Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Work Session, Tuesday, September 9, 2025

Date: Tuesday, September 9, 2025
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 2h 40m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A31z_hojvdc
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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[00:00:05] The September 9th 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 as he has a work-related commitment. He's located in the Providence District in Fairfax. Mr. Frisch, can you please check your audio and video? We can see you. Just check your audio, please. Hello. Sorry. There was all those in favor of approving Mr. Frisch's request? That is unanimous with all those at the

[00:00:37] table. Mr. Frisch, please check your audio and video. Hello again. We can't hear you. That's on your end. I'm talking. Can you hear me? Can't hear you. Mr. Frisch, we have Linson working on it, so it'll be a second. If the clerks could let us know when it's ready to test, we'll test them.

[00:01:01] Mr. Frisch, we'll just put you on it later on. All right, before we begin, we need to certify our closed meetings. So in order to comply with section 2.2-3712D of the Code of Virginia, it is necessary for the board to certify that since the Fairfax County School Board convened a closed meeting on September 9th, 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 convened the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the board during the meeting.

[00:01:33] Do I have a motion? Ms. Lady, do I have a second? Mr. McLevine, all those in favor? Mr. McLevine, Ms. Lady, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Dixit, Ms. St. John Cunning, Mr. Moon, and myself, all those opposed, abstaining.

[00:01:54] Ms. Marin, did you? Oh, Ms. Marin also approved. - I approved as well. - Thank you. - And Mr. Frisch. - And Mr. Frisch, thank you. And Mr. Frisch as well. So I will now call on Dr. Reed, if you'd like to present on a budget communications plan.

[00:02:10] We do have a quick slideshow that I would like to do first, if that's okay, then we'll turn to you, just to kind of set the stage for the board. It's a three slides, so it won't take long, but I just wanted to set the stage a little bit for our board as to what the expectations are today. So if we could pull the presentation up.

[00:02:27] Thank you. So today is our first budget committee work session of the year. We're starting early as per board request from the last work session before our recess. The purpose of today's meeting, staff have been working very, very hard on a draft communications plan and plan for greater collaboration with our stakeholders and our board of supervisors.

[00:02:46] And so that is what we are looking at today to get feedback. Next slide, please. Janet, next slide, please. Thank you. And just for an FYI, this is the current budget calendar for this year.

[00:03:02] It's been shared previously, but it's here on the slides in case you need it. We can always add to this if we need to, but this is the current budget calendar. Next slide, please. Thank you. So just to frame the conversation, today is discussion points. There is no decision for today.

[00:03:18] We're going to get feedback from the board on the budget communications plan for staff so they can make any tweaks or changes as needed. We'll talk about ideas for collaboration with the Board of Supervisors, and we can also We'll talk about budget advocacy at state and federal levels, and that will include conversations around the uncertainty at the federal level.

[00:03:34] So that is all I have. I just wanted to set the stage for today. Dr. Reed, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you, Janet, you can remove the slideshow. Thank you. - Thank you, Ms. Sizemore-Heiser, and I appreciate that we're gonna work very hard this year on a process to come in with a budget to continue to support the world-class education that we provide here in Fairfax County Public Schools.

[00:03:58] team along with Ms. Dixit and Ms. Sizemore-Heiser have been working on ways to improve our collaboration and perhaps better tell our success stories to partner with our community, our PTAs, our educators, our staff, our board of supervisors, and our state delegation.

[00:04:18] So I'm going to turn the presentation over to our chief finance officer, Lee Burden, and our chief engagement and experience officer, Lisa Hall, and they can introduce other staff with them and we can review the communications plan and then really what we're hoping is to have a board discussion and include board comments and feedback as we refine the plan moving forward.

[00:04:42] So appreciate this opportunity. So Ms. Hall and Ms. Burden, please. MS. Yeah, again, I'm Lee Burden, CFO, and I have with me Alice Wigington, Budget Director. MS. Good afternoon.

[00:04:57] I'm Lisa Youngblood-Hall, Chief Experience and Engagement Officer, and beside me I have Executive Director of Communications, Beth Bizioli. Her team did a great deal of work and research with Lee's team working on the communications plan. Again, echoing Dr. Reed, this early start allows us to educate our community even earlier to make sure that our Our community understands the budget, understands so much of what we do to build the budget.

[00:05:31] This communications plan will talk about how the budget is built, how FCPS compares to other large organizations, and how all of the FCPS community can benefit, whether families have children in the district or not, just how the work that we do in FCPS can benefit the community.

[00:05:53] I'm going to turn it over to Beth Vizioli now to talk a little bit about the communications plan. Beth Vizioli: Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here today, and I appreciate the collaboration with our budget chair and vice chair on the communications plan.

[00:06:10] I'm also really excited this year that we are starting this work a little bit sooner. I think it gives us a better opportunity to ground the conversation, to build up to the point when we're going to have to make some decisions about the budget. now is the time where we spend building that strong foundation and I think at the beginning of the plan you'll see that arc of the storytelling because I think we really need to be grounded in an understanding of who we are as an organization, what our budget looks like, how we spend our budget dollars, what are the implications of that and as we get closer to the budget

[00:06:45] season and decisions around the budget then we have a strong foundation with our community understanding around FCPS's budget, and then, you know, once we get more information about what the budget's going to look like, then we can have those conversations with our community about choices that we may or may not have to make about the budget.

[00:07:04] So with that, I will turn it back over. Thank you. So board members, the budget communication plan was emailed out last Thursday to the board, and it's also posted on board docs as of last Thursday. So unless Dr. Reed, unless we'd like us to walk through section by section from staff, I was thinking we could open up the board conversation to have as much time for board conversation as possible.

[00:07:27] So if you want to sort of talk, we'll start with rounds of three minutes and then go to two minutes for go back. So we'll start with Mr. Moon. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a couple of questions to begin with. Dr. Reed, looking at the current budget calendar, the very first line I see from June to December 2025 FCPS conducts internal program internal program reviews and gather community and employee feedback when you say community feedback what are you

[00:08:04] referring to so I think I'll turn that over to our team and I think essentially as we have more information one of the examples tomorrow night is our first family vision quad meeting we had our kickoff last week and we have budget on the first round of the family quad vision meetings which are two parents from every school in the school division so that will be one group for example that will provide feedback on budget initiatives I know our PTA has asked for

[00:08:40] a budget presentation and to be able to provide feedback I think whatever the board sort of comes to here also we may end up have more having more feedback so I think it's a number of different channels are you expecting a board or board members who also provides you with avenues of collecting community feedback or is that going to be just your own for your needs going out and collecting the community feedback just wanted to see we are where our roles

[00:09:16] might be and it's coming to be back yes sir I think that's what we're talking about firming up as part of the conversation today this is something we've put in the plan as really we need to have the feedback by those dates to have input into the budget because at some point I actually have to prepare the budget that is the needs-based budget required by the statute in Virginia so I think that part of today's discussion can inform how we want to do that and how we are connected to that we had a number of budget sort of town

[00:09:51] hall meetings that happen later in the spring I think our feeling was we need to do those earlier and that was I know part of our conversation last spring so I think that that's you know how we partner to do that I think is still open and I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts and your colleagues thoughts about that okay next next one has to do with I guess this is

[00:10:15] our draft plan on page number eight. Sorry about my voice, even softer than usual. This one is one, two, three, four, five, fifth bullet point. FCPS schools implement zero-based budget. Would you explain to us, for public, how our schools implement zero-based budgets? I think that I'll

[00:10:54] turn to Ms. Burden in terms of our history here in Fairfax, but obviously it's looking at priorities and budgeting from the ground up would be a general term for zero-based budgeting, but Ms. Burden, perhaps you have the history here in Fairfax County. Yeah, it's all about the enrollment projections because we don't just roll over all of the staffing at each school location into the next year as our base budget. We recalculate based on all of the projected, on the projected enrollment as to how many teachers they need, how many counselors, all of the staffing standard items. So we build that from a zero base every single year

[00:11:34] when the enrollment projections are completed for the next year's upcoming budget proposal. I think there may be members in the community who may define a zero-based budgeting in a different way you know for example they may use SOQ as the baseline and whatever more we do provide for any programs whether whether we when we do general based budget implementation or program review we ever

[00:12:08] look at it that way so I think we could probably use the term in multiple ways sorry but I do think you could take it from the very narrow SOQ because I know know Fairfax County Public Schools and other divisions honestly in the Commonwealth fund more positions in the SOQs but that certainly is a place we could start and say if we only did the minimum right we only funded the positions allocated here's what it would cost right and then because over time our collective bargaining agreements our regulations our policies our community

[00:12:44] expectations expect these things that adds these costs so I think that's My question is whether you feel it's worth doing that exercise, show to the public that why and how we are going above and beyond SOQ, and that is why we are requesting this much of funding transfer from county and state and et cetera.

[00:13:12] I think that that would probably be an instructive exercise because we actually have class sizes that generally are better than what the SOQ staffing sizes are. In fact, we have positions the SOQ doesn't even recognize, so I think that could be an instructive practice.

[00:13:30] Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Merritt? This is fantastic. Thank you to my colleagues and the superintendent and her team. I love seeing the different offices here together at the table because everything we're doing is connected. Yes, we need this tactical plan. I think it's awesome that our board is looking to do this because we can do a lot of things, but we have to do the highest leverage things.

[00:13:58] I think for sure we need to continue to tell the story and build the knowledge and understanding of where we're at and those opportunities. As I said, what aren't we doing and continuing to highlight what other places are doing and say, well, we want the best in Fairfax as well i'd like to say that i believe our audience our number one audience are is the taxpayers those are the people who we are asking time and again to pay taxes and fund this incredible public investment they also happen to be voters who keep us accountable and i think that you know

[00:14:34] at any given time since we have only a third of our families with children in the school division WE REALLY DO HAVE TO BE SURE THAT THE PUBLIC UNDERSTANDS THE GREAT VALUE THAT THEY'RE GETTING. JUST FOR INSTANCE, WESTERN HIGH SCHOOL, WE SAVED OVER $200 MILLION OF PROJECTED COST ON THAT.

[00:14:52] WE NEED TO SHOW THAT WE ARE SAVY AND WE ARE FRUGAL AND WE ARE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT HOW WE INVEST EVERY SINGLE DOLLAR. I'D SAY THE NEXT BIGGEST AUDIENCE ARE BUSINESSES. WE'VE LONG SAID THAT BUSINESSES MOVE HERE FOR OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

[00:15:07] Now we know that capital real estate has not been as high in occupancy as we'd like. The federal industry is under a big, under lots of challenges right now. So how do we really, are we sure that businesses are looking to FCPS as the reason to locate their businesses here?

[00:15:26] We say that, but is it true? I think we need to understand that and I think the Board of Supervisors could be our partners in that. I actually think the Board of Supervisors and our state elected officials are the next most important audience.

[00:15:43] We've worked to reopen dialogue, and we've even gotten a little change in the calendar to have our joint budget meeting in December and not two days before Thanksgiving. I'd actually, in another term, when I come back, I'd really like to look at this calendar as a way to how can we build in, just like with this communications plan, more time for very specific work, you know, looking at when the county executive presents the advertised budget, a week later we're scheduled to adopt ours.

[00:16:13] And that does not set us up for real working together, especially when we have two new joint committees, one on facility review and one on technology, that aren't going to do their deliverables until March. So there's a lot of stuff coming together, and we also know we have the legislative work.

[00:16:31] So I would love if we could talk more about how we're going to put this work forward. I think a lot of the what is here, and the how as well is, but let's expand it out and really communicate more with the Board of Supervisors how to make this work.

[00:16:47] I'll take a go back on the list, Ms. Anderson followed by Dr. Anderson. I just wanted to start off by saying thank you to staff and to our budget team. I love about this is this is the start towards a blueprint of telling the story of what actually happens in our division and so I think that it's extremely important that we that we show the things that we're doing and how amazing they are so I am extremely excited about about those breadcrumbs throughout I do think that this is a very robust plan which I think is important but I would be

[00:17:27] remiss to not focus on JLARC. I think that we are in a pivotal moment right now that we could potentially capitalize particularly as things change at the state level potentially that we need to make sure that we're working hard to identify those those things that have already been tried related to JLARC and not successful under the current governor but I do think that we are we are in a moment that we must focus on that pretty strongly right now as we move forward so i just wanted to say thank you for all the work and then i did want to point out the same thing that my colleague pointed out on page 18 that our joint meeting with the board of

[00:18:06] supervisors has been moved back a week so i'm grateful for their willingness to work with us on our schedule so thank you thank you dr anderson thank you i want to echo what miss marron shared regarding our audience audience who are taxpayers are not necessarily parents so they don't have the regular communication or the regular experience of what takes place in our schools and all throughout this document there are pieces that include the

[00:18:42] community and this is not necessarily a question at you Dr. Reed but I'd love to hear your thinking as well as others and I'm also thinking how do we bring in the community into I can't remember the page right now I think page 9 into our budget priorities what could that potentially look like how do we operationalize this because up until this point just to be truthful the community has shared that they don't understand our budget because it's a big budget and it may not be as transparent to them as we would like it to be and this is something that I've articulated at the financial planning EL for at least two years how do we find a

[00:19:21] place where we can distill down all of these things into chunks that can be accessed by individuals who are looking to be informed I think last year the addition of I guess the the hot link feature that is now available with the budget for people to search for different things will be helpful but I just want to also set the expectation what are we looking how are we going to operationalize getting some input from the community regarding budget priorities

[00:19:56] and how will we treat that input i don't know if that's yet been a discussion of the budget team and staff i will say that one of the things we've discussed is making sure that we're clear with community members who don't have children currently in the schools and many community members have children who've graduated from fairfax some community members have children yet to go to fairfax some have grandchildren some have nieces nephews some have no children right So one of the things we are doing is I'm speaking, I've spoken to a Rotary Club and a Chamber of Commerce

[00:20:35] in the last two weeks, really about a number of things with regard to Fairfax County Public Schools, but also our budget and JLARC and the funding challenges we've had. And in many of these types of meetings, we have folks who are not parents, right?

[00:20:52] They're community members or business owners. So I think that we're gonna continue our, attendance at chamber and rotary and other community meetings I think there are other ways in which we're engaging the community that are being contemplated and that's part of today's conversation right also to get feedback from you as a board what channels what avenues are you feeling would be most effective in that way that will channel our energy as a team sure and just in response to that I think initially all of us as board members we have easy

[00:21:29] access to the PTAs and the PTOs again that speaks to individuals with kids in our schools but we also have some access and the board of supervisors to the civic associations to the homeowners associations could we package some sort of presentation so that we can each go out and do this in the different corners of our districts and of course with the at-large members because there are hundreds of such associations in the division in Fairfax County that could be a way of getting out the information because for individuals who are on fixed incomes which a

[00:22:09] lot of Fairfax County is or have suffered the impact of what's happening with the federal government whenever they're hearing that the schools are requiring more dollars they don't want to hear it because it could be for a number of reasons i won't even go into that but building kind of some education with that group i think would be helpful so let me just kind of wrap this up in a thought could we have some whatever it is that we land on it could it could be a ready-made packet of presentation materials that we can then i can just turn around and give to the five

[00:22:46] associations that that invite me to their meetings on a very regular basis and maybe be more intentful in terms of seeking out others yes ma'am I think we can do that miss Fisioli would you I mean I think we could create what's effectively a toolkit for budget presentations you want to comment on that please yeah that's definitely part of the strategy is to take into account the people that aren't actively engaged day to day with the division and reaching out to the HOAs and other groups one of the things that we talked about when we met with the budget chair and vice chair was training the trainer

[00:23:23] if you will making sure that we present to the people who would be bringing that message forward so they understand the materials that we create for them versus just putting a toolkit out and saying go out there and talk about this we need to help them understand so that they're going out same thing with the PTAs although I know they're you know parent groups but the intent is to create some tools but really engage with them and how they would use those other school divisions have created budget builder tools that you can engage with the community and it helps them which we did back in 2015-16 we had an online tool

[00:24:01] but there are other ways that you can engage the community and understanding how a budget is built by participating in it themselves so we can create these types of materials for the different organizations within the community to help them yeah but you want to go back next we do we have anybody oh Miss Lady thank you um just in light of and thank you for these documents thank you to the to staff and our budget chairs this is an excellent phase one budget planning strategic communication plan but what I'm just based on is on page

[00:24:41] four because there's a reference back to the cuts we had to make last year and I just want to remind people that what's named again in here is a RTS and special ed department chairs what is not named is the other people who lost their jobs and let me rephrase that they didn't lose their jobs okay nobody lost a job because we had enough need in the system that people were employed but different elementary schools because we as a board voted to make sure that the art and the special ed department chairs were 1.0 that funding had to come from

[00:25:15] somebody and 0.5 plus 0.5 is a one so people lost an additional counselor who was helping triage you know truancy I wouldn't say truancy but but chronic absenteeism we may have lost any an hemer we may have lost a steam classroom I bring this up because that particular timing was too late for those folks to advocate so what we heard was about seven hours of testimony from our community members who loved their AART or their special department chair and meanwhile these folks they're not even named anywhere only to find out within

[00:25:54] 10 days we can't support an emert because the school board voted to make sure you had a 1.0 AART and SPED department chair I bring that up because you know we're gonna be in difficult fiscal times we are we're gonna have to make tough decisions but part of the reason I believe that Dr. Reed brought that to us in the first place was because we have some elementary schools with 400 students in them and then we have some with 1100 students and those are very different and even the demographics are very different so I personally you know honestly don't believe we need a 1.0 of both at every

[00:26:32] school I think schools need to evaluate what they're doing but we're gonna make difficult decisions but just because it's noted in here and we didn't name the other positions that were impacted I just felt the need to uplift that because you know at the end of the day I think you know some of our bigger high schools like Chantilly lost like close to 20 sections okay that's for full-time teachers but it doesn't tease out that way because you got to lose a section of a push in a section of you know business law on a section of health and PE right so it's hard to observe absorb those things and it's being felt in the classroom you know and I would say to parents this last thing I'd say is you

[00:27:10] might be in a situation where hypothetically your kindergartner only has 17 people in their classroom well that's bad math friends you can't have you know let's say 17 times 3 if I do some quick math here is that like 51 I don't know how to do math is that right but you know there's not easy dividers right so sometimes you're gonna have kindergarten classes that are much much larger because you wouldn't add a third one because then you'd they'd be 12 in a class right so people need to understand how this math it doesn't often work in our in in the favor of all of our schools thanks thank you would you like to go back would you like to go back

[00:27:48] miss lady thank you um mr frisch do we know if we have the volume working for mr frisch we can find out oh we do we could hear you good uh i will keep this uh as quick as the answer to the question allows i appreciate the work that's gone into this um some of this is already done each year which i think it's nice to see it all in one place kind of gathered together but i'm curious um beyond carrying the message to the various stakeholder groups in like a macro sense what can we be doing better and what thinking can be given to

[00:28:28] improving communication between board members and board of supervisors their counterparts between the superintendent and her counterparts of the county between the superintendent and lawmakers between board members and lawmakers i think um many people in the community are quite aware of our need and so i think a big chunk of the work to be done is um in those dynamics between the leaders who will be deciding these things any thoughts on that are you referring to staff

[00:29:07] mr fisher yes dr reed so um mr fish and i had this conversation actually um and i i have been meeting with members of our delegation individually and also with our board of supervisors individually and i think that one of the things i shared with mr frish is likely i need to make a trip to richmond during the session and meet with some of our lawmakers there joined mr malloy in that I do think all of us, I think it's a time to be connected, right?

[00:29:42] We have a delegation that's strongly supportive of our mission. We have a board of supervisors that's supportive of our mission. And we have to be, I think, in closer relationship as we work forward on this topic. Thanks.

[00:29:58] And, you know, I think maybe there's room for each of us as individual board members to think more about what our individual approach is. Obviously, there should be some overlap in what we're doing. but like, what are the best practices that board members can employ in their communications throughout the year?

[00:30:16] So that's something that'll be front of mind for me. I appreciate the work that went into this. I know that it was an undertaking to bring it all together and thank the budget team and the superintendent's budget team, our budget chair and vice chair and the superintendent's budget team as well. Thank you.

[00:30:31] - Thank you, Mr. Frisch. Ms. St. John Cunning? - I'd also like to thank all the work that has gone into this. And I really don't, you know, have a question, but I do wanna just talk about how, as everyone has said, how important it is to tell the story.

[00:30:48] And as much as we wanna tell the story about our audience, I think it's critical that we also tell the story about who we serve, which is our students, and who is serving to support our students.

[00:31:03] And we can't lose sight of how important that is. We can't lose sight of how important it is how these decisions translate down in in the trenches when this 1.1 position is created and what that really looks like I think that you know we've got to tell the story of how Fairfax County Public Schools serves kids from 2 to 22 including you know all the programs that we have that are our standard general ed programs but we have our technical programs our academies our dual enrollment programs

[00:31:37] our language immersion programs, our sports, which are fantastic, our performing arts and visual arts programming, all of that takes not only money, it takes talented teachers that we have to support. So I think that that's very important that we look at that. And the story that we also have to remember is we see many of our students coming back to be teachers in our system. We see them as our principals or as our assistant principals i'm really proud to see a lot of our students come

[00:32:14] back to be community leaders uh to be the health workers in our hospitals to be the ones that are building our new hospitals so for those people that don't have students in the school they are serving our community so um i just really think that we have to tell the story and once we tell the story the investment that we put into this is a no-brainer um i know that we're a big system there's a lot of programs i know i shared with the superintendent about our early literacy program where we're working with the youngest kids that speak different languages but i know that what

[00:32:52] ends up happening with that is the parents end up also learning and some of them are now working in our schools this would have never happened with early lit without early lit so these are the stories we have to communicate to our public uh because the fundamental foundation of how we're going to move forward as a society is the strength of how educated our students are thank you um seeing no other first time speakers i'll call on miss dixit and then i'll take a turn we'll go to go backs so first of all i want to thank you the budget team and the communications office this is

[00:33:32] is a really well-taught plan and I was privileged to be part of it with the better chair I had this whole idea of storytelling really resonates with me and and people you know say they listen more so I was wanted to ask you if there is a plan to create a kind of a booklet with this different chapters or virtually probably or done on a website we I think we we talked about having a landing page or maybe modify the earlier website to do that so just wanted to know your

[00:34:07] thoughts on that so the the chapters within the plan are really metaphorical not per se chapters of a book but they are the way that we would parse out the information again with that foundation of talking about the success of FCPS and absolutely that would be a way that we would want to convey that on the website a lot of our budget content currently on the web is a lot of facts and figures and there isn't a story there so definitely part of the the work within

[00:34:45] here is a strategy to develop a section of our website that would convey more of the story and those different six chapters that you see that kind of build up to when we get to the point of you know having to make those decisions the budget so definitely yeah and I agree with you but I also think this really goes as a chapter well to the story with different topics we're discussing and I would like to add a topic about our share stakeholders our students and the different programs we offer to them as one of the chapters I

[00:35:21] guess too what's the plan of using social media more because you know everybody has access to phone people who are students in FCPS are not in FCPS but we are all resident mostly have a smartphone so what's our strategy to use more of our Facebook Instagram and other social media platforms I think it will continue in the ways that we use it right now where we do tell those stories it resonated to me when you were talking about our parents and different family members we did two amazing stories of a current special ed teachers who were

[00:35:57] parents who saw the experience and that their children had with FCPS and both decided to become special education teachers so we use the storytelling side of it on social media but there's also the intent to chunk out different sections of the way that we build these chapters of the story on social media as well making it more again of telling the story of FCPS versus maybe just putting a fact up there and there's no context to what that means to the big picture so we'll definitely be incorporating that aspect of it on social media as well we use Instagram and Facebook mainly we don't really use

[00:36:36] X for social media it's just a different space but for sure using those spaces to tell different stories and again continuing to share the really good news about FCPS we get great feedback from our teacher Tuesdays and other things that we do consistently when we're telling those stories of our students our families and our staff thank you for the answer my next question actually is more to dr. Reed actually that were we had some shortfalls last year and then last

[00:37:10] minute we were able to come up with some solutions and right now we're going into a deficit already and with the more federal money impact could could have or could not have I don't know yet but can we go to our students I mean parents and community earlier with that messaging of these programs or shouldn't say program but that could be short funding shortfall of funds here and they should be the voice for us because you know those are the people directly get impacted is our our parents and the students so just wanted to know your

[00:37:49] thoughts on that yes ma'am I think that it's important as I mentioned to go to the parents in our family vision group our PTAs our community meetings I have open community conversations coming up this fall all of those are venues to talk about the budget and I think the sooner the better because I think that a strong public education system is central to the strength of our community So thank you so much and that's my question, so for now, thanks.

[00:38:25] Thank you. Seeing other placards up for a first time, I will go ahead and take my turn and then we'll go to gobacks. And we have the list of gobacks so far, but if you want to speak, please just put your placard up. So first, I just want to thank the team and my budget vice chair, Ms. Dixit, for all your hard work.

[00:38:40] I know we had several meetings and I really appreciate what you've put together. I think this goes very well with what we talked about in the spring, where we wanted a stronger collaboration partnership with our Board of Supervisors right because we really are serving the community in the county together I know our Board of Supervisors are strong supporters of the schools as well so the earlier that we can work with them we can talk with them as well as our stakeholders in the community and help folks understand the realities of our school system and the needs of our school system and what we need not just to maintain but also maintain our excellence I think knowledge is power so this is a big whiff of that knowledge of

[00:39:18] power as we enter these tough budget times we want to make sure we're continuing to not just to do our good work around closing gaps and providing enrichment but talk about our good work right so often when I go to PTA meetings or community meetings and I start talking about the budget which I've been doing as my role as budget chair people are very interested and they didn't realize sort of I talked about the size of our 40,000 employees and the size of our bus fleet and what it takes to manage all that they're very very interested in that so I think making sure that we continue to talk about that I think as we listen in part where the Board of Supervisors I the toolkit idea

[00:39:55] that we've talked about that in the train the trainer right having targeted toolkits here's one you can take to the community here's one that as you're meeting with the Board of Supervisors versus and other delegation members right that we can use to sort of help say hey here's what's going on with our schools and really listening to what they're saying to and answering their questions early on about what concerns or questions do they have you know we all have the same common goal we know we all want excellent schools we know our excellent schools support a strong economy bring businesses here bring people here and it helps us present a united front to the state officials if we have a common basis of knowledge as to what is going on in our school right

[00:40:34] and I know that providing them information early on also helps them to understand what's going on our schools and helps us to understand where their challenges are too we're serving the county together so I think that is a really and I and they all want to serve the county together so I'm really grateful for you putting this together I think as we do this work I had a couple of questions around the train the trainer and the parent vision groups that you're going to as you go to these groups are you leaving them with anything yet do we have takeaways we can leave folks I think these one-pagers so as they're going maybe to talk to their community members they have something

[00:41:07] they can refer to I think would be really important thank you so the THE COMMUNITY RELATIONS TEAM ACTUALLY BUILDS OUT THE AGENDA IN COLLABORATION WITH DR. REED ON ALL OF THE FAMILY VISION GROUP MEETINGS, AND WE ALWAYS HAVE TAKEAWAYS FOR THEM.

[00:41:28] AND PART OF THAT TAKEAWAY, IN FACT, OUR VERY FIRST MEETINGS WILL BE A BUDGET 101 MEETING. AND WE WILL EITHER HAVE A TAKEAWAY, BECAUSE WE'RE JUST GETTING THROUGH DISCUSSING THIS PLAN RIGHT NOW. take away then or at our next meetings where they can walk away with with the toolkit I think that would be great because I think as as we've partnered with the board right and we know we need to go and really help our delegation understand the importance of JLARC and asking for the funding from the chronic underfunding from the state it's helpful for our community members that we serve to have an understanding of what our school system is our challenges and our

[00:42:08] needs right i think that can just help the entire community reduce their angst so having that takeaway as well would be helpful i mean i think it's i'll take a go back on this piece but just the facts and figures alone i think open a lot of people's eyes thank you um to go backs i will start with miss marin followed by dr anderson would you mind skipping me um miss chair i'll would you mind delaying me just for one round oh sure yeah we can get we'll talk with dr anderson but mine's not going to be that long couple of things as we're talking about all of these efforts

[00:42:45] to really educate our population and making sure that there's understanding again not just for the individuals who have access and experiences with our programming but others as well i i wonder if we could also rethink how we collect information from them and looking through the document here i see the typical cadence of our um public hearings but we also know especially from last year where those public hearings were very very well attended not everyone has the capability to come and sit and be number 294 out of 500 people we have not and correct me if i'm wrong miss um burden but i

[00:43:25] don't think we have an electronic manner of collecting public not necessarily public hearing testimony but feedback which is essentially what they are able to give to us in those two minutes electronically do we have that anywhere no but we have done that before like with the esser funding you know we were required to go out to the community so we had an online survey that the community members could access and answer questions but not very many people did right but again we're in a space where people are interested in and knowing what is it that we're

[00:44:00] doing with our budget what are our concerns how is it going to impact them whether they be parent employee or just a citizen who wants their grandchild to have the best possible education here I see a space where we could perhaps develop an electronic means for that feedback in addition to the public hearings because some folks want to come and speak and some folks are not able to come and speak or if they show up they end up leaving because we go into the wee hours so that's a wondering that I'd like to throw out into the space when we do collect that feedback and those two points during our budget process for us to have an electronic

[00:44:39] component that would make it easier for some folks to participate and the other one is more of a question of dr reed as we again if we're going to engage folks they're going to learn they're going to want to speak back to us and we're going to need to do something with that information but we do have certain limitations um in that especially when it's things that are connected i'll just finish if that's okay and i won't need any more go backs go ahead um things that are connected to to teachers and perhaps collective bargaining it makes me wonder and all of the education that

[00:45:13] we're doing we need to also highlight what are some of those implications that would require a different avenue rather than a public advocacy um lane for us to actually change something in our practices and budget any comments from staff before i move on to the next one it was not It's not necessarily a question, but something that we need to include.

[00:45:39] Because I wouldn't want us to go out into the community and say, hey, give us feedback on all of these things, and then they do, and then we turn around and say, well, these are collective bargaining things, so you can't give feedback on it. We need to be in advance. We need to make sure that we're going out with those boundaries.

[00:45:56] Yes, ma'am. I would agree. We wouldn't want to go out and ask about amending the collective bargaining agreement, for example. That's not appropriate. Right. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Ms. Lady?

[00:46:11] The only thing I was going to say, and I don't know if this is the place to do it or not, but I do think there's possibly potentially budgetary implications. I know some of our elementary schools are doing departmentalization in upper primary grades, so I think per my previous remarks about bad numbers, but also, you know, my understanding of appropriately sort of scaffolding education, we definitely have students in elementary school who are very gifted perhaps in humanities, but not necessarily as strong in math and science and vice versa, and they're not accessing AAP centers.

[00:46:48] So I think the departmentalization allows you to differentiate instruction. So if I've got a high math learner who's not quite reading our grade level, hypothetically we can meet those needs. So I guess I don't know if that potentially can impact costs, but I just want to put out on the ethos, that I do think from an educational perspective, it makes sense.

[00:47:08] I think the research indicates that kids do well in that sort of environment. And also it allows teachers to loop, you know, I might have fifth and sixth grade humanities and loop with the same kids, which helps build that rapport over two years and helps them learn better.

[00:47:29] So that's all. Thank you. Ms. Marin? I think we're the ones we've been waiting for. There are only 22 people in this county of 1.16 million human beings who have the ability, access, and authority to realize the high quality of public services in Fairfax County that makes people live in Fairfax, this place we call home.

[00:47:54] We need to be experts in how the money is being used now, and we need to be able to seek solutions with our partners. We can't do that in only three joint meetings with the Board of Supervisors on December 2nd, February 24th, and April 14th. We have got to work into our agenda, this as a priority.

[00:48:13] For me, it's all budget all the time. And dovetailing that is the Joint Facility Review Committee work and the technology work. Those two committees are charged with saving money. But if we can't sit down with the people who fund us, we can do all this great work in a bubble, and we're going to be right back where we were.

[00:48:34] So I think we need to be even bolder, and I think we do need this communications plan for sure, but we are the ones that have to do the work to partner with the people so they understand that we are doing everything possible to invest every dollar. I think we also need to get really specific about what it means to be the largest employer in Fairfax. How does that shake out? How many of our employees actually don't live in Fairfax? So how much money are they actually spending here? What does it mean to employ so many people? I mean, we say these very general things, but if we can prove the financial impact of this school division and whether it's how many soccer clothes and sports things

[00:49:09] our kids have to buy or how many field trips we take, we need to get real hard numbers and we're getting there. And you all did a great handout for the start of school with some amazing data. But I'm going to commit to this.

[00:49:26] I'm going to work so that we do not have to amend the collective bargaining agreement. cannot happen and i want us to work so that the supervisors support us keeping our collective bargaining agreement intact because they see the value of it i just would like to quote my predecessor pat hines just came to mind she said i did not work to be on this school board to serve the school division and take on the challenge of of dismantling the school system let's not dismantle our school system let's go get the money thank you miss marron um seeing no other

[00:50:04] I'll take a quick go back in terms of what do you -- just asking staff, you know, I think we've heard some feedback on the plan to date about adding in sort of the realities and nuances of collective bargaining as we educate our community on where, you know, we have room for changing to the budget and where we don't have room for changing the budget.

[00:50:24] I think we've heard some feedback on clarifying a little bit more, you know, making toolkits, some of the things about zero-based budgeting and coming up with a timeline of when we're going to roll this out. So I was going to ask you, is there other feedback that you are seeking on this plan?

[00:50:45] Otherwise I'd like to sort of ask -- we still have an hour left, we don't need to take the whole hour, but I'd love to ask my colleagues if they have additional remarks on additional ways to collaborate with our Board of Supervisors and work closely together with them as we launch into our budget season, as well as whether there's anything that we want to add to this that talks more about our challenges from state and local funding, especially with the uncertainty in the federal funding.

[00:51:09] So those are two questions I'd have for my colleagues, if you'd want to comment on those going forward. But I think this is excellent, and I know you'll still continue to refine it. I would love to see how it's going to roll out in terms of toolkits, in terms of community meetings and takeaways, in terms of train-the-trainer, as well as the digital assets, the social media as well as the website so if you want to just comment on the next steps for what this plan will go to we can move on to the next couple questions yeah I think I would just end with saying that for us our communications plans are ever-changing they're always being reviewed and evolved based on whether or

[00:51:46] not a strategy works if something changes in the environment so it'll always be evolving in terms of what strategies and tactics that we have in there. To Ms. Marin's point, one of the things that we just started looking at that isn't incorporated in here is some of the Baldrige work. There's a team member of mine, Zoo Hale, who's on the Baldrige work team and has been looking at how other school divisions use the Baldrige process to look at how they can show the value of their budgets. Also incorporating Stephen Fuller's study for

[00:52:21] those who were a part of the board back in 2016 who did a study about FCPS's impact on the community and had a lot of information about how much of the spending in the county comes from our employees and comes from the partnerships that we have with the businesses that we do business with and it was very interesting to go back and look at that and I would love to see if that's something that we could potentially update for 2025 in terms of more information but you know certainly now that we have the feedback we're going to go back make these changes and I'm going to sit down with my digital and

[00:52:58] visual design team and start building the products and working with the budget team to make sure that you know everything is appropriate and working with you and mystics it to approve everything and we're going to start getting the stuff together so we're excited great well thank you and I think having that plan of rollout too and how we're going to engage the community and point stakeholders who aren't as engaged with our schools or may not have direct ties to our schools i think is important and i think we on the board as well as i know dr rey can also commit to once we have the toolkits of really working hand in hand with our partners on the board of supervisors

[00:53:33] as we work through this process together so because at the end of the day we all want to keep our schools excellent our economy strong and we want to do this in partnership together because we face the same challenges and we face the same opportunities having said that i'd like to sort of switch focus for anyone who wants to comment on what they'd like to see in greater collaboration or meetings with the Board of Supervisors, as well as if there's other things specifically related to the federal government uncertainty that we'd like to have added into these conversations.

[00:54:02] So that's one of the next talking points on these. We'll go back to three minutes for those, and if people don't have as much to say, that's okay. That maybe says it's a great job on staff's part. So with that, I will turn, I think I see Ms. Marin's placard up, so we'll start with Ms. Marin. okay so miss burton can you refresh us what are the absolute deadlines in this budget timeline that we have to meet you know when when does the county have to interest set its tax rate when do we have to adopt our budget like the absolute cannot move them dates well generally

[00:54:41] we can't move any of the county dates sure i just want to get an understanding even ours like in the past like we used to have the budget being presented very early in january now it's a little little bit later, so I'm just wondering, again, what are we, by code, what do we have to do, and I guess, well, I don't want to use up all my time rephrasing my question, but just.

[00:55:04] I mean, we take their, we ask them for their calendar, they give it to us, and then we do ours around their calendar just based on what they're doing. Okay. I see they have March 17th advertising the tax rate.

[00:55:20] You know, what's not on here, though, and it might not be known, are the supervisors' town halls, which are really a big deal, and we usually get invited to those. Often they're during spring break, which is unfortunate, so I think that's an opportunity. When I look at the public hearing dates, February 10th, April 14th, and May 14th, we know by April 14th the budget is pretty much done.

[00:55:42] We know that. And there's not going to be wiggle room. So can we get really honest about a schedule that's going to, if we need to course correct or make changes, we can do that? So my question is, can we take this time, we have this whole hour, and really think about how could this budget be made more urgent and more open?

[00:56:06] So with the Board of Supervisors, what do others think about planning time for joint budget committee meetings like monthly with the Board of Supervisors starting now. I would love to hear confirmation if we are going to have one of our work sessions in a week from tonight.

[00:56:23] I know that's a held date of September 16th, so perhaps if the chair or vice chair could inform us about that decision, that was something because we also anticipated that the next topic legislation would need a follow-up. This is just keeping it going.

[00:56:38] I also do want to get clarity, and I would appreciate board conversation about the roles, because although I greatly appreciate Dr. Reed's outreach to other elected officials, that is our job. Those are our counterparts. And so either Dr. Reed, we've got to work very closely on that, or we have got to really take that on and be doing that work.

[00:56:59] So when I pull up the board's work agenda for the months ahead, what can wait? What is more important than making sure we do not get more cuts? So is it a strategic goal report? Is it, you know, I don't know.

[00:57:14] Is it whatever it's going to be, but how do we get more lean so we could focus? And can we actually right here today, colleagues, do some of this calendaring? So you know, can we confirm the Tuesday work meeting next week? Can we get, you know, input on if we want to ask for joint budget committees?

[00:57:31] Can we even commit to having the budget on our agenda every single month on the work session to preserve that time and figure out what we're doing. I'd love to hear your feedback. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:57:47] I see no other placards up, so I will take a turn. I think -- Dr. Anderson, go ahead. Just to one of the components that was just asked by Ms. Marin, one of the things that we've leaned into quite a bit over the last year or so is the Bald Ridge work, which kind of came up as you were speaking.

[00:58:10] I think we could afford a little bit more transparency on that because we're leaning into that as our opportunity to show our frugality, to show that we are being as strategic as possible with every dollar. I wonder if there's some spaces for updates to be provided.

[00:58:27] Maybe it's in academic matters. Maybe it's in lieu of academic matters or in lieu of the strategic plan update because it is strategic. It's a strategy that we're utilizing, but it's so behind the scenes. We haven't elevated enough to the public discussion so that we could have that collective community narrative that oh my goodness they are squeezing blood out of a turnip over there so i'd like for that to be elevated as part of whatever the regular budget cycle that miss marron has has shared having said that i do want to say we have a lot of things that are pressing we've got facilities that we want regular updates on we have budget that we want and should have regular budget

[00:59:07] updates on because it drives all of our work how do we prioritize because we're not going to create more time and right now when I look at the work plan we have academic matters just about every time we have strategic plan updates some of the times and we have ELs and sometimes we have all three of them what has to fall off the plate in order for us to reintroduce some of these other things that we continue we continue to outline as essential to our work I can't see a space where we're adding more I see a space where we're substituting for what's a greater a priority at current.

[00:59:45] Thank you. And I think in terms of looking at the calendar, I don't know if there's going to be enough for budget-wise between now and next week to add that to the work session, but I'll leave it to the Chair and Vice Chair in terms of scheduling the agenda for next week's work session. I think in terms of working more closely with the Board of Supervisors, we would have to reach out to them on their calendar to see what opportunities they would have before the december meeting or between the november fiscal forecast meeting for additional um you know collaborate meetings with the entire board i would recommend until then perhaps individually we can reach out to our counterparts or the at-larges can reach out to chairman mckay or anyone else you

[01:00:23] wish to reach out to maybe your own supervisor in your district where you live um which is whichever you prefer and just start having these maybe conversations monthly weekly as we start building towards that november meeting there isn't a ton of time between now and november so that may be a good way to go but we're happy to take a look and see if there's something on their calendar in between then as well the other i think in terms of the baldridge work i think anything that we can also maybe add to our plan to show what we're doing to increase our efficiencies or to review our budget to ensure that we are being effective and efficient with it i don't know i think having

[01:01:00] an update to the board where they are in their process of it as well would be helpful but maybe If we can talk a little more about what they are doing and what we anticipate receiving from them in terms of deliverables and timelines, that might be helpful to add to this. We have a little more information about Baldrige or other things that we are doing to look at our efficiencies and effectiveness.

[01:01:20] That can even include some of the things that we asked our principals to do after our budget last year. I know our schools and our central offices were asked to reduce staff but also look at different ways of budget. we talked about our rouses working with our principals so maybe that's some things that we can share as well in this report so as far as the scheduling for the work session I'll leave that to the chair and vice chair but I appreciate this robust conversation I you know with my little bit of time left I do want to say that we recognize that with the uncertainty with the federal government there are some some grants most of our federal government funding comes in the way of grants that are at risk including grants that we use to

[01:01:58] help provide meals to students who qualify for free and reduced price meals grants for special education grants for teachers of multilingual students and many many more so I would ask that we maybe start putting out somewhere to the public some of the specific grants that are at risk and our federal funding and you know I know I can speak for myself but I think all my colleagues and our staff here share a commitment to those students to ensure that our we continue to serve those students in the way that we need to serve them but it is going to be a challenge moving forward and so maybe having some information how we plan to what the challenge looks like for a community would be helpful as well and i get asked that a lot so having said

[01:02:35] that i um i don't see any other placards up for oh sorry miss marron for go back so i will stop my turn here and i'll go back to miss marron for go back yeah thank you um and i was just looking at our work session our tuesday work session time so and again this blends so much with the legislative work and again we're going to hear about that today but even on October 7th so we have our legislative breakfast in the morning and then that day we're scheduled only to talk about pre-k 12 it was one of the strategic plan goals so how about we already you know just like let's get our rhythm and of course we have our boundaries but we know that that's going to incur budget conversations

[01:03:13] we have our facilities going on we know that's going to incur budget conversations I think, you know, the more we can weave in all of these critical topics, it's going to be better for us and better for the public. And as more data comes out, then we can arm people with that data.

[01:03:29] But I think until we're having more discussions, that's going to be tough. One of the things I'm wondering is would anyone like to attend a Board of Supervisors meeting with me when they're meeting about the budget, whether it's the committee or on their agenda? I'm thinking we can inform them, you know, let them know we're coming to observe and learn.

[01:03:47] maybe that also will show that we are trying every which way to understand where they're coming from and then we can reciprocate and I know this plan has some really good points about that and especially when we think about November is take your legislator to school month I could say legislator slash county supervisor because certainly we want to show them all the amazing things and all the challenges so you know for me as I've been working on the legislative work thinking about our county board of supervisors are essentially our legislators because they are our funders so thinking about you know collaborating

[01:04:23] with them in the way that I know we like to do with our state folks so again we'd love to hear you know feedback and even from the chair can we get clarification are we meeting in one week and can anything about the budget be put on there and then just also how do we get you know input from the board to you put on the agenda whether it's october 7th november 6th is the fiscal forecast and miss burden is usually hard pressed i think to you know give us her magic ball uh outlook so again does that date serve us at this time i'd love to hear your thoughts thank you um dr reed do you

[01:05:03] want to address that question or miss burden i think miss burden well november early november is not ideal because you know we just there's so many question marks that are still out there that it's, you know, a really early preliminary estimate as to what our needs might be in the upcoming year.

[01:05:29] So it's not ideal, but, you know, we've been doing that for decades, so we make it work. And we, you know, we fast-tracked enrollment because those projections, usually we didn't have them in time for the fiscal forecast, and that drives a lot of what we do in the budget, you know, aside from compensation.

[01:05:49] But the facilities department has worked with us, and so they fast-tracked that projection process so that we do have those numbers earlier, so that we're not guessing with that very first early fiscal forecast meeting. We make it work.

[01:06:09] Great. Thank you. Well, with that, I see no other placards up, so I will call this part of the work session to a close, and we'll take a 10-minute break. So we'll come back at – I have 2.15 on my computer, so I'll say 2.25.

[01:06:24] Thank you very much for the robust conversation and thank you so much to this great team for all your hard work on putting this together, and I look forward to continuing our good work as we go through the budget season. Thank you, Dr. Reed. Good segue from the previous conversation where we talked about what our work should entail, how do we get things done when we're not the decision makers of those activities. So, Dr. Reed, oh, no, you don't need to introduce yet.

[01:06:58] But are we just jumping into the first two? So if we could go ahead and put the PowerPoint up, clerks, that would be appreciated. The first couple of slides, Ms. Smarin and I will talk about, and then we'll turn it over to...

[01:07:13] Actually, do you want to do an introduction first before we do the first two slides, if you have one? Sure. I heard myself. That's all right. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. And this is really a great opportunity this afternoon to talk about the government relations agenda.

[01:07:33] My only introduction is introducing Michael Malloy, who's going to represent division staff. And we look forward to a robust conversation. So thank you. All right. Super. If we could just go to the first slide, we just really want to be clear in terms of what we want to accomplish today. It's up there, so I don't need to read to you.

[01:07:50] but it's really cool it's really important as we talked about in the previous conversation what is our space what is our role what are the things that we can impact and most importantly what are some of the activities that we could connect to and commit to doing to help advance the plans for this division and mr. Frisch actually took those words right out of my mouth with his previous statements the objectives that are going to be part of this session or as follows and I will take a little bit of time to go through some of those objectives obviously there's some information that we need to be given there's been lots of work that has taken place in the Journal Assembly last year

[01:08:28] there's some work that continued throughout this summer so we need to all be up to speed in terms of what does that entail so Michael's going to provide us with that and all of those activities including what he's going to share with his kind of the background setting and education piece as well as the future look in terms of what the General Assembly may be taking up this fall next January February will help us to better understand our role not only our points of advocacy but how to have greater visibility with those decision

[01:09:04] makers and then three we're hoping to really outline what are some of those things that we are going to do because we know we have a menu of different things that are available available to us as elected officials with one of those things being the legislative program but it is not the only thing we are going to spend some time at the end of this conversation really honing into what are some of those other activities that we can use to leverage the visibility that we need with the decision makers and of course we're going to spend some time looking at the positions because at the end of the day that's where we have all of our

[01:09:43] documents all of our positions of live kind of in its entirety that the board has committed to so those are the four outcomes for the meeting today and then at this point Ms. Marin would you like to say anything well I think similar to the discussion this morning on budget we were trying to be reflective of what the board has asked for which is to really think about the bigger picture and we all know that the state legislation is a huge part of this but there are other aspects as well so in that vein again just trying to go a little bit broader and encourage your discussion and input about what we want to do this year you

[01:10:21] know what I failed to do I failed to introduce the positions that you and I have when it comes to the legislative work you know you talked about the team just a little while ago similarly to last year and Miss Marin is the state liaison and I am the federal liaison and it just kind of falls to those positions to lead the work a little bit and Mr. McElveen is the alternate state liaison is that correct all right so mr. Malloy please take her away all right good afternoon everybody I do apologize obviously it's it's a little bit late in

[01:10:59] the afternoon and you've got a relatively sizable slide decks in front of you but I'll try and get through it as quickly as I can but thought it was important to level set in terms of kind of what's happened what happened during last General Assembly session and what the lay of the land looks like as we go into the next General Assembly session.

[01:11:18] This promises to be one of the more complicated General Assembly sessions that we've had in a while, just given everything that's happening in the political policy environment at all the various different levels of government. One thing I wanted to kind of start the conversation with is kind of this idea of, I'm sure you've heard that the Virginia General Assembly is referred to as a part-time legislature and that's technically true. They only meet for this upcoming year they'll meet for 60 days and then in the next year, which is the second year of a budget biennium, they only meet

[01:11:54] for 45 days. That's kind of a misnomer though, as you'll see as we go through this conversation and you see with this slide, there are things that are happening all throughout the year in terms of policy making, in terms of what the General Assembly is doing, in terms of what the state is doing, in terms of decisions being made at the federal level, decisions being made at the local level, all that have a bearing on FCPS operations.

[01:12:22] So this slide just kind of gives you an idea of, in addition to all the things that we do during session, we're working off session with our delegation, we're working with other organizations we're working with other school divisions we're developing and you talked a little bit about this at your budget work session here just a little bit ago developing issue briefs just to make you know make sure people are aware of different issues and being able to get that information out and then we do work in collaboration with the with the County Board of Supervisors they also have a legislative staff and we work very closely together so just wanted

[01:12:58] kind of set that as the background that we focus a lot on the General Assembly because there's a lot of things going on during the session but there's an awful lot of things that are happening all throughout the year it's not just a two months or a two and a half months endeavor so the first thing I wanted to walk through and I promise this will be short is just a review of the 2025 session You've already received some information right at the end of session and also right around July when most legislation from the last session went into effect about the session.

[01:13:36] But just to give you some context, this was a 45-day session, short session. During those 45 days, the General Assembly looked at 3,100 different bills. Now, that's, I don't even want to attempt to do the math, but that's, you know, several hundred bills a day in terms of what they're, you know, what they're considering.

[01:14:00] And obviously, the 3,100 bills, that covers everything. It doesn't just cover education bills, it covers, you know, bills across multiple subjects. So just to give you an idea for education, our House Education Committee, 150 bills were were referred there, Senate Education Bill and Health Committee, they also had 150 bills.

[01:14:21] Of the 3,100, we probably paid attention to about 400 plus bills, so we're looking at issues that go beyond what the education committees look at. We look at things that have to do with transportation, we look at things that have to do with public safety, with the employment law, so there's an awful lot of other areas that we pay attention to, in addition to just the education committees.

[01:14:46] And of all of those bills, 130 of them passed, so there are 130 new laws that came onto the books, most of which went into effect on July 1 of 2025. To give you an idea of some of the successes from this past General Assembly session, among those 130, and most of these are budget issues, these are some things which dovetailed very nicely with priorities that you all had as a board.

[01:15:14] So these are things that passed during the General Assembly, that were funded during the General Assembly session, that really were things that were either on your priority list or were part of your budget asks list. So it's a fairly robust set of successes.

[01:15:31] The biggest one that's related to the JLARC report, obviously, is the full funding of the support cap at current staffing practices, which is something that's been being worked on since 2009, so that was a fairly sizable achievement to get that taken care of.

[01:15:51] A couple of areas I wanted to highlight, these are areas where there was legislation. The legislation itself didn't pass, but the subject of the legislation has started a conversation that's continuing to be ongoing.

[01:16:07] The first is the concept of native language assessments as part of the SOL program. legislation to try and mandate the use of native language assessments as part of the S.O.L. program. It didn't go forward, but as part of the state's work as they are moving towards a new assessment system for the 27-28 school year, for the first time they included getting some pricing options from vendors who might come in and bid on the contract for how to incorporate native language assessment as part of the system.

[01:16:42] So it's not truly a success because the bill didn't pass, but the conversation continues. Similar story with solar interconnectivity cost-sharing. We have talked about that for several years here in Fairfax, how the cost of small-scale solar projects has become relatively prohibitive because of interconnectivity costs of the project linking into the state's power grid.

[01:17:11] Again, legislation didn't pass, but it was passed on to the State Corporation Commission and they're going to come up with some, hopefully, some rules and some new guidelines and how interconnectivity costs are shared by 2026.

[01:17:30] And then one other thing to just highlight, and as I said, you've gotten reports on these, but this is just a couple of examples of bills that passed during the General Assembly session that had some degree of impact on FCPS.

[01:17:47] So there were limits on the timing and the frequency of non-instructional training. You've had extensive discussions about what they did with cell phone, student cell phone use. There were some tweaks to the overdose notification requirements. Most notably is that they're now codified as opposed to simply be part of a governor's executive order.

[01:18:08] Inspection requirements related to air quality and then a couple of other areas. But these are just some highlights of areas where legislation passed that had some sort of an impact on FCPS and our operations.

[01:18:27] This slide highlights four bills in particular that passed during the General Assembly Session but didn't go into effect immediately. So most legislation goes into effect July 1 of the year of the General Assembly Session.

[01:18:42] These bills all had delayed enactments, which means that they passed and in the absence of any other activity will go into effect in the years that are specified here. But what the delayed enactment does, at least in a couple of these cases, is it does provide an opportunity to come back and have further discussion about some of these bills and some of the policy positions that they staked out prior to them actually going into effect.

[01:19:09] So during this upcoming general assembly session, you're going to have an opportunity to revisit some of the changes and some of the policies would be enacted under these bills. Most significantly, I think you've had some discussions about this, are changes to the SOL assessment system.

[01:19:27] Also changes in terms of instructional materials and instructional material procurement and how things are considered to be high quality. Then local policy is going to be required for students to be enrolled in accelerated math.

[01:19:44] This is going to get tied up in some other conversations, which I will get to here in a minute, but having to do with the changes that are being discussed by the state board in terms of the number of questions that need to be answered correctly or the cut score for SOL assessments.

[01:20:03] And then the technology accessibility, that's a requirement that's being placed on vendors to ensure that technology that we're procuring has accessibility features to it. So that's the look back, that's the 2025 session.

[01:20:21] The next few slides focus in on things that are happening literally right now. So as I said, it's a misnomer to think of the General Assembly as a part-time legislature because every single one of these committees that I'm going to talk about here, they have ongoing meetings.

[01:20:37] So they're meeting, in fact, the JLARC meets monthly. The Commission on Youth meets a few times a year. But all of these conversations are happening, and all of these conversations will lead to, usually in November, sets of recommendations for the next General Assembly session.

[01:20:57] So it's important to be aware that they're going on. The first one, we followed this one very closely last year. It hasn't met yet, but this is the joint subcommittee to study elementary and secondary education funding, and it's the committee that's tasked with looking at how best to implement JLARC recommendations.

[01:21:15] JLARC, the committee itself, they're going to put out a report in December on K-12 accountability. They looked at accountability systems across the country, and they may have some recommendations for potential adjustments to Virginia's accountability system, or how Virginia's accountability system matches up with other areas.

[01:21:37] The Virginia Commission on Youth just recently released kind of an initial draft of recommendations for changes to Virginia's special education dispute resolution process. So they'll come back in October with a public hearing and then make some final recommendations in November.

[01:21:57] Virginia FOIA Commission, School Health Services Commission, the Joint Commission on Technology and Science. They're all looking at issues that could lead to legislation coming up in the upcoming General Assembly session.

[01:22:12] And then these last three, these are more ad hoc committees. They're not the normal standing committees. The first two are focused in on some of the changes that are happening in the federal government and how that might impact how it might impact Virginia Virginia policy Virginia budget as I was saying these things are happening literally right now the House Emergency Committee meets this Thursday and may have its first set of recommendations or at least its first set of findings from the meetings that they've been holding on the impact of federal actions on the

[01:22:45] state and then before I move on I also wanted to remind you that it's not just the General Assembly that's meeting and that's taking actions in Richmond.

[01:23:02] You also have their executive education policy agencies, Virginia Department of Education, Virginia Board of Education, and the Secretary of Education. They do work year-round. They meet year-round. I don't necessarily want to go through this slide, but I wanted to provide it as context for you just so you understand what each one of these boards do, who their members are.

[01:23:28] For the most part, they're all appointed by the governor. For the most part, they're all confirmed by the General Assembly. So there's a nexus between the executive branch and what these agencies do, and their actions obviously have a very, very direct impact on what happens in FCPS, and here are two examples of that.

[01:23:49] And you have received lots and lots of information about the first, which is the new school performance and support framework, which is the significant changes that are being made in our school accountability system. That data, then those first school accountability ratings should be coming out in the next month or two.

[01:24:11] So that will accelerate that conversation, because right now everything about the school performance framework has been hypothetical. That will actually give you the results of your schools are ranked this way, and that I think will lead to some further discussion about that framework.

[01:24:28] And then other work that the state board is doing is they're adjusting the cut scores for all of the state's SOL assessments. And that's important because the cut score is the determination of how much a student has to know in order to be considered a past proficient or past advanced on an SOL assessment.

[01:24:47] All indications that those cut scores are going to be elevated, which could have a very direct impact on our students, on our schools, on student graduation rates. So definitely things that we're paying attention to, but just wanted to provide that as background of topics that are being talked about.

[01:25:07] And then two others, we've actually already covered these as part of past legislation that had delayed enactments. Both high quality materials and the SOL assessment contract, they created work groups. These are not, to be frank, as public as some of the other workgroups because these are run by VDOE, but there are conversations going on about the implementation of those two pieces of legislation in these two different forums.

[01:25:35] All right, so we're past the look back, and now we're at a look ahead. Notwithstanding today's election, which is a federal election, which as a reminder, polls are open until 7:00 if you live in the 11th district. It's a federal election just as a public service. You do have the governor's election and you also have the election of all hundred members of the Virginia House of Delegates this year. That election happens on November 4th. No Senate elections. The Senate runs on four-year terms and the House

[01:26:13] is on two-year terms. But that will have an impact obviously on the policy conversation going forward. The General Assembly session is scheduled to convene on January 4th, 2026. It's a long session. Long session lasts 60 days, and it's 60 consecutive days, so it goes from January 14th to March 14th. But it's the first year of the biennium, and that's important because the 2026 session discussion will set the state's budget for fiscal year 2027 and fiscal year 2028.

[01:26:49] In terms of kind of crystal ball and trying to determine what's going to be talked about during the General Assembly session, as I said, the 27-28 budget will be front and center. That will be one of the biggest topics in conversation that is undertaken down during the General Assembly session.

[01:27:08] Rebenchmarking, I have a slide on that later, but rebenchmarking is a process by which the state updates all of its education funding formulas to reflect more current costs, and that has an impact on how much money gets sent back to localities. That will be kind of front and center because that's always front and center in the first year of a biennium.

[01:27:27] And then we mentioned a little bit about JLARC. Some JLARC recommendations have been adopted over the last couple of years, but there are still several that haven't. So there are still some topics that I think are open for discussion as part of that budget conversation related to some of the JLARC recommendations.

[01:27:47] Accountability system, as I said, things will become more real here late September, October possibly. There could be some discussion about adjustments in that system. We just recently implemented the state's wrap back system, which is the continuous monitoring a background background information on our employees but that cost is entirely borne by the school division that the state is not is not funding that so there could be a discussion about the state picking up some of that funding and then for the for the last two bullets

[01:28:25] we talked a little bit about the possibility of bills were like you know resulting from either delayed enactment legislation probably most likely on assessment and on advanced math and there could also be bills that are resulting from all of that ongoing off-session work that the General Assembly is doing and that the Board of Education is doing.

[01:28:48] So those will likely generate legislation for the next session. And then obviously every member of the General Assembly will have their own priorities they will bring. The new governor will bring their priorities.

[01:29:04] So the likelihood of there being 3,100 or more bills I think is fairly high. I mentioned I was going to explain rebenchmarking in a little bit more detail, but not too much more detail.

[01:29:21] Rebenchmarking is the process that the state uses to update all of its input figures. So you've got the SOQ formulas that determine how much money the state contributes to public education. All these factors that are listed here, enrollment, sales tax, support costs, inflation, they're They're all embedded in that cost calculation, but the state every two years updates their data so you get kind of a stair step effect every two years.

[01:29:50] Nothing in re-benchmarking changes policy. It's all the cost of doing business exactly the way as we've been doing it, so nothing about re-benchmarking changes policy in the lease bed. JLARC is about changing policy. This isn't about changing policy. This is just about updating funding.

[01:30:06] And as I said, it's a stair step, historically it has resulted in a relatively decent amount of new funding for public education in the first year of the biennium because of all of those input factors have increased over the last two years.

[01:30:23] And then this slide could take hours and hours and hours but just wanted to kind of key it up for you. The current state outlook in terms of the budget. In August the governor came out with his year end review, there was some discussion of having a surplus. There's a discussion of having a surplus most years. Surpluses at the state, there's a bunch of different ways to look at them. Most of the surplus as they define it is already kind of statutory allocated or there are very specific rules about how

[01:30:57] to access those rainy day funds or those surplus funds. So it's not, you can't think of it conceptually as it just being a piggy bank sitting out there for the state to be able to go able to tap into if there's more there's more to it than that i'm happy to go into more detail if necessary but it's just surpluses are always a little tricky conversation because it seems like there's funding just sitting there and in some ways there is and but in other ways there isn't and then what's true at both the state level and the local level is federal actions are very

[01:31:33] likely to have an impact on both revenue so the revenue available to state and local governments but also particularly the state level spending pressures so if potential cuts at the federal level could lead to spending pressure at the state level which would have an impact on the amount of funding that's available for other for other uses outside of those areas that are cut so So now turning to kind of future-looking your discussion and getting us a little bit closer

[01:32:11] to the legislative program. This is, again, just to reinforce things that go on in public education with regard to the budget and with regard to policy happen year-round.

[01:32:27] There's activity happening all the time, there's activity that we're involved in all the time with other organizations with other school divisions and i think dr anderson may have teed it up that one component of that program is your actual state and federal legislative program next couple of slides i think i'm going to walk through kind of the the program and its background and then we'll talk a little bit about some recommendations so you're all familiar with with the program it's it's the board's position statements that you you adopt in in in an open

[01:33:05] session on state and federal legislation policy and regulations it's critical guidance um it it helps because there's so much that goes on and there's so many topics that are discussed during the general assembly session and outside of the general assembly session it's a really important resource to be able to to see where the board has taken positions on on various topics without having having to constantly come back and ask for board positions on topics.

[01:33:33] One important component of the, or at least one important feature of the way the legislative program has been handled in the past, and I think has continued to be handled, is that positions carry over from year to year. So it's, you know, think of it as a perpetual document. So unless you all, as a board, take some degree of action to change languages in the program positions they carry over from 2025 to 2026 in this in this case and then in terms of the components of the program you hold a joint position with the county you take federal and state priority positions you identify a subset of

[01:34:13] positions that you consider to be the most important for the upcoming year and and set those aside as your priorities but then the bulk of the program is your standing positions and both state and federal level and that's everything from you know where you are on assessments to where you are on the state budget to where you are on student discipline or student transportation so those are the components of the program document itself as I said County Board of Supervisors you do have a joint you do hold a joint position with them it's

[01:34:48] It's almost entirely about education funding, the joint work that you all have done, very heavily JLARC-focused in the last couple of years, of course. It's included in both of your legislative programs. It's included in yours. It's included in the county's.

[01:35:04] Just as reference and just in terms of calendaring, the county is not going to finalize their program until all the way in December, December 9th. So if you take action on your own program earlier than that, it will come with a bit of a hole in it where the federal or where the joint position will go and you can come back at a future meeting and amend the program to add the joint position with the county in at that time.

[01:35:34] So to tee off your discussion because you as a board set both your standing positions but you also have your priorities and i'm not going to walk through all these i'm just going to put them up here for you to take a look at these are your current priorities it's a kind of a truncated list but these are the current topics that are included in your 2025 state board priorities so these are areas where it would be appropriate for your discussion to determine should these continue to be our priorities are the things that we want to add are the things

[01:36:11] that we want to subtract similarly same issue on the federal side these are your current board priorities whether they continue to be appropriate is part of the discussion that you'll have about them now the last couple of slides that i have for you are and there are two documents that are posted as part of your agenda item as well and they're a strikethrough version of the 2025

[01:36:45] program, so it's your current language, with a set of recommendations that have been generated from staff in terms of what staff sees as important or necessary changes in the program going forward.

[01:37:03] There are edits for clarity throughout, so there's a lot of places where as best as you You read language one year and you wonder why a previous board or why you as director of government relations may have suggested that particular language.

[01:37:20] So there's various areas where language is clarified. There are two places where you're able to drop positions that are no longer kind of issues at the state level anymore. One has to do with -- actually, there's two components of early childhood program eligibility.

[01:37:39] One has to do with when we could enroll students into VPI programs. The state has provided additional flexibility for enrollments after the beginning of the school year, and then there's some additional flexibility for localities to determine the appropriate income thresholds where parents and families are eligible to participate in those early childhood programs.

[01:38:03] Those both have been achieved in terms of the way the legislative program was written. So those can fall out. And then the other one that can fall out has to do with a position on chronic absenteeism. One of the components of the new accountability system actually addressed a primary concern about how chronic absenteeism was being handled under the current accountability system, which which was essentially setting it as a threshold and that if a school was below it, it was virtually impossible for them to be at the highest level of school accountability ratings.

[01:38:38] The new system treats chronic absenteeism as a component of a bunch of different factors. So it doesn't have that same threshold effect. So for all intents and purposes, your concern about the chronic absenteeism has been addressed.

[01:38:55] In terms of new positions, it may seem like there are a lot, but there really aren't all that many. There are several relating to multilingual and English learners. Just as a reminder, we continue to use the term English learners within the legislative program because that's the term that the state uses, but it obviously is coincident with the language that we use here in Fairfax, which is multilingual learners.

[01:39:19] on expanding the ability for local credit verification as an alternative to having to pass an SOL assessment, flexibility for the timeframe for including English learners under the accountability system, expanded work-based learning opportunities specifically for multilingual learners, and then resources for interpretation services are the four that are being recommended for addition. A few other positions that are just kind of standalones. One is that the state provides fully funded VPI early childhood slots including for students that are enrolled

[01:39:58] after the beginning of school. There's a fairly steep drop off in terms of how much funding we receive from the state if we enroll after the very beginning of school and we're looking for more flexibility with that. The issue of solar interconnectivity, your program actually already covers it generically, but thought it was important given how much it's being talked about at the state level that you have a very specific mention of addressing the cost issues with solar energy connectivity.

[01:40:29] Asking for some resources for FOIA compliance, as you're very well aware FOIA has continued to be an administrative burden on the school division. And then as part of our safety and security positions, asking the state to provide some resources for weapons detection technologies which we have in place in a lot of our schools but that's entirely being funded at the local level.

[01:40:52] And then this slide, because so much has happened with accountability at the state level and because a lot has happened with bills that have passed about assessments, there are several areas where we wanted to be a little bit more explicit within your program about some of the changes at the state level and some of the changes you might want to see going forward as we move on to implementation of the system.

[01:41:21] One thing that's important is that right now this position is referred to as Standards of Accreditation and Standards of Learning. We want to rename it so that the accreditation or so the accountability piece of it is reflected because under the new system you will continue to have the term Standards of Accreditation but it will not mean school accountability.

[01:41:44] So it's just important to have that distinction in the position just to make it clear what we're talking about. I don't know if you want me to go through each one of these, they're in your document. I will highlight a couple advocating for the elimination of Virginia growth assessment.

[01:42:02] If you remember a couple years ago, the General Assembly adopted a change in the SOL so that there is a an early year as kind of a beginning of the year sol test a mid-year sol test and a end of year sol test we in fairfax don't actually do that we have a waiver which allows us to use a different tool to determine student growth that waiver is expiring this year so the conversation at the general assembly level will need to be either an extension of that waiver so that we

[01:42:37] We can continue to do what we're doing with a different growth measure or an elimination of the Virginia Growth Assessment itself. The reason to advocate for an elimination of the system is it was put in place intending to be a measure of growth.

[01:42:56] When the state presented it to the federal government as a measure of growth, the federal government said, "No, this actually doesn't measure student growth. You can't use it for that purpose." From our perspective, we are already measuring growth with a different tool, but there are a lot of school divisions that are taking the Virginia growth assessment but not getting any really kind of useful information from that system.

[01:43:22] It would probably be better if the state went back to the drawing board as part of their new assessment accountability system, but because the Virginia growth assessment is specifically delineated in code, you'd have to go in and change code in order for that to go by the wayside.

[01:43:41] And then I think the last two that I'll highlight have to do with the changes that were made in the delayed enactment bill dealing with assessments. And just asking for additional flexibility, both in assessment administration and in timing, And also flexibility because there is a provision in that legislation that SOL tests are going to inform classroom grades.

[01:44:09] So that is the sum of the staff recommendations for your legislative program on the state side. There were a few changes that we're recommending on the federal side. One is there were some positions that can drop out because of the new accountability system, more closely aligned state and federal accountability systems.

[01:44:32] So some of the asks in your legislative program were that there be closer alignment. Those have been achieved. And then the final positions just deal primarily with some funding issues and some programs that I think you want to be explicit about supporting the funding for those.

[01:44:54] Having said all that, that document that what's posted, those are staff recommendations. At the end of the day, it's the board's legislative program. So you can accept or reject any of those recommendations. And then obviously you have the ability as board members to discuss other things and other issues that may not have been covered or other issues that need to go by the wayside.

[01:45:19] I think that's the intent of some of the discussion today is to do that. I have had the chance to meet with some of you. I have not had the chance to meet with all of you to talk about a few things. But just to remind you that at the end of the day, staff recommendations are staff recommendations.

[01:45:36] It's the board's legislative program, and you all are the final arbiters of what goes into the program. With that, I think I am turning the microphone back to my meeting managers to walk through the last couple of slides we have here.

[01:45:52] All righty. Thank you. If we can just go to the next slide, please. are the areas for discussion for today and I'm hoping that we can chunk it a little bit just so we can organize our work a little bit more efficiently we want to start with any kind of questions or clarifications or some general comments that you may have to the documents that I'm rather to the content that mr. Malloy has just presented and then after that we're going to take some time to really speak to what are some new positions that the board has as mr. Molloy shared this is the board's program this is the board's

[01:46:29] agenda and staff has provided some recommendations it will be very helpful if you could speak to those recommendations and that second line of comments or start to talk about some of other positions that you may have or revision that you've been thinking about and today's not going to be the last time it's just going to be the introduction just so we could be thinking about what is emerging as important to the board and then we will also take some time to talk about how do we now move into the priority positions because those one-pagers you know in the past have been lauded as super

[01:47:05] important because when they go in front of lawmakers they know that these are high priority to Fairfax County obviously everything in the book is important but those priority positions have been elevated as the most crucial and lastly speaking to what we talked about earlier in the conversation regarding budget and in the discussion before that how are we going to actualize the work that only the people in this room can actually do and what do you need to help you to support you in doing that so madam clerk we will start

[01:47:42] with three minutes for number one and we are asking for your for your grace and just kind of helping us walk through this set up a little bit so right now we'll take any questions clarifications or comments on what Michael talked about maybe some of the positions he did not raise so we will start there and I think The first speaker to that is Mr. Frisch.

[01:48:11] Just to clarify before the time begins, we're talking about each of these ones that are numbered number one. We're just talking about number one right now. We just want to. They're all labeled number one. Why are they all numbered number one? Typographical error.

[01:48:28] Oh, okay. My copy does not have all of them as number one. So we're going to have four rounds of comments. We're talking about the first section. Questions and clarifications and comments on the presented materials. Any areas in which you need more information from what Michael just talked about. So the real number one.

[01:48:49] But to clarify, we're then having an individual conversation about each of the other number ones? We may cluster the others, but we're going to separate those discussions a little bit. Right now, it's just to make sure we have full understanding of what was presented or any thoughts that we have about what was presented before we get into the what are the new things you want to introduce as a board member, what are the things that we think should be elevated as priorities, what are the resources and activities that you will engage in.

[01:49:20] We're going to chunk this a little bit, so I hope that helps. right now we're only going to talk about the first number one all right well i don't want this to count as my time i needed the clarification sure sure it is not your time we haven't started it well i'm not speaking to the first one i'm speaking to another number one why are they all mine are not like that here so this is curious um at any rate any board members seeking to speak to number one i think is that miss um is that who's that that's up thank you i can't tell

[01:49:59] whether it's yours or mr mckelveen's thank you that helps um ms heismore heiser thank you um i have most of my comments are to the fourth number one so i will probably i don't i'm so i are we gonna do three minutes on each one of these i'm probably run out of time so that's why i'm confused as to what you want us to talk about are you pausing my time okay we weren't trying to confuse anyone if anyone has any clarifying questions please let's just get them out of the way first because it will help your discussion and then please go ahead

[01:50:36] with everything you'd ever want to say about this topic is that okay and we'll do three minutes each time so ms heiser heiser does that clarify we're going to continue that's fine yeah it's fine yeah I guess the thing I guess clarifying in terms of the priorities you know we're looking down at slide 27 28 I guess just 2025 priorities and then 2026 somebody's more 30 and 31 priorities I'm kind of my clarification question is that it would be helpful if we had some

[01:51:14] prioritization within these priorities right like the 2026 session is starting in January it's probably too late for us to really do a lot of advocacy on any of these priorities at this point right because really to do that we have to work with our legislators during the summer, give them impact statements on why we want to do this, and then give them potentially suggested language.

[01:51:38] So I think it would have been helpful perhaps to have. So my question is, are there priorities within these priorities that you think we should be focusing on? And I'm a little confused.

[01:51:53] Some of the ones from 2025 seem to carry over into 2026 potentially. so it would have been helpful on the 2025 at this summary to say this is what was still left over or not because it's just kind of a lot of different stuff listed in here so so to be clear the two slides that so slide 28 and 29 are the board's current priorities there are not a parallel set of 2026 priorities no i understand here yeah positions that are being discussed those are changes to your standing positions not to your priorities it's the board's

[01:52:33] discussion to determine whether or not the 2025 priorities continue forward to 2026 and then whether or not the content of them should change i get that maybe i wasn't clear on my question what i was trying to get at is it would be i see that you have staff recommendations right of 2026 priorities but they're not priorities that that i think that's that's where okay positions all right those are just standing positions some of them may end up being your priorities but they're that i guess what i was trying to get at was actually sorry priorities on the okay i will make sure i make you clear priorities versus positions but maybe definitions would have been

[01:53:10] helpful on that section too just so that we knew what you were thinking of when you meant priorities versus positions because when they're in that slide together but i guess what i'm trying to get at is what's listed in 2025 priorities it would be helpful if we knew what of those were already addressed, or started to be addressed, or perhaps had bills that may have been put out but failed.

[01:53:33] So we kind of knew where in the process addressing those priorities are, because it's hard to know what priorities to focus on for next year, or positions to focus on, right? I'm guessing what you're trying to say is to take our positions that your staff is recommending and create priorities out of them for the board, but it's hard to know what new priorities to create out of staff recommended positions without knowing what of the previous priorities have been addressed and to what extent and what's left.

[01:53:59] And so that's where I'm finding it difficult to give feedback on that piece without knowing really a tie. And I know you've sent reports in the spring of different bills, but having it laid out of these were the board's priorities in 2025, this is what was addressed and what wasn't addressed.

[01:54:16] Here's what's still outstanding. Out of those, these are our recommended positions would just kind of help. So that's the clarification I'm asking. So my question is, in the 2025 priorities are listed which of those are then mapped into the staff recommending positions which of those had bills that perhaps addressed those priorities or didn't address those priorities or partially addressed those priorities which of those bills created additional problems and what of those do you recommend that we have as positions and or priorities those are my questions so part of the

[01:54:52] answer actually is on slide seven okay which i think was not slide seven identified some of the changes that were adopted during the General Assembly session, this past General Assembly session, which spoke to some of the priorities and also some of your standing positions as well.

[01:55:12] So in terms of the slide that's up on the screen right now with the increased state funding for JLARC, support cap is one that's been, for the most part, addressed. There's some nuance to it, but the support cap was funded. So that may or may not continue to be a priority.

[01:55:30] There's a reason for it to continue to be a priority is to ensure that the funding stays. But for the most part, the bulk of the funding that you would expect to get out of the support cap recommendation from JLARC, that's been achieved. So that's included on that.

[01:55:46] I think some of the accountability pieces tie into your fair school accountability system. But slide seven is the most direct reflection of what you're asking for, but it's not as explicit as what you're so it sounds for mapping right so then it's easy for us to look and say okay these were addressed these were partially addressed and these were not addressed or these had bills that tried to address them but those bills failed like that mapping would be helpful i know my time is up i'll take another round but absolutely and i think since we do have another work session on this before we collate everything i think this is going to be one of those things

[01:56:23] that perhaps mr mulloy can bring back because that's fine it will be helpful to know how do we reprioritize exactly mr mcdaniel mcdaniel i do have clarification and technical questions so i'm in the actual legislative package the long document on page six under their vrs section item five has been marked through and edited and it now says the school board supports state resources for local school divisions too and the rest remains unchanged but that's just

[01:57:01] a technical edit to kind of clean up the clunky wording or was there a legislative? Okay that was it? Yeah that was just intended um to to clarify what the ask was. Okay and then I have two similar areas uh on page up on page two the item four under early childhood same I'm sorry on page two bullet point three under early childhood that kind of spills over into page three um the early that early childhood would the strike through specifically the school board supports allowing

[01:57:41] fairfax kind of increased vpi again just a technical edit there to clarify so actually no those so those two changes were the ones that were identified on the slide about staff recommendations of issues that have been addressed so those two are our changes a document that will help is in addition to the to the large document there's a second document that's been posted that is actually a table of all the changes okay and it it walks through and it describes is it just a is it just a wording change it is a substantive change so we try and mapped out i got you right here between yeah so we map out between so you can you can kind of translate what

[01:58:20] the strike through on the document means by looking at that table got you perfect and last one was on page 14 um under safety item 11. yeah that is simply calling out that is clear that's - That's clarification.

[01:58:39] - That's a clarifying of unclear language, I think, is the best way to conceptualize that. - Thank you. - Paul doesn't have any clarification questions, but I know Ms. Sizemoreheiser did wanna go back.

[01:58:57] Are there any other clarification questions? Okay, now we're going to move, and we'll have Ms. Sizemoreheiser have a turn when she returns. Now we have numbers two, three, and four, where we want to talk about what is of interest the board in terms of there is the legislative agenda piece folks and there's also our work and one of the major goals of this component and I will invite Miss Marin to also share is how do we see our role in terms of impacting

[01:59:30] legislation it's not just handing over the handing over the program and then calling it a day so what else could we do you know we talked a little bit earlier about the budget, about that communication plan, about expanding into spaces that we may not have been thinking about before, or activities that each of you may have done individually.

[01:59:53] We would love for you to raise that here so we can duplicate some of that work. So not only do we want to speak about these other positions, we also want to talk about how do we achieve visibility on these positions through our work with lawmakers.

[02:00:09] And I'll turn it over to Ms. Marin. Just to say, actively proposing bill language is something the board has not done a lot of. Perhaps individually, some of us have advocated and been involved, but having the board ask Michael and guide us through that is something that we can do.

[02:00:29] There's also the whole budget amendment approach, which is a whole other opportunity to impact legislation. kick off talking about what kind of specific legislation you know people are interested in mr um frisch why don't you go ahead please thank you for waiting my pleasure and thank you for the work that's gone into this and for constantly trying to think of ways to to get at this because i know it's time consuming um so i have three areas two federal one state that i will likely

[02:01:01] bring for an amendment, or what have you. The first concerns federal supports for our neediest students, specifically support for restoring funding to Medicaid, SNAP benefits, McKinney-Vento, and opposing the removal of Title III, which is currently under consideration in Washington.

[02:01:26] Additionally, I want to include something about rolling back the changes that have happened at FAFSA that limit income-based repayment plans, public service loan forgiveness, and largely eliminate grant plus loans. These limit, we set our students up for great success here in FCPS, and these changes to FAFSA greatly limit their ability to succeed in the future.

[02:01:52] And then on the state level, I know that some lawmakers are talking about finding a way to bring greater stability to the membership of the Virginia Board of Education and the boards of visitors for various universities in the Commonwealth so that it doesn't have such dramatic swings from administration to administration and that we can constantly center the needs of our students in that conversation.

[02:02:20] So I would like some broad language in there that allows us to be supportive of efforts that would bring stability and a student-centered approach to those changes that maintain the constitutional independence of local school boards and the role the legislature has in properly approving of appointees.

[02:02:48] So I look forward to talking to colleagues about these three specific areas that I'd like to see us flesh out a little bit, but keeping it broad so that we can be responsive. And in terms of other ways that we can engage in the work, I think being in Richmond matters a great deal.

[02:03:05] but also taking advantage of opportunities to meet with legislators when they are in district to not only take your legislator to school month, but also going to their town halls when they are having town halls in their communities, bringing them to other school events. I think those are all ways to continue to build those relationships. And I think the superintendent is a tremendous asset there as well. And while we may have a unique role here, I think the superintendent also has a unique role as an ambassador for our system. So I think we need to deploy all of us in that work. That's it for me. I appreciate the work that's been done thus far. Thank you.

[02:03:45] Thank you, Mr. Fresh. Miss Lady? Yeah, I just want to say 100% spot on to my colleague. Every one of those things is incredibly important. And I just would echo everything he just shared in terms of priorities so that's all I have right now. Mr. McDaniel. An area I do think we need to flesh out more and maybe it's a standalone section but it's going to be the rise of artificial

[02:04:21] intelligence in our k-12 system both you know how the students use it how we use it internally how teachers use it how that's going to be injected into SOQs going forward there's just not been a lot of work done at the DOE at the state federal levels and I feel like we're getting behind not just in Fairfax, but across school divisions, and that needs legislative attention. I don't know whether that's laws or JLARC studies, but I'll share some documents I've kind of pulled together on that, but I do think focusing and getting more attention on the rise of artificial intelligence is really important going forward.

[02:04:57] Ms. Seizmerheiser. Ms. Seizmerheiser. So in terms of going into some of the questions, the thing I really wanted to talk a little about was timing because i i feel that um well two things one i was surprised to see in the recommended positions that we have that there wasn't a recommendation there's a recommendation

[02:05:33] additional sol assessment administration and timing flexibility i'm sorry sorry well slide 31 but i don't i guess what i'm i'm trying to from all my thoughts here i think what i'm trying to get at is i think the timing of this is difficult because from what i talked when i meet with my state delegation folks and when i talk to them what they say they find most helpful is if we can present to them our position or our priority suggested language right so it's not just here we believe in this or we support this but here's suggested language either to change current you

[02:06:12] know law or to have a new bill and then an impact statement of or a why right why do we suggest this And some of these positions, when I look at the 2026 recommended strikethrough document, some of them have a little bit of a why, and some just say we support this.

[02:06:30] And there's so many of them that I think it's so detailed, and that's great, but even when you pick our priorities, we need to have an easy document. They have 60 days in session, and that 60 days does not give them a lot of time to read this.

[02:06:47] Think about what our position is. Think about what building might change and what they might bring. So if we could, my recommendation would be in the spring, maybe a month after the session is done, we have a due out report. Here's what your priorities were for this year.

[02:07:04] Here's what the mapping to, here's the bills that came through. Here's what priorities were addressed. Here's what were not addressed. Here's some changes that happened that you might want to address next year. For example, the SOL bill or some of these other things that came through. Here are potential impact statements of the changes.

[02:07:22] And we at that point in the spring say, okay, and here's some suggested priorities or positions for next year. And in spring, we say these are our priorities. So then we have over the summer to draft a mapping of board priority, suggested language or suggested billing, you know, whatever it may be, impact statement.

[02:07:45] So then our legislators can take that and say, oh, okay, here's what they want. Here's how I can draft it. And here's why it's important. And then in the fall, that document is presented to us in September, or in the summer. And that is because by this time, they're already in the process of drafting their legislation.

[02:08:05] If we're adopting this in the next month, without any impact statements or suggested language, it's difficult for them, just how they function, right? So we've got to fit in the way how they function. It's difficult for them to make any of these changes. And then in the later of the fall, if I could just finish my sentence or into the session, We can start flagging the bills that they're filing for us to advocate on, either for or against or maybe just neutral.

[02:08:30] But this needs, I think this whole process needs to be rejiggered if we're going to actually have the time to put in legislation of things that we are our positions are priorities. My two cents. Well, thank you, and this was one reason why we had sought to have even a work session just next week on that held space, because the timeline is not ideal, but we're getting there earlier.

[02:08:53] remember we have the October 7th legislative breakfast and last year was very successful and well-received by our state elected colleagues because they liked that we did not just run through our usual here's all our priorities but we were like hey it's JLARC this is you know how it's impacting us this is where we want to go and that was really helpful for them so like digging down like you know drilling down like Ms. Heismarheiser said is really valuable so one of the things we're wondering about is what do we want to prepare for October 7th? Do we want to you know try to set that up but knowing that we still have the election in November right so that's going to change things you know

[02:09:29] or can we say like here's the ideas of legislation that we're interested in can you tell us how come you know is this helpful does it align with what you want right like maybe this year's breakfast is you know also about how can we help you do what you're trying to do for us right just given where we're at and everything happening so we need to flesh that out more and I do like the idea though of the state priorities piece being more than just the list but the rationale and I do like what mr. Frisch suggested for the content in the program I would support those things just one more thing just one more thing

[02:10:09] that I want to add some of the activities that we have not done before which is the submission of a budget amendment which frankly I did not know that we could do. I certainly knew that we could submit bills. We have never done this before as a board. It would be fantastic for us to get to that space because it's all-encompassing. It has all of the data around the things that we find the most important. And it cannot be on everything. It just has to be on the top few things. So we did ask Michael to also get together a one-pager for us in terms of what is that protocol to submit a bill?

[02:10:46] What is that protocol to submit a budget amendment? Because these are tools that are in our arsenal that we have yet used. And these are things that we will dig a little bit deeper in during the next work session. And hopefully those one-pagers will be available for us to go through those priorities and maybe even enumerate within that group what are the ones that are most important to take to those two next steps.

[02:11:10] So thank you for teeing that up a little bit, Ms. Sizemore-Heiser. Before we go to the next round, I do want to, well, there's the housekeeping that staff asked us to talk about, the clerks. Just to note that the Next Steps email and link has been sent to you all for this portion and the budget comms plan.

[02:11:33] And those will be due on Friday by 5:00 PM for you to enter the Next Steps and for you to show support by the 17th, which is the following Wednesday. But if we could go back to the slides and perhaps go to the next work step slide, if we could move to the next one.

[02:11:54] Again, talking about our future work session, the timeline and the timing, which is also important, board member recommendations, we will also gather that language so we can all have it with whatever else may come to you all after you leave this room and have a little bit more time digest what's been offered here and then any board activity that we may be interested in these will be the next parts of the conversation for the 16th once you've had a chance to talk about this a little bit more we do want to go through the next slide the on the horizon slide as well which

[02:12:32] outlays some of the timeline for filing and again if we're finding that it's important for us to To have bills that are submitted, we will need to make sure that we are equipping our legislators with this information in a timely manner, as well as the next slide, which are the key policy and budget dates.

[02:12:59] And then there's two slides of that, starting with October and ending through May. And we will take under consideration, Michael, what's been shared here, regarding the setting up the calendar for next time. - Ms. Marin, we would like to talk about the timeline at this point of the legislative agenda.

[02:13:20] As we've just talked about, we have the breakfast on the seventh. We have a joint position that is typically surrounding the education issues, which we put forth with the Board of Supervisors. The Board of Supervisors typically do not complete their program until December.

[02:13:42] this year, you mentioned it is the ninth. So what we are proposing is that we get ourselves prepared and we could talk about what we would like to see a little bit more specifically during the October 7th legislative breakfast.

[02:13:57] But we are proposing moving the adoption of the program a little bit later to be better in alignment with what the Board of Supervisors have so we don't need to have an additional addendum. doesn't mean that internally we can't come to some planning around some of these positions and I think the dates that were being floated are November 13th and to vote on December 4th kind of five days away from the Board of Supervisors we'd love to hear if there are any objections to that move or any feedback here Miss Mary would you like to add any well I just am wondering you

[02:14:36] know we talked today about budget timeline we're talking about legislative timeline we all have the boundary review timeline on our minds and the Western high school high school you know I'm just wondering if we should have you know at our meeting something that's showing all the things that are in our queue with deadlines you know that the dates because we've got a lot of stuff moving here and if people want to be involved you know we have to know what's happening so you know that's something for people to consider I actually have created one on a spreadsheet because you know i love spreadsheets so uh if people want to take a

[02:15:09] look at that let me know but yeah so thoughts on october 7th what shall we you know share with our few dozens of state elected representatives who will be here thoughts miss eismar heiser so i think you know our positions and i think our priorities need to be shared but i think we need as a board before then, whether it's today or next time, decide what those priorities are, and also figure out what from the previous session might be more urgent to be addressed,

[02:15:45] or what of our priorities are more urgent to be addressed. I'm going to just talk to Mr. Molloy about this at length, is the SOL bill that was passed. That SOL bill has some significant impact on our ability to hold graduations. It has an impact on our military-connected students.

[02:16:03] it has an impact on students who need retakes to grant our graduating seniors who might need retakes to graduate it has significant impact on our school system and i would say that's a priority to be addressed because we we can't i mean our graduating seniors can't graduate if you have a graduation two weeks before the um if you have graduation two weeks before the end of the school year you can't take and you need an sol to graduate you can't take that sol and so that means you can't walk i don't so i was hoping we'd have a little more of that and i don't this is not for

[02:16:42] you i mean this is i think it would be helpful from our government relations staff to have a little more guidance on things that are important i mean a list is great of positions but which of those are urgent and which of those are nice to haves and which of those are whatever it may be right but if we're going to have the legislative breakfast on october 7th i think it's vital to at least lift up the ones that are problematic for our school system that have to be fixed this year at minimum and that is what I'd probably put at the top of the list you know like one for example one of the things that SOL bill

[02:17:19] says is that if a class is given an SOL or if a student in a class is given an SOL every student in that class must take that SOL so if you have a military connected student who moves here and doesn't take let's say the biology as SOL for their science credit, and instead is going to take the chemistry one, because that's the year that they came in here.

[02:17:40] Now that entire class has to take the chemistry SOL, even if they didn't need to, because this one student needs it who's a military-connected student. That is one example of what this bill does. It's all well-intentioned, I understand, to try to decrease the timeline. It was a well-intentioned bill, but there are major implications for many of our students, or multilingual students or special education students and those that might need more retakes, what are we gonna do to that?

[02:18:07] So I would put for our next session, leading up to October 7th, what are the priorities that must be addressed? What is the, and each of those are mapped to what was done last year or if anything, an impact statement, suggested language for a fix or suggested language for a bill.

[02:18:25] Because that's our opportunity to talk to all of them at once and in enough potential time to do some legislation. - Thank you, Ms. Sizemoreheiser. Ms. Anderson, and then Ms. St. John Cunning.

[02:18:41] I apologize, I think I had it backwards. - I just wanna confirm, since I'm trying to ensure that we have the correct calendar, what is the date that you're proposing for the, 'cause I expected to receive these over email, so. - November 13th for new business and December 4th for a vote.

[02:18:59] - But as Ms. Sizemoreheiser suggested, - The opportunity is October 7th to speak with our delegation, which is why we asked for the work session next Tuesday. - I'm aware of the request. - So it's all in flux. There was no final dates until this conversation or suggested dates.

[02:19:14] - Well, but we did come to this with the expectation that we were gonna push off the legislative package. So dates would have been helpful to understand. - She just announced them a tiny bit ago. - Thank you. I didn't hear it in the conversation, so. The other question that I had is that, again, going to hit hard that we would be remiss to not talk about JLARC and talk about what we're actually asking for the legislators to do related to JLARC this year. I agree completely with moving the package until after the discussion. I actually would advocate for us having another work session

[02:19:50] on this or a portion of a work session after the election so that we have an indicator of what direction the administration is going to go because I think our package looks extremely different depending on who's in office and so right now i would advocate for us having another portion of a work session on um the 6th of november because that would be enough time that we could we could have the conversation that we would need to have that does not leave a significant amount of turnaround to have something done by the 13th but i don't think that our advocacy is going to change i just think it may strengthen what we're actually requesting so it could be that as we moved forward

[02:20:29] towards the 13th that we would need a path that would be here's here's what it's going to look like if we go one way here's what it's going to look like if we go another so as we're moving forward with this i would guess that the path that's currently existing in our package is probably close to where we would stay if things stay status quo however if we move forward and actually have a change in the administration then it could be that we strengthen some of our statements to to be firmer about what we're it is that we're looking for so that's one thing that i would advocate for i also think that we should go back and look at what the bills were that happened

[02:21:05] after jlark was originally put forward in in 2023 and determine what didn't pass that should have and how we can actually look at that to move forward if we have a different climate so i think that these are the opportunities that would be helpful thank you and just kind of just to share WHAT WE LOOKED UP THOSE NEXT DATES IF WE WERE TO ADOPT AT THE END OF DECEMBER WHICH WOULD BE AFTER THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS COMPLETES THEIR PROGRAM ON THE 9TH IT WOULD BE THE DATE OF THE 18TH AND I I THINK THAT MAKES A LOT OF SENSE BUT BEFORE WE GET TOO FAR OUT AND I KNOW MORE PEOPLE

[02:21:44] WANT TO SPEAK I WANT TO REITERATE I WANT TO BE SURE THAT WE CAN COME TO A CONCLUSION HERE regarding that date before we leave this meeting because it will set us up for the next two miss st john cunning so i just wanted to echo about looking at the bills that are problematic because although well-intentioned and even with us that work within the school board it's in the operationalizing of some of this that really has an impact and so i think that's something we really need to focus on on October 7th and again piggybacking on

[02:22:21] the J Lark I think what we have to also and it's sad that it's sad that several times the statements have been made here depending on who's gonna be elected because it should not depend on who's gonna be elected how our schools are funded and how our students are supported and it's sad that that's even a consideration that we have to take but that is the reality we live in today and so because that is a reality that we live in today I think we also have to talk to our state partners and say we've got to look at the federal funding and

[02:22:58] the shortfalls that may or may not exist and I think that we also you know does that is that does that coincide with JLARC does it not is it something different because the reality is that those federal impacts will those federal dollars if we don't get them will negatively impact our students and our families and so we're going to have to readjust how we get funding from the state and from our other funders from our county funders and I think that's an

[02:23:30] important consideration thank you miss st. Joan Cunning miss Marin yes so I wanted to share you know that I do I appreciate my size more heiser you helping us figure out what is going to be most effective for the legislative breakfast you know for me I definitely want us to advocate for this SOL we got to fix that and you know that was one of our own delegation members who proposed that so definitely you know for Dr. Reed's team to come in and say like why it's a problem what it looks like you know to arm us with that information give them a real world example and like you said what the legislation should

[02:24:07] look like you know it's interesting about JLARC you know I'm always ready to go on JLARC but there hasn't been much chatter yet so I've been talking to other school board members and there's some ideas but we were so surprised that last year it was even addressed that you know it's hard to shoot for the moon again but I'm all for it but so that could be and also we could ask them what are you hearing because that's our chance to understand from them and get our arrows in a row I would also like to go back to Delegate Helmler and Senator Surabelle's indoor air quality bill because we have a bit of current

[02:24:43] information that could inform why we need funding to update to maintain our facilities and so these unfunded mandates that they love to give us well let's say you know can you put a price tag on that and maybe that's a budget amendment and then finally I do agree about elevating the federal advocacy the kinds of legislation that mr. Frisch stated so I mean so those are four things that you know my ideas I've captured some others that could be a a good starting point you know perhaps for next week what can we ask the superintendent and her team to return with to flesh out because then that's it we're not meeting again until october

[02:25:22] 7th so we're really going to have to do that work separately and in pairs to be uh ready for that so um that's it yeah thank you miss marron i do not see any other placards up so i want to take a stab at summarizing what was shared in the room just to give us some better opportunities to be prepared for the next work session which is coming up next week on the 16th one mr mallor you heard the ask for mapping of the priorities in terms of what occurred before and where are those now because

[02:25:59] that will give us some information in terms of how to continue on that prioritization list two will also be information regarding jlark since introduced in 2023 what has happened what has and i know we've had a couple of successes but where are the other areas are they still de rigueur so to speak or is it passe because we know very often well i'll just leave it there so that's two um three what we will do and i do hear that mr frisch will be shopping around some

[02:26:34] of his thoughts but we would like to start to gather whatever the priorities are that we have and so I'll be reaching out to each of you just to do similarly that we did last year what are the revisions once you've had a chance to absorb this a little bit more and what are some of the new positions that you would like to you'd like to prior that you would like to present I also had very similar thoughts with mr. Malloy during my individual meeting regarding the sol and the timing not having been as um educate informed about how it impacts our military

[02:27:12] connected students but definitely with our seniors and graduations so i also had had some language that i will be shopping with you all about that so those are the tasks i think mr mallor that you will need to come back to us on the 16th and at that time we will also take a little bit more time to flesh out the october 7th breakfast which is going to be super high level on the things that are the most important to us and also on the 16th we will go over the protocols for submitting bills and budget amendments just so we have that tool available to us because it has not been one that

[02:27:51] we've utilized in the past and then subsequently after the seventh i have some information here that i think we do need to engage our legislators on which is what is most helpful to them because i know individually we each have these conversations but what if the legislator that i work with wants something very different than the legislator that um that marcia works with we need to kind of have a collective conversation is how can we be the most helpful the most efficient to that group and so we can make sure that we are equipping them with that information

[02:28:29] and then i did not hear any objections actually some advocacy for even pushing back the um the adoption of the legislative agenda so i did not hear any objections from anyone going once okay done um and what's that nope you got once um and so i think i think i have my marching orders as a partner to melanie in this work and to mr malloy and i do want to say before i wrap up just my last comment is thank you mr malloy for your work on this and thank you to alex

[02:29:07] i think he's back there we spent quite a bit of time trying to make sure that we have the most impactful and helpful product for you and into this in this session and of course we don't want to let go of some of those other activities which is take your legislators to work month and making sure we can have those conversations so i do want to put in the room what other resources will be helpful for you all for us to do our work this is the opportunity to raise those needs

[02:29:41] is it communication is it particular documents whatever those are let's collect that data now so that we can be preparing them for all of those menu of options that we have listed on one of these slides for us to do our best work on this effort and so just so a few things one of them so next step our future steps are so we are going to have part of this on the work session that's held and i just checked the calendar so that's at five o'clock a week from tonight so i'm gonna i guess

[02:30:19] we'll get that finalized and if there's anything else going on that agenda i don't know but uh and then the november 6 work session there was a request to put the legislative program and government relations work on that meeting and then i also wanted to mention so for take your legislator to school month those activities and this again blends into the budget work um michael we mr malloy we'd like to ask your office to coordinate that because you know who the you know invites to the magisterial districts you know to certain ones of us want to partner with others and you knowing where all the magisterial lines would be helpful so that kind of coordination so I did just want to

[02:30:57] confirm that as much as we can so yeah miss lady I'm sorry are you asking Michael to coordinate all of our legislature legislature school days I that seems like a heavy lift well it depends if we coordinate together and team up. It doesn't have to be.

[02:31:18] I'm just going with what I did last year. That's what I did. I reached out to another board member and I reached out to legislators and we picked specific schools. I'm just saying it's very difficult even for Jacob and Wendy hypothetically and the two of us to coordinate a calendar with legislators.

[02:31:42] What I found was that then if you have a legislator who has like let's take Senator Saleem who's got like half the board then he's got six people trying to organize with him and then what if we're not in sync right so we want to be as coordinated as we can so that just requires us talking more I didn't see that happening as much last year which is why I suggesting it this year so I think we talked about this in the two by two was potentially at the lunch breakfast putting something out and allowing the legislators to indicate what school they'd like to see or schools and then we would use that

[02:32:20] information I think am I remembering this correctly I don't know what I can say is again and I see Mr. Frisch you know if we are going to also look to the advice of that budget comms plan we can certainly accommodate their requests but there might be things that we want them to see right that they're not aware of so again like how to maybe the better question is how we be strategic about this and whether individuals want to do it on their own or Michael wants to do again how are we working as one board to put forth that story of what's happening so um yeah mr frisch

[02:32:53] um my experience is that if i don't start doing this planning in august or even earlier that i don't get the take your legislators scheduled in a way that gets them to attend with me so i started many many weeks ago on scheduling my um take your legislators to to school uh sessions um i also think that you know um i don't know that having two or i guess it wouldn't be more board members because of the stupid law that we should have in the legislative program

[02:33:33] um that that is a better use of our time with a legislator um when they could have the message compounded in in subsequent meetings um uh so i admire the attempt to streamline i just don't know that it um in terms of the things that we want out of michael um this is not something that would be on my list of things that i need from michael um but if the board wants to do it that way that's the prerogative of the board um i've just proceeded as i've always proceeded

[02:34:15] Yeah, Mr. Krish's comments made me think. I do think we need to add the sunshine, the rules around the fact that we can only talk to one other board member because, you know, and perhaps because in other boards that are five-member boards, and I know, Ms. Marin, you've done a lot of work on this in the past. Five-member boards, it's two people. Twelve-member boards, it's two people, and it makes our work, and then even how it applies to our electronic work, which is all subject to FOIA anyway.

[02:34:42] So I think this is maybe something to talk about. I think in having conversations with some of our legislatures, I think there's a renewed interest in this as some of the legislatures have been trying to set up community meetings with us and realizing that they have to set up six community meetings to have one of their constituents be able to speak to the entire board.

[02:34:59] And the state was, well, that's insane. Why can't we just do, it's not a policymaking meeting, right? But they have to do six separate meetings for their constituents to meet with us. So I just think that maybe we should keep that on our legislative positions, priorities, I don't know which one right now, but one of those somewhere in there, we should put that in there.

[02:35:19] And again, that's where the impact statement would be really helpful, because when I talk to legislators, they're unaware of how that implies to email, which again, is subject to FOIA anyway, so it's available. They're unaware of how it applies to Google Doc. They're unaware we can't reply all to colleagues.

[02:35:37] So I think that impact statement would be really helpful, because otherwise it's hard to understand why this matters, but when you understand the level to which it stymies our work in an era where the public rightfully expects us to be able to work nimbly and quickly, and I don't think some of these rules have been ... At least if they could give us more clarity around electronic communications, which I know there's been some effort to do, that would be helpful.

[02:36:02] I think putting this in, again, position priority, don't know where, but somewhere in there with an impact statement. In general, those impact ... I can't say more about these impact statements. Our legislatures are understandably busy with a lot of different things we're juggling, so as easy as we can make it for them to understand the impact of all the things we're asking for, the better it is.

[02:36:22] I want all of our -- to be transparent, but I also don't want to make our community not be able to meet with us. We'll have to do six hours of meetings in order to get their message to all of us. So there's got to be a balance in there. Thank you. So gosh, all the things I've said today, I didn't expect that suggesting that Michael schedule all of our meetings would be the one to get the most attention.

[02:36:45] So that's fine. going off the experience last year where I did ask people to be communicative about scheduling meetings and that didn't happen and then you know it's kind of embarrassing when you reach out to someone and someone else is already meeting and you know so it it gets back to again this communications idea that are we going to be you know united in our efforts or are we each going to do our own thing and leave everyone you know to flail so that's what I'm getting at but what I hear Ms. Sizemoreheiser saying is adding in the sunshine law I was aware one member had brought it up i know i have data about it kathleen murthy presented it as a bill years ago so um i've captured

[02:37:20] notes dr anders has captured notes i'm happy to share them but we will have something for september 16th um but before we wrap up if we can go to the last slide we do have one more and this is just to ensure that we know who all the players are on the key committees you know these are the things that matter to us the most the education committee members and the money committee members and so knowing who those players are and how many of them we have access to already and the ones that we need to cultivate access to because they're not necessarily Fairfax County representatives but it doesn't

[02:37:59] mean we can't strike up a conversation upon visiting Richmond because they're on the committee their voices matter they need to hear how whatever it is that they're working on is impacting us even though it may not be something even though they may not be the ones who represent us but they are a vote so I wanted to really elevate this slide as well and unless there are any other questions or comments which we will do at two minutes at this point oh she's

[02:38:34] putting it down and mr fish's hand is not up oh is it up oh he his literal hand is up mr frisch please go ahead two minutes uh this committee slide is is a great reminder and one thing that we may also want to put on our radar um you know the staffing for our delegates and senators many of them have the same uh senior person with them consistently year over year some of them have a new person every couple years but they all tend to have young people who move

[02:39:11] through their office just for session right they're session aids so um i think it's important that when we encounter one of these new people that we share their contact information with michael and with our liaisons to ensure that we're keeping track of those things we can't assume that um the session aid that's been hired in the last week that everybody's already aware of who those people are and the more entry points we have for each office the more dexterity we have when we need to reach a member on the floor or when we need to make sure that they're getting the message

[02:39:51] about a bill that we've just found out about so just food for thought very good very much appreciated and that's actually that's actually a list that we should probably call as soon as possible so that we all have access to it because they're easily more easily reached when we're in session when they're in session then the legislators okay any final thoughts or words mr. Molloy no I just appreciate the discussion and look forward to the work as we go forward and with and with that said 407 we're adjourned

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