Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Work Session, Tuesday, August 26, 2025

Date: Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 3h 9m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u11acsrpEFo
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 2026-10-29. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:01] - The August 26, 2025 work session is called to order at 1:10 p.m. Mr. Frisch has submitted a written request to attend this morning's meeting virtually due to a personal conflict.

[00:00:17] He has a work group related commitment and is attending today's meeting from home in the Providence District, excuse me. We are going to check his microphone in just a little bit.

[00:00:34] In order to comply with section 2.2-3712D of the code of Virginia, it's necessary for the board to certify that since the Fairfax County School Board convened a closed meeting on August 26th, 2025, to the best of each 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 the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the board during the closed meeting.

[00:01:04] Do I have a motion? Ms. Marin, Mr. McElveen second. All those in favor. So Ms. Dixit, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Sizemore Heiser, Ms. Lady, Ms. Marin, Mr. McElveen, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel and myself with Mr. Fresh Away from the Table.

[00:01:29] I now call on Dr. Reed to kick us off with the boundary discussion. - Thank you, Madam Chair. If we could put the PowerPoint up, please, Janet. So this afternoon, I'm gonna walk through a brief update where we are on our current comprehensive school boundary review and essentially we're gonna start with the PowerPoint, which is up.

[00:01:59] Janet, can you move it to the next slide please? Thank you. So just as a review for those watching perhaps, I know the board doesn't need the review, but for those watching who maybe haven't been a part this conversation are new to the community. I want to remind our community that about a year ago, in July of 2024, the board approved policy 8130, which did provide a mandate to review comprehensively our school boundaries every five years. In July of 2025, which was

[00:02:34] last month, the board adopted revised language, which set a phasing plan for boundary adjustments at the middle, elementary, and secondary school levels. Janet, next slide, please.

[00:02:51] Thank you. The boundary review priorities, there are four of them. And they're on the screen. They have not changed. Next slide, please. This is a reminder of the timeline. The red dotted line is where we are currently, which is nearing the end of August 2025.

[00:03:12] We've completed phase one of our community meetings and data collection, as well as the analysis. The phase two community meetings are planned. The part one were last spring. The analysis and scenario adjustments are occurring as we speak. And our phase two community meetings will begin in October. In November, essentially, the superintendent budget advisory committee will receive the community feedback. And in December, the superintendent will review

[00:03:47] the draft recommendations from the committee in preparation of bringing them to the board in january so essentially from here forward we're still working on the revision of current maps and october we will be engaged in 12 community meetings november the committee will wrestle with feedback from those meetings in december i will review the recommendations and prepare for January of '26 for the Board review of the final recommendations. Next slide. Just a summary

[00:04:25] of some of the feedback. The Boundary Explorer tool has received more than 12,400 comments. Next slide. The Phase 1 and Phase 2, Part 1, the summary here would be 20 meetings have been held with close to 4,000 people in attendance, and we received 3,400 comments. So this has been one of the more comprehensively attended and commented on bodies of work in the last several years.

[00:04:57] Next slide, please. Again, the review committee includes two parents from each of the 24 pyramids, as well as other school and department-based staff and representatives from county and local organizations and associations. The purpose of this committee is to synthesize all the feedback that comes back and make recommendations in November to the superintendent, which will then be looked at, and I'll be providing some recommendation to the board in January of 26.

[00:05:31] Next slide. The recap so far of this committee work is 11 meetings thus far. We did have summer meetings as well where we reviewed feedback, and I believe we are coming up next week to review academic programming and transportation in particular.

[00:05:50] Next slide. The website would be communications. So just again page views and videos. The website remains active and we remain committed to feedback after every superintendent advisory committee.

[00:06:09] Next page. Again, this is a continuation of communications. There's been a significant amount of communication and many data points to support that. Next slide. So, again, just a reminder about what's next.

[00:06:26] The committee priorities and revised scenarios will be presented in October. The phase two, part two meetings, the 12 hybrid community meetings will take place in October. And in amongst all of this, we'll be also addressing and evaluating the relationship between bell schedules, start time possibilities, and the new boundaries to see what we can a line for the start of school in 26.

[00:06:57] Next slide. So, feedback will continue to be analyzed, and as I've mentioned earlier, the recommendations will be made to the superintendent by the end of November, and then by January, my recommendations will go to the board.

[00:07:15] Next slide. And that's it. So we wanted to make sure, Madam Chair, that we provided time for the board to provide any feedback at this point. But that's a summary of where we are at this time.

[00:07:32] - Would anyone like to kick us off? - And we could put it back to the map with the red dotted line, timeline's fine, right there. Thank you.

[00:07:52] - Ms. Dixit and then Dr. Anderson. - So Dr. Reed, thank you for the presentation. This is an incredible comprehensive work the division has taken. Wanted to ask about the inclusion of KAA in this process and how it's going to impact the, whether it's gonna impact our timeline?

[00:08:14] - So I think the purchase of the new Western High School conversation that we're gonna have next, bless you, will be important. If the board's desire is for it to be a traditional comprehensive high school for which we redraw boundaries, then we'll need to redraw boundaries to accommodate that.

[00:08:35] If the board ends up with more of a magnet type program in some fashion that kids from Western high schools or wherever we decide that that might land, if that becomes where we land, then that would not require redrawing boundaries.

[00:08:53] So it will really be determined by, I think the genesis of our next conversation. Yes, ma'am. - Dr. Anderson. - Okay, thank you.

[00:09:08] I was trying to find some of this language here in the policy and so bear with me, I'm not fully there. but I'm speaking to the public engagement. You talked about in this timeline that there will be 12 meetings in October.

[00:09:24] Can you speak to how those meetings are going to be organized? Because the policy, I believe, said that public engagement shall occur in each affected school pyramid before changes are proposed, and again, after changes are proposed, but before any changes are finalized and voted upon by the board.

[00:09:43] I don't know if I see the engagement being as delineated as the policies requiring and what was shared with us just now? - So thank you for the question. The 12 hybrid meetings will include, each one of those meetings will include two pyramids because many of the possible adjustments spill over from one pyramid to another.

[00:10:06] So in the interest of providing a thoughtful conversation and feedback experience, we're going to be doing hybrid meetings, 12 hybrid meetings in October. - Right, I understand that, but I'm trying to understand how you are linking it with the language here that says the engagement shall occur in each of the affected pyramids, whether it's one or two, I think that still satisfies it, before and after.

[00:10:35] It seems to articulate that there would be two sets, one before the changes are proposed, I'm sorry, and then again, before any changes are finalized and voted upon by the board.

[00:10:51] So I'm not seeing how this is sitting, 'cause we had originally just kind of the big region meetings. But it seems to be that the language is articulating two sets of pyramid meetings. Whether it's one or two, there's two sets.

[00:11:07] We only have one set here. - We've done two rounds of community meetings, And I don't know if each, every pyramid, I would have to go back to our notes. Maybe Donna, do you know, were they both regions?

[00:11:25] So two different organized by region meetings. Right, we've had two sets of meetings organized by region. And I think that the two sets have been 12 separate meetings organized by region. So we, that's essentially how we looked at this in terms of timing to get you a recommendation by January?

[00:11:47] - I understand that. I'm just saying it's not consistent with what the language here says, which is what the public is expecting. So I would definitely invite you to take a look at page two because right now, as proposed, it is not in alignment with the language of the boundary policy.

[00:12:03] - Yeah, so we may need to add another 12 meetings after October, so it may need to spill into November. I'm not sure yet, as we look at this, we may, to satisfy that if the six larger regional meetings are not sufficient, having been done twice.

[00:12:20] We may have to do that. - Well, I'm just going by the language that we've communicated because we know the community had been quite up in arms when this boundary policy was being written. And so I know there's lots of eyes on it. So there's an expectation that if you are going to be impacted, that you're going to have a pyramid conversation.

[00:12:37] And again, whether it's one or two pyramids, I think it's irrelevant, frankly, because we do have those blurred boundaries. It's not as clean in terms of pyramids, but it's just that when do we go back with them with the final before the board votes? I wouldn't want for there to be any thinking in the public that we are not even following our own policy because we know that this has not been the process that a lot of people have found to be as clear and transparent as I think we would want them to believe.

[00:13:12] So I think that's a sticking point there. - And that's the reason we're having this touch base today is if we wanna make that adjustment to the timeline, we absolutely can do that today. - I'm not requesting an adjustment to the timeline, I'm just requesting an adherence to the policy.

[00:13:28] So that's my take there. The other thing that I wanted to raise, only because it has come up in our community quite a bit, I wanna hear a little bit more in terms of how the consultant is utilizing the umbrella approach and really individualizing it for the different areas.

[00:13:50] I'll give you an example. For example, schools outside of the zone has become a hot topic. And I know in a lot of places, it is a very important thing. But in the Mason District, what ended up happening, the consultant was trying to deal with Bailey's Upper, which is a magnet school on Route 7, as a priority because it's outside of its boundary.

[00:14:12] It is always going to be outside of the boundary because of its makeup and structure. But prioritizing Bailey's Upper prevented him from working on anything else because that was the driver. How are we taking some of these bigger approaches and umbrellas but really figuring out what is important in each of the areas?

[00:14:32] Because driving, using Bailey's Upper as a driver for the Mason District does not even address other issues in the mason district and it's a solution to a problem that does not exist so i can't speak um to the other all of the challenges in the mason district but i do know that the uh region 2 team would have reviewed the feedback and provided feedback to the consultant in the most recent uh feedback iteration loop so it's my understanding that feedback's being synthesized

[00:15:06] and will result in some new scenarios with regard to maps moving forward i think that was my time thank you dr interson uh ms sesmerheiser thank you um a couple of questions you mentioned 12 meetings that's community meetings correct how many meetings are there or is that the committee meetings the community meetings are the 12 community meetings we've had 11 committee meetings so far and it's expected that the committee members would also attend the community meetings

[00:15:42] we have a meeting september 3rd and the 24th prior to the october sequence of meetings and then we're planning two meetings in november to review the october community meeting series feedback unless we um the board wishes to make an adjustment to add another 12 community meetings after that in which case we would meet in december and then i would just you know work through winter break to come up with the recommendations for you in january um that's helpful to know one thing i One thing I think would be helpful is to have a map.

[00:16:14] We have the tool, right, that kind of shows little areas as you plug it in, be helpful to have a bigger map where you have the current, like let's say by region, right, where you have the current layout and then you can overlay and see what all the changes are for regions. As you said, like it's hard to do one pyramid meeting because the changes bleed over from pyramid to pyramid.

[00:16:32] It would be helpful to have that bigger picture on a map as opposed to the tool, which seems to make smaller changes. It's hard to get all of those interrelated changes in your head when it's piecemeal that way. will say. With the start times, I agree with my colleague, I'm a firm believer in healthy start times. My concern is how are we going to get so we have a robust ability to look at healthy start times when we haven't looked, Dr. Reed, at the access to programming? Because when we look at start times, everything I saw from Prismatic was start times for your base school. But then you look at transportation times for students who are accessing programming

[00:17:11] outside of their base school, AAP centers or special education programs, that traditionally have significantly longer transportation times. Have we been able to, and we haven't looked at how our boundaries are going to impact that access to programming to make sure those students can access their programming close to their base school, if not at their base schools, which then impacts transportation and start time.

[00:17:33] So how are we going to talk about all of those things in a way that isn't rushed in this compressed timeline? So it is a compressed timeline and we are talking about programming and transportation at the September 3rd advisory committee. I guess that I mean I understand we're talking about it there but that's a big thing to talk about transportation and program that we haven't gotten to yet and what's the plan to make sure in that conversation there is conversation about programming and transportation for both base school and non-base school because everything I've seen so far in the consultant is really base school focused right and and there's a population of students who may not be at their base school.

[00:18:13] - Right, I know the consultant has spoken to Dr. Presidio about base school, home school. We're not in this process changing the program locations at this time for base schools and special programs. So I think the transportation calculations include those current models.

[00:18:33] And I don't know if that's different or if there's been different information provided to the consultant, Dr. Presidio? - I'm just thinking prismatics report. I'm sorry, go ahead. - Well, no, I was just gonna say, we've met with the consultant several times to explain kind of how the programming works, just as Ms. Sizemore-Hyzer and Dr. Reed were saying.

[00:18:53] So they're aware of the special programming that pulls students out of their base schools and out of boundaries. I don't know what their analysis, necessarily, process is gonna look like with that information, but we've met with them several times. They continue to follow up with questions.

[00:19:08] I just got actually an email question today from our consultant. So we're trying to partner with them and give them the support. I don't know what their analytical process looks like though. - I appreciate that and that's helpful, but I think that's where my concern is, right? Several of our split feeders are caused by program placement where AAP centers are, for example.

[00:19:26] I'll give you an example in my district. Robinson kids go to White Oaks for AAP. White Oaks feeds to Lake Braddock. Lake Braddock kids go to Keene Mill for AAP, which feeds to West Springfield. You have two split feeders created right there AAP center placement so and the same thing is with special education programming placement they're often sent out of pyramid so this is a really important we can't leave out some of our students you know especially some of our most vulnerable who are going to different areas of programs out of the analysis especially when it creates some of these split feeder issues so I just want to make sure that there's time for the consultant to take these into account especially the longer transportation rides that leads to twilight violations potentially or could

[00:20:04] lead to trial violations if we're not addressing if you're sending if your kid is going out of pyramid or out of the base school right it takes a lot I mean having two kids who did that for many many years for special ed and AAP centers it took significantly longer the bus ride so I think it's important to make sure that's being talked about I know it's being talked about I also know that there's been a distinction between split feeders that are voluntary in In other words, a family chooses to go to an AAP center-- - Not voluntary for special ed.

[00:20:36] - Right, I'm talking about the AAP centers for a moment. If they're choosing to leave to go to the AAP center versus 15% of a school goes one place and 85% in another, that's not, it's just by virtue of boundary. So I know that the latter was the priority in the first round.

[00:20:55] And I think that it's something that's continuing to be evaluated. - I'll take a go back 'cause I think that was my time. - Ms. Marin. - Okay, so I appreciate the steadfast work done to commit to this review, which as we know would be the first time in 40 years, and it's been an ambitious timeline and approach.

[00:21:19] However, it took us 40 years to get here, and I know that I, as one board member, desire more than two months from presentation to changes, to approving changes. So, you know, there needs to be time for us to have a thoughtful deliberation among the board.

[00:21:35] And while I appreciate the operational approach the superintendent has done to get it all the work done I mean we've had deliberations for far less important things much longer I'm hearing my colleagues I agree there's concern that these scenarios do not reflect critical input per criteria and lived experience I know for Fox mills Fox mill woods the proposals proposed kids going to faraway schools taking the bus when they used to walk I can't move forward until all of those things are hashed out and I just don't see how that is possible given the work the board has to do, which includes an ambitious

[00:22:15] legislative and advocacy effort to continue to get the money after last year's budget disappointment, political quagmire that we have to spend our time on, unfortunately, facilities which we are buying. We bought a new high school. What are we going to do about that?

[00:22:34] are just some of those big things and you know what is the board's role in this at this point is it just to show up in november hear the presentation and then come back and decide what does our board want it to be i um i think that and i think it's very important to talk about how transportation can work or can't i'd like to know would there be even just a semblance of are we going to is this going to be phased in are we going to come with like she's as a superintendent could present like a tiered approach like this year we might do this and then this year we might

[00:23:09] do that because right now it just feels like the whole thing and that does not seem reasonable to me i think it's reasonable to say we can't phase everyone in and maybe the transportation will work for everyone but like let's say it then and you know as far as middle school start times yeah i continue to be on board with that but again how does this work i mean there's so many question so I also want to reiterate that I have said from the start that I am not comfortable making changes without giving people the appropriate amount of time and deciding in January or February that people have new schools to go to in August does not meet that that test for me I'm very hard-pressed

[00:23:49] to do that the last thing I'll point out is that policy 8130 references the regulation 2230 it's the process that when the board updates a policy the superintendent is to update the regulation this regulation has not been updated since March of 2022. So if the regulation is what is guiding this work, it is defunct and it needs to be remedied because it references things that are not possible under our policy. Thank you, Ms. Barron. I'm seeing no other placards right now except for gobacks. I'm going to go ahead and

[00:24:26] take a turn. I think that we've been pretty clear since the beginning of this process that we were not anticipating being able to fix every problem that we found ourselves in. And I understand that we're we keep using the term 40 years but I will tell you that for a very long time we only changed boundaries when we built new schools and now we've reached the rest the western end of the county as the kind of the wall of how how much further we can continue to go out and we're where we are so I would suggest that it took us a very long time to dig this hole that we're in in terms of our

[00:25:04] placement and the problems that have been created over time and I do not anticipate that we're going to fix every problem this go around like I think that we all need to be clear about the fact that these are iterative changes over time that is the intention at least it was my intention when we were talking about the cyclical process it was that was the intention of the cyclical process was being giving ourselves the window of being able to make those iterative changes over time and so I am very interested to see where the maps come out I think we absolutely should see what they say before we decide that that we can't work within them.

[00:25:39] I also think that January or February to August is an appropriate amount of time to give people if there's gonna be a change. I believe that the initial feedback that we received in the studies that we saw at the very beginning of this process suggested that as the timeline.

[00:25:55] So I am in support of this. If you look at the entire plan of the work that we've done, in addition, we've spent almost two years at this at this point. And so reaching the end, it does feel compressed because we're coming closer to the end of the process.

[00:26:12] And I think it's a natural thing to kind of work within that. But the timeline hasn't changed. We haven't changed anything about what we were planning on doing. We have had discussions about what was counting for community meetings and all of those things all along the process. The thing that has changed is that we started talking about school start times.

[00:26:32] And I do wanna have that discussion because, So Dr. Reed, I would ask you, is it feasible right now to be able to do school start times and all of the phasing language that we just voted in? - I believe that Mr. Muick's team, we've reviewed the start time proposals, which really require us to compress our run times.

[00:26:54] And with the phasing language for the boundary work, I don't believe that it's possible to address start times and phasing because we're not able to compress the bus runs sufficiently to do that.

[00:27:11] And I would ask Mr. Muick to comment directly to that 'cause I know your team took a look at that. - Yes, ma'am, no, you got it right. That is exactly it. It's just there's so much unknown with that phasing and the number of choices that are in there that it would, you know, if you just look at it right now without having any of those answers from families on where they're gonna go, the range of possibilities of where we would have to transport people is pretty huge and it would cause us to move that run time, you know, wider instead of shortening it up like Dr. Reed said.

[00:27:41] So just pretty tough to figure that out right now. - And I am correct that that is only in the traditional way that we have handled phasing at other schools, correct? That is not, it's not necessarily true that the board would have to move forward with the exact same transportation patterns that we've moved, that we've utilized because if this followed the student transfer process, students would be responsible for maintaining their own transportation to a school that wasn't their base school, is that correct?

[00:28:09] - I think the answer is yes. Sorry, I wasn't 100% sure on the question. So if they choose to go to a different school that's not their base school, they would have to provide their own transportation, correct. - Okay. - And that's the way I've seen it in our stuff in the past.

[00:28:25] - So this is a way that we could solve the problem and be able to do both is if we followed the student transfer process by allowing students that choose to stay at their base school related to the phasing, allowed them the same part of the student, like if we followed the student transfer process that we already have in place, then it would give people the ability to both choose to stay at their school related to the phasing question, but it would also allow us the ability to look at school start times.

[00:28:55] - Yes, ma'am. - Thank you. Okay, we're gonna go to Miss Lady and then we'll hit some go backs. - I just wanna stay on this topic for a second. - Thank you for bringing this up, Chair Anderson. 'Cause I think it's important.

[00:29:10] I have struggled throughout the year with the reality of very much being for healthy start times for all of our kids, but also feeling sort of like, you know, we're stuck because of the amount of money it costs to, you know, make the run times broader or whatever.

[00:29:31] So I think it's, laying this on top of the boundary work, I think my preference would be, with the phasing, to do it like a student transfer process, because I think it makes sense if you're gonna choose to stay at a school because you're allowed to be phased in, then you need to get yourself there.

[00:29:50] Because middle school healthy start times, or not just middle school, all healthy start times is a priority of mine. And so I just wanna make sure that my community understands that my priority is a healthy start time, and we can't do 'em both. So I would go for that first, because all the research, medically, socially, emotionally, everything lends itself to that should be our priority.

[00:30:10] Thank you. - Thank you, Miss Lady. Miss St. John-Cunning. - So I am also concerned about the same thing that my colleague just spoke about, but when we are looking at changing the times and looking at some of the data that we received in terms of 83% of middle schoolers and 84% of high schoolers do not provide babysitting for their siblings, 98% of middle schoolers and 82% of high school schoolers do not have paying jobs outside the house.

[00:30:42] I would like to have that information desegregated in terms of looking at Title I schools to see the proportionality of how that plays out. Because we recognize that we are a large county and there are differences in different regions.

[00:30:57] And so those statistics might be reflective of the entire county, but may look different if we're looking at specific areas. And so those are the things that concern me sometimes when we look at these numbers.

[00:31:16] - Thank you, Ms. St. John Cunning. We're gonna go to go back, seeing no other first time folks around. We're gonna do two minutes for go backs. So Dr. Anderson. - Thank you, I just wanna be clear. We don't have any decision points today.

[00:31:32] This is just informational in discussion, correct? - Yes, and if there are adjustments to the timeline or process that we've outlined, we wanna make sure we hear those and the board would, if the board wants to direct a different set of meetings or direct a different timeline in terms of bringing information to the board, that's certainly something in a work session that you've done in the past and/or with next steps following the review because this is really before we're gonna launch

[00:32:10] to um our next two meetings to prep for our october series okay thank you um just kind of speak to the first part that you just said as far as i'm concerned in terms of the timeline and in terms of the sets of meetings the board already gave that direction it's in the policy so it's just a matter of are you going to be in compliance with that policy or not at least from my perspective so i i'm not seeing the need to articulate something that has already been articulated So I will take a pause there since it's only one and a half minutes.

[00:32:44] My other question to you is, I know we've talked about this before, and we're too far out in order to predict a little bit where we would go with this, but are you anticipating a staggered implementation?

[00:33:00] Because we're not that far out, but are we close enough to be able to determine, is it going to be any of the possibilities of the scenarios and the tool are we just gonna do it all at once in 25 26 27 or do you anticipating staggering different areas of the county what thoughts have there been to that and I don't feel like I have enough information yet to speculate this afternoon on I think any of those are possibilities that would be great I think this would be a thing

[00:33:36] that as soon as it's a little clearer that we could start just signaling to the community what our intentions are with that because I know that's a conversation because if we're rolling in the middle school start times with a staggered implementation what does that mean are we changing the start times for part of the county and not all of the county it's like a chicken-and-the-egg thing here there's a lot to be thinking about and that's a piece that I think for me still outstanding similarly to the Western High School is that we need that decision to be made in order to determine how it's going to impact the

[00:34:15] boundary work is that accurate I think it is accurate to determine the programming for the Western High School will determine in the level of its inclusivity in the boundary work for sure okay thank you and also grade six I I know it was your desire to include grade six students at the elementary school across the division, but clearly there have been some obstacles to that.

[00:34:43] Do we have a stake in the ground in terms of that decision? We do not have a final decision made on that yet because we're not done with our analysis. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Ms. Sizemore-Hizer.

[00:34:59] Thank you. Ms. St. John Cunningham kind of went with the direction I wanted to go, but one thing wanted to be careful with this with this survey percentage right it's it's not 90 something percent of students 90 percent of respondents to the survey and only 22,000 students responded to the survey so it's 90 percent of 22,000 students when we have 183,000 students right so I think the data as listed in the prismatic report when we just talk about percentages of students it's a little misleading right so I think it would be helpful if we knew when we have 22,000 and change and the exact number of students responding or I think it's

[00:35:38] like 39,000 parents responding and I don't 39,000 parents responding it'd be helpful if we could disaggregate where they came from right like is it parents mostly from this area or that area like where are we hearing from same with students and then we should say out of the 22,000 students responding 83% said that they don't take care of a sibling after school because I think I don't want to fall in the trap that I think we've talked about before on this board and on the previous board of, I want to make sure we're listening to voices from across the county so we're getting a good sense of the needs of students and families across the county.

[00:36:13] So when we have 183,000 students and we've heard from 39,000 parents, caregivers, guardians, it's not a large percentage of our families we're hearing from. So I would just stop there and say I think we need to get a better sense on the start times of our students' needs after school.

[00:36:33] - So thank you. And Mr. Muick, that was a prismatic survey, am I recalling? - Yes, ma'am. - So did they leave us any kind of data in terms of parts of the county or to Ms. Sizemore-Heiser's questions? Do we have any source data so we could disaggregate it?

[00:36:51] - No, I'd have to go back to them and talk to them. And I'm trying to remember some of the questions we asked in there if it was enough to disaggregate it. I'd have to go back and take a look at it. - Okay, well, let's see if we can answer some of those questions. - My concern would just be that if we're gonna rely on that in terms of start times, we wanna make sure that we're getting a good sense, especially if there's areas that maybe there's less respondents than other areas of our county.

[00:37:17] That was my big concern about that data. Again, I'm very much in favor of healthy start times. So it's not that. I just wanna make sure we're not accidentally leaving, making it more difficult in another group as we're doing this 'cause it's a big change. To go back to the boundary work, - Never mind.

[00:37:40] - I'll put you on a go, go back. - Thank you, since my time was up. - Ms. Dixit. - So I can't read your mind, regarding the boundary work. My question is about, so, okay, so my question is actually the timeline again.

[00:38:04] I believe, especially in my district, and if we decide to go as Western High School as the regular transition, traditional high school, It's gonna impact a lot of changes, not just in high school level, but also elementary and middle school. I would like community to get some time.

[00:38:21] And the reason I said the community reached out to me and said that the Westman High School is not just gonna impact the high school, it's gonna impact the middle school and elementary because these kids go together in the schools and they kind of follow that path. I'm also getting a lot of resistance from community members who are literally staying, living a mile away from school, high school, and their school's been changed with the new boundary changes.

[00:38:50] And they're my own residents where I live, and I wonder that why my kids went to the school, like two schools far from where they could have gone, and no changes in that boundary, not a single changes in elementary, middle school, or high school.

[00:39:07] So I'm literally like thinking about this more and just want to listen more from the community member. And when I say this, I'm hearing from like Navy or Oak Hill, Chantilly, or you know, other community members that a lot of people are not reaching out to us.

[00:39:23] And we want to be the voice of entire community. And we need to do like better. The Seismar Heiser said that we reach out to all the different classes and different areas of the county so we get our data.

[00:39:41] So I'll stop there. - Thank you, Ms. Dixit. - Ms. Marin. - Okay, I do want to point out that what has changed since the start of this project is that the scenarios some of them presented are poorly done.

[00:39:58] And that has eroded the trust of some members of the public in this process. And until they are corrected to reflect the lived experience and real logistical issues that families would have to face, think we're going to be hard pressed to do this smoothly. We've also received data about the start times. That was not present when we kicked off this work in January 2024, which is when we kicked it off, okay? It's been a year and a half. There's much data missing that would allow the board to make informed decisions, such as what are the data if families need to transport their students to their new school? How many students is that? How does that impact other aspects,

[00:40:35] such as kiss and ride, which we know is problematic? So are we forcing more people to do kiss and ride and create transportation problems and pedestrian safety problems what is the cost for the changes do we have the funds given the budget cuts already made where is this being funded out of what is the process for assigning students i cannot understate enough colleagues that the regulation is defunct there is no plan of how the students will be assigned if you look at the regulation it is old it does not align with our policy i'm not saying this is easy but receiving a less than five minute status update today with the only new information seemingly being

[00:41:14] that there are public meetings in October and the board is scheduled to make a decision in four months, that's not wise and does not instill public confidence. I'm not hearing that more data is forthcoming in the interim. I have not heard the superintendent talked about a scaffolded, you know, rolled out approach.

[00:41:32] Could we do something like, let's take a scenario. I was over at Carson Middle School last night talking to a student. Her friends are going to go to three different high schools than her. and we just bought the school next door. What does that look like? Give us a scenario to make this real because this is very theoretical and we know that that's not gonna go over well with our community.

[00:41:55] - Miss Lady. - So I'm gonna go back to healthy start times 'cause I wanna do this work with Fidelity. Mr. Mu if I may, I would love to suggest that facilities create a very brief, straightforward survey.

[00:42:13] I would take the 183,000 down to about 90,000 because I think we're talking seven through 12th graders, that I think need to be surveyed around sleep patterns, around whether they take care of siblings and whether or not they have jobs. I don't think it's a big set of questions, and I think it can be deployed through advisory.

[00:42:29] They have advisory lessons. Everyone's in there, they all know their computers. It can be deployed, it'll take them like 10 minutes. And I think that that data can be crunched pretty easily 'cause there isn't really subjective in there, but we're just trying to get a sense to my colleagues' points around who may have chosen respond with the way it was deployed and while I also care deeply about how our parents feel I think it's our students who are actually living it right it's their lived experience and so I think that you know I would I would not necessarily go back and and and retarget parents I think we would get a similar response as those who are on top of it would do it again but I would like to

[00:43:07] ask that maybe for us to maybe a quick turnaround is that something you think you can maybe do yes ma'am okay thank you that's my main thing and then I do agree with lots of comments that are being made around the problems that were in the current scenarios and the work so far with the boundary.

[00:43:31] My expectation is that the next iteration we see, that these things that were obvious and some that may have been a little more subtle will absolutely be addressed. So I just wanted to share that's my expectation. Thank you.

[00:43:46] Thank you, Ms. Lady. ahead and take my go back really fast and what i would echo on to that oh i'm sorry mr fresh go ahead um yes um a couple quick points to make um first i echo uh colleagues concerns about um where we find ourselves in insofar as um the community's feedback about the various scenarios as i've indicated to members of providence districts community over the last many months that there's this tension that we began this conversation with.

[00:44:24] One, we have this BRAC committee, which is ostensibly an internal committee that is doing initial work to come up with boundary ideas. And because we are being transparent in sharing all of that initial work, it's created a lot of confusion.

[00:44:44] And that's the trade-off with being transparent. The confusion being that each time we've rolled out a scenario, the public has seen it as the fully baked thing that is eminently going to be uh you know in place and impacting their community instead of the beginning points of those conversations and you know it seemed like with clockwork every time brack would meet and have a new um set of scenarios we'd be having the exact same conversation uh because the community was under the impression that the board would be voting any minute on uh and obviously i'm using hyperbole uh would be

[00:45:21] voting very soon on these suggested changes. Many of the problems that I've identified in the scenarios are common in the boundary change process period. I remember one-off boundary changes that the board has pursued in the past where you'd go to a community meeting and the community would be kicking the tires on the suggestion and they'd elevate things that the school division had not identified. So I expect that to be part of the process. What I don't think i've anticipated um is uh the level of fidelity to the school board's policy not being

[00:45:59] where i would hope it would be and so i took all of the feedback from members of my community hundreds and hundreds of emails uh for various different uh scenarios um and consolidated that feedback and then uh you know tied it back to the various parts of our policy to provide brack with assessment of where my community is seeing problems or advantages to various suggested scenarios and to ensure that they have that feedback because i think as some of my colleagues have mentioned not everybody is reaching out i think mystics had mentioned this not everybody's reaching out to bracken the superintendent so i wanted to ensure that all of that feedback is getting to the hands

[00:46:36] that it needs to so that hopefully and when the next scenarios come out we actually see things that are better in line with the policy that take into consideration the feedback that they've received from the community very real feedback from things on transportation for things like moving kids that live across the street from a school away from that school to another school just very basic things that you would hope would be captured based on the feedback that's been received already and we're talking about feedback that's come in over many months so i think people are eager to see adjustments based on that feedback and obviously not every bit of feedback

[00:47:14] warrants a change in direction but i think a lot of it does so i'll be looking forward to seeing how that plays out in the in the weeks ahead thank you mr frisch um i'm going to take my quick turn here um one of the things that i wanted to mention personally was that the the most significant community that i heard from related to school start times was actually elementary school parents and so I I wholeheartedly want the student voice I agree completely that we need to talk to them about what their constraints are and all the things so that we get the information that we need to make the decision but I do not want to lose the parent voice in here because for

[00:47:54] particularly for elementary students that along with the second group that I heard the most from was our teachers like our teacher moving start times for teachers is a is a significant undertaking and I do want to make sure sure that we have some visibility on on what's going on with that so I I'm very interested to see how we move forward from here I do think that while we I agree that there are some concerns that I've noted that I didn't expect to see on my maps when I went from for schools in my district I also did the same thing

[00:48:31] that mr. Frisch did where I pulled all that feedback together and made sure that I got it to the superintendent I do think that we are the people in our districts that understand the makeup of our districts the best and so I do think having the ability to be able to give that feedback is essential while still allowing the process to continue the way that it's been going so I am I'm very eager to see what the next iterations of maps look like and I will fully and completely acknowledge that we're not going to be able to make everybody happy here like the whole point of this is that we have changes that need to be made and that's going to make changes uncomfortable and so we're

[00:49:09] just going to have to figure out how we can mitigate that change as much as humanly possible okay so we are in the second round of go backs so we're going to start with dr. Anderson thank you just looking at some of the key dates that are identified in the documents for today it says November December school board votes on school start times are we going to speak about these scenarios now is it the scenarios that were emailed to us that we're going to be voted upon that we're going to be vote yeah that we're going to vote on dr.

[00:49:42] Reed I'm not sure what you're reading from but I the scenario recommendations are going to come to you as a board in January and that's when the board will be voting on the recommendations it's this document that says integration of boundary review and start times project plan recommended key dates it said December I'm sorry November December so yeah no I think mr. Smith's team put that together and I think this was a draft at trying to integrate start times

[00:50:20] into boundaries but the actual boundary recommendations are going to come to the board in January and that's been consistent no I'm speaking to the middle school start times if you just take a look at what's highlighted on that document we're not talking about the same and that would be for the recommendations coming to the board for start times right that's in the boundary December the boundary is coming in January correct right so November December is the middle school start times so I'd like to speak about this can we put up those scenarios that we're going to be voted on in like two months I don't know

[00:50:59] if those were posted for today's meeting they were not they were not posted for today's meeting, and I provided them to Dr. Reed, and I think she provided to you all on a Friday letter. Right, but the public has not seen it.

[00:51:14] Right. Yes, ma'am. Working backwards a little bit, because we know people will have a lot of feedback, when do we anticipate to have a work session in which those scenarios will be made public so that there could be a discussion and we could receive feedback? I would guess sometime between now and November.

[00:51:33] I don't know when those would be scheduled, but I wanted to make sure that the board got at least a first glance at the team's work and could provide feedback, and we might make adjustments even before a work session. I haven't heard feedback, but I'm sure we can get that scheduled.

[00:51:50] - 'Cause I thought we were gonna talk about it here. That's why I didn't give any feedback. So I guess what I'm hearing is we're going to wait. I can give you internal feedback right now with what you've provided, but then we need to ensure that there's going to be a public discussion at some point before November, December when this voting is going to be happening.

[00:52:11] Is that accurate, Sandy? - As far as I know, Dr. Anderson. - Okay, thank you. And again, I'd like for us to also couch how we're going to use that feedback. I'm just thinking back to the POE middle school time proposal, which staff said was feasible cost-wise, it was good.

[00:52:36] We know it was good for kids. That ended up kind of dying on the vine because of the teacher feedback that said, "No, this would be a little bit too disruptive." How is that going to be used now? Because I anticipate we will get some of the same feedback from teachers.

[00:52:54] How are we going to couch that versus the need to do what is good for kids? - So my recollection of the middle school pilot the mason district was that it was not cost neutral mr muick am i remembering that correctly yes ma'am yes ma'am no it's not accurate at all um the glasgow was not cost neutral the poe was cost neutral actually it saved one bus i know these things are in and you know etched in my memory oh dr anderson that was like the first iteration of the mason pilot where we were we

[00:53:31] We were unaware that we couldn't have students that were impacted from different magisterial districts. Right, and that first one was negative one bus, and then once we took out North Springfield, which I think was the issue, it was still even.

[00:53:46] It was at zero. It was the Glasgow pilot that was over and not cost effective. So what I'm trying to stress here is when we have a good scenario that we know is good for kids how are we going to treat that staff feedback which may reflect what we received for the Pope pilot because if it's disruptive last May it's going to be disruptive next November again I my recollection is that the Pope pilot was not enacted because it involves students outside that magisterial district is

[00:54:25] that correct it was not because of staff feedback yes ma'am the first iteration had two elementary schools in the pyramid that were not part of the Mason district and so we fixed that and then the second scenario also had students that were coming from like 41% from a different district so we canceled that one then when we got to Glasgow that one was not cost-effective and I I would definitely encourage everyone who's speaking on this to go back and take a a look because again this is etched in my memory not trying to be combative but

[00:55:01] this I know for a fact what it looks like and how it ended up being pulled that second PO presentation that proposal was good to go from a staff perspective because I sat in you and your office for us to have that discussion initially but the thing is this there were quite a bit of concern about the teachers feedback on to a change in their schedule and my question is how is that going to be assumed in any scenarios moving forward is it going to be a driver is what how much of a consideration will that be I can put you on another go back

[00:55:38] oh yes thank you sorry Ms. Marin I did that backwards Ms. Seizmerheiser and then Ms. Marin I don't mind if Ms. Marin wants to go work okay that's fine either one's fine with me a couple things I'm not necessarily the suggestion or the comments that I'm making doesn't necessarily mean that i think we need to push the boundary timeline back i just want to make sure that these things are thought about as we move forward i think that question can't really be answered until we go through the next round of community meetings and the braq meetings and see what comes

[00:56:15] out of that to see what's feasible right so that's you know probably a november december january conversation so i just don't want to get to that point and go wait a minute we didn't talk about these things so these weren't brought up and that's what i'm trying to bring these up I mean, I would be very uncomfortable if we get to that point and we haven't really fully discussed access to programming.

[00:56:34] I think that's a really ... I mean, I was the chair of the governance committee when we did this, and that was an important factor, and I think it's a very complicated factor. So my concern is the time to be able to do that. I think it's important to make sure we take into account the transportation times.

[00:56:50] That's why I bring these up, because it's important to have that. One thing I wanted to say with the boundary is, we've gotten all these comments similar to what Ms. Anderson shared. We did the same thing. We got a lot of comments.

[00:57:06] There are some things in the boundary initial scenarios, which I would expect there to be. This is a huge project we haven't undertaken in 40 years, holistic boundary. There's going to be in the first round issues that came up. That's why we have the community meetings. That's why those of us who know our districts the best said, "Wait a minute.

[00:57:21] is a quirk of this district or this is unique to this district let's make sure those are so what's what's the process to make sure the things that were that were brought up that are quirks to our district or mistakes clear mistakes that were made are incorporated in the next round of scenarios i know i had turned in a lot of detailed analysis and in my meeting with the boundary consultant was told yes these two things are clear mistakes is there a process that that's being compiled where there's clear mistakes being found so i think there have been a number of areas of focus that have been identified the consultant has those we're going to talk about

[00:58:00] those on the september 3rd and september 24th boundary advisory committees and trust that the maps that come out in october will be better i think they will not be perfect but they will be better than the first round and this is a process so i my expectation is that the feedback is incorporated to the degree that it's possible i also think we run a danger um some of the feedback if in taken in totality we could land right back where we were when we started um but uh and still

[00:58:34] have schools that are not efficiently you know um i think i'm populated i guess for lack of a better term yeah and i think i totally i think i'm more looking at clear mistakes like there's just things are omitted off the maps or lack of understanding about what a neighborhood is right things as as opposed to, I mean, as Ms. Anderson said, I think we're gonna get a lot of feedback that we can't please everybody, but when there's clear, like, we forgot to label a school on a map, which happened in my district, for example, those I wanna make sure are addressed.

[00:59:02] - Yes, ma'am, I think, my hope is that those will get addressed. - Thank you. - Ms. Marin. - Yikes, I don't wanna hope for things. We have to have them addressed. I'm very concerned at the cavalier approach to this conversation.

[00:59:18] There are several of us that are gravely concerned about the status of these maps, including critical data. And it's not that the superintendent hopes to address it. It must be addressed. I also just want my colleagues to know what regulation 2230, which is still in practice, says. And I hope you all can hear. It's hard to hear with the talking in the room, please, colleagues.

[00:59:40] Regulation 2230 says that a family can ask for a student transfer reasons, child care hardship. So if a staff member wants to bring their child to K6, I know that's an accommodation now. Are we we aware of that how many people is that medical emotional or social adjustment gosh that sounds familiar people have asked for that haven't they well it's in the regulation right now that that is a valid reason to be placed in a school the high school curricular program going to a different school I see this all the time and heard and you've got kids that want IB they come to Langston for IB they want to stay in South Lakes they have no bus what do

[01:00:17] they do I thought this boundary review was going to address these things where is the discussion about the programs that are going to be involved in this decision making are we expanding ib are we going to allow ap for all what about the career centers i don't have any sense of if that's even on the table but it is a criteria in our policy that i don't hear us talking at all about we're talking about addresses siblings current regulation says a sibling can come along so that's what's standing right now and again the lack of urgency for the superintendent

[01:00:54] to have this updated is really chilling and it just makes me more and more uncomfortable to move forward with this i don't hear any talk about what's coming forward and as one board member just said we know the makeup of our districts the best and yet we have not been asked for input in any formal way so when are we going to have that discussion is it going to happen at a work session or is that all supposed to happen in january when we're also legislative we're doing our legislative work and our budget work and the capital improvement program those are my questions i hope somebody else is interested in finding out those answers okay we're going to go to mr

[01:01:32] mcdaniel who for our first round and then we're going to come back to miss lady for uh go back number two thank you and i'll be quick i mean i appreciate the conversation um so as we continue down this timeline for a potential uh implementation next fall there are several things that could be be happening all at once next fall.

[01:01:58] We could be potentially opening a Western High School of some sort, we will be opening a Western High School of some sort. We potentially could be moving start times and we're gonna have boundaries being adjusted as well. Now we're also looking at program distribution, which I agree with Ms. Mirren's comments.

[01:02:15] That was something I was also very interested in because that is a root cause of some of the transportation problems that is the other flip side of us doing boundaries. All that to say we need to be really careful about change management. And what I don't wanna do is find us in a scenario next fall where even though the people sitting in this room know it's coming, the public at large may or may not know it's coming until here it is.

[01:02:45] So we need to have a very aggressive outreach plan. Which is to say, the more meetings, the more outreach, the more public input we can gather early on, I would be supportive of. defer to the superintendent on you know how what she would do for a timeline on that um but the more we get out there in front of the public on this the better it's going to be for us all so that's all thank you mr mcdaniel miss lady yeah to go back to my earlier comments uh thank you uh chair anderson for mentioning the elementary school parents yes they're of utmost importance i guess

[01:03:18] in my brain i'm thinking that i would never ever i don't think i don't plan to ever vote for an elementary school that ends later than the current I think 420. I don't want to push that so my brain was skewed to my thinking and I think most of the feedback that elementary didn't like was pushing that later but their voice needs to be heard and also Dr. Anderson to your question Dr. Anderson to your question around the faculty I think the big difference here is that when we were those scenarios were being brought to us the transfer process had ended and so these faculty did not have the opportunity to seek out positions that

[01:03:57] were posted as available within our system that would align with their family's needs in terms of timing. Based on the time that I'm seeing, the faculty, this will be well before that window and that should resolve that issue because there will be some faculty that swap because the last time we did this when we switched to middle and high, we did it in a timely fashion.

[01:04:15] I was at Chantilly at the time. We had some Chantilly folks go to middle, we had some middle come to Chantilly, but they found homes and there was really not a lot of consternation around that. So I just wanted to make that point. And then I may have had one other, but I forgot it.

[01:04:32] Thanks. Thank you, Ms. Laney. I remembered it. I totally agree with Ms. Marin that this regulation needs to be updated because this is the driving work. It needs to be updated because I'm aware of that there are a lot of kids who have been allowed to student transfer for world language.

[01:04:51] It's not even in the regulation. The fact that it's ever happened is completely wrong. It's out of regulation, but it has happened. And so we need to revisit this, because this has become a game, and when I was a director of student services, it was a very frustrating game for me, I will be very frank, when I got the plethora, and I mean there were lots of them, for social emotional transfer to Chantilly, you know, I would reach out to families and I would say, well, you know, who's the therapist you're working with, what's the treatment plan, and most of them had nothing.

[01:05:20] They basically went to their pediatrician, they found someone who would write them a letter, and here we were. And so I fought hard against those because don't really talk with me about a social emotional issue if you're not getting your kid the medical need that they also need to support what the school might be doing.

[01:05:36] So this needs to be revisited soon. Thanks. Thank you, Ms. Laney. Dr. Anderson. I mean, I could go on and on with the things I have on my list, but I know we're nearing time to move to the next topic, so I'll just kind of make these last statements.

[01:05:54] Very much appreciated what Ms. Marin had captured. We don't know whether or not sixth grade is going to go to middle schools across the rest of the county. We don't know how middle school start times is going to be embedded in this.

[01:06:10] We need to gather more data. We need to put it in front of parents and community and staff. We do not know whether or not we're going to stagger the implementation, the rollout. are so many unknowns and of course just adding to um whatever the regulation does not currently state there are so many unknowns and it is august and we are on a fast moving train yes that timeline has been out but some of these things should have been worked out a little bit

[01:06:44] i think by now so i i'm i'm worried as well that this is not going to be received well by the time we get to it to have a vote so that we have enough time for teachers to transfer if they need to and thank you for that information um miss lady that was very helpful i think i i would like to see the the list of when we could start checking off some of these other things that are precursors to this decision making that we're going to do um that we're going to do in january and that speaks to what mr mcdaniel just talked about what is that kind of change management

[01:07:22] I almost seem, I need a project management just to check off the things that are still outstanding and when those things will come to the community. And I appreciate your deference to the superintendent and making sure that we have all the timelines. But some of these have already been articulated in the policy, and we're kind of skipped it.

[01:07:41] I don't want to lose the opportunity to adhere to what we already said in the policy, which now I feel like we're being asked to do something else it's already been stated so I'm excited for this to happen but I'm seeing it really the runway is very very short for these very very important decisions if we're going to tell parents you're responsible for transportation that has to be communicated in the next month or two so I dr. Reed I'd like to see whatever is whatever we need to check off from this conversation that you're hearing to prep

[01:08:19] us to be productive and effective and successful in January for the larger decision-making. Thank you Dr. Anderson. Ms. Dixit. So yeah thank you Dr.

[01:08:37] Anderson. I actually wanted to mention this that so there are a lot of communities who are voice we are not hearing and I would like to hear from them so I don't know if we can send surveys through parents or families resource center because I think we're hearing from the same community members or same group of people again and again but they're like people I think from title one schools and maybe Hispanic community we need to reach out to a

[01:09:11] rather larger audience I think before we move forward and one thing I would just say and was watching this video from Steve Jobs and he was you know launching his Macintosh computer he said I can launch something next year but it's going to be just as bad as the competition he means you know computer but if we do it right I need little extra time and now what and I've I've heard this from like visionaries and leaders that you take more time to do something right and rather than going and then fixing fixing and not putting us

[01:09:46] putting a substandard product. So I would just say we just do it right. If it takes a little bit longer that's okay. Thanks. Ms. St. John-Cunning. So look this timeline was a timeline that the school board imposed on the superintendent. Okay so she's coming to us with a report and saying I'm following your timeline that you imposed on us. The discussion now is do we want to change that timeline? Okay she's following what we've asked her to do. All of us knew this was going to be

[01:10:24] a heavy lift and that it was not going to be easy and we say that it's been 40 years since this has happened but we really don't even have a record of that actually being a time that there was ever a comprehensive boundary change 40 years ago there never may have been so there's a lot of changes that do have to be made in the process of doing this work things have come up the Western High School the start times some of the maps that we looked at and we felt were not drawn accurately because of missing information.

[01:11:02] So now we're sitting here with the superintendent giving us a report saying, "This is where I am following your timeline." Now the question that was just said about do you have to drive your kid to another school if they don't go to their base school, I don't know why that's an issue.

[01:11:18] That's always existed. If you do not go to your base school, you have to drive your kid. I don't know why we have to inform parents of that when that's always been, I mean, we're bringing up these if scenarios that we already know. So let's look at the work, let's look if this timeline is realistic or not.

[01:11:34] Let's as a board figure out, do we need the time? Do we need to extend it? Do we need to consider all of these things? I do want to say that having said all of that, I think there's been a tremendous amount of work that has been done. I think that we have tried to do as much outreach as possible.

[01:11:52] Do we always have communities that are as responsive as others? No. And that's incumbent on us to try to try to get some of those communities, particularly our immigrant and community and our socioeconomically underserved community my time's up but I think I've said everything I need to say thank you miss st. John Cunning we are going to switch over to talk about the new western high school location in just a second we're gonna get kick that off at 2:30 so if everybody wants to take a quick break and come back then we will kick off

[01:12:27] discussion of the new western high school site thank you clerks for pulling

[01:13:42] up the presentation at this point i'm going to turn it over to dr reed thank you oh thank you miss lady um i this afternoon we're going to talk about the new western high school and i want to begin by thanking the board for your vision and work in helping to support our acquisition

[01:14:14] of the high school we were able to acquire this after many years of looking for a solution to the west side high school overcrowding and i really appreciate the board's um vision to actually accomplish that at this point and with the opportunity comes the responsibility and the responsibility we're going to begin talking about today is the naming process and then also following the naming process discussion a programming discussion which is how are we going to determine

[01:14:52] the programming possibilities for the new high school so i want to start with naming and let's go ahead and go to the next slide please whoever's got the slide clicker thank you this school naming procedure is governed by policy and regulation 8170. it generally has a fairly straightforward outline for naming i will go ahead and hit the next slide this has been posted, so primarily for the community also to review.

[01:15:28] What we look at in a naming timeline is that generally there's a planning principle and attendance areas established. And in this case, we don't -- we look at about four to six weeks out from the beginning of a process.

[01:15:46] And we look at public comment periods, public hearings, community meetings scheduled and so forth. this is facilitated at the region level by the regional assistant superintendent and the magisterial board member for that region about eight to ten weeks out we have recommendations shared and then there's generally another one month public comment period that begins we collect that feedback and our pattern has been within 10 to 12 weeks out from the start or essentially about three months out the school board will vote to take action on the determination of a

[01:16:26] school name so it's a fairly straightforward process I think the next slide is really just a discussion so I just want to make sure that we know that this is a process that is outlined in policy and regulation and again looking forward to some feedback from the board this afternoon on how we would like to proceed we have named an acting planning principal which is Dave Jagels who will be our he's a retired executive principal and former principal in the school division who has a lot of experience with high school programming

[01:17:05] and he will be the planning principal until we post the position of principal at some point and then begin to select a staff but this part of the work session is really limited to the naming process and just any feedback if there is any because we'd like to kick that process off here in the coming days so thank you Miss lady thank you dr. Reed dr. Anderson just very quickly thank you what region will this school be in or is this a little bit too early to tell it is it well I think that's a great question right I mean I think there's a

[01:17:45] geographic region but there's also the possibility that it depending on what type of programming the board selects that it could be region agnostic so it geographically I believe will sit in region three no I think I have no idea beyond two and six I don't know mainly region one okay and limit with a region five so that will be something

[01:18:22] that like a doctor he said has to be established okay so depending on the program it could potentially be like TJ which is not embedded in a region per se because TJ is not embedded in the region TJ is under you that's correct TJ but not the other one what's the other one the one oh yeah yeah yeah I was just asking I think that it could be in a region it could be in a Western side only it could be division-wide I think those are not answers we've answered yet

[01:18:59] I think it's still an open conversation which is why we're really initiating that this afternoon thank you and my next comment is regarding the planning principal what are the duties of the planning principal the planning principal there's actually it's their essential duties are to begin planning for a new school they're going to be coordinating in this case directly with Marty Smith who's going to oversee this project with the team at the table and you know the variety of planning principal duties there'll be a committee

[01:19:38] that will be formed that will be overseeing once the decisions made about program the staffing registration just all the things necessary to begin to open a new school in the division and it's been we looked it up recently it's been about 20 years since we've opened a high school in Fairfax County so it's been a while two decades it's a real opportunity at this time but planning principal is really pretty much what it sounds like it's planning for a new school sure I just want to kind of toss in you know having worked in loud and for

[01:20:15] a number of years and they open up schools every year and has every single year that I work there and I had the opportunity to also open a brand new school in Loudoun County and it was great to be on the ground floor to be hired before anything was done so that inaugural principal had the opportunity to really be the planning principal I would love if there's any consideration for that to be consolidated because it's an experience that really carries you through I would hate for the program to be determined and it's planned by one person and then another person has to kind of come in and carry it out which

[01:20:51] means that you would have to hire like right now because essentially when and principals are hired for high schools in Loudoun. They get a year to do the planning, but it's a great opportunity for them to be the opening principal as well of the school.

[01:21:07] - Yeah, I understand that and have opened schools in prior divisions, which we usually had several years' notice 'cause we had to build the school, and we're in a unique position where we're not building. We need to hit the ground running right now if we're gonna open this building in the fall of '26, which is why we wanted to go with someone who had significant experience to get us kick-started.

[01:21:28] But for sure, we'll be looking to post the position shortly. - Okay, thank you. And regarding the naming, I mean, this seems to be pretty standard based on what we've done before. I've had the opportunity to be part of now two, well, I guess all three of these.

[01:21:47] I didn't even think about Lanier, but yes. So thank you for bringing this in front of us. in the community meeting, that will be two weeks from notice. Here's also kind of my question. Who is the community?

[01:22:02] Is it the regional community or potentially all of Fairfax as a community to help to contribute to the naming? - That's part of what we're gonna be determining once we determine the program, which is the next conversation this afternoon.

[01:22:17] - Okay. - Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Ms. Marin. - This is very exciting and I've only heard positive things many different people about seizing this opportunity and it's very hard for a big bureaucracy to move quickly yet somehow it happened over the summer so thank you um dr reed for your you and your team and the leadership and glad we have a new chief of facilities here so um this is a new experience for me as well i think starting by talking about the naming misses a lot of important information

[01:22:53] that this board as a as a fiduciary you know overseer needs to discuss um you know the policy and reg here i am again with the policy and the regulation um we should know what that is right we need to be sure that the school is is governed by the values that we set forth um actually don't have the number right in front of me but i know the regulation from the last session can apply to this one and we already know that that one's got a problem cost payment i have been so excited to celebrate this but it's there hasn't been a public announcement of this school that we even bought it

[01:23:33] i waited and waited and then i finally put some pictures up on facebook and said hey we we bought this school but while there's been news stories there's not been a statement from the division saying how much it was what exactly it cost certainly not provided to me to to um to share out. This really brings up a very important conversation about our bond, and we are on the bond this year for the election. And the bond as it stands has priorities that I don't think are priorities anymore, and I can tell you that people who support the bond are concerned

[01:24:08] about it as well. A lot's happened this year, and the last time this bond, you know, this proposal for what is on this November bond was out there was before Western High School was even a twinkle in our eyes so we need to do our responsibility so that the board of supervisors knows that we know what we're doing with the money and finally the capital improvement program how does this impact the queue the renovation queue there's changing to this bond from what was proposed as the list for renovation in the capital improvement program now we do know that we can use the bond money on different projects we know that

[01:24:48] legally that is allowable and that's fine but we also had talked about being committed to the renovation queue and there is a change now and we need to be upfront about that so I've you know I've asked about this beforehand and I am concerned that we're not talking about money on this big purchase so I don't know what's prepared to discuss it now but I would certainly love to hear other board members thoughts about revisiting the bond and but i will say on a way more positive note i am so excited for the next part of the presentation it is so exhilarating and the future forward works

[01:25:27] so i'm excited to get to that but we have to do our due diligence as you know the overseers of the money thank you thank you miss mayor were you looking for any response from staff at the moment i will happily take some if there's any clarification or information okay are we - Are we gonna reconsider the bond?

[01:25:52] Will the purchase of the property be publicly announced by the school division? Is it within the current policy and regulation? Do we have to change the queue? - So we can certainly announce the purchase of the school.

[01:26:09] I feel like, so we can certainly do a better job of announcing that. The queue, I don't believe, I think I put together an attached a document of where the funding for the school came from.

[01:26:24] don't know I think the Centerville high school place in the queue was is still at issue because of planning and not planning but permitting to enable us to move forward with the far or the density work and I don't know mr. Gordon do you have any kind of an update on where the negotiation for that work is because that's been a bit of a pickle that we've been caught in for Centerville to move forward. Ma'am, where I know, understand the position to be is, it is correct, you are

[01:27:01] correct, it is a far situation, floor-to-area ratio, and so I think the county's perspective is, there's an arrest in Cub Run, and... Yeah, well, I think there are a variety of issues. We proposed ways to mitigate this, and the county has responded with, but we haven't reached agreement yet, so, right so I think that certainly can be discussed in the queue and what was the third question it was the queue the announcement well the bond is the bond going to remain the same with half which is about half the bond on retrofitting

[01:27:40] net zero well I think that's a discussion to be had if the board wants to continue the net zero initiatives the retrofitting costs are significant and And we laid those out in the current bond.

[01:27:55] And that, again, would be something that we certainly could have a conversation about in terms of whether or not that continues to be a priority or a priority that would be ahead of other priorities, I guess, for lack of a better way to phrase that. Thank you. Mr. Dunn.

[01:28:14] I wonder if I definitely support my colleague's suggestion for a public announcement. I think it shouldn't just involve the cost, but the savings. savings were twice the purchase price. I think that's something to be emphasized at a time that we're facing a potential loss of federal funding, that we have been prudent from a fiscal responsibility perspective. I wondered if, Dr. Reed, you have any perspective on naming conventions?

[01:28:45] What I see at the middle school level are all of our middle schools are named after poets and writers, which I have no idea why that was put in place. That doesn't really make sense to me. Whereas at the high school level, it seems to be geographic-based. Centerville, Hayfield, Herndon, McLean, etc. So, with the exception of Lewis, and unless I'm missing any others.

[01:29:10] or do you, oh, Justice and Edison. There we go, as a team, teamwork makes the dream work. So, you know, we seem generally to have geographic based names for high schools.

[01:29:25] Is that something you're in favor of continuing or do you have any thoughts as to conventions for middle school and high schools and whether those conventions should be established in policy or revisited? - I think, I don't know that I have an opinion the naming conventions and you know rather to revisit those or not I think some school divisions have very clear guidelines for naming and some don't and I I would want to examine whatever our traditions here are and I don't have a personal naming favorite at this point or a favorite convention at this time do

[01:30:04] you think that the high school name should depend on the programming that's selected? I don't know that I would necessarily connect those. It could, but it wouldn't need to. Okay. And lastly, since it was mentioned Cub Run, I don't think there are any circumstances we should give up Cub Run. That's too valuable of an asset, and we can't buy any more land in the county. Thank you. Not seeing any other placards, except for, I guess, gobacks

[01:30:39] coming. I'll just take a quick one. I, too, am over the moon about the acquisition of the Western site and to the inquiry of a lot of constituents who wanted to be privy to conversations that may or may not have been taking place among this board, other than I just need the public to understand that when you are in a real estate transaction, that is confidential work because of the negotiations. I have tried to respond to my constituents who have asked about that, but this is an unbelievable site. We got it for an amazing deal.

[01:31:17] When we do send out a post, maybe we can include some pictures and we will talk about cost savings and I think that all of our constituents around the entire county should be extremely proud of the fiduciary responsibility we exercised around this and how we were able to capitalize it when it came up.

[01:31:33] So I think we are to go backs and I will go back to Ms. Marin. Actually, as Dr. Anderson said, the last board we named three schools and before that was justice, right? And there is a history, and it's a little passionate.

[01:31:51] And so it would have been helpful for the board to be presented with that, even if it wasn't perhaps all of the public airing of things that happened. And there has been a model, as was said, that middle schools are named after poets or whoever.

[01:32:07] And I remember during the namings that we did, people questioned why were names being named after people. And given our history with slavery and the Civil War here, it's a big issue. And so I think actually the board needs to have more guidance.

[01:32:24] I did look up our policies, 8170, I have not reviewed it just yet. It was updated in February 2020. But do we want to name it after an individual, living or dead? Do we want to name it after a region?

[01:32:40] These are things that we should perhaps talk about. The other thing I'm thinking is, so there's going to be two public meetings, it seems, between when we vote, which is scheduled to be November, but we just also heard that there's going to be 12 public meetings about boundaries, never mind it's still back to school season, and we have our regular meetings and closed meetings and work sessions and committee meetings.

[01:33:03] November is also extremely short with the SBA, we're going to do a lot of legislative advocacy. There's a lot going on, and I think viewing these timelines piecemeal is not doing justice to the amount of work that has to happen i don't see the through line to this big you know the whole picture here what are the names of all the other high schools should we just see them in a list right maybe we need to look at that or the middle school i just being told that this is a process that's going to happen does not inform me at all about what we're supposed to be doing and

[01:33:37] what we should be doing when we only get to do that here at the table together thank you miss - Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Mr. McElveen. - Thanks, and I just wanna share my congratulations as well to the board members that brought this forward as well as the staff that had a very busy summer.

[01:33:59] I think the last time we had such a productive summer was when we built Bailey's Upper in just a few months, about a decade ago, so we can do great things quickly if we set our minds to them, so. And I will say that I also participated and the Justice High School renaming and the first half of the Lewis High School renaming.

[01:34:22] And these can be contentious processes. But I think those were renamings and this is a naming, so it's a little less so. But I think at the root of any naming is the community. So it's really reaching out and making sure everyone has an opportunity to contribute led by the region.

[01:34:43] and I look forward to that process, which will be coming quite soon. So one question I have is just when we talk about the Western geography, there are a lot of issues at play, but probably the one that's foremost on many people's minds, particularly those at this table, is Centerville High School.

[01:35:03] So what kind of updates can you give us on the Centerville High School situation? - Yeah, thank you, Mr. McElveen. I'll have to turn to Mr. Gordon, because I think we have been in a holding pattern since last spring on Centerville High School. And the last briefing we provided the board, we had done some initial planning and we're not able to move forward with any permitting successfully to enable us to actually begin the work.

[01:35:31] But Mr. Gordon, are there any updates to Centerville High School? - Ma'am, I'm not tracking any additional updates other than we're still working through the FAR process. - That would be our current update, Mr. McElveen. - Okay, I mean, as everyone at this table knows, that was approved and several bonds ago, and it's an unfortunate situation, and please keep us posted if there's anything we can do on our end and on the Board of Supervisors' end.

[01:36:02] - Yes, sir. - Thank you, Dr. Anderson. - Yes, thank you. Actually, Mr. McElveen touched on what I wanted to raise, which is Justice, Lewis, and Lanier, all of those were renaming and not naming.

[01:36:20] And I also wanna point out that those renamings were really, there were contentious for sure, but there were really two kind of right of wrong here in some ways. It was looking to take those Confederate names out and really focus on the communities that were harmed the most by those Confederate names.

[01:36:41] But I'm pulling a Ms. Marin here, just looking at the policy. we don't have a policy that speaks to naming. It speaks to renaming, and how that has to be initiated by a board member. It talks about the sale of naming rights. So I wonder if the governance chair might consider putting this on the docket, along with all of the other things on the docket, just so we can just take care of this, because there's no guidance on naming, because we come to it so infrequently.

[01:37:12] And just kind of a follow-up for Mr. Gordon, when you said that we're still in process regarding Centerville, the FAR work. Is this a different conversation from what has occurred before? Do we have reason to be optimistic that there might be a different outcome?

[01:37:32] - Ma'am, I believe it could be the same conversation and I am optimistic. - Okay, so that's different from where we were a short year ago regarding the FAR and what needed to happen at Centerville in order to increase capacity there?

[01:37:49] - I have heard nothing different than where we are. We're still negotiating with whoever it is you're negotiating with at the county. I don't know of a new development. - I'll save some of those questions for the second part because it will impact the Western High School-- - Ms. Smith, do you have some new development?

[01:38:08] - Program discussions, I think, quite a bit. Oh, you have news? - I don't have an update on that. I wanted to provide clarity on the naming of new school facilities. in the regulation 8170, the section three is of naming new school facilities. So it clearly-- - It's not in the policy.

[01:38:24] It may be in the regulation, but the policy is what I'm looking at and it doesn't have, and this is our communication and it's silent regarding naming up new schools. But I'll hold my questions regarding Centerville for the second part.

[01:38:43] - Thank you. Miss St. John Cunning. - So I don't have the regulation in front of me, but Mr. Smith, can you just let us know that regulation says for the naming of new schools like in a brief it's attached certainly and it's both regulations are attached to the agenda so it's a quite extensive regulation that outlines the naming of new school facilities within the regulation itself so go ahead i just the point that i wanted to make about i mean if there's a regulation and i'm sorry i missed it i looked at

[01:39:21] the policy and not at the regulation i think part of um doing this work and i and i understand everything about the renaming which i think you know was reflective of our values but i also think that part of what we do as as board members is we also defer to our colleagues and look at defer to the magisterial um representative uh as a whole we want our values to be reflected but this is also the uh going back to what one of my colleagues said this is something that the community should decide uh where the building resides in and also give um you know some deference to the magisterial

[01:39:57] representative i would like to comment on what miss st john cunning said i think the regulation speaks to that it is the prerogative and responsibility of the school board to name new schools and essentially it talks about the region working that which is connected to our conversation which is next right in terms of how we're going to proceed with that depending on the type of programming being more traditional versus magnet so i think after today we'll have a lot more

[01:40:31] clarity on where the board sort of seems to be so we'll be able to be i hope thoughtful about initiating that process i just also wanted to point out really fast that section four of our policy on page one does outline what happens in a new facility so it is already in the policy so it actually references the regulation in that location as well so i think both are already present in policy and regulation thank you miss dixit um so i was also going to mention this

[01:41:10] policy that it is just talk about naming of new school policy 8170.7 and it does talk about the in section four and the school board member representing area in which a new school facility easily so it does mention new school facility um so and and how it's solicitation of names from the member of the community um as this sits in sully district and if we go through the traditional route i would love to take that responsibility thank you thank you uh we're going to do go backs and

[01:41:44] let's start with mr dunn thank you my apologies mr frisch thanks i wanted to be the third board member to point out that policy 8170 section 4 details the process for naming new facilities i actually wanted to reference the renaming of mosaic from mosby woods because it's the last time we did this and um i think it's extremely important that mystics that is involved in this work because of how close to the community these conversations happen

[01:42:22] i think obviously some of the renaming process will depend in part on um the direction the board takes with um the next conversation um but uh i think um you know when when you have a new school in a community um the magisterial member and the at-large members can really serve a function of elevating the community's conversation my recollection is that we had a few community meetings during the mosaic renaming process, both to bring out suggestions and then also to

[01:42:58] take feedback when names were finally proposed by the superintendent before we ultimately moved on and voted for the name change. So I think that is the easy part of this conversation, and the more difficult part is the next conversation and actually getting the school up and running. Thanks. Thank you. Now for gobacks. Back to Mr. Dunn. Thanks. I was wondering if Dr.

[01:43:27] Reid, you could clarify there's a generic start four to six weeks out, eight to ten weeks out, ten to twelve weeks out, but it doesn't have specific months. So when do you envision starting this? Is start today or a start sometime in the spring? Just when is this naming process expected to launch? Taking note of my colleagues' comments about we've got a lot of stuff going on right now.

[01:43:50] we do I think that we left it as weeks out rather than putting months in really just to outline what the process was and that it's a roughly three-month process I think that the policy 8170 in that section four where it talks about where the school facility is located I think that at such point as mystics that who the magisterial for the geographic location of the school is ready we would want to begin I think sooner than later so we can call the school by whatever

[01:44:25] name the board ends up approving it so I I don't know as I recall in the last the last naming I was a part of was the Carter G Woodson high school renaming and it seemed like there was a lot of work for the magisterial board member but not so much for the entire board.

[01:44:46] I know the entire board had decision-making points, but really the bulk of the work occurs at the magisterial level. So I would want to check in with Ms. Dixit and see where she felt like if she felt comfortable starting soon, we would. If there was a feeling we should wait a little bit, then I think that's fine too.

[01:45:04] I think, honestly, the sooner the better. So we can have the school named would probably be best. So your preference would be sometime this fall? Yes, sir. - That would be my recommendation.

[01:45:20] - And I just wanted to say we should be careful about how we seek public input, definitely seek it, but putting stuff on the internet has caused a lot of funny names to rise to the top, like Boaty McBoatface and other famous examples.

[01:45:36] So we definitely want to end up with a respectable name and not just a hilarious one. So thank you. - Ms. Marin. - So I feel like this is a theme and maybe it's because we're just coming back from recess, but we are all very busy people, and I struggle to see how this board will be available for all of these expectations in the next two months.

[01:46:03] This board needs to meet its duties as required by law and for what's best for our communities, but we need the superintendent's help to set us up to be valuable contributors to operational decisions. So a lot of people on this board have never gone through a naming change. So whether that's something the superintendent could say, hey, chair, vice chair, let me make sure I inform, or maybe veteran members talk to the other, like we just can't come in cold for these epic discussions.

[01:46:32] And it's the first one after recess. I mean, I've been at it all summer, like many people, but this is still a new discussion. I think it's also the board's responsibility to come to the discussions, having reviewed relevant policy and regulation. And while yes, there is a policy, it is six years old, and we are supposed to review our policies every five years.

[01:46:51] And currently the policy says that we have to bring to a forum topic doing a naming discussion. That's what it says in our policy. The school renaming request will be initiated through a board forum topic by at least one magisterial member and an at-large member.

[01:47:08] - This is not renaming. - Okay, fine, sorry, my apologies. Regardless, it's not acceptable to be governing this school system with old policies. they do not represent any of our values right here at this table. And we should really be focused on that.

[01:47:23] And I know I sound like a, you know, it's just, it's very hard for me to get excited about the interesting things when we're using defunct policies to guide us. And I would like the superintendent to have more of a partnership with us on that. And I do have a question, when are we gonna talk about the money?

[01:47:42] When are we gonna talk about the bond? Is that this meeting? Are we gonna have a discussion about next time? because we need to talk about that. So I would like some certainty on that, please. But can we even change it at this point? I mean, it's sent, like-- - I think the bond is a priority.

[01:48:00] So I think we need to talk about the bond because of the timing. So, can I-- - Miss Marin.

[01:48:15] - I mean, I just happened to notice that our stellar budget office staff are here and yet there's zero information in any of these materials except for what one thing about the bond. I just don't get it. - Well, if we're gonna stay in order of the agenda, the next thing we're gonna talk about is the program discussion around the new western site so seeing no other go backs i think and i will say this i'll take a turn on that i do agree with you personally i think get to green and it is a priority but it is not a priority above the facilities that are falling down around us

[01:48:52] and i agree with you that i think that needs to come off of the bond but we'll come back to that conversation um to just speak to it i i think that it is a priority but i don't think it's number one priority given the condition of too many of our facilities and I including and I'll name it McLean High School okay I'm gonna turn this back over Dr. Reed for the new Western High School program discussion thank you miss lady

[01:49:17] if we can put up the PowerPoint on program discussion so this afternoon I thought it would be helpful to begin not end but begin the conversation about what type of programming we might envision for this new western high school so let's kick it to the next slide I think in general we have a couple design options and this particular slide is really aimed at trying to get to the

[01:49:57] boundary impact of the possibilities in other words I think before us we have a fairly clear-cut fork in the road in terms of determining whether we want the western high school to be a traditional comprehensive fairfax county public school high school which is to say there's a body of curriculum and a particular schedule certain facilities specs and that type of thing versus and also within inherent in the traditional definition would be that it would have

[01:50:35] its own school boundary so it's important to note that if we're talking about a traditional comprehensive high school what we would need to do this fall is incorporate a new boundary or carve out a new boundary for this high school which would affect the other western high schools and alleviate overcrowding which has been for many many years a topic of discussion but the traditional implies a redrawing of a fixed boundary for that high school on the right there's a magnet which is another possibility and there are many

[01:51:10] many plausible magnet themes or types we illustrated one such track in this presentation there are many others we could illustrate if the board is interested in looking at other possible topics or themes but the distinction here that's important is that a magnet school would not have a fixed boundary And that's really the distinction on this slide.

[01:51:35] Traditional has a fixed boundary. A magnet would not have a fixed boundary. Having said that, you could determine that a magnet school had a non-fixed area-specific boundary, which is to say it could be a lottery of just certain high schools.

[01:51:54] You could argue that if we're looking at alleviating overcrowding in the western high schools, perhaps the lottery only was available to students who were in those western high school boundaries and you would still alleviate overcrowding although it would not be it might not be at scale right it could be more from some school and less from another we don't know yet based on what a lottery could look like you could also go with a lottery for example of 80% of enrollment coming from overcrowded Westside high schools and 20% the rest of the division or 73%

[01:52:32] 30 or 90 10 or there are many possibilities right the slide is really a distinction fixed boundary flexible boundary next slide please one of the things we thought would be a good idea is to kind of dive into the research and a big thank you to our research and development our ORC team to look at some of the characteristics of what future ready schools and in particular future ready high schools might look like and there's a lot of discussion right now about this

[01:53:06] topic honestly nationally with the advent of really an evolution in workplace topics and industries across the nation and across the world so there's a lot of interesting workforce development conversation going on and just rethinking a little bit what high school could look like so next slide please one of the this slide we captured because we really kind of wanted to take a look at the global priority areas if we're looking at the world that our

[01:53:44] graduates are going to be entering and these in particular are areas that our graduates are going to need to be able to navigate as they pursue higher education jobs or the military when they leave us here in Fairfax County public schools these are also examples of global priority areas that our county here in Fairfax County is working to be a national center for the development in these areas and I I know that our Northern Virginia Tech Council has goals

[01:54:18] around you know having businesses in these sectors settling and headquartering here in Fairfax County as we know that these are global priority areas and Fairfax County has long been a leader in you know really global and particularly national influence next slide please so the potential theme and again there's a statement at the bottom of these slides which say there are likely many options to contemplate this is just a process conversation starter so again the slides

[01:54:55] in this next these next couple slides would be possible themes if we were looking at pathways in a magnet type program which is again non-specific boundary lines so the variety of opportunities in this case we're looking at aerospace science in part because of the proximity to Dulles and then also in part due to the high workforce learning connections with aerospace industry

[01:55:29] possibilities so next slide please one of the things you would do if we were gonna look at a magnet type school whether it's the arts whether it's aerospace whether it's AI machine science or a machine learning data science whatever the theme one might look at I think it would be interesting to take that theme through the curricular areas that it might expand as well as the other global priority areas. You know, I know I was talking to Gotham yesterday

[01:56:04] and just talking about what an R&D influence or impact within a contemporary high school might look like. The research and development arm being research and development personnel from industry actually being a part of the curriculum, which would be very different for us here in Fairfax County. But you could take almost any theme. I don't want to limit our conversation this afternoon to just aerospace but we wanted to take an example and walk it through this just for your thinking next slide one of the things we looked at here is sort of a dual strategy we included a handout on

[01:56:43] this where we look at priorities and then a program and capacity strategy and these really are just different ways of looking at how we might program a high school and again this works in this particular slide it would work for traditional or a theme based program so again we purchased this building to alleviate overcrowding in the Western high schools right so absolutely we need that to be a goal of whatever we situate here next slide please other I

[01:57:19] tried to list some other options just looking at high school research there's obviously from one end of the continuum kind of a traditional and at the other end of the continuum more of a magnet they're also you know options all along that continuum there's a traditional with academies of some sort school within a school there's a traditional yet unique organizational framework and what I would talk about there as an example I've been asked a lot about that green box I think about expeditionary learning which is a framework for for approaching education even with traditional content that you can

[01:57:56] approach traditional content in unique ways so their variety of possibilities I would also state that as we're looking at developing a program at a high school for the first time in 20 years I want to make sure we're thoughtful about inclusion in particular with our twice exceptional students as well we have an opportunity to craft a design that takes our students into consideration from the beginning and I think that's a rare opportunity and I'm really excited that we have the opportunity to think through those possibilities next slide please

[01:58:33] so the possible program management or project management and mr. done this sort of answers your question in terms of some time frame possibilities looking at a naming process we outlined a possibility of moving from perhaps October through December to end up with a board vote right before winter break it's important that we identify magnet or traditional really by November we don't need to determine what all the magnet possibilities but we have to have

[01:59:09] a sense of that because if we're going to open the building in the fall of 26 we have to start registering students for it which would be January to to march really we have to hire staff and then plan to open the school in the fall of 26 so this is a backward plan at a very very high level next slide please and this would be my recommendation and it's a fairly strong recommendation just having opened brand new high schools recently not here but in other divisions it's very often customary to open a brand new high school for

[01:59:48] simply ninth and tenth graders and that's in part because you don't hit your capstone electives in your first year it gives you some time to get those really planned and thought through also you don't have a lot of interest in kids who are becoming juniors or seniors wanting to switch high schools so i would recommend strongly that of course this is our planning year next year we we would open for ninth and 10th graders only under this plan.

[02:00:16] In 27, 28, we would add a new ninth grade, which would then result in a nine through 11. And in 28, 29, with the addition of the final ninth grade, we would have a full enrollment with the first graduating class being June of 29, a year before our current strategic plan is up.

[02:00:36] So I think this was our last slide, but I could be wrong. Yes, it is. So I, again, I want to clarify that the purpose of today's discussion, and it is sort of a welcome back from the recess, and I know it's hard to just jump right into this, but the sooner, this is kind of the soonest, honestly, we could begin this conversation.

[02:01:00] We didn't take ownership of this property until two weeks ago. So we're within two weeks of owning the property, and I think talking about how we're going to name it what type of program I really want staff to listen to you as a board and kind of your conversation and thoughts as we begin to put together a more detailed plan forward so madam chair that's our presentation or miss lady and we're all looking forward to you know being leaning into this and really providing the best program possible for our Fairfax County students thank you dr.

[02:01:39] Reed we're gonna get started with mr. Dunn followed by miss Anderson dr. Reed we look to you as our leader do you have a recommendation comprehensive versus magnet and if magnet what percentage because there's so many options it's almost infinite we only have so much time based on this timeframe you've provided so is there a way you can narrow it down to what you think are good options to consider well it's a great question I I think that I think this is an opportunity that doesn't come along very often. I think that in speaking with

[02:02:18] colleagues around the country the opportunity to create something that's cutting-edge which is what Fairfax is known for. We've built our reputation on being the division that is out there in terms of learning and we're facing 22nd century challenges coming up. My recommendation would be that we look at the global priority areas that we've outlined and really be thoughtful about some type of a magnet program that's limited to our Westside high schools in

[02:02:54] some way because I know we've made that commitment that this be to alleviate Westside high schools that would be my first recommendation if we can't get there and we're at a place where having a fixed boundary is you know more desirable I would still hope that we could include something beyond a very traditional curriculum because I feel like our young people are going to face a very different future than what we've planned for over the last many years and this is an opportunity to to work with industry partners and create something

[02:03:33] that's that honestly many of our students and families have been asking for in terms of a deep dive into some of these global priority work areas and and - And do you have a recommendation within the theme areas you've identified, given the proximity to Dulles Airport, aviation, for example, or the various tech companies, AI?

[02:03:56] - So I think if you go back to the global area slide, one of the things we, I think, could be very thoughtful about is I think we could provide a high school that actually includes pathways in all of those areas, which, and I talked to Dr. Presidio as well about the real need and this is where it sort of bleeds into the conversation for program access that we talked about with boundaries.

[02:04:23] It also illustrates the real need to think about how do we integrate some of these topics into our academies that are across the county and not just have these topics available in one high school in one part of the county, but how does data science, how does aerospace, aviation, AI, how do these topics actually become more alive in other parts of our county as well.

[02:04:47] So I think that there's a larger conversation to be had in looking at that. We're also looking at workforce development options. We're looking at the national focus right now on AI. So I think having that be a part of the curriculum across the board is going to be critical.

[02:05:06] But I think we could match all of these pathways within the site. Now a question that's come up, can we match those in some of the kind of an academy approach to be shared by other high schools, maybe? You know, I think that's all to be determined and that's part of the conversation we're going to have here.

[02:05:26] I think that's my answer at this time. Let's start with easy questions. I'd like to understand the cost, right? Cost of a comprehensive general high school versus cost of magnet, lottery, the different options because we're facing a potential loss of federal funding.

[02:05:44] facing a constrained budget environment it's very important for us to not pick blindly but to pick with a sense of does it cost more than a general comprehensive high school not that we won't pay that cost but to understand that and make an informed decision it would be my expectation mr. done that it would not cost more I don't think we have that luxury right now I do know that there are a variety of companies and mr. Sethi's here too that are looking partner with schools on a variety of these topics and I think that again starting with ninth and tenth graders and our preemptive coursework as we would

[02:06:22] begin a school gives us another year ish to firm up those partners mr. Sethi do you feel comfortable sharing some of the partnership possibilities that we've already begun one very recently that I think is very exciting in the broad sense there's been opportunities in the past Microsoft famously had a school with Philadelphia that opened up this is a little while ago Amazon certainly has investments in future engineering program where they bring in resources into a building so any of those opportunities especially in the Nova area we have plenty of headquarters from these companies who are willing to

[02:06:56] potentially invest in opportunities to build those programming with resources and sharing of cost in some ways would it be possible to do an industry RFI or meetings with CEOs I know you've done a big state of the school speech reach out to some of those CEOs to see our you know get a sense of the market right what the demand is and whether they might be willing as Ms. Sethi says to contribute funding not just on a short term but on a sustained basis so yes sir I I think that's one of the things we're working on right now this school just happens to be an opportunity because it's a bit of a blank slate right it's an opportunity

[02:07:35] or a palette to begin to fill in we in looking at just a variety of options we're talking about actually in October an initiative that we're going to be talking a little bit more with the board here very shortly but meeting the moment is kind of how we're characterizing it and it's meeting the moment in our future forward thinking in particular with AI and so we're can going to be convening a think tank of industry leaders to really be thoughtful about what that could look like here since we in Northern Virginia are a tech

[02:08:10] hub for the nation so absolutely I think that's something we can put together the design of the school is a little bit different and and some of that is baked into the concrete it's very differently designed than than our traditional schools so can you talk a little bit about how that might factor into your recommendations the board or consideration of programming so I think that there are gonna be some remodel needs given that it was a school that housed both elementary and secondary students the two adjacent buildings on the campus provide us space also for classrooms and labs we have two

[02:08:48] unfinished office buildings with I'm trying to remember over 4,000 square feet each 15,000 30,000 total 30,000 square feet sorry I don't work at the four um but uh four total floors because we've looked at two floors and two floors and seven thousand roughly seven thousand per floor right so and those are completely non-constructed right now so uh those are opportunities whatever we determine or decide they can be traditional classrooms they can be labs they can be combinations thereof um but uh you know the

[02:09:24] design of the building so that's wonderful right we can design it from however we wish i think other aspects of the building will need some design and some of those we already have outdoor classrooms on site and the cafeteria all of the furnishings have come with the school and all the options for the type of scratch cooking we're wanting to do so i think there will be structural adjustments for sure so i'm very excited about this school but what i know what you said is a magnet school limited to the western high schools which i I appreciate that makes sense.

[02:10:00] It's at the farthest end of the county that you can go. But we don't have a magnet school on the eastern end of the county. And we just recently had an FCPS staff member come out to one of my high schools that's also heavily attended by Franconia students and speak incredibly disparagingly about Route 1 schools.

[02:10:18] And that's not a one-time thing. That happens frequently in recent years. And so what I'm seeking is geographic equity. If we're going to set up a magnet school on the Western side of the county, that's great. My question is, when are we gonna set up a magnet school on the Eastern side of the county so that every student attending this school system will have equitable, equal access to fantastic programming?

[02:10:43] It doesn't have to be the same programming, right? Doesn't have to be aviation here, aviation there, AI here, AI there. But I do wanna make sure that we are approaching this from a school system perspective and not simply continuing to benefit the Western half of the county, which historically has received a disproportionate share in recent decades from FCPS in the county?

[02:11:05] - So, great question. I think that's part of my ask when we talked about upgrading our academy options across the county. I don't know when we'll, our CIP doesn't include a new building in the eastern, is Route 1 eastern or northern?

[02:11:25] - Eastern. - Eastern, okay. eastern part of the county but I think we can look at high schools where we have space or locations where we have space Dr. King you had your hand up or we were what are your thoughts I'm just nodding because I agree with you about updating academies across the county with the same kind of programming that would make it equitable we'd make it more equitable but I and I also want to acknowledge we have the Braddock district which doesn't have access to the academies right no academies at all so we've got sort of pockets of yeah we have pockets of the

[02:12:05] division that really do need equitable access to programming obviously so it's point well taken and I I think to your point mr. down we may need to take the global priority areas and also look at some other areas and then think about what is a five-year plan look like to have these located and maybe delivered differently maybe they're delivered synchronously online if they don't have a classroom or maybe they're delivered in you know six week mini intercession classes there are a lot of ways to gain access but we're gonna have to be really intentional to do that I note that Montgomery County is looking through a

[02:12:44] global lens that their entire county and access so certainly addressing the needs in Braddock as well as the eastern half the county I just ask that we look at this continuously through a global lens and a five-year plan is a a great approach and not just through a school or in one district lens, thank you.

[02:13:05] - Thank you, Ms. Anderson and then Mr. Frisch. - I don't wanna repeat anything that my colleagues have said. I do know that this is a particularly, it's an interesting makeup of a school for those of us who have been out to see it. And it definitely, the space itself is gonna take a little bit of work to make sure that it works within the system.

[02:13:24] Do you think the existing set up of this school a barrier to success for the for having this be a traditional high school i don't think so i don't think it is i think there's some features some of the quiet spaces the smaller collaboration rooms that i would be sorry to see taken out because i think there's a space for that structure it's a it's probably our newest built school of any of our schools in the division honestly it's only nine years old so when i look at some of the features they've

[02:14:02] included they've been thoughtful about some contemporary instructional framework ideas that I think would they're gonna push our thinking about how we could use those spaces for secondary education so I don't think there's I don't see it as a barrier I really don't okay the other question that I had for you is do you see this if we're gonna focus Western if we're gonna focus this this area and I and I do fully and completely understand that the reason that this school has been in the CIP as long as it has been is because the western portion of the county is overcrowded and we need to we need to create space I guess my

[02:14:39] question is if we had this be a magnet school that would also potentially allow TJ to continue to be a magnet school in the eastern part of the county or I mean if you're looking at the county kind of split would it be possible that it actually increases capacity up or the ability to participate at both schools schools.

[02:14:59] So it means that more students from the eastern and southern part of the county, or wherever we draw the line, different pyramids would be available to go to TJ, because I don't think that we're going to exactly mimic programming, but I do think that there's a certain amount of overlap that could be occurring between these two schools, and so I just wonder whether or not it would open up more opportunity for everyone.

[02:15:24] - I think that the programming likely will look pretty different between TJ and what we're referring to here with more, I think it will just be different, but I think the fact that students might choose this who might otherwise have thought about choosing TJ might open up more spots just by the virtue of some students are gonna maybe make a choice to go to this program for a variety of reasons that may open up more spaces, just by virtue of how many people would be in a lottery for TJ.

[02:15:59] - Okay, 'cause I do love the idea of our kids having more opportunity to decide which schools, and I know a significant number of kids that are not interested in necessarily the programming at TJ that could potentially be interested in this type, particularly if we are able to go to a little bit more of a STEAM model, because I do know the school has a significant arts area that could be focused on as well.

[02:16:22] And so I do know that we might hit kids that might not necessarily be solely interested in TJ, as this would be another opportunity for them. So I would definitely understand that we would be opening up opportunity to reduce capacity on the western side of the county.

[02:16:38] I do not think that this eliminates the need to renovate schools as we move forward, just because I do know if you look at the end of the renovation queue right now, a significant portion of those schools are in the western portion of the county, just as the cyclical nature of all of this occurs.

[02:16:54] So I would very much be interested in figuring out how to make all that possible, so. - Thank you, Mr. Prisch. - Thank you, little known fact.

[02:17:09] I grew up in the shadow of Howard Hughes, not literally, he's much, much older than I am. But Howard Hughes Aviation Company was right down the road from my high school, and my high school was included inside of it.

[02:17:26] It was a comprehensive school, and inside of it was also an aerospace science magnet. And so I certainly see a value in multiple different ways in approaching industry and others to partner with us in offering services in our school, in this new school.

[02:17:51] But I do worry that I don't want to get too far afield from where the original intention behind a new Western high school originated and why it initially appeared in our bonds was to help relieve capacity issues.

[02:18:13] And those capacity issues on that side of the county trickle down in a lot of interesting ways. One of the interesting things that has always been a part of the conversation is that if we bring in a new Western High School to relieve capacity concerns at Centerville, for example, that could relieve capacity constraints as far away as Oakton High School.

[02:18:36] And so this is something that members of my community have been watching and waiting to hear about for a long time. And so as the conversation proceeds, my advocacy will be that we try and find a way to maximize capacity relief while also building out something special here.

[02:18:56] I think you can have a magnet inside of a comprehensive school and apart from. And I don't expect us to launch everything as it's going to be on the first day. And so I'm fine with the idea of building on a multi-year plan that envisions a future where we offer these great academic enrichment opportunities with an eye towards the future economy, even if it's not fully formed in those first few years.

[02:19:26] SO I LOOK FORWARD TO HAVING FURTHER CONVERSATIONS WITH MY COLLEAGUES AND WITH THE SUPERINTENDENT ON THIS SUBJECT AND HOPE THAT, YOU KNOW, IN ADDITION TO THESE GREAT ACADEMIC OPPORTUNITIES THAT WE'RE ALSO KEEPING AN EYE ON THE OPPORTUNITIES FOR CAPACITY RELIEF THAT THIS PRESENTS TO US.

[02:19:49] THANK YOU. I'M HAVING TROUBLE HEARING. THANK YOU, MR. Ray was just asking for a different slide to be shown on the screen yeah and and I appreciate uh this part of the presentation um and you know um I don't I don't see a traditional with a magnet in there but you know I think it's a you know in some to some extent a matter of the words we use um uh what I do know is that I am uh much more supportive of a concept that includes

[02:20:26] uh a traditional school with it thank you dr anderson um thank you i'm actually very glad to follow what mr frisch um just shared um again no dog in this fight at all i am way yonder i am over here so the trickle down will not be happening into the mason district but i do know that i've sat here meeting after meeting year after year listening to the concerns in the western high schools and I am not seeing that Centerville is going to be addressed in a way that's going to allow us to expand it and the conversation around the

[02:21:06] acquisition of the site has been to provide relief to the Western schools so for me that too has to be a huge component of what happens here having said that this is exciting it's exciting to have a new site it's exciting to build from the ground up it's exciting to to to create a new program that's going to better position our students to be more competitive so I'd like to have my cake and eat it too so I would look I would love to see a a structure that relieves the overcrowding and provides this exciting work that is being articulated

[02:21:44] here and to see how we could trickle down some of that some of that exciting curriculum into our other schools who won't have the opportunity because of many reasons, many of them valid to travel to this new site because access to programming continuously is a conversation that we've had before the policy, the boundary policy, during the boundary policy, even now, I would hate for us to create one more niche that is only accessible because of of where you're located if there's some spaces to bring and you mentioned a few dr reed

[02:22:23] off the top of the of your head to bring some of this wonderful programming to other places i think that would be a wonderful wonderful thing to do a question that i do have is where is the community in terms of the programming piece is that just a board conversation and decision are we going to at some point bring some things out to the community for their feedback again no dog in the fight at all but just questions and

[02:22:59] wonderings that I have I think that we certainly could engage in the process I think the conversation starts here and I if you're all in a particular of a particular mind then that sort of sets the course in terms of how we might interact and with which community right if it's going to be the boundary community that we're planning that's a different conversation than like the Western high schools which is different than the division so just wanted to get a feel

[02:23:35] for where you as a board were this afternoon first sure that makes perfect sense and the other thing that I'd like to understand a little bit better is just the convergence of the timeline of this work and the timeline of the boundary work it seems a little bit hard for me to kind of follow what needs to come first to inform the other part so if there could be a document that takes both of those under consideration and just maybe overlaying the two processes that would be very helpful and I'll just say one more thing because I won't need

[02:24:10] any more go back again I'm way over here but this is a very exciting opportunity as well my last thing is when we're talking about net zero again not sure if this is the space if you had a recommendation in terms of the retrofitting being that we are in a tight financial landscape I know she's writing I was doing integrate processes into one form no it's fine I'm happy to repeat if you had a recommendation from a staffing perspective and you know

[02:24:49] seeing what all the dollars are and what they're not regarding the net-zero work with retrofitting some of the schools and well obviously you know with all due respect the board has you know direction on the table for us to pursue net zero period full stop so that's what staff have been working under the assumption of doing and obviously in the bond here we put 111 million

[02:25:23] towards net zero to previously approved projects if the board didn't have that direction obviously with staff we're gonna follow the direction if the board if you're asking my opinion absent that direction I feel like we have a significant number of renovation needs and honestly like we have a list of 29 elevators right now that we're scrambling to make sure they work I just feel like we are our renovation cycles gone from 27 to over 40 years I I feel

[02:26:00] like if I if you were asking me I think I would probably prioritize getting some of the major projects done first having said that I don't know how you go back and once the project's done you can't go back in net zero them either so I think it's a it's a value statement that's gonna that the board's gonna have to wrestle with but it again if I had to look at 111 million dollars and all the list in the queue we've got I probably would go in a different direction thank you thank you dr. Anderson next mystic followed by mr. McElveen so I'm gonna

[02:26:40] pick up from what you just let me just clarify we've had to make that decision with the buses right because the EV buses are $440,000 a bus and a diesel bus as Andy left but I think like a hundred and twenty five thousand we cannot without federal grants or some sort of support afford to pay four hundred and forty thousand four times the cost for a bus we just I can't justify that in our budget times right now so I say that to say that if you extrapolate that into buildings if we're not getting some grant support I think

[02:27:17] it's hard to it's hard to make those expenses so I just want to comment on - Thank you, Dr. Reed. Actually, I was just going to say the same thing that right now with the tightening budget and our buildings falling apart, I think that use of the money for maintaining, updating the facilities is more important.

[02:27:40] And I know it's very hard to do retrofitting of a building once it's done. Would you agree to that? - Yes, correct. - So I think it's gonna cause additional expense. We have just spent $150 million purchasing the school and I would just think we should, it's in good condition.

[02:28:02] Let's move on and with the minor adjustments, I guess, which is needed for programming. But I'm coming back to this, how which kind of programming option it should have. The crowding in Chantilly High School, Centerville and Westville is up so at capacity and some other schools.

[02:28:24] I would really like this to be a traditional school. probably with just a couple of extra programming which will cause it like a magnet. And you have listed really good ideas here, all great ideas to be included in our programming.

[02:28:41] And I'm just thinking maybe we can add some of this programming in our academies, like machine learning, data science. GMU professor, head of the department, Dr. Motu has been asking that we should, he wants to collaborate with FCPS for data science program many times, and we have started already offering it to many of the high school, the data science program.

[02:29:05] The other programs can be also, just like Dr. Anderson was saying, can be started in different, different high school, maybe one program at a time. But for this school, I would just, because it's near to the airport also, aerospace, aviation, and AI.

[02:29:22] AI is, everybody's talking about AI, the talk of the town is the future I think that would be a really cool place I would like to see the school have some programming around it and definitely would like this to be again students from Western High School be participating because that's where we are seeing we did not just buy this building or the school just because it was beautiful and we had we had to scramble for money and for the reason we did it so I would really like to to support the community whose needs the most and they're looking forward to this space to be used.

[02:30:01] But I definitely like the idea of all the different principles. So I wanted to ask you, would it be possible for having this as not a traditional school, but school limited to a district, I should say, but then also open up the academy portion of that, our programming portion for the Western High School that you just said, Western side of high school, and bring some students for aviation program and maybe AI programs.

[02:30:31] - Yes ma'am, so what I think I hear you saying is a traditional-ish high school that will have its own boundaries with the integration of academies along the lines of some of these global priority areas that could be accessed by other Western high school students as a sort of an academy kind of idea.

[02:30:56] I can certainly take that back to the team and we can work on what would be possible with that for sure. - And just speaking of that schools, how for me, TJ is Eastern school.

[02:31:11] It's take 45 minutes for somebody from Sanderville to go to TJ and kids on the bus spend more than an hour and half sometimes, more than an hour, not half and half, but it is still a long time to commute to TJ. So yeah, like Ms. Anderson was saying, maybe some of our Western side high school student may prefer to go to this school and then maybe there'll be more spots open at TJ for certain from the other, that side of, I guess, county.

[02:31:39] So might be that option, but again, really excited. I wanna just say that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity we have and we are the board which made it happen and under your leadership too. and we really want to make it right and make it right by our community and our students.

[02:31:58] Thank you. - Thank you. Mr. McElveen followed by Mr. McDaniel. - So it's rare that we have the opportunity to innovate in a really tangible way. And don't get me wrong, there's innovation going on every day in the system.

[02:32:14] But the last time I can recall this board really innovating was with the portrait of a graduate, right? Which, and that was 12 years ago where we really acted as futurists. we looked ahead to see what our students would need to be successful in the future, and we've made that a reality.

[02:32:31] But this is really, again, kind of a tangible, palpable opportunity to do that same work. And staff has done great visioning work through ORSI, and we have a great list up here. I would be remiss if I didn't point to other options that could be considered, for example, humanities school which our dear friends at the Fairfax Federation have been advocating for for years an art school a leadership school along the lines of Maggie Walker in Richmond so there are there are lots of different opportunities

[02:33:07] that all of which are not explored up here but dr. Reed the first thing I would want to ask you is in the work of or see and your team have you seen models of when we look to the future which of these models have not been implemented obviously we've heard of at the Howard Hughes school and aviation academies elsewhere but what has not been done I think that there are iterations of all of these and honestly contemporary high schools are looking very different than traditional high schools and I think all of these topics

[02:33:46] are being explored across the nation. I think quantum is the most interesting to me in terms of the sensor technology that's coming out. I don't think we've seen a quantum school program, but I think that it can certainly, I like that these could be paired with a very thoughtful arts program and humanities program.

[02:34:10] I think none of these exist outside of our humanity. So there has to be a way to pair that. But there are just so many, I think what's probably not out there yet, Mr. McElveen, is sort of the ability to access school differently, like 24/7, 365 days a year, right?

[02:34:31] Like I think that's our next frontier, is how we use time, not just what we put in the confines of the time we have. And so when I think about our next frontier, that's what I think about, not just the content but how does and how do we show it right like the mastery transcript or its actual visual evidence of our best work that really really takes that metacognition that all of us need to do on a regular basis to another level and so I think that's where I look at the future and lastly I'll say

[02:35:10] these topics need to be accessible for our very youngest children and when I I think about our young young children in elementary school who are so very curious that would be an area that I would also think about is how do these get more infused and we're making a lot of progress in that front but that's another area frontier if you will yeah well that's great and very helpful and you know my colleagues will recognize the fact that this school has a very unique physical plant physical structure that is conducive to pods and organizing

[02:35:48] learning in a very different way and so that's just another reason I don't think we want to give up on the opportunity to do something unique here I would identify myself with miss Dixit's comments I do I think almost everyone is advocating the same thing to do something special but within a traditional comprehensive model and I would just remind my colleagues and others that whatever we do with this school it's inherently going to reduce or relieve capacity issues elsewhere it doesn't happen in a vacuum so anyway it's it's good news no matter what we do thanks thank you mr. McElveen mr.

[02:36:28] McDaniel thanks yes ditto ditto all around I'll add my voice it needs to be Western boundary traditional high school. I have a hard time. We've talked about the funding challenges that we're having. I have a hard time spending 150 plus million dollars on, you know, something that's not targeted towards capacity relief in the West. When boards pass, the division has very consistently stated that Western capacity relief is a priority. So I would echo all the

[02:37:01] comments in support of that. Something Mr. Dunn said really jumped out there. I'm glad he brought it up because another concern that I have would have had of making this a magnet program, it's an equity issue. I mean, even if we say, well, it's okay, what's the Western magnet program?

[02:37:20] I mean, I've toured schools all across the county and there is not equity in program access. There's just not. So I do think that there needs to be something special done at this school, but there needs to be special things done in all of our schools.

[02:37:36] this presentation is a template for how we get there division-wide that's where i really want to see things going um so i'll be supporting this as a as a regular you know boundaried high school to provide that capacity relief in the west and this is a road map towards advanced programming division-wide i think thank you miss mayor yes and miss clerk if you could please put up slide 9. I'd appreciate it, the current one, the current presentation. Thank you. So, you know, Dr. Reed, I was thinking about when you arrived three years ago in the strategic planning

[02:38:12] process, you put the previous board through and you led us through that, and it was very deliberate and we had scheduled time and we engaged and we emerged with the strategic plan and maybe you knew where we were headed, but at least we got to feel that ownership. When I look at this schedule, it's about the naming process. It doesn't tell me after today, what is the next step for the board to continue this discussion to make an informed decision about programming?

[02:38:41] That's going to need to include the costs for the renovations of the different types of programs presented. We're going to need to know because as beautiful as this building is, we know that it's outfitted a certain way. Are things going to be renovated? Which option is going to require what?

[02:38:56] We've got to know those price tags well before November. Is there an option to build new space eventually? It's on acreage. Is that an option, short-term or long-term? It's also adjacent to Rachel Carson Middle School, which has a lot of acreage.

[02:39:13] Are you even considering repurposing any of that, or is there an alternative where this opens differently? And again, with the costs and none of that is clear to me, and I don't see when we're going to be updated on that and for us to deliberate.

[02:39:35] You had mentioned about the bond. So you said if you're asking me, I'd go in a different direction. We are asking you. I'm literally asking you what you would put in this bond. And I don't think that this current board has been given due diligence because you all don't know the history of that net zero thing.

[02:39:53] And I could tell you now what it was was Carl Frisch and I passed them at net zero. board passed it at the time and then it went nowhere and it turned out that the previous superintendent and staff it seems so I understand did not enforce it but you can't retrofit net zero you just can't so the fact that it's still on here and you're saying Dr. Reed that you would go in a different direction please tell us because I as much as I want to be environmentally sustainable retrofitting is not going to get us there and it's not our priority now I I need to know what to change it to.

[02:40:32] I had the questions about the queue and the bond and the CIP. So thank you, Ms. Mayor. And I think my recommendation, if we could get Centerville moving with the permitting, would be to utilize the money and the bond that we're setting aside for net zero to support getting moving on Centerville on the renovation.

[02:40:56] Having said that, we've been working on the permitting, I want to say, for over a year and are making zero progress. So I hesitate, right, to make that recommendation, but I could go back to the team and say, if we truly are not gonna use this money to go back and look at net zero, and we don't think Centerville's moving, then what's next in the queue?

[02:41:18] And I'm happy to come back to you with a recommendation. - So just to summarize, are you saying that Centerville High School renovation is not moving forward because Fairfax County is not issuing the permitting? - I am saying that it's not moving forward because we don't have a permit.

[02:41:33] And I think we are on the school division side. I know Janice, before she left, was working with somebody in the planning department, which Eric has picked up that work, and we've not been able to come to agreement. And absent an agreement and absent a permit, we can't begin the renovation work.

[02:41:52] - Well, that's disappointing to hear. Thank you. - Thank you. Ms. Seismarheiser. - Thank you, and my apologies for having to step out for a minute. A couple things, I just wanted to clarify some of the comments that I heard today.

[02:42:09] - I think it's really important that we have equity of access around the county. And this is a really exciting opportunity. It's a once in a generation opportunity we have here. And I think we need to take advantage of it. I think we've had overcrowding issues. I would defer to my magisterial colleague on that side, as we often do to our magisterial colleagues in terms of addressing the needs of our district.

[02:42:28] I also think, I agree with my colleague, that this is an opportunity to be creative and to be future focused. And as things are rapidly changing, to be able to provide our students the skills opportunities to meet the needs of as you said the 21st century and maybe the 22nd century just to be clear though on the eastern side four by three of the four high schools have some sort of Academy program Edison has an Academy program Lewis has the Lewis Academy in West Potomac has a regular Academy so there are and the only other high school there is Mount Vernon in Braddock we

[02:43:03] have none in Braddock we have two of the three two of the three physically located high schools in Braddock are secondary schools my kids went to secondary school I love it however it is inequitable from a facility standpoint there is one set of facilities for two schools one gym one track one field often one cafeteria one theater it makes it very difficult to have equity whereas in a standalone middle school you have a full set of facilities and the standalone high school you have a full set of facilities and we have no conversation

[02:43:42] how to address that inequity so I would very strongly if we have an Academy program with the traditional I would very strongly be against limiting to the Western High School because there is such inequity to the Braddock district right and I and I don't there isn't an Academy program nearby we don't have three out of our four schools with an Academy program in Braddock we have none so I do think that whatever if we have some sort of specialty programming it needs to be open to everybody like we have some capacity relief as well I think and I know Drainsville has similar issues there's no Academy program in Jainsville also so I don't need to seek my colleague but that's my understanding also there's obviously different areas have different needs and we should address the different needs of different areas but that is an area that is a

[02:44:21] need in Braddock and we're not talking about that so having said that I think I don't think we should lose this opportunity to do something that sets our kids up for success in the future right and what I see I don't think siloing something one where the other is the right way to go right the skills that I see students need are the AI skills. You and I have talked about this quite a bit, the AI adjacent skills, right? How to use AI as a tool to improve productivity is not necessarily how to create generative AI models, but how to actually use it. Data science is

[02:44:58] part of the business process and is part of it. I think STEAM needs to be done because we've often talked about, and many companies that talk about critical thinking, communication, teamwork, that comes a lot from arts work and doing team projects. I think if we can create an academy model that encompasses many of the things that you're talking about with those skills and i'll take a go back also that's what i would strongly urge you to do i'll defer to my colleague in terms of comprehensive versus not versus magnet i think that you know your district better but we've got to set our kids up for success i'll take a go back sorry thank you miss st john coming um thank you and ditto to a lot of what my colleagues have said um

[02:45:38] Dr. Reed, can you differentiate the difference between a traditional academy and a school within a school? That was on slide eight. All right. We can go back to slide. Thank you. That was quick. Thanks.

[02:45:54] I think that a traditional with academies would generally have, and this is my understanding as academies are a bit new, but new to me, but traditional with academies would be, you've got programs that often juniors and seniors lottery I guess there's some type of process they can explain it you probably know it that kids can come in for a couple hours and go back to their base school right or they could be at their base school and go to the Academy and then go back to their base school classes but it offers other students from other schools access a school within

[02:46:30] a school would be like if we placed aerospace as a school within a school for example at the new school you would start as a ninth grader beginning a thread of coursework that would often be four years of coursework with a cohort of students so you're really a school within a school if that makes sense so I've seen that for a variety of the arts right you can have a school within a school where you essentially are a cohort of students that tend to go with your cohorted friends or whoever not they don't have to be friends but your

[02:47:09] cohorted classmates for four years because you're on a path you're in really your own little school it just happens to be at a school and then you can take it it's not even listed up here but you could take it to a more extreme you know Gates did a lot of research around this the Julia Richmond Academy for example in New York had multiple small schools in a particular site so they would have perhaps five different academies that were all four-year school programs but they happen to share a site and that's often a model you'll see in larger urban areas right you might have three or four schools within schools

[02:47:45] that are their own schools you're nodding in Houston I mean a lot of because there's a lot of research that says that small schools you you tend to know children in their work better and often can be more successful and some of our very large schools kids can become anonymous and not necessarily be known or have their work known or get the attention they might otherwise get so I don't know if that answers your question but a school within a school is often a four-year path like a magnet within a traditional school kind of because right but it doesn't have to be a magnet in the sense that it could still be with own within only that boundary you could still drive but it's children that and

[02:48:23] do they want that experience say that in if they're in that path that little school within a school would they still be taking classes with the general that's not with the larger school sure they could I think for example aerospace there's a four-year program where they actually build the plane at the end of four years they've built a plane right so they're certainly taking some courses as a cohort over four years but then certainly have electives that they although most electives would probably be within their chosen path but they could take other courses if they wanted to their humanities and that type of

[02:49:00] thing so I wouldn't just be novels about planes no no I think that's that's a helpful distinction you know I I always speak about equity because that's important and we do speak about the eastern part of the county and I would like to say the southeastern part of the county is one of my colleagues says I'm almost in Maryland so you know that and the decision we have before us is what we're gonna do with this school which does not disregard any of the comments that any of my other colleagues have made which I completely agree with that we should strive for this to happen in all schools and we have to have this

[02:49:40] programming available in all geographic areas and we have to look at the twice exceptional we also have to look at the socio economically disadvantaged to make sure that they all have access to this programming I think sometimes we're excited I'm excited about this program the school these possibilities but when we get excited about something very conscientiously all of us think about well what about other areas and we amplify everything when really right now the decision before us is this and we have to hyper focus on this and use this as a springboard to maybe bring programming to other parts of the area, to

[02:50:19] other parts of the county, and to look at other program auctions because I know one of my colleagues as well as I would be very interested in arts, you know, and something like this because we're very supportive of the arts, medical and health. If we're talking about AI, we can look at the green industry because, boy, that uses a lot of water, and do we need innovation to save our water supply, you know? So I think there's a lot of possibilities here that we can look at and you know and I appreciate what you brought to us but I do think that community input is important and I do think that we have to not lose sight of the fact that this was to first and foremost alleviate overcrowding so I

[02:50:59] would definitely support the concept of a community a school a community school with maybe academies or school within a school with community input but we have to look at what the decision is in front of us because it's an opportunity and everything else that was brought up absolutely 100 but we can't do everything right now this is what we have to focus on thank you um i'm going to take my turn before we start go backs uh i first want to thank

[02:51:35] staff for all the hard work that you put in having toured this facility to me it was crystal clear it's not set up like a traditional high school so hear me out the future focused idea is phenomenal having worked at tj i think what my colleagues and again i'd be happy to work with people to explain this but it's such a unique experience because you're building up to your senior tech lab or your internship experience as a tj student and when you go back and look at the pathways we're talking about here this is tremendous opportunity i'm nervous about a traditional

[02:52:10] high school because of losing partnering funding okay we're talking a lot about the workforce we're talking a lot about what we have in terms of companies technology companies around us if we're going to put in this type of lab we're going to need to output students with these skill sets and so having said that i'm i i'm fine restricting enrollment predominantly to the western schools having worked at chantilly for years and watched us grow and grow and grow but i think there's other innovative innovative ways to also address overcrowding like we've never discussed here. Like when I first worked, I worked at James Wood High School in Winchester,

[02:52:49] they had an eight-period day. Some kids started at 7:30, some kids started at 9:00. And then some kids were done at whatever that time would be later, and some kids were done closer to 5:00. But adding that extra period, at least on the ends, you had fewer kids. But anyhow, we have to be creative. But I think that I really want to capitalize on funding, because funding is our problem we have this year responsibility and we don't have any money um and we need to push that out to folks more to understand how underfunded we are for facilities versus our school districts that are surrounding us and our revenue sources so i that's my fear

[02:53:28] uh i i can live with the school within a school but i think people need to understand how pathways work um that you're scaffolding up to this senior research or to building a plane by by the fourth year i also think we need to take an account financially a traditional high school this school right now while there is acreage i agree no tennis courts no baseball field no softball field no football in there there's a field there but there's no you know um lights and goal posts thank you for the that goal post um but i also see potential for from an equity perspective for other things that are already built into it like early childhood is fantastic we have there's a preschool in there

[02:54:08] there with its own drop-off, I would love to see early childhood as an academy program. I would also love to see in the office building that we could bring HVAC to this side of the county or electricity and some of those other programs that we have to go all the way to West Potomac to get.

[02:54:23] Also having said that, depending upon the clientele of the school, dance, theater, and arts because of the spaces that are phenomenal. The last thing I'm going to say is having worked at Chantilly, there were so many programs that were in our academy, that as they got popular, they became school classes offered at Chantilly High School, and no longer in the academy, and not just Chantilly, but at every high school. So there's several examples of STEM engineering and courses that over time became standard at all of our schools. So this can be the leading way. We need to continue with that. We have a lot of work to do in our academies to make them more career

[02:54:59] pathway type things, and I'll stop there and maybe take a turn later, but we're going to star go backs. And first on my list is Mr. Frisch. Thank you. Just to pick up a little bit off where Miss Lady was going, you know, there are obviously amenities at the school that are needed in order for it to be fully comprehensive. I understand that. I think that's why, depending on the path that's taken, we need like a multi-year plan of how we're getting from point A to point B.

[02:55:31] In terms of net zero ready schools, I would hate for us to walk away from those commitments based on a tiny portion of a portion of a work session, when the way that we got to those goals was a multi-year joint board venture with the Board of Supervisors that included members of the community from across Fairfax County, including students and advocates that resulted in the unanimous adoption of the Joint Environmental Task Force goals by the Board

[02:56:08] of Supervisors and by the school board, and has been re-ratified over and over again in our adoptions of CIPs and budgets these many years later. And as Ms. Maren noted, one of the first things that this new board did in adopting the CIP in 2024 was correct previous mistakes that had us moving forward with projects that were not net zero ready by ensuring that future products, projects going forward would be net zero ready. So before the train leaves the station

[02:56:46] To abandon that work, the many years of work that went into that, I think we need to maybe pause on that conversation. And if it's going to result in some kind of action, we need a much deeper conversation than has been provided in this board work session.

[02:57:09] Certainly something with presentations and data and everything else. I just wanted to put that out there because a lot of people did a lot of work to get us to this point. And, you know, I would hate to see us walk away from it without fully vetting that decision.

[02:57:31] Thank you, Mr. Krish. Mr. Dunn. Thank you. I just wanted to start with TJ is not the magnet school for the eastern half of the county. I want to state that very explicitly. From the Mount Vernon District, there was, until the changes, single digits, less than 10 students in the entire Mount Vernon District that attended TJ.

[02:57:54] So that is not a magnet high school for my magisterial district. And I don't think that we have discussed today a testing regime or admissions process similar to TJ, and I hope we're not going to put that on the table, but if we are considering them equivalents, let's make sure we're looking at apples to apples comparison.

[02:58:19] In addition, TJ is a governor's school, admitting people from neighboring counties. Is that something we're talking about with the Western High School? I just want to make sure I understand the parameters of what we're talking about here. I do appreciate the point made by my colleague, keep our eye on the money, just as Ms. Marin always says.

[02:58:36] So anything we can do to keep that money and on a sustained basis, I am cognizant that that there are some billionaires out there who committed to fund certain schools for low-income students, cut off funding, and all those students are high and dry now. So we have to be careful about relying on generosity that might be fleeting.

[02:58:54] And finally, on net zero, I appreciate the fact, I've done a lot of work in the utility sector. I think we have to take a step back, say, what are our objectives? And if the objective is to help save the environment, protect the environment in the most cost-effective way, net zero is not it.

[02:59:12] And I'll come back to the board with more research on that. But that is a very costly approach that if you talk to anyone in the utility sector, they'll tell you there are better ways to achieve that, especially as a large organization like our school division. Thank you.

[02:59:28] - Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Ms. Sizemore-Haiser. - Thank you. A couple of things. You know, when we talk about a school within a school, what parts of my head is Colgan and Prince William, which is a performing arts magnet school within a comprehensive high school.

[02:59:44] and the people who go to the Colgan Performing Arts Magnet School start there as freshmen and stay there all the way through seniors and access that curriculum along with a comprehensive curriculum. That to me sounds like a great option potentially for this school if it fits, because you can help alleviate the overcrowding, and again I would defer to my magisterial colleague on that, while offering a more comprehensive pathway for some of this 22nd century learning that I think is, you and I have talked many times, so that's something that I would really would love to explore as an option to you know we need to i think having i can't who said it socializing some of these options with the community actually i think might make a lot of

[03:00:22] sense maybe there's community meetings on the western side to say i can't i can't if you said it and you may have said it mystics it and miss dr anderson so i think that's a really good idea because i think we didn't really know all the possibilities right until we saw this and i think that's a great thing to get the community input on what the possibilities are and see what they want for that area they're the ones living with the overcrowding as well obviously we want to make sure we take care of our funding stream i did have a question when we talked about partnerships with industry dr reed over the years i have brought different options of partnerships with industries and i'll be honest it hasn't gone many places and you and i've talked about the stymieing of some

[03:00:58] of that so what processes are we going to put in place internally to make sure those are successful well you know i think that our partnerships um are critical right we partner with our families we partner with our community and our business leaders i think that as the years evolve so too our practices have to evolve so i think there was a time in fairfax where there were a lot more partnerships i know marty we talked about the wallace foundation in terms of our leadership work

[03:01:34] and that we partnered for years until what 2017 ish it was about 2015 2015 ish and now we're trying to reconnect and make sure we re-up some of these partnerships so i i think we do have the bones for that and for whatever reason maybe it was covet i'm not sure but um we've not had as many recently but i we definitely have a push to get back on that uh get that train back on the tracks i would just encourage you for that's a big piece of what we're trying to do here that we make sure we have a tight infrastructure internally for that before we go down that path um just based on my experience

[03:02:13] over the last five years around trying to connect with different partners um i i love this idea of this 22nd century curriculum around ai and ai adjacent jobs you know and again data science and all that can be embedded we can't lose by the way the humanity skills because once we have ai usage There's the editing of text, right, and the critical analysis of text, and you have to have the poor foundation in writing.

[03:02:36] So I think you can create a comprehensive curriculum around AI and data science at the center. I just want to make sure we're not focusing just on the tech side, because I think that's going to be a huge loss for our students, and the STEAM side, I think, is important. Yes, ma'am. I couldn't agree more. Ms. Marin.

[03:02:52] Okie dokes. Well, I appreciate Mr. Frisch talking about the multi-year initiative that was the joint environmental commission policy, I don't know what it was, but, you know, it really shouldn't take many years for Fairfax County to decide that implementing sustainable practices is worth it.

[03:03:15] And, well, at the time, I thought it was, you know, I think it was probably the second board meeting of this board that approved that. So I dare say maybe we all weren't up to speed, things change. And I agree with what Mr. Dunn said, is that there are far more ways to be environmentally sustainable than to do net zero and I hate to say it but there's many things that the board has asked the superintendent to do that haven't been done and I'm not criticizing I should preface this by saying Dr. Reed you have done more for the school division that I can even fathom anyone ever and the

[03:03:51] stuff you're doing is so advanced sometimes I think maybe it's just a little too far out for us and that's funny saying me because people say that about me all the time but like we got to revisit these decisions that That decision was made in January 2024 in a very different environment.

[03:04:07] We've been through a budget cut, we're in a political whatever it is. So I dare say that the CIP policies that we're operating under are making us not being as environmentally sustainable as we can. And I do want to make sure that our new facilities director has the language from the January 24 motion that lists the policies that governance tried to review this year, but it's a big animal.

[03:04:29] when we take this plus the boundaries it's just a lot and I think one of the questions was like what's the multi-year vision and plan for this like how do we it's not just the grade levels but I mean Miss Lady is right it has these facilities for early childhood I've asked are those gonna be ripped out I mean they're really nice you know I also think it's really important to know the difference between a magnet and a governor's school is this something we would want to be a governor's school what's that trajectory so it's fine if it's no but like i i don't know it's a chance to get revenue for tuition so anyway what's the

[03:05:08] board's role at this point but i feel like i need more info thank you miss dixit for go back i just wanted to add uh very seriously that we are talking about ai not a1 sauce thank you okay not seeing any other placards or hands i'm gonna take a go back um i think that one of the things we have to

[03:05:44] do too is think 20-year plan. 20-year plan around AAP. Now that we have you know algebra one with fidelity and all our middle schools some in our in sixth grade and some of our elementary schools this this idea that we need AAP centers I think is gonna simmer down. I think that all of our middle schools should be AAP centers because most of them have local level to do it and we also have to make sure that what's happening program with the programming of that is done with fidelity and perhaps even our elementary schools can all be that. We spend a tremendous amount of time and energy and

[03:06:22] money on transporting kids which creates split feeders which creates some of the problem conversations from a social-emotional perspective and then to the point of community input you know I'm just gonna throw this out there but my thinking is this that I absolutely would be welcoming a community input but I would prefer to see something and I don't know if we can do it in terms of security, but if there was a way to do some type of open house at the Western site, and only folks who actually go through a structured tour prior to exiting

[03:07:01] can complete a survey regarding what we should do at the high school. But to never walk in it and not see the space and make a determination, I think it's just short-sighted. And so I am open to community involvement, although we're also on a short clock, right, because we've got to make some decisions.

[03:07:17] So that's just an idea I had that I thought that I would sort of vet here. Because it is -- I mean, the robotics labs, the science labs, I mean, the way they're designed are far superior to what we currently have in traditional high schools.

[03:07:34] So I think that lends itself more towards a magnet or a magnet within a school that's We've got some traditional attendees. I see Ms. Sizemore-Heiser's placard up, so it's your turn. - No, just very quick. I love your idea of seeing the school first, 'cause it is a very different facility, but just I wanna build on that really quickly, I thought of it.

[03:07:54] Maybe if we could create a video that shows it, sort of how real estate agents do for houses, right? It won't be as good as touring it, but it might help the community see the school a little bit better without having to go tour it. It's just, I don't know if that's gonna help or not, but it's just an idea that I had of how do we help the community see what the facilities look like without having to go tour it.

[03:08:15] I also think it might be hard to do a survey, and I totally appreciate we have limited time, but it might be hard to do a survey without understanding the options, 'cause I know we sat here and had a lot of questions about what is a school within a school versus a magnet. So I don't know, I'll leave that in your capable hands, but I'm just trying to think of how can we use maybe an AI tool to create a video of what the school looks like, or a model of what the school looks like, kind of like the AI drones of my car that shows when I'm parking where I am.

[03:08:41] but I'm just wondering if we can use some of the tools we're talking about to create some information for the community to see what it looks like. Just my thought.

[03:08:57] - All right, not seeing any placards or hands. I believe we're adjourned at 4:35.

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