Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Work Session, Tuesday, December 2, 2025

Date: Tuesday, December 2, 2025
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 2h 49m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOy5EwcvTDE
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 2026-10-28. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:21] seats we're gonna get started we do have a quorum and since we have nobody virtual and no voting happening today we don't need to wait for people to take their seats but I'm gonna be polite and give people 90 seconds to find their way

[00:00:33] to their chairs before we begin give people a chance to get situated all

[00:02:22] right we'll go ahead and get started this December 2nd 2025 school board work session will come to order at 10:39 a.m. just to give you an idea of what we're looking at today. We're gonna start with the strategic plan goal five report leading for tomorrow's innovation.

[00:02:41] The presentation will take about 20 minutes and then board members will have an initial three minutes for their conversation and questions. And then we'll have go backs after that for about two minutes. And if we have time for additional go backs, we'll announce that after the first round.

[00:02:57] It may be less time, it may be the same time, it just depends on how much time is used. And then we will break at 12:30 for lunch before picking things up in the work session on secondary course offerings.

[00:03:15] And Ms. Lady will be keeping track of people who want to speak or ask questions. And I will turn it over to Dr. Reed.

[00:03:31] - Thank you, Mr. Fresh. It's my pleasure this morning to introduce the team that's going to be presenting Goal 5. And we're very excited about Goal 5 as one of our early board goal reports, and I'm gonna turn it over to Ms. Marcy Neal, who's coordinating the report, and if you can have the team introduce themselves, and then let's proceed.

[00:03:54] - Thank you, Dr. Rien. Good morning to the members of the board. I'm Marcy Neal, the Assistant Superintendent for Strategy, Planning, and Learning. I'll turn it over to Dr. Persidio. - Good morning, Sloan Persidio, Chief Academic Officer. - Good morning, Artis King, Chief Equity Officer. - Good morning, everyone. Giovanni Ponce, Chief of Schools.

[00:04:10] - Good morning, everyone. Candace Hunstead, Executive Director of Strategy and Planning. And we also have several of our department heads and leaders with us this morning as well to support the board's conversation. Go ahead and bring up the slides and we'll get started.

[00:04:26] So our objectives for today are on the slide, as you can see, and we look forward to our discussion this morning with the board. For our public, today's presentation is on goal five, which is our leading for tomorrow's innovation goal. And in today's presentation, we're gonna be covering strategic plan measures C through G with a focus on graduation success.

[00:04:48] and the full report is posted on BoardDocs and does provide additional data for all the measures within the goal. During our last goal report, we talked about a strong start that we want for all of our students. And in goal five, we're gonna be talking about the strong finish we want for all of our students as they leave FCPS to pursue their future goals and dreams.

[00:05:09] So graduation success is an important area for our continued focus as 94% of jobs, all colleges and universities in Virginia, and most apprenticeships require a high school diploma. Graduation is a reflection of cumulative efforts, achievements and supports along a student's educational journey, including their growth and learning in earlier grades, their access to and success in engaging coursework, and their engagement in school and exposure to content that connects with their future plans.

[00:05:40] Today, we're going to share two different ways that the VDOE calculates graduation rates. The first is looking at on-time graduation rates, which includes students who are in a graduating cohort who earn any of the Virginia board recognized diplomas, which includes the standard advanced studies or applied studies diploma.

[00:05:59] And this rate does provide additional time for our students with disabilities and multilingual learners who are legally permitted to extend their time to graduation to age 22. And we continue to use this on-time graduation rate as our accountability measure for our strategic plan reporting.

[00:06:15] The second that we're going to report on is the four-year federal graduation indicator or FGI, which is now used in BDOE's School Performance and Support Framework, or the SPSF. This rate shows the percentage of students who earn a federally recognized diploma in four years.

[00:06:32] So it does not include the Applied Studies diploma or students who extend time beyond those four years. And as a result, that FGI rate is always going to be lower than our on-time graduation rate. And you're going to see that in the data that we present today. So this slide shows historical graduation rates, and we're looking at this data longitudinally because during the 2019-20 and 2021 school years, the state provided high school students with additional flexibility in order to meet graduation requirements.

[00:07:02] So the flexibility included options for earning verified credits without the normal test score requirements. So for example, our students could have earned a verified credit with a score of 350 or higher on an SOL, as opposed to that normal cut score of 400. For the class of 2025, they're the first cohort since the pandemic where the majority of students could not benefit from that state flexibility as most of those students were in eighth grade when these policies were in place.

[00:07:31] So as you can see from the slide before the pandemic in 2019, 91% of students graduated on time and 86% graduated in four years with the federally recognized diploma. During the pandemic, these rates increased in FCPS and in 2025, the rates decreased slightly with the state flexibility no longer in place, but did remain higher than the 2019 on-time graduation rates and FGI rates.

[00:08:00] So when we look more closely at our on-time graduation rates by student group, we see lower rates for our multilingual learners and Hispanic students. However, both groups have made progress from the baseline. For our Hispanic students who are not multilingual learners, their on-time graduation rate last year was 96%, which suggests language acquisition is a driving factor for on-time graduation for our Hispanic students.

[00:08:24] We have not had graduation data released by the state yet, so we can't compare our FCPS data to our state averages and other divisions. However, in 23-24, which is the last year we have state data released, our graduation rate did exceed the state average and was in range within our other districts.

[00:08:44] We see a similar trend for our four-year FGI rate with the decline in rates overall. Again, this measure does not allow for that additional time that our students are legally entitled to and in order to extend graduation beyond four years, nor does this include the applied studies diploma.

[00:09:00] So as a result, the largest differences we see between on-time graduation rates and FGI rates are for our students with disabilities and our multilingual learners. In addition to looking at a student's graduation status, we also monitor the diploma types that our graduates earn and the percentage of students who dropped out.

[00:09:20] So last year, the majority of our graduates continued to earn an advanced studies diploma. However, an increased percentage of graduates are leaving FCPS with the standard diploma. As a reminder, we have not set a target on this metric, and to ensure our students are taking coursework that will lead for readiness for college and career, we have set targets on high school course taking patterns through our ABLE work, which is a part of goal four of our strategic plan.

[00:09:46] And so for the public, goal four looks at the extent to which students are pursuing coursework that's preparing them for post-secondary. And by focusing on this course taking patterns as opposed to a specific diploma type, We recognize there are several course taking combinations that can provide students with post-secondary momentum and preparation for college and career.

[00:10:07] Last year, we saw fewer graduates with disabilities earning the applied studies diploma with a greater percentage earning the standard diploma. So this is another data point where we haven't set a target as pursuing this diploma is an IEP team decision. However, we have met the target set forward in the state's annual special education performance report, which requires divisions to monitor and strive to increase the share of students with disabilities, students with disabilities who exit special education services with a standard or advanced studies diploma.

[00:10:39] So in this slide you see the decline in graduates with disabilities earning that applied studies diploma is due to the increase in those earning the standard diploma. So that's a good news story. And the rates for the advanced studies diploma remain consistent from last year for this student group.

[00:10:59] On this slide you can see longitudinal dropout rates cohort which includes students who withdrew without transferring to another school or students who have an unconfirmed status at the end of the school year it's important to note that dropouts can occur at any point after a student begins ninth grade but the data isn't counted in the cohort until in the cohort the student was scheduled to graduate with so for some students this could be more than six years after they first entered high school so for example if you look at the 2025 bar on this chart you can see the dropout rate for cohort, the students included in this rate could have left FCPS well before the 24-25

[00:11:39] school year. As we examine changes in dropout rate, you can see last year the 2024 cohort is the only year that the dropout rate was below 4% in recent years. So this slide shows dropout by student groups and for this data we want to see the bars coming down to the bottom of the graph as we work to ensure that no students are dropping out. And as you can see from the slide, our Hispanic students and multilingual learners are the greatest distance from the division average and these student groups have also seen an improvement in their dropout rates since the baseline. So when we think about the context of graduation success dropout is not just a student

[00:12:19] outcome but it's also a system signal that points us to areas where we need to better identify and respond to student needs. While our multilingual learners had the highest rate of dropouts when we disaggregate this data by looking at English language proficiency level we can see students Students who achieve ELP levels four or higher had dropout rates that were below the division average.

[00:12:43] So in comparison, over half of the students who were categorized as ELP level one in the 2025 cohort dropped out. So this data to us signals a need to further examine our existing practices and supports for high school students who are still acquiring English language proficiency as they near their graduation cohort year.

[00:13:05] And finally, we'll take a look at post-secondary plans and outcomes, and we'll be examining this topic in greater detail in our goal 4 report when we talk about ABLE and look at post-secondary momentum as it relates to those course-taking patterns for students.

[00:13:20] As you know, last year our students in grades 3 through 12 participated in the first annual student experience survey, which asked students about a range of topics, including college and career readiness. So, specifically, students were asked if they were aware of colleges and careers that matched their interests, which is the first row on the slide, if they were confident that they would go to college and or have a career and if they were taking courses now that were needed for college and career and finally that what they learn in school will prepare them for college and career so overall we see that most of our students feel prepared and confident about their post-secondary futures and this high level of self-reported readiness likely reflect reflects

[00:14:00] positive school-based experiences and a strong culture around college and career there is some variation by student group particularly when students were asked if they were taking courses needed for college and career. Each year we collect information on our graduating seniors plans for after high school, including attending a two or four year college, employment, enlistment, or training and other education.

[00:14:25] And this data comes from our annual senior survey. And as you can see in the chart, nearly all of our graduates have plans for college and career with very little deviation by student group. In addition to monitoring students' post-secondary plans, we also have access to data on college enrollment through the National Student Clearinghouse.

[00:14:44] So among the class of 2024, which is the last cohort that we have data for, 87% reported that they plan to attend college, and that's again on our senior survey, and 75% enrolled the following fall, which was a gap of around 12 percentage points.

[00:15:00] In the year prior, that gap was 15 percentage points, so we are seeing that gap narrow. And this gap between intention and enrollment was highest for our multilingual learners, which was 61% that planned to attend versus 39% that were successfully enrolled.

[00:15:15] So one thing that we do wanna point out too is historically our overall rates of college going are higher when we compare to the state and other Northern Virginia districts. So this is data we're newly including in goal five reporting which looks at post-secondary outcomes of students with disabilities and pulls from the VDOE special education performance reports that are a part of the requirements through IDEA.

[00:15:38] This data specifically looks at students with disabilities who are age 16 and older who are no longer enrolled in secondary school, including those who dropped out. And then for each of these metrics, FCPS has well exceeded the state average with the majority of students enrolled in an institution of higher education, training or employment after high school.

[00:15:59] And then finally, we're gonna share the work that we're doing focused on increasing graduation success. So for each of these three strategies, I'll share some of the actions we're taking and there are some additional details that are provided in the full report. Because graduation is based on students earning sufficient credits to graduate, our first strategy is focused on providing multiple opportunities for students to complete those requirements, including first-time credit accrual and credit recovery, as well as monitoring progress towards graduation.

[00:16:29] This year we launched a new graduation status feature in ParentVUE and StudentVUE to help students and families monitor their graduation status. We also refocused graduation plans on supporting students at risk of not graduating in four years, while continuing to recognize students who have that legal right to remain beyond four years.

[00:16:49] We continue to help students with disabilities access the Special Permission Locally Awarded Verified Credit Accommodation, or SPLAVICA, where our students can earn verified credit for courses without passing the SOL. So for students to receive that credit, we submit a request to the state, and we saw the approval submissions grow from 167 in 23-24 to 249 last year.

[00:17:15] And finally, we can see on the slide that students who are accessing those no credit accrual and recovery options, including summer programming, have been largely successful in those areas. Our second strategy focuses on student engagement in school and their post-secondary momentum, recognizing when students are engaged in the learning that connects to their goals, they're far more likely to be successful.

[00:17:38] We continue to re-engage students who are at risk of dropping out with additional supports provided by on-time graduation resource teachers that are placed at designated schools. This year, we piloted placement of a career center specialist at summer learning sites to provide summer graduates with support in college access and enrollment.

[00:17:56] And finally, we continue to offer a variety of CTE courses across the division, which research suggests supports graduation success. Our final strategy is focused on supporting success for students who have additional educational needs. For our students with disabilities, we've developed a new standard course offering to support career exploration and readiness and are currently establishing new guidelines for IEP processes to help students and families explore 18 to 22 year old programming options.

[00:18:26] For multilingual learners, we offer literacy and math courses with multiple entry points for students with limited and/or interrupted education and continue to focus on providing adequate time for English language acquisition as reflected in our goal one report. To develop strategies to serve multilingual learners at higher risk of dropping out, including students classified as ELP level one and two that are nearing their graduation cohort year, our Office of Research and Program Evaluation is conducting a review of research literature to identify model programs and practices for FCPS to consider.

[00:19:01] And to summarize, last year we saw a small decline in our on-time graduation and a corresponding uptake in the dropout rate. While Hispanic students and multilingual learners continue to have lower rates of graduation and the division average, they've also seen improvements from the baseline. The overwhelming majority of high school students are confident that they will go to college and/or have a career and feel like what they're learning in school is preparing them for the future.

[00:19:25] And then finally, of the high percentage of students with post-secondary plans to go to college, most were able to achieve their plans. So as we conclude our goal five presentation, I wanna note the interconnectedness between goal five and our other four goals.

[00:19:41] Graduation success in many ways relies on our remaining goals, including students having a strong start no matter when they begin their journey in FCPS, students having a sense of belonging in their school that leads to positive engagement, a foundation of early learning that supports subsequent academic success, and the ability to access a broad range of offerings that support pre-K through 12 success and prepare students for a rapidly changing future.

[00:20:07] So this concludes our presentation. I'll turn it back to our meeting managers. - Thank you, we'll get started with Mr. Moon. - Thank you, Mr. Prash, thanks for the presentation.

[00:20:24] Couple of questions to start with. Before I ask questions, I absolutely agree with you about the importance of high school, you know, getting a high school diploma for anyone. Not only just in Fairfax, but anywhere, anywhere in the U.S.

[00:20:40] With a set, a relatively high dropout rate, that uptick that we see, and I understand what the strategies we are trying to implement, and I appreciate that, even with those strategies, we have students dropping out, dropping out.

[00:21:04] Do you conduct any assessment or interview after they actually drop out? And especially in efforts to hear from them, if there is, there was anything that school system could do better, could do more?

[00:21:32] - What I would say to start is, I mean, First, I appreciate you starting this discussion with the dropout rate because I think that's probably the most troubling data point in the report, right? I mean, any student who's not graduating is not a success in terms of our division's work with that student and family.

[00:21:49] So, you know, your specific question about collecting information from students when they leave, we try really hard, as soon as a student kind of hits that 15-day drop mark, right? That's when they would kind of be triggered for dropout risk.

[00:22:06] Our counselors, our on-time graduation coordinators that we have I think in 12 of our high schools right now do extensive outreach to try to find those students and get them reconnected to school. Oftentimes they've been working with those students before they drop out, trying to mitigate any types of issues or barriers that we can as a school system.

[00:22:26] Some of the largest factors driving dropouts that we find are students feeling too far behind in terms of credits. So they're getting to that age, 17, 18, where they see their peers graduating and moving on, and they realize that they still have two or three years, maybe, before they would be able to complete all of the graduation requirements.

[00:22:46] And typically, when I talk about students like that, I'm talking about students that may be transferred in from another country, maybe they had interrupted formal education, so they had a gap in their learning that caused them to get far behind. So feeling just overwhelmed by the amount of work that they need to do and the age that they're at is one of the big factors.

[00:23:04] Another big factor are just like their personal family responsibilities, needing to work and earn money either for themselves or for their extended family. Those are two of the biggest reasons. And I feel like at some point we're gonna need to find more flexible options to keep students engaged because students that fall into those categories typically we're referring to our alternative high schools or our adult high school, but we're not having the success in those programs to help the kids graduate that we would like to see.

[00:23:36] So we're gonna need to think of some new strategies, ways to extend the school year perhaps for students, more flexible credit earning opportunities. And we're doing some of that now. Giovanni's team's doing a great job leading a lot of that work with credit accrual through technology, through high impact tutoring, lots of things to try to get kids on the track to success.

[00:23:57] But when they're so credit deficient and they have some of those societal factors, it's hard to keep them enrolled sometimes. - I want to add that, thank you, indeed. I have been meeting with students that just drop, and we have been working with my team.

[00:24:18] One thing that Sloan already said is flexibility, and they feeling very behind in the age, and the support that they have to, in other words, the money that they have to bring to the house.

[00:24:34] Most of them, I will say more than 75% of the students who drop, they are level one, the majority level one and they are over age and already they feel overwhelmed coming to the school and having to perform, learn, acquire that English and work as well.

[00:24:59] One of the biggest that really touched my heart is a group of children that they have to have two jobs and go to class as well. And that's why we are preparing something that Dr. Reed's going to probably present in next semester is flexibility.

[00:25:21] How can we actually provide that kind of flexibility to the student and making sure that they can acquire those accelerated learning, acquire that language, get that credit, and have enough time to work.

[00:25:39] One of the biggest thing that we could work all together as a division is to see how we can provide somehow, not money, but get partners to make sure that they have a job where they can have some money, study, that they can go to school as well, and at the same time acquire the language.

[00:26:06] - Thank you, I'm encouraged to hear that we may be hearing something from Dr. Reed from next semester with more flexible options because I'm sure you'll agree with me that we don't wanna give up on these students who may be a lot of times maybe, may not have much other choice but to drop out given that they may be very much behind in getting unnecessary credits or they have financial obligations for the families or language barriers, et cetera.

[00:26:39] But at the same time, I mean, as I said at the beginning, as you presented at the beginning of your presentation, that having a high school diploma will go a long way for anyone to continue pursuing their careers.

[00:26:57] Thank you. - Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson. - Thank you, just kind of picking up on that. One of the questions that I had before Mr. Moon made his statements and you provided your response around the analysis of who are these kids clearly you've been able to articulate that is there any way could make its way into the report so that we can just read who it is that we're talking about when we're discussing dropouts and more particularly I would love some information about what are the grade levels like who are these kids the demographics all of the data you

[00:27:36] typically collect if you could include that because that's helpful to know who we're targeting because the approach will be different but I feel like I don't know who these kids are in order to make to give informed feedback I'm not sorry dr. Anderson yeah we have that we have that analysis I believe we provided under separate cover oh okay where would that be your email okay I will check my

[00:28:03] email or not thank you were you gonna say that just one second yeah no it's It's very difficult, and probably I shouldn't be saying this at this point, but I really don't want to stereotype one very specific group of student, and that's going to be very difficult if we just, that's why we are talking just, you know, right here at large, but I think that that was saying already.

[00:28:42] Okay, the other piece that I wanted to ask when it comes to how we can be more strategic and keeping the students who are dropping out based on whatever their variables is how are we using apprenticeships and those kind of CTE opportunities that can result in really good paying job almost right away out of high school.

[00:29:07] How does that play in terms of the strategies? The apprenticeships kind of at one end of the work-based learning, that's kind of the ideal in a sense that you're in this paid apprenticeship program and on track to a future career in a recognized trade.

[00:29:28] That's hard to get for students who are under 18 for liability reasons and insurance reasons. So we think about this work experience kind of continuum and getting students in any type of work-based learning experience where not only can they be earning wages, as Dr. Ponce already talked about, see that connected to the academics in their course of study on a track to a high school diploma, and ideally trying to even sometimes get credit for some of the work-based learning experiences that they have.

[00:29:58] And we're advocating a lot to the State Department of Education to try to get more flexibility to award credit for work-based learning experiences, because if you can get students on that track to success, that kind of dual track of career opportunities, academic opportunities, so that they can continue along that parallel track, I think that's one of the ways that we can incentivize students to stay engaged with school but I mean we are somewhat limited in our ability to help students find paid employment so I mean that's that's definitely a growth area for us I want to add a little bit also

[00:30:32] with that and we have been working very tight with with the CTE which they are doing a phenomenal job sometimes it's very difficult for our students for that group that you are mentioning because some places require students to have a social security number and that is one of the biggest factor that I really want to that we have it here on the table that we have some other barriers that that we don't see it that they are there however we have been working very very

[00:31:10] hard together something that I want to just actually to celebrate is a Brian which I don't call Bryant alternative school, I call it Bryant Career Center. This is the new name for Bryant, which we have been working very, very hard.

[00:31:28] And anytime that you wanna go and see it, how it is gonna be expanding, that's a phenomenal place. You see students from different places, different high schools coming to learn to become welders.

[00:31:43] They are learning welding. We are about to start barbering as well. And so it's an amazing place that I really want you to consider to visit. - Okay, thank you. One of the other things that I noticed that you've outlined on page 3 and 37 of the reports, sorry, I don't know where it is on the PowerPoint, is the need to increase, where is it here?

[00:32:12] The need to increase the percentage of students earning an advanced studies diploma. This is not the first time that I've raised this, but my question is still the same. How will you know you have arrived? Because we don't have any targets. Increase to what?

[00:32:30] - So the measure itself was to increase the percentage of students receiving the advanced studies diploma. And when we had this discussion with the board last year, we sort of reinforced the idea that our focus is on making sure kids are taking the coursework that's necessary to give them that post-secondary momentum.

[00:32:49] And so that's our ABLE data that we've set specific targets on. And I'll give you one example, Dr. Anderson, when we looked at how this data compares to our college-going rates. So our college-going rates are about 75% of our graduates are going on to college, but our advanced studies diploma rates, as you can see, are well below that, which is a signal to us that there are multiple pathways beyond just that advanced studies diploma that are preparing our students for post-secondary.

[00:33:16] - Right, and two things can still be true at the same time. - Yes. - Five E says to increase the number of students with advanced diplomas. How is this going to be achieved? And what, again, I think I'm trying to figure out when will we know when we get there? - Yeah, so I think that's probably a decision for the board.

[00:33:34] If the board wants to put a target on that specific metric, we're happy to do that. - I want to add that that's why every single high school Right now, you notice we have been working with ABLE where this is what we are looking at, the pathway, 'cause sometime one class will make the big difference to get either a standard diploma or an advanced diploma, and this is what we are right now, and you're gonna see very soon how this is gonna just.

[00:34:12] - Thank you. Figure two that you have on page six of the report, which I found to be very interesting. It's the composition of the fall membership of all of the schools in the area. Can you speak a little bit in terms to how do you want us to use this data?

[00:34:29] - So we wanted to provide this context because we obviously share data, the state data, and oftentimes share our Northern Virginia district data just for the board to have some context. It's not always comparing apples to apples. So being able to provide some additional understanding of the demographics of our surrounding jurisdictions so that when you're looking at data, that recognition that it's looking at a graduation rate for a certain student demographic group in one school system versus another is not always going to be comparable.

[00:35:00] - I see, very good, thank you. On page eight, where you started to bifurcate between the OGR and the FGI, I'm assuming we now have this two sets of data because of our new accountability measures, so I appreciate the response to that.

[00:35:22] Can you speak a little bit, well, I think you've shown that, but I would love for you to highlight a little bit in terms of which groups are the most negatively impacted when this accountability measure is applied. - So in our, when you compare the FGI and the on-time graduation rate, you see the biggest impact for our multilingual learners and students with disabilities.

[00:35:46] Because the FGI does not include the applied studies diploma, which is an option for our students with disabilities and doesn't allow for those additional years that both our multilingual learners and students with disabilities can access, their graduation rates are not counting into those FGI data.

[00:36:04] - Because I have five seconds left, this last piece is just a clarification. On page nine, you have an adjusted cohort. Can you explain what that is? And I'd like to go back, please.

[00:36:19] - I'm sorry, Dr. Anderson, can you help maybe point out more directly where it is? - On figure five, it says class of 24, Adjusted cohort, I just wanna understand what that means. - That would be for students who are sliding. So adjusted cohort means the cohort, again, for on-time graduation allows for those additional years for students to slide in and out.

[00:36:40] So when we talk about the cohort, it's that adjusted cohort, that's correct. - Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Ms. Marin. - Well, first I wanna highlight on slide 26, there's a beautiful picture of our class of 2025 South Lakes graduates, one of whom is studying to be a teacher right now, Mr. Joey Falls.

[00:37:01] So thanks for including that. So I appreciate this. And I continue to see room for strategic integration of our work to when I think about the increase for math access and achievement, the coursework mapping work, which was mentioned by ABLE, and reclaiming the achievement of the high numbers of advanced studies diploma.

[00:37:24] I do have a question about that. And then as a board member, the budget implications. So I'm wondering, what does the board to do with this information what do staff want the board to do with this information if you could tell us what to do and what does the superintendent want us to do with this information we need facilitated guidance you know saying if the board wants to do this we we need to be informed to make better decisions um i haven't heard anything about the amazing able work and since it was presented a few months ago was the best presentation I had seen yet ever and I have not

[00:38:03] heard where that's gone so here are my questions high impact tutoring we know the funding's cut where do we go from here do we just accept that it's not going to happen we know the state's not going to give us more money are we applying for grants do we ask for local business partners for a real proposal how can the board help continue high impact tutoring is that a budget item that we should be looking for work-based learning experiences what are the action items here because i heard um it was said that the torrent of ed needs you know would need to approve the experiences to count as credits arm us with that information in a strategic and timely manner so i

[00:38:40] can go to a legislator and say this is what needs to change i have said the same thing year after year though so i'm not sure what's going to change this year um and then the advocacy about state and federal evaluations again we're getting better communications from the superintendent about what's happening but continuing for us to be able to vocalize to busy state elected officials and the incoming governor exactly what's happening and what needs to change would make us a leader so you know I'm just I'm trying to understand how the strategic plan work is directing the board to make decisions about recurring and now growing problems that cause

[00:39:18] students to drop out or even be interested in school and have a meaningful education and plans for their futures you know I heard yesterday I took a delegate Karen Kieskamara to Western High School she hadn't seen it yet and there was a discussion you know among us the superintendent about Western High School being a traditional program and you know talking about removing innovative physical structures to make more traditional learning approaches we have in Fairfax while we're here hearing that kids need flexibility so I'm just not seeing where the rubber meets the roads in our decision-making how do we take what you're providing and make things happen with that information and

[00:39:58] I will continue with a go back thank you and I'd welcome feedback from the superintendent or any of that so I think that there are a number of questions you've raised I think I think this information is helpful in setting number one checking in on the measurements that the board has set as part of the strategic plan and wanting to make sure that we have annual reporting on that and I think it absolutely is responsive to the measurements and the strategic plan I think this particular goal has a number of facets we've focused on

[00:40:37] dropouts here for the first part of the presentation and there's some aspects to that that are unique in this past year that I think we've all acknowledged I I think that further, as we look for more alternative ways to provide instruction, we are going to need some leadership as well from the Commonwealth Department of Education chair or from that seat.

[00:41:03] It's clear, I think the work-based learning options were actually cut back in this last administration, so we're hopeful that those are going to increase with the next administration because it's clear that workforce learning is a priority but not understood by all agencies that have an opportunity to inform it and potentially support it.

[00:41:24] So I think we are providing feedback. I've shared several of the correspondence documents with you as a board that we've provided to the Virginia Department of Education and will continue to provide. I think that the protections for all of our students continue to be something this board advocates for and need to continue advocating for.

[00:41:45] I think in the last Friday letter, I recommended two bills that were up that we would consider supporting, in particular that are supportive of our students here in Fairfax and across the country, frankly. The ABLE work, we're happy to come back.

[00:42:02] I think we're planning an annual update on that work. We just had another meeting with principals and I know I met with Steven for over an hour the week before the Thanksgiving break week.

[00:42:17] So there's really outstanding work occurring in that department, in that area. So I think there are a number of positive pieces moving forward. I think the tutoring, there's certainly data that supports that, but to your point, Ms. Marin, think there's going to be new budget allocations for tutoring so Dr. Ponce has provided and I shared in a Friday letter a plan for how we could continue high impact tutoring and I think I can ask him to speak to that right now to close out what I think are responsive comments so Dr. Ponce if you want to talk about the tutoring work that you're working on right now yes thank you and

[00:42:56] Indeed, I think that was provided a possible solutions, and at this point, I really would like to ask Ms. Mary Lemon since her team and everything, we work together for a plan, and I know she's anxious to answer that.

[00:43:19] - Thank you so much, Dr. Ponce. Yes, we have provided a few different scenarios for funding tutoring moving forward, whether it's utilizing Title I dollars just for Title I schools or utilizing operational funds for all schools and Title I schools.

[00:43:36] The data, as we've shared before, has been very positive. We're seeing with our multi-tiered systems of support, students receiving tutoring, they are getting increased acceleration in their both reading and mathematics.

[00:43:55] We have also provided data for SOLs in terms of students receiving tutoring passing at a higher increased rate for both mathematics and reading. - Thank you.

[00:44:11] Also, the word flexibility, we are looking at, there are some teachers that they are not teacher of record that they definitely could start a little bit late and late so students can have after-school intervention Thank You I'm gonna go in reverse order of my notes just to be in tune with most recent conversations so I as a board member and

[00:44:50] a previous school counselor and director student services I would not support a goal for increasing the number of advanced studies diplomas I love the able work I'm gonna give you an example of why so dr. Anderson I hope that and here's I just met with a student this past week who is looking at senior year courses is never going to do anything in science and math now I insist the kids take math but we had a conversation about whether to take a fourth year science or replace it so with with with potentially what's coming is AP business

[00:45:25] and AP econ much more on the career path much further on the career path when a college evaluates a transcript they're not aware of what check marks get you to advanced studies diploma yes the final transcript reads that at the top but it's not part of their evaluation they're evaluating what the kid is taken yes they want to have the core distribution requirements and our most selective schools want to have an AP course so as it ended up with this student he was like I'll take AP business or AP econ because I think I'm gonna take AP physics too I'm like great but we had a conversation and you know I don't know what that person is gonna do but sometimes kids have a huge interest in

[00:46:03] social science they want to take AP human geography they want to take AP African American history they want to take AP psychology they want to take AP econ they want to take AP gov they want to take AP world they won't take AP history you can't fit some of the other things in there if you do that so that's that's my my comments on why I don't want to have a metric I do want to I would I like the like a goal rounding more standard and less applied I'm very supportive of that and and the work that we need to be doing there I just want to also just again mention to folks because the metrics well under the previous administration here in the state have changed in limiting the number

[00:46:39] of semesters multi-language learners can acquire language but the students that we get to you know level four five and six and especially all those who exit 96 percent graduation rate and a dropout rate that's below our average so we do know we're doing great work with fidelity when we have time with our students to teach them and let and allow them the time to access education the other thing in terms of work based I've said I've shared this before and I'm just I'm hoping this will be some of the work that maybe we can challenge with the state but to give an example is let's look at Auto Tech we're over

[00:47:17] capacity every year so why can't our level threes go to a job site well the reason is the state won't give us credit if we don't have a teacher record those are the kind of things we need to navigate to make work based work and that's just one example so I don't I have some other comments I'm out of time so I'll probably take a go back later and might have some specific questions thank you thank you miss lady good job thank you I I don't want to repeat some of the comments my colleagues have made around our multilingual students and the

[00:47:54] concerns I have I'm glad to hear the work that you're doing I love Bryant Career Center years ago Chad Clayton at Davis said he rebranded Davis as Davis Career Center for similar reasons so I love what you're doing there and I know there's concerns and a lot of work to be done but I want to focus on something that I haven't heard talked about yet and that first question this is probably for you Dr. Reed but when we first had this goal 5 report one of the things I brought up was why there's H you know a through H you know of the measures here and we're focusing on two and the answer made sense to me at the time which is we

[00:48:30] need to focus on these two things get them done and then because you can't do everything at once you won't be able to do it well I agreed with that however a couple years later the question I have first begin with and I think this is even more important as we talk about in getting our kids ready for a future that's different than ours that may be an AI future is B attainment of FCPS portrait of a graduate competencies in digital and financial literacy and I don't see anything in this report or and I'm sure there's work being done but I I would love to hear more about, especially when we talk about those portrait of graduate competencies of communication,

[00:49:10] collaboration, teamwork. These are the skills, I mean, I hear it from companies, I hear it from everybody that they're looking for in our graduates that sets us apart in an AI world, but there's nothing in this report about it. And I would love to see us to know that we're starting something. I'm sure we are, but I don't see it, right?

[00:49:27] Same way, same, you know, we talked a little bit about the multi-pathways and work-based learning. I understand some of the state concerns, but students innovating and preparing for the future. I know I've heard and I've seen in Friday Letters and I've seen in your, about different innovative things students are doing, but how are we consistently embedding that for all students?

[00:49:46] I would love, I mean, I would love next year's report to talk about those, yes, please do. I mean, but I would love to have it in the report next year. - Yes, ma'am, we just started our partnership, as you know, with OpenAI, and one of the key pieces, we didn't include Gautam because, again, this report, when you have to back map for timelines, the announcement and that work wasn't included, but that's gonna be a key point of next year's report.

[00:50:14] And we can certainly, we've provided some updates in Friday letters, but absolutely, we can add that. And we can probably even add that between now and the board meeting, because now we're able to talk about it publicly. We weren't able to do that prior to the announcement date.

[00:50:33] Having said that, I don't see Mr. Sethi here, but we have close to 1,000 students from each of our high schools that are gonna be participating in the OpenAI Challenge in terms of innovation and collaboration, exactly the skills you're talking about.

[00:50:49] We're very excited. Dr. Ponce and Mr. Sethi, in fact, we talked yesterday about making sure, 'cause we had three high schools left that had not connected with a coach for that program, but it's my understanding we do now. We have all 25 supported.

[00:51:05] So there's a significant amount of work going on to your point, but the timelines around that announcement were challenging, but we will make sure we include that upcoming. We're very excited about it, actually. - Yeah, thank you, and that's one of the things I was thinking about, and so I'm excited to include that, and I will need to go back for the other points, but I really do want to hit on that point B, Dr. Reed.

[00:51:26] What I loved about your report from the beginning is very detailed, very structured, very well, as I'll channel my previous colleague, or my previous sporadic member, very well in the project management. Here's a goal we're gonna do, here's how we're gonna get there, here's the steps, here's what the data shows.

[00:51:44] I don't see that same level of detail in project management on A, B, and H. I love the open AI work, and that's a data point, but I don't see a plan for those three, and these are part of the goals. So I would love to see that plan with the consistent, here's the different data points, here's how we're gonna measure them, here's a year over year, especially on those portions of the graduate schools, I cannot emphasize this enough.

[00:52:09] And you have the place to start. So many of our electives work on those skills, right? So I would love to see the report on all of the measures next year. I'll take a go back.

[00:52:24] - Thank you, Ms. Sizemore-Heiser. Dr. Anderson? - Go back. - I'm good, go back, Dr. Anderson, right? - Okay, thank you. I'd like to bring your attention back to page 37 in the full report.

[00:52:42] And for those of you who don't have it in front of you, I'll just kind of highlight certain things. On the baseline, it showed that 68% of our students receive an advanced diploma. 83% of Asian students received that diploma. 75% of white students received that diploma.

[00:53:00] Multi-racial was 73. Our black students, 55. Hispanic students, 46. Students with disabilities, 22. Multilingual students, 23. That's the same pattern that continued all throughout the baseline, the 23-24 school year, the 24-25 school year.

[00:53:22] And I'm hearing that you're waiting for the board to make a decision on targets. And I'm hearing what our resident counselor shared as to why she is not recommending that. So my question is, what is the analysis that you can provide to me as to why this is the advanced studies diploma rate based on these different demographics.

[00:53:45] Can you share that analysis with me? Why are our kids performing in this way? - In terms of what course-specific taking patterns are leading to these diploma outcomes? - I don't know in terms of what. I wanna know why are these results are as they are. Because when we want to move something forward, we do a deep dive and we analyze the barriers, the factors that impact the outcome so that we have the right strategy to impact said outcome.

[00:54:12] So what I'm asking you is, can you talk to me about the factors, the barriers that result in this outcome? - Sure, so I would say, and I hear Mr. Smith saying the same thing, that is the analysis that the ABLE work does. It's looking-- - Okay, so give me the quick summary here, if you are able to.

[00:54:30] I hate to use the able, able to. - Sure, I mean, well, the differentiation between a standard and advanced studies diploma, which is in the appendix of the full report, is looking at students who essentially are taking an additional year of math, science, the world language and social studies. So these are the differences you're seeing is as a result of student choices around courses that they're pursuing and potentially for some of our students who are transferring into FCPS after the start of ninth grade opportunities they may not have had prior to entering our school system.

[00:55:01] - So what I'm hearing from you is our poor students, economically disadvantaged students, our black students, our ML students, our students with disabilities are making different choices. - I think this comes back to the ABLE work, which is about what guidance students are being provided, what guidance families are being provided.

[00:55:20] I know this has been a topic that's been raised with the board over several goal reports, the academic advisement process that's happening, making sure that is consistent for all families and students. - I'm gonna just boil it down a little bit more. I think we can all come to, there are certain things, information you could provide regarding our multilingual students who don't yet have the language, perhaps accessing advanced academics.

[00:55:43] you can make similar deductions regarding other groups. I don't know what those deductions are regarding our black kids. Why is that data as such? So Dr. Reed, that's some information I would like, and I'd like to go back if possible.

[00:55:59] - I think Dr. Anderson, if I may, some of that analysis will come as a part of the goal four report as well. - Ms. Marin? - Yes, thank you. Regarding the advanced studies diploma, I'm sorry if I missed it, but do we know why there is a decrease in the achievement of advanced diplomas, advanced studies?

[00:56:20] - In terms of like what specific courses are driving that or student decision making around it. - Yeah, why is it happening? Why is that number going down? - So we'll be able to see that when we look at the ABLE data. - Okay, well, and I understand and Miss Lady, I appreciate your education on this and would welcome far more education to this board about what students need to go to college, the course selection process and the college admissions process.

[00:56:45] This is something I don't understand how we can make decisions when we don't know. I'm experienced it as a parent right now with a 10th grade student and I could tell you I have advantage I have ability and I have resources and I am still unclear okay I do for me I do wonder about the advanced studies diploma and language because that was a tough decision for my kiddo who took her first world language course in ninth grade ever when I look at the heat maps from I forget which report this is so I see that we have two four six seven world languages offered in elementary

[00:57:21] But as we know half of our schools have no world language some have immersion some have just the flesh when I look at the languages offered in middle school We're adding an American sign language Korean for heritage speakers a Spanish for heritage features and Latin And we have one dual language immersion middle school program when I go to high school We're offering Russian and Vietnamese when I look at middle school the two school middle schools I mainly represent Hughes and Thoreau have two languages Kilmer I represent some have four there's a school that has five what can we deduce from this folks

[00:57:58] how are these decisions being made now I'm trying to connect it to advanced studies diploma because my daughter Roma said no I can't do it and we're getting through her Spanish now but how can we have data like this and talk about equity and also resources so this conversation is going to come in the next round but when I hear the superintendent say we're going to get an annual update on coursework mapping an annual update this is the work guys this is how much does this cost why is it inequitable I got kids going from Fox Mill Elementary over to Carson because that's where the Japanese program is not

[00:58:35] at Langston Hughes and then we get into boundaries so how do we have these higher-level conversations where we can really suss this stuff out and solve these problems that's where I'm at thank you miss Maron I have a couple comments on the slides themselves and again I'm going to try not to talk about some of the things my colleagues have talked about.

[00:59:03] I will say, I think there is a valuable conversation to be had around the requirements of the advanced studies diploma and around some of the things that we've been talking about in terms of the importance of accessing open AI and allowing multiple pathways to success because I know for some students, the requirements for that advanced diploma stops them from being able to go into things that might be where their strengths or interests are, whether it's taking extra computer classes, certification classes, arts and music.

[00:59:28] So I think there's a valuable conversation here to be had around what do we want our students to be able to graduate with, and what kind of pathways we want them to be able to have. That's probably a longer conversation, but something I think would be interesting, and I appreciate you bringing that up, Miss Lady.

[00:59:45] A couple of specific questions here. One, I wanted to explain a little bit my conversation, Dr. Reed, and I may need to go back, I'm sorry, about why I was talking about those other measures in the goal. And I've often talked about a needs perspective versus a strengths perspective.

[01:00:03] And we need to get everybody to graduate on time if it's appropriate for them, talking about our students with disabilities or multilingual students who could benefit from the extra time that they're allowed by law to have. But in general, we need to get everyone to graduate. We want them to have post-secondary plans, right?

[01:00:18] So, but that's the floor. That's a baseline for any school system, right? We're Fairfax. These reports are aiming to a floor. I want these reports to aim to our strengths. You can't get to everybody's strengths getting them to the floor first so that comes with the territory and we absolutely need to focus on the things that are in this report for some of the students where these gaps and the flexibility you're talking about we absolutely don't want to take away from that but these reports are aiming towards the floor I want to see a report that's aiming towards the ceiling and talking about how we're gonna get everybody past the floor in the process that's the big

[01:00:54] picture I think that's what goal 5 was supposed to be about so I'll leave it at I think the conversation around the two types of, or actually we have three types of diplomas here in the Commonwealth is a really timely conversation.

[01:01:15] Not all states have multiple diplomas, and I do think that there are several points being made around skilled professional and skilled trades positions as well right now that are in high demand and in many ways I think there's a movement afoot as well to provide those opportunities for students to explore those professional skilled trades programs but you really don't have room in a schedule to explore or do much exploration if you're pointed towards

[01:01:53] an advanced studies program or diploma. On the flip side, the advanced studies diploma is an advantage for you know university application for sure at many schools so it creates a by its nature a competition of sorts or at least a um i don't want to call it a conflict but it does create a conversation for families and for staff with students to say what are your interests and how are we going to best prepare you for those and those distinguishing types of diplomas i think

[01:02:29] just add to the to the pressure that i think students talk about in terms of expectations that are provided to them versus expectations they may have so i think it's definitely a topic to add to the conversation and i think you know as we think about aspirational reporting moving forward it also connects obviously to budget and i think we've talked about that when we've you know when we have to manage with tighter resources that is going to create fewer opportunities

[01:03:05] likely and fewer supports for some of those opportunities having said that that's why we're working very hard with partners and this year i think alone we've worked with a number of partners open ai which is a no cost we're working with the faa right now on some aerospace pieces we're working with the department of defense on some elementary stem pieces because we're going to need to bring in partners that can fund opportunities for our children that we're not able to so i think connecting those dots and i think miss marron also spoke to that right what are the resource needs to provide the experiences we expect in fairfax county and the team is working

[01:03:44] on that i'm not sure if this is goal four or five that will obviously it's not five in terms of that but i think goal four you're going to see um some of the partnership work that is going to be providing that so I think integrating those two is good feedback for us mr.

[01:04:04] Frisch for your first term all right so I want to address something that's kind of underlying part of this conversation I appreciate miss Marin bringing it up and that is the placement of programs right so like two and a half years ago three years ago maybe longer we asked the school division as a board to do an assessment of program placement because frankly the strategy behind program placement previously not entirely but to a large extent was based on where we had room which is not a strategy for equity right it's a strategy for

[01:04:44] expediency where can we land something that needs to be stood up and that of course creates all kinds of crescendoing problems with transportation with some communities having some and not others having you know nothing perhaps and it is monumental undertaking to unravel that in much the same way that the work around boundaries is and so I think if we actually want to address that once we get beyond the boundary work I think the board has to indicate to the

[01:05:21] superintendent a clear desire to develop a framework for how those considerations are made that is not reliant simply on the space that we have available and if we do have certain programs that have to be located someplace because that's where the space is at least we're going into that eyes wide open and not because it was where it was placed 25 years ago when there was room at that time you know the same could be said for some of our admin buildings that serve students we've got people driving all the way across the

[01:05:57] county for some screeners and other things I think it would behoove us once we finish tackling in January the conversation around boundaries to take a step back and look at the other big ticket items you know we've spent the last several years tackling these issues that were just kind of pernicious and out there and this is one of those things and that's not to say that people are going to lose out I think our goal is to ensure that more students have access to these programs and that the programs are not only equitable in their

[01:06:32] distribution but also efficacious in their in in what they result in right we want to make sure that the programs we're offering are high value so I would be very supportive of having that conversation after the boundary conversation is concluded in the first part of the year and continuing to do this work that kind of resets where some of these past decisions that are made decades ago so we can better serve students I appreciate you bringing it up all right next go back is miss lady I think it's me I really appreciate the

[01:07:11] conversation around the portrait of graduate competencies in the innovative learning for preparing for the future and to that end I want to talk about an uplift I believe it's that we have science Olympiad in every elementary school this year yes for the first time it's certainly in every title one elementary school and all other elementary schools I think that previously were in it but we made a complete expansion to all title one schools I bring that up just because I had a point of privilege and that my wife is helping with hers at her elementary school and I was watching her

[01:07:44] prepare questions for kids and I was like whoa if that's not critical thinking collaboration I mean it is all of them and the enthusiasm for it but the unfortunateness is I think there's only like you know a certain number of kids that could be on a team so we talked about is there a B team that you know are understudies but it's there and I and I point this out because there's never been this sort of deliberate like I hear that we're not there yet but we have made great strides in bringing programming to our kids and bringing

[01:08:20] you know even extracurricular type programming to our kids in schools where it wasn't traditionally happening so I wanted to just bring that up and also on slide 21 the clearinghouse data and the reference to the multi-language learners reporting 61% would go to college and only a 39% actually enrolled I am wondering if we could do some any kind of follow-up data with kids to find out because what that barrier was because I know that when I worked at Chantilly when kids would you know we'd you know a lot of times we knew where kids worked or whatever it was it was economics and I want to point this out because we had

[01:08:58] major crisis with FAFSA it was very difficult for someone with all the resources all the smarts all the access to get that done correctly you know year a half ago and then you know it's been glitchy right and um and i think that that because of what's happening with our economy there's a lot of families not able to go who kids plan to go but they can't because the economics of it um and then the only thing else i want to say is this framework for programming which i really support from dr ponce is i think we also have been nimble um around

[01:09:33] online and or synchronized learning when it comes to something like japanese you know if there's an an appetite for it, we did synchronize learning when we were COVID, you know. Can some kids access it via a synchronized lesson with a live teacher or through online campus?

[01:09:51] And I could go on and on, so maybe I'll end up with another go back. Thank you. I think next is a go, go back. - Yep. - Starting with Dr. Anderson. - Well, I'll take care of that. First, Dr. Reed. - Thank you, Miss Lady. I just wanna respond with a couple things. One, I think to Mr. Frisch's point, We're trying to resolve some technical, I'm gonna call them technical first order issues, boundaries, being paramount among them, and button that up well.

[01:10:21] I think we, at this point, when we look at anything new we're adding, we're being very strategic. The Science and Math Olympiad is across all regions. The Aerospace Grant that Dr. Ponce and his team working on with the FAA we're writing a three-year grant with two high schools each year to at the end of three years have one high school in every region and so what we don't want to do with any of our new planning or program placement is exacerbate the current and if you will long-standing inequities of placement so

[01:11:00] I think while we're making sure that same with our robotics rollout we're We're rolling out robotics across elementary schools in all regions as well. So what we want to do is make sure that anything new is equitably accessible while we begin to tap the current placement of a number of programs that we don't currently have the budget capacity to add everywhere at this time.

[01:11:31] So I guess it's a layered approach in the sense that anything new is being strategically located across the division, and as we are able to, we'll be adding or hopefully able to resolve some of the other accessibility issues.

[01:11:47] Mayor Redekop: So first of all, I want to thank everyone for this robust discussion, and I want to thank the team for a great report. And I also want to thank the people that are down on the ground and in the trenches making this happen.

[01:12:06] I mean, we're sitting here and we're looking at a lot of data, but we know that really what makes this happen are our staff and our teachers that are in the building that are working with our kids that are facing all these challenges with children that come in with different needs and are getting them to where they should be and although we say we're not there yet I think we've done a lot of great work and I think that the numbers show that we got to remember that kids are not numbers though that they're people in their individual needs or situations that sometimes we can't capture in the data you know we say why

[01:12:45] is this happening some of it's not because of the school system some of it is because of a family situation different things that we have no control over we can encourage kids to take advanced courses we can explain it to them but sometimes parents and kids don't want to do that and we have no control over that and we have to recognize that I want to talk about about program placement and talk about, yes, I think in the past it was put where there was room.

[01:13:15] I also think in the past some of these programs were put where there was a lot of community advocacy or specific school board advocacy and things were not done in a holistic way and looking at everything as a division. And I think we have to acknowledge that.

[01:13:31] I've worked in the system long enough and I've known long enough that there were pet projects for certain people and that's why it got done when it might not have been the best for the entire system. We have to own that, and we have to fix it. I also wanna say that equitable access is important, and we talk about it up here on this level, but let's remember that equal does not mean the same for every community.

[01:13:58] What some communities may really want in one part of the county, because we're so big, are not gonna serve the other part of the county. So just because we're saying we want Japanese everywhere, I can tell you in my part of the county, there's not an appetite for that.

[01:14:14] So equal does not mean the same. We just have to recognize the different needs in the different regions in our division. And that's the curse of our division. And also the beauty of our division is that we are so big, but equal is not the same.

[01:14:31] It's getting the programs to the community where they need them. So I just wanted to put all of that out there and just really thank everyone for the work they're doing. I think everyone should be proud of what we're doing. And yes, there is always room for improvement.

[01:14:47] And I think that this board is committed to improving and supporting our students to get what they need and supporting our staff so that our kids get what they need. - Thank you, Ms. St. John Cunning. Dr. Anderson.

[01:15:04] - Thank you. Picking up in terms of what's happening by region, I think I'm gonna go out of order here and ask for your analysis of this graduation data by region, by pyramid. It's something that I raise up every time because it speaks to the different needs that are present in the different areas of our county.

[01:15:23] And yes, I do acknowledge all of the variables that exist, not all of them are within our control, but we still have to know what they are. And just being in the dark about what those barriers are does not serve us to move the needle forward.

[01:15:39] So, speaking of areas, I think on page 17 of the report, figure 17, you talked about factors linked to higher graduation rates. Are these factors, help me understand what these are meant to be.

[01:15:56] - Sorry, Dr. Anderson, can you give me a page number? - 17. - Thank you, yep, so this is what the research, the national research, on what factors contribute to students being successful and graduating successfully. - Okay, so these are not specific barriers to FCPS.

[01:16:13] - So, link it for me. How am I supposed to utilize this when it comes to FCPS? - I mean, we would make the assumptions that the national research would hold true to what we're seeing in our local context. - No, no, no, not that. In terms of are we successful in these areas that are impacting graduation?

[01:16:30] Do we have gaps? What are the barriers that exist here that are related to these factors? - Yeah, I think some of what Mr. Moon sort of started us out with in this conversation of understanding individual student factors that might be contributing to drop out or to challenges with graduation is some of what we've got in place.

[01:16:54] So thinking about early warning systems that help us identify quickly when students, either through assessment or attendance, right? How do we start to intervene? Those are some of the systems that we have in place in our division. Some of those are gonna be things that we can see within our data, and some of those things are gonna be conversations that our schools are having with students and families to help support their success with graduation.

[01:17:17] - Okay, thank you. Just two more quick things. Dr. Reed, I appreciate the comments that you made regarding the advantages that are provided to students when it comes to advanced diplomas. Hence, my doggedness with the data that we have. 'Cause we have some students who are inherently locked out of that advantage.

[01:17:36] And it seems to be like, oh, there's nothing that we can do about that. Which leads to my kind of next point, which has become more of a frustration more than anything as we go through this conversation, the reference to the ABLE work. I appreciate that, but we're having this discussion today, and if they're connected, that work needs to come into this conversation today.

[01:17:56] The let's wait for that update, to me, it doesn't make any sense. We're in this conversation now where we're trying to make sense of this data. Bring in those ABLE pieces that pertain to this. And not doing that for me just doesn't make today's conversation complete.

[01:18:16] Dr. Anderson, if I can respond. I want to make sure I'm clear too. I think we're all recognizing that the data we're seeing is not the data that we want to see. And our sort of leaning into the idea of setting targets with ABLE is the understanding of recognizing and supporting that students may take different pathways to graduation that are all going to prepare them for college.

[01:18:37] And your points are well taken. So I think there is some analysis we can go back and provide to the board that might be helpful in understanding some of the reasons that we're seeing behind this data. Again, I think that the board's lifted up, there are a number of factors that contribute in terms of what program students have access to, when students are coming into the division, the types of opportunities they have or don't have, academic advising, individual family and student choices that are being made.

[01:19:08] there's a lot of different factors going into this but we can certainly come back with some additional analysis to support the board's understanding of that dr anderson if i may i want to respond as well you know for the last four years and and i've been in the district now for 30 years and have served as many roles as well the able work to me um putting a principal's lens on that is going to be able to force principals to pay attention to every student and their opportunities in our district for many years students come into fairfax county

[01:19:45] with some parents who have privilege and know you know the pathway to take to get to advanced academics and some parents who just show up and depend on the school system to encourage their students to take that we have data now through able that shows every single student how they're performing in our schools and why they're not sitting in those classes that get them to the advanced academic studies. I think it's the most powerful tool in my experience in the system and I understand that we don't have that data here today but you know I believe it's going to be a game-changer for many students. Also having more students have access and opportunity to higher level

[01:20:23] math at a younger age is going to be able to open up pathways for students to get to those courses that are going to better prepare them for college. For many years taking algebra in the ninth grade was the norm you know I share this with dr. Reed often that when I was at Mount Vernon I had nine sections of algebra one part one so my students weren't even taking algebra fully in the ninth grade they had the first part in the ninth grade and the second part in the tenth grade those students were never going to get to the advanced diploma those things are changing in the last three years we through the strategic plan we

[01:21:00] have seen strategies that are going to change the numbers I know we're all impatient and I am as well but I'm very very hopeful and in looking at that able data at least in our meetings shows me that it takes away the excuses of students who are comfortably sitting in classes when we can be encouraging them to challenge themselves more thank you and if I could just add in good afternoon every almost afternoon everyone the able work is more than just data that they're providing we are actually getting hands-on help and support from Abel they are coming working directly with our principals

[01:21:39] with our counselors working directly with our region assistant superintendents and dr. Ponce and helping with that analysis so it's more than just providing the data and asking us to interpret they're also then helping us with that analysis so that we can target and provide supports to individual students and families thank you dr. Anderson miss Marin okay so three things I'd appreciate a little extra that's possible CTE as a next step I'm going to propose that we ask the superintendent to prepare language at the board could submit to

[01:22:16] proposed legislation to fix this recurring problem mr. Malloy can identify the code in the state code suggest the edits to the code working with our staff we can send a memo from the board to our legislators I can coordinate as legislative liaison and I can have it distributed by COB tomorrow this is not a new issue so I would expect that we can get the few little lines coded I just sent a memo yesterday on something else about polling places that I had been developing so let's fix this I don't want to be here next you're talking about this again I'll put it in next step language but I would like this board to submit to our legislators ASAP the

[01:22:56] language that needs to be changed in the code so that we can open up outside school where places for auto shop and all those things so I hope to have your support I would rather not wait until the next step process right because the bill the line was yesterday but I would like to do that so that's one thing with my one minute the second thing is you know as I'm listening to colleagues I

[01:23:18] I wonder if the vision is to be a school system and not a system of schools we've talked about that but maybe that's the mantra of our work to start budgeting and making decisions on because yes it's not going to be equal but it certainly isn't equitable to me to have one middle school with five world languages and one with two and I'm not saying everyone's got to say but we need to look budgetarily at what it costs to have one immersion middle school and to bus kids from the immersion Japanese school to the other you know like but maybe it's that one school system and we're gonna have to have

[01:23:54] courage to make decisions that are difficult to go against our traditions because things are different now and our students and our families and our residents need different things to be met and the future of the workforce needs to change might I be granted another minute it's hard to to have a conversation this way we have a half hour left is that correct okay I just sure I will take a go back and finish thanks I'll try to be

[01:24:33] quick as always so page 16 I appreciate having this up here already so it was portrayed to us that the gap is has declined between those interested or planning to attend college and enrolling in college but indeed if you look at 2024 we actually have fewer planning to attend college so I think that's going the opposite direction that we want do we have a reason for that we do not have a reason for our students specifically I know that you know we've sort of started to see in recent publications our students are there's wondering about the value of college I don't know to what extent that that is in the hearts and minds of our students and their families that's certainly something we

[01:25:13] can explore why we're seeing a shift that's much appreciated and then I know I've asked this question before and I just I don't remember the answer or if we got answers but with the National Clearinghouse data how disaggregated can that get for example if we want to see who's going to colleges which colleges from individual schools you know can you just give me a sense of how that can be be disaggregated well I'm gonna see I don't know Jennifer you have a better answer than I'm gonna provide on that I mean we we get to get demographic data I

[01:25:53] don't think we can get down to an individual student level data then do you want to help yes Clearinghouse can get down to a student level data as far as how specific our subgroup data can be from Clearinghouse I need to look into their business rules more and get back to you to understand how they classify for example a student who is a multilingual learner what English learner performance levels are being considered in that but we can get all the way down to a student level and even see what degree they earned I would

[01:26:32] love to have a clearinghouse only presentation at some point just because I don't think we make use of that data the way we could and I think there's a lot there I think it would be not only interesting but but useful for our school level leaders as well to Miss Mirren's point on the on the language disparities at schools so you know I've mentioned before in 2013 we convened an internationalization working group it identified these issues it proposed solutions to eliminate the issues in vertical articulation and everything and

[01:27:11] that reports been sitting there for 12 years and the funding hasn't been there but we already have the recommendations there we just have to go back to that report and follow it frankly obviously things have changed in that time right and that things have gotten worse so we need to probably re-examine that and then to Miss Lady's point it's great that we have science Olympiad in every school my daughter's still on the waiting list so it's not that not that accessible for everyone thanks thank you mr. McElveen before we continue in miss

[01:27:48] Marin's previous share she indicated an interest in having the board consensus around taking steps to fix the CTE issue legislatively that would not be something that we put on next steps because it's not something that is required for voting on the goal report so this is not directing staff but to to show a consensus of the board that there's interest in proceeding with this so that we can get it done short and sweet.

[01:28:21] Can we have a consensus of the board on proceeding to close that legislative loophole? All right, that's unanimous for all board members present, not a vote, but Ms. Marin as our legislative liaison can work with staff on making sure that that is done and gets around to all of us.

[01:28:37] All right, Ms. Heismarheiser. - Thank you. So continuing from some of my specific questions, I wanna focus a little bit around the goal around transition, Dr. Reed.

[01:28:56] I know in slide 27, we talked about workforce connections, I believe is slide 27, I'm pulling it up. We talked about workforce connections as a new class, and I believe there's a conversation here about ensuring the IEP discussions start at age 14, or new guidelines to make sure that they start at age 14.

[01:29:20] I'm a little, I love the idea of a new class, I'd love to learn more about that as you're developing a standard offering around. But what are we doing? We've been talking for a couple years now about transition programming, the lack of programming for the middle kids, the lack of 18 to 22 year old programming for the middle kids.

[01:29:40] Great at age 14, that's when it's supposed to start. So we've talked about middle school conversations and there's two ETRs at the middle school. So I'm just curious what's going on with all of that work that I know we've had lots of conversations We've talked to Dr. Edmonds-Herd.

[01:29:57] I don't see any of that reflected here. - So I will ask Dr. Presidio to respond to that because I know that's been a priority topic 'cause I know we've met multiple times on that. - Yeah, and I think you may have received some of that information in your conversations with Dr. Edmonds-Herd.

[01:30:17] On this slide, what we were trying to do is provide just some of the highlights, right? So one of the big highlights is to standardize course opportunities in every one of our schools for students with disabilities through the workforce connections. So that class is, actually, we're going to discuss that a little bit in the next work session after this, but that would replace the education for employment class that was only offered at some schools, and this would be a standard course offering at every school so that every student with an IEP that wanted that support would be able to get that support.

[01:30:46] And obviously, it's teaching workplace behaviors, but also supporting students and families and finding employment opportunities, work-based learning experiences, and all of those types of things. And then on the academic planning and transitions component, what we were trying to highlight is that we've really put in place a lot of comprehensive sequential planning going all the way back to grade seven to make sure that students are thinking about their future high school course taking options as early as possible, right? Because one of our problems was we were getting students that, you know, weren't getting the appropriate support and guidance and they would get in high school and then they would find that they were on a particular diploma track

[01:31:26] that was very difficult for them to get off of so we're trying to explain all of that to students and families as early as possible as part of our new academic and career plan sequence and we're reviewing those goals with students at every grade level grade 7 through 12 and informing them of the options that they have because again a student maybe they started on an applied studies track and they didn't understand all of the opportunities that they had after age 18 to be able to stay in the system get workforce support through our career centers but also possibly earn a standard diploma so we've put in place a very comprehensive new plan to do that and we've tried to incorporate a lot of

[01:32:04] that work into the IEP process so that those are part of annual IEP conversations as well as part of the annual academic advising process I think this is a much longer conversation so I'm gonna just ask that if you're talking about middle conversations age 14 is not middle school so I'm confused with what the slide says versus what you're saying and I appreciate those conversations but again what gets reported on gets measured and gets done consistently across the county and what I'm seeing is where we're having these and we're doing this but I'm

[01:32:41] not seeing the reporting on it and that to be honest is what I've been hearing for 15 years what are we doing I mean we we have the numbers we've talked about this with Davis Pulley and Steph it's less than 500 students access those programs what are we doing for the rest of the students outside of asking them to give up an elective where is that information I mean I apologize that it's not more robust in the report so we'll can certainly work on trying to

[01:33:18] strengthen that in the report but again are mentioning some of the strategies that I just referred to in the report we did not provide data to your point on enrollment and career you know pulley and Davis career centers that could be something that we could do but we don't have that as a metric in this particular report so we didn't what metric do you have what metric do you have run access to transition programming I don't know that there is a specific metric in the report beyond just making sure that all students have the opportunities and are

[01:33:56] preparing for what metric do you have on access on who's accessing on what's missing there are no metrics in this report around transition for students with disabilities so actually I just want a clarifying question on page 26 of the report action 3.3 where we have ten high schools that have an extra counselor that is dedicated to multilingual learners do we have the data that reflects how those ten high schools are doing as opposed to the

[01:34:32] other high schools and if that practice is successful what does it look like for maybe expanding it to other schools or do we have that data I believe we can pull that data missing John Cunning okay and again this would increase you know output so we'd need funding for it but I would be interesting interested to see what the data looks like I would dr. Ponce I think you oversee that group so

[01:35:05] what either you or Dr. Presidio do you have even anecdotal data on the extra investment of the counselors supporting our multilingual students at ten high schools yes actually and I was just looking at the numbers I can give you all of that later on and if you have extra I will send it to all of you and I - I was actually looking at those numbers as well.

[01:35:38] So I have it by region, by schools, and everything, so you can see it. - I mean, just based on my experience with the kind of work that our high school counselors do, I think that we're gonna see very positive results. And if we do, I would love to see how we can expand it.

[01:35:55] - Yes. - Thank you, Ms. St. John Cunningham. Ms. Leidy. - So, I appreciate all the comments of my colleagues. I wanna say when it comes to advanced studies diploma, that I think the biggest barrier, but the most important part of that is world language.

[01:36:13] And we've talked about world language, but I find that far too often, the reason people don't get the advanced studies is they don't take the third year or they don't take the two plus two. And from a college perspective, you need to take three of a language. I wish the two plus two wasn't even an option because colleges, the majority, want you to have taken three years of world language to be considered for admission.

[01:36:34] So where I'm saying, and I would support the reality that, well, my fear, and based on Dr. King's sharing of her time at Mount Vernon I'm embarrassed I had no idea this was the case when I was a director in the system that there was the disparity around mathematics but I think that we have under matched kids unfairly I think we still do it with the colleges we put in front of kids who should be applying to something more selective and people just want to make sure they get in so I think we're under matching sometimes and we're working on that I want to uplift the able work so to your point the able work is amazing because it's making every

[01:37:12] kid by name by need that's where sometimes by name by need advanced studies isn't ideal even though this is a college-bound kid but for the majority of our college-bound students the advanced studies diploma is the is the pathway okay it's it's that's the way why it was created by the state of Virginia I also want to make sure we understand our demographics have changed dramatically in our school system very and that's families have you know different values we have far more students starting at NOVA than we had historically in the past for economic reasons and for families that are you know multiple families in one house and they like they they stay close they

[01:37:51] don't want to go far away so and I also the last thing I would say is we need to believe in every learner in front of us and with the benchmarking work that happened in elementary school there was a lot of our kids can't do this our kids can't do this and a quarter in they're like oh my gosh look at our kids go. I think that's going to trickle up and we need to be challenging every student in front of us to maximize their academic potential. So I just want to make sure that people understand where I live but when I'm sitting with a student or when I used to be it's by name by need for that kid but the majority of our kids absolutely if they're college-bound and we're trying to get more kids to be college-bound because the economic impact of being

[01:38:27] college-bound the advanced studies is an ideal path. Thanks. Thank you Miss Lady. Dr. Anderson thank you I want to make sure I get to all of my points here one of the things that I do want to share is I agree with Miss Marin we're either one school system or we're not we may have different divisions but we can't have different rules for all of the different places that's the equity work that brings us to to have a floor we need to make sure that we are not getting caught up and our schools are so much different from each other that we

[01:39:05] have different expectations of those schools I've worked in schools my entire career they're more similar than people think everybody think their school is so niche but they're really not as different as we perceive them to be what I would also like is for you to share with me the data for for AP and elementary schools because we know our kids start very early is it consistent are we seeing the same kind of reflection with our kids who are in full-time AP as we are with advanced academic studies I would like to see that analysis because I have some AP information in front of me but again I'm

[01:39:43] looking for your analysis here and we use data everywhere well that's why we use WIDA data we use iReady data data is our life so it has to matter in all places or it matters in none of the places there are not widgets when they take the WIDA but yet we hang our hat on it they're not widgets when they take the iReady but yet we hang our hat on it so we have to make sure that we understand education is a science it's not just an art it's not just an art because if we continue to have the approach that instruction is also is all art and not science we're not going to move the needle that's why we have the

[01:40:21] science of reading this whole thing that everybody's bought into the science of education exists in a lot of different places and it exists in how we use and analyze the data and looking for things that are going to inform our decisions and strategies. I did have one question though, this is my last, page nine. This is the target for graduation. The target for the upcoming year seems to be below what it was in 23-24.

[01:40:49] Can you explain that and how do you arrive at these targets? Dr. Anderson, you're saying on figure six, the overall target is below what the performance of this year no it's below what it was in 2324 yeah so if you recall our targets are set to keep us on the growth line to get all of our students to success by 2030 and so what we did in 2324 is we outpaced our slope and then we dip back below our slope the next year so our target is we're now at the needing to

[01:41:25] gain to get back to that slope so you're seeing the ML data that we have here for levels one through six this target of 79 is going to get us there by 2030? That is how the targets are set they're set on an annual basis to get us to our 2030 goals. I'll ask you this question offline thank you. Thank you Dr.

[01:41:45] Anderson. Ms. Marin? Okay so about addressing world language I agree that it could be part of the boundary work and in fact it is one of our four principles of the policy which is access to programming which I've been frustrated that this initial round hasn't talked to at all but I understand it now so I'm wondering this as part of the strategic goal report vote could we ask for a proposal addressing world language instruction which would include what is best practice what's best for our kids with the data that we have in front of us what's possible you can tell me that we're voting on on Thursday I'm not going to tell you that we're voting on Thursday but I am going to tell you that

[01:42:23] we have a forum topic coming up already that's been submitted about world language that will be a perfect place to get us started on well thank you then I'll skip ahead to my next question is Mr. McElveen said there's a reported decade old Russia and I did 2021 report I don't see why we need a forum topic and this gets to how the directives come and go so you know it was said that well if the board wants to and if the superintendent you know is happy to do this or respond the superintendent and recently has brought forth coursework coursework mapping Baldrige applying for the FAA grants for aerospace the Montessori program sixth grade algebra pilot and AI partnership love them all

[01:43:02] we did not have any input on any of that okay we did not direct her on any of that now we've had conversations many about world language why do we need to bring it up again it seems like to put a fine pin on it we need to make some kind of directive whether that is for this goal 5 report or maybe it's part of the budget vote and we say in advance of the budget vote another option other than the goal 5 report would be bring us as part of your budget proposal a menu item that says this is how we expand this is how we're going to look at expanding world language instruction equitably you could start with middle

[01:43:40] school in high school because we already have programs there but it has to include reductions somewhere else do the work that since 2021 the last board put on the table and this gets back to again how is it decided that the superintendent's gonna pick up something like AAP middle school centers from a forum from 2020 and yet not pick up the world language work that we've directed and now and have another forum topic there's a process problem here folks I want to bring a directive to put a red line under it that says we got to look at this because that seems to be what it takes

[01:44:17] the forum topic is specifically related to one board members advocacy related to the immersion program and so it was brought through this path because that board member was requested to bring it through the path and so it gives us the larger opportunity to have this greater discussion related to world languages that I think many of us are interested in having and so I think that was the reason that we ended up where we are. Thank you. Ms. Sizemore-Heiser? Thank you. On

[01:44:54] slide 22 this is where my questions were going to go before I realize there's such little information on here. We talk about students with disabilities outcomes within a year of leaving SCPS.

[01:45:11] 52% higher education, 76, et cetera. Out of how many? Which is a percentage without knowing, if there's 1,000 or 52% of the 1,000 in higher education, 76% of the 1,000, these percentages without knowing the numbers don't really tell me anything, right?

[01:45:31] And then how are we defining training? Is that Davis, Pulley, and Step? How are we defining competitive employed? Is it fully employed, like full-time, part-time? how are we defining employed in 14C? And maybe it's in the report and I missed it, but I just think the numbers, like do we know, are 80% of, 'cause these don't add up to 100, right?

[01:45:54] So it's hard to understand what we're talking about. So that would be helpful to have that information. - Sure, Ms. Seizmoorheiser, we can add in the total numbers. And the state is the one who defines the three, the A, B, and C, and we can share those definitions as well with the-- - That would be helpful.

[01:46:11] just like you know 52% plus 76% plus 84% is higher than a hundred percent so it's hard to know like what does that mean are they overlapping it's just very confusing this chart you you are correct besides more high so they are overlapping so it's the first one a is just the universe of post-secondary and then you're adding in higher education plus those students who are competitively employed I'm gonna just say some sort of big picture stuff here I understand that the state requires a lot of reporting I've said this before I'll I'll say it again, we don't need to just report what the state requires.

[01:46:45] This is our goal report and these are our goals. We should report the numbers that make sense for us so we know what we're targeting. I also say this again, I don't think we should just be aiming for compliance. Knowing what to do in IEPs at age 14 is compliance.

[01:47:01] That's what's required by the law. I also say C says successful transitions, that is measure C, it is bolded. Why don't we even have one from DSS here in the room to talk about that?

[01:47:16] This is one of the worst examples of siloing special education students I have ever seen in a goal report. - Thank you, Ms. Sizemore-Heiser. With that, we will break for lunch and return at one o'clock.

[01:47:31] Thank you all. - We are gonna get started at this point with our secondary course offerings portion of our work session.

[01:47:52] I'll turn it over to Dr. Reed. - Thank you, Ms. Leidy, and this afternoon we're going to review our secondary course offerings. Dr. Presidio's gonna lead the discussion and there'll be a team of staff supporting that. So Dr. Presidio.

[01:48:08] - Thank you, Dr. Reed, and good afternoon. I appreciate the opportunity to share some information today on this annual secondary course approval process. I would suspect that this is probably gonna be a little bit of a continuation of some of the equity of access types of conversations that we had in the goal five report, so I think the timing is good.

[01:48:27] And just as a reminder, this is an action item at this week's board meeting on Thursday. So we're excited to share some background information with you on the annual process and then of course, answer any questions that you've got with anything in the presentation. So we've tried to keep the presentation brief today, but it is organized into a couple different parts because this is somewhat of a complex process.

[01:48:50] We think it's important to start out that everybody has an understanding about the background on our existing secondary course offerings. We also wanna make sure that we're discussing the options that students have for accessing different courses, as well as reviewing the procedures and the process for the annual review.

[01:49:09] And then finally, we wanna share some information about some of the courses that are actually proposed for next school year. So for context, all of our middle schools and high schools have a catalog of course offerings that include a mix of standard and optional courses.

[01:49:25] And it's very important to understand the distinction between the two. A standard course is a course that's available to all students at the base school that they attend. So if we have a standard course and a course catalog, that's required to be part of the student course selection process.

[01:49:42] An optional course, on the other hand, is a course that a local base school has some discretion to determine whether or not they wanna offer it, and they would make that decision based on community interest, student interest, staff availability, staff licensure, and then any technical considerations like specialized equipment or facility space that might be required to run that class.

[01:50:05] So there's an important distinction between standard and optional courses. I'd also point out that we do have, as you'll see in this presentation, a wide breadth of course offerings across FCPS. Traditionally, that's been viewed as a strength because we have a lot of different choices and options for students to keep them engaged and to hopefully connect them with some of their current or future interests as well.

[01:50:31] So to start out, how are course offerings determined at the school level? Every school is gonna start by evaluating factors like student interest, staffing, availability, teacher licensure, as I mentioned, facilities, availability as well.

[01:50:47] But that process then is gonna start with the student course selection process. In some schools, you might hear that referred to as academic advising. In other schools, you might hear that referred to as forecasting, whatever term the school uses. The student course selection process is the process where students indicate the classes that they would like to take in the upcoming school year.

[01:51:08] And again, all standard course offerings in the division have to be advertised at every base school. But again, those decisions about running a standard course can be determined by other factors like student interest, staffing, and scheduling. So for example, there might be a standard course offering, but maybe only five students register interest in taking that course.

[01:51:30] not going to be a course that we could afford to staff with only five students in it. In contrast, then schools are going to determine the optional courses that they want to have as part of the student course selection process. And again, here you're thinking about those unique factors like facilities, materials and supplies, teacher licensure.

[01:51:50] So for example, like an optional course like automotive tech, which might be a very popular class and there might be students that would want to take a class like that in a base school, The school might not have the ability to have an auto repair garage with all of the equipment and supplies and teacher licensure that would be required to offer that at that particular school.

[01:52:09] So standard and course offerings do have some nuance in terms of what's actually ultimately offered at the school. The other thing that I would point out, and this gets a little technical, but sometimes it's difficult for students to access a course even when it's offered in the school, and lady will appreciate this and certainly could explain it better than I can but if you think about all the teachers in the school and all the courses that they teach there might just be one section of a particular class we we would call that a singleton or there might just be two sections of a class we would call

[01:52:44] that a doubleton and a student that has a lot of highly specialized classes which many of our students do might have multiple singletons or multiple doubletons and they might not be able to get every course that they are requesting so even when a course is offered sometimes students won't actually be able to access it so for all of those reasons I do think it's important to acknowledge that there is going to be some variation in course offerings from school to school the next thing we wanted to share was kind of our current state of standard course offerings at our base school so you can

[01:53:20] see on the chart here that for middle school we've got about 60 standard courses and about a hundred standard courses at the high school level so again And the chart tells you what the standard courses are, but just as you look at that in middle school, for all of our core content, language arts, social studies, math, and science, you're going to have a standard level of that class as well as an honors level of that class.

[01:53:43] And then at middle school, we're also having standard course offerings obviously in health and PE, Spanish and French, and then some of our core electives, art, band, chorus, some CTE, orchestra, and theater. high school we've got more standard course offerings similar to middle school we've got multiple levels of many of these courses honors standard honors AP IB for the four core and we have the same standard course offerings for electives but high schools even have more than that the middle schools do so that's the major distinction there so quite a few standard course offerings of

[01:54:21] course we've got a lot of optional course offerings as well we've got over 500 high school optional courses now that does include all the highly specialized courses at our academies as well as the specialized courses at thomas jefferson high school and we've got over a hundred middle school optional courses and those again are available across the content areas and the optional courses provide a lot of unique opportunities for students to pursue things that are either current or future interests so i think the other thing though with optional courses and we mentioned this a little bit in our goal five presentation, our courses still have to be

[01:54:59] approved by VDOE. So we can't just make up a course without VDOE approval. We need to receive that in order for students to earn the credit towards graduation requirement. Okay, so the next part of the presentation that we wanted to discuss is how do students actually go about accessing courses in high school? And the first option and the best option, of course, is the course is offered at their base high school and they just take it at their local base high school. So those options are going to include standard and optional courses that the base school is able to offer, but we also have some schools that have some uniquely and highly specialized career and

[01:55:37] technical education programs. So things like automotive, culinary, early childhood is part of their base school offerings. Those are things that, you know, we've developed over decades as we mentioned earlier today, and those are primarily going to be available to students at the base school. Sometimes when there's seat space available, we can open it up for a student to co-enroll to take a particular specialized course but typically those courses are going to be offered to students at the base school additionally of course we have two specialty programs or school within a school models right now the edison global stem academy

[01:56:11] and the lewis leadership program both of those programs do accept student transfers on a space available basis now in addition to accessing courses at your local base school we've got some additional opportunities for students in FCPS to access highly specialized courses through our career academies and that gives students an additional opportunity to take coursework through part-time enrollment at the academy any one of the six academies that we offer in Fairfax and those classes are oftentimes classes that require a lot of highly specialized equipment

[01:56:50] industry standard tools labs and technologies that provide students with those hands-on learning options and we try to obviously be as efficient as possible and how we offer those classes geographically across the school division to maximize opportunities for students to take those courses in addition to the academies students can also access courses through our online campus students can enroll in two courses two online campus courses free of charge each year as part of their standard schedule or they could choose to access more than two but there's tuition payment for students

[01:57:28] taking more than two courses all right the next piece that I think is important is really kind of trying to understand how this whole process works and regulation 3202 lays out the process for the course approval process obviously the school board has final approval to add or change modify or delete any courses from the division course catalog but prior to board action there's a division-wide committee that has school-based staff central office staff as part of the committee that reviews every new course proposal either submitted from central office or submitted from

[01:58:07] a local school and the committee hears detailed presentations reviews all the written materials about the rationale for the course and ultimately committee members vote to decide whether or not to approve any changes to the the courses that are proposed and after the committee has reached consensus on courses they move those forward to the board for action and that is again scheduled for this Thursday's night meeting for next school year's new courses all right the next piece that I think is important is really providing you know some information about the

[01:58:43] courses that are being proposed for your consideration for next school year These are just some examples. The full list is posted on board docs for Thursday evening's board meeting. But overall, with this year's proposals, you'll notice that there are a few trends.

[01:59:00] One was to diversify career and technical education experiences across our schools. So you see new course offerings in artificial intelligence, air traffic, aviation maintenance, for example. So we're excited about those new opportunities.

[01:59:17] Additionally, we're expanding some access to higher level world language offerings. So you see the career applications course listed there. That is a course that a student would take as a fourth or fifth year or even sixth year or beyond language course.

[01:59:35] And the reason that we're offering this course, we've had it in Spanish for a number of years as an alternative way for students to take additional world language offerings. And Ms. Lady pointed out in the last session how important it is for students that are applying to the university to take at least three years of world language.

[01:59:54] This is a practical world language class that really focuses on communication skills, oral and written in the workplace, and has been very successful in Spanish, so we're expanding it to our other languages as well. And then you can also see a trend was to add some new AP offerings.

[02:00:11] So we're proposing cybersecurity AP and AP business and finance, as well as some new science offerings to expand pathways to access additional topics in science and math. All right, the next piece of this process is thinking about any recommendations where we might move a course that was previously an optional course, meaning a school could choose whether or not to offer it, to a standard course, meaning a school is required to advertise that course and you here you can see a number of courses that we're proposing

[02:00:48] to move from optional to standard again largely focused in career and technical education because we know that that's been a priority is to create more equitable access to CTE classes across the division so we're proposing to expand access to advanced programming career investigations construction technology entrepreneurship and the workforce connections class that we mentioned in the earlier work session and then the final component of the course review process is looking at any course designation changes so these are

[02:01:22] largely changes to grade weighting so the first recommendation that we have is to add an additional GPA weight to two of our cyber security courses that are listed here as well as adding a 1.0 weight GPA weight to IB world language language, and it's listed here as IB SL ab initio, and what that means is that's a class for students that are full IB diploma students, but they started their world language studies later than ninth grade, so they can't fulfill the four-year requirements of the language,

[02:02:00] so IB has this carve-out of a way that you can earn the full diploma through this ab initio and ab initio exam so it's a way for students again that have fulfilled all the other IB diploma requirements to still pursue the full diploma and here you could think of a student who may be transferred in from another school system or a student who maybe didn't think they were going to go for the full IB diploma didn't start world language until 10th grade this is a way for them to still earn the full diploma and then we've got some new dual enrollment course designations so these are courses that are aligned with Northern Virginia

[02:02:38] community college courses and give students dual enrollment credit high school credit and community college credit so we have new offerings in physics and art and then finally there is some flexibility that we receive from video II to have kind of concurrent or dual cross-credit offerings in certain courses. So we did get approval from VDOE for the three IB courses listed here that will give students additional credit earning opportunities. So the example I'll point out is the IB global politics class. The state is allowing that class to count for world

[02:03:15] history credit as well. So we take that as a good sign with continued advocacy that we can get more of these kind of cross credit courses approved by VDOE. And Jen and her team have been working on a comprehensive list of courses that we want to get additional flexibility for.

[02:03:32] And we'll be submitting that to VDOE pretty soon. So in closing, we just wrap up by saying, you know, we're excited about this process. We appreciate the opportunity to dialogue with you about it today. We think these course offerings are going to provide some increased rigor as well as relevance and engagement opportunities for students across all of our schools.

[02:03:54] And we'll turn it back over to the board for discussion. Thank you. we'll start with dr. Anderson thank you I am still trying to build some understanding here so please bear with me first of all thank you for this because we've never had kind of a presentation around this just the opportunity to approve the courses and it's helpful to have this background to really build understanding so in that vein here are my questions you mentioned video e needing to approve all of the courses whether they're optional or standard what's the process that they take what what's the criteria utilized

[02:04:32] in order to determine whether or not these courses are appropriate? - Well, that's a great question, and I think I failed to introduce Jen at the beginning of this presentation. So my apologies, Jen Glazier is our director of Counseling College and Career Readiness, and she supports a lot of this work and facilitates this annual process.

[02:04:51] So I'll let Jen give you a little bit more details about the VDOE approval process. - Great question, thank you. So the VDOE establishes which courses can count for graduation requirements, and then each school division may choose from them to provide those as offerings in their division.

[02:05:12] If a school division were to offer a new elective, as we do sometimes for pilot courses, then that could be done, but it wouldn't count towards the student's graduation requirement. - So then they're not approving that per se, because we fall outside. So there's no way for us to submit courses for them to really approve.

[02:05:30] It's either we pick from their list. - Oh, pick from their list, or bless you. - Thank you, we pick from their list or we just offer it optionally on the side? - That's correct, but our curriculum and content leaders across all the areas try to stay connected through our VDOE specialists and ensure that we can provide advocacy for additional options to be included.

[02:05:54] So for example, we're very active as a CTE team and working with the CTE leads at VDOE to ensure that our interests are being communicated. - Very good, thank you. next question the optional courses um how do they come to be obviously staff comes up with some of them but is there an opportunity for a school or students to advocate for courses that ultimately become part of the fabric of fcps yeah absolutely so those courses can be initiated really in two ways one from the local school obviously the principal would need to support that recommendation

[02:06:31] But oftentimes they come from a faculty member who has unique interests, talents, and skills that they're really passionate and excited about, from students in terms of a course that they might want to take. You might remember the impetus for our African American history class really came from our students in the division.

[02:06:48] So they can come from the school level, from school-based staff and students, or they can come from the central office level where we look at something like artificial intelligence, which is on this list, is something that strategically we know that we've got to really accelerate great learning opportunities for students in that was something that came from the central office level so either school or central so if a school comes up with an optional course it's only at that school at least for some period of time how do we grow from that school to across the division yeah so an optional course again is a course that would go into the division catalog that could be offered at any school but for example if I bring a course forward from my school

[02:07:27] and it's approved I'm gonna offer it right an artist may or may not have the interest she might not have the facility capacity she might not have the teacher that has the licensure for that she might she could offer it but she might choose not so it's available but not not required and there are also school site courses that may start as a unique offering at one high school and then if they grow as has been the case with some of our our optional offerings then we could move them to the optional catalog so I think that's why I was probably be heading school site courses do we have a listing of those courses that are

[02:08:05] only offered at specific school sites we haven't posted that today but we can certainly follow up and provide that I would love to see that if we could I need to find that page how are courses removed from the selections are they ever sunset is it because oh nobody's taking this course in years or once they make it to the catalog they remain in the catalog forever yes it does happen that their sunset though with 500 optional course offerings obviously a

[02:08:41] lot of them stay in play in the optional catalog they certainly the content area teams are looking at enrollment patterns centrally and then at school level decisions are made if an optional course offering hasn't been run in several years because of student interest they can submit a request to remove that from their optional course offerings. So there is a process that goes annually with the timeline that requires schools to work with their instructional councils and then also preceding that, the central teams review the data and make determinations about what they'll recommend as well.

[02:09:15] Thank you. Can you also speak to weighting? What is the criteria to determine whether it's going to be 1.0, 0.5? So we've tried to use basically college credit equivalent the 1.0 weight so an ap ib dual enrollment class would earn college credit would be a 1.0 weight and then an advanced or honors level course at a 0.5 weight okay thank you being that this is kind of a massive undertaking there's lots of courses lots of options lots of things to even you know educate us and i am sure the students have the opportunity to become aware of these courses

[02:09:54] through their work with their counselors what is the parent engagement just so parents can be aware because sometimes kids will you know take it on sometimes parents will need to be the pushers how does that happen so there is a course catalog available at every school it's unique to each of our middle and high schools there's also curriculum night opportunities for family engagement within the school building for parents to come additionally we have established consistent requirements for every middle and high school website so you saw that for the first time last year and now we've enhanced that even more so there's a lot of information

[02:10:33] available on each website so parents can engage in that way and then of course the school counselors continue to be a resource of parents have unique or personalized questions to engage in that way last question and comment some months ago it's probably been over a year she may not even remember that she mentioned this but miss lady had talked about in her work at Chantilly which I think she worked there for a little while she had mentioned that she took the approach of signing kids into certain courses in lieu of having them sign themselves so the conversations around why you don't want to do this rather

[02:11:10] than you know somebody having to be convinced to do it is that an approach that can be considered more widely because I see this as an opportunity to bridge the gaps that we talked about in the previous conversation in terms of access to kids who as you mentioned dr. King earlier these kids are sitting and ready just not being accessed how does that work in the approach of course selection and maybe this is not even a you question I don't know no I think it's a great question and I almost hesitate to bring up the able work again but I mean this is kind of part of the able work is identifying those students

[02:11:46] that we know have the capacity based on their previous academic record to be enrolled in more rigorous courses maybe than they're signing up for on their student course selection sheet right so the idea would be to be more proactive about that process through our counseling department and obviously at the end of the day a student and students legal guardian is going to make the decision about the final course offerings but by taking that more proactive affirmative step of saying hey we want you enrolled in these these rigorous courses we know that you can do it that's a better way to start the

[02:12:22] process than trying to convince somebody hey you should sign up for this right so we definitely are trying to be more proactive like that and this lady i think gave some good examples of what that looked like in chantilly thank you and my last question was regarding equitable access next go back miss marin thank you and thank you um chair anderson and vice chair lady for putting this on the agenda for today so this topic is at the intersection of so many critical parts of how

[02:12:58] we deliver education and I actually just listed them out and I'm gonna say them central office budgeting staffing academic advising timeline for course selection family engagement which includes curriculum night and what that may include different slides different things the newsletter overall communication plans and the website coursework mapping work and trajectories of students including grading policy and implementation boundaries and geographic access to programs facilities capabilities strategic plan work state requirements skills knowledge experiences that prepare students to be

[02:13:34] competitive in college and the workforce my observations understanding experience analysis is that there is far too much subjectivity in the process for how courses are selected and offered in schools and there is not enough data being considered qualitative or quantitative so given that almost a list of a dozen items I want to reiterate I am interested in strengthening the school system and not perpetuating the system of schools I'm glad that the board is having this conversation for what I understand is the first time in

[02:14:09] 15 years of approving the addition of courses by consent because we're now in a different precedent so colleagues what I'd like to do today is with my time to hear from you about how we can change this process so we are more involved with this much more intimately and much more regularly I'm wondering if we can move to a model where like we use for approving basal materials where it's a set process we have that down our policy is not surprisingly over 10 years

[02:14:47] old I've already redlined it and look forward to sharing that with folks to at a minimum put some of the values that I know we are interested in and that we've talked about and then also that will allow the superintendent to update the regulation which is I believe 2019 so you know things I wonder about that perhaps the superintendent can advise us at is what are other school divisions do when it comes to board involvement in reviewing coursework how are we analyzing courses that are highly specialized compared to the courses that we don't have enough of or we have too many kids and I think of dr. King's

[02:15:26] example of all that algebra one and then we've got highly specialized classes like that is an equity and then the schedule and electives because we know that kids have to do things like drop band drop chorus to get the courses that they need as electives so in summary I would love to hear your thoughts on moving towards a more robust course review and discussion like this every year and a process that is more akin to what we do when we review the basal

[02:15:54] curriculums. Thank you. Mr. Frisch. Thank you. It's always interesting to have this conversation, especially sitting next to Miss Lady. Some thoughts. In general, I am in favor of an approach that gauges the board so that we're aware of why decisions are being made and measuring the

[02:16:31] efficacy of those decisions after they're made. You know, for the basal system, we appoint people and eventually the recommendations get to us we review materials and we approve generally speaking sometimes we pull back when there's not enough money and I don't know and this is probably part of that conversation if we get to the that point I don't know how the timelines would gel for that type of deliberative process and how quickly something like that could be implemented it's I think

[02:17:09] it's worth exploring what that or other alternatives. To Miss Marin's question about what other school divisions boards do, I'm gonna jump out on a ledge and say nothing, or very little. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be doing anything, but we do a lot more than most boards do.

[02:17:29] Not better, not worse, just different. And so it's always something driven by the desire of the board. I think, if I'm guessing, The reason that we've always done it this way, or the way that we currently do it, is because that's what has been expected from past boards.

[02:17:51] And I'm not opposed to continuing that path, provided we have a conversation about what's the end result of those choices, right? Because in theory, if the superintendent's team is proceeding in this way, we have ELs to govern this work, and as long as we are being kept in the loop about what the result is, and the result should be tied to the reason that we did it in the first place, right?

[02:18:21] Then we have work to judge. So I think the conversation's worth having and look forward to the conversations in governance about what the policy might look like. And I know some of the meatier pieces of it would probably be addressed by staff there before it comes back to the full board.

[02:18:38] But it's certainly interesting. I'm very eager to hear what Miss Lady has to say. because she did work in chantilly high school for many years as dr anderson worked in loudon county public schools for many years thank you mr frisch i guess you're teeing me up um i have a couple thoughts um the the first thing i wanted clarification on is this ibsl abomination is it only for transfer students no it's not it's part of the ib world organization so it's

[02:19:14] open to any student so hypothetically anywhere i was just using the example i appreciate the example but I'm hypothetically if I started in Spanish in eighth grade but I don't feel like my Spanish is strong enough for me to get through traditional which would be five years can I jump into this track and you know that's not who it's intended for that's that's my point I understand early correct correct or or just struggles to acquire so I think that I like dr. Anderson's question

[02:19:51] about optional courses that get sunset I don't know what type of research we're doing on that but it seems to me that's a pretty robust offering of optional courses that there have to be some that are outdated I do know that when I was the director that that that the Sun setting of optional for our catalog you know I was this kind of a sticker for rule following so I did all that paperwork but I don't know that that's done with fidelity I think some people just take them off the sheet.

[02:20:22] I don't know, maybe it's tight now, but I think that we probably could find some to sunset altogether. To Ms. Marin's point around understanding this process as it moves in real time, if memory serves me well, we had to propose that we were gonna add an optional course in like September or October.

[02:20:46] It's very early in the academic year. And then as VDOE rolls out or as we decide we wanna look at certain courses, could we possibly use Friday letter to just roll those steps out so that once we get to this if we do this annually we've been following along in the Friday letter here's the classes that central office staff think we're gonna add or whatever I just think is that possible to use the Friday letter is that yes ma'am that's possible in the the biggest thing I want to say is one other idea but but I want to say this one of the things I was told repeatedly when I got on the board was we don't do

[02:21:25] operations you do policy you don't do operations this isn't operations this is a lot of operations and that's why to mr. Frisch's point other school boards don't get in these weeds because it's called operations I mean I think it's healthy to have conversations but when it comes to certain things it's never been the role of the board to meddle that deeply we care deeply I want to be briefed the other thing I would I don't know who I think dr. Anderson's point maybe part of senior survey we could add a question like please list the top

[02:22:00] five courses that were most impactful in your post-grad plan because we're most of the questions that we require are state reporting and I know every director can add additional questions that are kept and analyzed in-house I will say the number one that we did was what would you do differently and almost 90% of the seniors say I wouldn't have taken as many advanced courses and I would have enjoyed high school more and meddled in some of the fun electives that I didn't allow room for in my schedule so that's just an idea for senior

[02:22:34] survey and I see I'm running out of time so I think we are Dr. Anderson for go back just the first go the next piece that I had was regarding equitable access and it has a couple of portions because one the curriculum nights are not all created equal I have parents who for some reason are shopping around these curriculum nights and some are super robust and they get lots of information and some not as much do we standard out do we have a basic set of criteria that should be included in the curriculum nights presentation because that's

[02:23:12] primarily the first time that parents are hearing about much of this so that's question one question two is availability of courses we have parents who the grass is always greener because there's that course over there where I I am NOT and I must go there to access it how do we prevent that because again some of it is well intentioned because yes my kid has been taking you know whatever for a number of years and wants to continue and my school is not and some of it frankly is not as well intentioned it's an opportunity to flee the school for which you're zoned so how do we ensure that there is

[02:23:51] availability of those courses when there are students who are interested not enough for a class per se but not saying if we don't have 25 we can't do anything at all so i'll pause here before i get to my third point so i'll go first and then generally try to give you a little bit on the first question the equitable access you know is something we've talked a lot about as a board and i know that that's a priority so you know again some of these new course recommendations are intended to create more equitable access in areas that the board has had discussion around, particularly some of the CTE courses, for example, right?

[02:24:29] But I do want to point out that we have a lot of course options on the online campus, right? So many world language courses, many CTE courses that don't require the hands-on components. So we've tried to use the online campus and the academies as ways to provide equitable access to highly specialized courses that typically couldn't be offered in every base school because of the cost, facilities.

[02:24:53] Again, I'll use the auto tech example. You know, it'd be very costly to put a repair garage in every single one of our base high schools, but by having that through the academy, that's something that students can access more equitably. So those are the types of strategies that we've used, but we recognize that there's a lot more work to do, and we're not in the perfect place right now.

[02:25:13] But we're working towards creating more opportunities for students. And one of the things that we discussed in the October work session was we're working on CT expansion plan that we should have ready pretty soon that would look at some additional strategies, maybe more schools within a school model where students could access some of these programs either on a full-time or part-time basis.

[02:25:34] So we're looking at a number of different things, but it's going to take a lot of multifaceted strategies. There's not going to be like a one-size-fits-all. Not every school is going to be able to offer every course. And thank you for the question about the curriculum nights.

[02:25:52] I am really excited to share that building off of the first step last year, which was to standardize what's on the public websites, this year we have worked very collaboratively with the directors of student services at both the middle and high schools to establish a checklist of what they should have included generally in their academic advising, but also more specifically in the curriculum night.

[02:26:14] so we have a checklist of considerations for their curriculum nights and they've been wonderful in providing feedback and getting normed around making sure that the most important topics from graduation requirements to course sequencing and the specialty programs are all included and covered thank you can you speak to a little bit the academic advising that you just raised what's the adult component there for guardians and families because it's possible that a kid goes picks all these classes and the parents don't know anything about it that's true that the primary focus is to ensure that students have personalized planning sessions

[02:26:51] with their school counselors and the means that we've used to communicate with parents have primarily been parent view or mailings depending on the school so every parent should have access to see what their student has selected before that final date to make changes before the end of the school has access is one thing everybody has access to a lot of things that you can't necessarily put your finger on I guess what I'm asking for is a little bit greater accountability like a parent checkoff you know because that does not exist and I do worry because having my kids go through like oh what did you get

[02:27:28] well la-dee-da I'm like nope we're not doing that but if the parents are not involved in any way I think that's a gap that I would love for you all to reconsider how do we bring in the parent as a final check because it's also an opportunity for education it's not just it's on Schoology go look at it oh gosh darn it besides Mariser let me just follow on what dr. Anderson said last year I was very clear that we needed and required a parent checkoff for moving forward so we will talk about that because parents absolutely should have a

[02:28:06] sign-off on a student schedule so we'll talk about how to incorporate that for year no that's an essential part of the process so i i'll work with dr presidio miss glazer to make sure that that's incorporated and implemented this year um all right so i agree with my colleague and i'm glad brought it up this is very operational and while it's it's good information to have i think this could have been present and this is not on you i understand this is a request by a board so this is not a negative i knew but i think this could have been a presentation

[02:28:42] perhaps at a board meeting when we vote on this um you know it's good to have the conversation i I think, and again, I appreciate you all trying to be responsive to a board request. I would recommend for this, this is for the board to look at. If we're gonna look at things like this, instead of looking at it in pieces, Elaine and I started a program review, well, a forum topic on reviewing our programs.

[02:29:04] Mr. Frisch has talked about looking at some of our programming, perhaps down the road, a larger, more broad, setting the direction for programming, looking at policies around programming. at a board level, the governance policy board level, could then help provide additional direction to you now as we're recognizing that things are changing.

[02:29:24] Just as a thought, right? And you guys are being responsive, so this is not a negative on anybody, but I think it's hard to have these conversations in isolation from the other conversations about programming, access to programming, and the really great things a lot of my colleagues have brought up today. So just as a food for thought in terms of scheduling, I think is important.

[02:29:43] - I think in the reading I've done recently, We've had a break and I've had a chance to get caught up on articles that have been sent. One of the things that is paramount to think about around the world right now and reading articles from around the world, not just colleagues in our country, we're at a time right now in K-12 education that's a very unstable time in terms of planning for the future.

[02:30:07] Because it's early days, we're not really sure about the future we're planning for for our children and our grandchildren. So I think that having program conversations and courses that will address those potentials is a critical juncture.

[02:30:22] I also think that we wanna make sure that while we have safeguards, we're gonna need to be more nimble given the shifts right now that are happening rapidly in the workforce. Like no longer is it several decades ahead, it's within the next decade that we're gonna see significant shifts in the skills required to be effective moving forward.

[02:30:44] So I think these are timely conversations And I know the staff's working hard. I see Whitney back here and Jen and Dr. Presidio, an artist, Yvonne, Marty, everybody's working hard to think about what is the best match. So you have seen some new courses this year for a future that our children are gonna inherit that's gonna look very, very much different than what it has looked like.

[02:31:09] - I imagine these may have been the conversations happening perhaps in the '80s when computing may begin as technology got faster and the internet, I think these probably were similar conversations that we're having now in this moment.

[02:31:24] - Yes, and similar around process, but I think that as the technology's moving so rapidly right now-- - Yes, absolutely. - And the number of jobs that have not come back since the last recession in 2008, which is over 8.2 million, that only require a high school diploma, the focus on our ability to be responsive here in Fairfax County to the changing workforce needs critical right now so I just also put into the space that it's not a conversation that has a lot of ground rules right now either and that's why we're going to have to be comfortable with at times something that doesn't

[02:32:02] feel completely settled because the world around us is not and it's not going to be plug-and-play answers it's going to be they're going to be topics we need to wrestle with as a leadership team just why I was suggesting you know there's threading throughout the strategic plan is innovation, innovative, you know, students ready to innovate, innovative education.

[02:32:23] I would maybe suggest a conversation around that thought around what we're doing, you know, it could be framed in our current strategic plan that you have with the board, 'cause obviously when we did that plan, the things have rapidly changed even since then to now.

[02:32:39] So I just think that there's a broader conversation here to be had that this could be subsumed into in terms of what we currently offer instead of just talking about what we're offering, I think is my suggestion. maybe around policy. So that was kind of my sort of big picture suggestion and I think just something for the board to think about.

[02:32:58] I did have a timing suggestion around the timing of the curriculum nights and choosing classes and IEP meetings 'cause I've heard from so many families of students with IEPs of tears when their kids go to these curriculum nights and get excited about taking theater or computers or whatever, and then being told they have to give up this elective for strategies and this elective for literacy and this elective for workplace development.

[02:33:28] So what are you doing to make sure the timing of this work so we're not setting kids up for these moments of real sadness? And I've heard it from so many families. - Know about the timing necessarily, 'cause the timing is kind of backwards mapped from when schools need to prepare the materials to put in front of students and families, right?

[02:33:51] So I think we probably need to take another look at the timeline and see if there's some adjustments we could make on that. The most recent enhancement that we've made to our process for students with disabilities though is the strategies for success class that's part of the advisory program for students that would choose to take that opening up a period, a free period in their schedule.

[02:34:12] And we've got that at all of our high schools now. So that's the most recent enhancement we've made to try to free up more flexibility in student schedules. I mean, I think there's a free flexibility plot, right? But that's been a long-term project, and I'm glad to hear about the strategies. As you know, it's a long-time advocacy of mine to create that, so I'm really glad to hear that.

[02:34:30] But in the meantime, what are we doing to best set our students up for not that level of disappointment? 'Cause I've seen it and heard it from so many people. - I appreciate that. We'll take another look at that. And we could talk to you offline, too, if you've got some suggestions or ideas for us to consider, I'd appreciate it.

[02:34:47] - Thank you. - Yeah. - Thank you. Mr. McElveen. - Well, thank you to Sloan, Jen, and the team for this presentation. As has been stated, this is the first time we've ever done this, and I really appreciate just seeing it in this format and having the opportunity to discuss it at a work session.

[02:35:08] So one question that came out of this for me was, you know, I don't know if this is still the case, but I believe for many years we were one of five districts of cyber excellence, in terms of our cyber education.

[02:35:25] And so there have been several changes when it comes to cyber on here, right? So first was adding the weight to CyberCisco and the systems tech courses, and also adding AP cybersecurity. I understand the first of those two are credential oriented, but can you explain why we would add AP cybersecurity or why we wouldn't already have that given our cyber excellence and what this would add to our offerings?

[02:35:58] - Great question. And we have been increasing our cyber access over the past few years. Within the past three years, we've made Cybersecurity Fundamentals, which is a standard level course, a standard offering. So it doesn't have an additional weight, but it is a standard course offering for each of our high schools.

[02:36:16] So any student can sign up to take that course. And then the next level courses have been available through our academies, primarily. Those courses, some of which are available as dual enrollment options, and that is based on the mapping that can be done with Northern Virginia Community College courses.

[02:36:33] Some of those carry a 1.08. If we don't have an instructor who can teach that course, that's where we need to make it an honors level, even though it's accessing the same content. We had to add that additional 0.5 to ensure that our students who are accessing that in an honors form rather than a dual enrollment can also get the benefit of an additional weight.

[02:36:53] So standard cyber fundamentals is that every high school are available in the catalog at every high school. Students can then go on to the academy. The AP cybersecurity is brand new from College Board. It was in pilot this year. We had one of our schools pilot it.

[02:37:09] As soon as it was available, we jumped on that to ensure we had some experience developing the curriculum and the pacing within our school. And now this year, we don't wanna miss the opportunity to have another AP offering, which does not have the same staffing requirements as a dual enrollment class, so that our teachers who are in our base schools could also teach that advanced placement course.

[02:37:30] - Got it, and I'll just note that Chantilly was one of those schools of cyber excellence, so congratulations for that. Then there was talk, I think, last year, and I don't think we ever really discussed it as a board, that we were adding coursework on drones. Can you speak to that?

[02:37:47] - So that was approved a couple of cycles ago. It's remote pilot vehicles. is an approved optional offering in our division but it has not run yet that is part of our package of what could be offered in the new aerospace pathways that will be developed so with that comes some requirements for airspace and other equipment that we'll need to follow through on but we're excited that that's already an approved offering it just hasn't been offered yet we look forward to making that part of our package great and then finally there's been a lot of discussion and excitement around mariachi can you speak to the

[02:38:27] current status as a extra extracurricular co-curricular option as opposed to a course offering yes I'm so excited for that too this is that idea actually to establish a program that we're gonna have a curriculum and we have been having a conversation with with NOVA and to see if actually we can

[02:39:00] transfer that to up to the university as another state that they do have so that's a big idea has been a little bit of trouble because we have been we have not been able to secure a professor yes has been really really hard yes we have I've tried several times.

[02:39:27] I know that one of our Dearborn members have been very supportive of that, but it has been very hard. And so we have tried three times, and the three times didn't work, because we don't just want to bring someone who's gonna be just teaching the students just one time.

[02:39:50] Hey, it has to be someone that will elevate and make that a program. and after the program, not only here at Fairfax, but also bring it to the university level. - Okay, so we might see that in the future.

[02:40:06] Is that what you're saying? - No, actually, it's gonna be this coming semester. We have some candidates, we expand. We have been talking with Dr. Sheehy, who is from Fairfax.

[02:40:23] He is our, let's say, mentor helping us. We have several candidates right now. We have from Arizona, Texas, and California. So we will see how this is gonna work and make sure that that will work.

[02:40:42] It's gonna be one high school, established in one school, and then expand. - Well, great, and I appreciate all these updates. The last thing I would ask is that, I think it would be helpful for us, and I don't know what form it would take, but to get some sense of how many actually taking these classes as we roll them out so i don't know if you can think through a way that that could be communicated to the board i think yeah we definitely can do that um there's different ways we can do it so let us let's think about that a little bit maybe we start with some update in the

[02:41:20] friday letter and if you need something more than that we can we can do that as well mr john cunning thank you um i i want to get back to the requirement for parents to sign off on schedules i remember i had to sign off on all of my daughter's schedules when they took it and i remember as a family liaison having to track down parents to make sure that the schedules were signed and kids saying my mom hasn't signed the schedule can you tell her because i want to

[02:41:52] take this course so has that not always been the case so i think it has been the case at some schools but not all schools and that's the part that we have to close the loop on because i have the same requirement at my children's school as well but then obviously we have some schools where where that's not happening so that's what we need to close the loop on and I remember as a parent liaison tracking down parents to do that I want to concur that I agree that this is a great conversation to have but it is very very operational and to that extent I think we need to trust the experts on that and

[02:42:30] then have you give us the presentations give us the feedback and then you know us getting a little bit more information in terms of how it's being taken how it's not or was getting taken the other thing I want to recommend when we're talking about CTE programming and space I know that there has been some conversation with some of our Board of Supervisors where they might be able to provide space in some areas and I think that you know we're gonna be having that conversation this afternoon and having that kind of partnership would be really important just oh yeah no no but having the space for for for some of these

[02:43:09] classes I think there's an appetite with some of our Board of Supervisors and I think that would be a great partnership to have so I just wanted to mention those those things and that maybe we should pursue those partnerships and I think with some of our members on the supervisors boards there's an appetite to provide some work skills training in specific designated spaces that may not

[02:43:41] be the schools. Thank you. Ms. Anderson. I'm going to be really fast. You're going to get two of my sayings in one. First of all, I think that we are in a plastic moment and this happens throughout time, right, where you have moments that are set in concrete and then you have moments that are plastic and they're easier to move things. We are in a plastic moment and there's a benefit to that is that we can be nimble and we can move quickly but it's unsettling when you're in it and so I think that if we are going to be responsive to what our kids need we need

[02:44:16] to move through the plastic moment and allow things to be plastic and allow us to be able to be nimble and so I am very comfortable being in the not knowing on this I want to know I want you to come and tell us what we're doing I want us to have the conversations about what's working and I want to celebrate the successes with you guys I want us you know I want to hear about the optional courses that are working. I have said many times that the work I do professionally is related to a pilot program that was run 30 years ago that now is a standard course offering in all of our high schools and so there are

[02:44:54] kids out there that are getting skills here and it's the only formal training I ever had and so and it was expensive it was crazy expensive back then so I just want us to stay here and realize that we are teaching kids things that are going to be hugely important for them in the future one thing along with strategies the strategy the strategy stuff is that I want to mention that we need to make sure that we're doing that in middle school too and the reason I say that is we have so many middle school offerings that are like a preview of what other electives could be is that I almost think it's more important to have it at

[02:45:32] the middle school level than it is I mean the high school level of course is important too but getting that elective back at a middle school level where they are taking the surveys of figuring out what their interest areas are I think is really hugely important and utilizing those advisory times as much as humanly possible for other interventions that are available so I would absolutely advocate for getting those in our middle schools - thank you mr. moon for whatever it's worth since we are already past two o'clock that I don't think this is the first time board had this kind of a discussion it was a word before you

[02:46:11] guys time even before any of the LT members time that when we used to have subcommittees we had committee called instruction committee you know they would engage in this kind of conversation and what in depth with that said we do not have a instruction committee we work as bold as all but I want to digress a bit quite a bit I know that we are talking about secondary course offerings but in elementary schools do we have any room do we allow any any electives to be

[02:46:49] offered by schools well the elementary program is a lot more standardized obviously than the secondary program but there's still differences right some schools offer world language immersion programs some schools offer world language plus programs some schools have a steam program other schools have more environmental so typically what happens at the elementary level is all of those specials is the term or we would call them electives at the secondary level that's what provides for the teacher planning time right that's where the teacher planning time comes from when

[02:47:29] students are in their special class teachers get their planning time and there has been some discretion on the part of school principals to determine what their special schedule looks like we still standardize art music PE library all of those things, the world languages, STEAM, environmental, you'll see some differences across some of our elementary. So elementary schools could be creative in coming up with their own elective programs for their students' needs? Yes, but within a relatively small. Small. I get that because, you know, there are certain requirements from us by state and et cetera,

[02:48:08] and they have to meet those requirements. Thank you. So we are technically out of time.

[02:48:17] I'm happy to give a minute to someone who really feels like there's something they really need to address miss mayor yeah so you know I wonder the conversation I hear is seems to be more about academic advising and course selection and that's a very worthwhile topic and I can't I don't know the policy off the top of my head but for me this is about budgetary limits and seeing what we can afford we no longer may be able to afford really specialized courses as was mentioned I'd like to know how much it was cost and as it was said today programs have been added here and there over time

[02:48:56] by advocacy not data for me it's also about equitable access that there are two language courses being offered only in high school currently when half of our elementary schools have zero world language instruction is a budgetary decision okay and the board does have a role in course development we had an academic matters about AVID the superintendent is bringing forth a policy governance to talk about AI. I'm hard pressed to vote on a policy or help create it when I don't even know how it's going to be used in instruction. So I'm eager to share my suggestions on the policy

[02:49:32] and thank you for the time. All right board members thank you. Thank you team for your robust and wonderful presentation and all you do and we are adjourned.

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