Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Meeting, Thursday, January 8, 2026

Date: Thursday, January 8, 2026
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 4h 59m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbgtB5bf6aE
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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[00:10:19] The time is 7:09 p.m. on in this January 8th, 2026 regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board will now come to order. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by a moment of silence and a performance of the National Anthem by Herndon High School Guitar 4 Ensemble under the direction of Christopher Cunningham.

[00:10:36] I pledge allegiance.

[00:10:38] Can we have one more round of applause for our amazing students, please?

[00:12:46] Agenda item 3.02 announcements. Mr. McDaniel I'm sorry Mr. McDaniel has submitted a request to attend tonight's meeting remotely due to personal reasons as he has a work travel conflict and is located in Houston Texas.

[00:13:02] All those in favor of approving Mr. McDaniel's request Mr. Frisch, Ms. Marin, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon and myself.

[00:13:18] All those opposed. Dr. Anderson please state your objection. I will not approve virtual participation for what reason for the point of order will not approve that that that is not part of our process.

[00:13:35] Mr. Foster could you please explain which Virginia code we need to follow in order to state the objection. Yes Virginia code section 2.2 dash 3 7 0 8.3 requires that if there is a vote to disapprove virtual participation that the reason be stated with specificity Dr.

[00:13:58] Anderson, would you like to explain? No, I gave my rationale. Chair Anderson, in order to take a recess to discuss this, we either need unanimous consent or approval by a majority.

[00:14:26] So if we could discuss this and have the board take a vote on whether they are allowing a recess so that we can have this discussed with general division counsel off the record. Okay, with no objection, we're going to go ahead and take a quick five minute recess. I object. Okay, then we're going to go ahead and vote on whether or not we're going to be able to take a quick recess.

[00:14:45] All those in favor of taking a quick recess. Mr. Frisch, Miss St. John Cunning, Miss Lady, Miss Dixit, and myself. All those opposed, Miss Marin, Mr. McElveen, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson.

[00:15:03] Will the clerk please read the vote? - The motion is gonna be five five, it fails. - Okay, thank you, Madam Clerk. At this point, Mr. Foster, what would you like us to do to move forward? - I believe the vote to permit Mr. McDaniel participate virtually did pass if i saw the account correctly and so in light of that i think my recommendation is that the meeting proceed okay thank you mr mcdaniel will you please check your

[00:15:34] audio and video i'm in thank you thank you very much on behalf of the school board i would like to welcome sarah kelsey city of fair or city of fairfax school board member and kate hanley former appointed providence district school board member providence district supervisor and the chair of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors so if we could welcome them please. I would also like to recognize several of our student representatives in this year's student leadership program or development program who are attending

[00:16:13] tonight's meeting and ask them to please stand. Welcome. If you would like to review a copy of the meeting agenda please see the back of the auditorium to obtain copies of any items or supporting materials being presented tonight please reference the QR code on the agenda or visit www.fcps.edu/boarddocs tonight's meeting is being broadcast on Channel 99 and live streamed on YouTube and at our on our website at www.fcps.edu/livestream tonight's meeting is

[00:16:51] also being broadcast in Spanish in Spanish on YouTube at youtube.com/@fcpsnespanuel agenda item 3.01 volunteer and mentor appreciation week proclamation I call on Miss St. John Cunning for a proclamation whereas Fairfax County Public Schools benefits from the dedication of many individuals who generously volunteer their time and talents in schools and at school-sponsored activities.

[00:17:27] And whereas every school relies on volunteers and mentors through both formal and informal partnerships who enrich the academic, cultural, and extracurricular experience of students, particularly through tutoring, mentoring, and programs that strengthen family engagement.

[00:17:44] And whereas, Volunteer and Mentor Appreciation Week is a week-long observance dedicated to recognizing the exceptional support, care, and guidance provided by volunteers and mentors who also highlight the ongoing need to expanding mentoring opportunities to promote positive outcomes for all students.

[00:18:06] And whereas Fairfax County Public Schools honors the volunteers and mentors who consistently show up for students, demonstrate unwavering commitment, and support their academic, social, and emotional growth. And whereas, by sharing their experiences, offering encouragement, and provided trusted guidance, mentors help students envision limitless possibilities, fostering confidence, resilience, and curiosity, and often playing transformative roles in the lives of young people.

[00:18:40] Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board hereby proclaims January 5th through 9th as Fairfax County Public Schools Volunteer and Mentor Appreciation Week And recognizes and honors the individual, the invaluable contributions of school volunteers and mentors and encourages students, staff, families, and the broader community to acknowledge and celebrate their service in strengthening our schools and supporting student success.

[00:19:12] Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. I will call for a vote. All those in favor, Mr. Frisch, Ms. Marin, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, and myself. That is unanimous for all board members. Agenda item 3.04, Principals and Administrators Appreciation Month proclamation. I call on Dr. Anderson for a proclamation. Whereas the observance of school Principals and Administrators Month honors the leadership of elementary, middle, and high school

[00:19:51] principals and administrators and recognizes that their work is essential to student success throughout pre-K to 12 education and beyond. And whereas principals and administrators work diligently to create a safe, inclusive, and productive learning environment that support the academic, the social, the emotional growth of all students, while fostering positive school culture and strong professional communities. And whereas principals fulfill multiple and complex

[00:20:25] roles, serving as instructional leaders, supervisors of teachers, and learning community partners, assessment and accountability experts, budget and resource managers, facility and operational leaders, public relation representatives, and stewards of legal, contractual, and policy requirements.

[00:20:50] And whereas, as the chief instructional leaders of their schools, principals set a clear academic vision by establishing ambitious goals, supporting high-quality instruction, enforcing academic rigor, and maintaining high standards and expectations for every student, while also prioritizing the social and emotional well-being of students and staff and building strong trusting relationships with families with educators and with the broader school community and whereas

[00:21:28] throughout their commitment perseverance and passion for public education there those these educational leaders ensure that Fairfax County Public Schools continues to prepare students to meet high academic standards, lead healthy and ethical lives, and become responsible, innovative global citizens. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board hereby proclaims January 2026 as School Principals and Administrators Appreciation Month and

[00:22:05] recognizes their vital role of school leaders and support personnel in ensuring every child has access to a high-quality education. Is there a second? I second. Ms. St. John Cunning. I will call for a vote.

[00:22:22] All those in favor, Mr. Frisch, Ms. Marin, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, and myself. That is unanimous for all board members. Agenda Item 3.05, 30th anniversary of the directly elected Fairfax County School Board Proclamation.

[00:22:44] I call on Mr. Frisch for a proclamation. - Thank you. We ask that past and current school board members please stand as your names are read. Whereas the Fairfax County School Board has long played a vital and trusted role in guiding the mission, policies, and governance of Fairfax County public schools, and whereas historically Fairfax County school board members were appointed until 1995, when Fairfax County held its first election for school board members following a voter referendum and enabling legislation, thereby shifting an appointed to an elected board structure and whereas the change established a more direct

[00:23:19] democratic accountability between school board members and the families students educators and communities they serve and whereas over the past three decades 53 elected Fairfax County School Board members have guided transformative policies and curriculum equity school infrastructure fiscal stewardship and community engagement and whereas this 30th anniversary of the board's direct election is an opportune moment to reflect on the enduring value of representative

[00:23:49] educational governance and to honor these those who have served including Chris Amundsen former chair and Virginia delegate Mount Vernon district 1996 to 1999 Dr Riccardi Anderson former chair

[00:24:17] Mason district 2020 to present Chair Sandy Anderson Springfield district 2024 present Philly Cathy Belter, former Vice Chair, Springfield District, 2000 to 2007.

[00:24:42] Her son, Doug, and her daughter, Laura, are with us tonight. Liz Bradshear, Springfield District, 2008 to 2011. Chris Bronlec, Franconia District, 1996 to 2003.

[00:25:06] Michelle Brickner, at-large, 1996 to 2003. Isis Castro, former Chair, Mount Vernon District, 2000 to 2003.

[00:25:22] Brad Center, former Vice Chair, Franconia District 2004 through 11. Virginia Delegate Laura Jane Cohen, Springfield District 2020 to 2023.

[00:25:43] Karen Corbett Sanders, former Chair, Mount Vernon District 2016 to 2023. Tammy Derenick-Houfax, former Chair, Franconia District 2012 to 2023.

[00:26:04] Seema Dixit, Sully District 2024 to present. Mateo Dunn, Mount Vernon District 2024 to present. Mr. Dr. Mark Emery, former chair at large 1996 to 1999.

[00:26:27] Sandy Evans, former chair, Mason District, 2010 to 2019. Carl Frisch, former chair, Providence District, 2020 to president.

[00:26:45] The late Bob Fry, former chair at large 1996 to 2003. His wife, Ratha, is with us tonight. Mr. Gibson, former chair, Hunter Mill District, 1996 to 2011.

[00:27:08] Ernestine Hastie, former Vice Chair, Providence District, 1996 to 2003. Tina Hone, at-large, 2008 to 2011.

[00:27:31] Jeanette Huff, at-large, 2016 to 2017. Steve Hunt, at-large, 2004 to 2007. Matt Hines, Hunter Mill District, 2012 to 2019.

[00:27:51] Virginia Delegate Karen Keyes-Gamara, at-large, 2017 to 2023. Kay Corey, former Vice Chair in Virginia Delegate, Mason District, 1999-2009.

[00:28:12] Vice Chair Robin Lady, Drainsville District, 2024-to-present. Kyle McDaniel, at large, 2024-to-present. Ryan McLevine, at large, 2012-2019 and 2024-to-present.

[00:28:36] Megan McLaughlin, Braddock District, 2012-to-23. Melanie Marin, former Vice Chair, Hunter Mill District, 2020-to-present. Ilyang Moon, former chair, Braddock District, 1996-1999, at large, 2004-19, and 2024-present.

[00:29:04] Phil Nijalski-Eichner, former chair, Providence District, 2004-2009. Janet Olasek, at large, 2004-2007.

[00:29:23] Abra Romesh, at large, 2020-2023. Supervisor Dalia Palczyk, Providence District, 2016-2019. Virginia State Senator Tela Pekaski, former chair, Sully District 2020-23.

[00:29:47] Jim Rainey, at-large, 2008-11. Patty Reed, Providence District 2009-15. Patty Reed, Sully District 1996-2003.

[00:30:10] Elizabeth Schultz, Springfield District 2012-19. Marcia St. John Cunning, Franconia District 2024-2024.

[00:30:26] Supervisor Roshna Sizemir Heiser, former chair at large 2020-2023 and Braddock District 2024-25. Supervisor Kathy Smith, former chair Sully District 2002-2015.

[00:30:51] Supervisor Dan Stork, former chair Mount Vernon District 2004-2015. Late Janie Strauss, former chair Drainsville District 1996-2019.

[00:31:12] Elaine Toland, former chair Drainsville District 2020-2023. Carter Thomas, Springfield District, 1996-1999. Rita Thompson, at-large, 2000-2003.

[00:31:34] Ted Velkoff, at-large, 2012-2015. The late Fred Ward, Mason District, 1996-1999.

[00:31:54] Tessie Wilson, former Vice Chair, Braddock District, 2000-2011. Tom Wilson, Sully District, 2016-2019. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board hereby recognizes and celebrates the generations of elected school board members past and present who have served for the benefit of our students staff and schools and encourages Fairfax County

[00:32:29] residents to reflect on the importance of civic participation in school governance and to engage as partners in our shared mission of academic excellence equity and opportunity is there a second second thank you Mr. Moon I will call for the vote all those in favor Mr. Frisch Ms. Marin Mr. McIlvain, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, and myself. That is unanimous for all board members. Welcome to all of our colleagues who have served as elected member of the school board. I invite all of those here to

[00:33:08] support the 30th anniversary of directly elected Fairfax County School Board Proclamation to please

[00:33:13] join the board for a photo in the front of the dais. We now invite our principals, administrators,

[00:35:41] and all those here in support of the Principals and Administrators Appreciation Month Proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the dais.

[00:36:38] We now invite our volunteers, mentors, and all those here in support of the FCPS Volunteer and Mentor Appreciation Week Proclamation

[00:38:39] to please join the board for a photo at the front of the dais.

[00:38:57] Chair Anderson, that's our last picture.

[00:39:56] Agenda Item 4.01, Community Participation. The next order of business is community participation. 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 a school board regular meeting and/or public hearing can be found at the school board's website at www.fcps.edu/schoolboard.

[00:40:21] During the signup process, community members acknowledge that they were informed of the school board's expectations for respect and proper decorum when providing comments. These expectations are also available online with the printed agenda and meeting materials in the back of the room. We asked audience members to be respectful of one another. Shouting an outburst 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 in their seats, including when recording or taking photos. We are grateful to those who have come to speak to us today. Thank you for your cooperation. School board members will be listening but not responding. Madam

[00:41:00] clerk. Please call the first speaker. Neha Goyal. Good evening. My name is Neha Goyal and I am an FCPS parent of two children, a first grader and a second grader. I'm a software engineer and tech leader at the American Association for the Advancement of Science and currently serving on its AI Governance Task Force. Today, I specifically want to address the usage of

[00:41:36] ChatGPT at FCPS. Using ChatGPT in educational context raises ethical concerns such as the potential for bias and a lack of transparency and accountability in the algorithms that are the basis of their model, undermining academic integrity. Some academics are concerned that students can use tools such as ChatGPT to misrepresent their assignments, further raising concerns about plagiarism and creating a generation of tech users as opposed to leaders, creators, or inventors. Like any AI tool, ChatGPT can make errors due to contextual

[00:42:14] misunderstandings, AI hallucinations, and technical difficulties. Additionally, using ChatGPT could raise concerns around privacy of data. While registering for this meeting, the form read that speakers should not use personally identifiable information in connection with an individual student or school based employee. However, ChatGPT can't be relied upon protecting private data and PII because it uses data that is input to inform their model and algorithms.

[00:42:44] It is important to ensure that LLM based educational tools are designed to be accessible, inclusive, and effective for all learners. Moreover, the deployment of such tools in schools should be done in collaboration with FCPS families and stakeholders, placing guardrails, creating a robust training program for educators and students, using key performance indicators to measure its success in the educational system while ensuring privacy of students and teachers. For now there are many challenges to overcome before CHAT GPT should be integrated

[00:43:18] into our education system. Thank you. Karen Bradford. Last month I asked you to consider why we let students why we wait to let students drive. One key reason is brain development specifically the frontal cortex. Students need time to develop judgment and reasoning. The same principle applies to math. Dr. Persidio can talk talk more to this so in brief all students must take a finance class to graduate and we wisely wait until at least their junior year when students

[00:43:56] take it too early they lack the maturity and context to understand it. In math we are asking elementary age students to push students into higher level courses younger and younger even though not all students are developmentally ready. Algebra 1 is generally a ninth grade level class. Dr. Reed and Dr. Presidio are now pushing this into elementary schools. It's like asking sixth graders read at a high school level not all sixth graders are ready for this this push for high school level math in elementary school is not from the math central office I do not hear math teachers or

[00:44:30] department chairs supporting this acceleration science teachers share the same concern as well student students need maturity before tackling higher level reasoning we have asked for the data and I urge the board to request it from pyramid five there algebra one has been prioritized in in the eighth grade and students are suffering geometry as well scores have declined and an enrollment and after classes continue to rise that data matters it exists my question for the board Dr. Reed and Dr. Presidio is why are we doing this why are we pushing students into deep mathematical reasoning

[00:45:09] when they're 12 and 13 year old brains and even 11 are not developmentally ready to understand this another comparison that is telling the number of students completing algebra one in middle school does not match the number of students completing higher-level BC calculus. If acceleration worked broadly, those numbers would align. Instead, we're seeing burnout and student advancing

[00:45:31] without understanding. Thank you. Leslie Houston. Leslie Houston. Please play the

[00:46:07] video submitted by Stephanie Lundquist-Aurora. It seems that your definition of excellence is actually mediocrity. In its 2025 report, the state Virginia gave 22 of Fairfax County public schools the designation needs intensive support, meaning those schools received less than 65 percent in the state's school performance and support framework.

[00:46:34] This is an abysmal performance that Dr. Reed spun in a press release on December 9th to say makes FCPS a, quote, world-class school division. I guess if your standards are low, it's easy to be content. But pretty packaging doesn't change numbers. In reality, in 2025, 21% of FCPS students failed reading SOLs, 84% failed writing, 25% failed science, 22% failed math, and 58% failed history.

[00:47:02] We're performing worse in every subject than neighboring Loudoun County students. Banging your chest to say that none of our schools have lost accreditation yet is embarrassing. The results show subpar performance for a district with so many resources. And speaking of resources, you allocate them to many things far outside the purview of students' academic outcomes.

[00:47:23] In August and November, you signed contracts with the law firm King & Spaulding, agreeing to pay their attorneys up to $1,850 per hour. In August and September alone, you paid that single law firm nearly a million dollars. Given your exceedingly high payments on legal fees, it's funny that your media office claimed that you essentially forfeited the bathrooms and pronouns case to, quote, safeguard public resources and save taxpayers thousands of dollars in legal fees and costs.

[00:47:52] Wow. How generous of you to do that the same month Division Legal Counsel John Foster signed the contract with King and Spalding, agreeing to pay its lawyers nearly $2,000 an hour. Maybe if you focus spending on student outcomes rather than directing so many resources to district administrators' salaries and lawyers, students would perform better.

[00:48:13] Thank you. Please play the pre-recorded video by Laura Chapman. Hi, my name is Jessica Kim, and I am an FCPS parent.

[00:48:32] I wanted to implore this group to respond to the call from parents on more transparency on how Gen AI tools, such as ChatGPT for Teachers, is being rolled out and utilized across FCPS. I recognize that this is a very exciting time for our society, and Gen.AI is a powerful tool that has the potential to change the way whole industries operate, including education.

[00:48:56] However, the key word here is potential. Major industries, even in tech, are still testing this technology to better understand its efficacy, optimal use cases, and impacts to the problems they are trying to solve. So while the excitement is understandable, making these tools accessible without transparency on usage guidelines, safeguards on data share, and how the outputs will impact the way our children learn are deeply concerning for me.

[00:49:23] In addition, the main point of these tools is to make the what more easily attainable. But I would argue that our children are still learning the how and the why, and they do not need shortcuts to get to the answer. open ai google and other tech companies have a motivation to roll this technology out as broadly as possible to as many people as possible to gather the data that they need so while partnerships and no cost options sound great there is always a cost and value they are trying to recoup through these efforts as one of the largest school systems in the nation we are certainly a very attractive

[00:50:00] target for these companies i am asking the board to reconsider the fast release of chat gpt for teachers and other gen ai tools in the classroom and instead consider what problem we are trying to help teachers solve we need to clearly define the governance controls that we need to have in place and we need more grounded research and data to show that having these tools accessible is

[00:50:22] solving for the needs of our students thank you i apologize we had an issue with our walk-in registration so we should be calling on sarah agarwal if she would like to speak hi and good

[00:51:01] evening school board members I'm here as an FCPS parent in support of the world language program and world language education writ large in FCPS I represent a group a group of parents at multiple FCPS schools who are interested in seeing both improvements to an expansion of existing programs let's start with improvements almost three years ago we parents spoke with chief academic schools officer and shared with the superintendent and the board a number of recommendations that was actually 14 pages long which i've summarized in a document that should have been placed by the clerk on your

[00:51:36] chairs in advance of this meeting since then we've seen some improvement but i would say more is needed and warranted in terms of expansion with new school boundaries now is the time to examine whether every pyramid has the right of immersion programs and f-list programs in order to strengthen fairness and equity across the board just as an example our my daughter's elementary school wanted an FLUS program, but we only had enough budget for a STEAM program.

[00:52:02] STEAM is critical. And in the interest of access and equity, we shouldn't have to compete for which subject matter gets which budget. We're asking for the creation of a parent advisory group or committee to discuss this with you more regularly because it's a shame that we started this initiative, we got lots of good responses from board members, and then it just kind of went quiet.

[00:52:23] So how can we work together with you in a constructive way so that we can continue this conversation and work together as parents and people who share a mission to advance this goal thank you so the previous video was by Miss Kim Jessica Kim Lord Chapman registered for community participation but did not submit a video for tonight's meeting so chair Anderson that was our last public speaker thank you agenda item 5.01 student representative matters and for unfortunately

[00:53:00] Miss Maconan is not was not able to attend tonight's meeting thus we will not have student representative matters tonight agenda item 6.01 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 conclude the closed meeting agenda item 6.02 action item confirmation of action taken in closed meeting I call on dr.

[00:53:30] Anderson for a motion sorry I moved to excuse from attendance at school certain students identified in the closed meeting pursuant to Virginia code section 22.1-254B1.

[00:53:58] Is there a second? Thank you, Mr. Moon. All those in favor, Ms. Marin, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, and myself. All those abstaining, or I'm sorry, all those opposed, all those abstaining.

[00:54:18] Mr. Frisch, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Dunn, and Mr. McDaniel. Will the clerk please read the vote? Seven zero four the motion carries. Thank you.

[00:54:34] I call on Mr. Frisch for a motion. I move to expel the student who committed a serious offense in violation of school board policy by possessing a weapon on school property and injuring another student in violation of the Commonwealth's laws. Is there a second. I second.

[00:54:50] Thank you Miss St. John Cunning. All those in favor. Mr. Frisch. Miss Marin. Mr. McElveen. Miss St. John Cunning. Miss Lady. Mr. Dunn. Mr. Moon. Dr. Anderson, and myself, all those opposed, all those abstaining, Ms. Dixit and Mr. McDaniel.

[00:55:08] Will the clerk please read the vote? 9-0-2, the motion carries. Thank you. I call on Ms. St. John Cunning for a motion. I move to expel the student who threatened another student at school. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Frisch.

[00:55:23] All those in favor, Mr. Frisch, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Mr. Moon, Mr. Dunn, Dr. Anderson, and myself, all those opposed, all those abstaining, Ms. Marin, Ms. Dixit, and Mr. McDaniel.

[00:55:44] Will the clerk please read the vote? 8-0-3, the motion carries. Thank you. I call on Mr. Fresh for a motion. I move that the school board authorize legal counsel to proceed with the submission of a further statement of facts on January 9, 2026, discussed in closed session, according to the terms and conditions discussed therein.

[00:56:05] Is there a second? Mr. Moon. All those in favor. Mr. Frisch, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Moon, Mr. Dunn, Dr. Anderson, and myself. All those opposed. All those abstaining. Mr. McDaniel and Ms. Marin. Will the clerk please read the vote?

[00:56:30] 902. The motion carries. Thank you. Agenda item 6.03, action item, motion to rescind. At the December 18th, 2025 regular meeting, the vote on an amendment to this motion resulted in a tie. Thus, in accordance with the Code of Virginia, section 22.1-75, this entire action item was deferred to this meeting. Thus, we need to consider the entire agenda item at this meeting. I call on Mr. McElveen for a motion.

[00:57:00] I MOVE TO RESCIND THE DECISION TAKEN BY THE SCHOOL BOARD AT ITS MEETING ON DECEMBER 4, 2025 TO AMEND THE STRUCTURE OF THE COMPREHENSIVE PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE IN SUNSET, THE SCHOOL BOARD'S FACILITIES PLANNING ADVISORY COUNCIL, SO CPDC AND FPAC MAY CONTINUE TO PERFORM THEIR ESSENTIAL MISSION FOR FCPS.

[00:57:18] IS THERE A SECOND? DONE. MR. MCELVINE, WOULD YOU LIKE TO SPEAK TO YOUR MOTION? SO I'VE SPOKEN TO THIS MOTION AT THE PREVIOUS TWO MEETINGS, SO I DO NOT SEE NEED TO SPEAK to it again other than saying that I hope my colleagues have reconsidered their their vote on December 4th to eliminate the facilities planning advisory committee.

[00:57:43] It's a essential committee that serves the purpose of advising this board and has done so for more than a decade. Mr. Dunn would you like to speak to your second? Briefly I just wanted to reiterate I think anytime we restrict or we eliminate opportunities for the public to contribute to the achievement of the important and essential mission of FCPS.

[00:58:08] It's only the public, the community that ends up getting hurt. It only ends up the school board being less informed. It only ends up our operations being more costly, less efficient, less effective. I call on Dr. Anderson for an amendment. I move to insert the phrase and to revert back to the previous language. I'm sorry, I apologize. I move to insert the phrase and to revert back to the

[00:58:45] previous language in the Strategic Governance Manual, Policy 1710, and the Community Advisory Committee Operating Manual after the phrase counsel. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Dunn. Dr. Anderson, do you like to speak to your amendment? Yes, very briefly. I think I've said this the last time we discussed this, and I said it the first time. I have never been in a space where people are begging to let them help us for free.

[00:59:12] These are individuals of high caliber. We have Chuck Fanshawe, who serve on this committee, who was hired by FCPS not once but twice to run the facilities office. Those are the kind of caliber of individuals that come from that committee.

[00:59:27] I'm just stunned that we are not able to see their value and to leverage that to help support FCPS. Mr. Dunwood, do you like to speak to your second? Briefly, this is now the third school board meeting where we have discussed the elimination of the Facilities Planning Advisory Committee.

[00:59:47] At a time when we have a 42-year renovation queue, we have a half billion dollars in an infrastructure and deferred maintenance backlog. And to date, there has not been a single rationale advanced for the haste with which this is being done, with the disrespect that's being shown to the community members who have served for many years on this committee and have contributed vital recommendations to improve how we manage our facilities how we construct and renovate our schools and who otherwise guide our facilities

[01:00:23] planning and management with expert industry private sector input so lacking that rationale I certainly will seek to have this motion approved tonight. Thank you very much.

[01:00:42] Seeing no others, I would like to call for a vote for the amendment that is on the screen. All those in favor, Ms. Marin, Mr. McElveen, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, and Dr. Anderson. All those opposed, Mr. Frisch, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Ms. Dixit, Mr. McDaniel, and myself.

[01:01:04] Will the clerk please read the vote?

[01:01:13] Five, six, the motion fails. Thank you so much. We are now voting on the main, unless there's somebody that would like to speak to the main motion. I would. Okay. Thank you, Mr. McDaniel. Well, go ahead. Thank you. And this is the third meeting now where we voted on this. I'll be very brief. I want to be very clear on what this motion is not doing. It's not removing public input. It's not removing innovation. It's not removing

[01:01:51] expert input into facility planning and processing and all the stuff that FPAC does. So I want to make that very clear. What it's doing is it is taking the function of FPAC, which is innovation, which is community input, which is expert guidance and advice, and is inserting that to a standing board committee, the Comprehensive Planning and Development Committee.

[01:02:11] And that's getting lost every time we discuss this. That key part is getting lost every time we discuss this. So I want to be very clear about that. Obviously, for logistical purposes, we cannot have two separate bodies running two separate directions talking about capital planning and facilities and our processes and this type and the other.

[01:02:28] So what this restructuring of the function of FPAC accomplishes, in my opinion, is it elevates their work from a citizen advisory committee that has no direct control over our staff to a standing board committee where we do have direct control and a direct working relationship with our staff.

[01:02:45] It also increases transparency. FPAC is not videotaped and recorded like our standing board committee meetings are. The CPDC meeting, where the function of FPAC will now sit, those are recorded and streamed and put out for people to see exactly what is going on when we talk about how we can better plan construction facilities.

[01:03:05] Lastly, it's going to streamline the workflow. I had a chart up at the previous meeting where we voted on this which showed a completely overhauled streamlined workflow. One of the biggest challenges with the current structure is that workflow, how disjointed and confusing it is. I really wanted to make sure that those points were out there in the public and that is considered at our vote tonight. Thank you.

[01:03:26] Ms. Marin. So a functional board will work to get to yes. I'm concerned that more and more of this board's votes are being passed by failures at a tie by 7 to 5 or 8 to 4. This shows that collaboration is not happening. I'm also concerned that the focus of the work of this board is not progressing when it comes to our own approach to the work. A conversation about advisory committees is clearly needed. If this vote passes, it will be the second advisory committee in the two years of this board. We should be talking about how to have input that residents are clamoring to give us,

[01:04:04] such as for AI and technology. Ms. St. John Cunning. I want to reiterate the fact that we are not eliminating engagement, that we are including engagement, and it is just a different structure.

[01:04:30] We have this structure already in the audit committee, and it works. It's efficient, and we still have the voice of the community it disturbs me that i consistently hear that we're eliminating the voice of the community i have spoken to several of the members of fpac and they were more concerned with the process by which this was done and maybe we have lessons learned about moving forward and being more thoughtful i profusely thanked members of fpac and told them that we

[01:05:07] appreciate their work and that we ask for them to participate in cpdc when i explained audit committee to them and how it works they were satisfied so i think we have to be honest about how we maybe dropped the ball and how we handled this and i will apologize for how we handled it i will not apologize for the fact that we are doing this work in a way that is trying to be more efficient and that is trying to ensure that we don't have committees going in different directions and doing different kinds of work um i just want to make that very clear because i think

[01:05:43] there's been a lot of miscommunication about what's happening and i have spoken to some of our fpac members and have assured them about what the intention is and that we do appreciate their work and we do value their work and we can we hope to continue seeing them as members of cpdc now at a more elevated level. I just want to make that very clear. Thank you. Mr. Dunford, go back.

[01:06:12] There's no misinformation. The truth is a Frankenstein was created and we don't even know how to make it work. The proposal was to add five citizens to a school board committee and the instruction was to weight the votes of school board members as greater than citizens, but we didn't quite figure out how to do that so there's all this extra sausage to be made we really don't know how it will end up beyond that fpac was working has saved tens of millions of dollars for fcps for decades and we don't know how the new structure will work so why the haste

[01:06:50] why the rush to eliminate something that works with people who are not paid consultants so they actually serve out of a sense of public service and mission and and love for their community to a much smaller number five people who we don't even know if any of the f-pack members will agree to serve everything i've all my conversations are no so um to to be so hasty to eliminate something that works that's beneficial to fcps to the public for something that doesn't work because we don't even know how it's going to work and we're just going to figure it out on the fly that's a very

[01:07:26] antithesis of the type of administration that our public expects efficient and effective schools. Ms. Dixit. I believe we are being very efficient and effective by combining FBAC and CPDC. I have served on CPDC before. I also served on Audit Committee before. I like the structure of Audit Committee and when this proposal of having, you know, community members with the voting rights,

[01:08:00] you know, combining CPDC, it would be much more effective and efficient, and more work will be done. A number of people, weightage, all can be discussed and done, you know, later, or we can discuss that in the next meeting, because we ultimately want a quick action sometime when instructions go to FBAC from CPDC, then back and forth, and it goes to the full board. It used to take a lot of time and I think we can cut short that with this combination so I'm in support of that and I feel like we are moving in the right direction

[01:08:36] thank you mr. McElveen for go back I haven't spoken to this piece yet so it's not a go back I do want to since this is the third and final time it looks like we're going to be discussing this the dissolution of epic I'm going to repeat what I said at the first meeting which is that I'm profoundly sorry because some very passionate and active members of our community have felt disrespected by

[01:09:10] this decision and no matter what folks say at this dais that can't correct for that so with that I will say I've done what I can I think mr. Dunn's what have done what he can so thank you to all those who have served on this committee for the past 14 15 years you've made an indelible mark on this system Dr. Anderson thank you I served on CPDC for probably all of the years that I've been on the school board it is not like audit one

[01:09:49] of the benefits of having the FPAC committee it's because they are able to be representative of each of the areas of the county we know all too well how important that very specific and representation me at what how important that is. We see that through the boundary process. While we could talk about things on a holistic level it's really important to have people who know those neighborhoods be able to raise concerns that would impact those various areas of the district. That is not what the audit committee needs to do. They don't there are not

[01:10:26] actions that are going to be taking place that are so that will only pertain to various sections of FCPS it's overall and it works where is the voice that is going to say hey when we take a look at what's happening in Franconia this is what we see because the two three four members whatever that number ends up being half a person I know that conversation went on in one last time they will not have that intimate information that they could bring that FPAC currently has because they

[01:11:00] represent all of the corners of FCPS. So I get it. Nobody, I won't say no one. I get it that there is not, that there is a will to want to do things differently, but let us not conflate what they can bring with what audit committee is able to do, because there are two different things. This is not an apples to apples comparison. It's apples to oranges. And again, I cannot reiterate enough.

[01:11:27] I cannot believe we're sitting here turning people away who are trying to help us. Ms. Blady. Thank you. I wasn't planning to speak to this, but I have spoken with my Drainsville representatives who were on FPAC, and we've had some very good conversations.

[01:11:50] They certainly understand my understanding of the path forward and why I'm supportive of moving FPAC members, sunsetting that committee, and putting the expertise at the table with other board members. And some of this, I learned from my conversations with them that some of the things they were doing, they referenced writing of memos that were school board directed in terms of research.

[01:12:15] One of my frustrations is I've never read any of these memos. And so while they were working, I felt like they were working in sort of in a vacuum because some of what I think they thought was being shared with me as a board member, I have no recollection of ever seeing.

[01:12:32] And the last thing I'm going to say is that, interestingly enough, this is someone's bringing this back for a vote, but it passed the first time 8 to 3. Thank you. Seeing no others, we're going to go ahead and call for a vote.

[01:12:48] Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Moon. Okay, go ahead. Thank you, Madam Chair. I made my points a couple of meetings ago, but I want to just repeat for the benefit of the public that whether a particular advisory committee could run more efficiently, and more effectively can certainly be debated and board members can certainly disagree on that and decision of the board can be made by the majority of the board what i really feel

[01:13:25] disappointed is how this was carried on come to the vote uh we have large number of a community volunteers have been serving on the committee for many years to help us without having an authentic engagement with them as to why certain board members or board may fear that the committee should be restructured or disbanded, and maybe there might be other ways for them to contribute

[01:14:03] to the work of the school system. It was just basically they were notified after the fact that they would be disbanded. That was not the way we should be doing our business, and I think the

[01:14:21] Mr. McElbeen's intent to bring this motion to resend to ease, put the process back to where it should have been so that they could have, we could engage FHAC members first and have that discussion and conversation before we make a decision and what to do with FHAC.

[01:14:44] That is why I am supporting this motion brought by Mr. McElbeen. Okay. Now, seeing no others, I'm going to go ahead and call for a vote on the motion, the original motion that is on the screen. All those in favor, Mr. McElveen, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, Ms. Marin. All those opposed, Mr. Frisch, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Ms. Dixit, Mr. McDaniel, and myself. Will the clerk please read the vote?

[01:15:22] 5-6. The motion fails. Thank you Madam Clerk. Agenda item 6.04, action item, proposed amendments to the governance manual. I call on Ms. Marron for a motion. I move that the school board amend the strategic governance manual as follows.

[01:15:45] Insert a new number 5 and executive limitation number 8, superintendent's relationship with the board, on page 24, to read as follows. Update division regulations in accordance and alignment with reviewed or updated board policies and, within 60 days, provide to the board either the updated regulation or a plan to update the regulation by a date certain and renumber the list items accordingly. Amend the current number 6E in executive limitation number 8 superintendent's relationship with the board on page 24 by striking the phrase relevant documents in advance and inserting the phrase relevant documents are posted publicly no later

[01:16:20] than five business days in advance in its place and amend number 1B in B5 meeting protocol on page 37 by striking the phrase circularly proposed motions and amendments whenever possible at least 48 hours before the meeting and inserting the phrase the norm for the board shall be that any item seeking board action have motion language included in order to be posted online as part of the board's official agenda in its place. Is there a second? Second. Thank you Dr. Anderson.

[01:16:52] Ms. Marin would you like to speak to your motion? So the public may or may not know but we have a governance manual and we follow governance policies and practices in addition to Robert's rules but it has become clear that some of these rules need to be refined and some of these rules don't speak to certain matters that are really causing problems in how we do our work so this has three topics one is to update to be sure that the superintendent's updating regulation within 60 days and this has been an understanding, but in practice it hasn't been happening. 60 days when we update a policy.

[01:17:30] So for instance, the board updated our boundary policy in July of 2024. That regulation did not get updated until this Tuesday, which some of my colleagues may be surprised to know because we weren't informed about it. My staff aide happened to find it. The second part is that the superintendent will have to post documents publicly no later than five days in advance, which is really what's in alignment of our meeting procedures. But by putting it into these executive limitations, which are the public way that we show that we're holding the superintendent accountable, this further reinforces that we really do need this because we need to be prepared and we want

[01:18:09] the public to have the information. Like for instance, the boundary materials. Five days in advance was before Tuesday when they came out. And finally, the last item is about clarifying what constitutes posting to the agenda. So this evening you see here the motion. Well, this change would specify that what we mean when something is posted by five days in advance is there's a detailed description of what this is about. There's motion language, so we know exactly what we're supposed to vote about, and it includes the materials. So the whole thing is posted five days in advance.

[01:18:46] Now, this can be adjusted. We have procedures to make changes. If someone wants to change a motion or add a document, that's fine. But we have had a lot of serious instances in the last few weeks where this has caused problems, particularly with Western High School, when I thought we were voting on phasing and we were actually voting on transportation and the years of schools coming in. So that's what this aims to do. I will say that there will be an amendment brought on the language for the third bullet, the third one, because we actually further clarified it to make it even more correct. So that will be forthcoming and I will be supporting that

[01:19:24] motion. Thank you. Dr. Anderson, would you like to speak to your second? Yes, briefly. I think Ms. Marin did a good job with introducing these three parts. What I wanted to add is the importance of this clarification to the public.

[01:19:40] When the board adopts a policy, that means that there's an expectation that is different and it needs to be communicated to staff and to the public in terms of exactly how that's going to be rolled out. That is done through the regulations.

[01:19:56] So it's really important, especially for staff and teachers who are largely responsible for rolling out much of the work that is involved in our policies to have that clarity as soon as possible. That is why we're asking for that very tight timeline. I recall during my first term on the board, it was not unusual as the policy was being built that the regulation was also being constructed at the same time. So they almost walked the line together. There wasn't a gap from when the policy was adopted to when the regulation was written. So that is going to help communicate

[01:20:31] what the expectations are and how to carry them out to staff more than anything. The last piece that I want to speak to is the posting of motions and other documents five days in advance. That is important to our public because once individuals in the community see what it is that we're going to be voting on, then they need to make determinations like what do I need to tell my representative? What is my concern about this thing that they're voting on? If that is not known well in advance, they do not have the opportunity to speak to us and to give us their feedback.

[01:21:06] We're going to be speaking about EL8 in just a little while, where we're talking about relationships to the community and communication. This is just one more tool in order to not only communicate clearly with the public, but to also get their feedback so that we represent their

[01:21:23] interests. I call on Dr. Anderson for an amendment. Okay sorry I lost my page here. In the second bullet of the main motion strike the word business in the phrase relevant documents are posted publicly no later than five days in advance. In the second bullet in the main motion insert the

[01:22:01] phrase in alignment with meeting procedures as detailed in the board's bylaws. Strike the third bullet in its entirety and insert the following phrase in its place amend item b3 in the bylaws section 4b3 meeting procedures by striking the sentence the agenda and all supporting documents and information shall be made available to the school board and the public and posted to the website at least five days in advance of the meeting whenever possible and inserting every agenda

[01:22:39] items detailed description and all supporting materials shall be made available to the school board and the public and posted to the website at least five days in advance of the meeting additionally for agenda items requiring public board action namely action items and consent items the motion language shall similarly be made available at least five days in advance the deadline of the five days in advance shall be met unless there are extenuating circumstances which will be recorded specifically in the web-based agenda

[01:23:16] agenda items description under the heading reason for delayed posting of materials prior to the meetings commencing in its place is there a second second Thank You mr. Frisch Dr. Anderson would you like to speak to your amendment no I think I sufficiently explained this is just clarifying some language that was previously presented. Mr. Fresh would you like to speak to your second.

[01:23:44] Yes so the first part of the main motion reflects some comments that I had when this first went around to colleagues and these amendments are the result of conversations that I had with Miss Marin where I expressed you know anybody who's been a chair of this board and we just had a whole bunch of them here here earlier knows that there are sometimes challenges that are beyond any one individual's control when it comes to documents and I think we all agree that

[01:24:22] we should be transparent to the public about when and why those things happen and so I want to serve on a board where we have access to information as early as possible and when And that information is not available that we're told why. I think that's reasonable.

[01:24:40] Secondarily, in alignment with that, I will be bringing a follow-on motion that I'll speak to later that would hopefully lead towards the alignment of the board's motions to track similarly to what we expect of the superintendent.

[01:24:56] Because if we want more time with material from the superintendent, I think we probably also want more time with the work that we engage each other on as well but I think this does two things and I'm grateful for the the main motion makers for starting the conversation around what we can do to increase the amount of time we have the materials to review and bring some transparency

[01:25:20] to the whole process including when we fall short. Ms. Dixit. I was not present last meeting and also missed some of some of this conversation I'd like to have a little bit more thought and discussion before I can vote on this so at this point I will not be able to support it Mr. Moon

[01:25:53] I meant to speak thank you Miss Marin yes to clarify this was put on new business two weeks ago what was it December the 18th of December so this was posted as new business the 18th of December and it was only when the member from Providence this week reached out to collaborate to get to YES together that we brought the changes. We certainly invited comments at any

[01:26:30] time and welcomed input. It's been advertised and publicly noted and is just codifying the rules that in theory we've all spoken to to work by. It's best to have it be clear so we all know what the expectations are. I'm going to take a quick turn about the amendment. I would like to thank Mr. Frisch for the work that he did to clarify some of these I think that having the opportunity to break apart this this motion into the separate pieces would have been helpful rather than putting

[01:27:04] them all together however at this time because I was not asked at all and not addressed at all related to any of this other than my colleague from Providence I'm not going to be able to support the amendment to the motion or the motion itself.

[01:27:20] So I'm going to be abstaining because I don't have enough information to make the decision this evening. OK, seeing no others, we're going to go ahead and vote for the amendment that is on the screen.

[01:27:36] All those in favor, Mr. Frisch, Miss Marin, Mr. McElveen, Miss Lady, Mr. Dunn, Mr.

[01:27:51] Moon, Dr. Anderson and Mr. McDaniel. All those opposed. Miss Dixit all those abstaining that's Miss St. John Cunning and myself will the clerk please read the vote 812 the motion carries thank you now we are returned to the new amended language seeing no others we're going to go ahead or Miss Lady this is this is the new amended motion yes

[01:28:27] thank you I just um I appreciate my colleagues working together on this um because when it initially came through I wasn't going to be able to support it I'm more comfortable but I just have a couple questions that I just want to make sure we understand you know when we talk about like the first bullet in alignment with me no in the first bullet where's it been entirely amended only on the screen within the 60 days provide the board either the updated regulation or a

[01:29:03] plan to update the regulation of a by a date certain so that means that somewhere in the journey we could be at 45 days we could be at 59 days and we're not going to make it to 60 the superintendent can come and ask for extension my understanding of how it's written I just want to clarify before I were to vote on it because part of my concern is Miss Lady would you like your colleague to answer yes I would like my colleague the maker of the motion could could you please answer the question yes so and this was one where I someone did engage with us my

[01:29:41] doctor and Mr. Frisch again engaged with us early on so yeah what it says is update the division regulations in accordance and alignment with reviewed or updated policies. So like the boundary policy, let's say July 24, within 60 days, the superintendent is to provide the board either with the updated regulation or a plan to update the regulation by a certain date. And I prefer not to talk about all of the exceptions because the reason we're doing this is because we have not been good at doing this. So I'm happy to, I suggest we adopt this and we could always tweak it.

[01:30:18] Okay, I just need a clarification, because as someone who sits in chairs, there are definitely some things that need to go through legal, and sometimes we are in a legal backlog, so that was why my question came. I actually agree. I believe in accountability. When we update a policy, yes, the regulation needs to be addressed, but I also understand what an incredible volume that runs through the superintendent's office, and I want to be sensitive to that.

[01:30:46] And I'm very, very pleased that we pulled out business out of bullet number two because I think it needs to be just five days. And again, you know, yeah, this is an expectation we need to meet. But sometimes all the materials are not ready or something's changing in real time.

[01:31:04] So, I mean, I'm certainly much more comfortable with the new amended language. And I think that's all I have in terms of questions right now. Thank you. Dr. Anderson, for a go back, I believe.

[01:31:26] Yes, just very briefly. I do want to just, again, say this. I think initially when we had business days, that seemed to have been a little bit more flexible, that there was more time. Five days seems to be a little tighter, and I even know that the clerk had shared some concern.

[01:31:44] But if we're fine with it, I'm fine with it, because the whole idea is to ensure that we have all of these documents be available publicly so that our public can be responsive to us about what we have moving forward. I also need to reiterate that in years past, when I first got on the board, documents, regulations were built right alongside of the policies, so there wasn't a big lag.

[01:32:11] And we also know that life happens. It's great to have a structure, but we need to also be flexible that life happens, and there might be some extenuous circumstances that would require for one or two things or, you know, periodically to fall out of line. But I think now we don't have any structure, so we don't know whether or not the regulations are going to come 60 days, 90 days, a year, well, two years after the fact.

[01:32:36] That's not a good way of us to do, that's not a good way to do business. So I just wanted to make sure that I shared that we could be building the regulations as the policy is being written, because that did happen before when I was on the board. Actually, on governance, my first stint, staff would walk in with two drafts.

[01:33:00] Thank you, Dr. Anderson. I'm going to take a quick turn. One of the concerns that the clerk did bring forward was related to the five business days. Both are problematic, right? Is that when we have the five business days, when we have certain meetings, it does mean that it causes an overlap in our schedule that creates a problem.

[01:33:22] I think that five days is what we have been doing, which is we aim to have all materials available. The superintendent's office works to have all materials available the Friday before a meeting when at all possible. There are always extenuating circumstances, and I do appreciate the fact that it does account for that.

[01:33:43] Dr. Reed, could you speak to, I think that some of, it would allay some concerns. Just codifying the five days does not mean that we're going to change our practice related to whether or not we're aiming for, because if we, if we do only abide by the five days, it does mean that our clerk team is going to be working on the weekends. So I would really love to ensure that we are going to continue to aim for Friday afternoon as the way that we will have all meeting materials up just, just to allay any, any concerns that may be happening.

[01:34:17] Yes, ma'am. We generally have things ready to roll Friday afternoon. I also know the clerk's team. Oftentimes we are connecting over the weekend with an attachment here or something, but definitely Friday is the intent.

[01:34:32] Okay, thank you very much. I think that that helps alleviate some concerns. One of the issues or one of the concerns that I have related to some of the amended language is because it says every agenda item, it means that all new business items would have to be five days in advance as well, which means now you're talking about three weeks before we're actually voting on something, which seems a little excessive.

[01:34:58] So I don't think that the nuance is there. It's one of the things that I would have brought up if I'd had a chance to talk to somebody about it. So I think that at this point, again, I still cannot support the existing language because of the changes that don't encompass the way that we actually do work.

[01:35:18] Ms. Lady, for a go back. Yeah, I appreciate those comments, and I didn't even put that together in terms of every agenda item. Just given the volume of watching Madam Chair work hours upon hours to get things prepared.

[01:35:38] And I guess what I'm feeling right now is just in full transparency that I wish perhaps these had all been brought as individual amendments and not as a cluster. And because they're as a cluster, I think right now I would need more time because I think I'm comfortable with the first two, but not the third one.

[01:36:00] So I probably aren't going to be able to support it. Mr. Moon thank you madam chair I appreciate a maker of this motion putting in this motion however at this point in time I am not going to support it because I think this requires further conversation amongst the board members and with the superintendent and let's see whether whether we can you know if motion doesn't pass what I request to the chair is

[01:36:37] the schedule of time to talk about it. Thank you. Ms. Marin for a go back. Yes I just wanted to clarify so I emailed all school board members on December 16th plus the clerk and the superintendent saying that Dr. Anderson and I would be bringing it. It was posted as new business with the original language on December 18th. I emailed all members on Monday saying hey just a reminder this is on the agenda with a link to the language Mr. Frisch was the only person that reached out. I've certainly I sent an email saying I'd love to collaborate. Literally, those were my words. If people can't

[01:37:15] reach out and engage their colleagues in the communications being sent, we will never move forward. Even if we had the best rules ever, if people don't express that they have questions, or then I don't, we're not doing the right thing currently. We're just not. And it's unacceptable to have a policy done in July of 2024 on one of the most important things we've done in 40 years and only receive the update two days before we receive the actual recommendation and by the way we're voting on that in two weeks I have it right here because my staffer grabbed it for me I haven't

[01:37:52] had a chance to read it it is five pages about how the boundary changes will be implemented these changes are going to be codified to prevent this because this is not right and that's how we hold superintendent accountable. Ms. Dixit. So I apologize to my colleagues that I was not able to discuss because I was out of country and on manual leave and I was not able to communicate as my mother was in hospitals in ICU. So I would say that I would request some more time to discuss this. I'm not

[01:38:32] against it but I do need time to discuss this further. Dr. Anderson for a go back. Yes thank you. I just wanted to kind of reiterate what Ms. Marion had just said. It is our practice when board members are bringing things forward that we email it and people ask, do you have any questions? And I typically have just answered, I have questions. Let's talk. I've shared this with you, Ms. Anderson, when you brought something very recently. I've shared it with Mr. Frisch when he has sent something. Yes, I have questions. That's how we get the ball rolling. The silence, you know,

[01:39:08] seems to connote consent for the most part. And I don't want for this policy or this proposal to be treated any differently than all of the other proposals that board members have brought up. We have to engage with each other. It is a two-way street. And I know particularly when I'm leading something, not only do I send an email, I send you a text, I call you, try to have a lot of outreach.

[01:39:33] and a lot of times nothing comes back most of the time nothing comes back some of you are really great about returning but some of you it's not consistent across the board so if it was sent and resent and sent again and no questions were raised we don't know how to move clearly the questions that Mr. Frisch had they were in discussions for hours with us to ensure that we can get to that place of compromise and so there was a space for us to have these discussions and I just want to

[01:40:08] be sure that we're being uh we're acknowledging that okay I think if everybody can turn their lights off for me I think that we're ready to vote on the amended language that is on the screen so all those in favor we have Mr. Frisch, Miss Marin, Mr. McElveen, Mr. Dunn, Dr. Anderson And could we, I can't see Mr. McDaniel.

[01:40:41] All those opposed. We have Mr. Moon, Ms. Dixit, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Lady, and myself. All those abstaining, Ms. St. John Cunning.

[01:41:00] Will the clerk please read the vote? Given that we do have the full board, so it is a tie, but given that the full board is here, the motion fails.

[01:41:19] Thank you. Action item 6.05, net zero motion. this item was withdrawn from the agenda and will be considered at a future meeting agenda item 6.06 action item fairfax county school board electronic participation resolution this item was withdrawn as an action item and that has been placed on new business for this meeting with an up with updated documentation agenda item 6.07 action item armstrong elementary school renovation contract

[01:41:57] value adjustment, architectural and engineering services. I call on Ms. Marin for a motion. I move that the school board approves an increase to the total amount of the architectural and engineering services contract to Horde-Copeland-Macht, Inc. for the Armstrong Elementary renovation project to $2,576,424.50 and authorize the division superintendent or the chief operating officer to execute, deliver, and administer the contract on behalf of the school board. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Lady. Miss Marin, would you like to speak to your

[01:42:33] motion? So I'm pretty passionate about facilities and contracts and procurement and this board has done a really nice job of trying to elevate that work and focus more. We recently passed a policy to allow us to do different types of procurement approaches in an effort to save money. We also have been elevating data about the woeful lack of funding for our facilities that are used seven days a week by this community and are not there's not enough money to cover the maintenance let alone build new modern accessible buildings so when I saw this

[01:43:10] come through as a consent item because the board has to review certain contracts of a certain amount and sometimes we could just pass them through seeing that this seems to be an over 25% increase I had to pause and I know that some of my colleagues also have pause and while I am very excited that my residents at Armstrong Elementary will eventually get their new school there have been also been questions about the capacity of it and why the need for this space in this place so I do think that it merits a conversation and answers some questions and I believe some of my colleagues have specific questions to ask. Ms. Lady would you like to speak to your second?

[01:43:49] No thank you. Mr. Dunn. Yes I have a question for the superintendent or for Mr. Gordon and in researching this particular issue there was reference made to the fact that even though there's not housing development that would cause an expansion of the school a capacity enhancement that there was a desire to do so because there might in the future at some point be be housing put up and I appreciate the

[01:44:27] long-term nature of the thinking but this this expansion of the school will cause uh the capacity utilization to go down to i believe 45 percent from i think it's around 60 or 70 now but you can correct me if i'm wrong so i'm trying to understand in terms of just scarce dollars um if if i understand correctly that there is this kind of long-term thinking that's driving the expansion of the school but uh we recently res in my district resolved a problem with a school that was only at about 30 percent capacity utilization and and we shouldn't be looking to

[01:45:03] introduce new new problems where we have schools that are so poorly utilized from a school division perspective so i just wonder if you could offer some thoughts in that regard so mr dunn i get thoughts in the regard of why we renovated louise archer or can i apologize a little more specificity would help sure uh so it's not the fact that the school is being renovated the school obviously is on the renovation queue but as part of the renovation dollars are being added to expand the school as I'm understanding even though there's not a

[01:45:39] number of students that would drive that expansion I think I'll ask mr. Gordon to share why the dollars are being added yes yes ma'am a sir so as conversation we've had you know last couple days you know so construction for projects is a multi-year process this project has had eight previous additional services or change orders and the bulk of those were in 2022 23 bulk in 23 1 1 22 and those were all during the design and a permitting phase

[01:46:13] so what the district looked like you know four or five years ago you know does that change over time sure but we do as we talked about we do see this as an area of growth and so we're in construction approximately I think 25 percent through construction process and so um we do share the same capacity concerns but we do believe that in this area of the county the growth will support this facility in the end in the end state and and what's the data that supports that conclusion or what's the kind of records that were shared with you that led you to want to expand the school which am I correct that the

[01:46:53] capacity utilization will will fall to 45 percent from the current utilization I'll take that for record and I'll get back to you for the percentage piece but for growth we do work with the county on a monthly basis and collaborate with them on future growth areas and we do get notification for new development and we do believe that the Silver Line area will be the area of growth within the county and was that a specific request from the Board of Supervisors to to expand the school so the expansion of the school was based on you know so we have a design queue

[01:47:30] that goes back to 2008 and so we're in the process when this when the facility came up there were some requirements that weren't in standard with the current educational specifications so the expansion and invariance in design was I think primarily dealt to dealt with or related back to the coming in line with the ed specs okay thank you thank you mr. Dunn seeing no others we're gonna go ahead and call for a vote on the motion which is on the screen all

[01:48:01] All those in favor, Ms. Marin, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, and myself. That is unanimous for all board members present at the dais with Ms. Dixit and Mr. Frisch away from the table.

[01:48:23] Agenda item 6.08, action item, new consultant contract, Accenture LLP, academic and business consulting services. I call on Mr. Frisch for a motion. Actually, what we'll do is, Miss Lady, can I call on you for a motion, please?

[01:48:48] Absolutely. Very happy to help. I move the school board approve the contract for Academic and Business Consulting Services and authorize Division Superintendent or the Director of the Office of Procurement Services to execute, deliver, and administer the contract on behalf of the school board.

[01:49:08] Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Frisch. Miss Lady, would you like to speak to your motion? No. Mr. Frisch, would you like to speak to your second? No. Thank you. Seeing no speakers, we're going to go ahead and call for a vote for the motion that's on the screen. All those in favor, Mr. Frisch, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Mr. Moon, Mr. McDaniel, and myself. All those opposed, Mr. Dunn, Dr. Anderson,

[01:49:48] all those abstaining. Ms. Marin, will the clerks please read the vote with Ms. Dixit from the table 7211 the motion carries thank you agenda item 7.01 performance reviews relationships with families and community stakeholders el3 monitoring report each year the school board assesses the superintendent in part on the basis of the school division's reasonable process

[01:50:20] progress toward achieving the 2023 2030 strategic plan goals and adherence to a set of 13 executive limitations found on pages 14 through 31 of the board's strategic governance manual. The superintendent provides an annual monitoring reports to the board for each executive limitation.

[01:50:41] The board then votes on whether the provided report is in compliance or if corrective action is needed. I call on Dr. Reed for a monitoring report on executive limitation three, relationships with families and community stakeholders. evening I'm obviously at the tail end of a head cold and so I'm gonna ask different staff to do the slides and then I'll respond to questions from the board rather than staff so I'm going to ask our assistant superintendent for strategy and planning miss Neal to go ahead and present the slides and then

[01:51:15] I'll answer questions thanks dr. Reed and good evening to the members of our board tonight I'll be presenting executive limitation 3 which discusses relationships with families and community members and FCPS at the time of this report to the best of our knowledge information and belief we've gathered information and evidence that we believe supports compliance with the board's executive limitation associated with this topic and we're going to share some highlights this evening go to the next slide there are seven areas of executive limitation 3 all indicators can be seen here and although I'm going to only be sharing some highlights this

[01:51:51] evening the entire monitoring report is posted publicly for the community on BoardDocs this evening. So to begin tonight's updates I'm pleased to share that every middle and high school website now includes consistent set of information about course selection for the school including the course catalog, graduation requirements, important dates, and general academic advising information. Additionally this spring as our students are signing up for classes for 2026-27 a new feature will be added to CIS ParentVUE for families to sign off on students course requests. We're currently developing and implementing a

[01:52:29] framework that's going to identify a standard set of knowledge and skills that we will support parents and students with at elementary, middle, and high school levels as it relates to academic and career planning. And then finally a goal innovation team is working on programs that will improve and create opportunities for students as they transition schools and we'll be providing guidance and resource to support common processes. We launched a new graduation status feature in parent view if we can go to the next slide slide five sorry we

[01:53:08] launched a new graduation status feature in parent view and student view this year to help parents and students monitor their progress in meeting graduation requirements as we strive to provide consistency across the division expectations for Schoology usage were also shared with principals at a leaders need to know session in July of 2025 to support consistent communication of information to families the special education and section 504 newsletter is shared quarterly via multiple modalities this information may include updates to special education and section 504 services

[01:53:43] important dates and upcoming events additionally key resources about ieps and 504 plans have been translated to facilitate family and staff understanding of procedures rights and processes and we now publish official forms related to special education in 14 languages which is an increase from eight languages that we previously translated information in our office of communications hosts an annual comps camp training for our principals this is designated to help refine communication strategies for the upcoming school year the office also supports school leaders and

[01:54:19] staff in creating clear engaging communications for families for a year-round school communicators program and we're also very excited that every FCPS school now has a top 10 list that showcases the things that make their community proud to be a part of the school this year we collaborated with our blue star families to host a back-to-school military fair for our military families with secondary school students to help them prepare for the upcoming school year the fair offered our families an opportunity to connect with a variety of valuable resources from 17 different

[01:54:53] community organizations and programs. We also had an inaugural Welcome Barbecue for our new and returning military connected families to provide opportunities for them to connect with one another throughout the division. We had over 260 military connected family members attend.

[01:55:09] We're also proud to report that FCPS now has 149 purple star schools. In October of this year our FCPS mobile app was launched. This app is designed to be a central unified tool for connecting and informing our families staff and students and includes automatic translations in over a hundred languages. Our app organizes information into division and school level feeds and our families and students and staff can follow specific schools for targeted updates. This fall Tandem is also now our official external facing calendar platform for school websites and our new

[01:55:49] app. All of our school websites are successfully displaying Tandem powered calendars and 83 percent of our schools have created at least one event in tandem. And at this time Madam Chair this concludes the summary of the monitoring report for executive limitation three our relationships with families and community members.

[01:56:08] Thank you. I call on Mr. Frisch for a motion. Thank you. Can he not be ready for a motion twice in one meeting. I think he can.

[01:56:24] I apologize. I apologize to almost there folks. I move that the school board finds the superintendent is in compliance with executive limitation three relationships with families and community stakeholders.

[01:56:50] I further move that the school board approved the monitoring report based on superintendent's reasonable interpretation of executive limitation three relationships with families and community stakeholders as outlined in the strategic governance manual. Is there a second. I second.

[01:57:08] Thank you Miss Dixit. Mr. Fresh would you like to speak to your motion. I would first I want to thank all of the people that help with our community engagement and family engagement in Fairfax County Public Schools because it's a lot of very hard-working people who could really use a lot more colleagues to do their work but things as they are they do a tremendous amount of work for their numbers and this monitoring report shows that you know historic volunteer engagement tens of thousands of

[01:57:46] family engagement touch points etc um you know innovations like the new app that uh has been provided to families um and and so on um you know and and then you look at november and we have a historic passing of excuse me a historic result in the passing of of our last bond with 70 of the vote certainly higher than it's been in many years and so there's also been efforts to take barriers

[01:58:20] down from people from participation military connected families are more connected than ever to fcps as we expand and very soon will become a purple star school division and so i will be voting that this el is in compliance i do have a couple questions one of the things that has always gotten you know has always kind of been something that i think about when we talk about engagement is the true value of an informative versus instructive engagement results what more can

[01:58:54] we be doing so that we're not looking solely at the volume of responses when we do a survey for example and we get 30 000 families participate in a survey now that on its own is informative right the volume but it's not necessarily instructive until you break down the numbers and see if it's a scientific sample worth taking seriously what more can we do when we do have these large samples to use the data in a way that is informative is instructive and not just informative

[01:59:28] so i think it's a great question um i know that our orsi department that works under miss neil i think we could take a look at that and think about um think about that question honestly saying it's a good it's a good question because most statistician statisticians would die for some of the sample sizes that we end up producing in fcps because you know usually they're having to make a lot of assumptions with the data that they have and when you have 40 000 touch points in

[02:00:04] something all on the same type of survey data there's a lot that can be gleaned from that and instead sometimes we're left with in this region this is what we got with lower participation maybe at this high school there was more and it doesn't tell us within the school you know are those free and reduced meals families are they multilingual families and so on um how uh you know many of the systems described schoology oh i'm out of time i might do a go back we'll see thank you thank you mr fresh uh miss dixit for would you like to speak to your second

[02:00:40] Yes, briefly, I'm in support of this EL and definitely have seen a lot of improvement and the community community engagement relationship with families. I do also, you know, want to just have like a couple of questions.

[02:00:57] One of the slides said that the principals have been notified for expectation of school or school use. What does that actually mean for and is it for for the teachers usage or the students. It's a bullet on page four. Yes, ma'am. I'm going to ask Dr. Presidio to respond as the Schoology department presides in our academic office. Dr. Presidio. Of course. Thank you for the question. Yeah, one of the things that we had discussed in a board work session

[02:01:31] about a year ago was the consistency or lack of consistency at the time of schools posting information for parents in Schoology so that parents would have a better understanding of what assignments their students were working on so we set division expectations and have been monitoring the posting of information in Schoology from school to school so we obviously started working with principals to set that expectation make sure that they were clear on the guidelines and then we're able to provide that expectation training and support to classroom teachers to be able to ensure that the Schoology pages were up-to-date for all

[02:02:09] of the classes thank you for the response uh from what i've heard and and it's it actually changes from teacher to teacher it's even if the principal is the one uh you know relating relaying it to the teachers it's actually depends on the individual teacher how they feel comfortable or not uh how do we ensure that it actually is consistent like you said um with all school and all all schools like you know it's you know consistent across the board so the principals are monitoring it we had pulled a couple different reports at different times where the region assistant

[02:02:47] superintendents had looked at that but again you know that sometimes teachers are very very busy so they might get a little bit behind with that but there are staff available at the school the spits and the t specs to help them if they need any technical assistance with posting the information okay thank you so much uh my last comment i would say is that there's a lot of communication which goes out of fcps sometime it is a lot more than people can take in and and you know as a parent who has got uh you know multiple students in the school that sometime would just it's a no data

[02:03:21] overload at some point um my question was the actually the reverse communication is is basically how do we do the dialogue more and i know you do community hearing and you do a lot of other things but i certainly feel that the voices who are louder are the ones get you know get their work you know work done and how do we ensure that the parents who are busy and not able to communicate are also being listened to somehow oh good questions i think um you know the community conversations we try to do twice a year but if you're busy you may not be able

[02:03:59] to make it the parent quad groups are also another venue if those meetings we have two parents from every school and the goal is to make sure that parents come to those get information can go back to their school communities and share information so pta i think would be a you know they are a tremendous partner in communication i think the mobile app is beginning to catch on in terms of communication but that's not really

[02:04:37] a conversation to your point we'll continue to work on ways to do that but i do think the boundary process which we'll talk about a little bit later certainly garnered a lot of community conversation And so I think we always want more connection, and so we'll continue to work on that.

[02:05:01] Ms. Marin. Yes. Overall, I too want to recognize the employees who have been at dozens and dozens and dozens of events this year, at night, on weekends, particularly during the boundary engagement process.

[02:05:16] I've seen the same small group of employees providing outstanding professional services. I would like to know if such employees working outside traditional business day hours are being compensated monetarily or with complimentary time? I don't have an answer to that this evening.

[02:05:33] I would have to get back to you on that. I shared out of concern that it's been a lot of meetings, and I would like to know. So there are a lot of metrics in this report, but the metrics are mostly inputs. And they're lovely inputs. They're engaging activities that I've been at, observed, participated in as a member, and as a parent.

[02:05:54] But it's numbers of webinars, newsletter opens, events hosted. I don't see an analysis of what's working best, if at all. And we just don't have the luxury anymore to do all the things if we don't know if they're being productive. So I'm going to be finding the superintendent not in compliance with this EL report.

[02:06:13] Most specifically, the lack of improvement on the technology and instructional connection in communications and families to adults. Although there is reference to a web icon going onto the homepage, I did yet another audit, and the schools don't all have it. They don't have the title, and moreover, when you click into it, it does not have meaningful, consistent information.

[02:06:37] And it's just not acceptable anymore. I've been saying this for every year, and just a case in point, I was late to tonight's meeting because my 10th grader happened to tell me about the courses she was selecting. And I had to stop everything because I didn't know that she had had a meeting, selected courses, and there is something in here about the future.

[02:06:56] I'm very glad that parents will have to sign off because I know of a constituent whose child signed up for a course where they had to drive there. But it's taking too long. And as such, I do want to say that during the CIP work, I will be bringing a motion for the Instructional Services Division to be moved into Gatehouse. The Instructional Services Division is the only major office that is not at Gatehouse. Other than safety and security, I don't understand how we can be a school division without the Instructional Services Division being in the superintendent's suite. Now, I know it's a big office. I'm not saying it has to be the old office, but the chief

[02:07:32] academic officer and the assistant suit for instruction must be engaging with you regularly as the chief technology officer is doing, as the chief of schools is doing. I also want to say that the EO report does not reflect the level of engagement that I require. The latest example is communications with constituents about Tyson's Green, who I've been in touch with for months through the boundary process, only to find that the superintendent had responded to them directly to answer a question I asked her on Sunday.

[02:08:02] I repeatedly feel like I'm respecting the superintendent's wish to not engage with her leadership team directly on a lot of questions, let them do their work. But when it comes to my constituents, there needs to be a partnership. I have additional comments, so I would like to have a second turn, please.

[02:08:20] Thank you. Mr. McElveen. Thank you. Well, it's fortuitous that I'm following Ms. Mirren because I just want to extend her her praise to the communication staff that have truly gone above and beyond this year i i don't think there's precedent for the amount of work they've had to do this year whether it's been staffing listening tours staffing boundary meetings western high school meetings it's it's truly been quite a feat and so i would join melanie in saying that i hope we are we are

[02:08:55] recognizing them as they should be I also want to applaud the innovative ideas in this report about having top 10 lists of schools I think that's a good way to promote our message and kind of tamp down on a lot of negativity out there the line of questioning that I want to approach tonight is on the mobile app so back in 2014-ish we embarked on a similar project that was a complete and

[02:09:29] colossal failure so i'm i'm curious as to what motivated us to try it again and do you see it as being successful so far we heard from a variety a large variety of parent stakeholders that and also following research that a significant number of people are actually doing a lot of business from their phone and not necessarily from a laptop or a standalone computer and i think as you think about mobile banking mobile apps mobile just almost everything we felt like that would

[02:10:06] increase our connectivity to family so i really am proud of our comms team our communications team our IT teams that worked very hard to put that together we also felt like we've had so much feedback about the need for a division-wide calendar so being able to create a calendar feed that family can I don't know subscribe is the right word but connect to so that you could actually follow your students activities both at school field trips after school activities theater

[02:10:42] band, whatever the practices or athletics, that that would really put everything in one place and try to also access the SIS pieces, be able to pay for lunch, like try to have a one-stop shot that's really mobile in every possible way. I think that's a great goal. Do you, I don't know if staff is available tonight to speak to lessons learned from the last app adoption that might been applied to this one from the 2014 adoption i don't know if anybody's still here that oh mr

[02:11:18] smith of course our resident historian so marty do you have some thoughts on yes i i think we learned a lot i know that technology has changed a lot over time and we use our phones for so much more at that time the previous app was really more like an electronic filing cabinet where you had many websites at your fingertip but you really couldn't do much with them but open them and and review information today our app can do so much more and interact so much differently uh and it's a much more interactive tool than the app was of 10 years ago so i had the app 10 years

[02:11:56] ago i have it today and it's a world of difference i will say that the number of board members actually found that app useful um in the old days because it um it had the pictures of the principals so when we were going to schools we knew who we were meeting so I'm sure the new app has that but that was the one redeeming feature of the old app so do we have a cost on the app adoption or is that something you can get to us I can absolutely get it to you yep thank you yes sir okay dr. Anderson thank you one of the things that I wanted to raise for your consideration

[02:12:34] is about community engagement I think we tend to put a lot of different activities into that We do a good job of awareness because I'm a parent at two different levels and I get a lot of things. So that is our opportunity to alert the community of things.

[02:12:54] But the engagement and the two-way feedback to impact decision-making, I think that's a place where we can do a little bit more. In addition to what Mr. Frisch had said in terms of who are we hearing from, I also want to understand a little bit more in terms of how do you determine the activities on which you will engage the community for decision-making as outlined in Indicator 3?

[02:13:17] So certainly with boundaries that, you know, the policy drove the engagement strategy. I think with, in general, we, the parent quad group, we meet with family members and parents from every school in the county multiple times a year.

[02:13:39] And again, that's a reciprocal relationship. They come, we do presentations on topics they're interested in. They go back to their community and can become spokespeople about the about that work You know we do community conversations Both fall and spring in every region which are open to any community member to come and visit about any topic they wish So those are some examples sure but I I think because I've been to some of the community

[02:14:15] Conversations that you posted and many times people are coming to speak about a very specific issue to them But when it comes to making a decision around the district I think there's some more efforts that could be made a little bit more broadly because these are all very small quadrants We still have 180,000 almost 180,000 students and in their families So there's an opportunity for greater outreach Because we've sat here where we've heard particularly in December 18th Dozens of parents came and spoke, and some even tonight, about the AI rollout.

[02:14:47] Like, when do we engage them in that? Because that's a huge and impactful activity to their student. I'm trying to understand, like, when do we create that delineation? Like, well, we're going to handle this here, FCPS, we'll make you aware.

[02:15:04] Or we are going to make you aware and ask for your feedback about our activities. I just want to see behind the curtain a little bit in terms of how you determine which route. So with the AI, we actually had an event, a public event in November, meeting the moment where we invited the entire community to come in and hear from both myself, Mr. Sethi, several of our partners from Google and PlayLab.

[02:15:34] And we're going to have another event coming up when we have our PlayLab. think it's our national competition and so we you know sent out communications regarding that topic and as we you know become so I anyhow so on that topic we've already initiated a conversation we're going to be talking about that in the parent quad group as well so those are kind of pieces around AI I don't you know boundaries have really consumed I think a lot of time in the last 18 months. Absolutely. I recognize that. You're absolutely right. There's been a huge effort

[02:16:12] with the boundaries and multiple meetings a week. I recognize that. But I just want to kind of put in your ear when we are rolling out to be thinking about what is awareness, where we're just letting people know which are those two AI events that you've talked about, and what is the opportunity to actually pull people in and get their feedback. Similarly with calendar, we've heard it from people here. It was like, we just are rolling out calendar year in, year out, and there's no space for them to be able to say, hey, we're not asking for their feedback on that in a way that is going to be structured and comprehensive. Yes, we'll have people come here and here, you know, come to

[02:16:51] the meeting. They'll email us, and they have been more and more. I just want to be more thoughtful about that. I did have a question that I wanted to ask about the website. I do appreciate the website seeing that every single one of the schools has that tab that's been outlined here that says coursework. But when you open that tab, it is all very different. I didn't realize Ms. Marin did this, but I did my own audit today and not just with my schools. I think I hit about eight schools and all of the tabs were here they are all very different with different types of

[02:17:29] information and it's inconsistently laid out and again I'm not going to be as fussy about the layout but the content I made a little chart for myself that I'm happy to share but I wonder if it would make sense for someone in your office to do their own little audit from a user perspective because if I have a parent and it's likely you have parents who one kid is at one middle school because they're not AAP and others at another middle school because they are AAP and it's just a little bit too much for them to navigate things that are so vastly different so I would

[02:18:05] encourage you to have someone take a look do a quick audit to evaluate whether or not what we're articulating here is actually the user experience I'd like to go back please Yes, ma'am, we'll do that. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Mr. Moon. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[02:18:22] Thanks for the presentation, Dr. Reed, and especially with a voice like that. Maybe I should not be asking you questions because you may have to use your voice more. But I still got to ask a couple of questions. My questions go to a couple of different areas.

[02:18:40] A central registration, welcome centers. A lot of times, you know, unfortunately, I get to, you know, hear from the constituents, especially people who are coming to Fairfax County for the first time to have their children register for schools.

[02:19:01] You know, sometimes they may be coming at the very last minute. Sometimes, a lot of times, but they come, you know, in my mind early enough to start the process. Many of them, unfortunately, find the process not as easy to navigate through.

[02:19:19] And we know that many people come to a central registration office during summer months or even late spring to summer months. And I don't know whether we are sufficiently staffed during those months where we are relying on many hourly employees to take care of our registration needs when there is an influx of people, large number of people coming in at the same time.

[02:19:47] But when I hear that people are getting different information, conflicting information depending upon whom they talk to. So a request that I'm making is, I'm not going to make an assumption. People might misunderstand the instruction given to them.

[02:20:08] So a request that I'm making is maybe with a duly registering families after their registrations are done, you know, if we could do some survey and to find out whether they feel that there are areas where they can, you know, we can do, we can improve how we provide information, how we process their application through.

[02:20:35] I mean, that's a question that I'm making. If we're already doing that, please provide me the way the information about, you know, their feedback. All right, I will check that. I can give you some feedback regarding our military-connected families.

[02:20:51] A couple, I think it was two years ago, we had an online registration and a piece, I know, a piece on our website, also a connection for our military-connected families. And in my last military-connected family advisory committee meeting, there was a lot of positive feedback about the registration, what I would call the transition into Fairfax County process.

[02:21:14] So I think the team has worked really hard, and I'll check on this survey idea. And especially, you know, if you could, especially, you know, hear from language minority families. Yes, sir. I mean, I appreciate it. The same thing goes with the community engagement.

[02:21:30] I I do understand I know you we make a lot of efforts to provide you know interpreters in many of the meetings unfortunately in many of the places that I've been to have not really seen that many uh uh you know language minority you know families participating and coming into use in the interpretation services etc and my the question that comes to my mind whenever that happens whenever I see that happening is whether there is there is another way

[02:22:04] different ways to reach out to them and at least to find out why they are coming because I mean there is a large number of you know that large percentage of our families language language minority families and they should be equally participating coming attending these important meetings but they are not yes thank you Mr. Dunn thank you first of all I want to just compliment superintendent

[02:22:41] our team on the top 10 list I think that's a fantastic start you know what a big fan I am because there's so much bad data out there on gradeschools.com and similar websites we need to do everything we can to uplift our schools and proclaim the daily excellence of each and every school in our county That's the reality, and unfortunately we have so much negative stuff out there on social media and otherwise, so bringing forward the daily excellence and really shining a light on it so every community member is aware of it, not just the parents but their kids in

[02:23:15] that school, I think is a vital part of our educational obligation in our modern society. Also to restore public trust in public education, we need to show them what's happening in our schools. CPS. We often have too much of an arm's length relationship historically. So I just want to commend you Dr. Reed because I don't know if there's ever been a superintendent who's in our schools and in our communities as much as you are. Community conversations, all different types of advisory committees including with military families and many other communities. It's so vital to the success of our school division that you're doing that work and so I just want to say thank you

[02:23:53] a night when you're losing your voice to for all of that work one thing i want to ask not as a criticism but as as a request one of the best things that really distinguishes a public school in a public school system of our size from a private school is the wealth of academies all right all of the cte programs we have all of the academies we have and while there are some videos now on the website. Most of them were made six or seven years ago. And we know from all the videos that get played at these meetings that you have some of the top video makers

[02:24:32] probably in Virginia and the country. So if we can just get either the communications team to make more videos, to make updated videos, at least showing the diversity of programming or individual programming we have at each of our academies or CTEs at non-academy high schools, I think that would be so important because we need to get the word out because our CTE budget has been flat forever.

[02:24:55] We need to increase it, but until we have that public demand for, you know, CTE programming across the board and public awareness of these CTE programs and pathways, some of which you have to start as a sophomore or a junior really to get the certification that allows you to be career ready upon graduation, we won't have that demand, right?

[02:25:15] I mean, when we start something new like welding, we see how demand just explodes because it's so exciting and fun, right? Not that I've ever welded, but it looks fun, right? And I've seen the art that people make. So I just want to say this is one area where I feel really distinguishes us from private schools who don't have the money and the expertise to do things like this.

[02:25:37] So we need to lift it up because if we were publishing a brochure for each high school, that would be like 50% of the brochure. Thank you. Yes, sir. I'll talk with the team about that. Ms. Lady. Thank you. And again, thank you, team. Thank you to your entire team. The hours you put in, you don't get paid well enough for the hours you get put in.

[02:25:58] Appreciate all that you've done. Thirteen and a half page report, bullet after bullet after bullet of things, most of which I read were not in place three years ago. Dr. Reed, I thank you. I thank you for your leadership of the school system. While we can always find areas to fine-tune something or where something isn't most ideal, I absolutely will support this EL, and I, quite frankly, don't understand how anyone at this dais could not.

[02:26:30] I think that there are always occasions where I'm looking for something on a website that I can't find it or it's named something that's not intuitive to me, Or perhaps, you know, I want a different set of outputs on something that may have been surveyed.

[02:26:47] I mean, these are good questions, but the volume of what you have put in place since you took over the school system just, it shocks me. And, for example, the registration. I was snapping as if I was in school because we needed an electronic version of helping parents register when they move here.

[02:27:08] And part of what's happening in that portal is it's very clear the documentation they need, where before it was done over a phone or email, and people couldn't see an example, and they showed up for registration appointments and didn't have what they needed. All of these ways in which we are communicating are fantastic.

[02:27:26] The 70% bond approval, that's fantastic. Obviously, our constituents believe in the work we're doing in our public schools, the tandem calendar of events, all the things with family academies, the Welcome Center, what you've done with Blue Star families and Purple Star schools.

[02:27:45] We didn't even talk about Purple Star schools three, four years ago. It was not even a conversation. It was nothing we were striving for. So I hope what folks are hearing from me is that, yeah, if we want to look for something that didn't happen the way we wanted it to, we could find it.

[02:28:02] But overall, in the 13 and a half page report, which is rich with links and information, and what I see is improvements with this overall EL, kudos to you and kudos to the team sitting there and the people that are not here, which includes our principals, our DSSs, DSAs, all our teachers, Everyone out there who is putting students and families first, by need, by strength.

[02:28:27] Thank you. Ms. Marin, go back. Yes. Of course, yes, no doubt. There's been amazing things. I just don't see a measurement of how effective those are for the limited dollars that we have.

[02:28:45] You know, as a colleague mentioned, the engagement around AI, we have parents and residents coming to us asking for engagement. And really what I think should be is a process akin to the boundary process. this is a whole new era I mean I heard your remarks at the training earlier this week that we want this to be human centered 25% of our students are already using this without being facilitated I'm very surprised that there hasn't been a plan for this and I will speak to that when we get to academic matters but there's been no engagement with the board systemically and then I just think

[02:29:23] that I don't see the school board is the face of the school division and we engage with the community that is our job and when i have instances where the superintendent is meeting with constituents or announcing ai and hasn't said hey what what do you think school board member maryn i'm hearing this from your community like what are your thoughts to inform the superintendent's decision and also to hear what my suggestions are i don't see that we are the first stop for community members a lot of the time and i would just like to see it be

[02:29:59] much more robust. So I will share these comments electronically and hope that something can be done about them. Dr. Anderson, go back. Thank you. Just a couple of quick things. One of the things that I wanted to talk about was Schoology. And I think somebody said earlier, no matter what the platform, you'll have people who, you know, still think it needs to work. I can't even remember what we had before Schoology I can't remember blackboard oh how could I forget black

[02:30:33] board Wow I will pause right there what I wanted to share is something for your team to take a look at Schoology and sis don't necessarily speak with each other I think some integration there would be helpful because you have at times where a student because I've seen this assignment is missing in Schoology but graded in CIS and I know a lot of parents are utilizing Schoology to kind of keep their kids accountable especially when they have that that missing assignment section but if they're not double checking CIS to see is that assignment really missing it just becomes a little bit

[02:31:13] cumbersome so I would love for you all to take a look at that and we have come a long way and I've said this before but a lot of this is kind of the same report from last year the same report from the year before I know because I keep all three and at every meeting I take a look so I'm not in the camp of this is all brand new information I do pay very particular attention to the area of the new evidence because we need to continue to evolve that's why we've evolved in your staffing

[02:31:48] we've evolved in a lot of ways so the expectations are higher um so i wanted to share that um and i also wanted to say for me as one board member while i think all of these indicators are valid they have value they are not all equally important there are some that i value more and that weighs in into my decisions when we're talking about the the public facing pieces where my community continues to say that, well, I guess our voices don't matter. I have to see how can we

[02:32:24] increase the opportunity for them to have their voices be heard on the topics that matter to them. So I will not be voting in compliance, but we're heading in the right direction. We're not there yet. Okay. Seeing no others, we're going to go ahead and call for a vote on the motion that is about to be on the screen. All those in favor, so we have Mr. Moon, Ms. Dixit, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John

[02:32:59] Cunning, Mr. McElveen, Mr. Frisch, and myself, and Mr. McDaniel, and all those opposed, Ms. Marron and Dr. Anderson. We have Mr. Dunn away from the table. Will the clerk please read the vote?

[02:33:20] 8-2-1, the motion carries. Thank you. Annually, the board will review each executive limitation at time the monitoring report is provided to determine if revisions are needed. Board members may offer amendments to executive limitations at any regular meeting provided they send the final amendment language to the board and clerk at least 48 hours in advance of the meeting at which it's to be considered. At this time, no amendments have been submitted in advance of this meeting as no amendments have been submitted. Executive limitation three relationships with families and community stakeholders was placed on the consent agenda for approval later at tonight's meeting to maintain the current language for the year ahead.

[02:33:59] We are going to take a very fast five-minute break to allow for board members to provide

[02:34:10] feedback on the monitoring report. Board members, please take your seats. Board members, please take

[02:46:09] your seats. Agenda item 8.01, comprehensive school boundary review. I call on Dr. Reed for a presentation on the 2026 comprehensive school boundary review thank you madam chair um i this evening i'm going to make a few opening comments and because again i want to make sure i have my

[02:46:44] voice for questions i'm going to ask mr gordon to present the slides i want to begin this evening by thanking the board for setting such clear direction in adopting the policy around boundaries I think that that provided a very clear roadmap for staff and very clear direction for me as we've navigated the last 18 months.

[02:47:09] So first and foremost, I want to thank our board. Thank each of you for setting that guidance so clearly. I also want to thank a tremendous number of people, our teams that it's been mentioned tonight. We have had a lot of staff out doing this work, and I appreciate the work of our staff.

[02:47:27] I also want to thank all of the volunteers that were part of the advisory committee, community members that came, that showed up, that shared their voice, their perspective.

[02:47:45] I met so many people through this process, so many neighborhoods, got to know each other, neighbors. I'm just really very, very proud of our community and the way they showed up and the way that we were able to thoughtfully process this project as an entire community.

[02:48:06] And so a big thank you to our community, our board, and our staff that supported this work. And I think that when it's all said and done, the fact that we keep our children at the center of our decision making and we ground our conversations in what's best for our children makes all the difference.

[02:48:25] And it's also what makes Fairfax special. I'm going to also say that this process wasn't perfect. And our recommendations, my recommendations are not perfect. What we're a goal, I think, that I have and I hope we share is normalizing this conversation around boundaries.

[02:48:46] It's really a best practice just to routinely review these. And I feel like we've taken some good first steps, and we've got obviously more work to do, but I feel like the ability to cycle through this work over time will continue to be important, and we'll continue to do it in a collaborative, thoughtful, and measured way with our community.

[02:49:14] So Eric's going to walk through the slides, and then I'll answer questions. And, you know, we have a lot of demographic data, too, that we're going to need to look at in the coming years as we wrestle with growth in different parts of the county and neighborhoods that are turning over and so forth.

[02:49:39] So it's a complex task, and I appreciate the patience and the grace of our community, our staff, and you as a board as we process through this. So I'm going to hand this over to Eric after 18 months of doing nothing but talking about this.

[02:49:55] it. And I'll stay to answer questions. Thank you, ma'am. Good evening, all. Dr. Reed is pleased to present the school board tonight. Her recommendations for the proposed boundary changes as we conclude our comprehensive boundary review process. As you know, this was the first undertaking of a comprehensive review of a school boundary for our division in the nearly four decades. To ensure that enrollment, facilities, programming, and student well-being remain aligned with the needs of a growing and changing community. Throughout this process, we heard meaningful and impactful

[02:50:34] feedback from family, staff, and community members. Their voices helped guide and shape our work, and we are grateful for the engagement of our community and the dedication of our staff throughout the process. The Comprehensory Boundary Review was grounded in the priorities and directions set forth of our strategic plan, which serves as our North Star. Fairfax County public schools is committed to ensuring that each of every uh each and every fcps student has equitable access to excellence and opportunities in alignment with fps fcps 20 2330 strategic plan

[02:51:12] as you recall you as a school board approved an update to the boundary policy 8130 in july of 2024 which mandates that fcps school boundaries are reviewed every five years going forward and then in july of 2025 the school board adopted and revised language which set the phasing plan for boundary adjustments at the elementary middle high and secondary school levels our boundary review work was guided by the priorities put forth by the school board and policy 8130 as laid out in

[02:51:50] school board policy 8130 we've had a robust community engagement including the creation of the superintendent boundaries review advisory committee which includes community members from Meach High School pyramid and guided our work throughout the development of various boundary scenarios. Beginning in the fall of 2024, FCPS engaged in four sets of community meetings across phases one and two to share information, to collect feedback, and that informed new interactions of the boundary scenarios. From the fall of 2024 to the end of 2025, we hosted a total

[02:52:28] 48 virtual and in-person community meetings with more than 6500 attendees in addition we utilized the boundary explorer tool to share scenarios and collect feedback online first in spring of 2025 and then in fall this fall we received almost 25 000 comments on various scenarios using the boundary explorer tool the superintendent's boundary review committee included two parents caregivers from each FCPS 24 high school pyramids as well as school based and

[02:53:07] division level administrators teachers and operational staff representatives from County local government associations and other community members their role was to help ensure that community feedback was considered in the development of potential boundary scenarios and provided recommendations to the superintendent the committee met 16 times from December of 2024 through December of 2025 and we are grateful that each commitment each member's commitment to their important work as you see before you this graphic provides a high-level timeline of the boundary review and its outline and outlines of

[02:53:45] process and we are here and we are now nearing the end of this timeline and tonight I'm presenting doctor reason making recommendations on the proposed boundary adjustments to the school board then this Saturday January 10th the school board will hold a hearing to hear a public comment on the recommended boundary changes and on Tuesday January 13th the school board will hold a public hearing on the proposed 2027 capital improvement program overflow testimony for school boundaries will take place at that hearing as well and then on Thursday 2022 20 2026 the school board is scheduled to vote on

[02:54:21] boundary adjustment recommendations this timeline shows more detailed recapping our work from this past fall in October we held pyramid specific community meetings pairing two pyramids at each the meeting to present scenario four in November the superintendent advisory board advisory committee reviewed and discussed the community feedback and provided recommended changes to scenario four based on that feedback on December 12th the boundary review committee provided feedback and recommendations for Dr. Reed to consider which she reviewed with staff and developed

[02:54:57] her recommendations that she'll share with you tonight and again as I mentioned the Saturday January 10th the school board will hold a specific uh hold a public hearing on a recommended school board boundary changes and if there's any inclement weather on this day the school board will hold a public meeting on Saturday January 17th on Tuesday January 13th the school board hold Pacific will hold a public hearing on proposed 2027 capital improvement plan with overflow testimony for school board boundaries will take place at that hearing as well and then on the 22nd of January the school board will have a scheduled vote the process for determining the new western high

[02:55:34] school will begin in February this slide spotlights the priorities of the school board has set forth and policy 8130 which guided our work through the process access to permit programming was to ensure equitable access to programs and facilities and consider impact on school board programs and population enrollment and capacity was defined by using student enrollment projections balance available capacity across the school division and maximize efficient

[02:56:08] and effective use of school facilities and as per best practices for capacity utilization and program needs while eliminating preventing the establishment of split feeders whenever possible as you can see on this slide it describes the priorities of proximity and transportation proximity is defined by promoting contiguous attendance zones and maintaining neighborhood groupings to include condominium apartment complexes with the goal is to eliminate and to prevent establishment of attendance islands transportation is defined by providing a walking and busing safety and limit transportation

[02:56:48] time since to ensure efficient transportation routes with attendance areas to their priorities of enrollment capacity and proximity are related to split feeders and attendance islands based on existing school boundaries there are 42 schools that are split feeders and at least one school affecting all six regions and eight high school and 18 high school pyramids 30 elementary schools feed into multiple schools, 33 elementary schools that feed into more than one high school, and six middle schools split between multiple

[02:57:25] high schools. Additionally, there are 22 boundaries, 22 school boundaries that have at least one attendance island affecting five regions and 14 high school pyramids, 16 elementary schools, three middle schools, and three high schools. Dr. Reed's recommendation would eliminate or reduce nine elementary schools to middle school split feeders and 10 10 elementary schools to high school split feeders.

[02:57:53] It would all it would eliminate and reduce six school attendance islands. Based on the proposed school boundaries for school year 2024 and 25 school membership data the proposed changes would impact approximately 2,210 students at 52 schools and an estimated 1,174 elementary students 440 447 middle school students and 589 high school students.

[02:58:24] These numbers assume that students who are currently transferred to another school will continue to transfer to the school and are not included in the impacted number of students. Now with the next 20 slides, I would like to walk through an overview of Dr. Reeves' recommended boundary changes affecting students at 52 of our schools.

[02:58:47] As you will see on each of the slides, the map on the left slide shows the existing boundary and the map on the right side shows the proposed boundaries. The areas circled with the black hash line are in the proposed school boundary adjustments. Each of the slides describe the changes at the student planning area level, and each spa is a small geographic zone used as a building block for creating school attendance boundaries, aiming to keep neighborhoods together while balancing capacity and program access.

[02:59:21] My remarks will provide an overview, and I will encourage reviewing the slides for more details. shows the proposed changes for the King Mill Elementary School shown in yellow Cardinal Forest Elementary School shown in gray and White Oaks Elementary School shown in pink approach the proposed changes would eliminate attendance island at King Mill Elementary School and eliminate King Mill Elementary School split feeder at the middle school level and high school level. This slide shows proposed proposed changes for the Rolling Valley Elementary School shown in purple and the Saratoga Elementary School shown in gray. These proposed changes

[03:00:00] would reduce the split feeder at the Rolling Elementary at Rolling Valley Elementary School and align this area to the Lewis High School pyramid. This slide shows the proposed changes for the Katherine Katherine Johnson Middle School shown in pink and the Rocky Run Middle School shown in gray.

[03:00:20] These proposed changes would reduce the split feeder at Greenbrier East Elementary. This slide shows the corresponding proposed changes on the previous slide to keep the feeder pattern in alignment.

[03:00:37] This slide shows the proposed changes for the Fairfax High School shown in purple and and the Chantilly High School shown in pink. This slide shows proposed changes for Laurel Ridge Elementary School shown in blue and the Old Creek Elementary School shown in purple.

[03:00:58] These proposed changes would eliminate an attendance island at Old Creek Elementary School and eliminate the Old Creek Elementary School split feeder at the middle school and high school level.

[03:01:14] This slide shows the proposed changes for the West Briar Elementary School shown in blue and the Colvin Run Elementary School shown in yellow. These proposed changes would eliminate West Briar Elementary School split feeder at the middle school level and reduce the number of schools West Briar Elementary School feeds to at the high school level.

[03:01:39] This slide shows the proposed changes for the Thoreau Middle School shown in red and the Kilmore Middle School shown in green. These proposed changes would eliminate the Vienna Elementary School split feeder at the middle school level.

[03:01:59] This slide shows the proposed changes at the Madison High School shown in yellow and the Marshall High School shown in pink. These proposed changes would eliminate the Vienna Elementary School split feeder at the high school level and eliminate the Wolf Trap Elementary School split feeder at the high school level as well.

[03:02:22] This slide shows proposed changes for the Longfellow Middle School shown in blue and the Cooper Middle School shown in red. These proposed changes would eliminate the Spring Hill Elementary School split feeder at the middle school level and eliminate the Longfellow Middle School attendance islands.

[03:02:47] This slide shows the proposed changes for the McLean High School shown in gray and Langley High School shown in blue. These proposed changes would eliminate the Spring Hill Elementary School split-fleet at the high school level and eliminate the McLean High School attendance islands.

[03:03:08] This slide shows the proposed changes for the Fort Belvoir Primary Elementary School and the Fort Belvoir Upper Elementary School shown in purple and the Washington Middle Elementary School shown in green. These proposed changes would remove off-base students from Fort Belvoir Primary and Fort Belvoir Upper, create a Washington Middle Elementary School attendance island and as you know a family engagement and school community is critical to the success of each student each and every student to foster such engagement for off-base families at the Fort Belvoir elementary and upper elementary school level the recommendation is to remove the barriers

[03:03:44] to the family engagement and reassigning off-base students to the Washington Mill Elementary School this slide shows proposed changes to the Riverside Elementary School in gray Stratford Landing Elementary School in purple and the Woodlawn Elementary School in blue These proposed changes would eliminate the Riverside Elementary School split feeder.

[03:04:06] At the middle school level and at the high school level. This slide shows proposed changes at the cross for Crossfield Elementary School shown in yellow. Lee's Corner Elementary Lee's Corner Elementary School shown in purple.

[03:04:24] These proposed changes would reduce the number of schools Crossfield Elementary School feeds into at the middle school level and at the high school level. This slide shows proposed changes for the Coates Elementary School shown in.

[03:04:42] Red, McNair and McNair Upper Elementary School shown in Gray, Floris Elementary School shown in green, and Hernan Elementary School shown in yellow. This area was highlighted by the school board as to be reviewed as part of the Comprehensive Boundary Review. These proposed changes would eliminate the Coates Elementary School split feeder at the middle school level and high school level.

[03:05:03] These decreased the Coates Elementary School capacity utilization percentage from 137% to 86%. And as we all know, Coates has been one of the most overcrowded schools within the division. This slide shows proposed changes for the Park Long Elementary School in purple, Belvedere Elementary School in gray, and Columbia Elementary School in green.

[03:05:27] These proposed changes would decrease the Park Long Elementary School capacity utilization percentage from 99% to 89%. This addresses one of the schools that school board asked us to be specifically addressed when approved policy 8130 directing our comprehensive boundary review.

[03:05:47] This slide shows proposed changes for Glasgow Middle School shown in light orange. middle school shown in brown and Holmes middle school shown in purple these proposed changes would address concerns on the size of Glasgow middle school which is one of the schools that the school board asked us to specifically address with policy 8130 it was also eliminate the Mason Creek Elementary School split feeder at the middle school level and we acknowledge that the proposed change split feeders would create Beech Tree Elementary School and Belvedere Elementary School I'm sorry let me start that then we acknowledge with this proposed change split feeders would be created at Beech Tree Elementary

[03:06:24] School and Belvedere Elementary School at the elementary school and elementary school high school level. This slide picks this slide corresponds to the changes in the previous slide and aligns to the middle school and high school feeder pattern.

[03:06:41] This slide shows proposed changes for the Anadale High School shown in red Justice High School shown in purple and false search high school shown in gray. This slide shows proposed changes for Fort Hunt Elementary School shown in red Mount Vernon Woods Elementary School shown in orange, Ibo Valley Elementary School shown in blue, and Groverton Elementary School shown in green. These proposed changes would eliminate attendance islands at Fort Hunt and Groverton Elementary schools. This slide corresponds to the previous slide to align the school

[03:07:20] feeder pattern and shows proposed change for Sandberg Middle School in purple and Whitman Middle School shown in pink. This slide corresponds to the previous slide to align the school pattern and shows proposed changes for West Potomac High School shown in purple, Mount Vernon High School shown in red. This slide shows the proposed changes for Holland Mill's Holland Metals Elementary School shown in pink and Stratford Landing

[03:07:57] Elementary School shown in purple. This proposed change would align a home in a neighborhood to attend the same elementary school. As we conclude this initial comprehensive boundary review several structures and processes will help ensure continuity monitoring and redress for future boundary adjustments in alignment with the review cycle established by the school board policy 8130 these include a comprehensive plan for establishing a full-time aap centers at all middle schools meeting quarterly

[03:08:33] with a skeleton version of the superintendent boundary review committee regular updates to the student planning areas which will be used to inform future boundary slides and we we have identified some initial flagged sites for future review on this slide you will see a list of flag areas for future review this work was uh was this work was not about reviewing our current boundaries it marks an important step towards establishing a clear more predictable and more equitable process

[03:09:08] for ongoing boundary work as we move forward the lessons we learned and insights we've gained will help improve and ensure that our systems involve alongside the needs of students staff and families we thank you again we thank our community we thank you for participation throughout the process to the community members who served on the superintendent boundaries review advisory committee for the time dedication and thoughtful engagement and to the many staff members who countless hours supported this work speaking for dr reed we're grateful for everyone who involved involved keeping with our students at the heart of every decision and direction we made we're

[03:09:47] going to kick things off with mr frisch thank you um you know right out the gate after the boundary policy was evaluated and changed it became clear that this would be unusual for the board to deal with uh when secret maps were the discussion that took over social media the secret maps the school board was sitting on that they don't want you to know about in fact these maps we've now learned are so secret that they never made their way into any of these scenarios under consideration by the

[03:10:25] brac or the superintendent but in those early days it became clear how important it is to engage the the community early, often, and with factual information about what exactly was happening. And I want to talk a little bit about why the process felt messy. And I feel like part of the reason that the iteration of boundary maps felt messy was because it was transparent. And, you know, in earlier times doing boundary work, much of the work would be done behind the scenes on a

[03:11:01] one-off boundary change that was then brought to the community so the tires could get kicked and then it would get refined and then they'd move forward. This time around, because the project was much bigger and because we insisted on having a BRAC and we didn't want people to think that work was being done in secret, everybody got to see the first draft of the homework, the second draft of the homework, the third draft of the homework, the fourth draft of the homework, and the superintendent's homework and so that's why that process was messy and um i do have two areas

[03:11:35] two of my communities um are in the flagged for future review i'd like to get just an idea of what that's going to entail going forward um if somebody could speak to that yes sir i um the flag for future review if for those community members watching online or listening in the white paper there's a little more um not a lot more but a little bit more that clarifies why but um and i think you know as we get closer after the public hearing saturday um i can certainly draft some

[03:12:15] more language that we can share but um for example i know the uh briarwood community is one that uh the third bullet we did um i did particularly with the briarwood trace group i asked the team WHICH INCLUDED OUR OFFICE OF SAFETY AND SECURITY, OUR TRANSPORTATION AND FACILITIES TO GO OUT AND WALK THE PATH FROM THE COMMUNITY TO THE SCHOOL, I BELIEVE IT WAS MARSHALL ROAD AT THAT POINT, AND THEY WERE NOT ABLE TO DEEM IT A SAFE ROUTE TO SCHOOL FOR A VARIETY OF REASONS BASED ON THE TRAFFIC FLOW ON THAT WALK.

[03:12:54] so that was one concern we had but um if we think about uh the uh request to move to oakton as a high school what we want to do in and i believe i put this in the white paper is we won't wait five years but we're going to look two years out after the opening of the western high school to see how that's going to affect if it does at all if we don't know um students who may be at Oakton who may choose to go to a different high school or may get caught up in that Western

[03:13:31] high school work to determine whether there would be room to put another neighborhood of students into Oakton so we're going to reevaluate that in two years but we did evaluate the lack of ability to classify it as a safe route to school for elementary and then the Greenway Downs Jefferson Village and Kingsley Commons we're going to look at that area is still not balanced and we have committed I think to looking at the facilities all the facilities within those neighborhoods

[03:14:06] within this gap year to be really better prepared with a thoughtful plan at the next five year mark yeah and I think the difficulty in scenario four for that one was that it created another attendance island of a very large population of students and by the time people came up with alternative ideas it was something that couldn't be implemented in time for certainly this year or next year maybe I did want to flag on slide 30 the changes that impact Falls Church High School one little nugget that's missing there that maybe should be added for future consideration

[03:14:44] is that the falls church number showing 113 percent capacity when the renovation is completed it'll be 88 percent capacity so that's the current structure not this renovation that dr anderson and i have been visiting throughout uh the last several years um and so it will not be resulting in an overcrowded school because of a boundary change that's the current structure it'll be much lower after it's finished yes sir that's correct and the same thing happens with herndon

[03:15:17] elementary and once the renovation is complete they'll be able to better accommodate the coats elementary school students so in a couple areas in the county we've got a little bit of um we have tight quarters perhaps for a year or until we're able to utilize renovated space but we'll we'll make sure staff make that edit on that slide thank you i also want to thank donna and michael and everybody in your team that has done the work on this because in addition to you meeting with constituents from across the county who had questions about the things that they've been

[03:15:57] hearing not even necessarily one of the scenarios just rumors that they'd heard michael and donna did a tremendous job attending community meetings in schools responding to constituents not always with extreme detail but always letting people know that they were at least being heard and so I'm going to ask for a go back so that I can talk a little bit about what an after-action report might look like when this work is done so that we can refine it for better improvement in the future. Yes sir. Mr. Dunn. Thank you. I wanted to thank all the work done

[03:16:31] both by Dr. Reed, all of your team, by Mr. Gordon, by Ms. Zemansky before her departure. it's been a heroic labor. I wanted to ask a few things. First of all, we met several times at community meetings with parents of students at Lewis High School and they advocated very strongly for enrollment at Lewis to be increased because of historic changes to boundaries that have progressively reduced both enrollment at that school and the academic and extracurricular and athletic opportunities available to those students. So I wanted to understand what your

[03:17:09] plan is to address that concern because I don't I don't see it addressed in these proposed boundary changes thank you Mr. Dunn first and foremost we're looking at transfers as a first strategy and Dr. Ponce actually is planning to meet with staff and there's a community group as well so perhaps Dr. Ponce you want to share a moment what your plan is to work with lewis high school and the transfers and i think there are also some programming that they're

[03:17:43] contemplating there uh yes we have a plan that 14 of this month uh we're going to have a round table where we're going to have a students boys parents and uh faculty uh and staff we have been meeting several times listening to what the concerns are especially with the transfers and what the transfers mean for them and with the regulation and how we as a division can support them to make sure that the numbers are up and you know keeping them more attractive to the children

[03:18:21] also some other ideas that we have so we're going to have a round table uh community when i say community is students faculty and staff all together bringing ideas thank you i'd like to ask if you could do a similar round table for mount vernon high school because it has a second highest number of transfers in the county and far above other high schools and so that's definitely an issue that would be very uh welcome at mount vernon definitely uh what we can do also is invite

[03:18:55] someone from mont vernon to to join me that day so they can see so we can mimic what we are doing there Mount Vernon and work together. Thank you. I wanted to understand some of the mandatory factors in policy 8130 speak to reducing the number of trailers and modulars but that doesn't seem to be a particular focus of the boundary review so I wonder if you can speak to that because we do have 800 classrooms across the county and trailers and modulars. Yes sir so I I do think that's something we were not as successful as we could or should have been.

[03:19:31] And I think that we also, I think, have been thoughtful to try to not add trailers. So that's a positive. But I think one of the really positive features about keeping a skeleton group going quarterly is I think we can be, as we begin in the on-ramp to the next five years, much more strategic.

[03:19:54] And I think that that particular focus could be something that I think we can be much more thoughtful about up front. So I expect the next round to begin to minimize the trailers or begin to be able to remove some of those.

[03:20:13] And will that be a focus of your quarterly meetings going forward? Yes, sir. It'll be one of them. I wanted to understand what your performance review of through consulting would be if you were to provide one to the public. I mean, they played a major role in this process, and how do you think they did?

[03:20:33] So I think that, as Mr. Frisch mentioned, we're going to be doing an after-action report, which we would want to include them as a party, too. So I think that give me a few weeks to get that done, and I'd be happy to share that.

[03:20:52] do you believe that FCPS will realize any cost savings as a result of this boundary review I think so you know I think some of the cost savings are also sort of I wouldn't say hidden but if our class you know hopefully we're going to be saving some transportation dollars I don't know that will be significant but But I do think that when you have students better positioned in schools, you're able to use staff more effectively.

[03:21:31] So we're hopeful that we'll see some cost savings, but I also hope that as we get young people as we've cut back on some of the split feeders and some of the distances to schools that we'll have, you know, young people that are better able to engage and families better able to engage.

[03:21:52] So hopefully that we'll end up with a better experience. But the fiscal part, we'll try to calculate that. Has there been any effort to calculate the cost of this boundary review, not just in terms of the contracts or through consulting, but staff time, community meetings, translators, all of those costs and what that all adds up to at the end of the day?

[03:22:14] That'll be part of our after action report. we have today 22 attendance islands in this county and only four schools are having their attendance islands eliminated entirely two are having them reduced we're also creating three new attendance islands so for that kind of adds up to a wash so I was wondering if you could comment on that well I think we have to be careful about one of the attendance islands I'll put an air quotes that we created was pulling the off-base kids off base which I I think the right thing to do and I don't I struggle to call that an attendance island right because it's

[03:22:52] actually better for kids and families and I you know I think as we went out in the community to be honest Mr. Dunn and began to talk with families I think the theory of action going in was that families were more concerned about that than other things but what we heard is that actually wasn't in some cases their biggest concern so i think one of the things maybe i learned with years of experience is that i can be wrong right that what i think maybe is the highest motivating factor for

[03:23:27] a family or a community might not be and i think what's important about this process is that as a board all of you are out at meetings a tremendous amount of time that you all put into this too it's not just staff but you know we listened and we thought and reflected about what we heard and i think that's important to model as well so what i guess i would say is where we can remove those moving forward we should and we shouldn't do it just for a data point if it

[03:24:00] isn't something that's going to work for our children and families dr anderson um thank you I do want to start off by saying thank you to the BRAC committee members.

[03:24:16] I know everybody already said staff, so I will also say that. But I want to take my little time and really highlight those community members who, for no additional pay, not part of their job, devoted hours and hours and hours to this work.

[03:24:31] Not just the work on the committee, but the work that they also engaged in when they came back into the community. And I think we have one person here from the BRAC. Mr. Becerra is there. I don't know if there's others, but thank you for that long dedication.

[03:24:51] Speaking of the BRAC committee, the skeleton crew to which you referred in this document, have you given any thought yet in terms of its composition? Would it be the exact same members, or how is that going to be determined in order to still have geographical representation?

[03:25:12] so we've asked for initial interest and i was pleasantly surprised that a lot of people are interested so um i think it was hard work but in its own way was hard work as well and i would say the committee worked very well together and had tremendously diverse perspectives but uh I think you're proud of much of what's been done I I will get back to you with the

[03:25:46] composition we're still in the process of buttoning this up and then getting the western boundary done but this would start next year oh no thank you absolutely and also given that um the four areas from the boundary policy um that had to be followed it seems as if we really landed on Enrollment and capacity being the driver of at least this go round I think they were the predominant drivers And I also want to remind the board and remind

[03:26:20] Those watching at home that we launched a boundary process about 18 months ago, right and during that process we bought a new high school and also Not you know, I mean fairly recently I was directed to provide a plan for middle school AAP programs in every middle school so which are these are good things right so and yet they do

[03:26:52] in they do have an intersection with this process so i think that um as we think about program placement being one of the four if we're going to end up with an aap center at every middle school site then that's going to be a key part of kind of thinking ahead and i will say mr dunn and I were at the Lorton station meeting recently and so what I've had an opportunity to think about are what would be those middle schools as I come to you in March of the plan that need to be first up and the fact that we're sending middle school AP students from Lorton station to Lake

[03:27:31] Braddock makes no sense right so if we can be if we're moving them if they're going to Hayfield if they're going to stay in that pyramid that's where we need to place a spot sooner than later right so I feel like I had that program perspective as part of my context we also don't want to be moving kids if we're gonna end up creating programs because we want to move children twice sure so I think that the program piece was there as part of the context but you're right the capacity and proximity I guess was an awful disclosure when we're writing the boundary that's what I

[03:28:10] thought needed to be the driver because we're not going to add programs where there's no space. So it just is the most logical thing to do. That brings me to to my next point and I hate to look ahead while we're still trying to figure this part out. It's not yet a done deal but I had a wondering and looking through some of the schools that now are falling significantly below capacity. We've already had some that exist but there have been some others now based on the readjustments for tennis islands and spit feeders I would want to know at the appropriate

[03:28:47] time what is the thinking for those schools and you know I have a few that I noted here that are really in the low 70s and these are schools and spaces that I think would be right for preschool programming because I've always had the concern one of the schools in my community, Wayanoke, the entire fifth grade was put outside in trailers so that we could include preschool programming, which is serving the students nearby. But I wonder if there was

[03:29:21] another school that was close by that had low capacity, could we then move those programs there in order to bring those K-5 kids back into the building? So I'm really interested in what is our general plan with those schools that are significantly under capacity. One of the things I want to pivot and talk about are obviously my community schools and I did appreciate Mr. Gordon talking about how with I finish that sentence and then before I go to go back I appreciate that Mr. Gordon

[03:30:00] talked about how those schools were part of some board directives. I saw the work at Coates it's beautiful at 89%. But I want to be sure that I shared that the work at Park Lawn, the numbers that you described were just with the modulars. Without the modulars, there is still significant overcrowding. So I will pause here and ask for a go back. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Ms. Marin.

[03:30:33] Okay, the day is here. So I guess I have two buckets of questions and comments. One is the general and the approach and then the other is specific things that 100 mil constituents have asked me and it's just kind of curious that we're going to dig into these details right here and now I'm also feeling like it's up to us members to clarify these questions and it it just doesn't seem like it's as planful as I would hope like I'm looking to be briefed on what you're saying So I guess I will start with the general questions, I think.

[03:31:11] Well, I think, you know, we talked a little bit about Western, but we need to understand how the decisions today intersect that more. Is there anyone being changed in these recommendations who could be then changed again?

[03:31:30] No, ma'am. No, not for next year, the year after, the third year? like for the fall of 26 but knowing that it's an opt-in and the western boundary won't kick in as required until the third year isn't that correct I believe so it's opt-in opt-out then a boundary in year three that's correct so so let me be clear are there any residencies proposed to be changed for school boundaries in your recommendation that in three years

[03:32:06] could be required to be boundaried into Western. I don't believe so. Okay. I have questions about specific recommendations that I had, which again, in hindsight, I would like to be celebratory that this has been a very robust process. And as I shared in my email to you on Sunday, after receiving an advanced copy of the materials, the way you've compiled the, you know, number of split feeders reduced and attendance attendance islands like and the capacity info that's really great stuff

[03:32:43] and I would love to you know celebrate that I also just need to understand about more about the changes to the assignments like Tyson's Green I just want to confirm my understanding Tyson's Green so this is a neighborhood on it's impacted on site 21 and 20 21 is the high school slide so tyson's green is currently assigned to marshall i learned from constituent thread that you were emailing about that priority high school flexibility will occur for tyson's green families for the fall

[03:33:17] of 26 and families can seek flexibility for a madison student to go to madison is that a correct understanding correct the boundaries not being changed the community still is boundaried to Marshall But we believed based on the number of families in that neighborhood that there will still be room at Madison So we would start with them as a priority transfer for Madison but not for the middle school because we're not able if the row is over capacity so we can't make it a clean feeder and

[03:33:57] It would be treated as a transfer as far as transportation as well that they would have to provide their own transportation Yes. So, but additionally, the constituent asked a good question of, will the priority transfer be treated as a standard transfer from Marshall to Madison about mandatory AP classes and no sports in the first year? Or will they be transferring as if they had been zoned to Madison?

[03:34:22] And I shared with that constituent that that question hasn't been answered yet. Mr. Horn and the team are working through that because VHSL also has new rules around transfers. may i ask why my question wasn't answered by you on sunday asking these same things i don't know because i didn't get it to you i think we got an answer to you yesterday um how should those in tyson's green who opt to go to madison communicate this change to the kilmer staff because right now

[03:34:56] the eighth graders are picking courses um is there paperwork that they should fill out we're going to be in touch with the principals this week about that. So and this will be my last thought. Please provide us with that information, because as you can see, as I said before, the community turns to the school board for answers and we're trying to partner with you in this work.

[03:35:21] Miss St. John Cunningham. So first of all, I want to thank everyone that worked on this. This was a monumental project. And I also actually want to thank my colleagues for initiating this work.

[03:35:37] I know that when we first got together, we all said this is something that has been a long time coming. There's a lot of conversation about whether we should or shouldn't do it. I've worked in the system for 26 years and I've seen the issues involved with consistently not addressing boundary issues.

[03:35:59] So I'm really proud that we've taken this on. I'm proud of the process where we decided that if we were going to do it individually, wasn't going to work because then there would be turf wars between us and that we handed it over to our very capable staff that has done immense work. I appreciate that you listened and that we all listened and that we all learned. There are some people that will say this has not gone far enough, but I think that the thoughtful approach and listening to communities and getting communities

[03:36:38] adjusted to the idea that this is something we're going to consistently do is important I know that with some of my constituents I've had to explain to them when they have said well why wasn't our split beater removed and it's like when when you look at some specific situations there's competing priorities it's like these schools are at capacity so where are we going to put these kids you know so then we can't eliminate the split beater and I know that that was difficult because we gave you instructions that sometimes were conflicted and I

[03:37:15] appreciate again the thoughtful approach that was done with all this and that that was really the comment that I wanted to make I actually was at Lewis High School this morning speaking to staff and speaking to students I do know that the community's concern about having a larger student population has been voiced but what has also been voiced to me very strongly is we don't want you to boundary

[03:37:48] people to come to our school that don't want to be here we would rather not have them here and i think that that's where we listen and i think that's where we work on getting the right kind of programming there and and we make it a place where people want to be and that's my goal and i've been working very closely with that community uh because as much as they say they want a bigger school they have very vehemently told me we do not want people that do not want to be here and

[03:38:21] that's where we start to listen and so um i think we've got some good ideas um that we we can develop for lewis and looking at the transfer but overall thank you thank you thank you ms tixit i'm picking up from my colleagues thank you thank you again uh for for this uh comprehensive boundary review and uh i was new on the board like many of us and this idea of doing a comprehensive

[03:38:55] boundary review was a little overwhelming because it was not done for 40 years and you took that challenge and took the board directions for for it uh thankful the team uh and also i would like to encourage you know appreciate the parents and their community members uh you know uh i've been to a few boundary meetings in my district and the parents have been very supportive very respectful the conversations have been you know nothing was you know nobody was yelling or shouting in any of those meetings even if they were upset so it just shows the maturity of our community as

[03:39:34] in general there are most of our you know districts have even out well and people are relatively happy but some are going to come tomorrow I guess if they have any certain lingering issues with what's being addressed but I would say that this board has taken up this task and I'm hoping that with this kind of boundary view doesn't have to happen for the next uh you know any any other time we just keep just do the technical review and and just move move forward so our community doesn't have to worry about

[03:40:12] these continuous changes. So I appreciate this. Thank you so much, Dr. Reid. And we'll be hearing tomorrow on Saturday. Thank you. Mr. Moon. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks for the presentation. I don't want to comment upon your voice anymore because you've been talking way too much tonight.

[03:40:37] You should be taking a rest. But since you are there, going to have to ask a few questions. This is slide number 37. For the future review, the areas which are marked are listed for the future review, is it possible for you to provide us why they are not being considered right now for each one of them? It could be the same reason, you know, out of time, or I mean, if you could provide written responses, that would be better.

[03:41:16] a and also since I'm asking for each one of these and also why this is being will be reviewed in the future there will be helpful for me to respond to the inquiries from the communities who may have questions or may be concerned about what may follow in the future yes sir okay that's one comment and request second one is a you know I'm not too surprised that we focused on capacity enrollment because that has been consistently the practice by the formal boards look look at the look

[03:41:55] at the capacity as the major driver to make the boundary adjustments uh what i have a lot of questions about at this point is correct me if i am wrong about uh when we will be looking at middle school aap centers is that are we having the work session in march of this year the directive I got received from the board was that I was to bring you a plan by March 2026.

[03:42:26] So we have a plan and then of course you know board board will just discuss and make the decisions whether to do it or if if we do it when that's going to be implemented etc if if the board wants that to be implemented in August that's going to affect a lot of boundaries so perhaps board may not do that if the board make a decision to do it but delay that to the following of 2027

[03:43:00] they will still don't feel they will still affect a lot of these boundaries i mean that is my assumption am i am i way off with those assumptions i would never say that mr moon um but what i would say is what i how i responded i think to dr anderson earlier as well which is there is an intersection on the middle school EAP and this work when I come in March I can almost guarantee

[03:43:33] you it's going to be a phased plan there's no way we can add every middle school program in the same year because we have to have credentialed teachers you know and be thoughtful in our plan so I think we'll see several a year for a couple years and what I was trying to do as I was sitting down with staff to look at the boundary recommendations would be to try to make sure I'm threading the program plan with the boundary work which as I shared the example with mr. Dunn and I were dealing with where we're actually transporting kids all the way to Lake Braddock instead of to their secondary

[03:44:12] school they're going to attend I think that we are able to they're going to be some of those changes that will be much cleaner than others but as we run the numbers for what happens if we keep students at their school, it's going to shift the capacity again at the middle schools, which will inform the next five-year review. So you're correct.

[03:44:35] Okay. Thank you, Dr. Reed. One more question deals with, because I have a list of a boundary adjustments, potential boundary adjustments from the scenario number four, which are not reflected in your recommendations, some of them may be on the same list, page number 37, for the future review.

[03:45:11] You know, if you could point out which from the scenario four that are not part of your final recommendations are completely offered. I don't know if I could do all of that tonight, but I can make sure we have that for you, sir.

[03:45:28] You know, I don't expect you to do it tonight. And, you know, if you could apply as you provide the written responses to all your questions, if you could also include response to this request, I'd appreciate that. Yes, sir. As far as a particular.

[03:45:44] Mr. Moon, that's your time. Okay. So that I don't need to ask or go back is I'm going to wait until after the public hearing to ask some more technical questions. Yes, sir. Ms. Lady. - Thank you, and I wanted to be sure to make sure I thanked staff for the hard work on alleviating coats.

[03:46:07] And again, when I look at the slide and the capacity changes, I guess the main thing there is there was no modular coats. So with these changes, may I assume that all of those learning cottages will be removed from the campus?

[03:46:23] - Mr. Gordon, learning cottage. Oh, we have a team in the facilities office that are providing us. They're listening and providing answers. You know, I just want to say while we're waiting for that answer, we've got people here back at the facilities office.

[03:46:44] This is an all-hands-on-deck activity, and I couldn't be prouder of the team. So what did they say? We will need to monitor development in and around codes. I mean, the only reason I ask is if the capacity really is going to go from 137% to 86%, percent there's no notation here related to learning trailers cottages but the guidance is clear every bit every effort we can to get rid of modular units and trailers is our intent your intent so so well I guess my question is does that

[03:47:20] 137 to 86 percent include it does because there's no notation next to it so granted we can come back with that answer so I mean it's a full look at capacity programs analysis okay so for sure some of them are going away I can't say all of them, but yes. Okay. I just, if it could be noted to some. Yeah. I think what Miss Lady's saying is we need to have the number next to it. So yeah. Yes, ma'am. So the other thing I want to say is I want to thank my colleague who opened us. Um, I think that, uh, Mr. Frisch did an excellent job of explaining sort of like how intertwined this work is. Um, I appreciate the

[03:47:57] honesty from you regarding learning, right? Um, because that's what we're in the business of is learning and I think we learned a lot I also think the intersectionality of Western High School our requests for AAP cohorts or centers in all of our middle schools is intertwined and when I studied what I and I appreciate my colleagues question about there are any potential kids who are going to be boundaried in three years or two whatever the timing is to Western currently being moved here and certainly my study of all these it didn't look like that was going to be the case so I very much appreciate that answer because

[03:48:35] we don't want to move students twice um but it also points to why the movement at the high school level is under 600 kids um so I appreciate that um I also am excited that this work will continue um and we will be doing this you know every five years but building up to it because I think it does take time um I as my other colleagues have said I understand why uh you know um capacity was a priority I certainly hope that we will get to all four aspects of the policy in the next

[03:49:11] iteration and you know I think the other thing that that I certainly delighted in was I didn't speak to any constituents who were asking to get out of their school nobody called me and said please move me out of my school and it's fascinating I just want to uplift that because there were some disparaging things said and it that pains me and that's part of the after paper about the fact that we're gonna have to lay some groundwork and say we're not going to disparage any other school or person or neighborhood because that's not what we do but what was delightful was nobody asked to be

[03:49:47] moved out of their place because I think that what that says is what every place every school in our in our county is its own hidden gem and when you step foot inside you recognize that the wonder that's there and the learning that's there um and you know that makes me proud to be part of this board so again thank you for this hard work well said i'm gonna take a very fast turn and i have to admit that i was one of those people that looked at the final recommendations and i said man i wish that we had done more and then i thought about what i have told constituents the entire time during this process

[03:50:21] is that it took us 40 years to create this problem over time and it's gonna hopefully doesn't take us 40 years to dig out but it's going to take us a while and so what i love about this and what i'm the most hopeful is what we've learned is that we need to keep going um and we've learned that this is the first step in an iterative process and we can't stop again and so i am grateful for the fact that the board looked ahead to include that iterative process in in the policy so that we can keep going and that we can use this as an opportunity to talk to parents about what

[03:51:00] they've learned through this process what we've learned through this process and how we can make it better for the next time because i agree transparency is messy i mean we we let people come along and watch how everything was being done and that is an uncomfortable thing when you're trying to untangle something that's so interwoven here um one thing i will say is that i don't know that we have the list of of areas that still need to be addressed all the way complete and so i do anticipate that i will bring some sort of follow-on that adds the area within my district that i think

[03:51:36] is the one that if nothing else we need to have on our radar which i know we already do but i think that putting it in the decision i think is an important aspect of this so um right now my most contentious area in my entire district was the West Springfield community. It is the tightest boundary of almost any high school we have. It's over capacity and no one wants to move and I watched throughout the 18 months the concern move around the school just in the circle and no one wanted

[03:52:11] to move any of those kids out of that school and there were no good solutions because it like I said school was renovated in 2019 tightest boundary we've got um and so I appreciate the fact that we took a measured approach here I think that I agree with the community that we need to keep an eye on what's going on with capacity there um I don't anticipate that what what is being seen in the numbers is necessarily going to turn up but I think that it's worth it to watch so it's going to be one of those areas that I think that we need to keep going with watching just to make sure that if there is capacity relief that can be provided to that school because we've done everything else right I think that

[03:52:50] that is a spot where we might need to keep watching so but I am grateful for the the work of the team I am grateful for the fact that you all were willing to go along with this with us is that I understand that this was a monumental undertaking and you haven't paused a single moment and said man we shouldn't do this what you said is this is important work and we need to keep going so I appreciate the fact that you took that approach with us rather than anything else that could have happened so we have a couple people for go backs so we're going to start off with Mr. Frisch thank you one thing that

[03:53:27] I think would be helpful in the future in 2023 I went through all of the CIPs that we'd had since I'd been on the board just to see what kind of progress we'd made on trailers and modulars countywide and in Providence district in particular and I was able to find that we reduced the number of trailers in Providence district by about 25% over that four or five year period the number was roughly the same for the entire county a little bit lower it was higher for Providence because we had a lot of big schools that had been renovated in that five-year period so when they lost

[03:54:04] their trailers after their projects were completed obviously they only needed them because the renovation was happening or because it had been a while since the renovation. So it would be helpful to get that information because I do think just anecdotally scanning through the documents, it would show us that there's around a 20% drop in the number of trailers over the last five years in FCPS.

[03:54:26] That's going to be different from region to region, school to school, but overall it's still going in the right direction. So I want to applaud that. I want to talk a little bit about, and I also want to echo the comments about our BRAC members. were phenomenal and responsive and very much appreciated. I want to talk a little bit about the after action report and particularly how you see engaging folks who had eyes on this project

[03:54:58] and how that feedback can be used to improve practices going forward because what I keep telling people is like one of the best accomplishments of this go-round is yes it's good to see that we've made some progress on the boundaries it's showing people that we can do it and that it's and that it's responsive to community feedback you know in some areas you just get a letter in the mail that says where you're going to school next year it's usually the place you went before but we're going to have to do a cultural reset here where people get used to the idea that this

[03:55:35] is an ongoing iterative process so how do you engage people who were watching very closely and will have the most input valuable input to offer so is that a question okay um i think we're going to have to actually finish the process and then um also get the uh the western high school process done but i think this summer as we you know um everyone gets their lives back uh their

[03:56:08] post-boundary lives I think we'll need to over the course of the spring develop a plan for how we would do that so I I know that staff have a high interest in that at this point so perhaps I'll share a draft of that later this spring and get some feedback from the board from the advisory committee and the community but I think you know all the voices that participated it would be great

[03:56:38] hear from them about um thoughts on moving forward um dr anderson thank you can you speak a little bit in terms of how tightly or loosely coupled your recommendations are bait um as compared to what the committee recommended the brack i would say they're fairly close there are probably some exceptions thank you and i would be remiss if i didn't share this because my community is frustrated

[03:57:15] You know, as Mr. Gordon raised earlier, you know, the Braddock Park, I'm sorry, the Glasgow Park Lawn were supposed to be part. There were separate motions by the board, like coats, and yet scenario one, two, three came and went, nothing for those communities. Scenario four came, nothing for the communities.

[03:57:32] We ended up in what I've been envisioning or calling like four plus, and it didn't come with the same provisions as the others. It didn't come with the same timetable. The Explorer tool did not have the information. the time to give feedback, the community outreach, that was a big miss.

[03:57:50] Although I think what was provided are reasonable, the presentation, the rollout of that, it was a big miss for that community. And there's a lot of resentment about that. So I just wanna make sure that that's said to you here because I know we've talked about this before.

[03:58:09] Given that now we know that there's 2,200 students to be moved, I hope that your analysis of transportation can include that exact number or what that as a as a higher end as because we know some people will make different decisions. So I'm looking forward to that when we start talking about the transportation piece. I would also want to ask about the schools that you flagged for the future Branagh Park. What is it that you're thinking there? So I think as Mr. Moon asked I'll be creating

[03:58:44] a paragraph for each of those items about why I flagged them and what the intent is. But I think Bryn Mawr Park, one of the things we looked at was that we heard that they felt that Annandale was too far to be moved.

[03:59:05] And when we had suggested Lewis being closer, we didn't really have time at that point. It didn't feel respectful or thoughtful to try to move forward. But we do want to start earlier in engaging that community to talk through if Annadale is too far, would Lewis be a better option?

[03:59:26] And we also wanted to give Dr. Ponce an opportunity to think about what programs are we going to be siting at Lewis? So the reason they're on the watch is we've got to be very intentional from the get-go to make sure that we're connecting with that community. And if, you know, trying to make that determination between Annandale and Lewis.

[03:59:49] Thank you. I appreciate that. But in the vein of what has been said, when that was discussed, the community was vehemently against it. So I want to make sure that I raise that. And also there was that conversation of 395 East and West. There was certainly a divide there regarding distance to Annandale High School.

[04:00:07] So hopefully that is all part of your future discussions. One of the questions that I've been asked by community members is what should be their expectation based on the public hearing people are going to come out and offer testimony Some people feel that it's just gonna fall on deaf ears and it will have no bearing. I'd like for you to speak to that Yes, ma'am. Well, the public hearing is the board's hearing. So a my expectation would be that if we hear something that You know gives us pause or there's a better idea. We've made an error or there's something

[04:00:47] That could be improved, you know, we're gonna be there taking notes And you know, we want to get this right. I don't have any ego wrapped up in this It's really about making sure that these are the very best boundaries that we can and for student learning and communities and neighborhoods, so I would encourage people if they feel like There's something that we can improve in the recommendations to share.

[04:01:17] And if they're not able to come Saturday, send an email. Can you also articulate the specificity that was in your email? Because I know in my community there was some confusion. If individuals were not able to sign up for Saturday, are we allowing them to come to the CIP to speak about boundaries as well?

[04:01:38] Yes, ma'am. It's my understanding that people can sign up for the CIP public hearing, which will be Tuesday evening up until 4.30 tomorrow evening, Friday the 9th. And there will be an opportunity for overflow, is what was referred to in the note, overflow boundary feedback.

[04:01:59] Dr. Reid, can I also add really quickly is that we also allow certain people, like people can come to the public hearing on Saturday and actually sign up in person. We reserve no fewer than five spots, but there is room within the capacity for that hearing to add more people.

[04:02:20] Sure, but the reason that I really wanted to share this, it's the point that I made earlier. The community for the Park Law and Glasgow piece, it was not in the Explorer tool. So people did not even know, like, am I in that SPA? They don't know what that is. It's like some people can very easily see, But others that are on the border, they really needed to have the opportunity to plug in their address to see the impact.

[04:02:44] And they were not able to do that until last night, after the public hearing closed. So that's why there's a lot of angst. Was that another question?

[04:03:03] No, I did not ask the question. I just made a statement. And then I think Mr. Frisch talked about the false church because I also had that as an inquiry. I JUST WANTED TO MAKE SURE THAT WE SHARE WITH PEOPLE THAT IS THE NOW NUMBER, NOT THE POST-RENOVATION CAPACITY.

[04:03:24] YES, MA'AM, I CAN CONFIRM THAT. OKAY. MR. DUNN. THANK YOU. I WANTED TO ASK IF YOU COULD PLEASE COMMENT ON THE BULLET THAT REFERS TO LORTON STATION ELEMENTARY, LOYELL HILL ELEMENTARY AND GUNSTON ELEMENTARY AND JUST PROVIDE SOME CONTEXT FOR MY CONSTITUENTS.

[04:03:45] IS THIS ON THE FLAG SITES? YES. Yes, Mr. Dunn, I my intent is to come back to the board in January of 27. So a year from now with a recommendation related to the neighborhoods in that area and specifically our Hagle Circle neighborhood.

[04:04:06] Because it feels like we need to be really thoughtful about how we move forward because there is a complex ask there. It wasn't just providing a shorter transportation for Higgel Circle, but also consideration of the Lake Braddock AAP and a possible better, excuse me, a different connection with South County.

[04:04:33] So for us to be thoughtful, we really wanted to do that as one thoughtful conversation, and it's going to take us about a year to process that. We've also heard that recently there was a thought put forward that maybe there was a part of the neighborhood that might be closer to Laurel Hill that would create more room for students to be at Lorton Station.

[04:04:58] So for this one year, we're going to be providing enhanced transportation for our Hagel Circle students who attend Halley for that double back if necessary. and i've also asked mr muick to look into the possibility of adjusting the start time so that traffic would keep our traffic wouldn't be such a significant issue for our hegel circle drive they might be able to shorten the drive if we're adjusting the school time so we're trying to mitigate issues for this one year and also the opportunity to maybe think about a path

[04:05:36] that could be cut through i know we've had a lot of discussion on the maps but i had an opportunity You meet with all the principals involved, not Laurel Hill, but the other three, Gunston, Halley, and Morton. The regional assistant superintendents, our central office staff, Dr. Bonse, Dr. King.

[04:05:57] And I think there's a real commitment to get this right and just make sure that we don't rush. We've waited 40 years. 41 is okay. But we're really committed to coming up with a solution and involving the community in this.

[04:06:13] coming back to you in January 27 thank you um I wanted to also ask there had been some discussion uh during the early and mid part of the boundary review about moving uh sixth grade into middle school um ultimately that's not part of this recommendation but I wanted to ask you what you're what you're thinking is on that long term and there are schools like brendmar park that are k through five and then at one point there was discussion about moving them into lewis which is uh you know seven eight for for middle school at key so uh you know it does create complexity when

[04:06:51] we have some middle schools that are six through eight and others that are seven eight and i was wondering if you have any thoughts long term about whether that experiment as the very first community being at glasgow middle school that community termed it uh was intended to be transitional to all middle schools you know two decades ago becoming six throughout six through eight that didn't happen um so should that experiment continue indefinitely which makes boundary changes very difficult for schools between and among poe glasgow homes uh and the surrounding

[04:07:25] schools or should that experiment be be wound down at some point i think it um in my opinion it's a preferred model to have sixth grade in middle school six seven eight and um i think it's space constrained right now for us unless we use whole buildings differently I think as we look at our enrollment demographics over the next couple years I think we will hopefully see patterns of enable it that to occur in spaces but right now we're space constrained but you're right it adds

[04:08:00] another element of complexity I I'd just like to ask since it has been discussed but it's never been formally presented to the school board as a a recommendation as a presentation during our work session if if there could be something brought to the school board so there could be a decision made because it is a big inconsequential thing and that does complicate our school boundary reviews which will be happening every five years at least um so if there can be some formal decision made with your recommendation that would be helpful just to establish a direction for us at least yes sir i i think that actually

[04:08:37] make sense. Thank you. Yeah, yes, sir. I shouldn't say actually does make sense. So yes. Thank you both to Dr. Reed and Mr. Gordon. So thank you so much for this portion of the presentation. We are going to move on to 8.02 academic matters. So I call on hopefully I call on Dr. Reed for academic matters. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'm going to have some staff support this as

[04:09:11] Well, I start by just giving a couple data points, and then I'm going to turn this over to Mr. Sethi and Dr. King. You know, I know there's a concern around our partnership with OpenAI, and I also want to share that in thinking about the work that we're doing here in this partnership, it is important to note that currently research indicates

[04:09:49] that 72% of teens in our amazing country are using AI or have used AI companions and with really no guidance direction in general and really no safety guardrails around those today. A third of those students who have used an AI companion actually find it more satisfying than their human conversations and relationships, which I find very concerning. And perhaps the most

[04:10:26] concerning is that a quarter of those who've used AI companions have shared private information with those AI companions. And so when I think about that data, and I shared that with our SBITs and our T-SPACs, as we are developing training for the adults only, the adults in our school division we as adults have to better understand ai to make sure we provide clear direction and guidance to our children and most adults who are educators or operational staff

[04:11:00] right now in the school division did not have ai as part of their educational preparation so it's critical that we partner with a professional group that can provide the Training the awareness wherewithal for our staff to understand these tools So that we here in Fairfax County Public Schools can shape this conversation and not be shaped by the tools so I am

[04:11:32] And you can do that we must do that actually and we must continue to do it in a measured and thoughtful way and we're going to be very measured in our approach and disciplined in our approach and we're going to continue moving forward on this topic as our children need us to know more about it to provide thoughtful guidance. So recently actually we did this training and Dr. King, Mr. Sethi, Dr. Presidio,

[04:12:04] Dr. Riley were on a panel. I'm going to just take one more drink and then I'm going to step aside. I want to say that it's important that we're intentional about this topic and it's obvious why Mr. Sethi and Dr. Presidio would be involved in this right academics and IT I want you to know that it's just as essential to Dr. King's involved because equity and access for our young people in every school not just schools where the adults are excited about

[04:12:42] learning about this but we have to make this an every school proposition and so I've been very proud of the team for their collaborative approach and I'm going to turn it over to them this evening thank you dr. Reed and good evening morning almost we are here today to shake to share updates on our AI implementation work FCPS and I want to say that I'm really really excited about this work and the opportunities for open access for our students when it comes to the integration of AI and yes we know that we're talking about the adults

[04:13:20] right now but our students are already using AI so it's important for our adults to be trained and so that we can support our students when we're ready to go that route. Why this work matters now? We believe that this is our Spunknick moment. We as a nation as educators need to acknowledge the world around us is changing faster than ever before. Jack Welch, chairman of GE, believed companies must adapt quickly to change or face failure, famously stating, change before you have to. For us

[04:13:58] as a nation to be globally competitive over the coming decades, we must start building a deep understanding of emerging AI technologies. Only with deep understanding will we as educators be able to thoughtfully integrate AI into our curriculum. Our guiding principles create a starting point where innovation, oops, excuse me, can you, next slide please, I'm sorry, thank you. Our guiding principles create a starting point where innovation must align with what matters most, human connection,

[04:14:34] legal standards, and ethical practices. In this journey, we can choose to collaborate with the top AI labs, building and shaping the learning tools to always protect our children from the harms and the biases that can happen and be or be passive partners, ensuring that our thinking as educators is reflective in the tools we enable our children to interact with them.

[04:15:03] Our IT procurement and legal teams ensure that for any AI tool reaches the classroom, goes through our vendor evaluation cycle privacy is non-negotiable FERPA compliance is first always FCP also requires excuse me FCPS also requires vendors with access to student data commit to FCPS data privacy agreements this is a fast process like dr. Reed said it's intentional our team has had multiple engagements with the community on this topic over the past year on

[04:15:40] on october 7th the school board hosted a work session where we discussed the topic in depth our leadership team along with external experts provided updates and responded to school board inquiries our presenters shared ways in which ai is continuously and fundamentally transforming our world affecting both the workplace force and education i want to take a moment to share that Sam from OpenAI during his presentation shared how you can use the tool to have a conversation with a parent about their kid in whatever language we need them to have.

[04:16:18] In that moment, I was reflecting of my time in principle and how I would have to wait for my parent liaison or the support services to be able to have those conversations and how exciting it would be for our parents to be able to communicate with them in the moment using a tool so effectively.

[04:16:34] school board work session our IT team worked to set up a public night on the topic of AI on November 3rd and many of you were there we hosted our first community event meeting the moment the event hosted an interactive s expo where the community explored innovative AI tools dr. Reed also shared our strategy and thinking around AI tools evaluations and all approved AI tools must undergo again critically the tagline that emerged which continues to define our work is FCPS is meeting the moment with AI leading with humanity I'll turn it

[04:17:11] over to we want to highlight next we want to highlight the key partners bringing leading AI technologies to FCPS Google with its unwavering commitment to providing safe and secure AI tools that builds upon a deep and long-standing partnership with them play lab which focuses on creating with AI which is different than consuming with AI amplifying student imagination part innovation and this product and the capability doctrine mentioned earlier is going to materialize when our students come together in the competition which is we're really excited about they have such innovative ideas in the hopper

[04:17:48] right now this is in mid-February everyone is always excited invited as a public event and the last one Chad GPD for teachers which materialized this December is a version of Chad GPD designed for education institutions prioritizing privacy and security for education use. As we mentioned a little bit earlier and we want to certainly commit to it again, all our vendors who have access to sensitive data must commit to FCPS data privacy requirements and have gone through legal and procurement reviews before they can be brought into the environment and used with our student data. Next slide. Staff training

[04:18:24] opportunities. We want to build capacity for this work and we must invest substantially in staff training. With the initial uptake provided as optional staff-based and online training, we are now rapidly working to provide targeted training opportunities for key tech support staff at schools. We just mentioned earlier on January 6th, which was actually this Tuesday, we hosted an event for our S-PITs and T-Specs where we had this opportunity to debrief with them and share some training. We'll also be doing similar training for our building leaders very shortly at the next ACPM. By blending these facets, we are bridging the gap between knowing

[04:19:02] and doing. We'll continue to scale up training for adults, ensuring AI literacy is universal and supporting all at FCPS. Next slide. We're also excited under Dr. Reed's leadership. We will be forming a FCPS think tank, a high impact advisory body that will report directly to the superintendent we need recognized leaders from diverse fields business academia ethics technology and community advocacy to participate in this and we

[04:19:36] join them in building something unprecedented together a national model in for AI and education that puts humanity first thank you you guys we're gonna kick things off with dr. Anderson and then mystics it thank you just a A very few comments.

[04:20:07] As I shared with Dr. Reid during many conversations, you know, I'm very excited about this possibility. This is a thing that, you know, it could really change so much of the way that we do business. And I'm always looking for ways to reduce the workload on our teachers, particularly because we're asking them to do more and more.

[04:20:25] And also, I'm very guilty. I use AI just about every day as of the last probably five, six months or so. I live with a person who's been using it every day for years, and their organization has devoted many, many resources in order to do that well.

[04:20:44] And when I was asked that, what's your AI department? I'm like, we don't have an AI department. We have an IT department. He's like, but these are different things. If you don't have an AI department that's going to connect it to instruction, connect it to planning, connect it to even IT, you're not doing this right.

[04:21:04] But we're also not Lockheed Martin. We don't have, you know, $15 million to dump into an AI department. So I realized that. On the other hand, we have this concern that's just been growing and growing with parents who are reading about how kids are involving themselves with chat boxes and then they're self-harming and they're not engaging.

[04:21:27] And that's the worry. That's the balance that we need to walk. And we have teachers who want nothing to do with AI because they are very concerned about academic integrity. We have some that are ready to get started. But what we need to be in this moment, I think, in order to bring everyone along with us, is to have way more clarity with our parents.

[04:21:51] We are saying that we're going to be measured and thoughtful. Nobody knows what that means. What they are hearing right now, which I can't necessarily counter, is that teachers are going to use AI, and it's going to trickle somehow to my kids, and I don't know what that is.

[04:22:12] What is that measured approach? What is that thoughtful approach? Articulate that so people can see. And of course, you have the added measure of people being very concerned, the parts of the public, and they've been here since December, were very concerned about the groups that we are partnering with, and perhaps the lack of structure, the lack of guardrails.

[04:22:39] Those are the things that I think we need to tick off before we move forward. But I'll pause and hear your thoughts. Yeah, thank you for raising that. We're also in the process of crafting an AI website presence that will be able to articulate responses to much of what you've raised.

[04:22:58] And I think once we're able to, I'll let Gautam talk a little bit about that for just... Yeah, so a couple of things in terms of the AI website, right? We recognize that our parents need probably as much support.

[04:23:16] Not every family has someone who's been devoted to this. So there is a lot of understanding and sometimes lack of. And our goal is to be able to create a parent community place where parents can come in and get online courses and possibly engage with the family engagement groups and learning about AI in general.

[04:23:34] And you can see the intentional deliberate work in our focus on getting the adults in the system trained up. The rollout of AI in almost any organization, as you recognize with your personal experiences, is somewhat of a jagged experience. There are people who use it jagged in terms of it's not straight and smooth.

[04:23:54] There are those who use it and get the acceleration and they can start moving much faster with the work they have. And there are those who are waiting to kind of learn about it then apply to it our goal is to try and smoothen that experience without demanding lots of hours of our staff to come in and sit in on training right a corporate can certainly do that but our restrictions in terms of what we can put in forward in front of our staff is limited by the time that's available so it's a balancing act between how can we introduce them to this technology and not necessarily demand the usage across the board i understand that but i think this is a space where the tail is wagging the dog a little bit we've gone out of the gate without

[04:24:33] that communication that we just spent several hours talking about this is a piece where i don't think we've been as intentional about the parent engagement awareness yes engagement and feedback i don't think we have gotten there and we could do a little bit better to partner so that we don't have this kind of resistance that is moving forward and when teachers are utilizing this what does this mean again what are the guardrails what are teachers utilizing this just for themselves and nothing will come to teacher to students are parents going to be able to opt out if they do

[04:25:13] not want or they're not yet comfortable with how we are rolling this out in order to have their children not participate is that an option so first and foremost I think we've we have had several community communications around the topic of AI we had our meeting the moment community event I've sent a note out about our open AI partnership to families in the school division and right now our rollout is limited to only the adults in the school division period as

[04:25:52] As we continue to develop that work with the adults, we'll be providing more communication well before there will be any student instruction that would be connected in any way to what the adults are doing.

[04:26:12] So I think a lot of the questions you're asking will be determined prior to those decisions around the type of rollout. If I were a parent right now, well, I am a parent, but I mean, if I was a parent of a high school student or a middle school student right now, I'd be far more concerned about what I don't know that my student is doing with AI, because I think even our staff was surprised to realize that 72 percent, based on research of teenagers in the United States right now, have already either experimented or are using an AI companion.

[04:26:49] So, you know, without guidance from educators or direction, maybe without even the knowledge of their parent. So I think that it's very important that we contemplate how to really understand these tools as educators and make sure that we're being thoughtful with our families and our young people to keep them safe.

[04:27:13] I will also say that we're hearing from parents regularly that want instruction now, right, that are feeling like in some ways we're spending a lot of time trying to decide how to talk with students about AI because it might be dangerous when they're already using it.

[04:27:34] And our kids are saying, you know, Dr. Reed, we're already, they can show me 10 different ways, right? They're using AI to create study sheets. They're using AI to do role modeling. You know, you guys are, you know what they're using it for. And so we're still trying to talk about how to talk about it to them.

[04:27:52] And so I really think that we're going to have to sort of move off the sidelines and back into the game here in terms of shaping our future. And I certainly take, I appreciate the feedback on the communication, and prior to any move towards students, guaranteed, we're going to be doing a lot more.

[04:28:14] No, I appreciate that. And two things can be true at the same time, because I'm kind of there, and our community is there. But I also want to make sure we're not conflating communication with engagement. When we're sending things out one way, there's really no structured space for that feedback to be received.

[04:28:32] and giving you lots of food for thought. But again, as we are rolling this out, because yes, we have got to get started because this has been moving along. We have to decide how FCPS will be engaging. But we need to also be very clear with our community. What is it that teachers are going to do? And what is going to be that impact to your child? And do you have a voice to say yes I want my child to engage and no I do not want my child to engage. I think that will

[04:29:04] reduce a lot of angst. Yes ma'am. Thank you Dr. Anderson. Ms. Dixit. Thank you for the presentation. I don't know what the angst about. The whole world is using AI especially in more the developed countries. In fact China when my colleagues who went to China for the conference they came and mentioned that China is way ahead of us, many, many, many, many steps ahead. So are we going to be fearful and just stay back, or are we going to take the leap and go forward and be the leader

[04:29:42] like the Fairfax County is? So I'm very supportive of this initiative, especially for our educators, if we can support them any way we can to reduce their workload. Almost is like, you know, giving them extra tools.

[04:30:00] Just like, you know, when we're writing emails, we're using Gemini and ChatGPT, and it just saves, like, a little bit of time just to formulate the email better than just typing it up and, you know, proofreading it and all that stuff. So I almost feel like that, Dr. King, you made the comment that you can talk to the parent, right, in that language and translation can happen it can save so much time and a lot of our hispanic community arabic speaking community which has um you know will benefit out of that which is

[04:30:33] you know you constantly don't need a translator and wait for them i almost want in the future that that we have customized that you're planning for each student the way they are they can learn that AI can help with that as you know every student learns differently we have right now one basically package for all and this is the direction I think we will go as a nation that AI will be used in much more things than what we are just seeing right now so I'm very excited and I want to see us progressing

[04:31:10] in that direction and I just had a question did you just say Sam like you know him on a personal basis. Sam was the representative from OpenAI.

[04:31:25] When you said Sam, OpenAI, I was like, Sam Altman. Oh, no, not that Sam, I'm sorry. Thank you so much. Thank you. Ms. Marin. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Moon, Ms. Marin's turn. I have you on the list.

[04:31:44] It's okay if she already started. Okay, after me. Okay, thank you. So like financial management and capital facilities, AI needs to become part of our regular cadence of work for the school board. There's no question FCPS must address the role of AI in all aspects of our school division.

[04:32:03] So I wanted to share some reflections on what I'm seeing. I'm seeing the superintendent be visionary and realistic. I see how she wants FCPS to be the leader. I'm aware that our chief technology officer has been working on AI since 2022. I hear the superintendent citing research that children already are using this technology on their own, unfacilitated, and as such that we can't wait to take action.

[04:32:27] I hear the superintendent saying that, quote, rollout is limited only to adults in our school division, period. I have two responses to that. What I think the superintendent and her staff are not, are doing, you're not connecting the dots on that parents equate that to, well, if the teacher has it, my child is experiencing it, either directly or indirectly.

[04:32:48] And I really, really hope you reflect on that, because just because you say it's with the adults, parents do not think that that's where the line, it's just like a bubble. And AI is already being used by FCPS educators with students in elementary school, because parents have given me a lot of examples.

[04:33:09] I see no comprehensive communications plan to the board and to the community about what is happening next. I see no plan detailing what is happening now and what comes next, what comes after the open AI pilot with teachers. Where does the superintendent want to go next? I experienced that the school board is not engaged by the superintendent thoughtfully or meaningfully in this work, and it's disheartening that this is a real theme in the work lately.

[04:33:33] I respect Dr. Reed, and I trust her expertise in educating children. However, she's not bringing the board along with her, and this will inhibit the success. And I observe that the school board is not aware of what's being rolled out in our schools. So I want to ask a question or two.

[04:33:49] Dr. Reed or staff, please tell us about the pilot with 18 high schools in place since November, which you informed the board about via a paragraph and an email on December 12th and a three-page description accompanying it. Tell us about the pilot. How were parents and caregivers informed about this?

[04:34:08] What are the 18 high schools? And which are the six to eight schools receiving the more intensive approach? I'll need to get back to you on that. Well it's right here. I don't understand how is it true that there are programs in place November says key action introduced magic school as a teacher tool to early adopters at 18 high schools.

[04:34:31] That's a plan we haven't we're working on that right now. So I'll have to get back to you with more details. Okay but it is in the past tense. So I assumed but again this is the danger and only communicating stuff to the board and email.

[04:34:46] I've heard from several constituents about an AI curriculum being built for elementary-age kids, particularly at Oakton Elementary School. Can you please confirm if this is the case and share more about it with the board? We certainly can. So this reminds me of when the division undertook a big effort a few years ago to cull through social studies, lessons and such, to be sure that it wasn't including old, you know.

[04:35:14] And I just want to close with saying, someone needs to review what's being created. when I hear things like AI helped me create this new form and this new tool well it created a big problem where's the quality control where's the the goal for rigor and I'll be able to take a go back please. Mr. McElveen. Thank you so much a couple questions so Gautam referred to the think tank can you expound on that? Yes sir I can I'm pulling together a couple of industry leads we

[04:35:51] already have several folks um to really be thought leaders and thought partners um with me on the direction of ai we're also as you know workforce development is a key tenant right now both in the county um as well as in the commonwealth and honestly across the nation so one of the things we want to make sure is that we've got tight partnerships with industry leaders on this topic So I think I have three or four folks already, and we'll be adding aims to that so that hopefully we're good to go by the end of February.

[04:36:28] Great. Look forward to hearing about that. I would say that a think tank should not only be comprised of industry folks, but it should be comprised of skeptics, academics, other folks that can bring a critical eye to this. I don't think any of us nor our community just wants industry focus on this because that's going to lead us down a pretty bad path.

[04:36:53] So I'll be eager to hear more about the think tank. Just to be clear, we aren't hiring anyone. This is all external expertise. Oh, we have no budget to hire anyone. Thank you. Yes. That is typically what an in-house think tank entails, so it's good to know that's not the case.

[04:37:09] To Melanie's point, I think there are a lot of things circulating out there that we're out in the community hearing about, and we don't know how to respond. So there's this magic school thing. I heard about Teachers for Tomorrow piloting something AI-focused that's different from the other things we're doing.

[04:37:31] So I think it would be very helpful if we could get a comprehensive list of all the apps, all the programs, everything in the schools, because I've been caught flat-footed just saying, oh, we're doing two things. We're doing Gemini, and we're doing OpenAI, and that's clearly not the case.

[04:37:48] Well, I think we also have to think about there's a difference between AI as a topic and the ChatGPT partnership training that we're doing for educators in the school division. And some of the concerns that have been raised have been raised around the ChatGPT partnership with OpenAI.

[04:38:08] That's different than we've, of course, had staff in the academic office, instructional office, have been working on AI for several years, just as Gotham's been working on it. So there are a variety of types of lessons and ideas that people have.

[04:38:23] I think as we get the AI policy in front of our governance committee and are able to sort of codify some of those guardrails, I think that'll be really helpful because there's such a deep curiosity, right? Educators are curious by nature and are lifelong learners.

[04:38:43] So I'm excited that our staff are interested in new ideas. We probably didn't spend as much time on the pilot, pilot-proof scale slide, which was part of the academic matters, but we're not going to roll anything out at scale until we've really tried it in small areas.

[04:39:00] So we'll try to get you a better grid or a better chart of correct ideas. And I think just along those lines, and I think this also gets to what Melanie was talking about, is that we really need a retreat focused on this as a board.

[04:39:19] This is a critical topic. We need to take time out of our schedule to have focus time, not at 1140 p.m. after lots of things. You know, I think any time, we're happy to provide content for such an event. Great. Well, I'd be grateful to board leadership if they could find time. Thanks.

[04:39:38] Mr. Moon. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for bearing with my impatience. There were many M's. Thank you for the presentation again, Dr. Rhee. Looking at slide number three, our guiding principles, I mean, I agree with all those guardrails having said that.

[04:40:02] Could we find some concrete details under these guiding principles anywhere? Or are they being developed and not available for any of us to see? I think those are the generic buckets.

[04:40:20] I don't know that there are items under that. I'll ask Mr. Sethi. I know that the teams, it's been a collaborative team, have been working on these. Yeah, we can certainly provide details on sort of technical adoption.

[04:40:37] steps, which have a strong depth and width in terms of how the vendors evaluated the security protocols, the privacy protocols. But the broader guardrails are sort of the intentions with which we go approaching tools. So those are available for our teachers to be guided by? The technical process of evaluation happens before the tool comes into the hands of teachers. So that is where we would check the privacy of the security boundaries of those tools before we will give it in the hands of the teachers.

[04:41:14] I think that these guardrails, if I might, are something that our IT department or instructional department is using as they measure things that might be potential tools. I don't think this has gone out to teachers yet.

[04:41:31] I could be wrong about that, Gautam, but isn't this something that's more essential? or were you asking about developing something? I'm asking developments of more specific guidelines under these guardrails so that I think that they will give them more comfort once parents and communities see that when we say humans are in control, ethical and responsible, and we're going to be very intentional in adopting this.

[04:42:02] What do they mean? What are they actually doing? What are we actually doing? I don't know. Yes, sir. will craft a more detailed list okay I mean I and also what Mrs. Dixie said earlier I completely agree with her there are a lot of countries out there who are far ahead of her I mean she mentioned about China being many steps ahead of us in a Korean government Korea is from the national level they are

[04:42:36] strengthening they are planning on to strengthen a AI for all students not just as an elective courses for a few students who may be more interested in STEM courses but for everybody that's where country of Korea is going and we can talk about this but talking about this is one thing but actually doing it which I consider to be more important you know I have two sons they are older than our K2 for you know students you know one in private sector in technology

[04:43:16] than the other in government. They use AI, oh, that's part of their job. When we talk about, we are preparing, preparing our students for tomorrow, future. That is not even future, that is right now.

[04:43:33] Thank you. - Yes, sir. - Mr. Dunn. - So I'll say the same thing overseas I've said here. I'll say the same thing here that I said overseas. Children have died from use of AI.

[04:43:49] Let's just be really, really clear about that. Children have died. And it's all great and shiny and new and exciting until a child dies because it engages in hallucinations and some kind of deep relationship, deep bonding experience with AI.

[04:44:09] You can look at any headline and any major newspaper in this country in the last six months, and there's ample evidence of that. It's anecdotal. It hasn't been studied enough because this is so new. But this is a dangerous technology, and we should not take our eye off that ball.

[04:44:26] We expanded computers in classrooms, and it had detrimental effects on the mental health of our kids. It decreased use of handwriting and knowledge. It decreased attention. There are serious drawbacks to technology.

[04:44:42] So I just want to remember that humans learn best from other humans, and social and cognitive development is dependent on reading books, and memory is dependent on learning handwriting.

[04:44:59] and taking notes, and AI cannot be allowed to be a replacement for human interaction and the incredible experience of having a great teacher, right, and great staff, counselors and principals, et cetera.

[04:45:16] So I don't have specific questions, but I would just question whether China is really ahead. I didn't see that evidence. I saw great marketing, but I didn't see evidence. I think there's a lot of study that needs to be done before we unleash this in our classrooms and imperil the mental health and the safety of our children. Mr. Frisch. Thank you.

[04:45:50] I'm not going to pretend that like the general conversation around AI is not frightening because I think for the most part what we hear about AI is that it's what kids use to cheat and it's what's going to eliminate the jobs of every adult and there's elements of truth to both of those things some kids use AI to cheat and some adults jobs are going to be replaced by AI in much the same way that entire industries were replaced during the Industrial Revolution or the mechanization of

[04:46:27] farming equipment from the 50s to the 70s and it's frightening especially for people like me who do a lot of writing for a living but I can tell you there's a world of difference between people who know how to use the technology and people who don't know how to use the technology and so when I worked on Capitol Hill there were a lot of hearings about the internet this was in the aughts and watching policymakers talk about technology is painful especially if they don't have a deep understanding of it I like mr.

[04:47:00] McElveen's idea about having a retreat where maybe we can learn more about the technology to take some of the opacity of it away. We know that kids are using it and we know that adults are using it. We know that teachers are using it whether it is part of what they're encouraged to use or not. What I want is in line with what has been talked about. I want to ensure that kids are taught how this technology can be used safely and I want adults to know the same

[04:47:38] thing. You know, my mother, my late mother thought that my Facebook wall was an email box and she would post the craziest, most personal things on my Facebook wall because she didn't get that it wasn't a private message to me. We need to prepare people for what the technology is so that they know how to use it in a safe way and they know what the risks are. You know, Governor Youngkin's

[04:48:12] wife said maybe a year ago that we police every aspect of our kids lives and then give them a phone with no restrictions. Cat's out of the bag. I would love to be an ostrich with my head in the sand and hope that this all goes away because it is terrifying to think that in 40 years many of the jobs that people we know have will be done by technology but those jobs will be replaced by other jobs in other industries. And so I don't want to be caught flat-footed. I want to ensure

[04:48:50] that parents know exactly what we're up to and how that impacts their kids and how that impacts their kids' teachers and the cafeteria staff and the custodial crew, because everybody's jobs are going to be impacted by this at some point. And that AI is not just something that helps you write a paragraph. It is so much more. If all you know about AI is that it helps you write an email or document or a couple paragraphs of text that you're struggling over, you know

[04:49:22] nothing about AI. We could all learn more. Thanks. Thank you. Miss Lady. Thank you. And thank you. I share a lot of the reflections that Mr. Frisch just shared.

[04:49:40] And again, you know, as someone whose training is in counseling, you know, this has been scary for a long time. And it is scary data. And you open with this, Dr. Reed, that 72% of our kids are using AI as a companion. And of those, 25% think that that's better than a human companion. And I said all the time when I gave presentations to parents, no matter what the presentation was, I always held up a cell phone. I said, if you give your child one of these or a computer and you let them charge it in their room, you let them go anywhere in the

[04:50:16] world without your supervision. Exactly what Governor Yonkin's wife said. I said it over and over and over again. And I love that there's now a wait till eighth grade, wait till eight. I think it needs to be wait till nine, wait till 10th, right? When it comes to social media and all these things. But let's get back to this, what would discussion point is at hand. What our teachers are doing is leveraging technology to improve instruction. It's the intersectionality of inclusion, UDL, Lighthouse Schools work.

[04:50:49] I'm fortunate, I have a wife who is an ESPIT, and I learn every day new and exciting things that ways teachers in her building are using this technology. And I will probably not articulate this accurately, but there was a situation where a student, a teacher was trying to reach a non-verbal student, and there was a technology, 'cause we use technologies as part of instruction, because it's also with assistive technology and whatnot.

[04:51:21] But she ended up learning how to write a program that then also had to be transferred from, I don't know, HTML to some other kind of program that ultimately allowed the kid to interface with technology to address what the objective was.

[04:51:37] It had something to do with language arts. And again, my apologies if you're watching it. I didn't get that accurately. But the point is, I get so excited. So the next thing I do know, I'll get to this point to colleagues ask to see this in action to better understand how we are not replacing teachers okay we cannot do great educational work without fantastic teachers who deliver the curriculum however we can diversify instruction we can differentiate we can have kids

[04:52:10] doing things that addresses how they learn and how they demonstrate knowledge in myriad ways So I do know that with Lighthouse Schools and some of these other programs, there's upcoming presentations where they're going to be showcasing and sharing with one another.

[04:52:27] I'm asking, is there a way that school board members could be perhaps invited to see some of those? If you could think about that, because like I said, I get stories firsthand that just get me excited. But that would, I think, be helpful. The last thing I'll share is that one of my very best friends, who's a math teacher, we were going to a hockey game and brought this up.

[04:52:49] my wife what do you think of this open ai stuff like i'm all against it we don't need this you know we're good teachers and i listened to a 30-minute conversation on the way down to capital one arena and at the end of it she said i had no idea i had no idea it's never been explained to me that way so i guess what i'm hoping is that we can get in spaces where it can be demonstrated for us um because i believe we're absolutely going the right direction and i'm excited by the work thank you thank you miss marron for go back dr reed what do you think could be some next steps for you based on what you've heard from the board this evening i think

[04:53:28] i'll reflect on that this evening and um provide some thoughts in tomorrow's friday letter i wanted to share with my colleagues the governance committee is going to be taking up the ai policy development work um at our next meeting january 20th we did state that at our previous meeting just this week. Dr. Reed, are you providing samples to us or are there any materials for us to read prior?

[04:53:54] I know you've mentioned an article called "Talk, Trust, and Trade-offs." I'd love to hear that, but what are you planning to send us before that January 20th governance meeting? I think we have the draft policy that's been queued up. Is that correct? Yeah, we'll have the draft policy teed up. I think it would be nice to have some sort of facilitation guide to really help us come up to speed with what you're thinking and not just giving us a document saying what do you think because some of us have said we don't know what we don't know and what are the questions we should consider some of the questions i've been considering are how does fcps enter in a business partnerships in the role of the authority of the

[04:54:31] board for ai or for anything what lessons from other approaches to building a school system can we learn from like the literacy rollout and again the social studies curriculum where the lessons were all over the place until we really went through with a rubric.

[04:54:47] Data privacy, what controls teachers have to change settings, those are just some questions. I also just wanted to refresh that the board is expecting a full list of the technology used for instruction as part of the EL-12 report on technology that's being delivered at the next meeting on January 22nd, and I expect this will include the list requested by the board at the October 7th work session that initiated that request, plus any additional that have been added through the AI work since then.

[04:55:15] Back to the conversation about advisory committees with my colleagues, I just shared a link. The Montgomery County Council of PTAs has a technology committee of parents that is looking to do things. And so these are great resources to share with our parents and residents who advocate.

[04:55:30] And just in general, I'd really like to see less of a passive approach with the board on this and present to us, Dr. Reed, what you think we should know. What should we be thinking about? what should we be learning about how do we understand what you want to do what you may want us to fund and how can we be your champions alongside you I will leave it at that thank you Dr. Reed yep you bet and definite thanks to the staff appreciate your pinch hitting

[04:56:04] tonight agenda item nine consent agenda are adopted rules of parliamentary procedure Robert's rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval of the board by single motion many items listed have gone through board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting the consent agenda items are on the screen is there any objection to approving the consent agenda hearing and seeing no objections the consent agenda is approved agenda item 10 new business the following are

[04:56:42] new business agenda items there will be no vote on these items this evening but the action is scheduled for a future meeting. Agenda item 11, board committee reports. I call on Mr. McElveen for a report on the audit committee. Thank you very much. This past Monday, we went over the annual audit report. I call on Ms. Marin for a report from the governance committee. We rocked and rolled on Tuesday. We got through 10 policies related to capital improvement program, which were first put forth to the governance committee

[04:57:16] two years ago. And then we did an additional set of policies, 246, 7 or 8, regarding HR and human relations and making sure that they were all up to date per the changes in collective bargaining. So it was a real big effort for our governance committee. And you heard we're going to take up the work for AI policy, which I have no doubt will come before the full board for a discussion, hopefully a work session. We also are going to continue to look through those CIP policies that are still sitting there and then uh the calendar policy is one that we want to work on given the

[04:57:49] community input and request for updates to that thank you miss marron agenda item 12 superintendent matters i call on dr reed for superintendent matters given the hour i think i'll pass thank you dr reed agenda item 13 board matters in accordance with the board's consensus due to the late hour we are going to skip this item this evening and since we are going to have to return to the closed meeting, we will recess the regular meeting at 11:57 p.m.

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