Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Meeting, Thursday, May 8, 2025

Date: Thursday, May 8, 2025
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 4h 25m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k-HIczG0Ww
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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[00:02:55] - Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us.

[00:02:57] The board will start at approximately 7:15.

[00:11:18] - Board members, please take your seats.

[00:11:45] While I jumped the gun, you have four more minutes

[00:11:47] to goof off and talk, but not leave the dais.

[00:15:59] This May 8th, 2025 regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board will come to order. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by a moment of silence and a performance of the national anthem by the Carl Sandburg Middle School Symphonic Band under the direction of Beth Anderson Morgan.

[00:16:17] - Pledge of Allegiance.

[00:18:55] - We have another round of applause those very talented students and their music educator agenda item 2.02 announcements if you would like to review a copy of the meeting agenda please see the back of the auditorium to obtain copies of any items or supporting materials being presented tonight 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 tonight's meeting is

[00:19:31] also being broadcast in Spanish on YouTube at youtube.com slash at symbol FCPS en Espanol. This evening we would like to welcome Virginia State Senator Saddam Salim representing District 37 to our meeting. Agenda item 2.03, teachers, paraprofessionals, after school professionals and related service providers appreciation month proclamation. I call on Ms. Dixit for

[00:20:02] proclamation. Whereas the National Parent Teacher Association founded Teacher Appreciation Week to strengthen respect and support for educators and the teacher profession and whereas every community members knows a great teacher who made the difference in their life or in the life of a loved one and we thank those educator during Teacher Appreciation Week and always and whereas

[00:20:41] quality education is essential in the well-being of our society and our community recognizes and supports this teacher in educating the children of our community and whereas our teachers are the foundation of our education system and the acknowledged instruction leader in the classroom across our divisions and whereas teachers are trusted respected professionals who must be empowered and supported to do their best work and provide high-quality innovative learning experience that serves all students and various Fairfax

[00:21:17] County Public School real-life superheroes are our teachers there are professionals after schools professionals and related service providers who create rich environment for our students to learn be creative encouraged and be feel supported and various these educators instill in students the joy of learning expand their horizons encourage their talents and foster healthy self esteem a sense of civic responsibility inspiring exploration and these desire to never stop learning and whereas these educators devotion to their work and learning reflects a love of teaching

[00:21:55] and an understanding of the individual need of the students and whereas over 16 000 teachers in Fairfax County Public Schools demonstrate their personal and professional dedication to providing an excellent education for the children in our community.

[00:22:12] And well as Fairfax County Public Schools value the skills, creativity, and professionalism that characterize our educators and the Fairfax County School Board to applaud the accomplishments, skills, and dedication of each educators.

[00:22:29] therefore be resolved that the Fairfax County School Board proclaims May 5-9, 2025 as Educator Appreciation Week in Fairfax County Public Schools and recognizes honors and extends its highest commendation to teachers, professionals, after school professionals, and related service providers.

[00:22:54] And therefore be it further resolved that Fairfax County School Board calls on the Fairfax County community to take a moment to express their appreciation and celebrate our educators for their skill, dedication and devotion to their work. Is there a second? Second. Thank you Mr. Moon. All those in favor of the proclamation, Ms.

[00:23:18] Marin, Ms. Dixit, Mr. McElveen, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Seismarheiser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning and myself, that is unanimous. Congratulations. Agenda item 2.04, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month Proclamation. I call on Dr. Anderson for a proclamation. Thank you. Whereas Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, AAPI, make up 18.7% of the population in Fairfax County, including over

[00:23:55] 34,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade. And whereas AAPIs have been emigrating to the united states for hundreds of years with the first documented arrival in morrow bay in present-day california in the 1500s and today they are the fastest growing racial group to the country increasing in population by 81 between 2000 and 2019 and whereas apis have endured

[00:24:27] might have endured such injustices such as the Naturalization Act of 1790 and 1870, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Japanese internment which established concentration camps that incarcerated Asian U.S. citizens from 1942 to 1946, and federal policy that prevented immigrants of Asian descent from becoming U.S. citizens and having access to the vote until 1952.

[00:25:02] And whereas AAPIs continue to experience racism, harassment, employment discrimination, and hate crimes in disproportionate numbers, including most recently with hate crimes against Asian Americans skyrocketing by 149 percent in major American cities from 2019 to 2020.

[00:25:18] And whereas AAPI student needs can get overlooked due to the model minority myth as evidenced by varying levels of high school dropout amongst Asian American subgroups, greater than average incidence of limited English proficiency, less return on degree for compensation when entering the labor market, and higher risk of contemplating or attempting suicide among AAPI college students.

[00:25:40] And whereas AAPIs have made significant accomplishments and contributions in all areas of society that have propelled our country and have played a pivotal role in America's history for centuries. And famous AAPIs include Vice President, former Vice President Kamala Harris, Jhumpa Lahiri, Pulitzer Prize winning authors, Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy, A.J. Bhatt, co-inventor of the USB, George Takei, trailblazing Asian American actor, Qianxiang Wu, known as the First Lady of Physics, Steve Chen, co-founder of YouTube,

[00:26:15] and Philip Veracruz, a Filipino American labor organizer who worked along Cesar Chavez. Dolores Huerta to found the United Farm Workers and whereas Asian American and Pacific Islander students and their families are an integral and long-standing part of the United States, Virginia, Fairfax County and Fairfax County Public Schools and also reflect the rich and vibrant diversity of cultures, histories and languages of the many different countries of Asia and the Pacific Islands. Now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board proclaims the observance of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage

[00:26:50] month in celebration and recognition of the many contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have made to our society. Is there a second? Second. Lots of seconds. Fourths apparently. Thank you Miss Marin and Mr.

[00:27:09] McElveen. For the purposes of the minutes I think Miss Marin said it first so Mr. McElveen you'll have to be third. All those in favor of the motion Miss Marron, Ms. Dixit, Mr. McElveen, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Seizmerheiser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunningham, myself. That is unanimous. Congratulations. The proclamation passes. Section 2.05 honoring Freedom Hill Elementary School's 75th anniversary

[00:27:44] proclamation. I call on Mr. Frisch for a proclamation. Thank you. Whereas Freedom Hill Elementary School established in 1949 has served as a pillar of the educational excellence in the the community for 75 years providing a nurturing learning environment and fostering a strong sense of community and whereas freedom hill school a one-room schoolhouse built by fcps in 1873 once stood near the school's present-day site and served the local community for 50 years until 1923 marking an early chapter in the area's long legacy of public education

[00:28:21] and whereas freedom hill elementary was built in an area that was once a large settlement of hunt and hunting camp used by native peoples prior to the arrival of colonists. And whereas like all FCPS schools at the time, Freedom Hill was a segregated school, and in September 1961, desegregation began when two African-American children were permitted to enroll.

[00:28:42] And whereas Freedom Hill embraces its motto, many cultures, one community, as it educates students from over 45 nations and 35 language backgrounds, promoting diversity, empathy, and global awareness in every classroom. and whereas the dedicated teachers and staff at Freedom Hill inspire curiosity, creativity, and a love for learning through innovative and rigorous instructional practices, including problem-based learning, blended learning, and a wide array of programs in STEM, critical and creative thinking and technology, and whereas the school's commitment to academic excellence is reflected in its students' achievements, including marked improvement in reading

[00:29:22] and science testing scores, and a decrease in chronic absenteeism during the 23-24 school year, demonstrating the impact of strong partnerships with families, staff, and students. And whereas Freedom Hill provides essential support for unique learners through its specialized education programs, including enhanced autism, intellectual disabilities, and preschool autism classrooms, ensuring that all students receive the resources they need to succeed.

[00:29:47] And whereas the school's full-time local advanced academics program challenges students to engage in complex problem solving and critical thinking with each teacher in the program holding a state endorsement in gifted education. And whereas the Freedom Hill PTA plays a vital role in enhancing student experiences through events such as the back to school picnic, culture and heritage celebration, which is really awesome, Hallowingo and community building volunteer programs.

[00:30:16] And whereas Freedom Hill fosters student leadership through the Student Council Association, patrol officers program, and the FHES live news team, encouraging students to develop confidence, responsibility, and communication skills.

[00:30:31] And whereas the school's partnership with the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology through the Buddy program, supports students with intellectual disabilities, highlighting the spirit of inclusivity and mentorship within the community. And whereas Freedom Hill is a proud positivity project school, teaching students about character strengths, ranging from bravery and creativity to integrity and gratitude, which promotes self-confidence, empathy, and appreciation of differences.

[00:30:56] Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board honors Freedom Hill Elementary School-- Freedom Hill Elementary School on its 75th anniversary for its legacy of academic achievement, commitment to diversity and inclusion, and unwavering dedication to fostering a vibrant, supportive, and innovative learning environment for future generations.

[00:31:18] - Is there a second? - Second. - Mr. Moon, I will call for the vote. All those in favor? Ms. Marin, Ms. Dixit, Mr. McDaniel, Mr. McElveen, sorry, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Mr. Frisch, Ms. Seismerheiser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, and Ms. St. John Cunning and myself.

[00:31:43] That's unanimous for all at the table. The proclamation passes. - Thank you. Wanted to make sure we got that in there. All right, agenda item 2.06, honoring the 70th anniversary of Gunston Elementary School Proclamation.

[00:32:02] I call on Mr. Dunn for a proclamation. - Whereas Gunston Elementary has proudly served Fairfax County since opening its doors in 1954 to generations of young learners, and whereas the school has been enriched by the dedication of its teachers, staff, and administrators who, over the decades, have nurtured and guided thousands of students through their formative years with dedication, compassion, and a commitment to academic excellence, And whereas Gunston Elementary has continually adapted to meet the needs of a growing and diverse student body, incorporating innovative programs and teaching practices that prepare students for future success while also preserving the strong community ties

[00:32:42] that have been a hallmark of its history. And whereas AVID began as a college preparatory and academic success program for secondary students, Gunston established the first AVID Elementary School in Fairfax County and was showcased as a model program for AVID's board of directors, which included AVID's founder who had never seen AVID Elementary in action before.

[00:33:02] And whereas Gunston Elementary has forged a valuable partnership with the historic Gunston Hall for an annual fund run held to support a robust after-school program that fosters learning, creativity, and community engagement. And whereas Gunston Elementary exemplifies the FCPS mission by inspiring young minds, promoting lifelong learning, and helping students develop into responsible and engaged citizens who contribute positively to their community.

[00:33:27] Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board hereby honors the 70th anniversary of Gunston Elementary School, celebrating its contributions to education, its role in the community, and its commitment to student achievement and growth. And now, therefore, be it further resolved, the Fairfax County School Board congratulates the students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the entire Gunston Elementary School community on this significant milestone and wishes them continued success in the years to come.

[00:33:53] Is there a second? Second. Mr. McIntyre, thank you. those in favor I'll call for the vote Ms. Marin, Ms. Dixit, Mr. McIlveen, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Sizemoreheiser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunningham and myself. Unanimous the proclamation passes congratulations. All right moving right along agenda item 2.07 recognizing Emily Burrell. Proclamation I call on Ms. Marin for a proclamation. Whereas Southlakes High School is dedicated to cultivating the full academic potential of every student where faculty

[00:34:32] embrace the strengths and experiences of all learners who at the school represent over 70 countries and coursework includes the international baccalaureate program 82 co-curricular and extracurricular activities a focus on leadership development through many avenues plus award-winning performing and visual arts offerings and whereas access to rigorous mathematics coursework is a predictor of academic and life success and a strong foundation in mathematics promotes continued learning and growth for students throughout high school and beyond whereas Emily Borelli dedicated mathematics educator at South Lakes High School is being recognized for her

[00:35:08] outstanding contributions to student learning resulting in earning the presidential award for excellence in mathematics and science teaching as conferred by former U.S. President Joseph Biden and whereas at South Lakes her course offerings have included functions and data analysis algebra two and international baccalaureate mathematics applications and interpretation working with students from ninth to twelfth grade including targeted support to students who have been marginalized by traditional curriculum so as to create relevant and engaging learning opportunities with project-based assessments and whereas Emily Burrell's passion for nurturing

[00:35:43] students confidence and agency as a vital component of academic and life success expands her work beyond school day classes into her role as the school's equity Coley teacher in which she She champions student voice, empowers students to share their perspectives, and develop structures to leverage their assets to remove barriers in learning.

[00:36:02] And whereas Emily Burrell's expertise and dedication to mathematics education are exemplified in her presentations at local and state conferences, where she shares best practices on topics such as building community through collaborative learning and building mathematical identity through open-ended projects, as well as writing in esteemed publications such as Virginia mathematics teacher and education week. Now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board recognizes Emily Burrell for her exceptional dedication to students, her commitment to equitable education, and her outstanding contribution to students and colleagues at

[00:36:37] Southlakes High School and Fairfax County Public Schools. Thank you. Ms. Marin, is there a second? I second. Ms. St. John Cunning, thank you. All those in favor, please raise your hand. Ms. Marin, Ms. Dixit, Mr. McElveen, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Sizemore-Heiser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Miss Lady, Miss St. John Cunningham, and myself.

[00:36:56] Again, that is unanimous, and the proclamation passes. I would like to welcome all those here in support of the Freedom Hill Elementary School 75th anniversary proclamation to please join the board for a photo in front of the dais.

[00:37:15] I would like to welcome all those here in support of the Emily Burrell proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the dais.

[00:39:37] I would like to welcome all those here in support of the Gunston Elementary School 70th anniversary proclamation to please join the board for a photo

[00:39:45] at the front of the dais.

[00:40:44] I would like to welcome all those here in support of the Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month proclamation to please join the board for a photo

[00:40:50] at the front of the dais.

[00:41:40] I would like to welcome teachers, paraprofessionals, afterschool professionals, related service providers, and all those here in support of the Educators Appreciation Week proclamation to please join the board for a photo

[00:41:52] at the front of the dais.

[00:43:15] all right agenda item 3.01 community participation the next order of business is community participation we welcome all community members who are here and those who signed up to speak this evening additional information about signing up to provide comments at school board regular business meetings and public hearings can be found on the school board's website at fcps.edu/school board during the signup process community members acknowledged they were informed of the school board's expectations for proper decorum when providing comments. These expectations can be are also available online and with

[00:43:54] the printed agenda and meeting materials at the back of the room. We ask audience members and others to be respectful of one another. Shouting and outbursts will not be tolerated. Please hold your applause until the conclusion of the speaker's remarks. Audience members may not join speakers at the podium and should remain at their seats including when recording videos or taking photos. We're grateful to those who have come to speak to us today and we thank you for your cooperation school board members will be listening but not

[00:44:21] responding madam clerk please call the first speaker Jonathan Roy hello and thank you I'd like to thank the school board for allowing me some time to speak today I'm here on the topic about the proposed pilot program to adjust middle school start times for two middle schools a few things that I know is that adjusting start times for middle schoolers as in the pilot program will likely have a very positive impact on the students academic performance their

[00:44:57] health and many other benefits to the community. I also understand that it's a cost-neutral pilot program so it's not going to cost any money and I understand that this proposal has lost some support in recent weeks due to some individuals saying that it might have a negative impact on commute times and childcare situations. Some points I wanted to make is that commute and childcare changes happen all the time for families. A kid progressing from elementary school to middle school, a parent changing the work environment, a babysitter moves away these changes are inevitable and I don't think that should be a barrier for us trying a pilot program also what might be a perceived negative for some might be a big benefit for other families we don't know that

[00:45:37] yet because we don't have the data and that there's a lot of strong evidence that this cost-neutral proposal will have positive impacts on the community and the only way to dispel these unknowns is to do the pilot program which is why I'm strongly advocating for it if we don't do a pilot program for this that kind of closes the door forever on a on a possibly a big solution like this because we don't do it through a pilot program how else would we do it a pilot program is the only way to proceed and I think closing the door on that forever would be a big step backwards for the county yes there might be some negatives but we don't know what they will be and I think doing the pilot

[00:46:15] program collecting the data and then analyzing it will better inform the school board on how to proceed from there but to kill it before it even happens in a pilot program seems I don't know maybe a little short-sighted or just uh you know we might leave a very good opportunity to die on the vine or something like that um i would hope that this uh the school board hopes to not halt progress and to move this pilot program forward thank you very much for hearing me out appreciate

[00:46:37] it definitely katz all right well thank you all for giving me the time to speak tonight i am here on behalf of the afton glenn community um we are standing in opposition to the proposal to rezone sangster and lake braddock secondary school to newington south county the proposed change would significantly disrupt our children's education with the research indicating

[00:47:15] that midstream school changes are tied to lower academic outcomes social disconnection and increased emotional distress distress it will fragment our community and provide no measurable benefit to the broader school system I'm focusing on the school boards goals for the area goals for achieving unbalancing capacity Sankster is not over capacity and this proposal however pushes Newington over capacity with additional proposals for pushing it further over capacity indicating undue burden on existing resources and existing students goal number three removing isolated attendance islands afton glenn's proximity to sangster elementary is

[00:47:49] actually undeniable we are less than 0.2 miles from the existing boundary for the zone it takes about four minutes for our students to get to school and we are in fact not an isolated island we are disconnected by one main throwaway um we are a four minute drive to sangster yet under the proposed plan there are pieces of the zone where students are being bussed over one hour up to Sangster they are driving past Halley Elementary past Silverbrook Elementary and the distinct difference as these are estates that are close to Fountain Regional Park and these students pass both both schools on

[00:48:26] the way indicating that the consistency that is needed to make sure that these proposals go into effect and are not resulting in undue bussing are not taking place I'm quick and quickly to say that we are a very tight-knit community we have a lot of military personnel in our community and we have specifically Lisa and Grant Griffith indicated they are both active duty Air Force they have both turned down multiple career advancement opportunities to keep their children at Sangster and Lake Braddock and they purchased their homes as did we all for the purpose of keeping our students in these schools

[00:48:59] thank you Sean Lassiter hello school board I'm joining you today to also advocate for the continuation or the beginning of a pilot program changed middle school start times I think it is a sad state and a county like Fairfax we have 11 year old children getting up at 6:00 in the morning to catch the bus

[00:49:35] and getting home between 2:00 and 3:00 I understand the pilot program is supposed to have both Poe and Gallows. I'm a parent of two children that are in elementary school, but one is about to join middle school, so I will be living this next year. Again, I beg you, try the pilot program. Let's put it back. Let me, my 11-year-old daughter, sleep past 6 a.m.

[00:50:01] next year. Let's find the data, find out if this can work in the county. If it costs us money eventually, then fine. We should be able to do this. Please let the pilot program continue. Thank

[00:50:11] Kathleen Mallard. Good evening. First of all, congratulations to all those honored this evening. Yes, they are superheroes in all of these schools, the teachers, the paraprofessionals, the security. And we respect that. We understand that. However, we have some problems in our schools. In addition to your primary responsibility of educating students, we have the very real threat of gang activity, drug use, violence, and per year January

[00:51:09] resolution 2022 on human trafficking victims of human sex trafficking have been identified from every FCPS high school multiple middle schools and elementary schools across the county. It is a critical it is critical that you consider how northern Virginia as you stated is a lucrative market for selling children. It's much more lucrative than a bag of fentanyl or drugs. Recently in March we learned the arrest of a Manassas and Manassas Prince William County a leader of

[00:51:42] MS-13. MS-13 has been here for many years, and in 2012 a young girl begged her school authorities to help her. She was groomed and she was almost taken out of state until her mother found her. I won't mention her name. In conclusion, I'm hopeful you'll work with Governor Youngkin and A.G. Mayeres, so more arrests of MS-13 gang members and other gangs.

[00:52:10] Please stop your obsession and with the normalization of the LBGTQ1A where there's so much focus on that. Why don't we focus on keeping our students safe. There's also this DEI CRT transgender ideology also please keep the after school programs if some of you have to take a cut in salary maybe that's worth it.

[00:52:38] Thank you very much. I appreciate your time this evening. Beth Brugman. Good evening. Last month both our state house and senate voted unanimously to adopt legislation restricting cell phone usage in all our schools from the first bell to the last. The SRNR that you all are voting on tonight allows for cell phone use during passing periods and lunch

[00:53:14] and clearly does not meet the intent of that legislation. Allowing cell phone use during parts of the school day would be easier. Fewer objections from students who don't think they need to be restricted from the technology they're addicted to. Fewer objections from parents who have become overly reliant on contact with their kids during the school day. Perhaps you've been influenced by the parents who believe that kids should have access to their phones in the event of an emergency.

[00:53:39] Every parent's worst nightmare. I'm a Marine Corps combat veteran with a unique and deeply personal perspective on crisis communications. I can assure you that when our kids safety is at risk we do not want them on their phones. It's clear that FCPS has spent a significant amount of time listening to these students and parents but what of the mental health and public safety experts who are overwhelming in their opposition to cell phone use at any time and in any capacity between the bells as FCPS leadership spent adequate time listening to them the recommendation before you tonight would indicate that perhaps they have not you were elected to put our kids first even when the kids don't like

[00:54:18] it even when we as parents are terrified of losing control in an out-of-control world but our kids are suffering under the weight of addictive technology social isolation, lack of connection, and insurmountable distraction. We can limit that suffering at least during the seven hours that our kids are in school. With a tidal wave of school districts nationwide opting to implement full-day bans, it defies reason that Fairfax County would choose to lag on adoption and implementation of such a critical and bipartisan policy. We should not be content with a half step of progress while other school systems around us have the courage to go the full measure. I'm asking you to follow

[00:54:58] of the clear intent of our state law remove cell phones and the harm that comes with Kathy Haslow good evening I'm speaking as a concerned parent citizen and health care provider the medical community broadly agrees that excessive cell phone and electronic device use in adolescents has significant impacts on physical mental and emotional health the American Association of Pediatrics recommends limits for screen time as not to interfere with sleep activity and social

[00:55:36] interactions NIH and the Surgeon General Advisory Council issued formal warnings about the risk of of depression, anxiety, poor sleep, poor cognition, cyberbullying, exploitation, body image issues, and worsening academic performances with cell phone use. I'm going to speak on a personal level.

[00:55:54] I have two children at Lake Braddock Secondary School with ADHD. They have IEPs. The use of any electronic sucks them in. They cannot remove their focus towards any other priorities. Even when the cell phone has been put down, just knowing there's a message on Instagram or Snapchat or even a text completely distracts them from important learning at task.

[00:56:13] This must be a growing sentiment because entire states like Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, and Alabama have banned cell phones in schools. New York City had a ban and then lifted it only to reinstate it. I will finish with an antidote with me driving on the way to work two days ago.

[00:56:29] I passed two bus stops, one with a group of high schoolers that had their face in their phone and physical social distancing and the other was a group of elementary school kids that were completely enthralled with a bug on the ground you could see pointing talking laughing and quite possibly learning learning is not just in four walls not in the class not just in the four walls of the classroom with the teacher in front it's in the hallways it's in the cafeteria it's looking up and seeing the world it's not uh it's using all the senses and the use of cell phones take that away or at least limits them. Please enforce bell-to-bell ban on cell phones and let's get back

[00:57:09] to the school system of 100% focused on learning. Thank you. John Wally. Animesh Gupta. Good evening

[00:57:46] members of the board. I'm a parent at McLean High School. I was here with my son last October. My issue is still not resolved. I'm here to raise two issues. One is the issue of due process. We are attempting to resolve this issue with the McLean administration but my family has been and denied due process three times.

[00:58:04] We escalated this issue with FCPS chief of schools. We were promised to follow up within a week. That did not happen. After outreach and over five weeks later, we receive a response, but we are still waiting for full transparency and a fair resolution. I believe in the school system and I believe in its values, but accountability matters.

[00:58:23] So does the responsiveness. I asked this board to hold leadership at the same standards expected of our students, honesty, responsibility, and follow through. The other issue is the grading policy. As per the regulation 2445.7, there is no grade penalty and no record on a student's transfer when a course is dropped.

[00:58:44] At NOVA, if there is a withdrawal, it's a W. However, at McLean, when the child dropped the dual enrollment course, the W was not honored. As a result of discrimination and false plagiarism citation, my son downgraded the course from a DE level 1.0 to an honors 0.5 this is not a lateral transfer it is a change of course change of rigor and level if if the withdrawal isn't formally recorded as a w then the correct and fair weight must be applied to reflect the change otherwise it inaccurately lowers the student's gpa

[00:59:22] and i'm calling it what it is called is grading misrepresentation this affects not just the child but also the student transitioning from a DE or AP to a lower level course I respectfully ask the board to review that and revise the policy so it accounts for proper course weighting and applies consistent standard across all FCPS schools especially McLean High School thank you Phyllis

[00:59:51] Payne is with the heavy heart that I stand before you today disappointed again not for myself personally but for Fairfax County's middle school students and families who must continue to suffer not for lack of viable solutions for fairfax but for lack of courage for lack of leadership for lack of commitment to solving this long-standing problem it appears that this board and superintendent

[01:00:29] have lost sight of the needs of our children and addressing those needs with urgency sandy evans and i appreciate the board members who met with us individually about 16 months ago at that time we described the attention you would need to give to the details change is hard and you would need need to have courage to stand up for what's best for children.

[01:00:50] FCPS would need to communicate why our students need this change over and over again. Specifically, pediatricians recommend that all middle and high schools start after 8:30 so students have an opportunity to fulfill a basic need.

[01:01:06] Systematic sleep deprivation is torture, forcing teens to wake up at 6:00 a.m. or earlier cuts short their sleep, resulting in chronic sleep deprivation. Starting after 8:30 is a tipping point that allows many more students to get the sleep they need to learn, to thrive, to stay healthy, and safe.

[01:01:28] You have squandered your opportunity to help all middle school students next fall. Even though multiple options were presented in early December and improved since then, promised action failed to materialize two weeks ago and seems to be missing from tonight's agenda.

[01:01:43] WILL YOU TAKE ACTION ON THE BOARDS GOAL OF HEALTHY MIDDLE SCHOOL START TIMES PRISMATIC HELPED ANN AROUNDLE COUNTY TAKE OVER OUR LEAD IN THE START TIME ARENA ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS THERE NOW START AT 8AM HIGH SCHOOLS 830 MIDDLE SCHOOLS 915 PRISMATIC HAS GIVEN US SEVERAL OPTIONS TO CONSIDER LET'S GET BACK TO PROPER PLANNING AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT AND GET THIS DONE THANK YOU SHELLY ARNAUDTY

[01:02:10] Hello. It's been a while since I've been here. I would like to ask that in the future you look into showing parents' faces when they have the videos later, because you guys changed it a few years ago, and I don't think it's ever been explained as to why.

[01:02:34] That's cutting into my time. So I live in Mount Vernon District. My kids were three and five when I moved here in 2010, and they went to Wayne Wood Elementary School, and my youngest is about to graduate from West Potomac High School. I'm going to tell a story about West Potomac. Two weeks ago, I got a text message from the principal saying, West Potomac High School remains in stay put, stay tuned protocol following an isolated incident at the school.

[01:02:59] A follow-up message then came, said, please do not come to the school as we will not be releasing students at this time. So I texted my daughter to see what was going on. She said, nothing really. A kid got stabbed, but like he was in a fight. Shortly after that, I got video footage of the fight.

[01:03:14] I saw two kids fighting, and I saw an adult male walk through, take a picture, and walk on. At the time an adult was taking the picture, a smaller kid was getting beaten up by a big kid. The big kid got pulled off, and the smaller kid apparently had a knife.

[01:03:30] You couldn't really tell. Punched the kid a bunch of times until he bled out and fell on the floor. So our kids saw that. I saw that. If they didn't have cell phones, I wouldn't have seen it. We need transparency. Our parents, we need to know what our kids are seeing in the hallways. This is a home white daughter just walked through, and several of her friends saw it.

[01:03:49] So I'm asking for transparency for the parents. We should be allowed to know. It's not just an incident. It was a stabbing. Following the fight, we weren't provided any details, and we were told we could not get our kids. We were not allowed to pick up our children. Later at a press conference, the police said they were going to do a delayed release because of retaliation.

[01:04:10] Who's retaliating? If we have gang members at our schools, we should know about it. if we have illegal criminal gang members at our schools they need to be taken out so please do something the trust policy needs to end chair fish that was our last public speaker thank you excuse me thank you agenda item 5.01 action item certification of a closed meeting compliance I'm sorry Miss Sawant and we only have so many of these left with you I don't want to step on your

[01:04:46] time agenda item 4.01 student representative matters I call on Miss Sawant thank you Mr. Frisch. Happy Educator Appreciation Week. Students right now are knee-deep in the swing of AP season and IB tests for those enrolled and we're approaching the final stretch of the school year but we really could not have come this far without our teachers. I have so many of my friends who walk out of their AP exam and I'm like I'm so glad that Miss or Mr. X taught me this and it was on the exam so thank you teachers. Today I wanted to take some time to discuss student feedback regarding the Board of Supervisors budget updates, AVID, and and student opportunities within the next couple weeks.

[01:05:26] After feedback from several residents, including students, I'm excited, along with the rest of you, that the Board of Supervisors has restored full funding for middle school after school programs for the 2025 to 2026 school year. This is a huge win for our community. I wanna shout out the FCPS students who met with their supervisors, spoke at public hearings and with the media, sent letters, spoke here at Community Matters, and took the initiative to get involved, making it clear what these programs meant to them.

[01:05:51] These after school programs aren't just about filling time after the bell rings. These are where students discover their passions. Whether it's debate, theater, robotics, or music, these are often the places where students find confidence, community, and the sense of direction that they take into high school with them. Doing debate in middle school is how I realized that I was interested in advocacy and public policy.

[01:06:10] One of my friends that I went to middle school with started theater there in the after school program and now will be majoring that in college. In particular, these programs are lifeline for students who may not otherwise have access to enrichment opportunities. They create more equitable access to experiences that shape long-term successes, both academically and socially.

[01:06:28] While current crossing guards at high schools will remain in place through the fiscal year 2026 while other staffing alternatives are being explored, this is something that we're going to have to continue to advocate for within the next year. Our school crossing guards are imperative in places on busy roads, especially when high schools are near middle schools and elementary schools to direct the flow of people and traffic.

[01:06:49] Next, turning to AVID, as we learned from Dr. Reid at our last meeting, the program is now expanding to other Title I elementary schools, and that's amazing because it gives students the early tools they need to succeed, including executive functioning and academic confidence. But AVID will only be at 15 high schools next year.

[01:07:06] As I've mentioned several times before, when I went to the Multilingual Learners Leadership Summit back in August, students in the AVID program were describing the impact that it had on their journeys, especially as first-generation students who did not know about the college process. But another student from a school where AVID is not offered expressed regret because she didn't even know the program existed until it was too late to benefit from it.

[01:07:28] When we think about academic course taking patterns that we see across groups and demographics in FCPS, AVID can be a way to address those gaps that we are still seeing. As one student mentioned, I wouldn't have taken honors and AP classes without AVID. There are no plans to expand AVID past the one high school that we have in place next year.

[01:07:46] At schools like Oakton, there's a waiting list to join, but at other schools, students don't even know it's an option. So how can we let students learn about the program so that they can establish student interest at their respective high schools and be able to establish it? Our college and career center specialists are incredibly valuable, but they are often just one person managing the needs of hundreds of students.

[01:08:07] There is need for more guidance in the college application process, and that has pushed some students in the superintendent's advisory council to consider other options, along with AVID. Our SAC president is actually working on a project right now with instructional services to bring college and career support by students for students to provide guidance on this process.

[01:08:26] In the minute that I'll be attaching to board docs after this meeting, I've actually attached a link that links to a feedback poll to gauge student needs and interests in the platform for freshmen, sophomores, and juniors. And they're also looking for student volunteers, especially seniors who will be graduating this year, to help out next year as we continue kicking off this program.

[01:08:46] and I'm just so happy to be working with our SAC president and the student-led initiative. This month is also Mental Health Awareness Month, and I bring this up often, but mental health is a topic that we should be regularly discussing in schools and reminding our students of. Every school has at least one school counselor, school psychologist, school social worker, and substance abuse prevention specialist.

[01:09:07] These staff members are there to support our students, but also help students in accessing other mental health services in our community. As we know, all high school students have access Hazel Health and 9th graders can be referred starting July 1st. But new this summer are FCPS wellness consultations that run from June 23rd to August 1st which are available to the caregivers of FCPS students as well as middle schoolers and high schoolers. These consultations are free and offer students and caregivers an opportunity to schedule a 45-minute consultation with a school psychologist or school social worker by phone or video conference. More information is being shared with FCPS communications and with

[01:09:44] the community in early June including information on how to request a summer consultation. The last thing that I wanted to do was share some opportunities to support youth leadership and student voice. First is that the Student Human Rights Commission in partnership with the Fairfax County Office of Human Rights and Equity program is recruiting students to join their team next year. The SHRC fosters conversations around diversity, human rights, and civic engagement while promoting a deeper understanding of several acts and the Fairfax County Human Rights Ordinance here in FCPS. They take two representatives from every high school. It's an incredible way to be a voice for justice while also learning about how government works at a local level just like our

[01:10:23] student leadership development program. Applications are due on June 6th for students and the link to apply will also be in my minutes on board docs. Thomas Jefferson High School's tech extravaganza is next week on Saturday, May 17th from 10 a.m to 4 p.m. This free STEM outreach event hosted by TJ students along with FCPS student organizations brings hands-on activities to thousands of younger students and families as well as title one high school title one elementary schools here in FCPS and surrounding northern Virginia counties please support this event by attending or spreading the

[01:10:54] word in your school communities thank you thank you Ms. Sawant moving right along agenda item 5.01 action 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 May 8th 2025 to the best of each board member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening a closed meeting were heard discussed

[01:11:32] or considered by the board during the closed meeting do I have a motion Miss St. John Cunningham is there a second mr mckelveen all those in favor miss marin mystics mr mckelveen dr anderson mr mcdaniel miss anderson miss sizemore heiser mr dunn mr moon miss uh lady miss st john cunning and myself that is unanimous the motion carries agenda item 5.02 action confirmation of action taken in closed meeting i call on mr mcdaniel for a motion i move to expel the student who committed a serious offense in violation of school board policy by possessing a weapon that under a

[01:12:10] section 22.1-277.07 of the code of virginia and the fairfax county public school students rights and responsibilities is a type that requires expulsion is there a second second miss lady all those in favor miss dixit mr mckelveen dr anderson mr mcdaniel miss anderson miss size marheiser mr dunn mr moon miss lady miss st john cunning and myself all those opposed abstentions miss marron the motion carries i call on mr moon for a motion i move to expel the students who committed a serious offense in violation of a school with a policy by possessing

[01:12:50] a weapon that under section 22.1 277.07 of the court of virginia and the fairfax county public school student rights and responsibilities is a type that requires expression is there a second Second. Ms. Sizemoreheiser. All those in favor. Ms. Dixit, Mr. McElveen, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Sizemoreheiser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunningham, and myself. Opposed? Abstentions? Ms. Marin. The motion carries. I call on Ms. Lady for a motion.

[01:13:25] I move to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who has been charged with one count of brandishing a firearm, one count of assault by mob related to an alleged crime that occurred in the community, and to confirm the disciplinary decision of the division superintendent. is there a second i second miss st john cunning all those in favor miss marron mr mckelveen miss dixit mr mcdaniel miss anderson mr dunn mr moon miss miss lady miss st john cunning and myself did i say mystics it i apologize withdraw mystics its name her hand was not up all those opposed and

[01:14:00] dr anderson in the affirmative all those opposed all those abstaining miss dixit will the clerk read the vote. Could you, Ms. Ismarheiser, what was your vote? Affirmative. Then the vote is 11-1.

[01:14:22] The motion carries. Thank you. It was 11-0-1. Apologies. Thank you. Agenda item 5.03, action, student rights and responsibilities. I call on Ms. St. John Cunning for a motion. I move that the school board adopt regulation 2601.39, student rights and responsibilities as detailed in the agenda item. Is there a second? I second. Thank you, Ms. Anderson. Ms. St. John Cunning, would you like to speak to your motion. So we had some very robust work sessions on this and all I want to say is that I want to thank the staff for all the work that they've put into this. I know that there's

[01:14:59] been a lot of go back and I appreciate that they listened and that's all I want to say. Thank you Ms. St. John Cunning. Ms. Anderson would you like to speak to your second? I'd like to echo the the sentiments is to thank staff for the hard work that they put in on this. I know the extensive work that we have done to try to get to where we are so I appreciate your help. I call on Dr.

[01:15:24] Anderson for an amendment I move to amend page 6 section 9 monitoring and enforcement of regulation 2601.39 to add the word dispositions after required interventions and before and factors so that it now reads the chief equity office and collaboration with the office of chief of schools shall conduct a semester review of all discipline cases involving weapons assault and assault and battery to determine the use of required interventions dispositions and factors

[01:16:00] considered prior to issuing a suspension for the related for related violations is there a second mr. Dunn thank you dr. Anderson would you like to speak to your amendment yes I would miss Anderson did you want to share something really quickly before I speak without objection I would like to add a comma I would be happy to recognize miss Anderson miss Anderson I would like to Without objection, I would like to add the Oxford comma after dispositions, please.

[01:16:31] Seeing no objection, moving right along. Well, let me think about that. Thank you. Dr. Anderson, go ahead. Yes. In conversations with staff regarding what this means, I was heartened to understand that it means that the Chief Equity Office and the Chief of Schools will be reviewing interventions that were taken when a student is not put forward for a 10-day suspension as outlined in the SR&R, but what was missing is what is the review

[01:17:07] for when they are, because if we're really wanting to look at disproportionality, we have to also be able to evaluate when the sanction has been levied and when it is not. So that was a piece that was missing and would have prevented staff from being able to take at that second component.

[01:17:26] So that's the ad. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Mr. Dunn, would you like to speak to your second? No. Thank you. Seeing no others, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor, Ms. Marin, Ms. Dixit, Mr. McIlvain, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Sizemore-Hyser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunningham, and myself.

[01:17:45] That is unanimous. The motion carries. All right. I call on Ms. Marin for an amendment. I move to amend the Student Rights and Responsibilities Regulation 2601 per the markup document submitted with this agenda item so that the Fairfax County School Board complies with Virginia House Bill 1961 and Senate Bill 738, effective as law on July 1, 2025.

[01:18:15] Is there a second? Second. Dr. Anderson, Ms. Marin, would you like to speak to your motion? I'm realizing now the language does not say what it is, and it is to ban cell phones in schools, to put them away for the day per the law. And, you know, initially when the governor proposes as an executive order, that was on his role, to tell us how to run our schools.

[01:18:34] But it is codified by law, by democratically elected general assembly. And, you know, we also discussed this at a meeting. And I think at the time we had some conversations, but it's clear that this is the right thing to do. Cell phones are addictive technology.

[01:18:50] And our growing students are not seeing them primarily as a tool. So we have to keep our kids safe, and I do reflect on the principals who came to our work session and talked about how the pilot went. And I have to continue to recognize Dr. Mizell at Langston Hughes Middle School, who has really done an outstanding job of keeping cell phones away.

[01:19:11] And it's that person and that leadership structure that makes it happen. So when people say, what do we do to stop cell phone use? Well, first, we have a policy, but we also have outstanding administrators that know how to do it. So I didn't I was concerned that some principals might feel it wasn't possible, but like we believe in them and we're going to have to do this.

[01:19:32] Finally, though, we could do everything perfect during the day and a kid could go home and use their device in a really inappropriate and bad way. And so we have to have our families helping. And it's hard. I have a ninth grader and a sixth grader. I get it. It's hard. But we've got to do this together. So I hope my colleagues will support this amendment and enforcement of the law.

[01:19:50] Thank you, Miss Marin. Dr. Anderson, would you like to speak to your second? Yes. One of the things that I want to bring attention to is on page 76 of the red line SRNR, where the definition of bell to bell is defined. It is from the first bell rings at the start of the school day until the last bell at the end of the school day to begin instructional time until dismissal time at the end of the school day.

[01:20:13] I'm getting garbled here. It also says it includes lunch and in between classes. We've had this debate at the work session. We received clarification from Senators Pekarski and Survelle, who were very clear in their letter to the board that says the following.

[01:20:32] The Virginia law that was passed last month unanimously requires that during bell-to-bell, from the start of the end of the regular school hours, students are prohibited from the use of their cell phones on school grounds. The intention of lawmakers in passing this law is to clarify that the current class lunch and between classes, students are not permitted to use their cell phones at any time.

[01:20:59] It is not a ban because students are able to bring their phones into schools. They're just restricted from their usage. In addition to the law and making sure we are following that the same way that all of the other 132 school divisions in the Commonwealth are doing I actually looked it up Arlington already has policy Alexandria already has policy Prince William already has policy Loudon will be voting on their policy very shortly so we will be the outlier and not following this regulation so in addition to that we come to the practical piece of what is happening in our schools the

[01:21:38] principals that I serve in my region are begging for this because it is hard to bring a child back from utilizing their phones you know it because you see it at your own homes once it's in the hand it's really hard to get them to put it away and imagine if you have a short passing period students are wandering in the hallway waiting to use it a little bit more therefore impacting the time that they could have in class now they're late now we have an all added value to it. And honestly, I also have a teenager. I would love for him to use his cell phone in the lunchroom because I think that's a space that's a little bit less restrictive, but it is not the

[01:22:16] law. And I do believe we really have to follow that. I do have a question, though, with Dr. Reid. I just want to be sure that it is your position that the board would be following the law with the current language and the red line version to allow access during passing and lunches.

[01:22:33] I believe we had legal counsel's interpretation of that language that indeed was that the word restrict could be read in a different way to allow, because there was an age-appropriate piece language-wise within the bill, that kindergarten, for example, might be treated differently than a senior in high school.

[01:22:58] So that term could be inferred to mean something other than a ban. But I'm going to ask Mr. Foster to directly respond to why that is so, just so we're clear this evening. Yes, the superintendent has stated the legal advice I'd previously provided at a work session.

[01:23:20] What matters under the common law of the Commonwealth of Virginia is what the language is in the statute. Thank you. So that is a yes to my question, Dr. Reid. believe we will be in keeping with the law with the redline language within the letter of the law that's correct as per Mr. Foster's counsel and then my second question is the letter that we received from Senators Pekarski and Survelle what was the conversation and the takeaway of that missive with staff I

[01:23:52] didn't discuss the letter with staff okay thank you just an all-in-all I really hope this is something we could all get behind because again it takes away some it covers it provides cover to our staff and i think they really need that in addition to what i aforelie mentioned thank you dr anderson mr dunn thank you um i think the statutory text is clear i think the legislative intent is clear from the recent letter we received from senator

[01:24:28] surveil and senator pekarski i think if uh we continue to play games with the legislation the the legislature will simply clarify it, and then we have wasted an opportunity to initially start with complying with the law.

[01:24:44] International surveys conducted with PISA testing show students feel increasingly isolated and alone while at school, surrounded by their peers, while finding it increasingly difficult to make friends during the school day. And most mental health experts today attribute the recent decline in mental health in adolescence to increasing isolation from cell phones and cell phone dependence, which causes less social interaction with peers and a decline in unstructured time, a trend that predates the isolation that resulted from the COVID pandemic.

[01:25:14] It's this isolation that's driving the need for more social-emotional learning because students are unprepared and lacking the skills to socially interact. When given unstructured time with access to phones, many students revert to the comfort of their phones as a means of coping. However, this further drives isolation and consequently the need for SEL learning.

[01:25:32] why would we allow access to cell phones during lunch which should be the time the time when students engage with each other we don't want them doing it in class that's a time for learning but during lunch that's the time when you should bring all the kids together where they learn social skills they meet people from different walks of life and they learn to engage every day with different people so they're comfortable in any environment they're adaptable they're kids right We need to get away from the addiction of cell phones, which is being driven by large internet companies that use neurologists to addict us through dopamine.

[01:26:12] It's ridiculous, and we need to not pay any heed to those who advocate for more cell phone usage. We need to get away from this, and it's not how humans were built, it's not how kids are built, and it's not healthy, and it's causing all the problems that we see in our teenagers and young kids today.

[01:26:31] Thank you, Mr. Dunn. soon others will go to the vote all those in favor of them can we put the motion on the screen thank you all those in favor of the motion on the screen Miss Marin Dr. Anderson Mr. Dunn all those opposed Miss Dixit Mr. McElveen Mr. McDaniel Miss Anderson Miss Seismerheiser Mr. Moon Miss Lady Miss St. John Cunning and myself the motion fails I call on Miss Anderson for an amendment I move to amend page 17 of the proposed student rights and

[01:27:07] responsibilities regulation to reg to related to ninth and 12 through 12th grade cell phone use to say the following cell phone use is restricted and cell phones may be only used on campus before the first bell after the last bell and during lunches is there a second second miss lady miss Anderson would you like to speak to your amendment yes I would I have been steadfast in my support of allowing developmentally appropriate differentiation of the cell phone use for our high school students I do I do I do not believe that we should be treating kindergartners the same as we do seniors.

[01:27:43] Personally, I still believe that our existing policy is the best approach to give our high school students the chance to learn how to appropriately navigate the use of technology, which will likely be an important aspect of their lives moving forward. As everyone likely knows, over the last year, we ran a pilot to ensure that the enforcement of our existing regulation and our neighboring divisions were also piloting approaches that mimicked our regulation.

[01:28:08] However, the new Virginia law has disrupted the strong work that we had been doing. The confusion is that many of us had conversations with the lawmakers when they brought the bill for consideration and understood that the intent was to allow FCPS to continue the approach we were already taking to eliminate the cell phone use during instruction, which I wholeheartedly support.

[01:28:30] I want to reiterate that I still agree with the legal explanation from our last work session on the SRNR and what was said here. If I understand correctly, this law provides the plain language to suggest that we need to institute developmentally appropriate restrictions for all students.

[01:28:47] The only thing the Governor's Amendment did was add the reinforcement of the bell-to-bell nature of the restrictions, which we already have. Our existing regulation is a restriction for our high school students. However, I spent a lot of time talking to my constituents, my colleagues, and most importantly students and staff.

[01:29:05] What this amendment represents is a compromise, and in my opinion, just like the best compromises, everyone's a little unhappy. It gives our students a brief 30 to 35 minute window to check their cell phones to do things like coordinate rides home, check work schedules, and listen to music.

[01:29:23] We know abstinence education doesn't work for other areas of our students' lives, and I believe strongly that this is another place that this is true. We need to give our oldest students a place to practice managing their devices and opportunities to fail and try again. I want also to remind parents that you can always decide to limit your child's cell phone use. You can delay providing cell phones and other smart devices. This is in your hands as well. Thank you, Ms. Anderson. Is there a second? Or Ms. Lady, would you like to speak to your second? I'm not going to add a lot more other than to say that it's my understanding

[01:30:02] that, and I was not at the work session, but what was reported to me was that the principals at the school level didn't wanted kids to be able to have phones at lunch it's also the language in the law speaks to age-appropriate having spent the majority of my career at the high school level knowing a significant number of students who work often and help pay bills in their house with that work that they need to be able to access changes or opportunities to get a shift because of a cancellation and they wouldn't be able to have that communication so I'm

[01:30:36] not going to belabor the point. I do understand also the advocacy against cell phones. Throughout my entire career as a counselor and director of student services, I begged parents not to put cell phones in their kids' hands at young ages. I begged them to charge them in their room. I begged them to charge their computers in their bedrooms, meaning the parents' bedroom. Children should not have devices after they go to bed, nor should they probably have them at other times if they can't control them. And I say that knowing that I certainly, I wasn't raised in a cell phone time, but had I been, I can guarantee you my mama would have controlled it because she

[01:31:14] controlled a lot of things in my life. And I mean, it's a tall task, but one of the things I'm asking is with this change, that everyone delay longer and longer the age at which you give your child a cell phone. Because the 20, it's more like 20 to 25 minutes by the time they actually get a lunch and sit down at a sit down at a table and have to get up and then go to lunch to go to class. I'm not concerned about that 25 minutes. I'm concerned about what they're doing outside of that time and we do need to preserve instructional time and the piloting ban that we had this this year in place was very effective. Thank you. Thank you Miss Lady. Miss

[01:31:53] Marin. I'd like to address the procedural and the work approach of this board. This is a motion a topic of which we never discussed publicly. This was a brand new idea introduced to the board via an email. And for me, I worked with Dr. Anderson to set up a motion.

[01:32:17] I emailed it. I texted people and said, do you have questions? Do you have do you want to talk? Other than my co-patron, three people I spoke with and said they were maybes. So thank you for reaching out and having that conversation with me. Two people were no's. And I respect the passion of the motion maker, even though I disagree with the motion. And five colleagues didn't say a word to me, but you just voted down the motion. Voting down a motion, you haven't even given the time and the collegiality to talk with the motion makers about. And then voting on a motion that we never talked

[01:32:53] about publicly is poor policymaking. And the last minute nature of these changes is really doing us in. That's why we're getting flooded with emails about grading, because we're not being clear in deliberations and we're not talking to one another about these decisions this has been on our we've had three meetings about this and never once has the option of available at lunch been suggested I'm just floored that well I do ask then that the maker of the motion and the seconder please be prepared to

[01:33:29] handle any communications or any litigation that is going to come forth because our school division will apparently be disobeying the law so I So I really hope that you can be prepared for that and I just, I will not be supporting this motion.

[01:33:45] And we also cannot dictate what parents can do. We can't tell parents to not have their kids have their phone. We control what's in the schools. What happens if a kid goes out for lunch to go in the hallway? Does that count or not count? I'm very disappointed at this board.

[01:34:04] Thank you, Ms. Marin. Ms. Dixit? So my microphone wasn't working earlier, so I think it's okay. So I actually like this motion and the reason being I just had a student graduating from high school last year from Centerville High School.

[01:34:24] And from my parents' perspective, there was a time to check in. He never checked his phone during the school day. He never looked at his phone messages, nothing. But during lunchtime, I was able to find out what his plan was to take the bus home or he has to go to staying in the extra class or he's going to a friend's house.

[01:34:44] were things I needed as a parent because my son even though a senior he is 16 years old so that was a time for me to get in touch with them and I would say there are students who are parents we had a graduation ceremony in Mountain View recently and there was a one of the speaker was a young mother she has a child and she's caring for so our ability to take the phone away from a mother who has a baby I would not agree to that lastly about the students there were students who are working there was only breadwinner for their family and

[01:35:21] they were students who were needed to know if they have to pick up a shift at night I am I am I am I feel for those students who have to work and also study and not to have the luxury to keep their phones of eight all day this is a necessity for them so for that reason I would be okay with just a phone usage during the lunch hour just for them to able to check their message and I and I hope there's the law is going to be okay with it and and I hope everybody is

[01:35:57] going to be okay with it thank you thank you mr. McDaniel thank you a year ago I brought forward the pilot program and a year ago I helped drive this issue forward because we were the school system especially the high school levels in the position where it was the Wild West with cell phones and what we learned in that pilot program is that if we enforce the rules that we had on the books it significantly curtailed what was going on in schools and we heard that

[01:36:31] from our school based staff a couple of months ago the legal side of this I'm not a lawyer I don't even pretend to do what lawyers do but I think it's safe to say there's ambiguity there. And nothing prevents the General Assembly next year from fixing that ambiguity if they so choose. And if they do that, then this board will obviously comply with whatever language they come up with. But I want to say thank you in particular to staff that worked hard on this, Dr. King and your department, and everybody that worked hard on this. Because if I

[01:37:05] recall correctly, the amended motion that I'm going to support right now of basically saying lunch is allowed, but hallway passing period is not, neither is any other period during the day. if I recall correctly, that was your original recommendation, was it not? Right. And then this board gave some feedback, and then it went here, and then it went there, and then it went back there, and then it went up there. But we're back to square one with what our very capable staff is recommending. So thank you for your work. I'm happy to support this move. And this is not a

[01:37:41] move that says, you know, to Ms. Lady's point, we're talking 25 to 30 minutes. We're not talking unfettered access. We're talking 25 to 30 minutes a day for high school kids. That's it. And if we need to fix it next year because of legalese reasons or whatever that may be, we can do that.

[01:37:57] Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McDaniel. Mr. Dunn. As a school board member, it is my first obligation to follow the law and to ensure that the superintendent and FCPS follow the law.

[01:38:14] As an attorney, I appreciate creative lawyering, but there is a difference between creative lawyering and blatant disregard of the law. tonight I ask my attorneys to oppose this amendment, which is contrary to law. It's unlawful. But let's pretend we have the choice. Okay, on the one hand, we have reams of data and dozens of scientific studies showing the mental trauma caused to our students by cell phones. On the other hand, we have, do we have any data showing that allowing cell phone use at lunch produces any benefits for our

[01:38:52] students? No, we don't. Are there any other school divisions that allow cell phone use at lunch? I asked this question to FCPS leadership and I was told none. Zero. So this amendment proposes to ignore state law and reams of data and scientific studies because we feel like it. Because we think we know better than the scientists. Because we think we know better than the state legislature.

[01:39:17] That is extremely disappointing. And let me say as the school board member who represents the Mount Vernon district to know that the dozens or hundreds of students who are pulling out their cell phones to record the stabbing, we know that cell phone causes more fights, more fights with injuries. When cell phones were taken away at Edison, fights dropped from 88 to 22 by an incredible 400% decrease. Sorry, not doing the math right right now, but incredible overnight drop in fights

[01:39:52] with injury. Same for vaping, same for drugs, same for all kinds of things dropped by just taking away the cell phones. I ask my colleagues to prioritize student safety and security, student mental health, student well-being, and adopt a bell-to-bell ban on cell phones and reject this amendment. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Mr. Moon? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am supporting this amendment that, and board members will all recall that, as to some of the things Mr. Dunn

[01:40:31] has stated about statutory language, we had discussion about how to interpret, restrict versus ban, ban. And there was a consensus among the both members that a restrict does not equate to ban.

[01:40:50] Legislative intent, what the legislative intent, which a couple of state senators might have clarified as to what the intent was. But when you look at the language, from the language, you don't see that intent.

[01:41:06] that clearly and so i am honoring the consensus interpretation by the board of the language in the state statute allowing a use of the cell phone during lunch hour for the high school students i am willing to give it a try and trust our high schoolers to just stick to lunch hours for the use of cell phones rather than completely taking that away whole day in school because they may really

[01:41:41] need to communicate with some other people outside the schools even amongst classmates on certain things and use of a cell phone may be the best way to do during lunch hours and having said that a three times the board had discussed about the cell phone use policy i think miss marron one of my colleagues representing uh hunter mill district stated that a a aligned in the lunch hours was never discussed and coming out at the for the first time there may be there may be but our

[01:42:20] governance manual does not require all those amendments to be brought to the work session and discussed at the work session we have we have we go through these work session and have a discussion and based upon the conversation that take place at those work sessions and even outside the work session between school board members a board member or board members can craft amendment and notify colleagues 48 hours before the board meeting i think that's what the maker of this amendment had done and I appreciate that and Miss Merrill you know that I had

[01:43:00] conversation with you about a prior amendment I also had conversation with dr. Anderson about the amendment that she proposed so if for other board members did not respond to your request of a conversation I don't have a control over that but I did have the conversation with you and I want the public to know thank you mr. Moon I'd like to remind colleagues per Robert's RULES TO DIRECT THEIR COMMENTS THROUGH THE CHAIR. IF THEY'D LIKE TO INVITE ANOTHER COLLEAGUE TO SPEAK, THEY CAN ENGAGE THAT COLLEAGUE AND ASK IF THEY'D LIKE TO PARTICIPATE AND TAKE

[01:43:37] SOME OF THEIR TIME TO KEEP THE TENOR OF THE CONVERSATION WITHIN DECORUM. MS. SEIZEMORE-HEISER. THANK YOU. AND HAVING BEEN ON THE BOARD THAT ACTUALLY INSTITUTED THE FIRST SET OF RESTRICTIONS ON CELL PHONES IN 2022, LET'S BE CLEAR THAT THE RESTRICTIONS ON CELL PHONES PROHIBITED THE USE by students in elementary and middle school from bell to bell starting in 2022.

[01:44:03] The only thing that we allowed in 2022 was in high school the cell phones could be used in the passing periods and at lunch. So we led the work on this in 2022. The issue since then was ensuring implementation which we have worked very hard on including what Mr. McDaniel talked about ensuring implementation of these rules. When you read the bill it restricts. A restriction is a limit.

[01:44:28] That's the plain language definition of restriction. You can look up the dictionary definition. It also says age appropriate and developmentally appropriate. That's the first rules in looking at a statute. Having said that, when I ran for this office, because of the experiences I had, my children, and what I saw, I said I am going to keep front and center those students who have the least ability to speak for themselves.

[01:45:01] Over a third of our students qualify for free and reduced-priced meals. A lot of those students may be working jobs to support their families. Those jobs may be shift work. A boss is not gonna call the front office of a school to offer a shift that's open for the student.

[01:45:20] That is not how our world works anymore. And if a student doesn't get that message, isn't able to respond, they lose that income. That's who I'm thinking about. Give them an opportunity in high school as they're becoming adults with adult-like responsibilities to learn how to do it.

[01:45:36] Some of our high school students are parents. Some of our high school students watch siblings at home after school because their parents are working. 25 minutes to fulfill adult-like responsibilities is reasonable.

[01:45:52] Instructional spaces is where the majority of the research shows about the benefits in schools, and we have not allowed cell phones in instructional spaces per our policy since 2022. I am privileged that I didn't have to have my children work to support my family.

[01:46:10] I had my children plug their cell phones in outside of their rooms at night. But I ran for this office to represent everybody and to be the voice for the people who needed it. And in high school, they're learning to be adults, and some of them are adults. Our high school principals have told us that they support this version. They don't believe in a bell-to-bell ban. The law is consistent with that. So let's be clear. This debate is about 25 minutes during the day, and those students who I'm thinking of are probably working and aren't able to come to our all-day work sessions and leave school to do that or come here to

[01:46:50] speak to us. So I support this. Thank you, Ms. Sizemore Heiser. Ms. St. John Cunning. Thank you. I want to say that I really struggled with this and I had various conversations with the makers of both amendments about this.

[01:47:11] In the end, I felt this was a good compromise for the reasons that have been stated before. In my district, there's a large and significant amount of students that are on free and reduced lunch. There's a lot of high school students that take care of younger siblings, and as someone that has worked in this school, I know when an elementary kid sometimes doesn't get picked up because their high school student's phone wasn't working, so I've seen what happens when their phone was out of power and a sibling wasn't picked up, and there's panic.

[01:47:47] I think it's important to note that in terms of our procedure, our procedure is that we can write these amendments 48 hours in advance, and there's another amendment we voted on that we received, and there was no discussion.

[01:48:06] Usually the maker of an amendment reaches out to the rest of the members to discuss it. If I see an amendment and I don't have a question and I'm okay with it, I'm not going to call that person. If I do have a question, I'll call that person. but it's usually incumbent on the person that is making the amendment to reach out to people to say I'm making this amendment what do you think about it and I was approached by people that made the amendment just sometimes if people don't talk to you they don't have a question or they know what they want to do so I don't want to belabor the point that this is a bad way to do things because

[01:48:43] we all know the way that it's done and this was all done the way we have all decided for it to be done. I think this is a valid compromise. And the other thing that I think is critically important is to support our staff. And our staff at the high school level has said that this is what they want.

[01:49:07] We cannot always support them with the raises that they need, but when they tell us that they're okay with something and it works for them, then we support them as well. Thank you, Ms. St. John Cunning. Dr. Anderson? Yes, thank you. We seem to be having a lot of conversation regarding the clarity of the law and what it doesn't provide had the law been clearer at least to some then these concerns regarding students who work regarding students who are parents I wonder how we would find a way to make it work and I

[01:49:45] think we would find a way to make it work we would find a some sort of space because we do know we have those students in our communities I think that space should have been happening right now because the law is clear. I will not be voting for this motion. I will not be voting for this SR&R because I do not want to be associated with not following the law. We have been told by folks who were in Richmond who we trust to go down to Richmond to do the work for us. They were clear with us and we are still continuing to disregard it and it makes

[01:50:19] me wonder where does it end? If we have that flexibility to provide the cell phone usage at lunch or at passing, why not first period? Why not gym? Why not photography? Why not wherever it is that we want? I don't think we have that flexibility. I do believe this to be an arbitrary application, and I want nothing to do with this. Plus, I also want to affirm the comments that were made regarding mental health that was made by those comments

[01:50:54] were made by folks who were here just earlier on the community participation side and segment rather and Mr. Dunn also shared some very good information. It does matter. We had a colleague here that said something that was I think pretty impactful to me several weeks ago in terms of if those kids didn't have that cell phone at during the West Poe incident, that trauma would not have been spread across the division the way that it did to other kids who were not there because they would not have been filming.

[01:51:30] That really stuck with me. Even though it is not my community, it was a statement that really impacted me. and I think we are doing the opposite of that and it just befuddles me currently and I will not be in support of the motion or the SRNR today. Although I'm very grateful for all of the work that Dr. King and her office have done. You took a lot of time to respond to my questions so very appreciative of that. Thank you Dr. Anderson. Ms. Sawant. So I kind of see both sides

[01:52:07] of this because students see both sides of this and up here I have to represent those both sides but first I wanted to thank Dr. King because she met with me she met with students in those SRNR work sessions she looked at the student feedback and her team did an amazing job putting this all together so what we got from students is from the survey which I have pulled up right in front of me right now is that they do feel like they're more focused during instructional time when they don't have their phones with them but they appreciated being able to check their phones once in a while and I actually wanted to read what one students said this was written in December where they said I am worried that the cell phone policy will turn into a bell-to-bell policy in 2025 I feel that students should be able to use their phones and other electronics when

[01:52:45] class is not in session during lunch for example as a way to relax and do something they enjoy bringing up the point that Miss Anderson said of kindergarteners versus high schoolers and seniors having that trust and being able to use your phone how you can during those non instructional periods was really important for students but given all of this being said what we were told especially in those conversations that I was having with students is that it wouldn't be possible with the new Virginia law and that I can agree with that we do have to follow the law so no matter what we vote on what still is different in schools is the degree to which the cell phone policy is implemented from school to school to school and I've mentioned this before

[01:53:25] how teachers enforce it between classrooms even within the same school looks different so no matter what we vote on this is still going to be an issue whether we keep it during lunch or not and I know that's divided on both sides but that's what it is. Thank you Ms. Sawant. Ms. St. John Cunning again. Thank you. I just wanted to go back to state that this policy has been in effect and the consistency of enforcement has been the issue. Our cell phone

[01:54:00] policy for having places where the cell phone could be stored that's what we had. Pouches are extremely expensive, and during this budget time, we cannot afford them. Now, in terms of the students in high school will still have the cell phones in their backpacks as they're moving back and forth, okay? So even though they're restricted from using them, if there is something that happens in the hall, just because they can have it at lunch, they can still pull it out of the backpack. Now, the thing is to teach them not to do that, and as I said in my statements after

[01:54:37] what happened at West Potomac, we got to teach our kids to give a handout instead of a hand to be filming things. And that's incumbent on not just us to teach them, but on parents to teach them. I just want to make that perfectly clear. And I also, when we talk about the legal issue, our council has advised us that this is within the legal parameters. This amendment would not have come up if that that didn't exist and so I just wanted to clarify that in a perfect world we would be able to have those cell phones stored away somewhere and we would have enough money to

[01:55:14] do that we don't we have to teach kids how to use them and we have to encourage our staff members and support them to enforce the policy as it has been written since 2022 and I hope that this discussion will help us move forward with that. Thank you Ms. St. John Cunning. Mr. Dunn for a go I just want to be clear on the process by which we arrived at this legal interpretation.

[01:55:44] If you watched the video, it was school board members who advanced this legal interpretation, not division counsel. Division counsel was not in the room when this interpretation was advanced. Division counsel came down later to support that legal interpretation.

[01:56:01] But frankly, when school board members advance the legal interpretation, I would expect as an employee that legal counsel would support that because that's what employees do they support their boss so if this was if this had followed a proper process there might have been a question asked of division counsel to provide a legal interpretation which then could have been discussed and followed that was not the process that was followed and as an attorney I can tell

[01:56:34] you this is not the way it goes it's cart before the horse and also as an attorney having been the lead legislative affairs attorney for a $10 billion agency, I can tell you what the proper reading is, and it's a ban. A ban is a ban is a ban. There's a famous poem to that effect.

[01:56:53] We should all know it. We should all follow it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Ms. Marin? Just a question. Is a budget amendment going to be forthcoming if there's suggestion that teachers need to be trained on how to teach kids how to use cell phones? That's going to cost money and materials and resources. So I'm wondering if the makers of the motion will be providing a budget amendment to help with that roll out and to teach kids how to use cell phones which we have some curriculum on with safe you know digital citizenship but I would like I appreciate any update about any kind of forthcoming budget amendment. Thank you Ms. Marin. Ms. Anderson?

[01:57:33] I just have a few clarifying questions. Mr. Foster what would be an age appropriate restriction if it was not based on the age of the students? I don't know I mean I I can't come up

[01:57:50] Okay, so is it possible here that this was just a slip of an amendment in terms of the way that the law was amended by the governor, that there was just – the original intention was what the lawmakers told us that the original intention was, which was to codify our ability to do what we were doing and what other divisions were actually following us on?

[01:58:18] And is it possible that the governor put an amendment that put bell to bell, but it didn't actually change the language of the overarching language in the bill? Yeah, I mean, this is why courts throughout the common law history of this country have focused on the language of statutes and not the statements of individual legislators.

[01:58:41] Because the individual motivation of an individual legislature is going to vary from legislator to legislator. What does not change is the language of a statute, and that's what they focus on. And to be clear, that was the basis for the conclusion that I reached in the guidance that I had previously provided to the board is what the language of the statute says.

[01:59:05] And I appreciate that. I will say that I do believe that this was a mistake. understand very clearly that we will likely have more more strict language coming depending on what happens next year I would also like to say that the feedback that we received from both students staff teachers everyone was related to our existing policy the pilot was about enforcing our existing policy that what was was what was shown that worked so what dr. Reed what I would like

[01:59:40] us to consider this year is knowing that we likely have more stringent responsibilities coming forward and will likely have language that would actually prohibit use bell to bell, which I think was the I understand that that's not what the law says, but it is I understand what the makers of the law had in mind.

[02:00:04] Can we use this year to try to think about communication systems that we will likely have to put in place that would allow our staff to do the same things that happened when I was a kid where you'd have to have call the office and send a note down to the, because our email system does not allow, appropriately, does not allow students to email their parents. And so if we don't have a system where kids can actually contact their parents throughout the day, what are we going to be able to do as a division to support that for this number of students? So you're asking

[02:00:42] for us to contemplate, like a system for students to connect with their parents, but not a cell phone. Exactly. Okay. And it doesn't have to be an answer today. I'm just saying that this is work that the division is going to have to do because for a division our size that is larger than 11 states, we are going to have to come up with a plan on how we're going to facilitate the type of communication that parents have now come to expect with their students.

[02:01:10] Yes, ma'am. I would also like to reiterate that we have digital citizenship in our curriculum currently, that this type of thing needs to be talked about in terms of I fully and completely do not believe that a bell-to-bell ban is going to stop people from doing things with their cell phones in between classes and recording and things like that.

[02:01:31] That's not going to happen. We have to talk to them. I agree. And so I would really like to also ensure that we make sure that our staff is modeling the behavior that we're expecting of our students because that is also something that I'm seeing is that there's a whole lot of teachers walking around that have their cell phones out when we are now telling students that they're not supposed to have theirs. And so we've got to figure out as a group how to navigate all of this a little bit better than we are. Thank you. Seeing no others, we will put the amendments on the screen. Okay. I saw it go off. I saw it go on, then off,

[02:02:07] then on then off then on dr anderson all facts um you know i i definitely know that we have advanced in a way that communication between parents and and students are different and their children are different you know i worked in a school my entire career um and i'm a parent now with kids with cell phones so i appreciate that but i do want to also kind of bring some of the communication that does happen because it is so accessible it tends to not be as urgent or important I'm not saying always but there's a routine with oh I'm just going to check in this thing really quickly

[02:02:43] but for the things that are important for the things that are urgent we have this weird little tool in the office called a telephone that parents can actually call and leave messages for their kids with the school phone that happened before I was there I would answer the phones in the office and to be a parent wanting to change a child's dismissal or to do something that is still a tool that I want to make sure that we don't forget is still available the other thing again I keep going back to this because it has to make sense to me the law says that we have

[02:03:18] to restrict student cell phone use and smart devices from bell to bell our own definition of the NSR in the SRNR says it is after the first bell rings at the start of the school day to begin instruction until the dismissal bell rings at the end of the school day.

[02:03:38] So bell to bell is defined here. And yet we have this insertion of lunchtime which is not inside of the beginning or the end bells as far as I can remember. So that piece just also doesn't sit well with me.

[02:03:53] But thank you. Thank you Dr. Anderson. Ms. Marin you've already spoken twice so I can't call on you again. Yes I'm sorry. The motion is on the screen. We will now go to a vote. All those in favor of the amendment on the screen please raise your hand. Ms. Dixit, Mr. McElveen, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Sizemoreheiser, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunningham and myself. All those opposed. Ms. Marin, Dr. Anderson and Mr. Dunn. The motion carries.

[02:04:19] All right, we are now returning to the primary motion as amended. Seeing no others, we will go to a vote for the motion to pass the amended SR&R. All those in favor, Ms. Dixit, Mr. McElveen, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Sizemore-Hyzer, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunningham, myself. All those opposed, Ms. Marin, Dr. Anderson, Mr. Dunn. The motion carries. Moving on, I call on Ms. Sizemore-Hyzer for a follow-on motion.

[02:04:53] I move that the school board direct the superintendent to develop a process requiring parents, guardians, and students to acknowledge and agree that cell phones, smart watches, and other wearable devices are the sole responsibility of parents, guardians, caregivers, and students while they are on FCPS property or attending FCPS-sanctioned events, similar to those guidelines used to manage other bring-your-own devices.

[02:05:21] These guidelines should include, but are not limited to, statements acknowledging that FCPS is not responsible for providing charging spaces for or the care of such devices, that FCPS is not responsible for the security, safety, loss, damage, or theft of such device, and that students must abide by the acceptable use policy and the students' rights and responsibilities document if they bring one of those devices onto FCPS property or to FCPS sanctioned events.

[02:05:46] I second. Yes, thank you. So before we had one-to-one laptops and other types of devices for our students, we had a bring-your-own-device policy where students, families could send laptops and other types of devices with their students.

[02:06:05] And there was an agreement that had to be signed that Fairfax County Public Schools were not responsible for those devices, similar to the language I just read out loud. However, that bring-your-own-device policy and the statements that they signed explicitly excluded cell phones and other similar devices.

[02:06:22] So now that a lot of families are sending cell phones with their students to schools, we want to make sure it's a bring your own device. We are not providing cell phones to students, although we're now providing laptops. It's important for families to acknowledge in the same way they did with laptops that if they choose to send these types of devices with their children to school, they are responsible for those devices.

[02:06:43] And the students are responsible following the rules in the SR&R regarding those devices. So it is sort of cleaning up or bring your own device and ensuring that families know that this is their device that they're sending with their student and they're responsible for any damage, any theft, and maintenance, et cetera, these devices. So it's a little bit of cleanup, but that's what this is for.

[02:07:01] Thank you, Ms. Seizmerheiser. Ms. Anderson, we'd like to speak to your second. I won't belabor anything that my colleague said, but I will say that I have mentioned this several times to the superintendent and to other colleagues about the fact that we do need to acknowledge that when you bring a cell phone into the school, it is your device And it is your responsibility and parents' responsibility to help facilitate and ensure that their student is following the rules with the device the same way as it used to be when they used to bring their own laptops to school.

[02:07:30] So this is just a request to ensure that parents have that moment to acknowledge that as they move forward throughout the school year. Thank you, Ms. Anderson. Mr. Dunn? I find this quite problematic.

[02:07:47] We are a school system, not a parking garage. When you enter a parking garage, you get a little ticket on the back of that ticket is in size 4 font language such as this saying, you know, the parking garage disclaims any liability for loss of property, for people breaking in, for damage cost to your vehicle.

[02:08:07] This is attached to the SRNR, which is a 150-page document, and we ask parents to sign. There's inconsistent signing by parents, by students, and it's certainly not structured as a legal contract. So I'm not sure how we can impose a kind of a legal disclaimer that would be enforceable or binding in any sense on parents and students.

[02:08:33] I find this highly flawed. I think there are ways you could do this, but I don't think this has even been examined by division counsel. Mr. Foster, have you examined whether this is enforceable under Virginia law? I have.

[02:08:50] Sorry, you have or haven't? I have. Haven't? I have. I have. Okay. And so it is, so this could potentially excuse our liability for a cell phone that gets destroyed or lost in an office where it's being held overnight.

[02:09:06] Yeah, I'd be happy to discuss offline in further detail of legal analysis that I did, but I have looked at it and I have concluded that this is compliant. Okay. Well, I can say as an attorney, I find it not enforceable under Virginia law.

[02:09:22] There is provision under Virginia law for who is responsible for what in the event of a tort, of loss of property, of damage to property. I think we should, again, follow the law. As with the last motion or amendment, the law is the law, and we should follow the law.

[02:09:39] And if we want to change the law and enforce some kind of contractual disclaimers, there are ways to do that. I don't think this is the way. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Seeing no others, we will go to a, oh, I apologize, Ms. Seismarheiser. I just want to clarify, because it seems like a little confusion here.

[02:09:56] This itself is not the actual language or the, all this is is a follow-on to direct the superintendent to develop a process. So this isn't the contractual law or whatever they will sign. It is, and we are allowed under the law to direct the superintendent.

[02:10:13] And that's what this is doing, is directing the superintendent to direct, develop a process. I imagine she will work with division counsel and other appropriate staff to develop that process that is legally compliant. We're just asking her to develop the process. That's all this follow-on is. I want to make sure there isn't any confusion. We're not actually asking them to sign what I just read.

[02:10:31] We're asking what I just read is asking the superintendent to develop what they will sign. So I just want to clarify that because it seemed like there might be some confusion. Thank you, Ms. Sizemore-Hizer. The follow-on motion is on the screen. Seeing no others, all those in favor, Ms. Dixit, Mr. McElveen, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Seismarheiser, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning, and myself.

[02:10:53] All those opposed? Mr. Dunn, with two colleagues away from the table. The motion carries. All right. Agenda item 5.04, action. New intergovernmental contract, Alexandria City School Board, DBA, Alexandria City Public Schools, Professional Development Services for Supporting Multilingual Learners, and Tier 1 Content Instruction.

[02:11:19] I call on Mr. Moon for a motion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that the school board approve the intergovernmental contract with Alexandra City School Board doing business as Alexandra City public schools for professional development services for supporting multilingual learners in tier one content instruction and authorize the division superintendent or the director of the office of procurement services to execute deliver and minister the contract on behalf of the school board.

[02:11:52] Is there a second? I second. Ms. St. John Cunningham. Mr. Moon, would you like to speak to your motion? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I made a request, and thanks for granting my request to move this from the consent agenda to an action item, because I felt that this particular contract was important enough to be highlighted and explained by our staff members to why this particular contract is need it, and what kind of services you are seeking to be provided under this contract.

[02:12:25] And I gave a heads up to Dr. Presidio whether he could describe those. Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Moon, for the opportunity to speak to this contract, because it really is essential for the success of our multilingual learners that are over 25% of our student population in FCPS right now.

[02:12:44] And primarily, what we know about our multilingual learner population, particularly from the five goal reports that we've looked at as a school system this year is that our students are continuing to struggle while they're gaining academic proficiency in English in the English language there's continuing to struggle with access to the academic content so our multilingual learners have tremendous aptitude there's some of the hardest working students that we have in the school system but they're not performing as well as we know that they're capable of and as well as we know that we need to support them at achieving those particular levels of success so what this contract would do

[02:13:23] is it would allow us to contract for professional development and instructional resources and materials to provide to our staff particularly in those academic content areas to support students with accessing the academic language the vocabulary and the content that's very complex the organization that we're contracting with here is Project GLAAD it's probably the preeminent organization for supporting multilingual learners in the United States and they have several regional facilities where staff can get trained this particular contract allows us actually to work with our local facility

[02:14:00] so that we can save travel costs and have those professional learning opportunities here in Fairfax County and more importantly what this allows us to do is develop our own trainers within Fairfax so within a couple years we would not even need the procurement services through Project Lab because we would have our own internal staff that would be certified to be able to provide these types of professional learning experiences for our teachers.

[02:14:28] Thank you, Dr. Presidio. One thing that I want to know from that description statement on the second page of the agenda item is an observation about what may be happening in classrooms.

[02:14:44] Let me read that particular sentence for public. Observations in classrooms further reveal a concerning imbalance in classroom interaction with the teachers dominating the talk time and multilingual students having limited opportunities to practice and develop their language skills as a former ML myself this really struck the cold and this is one of the areas we really need to focus and work on and thank you.

[02:15:15] - Thank you, Mr. Moon. Ms. St. John Cunningham, speak to your second? - No. - Thank you. All those in favor of the motion on the screen, Ms. Dixit, Mr. McIlveen, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Seismarheiser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunningham, and myself.

[02:15:38] That's unanimous for board members present with three away from the dais. Mr. McDaniel, Dr. Anderson, and Ms. Marin. All right, agenda item 6.01, performance review, relationship with families and community stakeholders, EL3 monitoring report.

[02:16:06] each year the school board assesses the superintendent in part on the basis of the school division's reasonable progress toward achieving the 2023 to 2030 strategic plan goal strategic plans goals and adherence to a set of 13 executive limitations found on pages 14 through 31 of the board's strategic governance manual the superintendent provides annual monitoring reports to the board for each executive limitation the board then votes on whether the PROVIDED REPORT IS IN COMPLIANCE OR IF CORRECTIVE ACTION IS NEEDED. I CALL ON DR. REED FOR A MONITORING REPORT ON EXECUTIVE LIMITATION THREE, RELATIONSHIPS WITH FAMILIES AND COMMUNITY

[02:16:46] STAKEHOLDERS. GOOD EVENING, CHAIRMAN FRISH, MEMBERS OF THE BOARD AND THE PUBLIC. AS CHAIRMAN FRISH INDICATED, TONIGHT I'LL BE PRESENTING EXECUTIVE LIMITATION NUMBER THREE, ADDRESSING RELATIONSHIPS with families and community stakeholders so in relative to executive limitation three this is a really honestly quite important executive limitation in terms of our connection to the community and at the time of this report to the best of my knowledge information belief I've gathered information and evidence that I believe supports compliance with the board's executive limitation associated

[02:17:24] with this topic and I'll share some highlights this evening I want to remind the board and those watching that there are seven areas of EL3 which are on the screen and the full report is attached to the agenda so you can also go back and read the full monitoring report this evening I'm only going to be sharing selected indicators but the rest as I mentioned is available in the full monitoring report so I want to look at indicator one and just remind the board

[02:17:58] that we hosted our summer extravaganza in June of 2024 this event welcomed over 900 students family staff and community partners in June of 2024 and this year's event will be held on May 10th actually I believe that's a Saturday so we'll have an opportunity to gather again we've contracted with Samaritan to develop a volunteer software management system to create a more streamlined volunteer program for those who want to volunteer in FCPS. We're in the middle of a test phase for eight schools which will be launched in the second week of May and

[02:18:36] then will be fully implemented this fall. We continue to provide countywide professional learning to facilitate positive relationships with students and families and some of these topics are neurodiversity and learner variability to name a couple. I want to remind the board about our multi-year plan to support all schools in earning the purple star designation and currently remind the board that we have 96 purple star schools with 27 new designations in 2025 further we launched our video podcast our voices our future on our

[02:19:14] internet channel this year these podcasts center student voice within our work and in 23 24 the channel had a 20 percent increase in video views with over 22,700 hours of watch time and these are key opportunities to connect with our community. We also had a net gain of 1,700 subscribers. Our multilingual channel had an increased watch time of 28 percent so we feel like we're also reaching out to a wide variety of our members of our community. We want to report our student registration welcome center workflow has been developed in

[02:19:54] Guardian which is a centralized case management tool. This has improved the overall efficiency and communication so that we are facilitating a more timely enrollment. The targeted implementation for this workflow is actually this month.

[02:20:11] Staff at the Welcome Centers continue to provide families with the linguistic and cultural support needed to complete registration paperwork, access resources necessary to facilitate timely enrollment, and also one of the key areas is facilitating connection to healthcare needs as a condition of enrollment.

[02:20:33] So you see some data in terms of student registration and international transcript evaluations that are conducted. So looking at our second indicator, I want to remind our board that we have virtual military family gatherings uh quarterly military connected family advisory council meetings those were new this year and a military connected youth advisory committee with two students from each high school being put together i want to oh all right in march of 2025 um i had an opportunity to receive a

[02:21:12] Acknowledgement of our work in our school division by AESA. Number three, Indicator 3, we conducted 10 focus groups with 128 participants between April 29th and May 21st to learn from families about their experiences and better understand how to support them.

[02:21:33] The 23-24 Family Engagement Survey was open from March to April, and highlights are shown above. One of the things that we think about in terms of using structured methods to collect feedback, there are a number of topics we've been collecting feedback on.

[02:21:51] Middle school start time, the boundaries, rights and responsibilities, and so forth. Also basal materials, which have come under consideration being elementary social studies and mathematics. Looking at Indicator 4, we've used the Let's Talk platform specifically to ask questions about the SRNR again and a variety of policies and gather feedback on these changes.

[02:22:17] We do have quarterly meetings with faith leaders from around the county and we work on strategic topics, one of which was immunization, also mental health support over summer vacation times and so forth, and in partnership with Fort Belvoir, the National Museum of the Army and the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority, the Bridges to Success Career Path event was hosted in March of 2025.

[02:22:45] Again, very well attended. So, Mr. Chairman, this concludes the presentation for Executive Limitation 3, Relationships with Families and Community Stakeholders. Thank you, Dr. Reed. I call on Mr. McElveen for a motion.

[02:23:03] Thank you. I move that the school board finds that the superintendent is in compliance with Executive limitation number three relationships with families and community stakeholders I further move that the school board approved the monitoring report based on the superintendent's reasonable interpretation of executive limitation number three relationships with families and community stakeholders as outlined in the strategic governance manual. Thank you Mr. McElveen Ms. Seizmoorheiser would you second thank you Mr. McElveen would you like to speak to your motion thank you Ms. Seizmoorheiser would you like to speak to your second. It's going to be late

[02:23:39] So I'll just be brief and say, Dr. Reed, I really appreciate the significant number of community meetings and events that you attend on a regular basis and the amount you engage with community stakeholders with all viewpoints and all walks of life and the way you listen to them and some of the great things that we've done to engage the community, the summer extravaganza and other things you keep building.

[02:23:59] This is definitely one of your strengths as a superintendent is the way you engage and listen to and interact with the community. And I've noticed a big difference in terms of how much the community feels involved and heard from the time you started.

[02:24:18] So I'm honored to second this. It is definitely one of your strengths. And I want you to know, I don't know when you sleep. I don't know how many miles you put on your car every year, but it is noticed and appreciated. Thanks. Thank you, Ms. Sizemore-Hizer. Mr. Dunn. I'd like to second everything that was just said because I think that's very true.

[02:24:38] Certainly hope you get paid per mile because I'm sure you would get paid quite a bit. So can you tell me a little bit more about the Samaritan software? Volunteers to do what? And is there an option to use members of our community who are highly educated, who might be retired, or who might be working part time?

[02:24:59] I was just speaking to someone last night who wanted to come in and teach in our school, you know, a very niche area of science and technology that I'm sure is hard to recruit as a full-time FCPS employee at law schools, graduate schools. There are many faculty who teach part-time.

[02:25:16] Is that something that we could do through this tool? So Mr. Dunn, that's exactly the resolution we're looking for. I heard early on in my first-- while I was still here-- from community members who want to volunteer, who find it challenging to get through our volunteer approval process.

[02:25:38] We also want to make sure that we have a consistent process across the county for background checks and making sure that all of the opportunities are available across the county and known to those who want to volunteer we have a knitting group out in your area of the county that would really like to do knitting in schools and they've been really excited about the possibility of having a much simpler access to the volunteer system I believe MISS HALL IS THE CHIEF THAT'S BEEN WORKING ON THAT I BELIEVE IT MIRRORS THE COUNTY SYSTEM MISS HALL DO YOU HAVE A COUPLE DETAILS

[02:26:14] ABOUT THAT FOR MR. DUNN PLEASE YES THANK YOU THAT IS CORRECTED IT IS MIRRORING THE SAMARITAN IT'S THE SAME COMPANY THAT THE COUNTY IS USING THIS WILL BE VERY SIMILAR IN THAT THE SCHOOLS WILL BE ABLE TO POST OPPORTUNITIES FOR VOLUNTEERING AND THEN WE'LL ALSO BE ABLE TO ON THE OTHER SIDE COLLECT INFORMATION FROM VOLUNTEERS IN IN TERMS OF THE TYPES OF SKILLS THEY ARE OFFERING, THE TYPES OF, YOU KNOW, THE VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES THEY ARE LOOKING FOR, AND EVEN THE REGIONS THAT THEY ARE LOOKING FOR.

[02:26:49] SO THEY WILL BE ABLE TO LOOK ACROSS THE DIVISION AT THE OPPORTUNITIES THAT ARE AVAILABLE. AND THERE WILL BE VOLUNTEER TRAINING AS WELL TO MAKE SURE THAT THEY UNDERSTAND THE EXPECTATIONS OF THE VOLUNTEERS AS WELL AS THE BACKGROUND CHECKING.

[02:27:05] IS THERE THE ABILITY TO DESIGNATE PARTICULAR SCHOOLS THAT THEY MIGHT LIVE IN PROXIMITY TO? WHEN YOU SAY DESIGNATE PARTICULAR SCHOOLS, WHAT DO YOU MEAN? OUR PLAN IS TO OPEN IT UP TO ALL VOLUNTEERS AND TO ALL SCHOOLS, ULTIMATELY, SO THAT THEY'RE POSTING INFORMATION.

[02:27:23] SORRY, IF I'M A VOLUNTEER AND I LIVE NEAR FORTH HUNT ELEMENTARY AND I WANT TO VOLUNTEER AT FORTH HUNT ELEMENTARY, RATHER THAN ALL OF REGION THREE, IS THERE THE OPPORTUNITY FOR A VOLUNTEER TO SAY THIS IS WHERE I'D LIKE TO VOLUNTEER? YES. Is there the option under Virginia law for volunteers to come in and teach, like adjunct faculty during the school day, particular coursework?

[02:27:47] So Mr. Solomon, I might, I will defer to you, I have what I think would be accurate, but go ahead. While we very likely wouldn't have a volunteer coming in to teach a class, we would employ them. So we would hire them with Fairfax County Public Schools to, in the case that you're describing, teach that one class.

[02:28:07] if they're not looking to be paid? That's something we may have to go back and research. I would think, Mr. Down, as long as we have a background check that's clear, that if a teacher, a classroom teacher, wanted to invite a volunteer in to teach a lesson or a series of lessons under the supervision of the classroom teacher, that would be fine.

[02:28:29] Great. Can you talk a little bit about, there's a lot of great stuff in here about Purple Star schools, but is there any particular outreach done to military families to understand the difficulties transitioning in, transitioning out, since they often do that in the middle of a school year and sometimes on short notice, depending on when orders are received?

[02:28:48] So, Mr. Dunn, in part, to respond actually to your suggestion a year ago, we did convene a military-connected family advisory committee, which I do meet with quarterly now, And that family committee brings concerns and we share topics.

[02:29:06] One of the things we've implemented in the last couple years is online registration. So families are able to register before they transfer if they know they're coming in. So, and I know our central registration is also working to expedite overseas transfer registrations because we want to make sure that students are able to sign up for courses before they're full and so forth.

[02:29:29] So we've really, I think, increased our outreach and connection to our military families. That's fantastic. In terms of outreach, I know that there are a lot of churches and nonprofits that would love to partner, and I've spoken to many of them, who would love to partner in tutoring, mentoring, or even serving as a host site for pre-K classes, et cetera.

[02:29:50] Has there been any engagement, that wasn't mentioned in the report, but is there any engagement that you're pursuing beyond, you mentioned a quarterly meeting with faith leaders? So that engagement is ongoing and for example we talk about what's going to happen in the summer months last year we talked about training youth leaders with some mental health skills mental health first aid but I do think that the new software for volunteering also we talked about a particular faith group wanting to do like math facts right.

[02:30:24] So I think there's been a little bit of a gap in terms of what what what do schools possibly need and we're hoping this new system will be able to say we would like someone to work with math flash cards for example or sight words so that if I'm a volunteer or I'm a youth or a non-profit group to say we really want to, you know, we want to be math fact heroes, then they would know that if they want to go to these seven schools that's what they could do.

[02:30:50] So it's really trying to match up a volunteer's interest with our needs and that's when I think it's going to best work. And the Samaritan system will be able to accommodate groups who are volunteering, not just individuals? Well, there would often be a representative of the group that may need to sign up, but I'll defer to Ms. Hall.

[02:31:09] Maybe there's a possibility for the group, but I'm guessing it's going to be a spokesperson for the group. It will accommodate groups, and when it comes to the training and the background checks, if it is a volunteer, you know, an organization that wants to volunteer, every individual in that group would be going through the process.

[02:31:29] But the family and school partnerships, Dr. Renela Huffman-Jackson is the director. She's spearheading the implementation of Samaritan. She's working closely with community relations, specifically our business and community partnerships administrator, to make sure those partnerships that are coming through that office are also ultimately going to go through Samaritan.

[02:31:56] That's helpful. And have you thought about not just requesting people to come to FCPS, but going out to HOAs and civic associations to engage with them, because they're also a source of volunteers and potential relationships that can do some bridge building.

[02:32:14] And I also want to mention low-income communities, which don't always have technology fluency that they fill out FCPS surveys. We certainly see that in the characteristics of people who respond to the surveys. BUT ACTUALLY GOING OUT TO THOSE COMMUNITIES, NOT NECESSARILY YOURSELF, BECAUSE YOU ARE QUITE OCCUPIED, BUT SENDING OUT REPRESENTIVES OF STPS LEADERSHIP TO TRY TO REACH OUT TO DIFFERENT COMMUNITIES, FOR EXAMPLE, ALONG ROUTE ONE TO ENGAGE WITH THEM, UNDERSTAND THEIR NEEDS, UNDERSTAND HOW WE CAN DO MORE OR DO THINGS A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENTLY THAT MIGHT BE MORE ACCOMMODATING OF THEIR NEEDS AND REQUIREMENTS.

[02:32:45] YES, SIR. I KNOW THAT DR. PONSA IS OUT IN THE COMMUNITY, OFTEN OUR CHIEF OF SCHOOLS, REGION, OFFICE STAFF, AND IN OUR ACADEMIC MATTERS TONIGHT, YOU'RE GOING TO SEE A NEW STRATEGY THAT WE JUST RECEIVED GRANT FUNDING TO UNDERTAKE ABOUT ACTUALLY TAKING LEARNING OUT TO THE COMMUNITY, WHICH WE'RE REALLY EXCITED ABOUT.

[02:33:09] NEW SPEAKER: GREAT. THANK YOU. THANK YOU, MR. DUNN. DR. ANDERSON. THANK YOU. I DO WANT TO START WITH SOME POSITIVE KUDOS. UNDER INDICATOR 7, THE PUBLIC -- THE PUBLICATION OF THE SEPARATION REPORTS THAT HAS BEEN exponentially improved I was always was always concerned that the data that we received prior to less than a year ago had been siloed and it was not in context and so the new format it has been really very helpful to really get a

[02:33:45] clear sense of what's happening in the division and also I in terms of communication going out I do want to recognize the efforts of the chief Engagement Office. I raise concerns many times regarding the stories that are being displayed on the FCPS News You Choose, just ensuring that we have wide representation across the entire division, and I think that has occurred, and I hope Ms. Hall is here. Okay, good. So I do want to recognize that. Thank you. It's been very intentional. One of the things that

[02:34:19] I wanted to raise, and this falls under both indicators one and two, very often we have a work session or even here where questions are raised or it's part of the next steps at a work session and then the response is provided in a Friday letter.

[02:34:36] I always, not always, but I have a lot of requests from the community asking about, well, what does that, what was the answer to the question that was asked? that component that comes to us in a Friday letter is not made visible elsewhere. I would love to hear your thinking in terms of how we can take that piece, because I know the entire Friday letter is not for publication, but how do we ensure that there's visibility to those responses that are being raised from official meetings that are not provided in the letters?

[02:35:08] So I think what I could do is visit with staff and see if as we have next steps responses that are part of that public document we could I think we could send it to the clerk's office to post so we could add that step if that would be helpful right that would actually be helpful because very often people who are watching for particular things like why heard it was in a Friday letter but we don't see that so thank you for that one of the other components that I'd like to talk about I believe it is an indicator three we've had this conversation since I've been on

[02:35:47] the board regarding when there's feedback that is received from the community and do we have the right representation is it across the various parts of our community what is the threshold that is going to inspire confidence I would love for that to be teased out a little bit what what is it that we're looking for when we send you know a survey about issue X what is the threshold that we're seeking and we don't arrive to that threshold then what do we do just making sure that that's a little bit more visible visible and more intentional so

[02:36:21] that we don't have these missed pockets of communication oh I'd like to go back all right thank you dr. Anderson mr. moon thank you mr. chairman thank you thank you dr. Rhee for the presentation and your hard work we all know how hard you work and this is such a large discussion I don't know how you can stay involved as much as you have been with all different stakeholders and different communities I have worked with many other superintendents and you are

[02:36:57] far above and beyond what any superintending can ever do so thank you for that with that said we are at the same time you can't you know we always look for continuous improvement so I'm gonna ask you a couple of questions regarding a I mean this is from the summary a summary pages of the family engagement survey of 23 and 24 I don't know whether you have that sorry that I didn't give you heads up but I think somebody statements couple couple of places you know it states that I mean I'm gonna give you a data about a third

[02:37:35] of a parents a guardians you know simply stating that they are not receiving enough information about what they can do at home to support their child with mental health and wellness. And also, you know, similar percentage of parents and guardians state the same thing about not having enough information from schools on what they can do at home to help their children improve their learning. So that has been something that I have noticed for a long

[02:38:08] period of time, especially for multilingual families, and especially those parents who may not be familiar with the American education system, and much less with the English language, and how they can help their children to be more successful in schools.

[02:38:29] Do you have any comments on that? I think data seems to show that a much lower percentage of parents indicating they're getting enough from their schools so I know that was one of the drivers for starting the family academy so that that's information I know that the documents that we're sending out are certainly being translated into our highest language uses and I think they've tried new technology talking

[02:39:04] points and technologies that are maybe more nimble to get information out to parents. But I think that that continues to be a challenge. Probably I would guess that the students' teachers are the most connected to the families often or the school principal, you know, it's at the school level.

[02:39:29] So I think we certainly can continue to set goals around that. I'm trying to find the data. Do you have the page number? That is from page six. Page six. Page six of the family engagement survey.

[02:39:45] Got it. That's a summary of insights. There's further detail in the back. You can send us a written response. Absolutely. It doesn't have to be tonight. Okay. Yes, sir. And when you do that, if you can, looking into maybe further detail of the data we already have, we should have, whether those about a third of the parents who seem to be saying that they're not receiving enough information from schools to help their children, whether, you know, those one-third tend to come from more of multilingual families.

[02:40:22] So I can check on that and get back to you on that. I do think the other piece in terms of information to help students, one of the big asks has been some kind of textbook or some kind of written material to come home, which I think was why the reading basal was so critical that we actually have materials that go home and as we look forward to new curricula I think that's that's a key piece as well so parents can actually see something and work with their child but I will get you sort of our plan and update on that in an upcoming Friday letter. Okay thank you thank you so much. Yes sir. Thank you Mr. Moon. Mr.

[02:41:00] Thank you. So one of the biggest changes that I have felt coming back on the board is the fact that we no longer have a calendar committee. And that was a big surprise to me because we would always have a set place to go to feed information that we got from the community about, you know, concerns or happiness about various aspects of our calendar.

[02:41:28] So I think the question I want to ask is, how are we taking in that input now, and how are we using it? Input on the calendar? Yeah. So at this point, we're trying to keep a three-year-out calendar going, a perpetual calendar.

[02:41:46] I know when I got here in 2022, we didn't have a calendar yet for that fall, and so it's really important. I think what families, one of the pieces of feedback we received was families really wanted TO HAVE THAT CALENDAR WELL IN ADVANCE TO MAKE TRAVEL PLANS AND THOSE TYPES OF THINGS.

[02:42:04] SO I DON'T KNOW THAT I RECEIVE A GREAT DEAL OF FEEDBACK RIGHT NOW ON THE CALENDAR, BUT ANY FEEDBACK THAT I WOULD RECEIVE ON THE CALENDAR I KNOW I GUESS WE COULD SHARE WITH THE BOARD.

[02:42:20] I HAVEN'T RECEIVED FEEDBACK IN A WHILE, BUT I'M HAPPY TO SHARE THAT WITH YOU. THANK YOU FOR THAT. WILL WE EVER HAVE A CALENDAR COMMITTEE AGAIN OR IS THIS ALL ADMINISTRATIVE NOW? It's really -- I don't know that I can answer that unilaterally, but I think at this point we have posted, I think Mr. Smith, we've posted the calendar through 27, 28?

[02:42:49] That is correct. So we certainly could, again. Okay. I think just as a board, we need to have a discussion about how we bring our input and the community's input better into that process. The other question I have is a general question on our start time prismatic study community engagement.

[02:43:14] I think, I don't think anyone on this board would say that that went particularly well. And it was disappointing for me because I think the communication process harmed the eventual outcome, which I know we're going to talk about shortly.

[02:43:34] SO I DON'T KNOW, DO YOU HAVE ANY LESSONS LEARNED FROM THAT PROCESS? WELL, I KNOW THAT WHEN WE HIRED PRISMATIC, YOU KNOW, TO WORK THIS PROCESS, THE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT, THE ROUTING, AND SO ON AND SO FORTH, THEY SPENT, I WANT TO SAY TWO YEARS I THINK THEY'VE BEEN WORKING ON IT.

[02:43:54] THEY BEGAN WITH COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND THEN DREW UP MODELS. I, MR. MUICK, THOUGHTS ON LESSONS LEARNED WITH THE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT? think you were present for most of those meetings yes ma'am as you know we we sent out another survey right before and spring break and we're getting we just got the results from that late last week and the lessons we learned from the previous attempt was just a better use of our communications team here and I would attribute that probably to my newness and experience here and the

[02:44:31] communications team the second time around really did a lot in terms of translations community engagement texting families and getting everything and we had 32 just under 32,000 parents respond 16,000 students and about 10,000 staff which was a huge improvement over the one last year and we're in the process of reviewing those results now I think I afforded those in a Friday letter the results I think one of the lessons learned mr. McElveen and that was you know we characterized this sort of as a middle school start time initiative and I think our elementary families really wanted to weigh in as

[02:45:11] well so that was one of the things to think about what are those ripple impacts and making sure we cast a wider net so I think for sure that was one of the pieces okay thanks I know we'll discuss more of that later okay thank you mr. McIlvain miss st. Cunningham sorry I really don't have a question I I just want to say that I applaud the work that's been done here and I know that a lot of this work comes out of family and school partnerships and once being part of that division I know how much work goes into it I know the value of what our parent liaisons do and what

[02:45:48] our family engagement regional reps do and I know that sometimes there are unsung heroes and at so many of these community events the interpreters that are there can't think of last names but Angie Gracie and Patty are almost there I think they probably work 90 hours a week when these events are going on and I just really want to lift that up and thank them because it takes a lot of work and it takes a lot of time and we keep saying we want more and more and more but our staff is not

[02:46:22] huge in that area and but they're doing a huge lift and so I just really want to take the time to thank them and recognize all the work that they do. Yeah, thank you, Ms. St. John and Connie, and I think that that's very timely.

[02:46:41] Angie, Gracie, and Patty have put in an inordinate amount of work. Also, our security staff that showed all those events. There's just, there's a lot to put the events together, so thank you for noting that. And I specifically want to thank our security people because a lot of times I'm the last when to leave and they wait for me and I appreciate that because they put in extra time because of me thank you Ms. Satan Cunning I'm going to take a turn first congratulations everyone this is the last EL of the school year so everybody a pat on the back not only the superintendent and the

[02:47:18] school board for having to go through this process and getting to go through this process but staff for helping to prepare this work I want to tell you how much more substantive our meetings are because of this process the depth of information that we dive into is deeper than anything that i've experienced on on this board and i very much appreciate the transparency that this brings to the system and the methodical way that it helps us provide accountability to the superintendent i want to pick up where mr mckelveen left off on the survey question you know i think our team does

[02:47:53] an excellent job when when it's focused on getting people to respond to surveys and so when we hear a number like 30 000 you know it adds fodder to my argument that the way that we do our surveys and report out the results is flawed not necessarily the way that we capture the information but then we say things like parents think this or students think that and really all we're saying is the people who responded to this survey feel this because we've done nothing to weight the answers based on the populations of the school or their demographic breakdown or whatever

[02:48:28] and our sample sizes are plenty large enough to weight these things scientifically so that we could say x you know 60 of our students feel this 85 of our parents feel that and we probably even have a large enough samples of things at a lower level like within middle school within high school from this region from that region i have trouble citing the surveys we do because they're anecdotal without that weighing and so I've toyed with bringing a corrective action memo on the subject over and over again I don't think that's necessarily that's not necessary because we are doing the

[02:49:08] engagement but I want that engagement to mean more to the board when we make our decisions the other thing I want to bring up Miss Marin had a follow-on motion and there's a couple things that we launched a new website as a school division and I think it is way better and it It has a lot of functionality that many schools don't use and it was something that was problematic before the new website, you know some schools you'd have a whole bunch of things on the community calendar, other schools you'd have to be on the newsletter to receive that information.

[02:49:41] We need to do a better job of ensuring that the tools we're paying for are being used so that we're communicating properly with families in addition to the other ways that we reach them so that when a family is new to the school and maybe they're not on the text list yet or the newsletter list yet they can just go to the website and see not to mention i went to five musicals in the last week i would love for our community to be able to find that information on the website really quickly because our kids are really talented um and so um i believe the motion is being pulled but i look forward to partnering with colleagues to ensure that the the message behind that that we do a better job of using these tools and training

[02:50:18] FAMILIES TO USE THE TOOLS WE ARE PROVIDING THEM HAPPENS AND I APPRECIATE MY COLLEAGUES COMMENTS ON THIS AND OTHER SUBJECTS ALL RIGHT I HAVE SOME LIGHTS ON I DON'T KNOW IF THEY'RE GO BACKS OR NOT DR. ANDERSON THANK YOU JUST TWO MORE THINGS BECAUSE I MAY NOT GET THE OPPORTUNITY TO DO THIS AS WE'RE TALKING ABOUT MIDDLE SCHOOL START TIMES HERE I'D LOVE TO GET A GLIMPSE OF YOUR THINKING OF THE REPORT THAT WAS SENT TO THE BOARD YESTERDAY I BELIEVE WE HAD TWO REPORTS THAT WERE SENT YESTERDAY, ONE THAT WAS DONE I THINK RIGHT AT THE TAIL

[02:50:53] END OF LAST WEEK AND WE'VE GOTTEN A LOT OF REPORTS FROM PRISMATIC IN THE LAST TWO WEEKS. DID WE HAVE TWO? YES, MA'AM. THE ONE THAT WE RECEIVED ON FRIDAY AND ONE YESTERDAY AT NOON. OKAY. SO I THINK THE ONE ON FRIDAY, IF I'M REMEMBERING CORRECTLY, I DON'T HAVE MY NOTES IN FRONT OF ME RIGHT AT THIS MOMENT, BUT I THINK THE ONE ON FRIDAY IS THAT THE ONE THAT HAD THE

[02:51:13] DOUBLEBACKS AND THE TIME THAT WASN'T YOU WEREN'T ABLE THE TEAM WASN'T ABLE TO VERIFY THE TIMES YES MA'AM THE DOUBLEBACKS AND 30 MINUTE REDUCTION IN RUN TIME OVERALL AND THAT WASN'T PERCEIVED AS POSSIBLE FROM THE TEAM YES MA'AM OKAY SO SO THE FRIDAY AFTERNOON REPORT FROM PRISMATIC I THINK TO MR.

[02:51:38] UIC's point we had double backs and the time I think the prismatic had taken some of the runs to smaller or shorter times than the team felt with traffic and all existing conditions was actually possible so it was not a cost-neutral option I believe there was another one that came in today or was it yesterday yesterday at noon yesterday at noon so that oh that's right because I sent it to you I sent it to you as a board yesterday at five o'clock but that one again was not cost neutral based on the team's analysis is that correct yes ma'am okay so i

[02:52:16] believe that we've continued to get reports but they continue not to be able to be vetted as cost neutral so um and i don't recall why this uh the one yesterday afternoon was not cost neutral but i think it was similar the run times i think the double backs were taken out this time but the run time still didn't work yes ma'am okay so and that's the most recent report i've seen was yesterday's yesterday afternoon's report okay then i'm not sure the one that i'm looking at that is dated the 7th it has a negative one bus right so that would make it cost neutral is there another

[02:52:54] factor that i'm missing the run times that um i believe well mr mulek you probably have the technical because you've talked to your team yes ma'am uh yeah they removed the double backs but but the 30-minute reduced run time is still there. And if you remember from the prior alternatives back in December and February, our run time right now on the buses is 110 minutes.

[02:53:18] And shaving 30 minutes off to a total of 80, we've always felt that shaving from 110 to 100 was doable, 110 to 90 was a stretch, and 110 to 80 cutting 30 minutes out of our start-to-finish run time was just not doable.

[02:53:34] And there's a couple examples in here, like current Justice bus run that goes from Justice to Sleepy Hollow. It's currently 35 minutes, and it's very tight, and that got shaved down to 20. There's a Park Lawn example from Park Lawn to Glen Forest, currently 40, also tight with traffic, cut down to 30.

[02:53:53] So it's examples like that in this that, in our routing team's opinion, is just not achievable, Because we would get out there, there'd be lateness, there would be delays, and we would only end up creating more double bags to create buses to get back in there.

[02:54:09] So while it may look like it's cost neutral on paper, when you give it to the routing team to look at those exact traffic patterns, those neighborhoods, those small bus loops, they are looking to say, okay, whether or not we can or cannot do it. And they don't have that confidence that we can achieve that at a cost neutral, and it would end up costing us buses to get in there.

[02:54:30] Okay maybe I may be getting the terms confused it sounds to me like it's cost neutral but the feasibility to operationalize it is not there because does that add an additional cost to negate the cost neutrality that is identified in the report. Yes ma'am it would because those run times that have been shortened so dramatically what's going to happen in execution is that we're then going to have to create and find buses elsewhere to get in there to handle that workload because the time has got shortened so much in that one pyramid.

[02:55:01] I see that that's very helpful. Thank you. I think one of the things that would also be very helpful is if we were to post this because again, you've heard people speak about it today. I get emails about it constantly. People are looking to see what is it that we're going to do in this area. So from what I think I'm hearing, there is no staff recommendation because this is not a feasible option. There is no staff recommendation because we were not able to come up with a cost neutral option. Right. This is not feasible. Okay. Thank you.

[02:55:33] you and the last thing that I wanted to share and I'm glad mr. McElveen reminded me of that I was at a PTA meeting at Holmes not too long ago for the entire pyramid and it did come up quite a bit regarding how to give feedback on the current calendar it wasn't a calendar committee question it was our community was accustomed to giving feedback to it granted it was every year and then it went to none at all is that an opportunity that can be provided it doesn't matter if we we have a two-year calendar, three-year calendar, if I think they're following the same rhythm,

[02:56:10] they're just looking to be able to give feedback. Primarily, a lot of the concerns that I heard were we were starting early and also ending late, and there were some other things, but they just want to know where do they deposit that information and what will come from you all to do that. I think just as families who want to provide feedback on any topic, they can simply email us and provide feedback on the calendar or email you and provide feedback on the calendar I don't know at this time there's not a calendar committee that I'm aware of but it's certainly something we could talk about but I'm happy to read

[02:56:47] the feedback and respond yeah I think that might be something for you to consider I wouldn't want to say just email me because we'd like to organize it a little bit better and again it doesn't have to be to the extent of what we've had before but there has to be some space to be able to do that and I think my last comment is some of well no I think I'm going to save that for another time thank you thank you Dr. Anderson really quickly Dr. Reed do you think that you're following the school board's policies that relates to the school calendar yes sir I do all right so and and from my knowledge I think you

[02:57:27] are there were customs of previous boards that were not enshrined in our POLICY THAT'S NOT NECESSARILY A GOOD OR BAD THING ABOUT WHAT THE PRACTICES WERE BUT IF THE BOARD WANTS TO HAVE A MECHANISM FOR SOLICITING FEEDBACK ON A THREE OR FOUR YEAR CALENDAR OR WHAT HAVE YOU I THINK WE CAN TALK ABOUT THE POLICY FOR SURE BUT AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED I'VE READ THE POLICY BECAUSE I'VE HAD SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT THE CALENDAR AS WELL AND WE'RE FOLLOWING IT AND THE ONE THING PIECE OF FEEDBACK I GET EVEN WHEN THERE'S A CRITICISM OF THE CALENDAR IS I LIKE HAVING THE KNOWLEDGE OF YEARS OUT And sometimes there's a but.

[02:58:05] But people, more than anything, that I've spoken to and that I've received feedback on, appreciate the consistency, especially staff and parents. So, Mr. Dunn. I certainly agree with my colleagues that effective planning far in advance is characteristics of a well-run, well-operated organization.

[02:58:32] The one criticism I hear of the calendar is that our kids have a day off or two days off almost every week of the school year and it's hard to make academic progress when you know you have a three-day or four-day weekend every week. I hear that from teachers. I hear that from principals. I definitely hear that from parents. I hear that from students. So I definitely think that's something that needs to be considered. I don't know what to do with the information about from Prismatic. It kind of came in late and it seems like there's more work that could be done there but um certainly the the delivery was uh excuse me there's a fly who's taken a

[02:59:12] attraction to me hopefully that won't deduct against my time nature is conspiring will the court please give 10 seconds back to back to mr dunn for the fly we stopped this time when we realized i believe there's a song about letting me fly um so so i wasted the 10 seconds uh so thank Thank you. So I think it might be worthwhile to look at a pilot in another district, and I'd like to offer the Mount Vernon district.

[02:59:44] Perhaps there's a pyramid, West Potomac, South County, Mount Vernon, that might benefit or be easier to meet than the Mason district. But of course, I'll support my colleagues' efforts to have a pilot in her district. But I really hesitate for start times to deploy something system-wide that hasn't been at least piloted at least once.

[03:00:04] But at this point, where we are in May, it seems unlikely or more difficult to implement a pilot on this short of a notice. Is that your opinion, Dr. Reed? It is. Do you support generally the idea of a pilot before implementing change school start times system-wide?

[03:00:26] Yes, sir, I do, and I previously shared that with Dr. Anderson. I think if it was possible to do a pilot prior to rolling things out, I think it's always a good idea. We think about pilot, pilot, proof of concept, and then scale, particularly since we're going through a new routing software for the coming year.

[03:00:48] That honestly takes the stakes up even higher because a lot of divisions, when they implement new routing software, that's a huge transition for our drivers our routers our families uh and we've heard you know stories where that doesn't work always at the beginning of the year and sometimes creates real issues so the team has been working very hard on that and i know prismatic has been working hard with our routing team trying to put together a cost neutral option because i mean clearly we have some budget challenges um so if we were able to do that and that's why we kept getting reports

[03:01:24] I think they, you know, would present something and then there was something, you know, an issue and then take it back and so forth. It's been iterative. But, yes, I mean, I think trying to pilot it makes sense. But I would also say, and I've shared this with other board members, I think trying to make that decision this late in the year is difficult for families who need to plan.

[03:01:46] And it's not so much the middle school families, but we've heard, you know, from some elementary families about after school child care, if their times are moved. which i think they're willing to do it's just they need maybe a little more time than may to make those plans thank you thank you mr dunn seeing no others we will go for a vote with the motion on the screen all those in favor miss marron miss dixit mr mckelveen mr mcdaniel miss anderson miss sizemarheiser mr moon mr dunn miss lady missing john cunning and myself all

[03:02:23] THOSE OPPOSED DR. ANDERSON THE MOTION CARRIES ALL RIGHT MOVING ON TO AGENDA ITEM 7.01 POLICY REVIEW RELATIONSHIPS WITH FAMILIES AND COMMUNITY STAKEHOLDERS EL3 THE NEXT ORDER OF BUSINESS IS THE POLICY REVIEW FOR EXECUTIVE LIMITATION THREE RELATIONSHIPS WITH FAMILIES AND COMMUNITY STAKEHOLDERS ANNUALLY THE BOARD WILL REVIEW EACH EXECUTIVE LIMITATION AT THE TIME THE MONITOR report is provided to determine if revisions are needed board members may offer amendments to

[03:02:59] executive limitations at any regular meeting provided they send the final amendment language of the board and clerk at least 48 hours in advance of the meeting at which it is being considered i call on mr mckelveen for a motion i move that the school board maintains executive limitation three relationships with families and community stakeholders as as it is currently detailed in the strategic governance manual is there a second second ms sizemore hyzer dr anderson oh sorry mr mckelveen would you like to speak to your motion no thanks ms sizemore hyzer would you like to

[03:03:36] speak to your motion no thanks dr anderson she's not here and her light is off okay he's on was on it was i think mr mckelveen fixed it all right um seeing no others i will call for a vote all those in favor of maintaining the policy Ms. Marin, Ms. Dixit, Mr. McIlveen, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Seismarheiser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, and Ms. St. John Cunning and myself.

[03:04:08] That is unanimous. We will now take a 10-minute break to 1013 while colleagues complete the form

[03:04:18] or use the virtual edition and we will pick things back up at 1013. Board members please take your

[03:14:43] SEATS. MEMBERS, PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR SEATS. YOUR TEN MINUTE BREAK HAS EXPIRED. BOARD MEMBERS,

[03:16:24] PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR SEATS FOR A CONVERSATION ABOUT THE APPROVED BUDGET. ALL RIGHT. WELCOME

[03:16:58] BACK. CLEARLY IT'S LATE. ONE OF OUR COLLEAGUES JUST STARTED SINGING THE WELCOME BACK COTTER SONG. NOT MY AGE. AGENDA ITEM 8.01 FINANCIAL YEAR 2026. APPROVED BUDGET. I CALL ON DR. REED FOR FOR PRESENTATION OF THE FINANCIAL YEAR 2026 APPROVED BUDGET, DR. REED.

[03:17:25] THANK YOU, MR. FRESH. THIS EVENING I AM GOING TO BE PRESENTING THE FISCAL YEAR 2026 APPROVED BUDGET WHICH WILL BE AMENDED FROM THE BUDGET THAT I PRESENTED EARLIER THIS YEAR AS A RESULT OF NOT RECEIVING THE FULL COUNTY TRANSFER AND THEREFORE NOT BEING FULLY FUNDED.

[03:17:50] I want to start my comments this evening simply with a thank you to all of our staff who work so very hard each and every day to produce incredible mission-driven work and data.

[03:18:06] I want to thank our educators in all of their roles who have never worked harder under changing academic accountability conditions and changing expectations, changing SOL requirements, new curriculum it's they've never worked harder and I just want to particularly this week provide a big thank you to all of our educators and all of their unique roles.

[03:18:36] I want to thank our food nutritious food nutrition services staff for the work they've done this year they've worked harder I think than almost any year the amount of time learning new recipes doing more scratch cooking putting in more time to make sure our food is healthier that's a big a big commitment and I want to thank our board members particularly mr. McIlvain for his work on best food for kids the amount of time each of you have spent as board members in schools supporting

[03:19:10] projects supporting bodies of work this division I've never been more proud of the work of our team our facilities and our maintenance and our custodial teams continue to give their all each and every day to help our facilities regardless of the time of the renovation queues but to have our facilities look and work as amazing as it's humanly possible we've brought projects in on time and on budget and I want to thank our team for that we've done some ribbon cutting finished some renovations successfully again folks are really

[03:19:49] working hard our transportation staff the fourth day of school this year 98% of our runs in the largest bus fleet in the country we're on time that's incredible the time and talent and the work our security staff our IT staff our support staff in the central office just a big thank you and this budget really outlines the priorities that that I have and that I share I know with you as a board in terms of what we believe is important and what's most important is

[03:20:23] staying student-centered and at a time where public education has never been more important the power and promise of public education we're going to use every dollar we receive wisely and put it to its best and highest use so as I begin to talk about the budget this evening in detail I also want to remind those who are watching that we reconfirmed this week that we are in fact larger than 11 states in this country and that we in fact educate our

[03:20:58] children on a cost per pupil at a lower rate than all of those states our overall budget at four billion dollars sounds like a lot of money and it surely is a lot of money and 11 other states spend more money on fewer kids and our results annually are better and stronger and that's due to the leadership of this board and the work of our staff all 40,000 of them so as I move to go through the details I also want to thank our union leadership in particular

[03:21:33] leslie houston and david walrod who worked tirelessly this last year and the year before to lay a groundwork for collective bargaining which was historic here and the first time we've done that here in fairfax county and marty smith and the hr team william and john there's been a lot of work and i'm proud of the work that's been done and i think you can be as a board proud of the work that's been done so let's go ahead and kind of walk through where we are we did need to go into or back to collective bargaining because in the

[03:22:09] resolution that the board provided as well as the collective bargaining agreement if we're not fully funded from the county transfer we do need to go back to the table and renegotiate wages which we did since we received notice of the county budget so as you can see on the slide we had a county transfer reduction of 149 million however we did receive from the state the governor did sign the general assembly budget so that did provide us 28 million so we still

[03:22:46] have a gap of a hundred and twenty one million so in this case we went back to the bargaining table and while we previously had asked for or agreed to a a 7% raise for our FEU bargaining agreement this revenue adjustment does provide and notes that we were not able to get to 7% in our negotiations in the last two days however our FEU staff will be receiving 6% in this budget and we

[03:23:25] believe that that 6% is going to be we hope a positive reflection and a note of our commitment regardless of the budget transfer to do everything we can to come as close to honoring that ratified agreement as possible I will also share that and I'll go into more detail in the coming pages on the other topics we're We're also making a staffing formula adjustment.

[03:23:56] You can see that will bring a savings of $33 million. We're looking at deferring our social studies materials at $15 million and I'll go through this in more detail. I think you can see this slide.

[03:24:13] So if we want to go to the next slide, we'll take some look at some detail work here. The employee compensation adjustment is $33.4 million, and the employees, as I mentioned before, that are represented by Fairfax Education Union will receive, under this budget, a 6% raise, and those staff who are not FEU-represented employees will be receiving a 5% raise or a 5% increase.

[03:24:44] Further, to take advantage of the one-time state bonus for SOQ-funded positions, eligible employees are going to receive their $1,000 bonus prior to June 30th, which is in part recognizing the compensation gap.

[03:25:03] Again, we did not want to leave money on the table. The state funded this to be paid out in FY25. so this will be paid out by June 30th of FY25 then we're going to look at to fund the 6% and the 5% we're going to do a staffing formula adjustment which in this case creates a different divisor it adds one to the divisor so that these

[03:25:36] These formula changes will result in about 275.3 fewer positions, which will be an average of less than 1.5 positions per school, and this does save $33.3 million.

[03:25:53] One of the things that we know about this process is that we have more than 275 positions currently open so we believe that we're going to be able to place all staff in this situation however there obviously is an impact when you have fewer staff in the schools under the plan to defer social studies materials the plan is to we have a textbook fund that funds current and

[03:26:28] future instructional resource adoptions at this point given the need to do as much as we can uh to fund our salaries uh for staff we're going to defer the ordering of social studies materials which save 15.3 million dollars further we post covet provided classroom monitors in elementary schools i believe these were hourly staff so they're not fte staff but the funding for these monitors will no longer continue they've been in place i think for

[03:27:07] three years and this will be a savings of thirteen point two million dollars next as we look at the formula adjustment to our elementary school special ed leads or our special ed department chairs at elementary school we currently are allocating from a central budget 1.0 positions to each elementary school the middle and high school allocations are not centrally

[03:27:39] funded for special education department chairs rather those are funded within ratio so at this point we've made the decision to cut the 1.0 special education lead teacher positions by 0.5 to save 9.3 million dollars and so this is going to be something that we will work with elementary principles in the coming days to talk through what that modeling will look like to reduce

[03:28:14] those positions by half we're also um expecting across the board central office department reductions uh three percent for each department and that will total 7.5 million which may or may not include positions could be contracts could be materials other expenses could be vacant positions But each department is looking at a reduction of three percent.

[03:28:45] The formula adjustment also for elementary AART staff. This is going to look -- I want to be clear on terms of how we're addressing this.

[03:29:00] Currently, we have a 1.0 AART in all elementary schools. And at this point, what we're saying is we will leave the 1.0 AARTs intact at our Title I elementary schools, but all other elementary schools will be staffed with a .5 AART, which reverts back to prior year funding and staffing levels.

[03:29:27] We will also finally -- I think these are our last two adjustments. We're going to reduce electric bus funding 2.8 million and so that saves 2.8 million and I've cut non local travel by half so that will save us.

[03:29:49] I want to share with the board that these cuts I've tried to be as judicious as possible IN TRYING TO MAINTAIN MOMENTUM TO ACHIEVE THE GOALS OF OUR STRATEGIC PLAN AND THERE WITH LESS FUNDS COMING IN AND COMMITMENTS TO PROVIDING A WORKING SALARY FOR OUR HARDWORKING PROFESSIONALS WHO ALSO ARE LIVING IN ONE OF THE MOST EXPENSIVE COUNTIES TO LIVE IN.

[03:30:26] it's essential that we make some cuts to be able to afford the salary increases. Again this evening this is not where I would choose to be but I think that given the information we have presently this is our best attempt to provide a balanced budget for 2026 that recognizes the hard work and efforts of our staff and maintains services closest to our students and the classroom experience necessary to produce a world-class education here in

[03:31:04] Fairfax County Public Schools. I want to finish with the available balance summary, which was actually on one of the FIRST SLIDE, SO THIS AGAIN IS JUST A SUMMARY OF THE TOPICS I'VE OUTLINED AND THEN LOOKING AT THE NEXT STEPS, THIS IS THE TIMING, THIS EVENING IS MAY 8TH, SO I'M OBVIOUSLY PRESENTING THE APPROVED BUDGET TO YOU, MY BUDGET TO YOU.

[03:31:37] NEXT WEEK, THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, THEY'LL ADOPT THEIR FINAL FY26 BUDGET. There will be public hearings or public hearing on May 13th and May 14th if needed. The board as you recall will have a work session on May 20th and then you will be voting on the final approved budget as a board on May 22nd.

[03:31:59] So for those watching there is a website to stay involved and learn more about the budget process but we are sort of nearing the end of the budget process at this point and I I am optimistic that we're going to be able to continue to do the work we do here in Fairfax County Public Schools and we will stay in the light. So Mr. Frisch that is my budget presentation.

[03:32:28] Thank you Dr. Reed and as is the custom of our board to kick us off in budget discussions we will first go to our budget chair Ms. Sizemore Heiser. Thank you and thank you Dr. Reed and to your staff mr smith and the budget team miss burden mr norton miss whittington and the rest of the staff and feu and their leaders leslie houston david wallroad this was a tough budget and a tough change to make and i appreciate the very compressed timeline in which you all entered back into collective bargaining and came back to us with an agreement we are lucky to live in a county that has traditionally supported and funded

[03:33:06] a strong public education system especially in the historic underfunding by the state and while we were disappointed that the county was unable to fully fund the advertised budget we recognized the fiscal realities faced by our county the underfunding by the state and the change in the commercial market uncertainties in federal landscapes and much else led to where we are today i believe we all firmly believe in the value of public education for fairfax county people come to fairfax county businesses come to fairfax county because of the strength of our public education system and I believe our community and our funders fully believe in the

[03:33:44] value of our public education system. A strong public education system means less crime, more economic prosperity, higher property values, and a stronger democracy. We appreciate the county's budget restored the 7.7 millions of funding to programs that directly impact FCPS including the middle school after school program for this next year, high school crossing guards, and transition supports and we appreciate their willingness to diversify revenue streams of the food and beverage tax although we were hopeful that additional tax would help close the gap with our budget request and i hope we can engage earlier with the board of supervisors and our

[03:34:21] collaborative process in the spirit of one fairfax for developing the budget our community is counting us on us to maintain the priorities of our county including a strong school system i am glad Dr. Reed with these tough decisions you made that you're able to find a way to prioritize compensation for our educators. I know it wasn't what we were hoping for with the original agreement but you found a way to prioritize the best we could. We cannot have excellent schools without excellent educators and we are competing against surrounding jurisdictions that are paying higher and have a cheaper cost of living. So I appreciate that you're able to do that. These are tough cuts

[03:35:00] and these are cuts that I believe will impact FCPS's ability to continue to be the FCPS the community expects us to be. I know you and your staff and our educators will do the hard work to minimize those impacts, especially do the hard work to minimize those impacts in the classroom, and I believe that your proposal here is doing just that, minimizing the impacts directly to the classroom. But let's be clear, we are at an inflection point here. For years, I've heard people talk about doing more with less. I believe we are now at a less with less point. The proposal

[03:35:37] here, which I think is fair and the best you could do, will impact our staffing ratios in our schools, which could impact our class sizes. It impacts our ability to provide additional supports for advanced academics, for special education. It impacts our ability to maintain the excellence that we need to do. We are a large organization with 40,000 employees. We have to have a strong HR, cybersecurity, IT, instructional staff, especially without the social studies.

[03:36:13] That's all part of central office. I know my time is up. I will perhaps take a go back. I'll just end by saying I appreciate all the hard work. I appreciate the collaboration with our unions, and I appreciate the collaboration with our funding partners. We would be nowhere without all of this, so thank you.

[03:36:29] Thank you, Ms. Sizemore-Hyser. Dr. Anderson. Thank you. One of the things that I want to be sure that we get out, at least in this conversation, because this is going to be news there's going to be a lot of worry worried folks both employees and parents so I'm hoping we could also kind of get into some greater details regarding some of the information that you shared and I'd like to start with the ARTs and the special education chairs for elementary schools. Can you speak to whether or not those cuts will allow us to

[03:37:06] reabsorb those individuals into the school division or are we talking about essentially people losing positions altogether and having to separate from the system yes ma'am so in those categories it based on the position openings we still have we believe that we will be able to absorb all of those positions back into classrooms um there's i we still are hiring and um so absolutely we don't believe that we will actually end up losing the staff will

[03:37:44] lose positions and there's no differential pay because these are teaching positions so there won't be a change in compensation if they move from being an ART or chair to a classroom position I don't believe so it's a reassignment position and we have language that addresses that topic okay wonderful thank you regarding the hourly monitors those all part-time or full-time or a combination they're hourly so I think that not all schools utilized monitors some traded them some didn't

[03:38:22] use them and didn't trade them so we had a wide variety of use of that budget line item again the THE BUDGET LINE ITEM WAS PUT IN AS WE RETURNED TO SCHOOL FROM COVID. IT WAS NOT A PRIOR POSITION. SO IN SOME CASES THEY WERE FULL-TIME AND IN SOME CASES NOT.

[03:38:41] BUT THESE WILL BE POSITIONS THAT WILL NOT BE RE-ABSORBED IN THE SYSTEM BECAUSE THEY ARE HOURLY EMPLOYEES. IT DEPENDS ON THEIR ROLE, THEIR CERTIFICATION, THEIR LICENSURE OR NOT. With 40,000 employees, there are a number of roles in the division that have really variant licensing requirements.

[03:39:01] So I can't speak to which ones could, you know, find other professional opportunities within Fairfax and which may not. What I know is that our credentialed teachers all can find a home to stay at this point.

[03:39:18] Okay, thank you. And when you speak of the social studies, were those one-time funds for the social studies, BASIL, which is now being recommended to not happen? No, those are, we put funds into a, I want to call it a sinking fund for instructional materials and textbooks.

[03:39:39] So this is an annually replenished fund. We hope that next year we will have a different level of funding so we can restore those funds. but they are annually replaced. And what's the yearly allocation into the sinking fund?

[03:39:56] Ms. Burden? Because if we're adopting every seven years. I believe it's probably in the neighborhood of 20 million-ish. And that's for all adoptions? We don't usually do more than one in a given year. So 20 million a year is what we put away?

[03:40:12] I don't think it's that much, but we'll have to get that number for you. Yes, thank you. And lastly, just kind of the big ticket item regarding the staffing. Again not wanting for parents who are watching to think now my kids class sizes will be raised.

[03:40:29] Can you explain why increasing the staffing formula will not impact class sizes. Yes ma'am. So the staffing formula adjustment I believe it was on slide. If we could go back to slide four please.

[03:40:52] This is a staffing formula adjustment which essentially increases the divisor use to calculate the number of general education teachers by one. So what this actually does is there's an average of less than 1.5 positions per school.

[03:41:13] So there's not a one to one like the all class sizes aren't necessarily going to go up. the ratio of staff assigned to that school that will be shifted so Ms. Burden would you I'm sorry you explain that I just need to drink a little water for a minute sure maybe somebody over in the gallery can help me understand what is the current formula to get a better scope of where the change will be I'm going to ask assistant director Matthew Norton to speak about this thank you I

[03:41:48] almost got my voice back yes happy to be here to clarify for you all so at the elementary school level we have a divisor of anywhere from 20 to 26 depending on the free and reduced lunch rate and so that one increase will change that divisor from 20 to 26 to 21 to 27 at the middle school and high school level we have a similar set of divisors that we use I believe off the top of my head that middle school is 27.4 and so it would be going up to 28.4

[03:42:20] and then high school is I believe 31 going up to 32 what I can tell you is that as it relates to state requirements related to you know the the SOQ or the standards of quality and what what they require the standards of quality required division-wide ratios for elementary of 24 for K through 3 and 25 for grades 1 through 4 4 4 through 6 and then the standards of quality require a school-wide

[03:42:57] ratio of 21 to 1 at the middle school and high school level in FY 25 we had division-wide ratio of approximately 16.4 to 1 and so this increase of 1 would raise us to 17.4 to 1 which is still well below the 24 and 25 required in the SOQ and then at the middle school and high school level in FY 25 our ratio at our for our highest school-wide ratio is six point sixteen point three to one our average across middle schools and high schools is thirteen to one and so a one

[03:43:35] increase would take us to seventeen point three at the highest and an average of 14 and so that again that's still well below the SOQ requirement of a SCHOOL WIDE RATIO OF 21 SURE THANK YOU FOR THAT OVERVIEW I HAVE SOME MORE SPECIFIC QUESTIONS BUT I THINK I'LL WAIT ON THOSE FOR THE WORK SESSION THAT IS THE NEXT WEEK AFTER I WILL WAIT ON THAT AND JUST THE LAST THING I'D LIKE TO JUST OFFER FOR CONSIDERATION THE SPECIAL EDUCATION THE SPECIAL EDUCATION CHANGES I WOULD LOVE FOR SOME CONSIDERATION FOR THE WORK LOAD OF THE VARIOUS SCHOOLS IT IS

[03:44:11] DIFFERENT SO A POINT FIVE MIGHT BE GREAT AT ONE SITE AND A POINT FIVE MIGHT BE REALLY STRETCHING A TEACHER IN THAT POSITION AT ANOTHER SITE BECAUSE THEY HAVE THAT MANY MORE IEPS AND THE CASELOAD IS JUST GREATER SO I WOULD LOVE FOR FOR US TO GET TO A SPACE WHERE THERE'S A FORMULA THAT IS ACTUALLY BASED ON NEED AND NOT JUST SCHOOL THANK YOU THANK YOU DR. ANDERSON Miss Marin that data point about our school division being larger than that of 11 states

[03:44:48] and yet we have a lower people cost than each of those states and that's really powerful and we're doing more with less but I'm concerned at the precedent it sets that we do more with less and our biggest assets are the humans that work here and they have a limit they have a limit of energy and capacity and I'm concerned that our experienced educators and staff will burn out not to mention you know the political context and ongoing national teacher shortage so that is a concern of mine that we're now perpetuating you know if i could improve anything in our schools it would be smaller class sizes so to see that reduction of 275 educators

[03:45:26] from our classrooms that is a tough one for me um you know our board policy allows for more students per teacher than i'd like us to have so i am also eager to review this so that it guides future budgetary decisions and holds those in place but I must commend you Dr. Reed as the executive of this organization your professionalism knowledge and experience it's it's the ultimate model of leadership in all the ways your experience with collective bargaining in your previous school division has been a supremely valuable I've learned so much about the process even tonight I'm still learning and I hope that we can also debrief this to

[03:46:03] just keep learning more that you've participated in the re-bargaining these past 48 hours and continued to attend to myriad critical school division work, grading practices, facilities funding, student safety, and more. It's superhuman. And again, there is a limit. So I hope you have a nice long rest this weekend. But you know, as I've begun reflecting on this year's budget experience, I'm thinking about the ripple effect. You know, something will happen now will have future impacts that we can't know yet. And I think about the advocacy and the students who were activated and the residents who learned more about how their tax dollars are being used. And I'm eager to continue

[03:46:42] that work. And I hope that the teachers and staff are satisfied with this outcome. Thank you. Thank you. Miss Marin. Mr. McDaniel. Thank you. Rabbit out of a hat. That's what I've I've the only conclusion that I think is reasonable to come to is a rabbit out of a hat and a rabbit out of a hat that 48 hours ago not only did the hat not

[03:47:15] exist but the rabbit was probably on life support that's what this presentation at poor rabbit my daughters are watching they're going to be very upset they should be in bed but that's what this is as a rabbit out of a hat the cuts are painful but they're not as painful as it could have been especially in this fiscal environment and what this proposal does is it keeps the dollars in the

[03:47:48] classroom on the kids focused on the core mission and not just the expenditure in the classroom but the most important asset in that classroom which are the teachers and all the support staff that support the teachers all of our staff give 120 percent all the time and i think it's really easy when we talk about contracts and legalese and this percentage and that percentage and you look at budget as a P&L and it kind of becomes a very formulaic exercise. It's very easy to forget

[03:48:23] the fact that the people that are responsible for educating our children give 120 percent every day and if they took that same approach that I think is very tempting for some people to take they could just say I'm going down to 90 percent or maybe 80 percent or I'm going to go from above and beyond to just what i have to do to meet the minimum requirements of my job and that's it and if we get in that position we're in a very dangerous we're on the back side of that curve and we don't need to be there and this budget this this update has saved us from that so thank you

[03:49:02] for the work lee thank you for that work and um we've still got a few days left but i'm very optimistic thank you thank you mr mcdaniel mr moon thank you mr chairman uh dr reid thanks for the the presentation I knew that this was hard work you only had less than 48 hours since we heard of what the county was going to do a couple of days ago and you had to have conversation with

[03:49:37] union leaders representatives and come to a your a proposer tonight with that said I need to ask a couple of questions a staffing formula chain just for the general education teaching positions does it also have any impact on any other positions such as custodial staff positions

[03:50:09] no sir okay because custodial staff we in the formula itself has a number of teaching positions as a factor and i just want to know whether that's going to have any real implications and reducing the number of custodians, especially for larger schools where you may be, you could lose more teaching positions than small elementary schools.

[03:50:37] Give me just a minute. You said five, Lee? Yes. So let's review that real quick then. The staffing formulas provides custodial as well. Matthew, do you want to? So I'm going to revise that.

[03:50:53] Okay. Yes, thanks for the question, Mr. Moon. What I'll say is that our custodial formulas are based on the square footage of the building the number of staff in the building And a factor for community use and so because there's a reduction in the number of staff in the building resulting from the 270-ish teachers there's there's a few schools affected where there's a loss of a overall number of 5.5 custodians It's probably in 0.5 increments across the schools So so my my rough estimate is there's about 11 schools that would have a so you are estimating about five

[03:51:33] for the position losses for custodians that's correct that would be for the whole division sure i'm gonna keep that in mind and give some thought about that uh and hourly employees how many hourly employees could i be affected by this is that 10,000 how many hourly employees do we have the um instructional i'm talking about two percent two percent from seven you know giving five

[03:52:05] percent instead of six percent or seven percent that includes hourly employees correct the feu bargaining group is receiving six percent yes and all other employees including hourly are receiving five so i want to know your number of hourly employees we may need to get back to you with that exact number okay thank you and one last thing is i'm sure in order for you to come up this list of cuts, I have to assume that you would have considered, you must have considered

[03:52:40] larger list and come down to this. And I would like to know as much as possible what you have considered by rejecting. So I can provide that to you at the work session. On 20th, prior to the work session, hopefully, so that I can give some thought. Yes, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Moon. Mr. Dunn. Well, congratulations on negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement been in 48 hours or collective ring agreements, it's an incredible accomplishment and I really

[03:53:14] appreciate all the hard work for you and your team and I congratulate the unions as well. I have advocated consistently to support our teachers on the front lines and our teacher unions and support staff, so I'm very much in favor of the portion of this amended budget that increases their pay to 6% because as the data shows, our teachers and support staff are underpaid relative to market, and they're the ones who I've consistently advocated to

[03:53:50] focus our investment to bring all of those teachers and support staff at least to market, if not above, because great teachers make great schools, and that's what people pay taxes to achieve. But I can't support an increase in class sizes under any circumstances. If you look at the history of Fairfax County, when have we increased class sizes? And I've gone back and I've read the Washington Post articles. It was in 2008, 2009, when the world was collapsing. It's in other

[03:54:24] economic circumstances that are dire. And we all agree that we would like to have more money, But this is not a dire economic situation. It does not merit a class size increase simply to achieve a 5% pay raise for non-FEU staff who our data shows are already paid out or above market.

[03:54:49] It doesn't make sense. You could have a lower pay raise for non-FEU staff and preserve some of those teachers and preserve our current class sizes, which have already been increased over the years to be more than they should. When I was vice president of advocacy for the Fairfax County Council PTA in 2018, I did a 6,000 person study and the top two priorities across every demographic was class sizes and teacher pay. So certainly we need to increase teacher pay, but we also need to maintain our class sizes. So I do appreciate the work that's been done, but just on the policy choice of

[03:55:27] increasing class sizes I have to disagree. Thank you Mr. Dunn. Miss Lady. Thank you. Thank you for this tremendous work on a short turnaround. My apologies that this is going so late because I know you have not slept. That's okay I don't need to sleep. I do have one question related to the special education department chairs elementary schools. The schools that are doing inclusion I believe there's six elementary schools next year doing inclusion. I just would ask if we consider keeping them at a 1.0 as they and because they volunteered they step forward and

[03:56:06] they're ready to do that work and I just feel like we probably can work that out within the within this budget for those six that would be nice I also while I understand that that we have situations like this it does make a difference if you have a thousand kids at your elementary school versus if you have 300 right in terms of workload related to a RTS and and for IEPs and local screenings and things like that um the only other thing i want to say is um that i don't like using the terminology increase class size thank you for articulating this is a formula change because i

[03:56:43] don't want parents believing you're going to have a child added to every single class that's out there because that would be a reduction that's astronomical right um as the one that's proposed up here and also with the proposal with aart to 0.5 and also our elementary special ed chairs to 0.5 we're putting those people back in the classroom. I mean the high percentage is that those people are going to be back working with children so if you look at this as a 1 to 1.5 perhaps person per building you've got a 0.5 or actually a 1.0 at the elementary level who are going back in the classroom. So I just want to make sure the public fully understands that and

[03:57:21] And then lastly, I don't – I'm personally – I struggle with any reference to the non-FEU employees already being paid at or above market.

[03:57:40] I don't believe that to be true. I just – I think that's hard to – I just think that while there might be a few situations, I'm not aware of where that exists.

[03:57:57] And so I'm also, as a former employee and a school member, very aware of what a lot of our people do at varying levels. And every single person's job impacts learning in some capacity.

[03:58:14] So thank you for working hard on this. I think it's tough. You know, it's going to be hard. We're going to have to adjust. And we are kind of in crisis right now because that's what we're hearing from the Board of Supervisors and from the community around real estate tax.

[03:58:32] And so these were tough decisions. And just thank you for the work. Thank you, Ms. Lady. Ms. St. John Cunning. So I want to echo what my colleagues have said and want to thank all the work everyone did on this budget, including the FCPS staff team and the union team.

[03:58:54] We know that there was a lot of work before with the collective bargaining and then in this 48-hour turnaround, which is like nothing short of a miracle, particularly because we were able to structure it in a way that had a minimal impact on instruction.

[03:59:14] However, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the negative impact of losing monitors in the elementary schools. I happen to know several monitors, and I've worked in elementary schools, and I can't convey how integral they became in the school community, how endearing they were to some of the children, and how at any moment they were able to switch and, you know, step up to if there was somebody that wasn't in the front office, or if you had to cover the clinic, or if you had to, you know, an IA didn't show up.

[03:59:48] Although they're not licensed and hourly, that doesn't diminish the impact of the work they had and so I I'm very sad to hear that some of them are going to be leaving I understand this is a tough budgetary situation and that's where we had to go but I did want to talk about how integral they were in some of our elementary schools I know we've said you know FCPS less with more the thing that I do know and I've said before

[04:00:24] it is that we have incredible staff and teachers in our schools somehow some way they will make it work is it optimal no am i concerned about some of our staff leaving to our neighboring divisions absolutely and we'll see by the end of this year what happens thank you for mentioning the work of our classroom monitors they've been stalwart right they've worked extraordinarily hard and

[04:00:57] I it's a very difficult decision we hope that many of them take opportunities to join in different roles and stay on with team at FCPS thank you Miss St. John Cunning I will take a turn the first thing I did on this board in terms of putting a motion forward was amend our legislative program to remove our opposition to collective bargaining we were the only school division in the Commonwealth that did that and that year our partners in the legislature

[04:01:31] came through and provided the ability for us to be where we are today and i've been thinking a lot about what the term collective bargaining means collective meaning we're all doing this together bargaining means it's a tightrope it's a balancing act and um you know i keep telling people this is the first collective bargaining agreement fairfax county public schools has ever had we've not found any evidence of it anywhere else it's happened in other counties in virginia not here in fairfax and now we've had two bargaining agreements so i think that's a tremendous accomplishment

[04:02:07] in this short order to do that um but i also want to note that these sacrifices which is what these changes in formulas and everything else are our sacrifices and our educators and staff are walking in clear clear eyed that this puts more strain on their work just so that they can provide more for their families so that they can attract better employees for more employees more qualified world-class educators and other staff to our school system and so with this pay increase

[04:02:42] comes added responsibility added strain etc and so it's our obligation to collectively address that in the months and years ahead so that we can reduce that strain and you know i would be remiss if i didn't note in the budget that notes we're getting 30 million dollars more from our state partners because they have you know i was at a homeowners association meeting last night and i And I noted that the legislature had gotten a check mark on one of the JLARC recommendations.

[04:03:12] Correct me if I'm wrong, Ms. Marin, 15 or 16 recommendations, 16. So we've got 15 more. It's a start. We have a long way to go. It's about $30 million out of $568 million.

[04:03:28] We need more. We need more help from everyone. And so the only way that's going to happen is if we remain collective in our commitment to this, that we, you know, link arms. with our brothers and sisters in our unions that are committed to this work to ensure that we bring more resources into the system so that we can pay more, so that we can attract world-class educators and keep the ones that we've had in this family for a very long time.

[04:03:54] And so I appreciate all the work that staff has done. People are probably watching this. If they're watching, they're probably wondering why everybody looks so tired. Well, they've been up for a couple days trying to get this resolved, and the work shows, and it's in front of us. It's difficult work but that's why we're here so i thank dr reid for this and i thank our staff and our unions uh for helping us get to where we are today and i look forward to working with my colleagues on this budget in the weeks that we have left all right i have one go back for miss sizemore heiser thank you and i appreciate that i wanted to just ask a couple questions dr reid

[04:04:33] can you describe a little bit the difference in membership of feu versus the non-feu i know you mentioned six percent for feu and five percent for the others could you describe a little bit who the others are just in broad categories so the other um the other union is the title mr smith would you i don't get the acronym right it's fcfpsa the fairfax county federation of principals supervisors and administrators and that that union includes principals supervisors and

[04:05:08] administrators and there are a number of educational specialists in isd who are also a part of that group so we meet educational specials like our reading intervention teachers and our behavior intervention teachers and is that who you're referring to is that something different uh that's something different than those teachers who are in the classroom or and those those resource teachers it also includes our hourly employees right they get the five percent not the six percent miss burden is nodding yes but i i'm also feu may have some as well that are hourly i think we have hourly employees it's important to note that our hourly employees

[04:05:48] are not covered by a collective bargaining agreement so we have our hourly contractors who are our bus drivers and food service employees they are in FEU and so they are eligible for the six percent and then our hourly employees we raise the hourly rate as we would in the past most of our salary scales and that will be raised in accordance with the five percent for other employees I just want to clarify that we're actually I think we need to name some of these differently because hourly contracted and hourly I mean I

[04:06:23] think it gets confusing at times and we are having these conversations so I think we're gonna have to look at our semantics as well yeah I think so I just want to mention it's a it's a you know kind of a broader group in that not its administrators is some of our hourly as you put it right so it's they may or may not be above or at market right what they could be behooves to look more into that I know we've talked about some of our APs leaving for higher pay and other jurisdictions so it you know I just want to point that out you know it's look this is a tough environment we're you know tough this in a tough environment right now with the uncertainty I appreciate the Board of

[04:06:59] Supervisors for continuing to support public education you know I wanted to mention a little bit about some of these specific things the reason I think The staffing formula is important to mention, is that because it reduces the number of staff available for a school, right?

[04:07:16] And they can trade for different positions so they can change the impact that may have on the school, but it reduces the number of staff available. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am. At an average of about one to one and a half per school. OK. And so and then the monitors, my interesting part of what monitors were helping is that as we're providing these extra interventions for students to help close some of these longstanding gaps, as well as some of the gaps related to COVID, but even some of these longstanding gaps and also helping with teacher planning time.

[04:07:43] Is that correct? Yes, ma'am. That's correct. So it does always have an impact on the classroom. And, you know, when I when I said earlier, I want to explain a little bit when I said, you know, we're at this less with less. And that's partially because in the last few years, I feel like schools are being asked to do more than they ever have in the past.

[04:07:59] providing meals, addressing root causes of absenteeism, engaging families, providing technology, and acting as community centers with over 500,000 events per year and dealing with heightened security needs from the gun epidemic, right?

[04:08:14] And so is our staff. And so that's something that we have to recognize, that when we give a higher salary, we focus on compensation. It's because we've been asking more, and we have been for a while. So thank you for what you've done. This is truly a rabbit out of a hat, as my colleague said. thank you to your staff and and thank you to our funding partners for what they can do and hopefully we can find a way to work to the collaboratively to continue to support our schools thank you and i i want to make sure that the board that you understand will have a lot more detail for the work session in terms of numbers of employees in each group and job titles and the difference between hourly hourly contracted it's it's a lot to review in this type of a setting i think it'll

[04:08:54] BE WE'LL BE ABLE TO PROVIDE A LOT MORE DETAIL AND HAVE A MUCH MORE RICHER DIALOGUE IN THE WORK SESSION. THANK YOU DR. REED AND FOR MEMBERS OF OUR PUBLIC WHO ARE WATCHING AT HOME WE HAVE A SCHOOL BOARD BUDGET PUBLIC HEARING ON MAY 13TH AND WE ALSO HAVE A BUDGET WORK SESSION ON MAY 20TH SO WE INVITE PEOPLE TO TUNE IN OR JOIN US IN PERSON FOR THOSE EVENTS. WE'RE GOING TO TAKE A

[04:09:28] one minute recess nobody moved from the dais I have to ask a question inside all this frivolity

[04:10:13] over there okay we're going to continue with the agenda with unanimous consent we will skip the strategic plan update but we will take academic matters Dr. Reed academic matters all right thank you chairman Frisch academic matters this evening is a match for our executive limitation 3, and it's a fairly short academic matters this evening, but I really am just thrilled at this work.

[04:10:41] We talked this evening about community relations and going out to our communities. This is a brand new project. FCPS is launching an innovative classroom on wheels that is going to be hitting the road this summer, and Dr. Ponce and his team are in particular responsible for this work, which supports pillar B vibrant home school and community partnerships and I want to mention that the goal is twofold both to provide extra academic help and the strength and connections between families and schools and we're thrilled because I think tonight we talked about how do we get out into communities and

[04:11:20] not just expect communities to come to us so phase one is a transformation of a a bus before we're able to launch this we needed to completely transform a school bus and our marshall academy students played a key role so let's hear from our amazing marshall academy students and see their progress a few weeks ago when they told us we're going to be demoing a bus which sounded really interesting and they started telling us a little bit about it and

[04:11:58] how it's going to be a classroom on wheels and i was asking my teacher what was that what that was all about and she came over to me and said hey i need your help we're taking out all the seats on this bus this is what we're going to be doing today in class i was like sounds great and so she had one of the previous day's students walk through with me of uh cutting the bolts out and removing them and that was how it started from there we went off i heard a whole bunch of noise i was curious like what's going on out there and they were just taking out the seats and making sure that they were doing the job and this guy over here he showed me how to do it he told me to take off the boat safely and not to get hit with sparks so this guy showed me what to

[04:12:37] do and i just did it so we're like more hands-on and with tools so i think that's pretty cool about it and it's kind of hard because we had to like locate where the bolts were without damaging any other components of the bus this is a very unique project i don't think i would have had the opportunity to work with the auto tech students at all yeah it really helps with the real world because people with different skills really like help complete a lot of important projects in this world the tables will be cut in half right here so then not only does the teacher have enough space to move to one side to the other but the students can also have enough space to go to

[04:13:13] one side to either talk to the teacher or be in groups to work together from a more technical standpoint we have to figure out exactly how we wanted to fit everything in while still allowing space and mobility throughout the bus like a normal classroom, and we used like a CAD program to figure out some of that. We already know like how much space we have and what are like the limitations that we can make into the to the bus without like pushing it too far so it doesn't you know have the wrong measurements and have like the wrong things inside. We wanted to finalize a

[04:13:53] floor plan before we decided on a dedicated electrical system because there's more than just a couple of wires to think about. You have to think of how are we gonna power it so that it's not running on gas and it's not super loud. So we've had a couple of options to think about there too. We also collaborated with Fairfax representatives on this project with their feedback and the needs that they believe that the children need. Nothing compared to right now that we're doing with the mobile academic bus it does not compare to to this which is exciting it's a great opportunity because it's

[04:14:29] unique it's not this copy and paste project that the teacher says oh here's something you guys can do it's it's large-scale and it has the opportunity to be more than just a classroom project it feels nice to hear like there's gonna be more like involvement with like the community and school at the same time like I feel like that's an important thing. I wasn't expecting to be something like this, but I'm really glad I was able to be a part of it and I'll be happy whenever I see it. Right, absolutely. I thought it was just something we're doing, you know, to help the engineering class, but now since I found out that we're actually helping the community, it's great. It's great

[04:15:05] to know that. This is a truly community-driven initiative created for the student by the student within FCPS. Highlighting the importance of the academies. This is a real world hands-on learning.

[04:15:22] What an opportunity for our children. They gain practical hands-on experience in their respective fields. At FCPS, we care about the unique needs of every student. It's part of the foundation of the Family Academy. The idea came up from our goal to bring learning and support directly to about students and families.

[04:15:45] That will break barriers and bring the community together. In order for us to truly engage, we have to also listen what families are looking for, more academic support, more connections, and more opportunity for engagement. We have to create those spaces, bring the opportunities where families are.

[04:16:05] So we have to show up, reach out, and build that community. That's how we can grow all together. so i want to also share with the board that the funding for this project since we're talking about budget tonight came from a grant so this is completely grant funded to redo the bus and to have our students at the marshall academy do that the summer pilot program the initial rollout is supported by a virginia department of education innovation grant the targeted student outreach

[04:16:41] high school students that need credit recovery and elementary and middle school students that need core content support are going to be invited to participate and so the bus is going to coordinate with food and nutrition services summer meal sites to maximize reach so we'll also provide food and the long-term vision is we see strong family partnerships as crucial for school success and the classroom on reels is a it's a key step in fostering this engagement so that is academic matters chairman frisch thank you dr reed i call on miss marron um i would like to suspend the rules

[04:17:19] to bar discussion of this agenda item tonight all right is there a second second mr mcdaniel suspension of the rules is not debatable it does require a two-thirds vote of the board and if it receives two-thirds vote we will move on to the next agenda item if it does not we'll continue with the normal conversation all those in favor of suspending the rules to eliminate board discussion during this agenda item tonight Ms. Marin, Ms. Dixit, Mr. McIlveen, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Esmerheiser, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning and myself that is

[04:17:55] unanimous for board members present without objection we will skip agenda item 8.03 strategic plan update all right agenda item 9 our adopted rules of parliamentary consent agenda our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure Robert's rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval of the board by a single motion many items listed have gone through board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting the consent

[04:18:31] agenda is scrolling on screen is there any objection to approving the consent agenda hearing and seeing no objection the consent agenda is adopted agenda item 10 new business the following are new business agenda items there is not a vote on these items this evening but ACTION IS SCHEDULED AT A FUTURE MEETING AGENDA EIDL 11 BOARD COMMITTEE REPORTS I CALL ON MISS MARIN FOR A STATE LEGISLATIVE UPDATE WE GOT SOME MONEY IT IS AN UNEXPECTED THING THANKS TO GENERAL ASSEMBLY WE GOT OUR VSBA NORTHEASTERN REGIONAL MEETING NEXT WEEK I'M HELPING A CO-HOST

[04:19:07] WITH 13 OF OUR SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS THERE OTHER BOARDS SO WE JUST GOT TO START PLANNING FOR THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY THANKS THANK YOU MISS MARIN MR. MCELVEEN FOR AN AUDIT COMMITTEE REPORT yes we discussed our business process audits our q1 and q2 continuous monitoring reports and our risk assessment and audit plan for next year thank you mr mckelveen miss lady for a governance committee report yeah at our april 29th governance meeting we advanced the following revised policies for consideration by the full board policy 2232 student attendance policy 2301 psychological

[04:19:42] testing screening student evaluation and placement and policy 2401 grade level placement of students in grades k through eight our next governance meeting will be may 13th thank you thank you miss lady agenda item 12 superintendent matters i call on dr reid thank you mr frisch uh superintendent matters um lots of activities and events recently uh but what i do want to share and we'll be sending communication about um out uh tomorrow uh is that we did have a full review of the recent of this

[04:20:21] year's Monday early release days for elementary and those as you recall we designed those to provide elementary planning time opportunities because our elementary planning time was not as equitably accessed as secondary middle and high school planning time so the committee has reviewed the committee includes staff parents and central office staff and school-based staff they've done an evaluation of the work which I have shared with you and the

[04:20:59] recommendation moving forward is to continue those limited early release days in the coming year the recommendation is rather than have them on Monday because there was a lot of there were a lot of Monday holiday conflicts and specialist schedules they would like to move that to Wednesday and I think that we want to also get in communication out sooner to families than we did last year and we will still provide child care in those afternoons for families who require that who are not able to have students come home at

[04:21:38] the time of the early release so we will be communicating that we will CONTINUE THOSE LIMITED EARLY RELEASE DAYS NEXT YEAR BUT WEDNESDAY RATHER THAN MONDAY AND THANK YOU. THANK YOU DR. REED. ALL RIGHT A LITTLE DIFFERENT THESE DAYS WE'RE CHECKING WITH BOARD MEMBERS TO SEE IF THEY'D LIKE TIME DURING BOARD MATTERS IF NOT THEY DON'T THEY'RE NOT OBLIGATED TO SPEAK.

[04:22:01] WE HAVE ONE BOARD MEMBER WHO HAD REQUESTED AN OPPORTUNITY THIS EVENING SO MS. ST. JOHN CUNNING. THANK YOU AND DON'T ALL BE MAD AT ME. SO THIS IS BASICALLY THIS IS BASICALLY FOR ALL OF US. This week is Teacher Appreciation Week, and I'd like to take this time to thank every FCPS teacher for the commitment and love they dedicate to our children, their students, each and every day.

[04:22:26] The apples on this dais are representative of the gratitude we hold for you. As I reflected on what I wanted to say tonight, I wanted to convey to the public all that our teachers do in the two minutes allotted to me. Impossible, I know. Then I came across a post that says it best.

[04:22:42] Here are the words of teacher and Arthur Matt Eicheldinger. I've been thinking about all the things the world has asked us to do. You've asked us to teach kids, and we are happy to do so. You asked us to inspire and show opportunities.

[04:22:59] Absolutely. You asked us to be mentors and to steady hands when the world gets shaky, and we rose to meet that. But then you asked us to do a lot more, to navigate grief and trauma, to hold a space for children in crisis while carrying our own.

[04:23:16] To manage behavior shaped by stress and instability without the support and training we need. To take on roles of counselors, nurses, crisis responders, all before lunch. To prepare our students for gun violence and attacks.

[04:23:32] To adapt to new standards, changing curriculum, and public scrutiny, often without asking what we think. To stay quiet when our profession is politicized. To stop doing things that frankly aren't taking place in our classroom.

[04:23:48] To keep smiling through the kids, through budget cuts, banned books, and more safety drills. But still, we show up with patience, purpose, and heart. This week, you thank educators.

[04:24:04] And we're grateful for that. But more than your thanks, we need your voice, your advocacy, your respect. And right now, many of us are being shaped as the enemy. we are not that. We are helpers. We always have been. Sitting in this chair, I can and will always respect and be a voice and advocate for our teachers. However, as Matt asked, we need your voice and your advocacy. We need your help to help the helpers. Thank you, Ms. St. John Cunningham.

[04:24:46] And on that very appreciative note, I'd like to thank all of our staff who are still with us this EVENING AT 11 24 P.M. THIS MEETING IS ADJOURNED.

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