Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Meeting, Thursday, December 4, 2025

Date: Thursday, December 4, 2025
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 5h 9m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btfcQItjhdY
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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[00:06:26] The time is now 7:38 and this December 4th regular meet or December 4th 2025 regular

[00:36:11] meeting of the Fairfax County School Board will now come to order. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance followed by a moment of silence and a performance of the National Anthem by Sydney Walkup from South Lakes High School South Lakes High School student.

[00:36:26] I pledge allegiance.

[00:37:12] Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight O'er the ramparts we watched Were so gallantly streaming And the rocket's red glare

[00:37:52] Was still there Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet

[00:38:13] We have one more round of applause for our amazingly talented and patient student Agenda item 3.02, announcements.

[00:38:51] If you would like to review a copy of the meeting agenda, please see the back of the auditorium. To obtain copies of any items or supporting materials being presented tonight, please refer, reference the QR code on the agenda or visit www.edu backslash board docs.

[00:39:08] Tonight's meeting is being broadcast on Channel 99 and live streamed on YouTube and on our website at www.fcps.edu backslash live stream. Tonight's meeting is also being broadcast in Spanish on YouTube at youtube.com at or backslash at FCPS en Español.

[00:39:30] Agenda item 3.03, Inclusive Schools Week Proclamation. I call on Ms. Sizemore-Heiser for a proclamation. Whereas, National Inclusive School Weeks aims to honor and highlight the importance of creating inclusive educational environments that welcome all students regardless of their abilities, backgrounds, or challenges.

[00:39:57] Inclusive Schools Week is an annual event sponsored by the Inclusive Schools Network, ISN, and is held during the first full week of December. And, whereas, since its inception in 2001, National Inclusive Schools Week has celebrated the progress that schools have made in providing a welcoming, supportive, and quality education to an increasingly diverse student population, including students who are marginalized due to disability, gender, socioeconomic status, cultural heritage, language preference, and other factors.

[00:40:27] And whereas, inclusion is a foundational value that promotes diversity, equity, and respect, fostering a sense of belonging and empowering every student to reach their full potential. And whereas, inclusive schools provide students with opportunities to engage in collaborative learning, develop mutual understanding, and participate in activities that celebrate their unique strengths and perspectives.

[00:40:54] And, whereas, educators, families, students, and community members play a vital role in promoting inclusive practices and building supportive, adaptive learning environments that serve the needs of every learner. And, whereas, this year's theme, quote, children first, building a stronger tomorrow, quote, is rooted in the Maasai greeting, Kasaran Engeri, which translates to, and how are the children?

[00:41:21] We are called to focus on creating spaces where every child feels welcome, seen, and valued, ensuring that students with disabilities and all other students feel supported and can reach their full potential. And, whereas, Fairfax County Public Schools recommits to the crucial work of fostering a culture of inclusivity, dismantling barriers to participation, and ensuring that all of our students feel valued, supported, and prepared to succeed academically, socially, and emotionally.

[00:41:54] Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board proclaims the week of December 1st through 5th, 2025 as Inclusive Schools Week and encourages the entire Fairfax County community to participate in activities that celebrate inclusion, diversity, equity, and belonging.

[00:42:11] Therefore, be it further resolved that the Fairfax County School Board reaffirms its commitment to creating an inclusive, supportive, and equitable learning community where all students are engaged, inspired, and thrive. Is there a second? I second.

[00:42:26] Thank you, Ms. Dixit. I will call for the vote. All those in favor, Mr. Frisch, Mr. McDaniel, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Ms. Dixit, Ms. Sizemore-Hyser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, and myself. That's unanimous for all board members present.

[00:42:44] Agenda item 4.01. Oh, we need to do the photo, right? Okay, well, members of the board, please join us in front of the dais and all those here to celebrate the proclamation this week.

[00:43:03] can you please join us for a photo agenda item 4.01 community participation the next order of

[00:45:10] business is community participation we welcome all community members who are here and those who have signed up to speak this evening additional information about signing up to provide comments at school board regular business meetings and public hearings can be found on the school board's website at www.fcps.edu backslash school board during the sign-up process community members acknowledged that they were informed of the school board's expectations for respect and proper decorum when providing comments. These expectations are also available online and with the printed agenda and meeting materials in the back of the room. We ask audience members to be respectful of one another. Shouting

[00:45:49] and outbursts will not be tolerated. Please hold your applause until the conclusion of a speaker's remarks. Audience members may not join speakers at the podium and should remain at their seats including when recording or taking videos or recording video or taking photos we are grateful to those who have come to speak to us today and thank you for your cooperation school board members will be listening but not responding madam clerk will you please call the first speaker student number one hello I'm speaking as a student involved in

[00:46:26] the video made by the TJ MSA that has recently gained attention the way Thomas Jefferson administrators handled the MSA video was improper and caused serious harm to the students involved we were placed in in-school suspension conditions for four days before the investigation concluded which is not allowed under the SRNR. Despite the investigation not being finished the school sent an email to all FCPS families calling the video an act of anti-semitism and saying it violated the SRNR. This meant the school made assumptions about us before knowing the facts and because of our Muslim identity they breached confidentiality and put us in danger. Administrators also spoke to

[00:47:02] several news outlets including Fox News worsening the situation. After the investigation, all nine students were suspended under violation RB3, posting obscene or inappropriate material, even though only two students were involved in posting the video. The school also claimed eliminationist symbolism because one student wore a hoodie with red, green, and black colors in the shape of a map. This was collective punishment and a false, unacceptable accusation rooted in bias against Muslim and Arab students. These actions caused us to lose major academic opportunities. We missed nearly two weeks of instruction, harming our grades. We were

[00:47:37] impersonated online investigated by the police threatened online and called terrorists this caused deep emotional trauma for us and for the muslim community tj offers a senior mentorship program that requires no suspensions and the deadline is tomorrow the wrongful suspension has blocked me and others from opportunities that will that will affect our future so i'm asking for four things today accountability for the harm done to muslim students removal of unjust discipline from our records equal non-biased disciplinary practices across

[00:48:06] FCPS and countywide action against Islamophobia thank you Daniel Glenn good evening thank you to the chair and board members for holding this meeting

[00:48:44] this evening I recommend naming Western High School after Vienna native and female pilot pioneer and fan of lambs Belta Ben but I also speak in favor of two proposals regarding the Western High School boundaries first I support keeping Crossfield elementary within the Oakton pyramid second I support allowing younger siblings to follow their older siblings in the school that they have chosen whether it be a legacy high school or the new Western high school I'm in favor of maintaining scenario for comprehensive boundaries for Oakton and not moving Crossfield students away from the newly renovated

[00:49:23] Oakton high school to a school that will be under construction my children's entire career notably oakton is under capacity and predicted to experience minimal population growth according to Fairfax County demographers while alternatively schools along the route 28 corridor and the silver line are at or above capacity already and are predicted to experience massive population growth for years to come as such the boundaries should focus on Chantilly Centerville and Westfield high schools due to this predicted population additionally while Crossfield Elementary's westernmost boundary is technically close to Western High this is not taking into account that many

[00:50:01] Crossfield students cross high-speed and congested roads including Reston Parkway and Fairfax County Parkway during rush hour to get to those schools finally my children have been in trailers for the majority of their educational career during construction at Crossfield and overcrowding now at Carson Western will also be under construction for the foreseeable future Crossfield students have had enough construction and trailers for their educational careers please keep Crossfield and Oakton Secondly, I recommend keeping older siblings and younger siblings together to observe continuity for families and logistical concerns.

[00:50:36] Keep Crossfield and Oakton and siblings together. Thank you very much. Julie Correll. Julie Correll. Ken Balbuena.

[00:51:02] Hello. Good evening, everybody, and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you tonight. I just want to talk a little bit about adult and community education and my support of the adult and community education advisory committee.

[00:51:18] As many of you know, since I've spoken and addressed the school board many times before, I have been a member of the Adult and Community Education Advisory Committee. I was a member for four years, appointed by Megan McLaughlin and, of course, Ms. Sizemore-Hyzer, continued my appointment, and I'm very thankful that I was able to continue for that final year.

[00:51:39] And now the current chair is an excellent pick by Dr. Anderson, so that's Holly Hazard. And she has done a fantastic job of continuing to carrying the torch and advocating for adult and community education. Now, their current report, though, says that there's still some unawareness by the school board in terms of, you know, the role that adult and community education advisory, adult and community education plays.

[00:52:01] And I hope that the school board will continue to invest in that particular program. In particular, I would like to see that there's a greater alignment with the K-12 CTE, Career and Technical Education. That's something that I explored when I was chair and that I know Holly Hazard has continued in her term as chair and that the ACE Advisory Committee continues to look at.

[00:52:23] But their annual report as well also says that they're looking at supporting federal workers who are potentially, you know, have been displaced and they're looking to retrain. And I would encourage the school board to invest resources into making that happen as well. So greater alignment on the K-12 system, but also support for adult education, particularly among those who are in our federal workforce looking to continue to advance in their career and potentially retrain.

[00:52:48] So thank you so much for your time, and I greatly appreciate it and look forward to seeing all the great things that the school board does to support the adult and community education. Molly Sullivan.

[00:53:13] Hi, my name is Molly Sullivan, and I'm a teacher in the Springfield District, and I live in the Sully District.

[00:53:33] I'm here to bring awareness of the situation that arose at the previous school board meeting last month. I was honestly shocked and pretty disappointed at the conversations and infighting that were happening off microphone. I was most concerned about the question when Ms. Marron asked who writes the motions and it wasn't answered.

[00:53:48] That seems like a really clear, easy answer for somebody over there to say. I'm just asking that, again, the same question. Who writes those motions between when you guys meet and when it's presented to us? It's unacceptable not to answer that. It's all of our responsibilities as constituents and as board members to communicate openly and transparently with everyone.

[00:54:09] You're creating more distrust with your choice not to answer questions like that when it comes to families and basic information and parents in this county. I appreciate Ms. Marin for pushing for more transparency. Thank you to Mr. Frisch, who I found actually really the most diplomatic and the chaos to everyone involved, going around and speaking to everybody and trying to, like, to settle and unruffle feathers.

[00:54:28] My hope is that you all took time to really reflect after that meeting, not only on your own point of view, But how you can work more cohesively as a unit as teachers were often asked to do so And we also make an emphasis when we talk about POG skills with the children of Fairfax County like collaboration and communication And I really just think that we should all be held to that standard as well. Thank you Karen Bradford good evening in the state of Virginia

[00:55:05] We have decided that the age of 16 is the appropriate age to give a student a driver's license We set that age because by then students better understand the risks their brains especially their frontal cortex and visual spatial reasoning. Exceptions to this rule are extremely rare.

[00:55:20] For just a moment tonight, I'm asking you to consider the same developmental lens when we talk about math placement. Right now we are pushing many students into advanced math before they have solidified foundational concepts. As a middle school teacher, I regularly see students, including those in Algebra I honors, who cannot add or subtract integers without the use of a calculator.

[00:55:42] They are advancing, but they are not mastering. Historically, Algebra 1 has been a ninth grade course taught when most students' reasoning abilities are more fully developed. By accelerating large groups of students early and earlier, we are creating gaps that follow them for years.

[00:55:59] High school teachers tell me they see fewer students reaching advanced courses like Calculus BC or IB higher level courses. Many students simply get lost along the way, which is why we now have a class called Algebra 1.5 or AFTA, to reteach skills that never formed.

[00:56:16] i say this both as a veteran teacher and a product of fairfax county public schools i attended um seventh seventh grade at throw middle school and a teacher challenged us with rich logical and developmentally appropriate court concepts that later became what we call now discrete mathematics that foundation mattered to me as you consider initiatives such as offering algebra one in the sixth grade i urge you to remember that yes a very small number of students are ready that early. I teach them Algebra II honors in eighth grade. Most students benefit

[00:56:51] from more strength, excuse me, most students benefit far more from strengthening conceptual understanding, building number sense, and developing fluency before pushing ahead. Thank you for considering the real developmental needs we see in our classrooms every day.

[00:57:05] Amy Fernandez. Amy Fernandez. Jihan Andani. Evening board members.

[00:57:34] I'm here today to address a deeply troubling incident at Thomas Jefferson High School. when muslim and arab students were removed from classes in a manner that reflects harmful discrimination the video clip at the center of this incident was part of a widely recognized trend used in schools across the country and even by other clubs here at thomas jefferson yet instead of treating it as a harmless activity it was only the muslim international students

[00:58:11] were sign signaled out they were removed from classes placed in a separate room and even denied the ability to speak to each other the unequal response raises a serious concern about the furnace and bias removing students from class because of their religion or ethnicity is discriminatory it undermines the principle of equal protection and denies the these young people their right to lead to learn in the safe inclusive environment action like this

[00:58:45] indoor trust between families and schools especially among minority communities who already feel vulnerable and sadly this incident reflects a border pattern of islamophobia and anti-arab bias that organization like care have documented nationwide every student deserves to be treated with dignity free from prejudice our children classroom must be places of learning not not exclusion that's why i urge the board to take three con concrete steps number one conduct

[00:59:22] a transparent investigation into this incident and publicly share the information with the with the community strengthen anti-discrimination policies and ensure that staff receive training

[00:59:36] thank you so much ma'am katie herman good evening my name is katie herman and i'm the current chair

[01:00:16] of the facilities planning advisory committee tonight i'm here to ask the school board members to strongly consider two things regarding the agenda item 6.05 for amending the structure of the board's comprehensive planning and development committee and the role of fpac first please defer tonight's vote second I request that the school board and FPAC engage in future open and public discussions that were absent in the lead-up to this motion a joint school board and FPAC work session would allow for transparent transparent assessment before any irreversible decision is made

[01:00:55] we're not here to protect FPAC for our own sake there's no status or professional gains serve in serving on fpac our members are volunteers who are professional engineers planners and analysts environmental specialists and industry experts who offer their time because we believe in strengthening fcps's long-term facilities planning fpac costs fcps essentially nothing and yet brings unmatched independent analysis and recommendations to the board the proposal in front of you tonight seems to assume the FPAC and CPDC serve the same purpose

[01:01:34] but that was not the vision that is put or is in the governance manual which makes it clear that they are not the same CPDC is designed to carry out delegated functions of the board preparing alternatives and offering recommendations FPAC on the other hand exists to specifically provide advisory input to the school board that is focused on community driven and industry informed analysis that supplements the board's decision making role. These roles are intentionally different and dissolving FPAC would eliminate the only structured venue for industry expertise.

[01:02:14] Thank you. Doug Taylor. Good evening. FPAC's research-based guidance is an asset to FCPS that other school districts often wish they had the resident expertise to produce.

[01:02:36] Industry professionals who work with school systems around the country frequently cite FPAC as a model advisory structure that other school districts would like to replicate but often can't because of their size. They lack the critical mass of community experts in the relevant fields who are also willing to volunteer large amounts of their time.

[01:02:54] So given that FCPS has this unique asset in FPAC, which has produced many recommendations that the school district has adopted such as improving procurement methods just strengthening sustainability efforts and supporting more strategic use of limited capital resources it would seem quite reckless to then discard this capacity without a clear evidence rationale for doing so if the motivation for this proposal is structural around standardizing the committee process I believe amendment 3 tonight might address those concerns but regardless it would be helpful to have an open dialogue about those options and trade-offs to allow for some public feedback prior to voting on structural changes. If instead the motivation is substantive, that some board members feel

[01:03:34] that FPAC's memos are off-target, irrelevant, not aligned with the annual charge, we would expect to first have a conversation outlining where we're falling short and try to remedy that issue. But instead the motion proposes jumping straight to disbandment as the solution to an as-of-yet unidentified problem and one that would be extremely difficult to undo. As the letter that FPAC sent to the school board members makes clear, none of these conversations have occurred no CPDC member has communicated that FPAC is advising on irrelevant topics there's been no discussion that we're aware of in CPDC committing meetings where FPAC's work was evaluated as misaligned or

[01:04:12] unhelpful no rationale has been communicated to FPAC regarding the proposed structural change the only communication came when the CPDC chair emailed the written motion to FPAC after it already had been voted on there are no follow-up discussions and when we emailed to ask for information Kathy Hosek hello I've spoken with several school board members who have

[01:04:50] also said they don't fully understand the reasoning behind the proposal that alone suggests that the process has not been fully thought through the why should be clear debated and understood before reaching the vote on FPAC and not discovered after the fact if the board truly believes this proposal is sound articulating the reasoning publicly should be straightforward and if there are legitimate issues with how FPAC functions, we are fully ready to address them. A deferral simply allows conversations that should have occurred but did not to actually take place.

[01:05:24] FPAC is not a favor to us. It is a tool for you. A tool that gives FCPS access to sustained, no-cost technical analysis that supports long-term planning, capital forecasting, procurement reform, sustainability initiatives, and strategic use of scarce resources.

[01:05:42] Eliminating the only body capable of independent long-range technical research at a moment when FCPS is confronting major facilities challenges is a step that cannot be easily undone. A pause, a deferral, is the responsible course. It ensures that the board protects its own capacity to make informed, evidence-based decisions.

[01:06:03] And in my own words, I will say, as an FPAC member for six-plus years, I really enjoy the work. I feel like it's useful work. And so a conversation about the future, the structure, would be greatly appreciated.

[01:06:19] Thank you. Emily Vanderhoff. Good evening.

[01:06:35] My name is Emily Vanderhoff. I'm the president of the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers. Today I want to offer some reflections on your joint physical forecast meeting with the Board of Supervisors this Tuesday. First of all, I appreciate the collaborative tone that I saw from both boards.

[01:06:51] That makes me hopeful about the process this year. I hope that you can come together on one JLARC recommendation, as Mr. Frisch suggested, and as Ms. Heismar Heiser suggested, perhaps the SOQs, that the state collectively is spending $6.6 billion in addition to the state funding, because the state is not funding our schools at the level of staffing that's needed, and that impacts all districts, and so that can be a joint advocacy point, FCFT is ready to join with you in that advocacy point, but Like Mr. Alcorn said, it takes, you know, leadership who is going to start that.

[01:07:27] So I hope that the legislative liaisons from each board work together to make a joint plan, bring the boards together on a joint, you know, one advocacy point. FCFT will join you in that. FCFT is going down to the state January 19th. We're bringing buses.

[01:07:43] We invite every single one of all of you to come on our bus, join us for our lobby day. We're going to get the state funding that we need together. And then on the local side, if the county executive's budget does not fulfill the full ask, we just cannot have the same situation we had last year where the community was suddenly blindsided by cuts with two weeks left in the budget process.

[01:08:05] And so I ask that you be clear and specific about what cuts are being proposed. Allow the community the gift of time to advocate, have a chance to make a difference in our funding levels early in the process. And FCFT is ready to partner with you to ensure that year two of the FEU contract is fully funded without requiring further class size increases and cuts to critical student services.

[01:08:28] We have to do things differently this year. FCFT is ready to partner with you. We hope to see it through. Thank you.

[01:08:35] George Becerra, good evening board members, thanks for giving me an opportunity to speak tonight, I'm trying to talk on two issues, first one is obviously the one about FPAC, I have no knowledge if you're open, transparent, it's on your subcommittees or not, I'm not going to go into that, but I do believe that the way it's going to be structured, the way it is, if the motion is, I just do not agree, and I'll spend my time with MSAOC as co-chair, I advocated for FPAC to be my diverse, over the years, it hasn't been, it is now, now going to three members, it won't happen.

[01:09:22] Why the rush I equate this to Mr. Frisch and Miss Anderson and Karen Corbett Sanders before trying to get governance committee and trying to get agreement in the mayor of governance changes good idea I think somewhere there's maybe a misconnect of the advisor committee understanding what is going on now delay the vote wait for the next term or if you're going to vote on on the 18th then vote is why would you want to eliminate parents voices right now and especially I hear I keep on hearing superintendent read at all these boundary meeting say fpac fpac fpac fpac that makes no sense to me if that's the biggest issue parent wise

[01:10:01] that you give them credit to help on this that you're not going to still continue and over the year the boards maybe mr. moon and mr. McElwain fpac has had two meetings throughout the year the annual report during the mid so it was such an importance you're going from that just three members under cpdc that makes no common sense to me either there's issues between you guys and fpac that's a different issue that needed to be talked about the second part is i'm not be here the 18th obviously uh because i'm talking tonight this is a no-brainer mason district should have an aap center please the canterbury wood parents the small group that is there don't affect

[01:10:39] the community it doesn't have an ap center grandfatherment i don't care if it's less than the full class size start it up deal with the low numbers and then continue but at least one magisterial district has an aap center thank you very much please play the video submitted by Angela Crandallmeier. Hi, my name is Angela Crandallmeier and I'd like to comment on the boundary review, specifically the Western High School. The Crossfield Elementary community overwhelmingly opposes being redistricted to the new school and wants to remain zoned to Oakton

[01:11:18] High School. There's currently an online petition of over 450 verified residents and counting. Speaking on behalf of the cohorts of my own two children, the Crossfield 7th graders had three interrupted COVID years and two construction years. The Crossfield 5th graders had two COVID years and two construction years so they've experienced an equally disconnected educational environment for these reasons staring down the barrel of four years of high school construction initially no sports teams and limited clubs and the subsequent multi-year run-up of getting those started is not appealing at all additionally it sounds like you're okay splitting up families and not allowing younger siblings to follow older ones my family's options based upon the enrollment

[01:11:57] timeline if we were to be rerouted to the unfinished western experiment are as follows Option one, send my oldest to Oakton where she wants to go, but my youngest wouldn't have a choice, so she'd be required to commute across the parkway and 50 to Western with no ride from her big sister and no connections whatsoever. My two kids would be in two different high schools for two years. Option two, send my oldest to Western. Her friends won't go there, but my kids would be together, but they won't have sports teams yet, so she'll have to commute to Oakton for that.

[01:12:29] That is, until Western becomes a VHSL school and she gets ripped off that team. more disruption. Stick with your goals. Relieve overcrowding at the three high schools that need it most. Recognize that this cohort of children needs a traditional high school experience in a community that they trust. Leave us out of the conversation. Keep cross field at Oakden. Thank you. Chair Anderson, that was our last public speaker. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Agenda item 5.01, student representative matters. Due to an academic commitment, Ms. Maconan regretfully is unable to

[01:13:05] join us tonight but her remarks have been placed on board docs. Agenda item 6.01, action item, certification of closed meeting compliance. In order to comply with section 2.2-3712D of the Code of Virginia, it's necessary for the board to certify that since the Fairfax County School Board convened a closed meeting on December 4th, 2025, to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard

[01:13:40] discussed or considered by the board during the closed meeting. Do I have a motion? Mr. McElveen do I have a second? Ms. St. John Cunning. All those in favor that is unanimous for all board members present. Agenda item 6.02 action item confirmation of action taken and closed. I call on Mr. Frisch for a motion. Thank you. I move to expel the student who committed serious offense in violation of school board policy by being convicted of an offense related to the commonwealth's

[01:14:18] laws on weapons and an offense required to be disclosed to the division superintendent is there a second second thank you mr moon all those in favor mr frisch mr mckelveen miss st john cunning miss lady miss dixit miss mr dunn mr moon dr anderson and myself all those Opposed? All those abstaining. Mr. McDaniel and Ms. Seizmerheiser. I call on Mr. Frisch for a motion.

[01:14:53] I move. Oh I'm sorry. Will the clerk please read the vote? The vote is 9-0-2. The motion carries. It's going to be a great night. Motion 2. I call on Mr. Frisch for a motion. I move to expel the student who committed a serious offense in violation of school board policy by possessing and using a schedule 1-2 controlled substance on school property.

[01:15:16] by bringing marijuana and drug paraphernalia onto school property, by making implied threats in writing to intimidate, instigate violence, injury, or harm to others at school, by engaging in hate speech in written form, by engaging in gang activity, and by engaging, endangering the well-being of others.

[01:15:34] Is there a second? I second. Ms. St. John Cunning. All those in favor. Mr. Frisch, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, and myself. All those opposed. All those abstaining. Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Sizemore-Heiser. Madam Clerk, will you please read the vote? The vote is 9-0-2. The motion carries. Thank you. Action item 6.03, secondary course offerings. I call on Ms. Lady for a motion.

[01:16:12] I move that the school board approve changes to the list of middle and high school course offerings for the 2026-2027 school year as recommended by the course review committee and as detailed in agenda item is there a second mr frisch miss lady would you like to speak to your motion just briefly um i just you know commend staff and faculty folks who propose new courses i'm very excited about what's uh what's listed um there's someone more excited about others i'm like ap business i'm pretty jazzed about ap business and i think ap um cyber security uh kudos to college

[01:16:50] board for putting those forward but no i'm just excited i think the more offerings we can put in in front of our children that help them with their pathways post-graduation are fantastic. Mr. Fresher, would you like to speak to your second? Sure. And while I anticipate that the board may retread the conversation of the work session, I do want to say that I encourage people to go watch the work session about this topic and look forward to the board's deliberations on how to proceed with course offerings in the future as it relates to our charge in ensuring that we are being equitable about the distribution of courses

[01:17:27] and that people are very clear about why courses are offered and why they're not at certain schools. I also just one bit of advocacy for perhaps the future would be that we take advantage of the technology we've invested in in our schools to ensure that coursework that may not be quite popular enough at a school that might be able to cobble together an entire classroom of students, if you counted it among several schools could be offered in some kind of special virtual pyramid or period excuse me to ensure that we have greater access and by you know by doing that perhaps even

[01:18:04] greater selection than we currently do so that's for another day. Thank you Mr. Fresh. Ms. Dixit. I'm very excited about the new offerings and I just want to say the first ones AI and other like business ones, and artificial intelligence too.

[01:18:25] Some of these are really, really needed in our high schools right now. And I hope it goes to like each and every high school and there's enough audience for it. So there's a lot of sign up so we can offer that course. And one of the things I've been reading about is that the most career wise in AI, there's gonna be AI front end engineers job, which is going to be the highlight.

[01:18:51] And I hope we can prepare our students to give that foundation and so they can take it further in their life. So I'm really excited about this course offering and I'm thankful to the staff and everybody, Dr. Reed's team, to put together this comprehensive list.

[01:19:07] Thank you. Dr. Anderson. Thank you. I did want to say thank you to Dr. Presidio and his team for the conversation we had earlier this week. It was quite enlightening. I'm glad to be able to be more informed about some of the processes and some of the offerings and how they've come to be, so thank you.

[01:19:29] I did want to highlight one thing that I failed to say at the meeting is as we're discussing about accessibility for our students, I know that's something that's important to everybody here to ensure that our students are able to access these courses no matter where they are whether it is virtual or using technology I think there's a there's some space here to do a little bit more work but at the meeting we discussed the Academy as an opportunity for students to access certain courses and I just wanted to raise the limitations to academies because unless there are five

[01:20:06] students or more from your school attending the Academy you are not provided transportation and for many students that becomes a it becomes a non-option because they cannot transport themselves and also we must recognize that the students who are able to attend academies must also have space in their schedule for that one period for travel and not all students who may require some additional supports will have that free period so there are some inherent limitations with the current processes that I just wanted to raise

[01:20:37] for future conversation. Mr. Moon. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm very excited about this new course offerings. It's not just artificial intelligence, which I've been talking about it for the last 18 months. I'm excited to see this coming up for the next year, but also equally excited I get seeing additional word language offerings. So when I see the career applications I think we need to provide as we offer these new courses to our

[01:21:14] students I'm hoping that we can give our students some concrete examples of what might be contained in these new courses thank you thank you mr. McElveen well I want to echo the thanks of my colleagues for the opportunity to discuss this at a work session this past week mr. Presidio this is the second time and probably two months that I've been extremely impressed with the work that your department has done to really be futurists and the work that we're

[01:21:50] doing you know that's been brought forward first in our presentations on the Western High School and the potential pathways in that realm but also for the coursework that we're providing to all of our students and certainly Dr. Reed I appreciate the work you've done to really push that that forward as my colleagues have said I'm very excited to see the artificial intelligence and aviation coursework incorporated into this and I'll echo Mr. Moon that the career applications for each and every one of our languages is a great addition

[01:22:24] and I learned something too about IBSL ab initio which I had not heard about before which is an opportunity for IB students to catch up in their language learning if they have not pursued it previously.

[01:22:41] So thank you again, and I'm very pleased to support this. Ms. St. John Cunning. I will keep this short and just say that I really want to thank the staff for all the thought and work that they put into generating new courses with the leadership of Dr. Reed, Dr. Presidio, Dr. Ponce, and also to give kudos to the fact that we also have some good course offerings that aren't new, but we're keeping them because they're working. And I think sometimes we get excited about the new stuff and we forget that we've got some good stuff that is

[01:23:17] working and we're maintaining that. And so I just want to thank everyone for all the thought and work that they put into this. Seeing no others, I'm going to go ahead and call for a vote with the motion that's on the screen. All those in favor, Mr. Fresh, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Ms. Dixit, Ms. Seismerheiser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, and myself

[01:23:41] with mr mcdaniel away from the table agenda item 6.04 action item 2026 fairfax county school board state and legislative program i call on dr anderson for a motion i move that the school board adopt the 2026 fairfax county school board state and federal legislation program legislative program is there a second second thank you mr mckelveen dr anderson would you like to speak to your motion

[01:24:17] Yes, very briefly, just for the public to understand what the legislative program is because we've had several work sessions on this, which I've really appreciated because it really allowed us to iron out all of the positions that we want to take. But I'd be remiss if I didn't say thank you to Mr. Malloy and his team, and I don't know where he is, if he's here.

[01:24:38] Yes, he is. Thank you for all of the work that you have put to getting us to this place. The legislative program is our opportunity to articulate to both federal and state legislators what our positions are on a number of things. It is a fairly thick document, and we go through it with a fine-tooth comb, not just to reflect new legislation, but also to reflect new events of the day.

[01:25:01] And our program largely, some areas that I want to highlight are largely around our need for additional funding for the J-LOG study recommendations to be adopted.

[01:25:14] For the federal government to continue to fund the title programs that they are supposed to and to fund them at the full breadth that they're supposed to such as IDEA we have never received that 40% that we're supposed to receive NFCPS none of the school divisions across the country are I do I believe the math on that was that we receive at most 11% and they're supposed to provide a little bit more for us to educate our students who have greater needs so this program outlines again our intentions on a number

[01:25:49] of topics from the size of a meeting of a school board for example the regulation sunshine laws says if we have three board members in a room it is it constitutes a meeting for a board our size that is a very different experience than for a board of five but it is the same rule across all of across all of the Commonwealth and so I do encourage for you all to take a look at that program because if there are things that we are missing as a board that we need to be thinking about and to include next year it will be important for us to get that feedback thank you thank you

[01:26:25] Dr. Anderson Mr. McElveen well I don't have too much more to say beyond what Dr. Anderson has already conveyed but you know Mr. Malloy we've been at this for many years and I'm really grateful for your decades of service on um on this work in particular um you know we've we've seen how this document has gone from you know 100 plus page um tome to what we have now which is down to about 30 pages which is great progress uh and our work on uh really narrowing down our legislative priorities um uh continues to make this a much more accessible document not only to to our

[01:27:03] our legislators but to the community and really states this this board's priorities in a very succinct way and I would I would just also applaud my board colleagues because there has been more attention and more advocacy stemming from this legislative program than I've I've seen in the past and so I think that's that's a we're setting a model for the community to follow and as we've heard our friends from from ranging from union workers to to administrators all saying that they want to take the message down to Richmond we certainly

[01:27:39] support that and and applaud it as well and just I like dr. Anderson I would encourage folks to look particularly at our priorities just in terms of the wide wide range of things that we cover from additional sources to to support free school meals for students, to improving our facilities, to improving assessments so please take a look and I'm proud to support this thank you. I call on Mr. Dunn for an amendment. I move to amend page 10 section j freedom of information act of the legislative program by striking the

[01:28:18] phrase adjusting the threshold for open meeting requirements based on the governing board size And inserting the phrase, amending the definition of meeting under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act to require public notice for formal meetings or informal assemblages of 40% or more of members of school boards in its place.

[01:28:41] Is there a second? Second. Dr. Anderson. Mr. Dunn, would you like to speak to your amendment? Briefly. The governance of the school board is complicated by a state statute, the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, which prevents more than two of us from meeting at any point in time to discuss any issue without providing public notice.

[01:29:05] So if the three of us here want to meet at a McDonald's just to have an informal conversation, not to pass a motion because we wouldn't have quorum, we have to provide public notice and provide at least 48 hours public notice, I believe.

[01:29:20] That greatly complicates the governance of a 12-member school board. Now, most school boards in this state are three members, or they might be five members. But when you have 12 members, and I'm going to have, you know, 12 conversations, one person at a time, and then if anything changes from my original motion, I have to go have 12 more conversations.

[01:29:43] And just the fact that many of us have day jobs, have family obligations, have other things going on in our lives, it makes it extremely difficult for us to be able to reach consensus or actually develop ideas beyond the notional before we come to the school board and have formal deliberations.

[01:30:02] So this this is a not a change to a state statute this is simply a change to our legislative program so FCPS will go before the state legislature and have conversations so that a strict numerical limit which doesn't make sense for a school board the size of FCPS can be increased to allow at least 40%, which would be four of us, right, which is still well less than half. And the idea, again, is to enable more effective, more efficient governance and better outcomes for our students, better outcomes for our school division. Thank you. Dr. Anderson, would you like to speak to your second? Just very briefly, the only other thing that I'd like to add

[01:30:41] is that if this position were to be taken up by the legislative body of Virginia and it were to past it would also impact all of the other school divisions in Fairfax and in Virginia because we do have some boards that have seven members and nine members that have similar restrictions so this is not just a Fairfax County provision it could be a provision for all school boards across Virginia. Thank you Dr. Anderson. Ms. St. John Cunning. So I do want to mention another component

[01:31:17] of this as some of our legislative legislative friends have found out that sometimes they want come speak to us, and they can't speak to all of us. They have to speak to two of us at a time, so that's six different meetings for them. So it's not just a function of us being able to get together to, you know, talk things out, figure things out, be more efficient, be more effective.

[01:31:36] It's also a function if some of the public wants to speak to us, they have to speak to us two at a time. And so in terms of scale of efficiency, time for everyone, as some of my colleagues mentioned, some of us do have day jobs so our time is limited so this is just trying to make it easier for us to work effectively work efficiently and serve our constituents in the best possible way so i wholeheartedly support this amendment thank you miss st john cunning mr mcdaniel uh i appreciate the maker of the motion because this is the absolute right thing to do and i'm sorry okay

[01:32:15] no this is the absolute right thing to do and i completely support this um and as i as an at-large member i like to tell people everybody in fairfax county has four school board members your district representative and the one two three at large members current law means that if you want to have a pta pto meeting with all of your representatives on the school board you cannot do that unless it's publicly advertised and the entire population of fairfax county has the right to attend that meeting so there's a very real practical implication of providing constituent

[01:32:50] services that would be impacted for the positive should the General Assembly, hopefully, fingers crossed, take this up and approve this. So very happy to support the motion. Thank you, Mr. McDaniel. Ms. Dixit. I agree with this motion and the amendment because this board, I think, has my maximum number of working officials who have a full-time job or day job. And during our day job, we we have commitments right that so we have it's very hard to make like if you're making a

[01:33:25] motion to make those 12 calls or 11 calls to all your colleagues and get consensus like mr dunn said and um at the same time i will i also say that's a comment made by earlier uh here that you know if you the communication can only improve we can talk more than two people then we can say yes we can communicate communicate more right now communication is the hard right now within the board we only meet for work sessions and we and the closed session and regular session that's the only meetings we have so if you see us disconnected are arguing and disputing it is because we cannot

[01:34:04] talk to more than one person and i have a nine-to-five job so i have to only call the people at night while they're having dinner or something else so we have a full life we we have a we work 12 15 hours a day sometimes so i'll appreciate the comments made earlier and i appreciate them but please understand that we are also humans and working professionals which is trying to do two jobs thank you mr fresh thank you i just want to correct the record 40 of 12 is 4.8 mr dunn so

[01:34:38] 4.8 of us can get together if this law passes i do want to stress why this law exists in the first place. The notion of prohibiting a large number of a public body from meeting and getting together is to prevent boards from taking action in private and then doing a formality in public, right? So if you have too many members of, let's say that the motion was to have 60% of our board, well, then people could go into a back room, make decisions, come out, and just be done, right? So I do appreciate the collegiality in the spirit that got this motion

[01:35:17] to this table. We had a work session. Mr. Dunn had other language. And based on that conversation, which was in public between colleagues, he adjusted the language. And now here we are. And so we've had something similar in our legislative program for a while. I'm hopeful that there's a light at the end of the tunnel with the General Assembly and the new governorship.

[01:35:38] And so that I don't take a second turn, I'm also going to speak to the main motion and just indicate that, like I said, there's light at the end of the tunnel. I'm grateful that my colleagues included my amendments at the work session. The two primary buckets that I put forward were, number one, that our board advocate in Washington for the restoration of Medicaid, SNAP, and other funding for people who are really suffering right now with the cost of living as it is.

[01:36:09] Number two, that we quit making it harder for young people to go to college or to grad school by restoring public service loan forgiveness, grad plus loans, income-based repayment plans, which the administration in Washington has gutted.

[01:36:24] And the final piece, and this is something I'm hoping the General Assembly will pick up pronto, is to bring greater stability and collegiality and collaboration to public education in this Commonwealth by changing the way that our board of education and our boards of visitors at the university level are appointed for the duration of their terms so that there are not these giant swings back and forth where people are playing political games to make a point.

[01:36:55] and instead we keep it focused on the kids so I support this even if it is weird to have 4.8 board members talking and I appreciate the motion and we'll gladly vote for it and for the amended program I appreciate dr. Anderson and miss Marin who's not with us tonight for the work they did to get us to this point and mr. Malloy as well thank you mr. fresh I will call for a vote for the amendment that's on the screen all those in favor mr. fresh mr. McDaniel mr.

[01:37:25] McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Ms. Dixit, Ms. Sizemore Heiser, Mr. Moon, Mr. Dunn, Dr. Anderson, and myself. That is unanimous for all board members. Now we are going to go back to the main, now the amended. Seeing no others, we're going to go ahead and vote for the motion which is on the screen. So all those in favor, Mr. Frisch, Mr. McDaniel, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St.

[01:37:56] John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Ms. Dixit, Ms. Sizemore-Hyser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, and myself. That is unanimous for all board members. Okay. Action item 6.05, amending the structure of the board's comprehensive planning and development committee and the role of the facility's planning advisory council.

[01:38:25] I call on Mr. McDaniel for a motion. I move that the school board amend the structure of its comprehensive planning and development committee to add three community members and sunset the board's facilities planning advisory council effective April 1st, 2026 in accordance with the changes detailed in policy 1710 community advisory committees of the school board, the board's strategic governance manual, and the board's community advisory committee operating manual as attached to the agenda item on board docs. I further move that the school board grant the clerks leave to make technical and formatting changes to the aforementioned documents as necessary. Is there a second? Second. Ms.

[01:39:00] Seismar Heiser. Mr. McDaniel, would you like to speak to your motion? I would. And before I begin, can the clerks put the item on the on the projector, please? Thank you. So I first want to start off by saying I sincerely appreciate the role that FPAC has played since its inception. I appreciate the work of our community volunteers. I appreciate the expertise they brought to the table. I appreciate the very valid issues they have raised, and I appreciate that service. And in that appreciation, this goal the goal of this item is to raise that work and to raise the impact of those experts that

[01:39:37] are providing their time for free to the division and to the taxpayers of fairfax county and what you see up here is the existing fpac cpdc structure on top on the bottom is what would occur should this motion pass what this motion does is take the function of fpac which is an expert input and it injects it right to a standing board committee and it gives those members those community members a vote at the table a seat at the table to help the division inform facilities planning policies so this is not eliminating public input it's not eliminating

[01:40:16] parent voices it's not eliminating any expert input that we value as a school division in my view it is elevating it it is promoting it it's enhancing it and is giving it a bigger impact so that's why i brought this item forward um obviously you know the current f-pack has 13 members we can't logistically add 13 more bodies to a standing board committee that currently only has five bodies onto it so that's the logic behind going to three members um that's a very practical

[01:40:49] logistical uh a concern um but this proposal and if it passes you know my plan as chair of capital the Capital Planning and Development Committee is to clear the agenda for the next CPDC meeting, have a meeting with FPAC, walk them through and continue to explain this item, and then say, all the work that you are doing, how do we work with you to get this right onto CPDC, get it right into our staff's hands, get it right into the hands of the people in Gatehouse that can help make all of that work a reality.

[01:41:22] And a reality, not nebulous, but a very practical reality right now, so we can get those expert opinions that seat at the table. So with that, I will stop talking, and I'm looking forward to the conversation. Ms. Seismarheiser, would you like to speak to your second?

[01:41:41] Yes, please, just briefly. First, I want to thank FPAC for all its hard work over the years. And because of the hard work and the advocacy and the expertise that FPAC has brought to our work around facilities, I actually think this is the time to elevate their work, to lift them up into our actual board committee structure.

[01:42:03] For those who aren't as aware in the community, we have two sets of committee structures. We have our advisory committees where we have community members who are appointed by the boards and also community members representing organizations on our advisory committees. Those committees meet usually once a month. They get a report at the end of the year, and they advise us.

[01:42:20] That report is not binding. There is no voting for the advisory committee members into the board's work. I served on one for eight years, so I understand very intimately the amount of work and community input and expertise and time and effort that goes into those reports.

[01:42:36] I helped write many of them when I served on the ACSD, so I really do understand the value that our committees bring. Then we have board committees, which actually are comprised of board members. Our audit committee is the exact example of what we're trying to do with the expertise on FPAC.

[01:42:54] Our audit committee has board members and community members on there. And jointly together we review the information from our auditor general and make recommendations together. It actually elevates our community members to a level that our advisory committees aren't there.

[01:43:11] And that's what we're trying to do here with CPDC and FPAC, recognizing the expertise and the value that the people on FPAC bring we're trying to elevate them to the table with us at CPDC so we can jointly address the issues around facilities and have the conversation so I actually look at this as a recognition of the value that the work that FPAC does and a way to try to take it to the next level so I am grateful for the diligence and hard work of my colleague Mr.

[01:43:39] McDaniel in getting us to this point and I look forward to supporting this motion but I do think You know, it is, it's all, change is always hard, but this change, I believe, is to make the work even more important and elevate the stature of the people who are on it and from the community.

[01:43:56] Thank you, Ms. Seismarheiser. I call on Mr. Dunn for a motion. I move to postpone the main motion indefinitely. Is there a second? Second. Dr. Anderson. A motion to postpone indefinitely has been moved and seconded is and is debatable.

[01:44:13] Mr. Dunn, would you like to speak to your motion? Yes. there's a process question here and then there's a substantive question so let me speak to process first this committee has existed since 2010 this committee consists of 12 13 actually dedicated community members who have dedicated countless hours to serving this community consists of parents with kids in the school system and they have had countless recommendations adopted by this

[01:44:48] school division over time, saving taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, making our facilities world-class, helping us day in, day out. They were never consulted. They were never consulted for even a single minute, provided an opportunity to consult about this motion that seeks their disillusion. To the extent that there are concerns about FPAC's performance, then let's have a conversation with FPAC. It's so disrespectful to rush to abolish a group that is dedicated so much

[01:45:25] time, provides so much benefit, and so I'm bringing this motion because I don't think we're at the point where we have all the information. While I appreciate that my colleague attended an FPAC meeting for 20 minutes, there was no discussion in the room at that time because there was an agendized speaker. We need to have a discussion because we're a deliberative body. Our absolute obligation to our taxpayers is to not waste a free resource when it will require us to hire

[01:46:00] consultants that will perform probably badly, as many have recently, and at a cost of millions of dollars. So I am bringing this motion so we can have an informed conversation both among board members and with FPAC and hopefully come to a compromise that resolves any concerns, strengthens FPAC and enables it to continue serving its essential function. Dr. Anderson, would you like to speak to your second? Yes, please. I'd like to read this little excerpt. Whereas Fairfax County Public Schools has the good fortune to have many persons willing to volunteer their time and

[01:46:35] services in our schools and our school-sponsored activities, and whereas every school, whether through formal or informal partnerships, counts amongst its volunteers, those who give generously of their time to improve the academic culture and athletic environment of our schools, especially through tutoring, mentoring, advisory program, etc. That's what we said in January of 2025 of our volunteers. And at current, what I'm hearing is that we want to elevate the group of FPAC

[01:47:12] into a better position. That seems to be an unwanted promotion because we've heard from them this evening. And I think two things can still be true at the same time. FPAC has a purpose. And some of the language that was provided regarding why this is necessary said it is working with that coordination well that is the role of the FPAC liaison from the board that the work is it's disjointed failure to communicate I'm sorry not fails to communicate that it's not it's not well guided the board guides the work of FPAC and the beauty of it is

[01:47:50] they are able to take a task that we deem to be important and go into it in-depthly using all of their expertise. We have Mr. Fanshawe, who we hired not once, Dr. Reed, but twice, was an FPAC member for years. That's the level of expertise that we get from that group. But I still believe two things can still be true. We can have FPAC continue to do that in-depth work using that level of expertise that they gladly give to us for free. And we could bring whomever we want into CPDC as that

[01:48:29] three-member panel as Mr. McDaniel explained. It doesn't have to be one or the other because they can have different functions. Are they tangentially related? Absolutely. But the reason why the FPAC committee running as it does is really so helpful is because they can take a task and really spend the time to go in-depth in a way that we cannot. It really comes across as if we're silencing community voice we have people who stood in front of us begging us to let us to let us help to let

[01:49:00] them help us I I'm like discombobulated over that where else do we have people of great levels of expertise and talents professionals who are begging to help us and we're saying no and we continue to say we're elevating you they don't want it they don't want that elevation minimally we need to have more conversation to build some understanding to come up with the plan C. I do not think this is a decision that has to be made this night. Thank you Dr. Anderson. Mr. McElveen. So I think

[01:49:39] it's helpful to take a step back and review the history of CPDC and FPAC and certainly Mr. Moon is better placed to do this than me but I will take a crack at it. When it was created it was as we've discussed tonight, to bring together an expert group to provide guidance on our facilities. The board at that time no longer had a facilities committee, and it was devolving that power to the citizens, which I think was admirable. And the CPDC was created not as a facilities committee, but as a committee merely established to appoint members to FPAC and oversee the work of FPAC.

[01:50:17] That mission has been lost, and CPDC is no longer serving that original purpose. I've seen FPAC's work over the years. I was liaison to the committee for about four years from 2012 to 2016, sat in hours of the meetings, and I've seen a continuous improvement in the work.

[01:50:39] As we discussed at the FPAC meeting the other night, they're now producing memos that have produced actionable guidance that we took action on this past year under Mr. Dunn's leadership of CPDC. My view is that you don't elevate something by decimating it.

[01:50:59] And to say at the dais that we're going to speak with FPAC about this motion after we pass it is putting the cart before the horse. And I said this at the meeting on Tuesday night, and I'll say it again.

[01:51:15] you to the members of FPAC. All of our advisory committees do an incredible work on a voluntary basis. FPAC, more than others, you have retreats, you engage with all sorts of staff in different departments, and you bring us, as I said, actionable guidance, and it's very much appreciated.

[01:51:37] Thank you for your service, which I hope continues on FPAC for years to come. Mr. Moon. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to support the motion to postpone. Thank you, Mr. Dunn, for putting up that motion.

[01:51:54] I do not doubt a genuine intent behind Mr. McDaniel for bringing up your original motion to restructure the FFAC or CPDC. But I think, first of all, the board has not been adequately briefed and have had a chance to discuss about this amongst the board members at the board table or work session.

[01:52:20] That is one. But more importantly, I attended, along with a couple of the board members, Mr. Beckham, you mentioned, FPAC's meeting on Tuesday night because my appointee extended an invitation and come and listen to their conversation.

[01:52:38] And it was quite apparent that members who were in attendance having the conversation were very frustrated about a lack of adequate communication. between a board members who are board or CPDC and FPAC and members serving on the FPAC on this particular issue. I, as a long time school board member, I always value the service, you know,

[01:53:10] volunteers and who are willing to give their time and talent and efforts to help us do our job. I think we owe them the courtesy. We owe them the opportunities they are seeking to have further clarification and communication and conversation with us.

[01:53:32] You know, postponing this for a few weeks, you can always bring it back, you know, Mr. McDaniel, after having the conversation first with FPAC. and and that will serve our school system school board a lot better than just making the final decision tonight. Thank you Mr. Moon. Seeing no others I will call for a vote to postpone

[01:54:03] indefinitely. All those in favor Mr. McElveen, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Miss Lady, and Dr. Anderson. All those opposed Mr. Frisch, Mr. McDaniel, Miss St. John Cunning, Miss Dixit, Miss Seismar Heiser and myself. Will the clerk please read the vote? 5-6, the motion fails. I call on Mr. Dunn for an amendment. I move to replace the language of the motion in its entirety with the following

[01:54:41] language. That the board amend the structure of FPAC to enable each school board member to directly appoint a representative for renewable one-year terms in order to ensure that the school board continues to have access to FPAC's world-class expertise at no cost to taxpayers. I further remove that relevant language in the Strategic Governance Manual Policy 1710 and Community Advisory Committee Operating Manual be amended to effectuate the language of this motion.

[01:55:11] Is there a second? Second. Mr. McElveen. Mr. Dunn, would you like to speak to your motion? Yes. With a 41-year renovation queue and a $400 million infrastructure backlog, now is not the time to dissolve the committee that advises the school board on facilities management and construction issues.

[01:55:30] Narrowing FPAC's mission by restructuring the committee from 13 members to three on CPDC will result in more limited advice in a time when FCPS is faced with major facilities challenges and limited capital improvement resources. The school board has benefited significantly from the free advice provided by FPAC members and FPAC's work has informed FCPS facility staff as they manage 28 million square feet of building space.

[01:55:55] Restructuring FPAC is fiscally irresponsible. FPAC members provide free expertise that would otherwise cost FCPS millions of dollars in consulting fees. FPAC members understand FCPS and care about the school division's success in ways that outside consultants don't because they have a stake in the system.

[01:56:14] These are parents with kids in our schools. They're community members who are invested in our success. FPAC can also help FCPS avoid costly mistakes. FPAC members have diverse expertise that provides significant value. FPAC members come from diverse professional backgrounds, allowing FCPS to benefit from a broad set of expertise.

[01:56:34] Narrowing 13 to 3, you have a much smaller set of expertise. Moreover, if you add them to CPDC, you're going to be asking them facilities questions on the spot, and the FPAC members have stated affirmatively they will not know the answers. They'll have to go and do research, hence the purpose of FPAC as an in-house think tank that operates at no cost to taxpayers.

[01:56:57] FCPS' facility challenges are multifaceted and require a variety of perspectives. FPAC serves a critical research and translation function because many of the issues FPAC discusses are highly technical and far too complex for CPDC and school board members who have no background in facilities. Educational specifications, virtual power plants, new construction methodologies, these are all issues that school board members would decline to discuss and did in the most recent CBDC meeting. FPAC conducts in-depth research on very technical topics including public-private partnerships, new construction approaches, asset management, and renovation

[01:57:34] queues that is critical at a time when we're in the process of doing a facilities condition assessment to inform the development of a new renovation queue. And finally, FPAC provides access to industry networks and best practices from the private sector. We don't have any other resource that provides us that same resource, network, industry, state-of-the-art knowledge for free. For free. FPAC members have connection to those industry networks because they have day jobs. They work in the private sector. And FCPS as a public entity simply does not. For all of these reasons, it is the height of irresponsibility, the height of foolishness, frankly, to abolish

[01:58:14] this vital resource to FCPS as we face the greatest challenge in terms of facilities management in a generation. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Mr. McQueen, would you like to speak to your second? No, thanks. Thank you. Will board members who do not wish to speak please turn their lights off? Dr.

[01:58:37] Anderson. Yes, thank you. One of the other things that I want to share, and Mr. Dunn did, I think, a wonderful job really articulating many of the things. The reason why, oh, I thought something happen. The reason why it's important to also have the regional representation that FPAC currently exists, it's because it's like us in the boundary process. We know the nuances of our area and we bring that into the conversation. And they will also bring the expertise as well as the nuanced

[01:59:12] knowledge of the areas. We can restructure their work. We are fully in charge of that. This is this is just so disrespectful. I'm really struggling with sitting here and saying that this is for your own good nothing has ever worked for me in my life when somebody's telling me what is for my own good but not listening to what I'm saying that I want it is so high-handed to think that we are going to this is for your own good we are promoting you I I'm just really struggling with that if we really value these individuals as we have said in the past as you we have said

[01:59:48] tonight let's pause and have a conversation again I cannot stress enough I don't think this night is the night where we have to make this decision we lose nothing we have no deadline pending let's at least show them the respect of a conversation by delaying this whole thing. Ms. Dixit. I was not going to make comments on this but Mr. Dunn I mean I don't think most of us are foolish maybe maybe I

[02:00:23] am I I'm just surprised the use of language actually but I would say the original and I served on CPDC one year I didn't see much purpose of CPDC alone itself I was also an audit committee at the same time and I did see the community members being on the same table as us and making votes like quoting on things and they were not put on star spot there was just like us and And they had the space, the place at the table.

[02:00:57] But in CBDC, I didn't see that. FPAC kind of worked on its independent way. And CBDC was independently working, giving direction to FPAC. And I wonder, as a busy professional who has to go for a 7 o'clock CBDC meeting, I used to think sometimes that why there are not many people here who are from the community and can actually discuss things with us and vote with us.

[02:01:24] Anyhow, so I want to simplify things. This is just my style of working. I support simplification, less bureaucracy, more feedback, and direct engagement. And I think this is a step in the direction, right direction.

[02:01:39] Change is hard. It's difficult. I appreciate all the volunteers from FPAC for supporting all these years. I was on advisory committee before I got on school board to I have volunteered all my life. I know how much it means to volunteer for someone and I appreciate all that.

[02:01:58] But this this point I think we should just continue this move forward and and make it as a comprehensive CBDC group with those you know community members at the table. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Dixit Mr. Dunn for a go back.

[02:02:16] Thank you. If the concern is misalignment, having direct appointment of FPAC representatives by school board members for renewable one-year terms, which would match how we appoint every other advisory committee, would achieve that alignment, that connection. But let me talk about what message we are sending to the community.

[02:02:35] In the last 12 months, we have eliminated, this will be the third advisory committee in 12 months, the HR advisory committee, the family life education advisory committee, and now this. What's next? are we declaring war on public engagement? Are we declaring war on the community? Do we not care what our community actually thinks anymore? Are we so self-satisfied that we don't want to listen to the public when the public, especially on a very specialized set of expertise, has more

[02:03:08] knowledge, more skills than we do? What message are we sending and why are we sending this message? there's a pattern here. It's not a one-off. And so I ask, what's next? Are we going to go to the statutory minimum, as some elected officials have? I don't think that's the right direction.

[02:03:28] I don't think that's the right message. We have one of the most highly educated populations in the world. We can benefit from engaging them more, bringing them in more, and benefiting from their expertise and their willingness to do so at no cost to the taxpayer. I don't want more bad consultants. We've had so many botched consultants in the last 12 months costing millions of dollars.

[02:03:51] We just can't keep going down that road. Those consultants are hired guns. They don't have the public service motivation like the citizens in this county do, the parents with kids in this system do. Why are we doing this so quickly? What's the rush? What's the rush? What's the upside of abolishing this committee tonight without having a single conversation with the committee members who have dedicated so much time. Why are we manifesting such disrespect to the community? Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Ms. St. John Cunning. I too was not going to speak tonight.

[02:04:27] I want to say that my background is family engagement. I was a family engagement representative for 26 years. I also want to say that sometimes there's misrepresentations. The advisory committee for employment had to be disbanded because of collective bargaining. We all here are aware of that. We spoke with all the members. We appreciated what they were bringing to the table, but things changed, and that had to change. Family life education. There were other factors involved because of that change. This was not disrespect. Times changed. We need new committees. We need

[02:05:05] committees, advisory committees on technology. I also want to clarify that some people think that I don't have a member on the committee because I knew it was going to be disbanded. I will tell you that I have put out flyers to get a member, I have reached out to different people in my district to try to get members, and the qualifications that are required, there has no one that has stepped up to the plate.

[02:05:27] I know that other members on this committee have that same issue. This is a way to maximize and be efficient with the members that do have that expertise, but not everybody has the ability to put someone up for that because there are people that are not taking that up.

[02:05:43] I want to clarify that the reason I don't have a member on the committee is because I have not found someone to step up to the plate with the qualifications that are required, and that is one of the few committees that requires very specific qualifications, which goes to say that you are engaging specific people and not other people, okay, because I know there are other people that could be on that committee that may not have those qualifications on paper.

[02:06:06] I know that there are some members on that committee that don't have those qualifications on paper and actually are better committee members. I just want to make clear that there's a lot of hyperbole going on here and it's disingenuous. We are trying to be efficient and effective and public engagement is critical to me. It has been for the past 26 years, but we have to be thoughtful. We have to be conscientious. I appreciate the work of every person that does any kind of committee and volunteer work. I have been a member of these committees, but at the same time, we have to be realistic about what the reality is. We're trying to make this better. We are not trying to disrespect anybody. We are trying to elevate.

[02:06:46] And yes, change is difficult, whether it's for the good or maybe not for the good. But this is something that is going to elevate what you do. And that cannot be clearer. And the information has been out there. The opportunity for you guys to respond has been out there. There was no responses. That's also not being talked about. This information was also out there. And until this week one board member brought up things when way ahead of the time this board member was aware of it so let's be realistic here thank you miss st john cunning dr inderson do you want to go back yes just very quickly i i was hoping if you wouldn't mind mr mcdaniel um how would this

[02:07:25] impact the plan if we were to not vote on this this evening the plan that you've proposed mr mcdaniel you can answer i don't understand the question i mean we've already decided that we're not delaying it so it's not being delayed no no i'm just asking what would be the impact if we delayed it yes we would vote on it later i'm sorry we would vote on it later right in terms of getting the new plan in place would it create some sort of hardship to create this plan later because this is all going to be in place for the next school year correct no april 1st 2026 would

[02:08:05] be the rollover that's in the april 1st of 2026 which is in the documents that have been posted publicly. That would be the rollover date. All right. Thank you. Seeing no others, we're going to go ahead and vote for the amendment. All those in favor, Mr. McElveen, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, and Dr. Anderson. All those opposed, Mr. Frisch, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady,

[02:08:36] Ms. Dixit, Ms. Sizemore-Hyser, and myself. Will the clerk please read the vote? The vote is 4-7. The motion fails. Thank you. I call on Mr. Dunn for an amendment. I move to amend the motion by striking the phrase three community members and insert the phrase five community members in its place. I further move to amend the accompanying documents on the agenda item to effectuate this amendment. Is there a second? Second. Mr. McElveen, Mr. Dunn, would you like to speak to your amendment?

[02:09:12] Yes, when this motion was first brought I discussed with Mr. McDaniel the possibility of increasing the number of community members to a larger number. We discussed at that time four to five members, hence I've brought this amendment. If it is the will of the school board to abolish FPAC and move to a model in which we have community members, I believe three is simply too few given the vast range of expertise that currently exists on FPAC, everything

[02:09:48] from environmental specialists, environmental energy management specialists, architects, engineers, construction folks, to deal with 28 million square feet of building space, which is what we have in our portfolio today, that has a value of nearly $10 billion, we really need a set of experts at the table so that CPDC discussions can be informed by a broad range of expertise.

[02:10:19] I suggest that 3 is simply too few, and you're not going to get the expected benefits of having those community members at the table. So having 5 would allow a greater possibility that you'll have the necessary expertise to fully inform CPDC's work, and hence the school board's work.

[02:10:40] I also want to note that there was an email sent from FPAC to the school board on November 11th. No one ever responded to that email. So those questions about the motion tonight was never responded to. Mr. McAleen, would you like to speak to your second?

[02:10:59] I have a quick question for the maker of the original motion, which is under the original proposal, how did you envision those three community members being appointed? Mr. McDaniel. So as outlined in the documents, the appointment process mirrors the appointment process.

[02:11:18] The appointment timeline and the appointment process, the application process, mirrors that of actually the audit committee, which you chair. So, basically, I took the audit committee process. I put in the criteria for FPAC, which is the current criteria, and the FPAC application process for qualifications.

[02:11:35] And kind of, for lack of a better phrase, Frankenstein those two together using audit committee as the logistical driver of the application process. Got it. And what does that application process consist of? Is it -- are we taking the same credentials that we expected of the current committee?

[02:11:51] Is there any sort of geographic representation incorporated? So, no, there's no geographic representation. They're all technically at-large. They will all be full appointees of the full school board instead of individual district or at-large appointments. And the professional qualification requirements was drawn from the existing professional qualification requirements on FPAC.

[02:12:10] Now, there is going to be an amendment later, which I'm happy to support, to expand that and stipulate the professional qualification requirements more. but currently in the documents, that's the way it's outlined. And under the current process, each board member chooses their own appointee.

[02:12:28] Sorry, each board member recommends appointees to CPDC for appointment, and then CPDC makes that decision. But how would that work in this process? How are board members? Yeah, it would be identical. So what would happen is we would put out a call for applications.

[02:12:45] The applications would come in. They would be vetted by staff, again, the same thing that the audit committee does. It would be vetted by staff, and then staff would bring the list of people that meet the technical qualifications to CPDC. CPDC would review those applications and then recommend to the full board for approval the three members that would take the seat on CPDC.

[02:13:03] So the full board would have final say on who actually sits on CPDC. Okay. Thank you for all these clarifications. I appreciate the conversation. So my one major concern for me, as Mr. Dunn has mentioned, is this takes away the geographic representation from around the county.

[02:13:25] A unique thing about FPAC is that it also has a Fairfax City representative. And again, I think having that breadth of knowledge and geographic diversity is useful. So I think having more than three members would be very useful.

[02:13:44] I'm not opposed to expanding the number of members I agree with adding you know having more space for adding expertise however I have a question regarding this that I don't know if I can turn to make a motion but are you may I so absolutely are you anticipating that the five community members would have an equal vote to the four board members on Right now we have on CPDC a representative of the City of Fairfax School Board, Carolyn Pitches.

[02:14:20] And there are matters regarding FCPS and its governance where that representative of City of Fairfax doesn't get a vote. And so I believe I would have to defer to my colleague, Mr. McElveen, who heads the audit committee, which is the current model for Mr. McDaniel's proposal, to understand whether there are situations in which the citizen members can essentially overrule the school board members. But I believe if you put together in the bylaws and the strategic governance manual how those community members would vote, how their votes would be weighted, and precluding their votes from ever overriding the school board members, that can be accomplished

[02:14:57] without having to worry just greater numbers of school board members versus community members. So that can be worked out in bylaws and such. Well, I appreciate that. And that was the reason I brought this up, because on the audit committee, there aren't as many community members as board members. There's two community members for this very reason, having served on the audit committee for a couple of years.

[02:15:16] I think there's three. Two, thank you. Having served for a couple of years in my previous term for this reason, because the difference, and one of the reasons this elevates our community members is that CPDC votes on things to send to the board and votes on the issues directly for the board so when you add five members to four including miss pitches you are adding the community outweighing the board members now i would feel more comfortable with this motion if it had in there specifically the weighting of votes but it doesn't so i so i put to my colleagues are we and i i've not had a phone call about this so i didn't

[02:15:53] i'm not sure what your thoughts were that's what we're discussing it here but i am not so comfortable creating a new structure that doesn't exist on any of our other committees so and i don't think we can amend this here but that is my concern is adding more community members than board members on any committee you can amend it here actually you can you can offer an amendment i'm happy to offer an amendment to say that we would have five community members whose votes would count

[02:16:25] as half potentially so it doesn't outweigh the board members yeah so it would be two and a half 2.5. We're going to take a brief recess. We'll take a brief recess and figure out the number, but

[02:16:39] yeah, I mean, maybe board members, please take your seats. Okay, bringing us back, I call on

[02:26:57] Ms. Sizemore Heiser for a secondary amendment. I ask for unanimous consent to amend the amendment by inserting the following language after the phrase, quote, in its place, end quote. I further direct CPDC to create a waiting system for CPDC voting such that a community member vote does not outweigh a school board member vote of the committee.

[02:27:25] There's too many votes in here. Thank you, Ms. Sizemore-Hyser. Do we have a second? Second. Mr. Dunn, without objection. Ms. Anderson, since it's with unanimous consent, we don't need a second. Thank you. Seeing no objection, we will go ahead and adjust the amendment to include that language.

[02:27:52] So now we're back to discussing the new amended amended amendment. Mr. Dunn for a go back. sorry I withdraw my go back okay thank you so much seeing no others we'll go ahead and vote I'm so sorry I just wanted a little bit of clarification can you share again what this is going to accomplish I I think I may have missed it ms seismizer yes we don't have any school board committees vote on things

[02:28:31] descended to the back of the school board it's it's a different than our committees our advisory committees we don't have any school board committee that has community members in greater numbers and school board members so the purpose here is to make sure our community members votes do not outweigh the vote of a school board member on our audit committee we only have two community members so you know instead of trying to figure out at the dais what exactly that waiting system looks like I'm just asking cpdc to come up with that waiting system and come back to the board so is the waiting system still going to be comprising of the five members that are still the five members it's just a waiting system

[02:29:07] for their vote got it thank you thank you seeing no others we'll go ahead and call for a vote on the amendment that's on the screen. All those in favor. Mr. Frisch, Mr. McDaniel, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Ms. Dixit, Ms. Sizemore-Hyzer, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, and myself. That is unanimous for all board members. I call on Mr. Dunn for an amendment.

[02:29:36] I move to amend the subsection E of the criteria section and new appendix L of the strategic Governance Manual by striking the phrase, be, quote, be knowledgeable about FCPS facilities, policies, and procedures, building, construction, and management, and capital financing, end quote, and inserting the phrase, quote, be knowledgeable about FCPS facilities, policies, and procedures, and be an expert in architecture, construction, engineering, facilities management, and capital financing permitting and procurement land use planning and development or related subjects in

[02:30:15] its place thank you is there a second second mr mcdan or mr mckelveen mr dunn would you like to speak to your amendment uh yes thank you briefly um in designing this amendment i looked at the current application to become a member of fpac and i closely mirrored the language for the topics that we look for in and potential community members to become a member of FPAC because during the discussion there's been a discussion about FPAC as a separate organization but there's

[02:30:51] been no assertion that FPAC members are unqualified or don't have the right expertise. It's simply to have them at the same table as school board members on CPDC. In addition I wanted to provide flexibility, because it was correctly observed earlier this evening that sometimes one or more members of FPAC don't necessarily meet some of these criteria. So the last phrase, or related subjects, provides kind of a catch-all that someone who has expertise, for example, in school boundaries, might be well-positioned to become a member of one of the community member spots on

[02:31:30] CPDC, or someone in a topic such as energy management, which historically might not have been considered relevant to facilities, but with the growth in solar rooftop and also virtual power plants and related subjects, that might now be relevant to facilities management, whereas in previous years and decades, it was not. So the goal is to be expansive, to make sure that CPDC has the discretion to bring on board the necessary expertise at the right time to inform the school board member

[02:32:05] deliberations on CPDC. Thank you. Mr. McAveen would you like to speak to your second? No. Okay. Thank you. Ms. Seizmerheiser. I'm pretty sure the answer to this but my lawyer brain wants to clarify you're looking for an or for between all these not an and right? I just want to make sure they don't need experts in all of these things? Yes, by having or before related subjects means all of them have an or.

[02:32:33] Well, that's what I wanted to make sure of because I've seen it both ways. I just wanted to clarify at the dais and the public before we're trying to look for someone who's an expert in all these areas. I appreciate that. As a former law clerk who wrote a lot of judicial opinions, and as the son of an AP English teacher, I've used language very carefully. Thank you.

[02:32:51] Dr. Anderson. Yes, very quickly. I apologize. I failed to do this earlier, But my colleague asked me to read this and so here it goes from my understanding committee members do not feel that I'm sorry. At the CPDC meeting, I committed to supporting a process to retire F-PAC that must include respect and gratitude towards committee members.

[02:33:14] From my understanding, committee members do not feel that this has happened. This pains me as they have been dedicated volunteers just as our appointees of HRAC for which we aim to retire them with respect and gratitude. I will not be present in person or virtually for the regular meeting.

[02:33:31] If I were, I would express my interest in delaying any action regarding the committee until the transition conversations could be had amongst the school board. This is what Miss Marin asked me to read on her behalf because she wanted to communicate that to you all. Thank you, Dr.

[02:33:48] Anderson. OK, seeing no others, we will take a vote for the amendment that is on the screen. All those in favor, Mr. Frisch, Mr. McDaniel, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Ms. Dixit, Ms. Sizemarheiser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson and myself. That is unanimous for all board members. Okay, now we are going to go back to the main motion as amended, which is on the screen. I am going to take a tiny, tiny turn and then we'll vote. I just want to say that I support this because

[02:34:28] honestly, I've been listening hard when I've had some community members on this particular committee talked to me about the fact that the charge has changed so significantly since when the committee was started. And so I've really listened a lot, and as we enter the boundary, or as we're in the middle of the boundary work that we're doing, it really had shifted quite a bit.

[02:34:53] And what I don't think anyone here is suggesting that FPAC isn't hugely important and the community members and the work that they've done aren't isn't hugely important to the work that we do. This was more about making sure that we could be more agile with the actual feedback and no one is expecting anyone on the spot to be able to answer a question. That's not the intention. We're not put in those positions either and so I just want to first thank you all. I'm sorry that the process didn't go as smoothly. This is a hard thing to kind of figure out because you guys are our

[02:35:30] committee and so we need to be able to utilize the folks on the committee in the way that makes the most sense for the committee and for the board and that's a hard that's a hard line to kind of figure out what the correct order of things but I'm sorry that we got it wrong here so we will do everything that we can to ensure and I look forward to hearing about how you guys are consulted in terms of talking about the integration that's going to hopefully happen here. So I am looking forward to what the next phase of all of this is, particularly as we

[02:36:05] move into the next adventure with the facilities planning and all the fun. So thank you guys really so much for all the work that you've done for us. Okay, so we have a few others. Ms. Seizmerheiser. I just asked if you could scroll so I could see the rest of it on the screen because I can't see

[02:36:24] the amount we just voted on so if you don't mind. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. Mr. Dunn. Just a clarification. I don't see the amendment that we voted on to direct CPDC to do that. Should it be part of this main motion or something different? So it's embedded in the second amendment. So we'll have it the way it was done. It was it was amending the second amendment. The so it wasn't embedded in the main motion. But we can make sure that

[02:37:07] we will have it as part of the minutes so that it's there madam clerk point of order i appreciate what the clerk is explaining just to perhaps make it clearer um the other amendments were not part of the actual text of the amendment and so you wouldn't see it reflected there but the motion could have um and perhaps the parliamentarian can tell me if i'm wrong it could have something up

[02:37:45] there that says uh you know after the initials of folks um we could list the other amendments on screen and indicate that we are voting on that package together correct so that we have the it's hard because it's uh mr jackson if you could highlight it right before the eye further we have the as amended to encompass all of that because we've got multiple things that are being amended to mr fish's point we've got the strategic governance manual that's being amended we've got the uh community opera madam clerk what i would what i would recommend is that we put another i

[02:38:23] further move that the school board grant and so can we just put it at the end that says i further move that we will send i mean i understand what we're saying but i i think that board members will feel more comfortable if we can go ahead and fix the language here so we're going to take another very very short five minute we're not getting up we everybody just if the board is willing to do it with unanimous consent we can just add it to the end if that is the request let's do that without objection we will take the sentence that talks about taking the how to

[02:39:03] incorporate the five members and we will put that at the end of the motion we will ask the clerk to

[02:39:14] add that everybody stay put for just a second the information or this the second part of the

[02:39:54] amendment has now been added to the bottom of the amended motion um so we're going to now go ahead and vote oh wait madam chair i was still in the middle of my oh i'm sorry um i i appreciate the uh sometimes uh watching how the sausage gets made uh you know is is not fun and it also involves a a lot of recess which I think elementary school students would enjoy multiple recesses in the day.

[02:40:23] But I just want to go back to what Dr. Anderson said which is one of the two people two school board members who originally sponsored moved the CPDC to cause this motion to be before the board tonight has is advocating for a delay and I think that again shows that there should have been a conversation and so it's unfortunate that tonight we witness the end of F-PAC and but I will be supporting the motion as as amended.

[02:40:56] Thank you. Thank you Mr. Dunn. Seeing no others we are going to vote for the amended main motion that is on the screen. All those in favor Mr. Frisch Mr. McDaniel Miss St. John Cunning Miss Lady Miss Dixit Ms. Sizemore-Hyser, Mr. Dunn, and myself, all those opposed, Mr. McElveen, Mr. Moon, and Dr. Anderson.

[02:41:22] Will the clerk please read the vote? The vote is 8-3. The motion carries. Thank you. I call on Mr. Dunn for a follow-on. I move that Division Council provide a written legal opinion to the board on the potential roles, responsibilities, and restrictions of community members serving on CPDC before any changes are made to its structure.

[02:42:01] is there a second second point of order perhaps the parliamentarian can oblige me we just voted on a change to the structure so how does that work the structure has changed effectively i i don't think the structure will change until we come up with a proposal for the weighting of votes and and also it's april 1st 2026. substantively a member has made a point of order the chair

[02:42:35] should rule on whether that means that the motion is not in order and then that he can proceed either accepting the ruling or appealing it so it's it's judgment call i will sustain or i will i agree that the that with the point of order so we're going to go ahead and we will hold on the following so we'll table the following thank you um agenda item 7.01 performance review human

[02:43:11] resources el4 monitoring report each year the school board assesses the superintendent in part on the basis of the school divisions reasonable progress towards achieving the 2023 2030 strategic plan goals and adherence to a set of 13 executive limitations found on pages 14 through 31 of the board strategic governance manual this the superintendent provides annual monitoring reports to the board for each executive limitation the board then votes on whether or not the per whether the provided report is in compliance or if corrective action is needed i call on dr reed

[02:43:50] for a monitoring report on executive limitation for human resources. Thank you, Madam Chair. And good evening, members of the board and public. Tonight, I will be presenting EL4, which discusses human resources here in Fairfax County. The school board executive limitation four is shown on this slide.

[02:44:10] And at the time of this report, to the best of my knowledge, information and belief, we have gathered information and evidence that I believe supports compliance with the board's executive limitation associated with this topic and i would like to share some of the highlights tonight for those watching from home the full report is attached to board docs there are five areas of executive limitation four and on the slide we see areas one and two and on this slide the remaining items are shown and obviously these are three four and five

[02:44:44] Tonight, I'll share some highlights within this executive limitation to include selected new evidence, updated evidence, or newly added evidence. So first, I'd like to highlight some updates to our recruitment and retention efforts.

[02:45:03] And before I go any further, I would like to recognize that our chief HR officer, William Solomon, is here, as well as a number of our HR staff, if you want to wave in the back. an intrepid group who's worked extraordinarily hard since our last report. So the annual instructional hiring calendar has been accelerated in various ways which has contributed to recruitment and retention of our Fairfax County staff. I think some positives we've seen are that our staffing sheets were provided to principals nearly three weeks earlier than in prior years

[02:45:40] and that's important because we know the sooner we're out hiring candidates for the future year, the better. Additionally, the transfer deadline was moved from June 1 to the beginning of April, which therefore stabilized staffing earlier in the season. We significantly increased overall recruitment activity for the 24-25 period, holding two job fairs a month between January and the end of May 2025. We also hosted a federal worker and contractor information Fair in February of 2025 for many of our neighbors and community members in Fairfax County who are

[02:46:17] federal workers who face layoffs. Recruitment teams also created targeted advertising in March of 2025 to have breakout sessions for federal workers at traditional FCPS job fairs. Finally, we're pleased to see and really to note that our employee retention rate has surpassed 90 percent for two consecutive years which is higher than our pre-pandemic retention rates so i think that's a real vote of confidence uh board and um our hr department and all the support you as an elected

[02:46:51] school board also provide for our staff with regard to our hiring practices beginning in march 2025 hr implemented a standardized job offer process and this process provided standardized formal written job offers via email to applicants that actually included a draft salary and description of benefits and had our candidates accepting offers through a standard process.

[02:47:18] Also, these job offers provide documentation for individuals who are seeking to rent or purchase a home as well as for other income guaranteed requirements. Starting last spring in 2025, our HR and transportation teams also began working together in a much more collaborative approach to develop a one-stop shop that expedited hiring for our transportation staff.

[02:47:41] Mr. Muick is here, our Chief Operating Officer, who collaborated with Mr. Solomon and their teams worked together to make sure that candidates could pre-qualify for hiring by completing many of their screening activities, including taking their physicals via a partnership with Inova Health Systems.

[02:47:59] Strategic initiatives such as this resulted in a 50% improvement in filling beginning-of-the-year transportation vacancies. In FY25 we started with 121 vacancies and in FY26 only 65 vacancies.

[02:48:15] So between July 1 and September 30 of 2025 there were over 500 applicants for bus drivers and nearly 140 have been hired and placed in routes during that time. HR has also introduced the managers roadmap to onboarding operational employees this past August.

[02:48:33] This guide provides leaders with a clear strategic framework for supporting new hires and outlines key roles and responsibilities, highlights best practices including practical tools such as checklists and has timelines for covering the first week through the first year.

[02:48:49] We have new information as it relates to onboarding in FCPS and actually have worked very hard to cut the average amount of time for onboarding which has decreased in recent years as shown on the slide. This was a really important data point, having gone from 46 days to onboard in August of 24 to 24 days by June through August of 2025.

[02:49:13] This is a key performance indicator that our Human Resources Department can be very proud of. The Anchor Induction Program is a division-wide initiative that standardizes the onboarding and support of administrative assistance as well, so this is a new program.

[02:49:29] began this year for school-based administrative assistance with expansion to central office administrative assistance plan for next school year so you're seeing a theme in our HR department around really working hard to develop systems for very important HR roles several new resources are also in place to support our employees on the next slide we'll be able to thanks Kevin HR has released a new quick reference guide to provide a clear overview of key services functions and contacts across HR offices and this

[02:50:07] is important so that our employees and our staff know who to contact when they need assistance or support we've also published our first-ever division-wide employee handbook and this comprehensive resource provides guidance for new and veteran employees that helps staff better understand their responsibilities and easily access key information.

[02:50:30] One of the key attributes as well that we created after the corrective action memo last year with Executive Limitation 4 is we now have a centrally created handbook for athletic coaches which is being developed to include applicable FCPS policies and regulations as well as opportunities for schools to include their own site-based procedures.

[02:50:54] We've provided updates to teacher evaluation materials, revising the teacher indicators used to evaluate standards one through five, and supporting professional growth within the FCPS instructional framework. We've also modernized the evaluation matrices for instructional resource professionals for the first time since 2014.

[02:51:15] So there's a lot of detailed work that isn't obvious, I think, at first glance, but I'm really proud of the team for working on sustainable systems that will generate long-term gains we have just a few more updates tonight first we've leveraged the Guardian platform to support uniform and consistent application of VHSL transfer rules and this is a big move from the prior year I want to recognize Tom Horn who's here and Tom raise your hand thank you our executive director of athletics and activities and Tom has been absolutely instrumental in

[02:51:53] establishing a division level document collection and processing platform for all transfers within the division that have VHSL implications also this ensures a first level of athletic eligibility review for all transfer students at the division level which previously had only been done at the school level. So this is an extra level of review we've put into place this fall for the first time. And there's also a compliance oversight for all transfer eligibility requests that's

[02:52:27] provided by Mr. Horne's office. And we did attach a document that had data for this year. So I don't know if you have access to post that, Kevin. I'm going to take a moment to share that with you as board and I know the first thing I'm gonna get asked is well how does this compare to prior years and we don't know because we've never done it centrally before and the data has always been kept at school levels and is not collectible at this point but here is thank you Kevin this is the new process

[02:53:06] and just to share the data on this we've had 650 cases processed to date you can see in June of 2025 they're probably fewer processed and at the beginning of a particular season there are more processed.

[02:53:23] So these are being tracked monthly and centrally reviewed by Mr Horn's office. So thank you Kevin. We can go back to the PowerPoint. We also have a few updates around new teachers. We have a beginning teacher support provider and this is an optional layer of support for locally licensed teachers in their first year these grant-funded positions are experienced former FCPS teachers who are available to engage in coaching cycles specifically focused on classroom management with both with general

[02:53:58] education locally licensed teachers and we had a summer internship program designed to invest in the division's future workforce by supporting current FCPS high school students and graduates who are enrolled in post-secondary education programs this past summer we had 20 earn interns participate in the six-week program for the first time and it was a really exciting time to get to meet some of these young people and I think there's nothing more magical and inspiring in a contagious way than when you see the excitement and passion of our

[02:54:35] young people who are interested in education roles be they an HR or or business or the classroom or procurement or the warehouse. It's just really exciting to see people excited about a career in FCPS and supporting our important mission driven work.

[02:54:54] So thank you madam chair. This concludes tonight's presentation of executive limitation number four. Thank you Dr. Reed. I call on Miss St.

[02:55:18] John Cunningham for a motion. I move the school school board finds that the superintendent is in compliance with executive limitation number four human resources i further move that the school board approves the monitoring report based on the superintendent's reasonable interpretation of executive limitation for human resources as outlined in the strategic governance manual is there a second dr anderson miss st john cunning would you like to speak to your motion um yes i know that we have seen a lot

[02:55:54] of great changes going on in hr and i as someone that visits schools and talks to our employees i I know that they have felt the difference, and that I think is really the testament of the work being done. I want to thank Mr. Solomon for doing that work. I love the fact that we're also providing internships, which is an innovative idea, and getting our community students involved.

[02:56:16] So I really want to thank the work that our HR office has been doing. All of you that are sitting back there, thank you. I know sometimes it's thankless work, but it's important work because in one way or another, you touch every employee. And I know that a lot of us have questions that we don't understand, including me sometimes going, what does this mean?

[02:56:37] And it's just work that is not maybe seen by everyone, but it is critical. So thank you for everything you do. Dr. Anderson, would you like to speak to your second? Yes. Thank you for the presentation.

[02:56:53] I'm just going to jump in a little bit to a couple of questions that I'm hoping you can guide me a little bit. The first part of this EL, which speaks to the creation of a working environment and culture that is consistently outlined, you know, through A to D, you know, values, employees, seeking staff input, et cetera.

[02:57:14] The question is, what measure is used to evaluate whether or not these things are occurring? So, I think that I'm going to ask Ms. Neal to offer the first start on that, and then I will go to the actual document and pull up the measure we used.

[02:57:34] Yeah, so Dr. Anderson, I think that a lot of that evidence was in prior year's reports, so it wasn't necessarily highlighted in the presentation this evening, but I think some of the evidence included in there, and Mr. Solomon may want to build on this, is some of the various ways that we have employee engagement going on throughout the system different opportunities for our employees to provide input on things like curriculum things like our textbook adoptions different ways that we're providing pathways for employees to provide feedback and information certainly dr. Reed has several opportunities to engage with different employees in regular settings so I think there's different evidence throughout

[02:58:14] the report that provides some of that information certainly mr. Solomon may want to add? I'd share that that is spot on. I think we talk about the stack meetings, which continue on a regular cadence, as well as employee conversations, and I think the various types of committees and feedback loops. Sure. I'd like to dig in a little bit more. I definitely think that there's a lot of activities. There are a lot of opportunities for people to give input that are

[02:58:50] presented by you and your staff. There's a lot of activities, but how do we evaluate whether or not these activities are meeting these standards as written? What are you using to evaluate whether or not you are getting what you are looking for out of all of the activities that are being provided? Well, I think one of the things we looked at was the retention rate, because I think that in general the more engaged employees are the more that they feel valued and the more likely they are to stay and since we're at the first time even since pre-pandemic times at a 90%

[02:59:28] retention rate or better for two consecutive years that would be a data point that would seem to indicate that people employees are feeling valued or they would likely work somewhere else Yeah, that's true. That certainly could be an indicator, or it could be an indicator that jobs may be scarce. I guess I'm just looking for something that's a little bit more connected, rather than more of a conjecture.

[02:59:57] One of the things that I saw here that could potentially speak to that, that's why I was thinking you were going on page six of the report, where you're discussing the employee engagement survey. Does that have questions that are aligned to what we're trying to accomplish in Section 1?

[03:00:17] We could check that out. Okay, because I think that would be helpful because this engagement survey is, it says it's provided every two years. I also think there's an opportunity there to reconsider, especially if it's aligned and you're reporting on this every year, for it to be provided every year.

[03:00:33] and the other clarity that I'm seeking is this engagement survey says it is administered through school employees so only people who are in the buildings have the opportunity to complete it or is it for everyone including those in Willow Oaks and Gatehouse I don't administer it so I'm not entirely sure mr. Solomon the engagement survey is administered to everyone everyone okay so SO IT'S NOT JUST THE PRINCIPLES.

[03:01:03] CAN YOU ALSO SPEAK TO THE VDOE SCHOOL CLIMATE AND WORKING CONDITIONS SURVEY? HOW DOES THAT COME TO PLAY TO SATISFY SECTIONS 1 A THROUGH D? I WOULD HAVE TO CHECK IN ON THE CONNECTION THERE.

[03:01:21] WE DON'T SELECT THOSE QUESTIONS, SO IT MAY NOT BE A MATCH TO THE PARTICULAR EL. DO WE GET THE RESULTS, HOWEVER, OR DO THEY JUST GET OUR SENT TO VDOE? BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW IF I'M AS FAMILIAR WITH THIS ONE. will check into that and get back to you okay thank you on page nine I think one of the things that you've outlined here was the expansion of the TFA program and I can't miss the opportunity to raise my objections to this because as I've talked about when the board voted to put this in place these are

[03:02:00] individuals who are not as prepared as most as we want our teachers to be in terms of they have a five week program and I know that there are some supports that are provided throughout the year but it's a five week program before we place them in front of our neediest kids we continue to say that we need to put our best teachers in front of our neediest kids I think this runs counter to that and so to me I don't see this as a win per se it might have been a win if we were able to place them in places where our kids were not as challenged but being that we're

[03:02:36] placing the least what I consider to be the least prepared individuals in front of the most challenging title one kids that troubles me. And I think that was my time mistakes it Dr.

[03:02:58] Reed thank you for the presentation is a lot of work goes into HR and the size of the organization. We have a lot of work here and it's done meticulously people are get paid on time and and they're happy to work and they're coming to work every day and teaching our students and working with our students in any capacity.

[03:03:21] I had a question about the HR portal. I know there was a lot of investment done into the modernization of the HR portal. Where are we with that right now? So the HCM project, we are still working on that. That was a multi-year project and continues to be a multi-year project. And it's a collaborative one with our human resources department, our budget and finance department and our i.t department so we continue to monitor the progress of that work and i think we're still a couple years out from seeing that program roll out that's something

[03:03:59] that's so important because it connects business finance hr our core business services really so we're a bit uh out still from that but i can certainly we can provide an update in an upcoming Friday letter. And one thing very it stood out for me obviously we have a very high rate of filling the seats opens positions but the bus drivers I know for longest time I knew that we always were looking for bus drivers in the county so it's just it's a great progress in that direction too to see the very few positions on that on that front.

[03:04:38] I also wanted to ask about the Anchor program. If somebody can talk a little bit about that. So that would be great. Is that something you would like to share a little more about, Mr. Solomon? Absolutely. So an administrative assistant position at a school is, I think everyone here would agree, one of the most critical positions that we have.

[03:04:59] Because your administrative assistant is really the right arm for a principal and for a leader. They're the ones who are making sure that the work is advancing and moving forward that everybody in the building has what they need to really be successful and at the same time one of the things that we were noticing was a level of dissonance for lack of a better word wanting to make sure that our administrative assistants were onboarded properly had the level of training and development but also had the level of community that they needed to be successful to solve common challenges and problem of practice and problems of practice and once again really just the depth of the understanding that they need to achieve their goals to give you one example

[03:05:39] when we had our last administrative assistant meeting through the anchor program with about 80 administrative assistants for principals one core problem of practice that they brought up was every day when they have substitute teachers come into the building there were so many things that they needed to coordinate and compile everything from teacher schedules to the bell schedule to where somebody needed to be and that was a problem that really surfaced for us and was helpful so we were actually able to work together and collaboratively and use AI and put together something in Google Gemini so that they so that schools can upload their information their bell schedule and other things so that everything is ready to go for substitute teachers when

[03:06:18] they come in so that they have what they need and so that administrative assistants are growing and developing their skills have access to the tools that they need have access to community and also really feel like they're achieving and advancing in their profession.

[03:06:33] Thank you so much, and I like the use of generative AI, like you mentioned. I was also happy to see that employee handbook has been rolled out first time in the district. I was surprised to see that actually, because like a small organization have employee handbooks.

[03:06:50] I was one, like we didn't have one that kind of surprised, but I'm glad that we have it here first time and last year I said great work with the interns 20 though you know it's a great numbers to start but would what is it possible to grow that number to more students next time who can work with us at HR I guess team we will absolutely take a look at what's possible okay thanks what he's not saying is I've limited the number because of the budget I think the team would love to expand it and I've said we have to be budget-conscious but we're

[03:07:29] also you know we could find a partnership perhaps to support larger numbers. Ms. Seizmerheiser. Thank you and I'm happy to support this Dr. Reed I think I remember your first year the year that I was chair and we were both sort of navigating your you know orientation to FCPS together I think every chairs meeting we talked about the history of FCPS but one of the things you said that year was that HR was one of your first priorities, just to address some of the many needs around consistency, and so what I see here is a lot of that good work. We talked a lot that

[03:08:07] year about how long it takes to onboard, how people would apply for jobs, and their applications would become a black hole for some people, and so to see some of the consistency you brought, I mean an employee handbook, the evaluation process that you brought from, I mean there's just so much in here that large-scale organizations human resources should have and that you've brought it this year so i just want to applaud that good work here that you're doing and i appreciate the honesty about the internship program it's many of the things that i think we would love to do and in better budget times um and the but the retention rate that you've also had and you

[03:08:43] talk a lot about the retention rate here but i think what i hear when i go to school visits is that new teacher coaching program you've put in i think is really helpful the retention rate of our new teachers to get them from new to experienced teachers I did want to just ask a question which is why I raised my light you mentioned in the work session just very briefly about a program that you're working with HR around workplace possible workplace programs for some of our students in our step Davis Pulley maybe maybe the new standard course offering EFE FEO so I'm wondering one

[03:09:20] One, if you could tell me a little bit more about that, and two, if you're also looking to expand that to maybe partner with some of our new graduates who have gone off that cliff, as they often call it, to helping recruit them for job opportunities that maybe didn't have this program in existence when they were in FCPS.

[03:09:40] Yes, ma'am. So, in fact, we've talked a lot about that. Mr. Solomon, Dr. Ponce in particular, and Dr. Edmonds-Hurd have been strategizing because we know there are models out there to employ our recently graduated neurodivergent students who have been in the Step Davis or Foley programs or not, who have graduated and still, you know, have tremendous gifts and skills that we could benefit from as a division, and we're looking

[03:10:14] a variety of areas be it in the warehouse the I think we have a lot of interest in shelving books in the libraries there's a lot of interest in working either in kitchens cafeterias supporting classrooms they're just you know it's an open-ended list I know we met this morning with a possible community partner Dr. Ponce I don't want to name them because that wouldn't be appropriate this morning but you want to just comment i know you're setting up a meeting uh we had quite a probably a half hour conversation this morning on just this topic with a community partner um yes this is

[03:10:51] it's very promising i cannot name it because still they are uh has to go with the process but they were offering they have more than 16 uh centers here just in fairfax also uh they're working with um university george mason nova and they have more than 32 places in washington dc and it's not just restaurants but also some other centers where we are looking for that opportunity we're very excited about it i think within the next probably two to three years before the 2030

[03:11:29] strategic plan uh north star moment uh you're going to see a significant expansion in that program work thank you and just i would just leave you with a thought around that work if when you're looking for when you say tremendous gifts and talents to bring to our division i would really encourage you to look at both i.t and logistics transportation there is seen it there's research around it around the memory for logistical pattern recognition I mean if we did intelligence work I'd be the other one we don't do intelligence work

[03:12:06] here at FCPS that I'm aware of no we don't but IT transportation warehousing anything around logistics I would highly I mean I think sometimes we often look at you know kitchens and library book but I think there's a whole population maybe that didn't go into Davis pulling in step but they are part of that 80% unemployment rate right and we have great needs in those areas so I would just facilities and transportation I would highly encourage you to look at those as well and partner with our own facilities there we're excited to look

[03:12:40] at the options and I we had a graduate in another division I worked in who knew every street name and so to your point around routing knew every turn to get it was incredible um it was better than i it i could ask him quicker than i could pull up the routing software to know exactly which turns to make there are whole facebook groups who follow the where's the bus app i'm telling you it is a hidden like it is whole messenger groups around and they have your transportation system better memorized i dare say than you do there is a hidden talent there

[03:13:18] We may need it tomorrow if we can't see the roads in the morning. Mr. Moon. Thank you, Madam Chair. As always, thanks for the presentation. And I have a few questions to ask. Some of the questions have been already asked by my fellow board members, so I'm not going to ask them again.

[03:13:38] But as to the internship, I'm glad that we are studying. But with us being, what, second largest employer in the Commonwealth of Virginia? Are we second or third? We're large. We are large, yes.

[03:13:54] And then as we ask our private sector businesses to provide more internships, more workplace experience opportunities for our students, I think we should do our job to what we ask from private sectors.

[03:14:16] You know, 20 is a good start, but I wouldn't be satisfied with just having 20. I know budget is a factor, but private sectors could say the same thing when you ask for those opportunities for our students. With retention rate, I'm happy that in the last couple of years, it's higher than before.

[03:14:39] And I also know that based upon the report, that number of teachers who are retained showed higher number for the last couple of years as well, which is good. But at the same time, I want to be able to see a little deeper data, who is staying with us longer, whether we are having less people retiring, or we are having more younger people staying with us longer, or who are deciding to stay longer.

[03:15:13] Is that, again, is that just a job market situation with the federal layoffs and et cetera? Is that what's affecting us? Why, because they are just happy with us, basically. That is why. And that's some of the data I would love to see, whether if you have those you can provide to us.

[03:15:33] Yes, sir. We'll look at, I'll ask the team to look at how we might break the data down in some way to see who's staying more, Unless you happen to just know off the top of your head, I'm not seeing any nodding. So we'll look at the data and break it down further.

[03:15:50] So when your staff provides us with more information, could I also ask you about those individuals who are taking alternative path to teaching licensure, whether we've seen the growth?

[03:16:06] And if we are seeing growth, you know, what alternative paths are most popular, more beneficial to these people who are using those paths? Yes, sir. We can get that as well. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Dunn.

[03:16:26] Thank you. I want to know if FCPS has ever conducted a workforce analysis to determine in the federal workspace, I lead workforce analyses to identify the percentage of federal employees who are likely to retire in the next five years.

[03:16:43] Also to look at the demographic makeup, not just racial composition, but also generational to say, are we bringing in young people and are they staying or are they fleeing? Because if you have many people near retirement age, as is true in the federal workforce, and you're not bringing in enough young people, you're essentially losing at both ends of the generational spectrum so I want to understand if this type of very sophisticated and also very standard analysis in both private and public sector organizations is being performed by FCPS yes sir that's a good question and I know we tend to do it by department rather than by generation so

[03:17:22] and we also tend to do it by employee group for example principals I know that was what two years ago I think that we sat down and did a review of how many of our elementary middle high school principals were nearing retirement and what is our bench strength look like and as we're developing leaders which I think I believe that led to a year ago working with our assistant principals very intentionally which we hadn't necessarily been doing as a division for several years so what we're trying to do is make sure that we're matching that analysis that you're talking about with making sure we have programs to the

[03:18:02] degree we can within our budget that develop key next, I guess we call it our bench strength, key next bench strength members. So we've been doing that in several sectors and I can provide you a Friday letter update on that. That would be great. I also wanted to ask about the equivalent of the federal retired annuitant program. I'm sorry, I don't remember the name. It's ERFC to allow people to start earning their retirement while remaining an FCPS employee. Has there been analysis of the employees who have taken advantage of that program enrolled in that program

[03:18:39] to be able to continue working and has an analysis of you know the makeup of of the participants been provided to the school board so that's the drop program i think you're referring to and so i i think we gave the board numbers a year ago i don't know that there was a big analysis but but I'm going to go back to either Mr. Smith or Mr. Solomon.

[03:19:01] Mr. Smith, do you want to start that one? Certainly. So we can, and good evening, everyone. We can certainly work with the ERFC board. That analysis is done on a monthly basis and provided to the ERFC board, and we can provide information in the Friday letter to the board. That would be wonderful.

[03:19:17] Thank you. I wanted to also ask about crossing guards because we have faced an increasing shift of crossing guards which I know are county employees from police officers who have the ability to direct traffic to contractors who do not have the ability to direct traffic.

[03:19:36] I know historically FCPS was reluctant to take on the burden even though we might get the dollars for that program. Has there been any shift in thinking as we get an increasing number of contractors because having school safety performed by school officials or school employees or school contractors might be preferable so we can ensure that we are directly responsible for ensuring the safety of our students that are crossing major roads so my understanding is that only a member of law enforcement can direct traffic or stop traffic so further my understanding is that only

[03:20:15] fcpd officers are official crossing guards so in fact i was meeting with the several parents this week um about one of our schools and they had pictures and um i'm not sure if it's in your region or not mr dunn but they've been working to try to get crossing guards at this particular crosswalk and i think they're continuing to advocate for that but i don't believe we have any contracting or contractor crossing guards mr muick do we have any contractor or is it mr

[03:20:51] Lambert yes ma'am this year the police department has hired a company to outsource what was previously a lot of police given law enforcement so there has been a noted transition I think that mr. Dunn is picking up on from armed uniformed police officers to a contracted company so are we going to have an opportunity to add more of those folks on I think is that your question

[03:21:21] Well, if there is going to be a contracted function, and as you point out, Dr. Reed, those contractors, even though they're working for FCPD, do not have the ability to direct traffic. So if we're going to have contractors out there, shouldn't they be under control of FCPS since they're directing the safety of our students across the street?

[03:21:41] Well, I think that at this time, the county funds and operates the mission, and I do believe they're very tightly connected still to the police department, which has its benefits, but I'll ask Mr. Lambert to share his thoughts on that since this definitely is a strength there.

[03:22:00] And the police department still has, in addition to the contract that they have moved to, they still do have full-time police department employees who are titled crossing guards as well. So for the interim period, the police department has police department hired crossing guards as well as the contracted ones.

[03:22:20] I do know that, and thank you, Mr. Lambert, I do know that Chief Davis is fully committed to safe, you know, crossing for all of our students. And I think is simply trying to within budget parameters and also staffing parameters find solutions.

[03:22:38] And I think at one point there was a discussion that sometimes if it's a uniformed officer and they're down staff and there's an emergency, we don't have a crossing guard, right? So I think that was a bit of a benefit for the contracted folks because that's their assignment and they'll be there.

[03:22:55] But I do think that it's worth a conversation. I'm happy to go back to the Chief and also ask Mr. Lambert to connect with the liaison and we can get back to you on that. Thank you. Is there any ongoing effort as part of a routine assessment to look at benefit packages that are offered by surrounding school divisions and national school divisions who we're competing with for employees the best and the brightest whether they're teachers or staff to ensure that our benefits package remains competitive, not just in terms of salary,

[03:23:29] but maternity leave and other types of policies? Yes, sir. In fact, we've just upgraded some of our benefits packages, and I'm going to turn to Ms. Burden and Mr. Solomon to collaborate on some of our updates we've done to employee benefits to match our surrounding divisions, and in some cases maybe exceed our surrounding division benefits like types of leave and health care and so forth which one of you would like to take that well I can start and of course paid parental leave comes to mind first and

[03:24:07] you know we began providing that I believe a year ago there's a initiative that dr. dr. Reed started in addition to that we give all of the leave up front instead of asking people to accrue it over their 12 months yes we do allow donated leave amongst staff members if somebody runs into some sort of medical problem and need additional leave and don't have it then their colleagues can donate to them as well I'm sure we can get you an exhaustive list I just we also

[03:24:46] I think I believe as a result of bargaining have a committee now that that reviews benefit packages mr. Smith do you want to comment on that and then mr. Solomon you'll close us out yes we have a health care committee and as part of that committee they review recently reviewed during the RFP process the health packages that were provided and will newly be provided to staff we also have a labor management committee as part of collective bargaining that also provides union input on issues that that employees are facing and that we in

[03:25:23] FCPS then react to those issues and also collaborate and work very closely with the union and then just add to that mr. Dunn we have health benefits that rival school divisions not only in the Northern Virginia region but throughout the nation and I'm talking about our medical benefits our dental benefits our vision benefits absolutely everything the other thing that I would add to that is and I would add that most employees associate their employment with their health benefits so by virtue of being a large employer and being a self-insured employer and being able to offer those competitive premium rates and

[03:25:58] close collaboration with our health and health committee it's one of those things that really sets us apart outside of that when employees are in what I would describe as a time of need when they're needing to be on short or long-term disability which runs concurrently with FMLA most school divisions in this region only cover about 67% of the employee's salary we cover anywhere between 90% and a hundred percent that's great and I would also add we have an extensive employee assistance program that many of our employees take advantage of to cover things that range from finding daycare

[03:26:33] to elder care to legal advice and so that is also an important benefit that we provide staff thank you that's wonderful I finally wanted to ask there was a new volunteer registration system set up this year and I know it was suspended although we're still checking driver's licenses and such is that plan to be implemented next year or the following year and with sufficient planning to ensure smooth rollout yes sir so I think that we took on two very ambitious background checking projects at the same time which in retrospect we

[03:27:12] could have phased better we as you recall we're enrolling all of our staff in the wrap-back program which we actually didn't talk about it's a new this year because we started it last year but the reality is it started very slowly because of some barriers that we had you know working with some of our our friends and other parts of the Commonwealth and so I know we had some intercession by several of our elected officials so we were able to smooth that path but that set us back a bit on the wrap back and when you're enrolling

[03:27:48] 41,000 people in the FBI fingerprint background that took a lot of our HR staff time at the same time that we were rolling out the volunteer management system which had been planned for the beginning of the year assuming some of wrap back work would be completed so because of the delays they collided and I think that there's a limit to how effectively and quickly that those background checks can be done so and the other good news is we have so many community volunteers that want to volunteer which is great news for us because our community is so involved and we so appreciate that that it really

[03:28:27] overwhelmed the system so we've made a lot of progress but as we continue the year we're going to try to make sure that we're able to have the staffing available to adequately support those level three more significant background checks but we're still using the swiping systems but absolutely we're we're going to soldier on with that topic we just once the wrap-back rushes out I think it's going to free up time for us to make sure we can smooth that process And finally, I just want to compliment you and Mr. Solomon on all the changes that you've

[03:29:04] been leading to transform how HR is governed and onboarding people and providing them the support they need. It's absolutely revolutionary and it's amazing work. So thank you so much. Thank you. The team's worked really hard on it. Ms. Leidy. Thank you.

[03:29:20] I'll be brief. Mostly just want to give kudos. The communication with candidates I think has been a great improvement. That in turn is also once hired. The onboarding, I think, is much smoother.

[03:29:36] The retention's amazing. I mean, there are plenty of jobs and education out there. Just about every system is looking for people, and ours are choosing to stay here. I think that says a lot about their experience. I also, you know, a little kudos to HR.

[03:29:53] You know, a company of our size, our HR department should probably be four times the size it is. I see you. Well, I'm just saying, every department in this county does amazing work because we have to, and we all could use more, I mean, everywhere.

[03:30:12] But I just want to acknowledge that, and I hear a lot of requests for certain types of data from my colleagues, which I understand. I mean, certainly we want evidence of things, but I also want to make sure that, you know, we keep the main thing the main thing, And that is being available to employees who need things and to the extent to which we can use AI moving forward around collection of data.

[03:30:36] I think that's important. But, you know, those folks that are sitting here, I see you. I do know how hard you work. I know that sometimes when we call you, you're busy and yet you still figure out a way to get back to employees.

[03:30:54] So I just wanted to say thank you because I know you're working incredibly hard. and really proud of the direction that we are and the place we are at in terms of HR so just thank you. Mr. Fresh. Thank you. Dr. Reed, how long have you been superintendent in Fairfax County?

[03:31:12] Is this in dog years or Fairfax years? No, four. I prefer to count in human. All right, so four years. four years. So I want to thank you and Mr. Solomon and all of HR to put it in context to completely transform everything happening to hire and retain staff in FCPS. The third largest employer in the Commonwealth of Virginia and to see the retention numbers that we are seeing year

[03:31:48] over year is a tremendous accomplishment. And I am extremely grateful to have you, to have Mr. Solomon to have the entire HR team and by the way we have a new admin committee on our school board and they have been incredibly responsive and helpful in the work that we're doing to figure out how to manage school board and school board office staff.

[03:32:12] So thank you. I want to talk a little bit pick up a little bit where Dr. Anderson left off on high needs schools because we run into the same issues not only in high need schools but also high needs classrooms right often ending up with teachers with less experience etc high burnout levels etc and so as I've been kind of thinking about this I've done some initial you know research on it and many of the best practices that I've found in you know reading through materials we're

[03:32:47] doing here right and so mentorship for example you know I've been to the Great Beginnings conference several times I've talked to mentor teachers in our schools early contracting one of the first things I remember happening in HR was changing the contracting window because we could have better quicker access to new educators you know we've just talked about all these different surveys and everything else that we're using to kind of check the pulse and that speaks

[03:33:21] to climate and working conditions and you know the list goes on and on one area that uh the research shows would be helpful um is remuneration for service in those high needs areas right and so i remember when we were dealing with sub shortages which is no longer an issue thank you for that as well um uh i believe we did pay extra for hard to fill uh sub positions perhaps if we had an infusion of cash we could we could do the same for these hard to fill

[03:34:00] positions which in essence is the extended contract for some of our special education teachers right they do a lot more work and they're being compensated for it but as far as Teach for America goes I appreciate that we are trying every single thing to get teachers in the door some of those people do stay and become longer term teachers I'm curious what more we can be doing to address this specific issue though of high needs classrooms and high needs schools because most of the things I've found we're doing but what more can we be doing

[03:34:36] so i know we have a group looking at that i think again in our current budget time what we do know about our high needs schools and more often than not our title one schools there are extra funds and i know that dr ponce is working with the team and with our title one schools in terms of allocation planning and scheduling and the use of those title dollars because I think that often it does enables smaller class sizes and more direct, explicit instructional support in those schools.

[03:35:14] But I I know we're also working on turnover data, both for teachers and principals in our higher need schools. And I don't I don't know if there's anything you'd want to add, Dr. Ponce to that, how we're but I think we still have ideas to come.

[03:35:33] Right. What's interesting is it's not always what we think it is that's going to be the best support. Sometimes it's more time, right? And we've had models where some schools have access to more time, but, again, more time means more money.

[03:35:50] But, Dr. Ponce, anything else on our high-need schools? No, actually, you said everything. Sometimes I know, and I don't want to call Title I schools because it's just a school with a special need. we have been looking for ways to totally utilize every single dollar differently because sometimes we spend some dollars and not necessarily direct instruction we should that's what we're looking right now to make sure that every single student get what they supposed to be getting and have extended time as well

[03:36:27] intervention Saturday tutorials after school tutorials and online tutorials as well. Fair point. Thank you Mr. Kirsch. Dr. Anderson-Furgo back. Thank you. On the page where you talked about benefits and retention I think I'm pretty sure I don't see it but one of the things that I think is missing here is the ERFC because that is an unusual provision that only Fairfax

[03:37:01] County provides and I think highlighting that will create a more attractive package because nowhere else is it and I know I usually get this wrong Ms. Burden somewhere between six and seven percent yeah it's about 6.5 so that's significant and that's above and beyond the current compensation package that is provided Loudon does not provide that Alexandria this is Fairfax specific and I think that needs to be uplifted a little bit more in these documents the other question that I had is regarding the retention rate and thank you for sharing what is happening with special education

[03:37:41] teachers are you seeing similar rates across all employee groups all across buildings are there differences across sites or particular groups outside of the special education that you've already outlined here yes ma'am so i we outlined that in particular because that's been a hard to build position and we were very pleased to make progress there and we've added supports for um you know our new special ed teachers as well i i know another board member had a question around those the demographics of who was staying i think it was mr moon was asking that so we will collect

[03:38:19] those and provide those in a friday letter just speak a little bit to the supports for new new special education teachers there were always well not always several years ago there were the teacher mentors is this in addition to that so Miss Neil do you feel you want to talk a little bit about our beginning mentor teacher program or is that a mr. Solomon which one of you want to take that no I can talk about it so I think two years ago now at this point we did some refocusing of our instructional coaches that are centrally funded so schools can fund instructional coaches but we had a

[03:38:58] small cohort of centrally funded instructional coaches and refocus their work on working with novice teachers so teachers who are in years sort of zero through three and that is really being in the classroom providing that modeling that instruction hands-on supporting the teachers in the classroom in addition we also have as dr. Reed highlighted retired teachers who are also working with new teachers we have we received a grant we received a renewal of that grant again this year so we're able to fund some of our own FCPS teachers that come back and work with our teachers who are provisionally licensed or locally licensed.

[03:39:34] I don't know if Dr. Presidio, anything you want to add on? We actually have brought back some of our retired principals to support classrooms and structures, particularly with our literacy program. It's actually been great because I, you know, in many ways they have the time, maybe a little different level of patience and experience, and just really love being back in our schools.

[03:39:58] It's been a fabulous culture boost. So if you're retired out there and want to be, come join us again. So what I think I'm hearing is that you've actually lowered the ratio because my initial concern with the teacher mentors, again, during our first term, was that each mentor served a kind of too many mentees.

[03:40:20] And so they were not able to be as effective. So you're utilizing all these individuals in order to narrow, to lower the ratio. That's what I think I'm hearing. Is that accurate? I believe that's accurate. Yes, ma'am.

[03:40:31] more targeted and strategic. Ms. Neal? Yeah, so when we looked, one of our schools, for example, had a very high number of new teachers. And so we recognize that that not only affects all the new teachers in the building, but also the veteran staffer in the building who are trying to support a large number of new teachers. So really being strategic about placing those supports in the buildings where you have a high volume and need additional staff members in the building. Okay, thank you. The next question that I had, again, this is on page eight, was regarding the dedicated portal for employees to file union-related grievances. Walk me through that a little bit. Are these

[03:41:07] grievances, once they're received, they're just discussed with the Labor Management Committee? How is this processed? So what we're trying to do is be very transparent about our labor relations processes. And I'm going to ask Mr. Smith or Mr. Solomon to explain the dynamics here.

[03:41:30] So what you're seeing in this section of Executive Limitation 4 is our Guardian portal or our Staff Connect portal. And essentially when an employee or when the union has a grievance, essentially that something is violating an article in the CBA, there's a process, which what I would say is incredibly employee friendly.

[03:41:52] And the reason I say that is because when an employee is feeling that something needs to be challenged or when they are feeling that something is violated, there's a process for them to seek resolution. There's a process for them to file a grievance and say, it's this article in the CBA and I would like to move through this process so that somebody can hear my grievance and make this objective determination.

[03:42:14] I would also add that the labor relations team works closely with employees to help them understand if their actual complaint is grievable and then helps them understand where they can go if it doesn't actually fit within this particular process. And then that same team works with the program managers to help them through that entire grievance process until it has some sort of resolution or some of those grievance processes go all the way to a step five, which is to the superintendent.

[03:42:46] Okay, so this is kind of, I think I've confused that with the labor management committee, which is just, I guess, a routine conference, or does that only come together to deal with the grievances? - The Labor Management Committee is separate from the grievance process.

[03:43:04] The Labor Management Committee is a committee that was established through the Collective Bargain Agreement. It's a committee that's made up of representatives from management and the union, and they can't address issues that are related to the Collective Bargain Agreement, but it's not necessarily, it's not the grievance process.

[03:43:22] - So it has its own cadence. Thank you so much for that. I had one more question, but then I'm not able to find it. So I think I will stop here. Thank you. Okay. I think this is more of a celebration because I get to see these individuals quite a bit.

[03:43:46] And I had the opportunity to be here when the first cohort started, just the retention of the ambassador teachers. I still remember the first teacher that came in that group from Argentina that was placed at Glasgow. And I still see him three years later there. So I think that's a group that's been really, they're experienced.

[03:44:05] are folks that are highly skilled and they are remaining in our system so I just wanted to make sure I highlighted that. Thank you. It's been a big effort and a big lift with Mr. Solomon and the team. Okay thank you. I will call for a vote of the motion that's on the screen. All those in favor. Mr. Frisch, Mr.

[03:44:26] McDaniel, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Sizemore Heiser, Ms. Lady, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, and myself. All those opposed? Dr. Anderson, will the clerk please read the vote?

[03:44:46] The motion is 10-1. The motion carries. Thank you. Annually, the board will review each executive limitation at the time that the monitoring report is provided to determine if revisions are needed. board members may offer amendments to executive limitations at any regular meeting provided that they send the final amendment language to the board and the clerk at least 48 hours in advance of the meeting at which it's to be considered. At this time no amendments have been submitted in advance of this meeting. Executive limitation for human resources was placed on the consent agenda

[03:45:21] for approval later in tonight's meeting to maintain the current language for the year ahead. We are not going to take a break because we have four presentations this evening, and so we are going to move right through, and I'm going to remind my colleagues that it is up to you how long we spend on each one.

[03:45:42] So, agenda item 8.01, boundary review, phasing, and transportation. I call on Dr. Reed for a presentation on boundary review, phasing, and transportation. thank you madam chair members of the board and the public tonight I'll be presenting the my recommendation really as to what we ought to consider moving forward relative to this topic so I want to remind those watching that the school board approved an amendment to policy 8130 in July for the phasing option by grades depicted on this slide I don't think I'll read it to you

[03:46:21] because of the hour but the decision before you this evening is whether transportation will be provided if a student elects to remain at their original school so I want to clarify this isn't I'm not making a recommendation on whether we're going to phase that's that decision has been made what I'm going to be making a recommendation on this evening is do I recommend that we pay for transportation to support this amendment so as we move to the next slide I want to share some of the data from previous adjustments and to illustrate the cost implications we wanted to show just three previous

[03:46:58] boundary adjustments they're phasing an actual transportation costs so let me take a minute and walk you through those Kent Gardens and McLean elementary schools boundary adjustment impacted 245 students grades 2 through 6 with 178 choosing to stay at their original school this necessitated the addition of five buses and drivers for a cost of nine hundred and sixteen thousand one hundred ninety nine dollars and this cost was based on the bus five-year lease to own maintenance and driver salaries so that's one example and

[03:47:36] essentially as you look through those topics you can see that at any given time if you're going to be double running bus routes which essentially is what this phasing implies it's going to create a significant cost so as we look at the next slide our team put together really they extrapolated and created by using the same approach for scenario four we looked at the impact of close to 3,000 students which would be having the option to remain at their school based

[03:48:11] on the phasing decision that's been made the estimated cost for this would be over 10 million dollars for 57 buses and drivers to support the almost 3,000 students that are likely to take advantage of the phasing in the areas to date that are likely to be moved in terms of boundaries and I have three primary concerns as I really contemplated the possibility of this and

[03:48:44] I know Paul Andrade's here from transportation and thank you Paul. Mr. Andrade and Mr. Muick and They met with their teams and obviously number one is our budget concern number two Is the driver availability to add potentially close to 60 more?

[03:49:05] drivers and then the availability of parking for additional buses That you know that actually is a bit of a hardship we recently as you know continued to approve some leases which pay for extra parking for our buses and I think at this point trying to identify ten million dollars to fund this based on a choice that a family's making knowing that all of our schools are outstanding and excellent schools gives me pause the

[03:49:40] driver availability while we've done a great job of reducing our vacancies we actually still have 51 vacancies while we're remaining in the midst of a nationwide bus driver shortage providing transportation out of outside of this adjustment would double the vacancies with an increased risk of double backs late arrivals longer route times and quite honestly I'm not sure that we would as we think forward even to our start time work that we've um you know paused with the boundary work but as we move forward there's a limit to how much we're going to be able to do and keep

[03:50:17] run times uh reasonable even if we could afford the 10 million dollars which i i in the upcoming budget season do not believe that's uh realistic the bus parking we have currently three bus depots that house just under 600 buses the remaining 1000 buses are parked at schools and throughout the community overnight and midday parking is already challenging so my recommendation this evening as much as it pains me to recommend this is that we really provide transportation only based

[03:50:53] on the new boundary adjustments that we continue to allow the phasing decision that you've made but really families who make that choice i believe will need to find transportation for that choice i just can't recommend using limited budget dollars for this project at this time so i'm happy to take any questions madam chair but that is my recommendation thank you dr reed i also wanted to quickly inform the board that the motion that will happen on the 18th is specifically that the recommendation will be adopted as it's noted here so mr mcdaniel just

[03:51:32] a quick question i think i know the answer of this but for the benefit of the public is still watching this at 11 o'clock at night this does not can you kind of explain how this would fold in this recommendation here would fold into the proposal for the new western high school absolutely the New Western High School boundary will be drawn and recommended to the board likely in June May or June of the coming spring.

[03:51:59] And once you as a board set that boundary we will be bus routing to that boundary only. So what I also so students who opt in who are within that boundary who opt into the Western High School will have transportation.

[03:52:17] But if students opt in to the Western High School and are outside the boundary, they too will have to provide their own transportation. And that's going to be made clear to students and families in the upcoming open registration process time. What might be unique in the Western High School is because it's only opening for ninth and tenth graders, is that the bus routing to take juniors and seniors to their current base school must continue because students will continue in their junior and senior year.

[03:52:49] But we will only route to the new boundary at the Western High School. And I guess that leads to the next question. Because the busing is already going to be occurring for juniors and seniors in the Western boundaries to the previous high school, not the Western, that would be where kids that are in 9th and 10th grade that do not want to go to Western would be able to go to that original base school.

[03:53:13] Yes, sir. That's correct. At no extra budget cost. That's the key here, and it's an unfortunate – I agree with your recommendation here. It's unfortunate. I think it's an equity issue. The parents that have the time and the means will take advantage of it, and those that don't will not be able to take advantage of it.

[03:53:29] But budget is an unfortunate reality that we're in. So thank you for this. Yes, sir. Mr. Moon. Thank you. At least we have a number from our superintendent, which I asked for at the last work session. Thank you.

[03:53:44] Thank you. But I have a couple of questions, and the more detailed questions, submit that in writing to us superintendent and also share with my colleagues as well but just couple of quick questions looking at the slide number four you have driver cost is that is that annual cost this is this holding the annual cost is this aggregate cost so that is annual cost annual cost yes sir okay and okay understood that part the second portion is for the bus and

[03:54:22] maintenance if this is that again the annual cost so we are saying hundred thousand basically hundred thousand dollars yes sir part here for first five years but we generally keep our buses longer than five years correct yes sir we are we get our buses on a five-year lease to own so if it's So after five years, these buses will have been fully paid off.

[03:54:52] Yes, sir. Okay. Understood. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to submit the rest of the question in writing. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Mewick. Sorry about that. Yes, ma'am. Dr. Anderson. Yes, very quickly. So I just want to make sure I understand this.

[03:55:10] So if a student is a rising junior or senior and they're opting to remain at the school where they are currently, we will not be transporting them. I would have to go back to the boundary slide here.

[03:55:28] Let me look. If the rising, it looks like rising 10th through 12th graders can choose to stay at their school.

[03:55:45] But we are, we wouldn't, what I'm recommending this evening is we're not going to be paying for any transportation that would support this phasing amendment. Right. That's what I thought I understood. I just wanted to make sure. You know, one of the things that I think you and I discussed, this was a few years ago, you may not even remember.

[03:56:05] I came back from a skip meeting where Carla Bruce had offered a presentation. She was the former chief equity officer for the county, and I shared it with you. It was this little chart where with every decision that was being made, it was these little boxes of all these subgroups that they would look at in terms of what is the impact to these subgroups.

[03:56:27] If I do this thing, what is it going to mean for each of these groups? I would really implore you to take another consideration because Mr. McDaniel took the words right out of my mouth. This is an equity issue because now we're going to turn around and make phasing a privilege opportunity.

[03:56:44] I cannot stress enough how concerned I am that I could potentially have seniors who cannot get to the old school. They'll have to finish out their final years elsewhere.

[03:57:02] That literally breaks my heart. And I understand all of the budget limitations. I do. But I'm really asking for a strong second look because now we are making phasing a privilege option. And I know it's not intentional, but I just cannot, I can't wrestle with the fact that I'll have juniors and seniors in their final years not being able to do the very important things that we've all talked about that are important to them for continuity because they can't drive themselves their parents can't drive they are going

[03:57:39] to be locked out of this opportunity I'm struggling with that but I realize the the budget climate I'm just asking for another hard look yes ma'am I'll take another hard look I don't know how many juniors and seniors are impacted in this number so we'll take a look at that mr. dunn I'm trying to understand this presentation would we have to buy new school buses additional school buses on

[03:58:11] top of what we have now mr. Mewick yes sir and we'd have to buy 57 new school buses we would not necessarily have to buy all 57 new buses but that is the starting point it depends on the maintenance of the other ones the aging we haven't replenished a fleet in a in a year or two in terms of diesel or anything so it's kind of a it's a very dynamic environment and I'm all am I

[03:58:47] getting that yeah so is this considered a conservative assumption or is this you know like how how is does this reflect kind of middle of the ballpark of a range of estimates of school buses or is this kind of the maximum or the minimum this This is definitely the conservative because the iterations of students moving in the scenario four options, this 2894 was on the low end.

[03:59:13] Some of the other iterations in scenario four, which is changing all the time, some were about a little over 3,000, all the way up to 4,000 students that could be moved depending on which iteration of scenario four. So we went with the lower one. And we already have the largest bus fleet of any private or public sector organization, right?

[03:59:35] We're we're in the top like nine or ten the largest of any school division in the country We said like I thought you said any organization We're we're in the top three because we just saw some recent numbers that we're trying to make sure that they're valid We may have slipped a little bit, but we're still in the top three All right Well, I mean there's there's no benefit to being number one in terms of having the largest school bus fleet in the country Is there I don't know sir. I think we have the side. Oh, it's go ahead ma'am no i was just gonna say we have more bus stops we have over 45 000 that we're going to be looking

[04:00:12] at tomorrow morning um can i ask does one of these two figures include the cost to actually purchase the bus because i see like bus slash maintenance but does that include the cost of actually purchasing the bus because six million dollars for for 57 buses seems like a pretty good deal yes sir the um the five-year lease to own on the buses if it's a diesel that's 57 000 a year for the first five plus 17 a year in maintenance if it's a electric bus those first five years it's

[04:00:47] 102 000 on the five-year lease to own 102 000 a year plus about 4 000 in maintenance on year six the lease cost go away and it's just 17 000 in maintenance a year for the next 10 years for the diesel and 4 000 in maintenance for the next 10 years on the electric does for the diesel buses does do these numbers 10 000 sorry 10 million uh 444 000 10 million does it include the cost of

[04:01:19] diesel to actually run these buses yes sir really wait uh when you run it meaning the fuel yeah i think the fuel might be the only thing that we didn't put in this right wouldn't that be a significant expense that should be in factored into this calculation yes sir we can add the fuel for the updated slide for the next meeting um can I ask why did we provide transportation and the three examples that are on slide two because the board voted to do that at that time because it

[04:01:55] if I can echo my my colleague Miss Marin she's not here to speak it seems LIKE WE SHOULD HAVE A POLICY SOMEWHERE OR SOMETHING IN A POLICY RIGHT BUT I GUESS THERE'S NO POLICY NO REGULATIONS SAYING WHETHER OR NOT WE PROVIDE TRANSPORTATION I DON'T BELIEVE IT'S REQUIRED FOR PHASING I BELIEVE WE LOOKED AT THAT BUT I THINK IT'S BEEN MORE OF A PRACTICE THAT'S BEEN VOTED ON ON A CASE BY CASE BASIS YES MA'AM I THINK THAT'S CORRECT AND MR DOWN IF YOU LOOK BACK LIKE THE mclean high school one or the kent gardens one or we'll go with the kent gardens that dr reed went

[04:02:32] through before you had an impact of 245 students and 175 had a choice to make that was a whole lot easier number and to deal with in that small amount when you're looking at the the whole boundary the comprehensive boundary adjustment you know it's just a just a bigger um amount to have to figure out thank you yes sir miss lady thank you and thank you for this data I'm sorry that the previous board voted to phase as much as they did for Kent Gardens

[04:03:07] with that price tag but I also want to just elevate again lift up the fact that we have talked a lot about healthy start times we've also talked about protecting taxpayer money given the numbers before me I just think that it would be I can't see any way how someone can justify not supporting your recommendation regarding to this particular item.

[04:03:39] It's an unknown number, first of all. We already have 45,000 bus stops. We don't need to add to that. And, again, I will say the only thing I have a little bit of sensitivity to, and I just would want to see the numbers, is perhaps a rising senior who can't get themselves there.

[04:04:01] Having said that, I will tell you that throughout my years in different schools, and even going back to when I went to school, a lot of seniors, should I say this, very few seniors ride a bus because they have peers who drive, and they work that out.

[04:04:21] And I can tell you just the way in which I'm just, this might not sound like it's, but it makes sense in my brain, is when my kids were at Marshall, they often were in plays or on sports teams with other classmates or teammates who couldn't afford to go to the Marshall McDonald's experience after a game or after a show.

[04:04:45] and those kids took care of each other similarly to make sure that their peers could be there, that they could experience that socially so some of the kids who had better means took care of those kids. So I do think that our kids would do that. We do not have enough parking places at any of our high schools because the number of kids who want to drive. So again, I just don't know how you know looking at this number and the extent to which because this phasing is we we have in the in this a lot of phasing um i don't know how we would ever get to healthy start times um

[04:05:22] and i don't think it would be uh you know we're not being good um fiduciary um you know um taking care of taxpayer money if if if we weren't able to just accept your so i fully support what your recommendation is because i don't see any other path forward economically thank you mr fresh thank you all right idea particularly for high school the county connector student bus pass program could probably be tapped it's free bus rides for students 12 and up perhaps there's some

[04:05:57] coordination that could happen with our our transportation team and the county to connect those students with those opportunities so that they have easy access to or at least they know about the program it may not be as convenient as hopping on the local school bus but in some cases it's more convenient depending on where you live and it's free and the county pays for that so perhaps we could work something out there on the question of you know the the

[04:06:31] equity issue you know the biggest equity issue in all of this is that for generations the most active school communities were the ones that got boundary adjustments to deal with the problems that those schools had and oftentimes we moved some kids out of one school into another and 30 years later we look at that and we're like how the heck did that happen continuing to do this work will make these types of problems less severe over time so everything is going to be harder this time

[04:07:09] because we haven't done it because it just wasn't on the agenda and now it is so it's going to be harder this time it's there's going to be things that we can't do that we'd love to be able to offer but those needs are going to be smaller and smaller the more that we consistently do this and stay on top of it so it is not easy but nobody said that any of this was going to be easy and I do appreciate at least the candor of bringing back the idea to Mr. Moon's point with the numbers that uh were requested um and uh you know it's a it's a huge dollar figure and

[04:07:48] um tremendous food for thought i hope we can partner with the county on the q system uh to connect families so that uh it is more equitable that's something we can do yes sir i'll ask staff to look into that miss st john cunning okay i'm probably dating myself here because i know that we went through a boundary change when south county was built and i don't belief busing was provided and I don't know what why or what and I don't know if we could do some

[04:08:25] research on that. I do understand the equity issue and that is a concern for me but by the same token so is the financial impact of this. I think that whenever there was busing provided for the example we had maybe there was it was a different fiscal time and you know there may have been more funds available we weren't like you know looking at everything to the bone right now 10 million

[04:08:59] dollars is a lot of money um and i i concur with my colleague um who's who says that a lot a lot of high school kids do not want to be caught dead riding the bus it's just not cool it's now i know some have to i understand that but it's interesting how resourceful our high school students can be when they don't want to ride a bus so it's not even a function of it's there they won't even use it so i think that's something that we have to be realistic about i i do appreciate you bringing us

[04:09:34] these numbers uh and i concur with my other colleague that this first time it's going to be difficult i i also have a question so if we were to do this if we had the money to do this and we purchased an extra 57 buses and at the end of the phasing period would we still use those or would that be excess no ma'am it would get worked out because then as we just wouldn't have to buy as many buses in those out years to keep up with the aging fleet to replace okay yes ma'am okay

[04:10:12] thank you um i think one of the hardest things about sitting in the seat when i have sat or stood on the other side as an advocate is making the hard decisions because in a perfect world i wish we had the funds to do this in a perfect world i wish we didn't have to make the choices that we're having to face right now um and these aren't easy decisions to make because i completely

[04:10:48] understand how it impacts a lot of lives but at the end of the day i think in the grander scheme we're all trying to do the right thing long term for all of our students and for all of our families and for our community to where these issues do not get to the point that we've let them get to in the past 40 years. So again, thank you for this. Not an easy decision. I preferred standing over there as an advocate. Dr. Anderson for a go back. Just a quick question. Would it be possible,

[04:11:23] Dr. Reed, Mr. Muick, for us to have some data regarding high school bus ridership? I think we good current bus high school ridership just to get a sense I mean we can we'll get something put together maybe not by tomorrow's Friday letter but for sure within a week yes just a wondering just so we could be working from some data point yes ma'am thank you thank you doctoring or thank you dr. Reed agenda

[04:11:58] item 8.02 FY 26 mid-year budget review I call on dr. Reed for a presentation on on the FY 26 mid-year budget review. - Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'm gonna ask our incredible Commonwealth renowned Chief Finance Officer, Ms. Lee Burden, to come down and present the mid-year budget review.

[04:12:23] And I look forward to hearing more from Ms. Burden. - Good evening, Chairman Anderson, school board members, and Dr. Reed.

[04:12:41] The mid-year review primarily offers an opportunity revisions to the fiscal 26 budget based on adjustments that came after year end and any other new information we have and the data is as of October 31st on page one for school operating fund revenue there are a couple of changes the beginning balance change is due to a sales tax increase of 1.4 million this changes due to notifications that occurred after year-end and is being allocated to the beginning balance to offset expected state revenue losses in the current year that we'll find out what the number is for that on December

[04:13:19] 17th when the governor introduces the caboose bill which adjusts fiscal 26 the other revenue change is for grants that support the school operating fund with reductions to the IDEA grant totaling about 700,000 as far as the expenditure changes the recommended experience expenditure changes the 700,000 for IDEA we're not going to get that revenue so we're reducing the expenditures as well and then a transfer from the school operating fund for this phase four of the security vegetable installation that's five point five

[04:13:56] million dollars and this just moves those funds from the school operating fund into the construction fund I don't normally go over the other funds because they represent multi-year programs whose funds flow from year to year with fund balance and stabilization reserves. Fund statements are for each fund are included in the appendix beginning on page 7 which are just the financial statements that display the changes in revenue expenditures and transfers. Page 17 provides some information about grant development and this will come to you

[04:14:35] for action at the regular school board meeting on December 18th. Thank you Ms. Burden thank you agenda item 8.03 academic matters I call on dr. Reed for

[04:15:13] academic matters thank you madam chair and this evening I am thrilled to have a chance to share some updates we're gonna look at two areas from our Board of Education the SOL cut score impacts and proposed accountability revisions this evening so as we move to the first slide I know over the several last several months I've shared updates on the state's work to revise these cut scores on November 13th the State Board of Education voted to delay the new

[04:15:48] reading and math cut scores until 26 27 or at least the beginning of those well you know these future changes still seem to be in the offing it is I think it is a good idea that they will not be implemented mid-year for sure because it really gives no opportunity for school divisions to be responsive I want to remind the board and the community though the beginning in 26 27 which is the upcoming school year the revised cut scores will phase in over four years

[04:16:25] which will be fully phased in by 2930 and during this period there's going to be a temporary approaching performance level which will identify students close to passing and these approaching will count as passing for annual pass rates school performance and support framework calculations and for awarding verified credit this range will shrink each year until it's removed in 2930 the slides table provides an example for grade 3 reading the blue row shows current cut scores and then you can see as you move down to 2930 how the cut score changes

[04:17:04] the orange row is the 2930 and it gives the final cut score changes that are planned at the December 10th and 11th meetings the state board is expected to address possible changes to locally awarded verified credit and expedited retake thresholds such as allowing them when a student scores within a specific point range of passing in the next slide I just want to share that if nothing changed except the cut scores division-wide pass rates for grades 3

[04:17:40] through 12 would drop from the high 70s to the low 50s which is a decline of more than 25 percentage points even with nothing changing you can see on the graph the math on the left and the reading on the right graph shows the impact of each phase in year using the spring 2025 SOL outcomes again you can see the green representing passing pink representing failing and the stair step pattern of rising and declining pass rates each year you can also see that pale green approaching category which gets smaller until it disappears

[04:18:17] in 2930 the proposed revisions this update and the system it's a it's a very interesting topic right now quite honestly in September of 2024 which was a year ago the state board adopted revisions to the standards of accreditation and Virginia's ESSA plan to implement the framework for 2425 unfortunately video he has still not released last year's results so we're still in

[04:18:51] the position of trying to adjust instruction to results we don't have to analyze but the video he is now proposing additional changes outlined in a new amendment to virginia's consolidated state plan this amendment will be released for public comment this week i'm sorry we just got it no we believe i don't know mr malloy if we we haven't seen anything yet okay doggone it spoiler alert we still haven't seen it um but uh this amendment will be released well it's got to be released

[04:19:25] tomorrow then because that's the end of this week um with comments accepted through early january the state board will review the recommendations next week and expects to act in january with federal approval these changes would phase in over the next three years including impacts on this school year so we're looking forward to seeing those and having a chance to comment so some of the examples of the proposed framework changes and when they would take effect are listed for you here most proposed changes are technical and affect performance growth and the 3e category the most notable is the

[04:20:04] recommendation for recently arrived multilingual learners as you recall last year the reporting window was reduced from 11 semesters to three which goes from five and a half to one and a half years and we shared our concerns the new proposal would add one more year or two semesters before these scores will count in performance it's not a full return to the original timeline but it is a step forward for the 26 27 proposed changes include two new indicators and a major shift in the high school performance model the biggest change is the return of a history indicator which was removed in 2017 and it's back this

[04:20:42] would require additional sol tests at all school levels because we don't test enough right now for the school year 2027-28 videoe proposes expanding advanced coursework reporting in middle school to include students taking earth science and world geography by eighth grade again we expect more information and are on the edge of our seats awaiting the december 10th and and 11th state board meetings.

[04:21:10] Madam Chair, that concludes tonight's academic matters. I encourage you and those watching to pay close attention to these meetings and these notes, because they will be impacting our students' classroom experience.

[04:21:26] Thank you, Dr. Reed. I don't have any lights on, so I'm going to take my turn really fast. I'm going to say the same thing I've said every time we've talked about this, is that when we are watching our standards change and watching the tests change and then all of a sudden now we're going to cut changing cut scores.

[04:21:47] It's hard to see any other path than it's just trying to set us up for failure, even though our schools are doing amazing work. And so I encourage us to keep that in the forefront of our minds as we're working forward is that these are outside sources and outside judgment and we know inside what's going on.

[04:22:08] And so we should stay in that position as much as humanly possible. And because the thing that kills me about this most of all is that the kids are listening. They're paying attention. They're watching the SOL scores come in. They have their own goals and ambitions and wanting to pass and they want to be successful.

[04:22:29] And if we keep changing the line of what successful means, not because we don't want growth but But because we're just trying to change the line to make this system look like it's failing, we're failing them just for the act of doing that. So I am deeply disheartened, but I'm hopeful because we are on the precipice of change in our state and I am hopeful that we will be able to see that change enacted quickly.

[04:22:55] So yes, ma'am. We have one light. Ms. Seizmoorheiser. I'll just be quick because the hour is late, although I think there's maybe some ideas afoot to make all of you lose in your your bets tonight for Holly at the meeting is gonna go but I've sent some home who will be up early on the snow watch when you say they're adding a history SOL is that as part of the graduation verified credit requirements or do we not know that for sure yet I can turn that over

[04:23:33] to dr. Presidio or miss Neal either one so it's just changing basically the sequence of when the courses are offered so it's basically moving a high school credit down to the middle school level so if the state reinstates an SOL test for that that could count as a verified credit we've submitted advocacy already to the Department of Education and the Board of Education that we want to retain the local performance assessment in lieu of the SOLs so it's a little unclear exactly what those options are going to be because the board's not going

[04:24:12] address that until next their meeting next week um but the idea is that they would move um a high school credit down to the middle school level and a student could earn a verified credit for that is our current understanding i mean i think i agree with my colleague you know miss anderson i think this i'm not sure what the purpose of raising cut scores without providing time for schools to change standards and there's i'm not sure it really demonstrates better accountability

[04:24:46] as much as it's aimed to demonstrate failure regardless of actual performance i am worried about the locally awarded verified credit is there room for advocacy around that as well to for have we put in advocacy on locally so yes so we've already submitted um again uh written testimony to the state department of education and the board of education and we're hoping to actually speak again at the upcoming board meeting next week i mean i'm all in favor of high standards for students in schools I think we all are and I know you all are here I'm all

[04:25:24] in favor of accountability for school systems I'm just curious because what I haven't seen is what data and research went into and I know these state changes you wouldn't have this answer but I'm curious if you have seen what data and research might went into how they decided what cut scores are appropriate to for students to demonstrate the knowledge that they're saying they need to demonstrate to be a high school graduate do you know if the state has released what data and research it did to come up with the changes I believe that's unclear to us if there's a way to ask for what is underpinning the

[04:26:03] changes like how do they get to these change numbers and what's the day I mean I'm a big believer in data-driven right changes and again I know you guys didn't make these changes so please don't think this is a question that you I know you can answer but if there's a space for us to advocate to understand better because maybe there is some data and research behind this and we need to up our game perhaps but if there isn't then what's the purpose behind this we're still waiting to see our data from last year so they don't even know what the data was from last year to determine whether this is even an appropriate benchmark there is a theory that if you haven't been able to look at accurate

[04:26:40] data it's difficult to chart a new path and we've I agree and I would just add again a lot of this is a little bit of black box to us but it's our understanding that the state ended up actually having to bring in an outside consulting group to help them reevaluate the standard-setting process and how they arrived at some of these cut scores and that was part of the reason for the phase-in process shouldn't they have brought the outside expert in before they did the changes not afterwards again I don't have all the details on that but I

[04:27:15] just just to speak to your point I think there are a lot of questions that we have about how the state arrived at these new cut scores I ask all these questions because I don't want the public just to think that because the cut scores were raised we think that they're trying to make public education look bad but with the cut scores being raised without knowing even what the scores were last year and without releasing the data and the research and the evidence and the reasons behind it and how it leads to actually showing a better showing of students demonstrating their knowledge that we they should have

[04:27:49] before they graduate. And with the state having, again, I'm a lawyer, look at evidence, having to bring in somebody to sort of fix things and delay it tells me, I wonder what data and thought went into it, which gives further evidence, circumstantial, I know, to Ms. Anderson's point, and I believe circumstantial evidence is good evidence, to Ms. Anderson's point about maybe there's other

[04:28:19] motivations behind this than data and research. Ms. St. Joan Cunning. So I wish I could be as positive as my colleague. I really think that this was done for a very specific reason.

[04:28:41] And I think our students and our schools and our teachers are being used as pawns. And I think that's very unfortunate because at the end of the day, we look at data, we look at scores, but our children are not numbers. Our teachers are not numbers. They're people. They're human beings and a test score on a certain day is a snapshot of a certain time and working in schools we know that there are different things that can impact that score as my colleague said

[04:29:18] people watch this and they think that our schools are not working and that is there's nothing further from the truth and our data shows and I would be remiss if I did not say this which is the one thing that I'm always harping on is our data shows that when our multilingual learners get the time that they need they outperform our native speakers and if we follow this it's going to look like we are failing them and there's nothing further from the truth and I think that that's important that we

[04:29:52] remain positive and that we are the ambassadors to the public and to our community and that we tell our teachers we know your work and your tests we're not going to judge you by your test scores because we know you're doing the work and we tell our students you are not a test score because we do things in Fairfax County that takes the entire child into consideration. We have programs like Portrait of a Graduate. We have programs that look at kids as a holistic kid and not just

[04:30:27] a score. And I think we've got to remember that and focus on that. And we need to keep lifting that up for our whole community to see. Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Reed. Agenda item 8.04, strategic plan update. I call on Dr. Reed for a strategic plan update. Well thank you Madam Chair and members of the board and the community. This evening I'm excited to share our strategic plan update for December and we're going to talk a little bit about supply chain and how that works

[04:31:03] in Fairfax County and our warehouse operations. It's my pleasure to introduce Angela Brown our senior manager two for warehouse operations, and Angela's in her second year, I believe here, managing our warehouse under Mr. Muick's chief operating office leadership.

[04:31:24] So I wanna share that we have this, we're gonna look at our four pillars this evening, and we're looking at pillar D, our culture of equity, excellence, and accountability. So let's take a look at some data around our Fairfax County Public School warehouse.

[04:31:42] um miss setlow could you please advance the slide thank you so our warehouse team is dedicated to supporting schools and offices across the division operating 13 large distribution trucks and nine smaller pony trucks which are used for delivery all across the the division the team handles approximately 500 deliveries and pickups every week and over the course of a school year that That adds up to roughly 24,000 deliveries and pickups illustrating just how central the warehouse is to our daily operations.

[04:32:18] To make this possible, our distribution trucks travel about 200,000 miles each year, and our pony trucks log an additional 133,000 miles. When you look at the duties in general, the warehouse is responsible for managing and delivering core educational supplies including custodial physical education fine arts and science materials and we've added in the past two years a warehouse for our theater arts program which the warehouse is also supporting which is a board priority from a couple years ago and it's happening our daily

[04:32:55] internal mail services ensure that confidential records employee badges technology and weapons detection systems are where they need to be in a timely manner and our team delivers. Finally they manage surplus inventory and asset recycling to ensure that we reduce waste and maximize financial returns. So to see this work in action let's take a look at the dedicated team members who make sure elementary science kit materials reach every school on time and ensure that all teachers and students have access to the resources they need. Madam

[04:33:29] Clark please play the video. These are all the same species of ladybug?

[04:33:46] Having ladybugs in our classroom was pretty fun. When we first got them, they were like hatching out of their eggs. They're just so cute. How do they get those much ladybugs? How do they know how many to give? Do they just get them out of the ground?

[04:34:02] Ladybugs are here. Every order, whether it's textbooks, supplies, or science kits, comes through this warehouse. We also distribute surplus items, run the school division's internal mail system, handle specialized requests with 50 staff members 13 distribution trucks and nine pony trucks we support over 200 schools and offices our goal is making sure every student has access to the same high quality learning materials no matter where they are in the county when fcps launches new initiatives the warehouse is the hub that makes the rollout happen the science kitting operation

[04:34:42] is a prime example our team assembling and distributing thousands of kits each year each kit has dozens of components. We work together with instructional services to schedule deliveries so every elementary classroom has their kits before lessons begin. It's a complex operation, but it's all about our students. We love what we do. We've just received our ladybug larvae and we're now going to start packing them for delivery. Our in-house seven-person production team is responsible for packing each order. They're broken down by schools and by teacher.

[04:35:13] Each box will be packed and then it'll be placed into a mail bin, which after we place it in the mail bin it will get delivered into the pony mail service and the pony mail service will also make the delivery to the schools our pack and pull and distribution teams make sure to every order whether it's journals music items or lab supplies is picked packed and delivered with accuracy the science kit are a great example a lot of people don't realize that everything that we get in the warehouse that we touch every single piece of it so it comes in in bulk item maybe a thousand boxes of straws the science kits that we packed every quarter well each kit may only take eight straws this is easy because it's going per school sometimes we have it per teacher so it's 500

[04:35:51] plus boxes each grade each quarter so we're looking at thousands of boxes that go out each quarter today we're delivering ladybug larvas to all the elementary schools in fairfax county i love doing this i love you know delivering mail i love you know serving the community being able to - Make the teachers' day.

[04:36:13] - Oh, there's some of its wings. - The kids' day, delivering fun learning stuff, tools that they need to succeed in life. You know, just serving Fairfax County Public Schools, you know. Hello, ladybugs are here. - Thank you.

[04:36:31] - He breaks out of his case. It's one thing to look at a time lapse of a ladybug growing, but it's a different thing entirely to get to witness it with your own eyes and see it go through all of those different stages. - While we were doing our observations even today, Some of my students were asking, where did they come from? And everyone's like, well, that's a great question.

[04:36:48] They're delivered to us by awesome people in Fairfax County. And I know, especially thinking about how it's not just ladybugs in third grade, but it's all the science kits that we use all year. It's an accomplishment. Y'all are amazing. That many people to just get containers of 17 ladybugs?

[04:37:04] Wow. Excellence, equity, and opportunity. I'm going to have Ms. Brown make a couple comments. thank you so for the warehouse the student at the end who was just like wow that's why we do it yesterday I was in supporting the mission and mr. Smith was actually I was there and you know he asked what is it that we do and you know I went through the usual we just deliver supplies he's like no deliver the spot the supplies that keeps the students curious not like that's exactly what we

[04:37:39] do the ladybugs for example the other things that we deliver so you know I'm I'm happy that we are able to deliver to our students and thankful to the team that we have. I'm excited that everybody got a chance to see what it is that it does. We're going to kick things off with Miss Lady.

[04:38:03] Oh, Miss Lady. Angela, I need help. We have several folks that have some lights on, so we're going to be here just a second. Well, I was going to make the point that, of course, the delivery of the ladybugs. What an important science lesson.

[04:38:21] actually uh thank you for that uh teeing that up for me um no as a former test coordinator in fairfax county back when everything was hard copy uh i was often over at the warehouse with all of those you know we county and collection of answer sheets and and delivering things and i will say i got to know quite a few people over there um and it's an amazing operation um and just uh Everyone I've ever interacted with, we're positive, we're helpful, we're patient, and we're part of believing in the mission.

[04:38:57] So I just wanted to uplift the ladybugs and all science kit lessons and everything you do. So just I really appreciate it, and you all do great work. Thank you. Mr. Dunn. I love the spirit and the dedication to public service that's part of this organization.

[04:39:17] So thank you so much for everything you and your team do on a daily basis. just looking at the video it seemed to be a very manual process and obviously there's been a lot of innovation by amazon and other companies and uh integrating robotics and and machinery uh and i just didn't see that in the video at all can you just talk a little bit about whether you have any you know technology that's being used there and if there's any effort to work with industry to see what's out there in terms of automation, robots, et cetera, that might enable your staff to do more with, you know, time that might be liberated by integrating some of

[04:39:57] that technology. That's a great question, Mr. Dunn. So just a quick background on myself. I've been in the warehousing industry for probably over 20 years, and coming to FCPS, that's one of the things that I discussed with Mr. Muick is how do we move forward with technology within the warehouse.

[04:40:14] An example is right now with our FileMaker system that's used by the science team, we're working on looking at some different things where we can upgrade that system. We are in the process of looking at automating more of our work. Great. Thank you. Ms. Dixit.

[04:40:33] I would like to lift. Lift up, sorry. I would get it right. I would like to lift up that this is an amazing work done by the warehouse operations team.

[04:40:49] And I don't know if we can compare you with Amazon with billions and trillions of dollars they have to, you know, automize and, you know, have robots in their warehouse. But, yes, a little automation would be great to see that. But it is, like, really amazing to see from the warehouse to the students how it's the whole assembly line.

[04:41:13] And everybody looks so happy doing the work they were doing. And that's what we see it in schools, that in FCPS when we go, and in events, and even in the warehouse, which who would think the warehouse people would be so happy working in the, doing, you know, but it is a part of public service, I guess, and public education is the best.

[04:41:33] So I really appreciate this. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Seismarheiser. Thank you. I couldn't resist, since you mentioned it, Dr. Reed, to ask about the Performing Arts Warehouse and just say how thrilled I am because it is an equity issue, right, to be able to, both an equity and an environmental issue right both to not throw away as many items but also to be able to have school share items so I was just curious how it was going in terms of usage both from school storing things and schools using things I know we had talked when it was first when we're first doing it about the communications aspect making sure schools know how to use it and then how the resources to get things there or get things out so I was kind of curious about that.

[04:42:13] We do work with instructional services, specifically the theater department, and Dr. Taylor does a good job of working with my team, letting us know what needs to go out, and we, you know, do our normal process where the schools will put in the warehouse request, we'll load it, we'll deliver it to the schools, and then transfer it among the schools as needed.

[04:42:35] And as far as space in the warehouse, like I said, we do work with her on what's coming in, and then the team will allocate space to make sure that we have it available for them as items come back to the warehouse to be redistributed. And this might be more of a Dr. Taylor question, but is there indexing of the items, and is there a way that we share the indexes with the school so they know, hey, I'm looking for this particular type of set piece or this particular era costume, you know, to make it as easy as possible for schools who may not have as many resources, right, to know what they can repurpose from this warehouse as opposed to having to create?

[04:43:10] And that may be more of a Dr. Reed question, so I don't want to put you on the spot. - Sure, no, it's, I think that, you know, we're doing this warehouse theater support in phases, but I think that's a good idea, sort of like a library of what's there, so theater programs could access it.

[04:43:28] We're also looking at it as a site for our transition program that we talked about earlier. And so that may be an opportunity for someone to come in and create that type of a library or indexing of the of the items.

[04:43:47] I know we're still somewhat limited in the space, but I've been really pleased with how hard the staff is working to try to make space. Because it is an important piece because I get around and try to watch a number of the different theater musicals.

[04:44:03] And it really, I think it's really helpful to be able to share props. Yeah, and I think, I mean, that's the reason, I mean, it was Ms. Darnett-Kilfax and I who brought the motion to do that on the previous board. But, you know, I think having the space is the first step, right? Making it easy for the different programs to know what's there and to know to share before they, because it's a change of habit for us.

[04:44:25] Right, well, and it's, I think what the warehouse has done is not just provided the space, but also the movement of the material around the county. because that was the second thing. How are we going to get it from one place to another? And the team's done a really nice job of that. But you're right. I mean, I think everything that we have been asked to do, we're doing it.

[04:44:45] And then we just need to continue to take it up a notch. And our warehouse is just, well, you can see it. There's an enthusiasm that's magic out there at the warehouse. I've spent quite a little bit of time out there. Even recently, we had to make an adjustment with food storage height with the pallets.

[04:45:01] And that required, talk about mathematics. and I could go there tonight, but that required a lot of problem solving on the part of the team to bring down some of the pallet heights and all of that, but it's, you know, it's a great group out there. I'll just say one last thing.

[04:45:17] That kind of goes to the value of sort of our central office, right, and the work that all of the organizations do. We talked about HR earlier. We're talking about, you know, our facilities folks and our warehouses to support learning in our schools, and we couldn't do the learning without all of this work.

[04:45:33] So thank you for the work that you do. Thank you for making sure that folks know to use that warehouse and that way it helps save schools money and time and effort and helps the environment. So thank you for your work. I think, you know, Team FCPS is strong. Ms. St. John Cunningham.

[04:45:53] So first of all, I want to thank you for all your work and I've spent many hours in the warehouse. And I would like to lift up that when you are a family liaison and you need to get all kinds of things for free, you go to the warehouse to outfit your office and to, you know, try to replace items. And I think a lot of people don't understand that there's a great resource there because we don't waste. I mean, that's a way for us not to waste. I mean, if someone doesn't use something in the classroom, they send it to the warehouse and another classroom might need it. And I cannot tell you like the treasures that I have found at the warehouse. I felt like I was thrifting and I

[04:46:31] was like, oh, I can outfit my whole office, or the school needs this, let me go look at the warehouse before we start looking to purchase that. So aside from all the other fun stuff that you guys do, which I think is critically important, I think it's important for us to realize that we try to be resourceful with what we have, and we try to manage our resources, and the value of that warehouse in terms of us not having to spend money on certain things is just a huge benefit.

[04:47:02] Thank you very much. Item 9, Consent Agenda, our Adopted Rules of Parliamentary Procedure, Robert's Rules, provide for a Consent Agenda listing several items for approval by the board by a single motion.

[04:47:19] Many items listed have gone through board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance. Items may be removed from the Consent Agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting. The Consent Agenda is on the screen. Is there any objection to approving the Consent Agenda?

[04:47:36] I object to item 9.05 award of contract HVAC air and water balancing at Hayfield Secondary School. Item 9.05 is removed from the consent agenda hearing and seeing no other objections the remainder of the consent agenda is approved. I call on Mr. Dunn for a motion.

[04:47:54] I move that the school board award the contract for the HVAC air and water balancing at Hayfield Secondary School to Annandale Balancing Company Inc. in the total amount of $397,064.31 sense and authorize the division superintendent or the chief operating officer to execute deliver and administer the contract on behalf of the school board is there a second i second thank you mr dunn would you like to speak to your motion yes um but more importantly i'd like to provide the superintendent with the opportunity to speak to um this this contract because

[04:48:30] uh hayfield secondary school um has witnessed an extraordinary effort by the superintendent to remediate the mold that was discovered there earlier this year and there was a email sent today or imminently and i just wanted to provide her an opportunity to to speak to the totality of the extraordinary investments that were made and uh and and what has now been determined at the closing of this initiative well thank you mr dunn and um i i really appreciate the board and your leadership on this situation as well i know a number of you spent time out at hayfield this

[04:49:10] summer and at the start of the school year when we had one of the i believe second most humid if not the most humid summer we've had in the history of northern virginia so we did have a serious mold concern that arose this summer. We had also a leak and a roof situation, but we went to extraordinary means, actually, to provide air scrubbers and rerouting plumbing and HVAC

[04:49:43] systems that were cleaned, over 350 coils, sealing tiles removed. It was a full remediation effort, And you're correct, Mr. Dunn, I did provide the board the letter that will be going out to the Hayfield community tomorrow with the closeout letter from Arcadis, the mold remediation group that goes into great detail, provides the data, and I believe the transparency the community has asked for about the closeout of this project.

[04:50:18] And so I appreciate you pulling this off and drawing attention to those extraordinary efforts. I think many of us spent quite a little bit of time out there on weekends and going back to check. So I appreciate that. And, Mr. Gordon, do you want to just make a couple comments about the highlights from the Arcadis report?

[04:50:40] Yes, ma'am, and thanks to the board for this action. This contract will actually help us improve the indoor air quality. that actually will help us expand extend the useful life of the systems we have within the facility and it will ensure proper human humidity set points that we'll go forward with and this contract coupled with our third-party vendor Arcadis with an addition to adding some data loggers at a different point will help us get to a position where come the next high humidity season we won't be here again. So thank you ma'am. Right and I think the other thing that we are putting into place

[04:51:20] across the division and in particular we're starting at Hayfield is a monitoring system so that we would pick up any sense of a situation like this much more quickly so we can react more quickly. So I also appreciate Mr. Gordon and the team their focus on preventive measures moving forward it's always more efficient to prevent issues than it is to remediate them after they occur so we're working very hard to make sure that we have some lessons learned from hayfield and the mold remediation and we want to make sure that we have a number of schools that are built

[04:52:00] over sort of watery boggy areas and you know we just have to adjust our practice as the weather changes so thank you Mr. Dunn. And I especially appreciate the fact that when there was a one-time flooding incident and and then it was determined that there had been a recurring issue over time that you know you demonstrate extraordinary leadership with Mr. Gordon and his team to not just seek a quick fix but instead a permanent solution that will ensure this never happens again either at Hayfield or anywhere else in the school division so it's a opportunity for for you again

[04:52:36] to strengthen the daily operations and management of our school division that can give parents the confidence that their children will attend school and it will be safe and environmentally healthy. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Thank you. Ms. St. John-Cunning, would you like to speak to your second?

[04:52:54] I too would like to thank the supervisor, the superintendent for her leadership. I appreciate all the time you put into this. I also really want to thank Dr. Ponson and Mr. Gordon who kind of camped out at Hayfield for several weeks at a time they were there overseeing at different times what was going on and really focused on that I also want to thank chair Anderson for working with chairman McKay and I consistently worked with supervisor Lusk to do follow-up on the

[04:53:28] hayfield mold remediation situation one of the curses of living in Virginia for this desert texas scroll is to find out that there's clay here and that the water that water doesn't seep down and that there's this little hunting creek tributary that goes all over our region and if you're sitting in that water just rises up from the ground and comes in up through your basement and um that would be a gift in the desert but but these are the challenges that

[04:54:04] we have in northern Virginia so I learned a lot about topography with Hayfield and I think we all did so I really want to thank the hard work that everybody put into this because it was a challenge and Mr. Gordon you were relatively new to the job so you were just thrown into the deep end and and you survived so thank you. Thank you Ms. St. John Cunning. I will call for a vote on the motion which on the screen. All those in favor, Mr. Frisch, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Ms. Dixit, Ms. Sizemore-Hyser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, and Dr. Anderson, and myself. So that is

[04:54:44] unanimous for all board members present with Mr. McDaniel away from the table. New agenda item 10, new business. The following are new business items. There will not be a vote on these items this evening, but action is scheduled at a future meeting. Agenda item 11, board committee reports.

[04:55:03] I call on Mr. McElveen for an update on the Audit Committee. Thank you very much. So we had our Audit Committee meeting a couple weeks ago, and we went through our audit reports and school-based audits.

[04:55:21] Among several other things, we did convey to the board several things that came out of closed meetings. So if you have not reviewed those, please do, because those were timely issues. - Agenda item 12, Superintendent Matters.

[04:55:40] I call on Dr. Reed for Superintendent Matters. - Thank you, Madam Chair. Given the hour and the early rising with our winter weather event in the morning, I'll pass this evening. - Thank you, Dr. Reed. Agenda item 13, Board Matters.

[04:55:55] Next on the agenda is Board Matters. I will call on each school board member to speak. We're gonna kick things off with Ms. Sizemore-Hyser. - Thank you.

[04:56:12] Thank you. is what I'm going to say. I don't know where I'll be next time this board meets. And so I just wanted to take a few minutes as I look to all of you to thank you for everything that you do. I know sometimes I push you very hard on certain topics, but I will say that I love the fact that in so many of the things that we do, I hear the phrase strengths-focused education, because that

[04:56:50] is not a phrase I heard in 2019 and for every child there is a strength for multiple strengths and I feel like I'm Laura Jane Cohn right now which which Carl will understand it was a real passion it is a real passion of mine and a real mission which is something that my son taught me that you never dismiss any child and every child is human and every child has value and every child

[04:57:30] bring something to teach somebody else. And I appreciate you all letting me share that. And I appreciate you all lifting up that notion in your work. And I hope that you all consider and continue to look at every child, not by name and by need, but by name and by strength. And so I want to thank

[04:58:05] you for the work you've done in a variety of areas. I want to thank my colleagues, because this is hard work this is thankless work but this is the work of our future and this is the work of our democracy and this is the work that will build an amazing country an amazing county there is no greater work than the work that you all do the work our staff and our teachers every day and our administrators in the buildings do and I hope every time we look at a child every time we work

[04:58:43] with a child, I hope we say, what can this child teach me today? How can I lift up the humanity in this child? And how can I foster the strengths of this child? And what can I do today to make sure this child has the best future they can have when they leave my building, my room, our schools? So these last six years have been the best of my life. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Seismarheiser.

[04:59:23] Mr. McElvey pass Mr. McDaniel. Mr. Frisch. Thank you. Quick update. I enjoyed November having an opportunity to visit schools with our state legislators.

[04:59:42] Holly Sebold and Saddam Slim at Freedom Hill David Boliva at Oakton Elementary School and Congressman Walkinshaw at Mosaic Elementary School for Tommy's teachers tour where the Virginia Lottery came and celebrated our educators and I'm excited to continue in December I have been shadowing some of our amazing staff in our schools last week I got an opportunity to work in the library at Mantua Elementary School scanning books for kids and and reading to them earlier this week I shadowed one of our incredible bus drivers Mr. Spaulding on a Pine Spring Elementary

[05:00:21] school bus stop and tomorrow I will be cleaning Shrevewood elementary school with the janitorial staff which I'm excited to to do especially if I get to power the uh the floor waxer those those look incredibly fun um yeah we'll see what time this actually happens um and uh had an opportunity to uh join my colleagues in welcoming our student leaders uh for the student leadership development program in Providence District we have a sophomore this year from Oakton High School Nadia Mears who is an incredible young leader and I'm looking forward to seeing her grow throughout that

[05:01:00] I want to give a big shout out to the Oakton Cougars girls flag football team the first champions in Fairfax County Public Schools history on their tremendous win and I'm looking forward to closing out this year attending various plays and musicals which you can find across Providence district in my newsletter and if you have any winter gear new or lightly used supervisor Palchik's office is hosting a winter gear drive so please check the newsletter or her website so that you can donate for the effort to keep members of our community warm thanks

[05:01:39] Dr. Anderson. Mr. Moon. Thank you. To my district school board member, rational seismizer, if I don't see you at the next school board meeting, we're waiting for another $193 million. Thank you.

[05:02:05] First, I wanted to congratulate Norah Fitzpatrick of West Potomac High School, who was selected to participate in the Student Leadership Development Program from the Mount Vernon District.

[05:02:32] Yesterday, I was excited to join the West Potomac Academy for the official launch of an exciting partnership with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which will provide our students with invaluable internships and career opportunities.

[05:02:45] opportunities. I attended recently Bucknell Elementary's first Montessori informational night where families and community members learned more about this new free program available to families in the West Potomac Pyramid, the first public Montessori program in FCPS. I was also honored to present a proclamation to recognize Wayne Wood Elementary's 65th anniversary at its 2025 Gobble Gallup. And I wrapped up the month with visits to Riverside Elementary and Lorton Station Elementary. Thank you to the Mount Vernon High School PTSA and the Bellevue Elementary PTA

[05:03:22] for inviting me to present at your recent meetings and thank you also to the Fairfax County Council PTA for inviting me and my colleagues to join its annual PTA Advocacy Day. Finally, please consider donating non-perishable food items in grocery store or Walmart gift cards to benefit the 2025 Mount Vernon District Food Drive that I am co-sponsoring with Supervisor Dan Stork.

[05:03:46] All donations will go directly to Mount Vernon High School families facing food insecurity over the long winter break. Please stop by the Mount Vernon governmental center to drop off your donations by Friday, December 5th. Thank you. Ms. Dixit.

[05:04:02] Just want to say to everyone, this is my last meeting, not like you, but for this year because I'll be out of town and I was in person. So I wish you all happy holidays.

[05:04:19] Thank you. It is difficult to follow Miss Dixit with her humor. I really did not have prepared remarks tonight but I do want to also say thank you to all of my colleagues and thank you to to Rachna because when I first came on this board she really helped guide me and teach me a lot and she continues to do that and is an example of someone that is extremely passionate dogged about

[05:04:57] things and I think has taught us all the value of recognizing and looking at each individual whether they're a student, a young adult, or an old adult, that we all bring value, we're all important. And I think that if we all believe that and walk through this world that way, we'd be in a better place.

[05:05:21] So I really want to thank you. And if you are still here, of course, we're going to love to have you. But if you're not here, then we are going to be bugging you. And we're going to expect results. and we will be lifting up a lot of things to you so thank you and good night I call on Dr. Reed yeah I just wanted to on behalf of our staff thank you Rachna for your contribution your

[05:05:53] dedication Monday we've both learned from you and hopefully we'll continue to support the vision that lifts up each and every child in the strength space system so thank you Miss Lady

[05:06:14] Thank you. And again, thank you, Rachna. Thank you for what you've taught me. I really appreciate when you visited Chantilly and actually thought you had something you could learn from a director of student service and someone who supervised performing arts and by name, by strength. Amen to that. By name, by strength. Thank you for all that work.

[05:06:33] I want to congratulate Gigi Fernandez, who is my selection on the student leadership to the school board. She's a Langley student and was delightful. It was great to meet her the other evening. I also want to encourage everyone to vote for the Wash FM Christmas High School Choir Contest.

[05:06:50] Three FCPS high schools out of the 12 choirs in the first round. Vote daily for Langley or McLean or Sunerville until December 9th. Go to Wash FM website to listen to the choirs and vote daily. Winning Chorus Program wins up to $5,000 for their school's music program and perform at Capital One Hall on 12-27.

[05:07:12] Next round will be announced on December 10th at 8 a.m. I was very excited to celebrate with Herndon High School staff as they were honored by Tommy McFly's teacher tour contest. Everyone got lottery tickets and filled them out, and there was lots of celebration when they won $50 or even if they just won $1.

[05:07:31] It was great to be with those teachers this afternoon. Had a great time last Saturday joining Dranesville Elementary's principal gladly, teachers and students at the Herndon Fort Knightley Library, and really enjoyed watching students get excited about reading and choosing books to bring home.

[05:07:47] And forgive me if any of our younger students are up listening to our remarks, but tomorrow is the 67th day of the school year, and I love Dranesville Elementary School's 6-7 Reading Challenge. They are challenging students and families to read six or seven books before winter break starts.

[05:08:05] anyways happy six seven thank you all right you keep thinking that but it doesn't work um i'm going to take three seconds and just say i would like to say that while this may be the last time this configuration of the board is here i would like to lift up all the good work that we've done together um in the in our short time together on the board and how much we appreciate the fact that you you have always listened um to the folks that were newer on the board and learning So, we appreciate it. So, at 12:10 a.m., we are adjourned.

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