That's correct. So it would be going against board policy to try to do more. That would not be wise. Right. And so the language now would actually allow you to do more with the information around transportation and the board at that point once we have the full information would build it.

[02:05:52] than if we wanted to change to be more prescriptive could do it at that time to make sure we have the transportation in place to do that. But I don't want to restrict you from doing more if that ends up being a possibility. So I do believe it provides greater flexibility clearly. Thank you. And so that's I guess the main reason for this is that at this moment putting a strong stake in the sand it's premature at this moment to be this prescriptive around phasing but putting the strong stake in the sand that we had in our previous policy and allowing for you to do the work to bring us back the implementation plans without restricting you and then looking at phasing and to the best that we can at that moment is a better path forward.

[02:06:30] And while I do understand that this came in late, the amendment language only came last night. So it is all been very rushed and quick. So around the phasing. So it is is the best we can do. I know it's a lot going on. So I just want to say I appreciate that your willingness to kind of look at the most we can do to keep stability for our kids.

[02:06:51] And I think at this moment this is the best path forward so that we can get the full information around the boundary scoping and the full public engagement around it before locking in phasing. Thank you. We have a couple of people who have not yet spoken on the amendment. Miss St. John Cunning.

[02:07:07] Thank you. I had a conversation earlier this week or I think it was yesterday with Dr. Anderson and I did mention that I did have some concerns about the amendment. I wasn't completely convinced for various reasons. What happened in my district was that we opened a new school, a new high school, and we go by this prescription that new high school would only have ninth graders and wouldn't have 10th, 11th, and 12th because your amendment would prescribe that those kids could stay at their school.

[02:07:36] So I appreciate the amendment that my colleague brought because I do believe that allowing that flexibility is important for our superintendent. And the other piece that I think is really important is that as much as I want consistency we strive for consistency we also recognize that communities are different and we want that community input as these decisions are being made and if we stick to something very prescriptive then that community input would not would not move the needle so um i will be supporting mr

[02:08:12] mcdaniel's language thank you miss ajang cunning miss dixit thank you mr chair uh dr reed i just have a couple of questions. It's about the AAP program and both my kids were in the AAP program and they were in the center school, I should say. So if somebody is get got into an AAP school and they will continue to be that same school till they finish elementary school in the AAP program?

[02:08:44] If someone qualifies for the AAP program, they have a legal right to stay in the AAP program. I think what we're discussing right now is where that would be cited, but certainly they have a right to be in the AAP program.

[02:09:02] And the other question was about the CTE courses, our academies. With Mr. McDaniel's suggestion, the amendment, would that help to alleviate some of the issues like a lot of our students are not able to get into those programs because some of these academies are not in the district so would that help and also IB programs as well so I think that you know phasing touches a lot of topics but the program access and placement touches a lot of topics as well I don't know that we just

[02:09:39] don't have an equitable distribution of our Academy programs across the county we don't currently and I don't think phasing has an impact one way or another another on the access to those programs, because most of those are outside a base high school. Those that are within a base high school-- our data in our recent goal report showed that the most highest percentage of students attending academy classes come from the school the academy's sited within, right, for a variety of reasons-- transportation, giving up a class period, and so forth.

[02:10:11] So I think that the phasing really is maybe a little less connected to that for the CTE programs or AAP. The IB programs, again, I think if a student has started in an IB program, you would expect to stay because you're working towards an IB diploma.

[02:10:31] So it would be, I think, very important to stay within that program. Having said that, I honestly think it would be important, to the degree we can do it, to keep students within high school wherever they start in high school. I think we all agree that that would be a best practice.

[02:10:47] However, I would also say that there are some students, in particular a Centerville student who spoke tonight on the video, I think if we're in overcrowded high schools and we have an opportunity perhaps as we look at other magnet high school possibilities, whether it's aviation or fine and performing arts or whatever programs as we begin to move into those more evolving and dynamic topic areas.

[02:11:14] There may be students that choose to step away and participate in a specialized program, which leaves more space in the base school, which would negate the need to continue moving the boundary. Does that make sense? So there are many ways we can address this.

[02:11:30] And at the end of the day, we want our students to be able to access program, regardless of the high school they're in. - Thank you so much. - Yeah, you bet. - Thank you, Ms. Dixit. Ms. Sawat. - Yeah, I just wanted to apologize earlier because I was reading from the old amendment and I misspoke, I shouldn't have said that because I was reading from the old amendment.

[02:11:52] With that being said, that does say that I do support the old amendment just because it allows for students who are in more grades to stay in that school if they're needed. So I think from the student voice, I don't think that I would support this specific amendment.

[02:12:07] I do support the redistricting for the schools that need it, but I don't think that I would vote for this amendment. - Thank you, Ms. Sawant. - Ms. Marin. - The governance committee had its chance to put phasing language in and they did not. They recommended to the board not to include it.

[02:12:24] And upon further consideration and discussion, I wanted to give families the opportunities to stay in their current school or choose to go to school in a newly drawn boundary. We don't know what the review of the boundaries are gonna show and we don't know what the superintendent will present in terms of transportation, access to programming.

[02:12:40] I expect and will advocate for access to greater programming. Look, this substitute amendment is about elementary, middle, and high. The amendment that I proposed with Dr. Anderson is about elementary. The board must do thoughtful and deliberate work.

[02:12:57] Bringing a motion at the dais for a topic like this is just not acceptable. We broke out the motions in three grade bans so that they could each be considered, elementary, middle, and high. Just the fact that this substitution groups everything together shows the lack of really thinking through.

[02:13:16] Look, I'm one of the only school board members who actually has an elementary school student. And I know the culture in my schools and my pyramids that I represent, there's a strong culture of elementary school community. I'd like to give my constituents the opportunity to decide whether they want to move to a new boundary or not in those last years of elementary.

[02:13:37] I'm eager to talk about middle and high, which, spoiler alert, we actually have a lot of choice built into that too. The purpose here is to think about the student's instructional experience. Interrupting it in middle and high is just-- I can't even understand how we could think about not allowing sophomores and juniors to remain in their school.

[02:14:02] On that reason alone, colleagues, I hope that you will please not support this substitution. The original amendment is about elementary school-- the original motion is about elementary school only. That was our purpose. This changes the whole thing.

[02:14:20] Thank you, Miss Marin. Dr. Anderson. Thank you. And I'm glad that Miss Marin brought up the fact of phasing because I raised this when I interloped into the governance committee meetings because I'm not part of that committee and nothing was brought forward. I sent this language out several days ago.

[02:14:37] I stalked some of you in order for us to have conversations. And I actually have those text messages like sorry to stalk you, but I just want to make sure we're having those conversations. This is just not how we need to do our work. I literally saw this in the script just now.

[02:14:56] And the chart that I have in my home, on my desk, in my home office, which outlines everybody's thinking, what I got was full support for middle school across the board from every single person that I spoke with.

[02:15:12] Full support for the middle school plan. What I also received were elementary, well, we need to do two years. Initially, it was one year. Everybody said, well, we want two years. Fine, we compromise on that.

[02:15:27] Well, we had some conversation where some board members said, well, I need to think about high school a little bit. But it wasn't that we were only going to do one year of high school. If it is a high priority, then we need to codify it as a high priority. Otherwise, it's just a wish.

[02:15:44] And what I'm worried about is we are going to have a space where in school A, we have a very different experience what happens in school b and that's not fair to our kids i was an elementary i'm sorry i was a middle school principal and that transition is so challenging and we're staying here where we may be able to have them stay for the whole year i mean for their whole experience or we may not i am not going to be able to support this boundary policy as desperate as i am for it without this phasing it is not it is not for the reasons that you all came in came in here with but this

[02:16:23] phasing I think it's important it's an important thing it is definitely my hill to die on. Thank you Dr. Anderson. Mr. Moon. Thank you Mr. Chairman without repeating why I am preferring Dr. Anderson's amendment over Mr. McDaniels that I just want to respond to a concern raised by one of my colleagues related to Dr. Anderson's amendment that Dr. Anderson's amendment provides if you look at the very last part for an opening of a new school it says these allowances shall not be

[02:17:02] applicable in the opening of a new school or in the closing of an existing school so opening up a brand new high school is not going to start with a ninth graders thank you mr. moon seeing no others we will take a vote on the amendment to the amendment if we could put that on the screen please thank you all those in favor of the amendment to the amendment which is on the screen

[02:17:39] Please signify by saying aye or raising your hand. Miss St. John Cunning, Miss Sizemore Heiser, Miss Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Miss Dixit and myself. All those opposed. Sorry, what? And Mr. Dunn was in support. Thank you. All those opposed. Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, Miss Marin and Miss Lady. Will the clerk read the vote?

[02:18:10] The vote is seven to four. The motion carries the amendment to amendment passes. All right. So the new primary motion for consideration is the one that was just adopted.

[02:18:28] I call on Mr. Dunn for an amendment. I move to amend the amendment by striking the full text. One second. It's not an amendment anymore. It's now the motion. Okay. I move to amend the motion by striking the full text of the motion and replacing with the text that is on screen.

[02:18:49] When possible, adjustments under this policy shall be implemented through attrition and limited phasing. A grade by grade phase in of adjustments. Sorry, hold on. Only members of this body can make motions.

[02:19:11] It's not unclear in our governance manual. Thank you. Go ahead, Mr. Dunn. Go ahead, Mr. Dunn. Okay. I move to amend the motion by striking the full text of the amendment of the motion and replacing it with the following language when possible adjustments under this policy shall be implemented through attrition and phasing the school board may approve a grade by grade phase in of adjustments for students beginning with the incoming class at the middle or high school levels when feasible the school board may adopt other phasing plans as

[02:19:50] appropriate to the individual boundary study. Parents of rising sixth or fifth graders, eighth graders, and twelfth graders affected by a boundary change may, at the discretion of the school board, be provided the option of having their students remain in the school they attended prior to the change. Is there a second? Second. Mr. McDaniel. Mr. Dunn, would you like to speak to your motion? Yes, briefly. Again, this is identical to the existing language in the phasing section of the existing school boundaries policy which requires school board

[02:20:27] approval for any phasing plan to ensure that the school board has the opportunity to review and approve the phasing so it's consistent with the voices of their constituents and their communities. Thank you Mr. Dunn. Mr. McDaniel would you like to speak to your motion? Just briefly I agree I appreciate the clarification that was my intention so I'm happy to support adding in the LANGUAGE AROUND IT SO FINE HAPPY WITH THIS. THANK YOU. MR. MCDANIEL. DR. ANDERSON, MR. MOON, MS. SEISMORE-HEISER.

[02:21:02] THANK YOU. I'M HAPPY TO SUPPORT THIS AS WELL. THIS WAS THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGE. WE HAD I THINK MR. MCDANIEL AND I HAD ASSUMED SINCE IT'S ALL THE SCHOOL BOARD VOTE THAT THE PHASING WOULD ALSO FALL INTO THAT PIECE OF IT BUT PUTTING THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGE BACK IN IS STILL CONSISTENT WITH WHAT WE WERE TRYING TO DO SO I APPRECIATE THE CLARIFICATION. I'M HAPPY TO SUPPORT.

[02:21:19] Thank you, Ms. Sizemore-Haisner. Ms. Marin? I just find it so curious that we're putting the original language back in. I mean, what did the governance committee spend all this time doing if we're just going in last-minute amendments? You know, we committed to a process, and I'm just really stunned that this is the kind of way we want to work, and it's unfortunate that it's unfolding this way.

[02:21:47] Thank you, Ms. Marin. Seeing no others, all in favor of the amendment which is on the screen. those in favor of the amendment which is on the screen mr mcdaniel miss dixit miss anderson miss sizemarheiser mr dunn miss st john cunning and myself uh all those opposed dr anderson miss marron mr moon and miss lady will the clerk read the vote no no i'm sorry what i'm a four okay i apologize uh without objection we will retake the vote thank you um all those in favor of the motion

[02:22:22] on the screen miss dixit mr mcdaniel miss anderson miss sizemarheiser mr dunn miss st john Cunning, Ms. Lady, and myself. All those opposed? Ms. Marin, Dr. Anderson, and Mr. Moon. Will the Clerk read the vote? So the amendment to amendment number one still is eight yes, three no. The motion carries. All right. So now we have an amended motion that is now the primary motion for consideration which is the amendment to the overall proposed policy. Seeing no speakers on

[02:23:00] the amendment we will now take a vote. All those in favor of the amendment to the policy under

[02:23:06] consideration. Ms. Dixit, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Seizmerheiser, Mr. Dunn, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady and myself. All those opposed? Ms. Marin, Dr. Anderson, Mr. Moon, will the clerk read the vote? The vote is 8-3 amendment number one carries. Thank you. The motion passes. All right. I call on Dr. Anderson for an amendment. I move to amend policy 8130 to add the following language to section eight phasing of, I'm sorry, phasing of adjustments this is for middle schools when a boundary adjustment occurs at the

[02:23:45] middle school level attendance of the new school boundary shall be mandatory for incoming sixth grade students in schools with a six with a sixth through eighth grade configuration and for incoming seventh grade students and schools with the sixth with a seventh through eighth grade level configuration currently enrolled students shall be given the option to remain at the school or attend the new school in the new boundary these allowances shall not be applicable in the opening of a new school or in the closing of a new school.

[02:24:13] Is there a second? I second. Ms. Marin, Dr. Anderson, would you like to speak to your motion? I would. I think we've talked about this to death. What this means is that our students, when we have made an adjustment in the boundary for our middle school students who either have two years in that middle school or three years in that middle school, we will only make the boundary mandatory for the incoming class.

[02:24:36] We're not going to separate kids and having them start middle school in one school and end in another because that is too quick of a transition. And it is not the right thing to do for our kids. And I say this again, if this is something that we find important, then it needs to be codified.

[02:24:58] There should be no flexibility around this. It should be what we say should happen. And the buses have to go to the neighborhoods anyway. they're just going to drop the kids off at a different place. Thank you Dr.

[02:25:17] Anderson. Ms. Marin. So currently most of our middle schools are seven and eight with the exception of the three in Mason that are six eight. We've heard many times from the superintendent that six eight is actually the preferred practice and what is actually done all around Fairfax and what I understood is that the board does aspire to look at those opportunities to have six eight. So if we're only going to allow the eighth grade students in we're just walking back from that research that says actually keeping your population together is beneficial.

[02:25:50] We are not mitigating the transfer of students every year, the turnover of population. Again, as one of the few school board members who actually, well, I just had a middle school student, she'll be a ninth grader, I can tell you it's quick.

[02:26:06] It's two years and our kids need stability. We're talking about stability. It's two years. THIS WOULD UNDO THE DAMAGE THAT WAS JUST DONE BY THE CHANGE IN THE OTHER AMENDMENT. AND AGAIN, THIS WAS SOMETHING THAT WHEN WE TALKED TO THE BOARD AS RECENTLY AS TWO O'CLOCK THIS AFTERNOON, THERE WAS SUPPORT FOR THIS.

[02:26:28] THANK YOU, MS. MARIN. MR. MCDANIEL. OVERCOME BY THE PREVIOUS AMENDMENT. I WILL NOT BE SUPPORTING. THANK YOU. THANK YOU, MR. MCDANIEL. MS. ANDERSON. I AGREE. THIS ISN'T AS RELEVANT AS IT WAS A FEW MINUTES AGO IN TERMS OF JUST THE PLACEMENT.

[02:26:44] However, I would like to ask Dr. Reid a question because our middle schools flip over 50% of most of them, not all of them, but most of them flip over 50%, would you ever anticipate moving kids in the middle of middle school in the same way or would you most likely abide by the policy that exists saying the eighth graders get to stay where they are?

[02:27:06] In the seven, eight schools, you know, I think to the degree we can make that happen, I think it's a good idea. So my question is, because we often make distinctions related to our three secondary schools that are specific to that, would the three schools that we currently have that are six through eight, would they take that difference into consideration as well?

[02:27:38] Would they take that consideration? So basically, we wouldn't anticipate moving kids just because we have three middle schools that are six through eight. I wouldn't anticipate that the county would move those kids differently than other schools. No, that's correct. I mean, I think the same guiding principles, you're essentially establishing working rules, which would apply for all schools in all communities.

[02:28:00] That's correct. And again, we're still in the same boat on this, where it would be that what the existing language is, is the floor, not the ceiling of what we would be required to do. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Seeing no others, we will vote for the amendment that is on the screen.

[02:28:15] All those in favor of the amendment on the screen. Ms. Marin, Dr. Anderson, Mr. Moon, and Ms. Lady. All those opposed? Ms. Dixit, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Sizemore-Heiser, Mr. Dunn, Ms. St. John Cunning. Will the clerk read the vote?

[02:28:36] Mr. Frascher, no or yes? Oh, no. I apologize. I had my hand up. That's okay. So the vote is then 4-7. The motion fails. So amendment number two fails. Thank you. We'll move on to the next amendment. I call on Dr. Anderson for an amendment.

[02:28:51] I'm sorry I've lost my place I move to amend policy 8130 to add the following language to section 8 phasing of adjustments when a boundary adjustment occurs at the high school level attendance at the new school boundary shall be mandatory for incoming ninth grade students students in grades 10 11 and 12 shall be given the option to remain in their current school or to attend the school in the new boundary these allowances shall not be applicable in the opening of a new school or in the closing of an existing school.

[02:29:30] - Is there a second? - It's me, Melanie. - Ms. Marin, Dr. Anderson, would you like to speak to your motion? - I have no new words. We need to protect our kids. We cannot have a 10th grader move to another school, an 11th grader move to another school.

[02:29:49] And if the superintendent says it's a high priority, write it down so all of us can know it will happen. That's what this is asking us to do, is to put to pen, to clarify to everyone in our community, in all nine magisterial districts, that what happens in one place will happen in the other.

[02:30:11] We should not have our families wait and hope and wish that they make whatever arbitrary cuts may lead from not having this codified language. - Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Ms. Marin, would you like to speak to your second?

[02:30:30] - The majority of the board has already decided that half of our student population, which is an elementary school, will be held to what has been voted. So if that portion of the board wanted to move, change as fast as possible, you've achieved it.

[02:30:50] It is derelict to not allow families the choice when it comes to high school. We talk so much about the student experience. If this amendment does not go through, the upcoming boundary process will be a nightmare.

[02:31:14] This vote decides whether this process is going to be civil or not. So I am begging my colleagues to allow families to choose, minding that families who already have students in IB, families that have students that are placed in CTE, they're all gonna stay where they are.

[02:31:38] We're talking about a very small population of students. That's gonna override our students with special needs, which by the way, we crafted with language, particularly to work with some of our colleagues who are particularly concerned about that. That IEP is gonna keep them there.

[02:31:54] We're talking about a small number of students and you're talking about the rest. How can we even talk about college readiness and career tech programs when you're not gonna secure all four years of high school? It's derelict. I am begging you to please vote for this amendment, this motion.

[02:32:16] - Thank you, Ms. Marin. Mr. McDaniel. Overcome by the main amendment to this policy, so I'll not be supporting. Thank you, Mr. McDaniel. Ms. Anderson. - So when we had all of the conversations over this week to try to get ready for tonight, this was the portion that I had the most concern about because while I do understand that it could potentially be a small number of students, it could potentially be the largest issue.

[02:32:44] I have three high schools that kids in my district go to that are significantly over-capacity. And the issue is the presumption that certain schools are better than others, which I violently disagree with. The issue is that if we have some kids coming in to schools and then other kids being moved out, because that's the way this will likely work in some cases.

[02:33:15] Yes, that's how boundary changes work. The issue is if we leave 10th through 12th, we have more kids that potentially would be staying in the same school, which is not going to alleviate the issue that we're trying to actually take care of. So I want consistency for our kids.

[02:33:32] I think it's really important. If we determine that it is a small number of kids, which we have guessed in this first iteration, that for high school students, it may be fewer children that are actually moved. If that's the case, then I believe that this can be handled in the phasing portion the discussion which means we could actually have the same thing happen but

[02:33:56] we're not locked in and so we have to I'll wait for you are you done so I think that we are in the process of coming up with a solution here that's going to work for the greatest number of kids at the same time and so that the kids that are in those schools that are vastly over capacity that can't get through the hallways similar to what's going on in some of our middle schools that are important to colleagues on the board.

[02:34:32] I think that that is the case in many, many schools, including several in my district, where we desperately need to find a location for a Western high school, but we can't really do that until we figure out which kids actually need the available school. So I am not in support of the 10th through 12th and haven't been throughout the entire process.

[02:34:54] Thank you, Ms. Anderson. Mr. Moon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At the risk of repeating myself, I am prepared and I'm willing to give comfort and certainty to high school families.

[02:35:13] Thank you, Mr. Moon. Ms. Dixit. So I wanted to just say that all of us have students and all of us have kids who have been to, you know, I'm a mother and I also have kids in FCPS just graduated.

[02:35:31] And I feel like some of our board members are saying that, like, we are not thinking for students or our community, which is totally uncalled for. Because I am representing the community I come from.

[02:35:47] I have the most overcrowded school. It's Rachel Carson. It's Chantilly High School and Centerville High School. And I want those students to also stay from 9th to 12th grade in the high school. But we don't know yet. There has to be some kids who will have to be moved out of Chantilly High School.

[02:36:07] They'd rather start in a new high school somewhere else rather than getting moved at 10th grade or 11th grade. That's why I want to support that they want to go to the new school from the 9th grade so they can finish the four years in that school and not get split in that.

[02:36:25] So that is why I don't want to support this split high school thing, and I will support the one where we put the baseline thank you thank you miss Dixit miss Marin so I just I just want to make sure I'm understanding the thinking of some of my colleagues so when this policy gets implemented passed then the next phase implementation so the superintendent goes gathers the data that's probably going to take a few months if not a year then we start implementing so that implementation year if the largest amount of change is going to happen at the outset of that first year that means the maximum disruption and that means

[02:37:05] that those kids who are halfway or starting their high school career will then have it interrupted the further away we get from this point in time the less impact it should have because it should be a little bit of like a trim you know haircut every few years rather than like a total new do like it could happen we don't know maybe it won't but the idea that you know a kid who's in a crowded high school, but the idea that the superintendent can not only balance capacity, balance program access, balance transportation simultaneously at the same time, it's not going to happen. I mean look at how we're doing literacy

[02:37:44] instruction. It's taking us several years to get everyone up to speed. How is, if a student is taking an IB course and their, or let's just say a CTE course, and And they're on their way to certification, and then their boundary switches, how is that kid going to stay?

[02:38:02] Or what if they're on, like, you know, a certain science track or something? Like, I'm trying to make sense here. It's just that that kid only gets that one chance. And so if that kid is in a crowded high school but has access to the programs, I think that's the least worst option.

[02:38:22] Because then how is that student going to go to another school if it don't have this course? because I don't think Dr. Reed is going to be able to offer all that access and change the staff assignments and change the equipment that's needed all at the same. It's a big thing. So can we just do one thing at a time and just secure this?

[02:38:41] And then you know what? I looked at the history of when we've done this policy. In the past, it's been tweaked every few years. This doesn't have to be the be-all, end-all. Can we just ease into this? Thank you, Ms. Marin. Ms. St. John Cunningham.

[02:38:58] So I just want to say that I have a lot of overcrowded schools, too, and I have schools that are under capacity. My concern with prescribing and being very prescriptive with operations is that that is not going to allow us to do what our ultimate goal is.

[02:39:21] And the fact that people believe that anyone sitting on this board does not care about what happens to students, particularly when a lot of us are devoting our time and have devoted our time, 26 years of my life in a public school, the fact that if I vote one way as opposed to another is not going to be something that is going to be for the greater good of all students and not just the families that are represented here.

[02:39:52] because I'm going to tell you there are families that cannot make it here and they've been writing us letters. They support this movement. They support what we want to do. They cannot make it here. So there are more families and more voices and the flexibility is allowed with what the amendment has. So that is something that I want to make very clear. If we were to follow this and And if we were to go with the middle school prescriptive, then the change that one of my colleagues wants to make at Glasgow would be a boundary change at Glasgow, but you can't move them if we went with that prescriptive.

[02:40:31] So we would be locked into that. So we've got to be honest and realistic.

[02:40:47] Please continue, Ms. St. John Cunning. Please continue, Ms. St. John Cunning. If security could please ask those who are speaking up to leave.

[02:41:07] Ms. St. John Cunning, please continue. The reason this is being discussed at the table is because we have sunshine laws. We can only talk to each other two at a time. We cannot sit here together and discuss this unless we have public meetings which we advertise to all of you.

[02:41:29] These discussions must all be held in public. If there's more than three of us together discussing any of this, then it has to be a public meeting. The reason this is being done this way is so that it can be public. That's what's important for you to note, we are managing our meeting, we are discussing this robust conversation is how these things get done, and we also want to hear robust conversation from the public in the proper forum with courtesy when we have town halls, when our superintendent is going to allow for, when the superintendent is going to do that, when we go to that second

[02:42:08] phase. So, yes, courtesy from everyone, from everyone on this board, from everyone in the public, I remind you, our students are watching this behavior. Ms. Lady. Ms. Lady. Thank you, Chairman Frisch.

[02:42:24] I just want to speak to this, as I did earlier, my remarks around high school. As someone who worked at Chantilly High School, which has been referenced repeatedly this evening, which was grossly overcrowded and continues to be, had a boundary adjustment taken place and actually one did take place during my tenure was quite some time ago.

[02:42:45] There were students who opted to leave, even if they were in the phased in process. There are kids who feel like because of the size of that school, that if they were in a different place that they maybe would make that sports team or they might be able to get a part in a drama play or they might be able to be on the forensics team or they might be able to, you know, do some things or be involved at a level that they want to, where they're squeezed by the numbers.

[02:43:10] And at the same time, there are kids who would not want to leave. So as someone who spent the majority of my career at the high school level, I have to elevate our high school students and I have to support this particular motion that's on the screen because, as I indicated before, you know, there are some ninth graders who get involved and to reposition yourself transferring somewhere new as a tenth grader to establish that same space is hard um and uh i just i just you know that's where they're developing their college transcripts i also want to talk really briefly about building master schedules um you

[02:43:48] know the phasing at a high school is a little different uh because master schedules and staffing is done differently um when we're phasing in an elementary school uh it's it's a different situation if i've got a you know class i've got 93 kids at a grade level then i'm gonna have to offer four sections and those numbers aren't good at the high school level if numbers are not really good then you eliminate a section because kids have four years and they can take that class the next year or you eliminate the ninth graders because they can take it as 10th 11th and 12th graders you don't eliminate the opportunity for the kid to ever get the course but you can work within that staffing model so when you talk about sort of double seats as one of my colleagues

[02:44:28] referenced it you know that's not the case at a high school level when you're building a master and you know yeah we there needs to be um phasing and we definitely have issues but um i have to uplift our high school kids and support the motion on the screen thank you miss lady dr anderson thank you a couple of things that i want to make sure that i clarified one i i don't think that um people here don't care i if i said something to to convey that i want to make sure i clarify what

[02:45:02] I want to make sure that we do is convey that into our work which is building the policy. That is it. Secondarily I think I kind of heard something maybe I misheard. When we are making those boundary adjustments if we make a boundary adjustment there's going to be impact the first year because the incoming class will be dispersed. Whoever will go to the new place will go to the the new place whoever will remain at that school will remain at that school and we're not holding the 10th 11th and 12th grade students hostage they have

[02:45:38] the choice of going or of staying for the very reasons that Miss lady described some kids they see it as a better opportunity to leave and some kids it is going to be so much more anxiety for them to have to start all over again so I wanted to make sure I clarified those points because I think that was missed in this conversation.

[02:46:02] - Thank you, Dr. Anderson, Miss Anderson. - Dr. Reed, would this be presumed to be a portion of the community conversations that we would be having related to phasing so that we could get some indication as to how many kids would be interested in staying or going?

[02:46:18] - Yes, ma'am. - Okay, so this would be something that with the flexibility in the existing language that we would be able to accommodate depending on what feedback we receive from the community? - Yes, ma'am. - Okay, thank you.

[02:46:32] Thank you miss Anderson. Miss Sizemore Heiser. Just briefly I want to clarify that the amendment that has passed the purpose of that is not not ever it's just not yet because we need to get the information about transportation we want to do the robust community engagement and so that is the important piece is that you want it we want to make our phasing decisions once the implementation process of the community engagement and the data is drawn so we can make the best phasing decisions it doesn't mean not ever.

[02:47:04] I just want to clarify that. I think everybody on this dais cares about our kids, and I want to make sure we give the maximum flexibility and the maximum ability to listen to the community. Thank you. Seeing no others, we will vote on the amendment on the screen. All those in favor of the amendment, Ms. Marin, Dr. Anderson, Mr. Moon.

[02:47:26] All those opposed, Ms. Dixit, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson. Oh, I apologize. Ms. Lady, will you state your vote in favor? All right, Miss Lady in favor. All those opposed Miss Dixit, Mr. McDaniel, Miss Anderson, Miss Sizemore-Heiser, Mr. Dunn, Miss St. John Cunning, and myself. Will the clerk read the vote?

[02:47:50] The vote is 4-7 on this amendment. The amendment fails. Thank you. I call on Dr. Anderson for an amendment. I move to amend policy 8130 to revise the following language on page 3, section 7, establishment of school boundaries adjustment, including school openings and closings.

[02:48:13] Support optimal family and caregiver involvement. - I second. - Is there a second? - I second. - Ms. Marin. Dr. Anderson, would you like to speak to your motion? - Just really briefly, this was a small change. It's just to ensure we're being a little bit more inclusive in our language, a little bit clearer in terms of recognizing that not all of our students reside with a family member.

[02:48:37] And so we wanted to be sure that there was not an intentional omission of those other family, those other dynamics. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Ms. Marin, would you like to speak to your second? This is just a simple change that will be more reflective of the community of people that help take care of our children.

[02:48:57] Thank you. Seeing no speakers, we'll take a vote for the motion on the screen. All those in favor of the amendment, Ms. Marin, Ms. Dixit, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Seisberheiser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, and myself.

[02:49:14] That is unanimous. The motion passes. All right. I call I guess we are now at the point where we have an amended motion the amended policy for consideration which means the primary motion is back as amended seeing no speakers we will vote on the amended policy all those in favor of the amended policy please raise your hand.

[02:49:42] Miss Sizemore excuse me Miss St. John Cunning Mr. Moon Mr. Dunn Miss Sizemore Heiser Miss Anderson Mr. McDaniel Miss Dixit and Miss Lady and myself all those opposed Miss Marin and Dr. Anderson will the clerk read the vote the vote is nine to the motion carries the main motion passes I call on Dr. Anderson for a follow-on motion I move that the school board direct the superintendent to adjust the boundaries capacity at Glasgow middle school during the implementation of the countywide boundaries adjustment anticipated after the completion of the initial review of

[02:50:20] school boundaries to include a regional community engagement in region two and in the justice high school pyramid. Is there a second? I second. Thank you Miss Anderson. Dr. Anderson would you like to speak to your motion. I almost feel like I've talked about this already in my opening remarks. I've been talking about this for several months. We have a dire need at Glasgow Middle School and this will just cement the fact that it will be addressed under this new boundary policy. Thank you Dr. Anderson. Miss Anderson would you like to speak to your second. I have always been in favor of supporting Glasgow Middle School just within the boundary

[02:50:58] policy and within the over the countywide look the issue that I always have had was that I was concerned because they are lower on the list there are if I understand correctly there are 50 schools potentially depending on how you're counting that actually are worse off than Glasgow just to give you a full scope of what we're dealing with so I absolutely support the ensuring that Glasgow gets WHAT THEY NEED AND I'M HAPPY TO SOLIDIFY IT WITHIN THE ENTIRE PROCESS THANK YOU MISS ANDERSON MISS MARIN YES I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO VOTING FOR THIS I REALLY COMMEND THE REPRESENTATIVE

[02:51:38] FROM MASON FOR HER CONTINUED PERSISTENCE TO GET TO YES ON THIS AND I KNOW IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME SO I'M GLAD THAT WE CAN MOVE FORWARD ON THIS TONIGHT THANK YOU MISS MARIN MR MOON I SUPPORTED DR. ANDERSON'S MOTION TO DO THIS NUMBER OF MONTHS AGO AND I STILL SUPPORT THE MOTION - Thank you, Mr. Moon.

[02:52:02] Ms. St. John Cunning. - I too commend Dr. Anderson's persistence. I, like Ms. Anderson, I wanted it to be within the scope. I know that Glasgow's overcrowded. I know I have many schools that are overcrowded as well. I'm happy that we're doing it within the scope of the boundary change, and I'm happy to support this.

[02:52:21] - Thank you, Ms. St. John Cunning. I'll speak. I'm happy to support the motion and appreciate that it will be done under the guise of the new boundary policy, and that it's not putting one school ahead of others, it's making the conversation part of the holistic change because it certainly needs to be addressed at Glasgow just as it does at other places.

[02:52:42] And I appreciate the work that's gone into finding a path forward here. Seeing no others, we will vote on the follow-on motion which is on the screen. All those in favor of the follow-on motion, Ms. Marin, Ms. Dixit, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Seismurheiser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, miss st john cunning miss lady and myself that is unanimous the motion passes i call on mr mcdaniel for a follow-on motion i move that the school board direct superintendent to in addition to the community engagement outlined in policy 8130 section 6 which includes engagement before the

[02:53:22] cyclical review begins and after changes are ultimately recommended establish an advisory committee consisting of community members to provide feedback throughout the review process Is there a second? I second. Ms. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, would you like to speak to your follow-on motion? Briefly. I think this is fairly straightforward. You know, I talk a lot about the Fairfax way and the way that we do business in Fairfax County. You know, we do a lot of advisory committees, and this motion, my comment that I made during the work session was I think that the policy has a really good job of bringing the community to town hall meetings, but I think this extra step, which came to me from a

[02:54:02] to be quite frank as a constituent idea this motion brings the community in addition to meetings it brings the community to a seat at the table for that conversation so that was the purpose and happy to move it thank you miss Anderson would you like to speak to your second I agree with my colleague we're the intention despite what people may believe is that we would like to ensure in a robust community conversation now to move forward with THIS. THANK YOU, MS. ANDERSON. MS. MARIN. YES. I'M AWARE THAT THE SUPERINTENDENT

[02:54:38] HAS A NUMBER OF STANDING OUTLETS INTO WHICH SHE OBTAINS INPUT AND SHARES INFORMATION. AND I WONDER IF SHE COULD SPEAK TO THE BREATH OF WAYS THAT SHE COLLECTS INFORMATION CURRENTLY FROM THE COMMUNITY. WE DO HOLD OR I DO HOST REGION MEETINGS FALL AND SPRING. WE DO HAVE A FAMILY PANEL MEETING THAT INCLUDES TWO FAMILY MEMBERS FROM each school that meet every other month we have our strategic planning quarterly

[02:55:15] community group we meet with different advisory groups of faith group a different advocacy groups citizen homeowner groups there are a number of groups and can you share what can the superintendent please share what's involved to manage this schedule like what kind of staffing is needed to make all these arrangements and the staff time needed to uphold these commitments to engagement?

[02:55:45] We do calendar those commitments, and there are staff that do provide interpretation, interpreting services, and often childcare as well, and registration services. I don't know that I have a specific number for each event, but there are staff that attend those events.

[02:56:02] So prior to Dr. Reed's arrival in FCPS, just about two years ago, a little bit over two years I actually took a did a review of the number of committees our previous superintendent kept and it was well over a dozen if not two and I know Dr. Reed is is even more engaging in the community so I'm aware of principal roundtables student roundtables including our student government leaders our student equity leaders and others community organizations including PTAs HOAs nonprofits faith-based orgs neighboring jurisdiction superintendents HER STRATEGIC PLAN ADVISORY COMMITTEE WHICH I BELIEVE HAS 50 MEMBERS ON IT.

[02:56:40] I THINK THERE'S A LOT ALREADY IN PLACE AND OUR ROBUST COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT SECTION OF THE POLICY WHICH CALLS FOR PYRAMID SURVEYS, OUTREACH TO ENGAGEMENT COMMUNITIES, AND PYRAMID COMMUNITY MEETINGS. EVERYTHING THAT WE ENCOME, WHEN WE ENCUMBER THE SUPERINTENDENT'S TIME FOR ONE THING, SHE LOSES THE ABILITY TO FOCUS ON SOMETHING ELSE.

[02:56:57] I DON'T THINK THIS IS NECESSARY, I APPRECIATE THE SPIRIT OF IT, BUT I DO THINK THE SUPERINTENDENT already has her finger on the pulse of community engagement and this could be rolled into some of those existing avenues. Thank you Miss Marin. Mr. Dunn. I support this amendment. I think it's important that when we talk about school boundaries we don't just speak to parents and families and students but we speak to the entire community and there are many great organizations the Fairfax Federation, the Fairfax County NAACP, and many others that both for the county, Board

[02:57:35] of Supervisors, and for FCPS can speak to the entire county's interests, different groups that have existed for decades and are assigned, sometimes by rule or regulation, specific seats on specific county and FCPS advisory committees, and so making use of their expertise, use of their experience and insight I think is important so that ultimately boundaries which do affect more than just schools are consistent with the broader community interest and that input is considered. Thank you Mr. Dunn.

[02:58:10] Mr. Moon? Thank you Mr. Chairman. I'm gonna support this motion. I mean this is gonna be a very important work and involving involving more community members as many as possible will be helpful not only just for the process itself but also buy in from the community as well which is crucial i understand about the workload on the part of superintendent who already does a lot superintendent does not have to go to all the meetings superintendent can certainly designate someone else to cover for

[02:58:49] her as needed a superintendent is not going to be the only person doing the a boundary boundary adjustment work i mean she she has to work with the whole team that she she does have so i think this can be handled and it should be handled and i'm supporting the motion thank you mr moon um i will take a turn um so i i agree with my colleagues concerns about how the superintendent uh what kind of bandwidth it takes to do um community engagement uh especially when so much is already being done

[02:59:26] by the superintendent one thing that i when i first read the motion that came that i thought of was that unlike the typical engagement that we do in the community where an event's held at a school or we have a topic specific seminar for families a committee like this an advisory committee like this offers an opportunity for repeated engagement with the same people over the arc of the creation of something new and I think that's a valuable um set of uh assets to bring on board to this process

[03:00:01] as part of the broader um community engagement aspect um not everybody who shares their views with the school system is going to find if follow every facet of the work and I think that there will be valuable insight gained from having a you know similar to with our strategic plan uh committees having an iterative process with the same engaged community members. Miss Sizemore-Heiser.

[03:00:27] Well I'll pick up right where you left off but I want to say that this follow-on motion actually encompasses what we talked about in governance which is having kind of a through using the model of the strategic plan the core planning teams to having sort of a broad spectrum of different community members and different stakeholders to provide regular input as we go through the process So it's I think just encompasses what we talked about anyway in governance as part of the implementation process. So I trust that Dr.

[03:00:58] Reed was going to do that anyway. So I think it's important to recognize that I everything I've seen her implement with the street plan has involved significant community engagement. So I trust that she was going to do this. And it was part of what we talked about. But having as a follow on motion is fine. Also, because that makes it clear that this is something we want to set up. So I'm happy to support it.

[03:01:18] Thank you, Ms. Sizemore-Heiser. Seeing no others, we will go ahead and vote for the follow-on motion, which is on the screen. All those in favor, Ms. St. John Cunning, Mr. Moon, Mr. Dunn, Ms. Sizemore-Heiser, Ms. Lady, Ms. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Dixit, and myself.

[03:01:35] All those opposed, Ms. Marin with Dr. Anderson away from the table. Will the clerk read the vote? The vote is 9-1 with Dr. Anderson away from the table. The motion carries. The motion passes. Thank you. Agenda item 5.05, board action regarding policy 24-8.

[03:01:57] Excuse me, Chair Frisch, may we recognize, please? Yes. May we take a brief recess, please? We'll take a 10-minute recess, and I will correct my place in the agenda when we come back. It'll be agenda item 5.04 when we return.

[03:12:24] Board members, please return to your seats.

[03:13:20] board members please return to your seats board members please return to your seats all right we

[03:16:45] are back next item for consideration is agenda item 5.04 action item election results certification and exclusive bargaining agent recognition i call on mr moon for a motion thank you mr thank you mr chairman i am very happy to make this motion i move that the school board certify the results and recognize and certify the Fairfax Education Unions as the exclusive bargaining agent for the

[03:17:14] operational and licensed instructional bargaining units. Is there a second? I second. Ms. Anderson, Mr. Moon, would you like to speak to your motion? Just briefly Mr. Chairman, you know this is something we've been waiting for a long time and for the employees they've been waiting for the case but even for the school board this has been going for a couple of years and finally we got to a point where a fairfax education education unions became certified and then there were votes

[03:17:51] by operational and instructional employees to vote for the organization to represent them so that a collective bargaining negotiation could begin in honest for the public i just wanted to share the voting reserves at the top on the screen.

[03:18:11] We have two separate voting reserves. Mr. Jackson, would you be able to show that? Could you enlarge the screen? Is that possible?

[03:18:36] Let me just read, you know, for the operational bargaining unit votes, out of all the votes you cast, the FEU received more than 80% of the votes support of it's representing the operational employees for the licensed professional bargaining unit just instructional employees basically a out of out of more than 8,000 ballots cast ninety six point nine percent ninety seven

[03:19:14] percent almost ninety seven percent you know supported FEA to represent them so with that you know I'm asking my colleague to support my motion to

[03:19:23] for you to represent them. Thank you Mr. Moon, Ms. Anderson I am extremely excited to support this I love the fact that our staff is going to have a seat at the table in a very solid way. However my colleague was supposed to second this and she was away from the dais so I'm going to I'm going to yield the rest of my time for her. Thank you I am very excited that are that we're doing collective bargaining I know that you have put countless hours to go get

[03:19:58] all the cards and you've gone and talked to everyone coming from a strong union background I really believe that you are there to help support our everyone in our workforce to ensure that they are not just compensated adequately but are also being provided a place to work that's safe and that they're in a climate and in a culture that is welcoming so that they can do their best work and I know a lot of people sometimes think that collective

[03:20:38] bargaining is just about the paycheck and it's not it's about conditions it's about a positive climate about a positive culture and we know that if our staff and our teachers our custodians our bus drivers are happy and our kids are happy so I'm really excited about the work that you all are going to do to

[03:20:58] move forward. The one thing about this is that we can't talk to you about it anymore. So that's the one thing and that's the way it goes. But good luck. Thank you. Miss St. John Cunning. Miss Sizemore Heiser. Just briefly because I know it's late for us. I'm also very excited to support this. I'm really it's been a four years in the making. I think I believe from when Mr. Frisch brought his first motion to start the process. I was really excited when I was chair that we're able to get the resolution passed and then allowed for the

[03:21:33] organizing of our employees and I'm just really excited to see the strong support that our unions are able to get from the staff the teachers staff and I'm just really glad that people have a seat at the table I am a union member myself in my other job and I can say personally it has made such a big difference in my working conditions my salary and just being able to have that voice at the table has been so impactful on my job and I'm really glad to be able to be part of a board that's also giving our staff that ability. So I'd be happily to certify.

[03:22:09] Thank you, Ms. Seizemarheiser. Mr. Dunn. As a former union member myself, I can't tell you enough how important it is to have unions who will advocate for the workforce. Historically, what I have personally seen within FCPS is that sometimes, despite the best of intention, FCPS employees are treated as cogs in a machine. And the reason, and this will change that so that educators, administrators,

[03:22:44] support staff are treated correctly as partners in a shared mission rather than cogs in a machine. Ultimately, at the end of the day, the reason our schools are great is not because of the concrete blocks that make up the walls. It's not because of their location. It's because of the human beings who, day in, day out, go in to put in long hours, more hours than they're paid for, to educate our children, care for our children, transport our children, feed our children, and make sure that the operations are running smoothly.

[03:23:18] And we have an incredible superintendent who just oozes empathy and love of mission and love of the public schools and right down to the cafeteria workers, the bus drivers, the teachers, everyone I've met within the four walls of FCPS is just incredibly committed to the mission and needs to be honored and respected obviously through compensation but also through working terms and conditions and I think this will provide a great avenue

[03:23:54] by which we can bargain across the table not the school board directly but through the superintendent and her team bargain on an equal shared basis to discuss how FCPS should go in the in the future to provide a world-class education for every child thank you thank you Mr. Dunn Dr. Anderson thank you I'm very happy to support this motion as someone who in as a teacher had been in a bargaining unit as an assistant principal had had a similar opportunity also as a school

[03:24:29] principal was in a bargaining unit. This is just coming full circle. So I'm excited that we are finally here. It has been a long time. I think it was March of last year that the board had approved the regulation. I'm sorry the policy and so I'm very glad to be able to support tonight. I think it is going to really change how we do business in Fairfax County Public Schools. Thank you Dr.

[03:24:55] Anderson I will take a turn so my mother was a waitress and my father was a union had a union job growing up the only reason that we had a middle-class existence was because of his union job when he got hurt at work it was his union brothers and sisters who helped make sure that our family had what we needed to kind of get through that period and so you know you talk to our educators who have been around the longest and they'll tell you about how long this conversation's been happening I very much appreciate all of my colleagues but my four

[03:25:34] returning colleagues in particular who helped reposition this school board in favor of collective bargaining in Richmond becoming the first school division in Virginia to endorse collective bargaining at the state level to provide that right for employees at the local level and then you know two of my colleagues who served as chair of our board as the resolution was worked on in a methodical approach and then finished and passed and then it was all in our employees hands

[03:26:09] and the work that goes into getting to this point is monumental right it is conversations one-on-one with your colleagues after school on break it is you know answering questions it is getting to know people you may have seen in the building that you didn't know before and that's just to get them to sign on the dotted line and then it's getting out the vote and so that all takes place and what you're doing at that time while you're trying to get to this point you're also building what will be a better bargaining unit as a result of that hard work because relationships are built stories are shared and now the bargaining unit is even more

[03:26:47] prepared to carry that message into negotiations and I do appreciate my colleagues tongue-in-cheek comment about we can't talk to you anymore not entirely true right but the principle is we have to be careful about what we do talk about because we need to protect your rights as employees and ensure that we are not stepping on any of your rights that are guaranteed under federal state law and in our resolution so i am encouraged by our superintendent's experience with this process and the work that is the collaborative work that has gone into getting us here and excited about

[03:27:22] the path forward tonight we're just voting to certify that the election happened and that the results are legit and that is in fact accurate and so I am happy to cast my vote accordingly and see this process through to its conclusion and I appreciate everybody for sticking around for this important moment all right seeing no others we will go ahead and vote for the motion that is on the screen for 5.0 for all those in favor Miss Marin miss Dixit

[03:27:56] dr anderson mr mcdaniel miss anderson miss seismar heiser mr dunn mr moon miss st john cunning miss lady are you there with miss lady away from the table and oh there she is i'm not away from the table but i couldn't turn my video on oh no worries how do you vote i vote for it great thank you and myself that is unanimous the motion passes agenda item 5.05 action item board action regarding

[03:28:34] policy 24 18 reporting student progress to parents and guardians and secondary grading advisory committee. I call on Dr. Anderson for a motion is definitely my night. Um I move to direct the governance committee to revise policy 24 18 reporting student progress to parents and guardians and provide recommendations to the school board for discussion no later than November 1 2024. I further move that the school board direct the superintendent to 1 suspend the work of the secondary grading advisory committee temporarily

[03:29:09] and to pause in the adoption of additional recommendations regarding grading and 2 develop a clear charge for the secondary grading advisory committee to update its recommendations for secondary grading practices to align with the revised policy 2418 and the 22 I'm sorry 2023-2030 Strategic Plan; and three, communicate to staff that the grading changes distributed to middle, secondary, and high school principals and teachers on June 10, 2024 will be implemented

[03:29:46] for one year only, pending the revision of Policy 2418 by the school board and subsequent updated recommendations from the Secondary Grading Advisory Committee; and four, present secondary grading advisory committee's updated recommendations to the school board in a public meeting no later than june 1st 2025 and time for implementation for the sy 2025-2026 school year i ask for unanimous consent to change the date of the last bullet of the motion

[03:30:22] from june 1 2025 to may 1 2025. without objection the change is noted and will be reflected in the motion on the screen please. Dr. Anderson would you like to speak to your. After it's seconded I would love to speak to it. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you Ms. Sizemore Heiser. Dr.

[03:30:49] Anderson would you like to speak to your motion? Yes I would. We all know that grading is one of those some one of the most important tenets that occurs in our schools. It's important to our teachers. It's important to our parents and it is definitely important to our students in terms of its implications. We're talking scholarships, opportunity and admissions into post-secondary opportunities, colleges. So this is a component that we really have to get right. And I appreciate the work of the secondary committee, the secondary grading advisory committee, and what they have

[03:31:24] come up with. But I think we missed the opportunity for two things that I think this policy, this Motion speaks to one the opportunity for a larger conversation We need to bring in our community into this discussion for there to be clarity for our students For there to be clarity for their parents and caregivers in terms of what is it that we do in our schools?

[03:31:46] In an area that matters so much secondly, we need to be much better aligned with our policies I don't think the policy has kept up with the recommendations that were provided which still raise a lot of questions for those of us who have reviewed that 44 page report a little bit more in-depthly and this hopefully if this passes it will give it will give us the opportunity to really dig down into that report with our public to really align Work to our strategic plan and come back and have a fulsome Conversation so that we can move forward in on a consistent basis

[03:32:26] I think that is one of the key pieces that I want to highlight because the current recommendations allow for so much fluctuation and there's also a lot of questions regarding the research and the data. And right now we're just kind of middling around in the dark a little bit and we need to come back and have a fulsome conversation.

[03:32:46] So hopefully this can be approved and that's it. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Ms. Sizemore-Heisler, would you like to speak to your second? Yes, just briefly. I think Dr. Anderson covered it very, very well. I will say one by the number one thing I hear about from parents and students and even teachers is regarding the consistency of grading practices and the concerns around grading grading practices, especially the difference from school to school. I think there's some really good work going on around grading. I appreciate the secondary grading committees work to date. However, I do think that policy should then drive regulation should then drive practice and our grading policy has not been

[03:33:26] updated in more than five years. So I think it's important I know that this grading committee is planning to continue its work for another year so and while some recommendations have been rolled out I think it's really important to sort of take a breath make sure our policy is up to date so then it can drive the practices and it can drive the regulations around that so what this motion really and I also think it's really important to both look at what the grading committee has recommended to so far in a public meeting as well as once our policy is done ensure that the grading committee has a clear charge for its work and then does its work in alignment with an updated policy

[03:34:04] and in alignment with our strategic plan as all of our policies and regulations should be in alignment with the strategic plan so this really is just putting our typical structure around our grading work and ensuring that there's more transparency and ability for the public to sort of follow along as we do this while still giving time to have it done by next year so it can be implemented for the following year whatever additional changes there may come from this in a way that's consistent across the county so I appreciate my colleague Dr. Anderson for bringing it I'm really happy to support it and I hope that my colleagues will support this also thank you Ms. Sizemoreheiser

[03:34:40] Mr. Dunn as as someone who grew up moving around a lot changing schools frequently I have found that there's a certain population within Fairfax County especially economically disadvantaged students and military families who who do change schools within the county with some frequency and what I have also found is that grading at different schools especially middle and high

[03:35:12] schools can be surprisingly different and there's a lot of autonomy provided to principals and administrators to to have different practices and this is something where I'm all in favor of experimentation but that's not what this is it's not deliberate it's inadvertent in many cases and it's it's harmful to our students when when kids apply to college when they're seeking to measure their achievement against those of other students at different schools or within within the same school, there should be a consistent policy, a consistent yardstick,

[03:35:52] by which to measure their achievement and to enable apples to be compared to apples. And what I've heard directly from students, because I've held small meetings with students from most of the high schools attended by Mount Vernon District students, is that grading is among their top concerns and the inconsistency and the variability not just from school to school but from year to year.

[03:36:19] And so I think it's time to end that inconsistency to have a consistent systematic approach. And so I support this motion very strongly because I think we need to be very thoughtful as we establish a consistent systematic approach to have robust study and research.

[03:36:40] But I think we also need to have robust school board review and approval because something like this is so fundamental to our student experience, to our family expectations, that we certainly need to have the school board be fully on board with whatever system and policies are ultimately proposed by the superintendent.

[03:37:03] Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Ms. Marin. support the effort to renew and revise our policy again that's business as usual for the board or it should be actually i do want to correct this policy was last updated just a few months ago it was in december of 2023 when the previous board did update the policy rather quickly i'm reminded of that process that happened this evening too and at that time all that was changed was the grading SCALE WHICH THE SUPERINTENDENT HAD PUT OUT AND THAT WAS CODIFIED AND MY ADVOCACY AT THAT TIME

[03:37:39] WAS THAT WE REALLY NEEDED A MORE ROBUST REVIEW OF OUR GRADING POLICY SO I'M VERY GLAD THAT'S HAPPENING NOW BUT I DO ALSO THINK THAT IS AN EXAMPLE OF WHEN THE BOARD ISN'T REGULARLY UPDATING ITS POLICIES EVERY FIVE YEARS AS IT SHOULD BE IT BECOMES MORE AND MORE DIFFICULT TO MEET OUR SWORN DUTIES SO I'M HAPPY TO SUPPORT THIS MOTION AND THANK YOU FOR BRINGING IT.

[03:38:01] Thank you, Miss Marin. Mr. Moon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm going to support the motion and somewhat echoing what my colleague Mr. Don has already stated about need to maintain consistency among different schools, but even more important about consistent related consistency is within the same score amongst different teachers.

[03:38:28] I don't want students to teacher shopping based upon how they how different teachers grade so it is good to have our policy to guide our teachers to be consistent amongst the different schools within the same school.

[03:38:49] Thank you Mr. Moon I will support the motion and one of the things that I appreciate about the motion is that it's asking things to work in concert together the work that's being done by the committee the work of the superintendent in trying to bring sense to this and the work of the board to refine our policy one of the things that's clear when you talk to parents is that there even if there was greater consistency in our in in grading from school to school there's not a lot of clarity about the reasons that we do things the way that we do them and so I think this will bring clarity to that as well and I'm eager for the conversation I appreciate the

[03:39:28] work that went into bringing this motion miss Sawant yeah actually speaking to this I do I do really like this but I do also have a lot of questions about about what would be changed and what would be coming up.

[03:39:43] So I do look forward to participating in these discussions and also distributing it to the students so they can have their opinions. 'Cause I know there's a range of opinions on this issue. So I don't even know where to start with I'm commenting with this. - Ms. Sizemore Heiser.

[03:39:59] - Hi, thank you. And I appreciate my colleagues' clarification that yes, the policy was added to an updated in December 2023, but it hasn't been reviewed holistically. So that's, I think I wanna make that clarification. So I appreciate that clarification. It has not been reviewed holistically over five years but it was there was one section added to it at the last minute um in 2023 so i think it'll be helpful to review it holistically thank you very much signal others we will vote for the motion that is on the screen you see my hand is i apologize i'm very sorry miss lady go

[03:40:31] ahead okay um so i just want to share a couple thoughts on this um as somebody who you know worked in our system for a long time but also was the director of student services and was in meetings with other directors um we had this conversation often uh if any of our kids changed schools um was there inconsistency how things were done in terms of retake policies um formative summative percentages all that um i just i guess i just want to point out that in

[03:41:07] reviewing the report that came from that grading committee it is very very very clear that it seems like and i'll speak just to high school even though i have thoughts on middle school because it's preparation for high school that they're the high school principals um there's a lot of diversity in the in in the in in the things that are happening um i will say that i think that what every school has been tight on is that their collaborative learning teams if you're a ct of

[03:41:41] real history one that you are consistently doing things the same way um and so teacher shopping should not be a thing because people should be in the same pacing guide and doing collaborative work and doing formative and summative assessments consistent with their with their colleagues teaching the same course um and i guess i just want to say and and you know maybe this is just you know for me but i do think that what we do in terms of grading is very different than when we went to school certainly me a long long time ago where we graded behavior um and and we didn't understand that time was the variable in learning um and i just want people to be careful and

[03:42:20] understand that as we as we engage in this work to understand our our personal blind spots around how what worked for us as students versus where we are now with focusing on standards, focusing on understanding and evaluating kids maybe in a different way.

[03:42:37] And that might require us to read the books, consult the experts, have conversations about grading. We must be educated on current research and learning. And so I just throw that out there because I know November is a pretty quick timeline to write a policy that's going to drive this.

[03:42:54] And I'm all about supporting that. I do think we need to look at the policy um because it's very vague and it doesn't say anything um and i'm hoping that this will be done in conjunction with um in collaboration with if you will um you know our educational experts um because while i was educated for quite some time i would not ever um put myself as an expert in grading um while i actually do believe i know a lot about it um i'm not gonna um you know i would still say this is an evolving practice so I think we have to mostly ask the

[03:43:32] question you know what should grades be communicating to students and families and what do grades actually represent and I think the tough part of that is that you when you ask that to 50 different educators you might get 50 different answers so I will support this but I just want people to understand I don't think this is easy work thank you miss lady mr. done sorry just a quick go back. As the grading committee does its work I just wanted to highlight a couple

[03:44:04] things for Dr. Reed that that might be considered. One is the continuing and alarming trend of great inflation where everyone gets an A. I think a study from a few years ago showed like something like 75% of students at Harvard were A students which you know there should be maybe not a bell curve but something reflecting that some students are achieving more and some less because if you don't I know when I got bad grades sometimes it was an incentive to do

[03:44:39] better to learn more to put in more effort second you know we have a vast difference between students and IB curricula and students and you know advanced placement honors and similar curricula as well as students taking CTE classes. So that should be considered because we don't want to have whatever grading policies adopted across the entire system to be preferential to one curriculum versus the other. And finally,

[03:45:13] I don't know if it fits within the scope of this, but I've been alarmed by the anecdotal information I've been receiving of increasing frequency of students using cell phones in the classroom to essentially take photos of, you know, multiple choice tests to enable their peers to, who may not be taking the test at the same time, to thus figure out the answers. So there might be some thought given to moving away from multiple choice tests, which are, you know, fixed in their answers,

[03:45:46] and more, you know, writing exercises essentially to now, because you can write long answers in math and science as you know not just provide the answer but show the work and and that's certainly something we need to address now with the rise of generative ai that may make cheating on tests even more rampant thank you thank you mr dunn dr anderson yes thank you i missed the opportunity to kind of highlight something that the committee recommended which i think was really important we have schools that have vastly different approaches to the weighting of summative

[03:46:25] assessments some schools it is 50 40 some I'm sorry 50 40 so 60 40 and some schools were 90 10 these are students that are vying for the very same things we should not have that discrepancy across our divisions across our division what the school what the secondary grading committee recommended was that it would be 70 30 with 70 percent being summative and 30 percent being formative and while that is consistent now across the our schools which I think is important I think it still begs the question why that number

[03:47:03] should it be 80/20 should it be 60/40 should it be something else and I'm really looking forward for those into those conversations and and when it comes to retakes and when it comes to those other kinds of work the work has changed a little bit the research has moved a little bit with grading it's not oh you have a failing grade and it's one and done it's really offering students a lot of opportunities to show proficiency to a concept because we also get that at our work if you hand your your boss a report that is substandard you're not fired you get to you you are told go do it again so we're providing the same

[03:47:41] opportunities to our kids and these are the things that I think we need to elevate to help parents understand what is actually happening in our schools and And so I'm really looking forward to these discussions 'cause I'm particularly fond of grading practices.

[03:47:56] - Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Miss Lady, I don't know if your hand is up for a go back. I can't see on the screen, unfortunately. - No, I'm fine. - Okay, thank you. Mr. Dunner, Mr. Moon, your lights are on.

[03:48:13] Thank you. All right, seeing no others, we will vote for the motion that is on the screen. It is agenda item 5.05. All those in favor, Ms. Marin, Ms. Dixit, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Sizemoreheiser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady.

[03:48:39] I know you said you would, but I can't see it on the screen. Can you vocalize your vote? Yeah, I don't know why you can't see it anymore, but let me ask. Thank you. And myself, that is unanimous. The motion passes. All right. Agenda item 5.06, action item, strategic plan, goal two, baseline report, addendum, safe, supported, included, and empowered.

[03:49:01] I call on Dr. Reed for a presentation of the Strategic Plan Goal 2 Baseline Report Addendum. All right. Thank you, Chairman Frisch. And tonight, this presentation is a follow-up to our Goal 2 Baseline Report, which was originally presented on April 25th at 2024, well, on April 25th of 2024.

[03:49:29] At that time, the board directed me to add student academic inclusion and engagement, which is measure A of goal two as an additional early identified priority and revise the goal two report accordingly so that we could bring the information back to the board for a full vote.

[03:49:48] I've included the full report which is available on board docs for those of you watching at home and that will include the current data that we've added. So in our goal one baseline report we did share information about the importance of academic inclusion, including a recent study conducted by the Department of Education and Department of Health and Human Services that highlighted the importance of inclusion for students with disabilities in pre-K and the academic and social benefits of inclusion.

[03:50:20] So let's kind of, let's move through this and take a look at this. During tonight's report, excuse me, I will be referencing data from the VDOE, Special Education Performance Report, and we'll also be looking at indicators that measure outcomes and compliance with the requirements of IDEA.

[03:50:40] The VDOE produces annual special education performance reports that summarize overall state and individual school division performance. These include two indicators, each with three parts, that focus on inclusion for students with an IEP.

[03:50:57] So the indicators from these reports will be the focus of tonight's presentation and baseline data. So we'll begin with Indicator 5, which focuses on the learning environment for students with an IEP in kindergarten through age 21.

[03:51:14] This VDOE performance on Indicator 5, on this slide, we have an opportunity to look at the overall Virginia performance as a reference point. So these are the 5a, 5b, 5c, and this is where we would begin.

[03:51:33] So on the next slide, this is an opportunity to look at our performance on indicator 5a in particular. And this is the one that talks about students included in the regular classroom 80% or more of the day.

[03:51:50] And as you can see in our baseline data report, we're still below the state expectation for THAT AND OUR LINE IS SHOWN IN YELLOW AND THE STATE TARGETS FOR EACH YEAR ARE SHOWN IN BLUE. TO REACH THE 2526 STATE TARGET, FCPS WILL NEED TO MAKE AT LEAST 5.7 PERCENTAGE POINTS OF GROWTH EACH YEAR. SO JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE WE NOTE FOR REFERENCE THAT THE 2526 IS THE FURTHEST OUT YEAR WHERE THE STATE TARGET IS KNOWN AND THE TARGET FOR FUTURE DATES INCLUDING 29-2030 ARE NOT

[03:52:28] yet known. It does look that we are making progress in 22-23 and our 23-24 data I don't believe is available yet. So again we want to make sure we reinforce while this is baseline data our target is to meet or exceed the state targets. And next we'll take a look at video indicator 5b which focuses on students included in the regular classroom less than 40 percent of the day kindergarten through age 21. During the three most recent years of reporting Fairfax County has not

[03:53:06] met the state target for indicator 5b as we continue to focus overall inclusion efforts on 5a we expect to see improvement on 5b as they are connected so our targets for upcoming years for 23 24 this past year was 7.65 percent 24 25 7.40 and 25 26 7.15 and lastly we'll look at performance on indicator 5c and again 5c is measuring the percentage of students with

[03:53:42] disabilities in kindergarten through age 21 or served in separate public or private school residential home school home-based or hospital facilities during the most recent three years of reporting Fairfax County Public Schools has met the state target here and we do provide a wide variety of services and programs which allow the division to provide the majority of special education services actually within the county and this does support our ability to meet Indicator 5C. I want to reinforce for those listening that this does include students who attend Davis Career Center, Pulley Career Center, Cedar Lane School, Quandah Road School,

[03:54:21] Burke School, Kilmer Center, and Key Center, as well as multi-agency services, home-based or hospital facilities. As we look at Indicator 6, this is the indicator where we're looking at learning environment for our students who have IEPs who are age 3 to 5.

[03:54:42] As you can see on this chart, Indicator 6, this is the overall Virginia performance on Indicator 6 as a context and a starting point which we'll nest in and zoom in right now on Fairfax County Indicator 6A outcomes compared to state targets. I will say again on this slide their indicator indicates that the percent of students in preschool with IEPs who are attending a regular education program and receiving the majority of special education related services in the regular program is below the state expectation and it continues to be that

[03:55:22] our Fairfax County actual is in yellow whereas the state targets are above that to reach the 2526 goal we'll need to make at least 1.87 percent percentage points of growth this does include students who are in classrooms providing different types of inclusion single teacher inclusion paired classroom inclusion or itinerant classroom inclusion model um and we've obviously got a lot of work to do again in this area as well on indicator 6a however i do i am optimistic that our trend line is moving

[03:55:58] in the right direction and we've worked very hard in our early childhood department and dr edmunds heard dr presidio and the team on making sure we're crafting more inclusive preschool classrooms Now I also want to say our principals have been working very hard as we find spaces and opportunities to collaborate. On the Indicator 6B, this focuses on our students with the percent of students with IEPs in preschool who are enrolled in a preschool program attending a separate special education class, separate school, or residential facility.

[03:56:35] During the most recent three years of reporting, again, Fairfax County did not meet the state target for Indicator 6B, but as we continue to focus on our overall inclusion efforts and a target to meet Indicator 6A, it should enable us to see improvements in the ability to meet 6B.

[03:56:59] So now we're going to take a look at Indicator 6C, and this 6C, again, is the percent of children who are in preschool programs receiving special education and related services in the home. And during the most recent three years of reporting, Fairfax County again did not meet the state target for Indicator 6C, but the data is trending in the direction we would expect to try to meet the VDOE target hopefully in the next couple of years.

[03:57:32] This includes children again who are accessing special education services provided by FCPS early childhood special education teachers or staff in the home. These services may include speech occupation or physical therapy services as well so some of our current strategies we thought it would be helpful to share what the division is doing to address some of these data points that are deficient and again appreciate the board drawing us back to taking a look at this being a high priority set of data points because we know it is so to that end we're

[03:58:08] and putting some high leverage strategies in place, and this particular slide looks at our current efforts to improve inclusion across the school division. The use of our LRE tool, which we continue to refine, which is used during IEP team meetings.

[03:58:28] We've had significant professional development around universal design for learning. It's been an administrative focus, teacher focus, and support staff focus. And again, the introduction, the purchase and use of a new basal resource curriculum that actually has multi-tiered systems of support threaded throughout.

[03:58:50] So we're very excited about the opportunity to utilize the new curriculum. And this summer we've had teachers in a variety of both general and categorical programs being trained and supported and we're looking for great outcomes as a result.

[03:59:09] I think I'm a page. Okay. All right. So again, we're going to look at pre K inclusion strategies and particularly our grow your own program that provides a dual licensure is really something that we're hopeful that will enable us to hire more staff that are certified in early childhood and early childhood special education in the 2324 school year we did pre K classroom expansion enabled us to increase our pre-k access to more than 200 students seven of the new pre-k classes

[03:59:43] opened at schools co-located with early childhood special education classes and three new early childhood inclusion program single teacher inclusion classes so it's really a high priority as we roll out and develop and add more courses or more classes for our youngest learners so strategies under development and consideration these are things that we're working on as a second tier they're under development but they haven't been implemented in contrast to

[04:00:17] the strategies i previously mentioned and we're working to develop a multi-year plan that we believe will meet the targets because that's the expectation that we meet the targets we think this is going to take roughly three to five years it's going to involve all staff at every level and will obviously continue to be reported to um to the board um what our goal is really to move beyond the state indicators we don't consider that to be a ceiling but rather a floor in terms of our work and we do continue to work on our universal design for learning

[04:00:53] by continuing to incorporate high leverage practices we're excited to continue the process and finally we've got the 24 25 school year we have several new inclusion models that we're contemplating and again these include the single teacher model as well as co-teaching in the 2024 2025 school year. All 61 classes at 42 schools with co-located pre-k and early childhood will implement the paired classroom inclusion model. This is a major step for our division, but we're

[04:01:32] really excited and committed to making that happen. So at a minimum, 300 students with IEPs will be served in these inclusive programs. So lots of excitement about that. Flexible grouping will CONTINUE TO BE IMPORTANT AS WE BEGIN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ALSO AN ITINERANT CLASSROOM INCLUSION MODEL THIS YEAR AND JUST A LOT OF EXCITEMENT AROUND INCLUSIVE PRE-K.

[04:01:58] SO THAT'S THE ADDENDUM TO OUR GOAL TO REPORT THAT OPTIMIZED OUR INDICATORS. LET ME GO BACK HERE. SEVERAL INDICATORS, LET'S SEE HERE, THE STUDENT ACADEMIC TO INCLUDE BASELINE DATA, CURRENT AND FUTURE HIGH LEVERAGE STRATEGIES FOR ACHIEVING MEASURE A AND INDICATORS 5, 6, AS WELL AS MEASURES D AND F.

[04:02:30] THANK YOU, DR. REED. DR. ANDERSON. THANK YOU. THIS IS VERY INTERESTING INFORMATION. JUST A FEW QUESTIONS REGARDING 5A, WHICH SPEAKS TO 80% OF OUR STUDENTS, I'M SORRY, STUDENTS needing to spend 80% of their day in included spaces how would that work with our centers what is what are the implications there so dr. Edmunds Hurd do you want to comment on the role of the

[04:02:56] centers versus our base schools from my understanding those students are not counting in that 80% that we're looking at but don't they impact the overall goal that the state has they are the ones that um they're in 5c those were the centers those are the separate centers that are there okay

[04:03:34] that's where they are counted which we still have not met those targets right so i think the question would still be applicable how do we include more opportunities for inclusion when the entire school essentially is a special education center i think it's still continuing to look at the needs of those students and when they can move to a least restrictive least restrictive setting is when we would be making those moves too as well but it's difficult to do that of course when they're in the more restrictive setting sure so if we were to move them from the least restrictive setting which means out of those centers and into a traditional school then they wouldn't go ahead

[04:04:12] i'm sorry i mean then they would not count in 5c anymore they would be moved to 5a they would be but then we will still have the same issue with kids who are in 5c yeah so for for our students who are not going to be able to move to a traditional schools how do we then impact what needs to happen for them at the places where they are i don't have a specific answer for that yet i can do some checking though for you on that and how they might be impacted and how we can make

[04:04:46] changes for them too or or how um we can impact that particular um indicator for those students I think one of the things we're trying to do is lower, excuse me, lower the number or percentage of students that actually would be in the centers that would be part of the 5C data calculation.

[04:05:06] And as students moved from centers back to base schools or fewer students would be moving from base schools to centers, we want to make sure that our students in base schools are spending more time in general ed classes with supports.

[04:05:24] Sure, and that would be 5A, which I do have a question about, but I still, I'm just really wondering how we would impact those students who fall into 5C in a substantial way to meet this, because similarly to our students who are ELs, once they're no longer ELs, they fall into another category, continuing to diminish the growth that could be seen with that group.

[04:05:47] So I'm very curious in terms of any additional information that you can share. Now regarding 5A, where students need to be included in regular classrooms, 80% or more of the day, how will that be operationalized?

[04:06:05] Are we now going to have IEPs have that as a goal? What should parents look forward to happening in those IEP conversations? So this past year, during every IEP conversation, there was actually an LRE tool, which I'm going to ask Dr. Edmonds Hurd to comment on here in a minute.

[04:06:26] We realized when we rolled it out initially, I think that it was a fairly intense tool, and I believe we refined it to make it more streamlined and not quite as onerous. And also it was new for IEP teams to work through.

[04:06:42] So by utilizing that tool, it asks more questions and poses more scenario possibilities. So Dr. Edmonds-Hurd, do you want to comment on the LRE tool and its role, please? Yes, we did roll out that tool in the fall of last year, and then we continued to make some refinements to it.

[04:07:03] We did ask all schools to start using the tool and getting exposed to it in January of this year. we also provided training to our department chairs in regards to the tool we've gotten a lot of feedback on it and we've continued to make refinements on it but the main purpose of it was to make sure that our school teams could have more robust conversations around our student students and what their needs are and how we can possibly move them into a least restrictive setting because we know that many of our students are taking SOL assessments and the more exposure that they're having to the general education curriculum as well as

[04:07:39] development of their social skills is going to be beneficial to them so you're not looking to have a mandate that students have 80% of their time you're using the tool to kind of guide the discussion in that area exactly what what what's the change maker because I'd like to think you know that my glasses on I'd like to think these are conversations that would happen if you have a really robust and fair you know IEP process well the tool is very thorough and it covers many many areas that may not have been covered before in those

[04:08:17] conversations and it's more of a guide to for our teachers when they're having those conversations to guide them through the process to make good decisions and so they're discussing some areas that may have been left out before and so we're hopeful that the tool will continue to grow and we have seeing some small changes with that that was actually my next question are you seeing any changes yes we have we met we've been meeting with our principals over the last couple of months we had ACS I mean I'm ACSD I'm sorry we had our principal meeting where we were talking about the tool and doing some talks

[04:08:56] around increasing our inclusion settings and same thing in our leadership conference this week that we've continued to have a conversations about it and being able to help our principals to look at the data I think dr. Reed may have even mentioned the dashboard that will be coming up to so that they can be monitoring that data and taking a look at it okay thank you and moving to 6b 6b has three groups of students students who are in special education classrooms separate schools and residential facilities how can we impact the residential facility component because obviously the class we have a little bit

[04:09:32] more I hate to say flexibility but we have a little bit more influence in that area how would we impact and reduce the number of students in the residential facility and even more importantly which one of these three has the like what's the data for each dr. Edmund Cern I don't think we have the data for for each one tonight but we can get that and I do have a couple team members on line to as well I'm not sure if they have the answer to that I'm just very curious

[04:10:10] because that's a big gap it's going to be a little bit challenging to meet this target in the time frame that we have without really digging into it I heard the sound but I do have some additional questions so I'd like to go back thank you dr. Anderson mr. Dunn well first of all I'd like to congratulate you and your team this is you know some great news and great progress and I appreciate everything that's being implemented for these students.

[04:10:39] When there was a new tool mentioned for creating IEPs, is that a software tool or is it a paper? What is meant by tool? The LRE target. So Dr. Edmunds heard the LRE target is paper, software. I think it's been both.

[04:10:55] I think it's still paper right now. I think they are trying to move it into the CSTARS, but that takes quite a bit of time. I think it is a paper tool right now. Thank you. So these targets that are established for, you know, the different slides you've presented, are these, I mean, are these pulled out of thin air?

[04:11:17] Are these based on data or research? Just in your experience, are these evidence-based or just kind of arbitrary? The targets, we're essentially looking at targets that will enable us to get to a goal and trying to make sure that the targets are something that we believe we're going to be able to hit with the moves we're making each year the strategies under consideration and those that are coming but i'll ask dr edmunds heard how they were calculated or miss neil just to clarify i meant the state targets oh the state targets um i think the state targets has stayed smooth

[04:11:52] but i'm going to defer to dr presidio i guess yeah so i mean you can see on some of the slides the chart in terms of the incremental growth of the state targets but those are calculated obviously by the virginia department of education based on feedback about how well the state is performing in terms of the feedback that they're getting from the u.s department of education so it's kind of a flow through from federal to state to local so i i what i'm trying to understand is um you know if you look at our surrounding jurisdictions in the dmv area or peer school

[04:12:26] systems of similar sizes um if i if i looked at that data for you know other jurisdictions similar to our size or in our region are there any jurisdictions that actually meet these state targets so that i mean for all of these slides we're below significantly and that's not because of anything under your leadership dr reed but i'm just trying to understand if we're below our peers or if we're roughly in the same place yeah i believe in some cases it is both - Yeah, no, that's 100% right, it is both.

[04:12:59] But again, on some of these slides, you can see we've provided where the state is at, and the state is really not meeting the state targets, right, to your point. So there's some outlier districts that are doing a little bit better, some like us, obviously, that are not hitting the state targets. But I think the important point for me is what Dr. Reed mentioned a little bit earlier, is that the state targets are not the ceiling for us, they're the floor, and we've gotta get caught up to the floor so that we can move beyond them.

[04:13:23] And that's what we're in the process of trying to plan terms of strategies and actions that can they can move us forward so what like what i'd like to understand is if you look at slide five for example um there's you know a little bit of a drop in 2021 to 2022 and a little bit increase but you know this graph only shows the last three or four years um but i imagine there's more years of data 10 20 years of data so i'm just wondering are we just constantly kind of moving up and down within a certain band or are we if you kind of plotted it

[04:13:57] over time are we steadily increasing our performance improving our performance to where we're actually you know incrementally moving closer to the state targets yeah i i wouldn't say that we're making consistent gains um really like when we calculated the data for the strategic plan reports we kind of made a strategic decision to look at the last three years to see things that are a little bit closer in time and you can see we're up and down there our internal data and dr. Reed mentioned we don't have the state confirmed data but our internal data for 2324 shows that we're probably up another five percentage points on

[04:14:34] this particular indicator so we're really interested in kind of tracking where have we been going back three years and then going forward but certainly if board members wanted more data historical data that's something we could provide I would say that I believe when we looked at it we have not met the STATE TARGET EVER. SO TO BE VERY HONEST ABOUT THAT, MY EXPECTATION IS THAT WE WILL BE THERE IN THE NEXT TWO YEARS AND I THINK PART OF THAT IS JUST MAKING IT A PRIORITY AND I THINK BRINGING THIS REPORT BACK AND SAYING THE BOARD WANTED THIS TO BE A PRIORITY IS ONE OF THE MAJOR STEPS IN THAT AND I THINK SIGNALING TO OUR

[04:15:11] COMMUNITY THAT THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT AND ALSO I MEAN I THINK that's that was our equity symposium Dr. King and her team was around universal design for learning we that was a theme for our leadership kickoff that several of you attended so I I just know when we focus on it resource it and align our mission we'll get there that's helpful um can you comment on would it be uh I assume that uh this you know our ability to meet these state targets and exceed these targets is affected by the state underfunding and federal

[04:15:50] underfunding for special education programs. Can you comment on that? There's no question if we had the funding that we believe we should we could be making progress much more quickly. I think to your point the half a billion the JLARC study calls out would make this a lot more achievable more quickly. And I believe the federal government committed to paying 40 percent of special education costs do you know what that percentage is roughly in reality miss burden i'm sorry what was the question the what what uh so the the federal government had committed to pay 40 percent of

[04:16:28] special education costs is my understanding and i'm just trying to understand of our total program cost for special education how much does the federal government actually contribute as a percentage i think it's about nine percent nine percent okay so we're missing about 31 of funding then and that impacts our students with the greatest needs yes sir thank you thank you mr dunn miss sizemore heiser i would like to address the question that was asked to dr presidio um in 21 22 prince william was at 65 percent virginia beach is 69.6 percent loudon at 81

[04:17:02] percent arlington at 67 percent false church city at 71 henrico at 76 and scps at 48.61 percent so there's the answer in terms of how we're doing it compared to a lot of our stradding jurisdictions I would also like to mention that while I completely agree with my colleague that we need to get the JLARC funding the IDEA funding those same restrictions apply to all of those school systems so I agree completely that we need that however we can no longer and I hear too long too often from staff use that as an excuse because it doesn't seem to be as much of an excuse for

[04:17:37] all of these and I've read seven of them thank you for that I just want to put that out there IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT TO KNOW THAT WE CAN DO BETTER WITH WHAT WE HAVE. YES, MA'AM. SO I APPRECIATE THIS REPORT. I THINK IT IS REALLY IMPORTANT FOR OUR STAFF TO BE AWARE OF THESE NUMBERS.

[04:17:56] I DON'T HAVE THE 22-23, BUT WE SHOULD KNOW THAT WE ARE AT LEAST, ACCORDING TO THIS, THE CLOSEST SCHOOL TO US IS 65% IN 21-22 AND WE WERE 48% AND IT'S IMPORTANT FOR STAFF TO KNOW THAT.

[04:18:15] so I appreciate this I want to switch the LRE tool I appreciate hearing that we're making tweaks to it however I would like to say having been on an inclusion work group many years ago I want to make sure that the LRE tool isn't being used to make our numbers look better that it's actually being used as a tool to have robust LRE discussions I've heard from a lot of families about concerns ABOUT THE LRE TOOL AND THE CONCERNS ABOUT FAMILY TRAINING IN PARTICULAR SO THEY CAN BE FULL MEMBERS OF THAT IEP TEAM IN THE PROCESS OF GIVING INFORMATION AND TALKING THROUGH THE LRE TOOL.

[04:18:53] SO I GUESS THE QUESTION I HAVE IS WHAT ARE WE DOING TO MAKE SURE WE PROVIDE THAT FAMILY TRAINING AS WELL. SO DR. EDMONDS HERD I KNOW WE'RE PLANNING A FAMILY I WANT TO SAY ACADEMY AND MAYBE THAT'S MISS HALL I KNOW YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN WORKING ON THAT TOGETHER PERHAPS ONE OF YOU COULD COMMENT PLEASE.

[04:19:10] i'll comment that we it was a part of the enhancement plan for our students with disabilities we do have some opportunities for our parents and parent education pieces in there and of course connected with the family resource center so i'll look into exactly what those are and those opportunities will be and make sure we have something connected to the lre tool i would respectfully i appreciate that but respectfully i would say if this tool has been in use for a year it is way too late to start thinking about that because it should have been done when this was ROLLED OUT AND I DON'T KNOW IF IT WAS OR WAS IT MAYBE IT WAS BUT WHAT I'M HEARING FROM FAMILIES WAS THAT

[04:19:48] WHATEVER WAS THERE IF ANYTHING CAME WELL LATE AFTER THIS TOOL WAS BEING USED AND THAT'S A PROBLEM. SO I'LL WORK WITH STAFF TO ADDRESS THAT AND I KNOW WE'RE WE'VE HAD SOME CONVERSATIONS ABOUT SORT OF REENERGIZING THE FAMILY SUMMIT IN THE SPRING OF THE YEAR NOT THAT WE'RE GOING TO WAIT until that time but I do think that that's a key that's a key and critical foundational piece as well as with our I know our basal new basal curriculum we're talking about how are we going to make sure parents understand how best to use that and to support children

[04:20:24] at all abilities within that basal thank you and I know my tone sounds harsh but the first time I mentioned this failure was to Dr. Garza at a community meeting when she first started I was one of those parents with a microphone saying, you know, we haven't passed this indicator.

[04:20:41] So just we're on it. I think it's so I appreciate very much my colleagues supporting this a priority. The last question I want to ask is I appreciate the conversation about one of the strategies we're going to use, high leverage practices, but I asked this the last time that was mentioned as a strategy.

[04:20:58] I appreciate we're talking about UDL, but what else are we talking about in high leverage practices? And what are we doing to address the mindset issues? I appreciate that ACSD is looking at how to have disability affirming, if I may finish my sentence, practices, but I don't see any of that in this plan.

[04:21:14] - Yes, ma'am, well, I think the mindset, we spent quite a little bit of time in the leadership kickoff talking about mindset and how we view the capacity of each and every one of our students, right? And our responsibility in addressing their hopes and dreams.

[04:21:31] I think the high leverage instructional practices, I know next week we're having a session, Susan Hentz is coming in with very specific instructional strategies really for general education staff and I plan to attend part of that and I'm very excited that she's going to be here in Fairfax County so I think we're really working this you know Universal Design for Learning is not a special education initiative it's a general education initiative so we're asking a lot of our staff with a new basil and new strategies um and uh there's a lot of excitement and we also that's

[04:22:08] part of why we've needed some of this time for professional development no i appreciate that and the udl work is is really critical and really important and i'm really excited to see that being rolled out as robustly as it is so i appreciate this report i appreciate the time it took to sort of come back and amend our goal report i appreciate my colleagues supported that because this is important I'll just mention one more time because I think it's important we have several new leadership team members to realize that the reason this is so important is because if our goal is to give all of our students the knowledge and skills they need to be successful when they leave us whether it's career you know college military wherever they end up going it's important to know that

[04:22:47] the college completion rate for autism is 35% and the unemployment rate for autism is 70%. And we can fix that here. And this is why this was so important to have this as a priority now. So I appreciate you doing that. I appreciate this work. I would love to talk to you more about those high leverage practices and what we're doing. So maybe offline we can have more of those conversations. Thank you for putting this together. I know it was a lift to add this in. But I would just ask, perhaps, when we're talking about this, we talk about the why a little bit in that mindset. You know, talk about where the

[04:23:19] numbers have been. And the last thing I'll say is in the data that shows that for years that inclusion helps outcomes, academic and social outcomes for students with disabilities and students without disabilities. It's just been proven. It's not just because it feels good, right? It's data is behind that. Thank you.

[04:23:40] Thank you. I just have like three more. On page seven of the report, you had the chart that talked about students who receive services in the home. And obviously, that's one of the errors we'll try to reduce.

[04:23:56] Did we get to the root cause as to why parents elect to have services in the home in lieu of in our practices? I'm sorry, in our classrooms, because if we're if we are going to change that, we need to know why that's happening and that's setting.

[04:24:13] So Dr. Edmundsson. I'm not personally aware of what those reasons were, but I can definitely collect that information so that you can have a better idea. Right. And these also include students that are in the centers.

[04:24:29] So it's home home based or hospital as well as our centers. And I think that's why disaggregating that data will be more helpful. So we know which is the I hate to say it, but the lowest hanging fruit because we do know this is challenging work. Yes, ma'am. The other thing that I wanted to add, I think on page eight, you sort of talking about some of the strategies and it's very clear that we have greater levels of success in our elementary levels for inclusion.

[04:24:55] What are going to be those specific strategies of secondary schools? And by that, I mean middle and high schools, because that's where it gets to be terribly challenging. It sure does. Because I think, really, when you think about how elementary schools are structured versus how secondary schools are much more compartmentalized by content, I think we're going to have to work very hard also to think about how we modify curricula at the secondary level because many students could be in general education classes with modified curricula.

[04:25:29] And I think that's something we're embarking on in a more focused systemic way. i'm going to defer also to dr edmund sir dr presidio in terms of how i think the strategy is different at secondary than elementary just because of the structure of the school day i don't know if you want to comment on that one of the things when we were talking about principals just the other day is that the scheduling piece when students are coming in transitions too as well so looking at the scheduling a lot of times we've had issues with changing schedules of course mid

[04:26:05] year at our secondary school so starting off the year already with the inclusion pieces in place is going to be helpful as those ieps you know transition up i think the co-teaching models at high school are going to be important imperative too as well pairing teachers that can work along with that curriculum and making sure that we have more co-teaching models going on at secondary too as well and i think the transition pieces we've talked a lot about as those ieps and those students move up to the next level making sure that there's a lot of collaborations

[04:26:39] between those levels as they move up to ensure that we have you know robust conversations about what's needed at the next level and that the receiving school is able to paint a clear picture about what you know they are able to do with students too as well that may be a little bit different than the sending school but making sure we're having good conversations around that for transitions. Thank you for that. But I think my worry is these are things that already exist.

[04:27:09] These are things that we're already doing and yet we're having these results. I'm just struggling to see why now they will be yielding different results. That's a fair point. I think what we're trying to employ those strategies more often with more IEPs which should yield different results in the aggregate okay I think my next to last thing is on page nine where you're talking about the basal in terms of what it will how will will support our

[04:27:44] students to impact some of this data can you speak to that a little bit because with specialized supports not be needed I'm having a hard time picturing how that would impact some of these things that we need to just because we have a a basal well one of the things about a basal curriculum and I think miss Clemenco and her team did a really thoughtful job of selecting a basal that has a lot of supports integrated within it so often you have students that are if you don't have a really comprehensive basal you can have

[04:28:22] students pulled out to work on something completely different than what's happening in the classroom and if you have leveled materials within the classroom as part of the classroom instruction for all children then it's easier to what we do is push in support right adults can our instructional assistants and co-teachers can be in the classroom with curriculum that is going to be integrated not something completely separate so that we believe the literacy instruction will be less fragmented and more comprehensive and

[04:28:58] focus so that our often children that have the most needs get the most fragmented instruction when they're pulled out to something very different than what the classroom is learning the example is kindergarten right if they're learning a certain letter in class and then get pull out support with a different letter when everyone else in the class is still working on the one letter so it's just something I we feel like the basil is going to provide that wraparound support in ways we have not been able to still with the support of the specialized case manager or assistant yes okay that's very helpful

[04:29:34] and lastly talked here a little bit in terms of the community peers program I guess which is one of the strategies to help impact inclusion opportunities or rather yeah inclusion opportunities and the centers so dr. Presidio community peers that's not something I'm familiar with from other divisions but that's been a bit of a has a bit of a history here in Fairfax County yes of the community peers when we're talking about that pertains to the preschool setting so where we've got early childhood special education preschool classrooms and in a particular elementary school without the general education preschool

[04:30:12] classroom the opportunities for inclusion for those students are pretty limited so what we've tried to do is bring in other students that might not qualify because they don't meet income eligibility requirements for us that don't have IEP needs to come into the classroom and serve as community peers to those students.

[04:30:30] So it's really a stopgap. It's not like the best inclusion model. We've got several different inclusion models, but it's kind of a stopgap when we don't have those opportunities to have co-located programs that we can actually blend together in an inclusion model. I see. Thank you. Much appreciated. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Ms. Lady.

[04:30:50] chairman fresh um i appreciate the conversation and i do uh realize that given our statistics related to our surrounding jurisdictions that we have great work to do um and i know that there are situations or at least it's my understanding where uh we are not um creating the most least the most least restrictive environment for our people for our students but i also want to point out that it was my experience you know in my last you know i would say five to eight years um that i

[04:31:24] found um difficulty and some resistance out of sort of fear of failure or not succeeding um that while the school um iep team was recommending team taught or mainstream um that often uh guardians and caregivers and parents at the table wanted something more restrictive and so i guess what i'm trying to say is in you know ieps um the parents have to agree to the recommendations

[04:31:57] and so my question is is it possible statistically to capture um as we try to drill down on this and ensure our kids are provided least restrictive. Is it possible, Dr. Reed, to capture in any way, sort of from a data perspective, when we have attempted to provide a least restrictive environment, but a parent's requested something that's more restrictive? I hope that question makes sense. It does make sense, and we certainly could capture that data.

[04:32:35] Okay, thank you. I just feel like if memory serves me well, from my perspective and that my colleagues it happened more far too often than than just an anomaly um which is very frustrating when you see a potential in a child but yet there seems to be some fear and from the paris perspective of of allowing them to be more more mainstream if you will thank you yeah i think one of the things that we talked about this morning in particular at the leadership uh professional development week

[04:33:11] is this the importance of whatever strategy we're employing we were discussing academic intensity this morning we can't just decide to be to have academic intensity when students get to ninth grade right so if inclusion is a critical um and we believe it is foundational and critical to student success and we have to make sure that inclusion is happening from the the time children begin with us. And ironically, and I think it was Dr. Anderson that pointed out, actually at elementary, our numbers look far more promising. It's when we get to secondary at that middle

[04:33:51] school start that we, I think we have less and less of the inclusion. So I can see families maybe by high school, because those transcripts are permanent, maybe being less willing to take the risk so I think we really need to think about how we how we work on that at a younger ages I agree 100% I do think that that transition from elementary and middle is crucial in setting up students and for success and families seeing that student success in a more inclusive environment which then leads to that high school so thank you yes ma'am thank you miss lady dr. Reed

[04:34:29] we're done with this part of the meeting I'll turn the gavel over to miss ANDERSON SECTION 5.07 ACTION ITEM STRATEGIC PLAN GOAL TWO BASELINE REPORT ADDENDUM I CALL IN MISS SEISEMORHEISER FOR A MOTION I MOVE THAT THE SCHOOL BOARD APPROVED THE ADDENDUM TO GOAL TWO BASELINE REPORT AS A DIVISION STARTING POINT FOR THE WORK TOWARDS ACHIEVING THE GOALS IN OUR STRATEGIC PLAN 2023-30 IS THERE A SECOND SECOND THANK YOU MR. FIRSH MS SEISEMORHEISER WOULD YOU LIKE TO SPEAK TO YOUR MOTION I'M JUST BRIEFLY BECAUSE I SPOKE EARLIER BUT THERE WAS A COUPLE

[04:35:05] things i didn't mention that i wanted to say for this round and i see that look um i love that look but dr reed um dr anderson touched on this and i think i want to follow up on what she was saying but while our indicator data is a great starting point i think we and i know you mentioned dashboards are you planning on those dashboards or sharing data that is split into elementary middle and high school levels in terms of inclusive environments because if we really are going going to address some of the needs that it's important to know what it looks like at the

[04:35:39] different levels of school. Yes ma'am we're planning to do that. Okay as part of your strategies around this the high leverage practice is going to be including looking at service delivery models. Yes ma'am. And I agree with Miss Lady I do think that there are sometimes families and this is why I think the family education and mindset piece for everybody is most important because I will say what I tell families a lot when I used to do my advocacy work is in parents who tell me they're afraid of inclusion and I said well or they didn't think

[04:36:12] inclusion worked for their kids I say well until we do it right you don't know so right yes ma'am so I think it's important to help our families understand that what the data behind it is and what our plans are to do it right consistently I think we're doing it right in a lot of locations but that consistency is what is missing so that was my question I just want to clarify that those high leverage practices include service delivery models because until we look at how we're delivering services i don't know how we look at creating inclusive environments and that secondary versus

[04:36:48] elementary um and the last piece i'll talk about is are we looking at making sure all of our ias who are working with our special education students have training we're obviously i believe those that's critical right every adult that surrounds our children has to have the training so um i will work with staff to confirm that that's occurring thank you um so having said that i i will just say i appreciate the work to amend this goal report and as a starting point i think i would encourage you all to really flush out those high leverage practices looking at a variety

[04:37:25] of areas that might need to be addressed to create inclusive environments and with that i'm happy to support this mr frisch would you like to speak to your second sure um this is how this process SHOULD WORK RIGHT WHEN THE SCHOOL BOARD SEES SOMETHING LACKING IN A GOAL REPORT WE SHOULD ASK FOR MORE INFORMATION AND THE SUPERINTENDENT CAN BRING IT AND I'M HAPPY TO SUPPORT THE GOAL REPORT NOW THAT THIS ADDENDUM IS HERE AND LOOK THERE ARE A LOT OF QUESTIONS AND I THINK THAT'S WHAT THIS IS SUPPOSED TO DO IS SURFACE THOSE QUESTIONS AND WHAT WE SEE NOW THOUGH IS THAT THERE IS THE

[04:38:01] BEGINNINGS OF A PLAN FOR HOW WE'RE GOING TO ACCOMPLISH THE GOAL OF REACHING THE STATE STANDARDS and hopefully exceeding the state standards and because we're measuring that year to year we'll be able to check in on it see what the you know these when we do identify more of the high leverage standards or practices which one of those are working best to leverage those even more and so on so i appreciate the work that went into this and the rest of the goal report as well and i'm happy to support it seeing no other members that wish to speak i'll call on a vote for a vote on

[04:38:37] the motion which is on the screen all those in favor Ms. Marin, Ms. Dixit, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Mr. Fresh, Ms. Sizemoreheiser, Mr. Dunn, and Ms. St. John Cunning, and myself, and Ms. Lady, I think.

[04:38:59] Y'all don't see me? No, but we do know. Thank you. So that is unanimous for all at the table. thank you agenda item 5.08 action item continuation of community advisory committee membership structure staff liaison and committee charge process for school year 2024-25 i call on ms heismar heiser for a motion i'm busy tonight um that the school board i move that the school board continue the 2023-2024 community advisory committee membership structure and staff liaison appointment process to determine community advisory committee membership and staff liaison

[04:39:39] appointments for the 2024-2025 community advisory committee term i further move that the 2023-2024 community advisory committee's annual charge development process be used to develop the 2024 2025 annual charges i further move that the requirement to use the email template reference in section vb3b of the community advisory committee committee operating manual the posting

[04:40:04] OF INFORMATIONAL VIDEOS AS REFERENCED IN VE1A OF THE COMMUNITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE OPERATING MANUAL AND THE AVAILABILITY OF THE TOOLKIT AS REFERENCED IN SECTION V4C-1, I READ THAT WRONG, SORRY, I'M A LITTLE TIRE TONIGHT, OF THE COMMUNITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE OPERATING MANUAL BE DELAYED UNTIL AUGUST 2025.

[04:40:26] I FURTHER MOVE THAT THE NUMBER OF STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE APPOINTMENTS TO THE COMMUNITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE BE MAINTAINED AS APPROVED ON JUNE 27, 2024. Thank you. Is there a second? I second. Ms. Anderson. Ms. Seitzmerheiser, would you like to speak to your motion? Yes, absolutely. I know this seems really clunky and kind of technical.

[04:40:45] We, after our several years working on the advisory committee handbooks, the policy and the governance committee updates, given a little bit of the delay that it took from the time we finalized it to voting on it, realized that there are certain pieces of it that would be very difficult for our advisory committees to put into operation this year because the we didn't vote on this till June 27 2024 and our committees were already in the process of figuring out their memberships for or needing to appoint people for their memberships for next year appoint staff liaisons and they're already had developed their charges because we have to vote on all of those pieces the memberships and the staff charges and our staff have to get the

[04:41:22] liaison liaisons together in addition there are some requirements of videos to be created toolkits be created and an email template to create that we did not have time to create in time for the committees to use next year because the timing of the vote so we're delaying that for one year to make sure we can create those in a fulsome and appropriate way however we did want to make sure that our student representative we know she's gotten quite a few applications for the student representative positions was able to move forward with the changes to the student representative appointments that were voted in this year so we miss anderson and i went through

[04:41:59] through the documents to make sure that we sort of pulled out the things that might need to be delayed for a year or continued from last year just to make the smooth transition from this pretty significant change for our advisory committees given the timing. So hopefully that explains this motion and it's really just to delay a few things for a year.

[04:42:17] So we have time to move forward. Thank you, Ms. Seizmoorheiser. Ms. Anderson, would you like to speak to your second? Yeah, bottom line is that we're just in a transition moment and so we need to accommodate that transition as we move into the new document and the new guidelines.

[04:42:34] So I'm in absolute support of this because I want to give our advisory committees everything they need in order to do the work that they do. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Yes, thank you for the explanation.

[04:42:50] I did ask for this to be moved because I just wanted to have the conversation as to the rationale, which definitely makes sense because of the timing. Just maybe in the future, just to kind of avoid this, I think a quick email would have been very helpful when this was posted because I had no idea.

[04:43:08] And I'll just be honest, when this was posted for business, for new business last week, I was kind of knee deep in some of that other work we were taking care of last week. And so it wasn't until today when I was asking myself, well, why are we moving this? We had all of those conversations.

[04:43:25] A little bit more communication will be helpful just to offer some clarity. But just one small question. The email template that was referenced, we weren't able to, why was that one not allowed? They couldn't get the email template together in time?

[04:43:43] We just haven't had a chance to actually create it. Oh, we are creating it? This is something that we are helping them create. So it's just the public engagement committee hasn't had the opportunity to go ahead and do that yet. have the email addresses that are going to be in this is not in relationship to that. May I also adjust this so the email template is actually an email template for the committee members to use to email the board updates regular updates unrelated to email addresses so it's different. No that's very helpful. Thank you so much. Thank you Dr. Anderson seeing no others. We will go ahead and have a

[04:44:22] vote on the motion on the screen for five point zero eight. All those in favor Miss Marin Dr. Anderson Mr. McDaniel Miss Anderson Miss Sizemore Heiser Mr. Dunn Mr. Moon Miss St. John Cunning Miss Lady and myself that is unanimous for board members present agenda item the motion passes agenda item 5.09 action item excuse me contract notification and approval during school boards summer recess I call on Miss Marin for a motion that the board gives a superintendent authority on behalf of the board to approve contracts

[04:44:58] INCLUDED ON THE LIST PROVIDED TO THE BOARD ON JULY 18, 2024, AND AFTER CONSULTATION WITH THE CHAIR AND VICE CHAIR TO SIGN ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OTHER CONTRACTS THAT NEED TO BE AUTHORIZED DURING THE RECESS. IS THERE A SECOND? I SECOND. MS.

[04:45:14] ANDERSON, MS. MAYOR, WOULD YOU LIKE TO SPEAK TO YOUR MOTION? SO THE BOARD TAKES ITS RECESS BEGINNING TOMORROW, WHICH IS NOW. AND SO WE NEED TO BE FORWARD-THINKING AND HAVE THE OPERATIONS OF THE SCHOOL DIVISION CONTINUE.

[04:45:30] this is a very routine thing looking at the list of items there are things that the board has talked about in public previously and deliberated and given agreement to one a large one of six billion dollars six million dollars sorry is the maintenance of Lawson which if I'm remembering that is our HR system that we are phasing out so obviously we need to keep doing that as the phase in of the new HRM that human horse research management platform comes in. The other is our benefit services with Kaiser to the tune of just about 400 million

[04:46:07] dollars. Again, this is something that we have entered contracts into and need to keep going so our employees have their services. The others, driver's ed, the Harvard Strategic Data Project It might have been, was this what the staff recently went to?

[04:46:26] No, it was something different, okay. Utility bills, world language basal resources, and the testing assessments for students in our international baccalaureate. So I am comfortable with this, and again, I think this is a routine thing so that our superintendent can continue to keep the lights on and business running while the board does not have public meetings in the next month.

[04:46:47] Thank you, Ms. Marin. Ms. Anderson, would you like to speak to your second? I won't belabor the point. I also agree that this is just, as my colleague said, just a way to keep the lights on and keep things moving. Thank you, Ms. Anderson. Mr. Dunn. I can't say enough how shocking I find comments that have just been uttered. We have a practice at the school board above a certain

[04:47:22] dollar threshold to receive a one or two page information memorandum for each contract that is requested to be approved. I requested a list of contracts that would be approved by the superintendent with sign off by the chair and vice chair a week ago. I received it just a couple hours in advance of the meeting today. I did not receive any information memorandum. Instead I received a basic spreadsheet for, I just want to say this number really clearly, 4.143 billion with

[04:48:00] the B, billion dollars, over $4 billion in contracts to be approved in the next six weeks. Our total budget for this year with the $200 million increase by the county and the state is $3.7 billion. So we're being asked to approve with less than a couple hours notice before the meeting tonight and without any information on what these contracts are, and I know many of them are sold to us, meaning not competed, we're being asked to approve over $4.143 billion

[04:48:36] in contracts. There is no scenario under which I will support this motion. We can call it routine, we can call it anything we want, but it is not routine to approve more than the total annual budget of a multi-billion dollar organization on a consent agenda, which is why I requested this to be pulled off. I believe that until we receive information memorandums describing what these contracts are, describing whether they were competitively procured, and obtaining the information necessary to

[04:49:12] provide sufficient oversight, it would be irresponsible and reckless of this school board to approve as a package these these contracts. And again not being critical of the superintendent, but there is a process that we have followed the last six months and it has not been followed here and there may be need need to be exceptional measures extraordinary measures taken to provide us with the proper amount of information but I'm not going to derogate my responsibilities as a school board member and as a representative of

[04:49:51] Mount Vernon district just because people didn't get us information in time to provide proper oversight and make a determination on $4.1 billion in taxpayer dollars. My fundamental commitment is fiscal responsibility, achieving maximum return on investment for taxpayer dollars, and I'm not going to do it in this fashion. Thank you.

[04:50:11] Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Mr. Moon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have similar concerns when I look at the numbers, amounts. You know, for example, Ender Life Insurance Company, $1.2 billion.

[04:50:32] Care Marks PCF Health, this is Benefit Services, $1.07 billion. And Signal Health and Life Insurance, $1.373 billion.

[04:50:51] Those are huge numbers. And my question to you, Dr. Reed, for example, I'm going to go back to the last one, $1.373 billion. Estimated our date is August. Is that do you expect that to be while the board is still in recess? Will it be awarded and has to be awarded at that time? Because again, this is a large number. These are a large number of contracts.

[04:51:27] Right. Several of these are re-ups for major insurance coverage for the county, for staff. it's my understanding also many of these are multi-year contracts like five years that the total is spread over five years i believe we can put some of these off until august though that's not ideal i'm going to call on miss burden to comment on the large insurance i believe etna caremark and cigna were just identified by mr moon as some of the large insurance

[04:52:01] commitments miss burden yes that's correct the dollar amounts listed in the attachments to the document represent five year the five-year contract that we already have Cigna and Aetna we're doing amendments to those contracts that are already existing and they are no cost amendments Kaiser is we're adding a health improvement program for employees at an annual increased cost of sixty four thousand dollars per year care mark is a retiree drug change I don't have

[04:52:40] the cost of that but those four health care contracts that are very large do represent five years worth of costs in existing contracts that we have and we are just making slight changes to those and Miss Wheldon thank you for the response you know i appreciate that however given the hours 12 15 15 minutes after midnight and this is first time at least i am being provided with that information you have just

[04:53:13] provided in your response and and i as a one board member who has to indicate my support or not support of this is going to be very difficult to respond to community members voters out there that Mr. Moon did you know what you are doing without all that information in advance that's where my difficulty lies and I unless this has to be done has to be done I'm not going to be able

[04:53:51] to just give carte blanche authorization for superintendents just to sign without board's form or formal approval thank you Mr. Moon Dr. Anderson thank you I appreciate the the challenge that has been raised by mr moon and mr dunn and just trying to find a solution how do we find a path forward so miss burden i guess this question is for you what would preclude us from having these conversations about these contracts in april may in advance is that not something that we could

[04:54:30] do it's a workload and staff resource issue we processed 50 contracts during the month of june obviously if we had been able to we could have included some of these but we do not have the staff resources to be able to do that volume in that short period of time i see i just what would you need to make that happen in terms of staff resources is it one individual two a part-time person we would have to we'd have to do some analysis sure if i could recommend um just for

[04:55:06] your consideration to get into that analysis because if we can just avoid this conversation and just front load some of this work throughout the months I think we avoid this issue because clearly the board takes very seriously its fiduciary responsibilities.

[04:55:26] These are billions of dollars and we do need to have more information rather than the one line to give some confidence that we are spending the taxpayer dollars in a way that is in keeping with our mandate and so if there's any way for us to try to plan ahead and I know that's hard to do because there's just always so much to do there's no down time that's the only way that I see that we can avoid this outside of not voting for these things or not taking a recess and coming back to

[04:56:02] vote on these items. But I think we do need to do due diligence and I am too I'm uncomfortable in signing off on so much money without the benefit of the one pagers that or the two pagers that you have provided. Thank you Dr. Anderson. Mr. McDaniel. I would also agree with what's been said. You know I was originally going to be okay with this but the conversation at the diocese kind of swayed me. It's it is you know after midnight and this is a lot

[04:56:38] of money. I'm not comfortable moving it forward unless I can be told yes or no. If we don't move it forward, are our employees not going to have health insurance? What is the implication of not moving this forward tonight? Can we just get a straight answer on that? For the health care ones, because again, these are amendments and slight changes to existing contracts. The repercussions probably wouldn't be negative. I mean, I doubt very seriously that, you know, we would lose any

[04:57:13] services the other 147 million I believe that represents five years of all of the other contracts excluding the four health care ones those contracts are a little bit more critical because they're kind of more day-to-day things than these big contracts so I guess if pressed my recommendation would be to defer the four health care but approve the rest for consideration by the superintendent and discussion with chair okay I um I would move that whatever

[04:57:51] that needs to be said as we said I would I would be supportive if we would carve out as staff just described I'd be comfortable with that I'll second that would you like to speak to your motion mr. McDaniel and to be clear the emotion is to strike from the consideration in this vote the items on page two the first and second line item and the 10th line item is that correct which one can

[04:58:29] you please repeat that mr. yes I apologize I believe that the Kaiser was the one that I missed to strike line six from page one and then on page two to strike lines one and two and ten is that right miss burden and it's I don't know what line number it's the Kaiser contract it's the Cigna it's the care MARK AND AEDNA.

[04:59:02] YES, OKAY. SO THAT'S RIGHT. IS THAT YOUR MOTION, MR. MCDANIEL? THAT'S MY MOTION AND NO COMMENTS FURTHER. I'M SORRY. DID YOU SAY YOU WANT TO SPEAK TO YOUR MOTION? I DO NOT, NO. OKAY. DR.

[04:59:17] ANDERSON? I JUST THINK THIS IS A GOOD COMPROMISE AND IF WE HAVE SOME FLEXIBILITY, WE SHOULD EXERCISE IT. ALL RIGHT. I HAVE SEVERAL LIGHTS ON THE DAIS. I DON'T KNOW IF IT'S TO THIS MOTION OR TO -- IT IS? OKAY. MR. OR MS.

[04:59:33] SEISMOUR-HEISER. YOU MAY NOT HAVE BEEN HERE AT THIS POINT, BUT I REMEMBER THERE WAS A TIME WITH THE PREVIOUS BOARD AND I BELIEVE THIS WAS WITH DR. BRABRAND, PERHAPS MY COLLEAGUES COULD HELP ME REMEMBER THAT, WHERE WE HAD THIS CONVERSATION REGARDING THE SUMMER RECESS CONTRACTS. I KNOW MS. BURDEN WAS HERE AND THE CONVERSATION WE KIND OF LANDED ON WAS ENSURING THAT WE ONLY AUTHORIZE WHAT

[04:59:59] we it's actually needed to be done over the summer recess right just because we recognize it's you know it is our duty to approve the contracts over a certain amount and so if we're able to pull these I guess the question is why were they listed in the first place if they don't need to be approved and if they do need to be approved and why then what's what's the impact of pulling them so on the for insurance I think is misburdened

[05:00:35] mentioned, these are current contracts that we have. These are modified amendments. And I'm not sure the amendments are the full cost that you've listed to the right. The amendments are actually what you listed were the full contract costs, not the cost of the amendment. So I think that's an artificial inflation of the actual amount of money you're actually approving. So do you want to clarify that because I don't know what the actual amount in the amendment is, because the fulsome total of the contract you've already approved.

[05:01:11] Yeah, the Aetna and Cigna ones are no cost amendments, but, you know, typically we, this is only the second time that we've done this summer contract process, and so this year we basically followed the same process that we did last year, which was include the ones that we knew were upcoming that had amendments that needed to be processed or you know changes or new contracts but you know we can certainly change that in the future most of these health care ones don't really have a a huge cost to it again 64 000 for the kaiser one but we do include

[05:01:50] typically the full cost of the five-year contract in the document right so i guess ms seismorheiser the 64 000 on kaiser and the no cost amendments on the others really are a net approval tonight of farla you're net approving those four contracts 64 000. so it's not clear in this chart that that's what you're actually doing because the five-year total several billion dollar contract has already been approved that's what i thought i was very confused that all of those contracts would be need to be approved for the full no these are re-up

[05:02:29] amendments so we're not re-upping the college is just amendments amendments I'm sorry not re-upping we're amending the contract and there's some language which we didn't attach but there are no cost amendments except for Kaiser and what would be the impact of not approving those until after the recess I'm sorry I did reach out to staff to find out that answer if there were any negative repercussions by doing this but unfortunately they've all gone to bed so I would just say that well I appreciate that it is after midnight and so I

[05:03:07] understand why they've gone to bed it's just difficult to especially considering that it's sixty four thousand dollars as opposed to the number that it seemed like it's difficult to know whether we should approve this I agree with my colleagues that whenever possible we should be approving contract changes when the boards in session, right? Absolutely. But if these amendments are $64,000, I'm not even sure why it came to us. And maybe there's something that says that if it's a contract over a certain amount, even though the amendments are only a certain amount, it still has to come to us. That's maybe

[05:03:43] what it is. I think the board has previously said if the contract total value is over a certain amount and we adjust the contract, the board wanted to approve it. So that's why it's been brought to you I think it's a little I don't know if it's it's not as clear in the but where it says estimated total contract value on the chart I think that was stated total contract value to differentiate what this year's approval is and I would expect honestly looking at a couple of there's of these we're not asking the approval of that total but in the past the board has asked for the total contract amount the reason I bring that up is I remember when signal was

[05:04:21] first approved it was a five or six year contract and we were told we were locked into it right so the fact that it would be coming for an approval now made no sense to me right in same with the other one so that's why I was asking these questions so I guess I don't know how we can vote on this without knowing the impact of like I mean to be honest I would maybe ask my colleagues since we don't the answer and the actual dollar amount is only 64,000 maybe we pull it if it's clear that what we're approving is total cost of 64,000 but I don't want to not approve this if we if it has a negative impact I don't want our staff not have

[05:04:59] health insurance or whatever the impact may be but if there is no impact I think it's better to wait because I think in general we should have the board approve contracts whenever possible I believe miss burden has stated that we can wait on the health care contracts for which the amendments total 64,000 I believe that yes I it says no idea what does that mean by not ideal no I what I said is I believe miss Burton has said we can delay you know I understand but I thought I heard she said we can delay but it's not ideal or it's not I just wanted the impact of it if we don't know that's fine I will

[05:05:37] support the motion because I think in general wish the board should approve contracts are needed but I would say that I agree with what dr. Anderson my colleague said about looking to next year we need to just figure out a different process for this yeah well i i think part of the impact not being ideal is on august i think our next meeting is august 29th the all the tempo is picked up right school's back in session we're going to be working on year end it's just again it becomes a staffing and workload issue and to be able to process it now in the end of july is just simpler but is so that's the ideal

[05:06:15] part but can we wait yes we've stated we can wait just one last comment i think a lot of this could have been avoided if it was a little more clear as to the actual dollar amount what we're doing here because i i agree when that number is presented it's a wait a second right right but when it's more clear that the actual impact is 64 000 it's a little more comfortable to say all right we understand this right so just for next year yes ma'am all right um miss anderson very quickly i

[05:06:51] would like to say that I I appreciate the fact that we are creating contracts that are starting when they're starting so that it can align with our fiscal year and so that it it is it makes it more movable if we are going to a to move contracts particularly related to any educational materials it puts it with the school year too so I did want to speak to the fact that I appreciate the fact that staff is working on those types of alignments as well thank you Miss Anderson

[05:07:23] and Mr. Dunn. Thank you. I appreciate, I think there's a motion on the table to delay the health care contracts, but not $147 million. So I wanted to speak to that. From the very first school board hearing, as someone with a lot of expertise and experience in government contracting, I've been questioning contracts that are less than a million dollars or a few million dollars, And some of those have been pulled off the consent agenda.

[05:08:00] Some of those have been withdrawn by the superintendent. And deficiencies have been found, instances where we've been doing business as usual for decades and without evaluating whether certain contracts are successful or desirable.

[05:08:17] And so when you elevate that from, you know, a million dollars or a small number of millions to 147, I'm just not, I'm still not comfortable because I calculated $147 million could give every single FCPS employee a 5% pay increase.

[05:08:36] That's a lot of money. Now, some of these things listed, if I look at refuse and recycling services, sure, I support that. But there's no information provided other than the estimated total contract value. I'm not sure why it's estimated.

[05:08:52] If you look at the information memos we normally receive, even though they're short, they'll actually say the amount of money for this year, as my colleague has said, might be $64,000, but the total contract value is $10 million. I can't judge, is it $147,000 or is it something else?

[05:09:11] I also can't judge, you know, there's a bunch of these that are sole source, why they're sole source, and when competition will achieve lower cost and better value. for our for our employees our students or our county and and and so and and even where there is something saying RFP which indicates request for procurement I don't know if that was you know competitive if there was only one bid received which is sometimes the case in the information memorandum and and so

[05:09:46] So for me, I can't support approving any of these contracts because, again, I don't have the bare minimum of information to be able to say that I reviewed some information.

[05:10:02] If I wanted more information, I requested it so that I could say in good faith to my constituents that I'm scrutinizing every dollar because every dollar wasted is a dollar extra in property taxes that they have to pay. Um, so, uh, so that's, that's where I stand.

[05:10:20] Um, if, uh, I understand that we can postpone the health care until July 29th, sorry, August 29th. Um, and I would just ask that given that I don't see anything in here that's emergency like asbestos removal, which was cited as very urgent a few weeks ago, I'd ask that we postpone all of the, all of the contracts until, uh, August 29th so we can have a fulsome discussion and and and get all the information we should be receiving uh in order to perform our essential oversight role thank you thank you mr dunn miss lady yeah so we're kind of all over

[05:10:56] the place i don't really support the amendment since we're talking about 64 000 having said that i do think that we've revisited this repeatedly that when it comes to the consent agenda items that staff needs to be clear on what exactly we're voting on and what the monetary value is because as we have already voted on these healthcare policies.

[05:11:19] But I also have a question for Lee. You know, this is a new experience for me, but I'm not alone in this, but it was my experience when in the past I had Blue Cross Blue Shield.

[05:11:34] I did not get an annual email from one of my doctors or one of the practices that I have participated in alerting me that they're no longer gonna take my insurance. Cigna did this to me last year with Capital Women's Care, and Cigna has just done it to me again with Neurology Center of Fairfax.

[05:11:53] Can you explain to me or help me understand how we have a contract and certain things are covered? And then it seems like once a year or every nine months, I get some alert from a doctor that says Cigna is no longer going to cover my work. It's not that Cigna is no longer going to cover your work.

[05:12:12] The issue is that the latest move among providers that agree to be in our network from Cigna, part of their negotiating strategy is to ask for more money and then threaten to pull out if they do not get those additional funds.

[05:12:31] It is a negotiating tactic, and more and more providers are using it these days. Okay. I guess my point is that I never experienced that with Blue Cross Blue Shield. So maybe that's my criticism of Cigna, but I hope that in the most latest version of the Neurology Center of Fairfax that this will be addressed like it was with Capital Women's Care, and we can put the hard press on Cigna to not do these things.

[05:12:58] I mean, they've got to figure out how to work and pay. So, again, I oppose the amendment at $64,000. I do understand my fiduciary responsibility, but I also understand the staff's need to work. I feel like kicking the can down to another month is not best practice, so we can just have this conversation again.

[05:13:19] So I'm comfortable with the consent agenda as it was listed and voting favorably for it. Thank you, Ms. Lady. Dr. Anderson? Thank you. After hearing some of the conversations regarding the dollar amounts that were posted, I think now I have even greater questions regarding, is it $64,000 or the amounts that are listed here given the time of the day given the lack of information I just think this is just not a really thoughtful way of doing this work which is one of the crux of our jobs so I am going to remove my

[05:13:59] second and go back and offer my prior objections to this to this because minimally the chart that we have in front of us should have been as accurate as not I'm not saying inaccurate should have been a little bit more comprehensive to show what exactly the current expenditure will be versus the total contract and we don't have that information we have no way of getting that information in the next five minutes so i will be a no tonight thank you dr anderson mr mcdaniel i did you took the words out of my mouth i'll i'll either withdraw it and just vote against the main

[05:14:37] one and call it a day or we can go ahead and kill this amendment because i'm not going to support moving anything forward tonight miss barron so if some of us vote to approve this then we're the ones trying to keep some lights on and if some people don't then the burden is even more on the ones that do so can we just get really clear is this for 64 000 and is it just poorly laid out i would

[05:15:12] I would say that the health care pieces have a net cost of $64,000. The rest of them, you know, I think you're fine postponing all of it.

[05:15:29] Some of these are multiyear contracts. And again, I think what Ms. Burden said is last year, this was the chart provided to the board, and the board wanted the total contract values for this conversation. This year I think we're learning that we want the total contract value, the current adjusted value and the summaries with the chart.

[05:15:51] So at this point I think we can postpone all of it and just do the work in August. Great. So I would like to make a motion to postpone. We don't need to do that, Chair. Okay, Chair. All right.

[05:16:07] Really quickly, without objection, I would like to postpone to a date certain consideration of this question, agenda item 5.09, agenda item 6.01, agenda item 7.01, and agenda item 7.02 to the next meeting. Dr. Reed? I just want to be, I want to clarify, we're postponing this list,

[05:16:42] which is a separate question. It's a question, but it's not the only question. A separate question is last year we did have two emergent needs that arose during the recess one related to our 9-1-1 phone service as a county request and the other was a software license related to instruction that came up at the 11th hour that we needed for our elementary schools so I what I need is clarification and direction I understand we'll postpone these if there is an emergent need that

[05:17:17] arises between now and school starting which will start before the board meets again I need to have some clear direction on what to do at that point all right without objection I would like to remove the list provided page one and two from consideration in this motion which Lee seeing no objection that leaves the motion at hand which would enable this practice for emergency contract procurement.

[05:17:47] Mr. Dunn. I will thank you for removing the list, and thank you, Dr. Reed, and thank you to my colleagues. I know it's late, and this is a lot to discuss. I would just ask that if there are emergent needs, that at the first meeting in August 29th there be a full report provided of any and all contracts, total contract value, year value, all the normal information provided so that even if it is authorized you know signed by the chair and vice chair or authorized by chair and vice chair in our absence

[05:18:25] during a recess that we get a full briefing afterwards and then all of the information on this list we provide on August 29th and and and not just on the day of but well in advance because I like to read things several days in advance so I can ask questions and advance the school board to not pull

[05:18:42] things off consent agendas. Dr. Reed. Even though you all are on recess I'm not so I'll be continuing to provide a Friday letter so if in the event there is an emergent issue I would include that I'm not going to I won't wait till the August meeting you'll have full knowledge. Thank you Mr. Dunn. Dr. Anderson. That was actually going to be my ask because I do know you all are not not working so I think these things should be communicated and we could just perhaps as school board members if we choose to move away from whatever those activities will be in the next month to just check those Friday

[05:19:20] board letters to ensure that there's not emergency expenditures that were brought up. But I'm also very supportive of the idea of bringing it back to a public conversation just so we could pretty much kind of ratify the things that had the action that had taken place. But I also want to see how else can we avoid this altogether whatever backwards um planning that could take place in order for us to avoid this i don't know what resources the office needs but they should get

[05:19:55] it so that we're not in this situation again come next august thank you dr anderson seeing no others we will vote for the amended action on the screen which is the language permitting the execution of contracts during recess removing the list of uh expected contracts and leaving only the emergent contracts all those in favor miss marin uh dr anderson mr mcdaniel miss anderson miss eismore

[05:20:29] heiser mr dunn mr moon miss st john cunning miss lady and myself that is unanimous thank you uh the motion carries without objection we will delay to a uh postpone to a date certain agenda items 6.01 7.0. Mr Fresh I'm so sorry but back to when you said it was um uh unanimous mystic sits away from the table so we just need to note that uh unanimous with mystic sit away from the table my apologies thank you um without objection we will postpone to a date certain the next meeting agenda items 6.01

[05:21:09] 7.01 uh and 7.02 all right uh I turn to Dr. Reed for agenda item 7.03 financial year 2024 year-end budget review. Thank you, Chairman Frisch. For our year-end budget review, I'll ask

[05:21:26] Ms. Burden and her team to please provide the presentation. If we could load it, please. Good

[05:22:14] evening. I guess good morning. Chairman Frisch, members of the school board, and Dr. Reed, the year-end review offers an opportunity for final revisions to the fiscal 24 budget and provide carryover information and other revisions to the fiscal 25 approved budget. Once the year-end is approved by the school board in August it's forwarded to the county for inclusion in their year-end packet for any necessary adjustments to FCPS's fiscal 24 budget and revision to the fiscal 25 budget and of course all of the data is as of June 30th. On page one of the attachment the summary identifies

[05:22:50] the changes to fiscal 24 based on revenue adjustments and unspent expenditures and then adjustments to fiscal 25 for routine commitments like encumbrances central projects schools and department carryover previously identified adjustments at the May adoption as well as superintendent recommended adjustments the revenue variance from budget to actual is a net decrease of 7.2 million attributable to decrease sales tax and carryover of unspent federal IDEA funds offset by increases in tuition from TJ and Fairfax

[05:23:29] City. So overall a net decrease of 7.2 million. As far as the expenditure balance we have first the routine carryover which are reserve funds at 10 million which is the 8 million school board flexibility reserve and 2 million fuel contingency. Encumbrances or undelivered orders at 88.5 million.

[05:23:52] Schools and projects carryover of 137.6 million and then department carryover of 26.2 million. previously identified adjustments are items that we've talked about since the release of the fiscal 25 superintendent's proposed budget in February and include a half-hour extended contract time for special education teachers at a cost of twenty four point two million achievement gap closing strategies at three million recall that that item was reduced in the approved budget to

[05:24:30] balance to the funding levels that were provided the ERFC drop program at one 1.3 million you may recall that that number in the budget was also pulled in order to balance to the funding levels at that time it was 6.5 million which represented 580 100 percent of the participants would enter the drop program of course now we know that everybody did not in fact it was about 120 so the 1.3 million represents the number based on that that new lower number one-time boys volleyball and girls wrestling is point eight million that is you know also was

[05:25:08] done at the at the beginning of the fiscal 25 budget process because it represents one-time cost of uniforms equipment supplies those sorts of things and then the fiscal 26 beginning balance set aside is twenty eight point one million historically the beginning balance that we carry forward is always twenty five to thirty million and remember this represents what the beginning balance will be for fiscal 26 not this year and it is the exact same amount that the beginning balance was in this current year after the routine carryover and items that were previously

[05:25:46] identified the fy 24 expenditure savings is 34.9 million the expenditure variance represents about one percent of the total budget and is smaller than experienced in previous years due to improvement in the number of vacancies and turnover throughout fiscal 24. the recommended expenditure adjustments include staffing reserve replenishment.

[05:26:09] You may be aware that our staffing reserve of 310 positions that we had in the budget has been completely depleted. You may also know that our enrollment has been running higher than we actually have projected in September. So we are going to need some flexibility in case we get a September surprise with enrollment.

[05:26:29] So we're requesting 16 million or 140 positions. We also have a transfer to the construction fund for major maintenance. You may not be aware that in 2014, the school board decided we'd always budgeted $10 million for the major maintenance, and because of fiscal constraints, they were only able to fund $6.4 million with a promise that $3.6 million would be continued every year and funded out of year-end to bring them back to the $10 million that they had in the budget originally.

[05:27:04] And so we've been doing that since 2014, but the last couple of years we have tried to double that because we know that the major maintenance backlog is very big and so we're trying to help with that. So that's 7.1 million.

[05:27:20] The substitute incentive will support incentive pay and threshold bonuses for substitutes. That helps us achieve adequate substitute coverage levels. Similar action was taken to improve fill rates in the most recent two school years, and we would like to continue that.

[05:27:40] Anecdotally, you may also be aware that we've not heard as much chatter about not having enough subs, and we think the substitute incentive is working. Another item is the mobile data terminal upgrade for buses, and that's to upgrade those to provide a better student tracking system.

[05:28:01] IT UPGRADES TO A PAPERLESS ELECTRONIC VEHICLE PRE-TRIP INSPECTION. IT ELIMINATES PAPER ROUTE SHEETS AND PROVIDES TURN BY TURN DIRECTIONS TO IMPROVE SAFETY, SERVICE, AND EFFICIENCY. WE ALSO HAVE ANOTHER TRANSFER TO THE CONSTRUCTION FUND AND THAT'S FOR THE SECURITY VESTIBLE INSTALLATION AT TWO MILLION AND THAT'S TO COMPLETE PHASES TWO AND THREE OF FIVE.

[05:28:26] WITH THIS FUNDING, CONTRACTS WILL BE AWARDED FOR AN ADDITIONAL 41 SCHOOLS BY THE END OF FISCAL 25. school early release Monday's placeholder. You know it's possible with this Monday release that every every kid in a school would decide to stay at school and if so then they're going to need a little bit of hourly help to be able to help organize and supervise those students. You know if it's only part of the student population that probably won't be needed but there may be some funds needed and so we've budgeted or we're requesting 700,000 for that. There's another transfer of the construction fund for softball field

[05:29:04] upgrades. It's about a half a million dollars and that's for the upgrade of the softball dugouts at Marshall High School and Lake Braddock and that's to ensure that they're Title IX compliant. Middle school late buses. During the fiscal 19 final budget review the school board allocated additional resources to provide a fourth day late bus at eight high poverty middle schools and then we used ESSER funds to provide an additional day at 18 other middle schools and this will continue that because, of course, the ESSER funds have run out. Woodson High School renaming, you may recall

[05:29:40] that mid-year we allocated $100,000 for that project. Since then, we've had an opportunity, staff had had the opportunity to, you know, look at uniforms, look at what needs to be replaced, and we think those costs are going to be about $300,000, and so we're requesting an additional $200,000 for that. School operating fund grants largely represent IDEA funds. That is one of the few grants that resides in the operating fund instead of the grant fund and those unspent grant funds need to be carried over and that's 13.2 million.

[05:30:17] The other funds are detailed on the other pages and that represents basically multi-year programs whose funds flow from year to year with fund balances, stabilization reserves as required and you know we're just representing carryover of unspent funds and authorized BOND FUNDING FOR SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION AND INCREASES TO EXISTING GRANTS OR NEW GRANTS IN THE FOOD SERVICES FUND, THE ACE FUND, AND THE GRANT FUND. FUND STATEMENTS ARE ALSO INCLUDED WITH THIS, WHICH BASICALLY DISPLAY REVENUE EXPENDITURES, TRANSFERS IN, TRANSFERS OUT,

[05:30:55] CHANGES IN FUND BALANCE FOR EACH OF THE NINE SCHOOL BOARD FUNDS. THEN WE HAVE THE SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATION RESOLUTION, WHOSE PURPOSE IS TO TRANSMIT TO THE COUNTY CHANGES TO THE FISCAL 24 BUDGET FOR MID-YEAR, THIRD QUARTER AND YEAR-END COMBINED, AND THEN THE FISCAL PLANNING RESOLUTION REPRESENTS THE TRANSFERS FROM THE OPERATING FUND TO OTHER FUNDS, AND THEN ON PAGE 22, THE LAST PAGE IS THE GRANT DEVELOPMENT SUMMARY, WHICH PROVIDES INFORMATION ABOUT FISCAL 24 GRANT. THANK YOU, MS. BURDEN, COUPLE BOARD MEMBERS

[05:31:33] WITH QUESTIONS, MR. DUNN. SO I HAD BROUGHT A MOTION BACK DURING THE budget process about the facilities condition assessment and and got six votes so very close to passing but I don't see it in this year-end and I know the top question that my colleagues had in conversations were let's see what the other priorities are for year-end funding so is there any part of this

[05:32:08] YOU HAVE SET ASIDE MONEY IN ONE OF THESE CATEGORIES FOR AN INCREASE TO ALLOW A COMPREHENSIVE FACILITIES CONDITION ASSESSMENT WHICH IS NECESSARY TO INFORM THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW RENOVATION CUE.

[05:32:30] NO, THERE IS NOT. WHY? Actually, we did discuss that because I did meet with Ms. Szymanski about the transfer to facilities and just to find that real quick again, transfer to construction major maintenance, it would need to come out of the facilities transfer.

[05:32:52] So we didn't know. I think what we talked about was about how much we were thinking. And so I think we would start with the facility transfer funds to see how the facilities department would choose to prioritize which funds for that study.

[05:33:10] But that was part of the calculus in that conversation. Yeah, I wouldn't know that, what the details are of what she's going to spend the $7.1 million on. That's not the level of detail that I would know. And so just to confirm my understanding from what you said is that it's 7.1 because that's double what historically had been funded for that transfer.

[05:33:30] Nearly. 3.6 million was the commitment back in 2014, and we have been transferring 3.6 million since then, with the exception of the last two years when we tried to double it nearly because we're aware of the maintenance backlog.

[05:33:47] Okay. And we're also adding the $2 million to the vestibule, which otherwise would have been a part of that. So there's a bit of a, it's a total of $9.51 million that's going to facilities, honestly. So we don't, again, I don't want to presume the actual cost of the assessment, but I think within that there's some flexibility.

[05:34:10] Okay. So, I mean, I see $3.5 million difference between $3.6 and $7.1. SO I PROVIDE SOME FLEX DEPENDING ON THE OUTCOME OF THE ONGOING RFI THAT IS BEING CONDUCTED TO DETERMINE HOW MUCH MONEY SHOULD BE ALLOCATED FOR THAT, IS THAT CORRECT?

[05:34:29] YES, SIR. CAN YOU PROVIDE AN UPDATE ON THAT RFI? CAN I PROVIDE AN UPDATE ON THE RFI? SURE. THE RFI HAS BEEN POSTED. WE ACTUALLY HAD A PRE-PROPOSAL CONFERENCE THIS AFTERNOON AND RESPONSES ARE DUE IN TWO WEEKS.

[05:34:44] And can you describe the participation in that pre-planning conference? Yeah, I had a chance to look at the Zoom invite, and I saw about 50 different emails on it. Now, some of that might have been some of our staff, but I believe we got good participation. That's great.

[05:35:00] And is the outcome of that RFI an actual proposal, or is it just informational purposes, correct? It's for informational purposes. AND SO YOU'D HAVE TO ISSUE A SEPARATE RFP AFTER THE RFI IN ORDER TO GET, YOU KNOW, ACTUAL PROPOSALS WITH ACTUAL NUMBERS, CORRECT?

[05:35:16] THAT'S CORRECT. OKAY. THANK YOU. ARE YOU DONE, MR. DUNN? FUNNY THINGS AT 1:00 IN THE MORNING. ALL RIGHT.

[05:35:32] DR. ANDERSON. I'M SO SORRY. SAY THAT AGAIN. OKAY. SO THANK YOU. ONE OF THE THINGS THAT I NOTICED HERE IS THE -- FIRST OF ALL, THE 4.5 FOR THE SUBSTITUTE INCENTIVE, I THINK AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE AS WE CAN KEEP THOSE BUILDINGS STAFFED.

[05:35:56] I'M IN GREAT SUPPORT OF THAT. THE 3 MILLION FOR THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP CLOSING STRATEGIES, CAN YOU SPEAK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THAT? RECALL THAT WE HAD BUDGETED 6 MILLION FOR THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP CLOSING STRATEGIES.

[05:36:15] BUT BECAUSE WE DID NOT RECEIVE FULL FUNDING FROM THE COUNTY, WE HAD TO TRIB OUR BUDGET, ESSENTIALLY. AND AS YOU MAY RECALL, WE PULLED 2 PERCENT OF THE SALARY INCREASE OUT. And then we still had a little bit more that we needed to pull out. And one of those items was $3 million from that $6 million line item with the understanding that we would try to fund it with year-end.

[05:36:39] And the FY23 budget, how much should we allocate for closing achievement gap strategies? I'm going to have to call a friend.

[05:36:54] While we're doing that, I just want to clarify at the work session when we talked about budget. But one of the reasons we didn't spend that early on is because the plan was put into place.

[05:37:15] We have baseline data now, and so it's to be used to roll out strategies. And there are several examples of which I shared at the work session, one of which was Spanish algebra textbooks and also utilizing different strategies with our multilingual students now that we have a plan in place.

[05:37:34] So Dr. Ponce and the team, Ms. Lemon, and so forth, we have a number of initiatives now that we're going to be moving into the regions, and that's what these funds are going to be used for after the baseline year. So they will be well spent this year.

[05:37:54] 12 million. Right. And I think out of that 12 million, we had only expended a very, very small fraction. I think it was a couple of million. So you kind of got ahead of my question a little bit, Dr. E, because I also see the THE EARLY RELEASE MONDAYS AS PART OF THOSE CLOSING THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP STRATEGIES AND I WONDER WHY DID WE NOT USE THAT FUND TO HELP SUPPORT THAT EFFORT AND MAYBE REALLOCATE THE ADDITIONAL, YOU KNOW, 0.7, MAYBE IT'S TO FACILITIES FOR THE WORK THAT WE DISCUSSED PREVIOUSLY OR SOME OTHER EFFORT.

[05:38:33] WELL, GENERALLY SPEAKING, THE FUNDS THAT HAVE BEEN SET ASIDE FOR CLOSING ACHIEVEMENT GAP STRATEGIES, IT WOULDN'T FALL INTO THAT. I mean the reason that we've we've included some funds was for supervision activities those sorts of things on the the seven Monday release days at the elementary schools only you know if a school needed that because a large percentage of their population decided to stay at school so that's kind of a different purpose than I don't know if I agree with that because the whole purpose is for teachers to have the opportunity to have the training which is supposed to support the basal

[05:39:11] roll out, which is supposed to support literacy work, which is supposed to close the achievement gaps. So there's a clear line for me there. So I would expect that to have been better connect to have been connected, not better connected.

[05:39:28] I would love is at earliest opportunity, Dr. Reed, some of the things that you've mentioned that you are planning for this year to be outlined and maybe priced out to determine how those funds that we have which is upwards of 11 million dollars still remaining in that fund plus these additional six that's quite a bit of money that are that is essentially not accounted for on paper and that just makes me a little bit uncomfortable like how are we going to spend it it's just sitting there so I'd like to have an accounting of that as soon as possible so that

[05:40:08] it's not what you know previous board members have called a slush fund sitting around and i think that's it for me thank you thank you dr anderson miss lady thank you um given the number of times we listen to community engagement around the woodson baseball fields i see that there's something related to title nine softball fields and as a former marshall employee i elevate the

[05:40:43] fact something's being done there i guess my question is is it possible to fit in what what needs to happen at woodson because that baseball field is quite inferior is that possible to fit this in here or is it or is it somewhere else i miss lady i i think that uh it isn't currently on the docket for work i know there's been a significant amount of work on athletic facilities at woodson which we could enumerate in an upcoming friday letter unless miss samansky wants to enumerate some of the projects that have already taken place at Woodson this

[05:41:20] evening sure we've we've done a number of projects at Woodson high school and I would like to possibly provide some clarity to the two projects that miss Burton mentioned we received one-time state money to do a grouping of high schools to make them title 9 compliant so in FY 24 we executed softball improvements at numerous unfortunately due to rising costs we were able to get through all of the lists with the exception of two and so this additional funds will complete that

[05:41:51] list to make us title ix compliant appreciate all that but i also want to say that i don't want to sit through another year of community engagement from woodson players and woodson parents based on what i've seen and based on those videos and and i can go back in time to when i played as a soccer player on woodson's field it was like playing in a swamp um and i know some of the drainage has been improved and maybe that's football and soccer fields um and it's not even in my constituency

[05:42:28] but if we can find a way to address the the woods and baseball field situation i think we would all be appreciative is that it miss lady thank you yes thank you mr mcdaniel um thank you and looking forward to having conversations over the recess and for action on this as we return in the fall um i did want to very quickly point out and i i mentioned this to some colleagues we're moving about 10 million dollars into into maintenance um and we need to be really careful

[05:43:06] as we go forward and tackle heavy maintenance items and mr dunn i know has brought this up a couple of times moving operating funds to maintenance is not ideal unfortunately we're in that position because of bonding issues um but i did just want to uh make a note of that but looking forward to further conversations and returning in the fall thank you mr mcdaniel JUST A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS FOR CLARIFICATION.

[05:43:33] $60 MILLION FOR STAFFING RESERVE, FOR 140 POSITIONS, THAT'S ON TOP OF 310 POSITIONS, CORRECT? CORRECT. SO 450. SO LAST YEAR DID YOU PUT IN 310?

[05:43:49] LAST YEAR. FOR THE LAST YEAR. I'M JUST TRYING TO COMPARE. FOR FISCAL 25 OR FISCAL 24? I THINK IT WAS 310. 310. 310. ARE YOU EXPECTING MORE NEEDS, HIGHER NEEDS NEXT YEAR, THAT IS WHY YOU ARE PUTTING IN ANOTHER 140,000, 140, 140 POSITIONS. ARE YOU EXPECTING ENROLLMENT TO GO BEYOND OUR PROJECTION?

[05:44:17] YES. DO YOU KNOW THE MAGNITUDE? NO. NO. ALL WE KNOW IS THAT WE WERE RUNNING 1500, 2000 KIDS ABOVE AT THE END OF LAST FISCAL YEAR what we had projected for this year but that doesn't always mean that we're going to get that many more in the fall but it could mean that we're going to exceed our projection okay do you think with the additional students coming in beyond our initial enrollment projection then should

[05:44:49] you also expect additional per paper state aid to come in as a revenue yes if their enrollment GOES UP THEN WE DO INDEED RECEIVE ADDITIONAL STATE AID. OKAY. THE NEXT ONE HAS TO DO WITH THE SUBSTITUTE INCENTIVE OF 4.5 MILLION DOLLARS.

[05:45:07] I KNOW THERE ARE A COUPLE OF SENTENCES FOR EXPLAINING THAT. COULD YOU PROVIDE US WITH A LITTLE MORE DETAIL AS TO WHETHER WE ARE INCREASING THE AMOUNT OF SUBSTITUTE PAY OR HOW WE ARE PROVIDING ADDITIONAL INCENTIVE?

[05:45:23] I DON'T HAVE THE DETAILS WITH ME BUT I KNOW THAT IT IS THE SUBSTITUTES WHO AGREE TO WORK on friday which is our day when we have the least amount of subs are paid yes we can provide all this in writing okay thank you thank you mr moon uh want to pick up a little bit where miss lady left off with woods in high school um not long ago miss sizemore heiser coordinated a trip for uh the two of us to to visit the field with our facilities team and members of the uh the boosters

[05:45:58] and in PTA and you know we saw firsthand many of the things that the facilities team is doing to help there and where we still need to do work and so part of the work around our facilities and budgeting and looking at how we bond future projects and and find different ways of funding things and create the queue of athletic facilities that need renovation all of that will play into it and so I think it's important for all of us to stay connected to our communities and you know raise up the concerns of our communities for these conversations

[05:46:35] that will come when we finally have what the superintendent has talked about for these various things that have not been part of the normal queue and what Mr. Dunn has advocated on is you know all of these you know what is the queue on the HVACs what is the queue and so on all these major renovation needs and so we will have a clearer picture but that's going to take time and at least we are now you know it's that thing when you move one degree to the right and you walk for 10 miles all of a sudden 10 miles later you're in an entirely different place that's kind of where we're in the midst of when it comes to the planning on those kinds of investments so I appreciate the work the facilities and the superintendent have

[05:47:14] done to begin riding that ship all right no other comments you're free thank you thank you all right agenda item 8 consent agenda our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure Roberts rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval of the board by a single motion many items listed have gone through board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance items may be removed from the consent

[05:47:51] agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting the consent agenda is items are on the screen is there any objection to approving the consent agenda mr. Frisch we've lost quorum at the table so I need quorum back at the table for us to continue with the consent agenda thank you i am here if that helps it doesn't unfortunately i mean we love having you here but it doesn't help with quorum all right quorum is restored the consent agenda items are on the screen is there any objection to approving the

[05:48:28] consent agenda hearing and seeing no objection the consent agenda is approved item number nine new business the following are new business agenda items there will not be a vote on these this evening but action is scheduled for a future meeting without objection i would like to skip agenda items 10 and 11 this evening all right we will return to closed meeting and are now in recess at 1 11 a.m

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