Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Meeting, Thursday, December 18, 2025

Date: Thursday, December 18, 2025
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 3h 50m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtjsGwW6Eqs
Official School Board page (FCPS): https://www.fcps.edu/about-fcps/leadership/school-board

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-28. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] by A Moment of Silence and a Performance of the National Anthem by Alison Sorb, a soloist from Hughes Middle School. Pledge allegiance.

[00:00:23] Oh, say can you see broad stripes and bright stars?

[00:01:57] Fantastic student.

[00:02:20] One more applause, please. We would like to welcome City of Fairfax board members, Carolyn Pitch's chair, and Christine Cesare, vice chair, to tonight's meeting. Thank you guys so much for joining us.

[00:02:39] If you would like to receive a copy of the meeting agenda, please see the back of the auditorium to obtain copies of any items or supporting materials being presented tonight. Please reference the QR code on the agenda or visit www.fcps.edu/boarddocs.

[00:02:57] Tonight's meeting is being broadcast on Cox Channel 99, Verizon Fios Channel 11, and live streamed on YouTube, and at our website at www.fcps.edu/livestream. Ms. Dixit has submitted a written request to attend this evening's meeting virtually due to a personal conflict as she is out of the country and is attending tonight's meeting from Yujan, India.

[00:03:21] All those in favor of approving Ms. Dixit's request. Mr. Frisch, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady and myself, all those opposed. Ms. Marin, Mr. McElveen, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, - Dr. Anderson, Madam Clerk, please read the vote.

[00:03:39] - The vote is five five. I know that during the public hearing, we would normally defer when there is a tie, but since this is related to tonight, the motion fails. - Thank you so much. I call on Mr. Frisch for a motion.

[00:04:00] - I'm, excuse me. I move to suspend the rules to allow for a proclamation to honor outgoing board member Roshna Sizemore-Hyzer. The suspension of the rules shall cover only the proclamation for Ms. Sizemore-Hyzer. - Is there a second? - Second. - Thank you, Mr. Moon.

[00:04:15] I will call for a vote. All those in favor, Mr. Frisch, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Marin, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, it was one last time, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, and myself.

[00:04:32] That's unanimous. I call on, and just so everybody understands the way that this is going to go, is we are going to have our proclamation. We are also going to have the mover and the seconder speak to the proclamation, as was customary at the last board meeting or when the last board departed and then we will offer an opportunity for Ms. Seismarheiser to address the board. So I call on Mr. Fresh for a proclamation.

[00:04:56] Thank you. Whereas Roshna Seismarheiser served her first term 2020 to 2023 on the Fairfax County School Board as an at-large representative and her second term 2024 to 2027 representing the Braddock District where she has resided since 2001. She served with distinction as the school board's chair in 2022-23 and vice chair 2021-22 and whereas she has served as chair of the budget governance and public engagement committees bringing to the board a breadth of skills experience and knowledge as a college professor and lawyer with a degree from the university of

[00:05:33] california at berkeley using her background in employment and contract law to help oversee our complex school division and whereas miss sizemore hyzer a child of immigrants and disability justice advocate has championed access to advanced academics strong math education and mental health services and actively worked with the superintendent on revamping literacy instruction developing a new strategic plan and creating a public accountability reporting system and whereas she helped coordinate key hires including the 2021 national superintendent of the year the nation's

[00:06:06] first k-12 neurodiversity specialist and virginia's first k-12 twice exceptional coordinator and sought to prioritize student safety through the acceleration of enhancements including secure vestibules, substance abuse prevention, bus stop arm cameras, and weapons detection systems.

[00:06:24] And whereas Ms. Seismar Heiser prioritized the needs of staff by helping to recruit and retain the best educators through a historic collective bargaining agreement which resulted in pay raises while simultaneously advocating for music, arts, civics, and STEAM programming to ensure all students can find their path to success.

[00:06:42] therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board extends its highest commendation and deepest appreciation to Roshna Sizemore Heiser for her outstanding service and dedication to the Fairfax County School Board and our students staff families and community members is there a second thank you Mr. Moon I will call for a vote all those are we're gonna we're gonna Mr. Frisch would you like to speak to your proclamation uh briefly I just want to lift up um uh Ms Sizemarheiser for a moment um uh serving with Ms Sizemarheiser and the other three members

[00:07:21] who joined in 2023 has been quite an experience I don't think any of us embarked on this trip thinking that it would take us through a national pandemic and all sorts of other things but when I think about what Ms Sizemarheiser's service on the school board has resulted in i smile because there are lots of kids in the system uh who you know we used to say by neiman by name and by need and they just weren't feeling that and today things are quite different with

[00:07:57] lots of room still for improvement because of miss sizemore hyzer's dogged determination to improve life for all students in our school system so while we are losing her to the board of supervisors um I hope that we continue to have an advocate for our schools on the board with our other advocates knowing the incredible work that happens in this school system has reverberations across everything that the board of supervisors and the state legislature touch as well thank you Mr. Frisch Mr. Moon would you like to speak to your second thank you Madam Chair I only had a couple of years

[00:08:33] to work with uh now supervisor Seismar Heiser but she is my district district school board member and also she has become the first asian american to serve in the fairfax county a board of supervisors having been the first one on this board three decades ago i know what that means a what sort of responsibility you carry on for the entire community just the asian asian community we have a high expectation from you especially having had six years of school board experience

[00:09:14] you know sometimes when school board members leave this board and go on to the other side the other side they tend to argue for a a economic uncertainty a modest revenue growth but to not leave behind schools you saw our numbers that we are looking for a minimum 193 million dollars and i do fully expect a supervisor seismorizer to bring that to the school system

[00:09:48] congratulations and thank you thank you mr moon i will call for the vote all those in favor mr fresh mr mcdaniel miss marron mr mckelveen miss st john cunning miss lady mr dunn mr moon dr anderson and myself that is unanimous for all board members i would like to welcome miss seismorheiser and her family to all of the and all those here to support the proclamation honoring Roshna Sizemarheiser to please join the board for a photo in front of the dais.

[00:12:52] I would like to say thank you to Ms. Sizemarheiser and her family for joining us tonight. Since the election for Braddock District Board of Supervisors seat occurred between our December regular

[00:13:26] meetings, Ms. Sizemarheiser did not get a chance to provide brief departing remarks before she resigned from the school board. Thus, in keeping with our custom to allow departing school board members to provide brief remarks, I now would like to invite Ms. Sizemarheiser to address the board from the podium kind of weird to be on this side thank you for the I know right thank you it actually reminds me how I got my start actually I got my start on this side lobbying the school board for years and years and years I'm sure Mr. Moon and Mr. McElwain remember talking about

[00:14:04] students with disabilities talking about all the students we've left behind talking about all the students whose strengths we never saw years how I met Laura Jane Cohen who was my colleague and and now my delegate was actually a night I was testifying here about all the strengths we see in people with autism and how our school system has left them behind and she flagged me down in the parking lot and said you should run for school board actually she said you shouldn't run for school board but and so it is my honor to have spent the last six years working on many things and

[00:14:41] thank you mr. Frisch for listing many of the great things we did together is my honor to help hire the National Superintendent of the Year and all the great work she has done you are the first superintendent since I started lobbying where I actually believed the work of inclusion of seeing students with disabilities as humans first for all their strengths first you are the first superintendent I've seen actually understand that but thank you this is just me an honest and real speech because I feel like I need to do that

[00:15:17] thank you to my colleagues who served during COVID none of us anticipated showing up January 2020 and three months later dealing with what the word we all hate now unprecedented times and it was hard and more often than not we were faced with lose-lose situations with very high stakes and very little information. It was not what none of us wanted to do but I'm glad I was here because at the core of what I care about are our kids and I would implore you all as you move forward to keep our kids at the center instead of yourselves instead of each other

[00:15:57] but the kids because that is what and together you guys can serve them so much better than apart so I implore you to keep that in mind I implore you to keep in mind the students who we don't see when you walk into a classroom ask yourself ask yourself does that child have agency does that child have the ability to say no does that child have the ability to say this is what I like to do

[00:16:30] and is there an adult in the room saying let me help you get there ask yourself that please ask yourself what are we doing for those who have the worst outcomes who leave us and how do we make that outcome a little better every minute of every day ask yourself that and then remind yourself for those who were at my swearing in and thank you for coming that the child well the adult that you saw play the national anthem on his electric guitar how many of you noticed that a string broke

[00:17:05] in the middle of it and he finished it anyway and ask yourself why that child was not allowed to perform in his fourth strings concert and why I had to fight for that adult to do music and then ask yourself how many more of those students do you have in front of you and I'm grateful that you're still there carry on that voice and to ask yourself those questions and to carry on that work because at the core of what you do is for those who most need it so I'm honored

[00:17:41] to have served on the board I will say that this is the greatest work that you can do is to educate our future and I implore you guys to do it together with a strong voice. I implore you when somebody stands here and I'll be back that you really understand what it takes for somebody to come here and implore you and you have the power to make that world better. I am proud I am proud of the work on inclusion we're doing because at the end of the day every single child is human and every single child deserves to belong and I'm proud of all the other work we did collective

[00:18:18] bargaining and this new strategic plan and serving as chair and trying to lead this board out of COVID and into a new reality with a new superintendent but I'm most proud to stand here and tell you that there was people whose doors I knocked who said they would not vote for me for supervisor because they wanted me to stay on the school board to champion our students with disabilities and I ask you take that mantle on I implore you to take that mantle on because when you do if you do you will find such amazing rock stars in your midst.

[00:18:55] Thank you for the opportunity to champion those who most need it. Thank you for the opportunity to serve as your leader to serve as your budget chair for the hard work that you do. Thank you Dr. Reed for being the first superintendent to move the needle forward on this work and on many many other things.

[00:19:12] Thank you for the honor of my lifetime and thank you for continuing the work of educating our future. Thank you Mr. Moon for already starting to lobby me. I will continue to be a strong public education advocate and a strong advocate for our students.

[00:19:30] And I'll leave you with this when you walk down those corridors in the schools when you talk to our teachers and when you make your policy ask yourself does this work for everybody and ask yourself is this acting for every child by name and by strength.

[00:19:57] Thank you for all you do. Thank you for the honor of a lifetime. Thank you for serving on the school board and thank you for educating our future of protecting our democracy. Thank you, Miss Seismerheiser.

[00:20:17] We wish you the best of luck in your new role as the Braddock district supervisor, and we look forward to working with you in the future. We look forward to harassing you in the future. Agenda item 5.01 community participation. The next order of business is community participation.

[00:20:33] We welcome all community members who are here and those who signed up to speak this evening. Additional information about signing up to provide comments at the school board regular meetings and public hearing can be found at the school board's website at www.fcps.edu/schoolboard.

[00:20:51] During the signup process, community members acknowledge that they were informed of the school board's expectations for 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.

[00:21:06] Shouting 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 all of those who have come to speak to us. Thank you for your cooperation. School board members will be listening but not responding. Madam Clerk, please call the

[00:21:30] first speaker. Megan Durst. Thank you for this opportunity. My name is Megan Durst and I have a seven and

[00:21:55] year old at the Oakton elementary school. For years now I've received feedback about my kids great imagination creativity and social emotional awareness which gives me hope for the future of the leaders that we are raising and guiding in our schools. I credit a lot of this to the relationships built between some pretty remarkable teachers and my kids. The intentional intuitive human connection in the classrooms is irreplaceable. Yet I now find myself concerned about the apparent rush to launch the chat GPT for teachers pilot it seems we are prematurely opening the door to

[00:22:34] the generative AI world with uncertainty pertaining to its potential efficacy and proven risks what's the rush what's the result that only this path and pace will provide we to our children teachers and families to exercise our due diligence by suspending use of generative AI tools such as chat GPT for teachers in FCPS classrooms until independent evidence yields clear safety proven efficacy appropriate developmental application and transparent public reporting.

[00:23:15] Neither I nor my fellow parents feel informed or prepared to take this step at this time in order to be comfortable with a future phased and limited reintroduction of such tools. We are looking for concrete evidence based upon verified and reputable independent research to ensure our staff and students don't experience preventable negative impacts including but not limited to lack of critical thinking, creativity, imagination, and social emotional development.

[00:23:49] Let's better prepare before we proceed. Marie Maroon. Good evening.

[00:24:15] My name is Marie Maroon a concerned parent of an elementary school student. I am here tonight to urge you to pause the chat GPT for Teachers program. FCPS joined this program without public hearings, parent notification, or teacher input and and without the safeguards that should come before implementation, not after.

[00:24:33] Our teachers and children are being turned into beta testers for a corporate product with unknown risks. Let's talk about privacy. OpenAI says it is secure and FERPA compliant, but where are the detailed auditable policies and non-biased studies? What happens to our children's data?

[00:24:50] We deserve answers before any information is uploaded on their platform, not promises after the fact. OpenAI, a for-profit company, would gain insight into FCPS curriculum, teaching methods, and student performance for their own opaque use. And it undermines teachers who will lose the chance to develop critical curriculum design methods, making them dependent on a corporation that will charge whatever they want after 2027. And what does free until June 2027 really mean? FCPS will face pressure to pay whatever open ai charges diverting funds from actual classroom needs

[00:25:27] such as human educators counselors and special educators the latter of which were first on the budget chopping block ai can't replace the human connection educators make with students or keep confidential information safe from corporate prying eyes most troubling fcps spent enormous time and energy on naming a new school but is rushing blindly into a decision affecting every teacher and child in this district our teachers and children deserve education grounded in human interaction not data consumption by tech companies pursuing corporate profit pause this pilot create

[00:26:00] real safeguards let parents and teachers have a voice thank you benjamin van every thanks for your attention and patience i'm grateful for your investment in making our schools some of the best in the country i'm the cto of a multinational company and have spent three decades working in

[00:26:39] tech my children attend Oakton Elementary School so why did children attend school they go to learn foundational knowledge and how to think and learn how to function in society that they may develop into balanced contributing members and lead meaningful lives which in turn contributes to the evolving and improving of society so what do computers have to do with this technology is an accelerator it's enabled us to achieve what were wisps of dreams mere 40 years ago however our unrestrained zeal to accelerate has come

[00:27:12] with costs school shootings teen suicides social isolation and radicalism despite technological advances available to them the use of the past decade have grown up less equipped to thrive and over reliance on technology has starved them from developing readiness to solve problems from scratch social fluency comfort with discomfort patience and 2020 vision so do we have options our kids are in school for less than 34 hours on a good week more than half of that is spent with computers they're taught math by a two-dimensional penguin reading by a

[00:27:50] disembodied computer voice but not how to ask questions or think through their own I propose that we please pause to question if the academic and life skills they develop from these apps are greater than those that they would derive from an education more founded on human interaction and instruction and that we do that for we shift even further by rationally injecting AI I've spent my career in tech startups innovating and taking risks i can confidently tell you that the early adoption of ai by fcps does not demonstrate innovation it demonstrates a recklessness

[00:28:28] with the future of my children dale van wagner good evening chair and members of the school board my name is dale van wagner and i'm here with fcps parents for intentional tech and the oak

[00:29:03] imbalance project the year is 2030 the commanders are defending super bowl champions fcps has just released an updated budget plan with good news significant cost savings less teachers more low-cost roles focused primarily on managing AI alright that's just a hypothetical but it illustrates something important when powerful tech enters education without guardrails transparency and public oversight we aren't just updating tools we are changing the system and once those changes are made they are very hard to unwind hey it's already happening get

[00:29:42] with the program teachers should have access to any tool that helps them save time teachers and students are already using chat GPT anyways I hear it I get it none of those are reasons to rush we agree teachers deserve tools that help them but tools that shape instruction judgment and learning deserve public review any tech implementation worth moving forward with should be able to stand up to public discourse FCPS moved forward with chat GPT for teachers without a school board vote, without public work sessions, without community input, and

[00:30:20] without a clear plan for training, data privacy, or accountability. We're asking for three simple steps: One, pause the implementation so the board can conduct a thorough review; Two, open public discussion with parents, teachers, and the community; and Three, if the decision is made to proceed, release a full implementation plan with safeguards, training, and accountability.

[00:30:43] Slowing it down is not being anti-tech, it's being responsible stewards for our children's education. Please pause, invite the community in, and get this right. Thank you.

[00:31:00] Nadia Nachawadi. Hi, everybody.

[00:31:16] My name is Nadia Nachawadi, and I'm here on behalf of the Muslim community. This morning I was looking out my kitchen window and noticed six little birds, blue jays, playing together. One of them was keeping watch, two was searching for food, and the others were helping protect group blue jays don't usually work like that they aren't pack animals but in that moment they were working together so they could all be safe in a world that feels increasingly divided schools are where children learn how to live together and school safety isn't about physical protection

[00:31:53] it's about whether adults and systems respond calmly and thoughtfully when situations feel tense fcps teacher teaches students about leadership real leadership shows up under pressure when clear non fear non fear based protocols guidance is decisions instead of assumptions our students come from every background culture and faith that diversity shouldn't complicate decisions it should strengthen the care and clarity behind it with relationships and with families and community stakeholders on tonight's agenda i'll say this plainly when policies are clear staff

[00:32:32] are prepared and families are treated like partners fear doesn't drive decisions sound process does and students feel safe being themselves what families want isn't a reaction it's prevention not isolation but connection not more division but a sense of belonging when schools work together like those little birds this morning each part doing its role and looking out for one another, kids are safer, and a connection replaces division. That's the kind of school

[00:33:04] environment families are hoping for. Thank you. Please play the video testimony submitted by Neal Prakash. Hello, my name is Neal Prakash. I'm the PTA president of Cunningham Park Elementary School, but I also come to you as a father of two students. I'm concerned that ChatGPT for teachers will bring irreparable harm to our students and teachers. I remember when it was considered an

[00:33:39] accomplishment that FCPS was able to issue every student a laptop. I understood it was about equity and access to educational resources, but do we think it is a good idea that students are spending so much of their learning time on computers as opposed to receiving instructions from their teachers? Can the board prove through performance metrics that there are significant upside gains in learning? Upsides that outweigh the downside risks of screen fatigue, lack of student-teacher interaction and distractions for students who are getting around the firewall to access unauthorized and inappropriate websites. We are having these debates right now and it raises

[00:34:18] serious questions about the wisdom of a laptop for every student. Now FCPS wants to introduce ChatGPT for teachers without evidence-based conclusions that it is in the best interest of both the teachers or the students. The most important part of education is the interface between the teacher and the student. Learning and assessments are iterative processes that require participation by the student and the teacher it is unclear to me how exactly chat gpt will be implemented or what detrimental effects it might have on our country county's education system my biggest fear would be open ai or any tech company creating a dependency on their tools

[00:34:55] that cripple our capacity to produce educators we are requesting an immediate halt on all generative ai tools and fcps classrooms including but not limited to the chat gpt for teachers pilot until independent evidence demonstrates clear safety, proven efficacy, developmentally appropriate use cases, and transparent accountability structures.

[00:35:27] Please play the video testimony submitted by Jennifer Hudson. Good evening, my name is Dr. Jennifer Hudson and I'm a FCPS parent with serious concerns about how AI is being introduced to our schools. Right now, districts across the country are rushing to adopt AI tools in the name of innovation and efficiency.

[00:35:46] like chat gbt for teachers are often described as free and low risk but as parents we know that nothing that touches our children is ever truly free if we're not paying with money we may be paying with something far more valuable our children's data their attention and their digital footprints when technology moves faster than governance risk follows risk to children whose data and learning records may be stored or reused without family's consent risk to teachers who are encouraged to rely on ai systems that can produce confident sounding but incorrect answers often without being trained to recognize or challenge those errors and risk to districts who are

[00:36:21] responsible when something goes wrong parents are asking a basic question that deserves clear answers when students information is entered into ai tools who checks for personally identifiable data where is it stored and who can access it now or in the future without guardrails small notes can quietly become permanent data trails tied to a child's name researchers are already documenting the harms of ai tools while many schools still lack clear policies training or response plans add known issues with bias privacy exposure and unsafe content and the risk is no longer hypothetical it is foreseeable so here is our request in one sentence require governance before

[00:36:58] large-scale ai use by teachers in our classrooms this means clear rules for use transparent data policies independent review human oversight and accountability respect for teacher judgment and ongoing monitoring this isn't anti-technology it's pro-children pro-teachers and pro-responsible leadership let us choose stewardship over speed and put do no harm before rollout because if we don't insist on governance first we risk handing the classroom to software before we fully understand

[00:37:27] the cost thank you please play the video testimony submitted by jennifer cheng evening my name is Jennifer Chang and I am an FCPS parent of three. I and other parents were shocked to read about FCPS's agreement to pilot OpenAI's chat GPT for teachers. Our district has over 183,000 students and how teachers follow this policy affects each one of those students. We do not know what the risks are because you have not provided us with any details. I have seen 10 emails from FCPS about

[00:38:03] naming the new western high school and zero communication on how we will use AI in our schools. How do you plan to manage all the concerns and potential risks associated with OpenAI's chat GPT for teachers product? And why is there a kindergarten to sixth grade AI curriculum already months in development, but no communication around this or request for community feedback?

[00:38:25] My kids love going to school because of their teacher, who is phenomenal and always challenging them to think creatively and work on exciting projects. She inspires her students to achieve and push themselves, not because of differentiated worksheets, but because of their daily interactions, dialogue, and experiences that they share together. I'm curious how you envision AI improving on this relationship. Supposedly, AI can reduce teacher workloads so they have more time to spend with their students. Will teachers be taking my child's story into ChatGPT so it can tell her how to grade it? Will teachers be using ChatGPT to come up with worksheets? Explain to us how you're going to do

[00:39:04] this don't just unleash it on the teachers and our students without proper planning training and open conversations with the families for this reason i am requesting an immediate pause on the chat gpt for teachers pilot and requesting more open communication from fcps we outline other requests in our petition titled responsible ai use in fcps on change.org i encourage you to read it as over 200 parents have signed it already chair anderson that was our last public speaker thank you madam clerk agenda item 6.01 student representative matters I call on

[00:39:43] Miss Maconan thank you good afternoon good night to the board I would like I want to begin by returning to the conversation about the gradebook and standards-based grading students understand the intent behind the shift for to better master to better reflect mastery reduce inequities and provide more meaningful feedback however intent alone does not determine impact implementation does when students and families what students and families are are experiencing right now is inconsistency.

[00:40:10] In some classrooms, standards-based grading, which is piloted, is clear, transparent, and aligned to learning objectives. In others, it is confusing with different interpretations of proficiency, reassessment policies, and weighing of assignments. When the same course can look fundamentally different depending on the teacher, the gradebook stops being a tool for clarity and becomes a source of stress.

[00:40:28] Training must go beyond how to input grades into a system. It should focus on what proficiency actually looks like in practice, how to communicate progress to students and families how reassessment late work and retakes are handled consistently how grades align with learning rather than compliance without this shared understanding students are left second guessing what grades mean and families struggle to support their children effectively students also raise concerns about how standards-based grading interacts with accountability and motivation when expectations are unclear students may not understand how to improve or why their grade change clear rubrics consistent feedbacks and transparent reassessment policies are critical to ensuring grading remains rigorous while still being supportive

[00:41:06] under goal one students emphasize the need for enhanced communication across pyramid schools particularly between elementary middle and high schools when communication breaks down students talked about feeling the impact most during transitions students also raised concerns about middle school math pathways there's a clear need for earlier and more transparent communication so students and families understand what pathways exist what doors they open or close and how decisions are made decisions made in middle school affect future opportunities introducing this information earlier empower students make informed choices rather than reactive ones students discussed how artificial intelligence artificial intelligence is increasingly being used in ways it was never intended AI should be a tool for

[00:41:45] critical thinking learning and productivity not a replacement for emotional support or mental health care this raises important questions we should be asking do students use AI as a mental health resource are families aware of the risks associated with that how can the district better guide students towards appropriate supports students suggest students suggested that these questions can be included in student and parent surveys, so the district can better understand current behavior and gaps. Additionally, there is strong interest in family-facing education, such as YouTube-based risk prevention webinars. We should be asking, "Has your family taken advantage of these resources? Did they utilize the Parent Resource Center?" Understanding usage helps ensure these supports are not just available, but accessible and visible.

[00:42:25] Under Goal 4, students emphasize the need for more streamlined and effective internal communication within schools. When communication is unclear or fragmented, it affects everything from academic expectations to student support services. Improving internal systems helps ensure the information reaches students and families consistently and equitably.

[00:42:42] Finally, under goal 5, students discuss AI in the context of college and career readiness. Many college students are already entering a job market that expects AI fluency, yet they feel unprepared. This means middle and high school students should begin building AI literacy. AI literacy is not about turning every student into computer scientists.

[00:42:58] It's about understanding how AI works at a basic level, whether an output is reliable or biased and how to use ai responsibly and effectively this isn't separate from digital literacy but a continuation of internet literacy in a rapidly evolving world in closing students are not asking the district to move faster than is responsible but they're asking us to be intentional with clear training strong communication family-facing resources and thoughtful ai connection fcps can ensure ensure students are prepared to not just graduate but to navigate the world beyond our classrooms will the clerks please play the video from this year's fcps food show what food

[00:43:35] are you trying no no it's a joke it's like nacho average like not your average it took me a bit to get the joke chicken sandwich i got the chicken echelada jalapeno chicken sandwich is this something you guys would be excited to see in your school lunch next year ramen noodles ramen the ramen which one ramen ramen ramen of course probably ramen all across the board everyone loves the ramen noodles which is nice did you guys grow up watching chopped yeah yeah same here when i heard

[00:44:14] mystery basket i was like oh my goodness could you guys like walk me through that because like i'm not sure all i know is that there's winners so we got a mystery basket with like maybe seven ingredients and every team had to use two to three of them so we chose these crumbled tortilla chips we did the fake meat that was in there and we put that all together and it was like a super surprise it kept you on your toes and everyone used like different parts of it so it was really cool i thought that like experience of just like having that mystery box and like competing with like cooking like it's just a new experience and it's it was like very interesting to be a part of why did you guys create the fiesta crunch taco i really like the name well my biggest inspiration

[00:44:53] was that i've been vegetarian for four years now and so it was really important to me to get a vegetarian dish on the menu that people could eat but it still tasted like meat so that it's even better so i'm back here filling out yet another response i tried yes a crunch taco i really like it i loved it once again not being biased it was really flavorful this just sounds like something that i would like order at a restaurant and like really like finish up the plate everything i would love to see this dish at school any additional comments it's really flavorful without being too spicy so submitted what was your main goal when you guys were putting on the food show whether it's focus groups with taste testings whether it's culinary competitions is just to make sure that

[00:45:32] the students are always in the center of every decisions that we make and today is just a way for us to elevate that. I think there's also about exposure right I think exposing students to what school food can also look like right and being able to show them all these different dishes is an amazing opportunity to be able to provide all these different types of foods and unique foods that they may not have seen before so to be even to just expand the possibilities of what they think school food is. I think also too just gathering different recipe ideas right we're always doing innovation and having new menu cycles come out as well as different concepts and seeing

[00:46:08] what students want to see on the menu is really exciting year after year with different students coming in. There was a student who shared about one of our soups that we had and said she said that it reminded her of her grandma's soup and I just think that's so lovely to like see the connection between food and home and how we can really bring that together even in the cafeteria.

[00:46:26] Thank you guys so much. Thank you, Faith. That concludes Student Rep Matters. Thank you, Ms. McConaughey. Agenda item 7.01, action item, certification of closed meeting compliance. Since the board needs to return to the closed meeting towards the end of the regular meeting, we will return to this item later today after we conclude the closed meeting. Action

[00:47:00] item 7.02, confirmation of action taken and closed. I call on Dr. Anderson for a motion. I move to excuse from attendance at school certain students identified in closed meeting pursuant to Virginia code section 22.1-254B1.

[00:47:17] Is there a second? Second. Mr. McElveen. All those in favor? Mr. Frisch, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Marin, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, and myself.

[00:47:35] All those opposed? All those abstaining. Mr. Dunn. I call on Dr. Anderson for a motion. I move that the school board authorized legal counsel to settle the matter discussed in closed session according to the terms and conditions discussed therein. Is there a second?

[00:47:50] I second. Ms. Marin. All those in favor, Mr. Frisch, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Marin, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, Mr. Dunn, and myself.

[00:48:09] That's unanimous for all board members. I call on Ms. Marin for a motion. I move to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who was charged with one count of distribution of marijuana and intent to sell and one count of possession of a handgun or rifle by a person under the age of 18 and to confirm the disciplinary decision of the division division superintendent.

[00:48:29] Is there a second second Miss Lady all those in favor Mr. Fresh Mr. McDaniel Miss Marin Mr. McElveen Miss St. John Cunning Miss Lady Mr. Dunn Mr. Moon Dr. Anderson and myself that is unanimous for all board members.

[00:48:44] I call on Ms. St. John Cunning for a motion. I move to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who assaulted another student at school and to confirm the disciplinary decision of the superintendent. Is there a second? I second. Ms. Marin. All those in favor, Mr. Frisch, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Marin, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Mr. Dr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, and myself, that is unanimous for all board members.

[00:49:11] I call on Ms. St. John Cunning for a motion. I move to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who engaged in bullying behavior and to confirm the disciplinary decision of the division superintendent. Is there a second? Second. Ms. Lady, all those in favor.

[00:49:31] Mr. Frisch, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Marin, Mr. McAleen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, and myself. That is unanimous for all board members. Agenda item 7.03, action item, resolution directing Division Council to file a petition with the Circuit Court of Fairfax County for issuance of a writ of election to authorize a special election.

[00:49:58] On December 9th, 2025, our colleague, Ms. Seizmoorheiser, was elected to the Braddock District member on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. On December 16th, 2025, I received Ms. Sizemore-Hyser's resignation as the Braddock District School Board Representative, effective 4 p.m. on December 16th, 2025.

[00:50:18] Thus, the Braddock District seat on the Fairfax County School Board is now vacant. We congratulate our colleague on her election and wish her well in her role as the Braddock District Supervisor. In accordance with Law 24.2-226 of the Code of Virginia, we will now consider action directing the Division Council to file a petition requesting the Circuit Court to schedule a special election for the now vacant seat for the Braddock District School Board representative.

[00:50:51] Of course, until that seat is filled, Braddock school board members, Kyle McDaniel, Ryan McElveen, and Ilyung Moon will continue to represent Braddock district residents in their capacity as they're elected at-large representatives.

[00:51:06] I call on Mr. Frisch for a resolution. Thank you. Whereas effective December 16th, 2025, a vacancy occurred on the school board due to the resignation of a member of the board, and whereas the school board is required by Virginia law to petition the Fairfax County Circuit Court to issue a writ of election to fill the vacancy, and whereas Virginia law provides that the special election for this purpose shall be held not fewer than 45 days nor more than 90 days after the occurrence of the vacancy,

[00:51:38] And whereas the 90th day is March 16th, 2026, based on the rules and of statutory construction set forth in the Code of Virginia, and whereas Virginia law requires that there be a special election by March 16th, 2026, now therefore be it resolved, I hereby move that the school board direct legal counsel to file a petition with the circuit court of Fairfax County for issuance of a writ of election to authorize a special election to be held Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026 for the purpose of filling the vacancy on the Fairfax County School Board.

[00:52:14] Is there a second? Second. Mr. Moon. Mr. Frisch, would you like to speak to your motion? No, straightforward. Thank you. Mr. Moon, would you like to speak to your second? No, ma'am. Thank you. I will call for a vote on the motion which is on the screen.

[00:52:32] All those in favor, Mr. Frisch, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Marin, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, and myself. That is unanimous for all board members. Agenda item 7.04, action item, Strategic Plan Goal Report, Leading for Tomorrow's Innovation.

[00:52:54] I will call on Dr. Reed for a presentation on the Strategic Plan Goal 5 Report, Leading for Tomorrow's Innovation. All right.

[00:53:13] Thank you, Madam Chair. It's my pleasure this evening to do a reprisal, really, of our conversation we recently had at a board meeting. Recall, if you're watching from home, that the board has already spent a significant amount of time reviewing our Goal 5 data.

[00:53:32] And this comprehensive work session occurred on December 2nd, where we were able to review and discuss data related to the school. I also want to remind those watching that there is a full report posted to box if you want to follow along or read in more detail.

[00:53:48] I want to share that goal five is leading for tomorrow's innovation, and it focuses on the strong finish we want for all students, which is really an opportunity for a new beginning as students leave us. We want to prepare our young people for this world, which is yet to be imagined in many ways.

[00:54:08] I want to begin by talking a little bit about how Fairfax County Public Schools monitors our graduation rates. We did discuss two ways that the Virginia Department of Education reports graduation rates. The rate includes students who earn any one of the three Virginia Board-recognized diplomas and provides additional time for students with disabilities and multilingual learners who are legally permitted to extend time to graduation until age 22.

[00:54:38] However, there is a second rate, which is the four-year federal graduation indicator, which is now used in the Virginia Department of Education's school performance and support framework. Unlike the on-time graduation rate, this particular indicator does not include the applied studies diploma or students who extend time beyond four years to graduate.

[00:55:03] So when we think about this, during the worst session, we discussed the impact of state flexibility which has been provided for students enrolled in high schools during the 2019-20 and 2021 school years to meet graduation requirements. This pandemic-related flexibility allowed students to earn verified credit without the typical test score requirements. This class of 2025, the most recent graduating class, is the first cohort since the pandemic where the majority of students could not benefit from this flexibility as you can see during and immediately following

[00:55:40] the pandemic graduation rates have increased in fcps and while in 2025 they have declined slightly the state flexibility is one key reason as it is no longer in place however we're still pleased that the rates are higher than pre-pandemic rates in the next slide i want to make sure we see on-time graduation rates by different student groups and want to note that all groups have made some progress from the baseline or continue to make progress from the baseline.

[00:56:16] As we think about our four-year, what's now called a federal FGI rate, again without flexibility and without the ability for our students with disabilities or our multilingual learners to have or be recognized for any time after a four year graduation determination.

[00:56:37] Just as a reminder, this measure does not include students who have exercised their right to extend this time to graduation or those students who have received the applied studies diploma. In Virginia, students can graduate with an advanced studies standard or applied studies, and last year the majority of our graduates did earn an advanced studies diploma.

[00:56:58] In the state's recent data release, they also reported that the Northern Virginia region has the highest percent of students graduating with an advanced studies diploma. This slide looks at the percent of students who have dropped out of the graduating cohort.

[00:57:14] This is not just a student outcome, as we know, but also a system signal that points us to areas where we can better identify and respond to student needs. During the work session, we discussed a continued need to focus on supports that address barriers to student graduation.

[00:57:30] Another key aspect of goal five looks at how we prepare our students for college and career readiness. And when we think about this, overall, most of our students feel prepared and confident about their post-secondary futures. This table shows the percent of high school students who agreed with statements about college and career readiness on the recently launched student experience survey.

[00:57:53] The high levels of self-reported readiness likely reflect a positive school experience and a strong culture around college and career that manifests itself not just in our schools and classrooms, but really across our community. There's some variation by student group, particularly when students were asked if they were taking courses needed for college and career, which is a focus of our goal for work.

[00:58:19] Nearly all of our graduates also have plans for college and career based on their responses to the senior survey. These plans include attending a two-year or four-year college, employment, enlistment, or other training and education.

[00:58:35] Our overall rates of college going are higher when compared to the state and other Northern Virginia divisions. In fact, for the class of 2024, 87% of our graduates reported that they planned to attend college on the senior survey and 75% enrolled the following fall based on national student clearinghouse data.

[00:58:57] And we want to focus on closing the gap between intention and outcome for students even as we recognize that for many of our students, financial aid is also becoming more challenging in our current economy and affordability challenges.

[00:59:15] For each of our three strategies, I want to highlight a few of our actions. I know the board has talked a little bit about wanting to get very clear about what the action is that is connected to our strategy. So our first strategy focuses on providing students with multiple options to earn credits toward graduation and monitoring progress.

[00:59:37] This year we launched a new feature in ParentVUE and StudentVUE to help high school students and their families monitor their progress toward completing graduation requirements. We've also standardized the graduation plan process for identifying and providing pathways to students at risk of not graduating, including through no cost credit accrual and recovery options.

[01:00:00] Our second strategy recognizes the importance of ongoing school engagement and post-secondary momentum. This year, we continue to staff on-time graduation resource teachers at schools with higher rates of dropping out. In addition, we're working with an external consultant through our ABL work to shift academic advising and enrollment practices so that all students are completing coursework that best prepares them for post-secondary success finally our third strategy is focused on graduation success for students with additional educational needs our office of research and program evaluation is conducting an

[01:00:37] analysis of evidence-based practices to better serve students at greater risk of dropping out and for our students with disabilities I want to take some time to discuss our career and transition services on the next slides transition plans for students with disabilities are included in every individualized education program known as an IEP beginning at age 14 or during eighth grade these plans serve as the foundation for instruction and coursework in high school they include information about graduation requirements diploma types transition goals assessment data programming options and information about

[01:01:15] community agency opportunities. Every student with an IEP has dedicated staff to support this planning along with access to work-based learning, embedded in coursework, post-secondary planning events, and the 18 to 22 year old programming. This slide provides a summary of those services and as you can see by a review there are a number of services and we are continuing to review our program design and contemplating really how we can best serve even more students in this program and the career and transition supports as we look at

[01:01:55] post-secondary planning and transition supports our college transition specialists program staff provide access for FCPS students to explore college and trade, technical school opportunities such as job shadowing, field trips, joint events with the Northern Virginia Community College, and multiple career fairs.

[01:02:19] As we continue to expand and improve our transition programming, last year I just wanted to provide a couple of details as how this work is evolving. Last year we had all of our ETR, which are employment transition resource staff, and our special education department chairs received professional development around the use of consistent transition language and guidance for documenting and delivering CTS related services. We provided special education department chairs with guidance and resources on meaningful tasks for staff and families

[01:02:54] to support post-secondary activities and planning and school teams implemented enhanced resources for academic and career planning for middle and high school students. This year what's been added is we're developing a new high school standard course offering for our students with disabilities called Workforce Connections. This course will replace the current optional EFE course next year. Finally we're revising informational materials from family IEP meetings to include information on our FCPS 18 to 22 year old programming options, adult and community services, higher education applications and

[01:03:30] accommodations as well as employment and training. As we think about our innovation and future ready skills, I want to share a couple things that continue to be of critical importance for our students here in Fairfax County. I want to remind our community about our portrait of a graduate skills. These skills were developed in 2014 and our students have opportunities to develop these attributes through core instructions as part of our learning model students continue to deepen their understanding

[01:04:07] through extended learning experiences such as the global classroom project the global awareness technology project IB middle years project academic competitions student leadership organizations as well as clubs and activities another event that we're bringing on board this year is a student AI Innovation Challenge, which is an example about another way in which our students can gain portrait of a graduate skills while also focusing on innovation.

[01:04:36] This fall, we've partnered with Play Labs to provide students with an opportunity to foster and showcase all of these portrait of a graduate core attributes as part of this innovative work. Currently, over 1,100 high schools, or excuse me, over 1,100 high school students from every FCPS high school are competing and participating in a guided self-paced AI curriculum in terms of building an AI powered apps and designing creative solutions in teams for real world problems.

[01:05:08] This is an elective opportunity for our students and it's an opportunity where the culminating event which is going to be an FCPS AI innovation night is scheduled for this upcoming Friday or excuse me this upcoming February one of the things that's really exciting is that there are many high schools around the country are participating and I believe the final rounds will be at the national level here in Washington DC is that correct Mr Sethi okay so wanting to take a look at the wide range of opportunities for students to develop portrait of a graduate

[01:05:45] attributes as they're reflected in our student experience survey data overall around 80 percent of high school students who responded felt that their school gave them chances to develop creativity and supported them in trying out new ideas to solve problems we're continuing to explore additional data collection methods to account accurately for the number of students gaining portrait of a graduate and new life innovation skills through completion of activities that demonstrate key attributes so to summarize last year we saw a small decline in on-time graduation

[01:06:22] although with new standards to be responsive to, and a corresponding uptick in the dropout rate. We're going to continue to monitor and adjust our strategies to achieve our 2030 goals, and the overwhelming majority of high school students are confident they're college and/or career ready when they leave us and feel like they are learning in school what they need to be prepared for the future.

[01:06:45] And finally, we're going to continue to develop and monitor student innovation, portrait of of graduate skills and preparation for life after high school. Madam Chair this concludes the presentation of highlights from the goal five report which is posted in its entirety on the board docs.

[01:07:02] Thank you Dr. Reed I call on Mr. Fresh for a motion that the school board accepts the goal five strategic plan report for school year 2025 26.

[01:07:21] Is there a second second Mr. Fresh would you like to speak to your motion. No I spoke plenty at the work session. Thank you, Mr. Lady, would you like to speak to you? I didn't expect that from my colleague. Actually, I don't have a lot to say other than I'm very excited about sort of a lot of things that are centrally have been organized to help students accrue credits.

[01:07:48] I feel like there was a long time where individual schools were trying to figure that out. And so as someone who worked in one of those schools and we're triaging kids and trying to be creative to get them to graduation, I'm extremely grateful for the creative ways the thinking that have come from staff and then working with school staff to help those kids accrue the credits they need and again the only thing i want to just you know it's it's unfortunate that the fed does not allow for what law allows which is that students who have an iep um or are

[01:08:21] multi-language learners actually can attend until their 23rd birthday um but yet they want them to finish in four years so it's kind of a contradiction that that's their graduation rate where ironically enough all the published federal graduation rates in college are six years which means you have to pay two extra years so it's kind of odd that it's done that way but I just want to make sure the community still understands that we all know and all of our data has throughout the years indicates that when our multi-language learners actually exit our programming their scores their graduation rates everything is actually higher than our at the

[01:08:59] average student in our system so they just need the time most of all though just appreciate the work appreciate the work that's happening with ABLE and thank you Dr. Reed and your team for your leadership in this work thank you thank you Miss Leidy Dr. Anderson thank you I won't speak too long because we had a very long and robust work session but I just want to take this opportunity to raise a couple of things we are in this space we are in this space where the new state accountability has definitely knocked us back a little bit and we see this across the board

[01:09:39] but I continue to have the concern of how our various subgroups are performing the achievement gaps are still very very very much persistent and this shows up not only in our graduation rates but also in our students with advanced diplomas I'm concerned about again the gaps within subgroups And I'm also concerned about the gaps within schools.

[01:10:01] So those are the two big concerns that I wanted to raise here again, because there are they are the things that I think we need to work on because Fairfax County is great for a lot of our kids. It just needs to be great for all of our kids. Yes, ma'am.

[01:10:16] Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Seeing no others, I'll call for a vote on the motion, which is on the screen. All those in favor, Mr. Frisch, Mr. McDaniel, Miss Marin, Mr. McLevine, Miss St. John Cunningham, Miss Lady,

[01:10:32] Mr. Moon and myself. All those opposed. Dr. Anderson. All those abstaining. Okay. Mr. Dunn would be in favor. Will the clerk please read the vote. So Mr. Dunn's a yes? Yes. Okay. So then the vote is 9-1. The motion carries. Thank you. Action item 7.05, FY26, mid-year budget review. I call on Ms. St. John Cunning for a motion.

[01:11:05] I move that the school board approve revenue and expenditure charges reflected in the FY2026 mid-year budget review as detailed in the agenda item. Is there a second? Second. Ms. Leidy. Ms. St. John Cunning, would you like to speak to your motion?

[01:11:22] No. Ms. Leidy, would you like to speak to yours? No. Thank you. Seeing no members wishing to speak, I will call for a vote on the motion, which is on the screen. All those in favor, Mr. Frisch, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Marin, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, and myself.

[01:11:48] That is unanimous for all board members. Action item 7.06, boundary change phasing and transportation decision. I call on Ms. Lady for a motion. I move that the school board approve providing transportation based only on new boundary adjustments.

[01:12:05] Is there a second? Second. Mr. Frisch, Ms. Lady, would you like to speak to your motion? I'll speak briefly to my motion. There's been a lot of conversation around the cost. We were provided, and it's on board docs, that currently, I'll just talk about Kent Gardens, which is in Drainsville, which is in my district.

[01:12:27] We're spending close to a million dollars to phase those students who were re-boundaried two years ago. That's a lot of money for one school's phasing.

[01:12:37] When we look at this broader boundary work that we're doing that we're going to do in perpetuity every five years. It's not something we can fund so I'll leave it at that and because I will also be speaking to a follow on in a bit. Thank you. Mr. Fresh. Would you like to speak to your second. No. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Anderson. Yes. Thank you. I will share what I raised last time when we discussed this. I'm really concerned that this will allow only our students with means to be able to access the phasing.

[01:13:16] It's becoming an opportunity for the privileged. So that is one of my concerns. And I do realize that Dr. Reed had shared some data with us last time that this would cost $10 million. And my concern is, well rather my position is that I think that's premature because one, we don't know what the boundaries are yet.

[01:13:35] Two, we don't know which students will elect to not participate in their new boundaries. So I feel that there's another number out there be had and I wish we would have an opportunity to make this decision with that number in mind. I feel like we're in a vacuum and I understand the tensions. I definitely understand the tensions of a tight budget year but I do feel like we're a little bit premature in making this decision.

[01:13:59] We're in a vacuum space where we are not working with real numbers. If it's 3,000 kids is it 10 million dollars? Is it 2,000 kids? Is it still 10 million dollars? So those are the concerns that that I wanted to raise regarding this motion. And I'm just very concerned that we're going to put some kids in the position where they are not going to be able to take advantage because their families cannot transport them or they cannot transport themselves.

[01:14:24] And I worry about what that might mean even for our kids who are becoming seniors. Thank you. Mr. McDaniel. Sorry, lots of buttons up here. I agree. Dr. Anderson, I had a conversation earlier today at length about this issue, and I want to echo my previous comments that I am concerned that this is an equity issue the parents that can make it happen will make it happen and we will take advantage of that and those that cannot cannot I do you know estimating cost is always a challenge and I do think staff for their efforts to do that and as we continue down this

[01:15:01] process we're going to be able to you know the cost estimates of lots of things get dialed in eventually when more data becomes apparent I do have a question though for the staff it's been said in the context of the Western high school conversation which I believe this would also relate to that if kids have the ability to get to a bus stop where there are seats available on a bus and that bus is already going to the school they potentially could be able to take advantage of that so I guess my question is would that be the case in this situation I think that if they you're asking if they can get to a bus stop

[01:15:38] right so just looking at some of the boundary proposes on the table I mean we're we're most of these are within neighborhoods we're not talking large geographical distances between the boundary changes so if you have a bus that's you know a couple of blocks down the road or a mile or so down the road that's already picking up to take a group of kids to you know high school A but the neighborhood in question is going to high school B but they previously went to high school A and they're still in high school A through the phasing could they if they can get to the bus going to high school A and that bus going to high school A has seats on it could they just ride that

[01:16:12] bus so there's a process for that and it's not a guaranteed seat because there may not be room so there's a process I believe that begins at the beginning of October gotcha where students where the buses finalize their capacity per route and that then those requests would be honored then but I'll ask mr. muick to clarify that because I think you've probably better understand the process mr. muick yes ma'am thanks and and you did get that correct and it's uh formally the exception to ride policy which we have today which uh a family can choose at any time during the year but it's exactly what dr reed said you know based on those october head

[01:16:52] counts we look at capacity and if the capacity there is there mr mcdaniel yes they could uh and get their way to that bus stop they can ride we'll never let that capacity go unused if somebody needs it okay thank you miss mayor yeah just first i believe the board should have received a presentation of this prior to the presentation of the motion and the discussion because the document for tonight and board docs is a powerpoint file with presentation slides dated for tonight this has occurred in the recent past where there was some confusion about whether materials are presented or not at a regular meeting so i do think we need to really nail that down i think especially voting we should be refreshed on what we're voting on

[01:17:32] dr reed can you share what policies and regulations informs your recommendation i would have to go back and look at those transportation policy and regulation numbers i don't have those this evening um mr muick do you happen to have the policy the transportation policy and regulation numbers that your team utilized the main one that we utilize in this is regulation 8617 which is student transportation let me put my glasses back on here eligibility

[01:18:07] routes and schedules that and then just the 8130 boundary instruction regulation that we have right now thank you well regulation 8617 is actually cited in policy 8610 which says that we will provide transportation to students we transport students from elementary school and middle school according to the distances listed a mile for elementary and 1.5 for high school there aren't stated exceptions for phasing or otherwise there's nothing about secondary schools early childhood

[01:18:46] programs and the only students that will not receive transportation is if actually that's incorrect it actually says that students can receive transportation if space is available on a bus serving that area which my college just raised so additionally regulation 2230 the transfer process and regulation 8618 school bus routes and schedules those are all applicable and I do not see them reflected in your recommendation where is input from the chief equity officer about this recommendation I would have to ask mr.

[01:19:23] muick since it came from our transportation department we did not run it by dr. King I think that's a major absence and a reason on its face to not proceed with this this 10 million dollar estimate is not clearly defined as to what it's capturing it's showing what would happen if all nearly 3,000 students opted to stay at their school. However we know that some people who would be redistricted agree with the decision such as my current Wolf Trap elementary school residents who would be boundaried from Kilmer into Thoreau and Marshall into Madison. That's hundreds of families. Further not all students would

[01:20:02] even be at grade level that would require them to be bused to a new school. For example the first or third grader who is redistricted would not have a different school from which to choose and thus not have a different bus assignment. Given some the relatively small number of these students less than 3000 it seems some simple data sorting could be done to get a more particular count of how many would likely or even be able to choose to remain at their assigned school why not do the analysis this way we did a boundary change transportation budget estimate this is really a budget exercise that the board requested so what we want to do is we're trying to be fiscally responsible in a

[01:20:40] very conservative budget year so we took the prior phasing examples and and costed those prior examples out to have real real-time data if you will because those were real situations that we've been funding and then looked at the possible numbers of students that could choose phasing and what that would cost to make what we thought was the most conservative fiscal recommendation given our extraordinarily tight budget times this year well indeed this board is very aware of the financial constraints of our county and commonwealth and we are not interested

[01:21:19] in racking up costs as such is an incomplete recommendation to provide the board with the cost but not the trade-offs of what could be reduced elsewhere in the operating budget to identify the 10 million projected to provide transportation so that i can make an informed decision where specifically would reductions be made to obtain the 10 million dollars so we really want to hear from the board what you would consider having us costing it's for a ten point four million dollar gap it would really be that size of a gap is

[01:21:54] going to involve people so it would be which positions we would want to cut or programs we would want to impact and I would want to have a deeper conversation with our board as you've indicated wanting more input into that process what we provided at our last board meeting when we made this presentation was really the budget estimate which is the ten point four million that it would cost at this point a conservative estimate that we believe it would cost to provide transportation for all of the phasing because there are a large number of schools that are impacted versus just the three and the examples

[01:22:34] previously provided what does data show us about how full our school buses are is ridership at capacity not only assignment but is ridership of our buses at capacity so mr. Mewick I know we have probably varying degrees of capacity depending on the routes time of year after school activities and those types of things you are need to get back to the board with that data but perhaps you have sort of a ballpark figure this evening ma'am you you kind of hit it right there with your answer the you know some buses are at max capacity no room for anything others you know could hold 58 high schoolers but they only have

[01:23:12] 35 on them but they still need to go those routes and how do you fill those other seats when the people aren't in that area or in those routes so you're gonna have some that are some buses maxed out 100% and some that are at you know 60% it seems like a core opportunity for family engagement because we know we have issues with kiss and ride and safe routes what does data show us about the understanding of any Delta between bus assignment and bus ridership perhaps you already spoke to that I'm sorry the Delta between bus perhaps that was just answered between assigned buses and how we know what mode of

[01:23:50] transportation students are actually using I think if they're on the bus we know they're using the bus I the walkers and kiss and ride probably are less likely for us to be able to distinguish because we wouldn't necessarily always know who's walking versus being you know transported by a parent or family member or friend but the transportation those children riding the buses we certainly would know and I think mr. Muick do you want to just again be responsive to that please yes ma'am so at the when we're setting up the routes

[01:24:26] in the summer before the school year starts right we look and we can see for elementary school who are all the students for that school that are greater than a mile away so we set up the routes and the bus stops to make that they all have a way to get to school and the way our bus transportation works is it's not a it's an opt-out so if you don't go into cis and say you don't want transportation we make the assumption you're going to need it and we build the capacity for that in october per vdoe we have to take two weeks to do the official ridership head counts and then that's where we get that delta of we plan for a bus to have you know 40 riders on it and when we do the count

[01:25:05] it consistently comes up at say 33 um where the that delta how they're getting to school whether they're kiss and ride whether they're just outside a mile and maybe they decide to walk or they're biking we don't know the answer to that we just know that all the kids that we thought would need a ride um a portion of them are on the bus and the others are getting to school some way on their own we don't do a survey to figure that part out does that answer your question i would I would like a go back, thank you.

[01:25:36] - Thank you, Ms. Marin. Mr. Dunn. - $10 million, are these buses diesel or electric? - I believe that was in the presentation, but Mr. Mu, if you can probably answer it before I can find it.

[01:25:55] - Yes, ma'am, electric? - How much would diesel be? - If you, it would be a difference of about 2.75, so it would be about 7.25 million. - Okay, why electric?

[01:26:11] because my understanding is we canceled recently federal grants that we were uncertain we would receive to purchase electric buses and I'm not aware of ongoing initiatives to purchase electric buses and there's an issue of charging infrastructure which I know we have very limited locations I think only two in the entire county including one in the Lorton Station area.

[01:26:35] Well sir just the the goal you know the jet goal was always to get electric so we built this on getting electric buses we could do diesel and as I said it would be 7.25 I think if I'm getting that right Paul instead of the 10 I thought it was less than seven but based on the information I'd received but regardless I'm trying to understand have is there been a policy decision we're not buying diesel buses anymore because I think we just bought quite a few diesel buses from King Abdullah Academy the owners of that former school so we did buy the 10

[01:27:13] from King Abdullah that was you know they wanted them to sell them for 450 thousand and we were able to get the deal down to 300,000 so it was a deal that we couldn't pass up and that just goes to help some of our aging fleet and it was something that an opportunity that presented itself I don't think that was a strategy to say that we're shifting back to buying all diesels we would definitely get more diesels for our for our money going forward but I think that's a decision that Dr. Reed and the board need to make in terms of whether we're going electric fleet or the jet goals or not understood I'm just

[01:27:50] trying to figure out why we're using the higher figure when there hasn't been I don't think there's been any decision or discussion of the school board or the superintendent to proceed with electric buses going forward from this point so it seems more reasonable to use the lower figure because it seems we're going in the direction of diesel now I will say that last year one of the decisions we made to bring our budget into line was not order new budget not order new buses of any kind diesel or electric and to continue to run buses a little longer traditionally we do some type of an annual bus purchase and just

[01:28:26] like with our social studies curriculum materials we just paused it again to come into our budget and meet our budget last year so that's if we're gonna add buses to meet the phasing which is then we're going to need obviously to purchase more buses and I think that the team felt like they're still the jet goals are still on the books both from the county side and the school division side which is why I believe they picked the electric buses certainly costing out diesel buses I think mr. muix shared that that would be in the seven to eight

[01:29:04] million dollar range rather than the ten point four million dollar range do we have any update on the greater availability of charging infrastructure in other parts of the county that would lead us to think that electric buses might work in more locations than the two current locations mr. muick any update on charging facilities i would have to ask paul if you have an update on that the the charging stations that we've been getting were complementary are funded by dominion in association with those federal grants that we had won so if we move forward with

[01:29:40] our own money to get electric buses we would have to figure out where to put that infrastructure we have some infrastructure out at Stonecroft right now out near Westfield there's some charging stations at Paul's at Sprague Center at Sprague Center and Lorton so we've got them in the three locations my understanding from previous conversations and again it's been a while since we talked charging infrastructure was that all of those parking spots essentially one per charger at each of those locations was fully occupied by electric buses are there empty spots or have new spots been added to enable us

[01:30:19] to expand our bus fleet and and if not have we costed out how much it would be to add charging infrastructure to support electric buses nothing new has been added and it's 40 to 50 thousand dollars per charging station and our charging stations are dual charging stations if I'm not mistaken Paul that go two to one are all of the spots for electric buses currently occupied or are there empty spots that we could fill with new purchases Paul you want to jump in on that one yes currently we do

[01:30:59] have all of our electric buses having half slots for the 17 that we have on order we do have a arrangement with Dominion to expand our stone crawl facility so we do have the ability for expansion but the expansion was tied a lot into the EPA grants.

[01:31:16] And those EPA grants were rescinded, is that correct? I'm sorry, yes, okay. I'd like to understand just in the sequencing, Dr. Reed, the urgency of deciding now on providing transportation versus later.

[01:31:36] Because what I see with the elimination of attendance islands and some of the split feeders is that some of our bus routes will be shorter or maybe not exist at all anymore. and so there will be some eliminated and then phasing will add some for a temporary period of time. So is there the option available to the school board to decide on busing once the final school board vote is taken in the end of January? I think the timing is really to enable us to order

[01:32:06] more buses, right? Often the on-ramp to ordering Mr. Muick or Mr. Andrade is generally I think by around January we want to be ordering buses for the coming fall I think but it's about a 10 to 12 month delivery turnaround so we're kind of you know we're running tight if we're going to need to order a significant number of buses so I think that was part of the timing in terms of wanting to make a decision sooner than later because we if we are going to provide busing we need to actually

[01:32:41] be able to do that and have enough buses to do it there are in the aircraft world you know most aircraft are now leased are there not leasing options if we're not going to buy brand new buses believe that's what we do but i'll defer to mr muick i know um in terms of the cycle for purchase and lease yeah yeah your purchase to lease to own are there not also leasing options where we would not be leasing towards ownership um i'm sure there are i don't know that we've costed that

[01:33:17] miss burden perhaps do you have a either between you or mr. muick a response in terms of what that would look like for us I'm not sure that's been a practice but what would that look like yes ma'am financially I don't know what that would look like I'll let Lee jump in in a second but you know if you look at Montgomery County they tried to do a leasing option with Highland with a company and it didn't go well because they kind of gave up control of their fleet in terms of maintenance replenishment of the fleet day-to-day stuff just didn't work well because you lose a little bit and I don't I can't

[01:33:55] explain how maybe Paul can but you lose some control of your fleet and the ability to manage it properly Paul you want to jump in because that's one of the big reasons why we don't we would prefer not to lease the lease to own is definitely favored for us and typically that's not the business model that the the vendors have when they sell buses typically is outright purchases or kind of the lease to own purchases that you see where you do see that that leads to as a business services through the Highland Electric so different companies where they're able to utilize the buses for revenue generation which is not the

[01:34:35] case for the purchases that we're making at this time thank you or we could purchase used school buses as we did with King Abdul isn't that true rather than manufacture from scratch I know that was a practice on the west coast I don't know if we've purchased used buses as a matter of course but I think we could look into that mr. done okay well that just reaffirms that I think there are options available other than purchasing brand new buses for lease to own and I'll support deferring this until a later point in time thank you

[01:35:12] Miss St. John Cunning first of all I'd like to thank staff for the presentation they gave us at the last board meeting that answered a lot of these questions and for the subsequent memo that was provided to us with more in-depth questions that was provided to us. I am certainly very aware of the issues concerning equity across our county in every

[01:35:47] aspect of everything because that's what I've worked in the most. When we took on the issue of boundaries which was very important for this entire board we understood that it was going to be difficult. I've lived through boundary changes that were specific to a specific area and there were no bus there was no bus service providing provided and there was no phasing. When you start talking about phasing then you have to start talking about transportation and these are the

[01:36:23] issues that we're getting involved in right now. We're trying to be responsive to the community we're trying to listen to what everybody needs but we're also strapped financially and I hate to be that person that says that back in my day when there was a boundary change there was a boundary change there was no facing there was no bus service but that's the way it was is it optimal probably not but we also don't have the necessary funds that we need for just the regular stuff we

[01:36:58] need to do to run our school system I think that we have to be creative and thoughtful about this This motion says that you get buses if you are in your boundary, which is what we do right now.

[01:37:15] That's all it's saying. When we introduce phasing, then we're introducing some other issues that make it more difficult for us. And I know we're trying to be responsive, and I respect that. But again, as I have said, these decisions are hard.

[01:37:33] They're not easy. And we are not talking about a boundary change for one area. we're talking about a comprehensive boundary change, which is what adds to the expense of this, and this is what we have to look at. So if there was a time, which I know that there was a time in specific situations where maybe phasing and busing was allowed, it was because we may have had more funding available. I know that there's a second motion that's coming up that is trying to

[01:38:10] address this issue but we have to be careful about saying if we provide busing for all phasing that means that if one student wants to ride that bus we have to provide bus service to that student you got to think about that mr moon thank you madam chair uh first of all thank thanks to dr reed and

[01:38:41] mr milk for answering i guess i sent in about 12 questions and along with a what a community member has suggested as a potential options for us to consider and I appreciate you providing a responses which I got a couple of days ago I have not been able to thoroughly analyze all the responses yet but I do have a couple of questions I'm not gonna repeat what the mr. Don has already asked about diesel versus

[01:39:12] electric but five-year lease with a purchase what is the normal life cycle For a brand-new school bus that comes to us sir. Could you repeat that again? What's the normal life cycle?

[01:39:31] Oh 15 years is the normal lifetime is fifteen years two thousand two hundred thousand miles It's a guidance. That's where you but it really depends on if it's still safe and passes inspection Thank you. So you does not have to be just a five-year lease, right? We could consider longer-term lease I'm asking you whether we could consider that whether we can I didn't quite get the question that time Whether we could consider I think you you are your numbers are based upon five-year lease to purchase. Oh, I got you

[01:40:11] Miss Burton is saying probably not because that's set by the lessor. So it's not a choice that we have to do a five-year lease to loan We could ask but she doesn't think we would be able to I'm sure that we can if you're willing to purchase if you you know if you you know put out a purchase order for 157 buses there will be a lot of willing sellers who could accommodate our needs to have a longer-term lease rather than

[01:40:45] Having a five-year lease with you know, so such a high amount of payment on an annual basis The second question that I have is We have about what 1600 buses. Yes, sir 1700 1600 buses so I assume that we do regularly on annually purchase or lease new buses correct yes sir we try to how many how many do we do um how many do we replenish each year each year on the average well we would like usually we have had 10.3

[01:41:25] million dollars in the budget to do fleet replenishment where we would look and get and replace the oldest highest maintenance requirement buses that we have but i don't know that we have done a replenishment we have not done one since i've been here because the push has been for the achieving the jet goal you know mr mu it is my recollection that over the period of the last three decades when i had been serving on this board that number of actual number of buses to lease to our purchase all dependent upon the budget which is not decided until second

[01:42:04] meeting in May so sometimes we are simply unable to acquire sometimes you were able to acquire so when you say we do need about 10 months of lead time to lease these buses I find it very difficult to understand because board does not make final adoption of the budget until May timeframe every year and that was the lead time to manufacture a new bus was 10 to 12 months

[01:42:37] And also on the 57 routes with 57 new drivers with full-time pay, do you expect for each of those new drivers, 57 new drivers, that one bus route would be the full-time work?

[01:42:55] Yes, sir. One driver in our driving team is doing, you know, a route in the morning means they're doing a middle school, a high school, and at least one, if not two, elementary schools.

[01:43:12] and then their shift is split during the middle of the day, and then they come back and they do that same route in reverse. So they're getting an eight-hour day in with that split shift in the middle. So when you say 57 bus routes, that is more than just one school route?

[01:43:30] It could be multiple school routes? Yes, sir. Per driver? Yes, sir. So I'm trying to understand when you say 57 bus routes, Is that 57 routes with each route for one school or multiple schools?

[01:43:49] Different schools. So when the routing team puts their transportation routing together, that one bus driver and one bus is going to go at 730 and get a middle school. They then use that same bus driver and bus to go hit a high school or secondary school.

[01:44:07] and then that same bus driver and bus hit one or two elementary schools break and then redo the whole thing in the afternoon so when the routing team looked at that boundary adjustment they looked and said if that universe of people 2,800 was going to choose to go back to their old school or go to the new school that's how many additional routes that it would create which led to the 57 okay I think I have a better understanding of you know how those routes work thank you appreciate that the last one is you know very thoughtful suggestions from a community member

[01:44:42] though there were like five five options for us to consider and I think your response was when I did ask for the feasibility and cost analysis of those options your response was it's not possible for the upcoming school board meeting on December 18th if you had more time would you be able to give us feasibility and the cost analysis of those five options yes sir if we

[01:45:15] have more time we would there's a lot of unknowns as Mr. McDaniel was saying right as you get closer to the time of the boundary decisions and families making decision it makes it easier so but if we had more time we could look at some of the do the feasibility and cost on those I mean that's

[01:45:33] Exactly. Mr. Moon, that was your time. Thank you. Thank you. Miss Lady. Thank you. Just a question. I understand and can appreciate the questions around diesel versus electric buses. The time it takes to acquire buses is of great concern. Was that estimate either between seven and eight for diesel or 10 to whatever for electric? Was that per year or just the first year of the phasing?

[01:45:59] that is for the first five years in the lease to own period per year okay so it includes the cumulative effect of hiring those new bus drivers and them having to be paid for five years yes ma'am okay thank you the other thing I want to just say is because I didn't say it in my opening remarks for the motion was you know and I've said this before it you know we are in a very difficult budget situation. We are going to be cutting. I may be the only person that when I shared budget priorities

[01:46:33] with the superintendent included areas where I would cut if we have to cut. I'm not going to talk about that now but I definitely have been thinking along those lines I don't want to do it. I also have talked about the fact that if we're going to say we're for healthy start times we can't be adding buses and bus routes because that work will never get done and if we're going to do this work every five years then it's very concerning to me um i also want to mention again that connector buses are free for middle and high school students and so that is an option for connector buses would be an option for some kids i also want to say this is fairfax county public schools

[01:47:11] we're we're one of the best school systems in the country so we're going to bus kids to a fantastic school no matter what happens in this boundary adjustment um and that it's also our fiscal responsibility to be a fiduciary of taxpayer money.

[01:47:29] And these are all reasons why I, you know, support this motion. Having said that, and I still live there, I certainly can understand the appetite for some more information. So I appreciate the questions of my colleagues, it's giving me some more things to think about.

[01:47:47] And appreciate staff for your hard work and all of the questions that you answered up until now. Um, and it sounds like perhaps, you know, folks have some more so, um, but again, the healthy start time thing for me, all our schools are, are fantastic. If we're going to do this every five years, we can't keep adding budgetary, um, layers to it.

[01:48:07] So I'll, I'll, I'll stop there. Thanks. Dr. Anderson. Thank you. I have to say that I appreciate the questions that were asked, um, earlier. I was particularly surprised that, um, the costing with the 10 million was made regard with electric buses and not with diesel buses, which is the majority of our bussing.

[01:48:31] The only other thing I really want to underscore is we are a division that prides ourselves on equity. We say this again and again, and yet we don't put that at the forefront when it becomes difficult. We can't apply equity when it's convenient. And I fully agree with what Ms. Marin also had raised, which this is a statement that we're making where we're not transporting our kids outside of all of the misalignments with policies regulations etc but we are making a statement and there are other things that we could not do in order to

[01:49:06] achieve this this is just talking about getting our kids to school I do see a scenario where children because of their relationships that they have built in their schools that we've we've been saying you need to have three the counselors put that on our desks not too long ago that they will say I'm going to stay at my school because I have the right to do that as per the boundary but then we're going to increase our chronic absenteeism and tardies because they're going to scrounge to get the places where they need to be we need more information Dr. Reed and I'm unclear about so many things and I would like for us to take the opportunity um to have that

[01:49:45] information it I don't believe tonight is the night to do that and I know that Mr. Frisch a number of years ago I'm glad that you raised this Mr. Murek because he visited Montgomery and their bus programs I think we could get ourselves a little bit more space to get this right I've heard this be said earlier we can take a little bit more time to get this right instead of just making this fast and we also have to acknowledge and be very clear can't believe I'm doing this but in terms of what Miss Sizemore Heiser said earlier

[01:50:14] who are we impacting with this decision mr. McDaniel so the making sure I'm clear on this the 10.5 as still full call 10.5 10.443 to be exact versus the seven and a quarter that is reflect that is the difference between diesel and electric is that accurate yes sir okay and the reason that if I'm understanding correctly the reason you priced out electric is because jet goals yes sir

[01:50:46] which is board policy correct that's a good question sir I'm I have to get back to you on the answer that i just know that's been the whole focus since i've been here that the we have i don't know if it was a moratorium or the guidance from the county with the jet goals but from day one of me being here was we only buy an electric and that's probably my fault for not doing more well i know and i i don't i don't agree that's your fault um i i would say that if the if

[01:51:23] the culture if the expectation has been jet goals you were following the culture and the expectations of the division so if we want to peel back or clarify those expectations as a board that's a conversation worth having but i don't want anybody in the public to think that you know staff was just making something up for convenience purposes because that's not the case here that being said um i was very torn on this vote coming into it i'm still torn i i agree with some of the questions that have been raised so um i will be abstaining on this vote and um yeah that's where

[01:51:55] Royan. Mr. Dunn. The Jekylls were adopted in 2020, I believe. Is that right, Dr. Reed? They predate means, I think, but not by a lot. So I think it was the former board, but they are Jekylls that certainly were a commitment made by the Port Angeles, or the Fort Fairfax School Board. So it was stated as board policy. So have we purchased any diesel buses since 2020 we did the used buses from King Abdullah's Academy and we

[01:52:34] received I believe it was 10 buses for $300,000 so it was and the buses are very low mileage is that right 10 for 300,000 yes ma'am right so it was about 30,000 a bus and very low mileage besides the buses from King Abdullah have we purchased no new buses since 2020 since the jet goals were adopted you're talking about no new diesel buses no new diesel buses i would have to go back to the number um mr andradi do we have the number of diesel versus electric buses we've purchased either through grant or otherwise you

[01:53:08] got the last set of diesel buses that the county purchased was in 2023 um there was approximately 80 buses and a lot of the guidance that was given from the jet goals were after 2024 weren't about purchase any additional diesel buses any electric buses we purchased since the jet goals were tied in with the EPA grants and those are the buses that were purchased 22 and 23 also but the estimate those provided did not include any cost for installing charging infrastructure that would be necessary

[01:53:45] to support these electric buses is that true I thought that some of those were provided by grant but i with dominion but mr muick or mr andrati perhaps you have a different recollection yes ma'am the if you get the electric buses with the grants dominion provides the chargers if we fund it with our own fcps funding we have to come up with the chargers and you made reference to the to the highland leasing by montgomery county i'm very familiar with that

[01:54:19] that was an electric bus contract right not diesel yes sir um i know that we uh last year for budget reasons we delayed the purchase of of some new buses uh were the buses that we were planning to purchase last year and delayed for budget reasons diesel or electric i'm just trying to remember which buses the only ones that that i've been that i remember dealing with was the ones related to the grants and when the grants were getting you know kind of pulled back by the

[01:54:59] administration so we were waiting for that to get cleared to see if the drawdowns would work I don't know of any bus purchases that we have done and pulled back in the last two years Paul is that right that's good thank you yes sir I would like to ask this burden in terms of I know we're gonna have the budget presentation and all but but oh well no I'm sorry excuse me didn't mean that do you know right now what our projected shortfall might be due to the

[01:55:35] lack of funding that we're getting right now from the federal government ballpark I know it's it's a what I'm trying to figure out is what the 10 million dollar impact would be on our budget if it's if it's doable if it's not doable what you would foresee that it would have to be cut we would need to provide you a written response to that okay thank you um I think that there have been some good points brought up I think that there's we have conflicting goals when we talk

[01:56:10] about jet goals that we want to fulfill versus diesel um versus what the cost implications would be um so you know i just think that maybe we might need a little bit more time to try to figure this out mr muick how much lead time do you need to purchase a bus and to get it here and running it doesn't matter whether it's electric or not or diesel i think the good thumb rule is about 10

[01:56:38] to 12 months thank you miss mayor so I just want to confirm my understanding is it correct that on slide four of this presentation that 57 buses would be required this is a proposal for 57 electric buses yes ma'am sorry dr reed wow I would think that we would be celebrating that I mean we have been talking about electric buses for years I'm just shocked that we wouldn't be elevating that because that's a major movement forward um you know our policy though 85 42 was last updated

[01:57:17] in 2013 and it does speak about transportation now the motion from the 23 cip vote to revamp our cip policies we're so close to reviewing it in governance unfortunately we had to cancel last week but that policy 85 42 which is 12 years older it should have been reviewed every five years that's where it would say that we have meet the jet goal so it certainly wouldn't be directed that the superintendent would have to buy electric school buses but nonetheless that would be amazing but i don't support it here you know i um every january i get contacted by families

[01:57:53] in the herndon pyramid whose students want to go to south lakes because their middle schoolers have been at langston hughes doing the aap program which also happens to be an ib school and in january they call and they say why can't my student get the school bus from my part in her my area in Herndon Pyramid to South Lakes. And I said well we don't do it. Now again according to our policies it doesn't stipulate anything about that why we don't provide transportation. But here's what I did two years ago. I contacted my partner on the Board of Supervisors and said hey what can our connector buses do? And at first the connector staff didn't think it was possible

[01:58:28] because it was an hour to go from North Reston Herndon area to South Lakes. It was an hour with a school bus switch and I knew my parents were not going to be okay with that at like seven in the the morning. But the connector staff was able to review their routes and carve off three minutes somewhere. Turns out it's only 30 minutes. So I went ahead and did that just because it was the right thing to do. So there certainly are some solutions to be found that don't cost $10 million.

[01:58:54] I'm going to take a really fast turn. I agree that there are lots of options that don't cost $10 million. And I appreciate staff that you brought forward what the possible high-end goal or high-end number could be because I think that this board particularly has always asked for the highest possible expenditure so that when we're making decisions we can be informed as to what the possible outcome of those decisions are Dr. Reed can you speak to whether or not you have

[01:59:30] actually spoken about this with different boundary meetings as we because I have seen you do that so So I just wanted you to speak to what you had been telling communities. Well, at the boundary meetings, often the phasing question comes up.

[01:59:46] And I was able to point back to the policy and also the follow-on motions to indicate where the board has directed that phasing will occur. And I've had to follow that each time since it is across really all of our schools, right, elementary, fifth, sixth, middle school, and high school, as well as secondary schools.

[02:00:07] that the board will need to approve the budget capacity to pay for the transportation. So while the phasing is guaranteed, the transportation may not be, but that will be determined by a board vote based on budget decisions.

[02:00:25] Thank you, Dr. Reed. I am in support of getting our parents the information as quickly as humanly possible so that when they are making, we're in a little bit of a chicken and an egg conversation because our parents need the information in order to make the decision as to whether or not they're going to phase their children.

[02:00:43] And we also need to know which kids are going to phase in order for us to understand how much it's going to cost. And one of those things has to come first. So I'm going to privilege the parents being able to make a decision. So I am not ready to make a decision on this tonight.

[02:00:58] However, I am supportive of the recommendation that you put forward. So I look forward to how we can come about to that successful conclusion. And look, and maybe more time will give us some time to figure out what the other options could be.

[02:01:17] So seeing no other lights, we're going to go ahead and call for a motion, which will be on the screen in just a second. All those in favor of the motion on the screen, all those opposed, Ms. Marin, Mr. McElmean, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, and Dr. Anderson, all those abstaining.

[02:01:57] Mr. Frisch, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, and myself. Point of order. Did you say point of order? I said point of order. I believe per Robert's rules, the motion maker has to vote affirmative for the motion.

[02:02:14] Is that correct? That is incorrect. The motion maker can't speak against the motion, but is allowed to vote against it or abstain. Thank you. Madam Clerk, can you please read the vote? I just want to confirm that I have the votes correct.

[02:02:37] For Mr. Frisch, I have an abstain. mr mcdaniel i have an abstain first miss marron i have a no for mr mckelveen i have a no for miss st john cunning i have an abstain for miss lady i have an abstain for miss anderson i have an abstain for mr dunn mr moon and dr anderson i have no's am i correct okay then the vote is 0 5 5 the motion fails thank you moving on to agenda item 7.07 action item centerville high

[02:03:09] school lease agreement. We are going to take a brief five-minute recess. Board

[02:19:18] members please take your seats. Call on Ms. Anderson for a motion. I move the

[02:19:54] school board authorize the superintendent and negotiate and execute a lease agreement to extend the lease on the Fairfax County School Board's property at 4630 Stonecroft Boulevard Chantilly Virginia 20151 for an additional five years in exchange for a lease or purchase of property rights from the Fairfax County Park Authority for an area of land at Braddock Park, 13,000 Braddock Road, Clifton, Virginia, 2-0-1-2-4, sufficient to enable the school division to satisfy the county's floor area ratio, FAR, zoning requirements for Centerville High School, including FAR requirements

[02:20:30] associated with the division's planned renovation and expansion of that facility. This authorization INCLUDE THE NEGOTIATION OF ALL NECESSARY TERMS, CONDITIONS AND DOCUMENTATION NECESSARY TO FINALIZE AND EXECUTE THE ABOVE REFERENCE TRANSACTIONS, PROVIDED THEY ARE IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE FAIRFREX COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD AND COMPLY WITH ALL APPLICABLE LAWS, RULES, AND REGULATIONS AS DETERMINED BY THE SUPERINTENDENT WITH LEGAL ADVICE OF COUNCIL.

[02:20:57] THANK YOU. IS THERE A SECOND? SECOND. MR. MCDANIEL, VICE CHAIR. MS. ANDERSON, WOULD YOU LIKE TO SPEAK TO YOUR MOTION? ABSOLUTELY. Absolutely. This is a very simple motion that just officially gets the board moving towards a resolution of an issue that was one of the first things I spoke to anyone about when I first came on the board, which is that we had a lease that expired on the density requirements for Centerville High School.

[02:21:31] And so what this does is it just starts the ball rolling with a certain amount of information. I fully expect that some of the motion language is not acceptable to some of the parties. I explained that to some of my colleagues who requested additional language be included.

[02:21:49] However this is where we are. Dr. Reed, if it turns out that there is movement towards the lease but we aren't able to actually secure everything as outlined here you would bring that back to the board correct yes ma'am i would okay so this really just gets the ball rolling and the most important part of this motion is the second portion of it which talks about the fact that this is in the best interest of the fairfax county school board right now what i can say is that i 100 want to ensure that the fairfax county

[02:22:24] park authority retains their rec center at at the address that is the is the initial property that's owned by the school board and so i very much would be interested in coming up with some sort of plan that would allow for us to work with both the board of supervisors and the park authority to ensure that everybody can get what they need here so that's the reason that i brought this forward tonight thank you mr mcdaniel would you like to speak to your second uh with i agree with the the chair said I mean this is a goof for those of the public who are not experts or have never had

[02:22:59] to deal with land use or permitting or zoning problems this is a very wonky goofy unique situation in which we have found ourselves and it is the motion language here and and what we're effectively doing is authorizing the superintendent to officially be able to have negotiations with the park authority to try and get this issue put to bed once and for all so happy to second and support it. Thank you. I call on Mr. Dunn for an amendment. I move to amend the main motion by

[02:23:34] striking the language in its entirety and inserting the following language in its place. I move that the school board direct the superintendent to seek to achieve a global resolution of floor area ratio issues affecting any and all FCPS schools. Is there a second? Thank you Mr.

[02:23:59] Mr. McQueen, Mr. Dunn, would you like to speak to your amendment? Yes, please. I appreciate the time and energy spent by the chair and our colleagues and staff, as well as representative of the Park Authority Board and county staff as well.

[02:24:17] We have a situation where several of our schools across the county are located in RC resource conservation zones. Centerville High School is certainly affected by this, but there are other schools, including Bull Run Elementary, Centerville High School, Frost Middle School, Liberty Middle School, South County Middle School, South County High School, Virginia Run Elementary, Westfield High School, Willow Springs Elementary, and Woodson High School.

[02:24:45] South County Middle School and South County High School are both in the Mount Vernon District. And as such, I want to make sure that as we approach the Centerville High School issue that we treat this on a global basis, seeking a global resolution, because we have to be efficient with our time.

[02:25:03] We have to be making sure that we are looking not just at the present, but at the future, because some of these schools will be affected when their renovations come up in the current or future renovation queue. And we should try to work collaboratively with our colleagues on the county and on the park authority to see if we can work out a deal, whether it's monetary payments, lease rights, property, property rights, there are many methods of compensation consideration that can be exchanged.

[02:25:33] And achieving this global resolution will help not just resolve the immediate issue in front of us, but issues that will confront FCPS in the coming years. Thank you. Mr. McAfee, would you like to speak to-- No.

[02:25:48] OK, thank you. All right. I'll call on board members who have turned their lights on. Ms. Marin. - Yeah, so I have certainly been supportive of trying to get the renovation of center rail moved along and it's really terrible that it hasn't been able to move.

[02:26:05] You know, the work that our board is doing, myself and Mr. McDaniel as the committee members of the joint facility review review committee with the board of supervisors, you know, said this before, we need all the parties at the table that deal with land management. It's us, it's the county and it's the parks. And as I reflect on this problem we find ourselves in that is wasting taxpayer dollars denying our residents the new facilities that they voted on and are expecting our board has the least amount of fiscal authority the county board of supervisors set the tax rate and they collect

[02:26:38] the revenue i recently on the park authority they are collecting user fees so we are really the most junior and so by setting something out here today we're trying to show that we're solution oriented but we don't hold all the cards so i really appreciate that this amended motion speaks to directing the superintendent to work on all of the issues and certainly work with all of the parties involved including the county executive and the director of the park authority so i do support the amended language and i appreciate that it covers the entire county

[02:27:15] i think we get to help centerville as well as other schools so it's a real big win thank you Thank you, Ms. Marin. Dr. Anderson. Ms. Marin actually covered what I wanted to share, so I turned off my light. Thank you. Ms. Anderson. My apologies. Mr. Moon. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair.

[02:27:41] First of all, about a week and a half ago, along with Chairman Anderson and I participated in a meeting with a couple of supervisors to talk about this issue. And I want to thank our chair for our advocacy made at the time on behalf of the school board. Unfortunately, it is my understanding that a Phillips County Park Authority has rejected our request to consider file release. So with that I think I prefer to substitute language over the

[02:28:13] motion. Thank you Miss Anderson. I would like to propose a secondary amendment utilizing the amended language I would like to add the second paragraph of the original language back in in order to ensure well let me just leave it there

[02:28:40] for now is there a second second mr mcdaniel would you like to speak to your amendment yes um the original language was created by with legal counsel so i i think it's extremely important that we utilize as much of the original language as possible so this is a simple add to ensure that the best interest of the of the school board and fairfax county public schools is included

[02:29:16] in the motion language because i think that that's an important aspect of this thank you mr mcdaniel would you like to pick your second no miss mayor you know when i first read this amend this motion i believe it was sunday when i first saw it i my question immediately was hold on are we committing to a lease agreement because immediately i want to know what's the potential cost and so that was a concern of mine so i do prefer the unamended language um that's just been

[02:29:52] proposed i i prefer not including the original language because i would want to know a dollar amount that's with that so i and i also don't know that it really applies because the amended language directs the superintendent to get a resolution and that's different than whether it's a lease it could be anything and i certainly would want the superintendent to come back to the board and tell us and because we have so many conversations going with facilities i do think it's important for the board to understand more I'd love us to have more conversations and

[02:30:28] presentations to understand it so I'm more comfortable with the simpler language that just directs the superintendent to get a global resolution and be a partner with the board on to whether that includes negotiation in terms and agreements and certainly costs because I just want to know more about the costs so I prefer the unamended language. Thank you. Mr. Dunn.

[02:30:56] I just wanted to ask Dr. Reed or Mr. Foster if the secondary amendment language that second paragraph does that do you understand that to authorize the superintendent to proceed all the way to execution of any agreements or instead simply to prepare final documentation and the THE AGREEMENTS WOULD THEN COME BACK TO THE BOARD FOR A FURTHER VOTE BEFORE ANY DOCUMENTS ARE ACTUALLY EXECUTED.

[02:31:33] SO I'M CLEAR, MR. DONIARD, THE SECOND PARAGRAPH YOU'RE REFERRING TO, IT STARTS, DISAUTHORIZATION SHALL INCLUDE THE NEGOTIATION? THAT'S CORRECT. AND THE QUESTION, AGAIN, IS UNDER THIS SECOND PARAGRAPH, DO YOU UNDERSTAND IT AS OUR LEGAL COUNCIL TO AUTHORIZE THE SUPERINTENDENT TO ACTUALLY EXECUTE THE AGREEMENT WITHOUT ANY further vote of the board or would the superintendent have to bring draft agreements back to the board for approval before the agreements can be executed I think that the final agreement would be brought back to the

[02:32:12] board I you know having worked with the superintendent now for three and a half years that is her standard practice she certainly notifies the board as to what is going to be signed before it's signed I just want to make sure not just as a a standard practice that the superintendent has as her discretion my understanding of that language is she would have to bring it back to the board because all it authorized her to do is to prepare the documents for execution it doesn't actually authorize her to execute the documents and i and i read that the same way that it would have to come back to the board i just wanted to make sure

[02:32:46] that was clarified for the board thank you thank you mr dunn um dr anderson thank you i i'm actually a little bit more confused because typically when we have a motion that says that we cede to superintendent or designee to execute they go forward and they make it happen without necessarily coming back without coming back to the board i i don't think i understand why the part of the language that says and documentation necessary to finalize and execute the above reference

[02:33:23] transactions which is also not quite fitting this to me says there will be an execution so i'm unclear as to why that means come back to the board because that's not what execution typically means and i also think it's a little bit awkward in terms of the reference above transaction when we're not necessarily referencing a specific transaction because it's more broad it's go forward and find a solution I think I'm not seeing how these two work well together I think there needs to be a little bit more massaging of the language in order for it to merge to merge well

[02:34:02] and I would be I would feel much better if the term execute was removed and was replaced with you know returning information back to the board let's be clear about what we're looking for thank you mr frisch thank you language is funny let's look at the replacement motion which i'm probably inclined to support i move that the school board direct the superintendent to seek to achieve a global resolution of far issues affecting any and all fcps schools that doesn't

[02:34:38] say she's bringing it back to the board so seek to achieve is the modifier right seek to rather so she's going to seek to come up with a way to achieve the goal in the same way that the word prepare as Mr. Dunn pointed out the word prepare is the modifier of the other verbs in that sentence she's going to prepare for the execution of last I checked all of our contracts are prepared for the execution of all of our agreements are prepared for the execution of so if we want to look at the language both of them have modifiers that attempt to make it clear that this is coming back to the

[02:35:16] board seek to and prepare Mr. McElveen yes I'd like to propose an amendment to the amendment to to the amendment i'm sorry mr mckelveen we you cannot do tertiary amendments okay yeah um miss

[02:35:48] anderson for go back i have a question for dr reed in your time with us as board members do we generally i'm gonna i'm gonna ask this carefully do we generally create language that actually is more specific or less specific in terms of when we're asking you and when we're directing you to do something? I think that it depends on the topic. There are times it's very

[02:36:24] specific and times it's less specific. The phasing for example is very specific but there are other topics that perhaps are less specific. The proposed language that's the original amended language and the reason that I added the second portion of it is it's what we wanted to do. You know Mr. McDaniel and I spent a lot of time talking about this and trying to figure out a path forward that would work for a lot of different circumstances because there are a ton of different parties involved with this and we have worked really hard to try to come up with language that the board would accept as we move forward and we

[02:37:03] made sure that everybody had this language very early and have been talking about this a great deal and so it's frustrating to me that all of a sudden now we're going back to very loose language that allows for all the things and it's a motion that doesn't even impact it doesn't even say Centerville High School and so that's fine. I think that I can absolutely live with the amended the second amended language that I have proposed here and I think that it will get us to where we need to go so I am going to support all of it because I do desperately think that this community

[02:37:39] needs to understand that we are working towards getting a solution for them that isn't is about getting their school renovated because they are significantly over capacity which is part of the reason that the western high school purchase was so important thank you miss Marin for go back do you think this provides an opportunity for the board to consider creating a bank of standard motion language because this is another time in recent weeks where we've been up in our work because there was questions about emotion I'm there were questions I'm looking at

[02:38:16] consent agenda for tonight item 9.0 for a consultant services amendment and it's mostly similar to what was crafted on the original motion tonight but just a little bit different and so I've asked about how our motions are created and we could certainly cut a lot of you know back and forth if we know like when we approve a contract this is going to be the standard language and maybe it changes but just like we recently did with our report cards where we you know asked that there be certain language that that parents about their portion of graduate development we can do that too so I really I don't know if this is something our administrative committee can do or maybe legal can draft some

[02:38:55] things because on the last board legal did used to review our motions so I'm heartened that it was in this case but I really don't know who's making the motions who's drafting them and that's not okay we should know who on our staff is doing this and board is involved in making our motions so I'd love to come back to that maybe it's a governance matter so I I still support the mr.

[02:39:20] Mateos Dunn's proposal I think it's the clearest okay seeing no other lights on for a go back I will call on the vote for the vote on the secondary amendment which is on the screen do I need to read it please I there's lots of things on the screen I'll read it to make sure we're on the same page because I want to make sure that we have so I adapted Miss Anderson's just a little so we're clear so the amendment is to include the following language to the amendment

[02:39:56] this authorization shall include the negotiation of all necessary terms comma conditions comma and documentation necessary to finalize and execute the above referenced transactions comma provided they are in the best interest of the Fairfax County School Board and comply with all applicable laws comma rules comma and regulations comma all as determined by the superintendent with advice of legal counsel period so i will call for the vote all those in favor mr frish mr mcdaniel

[02:40:33] miss st john cunning miss anderson mr dunn mr moon and myself all those opposed miss marron mr mckelveen dr anderson any abstentions i think we everybody voted do you please read the vote the vote is seven three the motion carries so the amendment is now amended that link. So I'm not seeing any lights. So now we're calling on the vote for the entire

[02:41:07] motion that's on the screen. I'm sorry. Mr. Now that we're back to the primary amendment, I want to amend the primary amendment to strike and execute. Do we have a second? Second. Ms. Merrin, second. Thank you. Mr. Merrin, would you like to speak to your motion? I think we've spoken a lot about it. Thank you. Ms. Merrin, would you like to speak to your second? I agree. Can the clerk only show the things that we're actually um talking about though please that would really

[02:41:44] be helpful thank you while the clerk's preparing that i see dr anderson give you your turn to speak

[02:42:17] to this um i i'm happy to support that because i think it makes it a little clearer that there this is going to come back to the board without the term execution it means that we need to have an additional discussion and decision making so thank you uh mr mckelveen for that not seeing any other lights i will call for the vote do i need to read it are we clear with what's on the motion on the screen okay we're going to call for the vote on motion on the screen all those in favor

[02:42:51] mr frisch mr mcdaniel miss marron miss macle mr mckelveen miss uh site miss st john cunning miss anderson mr dunn mr moon dr anderson and myself that's unanimous for the board members present now we'll return since we did a secondary secondary amendment we'll return back to the primary amendment all right at this point i will call for the vote on the primary amendment as

[02:43:29] amended which is on the screen all those in favor oh mr mcjane has just a quick clarification so the amended amended amended whatever on now says global resolution of far issues affecting any and all fcps schools i guess my question is for the maker of the amended motion because you only spoke to rc which i agree with is the intent only for the rc schools or far across 198 schools for my

[02:44:06] remarks I was focused on the RC schools the ones I listed a list was provided by chief of facilities Eric Gordon so that's the intended scope then unfortunately we're gonna have to bring an amendment to clarify because that's not what the motion says I okay let me do this if we can do this without a I would like to clarify that instead of saying as is a resolution of FAR issues

[02:44:43] affecting any and all FCPS schools simply saying after all FCPS schools strike adding in after FCPS schools within land zoned RC thank you for a

[02:45:00] second it was without objection thanks without objection that's fine I mean if we want to spell out RC which is recreational hyphen con excuse me

[02:45:38] residential hyphen conservation it's a residential conservation residential conservation yes and then you can hype yeah parentheses all right see no lights I will call for the vote of the primary amendment as amended which is on

[02:46:13] the screen all those in favor mr. Frisch mr. McDaniel miss Marin mr. McElvain is st. John Cunning miss Anderson mr. mr. moon Anderson and myself that's unanimous for board members at the table madam clerk please read the vote okay so unanimous thank you

[02:46:39] but I'm sure now that has become motion so we have to vote one more time so now this has become the main motion order didn't this replace the main motion and it did and in doing so we just accepted one final amendment no objection and then we just voted on that amended language and passed the motion the

[02:47:18] substitute motion is an amendment we've already we just voted on the substitute yes now that has become main motion I believe the point of order was should be well taken that the vote was on whether to make the to adopt the amendment whether to make it the main motion that passed therefore to finalize it you would have to actually adopt the main motion as amended okay so now we will adopt the main motion as as indicated on the screen all those in

[02:47:54] favor mr. Frisch mr. McDaniel miss Marin mr. McElveen miss st. John Cunning miss Anderson mr. Dunn mr. Moon dr. Anderson and myself that's unanimous for board members present agenda item 7.0 action item advanced academics a peace center Annandale pyramid I call on dr. Anderson for a motion thank you I moved up the school board approve a opening a new full-time a peace center at poll middle school to begin with grade 6 and the school year 26 27 be a phasing option for impacted students currently attending Canterbury woods

[02:48:34] elementary and grades 3 to 6 base school being Annandale Terrace Braddock Elementary and North Springfield to allow them to complete elementary through grade 6 at Canterbury Woods see a phasing option for the false church pyramid based Mason Crest students who are currently attending Belvedere Elementary for AP Center services in grades 3 to 5 this action would allow impacted students to choose to attend either Glasgow middle school or the current the current AP middle school center assigned or Poe middle school and

[02:49:08] And D to direct staff to begin community engagement on the staff proposal to open a new full time AAP Center at North Springfield Elementary to begin with grade three in the school year 2627. Is there a second second?

[02:49:27] Thank you, Mr. Moon, Dr. Andrews, would you like to speak to your motion? Oh, absolutely. I would love to do that. And I want to start by saying thank you to the principal at Poe, Dr. Gap, who's here. So thank you for being here. I want to say thank you first of all to staff.

[02:49:43] This has been a huge lift and I appreciate all of the community assessment. I'm sorry, community engagement, the presentations, the facilities work. It's been a lot of work in a very short period of time for which I'm very grateful, particularly the set the fourth piece.

[02:50:03] I know I've spoken with just about all of you about this at length. so I won't be repeating all of that here but Part D I really want to lift that up because I think that's been the most aggressive component of work for staff because we needed to find a solution for those Canterbury Woods parents whose kids are caught in the middle because asking them to go to Canterbury Woods and returning back to Poe Middle School at you know leaving potentially

[02:50:37] leaving Canterbury Woods in fifth grade to come back to Poe for sixth grade is not a good plan. Asking them to remain at Canterbury Woods through sixth grade and come back at the middle school while their cohorts have already begun is also not a good plan.

[02:50:54] And so Dr. Presidio, Dr. Reed, and also all of the folks on facilities, thank you for all of this work. I think this is a very elegant solution to not only address the issue that has been going ON AT POLE MIDDLE SCHOOL IN THE ANNADALE PYRAMID WHERE IF WE VOTE IN THE AFFIRMATIVE HERE THEY WILL BE ABLE TO HAVE A MIDDLE SCHOOL CENTER IT IS THE ONLY REGION WITHOUT ONE BUT WE'VE ALSO STOPPED THE GAP OF CONCERN FOR OUR FOR OUR ANNADALE BASED STUDENTS WHO ATTEND CANERBURY WOODS FOR AAP SO I WILL PAUSE HERE BUT I'M VERY EXCITED AND LOOKING FORWARD TO AN AFFIRMATIVE VOTE AND HOPEFULLY WE CAN HAVE YOUR SUPPORT MR. MAN WOULD YOU

[02:51:34] like to speak to your second thank you madam chair i don't want to repeat what has been already said but as someone who had worked in anandaria for almost four years it was something that anandaria definitely needs to have thank you mr moon um seeing no others i'm just going to take a brief turn here i am the only concern i'm going to be supportive of this tonight but the only concern that i have um that i think is something that we're going to have to address at some point

[02:52:08] is that the kiddos that are being left at Canterbury Woods right now with the phasing option, those kids are going to have to have the the same decision that is what the final what the what creating the AAP center at the elementary level is meant to avoid. So I am concerned about whether or not those kids are going to be able to I don't I from what I understand they don't necessarily always go to frost because frost isn't always open for student transfers and so you have the same

[02:52:43] situation with those kids that are in the case that are in a k-6 now and that would be moving back to a six through eight middle school so at some point i think that we're talking about a small cohort of kids i do understand that and there's a significant number of kids at canterbury woods that would move on to frost because that's their base school and so i just want to put a marker out there that we do have some kiddos that may be in a in a unique circumstance that we should probably at least consider move forward with this seeing no other lights i'll go ahead and call for

[02:53:20] a vote on the motion which is on the screen all those in favor mr frisch mr mcdaniel miss marron mr mckelveen miss st john cunning miss lady mr dunn mr moon dr anderson and myself that is unanimous action item 7.09 of board members present action items 7.09 motion to rescind I call on Mr. McElveen for a motion thank you madam chair I move to rescind the decision taken by the school

[02:53:58] board at its meeting on December 4th 2025 to amend the structure of the comprehensive planning and development committee and to sunset the school board's facilities planning advisory committee so So CPDC and FPAC may continue to perform their essential mission for FCPS.

[02:54:15] Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Mr. McElveen, would you like to speak to your motion? Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. So I come tonight not just with a motion, but with a plea to reconsider the decision that was made at the last meeting to eliminate our facilities planning advisory council.

[02:54:32] Think about what we're facing as a system, as we've heard tonight. A countywide boundary study, a new western high school project cost spiraling, years of deferred maintenance, and amid all this we voted at our last meeting to silence the voices who can help us navigate these waters.

[02:54:49] From the years I served as FPAC liaison until today, I have been awed by the caliber of the committee members and the seriousness with which they approach their work. For years I have watched FPAC members give their time, their expertise, their passion, asking nothing in return.

[02:55:05] They are architects, engineers, urban planners, and parents who care deeply about our schools. They have produced insights. Our overworked staff simply cannot. They have caught what we might have missed. They have been our think tank, our safety net, our partners, and we've had the privilege of their wisdom at no cost.

[02:55:24] But what breaks my heart is this isn't the first time we've dismantled an advisory committee. Over the past two years, we dismantled the Human Resources Advisory Committee, then the Family Life Education Advisory Committee, now FPAC. One by one, we are closing doors and we are saying to our community that their voice doesn't matter.

[02:55:42] And then we told FPAC members they could join a board committee, but we wouldn't even give them a full vote. When times get tough, leaders don't retreat into isolation, they open doors wider. They invite more voices, more perspectives, and more wisdom into the room. Yet, we're doing the opposite.

[02:55:59] Our FPAC members deserve an apology. Just as I've apologized to HRAC members and FLECAC members before them, good people who who gave their time and expertise only to be dismissed. I'm sorry, and we should be sorry. But tonight we have a choice. We can continue down the path of shutting out our community or we can restore FBAC.

[02:56:19] We can say that we were wrong, that we value the voices of our community. I urge my colleagues to support this motion. Let's show the community that we are listening, that we're humble enough to correct our mistakes, and that we believe democracy is stronger when more voices are heard.

[02:56:38] - Mr. Dunn, would you like to speak to your second? - Yes, briefly. I'd like to incorporate by reference all of my remarks at the last board meeting. I think on reflection, the discussions that I've had with my constituents reflect grave concern about the future of facilities management, the construction and renovation of schools, the facilities condition assessment, and other priorities because we will no longer have

[02:57:13] the exceptional expertise of 13 citizens from across the county, representing every corner of our county, providing their time, their selfless public service, dedicating their world-class expertise and their precious hours away from family, away from job, away from personal leisure, to advise this school division on what we don't know, because we We don't know what we don't know, but I can say it's a lot because there are rapid developments in the industry, both construction techniques, construction management approaches,

[02:57:53] and a variety of other things that can be used to reduce our costs by tens of millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars. But if we foreclose that method that's provided reliable, common sense, industry expertise advice for decades, then we will have to hire consultants who inevitably don't provide the same level of service, the same level of commitment, and will also lose the chance to achieve those fiscal responsible cost savings that can then be used to expedite the renovation

[02:58:30] of other public schools and achieve other projects at a time when we have a 42-year renovation cycle for our public schools and when we have nearly a half billion dollars in combined infrastructure backlog and deferred maintenance.

[02:58:48] That's an overwhelming challenge and we had a presentation just last year saying it would cost $14 billion for us to reduce our renovation cycle from 42 years down to the school board policy of 20 to 25. So I beg my colleagues to please reconsider and support this motion so we have at a minimum more time to consider potential reforms to FPAC if that is desired by the school board and have a fulsome compromise or we can vote unanimously as colleagues, as a school board, which we've done several times tonight.

[02:59:22] Thank you. - I call on Dr. Anderson for an amendment.

[02:59:48] - Thank you, I apologize, I have it now. I move to insert the phrase and to revert back to the previous language and the strategic governance manual policy 1710 the community advisory committee operating committee operating manual after the phrase counsel is there a second second thank you Mr. Dunn Dr. Anderson would you like to speak to your motion

[03:00:21] yes absolutely I think Mr. McElveen and Mr. Dunn really said much of what I would want to share and this is just such an invaluable committee I'm not going to repeat what they've so elegantly shared but I do want to point out one concern that I have heard regarding staff time we can We have the latitude of reconstituting this committee in order to be more mindful of staff time.

[03:00:51] Maybe they go every other month because this is a committee that is very self-driven. They have put up retreats that they have entirely put together outside of just getting the space from us. They don't need us to lead them in every meeting. They need for some information to get their work done.

[03:01:09] But I do not believe that they require staff time at every single one of their meetings. Maybe it's quarterly. Maybe it's every other month. But we have got to find a way to take advantage of the expertise that this group provides. And I'm really hoping you all can reconsider this evening.

[03:01:27] Mr. Dunwood, do you like to speak to your second? No, thank you. Ms. Marin. I remain supportive of my comments made at the recorded October 30 CPDC meeting of the board that it's time to look at sunsetting FPAC.

[03:01:43] and I said that the conversation should be done with the utmost tone of gratitude and respect. So while the steps that followed helped move the effort forward, I wasn't aware that it was going on such a fast timeline and I needed to be absent for a meeting, and I certainly wanted to be able to thank our FPAC members.

[03:02:01] So regarding this particular committee, I want to again draw that I dare say we're in a capital facilities, I don't want to say crisis, but we have a lot of big problems, okay, and they're not going to get resolved by cutting things here and there, and again, the work of the Joint Committee, even the Fairfax County Athletic Council, all of that use of our facilities. I also think we have a facilities office that is doing really strong work, and the staff need to, you know, lead it, and we're already seeing more data than ever this past year that has changed how we're doing the work, so I do

[03:02:39] want to ensure that we're empowering the superintendent and her staff to do that important facilities work. I talked to a facilities, an FPAC committee member today who, you know, asked that the committee be reinstituted. And even if it's just to get closure and talk about how the committee could be helpful in the waning hours or, you know, they want to help. But what I said was, oh gosh, I just lost my train of thought. I was talking to this committee member and um you know there's so much work to do but really it comes down to educating people about the state of our facilities that we have 8.7 billion dollars and we get about

[03:03:18] eight dollars per square foot where other divisions are getting 12 up to 40 dollars per square foot so no matter what amazing recommendations we get from committee members or the public we can't do it without money so what if fpac becomes this amplifier for us to get that communication out I just want to end by saying, you know, since this board began, we've tried to examine how we can most effectively and respectfully engage residents as our committee appointees, and our public engagement committee of the board spent much time crafting a manual for committee members, and that's the approach we can look to on how to improve the experience of all involved.

[03:03:56] But we haven't gotten it right yet, and I haven't seen a board really get it right since I served myself on an advisory committee as a regular resident in around 2018. So we need to have a clear process to sunset committees. This one didn't go very well. We had a previous one with human resources when we transitioned to collective bargaining.

[03:04:15] That probably could have been smoother. So I think it's okay to show that we made a mistake, and we want to correct it, and we want to support involving our constituents in a way that's meaningful. so i will support this motion and amendment thank you miss baron seeing no others i'll call for a vote on the amendment that is on the screen all those in favor miss maron mr mckelveen mr dunn mr moon and dr anderson all those opposed mr frisch mr mcdaniel miss st john

[03:04:52] cunning miss lady and myself madam clerk will you read the vote so the uh vote is five five that causes the causes a tie under Virginia code 22.1-75 that when there is a tie that means and the full board is not present we defer to the next meeting since this is a tie on the amendment the entire thing defers to the next meeting so this entire thing will come back including the amendment

[03:05:25] at the next meeting. Thank you Madam Clerk. Agenda item 8 academic matters. Thank you Madam Chair for For this evening's Academic Matters, we're going to review some highlights from the recent

[03:06:02] release of the School Performance and Support Framework results. So as a reminder to our community, the new School Performance and Support Framework uses a point system to measure the performance of schools across each level according to their academic mastery, growth, graduation, and readiness outcomes.

[03:06:22] A school's total points earned is used to assign a performance category of distinguished on-track off-track or needs intensive support when a school is federally identified for targeted support and improvement their initial assigned performance is lowered by one level for example if a school learn points that put them in the on-track range but the school is identified for targeted support and improvement in even one single student group then their category is lowered to off-track with that context in mind i want to celebrate some of the many accomplishments of FCPS during this first year of the new accountability system first and foremost

[03:07:01] all Fairfax County Public Schools are fully accredited and we're very proud of the work of all of our educators our students our families our support staff everybody in this division that gives a bit of themselves every single day to make sure that our students have the best teaching and learning environment whether it's driving our buses our mechanics for our buses our grounds our Our security folks, food and nutrition, as we learned at the last meeting, our warehouse team.

[03:07:34] It's a team effort here in FCPS, and to have all schools fully accredited, we're very proud of that. I also want to state that all of our comprehensive high schools and three-quarters of our schools overall were identified as distinguished or on track. And all of our schools that were federally identified last year in the federal status for this year, based on the hard work of their schools and teams, are no longer identified.

[03:07:59] The Virginia Department of Education's webpage also represents a snapshot of excellence from within each of the superintendent's regions across the Commonwealth. Within our state region, we actually dominated nearly every one of the featured leaderboards.

[03:08:15] I'm not sure who came up with those or why they were proposed, they were circulated recently and so for overall points in this particular area we were proud to be home to four of the top five ranked elementary schools three of the top ranked middle schools and for science five of five of the top ranked high schools i think that five of the high schools and re or five of the elementary schools in reading and in math mastery as well were all fairfax county high or fairfax county elementary schools one of the notes i just want to call out and then we don't always do a call out but we're exceedingly proud of Whitman middle

[03:08:55] school principal John Flowers and his educator team who left behind federal status after three years of being identified for additional targeted support and improvement and that's a really significant accomplishment we're very proud of our Whitman Wildcats okay Whitman Wildcats and principal john flowers and his team that's a phenomenal amount of work and really focused effort on the part of our wildcats and their families as well these week uh graphics recap

[03:09:29] some of these celebrations for school accreditation as well as the performance framework categories and you can see we do have schools that were identified as needing additional support and improvement and let's look at some of the factors that may account for that more than three quarters of the schools designated for targeted support and improvement or 28 out of 36 were identified based on the performance of a single student group half of the schools designated for improvement which are two out of four were identified solely based on the four-year federal graduation indicator which as we mentioned earlier is new our teams are already taking actions to address

[03:10:08] the data and potential needs a number of changes in the accountability framework impacted the outcomes for some of these schools particularly those that had been maybe previously identified federally these factors warrant additional attention and focus and I'm very proud of our team that continues to look at the data work with our schools and especially our educators in the classroom the work that goes on in Fairfax County Public Schools is amazing each and every day the widest reaching impacts for our schools appear to have come from the change to

[03:10:42] minimum group size and the inclusion of science in the federal criteria as well as giving zero points when we have test refusal and other non participation and that was not the case in prior years as one example for the first time this year our parent refusals and other non participations these zero points were actually included in the school calculations which obviously lower the performance scores for those students who actually did take the assessment we We also continue to navigate recent tightening of the criteria for students with disabilities

[03:11:19] to access the Virginia Alternative Assessment Program, or VAP. Over the past three years, we've seen a 23% reduction in VAP tests in reading, a 24% reduction in math, and an 18% reduction in science.

[03:11:34] And as our students move to an SOL track, we're continuing to work on ways to bridge performance and support achievement for students who in some cases very suddenly have been moved from one track to another. Our teams continue to work hard and dig into individual school and student data to better understand these drivers for performance outcomes and the federal identification as we support our schools our students and our educators in the achievement of a world-class education I will say also that just want to have a moment about

[03:12:11] what's next for state accountability and as we reflect on the outcomes released this year we want to keep our focus forward as we want to be proactive in our advocacy and our support for schools the Virginia Department of Education is still expected to post their proposed revisions shortly and to accept public comment before the state board votes on revisions most likely at their March 26 business meeting we are working with our region and our building leaders to address any areas with opportunities for improvement within these state accountability results and we know our students and community expect and deserve

[03:12:48] the very best and that's the same bar we hold for ourselves each and every day I will say that I must also repeat though with high expectations must come high support so madam chair that concludes tonight's presentation of academic matters. Thank you, Dr. Reed. Agenda item nine, 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. Many of the items have gone through board review and documentation has

[03:13:28] been provided to all board members and the public in advance. I'm sorry, Dr. Anderson, your light wasn't on when Dr. Reed and when I moved on to the agenda item. Go ahead. No worries. Thank you.

[03:13:46] Dr. Reed, I do want to say a couple of things. First of all, thank you for explaining what this is, because I think the public needs to have some clarity in terms of what this means. And I just wanted to say I am so, so very excited to be able to share in some of these celebrations that you've highlighted, particularly all of our schools being fully accredited, especially so many of our schools being distinguished.

[03:14:10] And I have to give a shout-out to Annandale High School as a distinguished high school, So yay them, as well as so many of the other schools, Lewis High School, I believe, and Woodson that I have a small part of. We are in a tight spot with this accreditation circumstance, but I do want to highlight that our schools are coming through and making it happen.

[03:14:34] And that's the effort of every single person that works with our kids at the building, as well with the support with all of you that are sitting here in the gallery. I could not pass the opportunity to really highlight how I do believe FCPS has risen to the challenge when it comes to this new system.

[03:14:52] It doesn't have to be this way. It's wonky. It's incomplete. It has a lot of flaws. Given all of that, we are still here. So I think that's really worth noting. So thank you for ensuring that we had this report today. Thank you.

[03:15:08] Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Agenda item nine, consent agenda are adopted rules of parliamentary procedure. rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval by the board of the board by a single motion many items have 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 items are on the screen is there any agenda or any objection to approving the consent agenda i object to item 9.06 revisions to the strategic governance manual update to public hearings item 9.06 is removed

[03:15:46] from the consent agenda hearing and seeing no other objections the remainder of the consent agenda is approved i call on miss lady for a motion i move that the board approve the revisions to the strategic governance manual as indicated in the attachment on board docs is there a second thank you miss st john cunning miss lady would you like to speak to your motion uh no thanks Ms. St. John-Cunning would you like to speak to your second? No. Mr. Dunn. Yes I removed this item

[03:16:19] from the consent agenda because it would require people who wish to speak at school board meetings to register at least two business days in advance and I just want to review a shared advocacy history with my colleague Ms. Marin that when I began my advocacy 12 years ago now we were often able to register the same day to speak both at the school board and the board of supervisors however over time in this region not speaking about FCPS specifically there have been increasing limitations put on people's ability to

[03:16:58] speak at public hearings and I think that's concerning and I think paired with other discussions we've had this evening there can be a sense provided to the public that we don't care about their voices that we don't want to hear from them. And I think we heard just tonight, you know, significant concern about one of the major initiatives that we've launched recently, which is providing chat GPT to all teachers. I think we heard serious and significant concerns, and I think that's something that is worth discussing and debating. But when we close off Public Voices, we don't just lose cost savings, right? We also

[03:17:38] lose the opportunity to hear from the community who elect us. And I think we ought to hear from them more than once every four years. I really believe that there's no reason if 12 years ago we could register on the same day as a school board meeting to speak now 12 years later in a time of AI much more advanced IT tools and countless third-party service vendors who offer various you know public speaking registration systems or similar you can even create a Google form yourself without paying anyone a dime, surely there's an administrative solution that is free

[03:18:17] or low cost, no cost, and can enable the school board to manage the people who are registering to speak. I just don't believe that this is the solution. There are other solutions that are out there that I'm aware of in my experience professionally, and so I don't support limiting the ability of people to speak especially what we saw last year which is last-minute budget cuts announced on a Thursday telling people on a Friday that they might be losing their jobs and this is late in the school year past the transfer window. We need to allow people to speak especially on

[03:18:54] short notice because that's when things become people become aware of things when word spreads in the community. So I do not support this motion I hope my colleagues will not support this motion I think this is worthy of further discussion by the school board, and we should promote democracy, not limit it.

[03:19:14] Dr. Anderson. Thank you. Just a couple of clarifying questions that I have. This would only be applicable to public hearings, not our regular community participation. And my second question, at public hearings, do we have the same practice of having a few slots that are open for walk-ups?

[03:19:38] Yes. We have five available slots that are mandated by the governance manual that we have to keep open for individuals. That's actually more than what it is for community participation. For community participation, they can sign up and individuals did tonight. However, if at community participation, we have filled up all the slots, individuals are not taken off the wait list.

[03:20:05] With public hearings, if those five individuals sign up, they must be heard. We cannot. And so with public hearings, generally anybody who signs up is able to participate. So it is a little bit actually more inclusive with public hearings.

[03:20:21] Thank you. Can you also speak to the timetable for registration? Because we have these meetings every two weeks, so I know the time is, explain that. And for public hearings, what is the time frame that we allow for registration? so with public hearings per the governance manual we're supposed to open it up at least 10 days not 10 business days but 10 just regular days given that we've got some public hearings that are coming up that are going to be happening right after we're coming back from winter break I have instructed my staff to actually open things up starting on 1222 for both the 110 boundary hearing

[03:20:57] and the 113 CIP slash overflow boundary hearing to ensure that individuals have more than 10 days we don't want to have them get caught up in the holidays so we're actually opening sooner we're working to get the notice into the newspaper right now that we normally would do to make sure that we have that in terms of the signups and the registration what we normally have is when we are doing things for community participation it does close 48 hours in advance of the regular meeting for public hearings right now it is closing at 4:30 the day before the public hearing but that's causing we've heard complaints from

[03:21:37] individuals because we can't get notification to them until the day of the hearing that they are actually able to participate and because the governance manual indicates that individuals have to be allowed to participate either virtually or in person if they're participating virtually we have to send them through a tech check to ensure that we're being efficient with our time which leads to individuals not necessarily getting the tech check notification on time.

[03:22:06] When we had the budget hearing, for instance, we were literally having to beg tech to get on at 11:30 at night, because we didn't want to preclude anybody from being able to speak. So our wonderful tech staff was more than gracious and got on to run tech checks at 11:30 at night, but that's rather difficult.

[03:22:26] We are trying to avoid that scenario with such a potentially large hearings coming up. All right. Thank you for that very robust answer. Just a couple of things for consideration. Not saying I'm offering any amendments. I wonder just to kind of soften some of these changes that are being proposed and it does sound reasonable because we do need a little bit of time to get all the things ready.

[03:22:49] And I'm glad that this is not going to be impacting our regular community participation is just public hearing. But I wonder if we should be considering our public hearing period to be 10 business days rather than 10 regular days because that affords a little bit more time if we have a weekend in there. So I'd like to propose that. And kind of unrelated but related, the advertising in the newspaper, I have never once seen any of our public hearings advertised in newspapers.

[03:23:19] is that our only outreach obviously we send it out to our community for those with for whom we have contact information but what newspapers do we advertise in so we are required by the Virginia code to advertise in the newspaper so we have chosen to do the Washington Post and the Washington Times to ensure that we have the most coverage for the region we also advertise online we ask board members advertise and you know if we have and try to the best of our

[03:23:57] ability also send out a newsletter or notification individuals who have subscribed to a school board newsletter which we run that's not got the greatest so that's why we ask board members to help us but by code we actually have to do the newspaper notifications thank you I read lots of papers I've just never seen any of these public hearings in the six years that I've been on the board so thank you for that I do want to say I I am concerned and I I'm not and I appreciate mr. Dunn's statements because we do not want to send the message that we don't want for folks to speak to us given what we just talked about with

[03:24:34] f-pack and other things that's not the optic that we want to portray but we do have to have some time for administrative work and again I'm just wondering if we could split the baby here maybe it's not two days maybe it's one day just so we have time for staff to do what they need to do thank you mr. moon thank you madam chair uh i've read the agenda item on the bulldogs i understand but for the public hey what are you

[03:25:07] trying to what are you what problems are you trying to serve could it be a specific so what we are trying to do so currently the way for public hearings it reads in the governance manual is that it closes at 4:30 the day before a hearing so what we are asking is for to close two business days before the hearing for if the hearing occurs on a weekday if a hearing occurs on a weekend right now what it says is that it'll close 4:30 on a Thursday a great example is our upcoming boundary hearing on 1:10

[03:25:44] on 1:10 right now under the current governance manual we would have to close the list at 4:30 p.m. on January 8th January 8th is a regular meeting day which means that most of my staff is going to be over here in either in closed meeting with the board or prepping with technology and communications to get ready for the regular meeting in order for us to stick to what we have if there is no change I'm going to have to ask two of my staff to work overtime and we will have to pay them overtime in order to fill to get

[03:26:20] things out I've also already met with the tech team they are greatly concerned about the ability to do tech checks the morning of the regular meeting or sorry the morning of the public hearing on January 10th if the public hearing is starting at 10:00 a.m. that means that we're asking individuals to theoretically get up at 6:00 or 7:00 a.m. to run a tech check in order to avoid that what we were hoping is that if it can close at 4:30 on Wednesday then we have Thursday to do excuse me Thursday to do the notifications and the tech team has graciously agreed to take time out of their Friday they would assign to

[03:26:59] individuals in order to run the tech checks all day on Friday we would also to avoid individuals just being stuck and waiting for the tech team while they're running these tech checks the tech team would be doing the tech checks and one-hour increments, just giving us that one extra day would allow us to do all of those things.

[03:27:18] So the changes is to change from 4.30 on a Thursday to 4.30 on a Wednesday for weekend hearings, and it's to ask for two business days, which is akin to what we do for regular meeting community participation as opposed to it closing the night before a public hearing. So how often have we had a weekend public hearings? I've only been with the board for about two and a half years, And this is going to be the first time we are doing it, which is actually why we didn't catch this issue until we started to get ready for the upcoming Saturday hearing.

[03:27:55] How often do we limit the number of speakers? We don't limit the number of speakers. So with that, I'm trying to understand, you know, notifying the papers who have signed up. If they sign up, if there's no limit, are they entitled to speak?

[03:28:14] they are the bigger issue that we runs into is the request for virtual speaking because we can't limit and because the governance manual doesn't allow us to tell individuals that they can't virtually speak if that's what they're requesting the biggest issue we're trying to get at is letting them know and then making sure that they have appropriate notification to get on what we don't want to happen is that an individual says well i didn't get the tech check email so i didn't know that I had to go through a tech check if you don't have not spoken before the board in the last year in order to make sure that your equipment works that we

[03:28:51] can hear you to do all of those things we put you through a tech check if you don't come to the tech check you don't get your link to via zoom to actually speak and so we want to ensure that nobody is precluded from being able to speak so that's why we do the tech checks and that's why we want to make sure we have enough time to get everything set up People, even though people are not precluded, individuals have said, well, I wasn't, because we do have different rules between community participation at a regular meeting and a public hearing.

[03:29:24] They have said, I wasn't aware that I just get to, so they're waiting for those emails. We have gotten emails from individuals saying, why haven't you notified me sooner? We have to respond back and say, well, we can't notify you until the list closes. And they come back and say, well, I would like earlier notification.

[03:29:43] Okay. I am willing to support the request from clerk's office and then see whether, you know, we hear complaints from public. Thank you. Ms. Marin. Okie dokes. So, gosh, it's so interesting how we could talk about some of these administrative items, but they really do have meaning behind them. You know, we, the prior board, we did a lot of thoughtful thinking about how to ensure people have access, but also how to make it an effective, efficient process, to ensure that residents and not people outside the system who were here for different reasons

[03:30:20] other than supporting our students were getting access. You know we do a lottery to ensure that on the regular meetings there are people speaking and not people just trying to again jam up the works when other people don't have a chance. So I really appreciate the motion makers interest in ensuring access to residents. I see this more as an operational thing, and I actually think the motion is appropriate because we don't want people not knowing what their schedule is going to be.

[03:30:51] We know how we are in this area. We like our schedules. So if this helps people plan better, I'm all for it. Also, people can still show up. I mean, signing up to register is just an early, you know, advantage, but people can show up. It happened this evening. So I think it's fine the way it is. I did recall a heads up from our chair and clerk, I believe. So again, while I appreciate it, I think the big message for tonight is the board cares about public input. And how can we focus more on elevating that and doing it better? And that could be woven into a lot of our practices and approaches. So I hope we can take that up another time. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to

[03:31:30] take a quick turn, seeing no other lights. When was the, Madam Clerk, when was the board initially notified that we were trying to make this change I believe we sent out notification on December 11th as part of a weekly update that myself and the chair and the vice-chair do to the board I believe we included included a note as part of that could you also explain why we have scheduled the hearing on a Saturday it was recommended that we do it on a Saturday to ensure that we have

[03:32:05] and the ability to hear from residents the most that they have the ability we don't want it to be the individuals particularly because the topic that is going to be heard is such an important topic for the community we want it to make sure that the board had the time and that and when we were doing the budget hearing some of the complaints we got from individuals is that it was midnight and so that kept some people who had to work the next day from wanting to speak so the hope is that we can get a vast majority of individuals who want to be heard on a Saturday when they may not have to work when hopefully

[03:32:42] it's a 10 o'clock with no end time that we can get in as many individuals with the understanding that if we do not if it gets to the point where we were running too long that we can do an overflow on the CIP as part of it because we're going to notice to ensure that individuals know that that is an overflow which is a past practice of the board thank you madam clerk so i think that it's probably pretty clear to everybody at this point that every intention here was made to ensure that we have more public comment not less so i am 100 in support of the work that the clerk and her team

[03:33:21] did to ensure that this was correct in the up in the governance manual and i appreciate the fact that it was brought to us in such a time that we could actually make sure that it was correct in the hearing listing so that before it went out we actually caught it to ensure that the public would absolutely know what the rules were so that way that we could ensure maximum participation so seeing no others i'll go ahead and call for a vote on the motion which

[03:33:49] will shortly be on the screen all those in favor mr frisch mr mcdaniel miss marron mr mckelveen Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, and myself. All those opposed. Mr. Dunn, will the clerk please read the vote? The vote is 9-1. The motion carries. Thank you. Agenda item 10, new business. The following are new business agenda items. There will not be a vote on these

[03:34:27] items tonight or this evening, but action is scheduled at a future meeting. Agenda item 11, Board committee reports, I call on Ms. St. John Cunning for a report on the Public Engagement Committee.

[03:34:43] So we were able to meet this week, which was a great meeting. We did discuss proclamations and where they fit into the different months and how some would become annual and not annual. We're going to continue that conversation and look into some how they align with the months that are celebrated.

[03:35:05] We also looked at the strategic governance manual and discussed some of what we're discussing today about how the operational portion of having our public speak is important so that our clerks can make sure that everyone is notified in a timely manner.

[03:35:25] We discussed advisory committees and that IT, I think, has identified the platform that can be outward facing for the toolkit. going to start to um create that was on hold because it was looking into the different platforms that would be workable and then we also discussed and we'll be looking into consideration for a second student school board representative which is something that we've been exploring and i think we want to start getting a little bit firmer on that that was brought by two previous not this but two previous school board representatives ago with uh dr anderson so we kind of want to get some

[03:36:02] CLOSURE ON THAT. THANK YOU, MS. CHUN CUNNING. I CALL ON MR. MCDANIEL FOR A REPORT FROM THE COMPREHENSIVE DEVELOPMENT AND PLANNING COMMITTEE. THANK YOU. WE MET LAST WEEK AND I'LL BE QUICK BECAUSE IT'S GETTING LATE. WE MET LAST WEEK. MS. MARIN GAVE AN UPDATE ON THE JOINT FACILITIES TASK FORTH THAT SHE AND I SERVE ON WITH THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS AND THE WORK GOING ON THERE.

[03:36:20] WE ALSO HAD A VERY ROBUST CONVERSATION ON THE INTEGRATION OF THE F-PAC WORK ON TO CPDC. SO THAT'S THE REPORT. THANK YOU, MR. MCDANIEL. AGENDA ITEM 12, superintendent matters i call on dr reed for superintendent matters thank you madam chair given the hour and our return to closed session i will pass this evening and just wish everyone an abundantly joyful winter holiday thank you dr reed agenda item 13 board matters the next next item on the agenda is board matters i'll call each board member on each board member to speak

[03:36:54] Mr. McElveen. Oh sorry I thought I had voted against this no thanks. Ms. Marin. I'll say aloha and share about a once-in-a-lifetime experience I got to have. I joined constituents from South Lakes High and Marshall High School in their participation in Pearl Harbor Memorial events in Hawaii in Honolulu. I paid for myself to join this epic trip and our students were incredible ambassadors they were just poised and nice and just it was a trip filled with culture and history American history world history music there was marine

[03:37:33] biology at some points just really incredible we were the largest band in the parade of about 15 different high school bands and we just it was so exceptional so I really appreciate our teachers mr. for mr. vessel and for braving this trip together and combining the two bands and all of the parents who helped and we have such fabulous students and I'm just so proud and grateful to have been able to spend the time with them and their families and our staff. Aloha and have a wonderful holiday

[03:38:02] break. Mr. McDaniel. I'll pass. Mr. Frisch. Thank you quickly. It's been a busy couple weeks in Providence District. When we last left off on my tour shadowing FCPS employees who are keeping our schools running I previously had the pleasure of volunteering at the library at Mantua Elementary school where i read to students and checked out books a week or so later i got to shadow mr spalding one of our bus drivers on the pine spring bus route which was great and the kids were

[03:38:36] mostly well behaved and then last week i had an opportunity to work with the custodial team at shrevewood elementary school cleaning classrooms cleaning bathrooms and seeing their hard work up close and personal all of these employees deserve our gratitude this holiday season they are the reasons that our schools continue to operate and continue to run so that our educators can educate also was able to attend the Mantua Citizens Association holiday party last weekend and supervisor Sizemore Heiser's swearing in earlier this week and present to the ace committee

[03:39:14] about marketing strategies for our programs with Mr. Moon as our ACE committee representative liaison on the committee and finally I want to give a plug for Supervisor Palchik's Providence District winter gear drive not everybody is fortunate at this time of year to be able to stay warm and they are collecting coats and winter gear new or lightly used so please consider dropping it off and please take part in the Fairfax County Department of Transportation community feedback for Route 29 active transportation study a segment which runs through Providence District and directly impacts our community the study focuses on improving safety and accessibility

[03:39:54] for everyone whether walking biking taking transit or driving the online survey is open through the close of business day tomorrow and you can find a link on the supervisor's website Dr. Anderson thank you first and foremost I do want to say thank you to all of the parents in the audience who have come to not just today, well, not today, but in previous days and in previous years, rather, to also advocate for the AAP Center at Poe.

[03:40:27] It is finally here, and I thank you for being steadfast in that advocacy. On a lighter note, it was really lovely to visit Senator Warner's office for the second year in a row, this time with Woodburn Elementary to do a tree trimming, and being a very tall person, he helped all those younger kids hang the ornaments on very high branches.

[03:40:51] So it was very lovely. And there was cookies and milk, and they sang carols. It was a wonderful opportunity. I also want to say thank you to Ms. Nevins at Columbia, who invited me to speak to her second grade students about local government, as well as Principal Badia at Annandale Terrace, who invited me to speak to second through fifth grade, also about local government and where I was joined by other local government in our area.

[03:41:21] I do want to say again another congratulations to the Falls Church Academy for the $200,000 grant that they just received from the Clodmore Charitable Foundation. And Mr. McElveen, as well as Mr. McDaniel, were there in order to receive that check.

[03:41:37] It is going to go a long way. And, of course, Dr. Reed was also there. My apologies. And, of course, that donation is going to go a long way to expanding the programming for our students and really providing them with the real-world experience that we know will help them get into a career, essentially almost right out of high school.

[03:41:58] I do want to say to the Glasgow and Park Lawn parents and those who feed into those pyramids, please be sure to review the proposals for those schools to reduce capacity there and please join us at the public hearing on January 10th in order to share your feedback and that's it and I'd like oh also happy holidays to everyone and we'll see you in the new year Mr. Moon thank you Madam Chair you know you know what I'm doing tomorrow I have seven ambassador teachers visiting me for dinner

[03:42:36] and I am happily stressed out. I've done almost all grocery shopping except for garlic bread. I'm only preparing spaghetti, but if any of my colleagues wants to help me out, you're welcome to join me.

[03:42:53] With that, happy holidays. Mr. Dunn. I'd like to offer congratulations to West Potomac High School senior Yusuf Abdulrahman, who was selected to represent Sudan at the inaugural 2025 World Taekwondo Under-21 Championships in Nairobi Kenya on December 4th. I'd also like to offer congratulations to Bryant High School principal Karen Hertel who is retiring after 31 years of service at FCPS. Karen we thank you for your dedication enjoy your retirement. I'm also pleased to welcome three new principals to Mount Vernon District Schools. Principal Jessica Peterson of Fort Belvoir Upper School, Principal Adrian

[03:43:33] Williams of Quandah Road School and Principal Cindy Conley the incoming principal of Bryant High School. I look forward to working with each of you as we strive to provide a world-class education for all students. Thank you to the Fairfax Federation Education Committee and the Realtors Group for inviting me to present at their recent meetings. I appreciate the opportunity to provide an update and to talk about the daily excellence happening in Mount Vernon District schools and communities. I also attended two recent community boundary meetings at Annandale High School and Norton Station Elementary. I really appreciated everyone who came out to make sure that their voice was heard. And I know that the superintendent is actively considering your

[03:44:10] input as she formulates her final recommendation to the school board. Along with Mount Vernon District Supervisor Dan Stork, my office delivered 100 bags of groceries and gift cards to Mount Vernon High School to help food insecure families over winter break. I'd like to thank Educate Fairfax and Girl Scout Troop 50258 for their support in this critical effort. I hope everyone this holiday season will remember the less fortunate and strive to either provide food, canned goods especially, or money to help out those in need. What a fantastic way to honor

[03:44:45] the spirit of the season. Happy holidays to everyone. Miss St. John Cunning. So it was also a busy couple of weeks for me. Yesterday I had the opportunity to be at Lindbrook Elementary at the Cuts with Cops event where County Police Officer Rosa partnered with Dream Salon of Springfield to provide free haircuts to 30 students.

[03:45:08] Councilor Vanessa Pollack coordinated this effort, and Principal Paratus led by example by getting his haircut. I'm going to tell you, those kids looked fabulous. Supervisor Lusk joined us to support our students. At Lindbrook yesterday also, I was able to go to the Lindbrook Family Literacy Winter Celebration, where parents, students, and staff came together for a wonderful afternoon celebrating.

[03:45:32] And it was potluck with homemade food that was absolutely delicious. I, along with board members Moon and McElveen, were able to go to the HEA HLA roundtable meeting. We also had some leadership team members there.

[03:45:49] We had very robust discussions on how we can improve the FCPS experience for all Hispanic students and staff members. As a longtime member of HEA HLA, I am so proud to see how far this organization has come and to see the impact of its continued advocacy.

[03:46:06] Also, like many of my colleagues, I was at the third annual Future FCPS Student Show, which was also fabulous. Finally, this past week, we have again seen some senseless gun violence at Brown University and Bondi Beach in Australia, and my heart goes out to the families impacted.

[03:46:25] Both of these are very dark moments. But I'd like to reflect that we remember that it is not by accident that many religious and non-religious celebrations occur during the winter, the darkest season of the year. Many of those celebrations center around light, light to remind us that kindness, love, and peace are what define the best of humanity.

[03:46:47] Throughout my time on this board and my travels in the Franconia District and this division, I have been fortunate to see the light that our teachers, staff, and our students particularly show us every day. As this board takes its winter break, I hope that all of us remember that each of us can be a light carrier in the darkness, that we remember that one tiny light can be amplified if it is reflected.

[03:47:12] it. With that said, I wish all of you a joyous and light-filled holiday season, and to my Hispanic constituents out there, Feliz Navidad. Ms. Lady. Thank you. I'm going to echo Ms. St. John Cunning. It's been a difficult week in terms of gun violets, and our hearts and prayers go out to all the victims and continue to pray for some reform when it comes to guns in this country and elsewhere. Also, I want highlight a few things that took place with me in drainsville i took legislators jimmy bierman

[03:47:49] and delegate sullivan to cooper middle school to see their after school program it's very robust delegate sullivan was incredibly impressed with the level of engagement especially related to co-curricular academic endeavors that were taking place after school and i also attended mclean high school's students with services advisory board to their community It was great.

[03:48:14] We had a robust conversation about the programming coming out of their student services department with their counselor and brainstormed additional ideas. I certainly enjoyed attending the swearing in for my colleague, Retschner Sizemore-Hyser. I'm very happy for her. I know she will be fantastic on the board of supervisors.

[03:48:29] I'm very excited tomorrow night to attend the naming of George C. Marshall's gymnasium after Joe Swarm, my dear friend and colleague of over 30 years at this point, and that will be a special event. as also tomorrow evening is the Langley versus McLean girls and boys basketball rivalry at McLean High School. Encourage folks who won't be at the Marshall-Madison game to check that out.

[03:48:51] And then I really just want to wish everyone the best holiday season. A happy Hanukkah, happy Kwanzaa. And I also want to say to those who celebrate the Christmas season, remember that first precious present all those years ago. And I say, O come, O come, Emmanuel, and wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Thank you.

[03:49:10] Since the board has to return to closed session, the meeting is recessed at 11:03.

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