Coraggio Consulting Fairfax County School Board Governance Committee Meeting, Tuesday, February 17, 2026 Date: Tuesday, February 17, 2026 Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia Length: 1h 51m (video) Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyfHCvHj5WA 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [00:02:44] okay good afternoon everyone thank you for being here we're gonna go ahead and start on time since we do have quorum for our governance committee meeting let me just pull this up oh my madam clerk are we first I'm going to bring in miss [00:03:14] lady okay yeah I'm just okay available okay all of a sudden my whole computer is not unlocking let me try one more time okay okay I'm having a technical [00:03:38] difficulty just give me 30 seconds please thank you okay so we have a really exciting agenda today we want to make sure that we have time for talking about our AI policy so we're gonna spend the first hour doing that so I call this [00:04:13] Garnett's committee to order at 4:03 p.m. on February 17th so we our committee also welcomes our school board chair and Springfield district representatives Ms. Sandy Anderson. And just real quick, we'll go ahead and approve the minutes. [00:04:31] I did get a chance to review them, and they look all as well. Do I have a mover? Dr. Anderson moves for the minutes, and Ms. St. John Cunning seconds. All in favor? We three, that's unanimous. Thank you. Okay, so let's dig in. [00:04:46] We're on agenda item 1.03, Artificial Intelligence Policy Discussion. I call on Dr. Reed for the presentation. Kicking us off. - So thank you, Ms. Marin. we have included or sent forwarded to you the most recent version of the AI policy, which was reviewed and developed by our multidisciplinary team, Mr. Sethi, Dr. Presidio, and Dr. King. [00:05:14] And they're here this afternoon to answer any questions that the board might have. We endeavored to put it in the proper template with the accompanying memo and have provided this committee and our board synthesis or summary I guess of all of the AI policies nationally by state which is what the team drew on and designing this so we're happy to provide I think version 7 is what's been posted which is the the team's best thinking at [00:05:47] this time for our policy for AI okay thank you and just to be clear so this version 7 is the first version that's been posted to board docs so even though it's our first time there's been other iterations that the superintendent's team has worked on some of which were shared with the board prior so I had sent around to the governance committee yesterday evening just to set some goals for what we want this conversation over the next 55 minutes to achieve knowing that we still have our governance committee meeting in March and April and May knowing that we want to send this to the board it seems like our intention [00:06:26] is to get a policy finished by the end of you know this governance terms you know through May so here are some proposed goals I have for this conversation so members I welcome your input here so one is to review the draft policy that the superintendent just introduced that is posted publicly to walk through like we usually do with our policies walk through the draft discuss especially to identify you know is this the outline that we're looking for second I suggest we consider those related policies and you do have that list and I know Mr. Frisch had some as well should we start reviewing any of those other policies and I'm told that the informational technology team is [00:07:06] actually reviewing those related 6,000 series policies of which there were six so those edits will be forthcoming and perhaps we can hear just a little bit more about that not for today but we could look to include those into our next conversation so that's a question - do we want to consider that today so that the superintendent can prepare for what's to come or maybe we consider that in the March meeting what are the thoughts about a more global technology and education policy is AI too narrow is this an opportunity to again sunset some of the technology policies this is and you know consume them in here [00:07:45] because that has been approached of governance right as we review past policies to say, "Okay, have some served their purpose? Should they be consumed into new policy?" So that's something, too, we can keep in mind. Identify if there's more information, whether from within FCPS or externally, that we'd like to have prior to our next meeting to inform our work, and then to just discuss the timelines. So by the conclusion of our, you know, almost hour here, let's be clear on what we want the next part of the conversation to go. [00:08:15] okay so start with reviewing the draft policy considering related policies thoughts about a more global policy more needed information and discuss the timeline so is there any feedback on those parameters for this next 50. dr anderson you have some feedback from that thank you hello thank you i do not have any preference as to whether or not we keep this as an ai policy or something more global. If it is more global, then we will have to still have a significant [00:08:53] portion that speaks to this AI policy. So I'm pretty agnostic about that either way. I do think that we should be reviewing the other technology policies, but probably after this is 90% of the way done, because I would not want us to be premature and make changes and other policies that are then not reflected here will leave a gap if we jump into those other policies too early, I believe. [00:09:20] So perhaps in the next meeting or the next two meetings, once we are clear that we have a good policy here, then we should be pulling out and reviewing those other technology policies. [00:09:36] I think, what was the other thing you had asked? Timeline. if our goal is to make sure that the board has this to act upon by may i do believe this is one of those policies that we should take a little bit time with as governance board members to bring the others into the conversation i think it was helpful to have that work session on it but it will be important for folks to have an opportunity to see this and to be able to provide feedback i do know that you had said something not too long ago that tied us to particular [00:10:12] board members I would say this would be a good time to get that practice going where we're bringing people along because we do know this is a huge and important policy I did I speak to all of your points I was trying to write them down yes okay yes thank you and so having like one-to-one follow-ups but then is there also interest in having like bringing it to a full board agenda to a work session you know this is something that we did with boundaries I can't remember if we did with grading but it might be yeah I don't know if we did with grading Miss Anderson feel free to jump in if you'd like we did it do it [00:10:50] with grading yes okay wonderful okay well thank you for the input Miss St. John Cunning thoughts about reviewing related policies now having a larger tech and ed policy so I concur I mean I don't have to speak to all your points I agree that this is something that we want to give careful consideration to and then see how and if other policies need to be changed in time as we flesh this out to see where things may dovetail and where they have to stand alone. [00:11:25] Okay, great. So let's take our approach that we usually do, which is to start with the policy. So you have a clean copy, and I handed you one in print, and then we have the red line, which is on board docs. [00:11:40] - So, and Dr. Enders, I see your placard still up. - No, I wanted to just dig into this. I'm glad that you handed me this version six. For some reason, I was working from version seven. I'm sorry, you handed me version seven. I had been working from version six, and I'm glad to see that some of my initial feedback has, well, what I was going to share, they've been incorporated because I did believe that the purpose was a little bit too lengthy. [00:12:08] So I'm just gonna start there. if we could just make that correction in the word establish, that would be great. The philosophy section, again, I appreciate that we have that starting with what the board is recognizing because the previous version I thought was a little bit more of the, was a little bit more procedural. [00:12:33] Definitions is there. The only thing in definitions that I wanted to add, only because this came up during the work session, There is a definition for generative AI. I think we need to also have a definition of non-generative AI because we do have tools that use non-generative AI and we need to be clear with the public about that. [00:12:57] So that's one thing that I would like some feedback on. I don't know if this is a Dr. Reed, Dr. Presidio question for that definition. - We can certainly provide that definition. - I didn't mean to catch you mid-bite. [00:13:13] Okay, thank you for that. what i also trying to work through both of these um what i also see that is missing here and i do believe we were fairly intentional in other documents and i know this was a piece that came up is what is the engagement piece with community if as a parent i don't want my kid to access generative ai tools because eventually we might get there again this is not a policy for just today this is a policy for you know the near term I'm not seeing that component [00:13:50] that speaks to engagement and it doesn't have to be very long it just has to there has to be an acknowledgement of what that role is or what is our expectation as board members when it comes to the community's role in terms of providing access to their children again we're not there now I will say it Mr. Dr. Presidio said this multiple times we do not have generative AI tools in front of our kids but if and when we got there which kind of brings me to my larger question if we are going to move this to take a longer lens to have this [00:14:26] be a technology policy much of this will have to change because this is very specific to one piece of the tech of the technology we'll have to have an an overall purpose and an overall philosophy and use this as one example. [00:14:42] So I'd like to kind of understand, are we keeping this as is or are we making it larger? Because that will color, at least for me, the feedback that I provide. - Well, thank Judge Anderson. I think that's a question to our one other committee member and again, if our chair wants to weigh in too, but so. [00:15:02] - And if I could just kind of finish a sentence and turn it back over to Marcia. I think given that we have so many other technology policies that we have not yet seen, at least for right now, it makes sense for us to just keep this AI just at least to get that through the conversation. [00:15:23] Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Ms. Jean-Jean Cunning? I understand what my colleague is saying, and I think it goes down to what do we define as technology? using a is a computer technology is an iPad technology and we do want community feedback however we've got a again how this aligns with other policies and certain things that are being done already we don't want to hurt what's already happening and I understand it's like if I don't want my child to be doing this but then everybody in the classroom is using a computer so I think we've [00:16:02] got to go down to to the definition of what technology is and so that's I think think that's a whole other box that does not apply to we're gonna be specific with AI I don't know that makes sense okay so so I hear dr. Anderson saying you know what's the engagement role on this and it's still to be determined about how comprehensive this policy is and what I hear missing John Cunning saying is you know what really is the technology I guess kind of in that same vein of what's the universe here and so I do agree it sounds like for now we [00:16:40] could stick with the AI because that scene it's all it's income I think it actually encompasses a lot as I was listening to you both you know Madam Clark I don't know our guest members can participate in the discussion is that right yeah because I wanted dr. Anderson miss Anderson if you wanted to add anything please do you're welcome to chime in yeah the only reason that I've been advocating for us doing some sort of larger innovative technology type policies because I think we could use AI as an example of the rollout plan because we're kind of figuring that out as we go but what I would love to have is whenever the next technology pops up that's happening faster and faster and I [00:17:20] think it's going to be harder and harder for the division to be responsive to those decisions and so if we have kind of a framework in place that we've utilized for this advancing technology that we might be able to utilize for others as they unfold understanding that a hundred percent we're gonna have to specific regulation related to each of these but I'm wondering how much of this information could be put in regulation and and us as the policymakers could be focused far more on the general guidelines related to how we adopt things within the division thank you and I'll go ahead and share my thoughts so you [00:17:58] totally reminded me of really the grading policy and it might behoove us just to refresh ourselves because I think that policy did a really nice job of saying okay superintendent you need to set the weighted grading whether it's 70 30 80 20 we don't know but you got to set it or okay superintendent you're gonna set the max retake grade we don't know what's gonna be you're gonna set it and I thought that worked out really well it took us a while to kind of figure that out and then put the stuff in regulation and so I think that's a really good approach and then it can make it be evergreen so that really aligns with with my thinking and you know I've been reading a lot of different [00:18:34] things. I'm happy to share resources. There's so many resources. I will say the Brookings Institute support is really, really interesting, and I subscribe to their framing, which to me basically comes down to, are AI-enriched learning experiences purposefully designed for children's learning? I want to test everything against the statement of, how does the addition of technology improve instruction. So, you know, technology is not pedagogy. It's not [00:19:08] how kids learn. And I've really been thinking about the adoption of laptops and having gone through that experience and what has been the results. You know, we haven't measured that. And I don't know that we can't, we can't measure it before May. But, you know, I think we need to, some of the global policy language, not global, some of the policy language could be the board saying what should AI do to advance kids and their learning development or we could have a policy that says technology used in education [00:19:43] shall prove a positive impact on instruction that could be a policy statement I also think that right now the policy is really narrow like what's the enterprise-wide because you know where does this happen in all offices in professional development and instruction in special education that's totally unclear to me we're not talking at that level of infusion safety alone you know I think there's it's really jargon to me human-centered the human loop or [00:20:19] whatever that is and this is why my question about should we should we include review of adjacent policies like data security it doesn't only live with AI but certainly that's a big concern especially because this is a different frontier right the the companies are taking data and creating digital footprints for people that can last and we don't even know how that's going to be used and I know right now we have some closed systems and I have questions about that too but like I think we could define what safety means to us what [00:20:54] instructional technology means to us and I think we could also include one more point I wanted to make well we can continue I have a bunch more things if anybody would like a turn I could stop or I could continue my thoughts wild more than three minutes yeah okay so I will stop and we will ask a question yes one of the things that I was hoping to ask staff as I'm looking at these two versions and again version six was the version that I was prepared to talk [00:21:31] about today I don't know how I missed version seven and I did have some questions regarding the procedures because I thought the procedures really needed to live in a regulation in lieu of being here. This is not like the how-to. [00:21:48] Can you walk me through, Dr. Reed, kind of the thinking of removing the procedures from version 6? So I think you already sort of shared that. I think that the team, when they re-looked at that, felt that some of the aspects that were in version 6 really belong better in a regulation they were intended to operationalize a big idea and you know I'm happy to have Gotham Sloan or an artist comment on that further but that was I believe the thinking and they we did discuss it again briefly this afternoon Gotham do you have a thought on that no precisely I mean two aspects one some of the details would be [00:22:28] something that keeps shifting and as a regulation allow us to shape that much more nimbly the technology keeps evolving too right so every six months this technology is still evolving it's in the growing phases and having that managed in a regulation with an overarching policy which ensures that we stay within the guardrails that the board wants us to would be the the path to take okay thank you that kind of reminds me of the practice that was in place when we first got on the board and I was on governance committee and it didn't happen for every policy but some of the more substantial ones we had the [00:23:08] conversation with the regulation and the policy simultaneously just to ensure what was not what did not appear in policy was very clear in the regulation I wonder if this is a space for us to consider that as well for the for the regulation development to be happening as we're developing the policy obviously not today but after today there could be some draft to look at is that a possibility dr. Reed you think I think what staff we have found it more helpful to write regulation after the policy is done so that we don't spend an inordinate [00:23:48] amount of staff time rehashing things that perhaps are actually put in the policy so I think we'd prefer to see the policy for clear direction and then go back to staff with to make sure we match that in a thoughtful way I do think dr. Anderson we could create our own little parking lot that's like oh that's something that could go in regulation let's put it over there so that could be a practice that we keep so if no one else has their placards up so I'd like [00:24:23] to talk again about the bigger picture here technology and education is it doing what we think it's doing and how do we know and should the policy have something in there so that things just don't run away with technology like there's this thing you know I'm reading again all these different things the presumed use are we just presuming that students are going to use this can we take a step back and discuss well is that what's needed and and what ages I mean I keep thinking about the littles the eight nine ten year olds and a lot [00:25:00] of the examples I'm seeing are about high school kids and graduates so do we want in our policy to say something that's like you know whether it's generative AI or other types of AI you know this is going to be for grades you know 9 through 12 or like do we just want to start teasing some stuff out and even just discuss like are we are we talking like age 5 on up to 18 like what are you all thinking so Miss Anderson the biggest thing I'm gonna say is that there's a lot just the same way we talk about algebraic thinking that can happen [00:25:36] with kindergartners it's not that we're talking about putting tools in front of tiny humans what we're talking about is helping them understand the critical thinking skills that are necessary to be able to develop prompts and to be critical thinkers and how they're approaching information those are all things that we can do outside of technology that regardless of where we land on this policy should be something that we're working on with all of our students and quite frankly it's what's been done with rhetoric and composition for a millennia like that it's just been that's the goal is that you want kids to able to look at something and critically read it and be able to ask the appropriate questions and all of those things those are all skill sets that we [00:26:15] can start with at very young ages just the idea of questioning sources the idea of how to ask questions those all those things are all possible so I don't think that if anyone is talking about putting the tools in front of very young children that was never the intention but the skill set is one that we can be building and quite frankly it aligns with our portrait of a graduate skill so clearly that it I don't think that there's anyone that would would push back on on that type of thing because regardless again if we're ever going to get to the point where we are using generative AI tools with students first [00:26:52] of all I want to be very clear they are already using them so regardless of whether or not we have it in like implemented in our classrooms the kids are already using them so we have to address that in some way and then I do do think that we can look at this as an iterative process and scaffold the learning the same way we do on everything that we do so and miss Maron I didn't know if you know but miss ladies sorry miss Setlow you told me yes thank you so much okay we have miss lady on virtually so let's go ahead and pull her in so miss lady has submitted a request to attend this afternoon's meeting remotely due to personal reasons as she has a family conflict and is located in [00:27:31] Williamsburg Virginia I have performed an initial review of miss lady's request and having found it to be in compliance with the school board's remote participation resolution i have approved the request miss lady please check your audio and video i'm here can you hear me thank you yes and apologies okay that's okay no problem thank you um we now ask committee members who are physically present so just committee members who are physically present to vote on the following all those in favor of confirming the chair's approval of miss lady's request that's myself and miss st john cunning those opposed dr anderson will the clerk read the vote there is one correction [00:28:10] i'm actually in chester chester virginia not wainsborough thank you i thought that might have been the case so miss lady is in chester virginia and we will reflect that in the minutes thank you miss lady did you want to go ahead and jump in with some initial comments here uh no i wasn't able to join on time so i'm just going to listen a bit more thank you no idea i thought i was leaving you hanging there for a while so yes okay miss st john cunning so i i just want to piggyback on what our chair has said i actually heard a piece on npr this a couple of days ago where they [00:28:45] were talking about ai and is it they're running a whole series this week on ai and one of the questions asked was you know is ai going to take away these jobs and i found it very interesting that the person said ai is not going to take away jobs it's going to take away jobs from people that don't know how to use ai and i found that very interesting because i think it's a tool it's a tool and we have the responsibility of ensuring that we teach our children how do you our students our children even the adults how to use it correctly it's a tool like fire it can cut both ways and you know there are kids that were [00:29:24] playing with matches before they should have been playing matches and learning how to use fire in an effective way versus in a destructive way is critical and you don't have to necessarily be using the tool to be learning that and developing those skills and that's that's kind of where I land that that's what we have to do and I mean I will use myself personally as an example because I am one of these late adopters for a lot of technology and it really hinders me in able to get some things done just because I have a fear of it [00:29:57] and for some odd reason and that's gonna make a difference as our kids are moving up the ones that know how to use it properly and know how to be responsible with it are gonna be the ones that are really gonna be at the cutting edge of any job market. Thank you and you're reminding me of something I read or listened to a podcast from a reputable source and it was about AI literacy and how it's a term that gets used a lot but has many different meanings and so I sussed it out and I printed a copy for each of you if you want because that's [00:30:37] how I had to kind of analyze it but there are three possible definitions of literacy and I think it would help if we defined it there's a definition in the policy but I don't see it cutting across these three areas so here's what what I heard three possible definitions of AI and let me hand it out if you'd like definitions of AI literacy teachers themselves okay so three possible definitions of AI literacy again this is from a podcast I've cited it down below I summarized it without AI I didn't know that I guess we got to get in the habit of doing that okay so teachers themselves need AI literacy and that they need to know something about generative AI [00:31:17] in order to effectively adapt to its arrival in schools and education environment, okay? So they need to know how to use it. Number two, another possible definition, teachers educate students about the appropriate and responsible use of AI. And this, to me, sounds like digital citizenship. [00:31:34] I think perhaps we're talking about digital citizenship for AI rather than AI literacy in this case, right? With digital citizenship, we're teaching our students how to use the tool for good, not to use it for inappropriate purposes. So maybe we could start using that term differently, I don't know. [00:31:51] And then the third possible definition for AI literacy is teaching students step by step to grow the skills needed, just as Ms. Anderson was saying, to effectively use this. So this includes skills in prompt engineering, avoiding hallucinations, strengths and weaknesses of different AI models. [00:32:07] So if I think of it like this, well, number one, well, that's all about the teachers and that's straight up professional development. And there's a clear plan for that as we have professionals that know how to teach teachers. The second one, that's the one that I hear that could be for the littlest up, right? [00:32:24] Just always teaching, as we do now, the digital, just like we teach family life education, right? It's all tailored for the certain age appropriateness. But maybe again, that's digital citizenship. And that cyber bullying piece, like I think about that, that's in the student rights and responsibilities. [00:32:40] So like just thinking about the crossover here, right? And that might be across AI, other things. So that was just a thought I had too. And then actually teaching students, right? So again, the portrait of a graduate skills. [00:32:56] So maybe the policy could break things out in that way, whether it's defining AI literacy like that, or saying, OK, we need to make sure our teachers know how to use this. And they know the parameters. And then we need to make sure that we're teaching our kids how to use this appropriately. [00:33:11] And then we've got to actually teach the prompt. So I could see that as some good frameworks and then the superintendent's gonna say, okay, we're gonna train staff this many times over this many years, it's gonna cost this much, right? We're gonna opt out if we do that or not for FLE. [00:33:28] Like, you know what I'm saying? So we're eager to hear your thoughts. Dr. Anderson. - I think you are kind of heading to where I was thinking. I'm looking at the responsibility section and now having removed all of the procedural things from my mind's eye, I think one of the things that we might wanna consider is making that responsibilities question a little bit more specific to speak to some of the things that you've talked about. [00:33:59] It doesn't have to look like the procedures here, but it's calling out the things that we want to ensure that the superintendent includes in the regulation, such as, you know, I see that as like bullets. [00:34:15] What's going to be happening with teachers? What's going to be happening with students? What are the, you know, be clear about the prohibited uses and safe interactions. That's the piece that I'd like to tease out a little bit to use maybe some of the headings. [00:34:31] And I don't have the language right now, but I can have it a little bit later on today to use some of the headings from parts, from some of the parts in the procedures, just to call them out, not necessarily to have all of what already exists in version six but to lay it out a little bit because i think as it stands right now the responsibilities does not include some of those components and it could go as far as to include the um i i guess the communication to parents piece where are we going to say if and [00:35:07] when we have our kids and please correct me if i'm wrong dr prasidia you say we're not using generative AI at current so just a point of clarification on that what I said was we're not using generative AI tools like chat bots like chat GPT right so generative AI and I tried to mention this during the work session there are generative AI components built into some things right so like after the work session I know there was an email exchange with a couple board members about Adobe Express which does have a generative AI function in it that allows [00:35:46] you to create images right so that is something that is available for use in our schools right now but I was specifically referring to chat box so again I think the terminology here is confusing and probably we do need probably to add some additional definitions to this section to clarify what is generative AI and what is not generative AI as you discussed earlier okay so maybe this is a better question to ask although I do realize what I'm asking Dr. E let's look into the crystal ball here let's fast forward this to a [00:36:24] year two years what does what do you anticipate or what are you thinking and I do realize I'm asking you to look into the future where will this division be with AI work I think it'll depend on the policy that we develop because we're going to be following whatever policy and direction the board wishes to set on this right i i realize that but do you think it is reasonable or is it yeah do you think it would [00:36:55] be reasonable to have a policy that forbids the use of generative ai altogether i think if that's the direction the policy goes then that's the direction the staff will follow i guess i'm asking you from an instructional perspective is that inevitable that we will need to have generative AI in schools I would need to review products I would need to review programs before I could make that statement this afternoon because if that's where we are going to land and I didn't mean to necessarily put you on the spot I just want to be thinking what is this policy going to do obviously we wanted to have [00:37:34] the guardrails but I don't think anybody wants it to be overly restrictive if we are going to head in a particularly particular direction then these are the things that must happen before we get there that's the piece that I'm looking to articulate in a way does that make sense I think it's bigger than what I think Fairfax County Public Schools is gonna choose to do I think if you're asking what the world is moving toward and what this nation is moving toward I think that those topics are already fully being utilized across many sectors [00:38:09] in this country and around the world what are whether we choose to be in any way conversant around those topics with our staff or children or whether we choose to be visionary in any way about its use or non-use those are things that this policy is going to need to capture because that will drive the work that staff will do okay here's a final question in this line do we know of any school divisions that are on the cutting edge currently in this country in this [00:38:49] country I think we'd have to do some research cuz I would be curious to know because if we kind of can use their work as a map for ourselves if it exists it would be helpful thank you that's my time thank you miss Anderson yeah I just wanted to talk a little bit about the idea that I don't think the policy needs to determine all of the guardrails I'm wondering whether or not the guardrails can kind of be put into our EL process because it's reviewed every year and so we could potentially look at some some of the things related to how the things [00:39:27] we already talked about related to technology and the superintendent's work we could utilize that process as a way and we could basically just authorize the general guidelines here and so I think that because things that kind of goes back to my point things are moving so quickly that anything that we put here can get outdated extreme including definitions can get outdated so significantly and so quickly that I worry about spending a huge amount of the board's time going through all the the tiny little iterations rather than using or basically directing the regulation that should serve those that [00:40:06] functionality thank you I'll go ahead and take a turn so you know I do it's helpful to keep focusing on the general guidelines and you know things are moving quickly but I do think we can slow ourselves down right because what's most important it's the kids and what's most important about the kids it's their safety so this stuff can ramp up a hundred miles an hour but what do we want to set as the guardrails for students safety how do we articulate that knowing that things will change like what are the checks you know it doesn't have to be so prescriptive but for me it goes back to how is this good for kids instruction and how do we know so is there something in the policy that [00:40:46] says the superintendent will deliver results with the strategic plan goals right maybe we incorporate it into the strategic plan reports and that's kind of granular but it's it gives us something right and so that's an idea I thought of in addition I think the strategic plan is a little bit more you know aligned with the kids because the ELs are about our superintendent and we could certainly put them there you know the other thing is I do just want to share this this example about safety excuse me about the way it's being used in the classroom so yes you know I've heard from different staff members and [00:41:21] one of our colleagues on the board sends an example of what is being used and I just would like to ask Dr. Reed like can you just share what is the instructional benefit because and maybe we need to see things a little bit more in practice so one of it was it was a third grade classroom the students heard a poem read out loud and then the students used Canva and gave it prompts and say to make it create a graphic that would picture that would you know visualize what this poem was about so they heard a poem then they said to [00:41:57] Canva create a graphic that you know talks about the birds in the sky okay now make it more about the birds in the daytime in the sky how do we define the instructional benefit for that is that an instructional benefit and for a third grader so one of the fastest growing career fields right now is prompt writing and the ability to narrowly write direction for a response so in the example you shared I think it's likely the ability to ask more focused questions which would link to a career path and critical thinking and [00:42:36] collaboration skills that are part of our portrait of a graduate and part of one of the fastest growing occupations in our country. I will defer to Dr. Presidio, though, in terms of the impact. I think there were a couple examples shared, if you would please comment. [00:42:53] - No, I appreciate that, and thanks for the question. Honestly, I'd have to look at that task more, but the way that you describe it, I would say that there's not a great deal of instructional value to that, the way that you described it. If the task was to identify the key themes from the poem and try to interact with AI in a way to visualize those key themes, I think that that would be a higher level, more rigorous task. [00:43:22] But again, I think either way, it's a pretty low-level task, and those are not the types of things that we're looking at in terms of best practices and use cases. As I tried to say in the work session, our learning model has four domains, and without going into great detail on this in the interest of time, those are evidence-based practices to help us design learner-centered environments, ensure that we have universally designed curriculum experiences that are inclusive of all students' needs, provide meaningful learning experiences, which means essentially deeper student learning outcomes and inquiry. [00:44:00] So we're looking at the kinds of tasks that are going to challenge students to solve problems, evaluate information, synthesize information, analyze information, so we're looking at deeper learning outcomes through an inquiry-based process, and then assessment, which is where we really talk about the types of, you know, feedback that we want to provide to students outside of, you know, standardized accountability assessments. [00:44:24] So AI needs to be used only when it can deepen the practices and support the practices outlined in the learning model to help students reach deeper learning outcomes. And we are just at the precipice of even trying to understand what are some of those best practice use cases that would help students do that. [00:44:45] So that's the reason that we're trying to, you know, pilot working with some teachers that are interested in trying to figure this out. But again, we haven't put the tools in front of students yet really to allow them to interact in some of those ways, so we're kind of still superficial in terms of teacher productivity, efficiency and how we're using ai right now but we're trying to envision what could it look like to use ai to extend the teacher-centered teacher-directed learning experiences in the learning model that will lead to deeper student learning outcomes so the example that you gave i i would say it's pretty low level task well thank you i appreciate your your candor um but the fact is [00:45:24] that this is being done and you know we've heard that teachers haven't received the training and really like what you said is it should be used only when it can deepen the practices to help them reach deeper learning outcomes so how are we testing how are we evaluating and capturing outcomes and if that is the crux then the policy should also say that the technology has got to show that it's a benefit I hear a lot of like input now but I'm not seeing well how do we know that it's working when I think of an eight-year-old look if kids don't read by age eight they're in for a lot of hard work trying to be a reader they're They're working on their fine motor cells. [00:46:02] So if I think of an eight year old doing this Canva thing, could that kid have colored it? You mentioned collaboration, Dr. Reed, but who are they collaborating with? They're collaborating with a machine. Is that the skill we need to teach them at age eight? Maybe at age 15, right? [00:46:18] Like we know that our schools do these portrait of a graduate festivals and the kids are doing things. I'm not sold and I'm not hearing that you're planning to evaluate it. So I wanna put that in the policy to make sure that the schools are implementing what is effective. [00:46:38] Ms. Leidy? - Yeah, just to expand on that example, because I shared it with folks. You know, it was about the reality of poetry writing and it creates emotion, it creates imagery, it creates all kinds of things, right? [00:46:56] So collaborating as a class, they worked to come up with an image that they felt collectively represented it. But then the children also were writing their own poems and then they did the same thing with their own individual poems. So, yeah, part of it is learning how to do the prompt writing. I don't want to belabor the point because I have some other points to make. [00:47:15] And that is that, you know, colleges are using generative AI. So, you know, when you get to the college level, it's an expectation that you know how to do this. So to the question of, you know, where are we going to be in a year? I think I really appreciate Dr. Reed's answers because the paramount importance in any of this is student safety, right? [00:47:37] want to make sure we have the safeguards in place but i don't want to put in policy that's something that's limiting if we can you know confirm that that is the case we can confirm you know uh training with fidelity and we can confirm appropriate uses as we you know um enhance learning i mean obviously the the learning is of paramount importance um and and so as you know like i said the student safety so i you know i'm uh i i read both version six and seven of the policy without even seeing the [00:48:15] cover memo i was like oh i see what they're doing they're seeing that this is like there's too much in this because a lot of what's here should be in regulation um and i kind of stand firm in that i do think that of late we've written some policies that probably have too much in them um that should be left for staff because you know education is far more fluid than it used to be it's an ever changing world and environment um and you know um so i just i i think and i do know that staff certainly under dr rey's leadership student safety is of paramount importance 24 7. um and so i i i [00:48:53] trust that we're not going to be utilizing technologies that are not going to make that a priority um so i don't really have any specific questions you know i'll continue to listen um but i just want to make sure whatever we draft is not limiting because of how quickly things change but what's of paramount importance and you know the el idea i can i can see um as a way to do that evaluation but at the end of the day we have to feel comfortable with what the guardrails are um understanding that at any time if we feel like regulation doesn't do that well enough that we as a board can say we're going to open this policy back up and put more in it if we have to [00:49:32] which is somewhat of what we did with grading um because we were not comfortable entirely with with what was in regulation so we tightened it within policy um anyways i'm out of time so thank you thank you miss lady miss anderson and then dr anderson yeah i just don't know an educator ever that doesn't spend a huge amount of time making sure that what they're doing with their students doesn't create outcomes so i think it's inherent to everything that we do um i guess my question is is i don't know of any other policy that we have that requires outcome i think that [00:50:07] all that those functionality i like the idea of looking at it in terms of strategic goals it could be that there's an addendum to the strategic plan that needs to be added in i'm not sure what that looks like um and i think that that's a but i think that the board's responsibility is through the yale process so i think that that's someplace that we can deliberately give the guardrails that we're talking about um so i i think that we need to kind of thread the needle here very carefully to make sure that the policy does what we want it to do without stepping into other areas of our governance so thank you um dr anderson and then mrs john cunning thank you to no one's shock [00:50:46] i'm going to say what i've been saying as i've sat in governance for however long i've been here our policy is our communication not only is the board's communication not only to the superintendent regarding expectations but also to the community so we need to be able to balance that out the community they don't know anything about else they don't care that much because they don't see how it gets to what they need to have with their children but they certainly look up the policies do i need to outline here that in the policy do i think we should outline oh you should give [00:51:24] reports on the outcomes of the use of these pilots the reports shouldn't live here but we should include that as part of the governance and oversight this is our work in terms of monitoring the outcomes of the use of these tools so there's a space for us to call out the things we would expect to see reported in other places, whether it be a strategic goal or an EL. [00:51:52] But not calling it out here, it makes us miss, I think, an important communication to the public. Thank you. Ms. St. John-Cunning. No, actually, I had the same question in terms of other policies and having that requirement for outcome and if we should live here. [00:52:13] And because this is such a new thing, how can we even measure outcome or start doing those parameters? that starts to live in regulation and i just want to go back to um the poem uh story because i've actually seen things like this in action in the classroom where kids are doing this and i actually think it has a high impact i think that kids a third grader a lot of times will not appreciate a poem and they don't understand it but if they're having this kind of interaction that's what makes [00:52:50] it click. I've seen kids using technology to use clay figures and do little movies that I wouldn't be able to do. And I see that a creativity and a thought process comes alive. And sometimes we really can't measure that in standard ways, but it opens a world and another lens for kids to start thinking about. That's just what I think. And particularly, you know, knowing the differentiation of different kids like there are some kids that are going to gravitate to a haiku and totally get that and there are some kids that are gonna go this is so [00:53:28] short I don't get it but then if there's a visual representation you can see that clicking I just want to say that because I've actually seen it in action with the littles and I couldn't I don't know if I can capture it and measure it but I can see what's happening I can see those light bulbs going on with them and how we quantify that I don't know but I know it's happening okay yeah I'm gonna to have a turn so with safety it's if you looked at the version 6 which wasn't shared publicly which I do think is problematic because the red lines are on [00:54:03] version 6 the version 6 had content about mental health and what to do in extreme version 7 does not there's there's nothing in it about students safety so it's hard for me to rectify the superintendent's extreme interest in safety when there's literally nothing in this policy about safety and there was in version 6. I want to say it absolutely is the board's duty to review pilots and see what they're producing. And we do measure, we measure all the goal [00:54:39] reports, we measure reading outcomes, math outcomes, budgetary outcomes. We measure all sorts of stuff so I don't agree that we don't measure other things. we should measure what's the return on our investment for any of this which by the way open AI has said right on their home page that come June 27 there will be a fee and they will inform institutions well in advance so we can plan for the teacher chat GPT when it comes to money that is completely our job and the superintendent hasn't provided any kind of projection and by the way we did receive the budget today from the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and let's just say we're not going to have tons of money laying [00:55:17] around to play with. So what is the superintendent's plan? It's a very reasonable question. What's the plan in the next year through June 27? If CHAT GPT charges us, where's the cost? It's rhetorical for now. I also want to say that if you were to look at our boundary policy and this policy, this policy does not show that the board wants to engage the community. They are so different and I know how much our board values engagement that to be able to build into here anything from we're gonna have community conversations just [00:55:55] like we did for boundaries and even grading there were surveys there were you know iterations to you know we're gonna have an advisory committee and I do want to share about the sugar I'm losing my train of thought the input just give me a minute boundaries yeah I am okay I just yeah and I do want us to give me a few more minutes and I know our chiefs have to leave soon and we can continue talking for a few more I don't think we'll need a whole hour for the [00:56:34] next part of our agenda but so just keep that in mind I guess I'll defer for now until I collect my thoughts again oh actually I knew what it was okay so in the in the Brookings report they have this annex a at the end and it's all all literacy frameworks. [00:56:51] It shows who developed it, the definition, how do they define AI literacy? What's the education level? What's the structure? What are the relevant guardrails? We don't have anything. This is what I would expect from the superintendent. What's the plan? [00:57:06] Example lessons. So there's too much of us making this up on our own, and we may mean well as a board, but we certainly are not experts, and we haven't read all of the research. So thank you. Dr. Anderson. - Yes, thank you. And I think what you said is getting at to what I was talking about under responsibilities, and it doesn't have to be that title. [00:57:26] We need to call out certain things, just to kind of highlight to make sure that we're speaking to it. And I do want to kind of confirm what Dr. Presidio shared regarding the activity you described. I've spent 25 years in schools. I've taught many, many grades. [00:57:43] I've been principal for a lot of grades. It is very easy to confuse activities with instructionally impactful work. There are some activities that teachers have engaged in that are wonderful and fun and all of the things, but it is not going to have the impact that you're looking for to move kids forward on a particular topic or standard. [00:58:14] So that that you described was a beautiful little activity, but the instructional impact is not there. So that's a piece that I want to keep in mind as we're talking about what kids are doing versus how it's going to advance their opportunities in terms of their academic achievement. [00:58:35] Activities versus impact, they can be very different things. We typically want them to be the same. We want for the wonderful activities to have the most impact. but there are a lot of instances where they do not, but yet they're fun and beloved, and sometimes you have to twist teacher's arms to stop doing them because they don't have the impact that you're looking for instructionally. [00:59:00] - I'll share, I'll comment so you know the placards. So something I've been thinking about, so Benchmark Advanced, our literacy curriculum, which underwent following our policy and the regulation, following our procurement policy that the board review any purchase over half a million. I personally went and reviewed the curriculum myself. [00:59:17] we had vendors, we had a big public input process to select that curriculum. Our multilingual learners have achieved so much, our educators have done so much to help our young multilingual learners learn. Was it benchmark advance? [00:59:33] Was it the quality of that curriculum? Was it the pullout section that focused on MLL learning? Was it a particular teacher? Was it their training? Was it the small class size? Was it the kids' demographics? I don't know, but I'm confident that since it's a science of reading curriculum that I at least know that it's instructionally sound. [00:59:58] Okay, it's been, we had Emily, Professor Emily from UVA here telling us that the science of reading is data proven. I don't have that for technology in education. I've seen my kid do Lexia and ST Math. Seems pretty good, I think it helps him. [01:00:15] Yesterday I was with my daughter and her friend, 10th graders, they actually talked to me about AI. I was, I listened, I didn't ask questions. So what did they say? One, my daughter's friend said that she uses ChatGPT to solve her math homework, to check herself. [01:00:31] But she knows that ChatGPT gets it wrong, so she goes to another site. And I said, well, why don't you use, well, you know, the big, the main math person, I'm totally blanking, that, that, she's like, well, that one's kind of confusing. And I said, well, why don't you stay after school or ask a friend or use the Varsity Tutors or the online tutoring? [01:00:52] She said, well, you know, I'm busy. I have this activity and that activity. So it's interesting, like if student learning is moving toward this individualized figure it out, okay, well, that's something we gotta pay attention to, but that's a 16-year-old, right? And I'm not following what she's doing on these things. [01:01:12] So, you know, I think we could use more information that's not as anecdotal, but like, and even some of the surveys I'm reading, it's about, well, teachers say it makes them more productive. Well, does it? they might feel more productive which is great and maybe it is but like there's just not data that's showing it you know this six weeks of savings in time it's based on surveys and we have this board table have talked about how we do not love surveys because they're extremely subjective so again I go back to the [01:01:47] question what about this tool is going to positively impact instruction I think that you know when i think about what's next in this conversation how can we now from this conversation today colleagues take it to whatever the next level is we're going to ask the superintendent to return or do we want to identify some places we talked about safety um is there are there a few categories we'd want to hear a little bit more on i'd like to hear what you all think about what's the next step after today so dr anderson yes i i would love to give that but i think we we've had I think a pretty good conversation here and personally I'd like a little I'd [01:02:26] like a beat for me to absorb all of what we just talked about I'd like to take a look at a few more things before I give that guidance because the conversation is clear that we're not yet there with the policy and I want to organize my thoughts and review some of the other things that were raised in this conversation and I'd like to have a little bit of time to provide that feedback back to you before you can share it with staff but i'm not ready to do this in this moment [01:02:57] right now okay thank you are there other thoughts from colleagues on next steps i agree about yeah i i sorry i've had my hand up um i thank you mr i yeah i um i think the next step would be similar what we did with boundary policy um and take the shell of the policy and take each of us meet with our colleagues to find out if they've got some feedback um on this because i think you know we we need to include everybody i mean ultimately we're going to bring a policy to the board i think [01:03:34] they should have some some input so that would be whether it's this version or the next version but at some point we need to um share it with everybody in a way that we can bring feedback back to the committee thank you miss lady uh missing john cunning sorry about that miss lady i i i agree um that that's what we have to do but i also think that we have to qualify our expectation about [01:04:05] wanting to have information about something that is not being really it's being used but not in education so we're wanting to know how it's being used it's kind of like with covid we were building it as we went and we had to build it as we went because it was moving so fast and this is kind of a little bit of the same thing i think there might be some information out there but i also think there isn't information out there and we have to make our best decision with the information that we have um i just think that we have to qualify what our expectation is because it is [01:04:43] moving so fast and we're kind of in a in a place where we know it's being used we know it's a tool we know that we want our students and our teachers and our staff and ourselves to know how to use this tool responsibly and effectively and efficiently but there's not a lot of information out there yet as to how this is going to play a role and so I think we have to have a policy that is provides the right guardrails and is also flexible and recognizes that it's it's the future that we have to prepare [01:05:21] our children for thank you all right well it's 5:05 yes and our chiefs have to go thank you for joining why don't we just take um well why don't we just take a minute or two [01:05:37] yeah let's take a five minute recess and we will reconvene at 5 10. thank you okay we're going to [01:11:19] get ready to reconvene okay so we are going to move to the next portion of our agenda always an exciting topic formatting and templates but it matters because we have a lot of these documents and we got to be able to reference them with some consistency. [01:11:45] So posted on BoardDocs and you have in your hands, if you didn't already, this is a draft that I put together based on agreements the committee had made prior. So I just would like to walk us through that, please. And the things that are in yellow are places where it seemed like we needed to finalize a decision, okay? [01:12:06] And thank you to our Deputy Clerk, Ms. Brown, for we met several times on this and there is an there's like an actual regulation about this and a policy about how to format the policies so um yeah it's just you know oodles of fun but this seemed to be the things that often would trip us up and i have one for us today because the three policies that are returning to us for discussion each of them references the fcps name in a different way fully defined with acronym defined no acronym acronym and i get it i know it seems seats but like we are a professional organization and we need to you know look at I even saw the superintendent you know we have this she has a style guide [01:12:45] there's formatting and it matters to our brand and our professionalism so with this policy template and format okay so it references those other existing documents that the clerks you know are the experts on I put in here the titles that we agreed to okay so this was agreed upon numbers 1 through 5 in the roman numerals okay and then below that are other titles that had been used that kept tripping us up as well what does authority mean well what about general duties so I tried to crosswalk them into the five above that that we had had agreement on okay so I don't know that I want to go through each of them right [01:13:24] now I'd rather just go through the whole document okay on the next page the consistent use of language the philosophy section was a frequent point a discussion making sure that the philosophy sections start with the board right because this is our policy so the fairfax county school board shall adhere it recognizes okay not that we affirm a belief it's an active language so and it should not just direct to a regulation it should make the statement the value statement of the board and then in the future we're talking about this almost every time you know clarifying what details could go more in a in a regulation as a term to policy [01:14:03] know we keep getting closer and closer I think about that with the summary of changes this is the way we let the public know what we've changed and so sometimes it might be the whole policy has changed or it's a new policy but just like in our motions with Roberts rules where we're supposed to say you know we're gonna we're gonna remove this language and add in this language do we need to do that for the policies because sometimes it's a lot of language and sometimes this isn't enough to say we're gonna remove section 4 well that might not be very helpful to the public so and then there's nomenclature and again [01:14:40] these are things that we have decided so I just put them in writing division superintendent not including a designee in any way because ultimately it is just the superintendent so we don't need to include designees or other leadership title roles should or shall we know that these have two different meanings so just being sure that when we use them we really mean what we say are we saying that it's something that would be a nice to have or a shall is that it must because this has tripped us up big time with our student rights and responsibilities the next page is educational or instructional program you [01:15:16] know again we want to be consistent parents and guardians that is the term we decided parents and guardians so we shouldn't be using other iterations to be most inclusive it's parents and guardians we wanted to use business day to be clear that it's not calendar day and then references to gender that should probably not be an issue because we're not going to say the superintendent and his or her or their designee so for ease we're gonna try and avoid pronouns in our writing and just clarifying here that school board employees mean all the [01:15:53] employees in FCPS it's the school board office employees that are the ones that we each directly have you know managerial responsibilities for and then about the acronyms at first reference and there is that bit about are we gonna define FCPS and so I don't know that we need to use up all of our time to answer all of these but but those again except for the thing about FCPS as a defined acronym those were all agreements that we pretty much made except for I guess the two in yellow I'm trying to steer us to a decision okay and then it goes through the best practices for policy review and this is where the committee the last year and a half has spent a lot of time trying to get a clear process [01:16:32] so we are getting through the policies that are due okay so the superintendent transmits a cover memo and it's got these things in it the overview of the suggested changes and why is it to reflect state code to use better language formatting or a legal requirement justification of a no change recommendation it's not just enough to say no change required well why an analysis of whether other policies are related to or contradictory to the policy being reviewed. So like today we were talking about the data privacy policy. It would have been helpful in the cover memo, I think, to say, "Okay, you all do an AI policy. [01:17:11] Just know these are related policies that you might want to consider." A statement that all the applicable codes have been reviewed because there are a lot of things, and it's good to have that as a check. Acknowledging if there's another sample policy available. [01:17:26] And then listing all the related regulations and notices. It would just be helpful to have this so this is all in that cover memo that comes to the board to help us review the best that we can and prepare for the conversation and then for the school board this was an example so this I guess should be in yellow but this was that I pulled together over the last year saying here's a guide that could help us each review you know are we getting to try and tease out the policy of the regulation the philosophy so at the end I did include the closed meeting process because this has been a point of confusion in the past and so the clerk [01:18:06] and I Ms. Brown deputy clerk I recorded what apparently it is so we know and then the last bit is just I've wondered how do we document past versions what if someone a board member or the public want to see the past version to my understanding we don't have a way to do that where's the archive how our previous versions archived and then just whether we want to say they're revised or reviewed and then the last page was taken from I think one of the clerk's documents but just defining what a policy is a regulation is and a notice [01:18:40] so again this is meant to be more of a style guide combined with the directives in the policy about style and regulations so I hope that was a good use of those minutes on this planet okay dr. Anderson and I guess like let's hear feedback if there's some things we can clarify let's go ahead yes thank you this is very helpful I did have a question on the first page where it says suggest phasing out titles on the left as policies on the left of what the [01:19:18] column that follows so like eligible employees I see or authority like let's call that responsibilities okay I think this works generally I think this is a good idea it makes things very simple a question that I have is where would this template live is this going to be then a new policy that kind of articulates what we do so that's a question and then I had some more specific feedback I am not gonna go over the stuff that I agree with because I think they're great the [01:19:55] point on page three about avoiding personal pronouns I think that's good because you know I always either into that place of you know we're an educational educational enterprise and you know singular and plural nouns must there must be subject verb agreement but we know that we're trying to be more inclusive I still struggle with that if they don't exist then there's no struggle and I would appreciate that section 3 I envision this and I don't know this is where you were going is all of this going to kind of be a [01:20:30] checklist so that it's easy to affirm by staff it could be it's a compilation of what we've asked for that could it should be part of that cover memo that cover memo was a newer practice that we started last year to try and get the transmittal a little bit better so it could be a checklist otherwise it comes across as a little overwhelming so pages three and four there's a lot of content there but I think it could be organized so it's easily checked by whomever's doing that job so that would be my ad but I will say it's not just [01:21:08] checking it off it's actually providing information some of it like a thoughtful analysis otherwise I think things would get lost in the sauce and you know you could have enough lines if it's a short answer or if it's a yes or no it could just be boxes it just has to be simplified for use because if I were the one doing it I would want it to be a little bit more linear and sequential Where I have questions, this is part C on page five. [01:21:40] And correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Foster. We go into closed meetings typically to get legal guidance that cannot be discussed in the public forum. Is that accurate when it comes at least to policies? [01:21:58] There are several bases to convene a closed session of a public body. One of them is for consultation with legal counsel and the provision of legal advice to the, in this case, board client. [01:22:15] Okay, thank you. I just wonder about this language being a little bit too tight because I can recall on several occasions where, again, serving on the governance committee, where we've had a closed session about a part of a policy and then we came right out here and had the discussion. [01:22:32] This, as I'm reading it, means that if you have a closed session on a policy, everything thereafter has to be in a closed session. That, I don't think it's always that way. I don't wanna say which policies, but I could think of at least two policies in which some components were discussed and closed, and then we came back out and just finished it in the public meeting. [01:22:53] So I'm not sure about the accuracy of section C. - Okay, I'd welcome if you wanted to help get some language about components, thank you. - Yeah, Ms. Anderson? - So talking about formatting of documents is one of my favorite things ever. [01:23:10] 100%, that's part of it. I will say that I think that we are very close to the same category of work that we did when we did the community advisory committee handbook. I think that this, in my opinion, right now from what I understand, we have two policies related to board directives and then we have a regulation that's actually one of ours that actually shouldn't be a regulation because I think we should stay and stand strong with we write policies, the superintendent writes directives to, or you know what I meant, we write policies, she writes regulations. [01:23:48] I think that this could be expanded because what I really see it as is an approach that the governance committee will take, which needs to be approved by the whole board. So I see that we're just out of order just a tiny bit. I think that pulling together all this information in terms of what the practice has been, think is so important I just want to see us maybe look at policy 1104 and 1102 to see if those two policies need to be collapsed into one and then authorize this document because we should use the policy the same way we did with the community advisory handbook so that the advisory committees know how we are [01:24:27] expecting them to operate and the board agreed upon that and then authorized a second document that is still needed board approval to be updated but it's a much faster approval than sending it through the entire policy so I think this is a great start I don't see it just as a style guide but I do see it as having a component of style in and I think that getting board direction helps make sure that we don't have any pendulum effects that could happen when we get a new governance chair you know so that way it and using the three policies that I know of off the top of my head that went to CPDC if they don't [01:25:03] agree to this then they could be working on a different set or different policies so we need this to be a whole board decision and what I'd love to see is us update these and then take some of the information that we have in regulation and merge it here so I just see that that would be a beneficial use to make sure that you have a high cover of the rest of the board helping give the directive yeah those are great points I also think about so if we review 1104 1102 combined as needed maybe pull some of this some of the regulation but do you think this could be in the governance manual I mean whatever is too detailed that would really be a regulation but we're not gonna do [01:25:42] regulation like do you think it could live in the governance I don't have any problem with like CPDC or PEC or something like that having governing documents that are that go with each committee because that makes a whole lot of sense if we want that to live in the governance manual that's fine I think this is very nitty gritty for the governance manual um so we may need to think up a different category of like information because you you're you're not wrong that we're we're creating a style that we want all of our i mean one of the very first things i came when i said like i want every [01:26:20] single one of our policies to be branded especially like i i've said that for a really long time because people across the country are using our policies as model policies and so i want to make sure that we have a footer in every policy that we have that says who we are I agree but and I think that those are very easy things to change we're not going to change them overnight we're not going to update update all of them but we can have it happen as we are updating policies to get to the right level and I've done this for a very long time with curriculum fun and so I understand [01:26:55] the just the game I will say that to your point and really fast to your point about previous versions archive I love the idea of having an internal version that we're keeping an archive for but otherwise those are already publicly available because they're all on board doc so we do have old iterations of the policy they're just well it would have been when the board took action yes when the board sorry they're on board docs under the meaning for when the board takes action what I mean so there is a historical marker it's just a little bit different than what I think you're talking about and so but it does live like it is out there there's there's very little that we do that isn't 100 percent transparent to [01:27:35] the public well I'd have to look because when we have things that are 10 15 20 years old I don't know I don't know when we digitized all that stuff but I will say I mean I appreciate everything you're saying and and you know the commitment to it it also just involves the partnership with the superintendent I mean they are producing the documents and if we get stuff that isn't in that format you know it's it's hard it really you know eats up good energy the other thing I'll mention is actually I forgot what I was gonna mention again this is [01:28:11] that time of day dr. Anderson just a quick question is what is being discussed right now regulation 1104 is the advocacy to have that become a policy so what I believe I heard we already have a policy 1104 it authorizes the regulation so what it would be is we would just authorize the second document I guess not quite my question but that is helpful is my question is are we saying that we do not need a regulation that speaks to this and see the board [01:28:46] policy that's so we just need to put everything and policy 1104 so would be sunsetting the regulation itself yes okay so basically taking that next set of stuff but you're totally right that it needs to be across the board and indeed this could be a good segue to the cpdc discussion because if we send the three policies there and then they so yeah okay or dr. Anderson you could also have dr. Reed have her regulation on regulations because theoretically her format is actually different than policy for right and there are things you guys want in policies that she may not need or want in regulations so it would make [01:29:25] sense you could switch it that's actually the recommendation from deputy clerk Brown who works on this regularly is that we have the policies and the style guide or some kind of manual for our office and your policies and then we let the regulation be dr. Reed's regulations and she handles regulations and then she does with it what she may got it so it's not sunsetting it but it's significantly revising it so we could take all the policy related pieces and embed that and either both or one of these two policies that miss Anderson talked about 1104 and 1102 so I think what I'm hearing at least for me and my [01:30:04] next step is to review those two policies and to bring some of these documents some of this content and some of this content into that I think as one for the board to review yeah and maybe in some point and perhaps style guide is not the right term as you said right it's operating manual or whatever it is but yeah Missy John Cunning so I actually have a question for the superintendent in terms of this policy and asking the superintendent to follow this policy and it would be staff it does this look like something that is doable or onerous or what is your feedback on this thank you miss st. John [01:30:42] Cunningham I appreciate the ask and we're on 11:04 again I saw the regulation oh is this the new draft template policy yeah we just want to know what exactly you want and then we'll do it I just think staff have struggled a little with which template you want so as soon as we know this is the template and this is the part that the staff are responsible for and this is the part that the board wishes to do I know the philosophy was a big discussion and so we tried to write it but we weren't capturing what the board wanted so like [01:31:21] we just if the direction is clear we're on it okay I just sometimes I I worry sitting in this seat that sometimes we ask what it might be a lot and I just wanted to make sure that was and I do agree with dr. Anderson where we could make this template a little bit easier I could see where it could be a check where it's like does this policy currently have a purpose and we check yes or no and that would be easier for for staff to do as they're reviewing [01:31:51] things okay okay sunsetting policy 5210 just as a follow-up to that so I will help to continue to shepherd this through deadline TBD but we're headed in the right direction so thank you again to deputy clerk Brown yeah we have a half hour left well we only have two the next two should be very quick the petty [01:32:25] cash discussion policy 5210 so it's actually no longer applicable and there's been a notice repealing it for a while but we need to officially repeal it unless anybody feels differently so if somebody would like to make a motion dr. Anderson would make a motion and the clerks might be pulling that up Otherwise I can give you the motion. [01:32:51] - I'm happy to make a motion. - The Sunset 5210. - It is to Sunset Policy 5210.4. - Petty Cash, yes. - Do I have a second? Ms. St. John Cunning, Dr. Anderson, any further thoughts? - Yes, I wanna be sure that we are being clear with people who could be watching this meeting as to why this is being sunset. [01:33:14] Are the money people back there? Can somebody please clarify the reason why we are sunsetting the petty cash is because we don't do petty cash anymore. - So I'll read from the memo that I believe is posted, and that is the Office of the Comptroller recommends that this policy be retired because the process for maintaining cash funds up to $2,000 at each school has been abolished. [01:33:40] It is no longer best practice. - Can you speak to whether or not schools keep any dollars If it's not up to $2,000, is it up to $100 or is it just no cash at all? - I'll have to get back to you on that. [01:33:55] - Because if there's some cash, there's some petty cash. So I'm just thinking there's no cash at all. - This particular policy is to establish a funding method to help program managers make minor local purchases through petty cash and that's no longer allowed. [01:34:17] - 'Cause we have, okay, thank you. - Yes, ma'am. - Thank you, Ms. Neeson Cunning. Any further comments, no? Okay, then I will call for the vote to sunset policy 5210 petty cash. All those in favor, we have our three governance committee members and Ms. Lady as well. [01:34:33] So that is unanimous for committee members present. Thank you. All right, the next three facilities policies. So again, these were determined by the full board at the dais to send to our CPDC committee. [01:34:49] If someone wants to define that for me, I don't always remember that acronym, but the committee's actually meeting tomorrow, and so they are aware that they're waiting for our official pass on so they can go to it, and I will be sure to share with Mr. McDaniel to please make sure they're in the right format when they come back, and then determine. [01:35:06] I guess one thing I'd like to know is do we expect to get these back? Do you all want to get them back? I don't want to necessarily get them back. They're gonna come to the board if they're amended as new business, and we will have the opportunity, but anyway, questions, Dr. Anderson? [01:35:22] - Yes, I don't know what the process is, but a couple of feedback things. One, if we could just clean up this language, maybe before it even gets there, because at some point we're still going to say it needs to read the Fairfax County School Board recognizes under the philosophy. [01:35:39] And secondly, the implementation. I think for some reason, I believe that parts of the implementation that speaks to the superintendent needing to establish regulations we could just embed that in the purpose because the purpose is to establish the use of value engineering as standard practice for all school construction again trying to move away from nomenclature that we do not use and that would be my advocacy for [01:36:15] us to move the pertinent language because it's fairly repetitive for the most part it's just adding a few more words to purpose and then we'll be able to get rid of implementation which is not a title that we often use. Okay. I'd like to send it at least to CPDC with those kind of adjustments. So we will send to CPDC with adjustments to fit our formatting preferences. And Ms. Brown were you able to capture what I shared? Oh he was helping me yeah. Oh okay. Point of order. Let's I [01:36:52] think that we can provide because the board voted to actually send the policies as they were presented originally to cpdc i think that's fine um i think we should include the recommendation from dr anderson with those policies but i do not think that we can make the changes ahead of time well that's true because the changes would have to be adopted by the board thank you but we do need to vote to send them over which was the purpose of putting them on the agenda now so we do this is why it's on the agenda right now is that the case for all three there were some that that went to the board and so they only one that went and so these need to be [01:37:31] that the governance is sending so we don't have to send to the whole board to then send to cpdc so let's go ahead the motion will essentially it'll be on the screen in a moment but the motion will be to send the three policies listed there over to cpdc and we will read the full motion in a moment but in the meantime does anyone want to move that motion miss st john cunning and second - Okay, well, I'll read it, yes. [01:37:58] Dr. Anderson, would you like to second, please? - Sure. - Okay, Ms. Jean-Jean-Gonny, do you wanna speak to your motion? - Yeah. - Okay, Dr. Anderson? - Yes, for policy 8335, I just also wanna point out that the philosophy section is not a philosophy section. [01:38:20] That is more of a procedure, and again, that's a note for CPDC for their consideration, So, because it's either they fix it, or we end up pulling it up at the dais and redoing all of this. [01:38:36] So I'd like for the philosophy section to be addressed in 8335 to be more in alignment with the philosophy that we've had. And again, just another question, the responsibility section that speaks to the school board shall comply with all federal, state, and local laws and regulations. [01:39:00] Do we typically call that out? 'Cause I thought we have to. It's just an assumed and embedded understanding. So that's more of a question that I'd like to have an answer to. And then for policy 8560, I believe the section that says school principal, which is now kind of changed to the superintendent, there's some duplicative language there. [01:39:38] The last sentence is the same thing as essentially the first sentence and what is already in the philosophy. So I just wanted to flag that. Deputy Clerk, yes? [01:39:58] Just to clarify, that was all regarding policy 8335? 8560, okay. 8560 is the one that has gone to the board already. I'll try to do some of the fixing and the others, but that one is as stands. [01:40:14] So, hold on. 8560 is listed here, though, to sending to governance. So can it be edited there? - So it had gone before the full, it had gone before governance to go before the full board. [01:40:31] So it's here because it was another CP, we were cutting it off ahead of time rather than sending it to the full board and then sending it back to CPDC. So, I mean, we'll find out. If I can edit it, I'll edit it. If I can't, I'll give the suggestions. - Sure, but to be clear, CPDC can edit these policies as they see fit and bring them to the full board for us to all approve. [01:40:52] - Okay, so this is the motion as I understand it, that the Governance Committee send to the Comprehensive Planning and Development Committee Policies 8275, 8335, 8560 for review and final sending to the full board for action. [01:41:09] Does that sound like what we want? Okay, I'm gonna call for the vote. All those in favor? We've got three in the room and Ms. Lady. So that is unanimous for committee members, okay? Wonderful. All right, now there are follow-up on three policies that we had asked for more information about. [01:41:28] 49.50 about sexual harassment, 44.25 about lactation support programming, and 45.20 about employee organization certification procedures. We had asked, I just want to quickly review why we had asked for more information. So for 49.50 sexual harassment, we wanted it to be clear about, is it about preventing such harassment or addressing it if it happens? [01:41:48] And so the changes have been made to make it clear that it is a statement about that we will not tolerate it. And it's, you know, it's not, doesn't have a place in our school system. 4425 lactation support programming, there were some concern that the language was a little too subjective, and what we wanted to do is make the language more aligned with what data and research say, which is that breastfeeding is supported by researchers being healthy for children, and then also we need to remove the reference to the pronouns, his or her designee. [01:42:21] So that has been updated in terms of the language, not yet the designee. And then employee organization certification procedures, there was confusion over this given collective bargaining and we just wanted to be sure of which organization certification we were talking about. [01:42:37] So the policy has been updated to reflect collective bargaining now being in effect. So if anyone has any comments on those three, I find that for me they're all okay except for in 4425, please do just remove that pronoun reference and make it the division superintendent to take appropriate action when complaints are received. [01:43:07] So I did at the end. [01:43:32] What did I say? Yeah, is it the wrong one? This one is, yes. Oh, look, I have the wrong one. [01:43:51] Dr. Anderson, did you have a comment? Did you turn our mic on? Sorry. I apologize, Miss Lady. [01:44:07] I'm just looking to read the philosophy, a clean copy. Thank you. And I was talking about 49.50. Oh, I'm on 44.25, so I'm not in sequence. [01:44:23] - No, well, my thing was the last sentence on the first page in 49.50, removing the his or her designee. [01:44:33] - Okay, so the philosophy now read Fairfax County. [01:45:05] Just one quick thing. Should it be that the Fairfax County, accordingly, the school division shall provide breaks of reasonable length? [01:45:23] - Kind of be a legal question, right? 'Cause if it's in the code, they must provide them then. - Mr. Foster, is shall inappropriate here? - I think that you could leave it as is or you could use shall. [01:45:40] - 'Cause it just seems to make sense given that we have shall in the next sentence as well. So I'd like for that to be considered, Ms. Mary. - I guess, I don't, I think we're getting into the wordsmithing that pulls us off. [01:46:01] We also had other things before, so I don't really see the need to change it. I'm fine with the way it is. It's substantially different than the last version, which we had more challenges with. So, all right, I do want to keep this moving. [01:46:26] So are you making a motion or, - Dr. Anderson, are you making a motion? Okay, okay, then can we have a motion to approve these? [01:46:49] So then, okay, all right, so there's a motion. I move to send policy 4950, sexual harassment, policy 4425, lactation support programming, and policy 4520, employee organization certification procedures to the full board for action. [01:47:11] there a motion missing john cunning and a second i'll second thank you ms lady any further thoughts ms uh st john cunning no i i actually think that in in the policy where it says provides or shall provide i think provides is actually stronger because it's not it's just saying it's we're just doing it okay well if someone wants to change it you're welcome to make a motion otherwise we are in the motion making process now um are you done i i mean are you making [01:47:46] you making the main motion i'm making the main motion but i don't have in front of me you read it right yes it's just i moved to send policy three policies to the full board okay and then miss lady any further comments on your second nope thanks okay so all those in favor of moving to send policy 49 50 44 25 and 45 20 to the full board for action please raise your hands yes we're we're doing all three okay all those in favor please raise your hand uh miss st john cunning [01:48:23] myself and um i can't see miss lady if your hand is up it is up okay um all those opposed okay dr Anderson is opposed will the clerk read the vote please the vote is three one okay so those are going to go to the board okay well we got three through so future planning our next meeting is march 17th which i know is tough for you miss lady but i promise that i'll wear green if others want want to wear green on St. Patrick's Day. So clearly, we're going to talk about AI policy. [01:48:57] Do we want to dedicate more time? I mean, I think at least half the time is appropriate. We still have the backlog that we're working through. There's also been some work done by several colleagues on the calendar policies based on input from the community that, yeah, this is the end of the four-day weekend, and it's really not great. So we're trying to be responsive to the public we board members so their thoughts about making some time to review a draft that some folks have put together that's an option and then I'd have to check back with Miss Brown our deputy clerk about what [01:49:33] else is next on the list and is Brown I would advocate going through the some of the 5,000 series and then if any of the 6,000 series are ready then that those there's some things in the 5,000 series that are more like the sun setting we today where it's a procedural law thing that's changed so less less uh less for us to decide okay so the potential agenda could be the first hour for our ai policy discussion then looking at the 5000 series which are our financial policies and then any of the 6000 technology series that [01:50:10] are ready um how does that sound and then um calendar policy what are thoughts about that we have time think about it okay so we're kind of agreed on AI policy 5,000s and 6,000s, and we'll see about the calendar. [01:50:33] Okay, well, with that, the meeting is adjourned at 5.50. Thank you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Coraggio Consulting ยท aguyonx.com