Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Meeting, Thursday, March 27, 2025

Date: Thursday, March 27, 2025
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 3h 23m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qY6rQXqxVpo
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.

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[00:00:49] - This March 27th, 2025 regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board will now come to order. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance followed by a mode of silence and a performance of the national anthem by the Katherine Johnson Middle School String Quartet under the direction of Anna Sengstic.

[00:01:07] - I pledge allegiance to the--

[00:03:32] - Can we hear another round of applause for those amazingly talented students? Like a recording it was so good. All right, agenda item 2.02 announcements.

[00:03:50] Ms. Dixit has submitted a written request to attend this evening's meeting virtually due to a medical conflict and is attending tonight's meeting from Centerville, Virginia. All those in favor of approving Ms. Dixit's request, Ms. Marin, Mr. McIlvain, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady and myself, that is unanimous for board members present.

[00:04:11] Ms. Dixit, will you test your microphone and camera? We can try her when she joins us, if she's not already.

[00:04:27] Ms. St. John Cunning has submitted a written request to attend this evening's meeting virtually due to a medical conflict is attending tonight's meeting from franconia virginia all those in favor of approving miss st john cunning's request miss marron mr mckelveen dr anderson mr mcdaniel miss anderson mr moon miss lady and myself that is unanimous for board members present in accordance with changes to the code of virginia section 2.2-3708.3 b which occurrence which occurred on july 1st 2024 members of the public body who have a disability or are caregiving for someone with a disability now count

[00:05:06] towards quorum as it is the individual as if the individual was physically present. Miss Sizemore Heiser has notified the chair and the clerk of the board that she is using remote participation as she is caregiving for an individual with a disability. Thus, Miss Sizemore Heiser will be counted as in person for this meeting tonight and for the purposes of quorum. She does not need to be voted in. She is located in Boston, Massachusetts. Miss Sizemore Heiser, will you test your audio and video can you speak again can you guys hear me okay yes thank you very much if you would like

[00:05:41] 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 please reference the 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 slash live stream we know the community gathered here and watching online are passionate about the topics being discussed tonight and we very much appreciate the community's interest and their time that they're taking to join with us today. Please remember that you that we are conducting board business tonight and need the time and space to do

[00:06:20] so. No outbursts including shouting or speaking out during the regular meeting will be tolerated. Individuals who disrupt the regular meeting will receive one warning from security staff. If you're required a second warning you'll be asked to leave the proceedings you are welcome to continue watching the meeting via the live stream agenda item 2.03 Wayanoke Elementary School 75th anniversary proclamation I call on Dr.

[00:06:46] Anderson for a proclamation thank you good evening whereas Wayanoke Elementary School was established in 1949 with only four classrooms six additional class six additions and 75 years later, the school continues to play an instrumental role in shaping the lives of students by providing nurturing and inclusive learning environments. And whereas, Wayne Oak Elementary has a rich history growing alongside the community and evolving to meet the changing

[00:07:23] needs of its students while remaining steadfast in its commitment to academic excellence and the well-being of all children who pass through its doors. The school is named for the nearby neighborhood which was named after the Wyanook Native American Indian tribe of Virginia. And whereas throughout its history, Wayanoke Elementary has celebrated the international perspectives and cultural richness that made it unique, fostering cultural understanding and preparing its students

[00:08:01] to thrive in an interconnected world while also strengthening school spirit and sense of community through annual woodchuck week activities and whereas the wwey student news team receives hands-on experience exploring careers in media and communications while enhancing their collaboration and technology skills used to report important updates and celebrate achievements within the school community and whereas wayne oak elementary's dedicated faculty and staff are committed to developing the whole child ensuring that each student reaches

[00:08:37] their full potential and equipping them with essential academic critical thinking and communication skills. And whereas Wayanoke Elementary's Women in Science and Engineering or WISE Club was recognized in 2022 by local media outlets for empowering young women to explore STEM fields and build confidence in their abilities inspiring a new generation of leaders and innovators in STEM and whereas Wayanoke Elementary has maintained strong partnerships with parents and families emphasizing the importance of collaboration between school and home enhancing student experiences with PTA sponsored events

[00:09:16] inspiring curiosity creativity and a love for learning such as the science showcase and the spelling bee and fostering strong community engagement through events such as Family Market Night, Family Learning Night, and Heritage Festival, alongside strong after-school programs providing tutoring, mentoring, academic enrichment, arts, and cultural clubs.

[00:09:44] And whereas, Wayanoke Elementary is a community of learners, grounded in dignity and belonging, dedicated to the growth and empowerment of its students. Now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board honors Wayanoke Elementary School on the occasion of its 75th anniversary of providing educational excellence and enrichment opportunities to students and the community.

[00:10:13] Is there a second? Second. Mr. McElveen. All those in favor of the proclamation, Ms. Marin, Mr. McElveen, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. Dixit, Ms. Seizmerheiser, Ms. St. John Tuning and myself. That is unanimous for board members present, congratulations.

[00:10:36] Thank you Principal Lasher for being here with us, as well as her son who is a Wayanoke student. Wonderful. Agenda item 2.04, Music, Theater and Arts Month Appreciation, I call on Mr. McElveen for a proclamation.

[00:10:54] Whereas March has been officially designated as Arts in Our Schools Month, encouraging communities across the nation to focus on dance, music, theater, and visual arts education. This month serves as a reminder that all students deserve access to and equity in the delivery of dance, music, theater, and visual arts education.

[00:11:11] And whereas Fairfax County Public Schools has a thriving fine and performing arts education program with an average of 650 music educators, over 50,000 students in instrumental and choral over 400 art educators and about 25,000 students in elective secondary art. FCPS hosts one of the largest theater education programs in the United States.

[00:11:33] FCPS Dance has programs at the elementary and high school levels. Dance, music, theater, and visual arts students in FCPS demonstrate the importance of quality, fine, and performing arts education programs to the lives of young people. And whereas FCPS art programs are known throughout the state and country as a model of excellence emphasizing conceptual learning, personal relevance and innovation.

[00:11:57] In March and throughout the spring, FCPS school pyramids celebrate the arts with pyramid art shows exhibiting the works of elementary, middle, and high schools in each community. Each year, middle and high school artists are recognized with regional and national awards through the Scholastic Art Awards as well as other art recognition programs.

[00:12:14] And whereas the Fairfax County Music Program consistently receives recognition as a recipient of the Best Communities for Music Education Award from the National Association of Music Merchants. The 6th grade All-County Choral Festival, this weekend, is recognized as one of the largest elementary choir events in the nation.

[00:12:31] FCPS secondary ensembles garner accolades at prestigious events including the Virginia State Music Conference, Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, National Band Association, and Ameri-Coral Directors Association. Our schools have been honored with several national distinctions such as the Suttler Flag of Honor, the Sudler Cup of Distinction, VMEA Blue Ribbon Award, and VMEA Honor Band.

[00:12:55] And whereas FCPS Theater and Dance offer a vast array of curricular and extracurricular arts experiences, including dance events and showcases, plays, musicals, drama clubs, improv competitions, student-directed one-act festivals, the VHSL State One-Act Competition, the Brandon Victor Dixon Awards, and the Cappies. The Cappies, an international high school program that celebrates theater performance, journalism, and student ownership originated in Fairfax County Public Schools.

[00:13:21] FCPS theater students and teachers are recognized at this annual gala hosted at the acclaimed John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Now therefore, be it resolved, Fairfax County Public Schools recognizes March as Dance in Our Schools, Music in Our Schools, Theater in Our Schools Month, and Youth Art Month to celebrate and acknowledge every day that fine and performing arts education experiences and opportunities are an essential part of every student's well-rounded education.

[00:13:47] Thank you Mr. McIlvain is there a second I second Miss Anderson all those in favor of the proclamation Miss Marin Mr. McIlvain Dr. Anderson Mr. McDaniel Miss Anderson Mr. Moon Miss Lady Miss Sizemore Heiser Miss Dixit Miss St. John Cunningham and myself that is unanimous the proclamation passes congratulations. Agenda item 2.05 read across America and Library Recognition Month Proclamation. I call on Mr. McDaniel for a proclamation.

[00:14:24] Whereas Read Across America is an annual reading motivation and awareness program that calls for every child in every community to celebrate reading, and families, teachers, students, and members of our community all come together to celebrate the joys of reading and to encourage it to become a habit, and public schools are places where every child is welcome and where students are encouraged to delve into different books from a variety of authors that represent an increasingly diverse student population. And whereas April 2025 has been designated the 40th annual National School Library Month, we recognize here school librarians and library staff are entrusted to each the skills of locating, evaluating, and using

[00:15:01] information through traditional resources and new technologies to nurture literacy skills and to guide and encourage academic and recreational reading to every student. And whereas school libraries serve as positive environments for all students to access and engage with a well-managed library that provides for free expression and access to ideas.

[00:15:20] And school libraries provide materials which reflect the ideas and beliefs of different religious, social, political, historical, and ethnic groups and their contributions to the American and world heritage and culture. And whereas lifelong learning begins and is systematically developed through the school library curriculum of elementary and secondary schools, and the school library contributes to the individual growth and development of all students while fostering both excellence and equity in education.

[00:15:48] And whereas Fairfax County Public Schools has provided significant leadership in the area of community involvement in the education of our youth, grounded in the principle that educational investment is the key to the community's well-being and long-term quality of life. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board proclaims April of 2025 the School Library Appreciation Month in recognition, gratitude, and commendation of school librarians and library information services employees.

[00:16:14] The stellar contributions they provide to school communities and urges students to visit their school and local libraries. And therefore, we have further resolved that the Fairfax County School Board is firmly committed to promoting reading and literacy as the catalyst for our students' future academic success, their preparation for jobs of the future, and their ability to compete in a global economy.

[00:16:35] Thank you, Mr. McDaniel. Is there a second? I second. Ms. Dixit. All those in favor of the proclamation, Ms. Marin, Mr. McElveen, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Mr. Moon, Miss Lady, Miss St. John Cunning, Miss Dixit, Miss Sizemarheiser and myself.

[00:16:51] That is unanimous for board members present. The proclamation passes. Congratulations. Item two point zero six transgender day of visibility proclamation.

[00:17:10] I call on Mr. Frisch for a motion or for a proclamation. Thank you. Whereas transgender transgender day of visibility is observed annually on March thirty first first to celebrate the lives and contributions of transgender people while raising awareness of the discrimination, challenges and violence the transgender community continues to face, and whereas Transgender Day of Visibility began in 2009 in response to the lack of recognition for living transgender people, shifting focus from solely memorializing those lost to violence to also lifting up and uplifting the achievements and resilience of the community, and whereas all transgender people have inherent worth

[00:17:49] and are deserving of respect and dignity from well-known historical and public figures to those for whom it is not safe to live their authentic lives wherever they are on their journey they are seen they are valued and valid whereas transgender people have made significant contributions throughout history and across various fields including early lgbtqia rights movements activists like marsha p johnson and sylvia riviera artists such as laverne cox elliott page and hunter shaffer leaders like sarah mcbride the first openly transgender member of congress and Virginia State Senator Danica Rome, the first openly transgender state legislator.

[00:18:25] Scientists like distinguished neurobiologist Dr. Ben Beres and Dr. Lynn Conway, whose innovations revolutionized computer science, and countless others whose courage, resilience, and achievements have advanced equality and inspired others. And whereas despite progress toward increased representation and awareness, transgender people continue to experience disproportionate levels of violence and discrimination.

[00:18:48] And whereas already in 2025, nearly 700 anti-trans bills are under consideration in state legislatures seeking to block access for transgender people to basic health care, housing, employment, education services, legal recognition, and more. And whereas major medical associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychiatric Association have affirmed the validity of transgender identities and support age-appropriate gender-affirming care is evidence-based medically necessary treatment that significantly improves health outcomes for transgender people and whereas transgender youth face significantly higher rates

[00:19:25] of mental health challenges largely due to discrimination rejection and the lack of affirmation underscoring the critical importance of supportive environments in schools and communities and whereas schools play a vital role in creating affirming and uh and affirming and inclusive environments where transgender students can thrive academically socially and emotionally with research demonstrating that transgender youth who feel supported in their identities show significantly improved educational outcomes and decreased absenteeism reduced psychological distress and enhanced overall well-being and whereas the fairfax county school board stands by and celebrates its transgender students families and staff recognizing the urgency of

[00:20:05] its charge to foster a responsive caring and inclusive culture where all students including those who are transgender are affirmed and can live without fear of discrimination harassment or violence now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board proclaims March 31st 2025 as transgender day of visibility in Fairfax County Public Schools and encourages all to promote a caring culture of equity inclusivity and respect for transgender people not only on this special day but throughout the entire year as well. Thank you Mr. Frisch is there a second

[00:20:38] second I'll call for the vote all those in favor so we have Miss Marin Mr. McLevine Dr. Anderson Mr. McDaniel, Mr. Frisch, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Dixit, Ms. Sizemoreheiser,

[00:20:56] and myself, and that is unanimous. All right, everyone. Thank you. We have a meeting to get to.

[00:21:18] I would like to welcome all those who are here in support of Transgender Day, a visibility

[00:21:24] proclamation to join the board for a photo at the front of the dais. If you'd like to join the

[00:22:53] picture, you can go up on the stage. It's okay. I would like to welcome all those here in support

[00:24:04] of the Read Across America and Library Recognition Month proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the dais. I would like to welcome all those here in support of the Read Across America and Library Recognition Month proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of

[00:24:36] the dais.

[00:26:05] I would like to welcome all those here in support of the Music, Theater, and Arts Month proclamation

[00:26:10] to please join the board at the front of the dais for a photo.

[00:26:52] I would like to welcome all those here in support of the Wayanoke Elementary School 75th Anniversary Proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the dais.

[00:27:39] Board members can return to their seats.

[00:29:34] Pagena 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 website at fcps.edu slash school board.

[00:29:54] During the signup process, community members acknowledge they are 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 another.

[00:30:12] 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 in their seat, including when taking photos or recording video. We are grateful you have come to join us and speak with us today, and thank you for your cooperation.

[00:30:30] The school board members will be listening, but not responding. Madam Clerk, please call the first speaker. - Kaz Kayere.

[00:30:47] - Good evening. I am a transgender student in FCPS. Due to the protections in the school system kids like me, I am able to survive. Due to the recognition and celebration of kids like me, I am able to live, enjoy life, breathe. Protection for trans students is necessary, but so is the time taken to look at these students and say that they belong. Transgender identities and traits aren't taught in school, but trans kids exist anyway. They find themselves despite not seeing kids or adults like them. Imagine a world where kids don't have to feel

[00:31:24] shame and confusion for who they are. They could experiment freely and have fun and be a kid knowing that they're loved. They could be proud of who they are alongside their friends, unafraid of feeling alienated or unwelcome. Recognition of the transgender community is necessary to help kids feel accepted and love themselves. And I'm here thanking you for your support and your proclamation and asking you to continue to accept, celebrate, and and honor us so that we can continue to live.

[00:31:55] Thank you. - Mira Nadekar.

[00:32:18] - Can you hold on for one moment and pull the microphone down so we can hear you? You can start again and if we can restore the time. Thank you. - Hello, my name is Mira Nadekar and I'm in sixth grade at Mosaic Elementary School. A couple weeks ago, my friend Sophie, who is also here to speak to you, and I spoke at a Fairfax County Board of Supervisors meeting and we want to share the same message with you.

[00:32:40] We are here to address a problem that has come to our attention. This problem is that Fairfax County is thinking about cutting the funding for afterschool programs at FCPS middle schools. We hope you can help us influence the county to change their decision. Since we are in sixth grade now, we will be going to seventh grade next year, which means this decision will directly impact us.

[00:33:01] We strongly believe that Fairfax County should not cut the funding for afterschool programs at middle schools. Here are two big reasons. First, there are so many children who enjoy afterschool programs. Some children can't afford to do these activities on a regular basis. This way they can do it without a full commitment or paying too much.

[00:33:17] Our after-school program at Mosaic is great, but the classes cost a lot of money, so kids can't take them. The great thing about middle school after-school programs is that the classes are free, so everyone can take them. Second, the program also gives children extra homework help and tutoring. Sometimes students stay after school for homework and get extra help from teachers.

[00:33:36] Many students don't have parents at home who can help them with their homework or can't afford to pay for private tutors, which means if the program gets cut, these students won't have help with their work. This will cause their grades and test scores to go down. These are just two of the many reasons that FCPS should not cancel middle school after-school activities.

[00:33:52] Later, my friend Sophie will list two more reasons we came up with together. Thank you for your time. Marley DiRienzo. Hello, my name is Marley DiRienzo, and I'm a senior at McLean High School, and I'm also the president of the McLean GSA.

[00:34:26] I urge you to resist federal efforts to force queer students out of the public sphere and compromise their safety and to stand up against the threats made by the Trump-Elon administration. Lawmakers have spent the last few years being obsessed with trans kids' bodies rather than the real issues facing our schools, such as gun violence, the mental health crisis, and socioeconomic disparities, and I've spent the entirety of my high school career worried that my rights were going to be taken away.

[00:34:55] I've had friends who have had to move out of their home states due to hostile legislation, and just recently a friend, a fellow Virginia resident, lost their gender-affirming care due to their provider preemptively deciding to decline care to trans minors because of Trump's executive orders despite not being legally required to.

[00:35:15] This school system is one of the only places where I feel I am effectively supported as a queer person and I know is also a safe haven for many of my friends who do not have supportive families or environments at home. I ask you to keep it that way and to stand up against injustice coming from above while advocating for the action on the issues all of you know are actually affecting our school systems

[00:35:38] day in and day out thank you Kathleen Mallard good evening this evening I'm going to return to the

[00:36:21] topic of human trafficking in Fairfax County Public Schools human trafficking sex trafficking today a major victory occurred not in Fairfax but in Prince William County a major leader of ms13 a gang a salvadoran gang i'm familiar with them i have met many of those gang members in my capacity as a teacher in washington dc was arrested and will be hopefully tried accordingly

[00:36:59] i look at your resolution on human trafficking which you put out in 2022 victims have been identified from every fairfax county public high school and multiple middle schools and elementary schools across the country you acknowledge that Northern Virginia is particularly a lucrative market because there's money here so sex traffickers know that they will have clients you may remember the case of Courtney Young she was a 15 year old girl about 12 years ago she was seduced

[00:37:33] by an MS-15 gang member right here in Fairfax she was abducted she was convinced a groomed and convinced etc she would be made to have sex with ten men after school maybe some women - who knows but at any rate her she had she attempted to notify administrators 22 times to no avail so I asked us to let's be mindful we have a lot of I know needs in this school system let's remember

[00:38:10] the the victims of human trafficking as well thank you very much Sophie Hesbridge hello my name is Sophie Hesbridge I'm a sixth grader at Mosaic elementary school you already heard from my friend Mira about the importance of middle school after-school programs and academic success I will now be doing the second part of our speech in addition to supporting academic achievement after-school programs support working families and help students develop important lifelong skills. We should keep after-school programs for middle school

[00:38:48] students to support Fairfax County families. Middle schools are dismissed earlier than elementary and high schools. Many middle school parents work late shifts and are not home when their children get home. Without after-school programs, many middle school children will be left unsupervised. With after-school programs, kids can do something productive and not have to go wait at home alone for hours. In other words, these after-school programs provide a safe place for students and a more convenient time for working parents to pick them up.

[00:39:14] Additionally, these activities build skills that are useful later in life and help students make new friends. In fact, there's something for everyone's interests. Some of the most popular activities include soccer, engineering, pickleball, volleyball, and Dungeons & Dragons. What happens if they go away?

[00:39:29] My friend Mira and I are both taking a debate club this year where we learn public speaking skills, and we would love to take musical theater while continuing debate club if STPS doesn't cut the program. Thank you for your time. Enrique Gonzalez.

[00:39:51] Mr. Gonzalez, are you online? Willow Walkie. School Board members, Dr. Reed, my name is Willow Walkie, she/her/her is president of the Transgender Education Association and board member of FCPS Pride.

[00:40:29] I live in the Drainsville District and I'm a parent of 400 high school grads. I wrote a speech, but those kids, they said everything that's here. And they said it from their, you know.

[00:40:48] Today, I'm grateful for your proclamation, because I've been coming to these meetings for eight years, because eight years ago, I transitioned and saw that trans kids needed help in the schools. And now these kids are coming here and speaking for themselves.

[00:41:05] And the things that I would like to really point out is the current climate for trans people is fraught with false narratives that are making it harder for trans kids and for trans people in general. Having FCPS stand up and do this proclamation helps a little for those kids faced with bullying and fear and unsupportive parents gives them a little bit of hope that they have a place to go.

[00:41:34] Trans people grew up feeling different than everyone else and not knowing why. Our parents usually didn't understand, mine certainly didn't, and often we had to educate our parents, teachers and friends. Discovering that you are not a broken boy who wants to be a girl, but in fact a trans girl, is such a gift.

[00:41:57] importantly than your proclamation is the actions that you've taken to to combat these policies that are coming from on high knowing that FCPS's policy meets the state law by exceeding its standard that's a good thing seeing that you have haven't changed policies in response to the executive orders that

[00:42:20] seem to come out of nowhere wonderful Emily Vanderhoff Emily Vanderhoff

[00:42:40] Christina McCormick chairperson Frisch members of the board and dr. Reed my name is Chris McCormick. I'm a co-chair of FCPS Pride, a board member of the Transgender Education Association, and most importantly, a parent of two FCPS students. I've spoken to you all before.

[00:43:11] I usually talk about my younger son, my teenage son's struggles, and the things that he faces as a trans teenager. But tonight, I want to share with you, I'm going to flip the switch and share with you a success story of my older son in FCPS. So our son, Drew, came out to us. He shared his gender identity with us about eight years ago, and this was before regulation 2603 had been approved and adopted. As parents, we knew nothing except that we planned to love him unconditionally and support his journey. When he was ready to socially transition at school, we were terrified.

[00:43:45] But his friends, his theater community, and his school supported him the best way that they knew how. They respected his chosen name, his pronouns, and everything else about him. And over time, we watched him slowly bloom as he became his true and authentic self. All of the things that we loved about him were still there, but magnified as he became himself.

[00:44:07] As a parent of trans kids, I don't want my teachers to support him because it's required by law. I want them to do it because they care about him, and he's a valued member of his school community, and his school did that. I'm going to brag just a little bit, but only to prove a point. He graduated with a GPA well over 4.0 in advanced classes, was a CAPES nominee, was accepted into the college of his choice and this summer he is spending this his time on an archaeological field site living his dreams on a scholarship so that's what a supportive school system can do for all kids please never doubt that what you're doing is not just important

[00:44:46] but life-saving and especially currently in the face of a lot of hateful opposition and harmful narratives as has been said i know there's more work to be done looking forward to doing it with you Jenna white good evening this is my fourth time here talking about middle school start times since December so trying to think of what else I can say that I haven't already said I did want to talk about

[00:45:23] middle school start times because while I strongly support them just want to remind everybody if we didn't start school so early we went end at 2:15 and have this need for such extensive middle school after-school programming if we had better school start times we'd have a later end time and we could still do some fantastic after-school programming but not at the same cost especially when it's under this tremendous budget threat and then tonight we have a motion on the table and a follow-up motion and I urge you to obviously vote yes for both of them and when you do please think about the other speakers that have been here over the past several months we also we've also had over 1,100 people sign the

[00:46:02] petition for healthy middle school start times we've had several students up here a high school student advocating for her younger sisters middle school students begging you to fix this as they're coming up upon this. A pediatrician who told you that every night on her shift she's dealing with young people who have tried to take their life and the first thing they address is stabilizing their sleep. I can't stop thinking about her words and I hope you remember them tonight. We've had the founder of Sleep Up Here who's been doing this work for decades. We've had the co-founder of Sleep Up Here, your former school board member and colleague Sandy Evans we've had the PTA president from Glasgow and Sleepy

[00:46:41] Hollow middle school up here as well as several other parents asking for healthy middle school start times and when dr. Anderson brings her motion I encourage you to support Mason district if those in the audience aren't aware Mason district every school except one is a title one school unless you've been in that district you just can't imagine what that kind of intensity is like so So while I'm up here, in fact, anytime Dr. Anderson brings something to you, I ask you to support it because she needs it.

[00:47:12] She does a tremendous job for Mason District. Lily Sada. Thank you.

[00:47:31] Good evening. I'm speaking tonight to address the critical issue of middle school start times, an issue that directly impacts health, well-being, and academic performance of our children. While the benefits of later start times are well-documented, tonight I want to focus on the importance of listening to our community and acting on its behalf. The recent discussions on this topic sparked only because the persistent community advocacy make one thing clear. The voices of the people you serve matter. It was deeply disheartening to see this matter postponed

[00:48:09] yet again, but it is a testament to the power of collective effort that it was addressed at all. This board is elected by the people, and it is your duty to represent all of us, especially those may not always have the resources knowledge or opportunity to speak dr anderson my representative i appreciate your commitment to our region however i urge all board members to recognize the unique challenges faced by our area at large representatives in particular carry a vital responsibility to bridge gaps across regions and to uphold equitable representation of all

[00:48:47] communities too often our region is overlooked and forgotten not because our issues don't matter but because our advocates may be fewer in number many of our families face language barriers demanding work schedules and personal obligations that prevent them from actively participating in meetings yet they care deeply about these issues and deserve to be heard and considered. Our regent is distinct in several ways that makes this issue even more pressing.

[00:49:19] We are the only area in the county where sixth grade is included in middle school, which contributes to significant overcrowding in our schools. These conditions place an undue burden on our students and families, making our situation profoundly different from other regents in the county.

[00:49:38] Even with these unique challenges, our region often feels forgotten when priorities are decided, not because the issues are less important. Thank you, that was your time.

[00:49:53] Irina Avilova. Good evening. I, Irina Avilova, represent the community of parents of students at Rachel Carson Middle School.

[00:50:11] Today, I am the voice of every single family we know with a middle school student. The united voice of our family's requests that not a single additional school year goes by without a change of that unreasonable unhealthy schedule which negatively impacts not only our kids health and their immune systems but as a result also their academic performance are seemingly superfluous considerations like preventing message fatigue and others are really more important than our kids health what other

[00:50:47] considerations could possibly be taking as much time as they have already with no decision or change being made. My son is a seventh grade AAP student at Rachel Carson. He has always been an early bird and is very disciplined going to bed early. Nonetheless every morning when I have woken him up in the last year way before 6:00 a.m. to be at the bus stop at 6:40 I see him not having gotten enough sleep on any given school morning. I can state as a matter of fact that this year as a result of chronic lack of sleep my son's immune system has

[00:51:22] weakened and he had to miss by now seven days of school because of viruses. More than in the last three years combined of him attending a public elementary school. As a result his grades deteriorated. We the parents of the middle school children strongly believe that the FCPS school board has conducted enough surveys, has hired enough consultants, has studied enough medical research and recommendations, and has spent enough resources. Now is the time to take action and to do the job of making and implementing the much needed decision which will create a thriving, healthier learning environment

[00:51:59] for our children not in a year and a half from now, but in the next school year. James Doherty. Now I'm going to try and keep this brief because I know some of y'all are probably pretty tired, but my name is James Daugherty I'm a graduate of Falls Church High School during my time at Falls Church High School I transitioned from female to male and I was treated with nothing

[00:52:35] but dignity respect courtesy which is all any of us really want I applaud and thank you all for upholding these policies for us and I hope you continue to do so in the future so that no one has to suffer anymore i suppose um now last thing i'd like to say is that we live in your community we work in your community we you know some of us even go to school in your community we're your friends we're your co-workers we're your neighbors you know if you need to know anything about us don't assume you know if you want to know about how we live our lives ask us thank you all

[00:53:14] courtney dinkins maurice curiello christina caire hello and thank you school board members

[00:53:55] chairperson and dr reed for having us and our all of our proclamations today um i am a mother of a child now in fcps um but i'm a baby advocate um my 17 year old is actually quite the advocate. You met him here tonight. Being a teacher, elementary school teacher, I've always taught my kids that school is a safe place. Teachers are trusted advisors and partners in their education. We moved here. We were a military family that moved here

[00:54:34] from overseas when my youngest was in elementary school and he unfortunately got to spend COVID years online. And during that time, he went through his change. We know that that validation makes a world of difference to help students feel safe, to engage fully in their education, to take risks, and to reach the heights of their success. My kid is a brilliant kid, and when his teachers started using his name, everything changed for him. That time during

[00:55:12] COVID was a really difficult time. It was the first time that I found that I lost my way and able to support my kid and his education. Now here's my mom humble brag. This kid is supported by his teachers in Fairfax County. I'm so thankful because we send our kids to school and and in the hopes that they get the support that they need um and i'm so glad that fcps is upholding uh transgender rights the things that they have in school right now um this kid is going

[00:55:48] to change the world our transgender kids are going to change freaking world it's going to be amazing and so i'm enrique gonzalez hello um my name is enrique gonzalez i'm a parent am i on yes i am Okay, thank you for allowing me to speak today. I would like to ask the board to consider allowing

[00:56:23] parents the ability to have a say in discipline under the SRR rules. To argue this, I'm going to detail a specific incident that happened to my son but refrain from identifying any specific FCPS personnel as required by the rules. Late last month, my wife and I reached out for the very, very first time to our child's principal to discuss ongoing efforts we and his teacher were making to address some issues she had raised on the very same day a few hours later our eight-year-old

[00:56:57] son was playing during indoor recess with soapy water and he joked with a fellow student about the soapy solution shortly thereafter the teacher cornered and interrogated him about the incident our son was was terrified that afternoon the vice principal called us saying our son would be suspended for threatening to quote unquote kill a child our same son came home crying and despondent the next day we sent a message to the principal asking that no punishment be taken until we could also review the evidence however we never received a response to that message nor was the message

[00:57:36] even acknowledged although the message has been logged into his official record our son was not suspended as we were told but was put in AIA for three hours during his punishment our child asked the vice principal overseeing him to allow him to call his parents he was denied uh the soapy water incident has been on his record as quote unquote used improvised weapon to threaten student rb1 bullying no physical injury uh i found out today the principal called us that that has been downgraded

[00:58:08] but it's been on the records as that up until today in the official s please play the video submitted by james gross hello school board members my name is james gross and i am one of the many transgender students in fcps i would like to speak out to those who are afraid to speak for giving us representation in this community and allowing this to be a place where we feel safe to learn and grow by recognizing trans day of visibility you may not have realized it with the

[00:58:46] impressive nine out of zero vote that you are making multiple people feel safe in their school building and giving people opportunities to learn and better understand of transgender community and most of bullying is from confusion and not understanding you're providing a safe outlet for students to get educated and understand the 2.6 percent of our classmates including me all this information used came from fairfax county's youth survey of 2023 and my pride club teacher the intellectual Ms. Tolman. And speaking of Pride Club, this is one of the many amazing after school

[00:59:23] activities offered to middle schoolers to help inclusivity and feeling safe. These clubs provide opportunities for us to develop our portrait of a graduate student. Chair Fish, that was our last public speaker. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Jinda item 4.01, student representative matters. I call on Ms.

[00:59:50] Sawant. Thank you, Mr. Chair. First, I'd like to thank all of our community speakers who came and spoke to us tonight, as well as the students. Your voice matters and we love to hear it here. It has been a busy few weeks for students all across FCPS as the third quarter ends tomorrow and we look towards April and May, which brings spring break and AP exams and the end of the year, which is coming faster than we realize. I wanted to share a couple things that I got to do in the past couple weeks and I'll be brief about it. Last week I had the opportunity to attend the Association for Career and Technical Education National Policy Seminar on Capitol Hill to

[01:00:26] represent national TSA along with representatives from the other CTSOs we have here in Fairfax County including DECA, HOSA, and FBLA. As I've mentioned in the past, CTE provides students with academic knowledge and technical skills to succeed in high demand careers and our CTSOs empower students to develop leadership, communication, and career readiness through real-world experiences. I am so proud of the CTE opportunities we have here in FCPS and how amazing our CTSOs do here and I hope that we can better share these opportunities with others in the coming years as we saw with our CTE video just a month ago. Last Friday I

[01:01:03] also got to sit down with students from Robinson Secondary School with both the middle and high school and NBC to discuss the successes and challenges of the new FCPS cell phone policy. It's always interesting to me when I visit a new school I learn about how they enact their policy and I just wanted to say that their principal Miss Phillips is absolutely amazing the students had amazing things to say about her and how it's enacted in the schools. I also one one thing that students mentioned is that the cell phones increase focus and attention in the classroom and build a social life especially right before class starts or right after when no one is looking on their phone but they did talk about the balance between the middle and the high school program where the

[01:01:41] middle schoolers have the yonder pouches and the high schoolers can put them in different pouches in the classroom so especially at a secondary school having that differences between both can be challenging yesterday I also attended the GCP showcase as part of the Fairfax global leaders program where students of the Global Classroom Project collaborated with classrooms across the world.

[01:02:00] I was blown away with the connections and the growth that students had made from partnering with a school in Romania that I heard about, as well as a school abroad in Norway, where they tackle issues on a local, national, and global level. It was so exciting to see the importance of language and world education when it comes to student learning, which supports Goal 4.

[01:02:20] I got excited, Dr. Reid, and I looked at the Goal 4 report for tonight, where one of the things that it shows is the gaps in increasing course intensity in world language courses and I think that the Global Classroom Project and expanding that to other schools is a great way to learn about new perspectives and close that gap so I just like to thank Mr. McElveen and the GCP team for organizing such an amazing showcase and the projects that the students are doing tonight I'm also looking forward to the action item on middle school start times particularly the Mason District proposed pilot program in middle schools that start in sixth grade.

[01:02:54] We all know that the transition from elementary to middle school is challenging, and from the past several months we've heard from community members that talk about the research that shows that the amount of sleep that students need to be focused in schools is much greater than what we currently have.

[01:03:10] I'm grateful about the possibility of piloting this at a few middle schools in the next school year to eventually make it possible at all middle schools with a budget allowing, just as we successfully adjusted the high school start times almost a decade ago thank you thank you miss sawant agenda item 5.01 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 27 2025 the best of each member's knowledge

[01:03:49] 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 so moved mr mckelveen do i have a second miss marron all those in favor miss marron mr mckelveen dr anderson mr mcdaniel miss anderson mr moon miss lady i can't see board members on the screen

[01:04:20] if they could vocalize their votes there we go Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Dixit and myself Ms. Sizemore Heiser all right that is unanimous with Ms. Sizemore Heiser away from the table agenda item 5.01 confirmation of action item taken and closed there were no action uh no actions taken and closed tonight agenda item 5.03 strategic uh goal four report uh presentation to vote I call on Dr. Reed

[01:04:56] for a presentation on strategic goal four chairman frisch this is uh my pleasure this evening to present our goal four report and just a reminder to our board and those watching that we have spent an extended period of time in a work session previously reviewing the goal four report and

[01:05:30] also for those watching from home the complete unabridged version is attached to board docs this evening so who is okay thanks Janet if we can move to the first slide please just want to remind the board in our community that goal 4 is equitable access and opportunity and so this evening we're going to be taking a look at our equity commitments as well as our five measures in goal 4 tonight I will highlight data for measures B D and E so let's get started and we spent quite a

[01:06:08] little bit of time at the work session talking about academically intense course taking patterns we're on the next slide please so we began a pilot this year actually with ABL which is an education company that focuses on students being ready for post-secondary success and opportunities and over the course of two years all of our high schools will be involved in this work the high schools we had 20 high schools choose to begin this work in year one and our remaining five high schools will be picking this work up next year. So we

[01:06:44] are very excited to begin really taking a look at what our middle and high school students in terms of what they typically do and making choices about their courses and also we looked at data that kind of gave us feedback about students within specific content areas and this is data we have not previously looked at and it really matters because what we know today is that graduating with a diploma is not enough. We need to make sure that our students who leave with a Fairfax County Public Schools diploma have the skills to persist in whatever

[01:07:20] path they take when they leave us here in Fairfax County. And so here's why this matters. We know that academically intense course taking is linked to on time graduation college enrollment and college completion the data nationally is significant in terms of students who do not complete and we know that we can look at data that's predictive of students completing we also know that since the Great Recession 2007-8 four out of five jobs were lost that require

[01:07:54] only a high school diploma or less that's 80% of the jobs have been lost for that group and they've not returned 66% or two out of three of the jobs available today require some type of post-secondary education that's why these course taking patterns are so important so as we look at the next slide this is an analysis of last year's senior cohort data so that would be the graduating class of 24 and we created some targets as a result of that for this year's class of 2025 and we do see differences between student groups

[01:08:33] and have set annual targets to ensure all our students are prepared for this full range of post-secondary opportunities and recall that this is a strategic plan that goes through 2030 so you can see on the far right of the chart is 2030 and in some cases we have a little more acceleration required than and others. We also want to share that we do have a bit of a gap in academically intense course-taking patterns for seniors that were in that graduating group last year and we've set a target to ensure that our students who are not

[01:09:11] meeting these minimum readiness criteria are on track to do so. So as we look at the next chart I want to share the preparedness benchmarks and we know that these are the three areas in other words the quality or intensity of the courses a student took their cumulative GPA and test scores and these three indicators are what are predictive of post-secondary readiness and success however research bears out that the academic intensity of the courses students take has the most impact far greater actually than the cumulative GPA

[01:09:50] and/or test scores so this academic intensity measure that we're looking at it's a composite measure and the reason this is important is because the chart on the next page is going to be based on this data but it's a composite of the courses really to the right so the scoring system can be seen on this slide and it does include high school credit courses taken in these areas so let's take a look at the academic intensity for our cohort 2024 and this I think is a

[01:10:26] fabulous slide it's one of my favorites I would have this on my wall in my office and we're gonna see the blue gradually migrate left over the course of this work and the yellow become less and less and less but what's fabulous news here in Fairfax County is that the vast majority of our students or 75% are ready or highly ready for post-secondary this is huge compared to work across the country where this is happening however as you know amazing as the work here in Fairfax County is we have opportunities to continue to even improve further by

[01:11:05] looking at those students who are at nine eight seven six and below ten points based on the scale that ABL chooses in other words these are opportunities so So we see the greatest opportunities and again this is across all of our high schools for the last year's graduating class.

[01:11:27] The greatest opportunities in our data to increase readiness would be by focusing on mathematics and world languages. And this is why when we had our conversation even on goal three, I talked about recommending that we need to increase our math graduation requirements.

[01:11:46] By simply adding that fourth year of a math graduation requirement, that would, by default, create a higher percentage of intensity for course taking patterns for a number of our students. Because currently, we do have students in Fairfax County that complete their math cycle as sophomores, and they're not taking math in their junior and senior year.

[01:12:07] So it's critical that we contemplate raising those graduation requirements. The same in world language, as Ms. Sawant mentioned in her comments, another opportunity area and/or ways to be assessed for biliteracy, I guess, biliteracy recognition at graduation.

[01:12:28] So as we look at the next chart, we see opportunities to increase readiness by focusing on the number of years students take math, science, and world language. You can see four years plus is to the far right, three, two, and one.

[01:12:43] And so again, English 97%, again, those are driven by our graduation requirements. And social studies, rural language, and you can see how things play down with that. So again, I'm going to reiterate our expectation that we're going to be looking at a fourth year of math graduation requirement.

[01:13:05] So as we think about the strategic improvement efforts focused on these, we're already doing several things which i would like to highlight this evening i am so proud of how hard our principals our counselors our dss's our region offices dr ponce's office dr presidio's office how hard folks are working right now miss neil and the team mr sethe and providing data this is an absolute cross-departmental cross-school work group and they are currently the

[01:13:40] instructional services team is revising k-7 math curriculum and standards we have teams revising and refining academic advising processes we're going to continue expanding the ABL pilot to all high schools obviously next year and we'll begin to start with middle schools next year because we know that students don't begin a course trajectory at ninth grade rather that happens much earlier so we're excited about moving that work into the middle schools and finally we want to ensure all students are prepared and one way we do this is through basal

[01:14:16] adoptions we've done literacy this year we'll be doing secondary math next year and elementary math basals the following year so we're really excited about that work I'd like to continue with sharing the expansion of dual enrollment and AP options in high schools another close look at what we offer on FCPS online and our non-traditional schools and programs we also we currently have an advisory committee around supporting for our twice exceptional students and making sure we have access for students that are twice exceptional in these advanced course taking patterns as well as our

[01:14:56] multilingual learners and students with an IAP and 504 plans. Finally goal four there's also there are significant data points around access to activities and we know these access to activities are linked to a number of positive school and social outcomes which are listed here for you. I want to share that based on the Virginia climate survey results 72% of our high school students which are green bars did not experience any difficulty participating in activities so we felt good

[01:15:32] about that that there weren't in general barriers however we do have some I would say activity gaps they're not achievement gaps but activity gaps for some students who are less likely to be able to participate in activities and we know it's important to have these activities because of the physical social intellectual and academic benefits for students who are able to and again that's why I think we had several students this evening speak about middle school after school activities and how important those are and I know this board and our board of supervisors all recognize the

[01:16:10] importance of those for our healthy and active students these are the reasons that students reported for not being able to access activities and so I think You can see the high school reasons on the left and middle school on the right.

[01:16:26] And I think that these are, we're continually trying to work to overcome these barriers for our students because we know how important it is for our students to be able to participate. Want to share that students with 30 or more days of participation in our middle school after school activities program have some real benefits.

[01:16:52] We know that 78% of all of our middle school students did participate in one or more day, 30% participated in 14 or more, whereas 14% participated in 30 or more. Last year, there was a 2% point increase in students participating, and 78% of all students reported at least experiencing the program for at least one or more days.

[01:17:20] Finally, our strategic improvement efforts focused on this access to activities. We've really, again, big shout out to our school board here for supporting after-school activities that our students want to participate in.

[01:17:36] You know, we went for almost a year with our young people asking for us to provide boys volleyball as an option. And they did a lot of work to make sure it could occur at every school. and this board I know deserves a big thank you for supporting that as well as girls wrestling last year it's huge and I think Jenna's still here right with a one of our wolves volleyball parents here we also had title one funded activities making sure we have science olympiad and math olympiad at all elementary title one schools next year we're actually going to have

[01:18:14] Fairfax Science Olympiad event and math Olympiad event. We want our math leads and science leads to have a chance to compete for a division wide math and science glory of sorts. We also want to make sure that the board understands that we're working through our three year plan to make every school in the county a purple star school.

[01:18:38] This matters for our military connected youth. we have military connected youth that attend every school in the county maybe not in the same numbers at every school but do i think absolutely require the same level of support regardless of the school they attend so just finally our goal innovation team is working on several activities including improving data collection because we hadn't collected a lot of data on this topic area so we We don't have a lot of comparative data for the board, but this being our baseline year, we'll have more next year, and we'd like to see the trajectory of participation increase.

[01:19:17] That's a sign of a healthy, connected student body. So to summarize tonight's presentation, the majority of our students had academically intense course taking patterns last year, which prepared them for a wide variety of post-secondary opportunities, even as we see some differences between student groups.

[01:19:36] want to say that the majority of our middle and high school students self-report that they are able to participate in activities and many are. And finally we're going to continue to have additional data through our student experience survey later this year that will help us both identify barriers and plan for the coming year. So I really I really want to say sort of in summary that this course taking pattern data our high school principals have really taken and run with because it's data that can be actionable now it doesn't require years of processing so we're

[01:20:11] really looking forward to being able to present um some upticks in this area for next year so chairman frisch that would be the goal for report and i'm happy to take questions thank you we'll get started with dr anderson thank you just a couple of um just a couple of questions and a comment my apologies one second dr anderson i forgot that we've changed things a little bit in compliance with Robert's Rules of Parliamentary Procedure.

[01:20:38] Give me one second. I call on Miss Lady for a motion. I move the school board approve the goal for strategic plan report for S.Y.

[01:20:55] 2024, 25. Thank you. Is there a second? Mr. John Cunning, are you there? I'm a second, Mr. John Cunningham. Thank you, Mr. Moon. Would you like to speak to your motion, Miss Lady? Yes, I would like to speak to my motion.

[01:21:12] This is probably the most exciting report for me as a former DSS. It's important work. And I think that one of the things that I want emphasize when we met with the folks from ABLE who did the work I want the public to understand that we are in a good to great scenario they do this work around the country and seldom do they ever walk into a school system where 75 percent of their graduates have indicated an academic industry that says that they are highly highly ready for college-level work or whatever comes next and I think we just need to hit home that data point that is a it's an excellent data point. Knowing that we are Fairfax County Public Schools, the 25% that

[01:21:52] are not hitting that point need our attention. This is why I do want to commend the superintendent for wanting to look at these course taking patterns, bringing in this company to do that, and then sending that data to all of our principals. It is enlightening, it is eye-opening, but they are all taking action as we speak. I think that's fantastic. I also, having been Fairfax County product and work in the system as long as I have also agree that from a mathematical perspective I think we I think that in theory the state

[01:22:27] expects people to move through algebra 2 but with with the after course there's sort of a little like hiccup work around there I'm in full support of a four-year requirement for mathematics at the high school level having said that I am disappointed that I did learn that unfortunately Governor Youngkin did not support the bill that would allow us to do online driver education as part of our online courses that's going to change July 1 I'm hoping if summer school starts before July 1 it might be grandfathered in but I'm not sure do we know if it'll work this summer miss Clemenco for this coming what we were

[01:23:05] asking for is for Fairfax County Public Schools to be able to do our own online as part of our online health and PE and that was that was not signed by the governor I think last evening but the online company that we have been working with we will still be able to they have we will continue to work with them for one more year okay thank you that's the debts sorry the vedettes program the debt yes thank you thank you but I mean I bring that up just because there are a lot of our students have been accessing health and P on the over the summer because they want to make room for like we celebrate the arts tonight

[01:23:44] for more arts classes so hopefully we can bring that to the governor's desk a new governor next when they're back in session the other thing I want to talk about is we have done tremendous work in increasing the number of dual enrollment credits offering should I say and this might be a question for dr.

[01:24:06] Ponce are we are we still working with Nova and the Provost to try and change the 18 hours at the master's level requirement to be able to teach DE yes - Yes, and we are very sure to accomplish it.

[01:24:23] - So there's hope some updates to come soon? - Yes, otherwise we will look at other places, like I know that we talk about Virginia Beach that they have been doing it and we could go that route as well.

[01:24:39] - 'Cause Richard Bland is another one that I think Loudoun County used for a long time. But the other thing I want to point out is with the increase in DE, and this is just going back to my days working as a DSS, the the staffing in that office at the county level has not changed the volume of what's going through that office has changed tremendously and i don't know what what that costs but that's something that the budget's eventually going to have to look at because every single person who gets in that job they figure it out and we i think that we waterboard them and then we leave and we have to we have to train someone new and we have to change that process um they need they need more

[01:25:14] more support as do our school counselors because the paperwork that's involved in the different portals are time consuming, but the outcome of students getting college credit and carrying that to college is hugely important. So anyways, I'm obviously in full support of this.

[01:25:31] Thank you. Mr. Moon, would you like to speak to your second? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to second this motion because I support it. Maybe not in every detail, but it's about the time that we put a little more emphasis and putting extra efforts in strengthening our students' learning of math and word languages.

[01:25:51] With that said, since I missed, I think, first part of this presentation at the work session, and I didn't get to ask some of the questions, I'm sorry that I did not send you my questions in advance. But a couple of questions that I have is by wanting to require additional math course for graduation, I mean, there is, There have been a request to a, you know, for example, offer more CT courses for the students to be able to take.

[01:26:23] And there are and also we just like earlier this evening, we have a proclamation regarding arch and music and theater arch. And he said, all those are important courses. So where could students be able to find room to take on the math class?

[01:26:43] I think that's a great question. And in the research, when we begin looking at transcripts, because that's what the work with this consultant, they've shared a number of sample transcripts, we have students that don't always fill out a full senior year even, which, so it's not, there are a lot of schedules that aren't over full, but they're simply not being fully utilized.

[01:27:06] So that's one very obvious space to take that. I also think that the earlier we're able to be successful with mathematics, those are some of the CTE courses that are developed.

[01:27:21] If there were, some of those could be cross-credited for mathematics in terms of our Fairfax County public school. Look at those, a lot of machining, CAD, architectural drawing. There are a number of those courses that actually have a great deal of math in them and would be very appropriately cross credited I do think the ability to complete successfully complete an algebra trade course is critical because many apprentice exams as well as the SAT prerequirements really are sitting at that algebra trade level to be you know successful so I think what we really

[01:28:01] want to make sure is that our Fairfax County Public School graduates when they leave they have as many doors open for them as as possible. Thank you. Next question has to do with the world languages. I think we can all agree that studying of a world languages is a better to start in an earlier grade than waiting on term within a high school years. Would you agree with that? Yes sir.

[01:28:24] If you do, how could they make that happen? Well I think we've had several conversations about that and we have our current FLUS program, we have immersion programs. We have two-way immersion programs. I think we really are probably going to need a fairly thoughtful aligned plan for that and a commitment to stop doing some things at elementary right because the time of the day and the amount of staffing is pretty much set. So if we're going to add or integrate a world language we're going to have to look at the schools that do FLES and

[01:29:00] And make sure that that type of staffing occurs across the entire county at all 141 schools and not just the schools currently that have it. So it's really about changing out staff at the schools who don't have that program. And that's going to take some time to put that plan together.

[01:29:18] Okay. When you say it takes some time, are you saying six months, one year, two years, or 10 years? Well, I'm not sure, Ms. Klemenko, how long have you all been working on the FLESS plan?

[01:29:31] We've been trying to look at it in a cost-neutral way, right, like how we would swap things out makes it a little bit more complicated, but we have been looking at different possibilities, and Ms. Neal was just sharing with me as they bring on their new director of research, we really need to do a deeper dive on how to do this well and ensure that whatever we're doing at elementary school creates the experience that generates the interest and love of language.

[01:30:05] so that we see kids continuing on in the course taking as opposed to just doing the three and out or the two by two and out so it's a it's a little bit longer than just a mathematical equation making sure we have the right programming as well you know I had to put you on spot Ms. Clemenca I know you have a retirement coming up pretty soon and I hope that I hope that you can you can bring this back to us before I would I will not promise that it will come before June 30 now okay thank you but

[01:30:39] one one more question if I may is to say a little bit about a educational philosophy related question I remember that going back to 2010 2011 time frame where many of our parents were stressed because they saw their kids were stressed and and we are all encouraged to watch and both members all went to uh madison high school or robinson or somewhere else to watch raised movie called documentary film called raised to nowhere i'm looking around probably miss klemmenko was there

[01:31:18] miss lady was there i don't know who else was there in this room at the time our community certainly felt that our kids were being asked to too much our is a pendulum being swung in regard to which when i see that we are asking students to do more more intense work because that itself is called aim that i stands for intense course taking yeah i think philosophically and i recall the movie

[01:31:55] as well it's been what almost 15 years yeah I think that I I think it's important to recognize that it's extraordinarily stressful to go on to post-secondary and not feel prepared right and I think even if it's not going to university but going out to a job site the Lexile reading level for entry level industry text is higher actually than freshman and university reading level requirements so we want to make sure our graduates leave able to read complex text as well as compute mathematically in a thoughtful way as

[01:32:33] well as be good people right having that well-rounded education so I think that it's critical that students are academically prepared and I think that families and students have opportunities and can make choices and that's what we're wanting to make sure is that those choices are available for families and that the guidance for those families would be guidance that prepares young people for success when they leave us. When we think about the math requirements I'm talking about and the requirement, for example, to pass algebra trig to graduate, that's already a requirement in 40 other

[01:33:13] states in this country. It just doesn't happen to be a requirement here in Virginia. So I would like our children, even if Virginia doesn't require it, we should in Fairfax County Public Schools because we want our students to be able to keep up with students all across the country in a core content area like mathematics because we know mathematics limits 84% of our career choices so we move into AI sensor technology quantum it's critical that our students master this content maybe more so today even than 15 years ago I'm not I'm not opposing the direction you want us to take

[01:33:50] that is why I am seconding I'm supporting this motion but I think we at the same time we need to keep in mind keep in mind that unless to some of the students if not large number of students might feel more pressure under your approach no direction I think we have to recognize that with our high expectations have to come high support and we can't have one without the other we can't expect a more intense schedule and not support it and I believe that our staff our board is committed to those supports I'm the Mr.

[01:34:28] Chairman. Thank you Mr. Moon Dr. Anderson. Thank you. Just a couple of questions and then some comments. If we could bring up slide seven please I would appreciate that. One of the things that stood out to me in our conversation with Dr. Bell when we had this work session which I know we all hungered for a little bit more time was the fact that he talked about expectations also being a critical component. I would love to hear how is that piece being handled so that we have greater expectations of all of our students.

[01:35:03] Because preparation is what we've been talking about here. And that's really important. But the expectations is just as critical. Yes, ma'am. So he Dr. Bell and Dr. Gehring both were very clear that the expectations of the adults surrounding the student often determine that trajectory academically for the student.

[01:35:26] So I think it's critical that we communicate our expectations and our confidence in our young people that we know our young people can handle this next step and we know they're capable of doing this work and we know it because we've made sure that the support has been high and they've been prepared.

[01:35:47] And I think part of the expectations have also been key decision makers recognizing, actually looking at the data in terms of which students are making their way through which class paths and actually interrupting those paths that we see as not really ideal class taking or course taking paths.

[01:36:11] And I see our counselors, our DSSs, our high school principals really looking more closely at this data with Dr. Ponce and the region offices than they've previously been able to because many of our high schools are extraordinarily large as you know we're six a schools and we need this the way we're able to look at this data they're able to look at it by student by course by transcript and are able to make real decisions in real time which i think is a game changer for a number of our students and i'm glad to hear of all of the levels of review because very often some of the people we put in charge are the very gatekeepers of this access for some of our

[01:36:50] students. One of the other points that I wanted to raise is part of the counseling and career trajectory. I know we've talked about that quite a bit. I find that our parents are a lot of times in the dark about that. I would love to see some strength and opportunities to have a conversation with a family student and parent and just really explain what this could offer. And I do remember Miss Lady had shared that in her experiences at Chantilly, she often would opt students into classes and allow them to explain why they needed to be out of classes.

[01:37:26] And I'm wondering, is this a strategy that we can utilize? Yes, ma'am. I it is. And this one we're discussing right now, actually, I know the staff is nodding their heads because we do that for some courses for some kids now, right? We put them in certain courses and wait to have them come and say we'd rather not be those courses so we're talking about doing that for our next most advanced or most rigorous course so that's already on the table and likely will be implemented within the next calendar year thank you one of the other things that I wanted to raise and the points to me were not lost on the proclamation we

[01:38:04] had earlier we had all these young people speaking about how they're seen and we have really I think put a stake in the ground today in terms of what is important to us in FCPS and we have made it clear no matter what the conversation is outside of this system how we want to treat our students who are transgender and I think we also need to take the same approach to the work of equity it's become that inclusion DEI all of that all of those things have been so negative as of late and something just came out as early as today regarding how you know history has been distorted and what the executive the next executive order will be

[01:38:43] this data set and we have so many others like it show us the really true need for equity because I wonder and if you have this information I would love to hear it if this is a consistent reflection of how our students are performing across the various pyramids.

[01:39:04] I see this as a strong if not screaming call for the equity office to continue to be strengthened because outside of that approach where we are giving students what they need because this tells us some of our students need more and that's the work of equity that I'm hoping we will continue to be married to in this division and we will continue to fortify the equity office because without that we will continue to have these results that we're seeing now I could go back

[01:39:38] if possible. Mr. McElveen. So first I want to thank Ms. Sawant for her remarks about the GCP he showcased last night, it was great to see you there, and three of our colleagues, Mr. Moon, Miss Lady, and Mr. Frisch, which I think pointed to the importance of our work on world languages and the system, and also our persistent underfunding of that work. And I think, you know, this raises the question that Mr. Moon raised, which is, you know, why do we keep redoing the work? You know, a decade ago, we convened the Internationalization Working

[01:40:16] group and the key point of that was to lay the foundation and the plan for expanding world languages and we came up with a substantive plan that focused on the vertical articulation of languages so that people could start in elementary and carry it through the high school.

[01:40:38] So I guess Ms. Clamenco my question for you is I think we've already done a lot of this work right and some of it's a decade old so why does it can is it a funding issue that keeps us here so with that plan there was a rollout a phasing of schools to especially regarding class right our elementary whole school program and it was a phasing that would require additional funding and that funding really never came about to continue to add basically another

[01:41:18] specials to every single one of our schools it kind of got a little bit intercepted by full-day Monday and recalculation of how we how we do our specials but that really that funding just wasn't there now as we're looking at the model we do need to go back and look at it because we're trying to do it in a cost-neutral way how do we make this work without the funds thank you for that and I do want to thank you for attending last night and every year for GCP showcase and representing LT there. It's great to see your support, but it is frustrating, and I think we'll have this conversation when it comes to start times that we keep redoing the work,

[01:41:58] and if people aren't sitting at this dais that support this work, it disappears. That plan would have been shelved. It frankly was shelved until we resurrected it, and so I'm hopeful that we can finally bring closure to it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McElveen. Ms. Dixit. Thank you, Dr. Reed, for the presentation. I am actually going to stick with the same slide of here, number seven, and definitely we are seeing that the difference between the, you know, multilingual learners and

[01:42:36] Hispanic students and black students, especially students, it's definitely an equity issue here. I think the more reinforcement we can provide to some of these sections would be great to see that, you know, leveling the field a bit.

[01:42:56] Because all students have potential. All students can be that 90% benchmark if they get the right tool. And so I wanted to kind of, I know you went into this a bit. would you be able to share a little bit about how what's the plan of action in next year or so or to get some of these lower performing I want to lower performing but the you know is there different reasons but how to improve the numbers here so right now we dr. Ponce's office and miss Neal's office are really

[01:43:33] leading this work with the 20 schools that are in year one of the work with our high school principals our counselors our DSS staff and part of it is really just making sure we're sitting down with the students one-on-one doing academic advising with students and families and making sure courses are available and that students understand that's their next best move academically I'll ask Dr. Ponce to talk just for a minute or two about what is happening at school level as he meets regularly with those teams Dr. Ponce yes actually I was

[01:44:13] just reading right now and and I just have a like a one to two minutes is the probability for ELs multilinguals is a one and one-third it's one out of three or three times less likely that they will be invited to be and take an AP class and so something that we were talking about is expectation this is number one more than anything else and this is an effort that every single one has to push because sometimes we tend to to go into that trap that just because

[01:44:52] we can hear the accent then we don't believe so this is number one that we have been talking with with the parents as well so right now every single school know exactly the number of the students that they have that they could easily get a different route and make sure that they get it to all those classes that they should be having to get an advanced diploma or classes that will help them to transfer to a college four years degree and so

[01:45:28] right now it's just expectation this is number one and communication with the parents I think is most important because a lot of our parents they don't know so I know we had that conversation with dr. Anderson which I really think that this is the number one strategy that we are utilizing and we are very pleased that very soon we're gonna see that fruit of those numbers being increasing to double I also think mistakes it we really looked at some of the barriers we had an

[01:46:05] entire senior leadership meeting talking about the barriers to algebra in seventh grade for example an Iowa test and the students that are at home just waiting anxiously can they please get into algebra in seventh grade and we need to eliminate those barriers in our instructional department Ms. Klamenko's department Dr. Ponce and the region offices we're realizing that in our efforts to I think you know sort of protect certain courses we've actually created huge inequities in access to those courses and it's important that we not do that

[01:46:42] just briefly I was recently at the robotics competition at Hayfield Secondary School last Saturday and the teams that were contending for some of the most serious matches I asked them what math were they in as seniors and almost to a almost to a student it was multivariant calculus and linear algebra and you can't get there unless you've done algebra before eighth grade actually so we need to make sure those opportunities are available to all of our students which means we have to have our curriculum aligned and focused

[01:47:21] from a very young age, so I think the team is working very hard on that. Thank you for the answer. I think my last question is about the slide 12 and it is again similar in nature. You know we are doing great in most of things and I will say there are opportunities at FCPS. There are students who are graduating in high from high school with with uh with so many college credits that they can actually go to college um transfer college for just two or three two or three years and graduate with a degree so that's

[01:48:01] one of the things if we can convey to our parents that with all the de courses and ib courses and ab courses there is actual cost saving here in the college that's a strong message for a lot of people who have no not not you know ability to pay a huge tuition college fee but here is the question I had is I'm really surprised that we have one point one percent student with zero and point seven with one what's what's happening there the students are not taking any of those higher level courses

[01:48:38] I mean I'm just trying to figure this one statistics a bit so remember this is all of our students from the class of 2024 so these might be students who are in self-contained settings perhaps or students who for whatever reason were not in courses that would have been credit counting might have been seniors on partial schedules we would have to go back but we can provide that data in an upcoming Friday letter I will say that the score from 20 above which is almost

[01:49:13] almost 40% are actually likely to persist at one of our top tier or what we call elite level universities in the country, which is really almost unprecedented for any division in the country. So, we've got work to do to look at the data and the darker yellow side and a recognition as Miss Lady earlier said that the data on the right side is really incredible in many ways.

[01:49:40] So, we just need it to be incredible for more of our students. Yes, exactly. And this is incredible data for sure to see so many students ready for college doing post-secondary. My last point was I'm full support of four years of math in high school, and that is that the rigor of math should be from the elementary grades.

[01:50:02] That's where the students will continue to do fourth grade, four years of math, because they're just not that interested in math. then just there's no need to just drop out of picking math after sophomore year it is definitely should be uh the four year of math in high school so i'll stop here thank you thank you miss dixon miss sizemar heiser thank you and i know i i asked most of my questions at the work session but i just wanted to mention first this is incredible data and i wanted to lift up to your team about

[01:50:38] how many of our students are highly ready for post-secondary right and i think it's really important to mention because sometimes you know we hear this narrative that our public schools aren't doing as well or we're having each other public schools but here in fairfax and in many other school systems the percentage of students 61 who are ready to be successful in elite universities at high levels than universities and already taking university level classes is really incredible so i just wanted to mention that um i i love the data behind this and the research behind this in terms of the course taking patterns and the intensity of course taking and the correlation to success once our students leave here.

[01:51:16] But I would be remiss if I didn't say, and I've actually heard from some constituents as well, that we wanna make sure that when we're looking at intensity of course taking, we're not just looking at intensity of, we're also looking at intensity for arts, for DECA. There's a lot of high level classes and advanced classes in many fields.

[01:51:35] And I wanna make sure that is also considered. And I know, I think at the work session, believe um it was mentioned that there is data around that it just wasn't brought to the full report and that we would perhaps get that later so i just want to check in and see um at what point we're going to start looking at data around course taking patterns in all higher level courses um to include arts to include deca to there's marketing there's all sorts of things so i'll pause there for that question sure um we as i mentioned during the work session this is a multi-year body of work and where we're starting is where the research starts in

[01:52:11] that if you will instructional core area in terms of predictive analytics for success in post-secondary either work military or education at the post secondary there's no question the research around the arts CTE languages the benefits of those to persistence and success and just a stronger feeling of self and agency often right so but we'll have more of that data coming and it's more probably of a second year look in terms of advising for students just

[01:52:51] because the predictability in this core area is so overwhelming at the moment I i appreciate that and i just would put out that i think sometimes when people hear an emphasis on a certain area they think it the flip right that we're de-emphasizing in other areas so i think it's important as we roll out this sort of initial part of this work that we make sure we send the message that it's not a de-emphasis on on cte and and you know arts and all these things it's a first step because i don't want you know in that game of telephone right when we're talking you know from from one level to another to another or from one person to another as we're passing down this work

[01:53:29] that we start to de-emphasize really i think in some ways part of what makes fairfax county so great is the breadth of offerings and work we have that's supported by so much research too so i just wanted to put that out there as you're rolling this out to continue to emphasize the importance of advanced coursework in all areas yes ma'am thank you thank you miss sizemarheiser Ms. Marin? Yes, I want to focus on the data about world language course taking. So the report shows that just 30% are taking highly intense coursework and only 22% take world language for four years.

[01:54:08] I am so proud of FCPS but that we do not offer effective world language instruction embarrasses me. But I don't blame the superintendent and I don't blame this board because I know we all want this. So why aren't we funding world language? It's all about the funding. That we know how low the course enrollment is and there is nothing in this proposed budget from the superintendent to expand world language instruction meaningfully is evidence that FCPS is underfunded it's an example of what we are not and cannot do in this current funding situation and I think the public must understand what we

[01:54:45] are not able to budget because of how county leadership approaches budgeting so to have the Fairfax County executive propose the budget cuts he has for something as distinct as middle school after school activities just exemplifies the disconnect in this county when the funding reality facing Fairfax County Public Schools we're trying to find the success for 180,000 humans who live here so you know I just it's like looking at a grain of sand and the tidal wave is coming only like actually the tidal wave has come because there's national public policy undermining public ed there's proposed legislation to fund and fortify

[01:55:22] publication of public education has been rejected by Governor Youngkin so the County Board of Supervisors is our last standing protection of our public schools so I think the conversation I think this is amazing presentation and data I was you know totally informed and inspired but our job is to get the money to do this stuff I believe our superintendent knows what to do but she can't do it until she gets that money so um I would like our board to focus our conversations or questions or actions around how to obtain the funding needed this is our task

[01:55:57] before the board of supervisor votes to adopt the budget on May 13th so I hope we can continue to talk about that reality this evening and in the short weeks that are ahead of us thank you thank you Miss Marin Dr. Anderson thank you Dr. Reed I did ask a question during my last go around but I don't think you had the opportunity to answer regarding the data on slide seven whether that was reflective across our pyramids in a consistent manner yes ma'am i i think the data to varying degrees is reflective across our pyramids uh miss neal you've probably looked at it most closely

[01:56:37] i think with some variation it's very similar across pyramids yeah we do have some information but we are working with abl to provide additional information to the board thank you and the other piece of data that I was interested in when we take a look at some of our students I don't think we had intersectionality data because I'd like to know when we hold it steady for our black students who are not English language who are not multilingual learners who are not students with disabilities and who are not what's the third category economically disadvantaged are we seeing similar patterns of achievement I think that in general and

[01:57:16] And Ms. Neal and Ms. Hunstad are sort of probably checking while I'm answering this because I'm going to turn to you in a minute. I think in general, probably the most significant, if you will, concern in that area is around socioeconomic status and language would be my guess.

[01:57:37] Ms. Neal? So we are working with AVL. some of the data that we look at consistently in FCPS is new data that they're trying to add into their system to be able to provide some comparisons. So the intersectionality data, I think what we would expect to see in this is not dissimilar from some of the intersectionality data points we've looked at in other reports. So as Dr. Reed shared, looking at some of our multilingual learners who were at levels one, level two, and socioeconomic status as being big drivers of impacting this data. Thank you. And I do remember Dr. Bell sharing that They provided us comparisons, comparative data with the 100 schools that they work in without around the country.

[01:58:17] I would love to see if we are seeing similar achievement gaps across the same schools with the schools that they work with, because it is really important for us to say that Fairfax County is an excellent school system, but it is not for all of our kids. Right. It definitely needs to get there.

[01:58:33] And we're talking 100 school divisions, which have a lot of other high schools. Yes, certainly. One of the last things that I wanted to ask, you talked quite a bit regarding the work of Dr. Ponce, and thank you so much for your response. What I didn't hear is, how is the Equity Office involved in this work?

[01:58:51] Because I know they're far-reaching, but in terms of changing culture regarding expectations, those softer skills really need to come out of that space, I think. So I'd love to hear how they're involved. So the equity office, in fact, I spoke with them yesterday morning and talked about the critical intersectionality, if you will, of that culture and impact on student achievement in closing these gaps.

[01:59:19] Dr. Presidio, Dr. King, and Dr. Ponce meet weekly, and I meet with them as a team monthly. Those three departments led by those chief officers are leading this achievement gap closing work. It's critical that they're a part of that. And as I shared with our equity office staff yesterday, their work has never been more important.

[01:59:44] The excellence that's required for each and every one of our students right now is critical. And I will share that a significant number of our equity office staff right now is out in schools in this last 30 plus days prior to our SOL assessments.

[02:00:02] So they're doing small group reading in our 25 highest need elementary schools right now. And they're you know it's an all hands on deck from all three of those departments and the equity office is playing a key role in that work. Thank you. And the last thing I want to mention it's not a question it's just a kudos regarding the title one schools math and science Olympiad.

[02:00:26] As you know this has been a thing that we've talked about since you got here and more and more I'm hearing from parents that they're seeing this in the schools. And the principals are speaking about how excited staff have been and students have been for those opportunities. And so I could not be more grateful because as you heard earlier all of the schools that I represent but one is a title one school.

[02:00:47] So this is something that I you know we're faced with in the Mason District each and every day. Again I think we are I'm glad that we're looking at this data. I just want action sooner. Thank you Dr. Anderson. I'll call for a vote for the motion on the screen.

[02:01:03] if the motion can get on the screen just momentarily mr fresh i still see miss sizemore hyzer's hand thank you miss sizemore hyzer did you want to go back sorry no i thought i'd heard you call

[02:01:39] the vote oh yeah we're getting there it's almost on the it's on the screen all right no worries all those in favor of the motion on the screen miss marron dr anderson mr mcdaniel miss anderson mr moon miss lady miss dixit i can't see our other virtual participants miss sizemore hyzer i assume your hand if you could vocalize your your vote i'm a yes and miss st john cunning all right and i am in favor as well with miss st john cunning and mr mckelveen away from the table uh it is

[02:02:13] otherwise unanimous thank you agenda item 5.04 mason district uh proposed pilot program i call on dr anderson for a motion um i move for the school board to direct the superintendent to provide to the board by april 10 2025 a cost neutral plan a cost neutral plan to implement a pilot of later start times and as many of the Mason District middle schools Glasgow homes and Poe as possible for implementation for the 2526 school year.

[02:02:52] This plan should minimize start time changes for the pyramid high schools. That's a plea. I will second. Sorry just for the microphone.

[02:03:09] Is there a second. Yeah the second a second. Miss I second twice. Miss Marin. Thank you Dr. Anderson would you like to speak to your motion. Yes I would. Just give me a minute to find my notes. Thank you, because they've just disappeared on me. Clearly, the conversation is not about healthy start times, because I think the data is clear.

[02:03:30] The research is clear that this is something that has to happen for our students. And this a Fairfax County Board, not this configuration, had had those discussions ten years ago, probably a little bit longer. I think some of you have been at it for 20 years.

[02:03:45] But ten years ago, the change was made at the high school and it was clear that it needed to be done for the middle schools. It just took us a little bit of time to get here. You've heard the surveys, the anecdotes from teachers who are sharing that their students are sleepy in the morning.

[02:04:01] I know I have middle schoolers of my own and they are not quite awake to really take advantage of all of the academic instruction that's happening until second or third period. And so I think those are important pieces for us to consider. Most importantly, during the work session that we had just this past February, Mr. Mewick shared the I guess desire of staff to do a pilot and one to two school pyramids in order to see how this could go.

[02:04:30] And I believe that this pilot should occur in the Mason District for many of the reasons that you all heard earlier. It is the only district where we have sixth graders in the middle school. It's also a tightly packed district. It's dense. And so there's a lot of opportunity for, you know, the, you know, mechanisms behind the scenes to not be stretched because we only have, you know, one way to go because we butt up against Arlington.

[02:04:55] The community, most importantly, they're here tonight, and they've been here every night. We've received the letters. I get this at the grocery stores. I get this everywhere that I go. My kids' concerts. Where are we with middle school? They are wanting this, and so denying a community that is wanting to have this action, I think it just should not be a thing that happened.

[02:05:22] And also one of the things I want to be clear is we are not going to address all child care issues with this it's just not going to happen we are always going to have the issues we have parents who have issues in the morning with late elementary school starts we have parents who have issues in the afternoon and that will continue to be the case no matter what we land on in terms of a potential pilot time what I do know is a high concern and this is a concern that I want to put on the table very clearly is that any configurations that are provided to us when staff completes their work should not include a later start time for elementary.

[02:05:58] We cannot have elementary students begin school at 10 o'clock. When we know their clocks wake them up at about 7:30, we all see those littles, they come up with the sun. And so we need to ensure that they go to school with the sun. And the places where I worked before, right next door in Loudoun County, the elementary school started at 7:30.

[02:06:17] 7:30 doors were open. Then those same buses took the middle schools and then those same buses took the high schools. and it has been the case there for years. If this motion passes, I really hope that staff will engage with our vendor Prismatic to really create some very good options for this community.

[02:06:33] This is also the first step. This is the ask for information. And then we need to come back here and have the conversation about what is it that we're going to implement. And so this is a two-parter. So families, your work is not over. And I'm hoping, oh, was that the bell? - It was. - Okay, I will stop here. - Thank you, Dr. Anderson.

[02:06:48] Ms. Marin. - Yeah, I'm happy to second the motion And also want to echo some words of the community about Dr. Anderson's just over and beyond work for the Mason District. And it is you know an anomaly that there are middle schools with six to eight grades and the last board we actually did explore is that something that's you know better or worse or what are the challenges and it kind of didn't turn up anything and I'm I'm sorry ironically I'm a bit tired myself because I am advocating so much for the budget which again is part this solution and you know I want to sound like a bureaucrat but like we only

[02:07:25] heard these options in December like we're doing the boundary review for the first time in 40 years like things take an obnoxiously long time and we're trying to fix things so um you know I have a seventh grader next year I get it right but to change bus schedules and nutrition services and it takes a little bit of time okay so I get it I just would love to have the community with us in the quest for more funding and I love each of you that spoke tonight to head on over to the budget public hearings of the Board of Supervisors that are April 22nd 23rd and 24th because if we had more money we

[02:08:04] could do this kind of thing but as a board we also need to be accountable and unfortunately that didn't happen in the past I think too that I would like to have the superintendent take this over this is operational this should not be a decision of the board and it is regretful that as clear a statement hasn't been made to the public yet I have made the statement saying it doesn't look like this is passing don't count on it but I do I do wish that that could have been clearer by the board and I think as the board we need to really be sure that when we have work sessions we're finishing them with complete discussions and empowering our superintendent to do that work we just

[02:08:44] can't keep and on that note I don't think further surveys are needed we have a lot of information it's an operational decision so you know we're going to see what's going to come out of this pilot that's going to give us information I think as much as we want to include our community it's overload so we have the data it's an operational thing let's see what happens in Mason get our kiddos some more sleep and then we will move on to make it happen as soon as we can thank you miss Marin mr. McElbeen thank you and sorry I had to step away for an

[02:09:17] urgent family issue so I'm I'm proud to support this Dr. Anderson a decade ago when mr. Moon and I were at this dais we made the good decision to move forward with changing start times but we also made a compromise to bring later high school start times while moving later moving middle school start times earlier And as a result of that decision, we've benefited countless thousands of high schoolers to the detriment of countless thousand middle schoolers.

[02:09:55] And so at that point, when we made that decision, we also made the commitment to the community that we would take action very soon thereafter to move forward with middle school start times as soon as feasible.

[02:10:11] Well, what I have found, as I mentioned earlier tonight, is that in this county, the time it takes to make any sort of change, no matter how seemingly small, is counted in decades. That has certainly been the case with start times. Sandy Evans and Phyllis Payne have been advocating for this for 20 years.

[02:10:31] It's taken us 12 years plus to get to healthier food. It's taken 10 years to get to solar panels on schools. It's embarrassing. frustration um that wells up inside of me when I talk about these things um is immense uh and oftentimes if supporters of these kind of initiatives as I mentioned earlier if they fall away from this dais for whatever reason the institutional commitment just completely evaporates no matter if the board has made a commitment at one time um it just disappears well tonight

[02:11:05] it's time to finally commit to correcting uh what happened a decade ago at all levels uh and ensuring that we correct that disparity we know this is the right thing for kids the science is unequivocal so please I encourage my colleagues to take this small step tonight to help the kids at least in Mason district next year since there isn't a willingness on this board to do it for the full county thank you thank you Mr. McElveen Miss Dixit as a as a parent who has gone through

[02:11:42] this uh trauma i i'm very i want to get this changed as well because you know if students have have to you know get up at 6 15 or go to the bus stop at 6 40 in the morning uh and and you know this is not helpful helping anyone so i understand the prior board or when the decision was made and that time but we have to you know fix that in this manner or and so a pilot is the way to go

[02:12:16] for now it's totally fine but i wanted to be i want this to happen to all middle school students and earlier a student a parent from rachel carson came which is my constituent uh you know school and i would really like to support all the students of fcps attending middle school thank you THANK YOU MISS DIXIT WE CAN GO FOR A VOTE FOR THE MOTION THAT IS ON THE SCREEN ALL THOSE IN FAVOR MS. MARIN MR. MCELVEEN DR. ANDERSON MS. MCDANIEL

[02:12:49] MR. MCDANIEL MS. ANDERSON MR. MOON MS. LADY MS. DIXIT AND MS. SEISMOURHEISER I CAN'T SEE IF YOU ARE THERE YES MS. SEISMOURHEISER MS. ST. JOHN CUNNING YES YES AND MYSELF THAT IS UNANIMOUS FOR BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT I CALL ON MR. FRISH FOR A FOLLOW-ON MOTION THANK YOU I MOVE TO to direct the superintendent to develop a plan including robust community engagement and consideration of varied student transportation needs

[02:13:29] for implementing healthy school start times in conjunction with the holistic boundary review. - Zero second. - I second. - Mr. Frisch, would you like to speak to your motion? - Yes, thank you. So tonight, Ms. Anderson and I are offering this motion to direct the superintendent to develop a plan informed by community engagement and thoughtful consideration of varied student transportation needs to implement healthy school start times across the county in conjunction with our ongoing holistic boundary review process.

[02:14:01] To be clear, while this motion is on the same topic as the previous motion that it follows, it will not impact the planning, the timing, the work on that motion. Before I go any further, I do wanna take a moment as the school board member who represents Ms. Payne in Providence District to thank the many people have you know parents students people who are parents of former students in FCPS at this point educators community members who have been raising their voices on this issue not just in recent months but as Dr. Anderson said for many

[02:14:36] years your advocacy has been informed persistent deeply rooted in care for your children for their peers and for the broader well-being of our school communities and I want to be clear I want to be just as clear as the science on this start times that are too early harm students and sleep is not a luxury it's a prerequisite for learning and so with the rollout of the new bus routing software coming in the middle of the next school year which we thought was coming earlier but it's not arriving in time and the transportation

[02:15:12] efficiencies we hope to see from the holistic boundary review process we have an opportunity to ask the superintendent to think creatively and develop a plan for finally achieving healthy school start times for all our students this motion gives the superintendent clear direction to consider the best operational path forward a directive that can be monitored and held to account as part of the board's executive limitations process in short this motion sends the message that we support healthy school start times and that we want a plan for getting it done Ms. Anderson would you like to speak to you a second yes from the moment that we came on the the board this is one of the first issues that I sat down with somebody and

[02:15:50] talked about and it was a hundred percent clear to me particularly as a student who was a middle school student at Lake Braddock where I never got the later start times as the middle school student I always started at 720 for the whole six years so we never I never noticed a difference because it was just the way that it was however I do understand the importance of sleep in in my professional world we talk a lot about this related to successful outcomes for kids in school. So it's never been a question about whether or not I support the appropriate start times for kids. I do think that we are in a particular my colleagues have heard me talk about this before but we're in a

[02:16:29] plastic moment. We have new bus routing software coming in. We have holistic boundaries going on at the same time that gives us a great opportunity. So I love the idea that we're going to be able to work to align these things to make sure that our impact for parents and for families are going to be appropriate and not cause excessive change as we go forward. I would also like to mention that I do think we absolutely need robust communication which is why I asked for that portion of the motion to be included because I

[02:17:04] don't live in and my district is not compact my kid my kiddos that are in elementary school are already on the bus for an hour in the morning to get to their closest elementary school and it's just the way that it's going to be because of the location that they live in and so putting them on a road at 6:30 in the morning in the dark to get to school is not tenable where my kids live and so I just want to make sure that we are talking to parents and that we're using the appropriate language when we're talking about school start times this isn't just about middle school students it's about all of our students

[02:17:39] And so I want to make sure that we move forward and make sure that everybody's on the same page as to what we're talking about and what we're doing. So I look forward to seeing what's possible. Thank you. Dr. Anderson. Thank you. One of the things that you mentioned, Mr. Frisch, is kind of, I guess, a hiccup with the new software system.

[02:18:03] Mr. Muick, I don't know if he's here. Yes. Can you speak to that a little bit? Yes, I can, Dr. Anderson. I wouldn't necessarily say it's a hiccup. the company that is working with us is working really hard on the routing and we're we're still on track to bring it out next year the routing should we're going through a pilot of that over the summer during the extended school year and we'll start rolling out in the fall that just may slip a little bit but I don't foresee that yet and the end the mobile data tablets come at the end of

[02:18:41] year so the software is going to be on time for the fall not December which is well it's it's a it's a phased rollout so it's not like a Big Bang Theory where on the first day of school in the fall it's everywhere we kind of phase it in so it takes about the full school year to get it out everywhere okay thank you I appreciate that the only other comment that I wanted to make is I know from speaking about this ad nauseum our community is looking for some intent they're looking to see what is it that we want to have happen because as the board it is our job to give direction to the superintendent and if we're saying

[02:19:18] to the superintendent make this happen by the 2026 by the 2627 school year then I think they will have some comfort that it is going to happen I think not being clear and saying it will be in conjunction with the boundary which has a whole ball of unknowns and that could be phased out I mean phased in so what does that mean will be after each of those phases all of those unknowns have really resulted in a lot of angst and anxiety and so if this conversation is resulting again where it seems to be a night of putting a stake in the ground if this is putting a stake in the ground like we want for this to happen this is going to

[02:19:57] happen by year X then I think we're going to gain a lot of support from our community because that has been I think much of the anxiety all along and so that's the intent with this motion Mr. Frisch Mr. Frisch I have never mispronounced your name before. Yes the intent is to get a clear plan from the superintendent that operationalizes this and we can judge that in the executive limitations process. Thank you and Dr. Reed since you're going to create a plan may I ask that that plan be inclusive of what happens if certain scenarios occur with the boundary with the holistic boundary process if it's

[02:20:35] phased if it's all at once where does this fit into that that full picture I think that I would have to get back to you tonight okay I'm so sorry I was not asking for a response right now do you unless you have the plan but no it would be part of the plan I just would like for it to be articulated so that there could be some predictability on the part of the community rather than a constant wandering as to

[02:21:10] where we stand on this. Thank you. Okay. Ms. Sizemore-Heiser. Thank you. I appreciate it. I appreciate my colleagues bringing this forth and I'm happy to support. I think part of the importance of this, I will say similar to my colleague, Ms. Anderson, on the flip side, as a parent, I actually lived through early start times from middle school having children at a secondary school and my daughter was actually at like back when they started at the 7 20 a.m high school start time before the high school start times were changed so she had middle school at that early

[02:21:49] start time so I can say as a parent I've lived through this I understand that the challenges and the difficulties I also in talking to my constituents and several PTA and other meetings I've been to everybody understands the value of sleep there's a lot of research behind it I appreciate all of our constituents who've advocated for healthy start times not just for middle schools with all of our school levels but in many of the meetings I've had with constituents they're also concerned about having sufficient time to be able to plan for their families especially at the different levels especially for child care for elementary school students but in general that planning is important and also minimizing the disruption for their students

[02:22:26] as we are looking at the boundary review work as well especially considering sort of the uncertain times we've been living in the disruption that's come out of COVID as well so you know it is interesting there are many things that I think a lot of us on the board when we started in 2020 wanted to do and when COVID came through as well as a superintendent who left and hiring a new one there's a lot of things that end up not being addressed that we wanted to address especially with the challenges of trying to educate through a pandemic and bringing students back in so I'm glad we're able to look at these things now but I also recognize that for our community having multiple disruptions and having to make plans for their families and then having to

[02:23:05] shift those plans is also significantly difficult. So I think this is a very thoughtful way to move forward to make sure that we have healthy start times for everybody, but also really engage the community on what that looks like and what the timing of that looks like and minimize disruption. So, you know, listening to my community, I think it gets to all the things they're looking for, healthy start times, partnerships, time for them to make plans and minimizing the changes for their students. So thank you for bringing this forward. I'm happy to support.

[02:23:34] Thank you, and seeing no others will call for the vote. All in favor? Mr. McElveen, Dr. Anderson, Ms. Anderson, Mr. Frisch, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. Dixit, and Ms. Sizemore-Heiser, are you in favor?

[02:23:55] Yes. And is Ms. St. John Conning up? Yes. Ms. St. John Conning, all opposed? And I am in favor. All opposed? Any abstentions? Ms. Mirren, will the clerk read the vote? The vote is 10-0-1. The motion carries.

[02:24:10] Thank you.

[02:24:11] Thank you all. We will take a 10 minute recess. I know that people need a little bit of a break. Let's try and make it a tight 10 minutes, which is typically difficult for us, but we're going to try and make it work this time. Board members, please return to your seats. Board members, board members, please return to your seats. All right. Welcome back, everybody. Agenda item 6.01 academic matters. I call on Dr. Reed.

[02:42:50] Thank you, Chairman Frisch. Tonight I am thrilled to offer an update on our elementary literacy work and focus on how this work is supporting goal three of our strategic plan. So this is very exciting this evening. I want to share that as you're aware all students are reading on grade level by the end of third grade is one of the most important and foundational, excuse me, goals of our strategic plan this year as we strive to meet these goals and fully implement the Virginia Literacy Act we've taken several key actions and you can see on

[02:43:30] the right side what those look like as this is measure F we've implemented the new basal resource benchmark advance and this literally literacy curriculum really is across all 141 of our elementary schools we've also introduced new screening and progress monitoring assessments for students all of our students in grades kindergarten through second grade and for students in grade three to ensure that we're really effectively identifying any student who may be experiencing a risk for falling behind in their grade level reading performance and finally we're providing more intense interventions for students

[02:44:10] who are at risk and documenting these actions in individual student reading plans uh we also and i don't know if we're going to talk as much about it this evening but we have materials basal materials for our multilingual learners as well for the first time in fairfax county public schools and i just want to do a shout out for our elementary teachers education staff multilingual educators special ed educators all of our staff at elementary and our leadership at the elementary level and at the school level, this has been a heavy lift, and it's paying off.

[02:44:47] We're very excited about the progress. So Madam Clerk, if you could play the video, let's kind of take a look-see at how this is going across the division. So it is very important for all our students to have access to the same rigorous curriculum as everybody else in our school district, and 60% of our school population are students of multilingual learners.

[02:45:13] I am seeing a very big difference this year and I think it's because we have implemented this rigorous curriculum, plus our interventions and the combination of both is what's making our students be successful. I feel super proud of myself because I didn't even know how to write when I was in first grade.

[02:45:35] So when I first came here, I was like, I didn't write so much sentences, I just write in like three or four but now i read like five to ten sentences at our school we use a walk to intervention model where we use the grade level theta for each student and then we flexibly group them based on that assessment data students are placed in in a group where their their individual instructional needs are going to be met and we have all hands on deck back on the village something

[02:46:10] happened something changed in their village so how did the storm affect the village or how was the village affected by the storm what changed you're going to turn and talk one more time with your partners to share so one thing that we've really been focused on in the general education classroom is explicit instruction i do we do you do that really benefits all of our students especially our students with learning challenges like our students with disabilities it really helps them grow in the large group and in the small group they are focusing on student talk so students

[02:46:47] are building their oral language skills which as we know is a precursor to reading and writing skills and it's a unique cohort of students about a quarter of the students in the grade level have an iep so planning for that group was very intentional and what we've seen with our third grade is 19 students have gone from the high risk with reading to the low risk which is about a class i'm looking at iReady data in the beginning of the year there may have been two or three kids in the green and now there's 13 and 14. so in addition to benchmark and the whole group and small group lessons that we're giving there we do have we call it croc time which is our intervention

[02:47:25] time we are working on very specific skills and like word features that they're then able to take into benchmark and read those words and access those words and then the students who aren't specifically with me in my group they're getting to do other interventions like lexia and then they also get more time to actually read a physical book which is great so benchmark advance is a priority for our entire school most of our students with disabilities are accessing tier one in the general education classroom we have really worked hard with our classroom and special education teachers to ensure appropriate scaffolds are in place.

[02:48:03] Miss Fowler also gives us time to work with our special education partner. We'll then go through those plans and think about how can we adapt this to meet the needs of our students. So, when they're in the classroom with me, they're learning from each other, not just me. My class is very inclusive.

[02:48:19] This year we have a more deliberate approach to reading and I feel like the plan really supports the growth in the students and it really supports me as an educator because I know what my students need. I know how to give it to them and I know when to give it to them.

[02:48:35] All right, pretty exciting stuff. I really am thrilled and I know each of you as board members get out into the schools and have had an opportunity to visit elementary schools. The amount of writing in particular this year has really increased and we're just really proud of our our young learners and our educators working with our young learners just want to indicate that on the green side here on the chart growing green is a good thing this more students are good to go

[02:49:13] or in the green category and fewer and fewer students are requiring this targeted literacy support based on our assessment so we're shrinking the red and growing the green let's take a look at our grade three data that's real time so this is exciting hot off the press data and in grade three on the top we have the fall and our winter scores for all third graders in the division are below

[02:49:46] So we have 14.2% more of our third graders who are good to go and 8.4% fewer of our students who are struggling in that lowest quadrant. So we're thrilled with the progress that our students are making.

[02:50:05] And this is just a different way of taking a look at it. And several of our learners, we looked at the graphs recently in our goal four report. And so we're really critically looking at our multilingual learners, our socioeconomically disadvantaged students, and students with disabilities.

[02:50:25] And in those key areas, we're seeing the same growth in ready-to-go at grade level and the same shrinking in terms of those students who are less prepared. So, just want to be clear that we're marking this data from the very youngest learners, grade 3, and feel really positive about the success of our educators and our youngest literacy workers.

[02:50:52] So, happy to answer any questions or not. Seeing none, we will go on to agenda 6.02, financial year 25, third quarter budget review. I call on Budget Chair, Mr. McDaniel, to introduce this item.

[02:51:09] Thank you. I'm going to be very quick. Q3 review is just that. It's a review of finances as of Q3. So I'm going to hand things over to Dr. Reed and her staff to go deeper into what that actually means. Thank you, Mr. McDaniel. And it's my pleasure to introduce our Chief Finance Officer, Leigh Burden.

[02:51:28] And she will prepare, or she has, her team has prepared, and she'll present the third quarter finances. Thank you, Ms. Burden. Thank you. Good evening. The document before you identifies the third quarter changes to the fiscal '25 approved budget.

[02:51:44] There's only one change in the operating fund, and that is recognition of funds from the VAPE settlement of 621,000. The specific use will be determined by the Chief of Safety and Security, but projects that are currently in progress include security cameras, panic alert systems, screening programs at high schools, those sorts of things.

[02:52:06] I don't normally review the other funds because they're multi-year funds that carry over from year to year, but there's only a couple of changes, so I'll tell you what those are. For food and nutrition services, we have an equipment grant from the state. For the grant fund, we have about $650,000, about 80 percent of that is from the state as well 16 percent from other sources and then a really small grant from the federal government and then the health care fund we are recognizing 22 million of increased rebates for pharmaceuticals

[02:52:41] and that will offset the increased claims experience that we're seeing right now we've already include increased that for fiscal 26 so this just gets those numbers right for fiscal 25. Got fund statements in the appendix and some other documents if you're interested. Thank you Miss Burton. Seeing no comments. Oh under the wire. Miss Barron. Thank you Mr. Frisch. Thank you very much and I've already spoken and pleaded for us to focus on the budget and in that in that capacity I would like to ask us on our upcoming April 8th work

[02:53:20] session where we yet again are scheduled to talk about the student rights and responsibilities regulation um for two hours can we be really uh pared down during that time and identify beforehand what members still um want to answer have answered or talk about and then dedicate some time to the budget we are in the thick of the budget process right now and i've talked to many of you this week we have questions things are changing i think that we really need to prioritize time for that so um i invite any other colleagues to express their support for that and we'll follow

[02:53:54] UP WITH OUR CHAIR AND VICE CHAIR NEXT WEEK. THANKS. THANK YOU, MS. MARIN. DR. ANDERSON. THANK YOU. JUST A QUICK QUESTION. THE EXPENDITURE TO SECURITY INITIATIVES, DO WE HAVE ANY SENSE OF HOW MANY OF THESE INITIATIVES WE'LL BE ABLE TO DO? HOW MANY SCHOOLS WE'LL BE ABLE TO IMPACT?

[02:54:20] SO I THINK WE'RE LOOKING AT THE SORT OF A VARIANCE OF WHETHER THEY ARE CAMERAS OR THE PANIC alert or vape detectors and um mr lambert you want to lend some uh visibility into your thinking at this time fully knowing we're not in a final stage yet yes ma'am still a major priority for us is trying to get more of the elementary schools up on grade and this gives us an opportunity to give the elementary schools some cameras we still have a fair amount that we're trying to catch up on

[02:54:56] so that they are all equitably getting coverage there that would be the priority with this funding okay thank you Dr. Reed you mentioned vape detectors I know the last time we talked about vape detectors here it was a system that wasn't very reliable there were a lot of false positives will this include a new system an improved system we're I think the technology is constantly upgrading and transforming so i know we've looked at several different products uh mr lambert do you want to elaborate please yes ma'am the product that we started with on the the very small

[02:55:36] pilot i think the limitation that we saw was that we were only in four bathrooms at one school two bathrooms at another so we are planning on outfitting we're waiting for some stuff to come back from the vendor but outfitting one entire school so that we can better understand the behaviors and use the technology a little bit differently than we did the first time which was kind of just in the background but the technology does have applications like an alarm like a smoke alarm to try to understand how student behaviors change when we turn on some of those features and use it more holistically through an entire school sure I appreciate that but I think my

[02:56:14] question was a little bit more pointed to are we going to use a similar product or an improved product because the last time dr. Reed spoke about this before your tenure here it was that what we were using for that small pilot the readings were false many times or there were a lot of hiccups that prevented a an expanded rollout at that time and I'm just wondering what has changed for us to invest more into the product that we well what we have currently we didn't seem to have a lot of confidence in sure and the vendor is always tweaking the project so the current model we actually are going back through the approval

[02:56:52] process through cyber to make sure that it's that it is going to work better but the limitation that the team said from the initial pilot was we were only getting four bathrooms and really missing we also learned that we didn't outfit some of them with as many detectors as we needed we falsely presumed where vaping was taking place in some of the bathrooms thinking that it was all happening in a stall for example and administrators informed us that no in fact much of it happens just in front of mirrors for example so um we learned a little

[02:57:27] bit more about spacing and some items that that we want to expand upon thank you that's very helpful and in response of miss marron's um ask that we reflect on the schedule for next time i'm happy to support that thank you dr anderson mr mcdaniel uh real quick in my haste to introduce i i did a quick calculation. I think this is remarkable. If you go to page 5 of 16, the fund statement, our annual expenditures on the operating fund is just over $4 billion with a variance to date of

[02:58:02] $621,000. Now back in the napkin math, that's a 0.015% variance. And if you calculate that out to a typical Northern Virginia Fairfax household budget of $150,000, that's a variance of $22.50.

[02:58:18] cents. I think of myself to be decent at budgeting. There is no way I could budget a household down to $22.50. So thank you, Lee, for the work that you and your team do because it's a very good product that you deliver on behalf of our schools and our taxpayers. So thank you. Thank you. It's not me. I have a talented group of directors and other staff members that support me and I couldn't do this without them. Thank you, Mr. McDaniel. We will move right along. Thank you. Agenda item Item seven, consent agenda.

[02:58:54] Our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure Roberts rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval by the board by a single motion. Many items listed have gone through the board review and documentation has been provided to all board members in the public in advance. Items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting.

[02:59:13] The consent agenda items are on the screen. Is there any objection to approving the consent agenda? Hearing and seeing no objection, the consent agenda is approved. item 8 new business the following are new business agenda items there will not be a vote on these items this evening but action is scheduled at a future meeting agenda item 9 board committee reports i call on mr mckelveen for a report from the audit committee the audit committee continues to work through its annual work plan and we're looking forward to next year's audit work plan

[02:59:49] as well thank you to those board members who have submitted their feedback and spoken with General Coe on their preferred audit topics. Thank you Mr. McAfee and I call on Miss St. John Cunning for a public engagement committee report if she's available. I'll pass just because I can't speak. Okay. Thank you very much Miss St. John Cunning we'll have an update from you next time. I call on Miss Lady from a report from the governance committee. Thank you Mr. Chair. I'm happy to share that the last governance beam we actually passed three approved revised policies.

[03:00:26] uh we convene again this coming tuesday uh three o'clock uh with a healthy agenda ahead of us um i will say that we've had some good conversations around uh formatting of policies um do policies need philosophy what are the what are the components we want in there um so in addition to looking at them in terms of content we're looking at them in terms of other ways um but we do have a lot of work to get through and hopefully uh our committee will will keep keep keepin on but the next meeting is uh april one from three to five thank you thank

[03:01:02] you miss lady agenda item 11 excuse me agenda item 10 superintendent matters dr reed thank you chairman frisch uh it's been a busy week this week and i spent some time tuesday at belvedere elementary school and was greeted by some fifth grade student ambassadors that were very excited to show show me their school and so principal cecilia vanderhe and her admin team as well as her preschool team i had a chance to look at several of our models for inclusive preschool there's a lot of excitement there at belvedere and also spent time with principal anthony harris

[03:01:41] at frost middle school and had the opportunity to visit some family and consumer science classes There was a lot of great baking and sewing going on, and I visited some Algebra I classes where polynomial work was going on, and I just have to say that did make my day.

[03:02:00] Fairfax High School, I got some help in the weight room by some of our young student athletes. I didn't realize that the weight bar that I was going to lift actually weighed 45 pounds, so I did say do not put anything else on the bar. But visited AP seminar biology and English classes at Fairfax High School and our Lions have dramatically increased the number of Lions in AP classes this year Principal Georgina I was really excited and so were the students I got to read Leonardo the Terrible Monster to first graders at Glen Forest Elementary and there were some sad moments in it

[03:02:39] I'm not I'm not gonna lie. I'll have to go back and reread leonardo got to see model congress going on at oakton high school and just really fabulous opportunity and then joined several of you at fan quest at annandale high school and i'm just really excited for that i also want to share with our community that i was called this week from our virginia department of education to be notified that we have two virginia finalists for presidential award for excellence in mathematics and science teaching and kirsten salonga a science teacher at justice high school

[03:03:19] one of our wolves and john mika mathematics teacher at hayfield secondary school so these are very prestigious honors and just so proud of our fcps educating staff and just nice to be honored at that level i also want to congratulate elise pope a family services specialist who was named NEA education support professional of the year finalist so lots of fun there and join mr. Solomon and others miss st. John Cunning at Twain middle school to celebrate our FCPS borders recipient

[03:03:57] Samantha Vivian Beck and the Education Foundation presented her a very large check lots of excitement there so went to band events and robotics events and something I'd never been to because it's not a West Coast thing but it was the Atlantic Indoor Association indoor guard and percussion competition at Mount Vernon High School was amazing I have never been to a competition like that I I just, it was beyond, I couldn't say enough about it.

[03:04:31] It was very exciting. And then, of course, our science fair and finished off the weekend at the Spelling Bee, where I was watching third and fourth graders spell words I had never heard of. So we have some amazingly talented young scholars here in Fairfax County.

[03:04:48] So that's my report, Mr. Frisch. Thank you, Dr. Reed. Miss Lady, oh, excuse me. The next item on the agenda is agenda item 11, board matters. I call on Ms. Lady for an update. I thought I was after Mr. Moon.

[03:05:12] Mr. Moon had passed. I was yielding my time to you. Okay, thank you. Sorry. So, yes, I will share some of the exciting things that I have been involved in. I will start with the fact that I was able to observe McLean High School's AP Capstone 10th grade English class presentations last week.

[03:05:29] And I will tell you somebody who was a little skeptical about making that an English tent offering, I was very very impressed by these young people in the delivery of their presentations especially with unexpected guests in the room so they're doing great work I'm very excited to see that expand to all of our schools as an offering as an AP offering for 10th graders that will also cover their English 10 requirement also enjoyed some point last week Dr. Reed's community conversations with employees at Haycock Elementary School and I will say that short and sweet

[03:06:04] The faculty seemed to be very pleased, so it went very well, very smoothly. Also attended another SHAC meeting, Student Health Advisory Committee, continued to learn a lot more about cell phone usage, and actually just to be quite direct, the addictive nature of social media and cell phones and our young people and some of the things that we need to be doing to intervene there.

[03:06:31] Also enjoyed attending Science Fair and celebrating several of the people from the Drainsville District. I will not name all of their actual experiments, but congratulations to the students who won grand prize. Chloe Giglio from McLean High School, Oliver Wang from Thomas Jefferson High School, and Bennett Huang, and Jason Pan from Langley. And then also to the Durainesville grand prize alternates in animal science, Justin Kim and Nisha Shah from TJ, in computer Science and Math, Marina Lynn from TJ, and then a Materials Science, Aditha Pilya, and

[03:07:08] Lang Xiong from Langley High School. Again, very impressive projects. There's nothing more exciting to be at Science Fair and feel like you're at an athletic event and your team just won. The excitement from the students when they heard their names called, it's a It's a must-see, and it's a must-experience.

[03:07:29] It's great to see our kids love science that much. Spent some time earlier this week at the PTSA for Langley High School at a meeting. Good conversations there, some boundary questions, some K-12 start-time questions.

[03:07:46] And as mentioned earlier, enjoy going to Global Classroom Project presentations, I think, last night. All my days are running together. But that was quite impressive. And I really commend the teachers who take that on. And I hope there's a way that more of our teachers can learn about that, because I feel like in my time at Chantilly, I wasn't that familiar with it, but there would have been some teachers who would have loved to have latch on to and participate in that experience.

[03:08:09] And then just as a reminder, tomorrow, I have a budget meeting with Drainsville at the McLean Community Center with Board of Supervisor Jimmy Bierman's office. That's at 6 p.m. And then we also have one at Herndon High School on Wednesday, April 2nd. And then finally, I'll give a shout out to our career center specialists and counselors that I was able to share a meal with today.

[03:08:31] Christopher Newport University hosted a counselor workshop for our counselors to learn more about their admissions and their institution. And that was a special event. And it's just nice that counselors can get to that type of professional training during their day. So that's it for me. Thank you, Ms. Lady.

[03:08:48] Ms. St. John Cunning. I'll pass tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Feel better. Ms. Marin. yes well i'm going to be out bright and early well not that early but in the morning tomorrow over at cedar lane they're having their basketball championship and i'm very excited to go and see that i am also then going to head over to an iftar dinner hosted by our sudanese american community of which a lot of the families are at forest edge elementary where i was yesterday reading books donated by microsoft all about steam so that was pretty fun i managed to read to fifth graders and

[03:09:28] and they found it pretty engaging. So, yay. I also headed over last night to Sunrise Valley Elementary, had their Show What You Know, and Flores Elementary had their science fair. So just really cool projects by students, you know, talking about science and doing fun things, and it was just a nice time.

[03:09:47] Somewhere in there, I went to the Madison High School for their jazz band concert, which was really great. And I'm having a town hall to talk about the budget. So please come and learn. It's on April 7th. That's a Monday from 7:00 to 9:00 PM at the newly renovated Louise Archer Elementary, which is also an amazing opportunity to go and see that beautiful school, which I believe will have an official opening at some point.

[03:10:12] And I also want to wish a meaningful Eid to our families observing Ramadan. And I'd save the best for last. The thing I'm most looking forward-- well, tonight my daughter played in her first JV soccer game. And so I heard it went really well.

[03:10:27] And apparently my husband was the announcer, which I'm sure she really didn't like. But I'm excited to do that at some point too. And my son is playing in the sixth grade basketball game tomorrow night where it's teams of teachers and parents. And this is something that I've been waiting for for years.

[03:10:42] So elementary school is fast sunsetting. So looking forward to starting the new quarter, the new semester next week. And yeah, enjoy the three day weekend. - Thank you, Ms. Marin. Ms. Dixit.

[03:11:03] - Thank you, Mr. Chair. I enjoyed my visit to Centerville High School along with my colleague, Mr. Kyle McDaniel last week. I welcome the opportunity to engage directly with their amazing new principal, Mr. Healy, staff and student in the classroom.

[03:11:18] All the students mural on the wall and artworks are incredible. We also listened to the fantastic Centerville High School Symphony Orchestra assessment. I was really cool to see like the more, the hundred students who are on the stage and the symphony orchestra.

[03:11:35] And a very talented group, I must say. I also had a PTA, PTO, PTSA president's round table, which we were talking about the budget. We talked about the CIP boundary study and answer question.

[03:11:53] Thank you for those who could attend. And then we sent the slides over to everybody who could in the Sully district who could not attend the meeting. So I did want to congratulate Mandy Walter, special education teacher from Poplar Tree Elementary School, and Elizabeth Frostick, special education teacher from Shanty High School, won the first class awards.

[03:12:16] Awards are presented each year to recognize and celebrate the student effort of educators, administrators, support staff, and students who have demonstrated excellence in all facets of education related to disability. congratulations to all of them uh to all the awardees uh the 17th annual fairfax county regional science and engineering fair showcased roughly 400 high school science projects congratulations to all the students who participated and won prizes nine fcps student reward the grand prize and so proud of sully's two district student samanvietan mullah

[03:12:51] from shentley high school who was a grand prize awardee for chemistry and ash malhotra from thomas Jefferson High School who was the grand prize award in engineering technology. The grand prize winners are eligible to complete compete in the regional international science and engineering fair in May. I'm looking forward to my trip to London Town Elementary next week and I would just say good night and thank you to all of you and happy eat for those who celebrate and enjoy the long weekend. Thank you Ms. Dixit. Mr. McElveen. Pass. Thanks. Thank you Mr. McElveen.

[03:13:31] Dr. Anderson. Yes thank you. Firstly I do want to say congratulations also Dr. Reed stole my thunder a little bit regarding the teacher at high school at Justice High School Kirsten Salonga. It was fantastic just to hear this wonderful news we do have such wonderful educators in our schools so I won't belabor that point but just to wish her good luck as she's going to be announced I guess the the winners are going to be announced for the Presidential Award for Excellence which she is up for very soon. Speaking of science, I do want to say congratulations to the nearly 70

[03:14:10] Mason District students who represented all three of our high schools and brought home awards in this recent Fairfax County Regional Science and Engineering Fair. That was very exciting. I will be celebrating your many, many names in our newsletter coming up very soon. I do want to thank supervisor Jimenez for hosting the budget town hall with us to yesterday as well as miss burden who was just really wonderful on camera but I think the star of our budget town hall was a student from poe middle school who called in and asked a he had such strong advocacy he'd asked

[03:14:49] wonderful questions regarding the middle school after school programs so much so he ended up being featured on two news outlets so just go ahead and check out that video because they also went to the school to interview him it was just a wonderful display and he was just so eloquent and just so clear in terms of how important that programming is to him and so I'm excited to continue to work with supervisor Jimenez to see what can be done in a timely manner because we also don't want to have that running into the VIP summer camp program which are run by those same coordinators. Very excited to visit Park Lawn Elementary yesterday and

[03:15:28] the opportunity to visit Miss Jensen's fourth grade classroom. I talked to you all just a few weeks ago regarding the students who wrote the letters about the overcrowding at their school and how the playground is crowded. They were a wonderful audience and they were just so enthusiastic and wanting to know what what are you guys going to do about that. So it was very exciting to speak with that group also had the opportunity to visit with at Annandale Terrace that's the principal video who you saw in the video a little bit earlier and had a chance to see some of that work in person and I'm really proud of the work

[03:16:05] that they are doing there just very recently I also visited Falls Church High School with Congressman Beyer to see the new space I don't know if you've been yet Mr. Frisch but the auditorium is really coming along and he had the opportunity to speak to a government class and their concerns were far ranging and there were a fantastic group of students who really put him on the spot regarding how he is going to protect our interests here in Fairfax County so I was excited that they were unafraid of the opportunity before them I do want to share that Justice High School's Wolfpack theater production of

[03:16:45] almost main premieres tonight and runs through saturday with two additional evening performances and a matinee on saturday um the park lawn boundary community meetings i believe are slated for april 1st and 9th so parents i know that uh miss forgy has sent out some information and we look forward to seeing you on april 1st at 6 30 for the in person for i think that's virtual and the in-person meeting is April 9th at 6:30. Lastly, I want to say congratulations to Alex Price, who is a sixth

[03:17:19] grader at Glasgow, who was one of the nine finalists in the county spelling bee. What science is to you, Miss Lady, spelling bee is to me. It is one of my favorite things, and I was excited to participate in all three spelling bees at Glasgow, Holmes, and Poe this year. I could sit there all day.

[03:17:40] I was not able to make it on Sunday, but it's one of my favorite things ever. So I look forward to seeing our finalists very soon at the Gaylord, which will be shown on ESPN. Have a good night, all. Thank you. T-H-A. I'm just kidding.

[03:17:59] That is incorrect. Mr. McDaniel. Thank you. Quickly. I will be joining Miss Anderson next Tuesday, April 2nd, 7 p.m. at West Springfield High School for a budget town hall. and we're excited that we're going to be featuring chairman jeff mckay the county executive and i think the superintendent will be making an appearance as well and lastly speaking of west springfield high school i wish a speedy recovery to my friend and and quasi colleague on the other board supervisor herity who i hear is recovering very well from a recent medical procedure so with

[03:18:34] that good night miss anderson um just really fast we talk a lot about budget on this board and we talk a lot about money and where where money's coming from and as I have been digging in related to what's been going on with the Department of Education recently and the risk of local funding from the federal sources I have I just have been reiterating this in opportunities that I've had to speak is that I have never been more grateful for the commitment of the Board of Supervisors in Fairfax County you've heard this from me before is that my

[03:19:13] standard answer is kind of that I recognize that they have filled the Delta for a very long time to make sure that we can have the school system that we do we have work that we still need to do but we would not be in the position where we are where if we lose federal funding it's only a hundred and sixty eight million dollars out of our four billion dollar budget and that is while it's still an astronomical amount of money um i am grateful that it is only 168 million dollars that we would have to figure out how to how to make work so i just wanted to say publicly one

[03:19:50] more time thank you so much to the board of supervisors for your continued support thank you miss anderson uh first i too attended the oakton model congress it's one of my favorite events every single year it starts off with students electing their leadership for their respective parts in congress they give speeches they get elected and then they talk about their legislation and they debate their legislation they pass their legislation i cannot tell my colleagues how refreshing it was to see what a functioning congress looks like it was just incredible

[03:20:25] and i also very much enjoyed going to the global classrooms event yesterday and seeing the talented students of Luther Jackson Middle School open the the the event with their very inspiring performance of spoken word tributes to the the goals and purposes of the program it was fantastic and I look forward to going again in the future earlier this month there was a huge WACFL speech and debate league tournament that was open to public and private middle and high schools in the greater DC area.

[03:21:04] And I am excited, as somebody who used to participate in speech and debate, I'm excited that a pair of Madison High School students did so well and they will be moving on to the next round of competition. I was recently approached by a parent in FCPS who's a RIFT federal worker and they expressed to me how grateful they are for FCPS because though they are trying to scramble and reevaluate what their professional career is going to look like after 20 years of service to their

[03:21:38] country they've been to a pair of the job fairs that we've had an FCPS to invite these people these scientists these lawyers these professionals who have given to their country to join us in our service to our community and is hoping to join us and so I appreciate the work that's being done from our human resources department to bring these people into the fold here so they can continue their public service so thank you very much um looking forward to a couple of upcoming events this weekend the sixth grade all uh county choral festival which is a fantastic event uh filled with super talented students and i'm looking forward to being

[03:22:18] there for that again uh and then upcoming providence day is holding its earth day celebration at the gram road community building on april 5th from noon to three so i hope folks will turn out and join supervisor Palczyk for that wonderful event and with that at 10:22 p.m. this meeting is adjourned.

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