Coraggio Consulting Fairfax County School Board Meeting, Thursday, March 13, 2025 Date: Thursday, March 13, 2025 Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia Length: 3h 51m (video) Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJFQiwYAkec 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 2026-10-30. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [00:01:30] This March 13th 2025 regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board will now come to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance followed by a moon of silence to honor the passing and memory of former at large school board member and chair Robert Frye who passed away recently and a performance of the National Anthem by the Forestville Elementary School fifth and sixth grade chorus under the direction of Stephanie Patterson. [00:01:55] I pledge allegiance. One nation, under God, indivisible, Jesus Christ. [00:02:08] Another round of applause for those talented kids. [00:03:55] In item 2.02, announcements. If you would like to review a copy of the meeting agenda, please see the back of the auditorium to obtain copies of any items or supporting materials being presented tonight. [00:04:14] Please reference QR code on the agenda or visit fcps.edu slash board docs. Tonight's meeting is being broadcast on channel 99 and live streamed on YouTube and our website at fcps.edu/livestream. Agenda Item 2.03, Women's History Month Proclamation. [00:04:31] I call on Miss Lady for the proclamation. Whereas Women's History Month began as a Women's History Week in Santa Rosa, California in 1978 to coincide with International Women's Day on March 8th, the goal of this event was to bring attention to women's historical achievements. [00:04:48] Many communities across the country adopted this special recognition. This movement became so widespread that in 1987, Congress ultimately designated the month of March as Women's History Month. And whereas this year's theme, Moving Forward Together: Women Educating and Inspiring Generations, recognizes and celebrates the contributions women have made to the American educational system. [00:05:10] From classrooms to boardrooms, grassroots movements to global initiatives, women educators, leaders, and mentors have played a pivotal role in the nurturing minds and inspiring transformative action. This theme honors the collective strength and influence of those women who have dedicated their lives to education, mentorship, and leadership. [00:05:28] Through their efforts, they have served as an inspiration for all generations, both past and present. And whereas women of all races, creeds, and ethnic origins have contributed significantly to the history and development of the United States, these women include not only the notable Abigail Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks, Kamala Harris, Yuri Kochiyama, Patsy Takemoto Pink, Dolores Huerta, Sonia Sotomayor, Felicia Rican de Gautier, Jovita Idar, Sylvia Mendez, but also the many other unsung heroines, and whereas women have led our country and made significant contributions to public life and the development of our [00:06:08] country. In 2023, 26 women sought local public office in Fairfax County, with 12 being victorious to include seven members of the Fairfax County School Board. And whereas though in 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed into law that women's work and fair and their fair and equal treatment in the workplace was vital to our country's economic prosperity, American women still face a substantial gender-based wage gap. [00:06:36] The Institutes of Women's Policy Research estimates equality might still be out of reach until 2088, and a working woman full-time in 2023 on average earns 82.7 cents per every dollar a man working full-time earns, which shrinks women's annual earnings by about $10,000. [00:06:54] We salute women, advocates, and their efforts to fight for equitable pay for women. And whereas women's history provides our youth with positive role models and inspirations, including Katherine Johnson, who is the namesake of our own Katherine Johnson Middle School here in Fairfax County, Ms. Johnson is most known for her significant contribution to NASA and the STEM community. [00:07:14] She also blazed a trail in educational access by being among the first black students to attend and desegregate West Virginia University in 1940. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board hereby proclaims March 2025 as Women's History Month and a time to remember and honor the countless women who fought relentlessly for the rights of all women in our great nation, commonwealth, and county. We are proud to celebrate these women, past and present, who work for inclusion, equality, and fairness. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Dunn. [00:07:45] All those in favor of the proclamation: Ms. Marin, Ms. Dixit, Mr. McIlveen, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Seismorheiser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunningham, and myself, that is unanimous. The proclamation passes. Congratulations. [00:08:04] Agenda Item 2.04, Disability Acceptance Month Proclamation. I call on Mr. Dunn for a proclamation. Whereas, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 was founded on four principles: inclusion, full participation, economic self-sufficiency, and equality of opportunity for all people with disabilities. [00:08:24] Fairfax County Public Schools is committed to these and the principles of equity, excellence, and opportunity for all students. And, whereas, inclusion is an attitude, an approach, and a mindset that welcomes and facilitates participation of students with disabilities in every aspect of student life, which requires mutual responsibility for adaptation and removal of barriers so that students with disabilities have the same opportunity to participate in student life as any other student. [00:08:55] And whereas Fairfax County Public Schools celebrates efforts to recognize disability awareness and acceptance, to increase public awareness and respect for persons with disabilities, inform the public concerning their many contributions to society, ensure accessibility for persons with disabilities, encourage health promotion to increase community awareness of the needs of persons with disabilities and emphasizes the abilities and rights of disabled persons. [00:09:23] And whereas over 28,000 and approximately 16 percent of FCPS students receive special education services and research has shown that students with disabilities encounter more difficulty being accepted by their peers, making friends, and becoming involved in school in community-based activities and clubs than non-disabled students. [00:09:45] And whereas, Fairfax County Public Schools provides innovative and individualized programs to advance the achievement and knowledge of students and young adults living with disabilities in the areas of vocational, social, and life skills. And whereas, disability is a natural part of human diversity, and people with disabilities have the same human and civil rights as everyone else, including the right to be included in all aspects of society. [00:10:11] Therefore, we must ensure they are included in the FCPS community by increasing knowledge and understanding of disabilities, promoting positive attitudes by creating a culture of respect and inclusion, and ensuring the school curriculum and norms, events, and processes are accessible and inclusive of disability history and disability norms. [00:10:32] Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board does hereby proclaim March 2025 as Disability Acceptance Month in recognition of the many contributions and strengths of people with disabilities and to promote inclusive school communities across our division. [00:10:49] And now therefore, be it further resolved that the Fairfax County School Board renews its commitment to inclusion for all individuals with disabilities in our schools and communities. - Is there a second? - Second. [00:11:04] - Mr. McDaniel, all those in favor of the proclamation? Ms. Marin, Ms. Dixit, Mr. McElveen, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Seismarheiser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning, and myself, that is unanimous, the proclamation passes, congratulations. [00:11:24] Gen item 2.05, Bailey's Upper Elementary School, 10th anniversary proclamation, I call on Dr. Anderson for a proclamation. - Thank you. Whereas, Bailey's Upper Elementary School for the Arts and Sciences opened in 2014 as an innovative solution to the growing needs of its community, transforming a former five-story office building into a first-of-its-kind elementary school in Fairfax County in just, hold on to your horses, Mr. Mitzke, eight months, earning the 2016 Fairfax County Exceptional Design Award, [00:12:04] and whereas the opening of Bailey's Upper Elementary School relieved the overcrowding at its sister school, Bailey's Elementary School, by moving students in grades three to five to the new location. And whereas, Bailey's Upper Elementary School is a celebrated magnet program, offering arts and sciences to students through dance, theater, and music, and they have made Dr. Reed dance there too. [00:12:34] The program at Bailey's is committed to educational excellence, which is reflected in its long-standing partnership with the Kennedy Center, through the Changing Education Through the Arts program, which integrates the arts into core academic subjects to inspire creative thinking and learning. [00:12:56] And whereas Bailey's Upper Elementary has continued the Spanish Immersion Program, which was established as one of the first Spanish Immersion Programs at Bailey's Elementary and continues to enrich the lives of the students by fostering bilingual proficiency and cultural understanding. And whereas Bailey's Upper Elementary School has demonstrated leadership and innovation through initiatives such as becoming the first Project GLAD School in FCPS in 2022 and establishing one of the earliest [00:13:36] elementary partnerships with the davis center and whereas the school's efforts to nurture student leadership and achievement are evident in programs such as the bailey's news network a live daily news show which offers students hands-on experience in broadcasting as anchors reporters and technicians and the bailey's upper ensemble engaging fifth grade students in the production of musicals each year to include acting singing dancing and producing and whereas bailey's upper elementary [00:14:14] school has been recognized for its excellence and dedication to equity and improvement through accolades including the virginia board of education continuous improvement award and the fcps excellence and equity award in 2019 now therefore be it resolved that the fairfax county school board honors Bailey's Upper Elementary School for the Arts and Sciences on the occasion of its 10th anniversary of providing educational excellence and enrichment opportunities to students in the community. Is there a second? Second. [00:14:51] Mr. Moon all those in favor of the proclamation. Miss Marin, Miss Dixit, Mr. McIlvain, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Miss Anderson, Miss Sizemoreheiser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Miss Lady, Miss St. John Cunningham and myself that is unanimous the proclamation passes congratulations agenda item 2.06 neurodiversity affirmation week proclamation I call on Miss Sizemore Heiser for a proclamation whereas neurodivergence is a biological fact and the neurodiversity movement is a civil rights movement that emerged from social justice efforts and social science research beginning in the 1990s [00:15:28] and whereas every person on our planet is neurodiverse as we all think behave feel, perceive, and learn in different ways that are unique to each individual due to their identities and experiences. All of these different ways of being and functioning are value-neutral, meaning there is not one better or right way. [00:15:49] And within the neurodiversity perspective, there are neurodivergent ways of being in which an individual's cognitive functioning is different than society's perceived "typical" or "most commonly occurring" means of functioning and is associated with diagnoses such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, auditory processing disorder, PTSD, and more. And whereas, since a strengths-based approach to ADHD, autism, and other related diagnoses is better than the medical deficits-based approach, the neurodiversity movement favors a strengths-based model that also recognizing that society's current [00:16:28] norms, beliefs, and structures can create barriers to access and affirmation for neurodivergent individuals. And whereas, according to the National Institutes of Health, NIH, an estimated 15 to 20% of the world's population exhibits some form of neurodivergence, driven both by genetic and environmental factors, and many successful and famous people, such as Emma Watson, Travis Kelsey, Simone Biles, Richard Branson, Carl Sagan, Daryl Hannah, and Billie Eilish, to name just a few are neurodivergent and whereas this neurodiversity equity work is about [00:17:06] building mindsets that drive our language address biases promote spaces of belonging and center human variability at the forefront of our decision-making processes and actions and whereas Fairfax County Public Schools is committed to ensuring equitable access to quality education for all students by universally designing instruction and educational environments, employing a neurodiversity specialist, the first in the nation for K-12 school divisions, lifting up neurodiverse staff members, recognizing that there are different ways of being in our schools and communities, affirming the abilities [00:17:44] and unique strengths of every student and staff member, presuming competence, promoting positive self-concepts and identities, and ensuring spaces and school communities do not require students to mask their unique individual characteristics or to assimilate to participate now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board renews its commitment to creating neurodivergent affirming schools and hereby proclaims March 17th to 23rd as neurodiversity affirmation week in recognition of the cognitive brilliance that every student brings to our system schools and communities is there a [00:18:20] second second miss Marin all those in favor of the proclamation miss Marin mystics that mr. McIlvain dr. Anderson mr. McDaniel miss Anderson Seismar Heiser Mr. Dunn Mr. Moon Miss Lady Miss St. John Cunningham and myself that is unanimous the proclamation passes congratulations. [00:18:41] Agenda item 2.07 honoring Gerald W. Jerry Highland proclamation before we hear the next proclamation honoring the memory of former Mount Vernon supervisor Jerry Highland I would like to recognize some special guests that are with us this evening Mount Vernon district supervisor and former school board member and chair Dan Stork and former Mount Vernon school board member and former chair Miss Karen Corbett Sanders. I'd also like to welcome Gigi Highland, [00:19:14] the daughter of Supervisor Highland and her husband Chris Revere. I call on Mr. Dunn for a proclamation. Whereas Fairfax County and the Mount Vernon District celebrates the life and mourns the passing of Gerald W. Jerry Highland, a trusted and beloved community figure who guided the transformation of the Mount Vernon District and Fairfax County while serving as Fairfax County Supervisor for the Mount Vernon District from 1988 to 2015, and whereas he was a staunch advocate for Fairfax [00:19:50] County Public Schools to include successful advocacy for full-day kindergarten and the establishment of South County High School and South County Middle School, and whereas he played a pivotal role in community development, public safety, and infrastructure advancements to include the establishment of the Lorton Farmer's Market, the preservation and expansion of Inova Mount Vernon Hospital, the acquisition of the Lorton Correctional Complex, and the establishment of a master plan for a vibrant South County community. [00:20:22] And whereas, throughout his tenure, Jerry Hyland was known for his tireless advocacy and leadership, guiding the community through significant challenges to include the closure of the Interstate 95 Landfill, and whereas after serving nearly 30 years in elected office and multiple advisory boards and commissions, the South County Center was renamed the Jerry Highland Government Center to reflect his profound impact on public safety, health care, transportation, and the environment throughout the region, now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board honors and remembers Gerald W. Jerry Highland for his [00:21:00] outstanding contributions, exemplary leadership, and unwavering commitment to the community, extending our deepest sympathies to his family and expressing our heartfelt gratitude for his remarkable service. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Moon. All those in favor of the proclamation, Ms. Marin, Ms. Dixit, Mr. McElveen, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Sizemore-Hyzer, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunningham, and myself. That is unanimous. The proclamation passes. Congratulations. I would like to welcome the family of [00:21:36] Jerry Highland and all those here in support of honoring Jerry Highland the proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the dais and then we'll move on through the other proclamations. [00:22:14] I would like to welcome all those here in support of the neurodiversity affirmation proclamation affirmation week proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the dais. [00:23:31] I would like to welcome all those here in support of the Bailey's upper elementary school 10th anniversary proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the dais. [00:25:37] I would like to welcome all those here in support of the Disability Acceptance Month Proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the dais. [00:28:26] I would like to welcome the Fairfax County Commission for Women, League of Women Voters of the Fairfax area, and all those here in support of the Women's History Month Proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the dais. [00:30:01] All right, only seven more proclamations. I'm just kidding. [00:31:28] All right. Agenda Item 3.01, Community Participation. The next order of business is community participation. We welcome all community members who are here and those who have signed up to speak this evening. Additional information about signing up to provide comments at school board regular business meetings and public hearings can be found on the school board's website at fcps.edu slash school board. [00:31:51] During the sign-up process, community members acknowledged they were informed of the school board's expectations for proper decorum when providing comments. These expectations are also available online and with the printed agenda and meeting materials in the back of the room. we ask audience members to be respectful of one of one another 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 school board members will be listening but not responding madam clerk please call the first speaker no bone [00:32:30] Koro Kombi. Hello. Thank you for having me here today. Today I'd like to share with you a couple of numbers. 83 is the number of school shootings in 2024. 39 is the number of those that occurred in Virginia. According to John Hopkins University, guns are the leading cause of death among American [00:33:05] children and teens. In addition, there have been numerous gun violence threats creating fear and uncertainty in our FCPS community. When I wake up in the morning, my first thought shouldn't be, is it safe to go to school today? But one day, last year, it was. On May 1st of 2024, at Thomas Jefferson High School, there was a threat made on our school, and school remained open. Students sat in fear, wondering if the threat was going to be carried out, and teachers locked doors and kept a closer eye on their students exiting and entering the classroom. All of us had practiced [00:33:42] lockdown drills, but anxiety hung in the air as no one knew if we would make it home safe. We don't feel this way on days that threats are carried out. We feel this every day. We don't have the resources to prevent every school shooting, but we can make lockdown procedures more effective. [00:33:58] As part of a student activism group here in FCPS, done with guns, I promise to implement Centegix, C-E-N-T-E-G-I-X, panic buttons, to let staff contact emergency services quicker and safer. They're worn on lanyards and have two parts: one that alerts local emergency services with your current location and the other that lets teachers alert administrators within a school. [00:34:21] Current methods of contacting emergency services we see in FCPS, like phones, emit lights and sounds and can be unsafe during emergencies. Schools in Georgia, Florida, Texas, Tennessee, and New Jersey have implemented Centajex panic buttons and reported more rapid emergency service response times. [00:34:38] In the schools shooting at Georgia at the beginning of this year, the shooter was apprehended almost instantly due to this procedure. Panic buttons are my proposed first step and I'd like you to take the rest. Thank you. [00:34:53] Michaela Danner. Good evening Dr. Reed and members of the school board. I know how hard your jobs are. Thank you for all the work you have done to improve our schools. Today I'm once again here to talk to you about healthy school start times. Healthy school start times are super important and it feels like you've been ignoring [00:35:28] our request. It's been 10 years now and you made a promise to work on them and now you're you're breaking that promise. You are the people we chose to represent us. Sleep is so important. I attended your work session and heard each and every one of you say that you understand how important this is and that you want it to happen and it's still not moving forward. Why? If you understand why won't you listen? Why aren't the needs of students the most important thing you are considering here so that is why I'm here today now why [00:36:06] can't we just go to sleep earlier well that's not how our bodies work it is scientifically proven that during adolescence when we are changing and growing we need more sleep and our body clocks change our bodies want to stay up later and wake up later according to NEA news the majority of teenagers do not get the recommended eight to ten hours of sleep. Inadequate sleep can lead to countless negative health consequences that impact students' abilities to learn. Many experts advocate later school start times to help [00:36:43] students get the sleep they need. This shows that it is unhealthy to start school at 7:20 a.m. It's clear that you are not going to change start times for everyone for fall 2025 and that is outrageous and infuriating. I'm hopeful that you will at least move forward for Mason District, honor your promise, and [00:37:02] commit to change for fall 2026. Thank you. Lindai Kendall, Zachary Zurich. Hi, good evening everyone. I'm here to talk to you about the policy of raising grades up to 50%. I imagine this was done to encourage students that are struggling not to give up and give them an ability if they work harder to achieve good [00:37:40] grades and move on through the school system. What I don't think you're aware is that there's a segment of kids that are taking what you've done and misusing it essentially taking AP high-level courses which count for out of a 5-0 instead of a 4-0 and then using your system to raise grades to essentially wind up with about a 3-5 average doing absolutely no work when I spoke to the school system I found that wasn't just my child that was using it that's many children that are using it it's a known problem I looked into the the specifics on it and the way I believe it was written was that if the student [00:38:18] demonstrated a reasonable effort the teacher would have discretion to raise a grade but in practice that's not how the teachers see it the teachers see that they should not be allowing zeros to remain in the gradebook and they are essentially raising the students even if the student makes no effort so essentially what happens is that you have kids that look that are graduating that even have good GPAs that are essentially doing no work in many cases not even attending their classes the school's aware of it the guidance departments aware of it it's a known problem and there appears to be no [00:38:57] solution I think it's not just not in the interest of the children to have this system in many cases but it's also discouraging for the teachers who feel powerless to do anything other than pass kids through the system so I'm not sure what the original intent of this was but I wanted to let you know how it's actually being used in the system and I would encourage you to look into this and reevaluate whether this program is doing more harm or more good. Thank you. [00:39:27] Please play the video testimony submitted by Phyllis Payne. Good evening. Thank you for all of the work that you are doing to protect children in Fairfax. Thank you for the productive middle school start time work session where you raised the idea of adopting a first phase in Mason District where students suffer with wake times before dawn for three years. [00:40:01] You have a golden opportunity to implement this positive change next fall. You can transform the day and the school year to help thousands of families. Studies show that with later middle and high school start times, students, parents, and teachers gain sleep. [00:40:18] Why does that matter? Not just because of the gain, but also because timing is everything. When secondary schools start later, students are more engaged, awake, and ready to learn. Mood improves in a dose-response relationship. [00:40:35] In a Fairfax study, for every hour of sleep gained, the odds of students feeling sad and hopeless declined by 38%, and the odds for attempted suicide declined by 58%. You have a golden opportunity because the days of pins and strings on a map and manually pairing bus trips are over. [00:40:59] You have software to optimize multiple options quickly so you can choose thoughtfully to improve the overall student and family experience. Avoid moving elementary schools later than the current 9/20 last start. [00:41:14] We've waited 10 years for the promised improvements to middle school start times. have a golden opportunity to resolve the perceived challenges in a small area in 2025, to make improvements to the plans, and then to bring the best options forward for implementation of healthy middle school start times for the whole county in 2026. Chair Frisch, that was our last public speaker. Thank you. Agenda item 4.01, student representative matters. I call on Ms. Sawant. [00:41:48] Good evening, everyone. Happy Women's History Month. Earlier today, I attended the Virginia School Board Association's Spring Student Representative Conference online, with other Virginia School Board representatives to talk about updates, legislative updates from Virginia's General Assembly, and topics to look out for as we move into the next couple months. [00:42:06] It was such an informative session, and I'm always inspired by hearing the ideas from other board representatives and how important student voice is, not just in FCPS, but across Virginia. During the last week of February, I had the opportunity to attend the Future of FCPS food show in Chantilly where I got to interview some students. We had students from eight high schools, eight middle schools, and 12 elementary schools where they sampled 24 different food items including the Fairfax sauce that we've been talking about and got to provide feedback through surveys rating each item on taste, nutrition, and appeal for things that we should see on our school menu in the upcoming school year. I also had a chance to interview some of these [00:42:43] students but rather than hearing from me let's hear from them. Madam Clerk could please play the video this was a photo from last year so we want to have as just as much energy as this little girl had last year too okay you guys ready you guys excited first we have billview today we're going to be interviewing students at the second annual fcps food show to see what they think about the new food options we have and why student advocacy is so important in food and nutrition services we're going to be trying the chicken katsu so can you guys try it for me see [00:43:22] see how you like it. I think it has just like a little bit of spice but I think that the flavoring is great. What do you like? I like the sauce. You like the sauce? Oh we got the mega mac and cheese for the first edition. I think it might have been the most amazing dish I've tried. Yeah I agree with the cheese and the bacon goes together really nicely and I think that's definitely the best dish over there. Okay awesome. This is the taco pizza. Okay and how do you feel about it? At first taste I wasn't really sure but as I took more bites it was really good and the flavor is really enriching. What do you guys think is the most important thing or the thing that you guys want [00:43:59] out of your school food? I think I just want something that like it's just like something I can enjoy for lunch. I mean lunch is like the break in the day it's like kind of where you can like talk to friends but like to make lunch good you need to have good food so I feel like if you have good food it just makes the entire experience better. The food that we eat at school drives us to get through our day and take our tests and accomplish what is expected of us at school. [00:44:23] And I think food is a big part of that. Food does nurture the mind and it helps your mind work faster and stuff. And I feel like when I'm hungry and I have good food that gives me energy and stuff, I'm able to focus more in class and I have more energy to do work, study longer, and things like that. [00:44:40] If there's any options that I don't like, I'm missing. and then I think I would just have more to see low end during the school day. What's your favorite part of today? My favorite part is the freedom of the event. [00:44:57] Going around and tasting different foods just free of any judgment or opinion and letting them know what you really think because they're going to use that feedback to truly improve this experience. Exactly. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. So from all the noise in the background, you can tell that it was a lot of fun. [00:45:22] But a huge thank you to Food and Nutrition Services for organizing this event and FCPS's commitment to student voice and the food that we have. Moving on, at the February Superintendent's Advisory Council meeting, our students are continuing to work on their goal reports that they'll present to everyone next month. And branching off from the conversations that Dr. Reed had about CTE with all of us last meeting, I sat down and surveyed students on what CTSOs they had at their school, what was missing, and why. [00:45:48] The most common answer for why they didn't have a certain CTSO at their school was because they couldn't find a sponsor for it or there wasn't enough awareness around that CTSO. Being a CTE sponsor is so important. There's so much time that goes out into nurturing our students and preparing them for a career in that technical field. I hope that in future years, the same way that I mentioned last time, we can have better supports for our teachers who choose to sponsor CTSOs. Speaking of CTSOs and broader extracurriculars, one student group in the Superintendent's Advisory Council is actually focusing on extracurricular involvement and offerings by region [00:46:25] they're compiling a spreadsheet based on surveys from students and they're using the survey to further examine any barriers to participation and are developing recommendations for schools facing challenges in club creation and accessibility so that we can see those changes in upcoming school years. The last thing that I wanted to talk about was the joint budget meeting that I was able to attend between our board and the Board of Supervisors and I really appreciated being in that room and being able to understand the conversations that happened between our board and their board and how we navigate these issues together. One thing that I wanted to share was the current reality that students face in schools. A lot of questions that students asked me pertain [00:47:04] to the following: will certain courses or classes still be available next year? Will funding for loans or lunches which many students depend on remain intact? And how will the programs at our schools change over the next coming months? On top of this, as I voiced to the General Assembly as well, we are facing a national gun violence epidemic and there are threats that are being made in our classrooms that are affecting our Fairfax County public schools. It is so important that in our budget we continue to increase our safety and security measures and keep in the budget the money for our cameras, vestibules, and our crossing guards. This is how students feel, [00:47:41] but imagine how our teachers feel and what they take on. They wear multiple acts, they wear multiple hats. They act as social workers, mentors, and counselors while continuing to address the academic recovery that is happening from the pandemic supporting our educators is essential to the well-being of our students and this is why collective bargaining and honoring the agreement that we have is so vital and it is our duty to respect respect it our teachers deserve fair wages improved working conditions and the resources necessary to do their jobs effectively and how can we best support that with the budget that we have thank you thank you miss swan i think i speak [00:48:19] for the board when i say that video really ate no crumbs now that slang is dead and no one will ever use it again you're welcome yeah it was a lot it was extra ah all right agenda item 5.01 action item certification of closed meeting compliance in order to comply with section 2.2-3712d of the code of Virginia it is necessary for the board to certify that since the Fairfax County School Board convened a closed meeting on March 13th 2025 to the best of each board member's knowledge [00:48:56] only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements and only such business matters public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the board during the closed meeting do I have a motion Mr. Moon is there a second Mr. McElveen all those in favor Miss Marin Miss Dixit Mr. McElveen Dr. Anderson Mr. McDaniel Miss Anderson Miss Sizemore Heiser Mr. Dunn Mr. Moon Miss Lady Miss Ms. St. John Cunningham and myself, that is unanimous. [00:49:25] Motion passes. Agenda item 5.02, action item, confirmation of action taken in closed meeting. I call on Mr. Moon for a motion. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move to deny the school reassignment appear of a student who engaged in inappropriate physical contact of a sexual nature with the students at school during the school day and to confirm the disciplinary decision of the division superintendent. [00:49:50] - Is there a second? - Second. All those in favor, Ms. Marin, Ms. Dixit, Mr. McIlveen, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Dixit, was your hand up? Oh, I apologize. Okay, we'll try this one more time. [00:50:06] All those in favor, Ms. Marin, Mr. McIlveen, Dr. Anderson, Ms. Anderson, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunningham, and myself. All those opposed? Abstentions? Ms. Dixit, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Sizemore-Hyser. [00:50:23] Will the clerk read the vote? The vote's 9-3. The motion carries. Thank you. Agenda item 5.01, action item, Coates Elementary School Boundary Study Scope. I call on Dr. Reed for a presentation on the Coates Elementary School Boundary Study Scope. [00:50:41] Thank you, Chairman Frisch. I'm going to turn the presentation over to Ms. Szymanski, our Chief Facilities Officer. Thank you, and good evening, Mr. Chairman, and to the rest of the board. And for those listening here tonight, my name is Jana Szymanski. [00:50:58] I'm Chief of Facility Services and Capital Programs for FCPS. And tonight, I'm presenting the staff recommendation on the scope study for the Coates Elementary School Boundary Study. Next slide, please. Some background information on Coates and this boundary study is captured on this slide. [00:51:18] Coates has a capacity utilization of 137% for school year 24-25, which does not include the 20 trailers currently on site. The school is projected to reach 163% capacity utilization in five years for school year 29-30. [00:51:37] Student membership of COATS based on September certified membership is 983 for school year 2425. And as a reminder, school board policy 8120 identifies the preferred maximum of 950 student program capacity for elementary schools. [00:51:53] The current program capacity at COATS is 720 students. And again, this program capacity does not include the temporary trailers. On February 8th, 2024, the school board amended the proposed FY26 through 30 CIP. [00:52:09] Staff began this process with the community boundary scoping meetings in January, 2025, as required and outlined in regulation 8130. For more information, you can look at school data in regions one and five, and that's on pages 88 and 89 of the CIP and on 52 and 53 of the CIP. [00:52:34] All right, next slide, please. So this slide shows solutions implemented over the years. So you can see that Coates has had a historical capacity utilization ranging anywhere between 102 and 137% since school year 2015, 2016. [00:52:53] Next slide. And Coates historical membership has reached a high of 983 students in the current school year, which is 24, 25. And just to clarify this membership shown on the slide based on certified september membership data the certified february membership data which is more recent for coats is 1001 student next slide thank you okay so we now have a series of four maps to share next this first map shows the location of coats and the school boundary in red as well as the location of elementary schools directly adjacent and the schools next to them and their [00:53:33] boundaries this map also shows the future silver line elementary school site just to the south of Coates the second map here shows which middle schools the Coates Elementary School and the nearby elementary schools are assigned to so we've overlaid the middle school boundaries and they're shown in blue the blue lines on this map so you can see here Coates Elementary feeds to both Herndon Middle School and Carson Middle School the third map shows which high schools Coates Elementary School and the nearby elementary schools are assigned to the high school [00:54:11] boundaries are shown here in red so you can see that Coates Elementary School feeds into both Herndon High School and Westfield High School. And lastly, this map shows the boundaries of the AAP Centers that serve Coates Elementary School and the nearby elementary schools. It also shows which elementary schools are the AAP Centers, so you can see they're ones with a red star, or a local level four site, which is shown with a yellow circle. So as you can see here, Coates Elementary School is a local level four site, and the McNair Upper Elementary School aap center serves coats elementary school and the boundary for mcnair upper aap is shown in [00:54:51] the dark green shading all right this is the current and projected capacity utilization of coats and the adjacent elementary schools the projections include consideration of birth data migration in and out of boundaries transfers among several other factors the first few columns show the region design capacity program capacity september certified membership and the current school year program capacity utilization percentage the next columns show the number of temporary classrooms and the number of modular classrooms so as a [00:55:29] reminder temporary classrooms are not included in capacity calculations while modular facility spaces are included finally the last two columns in blue on the right show the five-year student membership projections and the associated capacity utilization percentage so for coats in particular you'll see a design capacity of 930 students, a program capacity of 720, student membership as of September of 983, the program capacity utilization of 137% for the school year, [00:56:04] and that the school has 20 temporary classrooms. The associated projection going out five years for school year 2930 estimates 1,177 students, and that's a 163% capacity utilization. And just to clarify, the yellow highlights shows that schools that are currently planned for renovation in accordance with the current renovation queue. [00:56:31] All right, this slide, again, just shows the same information, but for other nearby schools, which are in Region 1. This map shows the current capacity utilization for the school year. So, again, we saw it in a table. This is in a map form. [00:56:47] And, again, this particular map does not include the temporary trailers, but they do include the modular facilities. Moving to the next slide, this map shows the current capacity without the modulars, just so you can see the data both ways, for school year 24-25 for the elementary schools near Coates. [00:57:08] This map here shows the five-year projected capacity without the modulars for school year 29-30 for elementary schools near Coates. And lastly, this map shows the five-year projected capacity with the modulars for school year 29-30 for the elementary schools near Coates. [00:57:28] So as I mentioned back in January we sought feedback from the community. So this slide is a summary of that feedback. So we received approximately 180 participants back from those meetings. And additionally we had an online feedback form that was open for over two weeks following the meetings and the highest number of responses to the question what nearby schools should be considered for the boundary adjustment are shown here on the following slide. [00:57:58] The feedback received continued as shown on this slide so other responses we received were to build Silverline Elementary School and major themes were students staff and community members are overloaded by overcrowding, there were concerns about long transportation times if moved to a school further away, concerns about students being in temporary classrooms outside the building, feedback on an opportunity to resolve a split feeder and a desire to better balance capacity and concerns on how to do so without shifting the the issue to another school and for reference all that community feedback has been posted to our [00:58:38] website and you can see the link here at the bottom of this slide this slide outlines the entire boundary adjustment process per regulation 8130 so this boundary study is currently at stage two of the process where the scope of the study for schools is presented to the school board here tonight following feedback from the boundary scoping community meetings following today's meeting and after the action by the school board on the scope additional community meetings will be held to present and discuss possible boundary change options as prepared by staff after those additional community meetings there will be a series of school board meetings with where [00:59:16] recommendations for any boundary change will be presented to the school board and a public hearing to the school board is also going to be included in these series of meetings for any additional community input all right so considering all the information on the previous slides we present the following to be considered as the boundary study scope for coats so that would include coats itself aldrin armstrong clearview drainsville dogwood fox mill florist herndon hunters woods hutchinson [00:59:50] lake ann lee's corner mcnair mcnair upper oak hill terracet to be included in the boundary adjustment scope and it will be important to consider the implications to middle and high schools based on the outcomes of any elementary school adjustments and that's especially true if there's any options that may involve a split feeder i just wanted to point out just due to the nearby capacities and limited space ability we this is a much broader scope of study needed to resolve the capacity challenge so that's why you see the 18 schools across the west field and chantilly pyramids in region 5 and the herndon and south lakes pyramid in region 1. i do i do [01:00:30] want to clarify too the scope does not consider some of the aap boundaries including local level four center boundaries at clearview forest edge hunters woods mcnair upper oak hill and sunrise valley so that being said this is all that information here on a map so this is a map of the schools to be included in the recommended scope and with that that concludes my presentation [01:00:58] thank you thank you miss samanski i call on miss lady for a motion i move the school board approved the scope for the boundary study to include the following schools coates elementary school aldrin [01:01:17] Elementary School Armstrong, Clearview, Drainsville, Dogwood, Fox Mill, Herndon, Hutchinson, Lake Ann, Lee's Corner, McNair, McNair Upper, Oak Hill, Terrace Set, and the AAP boundaries for Clearview Elementary School, Forest Edge, Hunter's Woods, McNair, Oak Hill, and Sunrise Valley Elementary Schools as detailed in the agenda item on board docs. [01:01:39] Is there a second? Second. Mr. McElveen, Ms. Lady, would you like to speak to your motion? Just briefly. I think the data speaks for itself. And while I'm well aware that we are in a, you know, system-wide boundary study, I certainly have been to COATS enough to know that this warrants looking further into as they are bursting at the seams. [01:02:00] And as Ms. Szymanski indicated earlier, they are just over 1,000 students right now. I think that puts them at 139% capacity at the moment. And they just continue to grow. So while it sort of pains me that the number of schools involved in this is so expansive, I wish it were easy to perhaps figure out how to move some that are in the Herndon Pyramid to a Herndon Pyramid school since it is a split feeder as of now. [01:02:26] I don't have that expertise, so I trust facilities to do that. What I don't want to have happen is I don't want students to be moved and then moved again as a result of a full boundary study. So, you know, just because they look deeper into this doesn't mean that they come back to us and we necessarily move forward with whatever they might bring to us. [01:02:48] But I'm comfortable with them doing the work. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Leidy. Mr. McElwain, would you like to speak to your second? Yes, just very briefly. So, you know, as an at-large member, I'm always grateful when colleagues, magisterial colleagues come forward and share the issues they're having in their community, as is the case with coats grateful to Miss Lady for bringing this forward just as I am grateful to Dr. Anderson for bringing forward her next motion on park lawn there's clearly a need here having [01:03:22] visited the school having seen kids crammed in trailers and modulars in the back and just walking the halls and not having any space in the school I'm hopeful that this will bring much needed relief to coats and I'm happy to support it. Thank you Mr. [01:03:40] McElveen all those in favor of the motion on the screen please indicate by raising your hand Miss Marin Mr. McElveen Dr. Anderson Mr. McDaniel Miss Anderson and Mr. Dunn Mr. Moon Miss Lady Miss St. John Cunning and myself with Miss Sizemore Heiser away from the table and mistakes away from the table. I'm sorry I was like I knew another one was missing. All right that is unanimous for board members present. Agenda item 5.04 action item Parkland Elementary School Boundary Scope I call on Dr. [01:04:10] Reid for a presentation on the Park Lawn Elementary School Boundary Scope. Thank you, Chairman Frisch. I'm going to turn the presentation over to our chief of facilities and capital projects, Janice Szymanski. Thank you again. And so now I will be presenting the staff recommendation on the scope of study for Park Lawn Elementary School Boundary Study. [01:04:32] So some background information on Park Lawn and this boundary is captured on this slide. Parklawn has a capacity utilization of 99% for school year 24-25, and this includes the modular building out there, which has 10 classrooms. It does not include the current 19 trailers. [01:04:50] The school also is projected to reach 104% capacity utilization in five years for school year 29-30. Without considering the modular building, the capacity utilization is 138% for school year 24-25 and 146% for school year 29-30. [01:05:08] Again, as a reminder, student membership for Park Lawn is 949 students for school year 2425, and again, this is based on the certified student membership. School Board Policy 8120 identifies the preferred maximum of 950 students' program capacity for an elementary school, and the current program capacity here at Park Lawn is 960 students. [01:05:32] On February 8th, 2024, the school board amended last year's proposed CIP to include Coates Elementary and Park Lawn as a priority recommended boundary adjustment with scoping to be conducted in fall 2024 slash spring 2025. So staff began this process with community boundary scoping meetings in November and December of 2024. [01:05:54] And that kind of brings us to where we are today. And so with this next slide, we're showing solutions implemented at Park Lawn to address capacity. Park Lawn has had a historical capacity utilization ranging anywhere from 85% to 99% since school year 2015 to 2016. [01:06:12] And Park Lawn's historical membership reached a high of 949 students in the current school year, 24-25. And again, just to clarify, this membership number shown on the slide is based on certified September membership data. [01:06:28] The certified February membership data, so more recent, for COATS is 961 students. like coats we have a series of four maps to share next this map shows the location of parklawn elementary as well as the locations of elementary schools directly adjacent and the schools next to them and their boundaries this second map shows which middle schools parklawn elementary school and the nearby elementary schools are assigned to again the middle school boundaries are overlaid and shown here in blue lines on this map and parklawn elementary school feeds into both holmes [01:07:06] middle school and glasgow middle school the third map here shows which high schools parklawn Elementary School and the nearby elementary schools are assigned to. High school boundaries here are shown in red. Park On Elementary School feeds into both Annandale High School and Justice High School. Lastly, this fourth map shows the boundaries of the AAP centers that serve Park Lawn Elementary and the nearby elementary schools. It also shows which elementary schools are AAP centers with the red star or the local level foresight, which is the yellow circle. And so as you can see here, Park Lawn Elementary is a local [01:07:45] level 4 site the Belvedere Elementary School AAP Center serves as Park Lawn Elementary Schools AAP and that's shown here in the shaded pink all right this is the current and projected capacity utilization for Park Lawn in the area other area elementary schools the projections again include considerations of birth data migration in and out of boundaries and transfers among several other factors and these projections are also included in our CIP [01:08:16] So for Park Lawn in particular, you'll see a design capacity of 1,277 students, a program capacity of 960 students, student September membership data of 949 students, a program capacity utilization of 99%, and that the school has 19 temporary classroom trailers and a modular facility with 10 classrooms. [01:08:40] The associated five-year projections going out to school year 2930 estimates 1,000 students and a capacity of 104% utilization. All right, this slide again shows the same information for other nearby schools, which are in Region 2 and Region 6. [01:09:06] Okay, so moving on, same information, this slide and the next three are maps showing the capacity information. This shows the current capacity utilization for the current school years with considering modulars. This map is the current capacity without the modulars for the current school year. [01:09:29] This map shows the projected capacity, that five-year projections, and it's with the modulars. So that's for school year 2930 for the elementaries near Park Lawn. And lastly, this map shows the five-year projected capacity without the modulars for school year 2930. [01:09:51] All right. Again, as mentioned earlier in the presentation, community meetings were held in December and in November. Feedback was gathered in writing from approximately 140 participants attending either the in-person or virtual meetings and an online feedback form was also open for two weeks following these meetings. [01:10:10] The elementary school shown here had the highest number of responses to the question what nearby schools should be considered for the boundary adjustment. [01:10:17] All right. Other responses included all of Region 2 and the northern part of Region 6, and major feedback themes included are concerns on impact disruption of a change to students, concerns on overcrowding, minimizing the use of modulars and trailers, change should be improved equitable distribution of resources and access to resources, concerns about safety and the number of students in a crowded school, the opportunity to resolve split feeders, traffic and transportation concerns and please note there was variance in the [01:10:56] frequency of these responses but these are the major themes all right so like coats Park Lawn is a similar point in the adjustment process so this slide outlines the entire process per regulation 8130 so we're like coats at stage two of the process where the scope of the study for schools is presented to the school board following the feedback from the boundary scoping meetings and And again, so following today's meeting and after the action by the school board on the scope, additional community meetings will be held to present and discuss possible boundary change options as prepared by staff. [01:11:35] All right. So with that being all said, we present the following to be considered as part of the boundary scope. So that includes Park Lawn itself, Annandale Terrace, Bailey's, Bailey's Upper, Beech Tree, Belvedere, Braddock, Brenmar Park, Columbia, Glen Forest, Mason Crest, North Springfield, Sleepy Hollow, and the AAP Local Level Forest Center boundaries at Belvedere and Canterbury Woods should also be included in the boundary adjustment. [01:12:07] and similar to Coates, due to the nearby capacities and limited space availability, we are recommending this be the scope of study, which is why we are including all the elementaries in the Justice and Annandale pyramids, as well as Mason Crest, which goes to Falls Church. And then consequently, AAP boundaries for Belvedere and Canterbury Woods need to be considered too. [01:12:31] And finally, this is a map of those schools in the recommended scope for both elementary school boundaries on the left and the AAP level four centers on the right. THAT CONCLUDES MY PRESENTATION. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. THANK YOU MS. SEMANSKI I CALL ON DR. ANDERSON FOR A MOTION. THANK YOU I MOVED THAT THE SCHOOL BOARD APPROVED THE SCOPE FOR THE BOUNDARY STUDY TO INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING SCHOOLS POCKLON ELEMENTARY ANANDELL TERRICE ELEMENTARY BAILEY'S ELEMENTARY BAILEY'S UPPER BEACH TREE ELEMENTARY BELVIDERE ELEMENTARY BRADICK ELEMENTARY BRENMAW PARK ELEMENTARY COLUMBIA ELEMENTARY GLEN FOREST ELEMENTARY MASON CREST ELEMENTARY SLEEPY HOLLOW ELEMENTARY [01:13:10] north springfield elementary way nook elementary and the ap boundaries for canterbury woods elementary and belvedere elementary as detailed in the agenda item on board docs is there a second second mr chander moon dr anderson would you like to speak to your motion yeah very briefly i feel like these are the two schools that are on a very sim they're very similarly situated um the only main difference that i've been able to identify is the fact that park lawn has um 10 modulars that are outside and it looks like a c of classrooms outside i had the opportunity earlier and i apologize for the late delay [01:13:45] to share some of the letters from that students from parkland elementary shared with me back in december just really discussing how uncomfortable it is outside because they don't have any more spaces to play to have soccer to be on the playground because there's so many buildings that are outside and of course we have so many students the playground itself is insufficient And I'm hoping that we can just go ahead and begin to study and figure out how to solve this issue that has been plaguing the school for a number of years now. And I'm looking for your support on this. [01:14:19] Oh, last thing is to raise is the lunches. I'm sure it's similarly at Coates, but at Park Lawn, they begin almost right after 10 and end after 2. It is just a long time to be able to funnel the kids through that building to that cafeteria rather. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Mr. Moon, would you like to speak to your second you know just just briefly even though i feel very embarrassed you know to repeat this there are 19 trailers and 10 classrooms in modulars that's all together 29 and dr anderson if i'm not mistaken it's a two entire grade levels of students outside [01:14:58] brick and mortar isn't that correct and and this was something that could have been done last year The process should have been done last year, and this time we cannot wait for another year to go by. Thank you, Mr. Moon. [01:15:14] Ms. Marin? Yes, I do support the motion. This is really quite tragic, and we have to fix it, and I do think the scoping will just be a jumpstart for when we get the full set of data during the boundary review process. I did just want clarification from the superintendent about that this is scoping and how will this factor into or dovetail into the data that we'll receive in the months ahead when it comes to the boundary review just to assure the community that this is not being acted on right now. [01:15:46] I'm just concerned the way some of it was described. So if the superintendent could just speak to how this work will coordinate with the forthcoming data from the boundary review. Thank you, Ms. Marin. I know that the team that's worked hard to put the scope together clearly would be taking that into consideration as we look at different scenarios. [01:16:09] I'm wondering if Ms. Zemanski has any more detail. Essentially, since you asked for confirmation, I think what we're going to need to do is the scoping will obviously occur in parallel with the scenario development work that the advisory committee is going to be looking at and that also will be coming out to the community uh later this spring so you know i think the work will be done in tandem uh it's hard to predict which pieces are going to overlap at this moment since we don't have any scenarios yet drawn [01:16:46] for the uh advisory committee on the larger division-wide uh boundary work yet okay great so just to confirm we'd expect that even though the information will be forthcoming it will be considered in tandem with the great big amount of information. Yes ma'am. Okay thank you. Thank you Miss Marin. Miss Sizemore Heiser. Thank you and I apologize I had these questions on coats as well but I've been dealing with a family emergency tonight so I apologize to step away. I want to pick up where my colleague left off. I had the same question in terms of how this works in tandem with the so can you explain what you mean a little bit more by in tandem like what does that mean to [01:17:21] you? Well I think what that means is that the work clearly there's been some community engagement work with these specific communities, and that community engagement work has occurred within the same ecosystem that the community engagement work for the broader division-wide boundary study has occurred. [01:17:41] I think we're expecting at our next advisory committee to look at several scenarios that are being developed that we haven't yet seen that are division-wide scenarios. I would expect that the current scoping that's being proposed for these two schools would also be occurring that would not be occurring with the consultant who's working on the if you will holistic full division boundary but it would be that more traditional scoping approach so it would be the same data but perhaps for a [01:18:14] different purpose you mean by different purpose well how do I say the data there will be data for the scoping of these two schools which will be specific to I think the number of schools identified in the motion whereas the division-wide data is being used to look at division-wide impact of boundaries so the tandem means they're not going to be done at the same table but rather in parallel maybe that's a better term than tandem so since you're doing scoping [01:18:53] with a set of communities which is a fairly large set of schools for both schools yes ma'am how does that then not impact this development that you're doing for the entire county it may very well impact that work and would it then limit the other work that we're doing or pro or limit options or maybe lead to kids being moved twice in a very short amount of time like I'm I'm just struggling to these two schools obviously have significant overcrowding that we need to address I think we're all from what I'm hearing in alignment [01:19:29] that what I'm wondering especially when we're now with this one also starting looking at programmatic because we're looking at the AAP centers which is a programmatic part as a as opposed to just like just geographical so we're expanding that as well you know I first I'm curious which communities when it says the community which community was it just the Parkland community was it all of these potential schools because I worry a little bit about and this happened in the previous one when just before this board came on when all of a sudden we started hearing at the last minute from some community saying wait a second we didn't know we were involved in this we would have spoken up much [01:20:08] sooner so I don't want to have that happen again so are all of these communities that are proposed for the scope have been talked to already are you asking if they've already been spoken with Miss Szymanski which communities have been spoken with I believe when we did our community engagement sessions we made sure to you know extend that invite out to the broader area but again without knowing exactly what schools we're going to end up recommending in the future steps we'll we'll plan we have meetings tentatively scheduled for april and now that we know what the scope is we will be engaging with those communities as well as we develop these into [01:20:48] actual scenarios i mean i just worry because the slideshow 140 participants which for i'm looking at almost 10 schools if not more 140 participants and only two weeks of an online feedback form that was open i'm just we're doing something very hard with this boundary work that could have seminal change and we're telling our communities all the positive impact it could have and what i'm hearing is that this may impact that both both of these schools can you explain a little more by what you mean by impact because that was the whole purpose of doing that is to not do other [01:21:24] things in the meantime that impact that may either make it harder for us to do that may make it less optimal for what we can do especially when we're trying to put programmatic changes in there I I have a lot of heartburn about do it so I want to understand more what do you mean by impact what kind of impact can that impact be undone would we undo it tell me a little bit more about what that means well I think that clearly if as a result of the scope work there's a recommendation to move forward with some adjustment that adjustment would impact [01:22:01] the overall adjustments that are going to at some point be considered for the school division so the the question really is these are a number of schools in the motion that are being addressed and a question of course that might arise depending on what decisions around program boundaries as well could ripple into more schools potentially than what are listed on the motion so when i speak about impact there [01:22:33] could be an impact based on whatever the decision is following a scope that would impact the broader community and not just the schools mentioned we've seen that you know from time to time because we're looking at the entire division boundaries so the scope itself may not impact other than talking to people will illuminate right but here's the other question I have I speak myself as one board member I'm getting a lot of questions from various communities about the overall boundary change what does it mean are we looking at maps what maps are there are there secret maps what changes all these things right how [01:23:11] do you then go to I guess I haven't counted them 15 to 20 schools over the coats and Park Lawn for 31 thank you 31 schools thank you and tell explain to them we're doing this comprehensive boundary oh and also we're gonna look at your schools for this other thing also like we've got communities for lots of things that are happening right now that are in angst and in flux for lots of things that are outside our control that are happening we've already started this boundary and committed to it over a year how do we then go to the communities and say on top of that we might also do this like I'm not necessarily saying we [01:23:48] don't go do the scoping because I also know we're in a tough place these two schools have incredible needs that we need to do this but what's the communication plan for a community that's going to get doubly confused or community 31 communities that may get doubly confused well I think that will depend on the decision the board makes this evening if we're moving forward with scoping that will include these 31 communities will need to develop and implement a communication plan very quickly I think there's been a beginning of that as part of the presentation but clearly if we're going to be in embarking on a scope for 31 [01:24:27] schools we'll need to have a robust communication plan I mean I since I missed the vote for coats I will probably abstain also for Parkland just to be fair to both schools since I had to step away but I would just say that with all due respect this is good information for this scope but it doesn't at all seem to explain this in relation to the full boundary work and so if we're gonna be out there talking to these communities some of which are my community some which I mean many of us touch upon these communities I think we need to be very clear because there is already so much angst and uncertainty and change is hard and proposing two different uncertainties and two [01:25:04] different changes I had a lot of heartburn over this I understand we're not doing any changes right now with the scoping so I understand moving forward to look at that because these schools need but what's the plan for helping our helping our communities understand why we're doing these two different things for 31 different communities. [01:25:27] - We are gonna have to develop that plan as a result of this evening's action by the board. - Thank you. - Thank you, Ms. Seizmerheiser. Mr. Dunn? - I was just wondering if this, you know, given the process and where we are in the process, if you anticipate that the process that was outlined in the slide would be completed before January 2026, when we're currently scheduled to have a vote the package of changes through the comprehensive school boundary review or if you expect the process could be completed sooner than that and when you [01:26:06] refer to process mr. done do you are you referring to the scope the proposed scope for these 31 school communities so on slide 17 that slide could be brought up okay well that slide shows numbers 1 through 6 with a red arrow saying today next to number two which is scope of boundary study presentation then it's followed by community meetings school board meeting new business school board public hearing school board meeting action [01:26:43] so what i'm trying to see is do we get to number six before january 2026 i understand your question miss samansky did your team have a sense of when they think they would be able to get there we we do and again just to clarify the presentation tonight is to vote on the scope that we presented it as a recommendation going from there we'll start to develop in-house scenarios those are scheduled to take place with the community in April and then we would be coming back to this board in May of 2025 so it would take place before that end date for the countywide work [01:27:20] so we'll be at number six by by May by end of May yes and and then the the boundary changes would be in place for fall of this upcoming school year i think that is something that we will need to recommend as part of what the actual scenarios end up looking like how extensive they are and we'll come and work on what the recommended phasing would look like so i do think part of that will depend on what the scenarios look like but the point is that it could potentially start for this next school year by getting all this work done in the spring and how did these two schools if the [01:27:59] data you present both for coats and for parkland indicate they're you know there's under enrollment in the surrounding schools so how did these schools in particular get so overcrowded well i think for coats there's been a lot of new developments of a fairly high density in that area and we're continuing to see that and it's again been true the last handful years and into the future park lawn i believed experienced a higher uptick in enrollment over the last five or six years i think there was unexpected uptick in migration so there's varying reasons [01:28:35] for why we saw the capacity increase at both schools and for these two schools codes and parkland are these the largest number of trailers anywhere in the county i believe so off the top of my head i can't think of schools that have greater trailers yeah when 29 trailers was mentioned by my colleague that sounds astounding like is there anything or do we have other schools are even in that neighborhood of having 29 trailers not to my knowledge okay thank you so mr dunn i think what these two schools illustrate is really why the board reviewed the boundary [01:29:13] policy right because when we go so many years and don't revisit boundaries and enrollment patterns we end up in situations that are really unacceptable so i think that is once we can get a reset and then do you know a routine review we shouldn't be in this situation again so I appreciate you raising the concern. Thank you Mr. Dunn. [01:29:39] Ms. Dixit. Hi so I thank you for the presentation Ms. Siminski and Dr. Reed. I in the beginning right when we were doing the county the division-wide boundary assessment this topic had come before too for courts and park lawn and that time I decided not to be you know, be part of that because I strongly believe in the comprehensive boundary review. [01:30:14] I do not think duplication of effort is the way to go here and is affecting a lot of schools. If there is a way it can be done with less number of schools in the same vicinity without impacting a lot of other schools and the other districts and et cetera, I'm fine with that. [01:30:37] I'm I this is just a very big school for me, including like I said to more than 30 schools. So I'm going to be not able to support this time. Thank you, Miss Dixit. Dr. Anderson for a go back. [01:30:53] Thank you so much. Couple of things that I want to raise. I'm looking at this list for consideration with Park Lawn. There are 14 schools and AP centers. I'm looking at the list for coats. There are 17 schools and AP centers. We've had probably 25 minutes of discussion on this one when the other one went forth really really quickly. [01:31:14] We had 160 participants with the coats community conversation and 140 at the park lawn. And the first one passed literally with two minutes of discussion 10 0 2 that's it. [01:31:32] Thank you Dr. Anderson. Ms. Sizemore Heiser. Thank you and I just wanted to reiterate I was not at the dais for the coats conversation. I would have brought all of the same conversations and questions up then. But I did have a family emergency I was dealing with. [01:31:48] So I guess the question I'd ask Dr. Reid, given or Mr. Mansky, whoever, we'll turn to you and you can ask your staff as you see as you see fit. Given this dilemma that we're in, which we have two schools that have significant overcrowding and trailers and need relief and the potential of this comprehensive boundary and the impact this may have on that or kids being moved twice which is also a negative impact what would you recommend for these two schools i'm putting you in a tough spot but we're kind of in [01:32:26] this no-win situation i certainly don't want to leave these two schools without the relief that they need and i certainly don't want to negatively impact this comprehensive boundary work when we're doing something that is the third rail and we need to do it right and i apologize before you answer I would have asked. I didn't. I don't know if others did. I didn't get any calls about either of these two schools. [01:32:51] And I've had the flu for the week, so my apologies. I didn't really see it before, and I didn't get any calls about these. So I'm asking these questions now. So I think we clearly have discussed the challenge of working on boundaries that affect 31 schools at the same time we're looking at boundaries that affect 200 schools. [01:33:16] And I think you're asking the direct question, and my direct answer would be that I think that these two schools are more, certainly more concerning than many of the 200 schools, no question. [01:33:34] And as Ms. Zemanski said, you know, May would be the soonest we would have a chance probably to bring action back to you as a board. I don't know that a May decision would appropriately give us time to map transportation and all the resultant sort of ancillary decisions that would be necessary to actually make the change in the fall of 25. [01:33:59] I think it would be very difficult. And the communication to a community really over the summer is not optimal. So given that that's, I would not recommend making that shift for the fall of 25, then And if we're going to make it for the fall of 26, I think subsuming this into the overall boundary review is the best use of our time, staff time and resources, with a provision that these two schools must be addressed in the comprehensive review first, right? [01:34:36] I think that provision must be a necessary statement. But I do think if you're asking my recommendation, this work might best sit within the larger work for a fall of 26 move. [01:34:52] I am concerned that if we bring something forth in May and then have a shift of decision in September because we're bringing scenarios back again, we may make other adjustments and then we've got a change and a change within three months and I do worry about that. [01:35:09] And again, that's my opinion at this point. there you go thank you is and I appreciate that it is what you're suggesting possible as an option under what we're voting on today in terms of the scoping is that like is that a possible even if we do the scoping separately is still what you're recommending it's assuming the overall changes as part of the boundary a possibility of something that could be done even with this today so I'm gonna pivot to staff here for a minute miss [01:35:44] Szymanski given what I've outlined if we do the scope now would you I mean And would you reframe the question, Ms. Sizemore-Hyser, just one more time? I guess what I'm trying to get to get at, I mean, it's, and again, I feel bad I'm doing this here because I didn't have a chance to do it with coats, and I would have done it with both. [01:36:02] But is what you're recommending, which is subsuming the actual work of the changes into the comprehensive boundary work, still possible to do even if we do this scoping? Like, is it possible to marry those two with this motion so if this passes, you're still able to do that? [01:36:19] So if this motion passes to begin the scope, could we then subsume that scoping work within the holistic boundary work? Ms. Szymanski, what are your thoughts on that? Again, I just want to clarify, we are now presenting as part of this presentation the recommended scope. [01:36:37] We have gone out and gained community feedback. We reviewed it, and this is the actual scoping process that we've been going through over the last few months. SO NOW IT'S AT THE POINT WHERE THE BOARD NEEDS TO APPROVE THE SCOPE. THE NEXT STEP WOULD BE THEN TO DEVELOP SCENARIOS BASED ON THE SCHOOLS THAT YOU'VE GIVEN US THAT SANDBOX TO LOOK AT POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS. [01:36:59] SO COULD THOSE SCENARIOS BE SUBSUMED? LIKE I'M JUST TRYING TO FIGURE OUT LIKE I THINK THAT'S WHERE IT GETS MORE DIFFICULT BECAUSE I THINK THE SCENARIOS COULD BE BUT THEY'RE NOT GOING TO BE. THEY WON'T HAVE DEFINED EDGES YET BECAUSE THEY'RE GOING TO STILL BE DONE WITHIN A CONTEXT of a full division review and it's unlike i mean we're not able to create sandboxes all across the division right because part of the point of doing a division-wide review is that there's going to be [01:37:30] some fluidity across um the pyramids at this time well i had a very ill-timed call then unfortunately because i would have had the same on coats but i i'm sorry so i think i will do what i did with coats since i wasn't here for the vote i'll abstain on this one it's the same result but i i have a lot of concerns if this board is really going to stick to what it's stuck to. [01:38:06] Thank you Miss Sizemore Heiser I'll remind members to observe proper decorum Miss Marin. Yeah I do feel the same way about this as I do about about coats. I think they're similar actually thought we could have had just one presentation I you know in the past I've been very staunch about not wanting to act outside of the boundary work but things change and where we were the last time we talked about this is different where we are now my understanding and this is all I sought to clarify was this is going to jumpstart the scope work because this is such an egregious overcrowding it's gonna jumpstart it and so that when the superintendent brings [01:38:45] the data from the all of that all that's happening that will be ready however it could have to change with what else is brought so I do think this is exactly like coats and I'm eager to put it through so we could get a jump start on helping these kiddos. Thanks. Thank you Ms. Maren. Mr. Dunn. Thank you. I just wanted to say briefly I agree with Dr. Reed's comments that you know it is it is a failure mode that we have over 900 classrooms in this county and trailers and modulars and modulars while counted differently [01:39:19] in the CIP it's just a trailer with plumbing. We we should endeavor and in this county one of the wealthiest places on the planet to eliminate every trailer everywhere because what I see in this study is there's plenty of room in our schools but historically when there was an overcrowded school we would do an addition rather than actually trying to rebalance our students across our existing building assets. So I strongly support this motion. I strongly support providing [01:39:53] relief for this community that is well in excess well in excess of the not just the program capacity but the design capacity of the school and and I hope that we will be able to achieve this this work this implementation of change before the start of the next school year so that they can you know enjoy the benefits of a balanced school where everyone has equal access and equal opportunity to realize their potential and explore their interests thank you [01:40:25] mr. Dunn we'll move on to a vote we put the motion on the screen please dr. Reid thank you mr. Frisch I wonder as you're moving toward a vote I think one of the things we could think about is you could approve the scope and add a motion to put it into the division review as a priority so we wouldn't have a separate standalone scenario which would prioritize I'm trying to think of [01:40:58] ways to integrate the work while we get it moving so it's just a thought dr. Reed will repeat yourself yes you could another path forward is approving the scope and adding a motion to put it into the division-wide review as a priority in lieu of creating standalone scenarios separate from that division-wide review it's just an idea thank you dr. Reed mr. McElveen thank you dr. Reed I'm [01:41:36] I'm concerned that this is being raised now when we just passed a separate school which would ostensibly require the same review so my question would be would we apply the same criteria to coats I think it would be a good idea if we thought it was a good idea for one it should be for both I would agree okay I just want to make sure that there's equity and how we handle these two schools thank you mr. McElveen all right the motion is on the screen all All those in favor of the motion, Ms. Marin, Mr. McElveen, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, [01:42:13] Ms. Anderson, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunningham, myself, opposed? Abstentions? Ms. Dixit, Ms. Sizemore-Hyser, the motion passes. I call on Ms. Sizemore-Hyser for a motion. [01:42:31] Can we take a 10-minute recess? Actually, a motion is not in order because of our 48-hour rule. So if there's going to be a follow-on motion, you can't do a follow-on motion to an agendized motion without 48 hours notice so if there's going to be a motion it'll have to be worked out in the next two weeks between colleagues and we will go ahead and move on to the final action item for tonight we'll take a break before performance evaluation agenda item 5 the motion passes agenda item 5.05 strategic governance manual edits superintendent's instructional resources review committee I call on miss Anderson for a motion I move that [01:43:11] the school board approve the edits to the community advisory committee operating manual strategic governance manual and policy 1710 as detailed in the agenda item on board docs is there a second I second thank you miss st. John Cunning miss Anderson would you like to speak to your motion I would during my review of the boards committee advisor community advisory committees last year in my role as the chair of the public engagement committee I realized that we had two potential committees that needed to be reviewed I brought a forum topic to the board last spring to request that Peck be able to review the community advisory [01:43:47] committees and consider which are still needed. Peck has engaged in this work in that work this year starting with the human resources advisory committee in light of the work we were doing with with collective bargaining and then family life education community advisory committee in light of the inconsistencies with the community advisory committee structure. There is no doubt that the family life education curriculum is an extremely important area and it requires both extensive feedback from the board staff and community members it's an example of the need for a strong partnership with all stakeholders in our division however it is the only piece of curriculum that [01:44:25] the board reviews this way this year so far the board has appointed members to two other curriculum advisory committees that are run by the superintendent and her staff this motion simply moves family life education to be treated as all curriculum is. However, I want to make clear to all those concerned, the board is still legally required to approve all changes to the FLE curriculum that differs from the state required option. Therefore, no changes will be made without further approval from this board. In addition to the reiteration of the state law, our own policy [01:45:00] 3204 requires that no change in the program or the instruction materials used shall be made without thorough public scrutiny and parental reaction. I would like to thank my colleagues on PEC for the work that we've done to bring this alignment of our practice today for a vote and I'm hoping that the next move that PEC makes is the the final part of our charge which gives the opportunity to look at new curricular new community advisory committees that we might need. Thank you Ms. [01:45:30] Anderson, Miss St. John Cunning would you like to speak to your second? I would briefly. One of this one of the things this board has been attempting to do since I joined is to update and grapple with issues that have not been looked at in the past and to bring things into alignment. Some of these are difficult such as having a comprehensive boundary review when there hasn't been one in at least 40 years if not more. Some although may seem more mundane such as updating policies are just as important. Then others are more logical such as that aligning advisory committees to where they should be. As my colleague just mentioned, this work has been [01:46:05] going on for a year and realigning the family life education curriculum committee to match other curriculum committees just makes sense and is logical. So I would encourage all of my colleagues to support this motion so that we can bring more of the work that we're doing into alignment, put it where it's supposed to be so that we can be effective with the work that we continue to do and I really applaud the work that this board has been doing so far and all of my colleagues for really grappling some issues that not throwing shade on other past boards but it's it's taken a lot of [01:46:41] courage for people to stand up and do this work that we're doing and I'm proud to be part of a board that does this kind of work. Thank you Miss St. John Cunning Dr. Anderson. Thank you just a quick question and then just a couple of quick questions and then a couple of quick comments. One of the things that typically occurs with this committee once recommendations are made is that we typically have that period where there's feedback given will will there be any changes to that part if it's now a superintendent advisory committee Dr. [01:47:16] Reed I will I know Dr. Presidio you've been providing I think this committee works out of ISD do you want to share how that currently is occurring yeah sure thank you for that question dr anderson so um we would not be proposing any changes to the community review period so typically after the committee completes their recommendations those are posted online we have an opportunity for any community members to review the recommendations and provide written input that is a 30-day review period we summarize all of that information and provide [01:47:55] that to the board before the board would be asked to vote on any changes so that part will continue that's correct um mr foster i think um when we were discussing the requirement for this committee or for this work to be reviewed can you share with us what the state requires for us to do in terms of reviewing this curriculum the uh the short answer is that um flea cac is is not required by the virginia code to be a school board committee it may be a superintendent advisory committee thank you and how about the number of the cadence of the review of [01:48:35] the of the curriculum what is it for the other areas the cadence for the statutory requirement is every seven years thank you and do you anticipate we'll get into that same cadence with this area yes ma'am I do okay think and that would start if we vote tonight that will start I guess they'll finish out their work this year at this point I have not made any kind of plans because I'm not sure what direction the board should choose no I definitely understand that thank you for that one of the other things that I want to say is thank you [01:49:11] all for the work that you've put in this as you all know for me the work that we do has to be transparent and clear to our public we have to explain to them why we're doing the things that we're doing and I'm glad we're able to do this with this measure tonight thank you thank you Dr. Anderson the language is on the screen. All those in favor of the motion, Ms. Marin, Ms. Dixit, Mr. McElveen, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Sizemore-Heiser, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning and [01:49:38] myself. Opposed? Mr. Dunn. The motion passes. We will take a five-minute break. Recess. Board [01:54:45] members, please return to your seats. Board members, please return to your seats. Board [02:01:17] members, please return to your seats after this 17-minute, five-minute break. All right, [02:02:35] we are back agenda item 6.01 performance review financial administration el6 monitoring report each year the school board assesses the superintendent in part on the basis of the school division's reasonable progress toward achieving the 2023 to 2030 strategic plans goals and adherence to a set 13 executive limitations found on pages 14 to 31 on the board strategic governance manual the superintendent provides annual monitoring reports to the board for each executive limitation the board then votes on whether the provided report is in compliance [02:03:12] or if corrective action is needed i call on dr reed for a monitor report on executive limitation six financial administration dr reed thank you chairman frisch members of the board and the public that are watching tonight i'll be presenting executive limitation six which discusses financial administration i also want to thank um those uh the directors from our finance office who are here this evening to provide support on this report we have Seema Arawad, our Director Comptroller, Lisa Edmonds, our Director of Benefits, Michelle Pratt, [02:03:47] our Director of Procurement, and Melissa Russell, our Director for Payroll, as well as Alice Widginton, Executive Director for Budget Services. I thought I saw Matthew Norton as well here, another executive director for budget sir no a director for budgets nope all right matthew norton all things budget all right michelle what a budget rock star uh thank you matthew for being here [02:04:18] so um the school board's executive limitation number six is on the screen um please um anyhow at the time of the report i want to remind the board that to the best of my knowledge information and belief that we have gathered information and evidence that I believe supports compliance with the board's executive limitation associated with this topic and I'd like to share some of those highlights this evening. I'm on slide three. Thank you. There are 12 areas of executive [02:04:55] limitation six. Indicators one through seven can be seen on this slide and the remaining items are on slide four, which are, thank you, these are eight through twelve. Before sharing new evidence related to this executive limitation, I'm on slide five now, please. Before sharing new evidence, I'd like to start by noting that within this executive limitation, we actually do not anticipate large updates year over year, because this is really a technical [02:05:34] executive limitation, and we do want to make sure that we have consistent financial processes and procedures in place that really generally don't change year over year. These processes, in fact, shouldn't change frequently because we have really strong internal controls on our business processes. [02:05:57] These are primarily governed by what we call generally accepted accounting procedures, And therefore, most of the evidence in EL6 is continuing evidence. It's important that this work is cyclical and that we have stable business processes. [02:06:14] That is generally a strength of a fiscal management process. We do comply with state and federal regulations to ensure transparency and accountability. We also minimize risk, including fraud and misuse of public funds, and we provide clear audit trails as well as long-term planning and decision-making although i will only this evening be sharing selected indicators the entire monitoring report is publicly posted and available on board docs so i'm going to continue on slide six with indicator two in that we administer all [02:06:53] purchases in accordance with the fairfax county purchasing resolution and the board procurement policies and state and federal law in october of 2024 i want to remind the public that procurement services implemented a standard contract approval and notification template this new template provided consistent details including but not limited to historical current and budgetary information contracts requiring approval during the summer recess when the school board does not meet will be submitted to the school board well in advance of the summer recessed which will include [02:07:30] a summary list of all the contracts as well as information detailing the negative impact should they not be approved during that time and we're making a sincere effort to minimize any contracts that might need approval during that time moving to indicator 4 EL of this EL states that we ensure that payroll and legitimate debts of the division are promptly paid when due in the In the MYPATH HCM replacement project that FCPS is undergoing right now, we know that the pay method will change, and while there will be occurrences of leave without pay, [02:08:06] the employee's hourly rate will now be consistent across all pay periods, and this is huge. This has been something that's just been a real concern of our staff for many, many, many years, so this will ameliorate that issue. [02:08:22] Providing all leave balances up front to employees reduced the instances of leave without pay from FY23 to FY24 by 22%. I'm really proud of our HR and business departments for doing this work. What this means is that when employees are hired, they're provided their leave up front so that they're able to use it in a thoughtful way and not have to take leave without pay when they have actual leave. [02:08:50] Moving to slide number 8 and indicator 6. This is the one that says we will seek all state and federal funds to which the division is or may be entitled. As part of this indicator, I want to remind our public that the Office of Budget Services pursues all applicable grant opportunities. [02:09:09] The Department of Financial Services works with program managers to ensure that reimbursements are up to date for these grants. And we continue to monitor the federal landscape for additional information, and will continue to pursue all federal opportunities that align with our goals and strategic plan. [02:09:27] Also Fairfax County Public Schools reconciles to the state budget at every stage of the budget process. This reconciliation allows FCPS staff to identify a state data error that would have resulted and a $2.6 million reduction in state funding to FCPS had we not made VDOE aware of the error, allowing for correction. [02:09:49] And this is an example of the due diligence and detail-focused work of our finance team. I'm really proud of the work they do in this student-centered, mission-driven work. Looking at Indicator 7 highlights how we keep complete and accurate financial records by fund categories and accounts in accordance with established fiscal accounting procedures as reflected in generally accepted accounting principles. [02:10:16] I'd like to share a few examples of this. We have the Association of School Business Officials and the Governor's Finance Officers Association Awards for Financial Reporting was one of our awards this year. We also received the award for the Educational Employees Supplementary Retirement System Pension Plan for FY 2024 and the Meritorious Budget Award and Distinguished Budget Presentation Award for the FY 2025 approved budget as well as a clean audit opinion for FY 2024 financial statements and while these aren't new awards we've received them before and while we've [02:10:56] had clean audits before I think it's comforting to know that it's predictable that we have clean audits and highly awarded budget documents so looking at indicator 11 this is the indicator that states that we publish a public and transparent annual report that indicates the financial health of the division including revenues expenditures and costs of major programs this transparent we also have a transparency portal that allows the public to search financial data of fairfax county [02:11:32] public schools and allows users to search and view summary information about payments to specific vendors and budget versus actual expenditures finally an audited annual comprehensive financial report for each fiscal year is prepared annually mr chairman that concludes the presentation for executive limitation number six financial administration thank you dr reed i call on miss anderson for a motion i move that the school board finds that the superintendent is in compliance with executive limit is in compliance with executive limitation number six [02:12:11] financial administration I further move that the school board approve the monitoring report based on the superintendent's reasonable interpretation of executive limitation number six financial administration as outlined in the strategic governance manual is there a second dr. Anderson you're the second that good all right miss Anderson would you like to speak to your motion I as as we've been say as you said this is is more functional in terms of just how our systems work. So I know that we have some other things that we need to work on [02:12:48] in terms of updating some policies that related to this but it is really kind of just keeping the keeping everything moving so I'm happy to support this. Dr. Anderson would you like to speak to your second. Yes I'd like to just kind of make my comments and ask my questions here. Thank you. [02:13:03] A couple of things that I really wanted to highlight and I I don't know you must have looked at my paper because I literally wrote huge next to it and you mentioned that in your comments one being the summer recess expenditures having that done early and so that we don't butt up against the issues that we've had um in the past few years and secondarily is the equalization of pay across um the months because that has been i've talked about with with you so many times that has been such a burden on our staff who cannot find a consistent or they can't rely on a consistent [02:13:38] payment plan outside of you know all of the issues that have um existed um one of the inquiries that i had is regarding the transparency piece and very grateful for that showing up because i know that's one of the points that i've been raising quite a bit as well because our community it's a big budget they want to know what's in it but it's hard for them to navigate that big book and i i see the fund there i see the list and i was able to play around on the transparency side a little bit so i think that's a a really useful tool but i'm wondering will there be an expansion of it because there are some questions that i know have been asked regarding how we're spending our funds that [02:14:16] don't seem to live here so um i will i know that we're continuing to work on building out aspects of our website and i think if there's more functionality that we desire from the trans transparency portal, we certainly can look at that. I'll speak with our chief finance officer, Lee Burden, about that. I'll send you a couple of things because there's some things that I know I get a lot of questions about. But overall, I'm very happy to support this. Thank you. [02:14:46] Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Mr. Dunn. Hi. I would like to ask about the summer contracts list because that's mentioned in the presentation. Last year, as you may recall, the summer contracts list added up to five, six, seven billion dollars and then it turned out it wasn't that. So I wanted to ask what improvements have been made so that we can actually have insight into the contracts that will need to be approved in the brief four to six week time period between our July meeting and our first August meeting. Yes sir. [02:15:23] Last year, as you note, as you noted, the full value of multi year contracts was calculated when really what we were looking for in most cases was a simple annual renewal, which is a far smaller figure. So this year, the commitment is we're going to have that information to you much sooner, much clearer with a tight summary for each. [02:15:44] And really, as we plan ahead cycle wise, our hope is to have fewer and fewer of those that are even necessary at that time during the year. So the team is like, they have a pin in that, and we're ready to do that in a much tighter fashion. Great. You mentioned that you're providing leave balances up front. [02:16:04] Can you elaborate on that and how much leave is being provided up front to FCPS employees? Yes, sir. Back in 2022, which seems a long time ago, but I recall when I actually entered the school division, I think it was along about November when I checked kind of a leave balance and realized I would think I was getting a day a month or something like that and I thought well how interesting because we had we were hearing at the same time we were hearing from staff who were new to the school division oftentimes somebody who actually just moved here to the [02:16:40] area could be a military spouse or it could have been somebody transferring for a variety of reasons who may or may not have either small children or elder care responsibilities or just got sick. And we weren't preloading their leave. [02:16:57] So we only allowed certain a little bit of leave each month. So if you got if you had something you had to be away for in October or November, then what would happen is if you only had three days, but you needed to be on five, you'd have to take two days without pay, even if you never took another day the rest of the year. [02:17:16] we have 10 each year but I'm a miss Russell 14 thank you miss Russell 14 days each year so now we changed our practice in the fall of 23 believe it was the fall of 23 and our team was great about this we saw a need we heard about it in employee conversations actually and we're very responsive so now those 14 days are front-loaded so that people who need them earlier in their first year can use them and not have to take leave without pay. [02:17:49] I also want to just ask, I recall that there was Miss Burden last summer and had promised that there would be an announcement or description of the new maternity paternity leave policy, and I believe it was said to be put in place this past July, but I don't know if I ever saw anything in a Friday letter, so if you might in the next Friday letter just explain what our policy is, how it changed, and I'm hoping that we have generous paternity maternity leave benefits because we have a younger workforce and that can be a differentiator when we're competing not just based on salary but based on benefits and I know that might be negotiated but [02:18:25] just trying to understand where we are compared to where we were. Yes sir, we did up the benefits and I'll make sure we have an update for you. Thank you. I'm also wondering the clean audit, is that an audit by OAG or is that by an accounting firm? Yes sir, I'm going to defer to our comptroller um seema would you like to come on up here real quickly and uh share actually the firm because i know there's a specific firm name so we get an annual audit by a third party [02:19:01] firm cherry beckhart is our auditor we partner with prefects county government so every year we have an audit and the auditors come and give us an audit so this is separate from oag who does internal audits on us throughout the year different departments we also have federal audits state audits but we keep getting audited we are a very audit rich environment and and I I think for the public it is important to understand that is a success metric because there are federal agencies like the Department of [02:19:39] Defense that have been required by law to be audited for many years but have never been able to successfully pass an audit, so the fact that FCPS obtains a clean audit is a sign of prudent fiscal measures that have been enacted. [02:19:54] I wanted to ask, most summers we have a carryover of around $100 million per year. Is that reflective of reserves that have been enacted based on this presentation to talk about maintain a certain reserve or is that a reflection that we are just not very good at estimating our potential costs it's actually a reflection in recent years we've had a slightly larger year-end balance because we've had more grant dollars with the ESSER dollars the post-COVID relief you're gonna see fewer and fewer dollars at year-end as we move forward and this will be the [02:20:31] first year we've had no ESSER dollars because it all had to be encumbered or expended by the end of September of this year. So we're going to get back to a sort of a more normalized, if you will, year end. And in the context of financial administration, we have, we're living in the context of, you know, the U.S. Department of Education possibly going away or being substantially modified in terms of both grants and funding, including for school meals. [02:21:02] I read about the USDA program to allow schools to buy food from local farmers and such is being cut back or eliminated. So can you just advise, you know, for the public, what measures we're putting in place to ensure that, you know, in the worst case scenario, that we can still be able to deliver a world-class education for all children? [02:21:25] Well, thank you, Mr. Dunn. We are watching very closely what's happening at the federal level. It's very disturbing, I think, and alarming for many staff as we see key offices that we interact with no longer open or no longer accessible. [02:21:44] So I think that, as you know, we receive roughly $168 million in federal funding, 68 million of which is generally our food, right, and our food services, which as we have 68,000 children on pre and reduced lunch, and not to mention all of our young people who benefit from the fresh fruit and vegetable grants, that's a significant part of our operation. [02:22:15] And we're very concerned about that and have to believe that our federal partners care as deeply as we do about making sure our children have nutritious food the remainder of our federal funding is primarily around idea and funding for special programs as well as title one and those are also concerning and so we're monitoring staffing positions and any type of purchases within those grants as we watch the federal action very closely and and 168 million dollars just for the public uh is what percentage roughly of our total budget per year i don't know if we've [02:22:52] done the matthew it's in the five percent of our budget range ish so our residents should feel assured that yeah less than five percent so so our residents should feel assured that uh schools uh will be impacted to some degree and particularly in the areas you mentioned but they'll still be able to be uh confident that the schools will be open teachers will still be there and students will still be learning. Our schools will remain open because that's a mission driven value here [02:23:30] in Fairfax County Public Schools. I will say that if funding for IDEA or Title I were to be compromised the school experience would look very different but schools would be open. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Dunn. Ms. Dixon. Thank you for the presentation Dr. Reed. My question was about the The grants program is on the page 8, I believe. [02:24:03] So the Office of Budget Services pursues all applicable grant opportunities. I just wanted to get a little bit of a higher level understanding of how the grant program works and how much of the time and resources we are allocating in that and with the changing landscape in the federal grants program, what are the other ideas to get some other grants? [02:24:28] You know the types of grants like the and again ballpark 50 million ish for title one which funds extra supports for 51 of our schools and the idea monies which supports special supports for students who have an IEP I think that there aren't a lot of other grants out there we currently pursue every state grant available to us and monitor those we pursue every federal grant available to us and we pursue private grants to the degree they are available and those [02:25:05] are often partnership grants but they don't come anywhere close to the scope and magnitude of the federal grants for the specific purposes we're talking about so we are not applying for a mini grants for so to speak well mini grants for example our educate Fairfax our foundation staff apply to many grants for school based or classroom based grants we're always applying you know for grants whether it's for electric buses we've applied for grants fresh food and vegetable is a separate grant separate from the federal school lunch program [02:25:44] I could provide in our upcoming Friday letter a list of really all of the types of grants that we're applying for there's just I don't know that there are grants with that same scope and focus Currently that the major federal grants provide. Yeah, I would be curious to know if there are any grants for STEM related activities, especially when we are trying to do that in every elementary school, after school activity, you know, STEM special. I would like to see if there are any grant options, opportunities out there we can apply for. [02:26:17] The other thing you had mentioned about the new -- there's a -- for contracting, right, procurement, there's a new system. Could you please elaborate on that? I'm just checking the page. It's a standard contract approval and notification template. [02:26:36] What is the -- it's -- because it's new, I would like to learn a little bit about it. No, I agree, and we've -- we find that this is really helping us streamline and be more efficient in our grants, or our procurement. [02:26:52] So we have Michelle Pratt here that can answer that question. - Sure. Back in October, we started using a new template. The template is what is attached to each agenda item for contracts that are going to be approved. So Consent Agenda Tonight has five contracts attached to each agenda item is the new template. [02:27:11] It's a two-page document. Again, provides some historical, current spend information, notable terms and conditions that we think the board or the public might need to be aware of, renewal information, strategic plan, goal alignment, all of those things are provided for every single contract approval as well as every single contract notification that comes in the Friday letter. This this was an adjustment we made after last year's summer contract list discussion right because there was a lot of question about well why this contract why now so [02:27:45] So it's really excited that our contract department put together this two page document for each of you for every single contract. And as Ms. Pratt shared, you have that even this evening, right, for contracts. [02:28:00] And it comes in the Friday letter ahead so you have time to read it. So we're really trying to be very transparent about all the conditions of each contract that you're approving. So just out of curiosity, how much of contracts we do in a year? [02:28:17] many are task actions do how many contracts do we award in a year it's in the neighborhood of 120 to 140 annually and they're most of them are multi-year contracts so they would be in place for you know three to five years okay all right I think you know things have definitely like you said have improved a lot in that information about the contract before when we come in and this This presentation shows that we are doing really good with the accounting process, and you have a great team, and my namesake, Sima, thank you. [02:28:56] So I appreciate this presentation, Dr. Reed. Thank you. Thank you. And I will say Ms. Burden has assembled a finance dream team. It's a real pleasure having them support our budget. Yes, I agree with that, too. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Dixit. [02:29:12] Ms. Marin? Yeah, I appreciate all this, and I'm particularly happy to see about the contracts in the summer, and we're going to get ahead of that this year so this is not going to be a new topic but I do want to discuss that there are a number of policies that I know are owned by the board but that drive your work that are not in compliance and so when you're when the report references these policies and they're out of date you know and this has happened with other situations like our facilities it's hard to evaluate what's you know really up to up to par [02:29:47] So I am going to work on in the weeks and months ahead and I'm welcome working with my colleagues having the reports include a status of where our policies are and I know that you're working with governance and we're figuring it out and that's great but I think it's important that we have the policies listed that drive this work because if it's referencing policies that are defunct and out of date then it's hard for me to evaluate you know the quality of the work at this time. [02:30:12] So so I did want to clarify, I believe it's just the 5000 series policies. I don't know if it's any additional ones, but, you know, like I said, in the future, I think the report should have a space where we're tracking that for us. So that's what I wanted to relay. [02:30:32] And because this is like my thing, I'm not going to vote in compliance today. Thank you, Mr. Dr. Anderson. Yes. Just one question. And I know we talked about this in another forum where I understand Ms. Dixon had asked for a list of grants that we may be engaging in. [02:30:51] But I also had asked previously for a list of other federal funding that we receive outside of the big ones. Some of the smaller ones, I believe one that came up during that conversation was the EV grant for electric buses. [02:31:09] But I know that there's some others that we may not be aware of. Outside of the titles and of course IDA impact aid could that list be called together and be provided in a Friday letter We could definitely provide that list again Absolutely, because I will also be helpful in terms of responding to the community and I'm glad that mr Dunn raised some of those questions because we are receiving them quite a bit like what does it mean and the events of this week have been also pretty significantly worrisome to so many in our community because they want to have confidence that our school experience is [02:31:45] going to continue as it is but it will be helpful to have that information thank you thank you dr anderson all right we will go to a vote for the motion that is on the screen all those in favor miss dixit mr mckelveen dr anderson mr mcdaniel miss anderson miss sizemar heiser mr dunn mr moon miss lady miss st john cunning and myself opposed miss marron uh the motion passes all right agenda item 7.01 policy review financial administration eel six the next order of [02:32:23] business is the policy review for el6 financial administration annually the board will review each executive limitation at the time the monitoring report is provided to determine if revisions are needed board members may offer amendments to executive limitations at any regular meeting provided they send a final amendment language to the board and clerk at least 48 hours in advance of the meeting which is is to be considered at this time no amendments have been submitted in advance of this meeting but board members may provide comments on el6 financial administration before uh the vote um i call on miss anderson for a motion i move that the school [02:33:01] board maintains executive limitation six financial administration as it's currently detailed in the strategic governance menu is there a second dr anderson the motion is on the screen all those in favor miss marron miss dixit mr mckelveen dr anderson mr mcdaniel miss anderson miss mr moon miss lady miss Sizemore hyzer and myself absent or opposed abstentions how do you vote sorry [02:33:37] it's one of those days all right will the clerk read the vote i'm sorry we were trying to get the accurate motion on the screen because it's not the correct one can we please redo that vote [02:33:53] should be 7.01 there we go we'll try this one more time for the emotion that is on the screen all those in favor miss marron miss dixit mr mckelveen dr anderson mr mcdaniel miss anderson [02:34:29] Ms. Sizemore-Hyser, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. Jean Cunningham and myself that's unanimous for board members present. All right thank you Dr. Reed. Agenda item 8.01 academic matters. I call on Dr. Reed for academic matters. Thank you Chairman Frisch and this evening I am thrilled to present academic matters around career and transition services. The FCPS career and transition services program provides services and supports that prepare students who've had an IEP to transition to a variety of post-secondary options and we're going to explore that [02:35:07] this evening in terms of the services and opportunities for both classroom and work-based learning options so as we look at this program it's important to note that every high school in Fairfax County Public Schools has at least one employment and transition representative who is responsible for working directly with families and students, and provides input to the transition plan in the IEP, and provides support and training relevant to students transitioning. There are 47 employment and transition representatives who serve our students across Fairfax County Public Schools. Additionally, [02:35:47] Fairfax County Public Schools has two career centers that serve students across the county. These centers are open to students between ages 18 and 22, and they offer students a supported employment setting and students spend time both at the workplace and in the classroom developing workplace skills and independent living skills. [02:36:08] Work-based learning is a key component of the Career Transition Program, the Career and Transition Services Program and the Business and Community Partners make it possible for FCPS students to explore career pathways and increase student access to real-world work-based learning experiences. [02:36:32] This program partners with more than 350 local businesses annually to provide community work experiences and highlights of this work-based learning where students this year are engaged in workplace learning development. [02:36:50] We have a partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey to provide work experience for STEPS students that include cataloging data, digitizing records, and identifying and tagging features in geographic information systems with precision and reliability. [02:37:06] As a result, our students have been listed as co-authors on publications and data releases, and some of the USGS student interns have found employment post-program either with USGS or other organizations. A partnership between the CTS and CVS is hosting 36 student internships this year through WAT and EFEO. The CVS has committed to providing work experience to students with IEPs with a focus on retail, health and wellness. We also have Frying Pan Farm Park annually hosts CTS student [02:37:45] interns through the STEP program which allows students to explore agriculture and animal sciences by learning and working on the working farm properly alongside trained professionals a partnership with weird brothers coffee a small business partnership hosts student interns through the watt and step programs to foster workplace readiness skills by engaging students in all aspects of running a business student interns at the pulley career center learned to use a t-shirt press to make apparel for the school store this is an example of a school-based enterprise where students build and develop commute customer service skills practice [02:38:23] financial literacy and learn about supply chain management the work awareness and transition or what class are fulfilling produce orders at a local community food bank practicing sorting stocking and inventory control skills we really appreciate our business and community partners in this work as we look at slide four please we have post-secondary planning is another key component of our cts program beginning at age 14 or grade 8 students with ieps work on formal [02:39:01] transition and post-secondary planning by working with their iep team to write a transition plan this serves as the foundation for instruction and coursework during their secondary school years our students families and school teams work with agency and community partners to provide students with the resources they require to successfully transition to life after high school some key highlights include cts moving on to life in the community resource fair also students at davis and pulley career centers learn important life and workplace readiness [02:39:35] skills through the career pathways i discussed on the last slide we also have fcps job coaches and students in the work awareness and transition classes receive support from their employment and transition representatives through opportunities like school stores as well as where they learn customer service money handling stocking inventory and much more also they can access courses such as JROTC and criminal justice through the academy programs and may receive additional support from [02:40:08] Academy resource teachers as part of their IEP on the next slide our CTS program work hard or our staff work hard to provide access for FCPS students to explore college and trade and technical school opportunities the career and transition staff work closely with all staff in their building including the career and college specialists school counseling teams and other staff to provide multiple opportunities and access to exploring and applying directly to two- and four-year colleges as desired. [02:40:43] Students with disabilities enrolled in academy courses have access to attend job shadowing, field trips with support from academy resource teachers again. FCPS in Northern Virginia Community College partnered to host an annual event called Nova Vision, which is an orientation to the college experience for students with disabilities as well as other opportunities throughout the year. [02:41:06] This orientation to the college experience is provided by NOVA and includes presentations from the Office of Accommodations and Accessibility Services, Counseling Services, a mock NOVA classroom experience for students, and a NOVA student panel with Q&A sessions. [02:41:23] Additionally, FCPS and Northern Virginia Community College offer multiple opportunities through the community per school year for students interested in attending NOVA and to learn more about available options. Flash forward is an event designed to provide students seeking a standard or advanced diploma in their families, an introduction to options available after high school. [02:41:46] So that is academic matters this evening, Chairman Frisch. Thank you, Dr. Reed. Mr. McDaniel, just real quick, there's another program that I wanted to call out that's relatively new to the system. I think about a year and a half maybe, but that's our partnership with the Economic Development Authority to think big for kids program. [02:42:07] Yes, so I just wanted to make sure that they got a shout out and say thank you for their partnership where they identify businesses to help go into schools and kind of provide that bridge and that real hands-on perspective to our students. So shout out to the EDA. [02:42:25] Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McDaniel. Mr. Dunn. Thank you. I wanted to ask, these are wonderful programs, and to what extent are they potentially impacted by the current potential reductions in federal funding? [02:42:43] Well, the transition services are certainly a category of services that the Department of Education does fund. So it is, again, a body of money or a funding source that we're watching very closely because it certainly has been one of those funding sources that has been named as possibly at risk. [02:43:03] Is it the principal funding source for these programs? It would not be the full source, but it's certainly a significant source. - Do you know roughly the ballpark percentage that comes from the federal government? - I can get that for you and have it for the Friday letter. [02:43:19] - That would be great. Those are all the questions I have. - Thank you, Mr. Dunn, Ms. Seismarheiser. - Thank you, and I appreciate the presentation. I appreciate my colleague asking those questions. That was one of my questions. I also wanted to mention what would be the impact or maybe additions we may need to do if what's in the county's budget continues, which is the removal of the three filled positions that of the three staff members who specifically work to help FCPS students transition, as well as the loss of the self-directed funds. [02:43:53] And you may not have that answer now, that's okay, but I think it's something that we need to think about as we're looking at our transition programming is what the impact of that, what that may be. - Yes, ma'am, and I, with the loss of those positions, it certainly would impact the programming. - Yeah, I think that's important. The other thing I wanted to ask, and again, you don't have the answers today that's okay I appreciate including sort of all the various options we have I'd love to know how many students are in all of these programs because we mentioned you know the step programs the Davis and Pulley of course which we've talked about a lot we mentioned what EFE EFEO I [02:44:30] wonder how many students they actually serve vice how many students have IEPs so I think that yes ma'am we will get that data Dr. Presidio do you have a sense of that I'm sensing not so I we will get the numbers to you by tomorrow probably about 500 I believe Davis and Pulley last I checked the numbers have about 300 and there's some few more in the step programs and Watney a fee and EFEO but it versus 27,000 IEPs in that 18 to 22 year old range well some of these are why EFE and EFE or not for 18 22 year old they're in high school but [02:45:09] 27 total IEPs I think graduating seniors is it I want to say 1800 ish but I'm not positive so just when you have a chance to it'd be good to do that comparison right of how many students are we serving in each year 18 to 22 but I'd be good to do the comparison in high school right like how many do we have in high school that are accessing transition programs and how many are we identifying that could benefit from transition programming because it's not just who are those who are here 18 to 22 you are only the ones that have already been identified for these programs. The identification takes place in high school. So that would be in to some extent should take [02:45:45] place in middle school as possible pathways. So it'd be good to kind of get that sense of at least how many IEPs we have in high school versus how many end up in any of these programs. Yes ma'am. I'll have that in the Friday letter tomorrow evening and we have our family summit formally our special education summit or special education conference on Saturday. So I'll make sure I have those numbers for you. [02:46:06] you the other question I have too is around what the curriculum is for what EFE and EFEO because I don't know when the last time that curriculum was updated as well as the implementation the fidelity of implementation oversight and as well as the requirements as to whether all high schools must offer at least one of those or within a region how are those decided to be offered at any particular high school because I don't believe they're required to be offered so i think those are great questions because we've just been reviewing if you will our [02:46:41] division-wide course catalog and what is the backbone versus what's optional so i will make sure we add that information i ask that because i wonder instead of offering three different ones why efe and efeo whether there's a way to sort of have a more robust curriculum because otherwise you're siloing an already siloed group right like efeo was originally designed for office that's That's what the O is for, right? [02:47:07] And my understanding is WAP versus EFE was aiming at different workplaces or work skills, but I'm not sure the clarity of how well that's understood. So I think getting some background information might be helpful and what the curriculum is for each of those programs and how much support is given to the teachers in finding work sites and all of those pieces of it would be really helpful to know as we're looking at our transition programming. [02:47:33] And also, I find it interesting where the step programs are located because there's two davis is at marshall right but there's south lakes and chantilly account on that the other side and mountain verins on the south side there's really not much in the center of the county that's correct i wonder if it comes back to facilities but again that's something we'll be taking a look at in our boundary work so i appreciate i appreciate the questions just as we're looking at equitable access to programming i think that's an important piece as well the schools don't kids students don't have very long commutes to be able to access those programs I think I heard my time but I wasn't sure okay I apologize it's a new sound [02:48:11] thank you Ms. Sizemore-Haisner. Ms. Dixit. Thank you Dr. Dixit for this exciting presentation again this academic matters always excite us I wanted to ask about what is our relationship with the industry in terms of curriculum design I was in a seminar at a conference and Intel Corporation was one of the speakers and they were working with the school this division and basically saying that we will come and co-design a program which actually leads to the job in the industry. So [02:48:48] basically that's basically industry driven you know curriculum design which especially in semiconducting industry I think there's a need there and a real shortage or something I don't know, we have looked into. It's a great idea. And when you think about design thinking and program delivery models, I think that we certainly have work to do in partnering with that. But I would love to see if I can get contact information from you on who provided that session. Yes, [02:49:23] because I think that's the answer, right? We want to be have a match for our young people as they work to develop skills to match employability skills particularly in high need and high yield fields yes correct and my second question is actually for our DIT department that we have so many students and technology interest in technology and then getting certifications and but and we have a really advanced I should say FCPS are really highly like a head of curve IT [02:49:57] department so we should use this again as a collaboration between our students getting more in on the hands like on the job training I know there is internship but there is only few students who can get to the internship but if we could you know do more on that front as well yes ma'am mr. Sethi you want to comment on that yeah as those mentioned we certainly do summer internships because students currently don't get credit for the internships it's more of hands-on experiences we also as you may remember offer um the coursera program which allows you to get [02:50:35] industry certifications as micro credentials we can certainly dig in deeper and partner up with instruction to see if we can bring in newer programs which can help from a credit perspective yeah so more like some of the you know we call talk about how are some of our older system legacy systems are getting uh you know we need to modernize some of our systems like Facilities Management has one and we can use our in-home programmers working with DIT and working with the facilities and and just come up with their own unique system like you know maybe [02:51:14] homegrown system of our we don't have to pay millions of dollars to an external company for that then so and it will be just be a great experience for students I believe so maybe a pilot to do that so I'm trying to see where actually there's a need and we are actually training the students and they're getting into the job market they're they're future ready basically so these are just my ideas and would love to talk more about that later yes ma'am I look forward to that and the companies and local business I listed tonight were more in the work based learning model [02:51:52] AND I THINK EXPANDING THAT CERTAINLY MAKES A LOT OF SENSE. SO I LOOK FORWARD TO THAT. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. MS. I KNOW. YOU'RE SHOCKED. ONE LAST POINT I WANTED TO MENTION IS I'M WONDERING IF WE HAVE DONE ANY AUDITS OF THE TRANSITION IEPS STARTING ESPECIALLY THE EARLIER ONES WHEN STUDENTS ARE 14 AND I SAY THAT BECAUSE THAT THEN DIRECTLY THE TRANSITION IEPS WAS SUPPOSED TO TIE TO THE GOALS WHICH are supposed to then tie to helping um understand if students should access any of these transition [02:52:28] programs or workplace learning programs in high school so it would be good to see that through line or at least in order of that through line of how those goals are developed because i i have lots of thoughts um and then how those are tied to iep goals which is what is supposed to happen and then how that is then translated to the etrs helping students to know what the options are and also helping us tailor the options with the variety of job sites as mystics it was mentioning right whether it's internal or external that might then help tie the actual transition goals that were set so there's that through [02:53:06] line right between the goal to the IEP goals to work on the skills and knowledge needed for that goal to the workplace learning opportunities that may match those goals because right now I don't know if those are working together I think they're a little bit siloed right and I especially I think when we look at workplace opportunities how well are we looking at a variety that could then tie to those goals that's a question that you don't need to answer tonight but something to think about as we're working on our transition programming yes ma'am I made a note and we'll take a look at doing that audit so we have something to talk about as a baseline yeah and I think that might [02:53:45] even help understand maybe the breadth of skills we should be teaching in these programs right it's beyond laundry coffee carts and stores what are the skills we can teach so we can help the students as best as possible how those experiences they get to those goals yes ma'am thank you thank you miss Sizemore heiser and thank you dr. Reed agenda item 8.02 strategic plan update dr. Reed thank you chairman Frisch and members of the board as a reminder to our public each month we share an update on our work around the street strategic plan to highlight the efforts of our staff and students in this [02:54:20] important work so this evening we are going to take a look at goal 4 which is what we're going to be addressing at our next meeting this month and one of the measures within this goal includes a focus on accessibility to extracurricular activities and this this school year I want to remind the board that we've expanded our offerings by boys volleyball and girls wrestling and these have been added to the list of high school sports after we approved support for that last year and this follows the addition of winter cheer which returned a year ago and i want to say too even though i'm not [02:55:00] profiling winter cheer this evening i was recently at a justice high school basketball game and our I was with our principal, Mr. Rollon, and his team, and they had 82 winter cheer members. I've never seen a squad quite that large, but they were a hype squad, and they traded off sitting in the bleachers cheering and cheering on the floor, and it was exciting to see 82 young people feeling such a part of the energy in that gym that night. [02:55:30] So whether you were playing or cheering in the crowd or as a fan, it just, it was a great community building evening. So I want to highlight the quote on slide three that's on the screen and I just think this is so important as we think about the mental health situation we have in our country today for our young people and the absolute positive impact of these out-of-class activities on the development of our young people. It's critical and when you think about this this is [02:56:04] such a proactive preventive measure for mental health and achievement and just truly a well-lived and loved life. Participation in extracurriculars can be linked to consistent attendance, academic achievement, post-secondary success, increased well-being, and a decreased likelihood of risky behavior. So let me highlight our fall volleyball sport and as you know last year about this time we still had people coming and requesting us to make sure we manage this we had 440 student athletes [02:56:41] participating and both mclean high school and oakton high school advanced to the vhsl class 6 tournament i want to say with great pride that boys volleyball began with all quiet all 25 high schools participating with a varsity team and I think this board has made such a point of saying it's excellence equity and opportunity we were not going to start this program with some schools and not all schools so I think props to this board for insisting on that and it's made a difference for our athletes across the entire county there have been schools [02:57:21] that did not traditionally have full gyms or championship programs that for first time had undefeated teams for a large part of the season there's just a lot of excitement so want to think about also girls wrestling that has been really thrilling to see get going this year i've attended a lot of those matches as well we had 239 girls participating and again it was offered at all 25 high schools we had 151 girls compete in the regional zone qualifier while 29 advanced to the VHSL Open Championship and we're thrilled [02:58:01] with the success in a first-year program. At this time let's take a closer look at these sports in action so madam clerk please play the video. New this school year Fairfax County Public Schools began offering varsity boys [02:58:38] volleyball and varsity girls wrestling as VHSL sponsored activities. Anytime the Virginia High School League offers activities as a school district we want to be able to offer those opportunities to our students. Varsity boys volleyball teams hit the court in the fall season, and players from McLean, Oakton and West Springfield went on to be chosen to Virginia High School League Class 6 All-State teams. [02:59:02] All 25 high schools were able to field a varsity team this year. The numbers of students coming out were very good, and they were able to have a great competitive season. All my friends were telling me, "Oh, you've got to play volleyball, you've got to play volleyball." I was really excited about it because I was really happy to play. [02:59:20] Representing the school, it brings me like a lot of pride and joy. Yeah, same for me. I was really excited because we have a lot of great guys out here. The team's really great. To me, it was just very exciting having like people around me who want to play the same sport or want to get that win, everyone having so much fun, everyone watching, but it feels even better that we could have the future generations have fun and represent the school. [02:59:42] A winter sport, varsity girls wrestling was initially offered by the Virginia High School League as an emerging sport in 2022. Rising participation by girls in co-ed wrestling programs led to the VHSL's introduction of a state tournament for girls wrestling. [03:00:01] Right now we're in the middle of the girls wrestling season and we have seen an explosive growth in that sport with the amount of girls that have come out for that. I would say definitely for me it's really great because I started and everything was co-ed so there was never really like a place for girls in our own so now that it's our like our own sport we're more respected and we get more opportunities wrestling like any team sport it brings that camaraderie together and the girls are really buying into it and that's that's a great thing I think it's definitely nice to have a girls team because it's just a different dynamic like it's to have other girls on the team oh it's amazing I wasn't the best at sports but when I joined wrestling like I really flourish and I feel more [03:00:39] confident well i think wrestling is a really special sport because it teaches so much mentally because it's just you and one other person out there and you have to have confidence within yourself and i think having confidence to go and wrestle somebody else has helped me have more confidence in like the classroom and in other events being able to control your emotions and your stress has been really helpful to learn especially as a young person the push to bring Bringing varsity boys volleyball and varsity girls wrestling to FCPS was a grassroots effort in which student advocacy played a large part. [03:01:13] As a kid, it's very, very monumental that I can get adults and all these big people that has a lot of power to listen to us. And for them to actually listen and accept it, I was just truly grateful for it. [03:01:31] I couldn't be more prouder to compete for my school. I love the school, love my team, and I'm really, just really dedicated to this team. Hey! Excellence. Equity. And opportunity. [03:01:48] Yeah, I've gotten to know some of the volleyball players and some of the young women competing and the coaches, and it's, as a board, you've got to feel good about the experience of a large number of young people that looked pretty darn excited and engaged. [03:02:08] So that would be our strategic plan update this evening. Thank you. Mr. Moon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a great, great report about volleyball and wrestling. I just love it. You know, when we do a great job, somehow both members still ask you to do an even better job by asking you whether we have a desire and capacity to accommodate freshman team, JV teams. [03:02:37] If you're referring to JV teams for boys volleyball, we've already okayed that. I met with high school principals and said we're going to do that next year. We have more than enough boys in most schools and enough in all schools. [03:02:56] And the gym time is being used, so yes, we've made that commitment. And the girls wrestling doesn't have a JV, but we're, you know, keeping the girls that turn out. So, yes, sir, we've made that step. All right, excited. Thank you so much. [03:03:11] Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Moon. Dr. Anderson. Thank you. I remember when boys volleyball was here many, many moons ago, and it was only in a handful of schools and that was not equitable. So this has been fantastic. The games have just been bar none awesome. [03:03:28] But I would be remiss if I didn't leave this conversation with some advocacy for girls flag football, because that's a thing that I would love to see us be able to offer for our girls and it's women's month and it's all of those things so this is a good time for you to tell us that this is going to be on the radar very soon i can say that i have had a recent meeting uh tom horn and i had a recent meeting where that topic is being discussed and the commanders and divas the washington divas and washington [03:04:03] commanders um are looking uh for some partnership opportunities and so are we uh we've been talking about it with our dsa's um for girls flag football for a fall sport it will be it's currently a scholarship sport for women and there are a number of women that are uh accessing those scholarships and when we talk about equity um i think it's important flag football is also planned as an Olympic sport in 28 as women's wrestling is currently. So I think you can, I don't want to [03:04:40] have a spoiler alert tonight, but I think it's very likely that we're moving in that direction for this fall. I'm super excited. I also played fact football, so this is a little bit near and dear to my heart. Oh shoot, there was another point that I wanted to make, but I can't remember, but this is very exciting and I just love to see that our kids are connecting more and more. [03:05:00] I'm hoping that we're keeping good records in terms of how many of our kids are participating and being connected and having something for our kids who are not accessing the sports or the theater or the debates or all of those other things, because we still need to capture that group. [03:05:18] Yes, ma'am. And this year also, a current initiative is making sure we have speech and debate accessible at all high schools. So it's not just athletics we're adding, but I think what this board has said to me that I am very clearly cognizant of is we're not starting things in some places. [03:05:36] When we start them, it's as a school system, not a system of school. So I think that's the drive right now. That works out. And the last thing that I wanted to say, I just remembered, it really was impactful to hear what that student shared regarding coming up here and talking to what he said, big people or important people. [03:05:58] I think he meant that you're important, I think. Just to actually advocate for something and seeing it happen. I was very glad to see them make that connection, that their voice really matters and can definitely move the needle on things. So thank you for including that in the video. [03:06:14] Yes, ma'am, and I think one of the things that the young men who advocated learned a year ago is we said we're not starting it until everyone has a program. So network, connect, you know, work to do that, and they did, and they came back within the timeline that was set for them, and then we kept our commitments. [03:06:36] So I just think it's a good civics lesson as well in keeping commitments. Thank you. Ms. Anderson. So I am lucky enough to know many of the students that were here advocating for volleyball, so I took great joy in visiting as many of the games as I could this fall at South County specifically. [03:06:59] But I just wanted to say one of the coolest things that I see on the volleyball court that's different than other sports is when kids make a mistake, they take the immediate ownership of the mistake, and then all their teammates come around them to kind of lift them up. And that is something that you don't see in other sports, and so I think that it's such a positive thing that we've done. [03:07:21] I mean, you see, like, team camaraderie, but it's a little different on the volleyball court for some reason. And so it was just really awesome to watch. So I also think that it's an amazing opportunity for kids to see their advocacy go turn into something, and I look forward to seeing the possibility for girls' flag football. [03:07:41] Thank you, Ms. Anderson. Ms. Dixit. Dr. Reed, I'm just going to take a little joy out of this. I would like to challenge my fellow school board members to play a friendly game of volleyball on one of those new courts. [03:08:00] And the opposing team would be Fairfax County's staff. Everybody, you're out of order. This is Ms. Dixit's time, what's left of it. Okay, this is no serious. [03:08:18] Let's do one game. are always doing serious work but this is exciting we should play at least a game of volleyball and the other thing i wanted to say is uh about the wrestling um it is such a such a great sport for women i cannot even say these girls who are playing rest doing wrestling there's become going to become such great road models because it's a mental game and it's also it's a mental game but it's also with strength. So I just want to see more and more girls participating in wrestling and [03:08:56] FCPS is like one of the best school district in the whole country to have the biggest wrestling team hopefully. Thank you so that's all I said. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Dixit. Thank you Ms. Dixit. Make sure that's wiped from the minutes. Mr. Dunn. I don't know if I can agree with my colleague's suggestion there but I wanted to ask I believe if I'm not mis-recollecting that Dr. Reid you've said that CRU is the primary source or [03:09:36] the most popular source or the biggest source of scholarship money is that right? CRU is the number one scholarship sport for women in the country. Okay so I guess I guess given that, is there any consideration to having FCPS sponsor women's crew teams? [03:09:57] Because right now, where it exists, it exists only in a private capacity. And I know I've had constituents express interest in participating in crew. And I think you might remember one student from one high school who wasn't able to participate in the crew team at the other high school, and that's, you know, problematic, right? [03:10:17] that student might have been able to win scholarships if enabled to participate. So just wanted to see if that's something that's under discussion at all. Yes, sir, it is. Mr. Horan's working with BASRA, which is the governing body for CRU in Virginia. [03:10:34] And it's really our intent to have CRU available at every school in the county very shortly. And would that be, I mean, CRU as a private sport can be very expensive and thus exclusive to all students. And so is there an approach that's under discussion to allow all students of all income levels to participate? [03:10:57] Yes, sir. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dunmas, Sizemore-Hyser. Very quickly, I will take that challenge because that sounds like a lot of fun. But very quickly, I wanted to say one thing. I really appreciate you saying that we're not going to have things at certain schools and not at other schools. [03:11:16] Two things. One, let's hopefully make sure that includes the secondary school. So I know some of those are challenges with middle school sports. But I also wanted to mention that you may want to look at winter guard because my understanding is that winter guard is at some school and not other schools. And so something to think of. [03:11:32] And if you winter guard, if you use color guard with the flags during the marching band season, there are some schools that then have that color guard do competitions and routines during the winter time, winter guard. And if you don't think that's a sport, try tossing those things around. Yeah I'm teasing you but yeah you know and some schools have that Wintergard experience that then gets the students to really want to come back and that connection other schools don't. [03:11:57] So just something to put on your radar to look at if we're going to have Wintergard perhaps at all the schools we should look at Wintergard. Yes ma'am I'll do a check-in on Wintergard. Thank you. Miss Lady under the buzzer. Thank you. speaking of winter guard um i just want to uplift um it is amazing but i will tell you um i am incredibly proud of the work that you are doing to ensure that our directors of student activities are directors of student activities and not directors of athletics and i bring this up [03:12:31] because when i was a supervisor performing arts at chantilly um i got no help finding gym space for my winter guard for my color guard i didn't appreciate that i mean it was just dismissed there's fees caught there's fees charged to use elementary schools and other gyms because we only have one large gym right so there's layers to this that need to be addressed because i do agree just with speech and debate all these opportunities they speak to a unique group of kids all of our kids have gifts all of them have talents it's our job to create the opportunity [03:13:09] for them to showcase that and for them to you know really uh flourish inside and outside the classroom um so i bring that up and and hopefully that's something that we can we can work on or you can look more deeply into but their gym time is just important as a sports team thank you yes ma'am thank you miss lady uh finishing up really loved the video the volleyball had parts had everything the hitters the blockers the setters i did not see the position i played in high school which was bench rider so look forward to that I'll volunteer to play that position in our in our inner you know [03:13:45] inter-school board member volleyball game but thank you very much thank you Mr. Krish agenda item nine consent agenda are adopted rules of parliamentary procedure Roberts rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval of the board by a single motion many items listed have gone through board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting the consent agenda is on its way to the screen here it is is there any objection to approving the consent agenda hearing and seeing none the consent [03:14:22] agenda is approved agenda item number 10 the following are new business items they are not uh there there there will not be a vote on these this evening but action is scheduled at a future meeting agenda item 11 board committee reports we have no committee reports this evening agenda item 12 superintendent matters i call on dr reed thank you chairman frisch and i'm just pulling up my my page here uh it's been quite a quite a week or quite a two weeks tomorrow is one of my very [03:15:00] favorite holidays uh as pie day so i hope all of you uh listening are as excited as i am uh national pie day is for all those math lovers out there which of course is everybody I hope you enjoy this we also last week I had an opportunity to visit Lindbrook Elementary School and saw a fabulous science lesson and some early literacy work as well as having a chance to excuse me be at Mantua Elementary and had a chance to visit some fourth and fifth grade classrooms as well as an art class [03:15:36] lots of excitement there with the raccoons at mantua and got to visit a basketball game on saturday which was very exciting fifth grade basketball fair hill elementary school two weeks ago and had a chance to visit a fifth grade class a chinese language class and fourth grade as well as an enhanced autism class lots of exciting work going on they were really debating the positive and negatives of technology and in particular self-driving cars and what that would or wouldn't enable them to do which i thought was very interesting greenbriar west and union mill [03:16:15] and lee's corner elementary school as well as burke school and king's park elementary so just got around and got to see a lot of exciting a lot of exciting learning also had a chance to go out and visit the transportation training center and i have determined that i would not be an excellent bus driver um i think all the different lights and the light board and knowing which anyhow i really hats off to all our transportation staff they do an amazing job um and it's just uh the training staff out there does too as well as our warehouse we are stocked for um [03:16:51] i think appropriately so we our warehouse and food and nutrition folks so just a a lot of excitement also just want to call out our lake braddock secondary school gymnastics team had a chance to watch the state championships and they won their 13th state championship in girls gymnastics at lake braddock and their head coach whose name i don't have here but chalked up his ninth state championship as a gymnastics coach just phenomenal and [03:17:25] just hats off to the competitors and also then saturday we have both our woodson cavaliers and our south lake seahawks playing in the boys basketball championship which will be very exciting and just want to i know we've talked a lot about our school stop arm camera initiative for safety on our buses uh 50 of our buses and i want to thank our elected board for their leadership and making sure this project got off the ground and Andy Muick our chief operating officer who's done [03:17:58] such a nice job of making sure this happened so we really believe it's going to be a life changer for our students boarding and off-boarding buses and really ask our community to consider making sure we drive compassionately moving forward so thank you chairman Frisch those are my comments this evening thank you dr reed agenda item 13 board matters i call on mr moon thank you thank you thank you mr chairman uh dr reed i used to be able to memorize a value of the pie to the 22 [03:18:36] decimal points but i don't know whether i can still do that test me tomorrow when i see you at 1 30. about mr chairman and something that i wanted to share with you and my colleagues this evening uh is a something that goes back to a 1960s and when i was growing up in korea in extreme poverty you know back then korea was uh underdeveloped country and i i'm sharing this in [03:19:07] the midst of this flurry of very confusing and also misplaced a new policies from executive branch of our government because I was living in a extreme poverty you know we didn't have you know food I didn't grow up with any snack the only snack when I [03:19:39] was in elementary school that I was able to have was a piece of cornbread that I would get from school a couple of times initially couple of times a week and then and then began dwindling down and that was just something that I brought I was able to bring home so that I could share that with a one of my younger brothers and some of you may know that I had two younger brothers both of them passed away because we could not provide a proper medical care due to not having [03:20:19] just a financial resources about that piece of pieces of cornbread that I was able to bring home, was being distributed by this agency of the United States government called USAID. That's what the folks working at this agency did for a lot of poor people in many countries. We know that, we all know the saying, to whom much is given, much is expected. [03:20:59] is our country losing our moral authority be the leader of the free world or are we the country trying to keep all that much is given to us just for ourselves thank you mr chairman thank you mr moon mr dunn thank you uh so um on march 2nd i attended the 2025 peace awards and had the honor of joining my colleagues to recognize students from around the county congratulations to mount [03:21:38] Vernon District resident, Jonathan Johnston, the student honoree from Quandah Road School. The South County High School girls varsity basketball team made history recently by winning the Patriot District Championship. This is a momentous occasion marking the first district championship for the girls basketball program, so congratulations to the Stallions. Another huge congratulations to South County High School's girls indoor track team for winning the state tournament. According to the Washington Post, the team dominated the class six girls competition. [03:22:10] The Virginia Band and Orchestra Directors Association District X, District 10 Concert Band Assessment was recently held at West Potomac High School on March 7th through 8th. Mount Vernon High School Concert Band demonstrated exceptional talent, scoring all ones in a superior rating at their VBODA state assessment and earning honor band accolades for the third time in four years. [03:22:32] West Potomac High School also had stellar performances by three bands. The fourth period band earned an overall one superior rating, the second period band earned an overall two excellent rating, and the first period concert band delivered a grade six highest level program, spending almost 30 minutes and received straight one superior ratings from all four judges. West Potomac also won the prestigious title of Virginia State Honor Band for 2024-25, marking a historic back-to-back win for West Potomac since the pandemic. I also wanted to congratulate West Potomac high school band students and Mount Vernon District residents for being named to three [03:23:09] all-state bands. Nick Reese for bass trombone, Aiden Bratton for tenor trombone, and Molly Gorman for clarinet. I also had the opportunity to participate in two recent budget town halls for the Mount Vernon District Assistance Association, and also, sorry, Council of Assistance Association, as well as the South County Federation. And just last night, I had the great honor to present about school boundaries and other issues to the Mount Vernon Civic Association, along with Principal Carrie Dimmick of Mount Vernon High School and Whitman Middle [03:23:44] School Assistant Principal Lachelle Williams. Thank you to all of the Mount Vernon District residents who came out to participate, and I also wanted to wish a happy holy, very joyful and colorful to all of those who celebrate. [03:23:59] Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Ms. Seismarheiser. Thank you. I also wanted to wish a happy holy to all those who celebrate, so thank you to my colleague for saying that as well. It's been a really busy and wonderful last couple weeks. [03:24:17] I enjoyed going to the South by Southwest Conference with many of my colleagues. There were some incredible sessions there from everything from AI and education to supporting students' mental health to the future of teaching to so many more, and the keynotes really made you think. [03:24:33] So it was a great learning experience and I have lots of ideas to bring back, I think, to our work here. So I enjoyed doing that, and the tacos were also amazing because I really miss really good Mexican food, so it was exciting to have that. Before that I spent quite a bit of time in some of our schools. [03:24:49] I went to Frost, I went to Woodson, Kings Park, Kings Glen, Laurel Ridge, and really enjoyed chatting with the principals and talking to the schools and checking out some of their programs. So I appreciate the school communities for having me there. And I know it's late, so I'm not going to keep us much longer. But I appreciate all the work of my colleagues and the staff today. [03:25:07] And I'm looking forward to being out and about, and especially to attending the Family Summit this weekend. For those of you who used to go to the special education conference, this is that. It's assumed into more information for all families, and I'm really excited it's finally back in person. [03:25:23] So if you are free Saturday during the day, please come check it out. There's a great amount of information out there. So with that, have a great night. Thank you, Mr. McDaniel. Thank you. A rare board matter for me. [03:25:38] I presented on our budget to the FCC PTA a few days ago, and then I also swung through the Sully District Budget Town Hall, and something that struck out to me, that stuck out to me at that Sully Town Hall was the number of middle school kids that were standing up for that middle school after school program. The message was received loud and clear by me, and I think a lot of people in the community. [03:26:01] But the funnest thing I did the last couple of weeks, I did read Across America at Daniel's Run Elementary, and I asked for like a first grade class, because my kids are kind of getting to that age. And I read this book to the class about an elephant that has some, has a, we'll say a lack of self-awareness that was going to sneeze and blow down the rainforest and harm all the animals. [03:26:28] So I'll kind of leave it at that. But after I finished reading the book, a hand shot up in the crowd. We have a question. And this little girl says, I'm sorry, but who exactly are you? [03:26:46] That was my reaction too. And I said, well, first and foremost, I'm a dad. I have two little girls. they're almost in school I said when I'm not doing that I fly airplanes and I'm not doing that I try to make sure that your teachers and your principals and your bus drivers and the custodians and the food workers and everybody has the resources they need to make sure that when you come to school [03:27:13] you have everything that you need to get a great education with that good night thank you uh Dr. Anderson that was hysterical who are you and Mr. Moon thank you so much for sharing your story I very much appreciated that. It just gives further insight as to the state of where we are. [03:27:41] I've had the opportunity. Well, before I go there, I want to just remind the Mason District community of our budget town hall that is coming up on the 26th. Please see my newsletter for the opportunity to submit questions in advance. I do want to say congratulations to a number of Mason District students who've been recognized across a number of areas for Scholastic Writing Awards. [03:28:08] We have Roslyn Lobo from Justice, Molly Raiden from Langley, oh, that's Langley on my list, and Bridget Lyons from Woodson. Also, Mason District students were recognized for their work in the Scholastic Art Awards, Kate Holbrook from Glasgow, Caleb, Chamby from Poe, and from Falls Church High School, we have Chloe Brown, Jean Fernandez, and Christopher So. [03:28:36] From Justice, we have Camila Sarelta, Colleen Early, B. Fish, Ella Gadway, Pillar McKittrick, Mai Nguyen, and Ella Palmer. Congratulations to all of you. [03:28:52] It was also fantastic to join Megan and our former school board member, our former student school board member at the food challenge at Westfields. And it's always great. I have literally, I think I really watched some high school boys eat themselves into a coma. [03:29:10] They were sitting down and just like, I can't eat anymore. And it was quite fantastic fare. I do want to say congratulations to Luther Jackson for their third place finish with their beanstalk medley and I fried okra with mud chutney. [03:29:28] It's a very long title, so congratulations to you, as well as Falshurst High School for their breakfast fan favorite category with vegetarian breakfast burrito. I do want to also say I had the opportunity to read to some preschoolers at Bailey's Lower last week for Read Across America, and they did not even ask me who I was. [03:29:53] They just wanted to sit on the floor and get into the story and touch the pages. It was just my happy place. bailey's lower is always a fun place to visit because there's 800 really little people but i'm taller than every single one of them so that's a good thing um i also had the pleasure last week of presenting to girl scout troop 1330 as they earned their government badge and of course lots of the questions from that cadet group which range from sixth grade to eighth grade lots of questions around the middle school sports i'm sorry the middle school after school activities from sixth [03:30:28] graders who are looking forward to having them when they enter middle school and from those who are already in middle school who are not wanting for that opportunity to be removed from them i have a litany of schools that i have visited and i'm not going to go through all of them but i do want to highlight that i have the chance i've had the chance to see some fan-pastic instruction i was in a kindergarten class at timberlane two days ago i was just so impressed the The engagement level was so high and Dr. Reed the materials from class to class were consistent. [03:31:05] I know we've had that question quite a bit and teachers are really getting into the literacy materials and are finding I think that groove because initially I heard a lot of concerns about all of it but they are seeing I think some of the impact and I'm really looking forward to having those consistent materials will result in all of our teacher teams at at the various schools reinventing the wheel the way that they do right now and will hopefully reduce their workload. [03:31:35] - That was your time, Dr. Anderson. - Oh, okay, I didn't hear it. Thank you, good night. - All right, Mr. McElveen. - Thank you, well, I can attest that my colleague, Dr. Anderson also ate herself into a food coma at the food event, but I enjoyed being there with Dr. Anderson and Megan and others. [03:31:57] It was a fun event. My vote goes to the Monte Cristo sandwich, I look forward to having on our menus sometime soon. Also on the topic of food, congratulations to Herndon High School who won for the first time ever the Real Food for Kids Culinary Challenge. [03:32:12] They are going to be appearing for an hour-long segment on Fox 5 tomorrow, so be sure to tune in for that. I'm sure we'll learn a lot about how to cook more healthfully from them. Thank you. [03:32:27] Thank you, Mr. McElbeen. Ms. Dixit. Hello, everyone. I will start with the Sully District Town Hall, which I had with Supervisor Kathy Smith and Mr. McDaniel also came by. I'm so grateful to so many students who came there, teachers, staff, principal, community members, and they provided their thoughtful comments on a range of topics and importance of middle school, after school program, child care options, SPED program, and other community based program initiative. [03:32:59] I'm so proud of our students speaking so passionately about the importance of after school and programs and summer programs as well. For the Women's History Month, I want to especially celebrate the women's making history in our school, including my colleagues on the school board and on the FCPS leadership team. [03:33:20] Approximately 75% of our nation's teacher workforce is made up of women. I honor their passion, hard work, and resilience. Congrats to Rachel Carson Middle School Services, Student Services Department, who has received the prestigious RAMP Award. [03:33:36] The RAMP designation is awarded to school whose counseling program aligns with the criteria set with the American School Counseling Association National Model. The award recognizes school their commitment to delivery a comprehensive data-driven school counseling program and creating an exemplary educational environment. [03:33:55] I want to invite our families to the 70th annual Science and Technology Fair, which is open to public on Sunday, March 23rd, from 1 to 3 p.m. at Robinson Secondary School. Community members are invited to the project displays and congratulate our high school students participants. [03:34:15] I was happy to attend the FCCPTA Student Reflection Award Ceremony with my colleagues on February 28th, and I'm looking forward to visiting Centerville High School and London Town Elementary in upcoming weeks. And last but not least, happy holy and happy Purim to all those celebrate. [03:34:31] And please, if you play holy, be safe. Don't throw too much color on each other. Thank you. Thank you. Miss Marin. So this has been quite a time in public education. [03:34:47] I appreciate my colleague sharing his story. My origin story began at the U.S. Department of Education when I was 24 in the title one office. I was able to meet the researchers Hart and Risley who were just presenting their research at the time about how the number of vocabulary words a child is exposed to would project how well they would do in life, and it wasn't a mystery which kiddos did not hear a lot of vocabulary and which did. [03:35:15] That was the caliber of people I was working with, and I really can't even begin to express what it's like to see so many—I can't help my colleagues enough, I'm trying, but it's just not possible. So, you know, here, though, we are doing what we must do, and that is to be the stewards of public education to work so that children thrive. [03:35:35] And I believe the most important thing that the 22 elected officials serving on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and the Fairfax County School Board can do is to unify our efforts to fortify our quality of life for all of Fairfax County. This is an historic and unprecedented time. So we may not have the answers on what to do, and I get asked a lot what what can people do, but I know that the two boards working together is the pathway. [03:35:59] It's finding out how to do better business to construct our schools so we save time and money and it's doing the hard work to find the solution, not just cut programs and protections for our youth. That's middle school, after school, after school programs. It's summer program. It's crossing guards at high schools and it's ensuring that our staff receive the dignity of a salary worthy of their emotional, mental and physical work to nurture children into people who thrive and create a much better America. [03:36:26] I'm not done working on this budget and I am asking Chairman Jeff McKay and County Executive Brian Hill, whom the County Board supervises and holds accountable, to do the hard work with the school board and our superintendent to find solutions. Cutting programs is not a solution. [03:36:42] We need to get creative and we can do better. I also want to state that Fairfax County Public Schools is the largest employer in the county, the third largest in the state. We must fully fund competitive compensation for our incredibly hardworking staff. As agreed to in our collective bargaining agreement, FCPS is a stable employer. [03:37:00] We have staff who are now the breadwinners in their families due to federal cuts. I see it as a moral imperative, but it's truly an economic imperative to provide the best public education system in the nation and the DMV. If we want people to retain their homes, spend money, and continue living in Fairfax County, we must fully fund the superintendent's proposed budget and compensate our staff. [03:37:22] Public education is a non-negotiable public investment. Thank you, Ms. Marin. Ms. St. John Cunning. Women's History Month is a time to recognize the incredible contributions of women who have shaped our history, our rights, and our communities. [03:37:39] In Fairfax County, we are proud to honor the women who have shaped our own community, leaders in education, government, business, and activism. From Katherine Johnson, the trailblazing NASA mathematician who lived in our region, soccer legend Mia Hamm who led Lake Braddock High School to win the 1989 state championships and the many women serving in public office and leading local organizations. Their impact is woven into the fabric of our county. At a very personal level each of us can thank women in our lives who have been instrumental in our development be it our mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, [03:38:16] daughters, cousins or friends. As we celebrate Women's History Month let's uplift these contributions and recommit to advancing equity and opportunity for all this month i was honored to join colonel david j stewart at his community leaders luncheon at fort belvoir as the keen as the keynote speaker mount vernon high school principal carrie dimmick gave a dynamic presentation about mount vernon high school which was well received by the attendees i also enjoyed learning cutting edge educational information at south by southwest in my native texas and making incredible connections which i'm sure will yield us some [03:38:55] good information and something we can build on together last night at the minority student achievement oversight committee dr deborah marsh and teacher mariela saldana torres gave committee members an insight to the great work being done by students and staff at lewis high school in the john lewis leadership program this program offers incredible real world leadership experiences such as internships, service projects, and exclusive opportunities supported by more than 70 organizations and university partners, including the family of Congressman John Lewis. [03:39:29] The good news is that currently the Lewis Leadership Program will accept up to 30 rising 9th grade students applying from FCP schools outside of Lewis High School boundaries. Accepted students will transfer to Lewis High School as full-time students in the fall of 2025. [03:39:45] Don't miss out on this unique opportunity to become a future changemaker. I have a few shout outs for some of the students in my district. I'd like to congratulate Hayfield Secondary's Ethan Osborne on becoming the school's first two-time wrestling state champion. [03:40:01] He finished the season 45-0 with a 100% bonus win rate. Congratulations to Avery Moran and Amaya Wilcock for placing first for their Women's Voting Rights Project at the Virginia District 5 National History Day Contest. [03:40:17] Both students are Groveton Elementary students. Students from 27 Fairfax County public schools have been named recipients of the 2025 Student Peace Awards of Fairfax County designed to recognize young people who work as peacemakers. Those are those from the Franconia District winning awards this year are Ava Saunders and grace for our he's from Hayfield Secondary School Maya Martin is going to any from Edison High School Madison McLaughlin from John Lewis High School Jennifer Villalobos from Mount Vernon High School Saliha Najee from West Potomac High School. The Wolf Trap Foundation. That was [03:40:54] your time. I'm sorry Miss lady. Thank you. I was an honor tonight to read the proclamation for Women's History Month and I just hope we can continue to make strides as as women continue to make history here in our county and in our country, in our world. [03:41:14] I also want to congratulate the Herndon High School Culinary Team for winning first place in the 2025 Real Food for Kids Challenge for the lunch entry, Creamy Dreamy Gnocchi Soup, Dippers, and Zesty Sunshine Salad. It's good stuff there. So looking forward to seeing their items on the FCPS lunch menu eventually. [03:41:32] Some facilities updates. Tonight we passed in the consent agenda the contract for the Armstrong Elementary School Renovation Project and also Stadium Sports Lighting Replacement at McLean High School. Ongoing renovation has been taking place. We will soon celebrate the completion of Cooper and the beginning of Herndon Elementary School's renovation. [03:41:49] I want to thank our staff and support for the dedication to our schools. Over the last several weeks, we've celebrated many of our staff with appreciation days, social workers, custodians, food and nutrition staff, bus drivers and attendants, SROs and crossing guards. Thank you for all you do to ensure a wonderful day for our students and their families. [03:42:06] With all that's happening around us, I also want to remind folks that we have a lot of supports in place. We have free counseling for our high schoolers through Hazel Health. Each of our schools have family liaisons, counselors, social workers, and psychologists to help students and families, as well as help from the FCPS Family Resource Center through counseling and resources. [03:42:26] Fairfax County Mental Health Services and resources for crisis and ongoing stresses through the Community Service Board are available as well. This is a difficult time for a lot of the people in our community, and I just want to make sure we know we have resources and we are here to help and support. Last night, I had an opportunity to meet with the McLean Citizens Association's Education Youth Committee. [03:42:45] Had a healthy conversation and a great discussion about the budget, programming across schools, and the boundary work. I appreciate all their work and taking their time to be thoughtful in education and giving our youth the best to become young adults. In the next coming weeks, I'm looking forward to several events, one of which is the FCPS Family Summit at South Lakes High School on Saturday morning. [03:43:05] I'm looking forward to the keynote speakers first thing and some of the other breakout sessions. I also hope to make it to the FPAC retreat and tour Brookfield Elementary School on Saturday. Next weekend will be at the Science Fair Awards. I hope to see my colleagues there to celebrate that great work of our scholars who are science-oriented students. [03:43:26] Also upcoming, we have two Drainsville Community Budget Town Halls, one on March 28th. That's a Friday. That's at the McLean Community Center, and the other one is on April 2nd, and that one is at Herndon High School. Those are both at 7:00 p.m. than that i hope to see folks at some spring middle school high school sports matches and meats and i will say when it comes to food i i i love the south by southwest i love the tacos but what i love more was seeing my granddaughter who put who picked the book at the store the food the little food critic so maybe one day she'll transfer here and she can go to south lakes or wherever [03:44:01] critical food and the fairfax sauce thanks thank you miss lady miss anderson we are certainly living in the middle of unprecedented times and I am personally looking forward to living in unprecedented times again at some point. But until then, as a wise woman often tells me, I'm going to do my best to stay in the light and share some awesome work that our students are doing out there. So I have lots of congratulations to share for student athletes. Chantilly's boys swim and dive team for winning the state championship, Ben Clabeau, won as a member of both the record-breaking 200-yard and 400-yard freestyle relay state [03:44:40] championship teams. Additionally, Michael Santos won the Boys State Wrestling Championship in the 106-pound weight class. Fairfax High School's Harry Maltese won the Boys State Wrestling Championship in the 215-pound weight class. Dr. Reed already called them out, but congrats to the Lake Braddock's gymnastics team on their fourth consecutive state championship. I didn't realize that it was 17 overall but fourth in a row with Maddie Bell winning her third straight all-around title second straight uneven parallel bars title and the balance beam title additionally Josh Howitt won the state [03:45:17] championship in the 500 and 100 yard freestyle Robinson's Lilla Wilbur won the when the girls swim and dive state champ title in the 100 yard breaststroke And as noted, congratulations to South County High School's Girls Indoor Track Team on their state championship. [03:45:39] The Boys Indoor Track Team also won the 400 by 200 meter relay title, so that was really cool too. Lastly, West Springfield High School Boys Indoor Track Team won the state championship in the 4 by 400, 4 by 800 meter relays. [03:45:56] And Michael Murray won the state title in the pole vault. So, congratulations to all our athletes and coaches. I had three kiddos win awards within the 2025 Fairfax County Student Peace Awards. [03:46:11] So we have a winner from Fairfax High School, Kieran Eschuk. We have a winner from South County High School, which is Zizo Hanaya, and a winner from West Springfield High School, which is Simeon Simon. [03:46:26] Or Samuel, I'm sorry. So it was so awesome to see so many kiddos, I was sorry that I couldn't make it this year. I was also able to attend the Fairfax County Council PTA Reflections Award Outstanding Interpretation Award Ceremony. And I have a special congratulations for the following winners. [03:46:44] In literature, Connor Huber from Hunt Valley wrote a really cool poem and was there showing off about it. Abby Houlihan from Cherry Run Elementary School also won in literature. In music composition, Brianna Lee from Lake Braddock and in visual arts, Bruno Funes from Irving Middle School. [03:47:03] It was really cool to see the kids accept their awards and get excited about it. I am pleased to be co-hosting the 2025 Fairfax County Teen Jobs Fair for students 16-18 looking for employment and volunteer opportunities. The second fair will happen this Saturday, March 15th from 11 to 1 at Chantilly High School. [03:47:25] and I hope students can make it and then finally I'm looking forward to next the week ahead with the Family Summit this weekend speaking to the our school board student leadership development cohort on Monday and speaking with PTOs and PTAs in my in my district coming up thank you miss Anderson I had the pleasure of reading to first graders at mosaic elementary school did not read about elephants however I read a book called Saturday which is about a child and their mother having a great Saturday plan and nothing seems to go to plan and they take a nice big sigh [03:48:01] after everything falls apart and I got all the kids doing a nice big sigh after everything that fell apart and at the end moral of the story which is important when you're telling us about a book because now I have to go read the book that Mr. McDaniel was talking about because I have no idea how it ends moral of the story is they had a great time on Saturday even though everything they had planned fell apart because they spent Saturday together so I really enjoyed being there in a brand new classroom thank you miss Szymanski and team for moving that renovation along it's looking really great at mosaic elementary school also had the uh pleasure of being at the providence [03:48:39] district budget town hall recently we had easily 75 people there including some middle schoolers who asked about the middle school after school programs very articulate very eloquent uh very good questions. Supervisor Palczyk and I also visited Oakton Elementary School together with representatives. Mr. Muick was there, folks from FCPD, FC DOT, VDOT were looking for ways that we can improve the traffic situation on Miller Road for the Kissin' ride, so more on that soon hopefully. [03:49:15] I had the pleasure of attending the grand opening of the UVA Northern Virginia campus with a few fellow Hoos, Supervisors Alcorn and Lusk and Governor Yunkin was there, did not get an opportunity to talk to him about the budget, although next time I promise I'll try. But it was great. They're going to be offering summer programs for high schoolers at the UVA Northern Virginia campus, which is conveniently located in Providence District in the Inova campus. So I encourage everybody to check it out. I included some information about the summer programming for [03:49:50] high schoolers that they can sign up for in my newsletter. Also attended the NAACP's Black History Month celebration with Superintendent Reed recently, and I'm looking forward to Kilmer Middle School's production of The Addams Family. Lastly, I want to say that I was at dinner with my partner last week, and as we were waiting for a table, we heard no less than three couples, you know, you're waiting for a table, talking about how one of them had lost a job. [03:50:20] And these are the conversations that kids are hearing at home. And so I want to, you know, say that we're talking about people who are responsible for scientific advances and keeping us safe and our national security, all of this tremendously talented people in northern Virginia. [03:50:40] So I want to thank Mr. Solomon and his team for doing their best to make sure that the community knows that there are potential homes for these workers, these talented people in our system. And if anybody watching at home would like to explore careers with FCPS, they can go to fcps.edu slash careers. [03:50:57] Thank you. And at 10.50 p.m., we are adjourned. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Coraggio Consulting · aguyonx.com