Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Work Session, Tuesday, November 10, 2026

Date: Tuesday, November 10, 2026
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 4h 20m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEybSMgrlCs
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 2026-11-11. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:02] at 11:50 a.m. the board will now make a motion on November 10 20 26 to go in oh no this is okay the November 10 20 26 budget committee of the whole will come to an order at again till 11:50 a.m. thank you mr. Frisch has submitted a request to attend this morning's meeting remotely due to a personal conflict as he has a work obligations located in his home in Providence district I perform an initial review of mr. purchase request and having found it with compliance with the school board's remote participation resolution I've

[00:00:42] approved the request we will wait for him to come on to trust to test his device and take a vote at that time in order to comply with the section 2.2 - 3 712 D of this code of Virginia it is necessary for the board to certify that since the Fairfax County School Board convened a closed meeting on November 10 2026 to the best of each members knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting required and only such public matters as were distant identified in the emotion convening the closed meeting were her

[00:01:21] were her discussed or considered by the board during the closed meeting do I have a motion miss lady second miss mr. moon all those in favor is anonymous all there is no action taken in the closed correct I call on dr. Reed for the presentation on the FY 2028 fiscal forecast thank you miss Dixit and this

[00:01:57] morning we're gonna kick off budget season with miss Burton our chief finance officer and mr. Norton who are going to be sharing our fiscal forecast for FY 28 already so miss burden good morning as dr. Reed said today we'll be discussing the fiscal 28 fiscal forecast we did have a early budget kickoff on September 8th where we highlighted the fiscal environment since then we've had the opportunity to calculate preliminary estimates and all figures of course

[00:02:37] will be refined and finalized should they end up being in the superintendent's proposed budget next slide we'll briefly review the background calendar touch on the current economic environment then provide preliminary revenue and expenditure estimates and then finish with the budget question process this year I think it's important to mention as we always do that the fiscal forecast is not the superintendent's proposed budget it's an opportunity to share with the school board and our community how preliminary estimates are to begin the budget process nothing presented today should be construed as recommended

[00:03:14] changes to the budget nor does it represent the superintendent's proposed budget that will be released in January and just as a reminder the Virginia code mandates that the superintendent prepare a budget with an estimate of the amount of money deemed to be needed to support the school division in the upcoming year and that's commonly referred to as a needs-based budget note that today's information will be combined with county projections and used during the December 1st joint budget meeting following release of the proposed budget in January there will be work sessions and public hearings

[00:03:51] hearings in advance of the adoption the county budget process kicks into gear from early March through early May providing us with information needed to finalize our budget at the end of May and I do want to point out here that probably the school board office needs to contact the Board of Supervisors office they have the joint meeting scheduled this year on March the 9th and that is a holiday for all FCPS offices and schools the reason that it's got moved is historically the county executive presented his budget mid

[00:04:26] February and so the joint meeting was at the end of February but since they shifted his delivery of the his advertised budget to the 1st of March then that pushed the joint meeting as well but they pushed it on to a day where all of our offices and schools are closed so I just wanted to alert that alert you all of that that'll need to be changed are you saying they're gonna have to move the meeting because we're closed yeah okay well yeah not sure what

[00:04:59] the fix is but okay we need to talk about it's a holiday for everybody yeah the economic environment continues to be uncertain federal government actions have negatively impacted employment while tariff policies and global instability have kept inflation persistently above acceptable levels this is all led to rising prices particularly when it comes to fuel utilities food those kinds of things preliminary estimates in the current year county

[00:05:38] budget they do a five-year projection of fiscal 28 29 30 31 and in that county fiscal 27 budget they have the real estate tax base growth at only 1.1% in fiscal 28 we will see revised estimates of that at the joint meeting on December the first they will update then and we also will likely see revised estimates on meals tax as well understanding the economic environment today's information represents only the big-picture high-level summary of our fiscal

[00:06:16] requirements we recognize the constraints of the last few years which have been marked by two years of reductions and cost avoidance is required to balance our budget. Central office reductions of five percent have already been requested for consideration in the superintendent's proposed and we've included a placeholder in this fiscal forecast to acknowledge that. We don't normally calculate estimates to for the county transfer although I can tell you that the historical transfer increase has ranged from 100 to 165 million. At this point we anticipate 40 million in additional funding from the

[00:06:52] state based on their biennial budget and projected ADM although the state you know revise their budget and that'll be released I think the third week of December when governor Spanberger introduces the budget other revenue categories are assumed level for this forecast but they are unlikely to change significantly although of course we will review all categories as prep for the proposed budget on the expenditure side three broad expenditure categories are summarized here and reflect a nearly 240 million expenditure estimate compared

[00:07:31] to the current year's budget fiscal 27 nearly 93 percent of the increases are related to compensation including our two collective bargaining agreements and each of these categories will be detailed on the next slides as a labor intensive enterprise our expenditures are largely driven by compensation and therefore collective bargaining early collective bargaining discussions included revenue estimates that were based on FCPS receiving over 52% of county expenses as we had historically. An estimated expenditure change of 220

[00:08:07] million results from the 3% market scale adjustment and step adjustments included in both collective bargaining agreements and benefit rate changes for health care and retirement. Next slide. The next category is contractual. All communities in this country have been impacted by high energy prices including FCPS. Electricity rates are projected to increase by double-digit percentages, and diesel fuel prices will remain elevated long after any resolution to existing global conflicts. Plus, our county

[00:08:43] partners are looking for ways to recoup costs, and that includes restructuring the labor charges at the Department of Vehicle Services, where buses and other FCPS vehicles are serviced. an estimated expenditure change of 30 million results from utility rate increases existing funding requirements including escalation clauses in our contracts the restructuring of dvs labor rates and elevated fuel prices multi-year initiatives estimated at 47 million include

[00:09:18] a better balance between digital and print resources for basal materials completing the restoration of the staffing formula reduction that we took in an earlier year, finishing the athletic trainer expansion, those sorts of items. Over $60 million in savings is estimated from central office reductions and the impact of changing student needs in enrollment. The multi-year initiatives and reductions combined result in a net savings of $13 million. Basic requirements, I mean the overall impact of these revenue and expenditure estimates is a gap of nearly $200

[00:09:56] million prior to accounting for any change in the county transfer this is just the beginning of a mini-month process that will culminate with us adopting a budget in May if you go on to the budget questions our budget process a budget question process begins today with the fiscal forecast and ends upon approval of the budget in May school board members or their aides have access to the Google form to submit budget questions and similar to a couple of years ago the budget office is available to conduct a budget information session with school board office staff so some of your questions your staff

[00:10:32] members may be able to find the answer for you and as a reminder general program questions that are unrelated to the budget not asking for costing not needed for an upcoming boat should be directed to the appropriate chief and not run them through the budget question process thank you for your kind attention and look forward to hearing your comments or answering any questions thank you I see that mr. Frisch is actually on at this point mr. Frisch can you check your audio and video good afternoon good afternoon I now ask

[00:11:11] board members who are physically present to vote on the following all those in favor of confirming the approval of mr. Frisch's request miss Dixit mr. McDaniel mr. moon miss Marin miss a chun cunning miss Anderson and myself all those opposed dr. Anderson motion passes and turn it back to you budget chair miss Dixit thank you miss lady at this time I now invite board members to ask any clarifying questions or provide comments and dr. mr. fresh thank you for the presentation and the work of the budget team mistakes at mr.

[00:11:49] moon miss burden everybody else in central office I have some questions about the proposed 5% cuts obviously that's something I'd like to see carried through in the school board program budget but before we get there I'm I'm curious, you know, when we talk about cuts in the past, we've talked about how, um, a 5% cut or a 10% will have a different impact depending on the program from which it's being cut.

[00:12:21] What steps are taken to ensure that, um, and across the board 5% cut, um, is limiting the impact on students and staff to the greatest extent possible. so where five percent could be cut from this program with having a limited impact on students and staff perhaps a five percent cut from this program over here would have a much more profound impact on students and staff yeah that is something as part of our directions to the department chiefs that we provided to them when developing their reduction list as that is that

[00:13:01] should not offer up items to be reduced that are either school-based staff or materials it has to be something that is within the department's budget and of course we do have you know the instructional department and other departments who have items in their budget that are in their budget but actually our school-based staff and those items you know they can they can put those on the list but that is something that we are going to scrutinize

[00:13:35] we're not there yet we're at the again this is the preliminary budget review so we have not yet reviewed what the departments are submitting but once we receive all of those proposals we will review them and if it is an item that is going to be heavily impact the schools then that is something that we would likely deny and ask them to go back to the starting point and try again i appreciate that there are some economic indicators in here that you know um our school system has had to address

[00:14:12] head-on um one of them is the employment situation i'm wondering if uh anybody there maybe the superintendent can speak to the volume of federal employees that fcps has brought on after massive layoffs at the federal level that were indiscriminate and damaging not only to the local economy, but to our national security, our public health, you name it. So thank you, Mr. Frisch. Oh, sorry.

[00:14:39] Go ahead. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Frisch. And I appreciate that. I think, as you recall, we were one of the early out school divisions to really host job fairs for our federal employees that were displaced. Mr. Solomon, in rough numbers, could you be responsive to the question? thank you very much for the question mr. Frisch so oh am I on thank you we've seen an inordinate number of applicants across every position and really across every position category in FCPS not only in our teaching positions but also in our central office department positions throughout the school division well I

[00:15:15] don't have a specific count I will tell you that in every job category there is an immediately available pool of high quality applicants ready to join the division. Great. The other comment I wanted to make is on energy costs. It's something that we experience firsthand with the volume of diesel buses that we have. Our board is preparing to send a letter regarding the Dominion merger, which would increase prices for everybody on energy.

[00:15:44] But can you talk a little bit about what it means for a school division to be able to conserve energy in the sense of you know allowing that money to be repurposed elsewhere in the school division at the classroom level so thank you mr. Frisch right now for other reasons we had to run some data and it turns out we run about 93 thousand miles a day so the fuel costs and the increases in our fuel cost have really had a an impact on our budget we generally add a certain percentage to

[00:16:23] each year's fuel contingency and miss burden can speak more directly to that but we're going to be blowing through the fuel contingency that we already had set up I'm also in conversation with our county executive about just in general our transportation fleet maintenance and fuel and parts costs so miss burden do you want to comment on kind of I think obviously if we move more towards ev buses the actual buses themselves are significantly more expensive but we have you know been able to utilize grants for those purchases and obviously the

[00:17:01] infrastructure to support those is an ongoing challenge but miss burden you want to talk a minute about fuel reserve and yes ma'am and yeah we typically budget and two million dollars as a fuel contingency every year at least every year that I've been here but in this past year when we were developing the fiscal 27 budget we doubled that to 4 million because we knew that the cost of fuel was rapidly increasing and that we would you know essentially be very challenged if we didn't go ahead and plan for that current estimates of fuel

[00:17:37] costs for fiscal 27 this current year are 4.5 million so we will completely deplete the fuel contingency and then we'll have to identify a half a million dollars to cover you know what our estimate is saying we will be even over that fuel contingency and so as a result we are planning on increasing the fuel funds that we have in the baseline budget and they that shows here in the fiscal forecast as a 2.5 million dollar increase to fuel the DVS service rates

[00:18:14] we traditionally get a memo from the county in the fall of each year identifying the rate increases for labor costs markup on parts fuel that sort of thing from the county and historically that has been about five percent so of course we built five percent into aired Department of Vehicle Services budget line item because historically five percent is about what it's been increased every single year and this year they restructured their rate

[00:18:48] increases and the labor rate has been increased by 43 percent we weren't notified about that until late August and so of course that was well after our budget was adopted and so as dr. Reed said she has been speaking with the County executive about this the we've written a letter that is going to be sent should be today requesting a review of the rates and that they be deferred until July 1st of 2027 so that we have a chance to include those rate

[00:19:27] increases in our budget as opposed to having to you know try to find funds in the current year to cover an expenditure that we did not anticipate and so i think what we're seeing here is fairfax county taxpayers getting it on the chin twice um for the impact of the war of choice in iran um i will note that at the same time the same federal government um and dominion have pulled back significantly on their support for ev buses and while they are more expensive they're the only

[00:20:01] thing that we can do to you know flatten the impact of giant price fluctuations for fuel they are also on even their worst day 60 cheaper to fuel and far cheaper to have upkeep my last question is about collective bargaining dr reed can you speak to what it would mean for the school division to successfully complete its first three-year collective bargaining contract through the the fulfillment of this budget it's i think one of the things that miss burden has

[00:20:37] captured is our commitment to successfully making good on the commitment our third year of our inaugural collective bargaining agreement i want to note that and miss burden i think noted in the presentation that three years ago when we wrote and approved the collective bargaining agreement the out years were very modest and based on a historic pattern of approximately 52% of revenue being shared with the schools and were that to occur again we

[00:21:12] would be fine and I think be able to support this third year without as much hand-wringing and discussion but I think you know I I know this board is committed to collective bargaining I know the division we are committed to that and we really want to that's a first priority along with contracted services that we're putting in the financial forecast in fact Lee I don't think there's much else that we've put in the bus budget other than fixed costs and meeting the collective bargaining agreement to be honest my last comment

[00:21:52] would be that when we return for budget discussions in December it'd be great if we could have a slide that articulates the value add that FCPS has been unique in the last year as it pertains to additional, you know, bringing people in from the federal workforce, what that means for the local economy, what it means for energy conservation, and all the different ways that our school division is saving taxpayers the downstream impact of the mess in Washington.

[00:22:23] Because we are doing the yeoman's work to educate kids, numbers are moving in the right direction, and we're cleaning up this mess yes sir we'll capture that on a return report thank you dr. Anderson thank you okay this is like a weird view I wanted to talk about the 5% as well with the central office reductions can you speak

[00:22:56] to how that would impact the title funding titles one and two how would a how would a reduction work there because I know those are fixed yeah no grants are excluded from the exercise it is the departments and operating fund reductions thank you is there any way that outside just kind of leading into one of the questions that mr. fish asked outside of professional development and travel could we get a little bit more insight as to what else could be cut

[00:23:33] within departments well it's only a few things right positions hourly salaries if that you know that's certainly under the control of depart of chiefs material supplies equipment everything is on the table and you know well like I said we we've just received the the what's been proposed but we haven't had a chance yet to review that in any detail so for now we're just using the placeholder of 15

[00:24:09] million okay thank you one of the things that I would like to ask dr. Reed last year you produced a document that was very similar to what the county produces outlining the cuts and you know where they're coming from and potential impacts will we be receiving that same document as well because I thought that was very helpful yes ma'am I think we will we haven't created it yet because we haven't heard from the departments yet but as soon as we're able to hear from our departments and also get feedback from the board we'll be able to

[00:24:46] create such a document I think that document is helpful and in a number of ways not just for our own edification but it offers a transparency to the public that we are being strategic and we are impacting our system in ways that they may not necessarily see because they may not be classroom based so I I'd definitely like to make sure that we have that again.

[00:25:08] The contractual inflation, I think it's slide 8, 30.4 million. Can you speak a little bit to that? We talked about gas. What else is in this bucket?

[00:25:24] Well, you're right. We talked about gas, the fuel. We talked about the DVS service rates. Also, Dominion has notified us that there will be a 24.9% increase in our utility rates so that's 12.2 i'm sorry 24 point 24.9 percent increase from dominion yes and that you know results in 12.2 million the contractual line item of 10 million is again just a placeholder we know that we have every year we have contractual increases which are usually about 10 million um and that's for inflationary increases that are already built into existing contracts

[00:26:04] it's also a little bit of funds that are going to workers compensation which also would fall under those contractual increases and that plus the dvs and the fuel is 30 million dollars sure i just want to spend a little bit of time on the energy increase from dominion of 24.9 nine percent which you said was um would result in how many millions 12.2 i i think in this space And again, it doesn't necessarily have to be in this document.

[00:26:37] But whenever we have the next budget conversation, I think we have to tease this out and have that be in writing. Because this is something that should be publicly noticed. Families, all of us, we're all enduring what's happening with the media in our own homes. But this is a huge number for our system to suffer without it being clear to the public that this is staggering.

[00:27:01] as always all of these line items that are additions to the budget or reductions to the budget like the 15 million will be identified and narrated in great detail in the superintendent's proposed budget but this is the fiscal forecast this is a preliminary budget it is just using big numbers big assumptions all of these numbers theoretically can change between now and the end of January but they've already notified us of that in change well as you know I don't like to

[00:27:36] predict the future but I mean will they know though I mean so they've sent us notice that we're going to send us notice that you that electricity rates are going to increase by 24.9% that is a quarter increase yes ma'am I need to process this a little bit more but I do want to ask about the 45.8 million on enrollment student needs and I don't remember what page this was on can you tease that out a little bit too please well we don't have oh I think 11 we

[00:28:14] don't have all of the enrollment numbers at this point we just have the general education numbers and certainly we are seeing change from what was projected as you know in the current year we did experience enrollment losses again this year and this reduction is us you know as you all know we do all of the schools from a zero base we've not done that yet these again this is a preliminary budget big high numbers but we expect to be to have to reduce the staffing and

[00:28:51] that will be a savings of 45 million that number will change 100% because we don't have subgroup information yet that number could get larger meaning a greater negative or it could get smaller, meaning a lesser negative. And this is based on the October 30th number?

[00:29:09] Yes, but it's very high level. I mean, they don't even finish those numbers until late October as far as projections for fiscal 28 that are based on September 30. Then there's a couple of weeks to reconcile.

[00:29:25] Then they take those numbers and start their projections, the facilities group, facilities and planning. So this is projections for next year based on the numbers from this year. So we are then expecting further reductions in enrollment. Yes, that is correct.

[00:29:41] I'd like to go back, please. You are going to go back. Ms. St. John-Cunningham. No, I'm saying I'm putting you. First of all, thank you for the presentation, the time that your office puts into all of this.

[00:30:01] When we're looking at all of this, one of the things that, and this was touched on by Dr. Anderson, If you guys can provide us with that concrete plan, with the categories and job titles of the positions that will be lost.

[00:30:19] And I always like to bring this down to the human level, because it's not just the position and job titles. It's the duties. What duties are not going to exist? And is that going to go to our front line people? Who's going to do those duties? So I know there's a difference between saying, this is the position, this is the title that's going to get cut but then what do those people do what's going to be dropped who's going to do it a lot of times that ends up falling to our frontline people that that's just one of the things that I would like to know if

[00:30:53] that's possible dr. Reed and you their department chiefs are relatively shrewd you know they're they are going to do everything possible it is my belief to make sure that students and school-based staff are not harmed by reductions that may not be possible again it's going to depend on what the county revenue is estimated to be and we don't know the answer to that yet I would also miss St. John Cunningham I think miss burden we are working on staying in the light

[00:31:28] right staff wise and we need to say very publicly and clearly that when we cut budgets that we will lose the ability to do certain things it is not sustainable to do the work we continue to do which is world-class work with our educators and our support staff with fewer and fewer resources so something will give right we're not going to be able to provide the same if we are going to be doing with less so I just think we need to be able to say that because right now

[00:32:04] think as I work with our departments our schools people are working really hard to expend every dollar and every resource in ways that are as efficient strategic as possible to the benefit of our children and community thank you I appreciate that I just think sometimes people don't understand the scope of work that each individual position does and what's lost when that position is lost also like on slide 6 we talked about the reductions we had last year on

[00:32:38] micro credentialing and I think that that has impact and curriculum material right and that I think has definitely eroded some of our professional development opportunities and classroom tools we're talking about how those things being gone so I'm wondering like if with some of those things we can collaborate with you know educate Fairfax to have targeted sponsorship for some of these items or maybe have you know some sort of partnership with other organizations that can provide us with some of that kind of funding particularly

[00:33:17] like when you're talking about classroom tools you know classroom materials is that something that we can explore like look under every rock sorry somebody the specific question was I mean other than looking under a rock which I think we're turning over a lot of rocks these days no looking at collaborating with educate Fairfax maybe to to do some sponsorship for some of our micro credentialing for our teachers or are looking for innovative grants for for classroom tools sure I think the micro credentialing we've really tried to

[00:33:55] maintain that program we may have fewer slots but we're maintaining those programs I think the materials and supplies certainly those have been cut back over the years so I think it is certainly appropriate that we collaborate with community partners and donors and I have you know 45 seconds but I think that when we talk about our benefit packages that is such a core pillar of what we provide for our staff and it's a lot of the reasons that people stay here so I just want to make sure that we are protecting our employee

[00:34:34] benefit packages and one of the things that has come to my attention which I will speak with you later is that we ensure that paid parental leave substitute coverage remains fully centralized so individual school budgets are not penalized when staff take leave and and I'll speak to that more detail looking more at the administrative band you done mr. mr. St. John Connie okay

[00:35:03] miss lady thank you so a couple thoughts one the dominion power thing is scary because it's going to hit residential as well which is going to impact our communities of close to 40% free reduced lunch keeping lights heat on also I will again sort of echo dr. Reed that you know when we cut personnel we hurt the product I actually just did a cute little Gemini question and I asked

[00:35:41] Gemini given the my question was how large should the human resources department be for an organization employees 26,000 full-time employees and 14,000 hourly employees here's the breakdown estimate FTEs will do payroll processing benefits management high-volume transactional processes for 14,000 hourly employees 75 to 110 full-time employees talent acquisition 55 to 85 HR business partners 35 I'm gonna stop because obviously I'm gonna ask mr. Solomon how many people are in HR approximately approximately 130 staff

[00:36:17] members okay so 85 you know and then total HR department should be 200 to 300 for a company of that size I make this point because as someone who would retired a few years ago it's very difficult because I couldn't get answers I couldn't get to people I felt unvalued I felt like my 30 years didn't matter happy trails Robin lady I got better information from the Virginia Department of Education then I got from our own HR now I know that under mr.

[00:36:51] Solomon's leadership a lot has changed but I just need to point that out that's one department I could go to comps I could go to all kinds of departments quite frankly and the fact that we have the smallest central office in a major way of any other school systems in the wavy yes we have scale but we can't cut anyone else and i'm concerned as a school board member about our own office about the auditor general like there is amazing work

[00:37:23] being done regarding related to waste fraud abuse but losing a person at the five percent so i would out in the in the world that maybe it's not 5% across the board but maybe it's we have to look at it because of the size of the office and the volume of the work because there are situations where you're gonna cut to a point where you're not doing the work with the fidelity that you need to be certainly that's the case in terms of the size of our classrooms take your legislator to work day I took folks to one of my high schools and you couldn't even breathe

[00:37:58] literally in the rooms well I'll be honest it was McLean High School and they desperately need a reservation because you have four seasons in one building on a daily basis but there are 32 to 35 kids in core classes because that's the way they had to do the divide. The public and our funders need to understand yes I believe you value public education I'm not sure I believe you understand what it costs to pay for it. Thank you Miss Lady. Mr. Moon? Thank

[00:38:31] Thank you, Madam Chair. I know we are about 30 minutes behind our schedule, so I need to perhaps wrap up this work session pretty soon. So let me ask you just a couple of questions regarding Dominion Energy's unconscionable rate increase of rate by 25 percent almost.

[00:38:53] Who controls their rate increase? Is there anything that we can do? I think we probably would have to consult with Division Council about that. All I know is they have notified us that the electricity rates will increase by 24.9%, and we have factored that in to this preliminary fiscal forecast.

[00:39:19] I'm just wondering that we have a legislative package coming up for discussion and a vote. Dr. Anderson, I'm talking to you. Okay, whether Dominion Energy rate increase should be a part of the discussion when we discuss the legislative package.

[00:39:36] something to think about 25% is I think as a chair lady mentioned that it's not just a school system it's affecting 9 million people living in living in Virginia and 25% I don't know whether our two million energy really means 25% I hope not but if they what they mean notified us I think they are just something that we should advocate for benefit rate change could you just describe one more time what that includes is that retirement and then

[00:40:12] health benefits mostly and what part of that 42 43 million dollar is retirement versus health benefits yeah only a little bit of it is retirement because we have the ER FC rates which are going up slightly like 6.66 to 6.71 just a tiny piece of a percent VRS rates traditionally do not change in the second year of the biennium but they could change I don't know if you all saw

[00:40:45] the the articles online that the VRS fund has been doing very well in its returns on investments but traditionally they don't change the rate in in the second year of the biennium but we'll know for sure when Governor Spanberger releases her budget in November because if there were a change to the rate even though they normally don't do that that is when that would be revealed to us we do not have a rate change yet from FCERS as you know our trades transportation food services employees are in the county's FCERS

[00:41:21] system and so we don't have a rate increase or decrease from them yet that'll be communicated to us prior to the superintendent's proposed so the bulk of the funds are health care increases which were you know conveyed during open enrollment which just concluded a week ago I think and it's a 10.8 percent increase for care first and I think it's 5% for Kaiser 4.7 for Kaiser 10.8 for care first and ERFC went from 6.61 to 6.77 okay so when you

[00:41:56] said vast majority of the 42.8 is health insurance premium could I even use about 40 million dollars out of the 42 maybe for health insurance premium and that is just employers a cost additional cost and there may be there may be a similar cost on the on the part of the employees as well that is correct it is this is the employer share that that hits the school operating fund but the increases are of course shared with the employees but they have

[00:42:32] a much smaller percentage than than the employer has the bulk of the health care is paid by the employer okay thank you thank you it's one last question in preparation for the meeting upcoming meeting with the Board of Supervisors in December a enrollment related questions could come up and I want to be prepared for that is I obviously compared to the time that we passed our budget, well compared to the time County Board of Supervisors made a decision on the amount

[00:43:08] of transfer to us. This year we obviously have fewer students in the in the system and that should have generated certain savings. Savings I know that whether that I don't know whether there was a fax the amount of state funding coming to us because we have a lower enrollment and so with that with you know make accounting for that which will still be able to realize some

[00:43:43] savings out of lower enrollment would you be able to let us know before the close before the joint meeting how much of a savings that would be because supervisors could ask us and and that you have the savings because you gave us wrong number last year.

[00:44:04] We will, these numbers will all be refined likely by December 1st. And, you know, that's one of the things that I don't really like about this fiscal forecast because we don't have a second meeting in November with the school board.

[00:44:21] So we have to do this very early, which is why we're doing it today. and so you're absolutely right by the time December 1st comes around a lot of these things that are questions right now I know the answer to but I cannot get out ahead of the school board and start presenting information that I have not yet presented to you all so I am left with the option of defending items that are in this presentation but I have better information now but I do not reveal that on December 1st because we haven't told you all about it that will be the superintendent's proposed budget where all of that is revealed so what I'm

[00:45:00] presenting today is what we will be sharing with the county to put into their presentation for December the first and these will be the numbers that we will be talking about on that day you know that three I just want to put you on a warning that questions will come up thank you mr. mom yes sir dr.

[00:45:20] Anderson for a go back yes very quickly on slide 11 where we have the other multi-year initiatives can you also give a little bit more information there I know you all are sick of me saying this decisions haven't been made this is just a placeholder as to what we think the multi-year initiatives but you know if we just the categories of what are the things digital and print resources have a better balance between digital print resources for basal materials like

[00:46:00] textbooks but textbooks is its own category above leaving the remaining restoration staffing formulas the athletic trainer expansion which is in its last year this is the fifth year of that funds to support third grade reading math professional development and adjusting middle school start times okay so all of that is that that 10 million yep okay thank you lastly I do appreciate what you shared regarding the budget questions like if there's a question that is not helpful to make a decision on the budget but rather

[00:46:36] information that could be routed through another department for that to happen because I think sometimes the budget questions becomes a catch-all so I appreciate that because I'm really looking for my questions to be responded to in a more timely manner because I've asked questions and not a lot of them that are budget related to be helped to help me make a decision about the budget and I don't get that response so this year I'll it'll really be a challenge for me to make a decision without getting the answers so I'm hoping that would help to expedite what is happening through your office yes you

[00:47:14] are reading my mind that is one of the reasons why we included this is you know a lot of times if somebody is just asking for costing or you know something that has to do with the budget proposal we can answer that piece pretty quick but if we have to send a question out to a department and they've got to do a full-blown program review that is going that has the potential to add weeks to getting an answer back to you and so we decided that it was a good thing to just try to enforce that if it's a program question if you want information about a program just reach out to the chief directly and let's leave the budget

[00:47:52] question process to be just about budget right because that has been a a source of frustration for me, so thank you. We hear you. Ms. Merrin. Thank you. I'm glad that we have time to work on budget items.

[00:48:08] I would love to do this every month, if not more than once a month, especially before the budget is developed, to inform Dr. Reid and her team. I also would appreciate us getting information as soon as possible. I have to say, it's become challenging to find the information that I need.

[00:48:25] For instance, the technology spending. I only had a student work over the summer to try to identify it. I've also used input from other residents. I've read the budget. There's a technology plan that doesn't have details. It shouldn't be this hard to understand how much this school division spends on technology per item, per application, and the staffing.

[00:48:48] I think as a board, if we can require that and expect it, it will happen. But if we accept that we don't have full information, that is going to continue. I would like to understand the budget savings produced by the rebalancing and hiring freeze.

[00:49:05] Because if this approach is to be used in the coming year, when will the board see that as part of the budget work? Is there a line item that shows that savings? So that's a question for Dr. Reid and her team.

[00:49:22] That is savings in the current year, which we're going to have to use to offset DVS vehicle rates, fuel rates all of the things that we do not have a funding source currently in the budget but has spiked and you can see that reduction as a result of the rebalancing in the enrollment negative on this page that's 45 million that's exactly what that is it is recognizing that we downsized our staffing this

[00:49:55] year in order to meet what the actual enrollment was and those savings will be realized in the next year as part of the the rerun of all of the staffing in all the schools thank you you know when we've talked in the past about needing to make reductions because of budget reductions and talk about impact on staff we've talked about things like increasing class size there wasn't a conversation about, what does this mean for our faculty in the summer when they're getting transferred, or during the school year, or for the classrooms that aren't staffed?

[00:50:31] So something is being missed here, whether it's communications or just clearly showing that if we're going to pay for more gasoline for our buses, we're going to have to not staff our classrooms until the 10th week of school.

[00:50:47] I don't see the communications plan for doing that better this year. Because I've understood that we de-staff to save money, but I did not understand until it was well underway that we froze staff and didn't place them as a way of saving money.

[00:51:06] That was not clear. So how do we make that clearer this year? First off, there is no correlation between the increases that we're seeing in the current year budget and the pause or rebalancing that we did to get our schools right sized that there's no relationship for that but there are certainly savings associated with that and you know we have identified places where we have challenges but all of the fuel rates DVS rates all of those things that we know we're going to experience in this year that all came

[00:51:44] about very recently so those two things aren't related I understand thank you I I mean, what I'm trying to say is we talk about saving money. And this freeze, this hiring freeze, that impacted a lot of people was talked about a budget savings approach.

[00:52:01] But then honestly, the board approved a computer for almost a million dollars. So how do we rectify this? Because that's the questions I'm getting from my community. How are we deciding to withhold teachers from classrooms and spend money for hardware? Where is that in the budget?

[00:52:17] And based on our experience this past year, what can we expect to be communicated to us? And do we, as a board, need to say, hear from Dr. Reed, well, board, if you want to have this many teachers, you're going to have to cut this.

[00:52:33] So I will restate again that the rebalancing is due to enrollment decline, which means that when we have fewer students, we require fewer staff. So we want to make sure that we don't overstaff. other words continue to hire staff when our students are not in the classroom so because then that creates a burden moving forward which would create a budget challenge this winter and spring so we didn't pause external hiring because we wanted to save money we pause because students weren't coming and we

[00:53:10] don't hire more staff when we have fewer students so the purchase of the quantum machine at 584 000 for skyview was included as part of the startup costs for a new high school we need a career or workforce learning pathway for all of our comprehensive high schools this happened to be the comprehensive high school career path that was chosen for skyview that was advertised and discussed in the summer of 2025 and again it came as a recommendation from the

[00:53:45] CTAC committee in October of 25 so it's actually a very reasonable cost for a career pathway to be built out it would have been significantly more expensive to retool to do auto body auto tech culinary or cosmetology all of which we have in the division so this was a first move to create a pathway around quantum which is a career and tech field that, by all accounts, will have roughly 800,000 positions globally in the next decade.

[00:54:19] And we feel like it's important to prepare our students for that. So I think the two topics are not related in the sense of startup funds that would need to be spent to startup programs for a new high school, which is separate than staffing our schools. And we want to staff to the student needs.

[00:54:36] So what we wanted to also make sure that our current staff would have positions because it's as you know other divisions around us have had the same issue Montgomery County even ended up going through a riff last spring because a reduction in force formal process because at the end of the day they ended up with more staff than students so we considered it a prudent practice to avoid that and make sure our long-term professional educators had positions and that we matched our student numbers with our staff numbers thank you for the opportunity to explain that well I will

[00:55:11] take a second turn okay I'll put you in and go back and I will take a turn now and just wanted to say this is initial discussion and I just appreciate all of your questions we want to make sure that our funding needs are met right so we have to honor collective bargaining agreement we have to make sure we have textbook for our kids we have to honor the the benefit changes and you know provide the right benefits to our employees and and this cannot happen

[00:55:45] alone we body of 12 board members cannot really you know advocate for the funding alone everyone the community and I'm thankful to everybody who has come today in this room and you are the voice and people listening or just please be engaged in the budget process this is a really important year for the budget year for us and we would like everybody to kind of keep pay attention to it but that said I wanted to just ask a couple of questions and it was maybe to you miss burden the organization of our size how much people in general if you think

[00:56:24] a private industry how many people would have in a budget office ballpark we would have to research that and get back with you I don't know what private industry yeah I like to know the reason is being when we you know your budget office we have heard about you have not increased any number of personnel for a long time and the budget question process itself you know there's so many questions provide given to you and under your team and and and not just

[00:57:00] supervisors as well so we you handle a lot of extra work at that time so I just want to say that you know despite having a full load of work already that is there being answered and given you know especially the priority questions for most of the board members and other individuals I also wanted to ask Ms.

[00:57:20] Solomon that when federal government was just firing employees and drifts and last in 2025 what did we do NFCPS did we hire fire anybody in any educator no not a single one our strategy has been to reassign and retain the expertise that we have in Fairfax County Public Schools we've been able to make sure that people retain their job their benefits their union negotiated pay raise all of those things so here's just two examples I'm just a save take your example first I I just feel very honored and be to be part of Fairfax County Public School and

[00:57:56] in this capacity or any capacity because when I walk into the schools I see the educators are giving quality education to our students and they're really going out over and beyond and and this kind of brings us together as like why we are doing this work and I will say we want to make sure we have moving forward we have to come together as a whole community to make sure we get our funding this time it is a not a big ask but it looks big lumber it's hundred ninety

[00:58:30] seven million dollars but I believe with the right advocacy we can achieve that so that's my plea to the entire community right now today and with that I'll give a go back to miss Marin I I find I know this is just a forecast but I find the responses to not be specific enough to inform the work that I want to do from now until when the budget gets proposed and certainly to inform the superintendent I also want to mention that in years past the board has issued a proclamation is a proclamation or statement a resolution stating the

[00:59:10] priorities we want in the budget I don't think we did it last year it's a really great transparent way for a board to say to the superintendent here are our top priorities and it says it to the to the community too it's unfortunate that the majority board did not want to do this last year it's a very useful tool the way I see it the board should be spending more time and further understanding what's happening with how employees are budgeted for and assigned and what positions are non-negotiable I also think that the school division needs to really consider the treatment of employees when assignments and duties

[00:59:49] change I this there's like two sides there's we want to the superintendent wants to keep as many staff as possible. But that could include assigning staff to be in completely different schools across the county, in different grade levels, in different subject areas.

[01:00:06] The other side of that is a reduction in force. I've heard so much tumult about this part, the reassignment, from educators and parents. Is that outweighing the unfortunate choice of doing a reduction in force?

[01:00:23] That's a hard conversation, but the stories I have heard about staff being rearranged for budget cuts it doesn't sound like people are happy and I again don't have a sense of the scope of all of the reassigning that was done to meet what whatever goal was to save money I think the board needs to focus on how our employees are funded and assigned miss Anderson for a go back mr. Solomon one more time can we reiterate how many positions are were we talking about with the the number of teachers that needed to be reassigned

[01:01:02] after the school year started really around that July timeframe to after school it was no more than a few dozen okay so I understand that all of us may have anecdotally been hearing from individual members of our community about specific impacts but I would say that I would guess if we're talking about the 36 at the most 40 people that didn't lose their jobs I would say that there are probably that was probably a better decision I understand that we are going to start every school year with a certain amount of disruption in

[01:01:38] particular locations based on staffing but I would like to reiterate from my perspective I appreciate that approach because as we're watching the significant rifts that have been happening in the federal government many there are lots of our our families that this is the income now and so I I would say personally and I assume that staff members had a choice as to whether or not they continued with their contract if they were transferred is that correct yes ma'am that's correct do we have a number of how how many people decided to take the transfer or left the division I'll have to go and research but my guess is that most accepted the opportunity it would be wonderful if you

[01:02:17] could provide the board with that information so I appreciate the the initial look here I know that this is a hard magic ball to look at in terms of all the different moving parts and I know that we're waiting as always for a lot of information to come from other locations in order for us to get the Folsom picture of what our budget is going to look like I certainly have a lot to talk to my community about so I appreciate all the work here thank you so I really wanted to thank you everyone here in this room and this burden Matthew the budget team for putting this together and now I would just say at

[01:02:55] this time we will adjourn the budget committee of the whole at 12:53 p.m. Thank you to order at 1:26 p.m. Mr. Frisch has submitted a request to attend this afternoon's meeting remotely due to our personal conflict as he has a work obligation and is located at his home in the Providence district I have performed an initial review of mr. well miss lady has the chair has performed an initial

[01:03:31] review of mr. Frisch's request and having it found having found it to be in compliance with the school board's remote participation resolution she confirmed the request mr. Frisch we see you can can we hear you yes my head is life-size on that giant screen excellent I will now ask all board members who are physically present to vote on the following all of those in favor of approving mr. Frisch's request miss st. John Cunning miss lady mr. McDaniel Mr. Dannon, Mr. Moon, Ms. Marin, and myself, all those opposed?

[01:04:09] Dr. Anderson, that is good.

[01:04:14] Okay, so I call on Dr. Reed for a presentation on K-12 start times production with the board.

[01:04:57] Thanks, Dr. Reed. I'd like to, you already introduced Paul D'Andrade. For those that don't know, he is the Executive Director of Transportation for FCPS. I've got a couple teammates in the front row in the back there that I just want to call out. We've got Dr. Mark Emery representing after-school programs and Tom Horn.

[01:05:16] And then I've got the ORPE, the Office of Research and Program Evaluation leader, Kelly Kim, and two of the three teammates, Paolo and Micaela, who have done a lot to help us out. Krista O'Connell is the third. So I just wanted to make sure we saw them and introduce them.

[01:05:34] Next slide, Janet, please. So I'm going to start with board direction and background. October 23, 2025, the board voted to direct superintendent to postpone any division-wide implementation of school start time changes until no earlier than 27-28.

[01:05:54] Additionally, the school board directed the superintendent to present to the board no later than December of 26 a plan outlining viable options for healthy school start times that, where possible, are budget-neutral and minimize impacts on staff. It's always important to start with that motion so we know what target we were shooting for was background just to help people that may have not have been here for the whole journey understand where we started recently and how we got to where we're at today that we had a contract awarded to a vendor in September of 23 to look at what at the time we were calling middle school start times we've since

[01:06:30] changed them to school start times because we know to change one you're going to change them all they provided several options that were presented during work sessions in December 24 and February 25 none got like a general majority consensus so in the summer of 25 the transportation team went at salt providing a couple solutions on their own and came back in the fall of 25 presenting one of those solutions that we felt was the best the most optimal which was elementary school first and the 30-minute shift to the right option

[01:07:07] from the vendor and that led to the board direction that I just read that said get back by December of this year with viable options cost neutral where possible with minimal impacts next slide please community engagement back in the fall of last year when we went out with the survey we had very good success thanks to Kelly and her team back then they started helping us at that time with the survey over 25,000 respondents from family staff and the community no consensus gained there either you can see the percentages based on overall

[01:07:44] choice was 42% in favor of a 30-minute shift 32% in favor of elementary first and then if you broke it down further by relationship to FCPS you saw that staff preferred elementary first 37% parents preferred a 30-minute shift at 46% The common theme between all the options, and we've seen this from day one of doing any of the start times work, is impact on work schedules, extracurriculars, the transportation ability to do it and the costs associated with it, and morning darkness impacts and mitigations.

[01:08:21] Proposed community engagement this round, ORP in the back there, has helped us have a really solid survey queued up to go in this month, November 17th to the 1st of December to get that feedback from the community again, the family and staff.

[01:08:40] And there's also the potential for community meetings if we go that way. Next slide, please. So key themes and consensus from the school board feedback over the summer. We placed them in three kind of groupings that you'll see on the slide here. The first was decision framework.

[01:08:57] The decision needed to be driven by data, anchored in the sleep science, and informed by family and staff input. The second bucket that we had there was bell schedule structure that elementary schools going first and our runtime of 100 to 110 minutes were acceptable.

[01:09:16] And then number three, fiscal and operations. That it would be cost neutral where possible. Civil twilight with mitigations was acceptable. And comms is critical after a decision for future success as we implement. And these were the common themes from the school board members, just so we knew that we had a good path ahead as we were developing the solutions.

[01:09:39] Next slide, please. So elementary school first options. So let me start by explaining the slide. There's a lot on here, and then I'll walk through it. So, as you're looking at your slide in the quadrants, the upper left slide is the breakdown of the tiers and the times and some operational details on the elementary school first option.

[01:10:00] As a reference point, the quadrant below that is the current bell schedule, so you have a reference. The upper right is specialty and special education alignment, so that we can show you the alignment of those different programs with the elementary school first option. And then the lower right some areas that we know are important for discussion in terms of sports, community use, and middle schools. And on the bottom is just a key rationale statement there of how this aligns with the sleep science of getting adolescents after 8:30. So now let me walk through the slide. Elementary school first option, you can see on there, elementary tier one and tier two, 7:30 and 8. This

[01:10:37] consolidates from what we currently do today, which is we have four or more, it's more than four tiers we have four main and then we have some sprinklings of different elementary schools in there and this gets us down to just two tiers two start times for elementary school and it aligns it cleanly accommodates the pre-k and K programs if you look at the high school and secondary going at 8:40 start time that aligns high school and secondary as well because right now they're going at 8:00 and 8:10 and in this we get them on the same time schedule which is helpful for a lot of reasons and then middle school at 9:20

[01:11:16] that helps us to get to the point of all adolescents are going at 8:30 or later which abides by the sleep science if you look over to the specialty and special education alignment this the high school tier aligns with Cedar Lane in the Davis Center Burke Middle School and Montrose aligns with the middle school and Key and Kilmer still are accommodated their six-hour day windows and as I mentioned pre-k and PAC line up some items that I would will probably come up in discussion high school and secondary sports game times are not affected practice times are shifted 30 minutes to the right and as we all know that then

[01:11:55] cascades into community use we recently redid the community use MOU somewhere about the last two years I can't remember exactly where we changed it from fixed times of transfer of 5:00 and 5:30 in the MOU to say two and a half hours after last bell so that it would accommodate any future people were forward-thinking to say hey if we change start times and it affects stuff we just already have it in the MOU to shift with the bell times and then middle school sports and after-school programming next slide please Janice Janet elementary

[01:12:34] school first option this is the annual investment it'd be 1.6 million for the 20 additional drivers we're able to minimize the cost impact because we could slow down our busty commissioning schedule by 20 buses to support this our busty commissioning schedule we buses we target replacing them at 15 years and 200,000 miles they are all always safe inspected maintaining it just gets to a point where they start to cost a lot more in fuel and maintenance and it make sense to replace them at that time.

[01:13:07] But in situations like this, we can delay some of that to help take care of that, to minimize that cost. I'd also like to mention on that a point at the bottom here, the third bullet, start time shifts later. So on their previous elementary school, we had the tiers of 7:30 and 8:00.

[01:13:24] If we wanted to slide that to 7:35, 8:05, 8:45, slide that whole thing by 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15, if we thought that would work better for whatever reason, we can do that, and it's not going to impact the cost, right? It's just going to impact you on the ending of the day, where you would be ending a little bit later.

[01:13:43] Or you could shift it to the left as well, five minutes earlier, 10 minutes earlier. So we have that flexibility there. Janet, next slide, please. Now, this is the 30-minute shift option. And everything-- the option and the cost is on this one slide.

[01:13:59] It was a little easier to consolidate in here. You've got the school tiers down the left, middle going first, secondary second, then high school, then elementary school, the same tier approach that we do today. And you can see the next column is current bell schedule and then proposed bell schedule.

[01:14:17] So middle schools are going to shift from 7:30 to 8:00, and then everybody shifts 30 minutes down the line, with that last elementary school tier shifting from a 9:20 start to a 9:50 start, and a 4:05 end to a 4:35 end.

[01:14:33] I know the starting point of our day, our route, and our ending time are always important points of discussion. The secondary and high school, this gets them both in line with the sleep science at 8:30 or later, and it gets the middle school closer, halfway 30 minutes closer to that.

[01:14:53] And again, like I mentioned on the previous one, we can shift this. we said this is a 30-minute option, but we could make it 15 only or 45. It just depends on how that impacts other factors that I'm sure we'll talk about today. Janet, next slide, please.

[01:15:10] And this is the no change option. Third and final is we just leave things as it is today, and that's just a lay down of what we're doing already. Janet, next slide, please. So civil twilight loading and unloading is an important part of this discussion because that has an impact on the start of the day and the end of the day, right?

[01:15:30] the light and darkness, loading kids, the safety. And we felt it was worthy of a better explanation and some visuals. And I have to shout out to the ORPE team in the back again, because it really helped me and Paul and our team kind of understand the civil twilight much better than previously thought.

[01:15:48] So these are a couple quick definitions that help us get on the same page. Solar angle threshold, basically the sun's position relative to the horizon. Morning civil twilight dawn is that period when the sun is six degrees below the horizon until it just peaks above the horizon.

[01:16:04] And then reverse at night. From the moment the sun goes below the horizon until it's six degrees or greater is evening, civil, twilight, or dusk. That timing window each day is 25 to 30 minutes in the morning, 25 to 30 minutes in the afternoon.

[01:16:21] The illumination quality, it marks that point where the natural light in a clear night is you still have good visibility, right? If it's cloudy or the weather comes in, that could impact it, but it's still of a safe illumination quality. And translation light is the same thing.

[01:16:37] It's transition rather than full darkness, and we all kind of get that. Next slide, please. So what you're looking at here, let me explain this slide because we have three of these. Elementary first option, civil twilight, and daily impacted students.

[01:16:53] So on this, on the left half, you've got two charts. The y-axis is number of students. The x-axis is the school year in weekly increments. You have that first one is the impacted AM or morning students.

[01:17:08] The second one is the impacted or the PM or afternoon students. Yellow is high school. Teal is middle. Dark blue is green. And then the numbers associated with that that I'll refer to are in the boxes on the right. So as you're looking at this, the one thing that first jumped out at me with the help from ORPEI was I used to think Civil Twilight, that big period, December to January, around winter solstice, that was that period we had to worry about.

[01:17:37] When ORPEI put all this together, it opened my eyes to a better visual of what was going on. So you really have three peaks. You have that biggest peak in late October right before you go to daylight savings time. And in this case, it would be 19,000 impacted elementary school students.

[01:18:00] And then you would see that other peak in the December to January area at winter solstice, 10,000 roughly, and then another one at the end of March, right before spring forward, and you shift the clocks back. The evening impact on this one would be middle schoolers, because in the elementary school first, elementary high middle.

[01:18:20] And if you look really closely, you can see some little boxes down on the x-axis for the 95 middle school students that would be impacted. Janet, next slide, please. This is the same setup, 30-minute shift option, Civil Twilight, if we shifted times 30 minutes to the right.

[01:18:41] Now, remember, on this one, the impacted students in the morning changes to the middle schoolers and high schoolers, and in the afternoon would be elementary schoolers. So when you're looking at this, that first peak right before daylight savings time starts, got about 8,400 middle school and a few high schoolers impacted.

[01:19:00] That winter, December, January peak, 4,200 middle schoolers, high schoolers. And then that last little one right before we switch back the clock, spring forward on the clocks, 3,000 students. And then you'll notice now we have a little bit bigger impact in the PM drop off of elementary school students, 11,000 students.

[01:19:23] Next slide, Janet. And then the no change option. So here's what we're doing today. So today, we have 21,000 middle schoolers and high schoolers impacted in the morning in that first peak at the end of October, 19,000 over the winter holidays, and then another 18,000 right before we spring forward.

[01:19:43] And a little small impact of 158 elementary school students in the afternoon. Janet, next slide. So this slide-- I was having a discussion with the ORPEAT team like two weeks ago while we were working on this.

[01:20:03] 10-minute discussion. When I left my office, I went back, had to work on something. And about an hour and a half later, they sent me this and said, hey, do you think this would be helpful? And this is a great visual when we see it in full run here. So Paul and I were challenged, getting the district and those blue dots that you're looking at bigger on the screen.

[01:20:24] And we'll work on that to get it better going forward. But what you're looking at is you're looking at the district with, in this example, the 9320 elementary school stops. And they're all represented by a blue dot. A blue dot means they are not impacted by civil twilight.

[01:20:40] When I ask Janet to hit play, it's in time lapse. So it's going to go two days per second. So it's pretty fast. But what you're going to see is when the dots change from blue to red, they're impacted by civil twilight. And you'll see that one peak, that big peak in October, November drop off.

[01:21:00] You'll see that mountain there at December time frame. And then you'll see the other little one at the end. Janet, are you OK to hit play for me? All right. I'm sorry. It's small, and we will work on that.

[01:21:16] But you'll start seeing those dots come up. We're in October, October 15th coming up. Start seeing some red build. Now we're at October 29. I'll tell you that just so you see. And then it drops off. We're in November. And they're all over the county.

[01:21:33] They're not just in one area like you would think, like on the western boundary impacted. December 5th, December 15th, January 5th. It skipped over. You can see it coming back down again.

[01:21:51] Now we're in February 10th, February 25th, March 29th, 30th.

[01:22:11] Now we're into April, and it's back down to blue. Thanks, Janet. You can hit pause. I appreciate everybody's patience going through there, but it was a very good visual for Paul and I when we saw it to see. It just shows you how much or how little impact there is across that board.

[01:22:29] And going down the road, this would also be a very good tool to use public facing at some point really to help parents out understanding what that light and darkness is doing to impact their specific site and what they might have to do at their bus stop for their kids.

[01:22:46] Next slide, please. Civil twilight mitigation strategies. So while the previous slide showed us the impact of how many students, how many slides, if one is impacted, we still want to think about how to positively keep them safe and things we can do to mitigate those situations.

[01:23:09] And we've got them in four areas here. One, regulatory alignment and safety standards. Make sure we're doing the right thing by the rules and laws that are out there. National Highway Traffic and Safety Association and Virginia guidance is it does not establish civil twilight loading and unloading as a single data point threshold to stop, meaning you can do it.

[01:23:29] You just have to figure out how to mitigate it. Those next two bullets are things that we already do on a daily basis. We be in the Safe Routes to School team and the transportation team, right? When they're looking at bus stops every year, or if we get a heads up that somebody feels something's not safe, they're out there looking at it from these same factors here-- site, distance, speed, illumination, pedestrian safety, well-lit streets, all that. The second area is adult supervision and receipt protocols. Adult supervision, a lot of us see adults out at elementary school stops today when we're driving to and from work, so having adults at those would be a great

[01:24:06] thing to help get that community involvement on those stops that it is an impact. Adult receipt is something we do already, that's those pre-KK kids to make sure they're handed off by an adult in the morning and at night. So there's a good transition, good safety there in any kind of light.

[01:24:23] And encouraging the neighborhood walking groups and bus stop groups. Area three mitigation, high visibility gear and identification, vests that could be worn to help highlight the kids, stickers for backpacks that are reflectors that all of them could have, and bus safety enhancements.

[01:24:42] Paul works all the time. Every time we are getting a new electric bus or a diesel bus, he is looking at the current safety enhancements that are available that time and gets those buses outfitted with him. So there are things out there on our new buses with better LED lighting of a bus when it's loading and unloading, things like that that we're constantly doing.

[01:25:01] And then real-time tracking technology, right? What you want to be able to do is minimize your time out there in an unsafe environment. So with the new Fairfax MyRide app that we're really close to being to a point where we love it a lot more than here comes the bus.

[01:25:17] If it gives you that very accurate, real time, one minute away of your bus, now you're getting out there with your kid just in time delivery to the bus showing up as opposed to getting out there and finding out you had to wait 10 minutes because it got a delay somewhere, right? That's all part of mitigating that scenario.

[01:25:35] Next slide, please, Janet. We wouldn't be able to get through this without talking about something that's out there in the federal world, the Sunshine Protection Act. That is a legislation to go to permanent daylight savings time.

[01:25:55] So what that would mean is one time, November, the clock shifts back an hour, and it never changes. So where we're at today is where we would be going forward in the future. No spring forward. This would be it. In the early fall, that legislation passed.

[01:26:13] the House, and it is in the Senate. And right now, it's kind of at a stalemate. There's several senators in the Midwest who do not support it at all. So that's kind of blocking it at this point. You can see on those same charts, similar to what you were looking at before, the current impact in the blue and the permanent daylight savings time impact.

[01:26:35] And this is based on an elementary school students going first example. But it pretty much impacts everybody that would be loading in the morning, right? We're adding an hour of darkness in the morning. So it would really cause us, if this became a law and became permanent, we probably need to go back to the drawing board to look at our start times overall, just because everybody would be in the dark in the morning.

[01:26:58] And we'd have to take another look at it. Just wanted to put that out there so everybody knew we were aware and we were thinking about it. Next slide and last slide. This is just the decision timeline and just some rough, big pieces of an implementation plan.

[01:27:15] We met with SLT and meeting managers in October. We're here today. We have school board meeting briefing on December 3 and a school board meeting vote on the 17th. Those are a couple of big muscle movements for implementation if we vote on a change-- or if you all vote on a change.

[01:27:33] Finalize routing driver recruitment, coordinate with the boundary review adjustments, maximizing efficiency, and then heavy on communications to everyone. And that is it.

[01:27:49] Thank you, Mr. Muick. Yes, ma'am. I want to start by recognizing that we have the Honorable Sandy Evans, the former school board member from the Mason District. And I love that I actually have a connection with names for all of my Mason District representatives.

[01:28:06] It's perfect. OK, so we're going to go ahead and kick things off dr. Anderson that is actually a thing playing the name game so who's going to be connecting with Riccardi no one says no one ever definitely please don't use that as part of my time thank you and thank you for explaining some of the more interesting charts with the civil twilight that's appreciated quite a bit

[01:28:44] I want to start kind of at the beginning in terms of the the key themes the decision-making framework I really appreciate what has come up I guess from your conversations with the board regarding being data-driven science anchored and community and put being a consideration factor not a driving factor because I think that is important the way that I come to this and I'm hoping we can all commit to coming to this is the students are first it has to be what is best for the students which is not necessarily going to be what's the

[01:29:24] most convenient for the adults that are in their lives whether it be their parents or their their teaching staff but at the end of the day this whole conversation began because we want to do the right work for students so for me I'm laser focused on that as my centering factor the other thing that I want to ask Dr. Reed I know we talked about this this is way a long time ago when you first got here and you had talked to me about doing this work and North Shore probably just a year or so before before leaving there can you give

[01:30:01] me a sense of do you see a sense of urgency on this and what in this framework speaks to you in terms of these options? So thank you, Dr. Anderson. It is work that I had previously done in several other divisions.

[01:30:19] And I will say that in terms of urgency, I feel like Mr. Muick and Mr. D'Andrati have been exceptional in activating their teams to do a lot of study and also our ORPE teams with all the other work going on as well.

[01:30:39] with the start of school and so forth I think one sign the board should note around our sense of urgency is we really tried to drive the cost down as much as humanly possible to do this because initially we had the 20 bus cost in there as well and when mr. Muick and I talked I said well if we don't surplus 20 buses right maybe we can bring that cost down we still need the buses but we're not buying and surplusing those which as long as we're still maintaining a safe fleet, I think we can acknowledge it can work.

[01:31:11] So we're bringing you the most cost-effective model that we can contemplate in alignment with your motion, as well as an option that doesn't have financial cost to it. I think in speaking with a couple of the board members, we don't necessarily need to stay with 30 minutes or this other option.

[01:31:31] It can be, as Mr. Muick said, we can adjust to 10 minutes or 20 minutes, but as long as the whole system moves one way or the other there's not an additional cost to that so really I think at this point you know I think the the balance point for the community given our size and scope is you know what makes the most sense for Fairfax County I think there's some other context I just want to mention in the school division I came from we managed all our own facilities in our own fields so I do think there is going to be a conversation that will be necessary for example in terms of scheduling and that type of thing if we

[01:32:10] move certain levels for example if middle school moves later we're obviously going to need to adjust our use of fields and facilities because our children in our middle schools need to be able to use those facilities and that wasn't a factor in a prior work that I did and secondly I know there's some discussion at the state level to here or of the prospective possibility of some type of decisions which I just think it's worth noting I don't know what the ins and outs of that are but whatever shift we want to make I think we only want to make it once so it would probably be helpful for us to kind of

[01:32:49] get a sense of what that might look like too and I I know that you all we have a legislative meeting coming up so that would be I think a really good question because we don't want to shift and then shift again because of some possible timeline that was you know recommended or directed depending on how that plays out at the state level but I do think it's an important conversation I appreciate the team coming with options that are responsive to the motion that you put out there so thank you sure I think I want to put a little finer point on it outside of a board directive is this something that you would have

[01:33:24] addressed as the divisions leader I think it's always important to address operational topics I think that there are a lot of competing interests on this topic so I think that the community has to be prepared for the types of changes this could entail I think with all of the different initiatives we have going I think that you know we did our very best to be responsive to this topic and I know it's been a long topic mr. moon was on the board when this originally

[01:34:00] when moves were made and I'm not sure why the work wasn't finished at that time it's easier I think to do that as a package I think it's been harder to come back around and try to make sense of the motives at that time and try to align those with these because you know there are competing topics sure thank you and I'm hoping mr. moon could also speak to this when he has his turn I know in my conversations with former school board member and Evans the tenor and the community at that time when high schools would change with that sports would be decimated there was a lot of pushback to essentially the change itself I think

[01:34:39] and not necessarily the impacts that didn't really come to happen you know high school sports are thriving and so I see some of the same concerns being raised right now can you speak to a little bit to the boundary work the potential AAP work how could that potentially impact busing which could provide some savings to funnel into this activity dr. Anderson I think the answer would be yes it could provide some efficiencies in there obviously the

[01:35:13] AAP program stuff definitely would but I would just need more time to look into it to quantify how much savings and how much efficiency but it would help us out unless Paul has something to add to that because I do see that as another way to whittle down at this rate I mean at this number the tier 1 and tier 2 for elementary school kids do you have a number of how many elementary schools are in each tier it split in half about 50/50 my wondering is it's 50/50 so we're

[01:35:49] talking 142 schools lots and lots enough to cover the middle school time have we thought about having the middle school take one of these slots I'm running out of time to talk about this even looking at the 30 minute option we have the two slots I wonder if we could break it up and have I have to explain mr. Frisch first thank you to the staff for for working on this and for engaging the

[01:36:26] board in fairly extensive conversations I accept that there's no perfect solution here and that someone is going to be disappointed. That does not mean that we shouldn't try, however, to find a solution that is most agreeable and that aligns with the science.

[01:36:51] So, you know, the organic feedback that I've received thus far from what people have learned is decidedly negative, but it's a very small number of people. And I'm sure that number will grow. And to that end, I think wherever we end up, I would feel comfortable, I would not feel comfortable supporting any changes without robust engagement that provides the board with an understanding of how students, parents, or caregivers and staff feel about the changes,

[01:37:31] and whether they prefer the status quo over the proposed change. And I think I would want that information to be available to the board in a way that can tell us what families think about the changes by grade level and perhaps various demographics like income and other things, what various types of staff feel.

[01:38:00] I think sometimes we can get stuck in the aggregate number and that can be misleading. You know, are there demographics that are more or less supportive? Why might that be? And I hope that that feedback is all provided in a way that is scientifically weighted rather than a simple analysis of what is aggregate because in aggregate data sampling is informative, but it's not instructive of anything.

[01:38:27] It is informative. It's instructive of the number of people who have replied. If we don't do anything to weight it and know better who it is exactly that's providing the feedback. And so that brings us to the next point. You know, I understand that there is legislation that's working its way through Richmond.

[01:38:45] I'm excited to see that. You know, I think we need to learn a lot more about what the scope of the potential legislation will end up being. And I know that people are having those conversations and how long it would take, you know, to be implemented or to take effect.

[01:39:01] Because I would hate to be in a position where we put forward a change and then the state legislature puts in a system that requires us to change again in short succession. Now, if the legislation has a long tail on it and there's many years in between when it passes or, you know, and when it has to be implemented, I think that's less of an issue to worry about.

[01:39:22] But those are just some of the things I'm thinking about now. In general, I'm grateful about the effort to make all start times healthier. Although I'm a little concerned about the late end of the elementary school bail schedule. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Fresh. Mr. Dannon and then Miss lady Good afternoon. I first want to thank staffer and I usually say this but it but this time I really mean it This is a lot. I always mean it Yeah, this is a lot of work to put this together and you know month after month year after year kind of keep coming back to it

[01:40:02] So I want to recognize that and I also recognize that the previous boards added these constraints I think most of them rightly so right around cost and so forth that made this difficult and I you know with enough funding all things are possible right to minimize a lot of the disruptions but reading through these to me my initial sense is that the proposed benefits don't outweigh all those costs and disruptions you know I've received a lot of emails asking about the impacts on SAC and you know aftercare and so forth you know after school activities and so forth. One of the things that probably struck me most is I had a middle school teacher

[01:40:39] in my district reach out to me and say, this is all the discussion on Monday about changing start times. And she's like, look, we're the ones that teach these kids and we're telling you, please don't make this change. You know, she said that, quote, changing them to start time to, in this case, after nine o'clock would, quote, just destroy our after school program, Which is the main reason some of my kids come to school. It's the only place at school that they feel connected and see success So I'm really trying to be mindful of that and reading through it And again, I preface it. This is a lot of work, and we gave you these constraints So this is not a knock on you all, but it's just speaking it out into ether here that I don't

[01:41:19] See the benefits here outweighing those But I do want to ask a couple questions around You know since October can you talk a little bit more about the Hope deficiencies that have been gained With new routing software and so forth Since the board last discussed this a year ago, you know, I'll take that one Since we started off with a new routing software and tablets. We're able to now start to see and realize What our true ridership is and we're able to balance some of our routes We're not at a point right now where we're gaining those efficiencies

[01:41:57] But was trending upward to be able to be able to balance our routes to altogether And Mr. Dan, if I could add one comment to that, too. While initially we talked about a lot of efficiencies, I don't want us to lose sight of the whole safety and security of it, right?

[01:42:17] If we asked Mr. Lambert, he could jump on here of a couple of examples already where PD had contacted us and said, hey, we're looking for a kid for some reason. And in the past, it would be, hey, go find the video.

[01:42:32] We think he got off at this stop, whatever. And within minutes, we're sending info back to Mr. Lambert to send to PD to say, hey, kid got on the bus here, got off the bus here. We got the badge. Boom, boom, boom. So there's stuff like that while it's definitely the whole reason we did a lot of this was safety.

[01:42:50] And we're starting to see the efficiencies, like Paul said. That's great. And I don't get nearly enough emails about that kind of stuff. But I recognize there's lots of benefits to those things. Can you talk a little bit about conversations, if any, with the county about SAC and what that could look like, and related at the same time, any potential changes in after school child care needs for elementary families, which you've kind of heard, if anything, from these scenarios?

[01:43:16] Yes, sir. I had preliminary discussions when we started down this round of stuff with my counterpart at the neighborhood county services. That's where SAC resides. And their opinion was they would be able to flex with whatever we did in terms of their staff and their hours because they're there now from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. 30ish till the last kid gets picked up so it would just be kind of a shift for them and he said they could they could support whatever we needed okay I'll talk a little bit about the impact on this with students with disabilities because I think there's a

[01:43:54] lot of these potential changes students with disabilities get impacted the most by these decisions in ways we don't even think of. I'm thinking you know in Braddock we've got the only pyramid program for students are deaf and hard of hearing and we've got kids coming from all over the county. Have you at hand or I can follow up afterwards, do you have any information on what the early pickups or drop-offs would look like for those students? I'm gonna let Mr. D'Andrade hit that one as well. So for out of boundary programs it's relatively the same amount of distance and time. So none of these options will change anything

[01:44:32] that we have on the table. Miss Lady and then Miss St. John Cunning. So let me start by saying I'm not a morning person. So getting up the hour I did for high school was very difficult. I also want to thank staff and wow, slide 13, how super cool is that? So much fun. I'm gonna play it over and over again for myself later just to get giddy over it. It's so cool and very helpful because the visual is powerful question slide three community engagement was any of those community engagement questions measured against status quo or were they all new options

[01:45:12] meaning was the current keeping the current bill schedule an option in those surveys in the the previous one you're talking about the one last fall we didn't call it status quo we the question the answer in there was neither so it was elementary school first 30-minute shift or neither and we didn't word it right in the version that or P has developed for us this time it calls it out as you know you can change you can change or you can stay the same thank you because I had a lot of questions about the neither they thought I'm gonna pick one because it could happen either way so they picked the least of the two

[01:45:48] situations I will say again that slide six elementary first 1.7 million this is not a time where we have 1.7 million dollars so to me that's entirely off the table slide 12 question the eligible bus riders or actual bus riders when you talk about the number impacted by your graphs for those eligible for a bus are those actually riding a bus because we have a lot of kiss and ride please pause that is based on the eligible thank you and then as my colleagues have said

[01:46:25] slide 15 which talks about the sunshine protection law and then the forthcoming expectation of a healthy start time bill. Neither are laws yet, but I would want to pause before I implement anything. In my limited time that I have left, I will say that I did survey my community, and as of 1030 this morning, I had 532 responses, 54% from parents, 39% from staff. 68% will have a student in our school, have a student in our school. Of those who responded 52% were elementary 34% were middle and only 19 were high school

[01:47:05] thoughts and concerns around shifting start times the top three were family morning routines work schedules transportation number two 47% impact on student participation athletics clubs and jobs 40 per percent before and after-school childcare logistics and finally I did offer no change or 30 minute shift or elementary first no change 52.9% overwhelming the 30 minute shift 25 and elementary first 22 and then there are 209 comments I haven't gotten through so I will also say in my last 33 seconds that I'm okay if the

[01:47:40] board comes to a place of looking at the cost neutral option here but we have got to put it back out to the entire community and our faculty and staff and ask them do you want status quo or do you want this one that is is cost neutral and sadly I expect to find out that people will not want to change and I hate to say that because I completely understand the science but I also know I lived through this at Chantilly when the last board grappled with it and they ended up shifting high school middle school because it was only two years at the middle school level where they would be early and there's there are three in

[01:48:18] certain cases and that's how they got there and I guarantee you they went through all these other iterations at that same time so I'm just not going to support making a change until we put it back out to everybody to pick either the new version or status quo. Thanks. Ms. St. John Cunningham and then Ms. Barron. Okay so I do want to echo what my colleagues have said. Thank you. I know this is a lot of work and thought that has gone into this. Some of the questions I'm asking are questions that have come to me from my constituents which was one of them was what what specific criteria will determine whether an elementary school

[01:48:57] is assigned tier one versus tier two under option one so the first one is to mitigate any civil twilight so the stops that we have that would be violated more we'll push those to the eight o'clock time so that's what's our guidance principles between the two tiers so that you're talking about the route of the time that it gets it takes so depending on the pick up time that it takes okay

[01:49:27] Right. Okay, that's helpful to know. One of the other questions I want to ask, because what happened in the past during the high school time change, was there a waterfall effect when that happened that filtered down to elementary school start times when we did change high school start times? I don't know. I don't have the history of that, so I don't know. I do know that my daughters were in high school and they were really happy that they got to go to school later.

[01:49:57] I I do not know I'll have to get an answer to that and get back to you sorry about that okay and that initial and I I just excuse me if I can't remember the initial survey that was sent out at the beginning that was referred to earlier did elementary school parents get that survey as well yes they did it went out to everybody do we have the number the one in the fall are you referring to the

[01:50:29] one in the fall or the one when we had the vendor okay vendor didn't go out to the elementary but the one in the fall I'm looking back at my ORP team went to everybody so the most recent one that we talked about in the slides went to everybody do we have the percentage of do we have the breakdown of the percentage of the respondents like elementary school middle school high school that responded do we have that breakdown we do okay we do would you please provide that to us yes ma'am thank you the other thing that when we're

[01:51:06] talking about our pre our pre-k impact how will moving this elementary morning windows impacted in terms of just because this is handled a little bit differently and so those kids are picked up at their homes like what will that door-to-door impact be for for our pre-k special education kids um there we no change the only change that you'll see because you know you have your p.m.

[01:51:36] schedules and your a.m. schedules so you'll find the drop-off times and the pickup times to be early the school would dismiss and start earlier than normal but the same level of service that we have picking up at the door that wouldn't change okay that's all I have for now thank you and I do do want to say that I I totally understand everything that's been said here and there might be some changes in terms of daylight saving time being changed and what's going on at the at the state level the science of why it's important

[01:52:10] and there's a lot of things that we as we have to take into consideration taking feedback too as well from our community so thank you miss Marin thank you and I appreciate the suggestion that I had shared in the summer which was to come back to us with recommendations based on information and it really is helpful so So I'm glad we finally got to this place where we have all these pieces of data.

[01:52:38] I think the civil twilight is really interesting. And it makes me think about our federal advocacy. And certainly, I think that's something we need to add to our program, but to ask our legislators not to be in favor of that from a school's perspective, because it seems to put a lot of kids in danger, although I just heard about it.

[01:52:56] So we can research it more, but that stands out to me. So I think there's still more data. Like, I'm just thinking about all the places where things connect on different issues that we talk about. You know, the nexus of bus ridership and the traffic congestion around kiss and ride, you know, we heard that presentation earlier this year.

[01:53:18] And so I'd love to know, are we doing everything we can to ensure that the kids who are assigned a bus ride a bus and we're curtailing our kiss and ride? And I don't think we had any clear steps on whether the recommendations from the report were being implemented but I see that as like there's a big behavioral piece that's got to go with this and the team alluded to it about you know informing parents and kids about you know wearing reflective gear and whatnot but you know this certainly ties into all the traffic safety work and the actual road safety that we need to be receiving you know from county and state and federal I also

[01:53:58] do want to raise you know and just thinking about how kids are transported Could we lower our burden of service by looking at why we're transporting kids around the division for different reasons, per policy, per regulation, per board decision?

[01:54:17] These would be interesting topics to dig into. This way, we can stay on top of issues like this so it's not 10 years before we're addressing some of these other things that we know are a challenge. I also think that getting input or at least giving a heads up to the partners over in the county from community use.

[01:54:36] Because no matter-- well, I won't say no matter, but there's certainly going to be an impact if there's a change. But I also find it tough to talk about the after-school programs, because once again, these are probably precarious, hanging in the budget negotiations.

[01:54:51] And it's hard to plan when we don't know if we'll be responsible. And if we were responsible, maybe we'd offer it differently. So I'm confident that whatever happens, Dr. Reid will find a way to offer robust after-school programming. We've seen it only increase.

[01:55:07] So I would want to see that go on. But I think the board has to decide, is this something we're going to do now? Is the health of kids paramount? And I think these are the best options we're going to get. So we have a decision to make.

[01:55:23] Thank you. Ms. Tixit. Thank you, Andy. Paul, thank you for this presentation. think it's very comprehensive and felt part of and touched all the points which probably we needed for the discussion today and thoroughly gone through this and also done my own research and I did send a survey out to my own community it's in Sully district and I received a lot of responses and it was in over 24

[01:55:57] hours time I got responses of 623 constituents in my district and 60% of them would like to continue with the current schedule and I understand the middle school households do want a change which is which was a small part of the survey who responded but majority is speaking about of about work life situation because many households have working parents and the SAC availability and if we change the elementary school timing that that would

[01:56:33] be a problem and we don't control that the SAC is controlled by the county there is also question about the actually is concerned about the household that there are economic times where we know people staying in job is really important and there's going to be some more bad times coming hopefully not in our area but I think nobody wants to change right now I feel it is more of that then people really don't want to change school time they just have so much uncertainty uncertainties going on right now in finances economy these in

[01:57:12] the gas prices and everything else so even though I really want this to happen for a middle schooler but at this point I would like to say my community is talking about to stay sustain what we have right now so I'll be just watching the conversation and and then also discussing with my community maybe I'll do some community townhouse but but thank you for putting this gather mr.

[01:57:40] moon thank you mr. Anderson first of all I always want to recognize after she was sitting next to Sandy Evans. Okay, representative from a slave organization who has been advocating for healthy school style times for decades. I applaud their efforts and time and efforts, you know, put into this continuing to come to the school board meetings and contacting school board members and etc. With that

[01:58:15] said, with that said, I do not want the decision to be kicked down the road any further than the timeline specified in the presentation, which is by the end of December. I mean, this has been in place by the former board since 2023, so we are almost four years going to this, and I think we need to come to a conclusion on this one.

[01:58:42] As to the invitation from Dr. Anderson to talk about, for me to comment on some of the I guess when BOLD long, long ago was making decisions and getting various different feedbacks from the community, any change, any change would have an impact on people's lives.

[01:59:05] And some of the impact are not always a positive. There are some negative consequences as well. When there are negative consequences, people react. And all different options that the BOLD in the long, long ago considered or has certain aspects of a negative consequences to come up come with and and those same types of negative consequences still exist in whatever the options that we may consider and the options that are being proposed by the by the staff for us to consider as well as to the question from a doctor read

[01:59:43] about why this wasn't done together when high school start times changed it was money issue. We only had, we're dealing with a limited amount of resources at our disposal to make changes and we were not able to do both for both middle and high school together to provide everybody healthier start times. With that said, I stand by my urge to make a decision by the end of December. Even though at this point in time I'm leaning towards a certain direction, I don't want to prejudice the input that will be provided by the community on various

[02:00:22] different options I believe that will have survey to be done by the end of November is that yes sir okay and will the survey results be available by the first meeting in December December 3rd when the board will be briefed yes sir the survey would run November 17th to December 1st and ORP said they can turn around the results in about a day so it'll be just-in-time delivery unfortunately but we'll have it before that meeting so I'm gonna wait until you

[02:00:56] know somebody just come back to us okay thank you I will also have to request a waiver for the five-day posting window because December 1st will not be five days before December 3rd so we would need to waive that okay I'm gonna go ahead and take a quick turn and it'll probably be one of two most likely this one's a hard one for me as as someone who worked with 16 to 18 year old baton

[02:01:30] your skew for a while 15 years or so I advocated strongly for sleep because our kiddos need sleep the most I also put out a survey and had hundreds of parents respond the issue that we've got is we are assuming that a disruption in the household is not going to cause stress for a child too and that was brought forth to my attention fairly like clearly when parents are are talking about the what's gonna happen here if we move elementary to 7:30 because in

[02:02:09] Clifton we've closed their elementary school it's probably the largest land area in all of Fairfax County that does not have a school so all of those kids are bussed out. So if we have kiddos that are on a 45-minute bus ride, that means we have a pickup time at 6.30 in the morning for our youngest kids. And I don't like it happening with 7th and 8th graders. I certainly don't. But the benefit up to this point is that 7th and 8th graders from that location are on the high school bus because most of those kids are in the secondary schools. So that has been the saving grace for those 7th and 8th graders up to this point because of the fact

[02:02:47] that they are on the high school bus so this is going to be a significant issue for me in in the overall concern I am also I have been talking to the lawmakers that are bringing forward the bill there's a carve out in the in the language that's being put forward for rural but it's not going to include us and so I just want to keep those things in mind it looks like there would be an implementation required if it goes through the way that they're expecting it to divisions would be required to implement this by 2030 31 so a number of

[02:03:21] years from now looking at the top largest school districts and in the state we have of the 10 11 of those start times with middle and high school out of the 20 would have to be changed 11 of them are out of compliance and what I'm concerned about most significantly is 215 for a let you know release for elementary schools our buses from the city do not run until 3:00 so kids so parents that are taking the bus as transit can't even get back to the area until they can get on a bus at 3:00 and then arrive home so that is you are

[02:04:01] created we are creating a daycare requirement that is unheard of right now and I am NOT a hundred percent sure that the industry can meet our need that quickly so anything that we do I would advocate we need a year and a half to make sure that the the entire community can actually come behind this and understand what's going to be happening so we need a longer runway than half a year and I will put my cell phone to go back dr. Anderson thank you can you speak

[02:04:33] to what is your anticipated pickup time with the elementary first option the earliest if you give me one second I have those Paul do you have those handy I know we had your talk on an average about 40 minutes from that 7:30 earliest pickup time so then that brings a six o'clock wake-up time for those elementary school students essentially in order to get to the bus on time and

[02:05:11] to have the 40 minutes to get to school I'm not a fan of the elementary first option as proposed I work in a division where that was the option but it wasn't this and this severe I'm also not fully sold on the 30-minute option although that's the one I'd like to investigate a little bit more in terms of how can we do some shifting to make that reasonable I'm not a fan of you know let's wait until the law comes out because what if it doesn't we don't know that and then

[02:05:48] we have lost the opportunity to do something that we all know is good for kids so here's my wondering and hopefully I could articulate this clearly the 30-minute shift option you talked about we could move that 10 minutes each way can you confirm what you shared earlier yes ma'am we can shift that five minutes ten minutes right left both that and the elementary school first of what's proposed yes ma'am and I just want to say I found

[02:06:23] so the elementary school 7:30 first tier their earliest pickup would be 6:15 a.m. and then the 30 minute shift earliest pickup for middle school is 6:00 a.m. yeah that doesn't work that's 6:50 that doesn't work I I don't think you know these are our best options I think another better option still awaits us here's my question to you this is slide seven is there a way for the middle school time of 8 o'clock which is 25 schools could we potentially put one of

[02:07:01] the elementary tiers at 8 o'clock as well we do have some outliers with elementary school starting at the same time that 8 o'clock time but you have to keep in mind that we have so many elementary schools in the demand for for busing so that's what makes it a little bit more difficult adding but we do have some instances where we do have some elementary schools going in early than the 8:30 or earlier than the 9 o'clock. Right I realize that I'm asking about this option. Could we adjust this option so that at the middle school time

[02:07:37] or even the secondary school time that we slot one of the middle one of the elementary school tiers in that because the 9:50 it's a little bit hard to summit. Mr. Dannon. Wait hold on. I mean we can go back and look at it but I don't know that we have those enough resources to cover that right with the number of buses we'll have to take a look at and get back to you on that one because I'm not sure that we can make that work just from a standpoint of the routing the

[02:08:13] buses getting everybody there we'll take a look mr. Tannen thanks so going back to the topic of students with disabilities and I recognize the impact and run times for students receiving services out of boundary would stay largely consistent given that you just mentioned about the earliest pickup time for elementary i think under the first scenario would be 6 15 a.m is that across the board or would there be potentially special education or other students who would be being picked up even earlier than 6 15. that was just the very earliest so for any student yeah like if you looked at uh

[02:08:49] if you go back to that visual of the blue dots red dots you know those 6 15s were some of those red dots in there and so it's it's a small amount but it's still early for those kids okay um Do you have a sense of how many special education bus routes are within 20 minutes or less, 20 to 40 minutes, more than an hour, that kind of breakdown?

[02:09:17] And I guess, could you imagine, would there be a change under this to that breakdown? Our range of special ed averages from 25 to 80 minutes, or ranges from 25 to 80 minutes. And those are kids from all over the county that are getting bused into typically one of four places right Quander Davis Pulley Cedar so some of those have some long rides okay that was one of my other questions is yeah we have very few of those CSS sites in the county so of the of that 25 to 80 minutes where's the median there what's the I guess average or modal our average is 45 but I don't

[02:09:56] have the median handy that covers most of my questions I might follow up later around with some more but again thank you all for taking the time to crunch all these numbers yes sir mr. moon miss st. John Cunning um so I have one more question just based and I know this is very fresh just based on the fact that the legislation the state is looking at would have carve-outs for rural you know

[02:10:31] schools and I don't know we know what the basis of that is is it time on the bus because I mean we are such a unique county where we do have something like a Clifton and but we also have to take into consideration traffic and the time so if the consideration the state is looking at is time on the bus and there are carve outs is that something that we should also be considering just I know this this is just a thought that came to me with the thought of why the carve out what's the reasoning and we do have some of those areas here that have those

[02:11:11] long commute times because of congestion versus the long commute times because of rural and we also have kind of like the Clifton area which fits would fit into a I would say a rural carve-out not something I'm expecting something it's just a wondering that that I'm putting out there I'm not sure how the bill is going to be written to say whether car routes we have for rural versus not you know urban settings you know there's something that we'll definitely continue

[02:11:44] to look at and see how we'll adjust our start times accordingly but not sure if that's going to be within the time frame of any decisions you guys will have to make the st. John Cunningham is that okay perfect okay then I'm going to go ahead and take my turn I want to start by said like I should have said this earlier I so appreciate all the work that you guys have done here I

[02:12:22] I specifically appreciate that you adjusted the MOU as we were working with community use to make sure that it accommodated whatever we were going to do and that it didn't lock us into that 530. My son plays a sport that is not a sport that usually gets early field time, so we're done at 10 o'clock every night anyways.

[02:12:40] So that is a pretty significant consideration for me as we're looking at this because I know we've got kiddos that are out on fields all over the place until very late at night. I also appreciate that you included the specialty and special education alignment in the slides I will say that I think that we have I would love the access to the data that behind the visualization because I want to understand when we see those red dots where are they coming from what are the like the initial ones that pop in the center of the county is that special education students that are trying to get to a CSS site is that like what is causing the length of those times so that I would understand just it's not it

[02:13:20] doesn't seem to be distanced from school so it's got to be something else that's going on I do think that there's an interesting thing that might happen with middle school AAP programs as we ensure that they're at their local school or at the base school whether or not that frees up some of those specialty buses that we have going all over the county right now one of the questions that I do have though specifically is in the initial time where we moved elementary first we're able to condense the elementary delivery window to 30 minutes is there any reason that why we can't do that with it where

[02:13:57] it is now because we've often talked if we could condense the delivery window there we have a lot more play and what we're able to do and I think that there's some amount of you know parents might not be as as have as much anxiety if they don't see that 9:50 start time so can you speak to that a little bit I'm gonna lean on Paul for that one again so what you have in the big as it was say we're currently stated so middle school will go first and then high school and then elementary school so any residual delays will continue on through the different tiers and then add in addition to the regular congestion that

[02:14:33] raises as the time goes on so by the time we get to elementary school we're going into a lot of different neighborhoods a lot of our schools are within neighborhood schools so that's what makes it harder for us not to compress that elementary school time window so in the beginning when you go to the elementary school first what you have is almost free road you know you're you're out earlier than majority everyone and you're able to get in and out of the neighborhoods and that's why we able to compress it okay because anything that we can do to continue to compress the time I think is really

[02:15:05] important I am okay then you and I'll just tag team it from here go ahead okay I just kind of want to build on that a little bit because if I'm looking at the option of the 30-minute shift and this is without even taking advantage of the little thing that you mentioned 10-15 minutes in either direction the biggest problem here is that 9:50 elementary school start time right now we have a lot of elementary schools you know my kid was in that that's sort of the 9:20 so that's not a new thing is there any way that that could go up from 9:50 to

[02:15:42] 9:20 with some other moves maybe it's not everyone but with moving some elementary schools into the 8 o'clock window or even the 8:30 window as you've mentioned we already our elementary schools they're more than just two tiers clearly they're kind of all over the place so I'm asking is create a solid third tier that is an 8 o'clock tier to kind of increase the numbers that we have right now and maybe condense that 9:50 to 9:20 and then this becomes a little bit more workable no that's completely understandable and by looking at that

[02:16:18] and one of our main views when we looked at a lot of the different options is cost neutrality so with adding or compressing that elementary school window is going to have a need for additional drivers which is going to have a cost unless you move them to the nine o'clock window because again we have so many buses that are being used for elementary because of so many schools we don't have as many for middle schools just by the sheer number of buildings or Or is that not the right way of looking at this?

[02:16:48] So are you talking specifically about the four different tiers in a 30-minute shift? Getting rid of one of the tiers and compressing those? No. Okay. I'm asking to perhaps feed a little bit more elementary schools into the middle and secondary or even the high school times so that you reduce the large number of groups at the elementary level which could potentially either lower or eliminate that 950. No that's understandable

[02:17:21] that will also have a option to create additional drivers because secondary school you're carrying way more kids than the high school so that's why currently secondary school goes 10 minutes before and a lot of times with secondary school they're not paired with the elementary school as a middle school before it because their inability to be able to safely and effectively transport and by secondary school you mean the three secondary schools or okay so let's take secondary schools out of the equation what can we do with the middle and high schools to impact that 950 right I think that's where the play

[02:17:59] is that we could potentially then be responsive to so dr. Anish if I could kind of maybe refresh everybody on so we have 800 roughly 833 buses and drivers that are going to gen ed and we have about 533 540 that are taking care of special education needs so if you go back to gen ed those 800 plus buses and drivers each one of them gets a route that they you know that's why we go in these tiers because we maximize use of those resources so each one of those drivers gets a middle school a high school and one or two elementary schools

[02:18:35] so that timing and enables us to spread those resources to hit all those at those times if we start trying to take chunks out of that elementary school tiers to move them earlier we don't have the drivers and buses to do it because we still have those those routes to do so we're gonna add people it's not a one for one but we're gonna have to add some drivers and buses so it just won't be cost neutral but we already have that now and again we're taking advantage with some of the work with the boundary or I'm sorry with the AAP centers where

[02:19:08] we're not using some of those dollars I see some space here for tinkering there's always space for tinkering but you know like when we did the boundary review when we start adding things into it too that says hey we're gonna let people have greater choices and we're gonna provide transportation so any of those savings we make on one we kind of use and other decisions that we make to say okay now we're going to provide transportation to your out-of-boundary you know your your your original school you're not going to have to abide by it so we kind

[02:19:41] of make a savings and expended at the same time okay so I am and I know mr. Dannon's on his way behind me but I am the rising seventh grade parent next year So when I look at this I understand it from a visceral point of view that I am I cannot tell you how nervous I am about my Rising seventh grader having to figure out how to get on the bus at 9:20 in the morning And I understand that it would back up, but I am concerned about the late start there While I want to make sure that we have healthy start times

[02:20:19] I do want to make sure that they don't have too much time to get into trouble before school starts because the problem is is if they miss the bus there's not likely going to be the support system to ensure that they get there and I that so and parents are have to work so that's I am concerned about that I'm also concerned about the four o'clock release because that will have a significant impact on our middle school after school program so it would probably take it down from having two or three sessions every day to at the most being able to have one and I worry about about the impacts of those things as well and whether or not we would still be

[02:20:57] able to get teachers to support that because it would be right in the times that they were having to get home to their families so this and we haven't even talked about the implication for families again like mine that actually use an older sibling to to help with daycare in the afternoons so again I have a rising seventh grader next year he's old enough to stay by himself but I really would rather his brother be home who's in high school and so we have a lot of that that goes on across the county and switching the order of things is a pretty significant impact that's also going to impact daycare because we also have high school students across the county that are providing daycare

[02:21:34] for other parents that are there in that after-school support just until parents can get home so I will again say that I am a hundred percent in support of healthy start times and if it was an issue of that we could wave our magic and not have any money be an issue here I would love to have that happen that's where I am I am concerned dr. Anderson thank you I'm getting more and more concerned that we're going to be pushed into a situation where nothing happens that we're going to end up with status quo and in the Mason district that is

[02:22:11] particularly of a problem because we have to all three of our schools have three years at the middle school level it's not a two-year experience which is why our families have been probably the most vocal in this area so I do not take that lightly because we are singularly situated to experiences for three years so I just want to be sure that I put this on the table but I want to particularly continue to look at the the 30 minute what I've just offered you talked about that that could potentially create the need for more drivers and

[02:22:46] that is probably so but it wouldn't be a million seven it might be less so I'm asking for an investigation of of that I don't have the full and I will never have the full understanding of what you're doing so it always comes out can we try this can we try that and I don't know what systems you use to do this is it your own system is it AI generated like how does this come about what do you feed and what do you feed it into it's the same Tyler routing system done by the same 13 people that are managing everything all day long so that's kind of

[02:23:23] new system yes ma'am okay but it's the same team that is taking care of everything on a daily basis so it's kind of an add-on for that small but very efficient team sure whether or not it is you know the reality that I'm hearing is we're stretched for staff we don't have you know additional dollars to do this we have pending legislation that may or may not pass we have civil daylight savings time it's like problem problem problem problem problem and I'm

[02:24:00] sorry what I'm hearing is these are the reasons why this is probably not going to go anywhere and this is something that everybody on this board has spoken passionately about doing the right thing for kids and I'm just seeing that just wither away and that is that's challenging for me to hear again going back to the point that I just made I have parents who are very passionate about this because their middle school experience it's a third time longer than everybody else's okay so one of the questions that I have at this point is that I am hearing dr. Anderson requests another scenario I am hearing lots of

[02:24:39] discussion around the board like around the table here I am getting concerned about us bringing this forward to a survey if we don't have the right things to survey because the other thing that I've heard loud and clear from my families is stop asking us until we're actually gonna make a change and so I am a little bit concerned about sending out a survey next week that we know doesn't have the options that are going to be the options so I don't know what mechanism we have in order to make that decision at this point because so I would kind of look to our chair and dr. Reed about how we want to move forward

[02:25:16] here because I am just apprehensive about putting our families in that circumstance again if we don't know that we've got the right scenarios that we actually want to move forward so well I'll take a stab at that my thinking is that the gentlemen have conveyed that they can do shifts of 5 10 15 minutes so if it were amenable to take one of these and agree find consensus on an agreement of a shift and that could become the time or the store the offering that's put up against status quo in a in a survey that's about to come

[02:25:56] out I think we could probably take care of that today so chair lady if we I guess my question would be is can we take a consensus to determine whether or not people are leaning towards option one or option two at this point or either or neither well I would definitely start with that well I just think that that's going to be an effective use of our time to make sure that we're not actually moving this forward to families until we know we're ready to know I and I'm happy to do that I mean can we get a consensus on I've got a yes ma'am dr.

[02:26:31] Reed thank you miss lady I just want to clarify that mr. Mewick's assessment that you can move things five minutes ten minutes twenty minutes means that you can move the whole system correct one way or the other which everybody goes or everybody slides right okay so the only other thing that I will say is that even if we do that slide and I understand why we would consider it it's still probably not going to be in compliance with what the bill is going to require so that is this is the that concern that we had been talking about with making a change and then having being forced to make a change again so that's just

[02:27:09] something to put on the table and I might do consensus on that question as well yes lady could you repeat what you're asking yes I'm gonna start with seeing whether we have consensus at the table regarding the elementary school first option versus the 30-minute shift option if we have a preference I'm just clarifying his question okay so if you would be in support of the elementary first option which is the one that is not cost-neutral that's the one I think

[02:27:48] it's going to cost about 1.7 million in new bus drivers if that would be your preference can you raise your hand what are you trying to do in for to formulate the survey I'm trying to do is see if we're not voting until end of December yes this is not to implementation anything where I'm trying to maybe get to a place where we can do a survey next week so we can have a December vote so that's just one point of clarification I guess the worry that I have here is what I've heard from my constituents is that we continuously put out things that are

[02:28:27] just untenable untenable to the board and untenable to them and I think this falls into the same category because given what Mr. Muick had shared and well rather I'm sorry Mr. Dondradi had shared about the pickup time for the elementary first option I can't support that that's a 6:15 option a.m. for kids it's a not option so you're a no for the initial question on the table I have to be a no on that okay so I see no one raising their hand for the elementary first option so the next one is the 30-minute shift but I do want to ask a question

[02:29:07] because there's several board members have commented that there is the sunshine bill that is out there and then perhaps we're hearing from our delegation that there'll be a healthy start time bill so let me ask you a question regarding waiting until those things come to fruition or not or wanting to actually do a survey if possible in the next week and and we still could consider

[02:29:42] implementation timelines but that's my question is there any appetite to pause completely until we see what happens at the state level if there is raise your hand okay so mr. Dannon miss Dixit miss Anderson miss st. John Cunningham myself those that were not want to pause at all can you repeat that please the question was because we understand the sunshine protection bill is in is in play any any healthy start time bill is forthcoming at the state level do who

[02:30:19] has an appetite just to wait and see what the state does and put a pause on this right now and the affirmatives were mr. Dan and miss Dixon miss Anderson to pause state it was state and federal yeah sorry sorry state and federal so there was to pause mr. Dan and miss Dixon miss Anderson miss Angel Cunning myself of those here so those who do not want to pause but want to figure out a way okay mr. moon miss Marin and dr. Anderson well that is a 5 to 3 we're not

[02:30:57] all here and so I feel like there needs to be a conversation about cuz here's the thing guys if we're gonna get to a December vote potentially which we still could get to a - we could survey and see what comes back it has to be measured against the status quo so we've got to tell our communities it's this or it's what we currently have so the next question is if we're talking about the

[02:31:27] 30-minute shift dr. Anderson I wanted to ask about and this was just helping for me with a 30-minute shift because I think that's the one that has an opportunity to be more successful how many buses are used for that middle school group I'd have to get back to you with the exact number is it potentially the same number of buses that's used for the high school group approximately so that's approximately the same number is it fair to say that the elementary

[02:32:06] school group has the largest number of buses that's correct okay so I think that's what I was asking if we could potentially use some of those elementary school buses at a different time to reduce that 9:50 start or potentially eliminate that 9:50 start that's what I'd like to have some consideration of and I don't know what the timing I hear that we still have you know the 13 people using the Tyler system to do this but I think that would be good and good information to be able to explore before we put the same options out in front of

[02:32:45] people yet again and I don't know what that does to the timeline first first of all we're not putting same options we're putting either status quo well a untenable options I I have a good wondering about that because of the numbers, and I don't know how feasible it is to get some information about that.

[02:33:02] So, Mr. Muirke, did your team look at things like what Dr. Anderson is talking about, that you might run some elementaries at the same time as the middles? No, we did not. And why is that? Because it wouldn't be cost-neutral. I mean, that was one of those primary things we were trying to stay on track with. If you look back at all the options when we had with it, when the contractor was here and start, you know, they had some of those options were a very you know putting different kind of puzzle pieces together with some going at various different times and they were a cost of six million seven

[02:33:41] million thirteen million and that's what's driving this thank you but you gave us a non-cost-neutral option here the 1.6 is not cost-neutral but it gave us something to chew on yes man doctor I mean talked to read yeah I think one of the what I because I asked a lot of these questions when we when they came back with these ideas I think the catch Dr. Anderson why you can't move some of those elementaries to the middle or high school is it's the same driver in other words what mr. Andrade was saying is that a driver one of those over 800

[02:34:17] buses is driving a middle school then a high school and then picking up a couple of those elementary runs so it's if you if we go with the same drivers they're already driving so they can't pick up an elementary run because they're driving one of the middle school runs the way to do what you're asking to pull a few of those elementary runs would be to add more drivers and that's what I think they're saying that there would be a cost attached to that because what they've done is paired it back as much as humanly possible with the 1.7 million

[02:34:52] idea they're adding 20 buses with 20 drivers to get to that point but to keep whittling away it's the same people that are driving I think I must have misunderstood what you said earlier because I thought you said a driver has a middle school and a high school run and then or two elementary school runs so what I think I'm hearing from dr. Reed is a driver has an elementary a middle and a high school run dr. Anderson that was the misunderstanding a driver has a route which consists of a middle school a high school or secondary

[02:35:31] school and one or two elementary schools so every driver is doing at least middle school high school and one elementary school some yes ma'am some of them hit an 8:30 delivery on elementary school and have time to go back and get another one that's in 9:20 all time yes ma'am I think that's where the misunderstanding is because my notes don't reflect what you've just said I thought it was they did the secondary or they did the two high the two elementary that's why I was asking for that swap either way I would still ask for that 950 is the only crux

[02:36:10] that's the only thing that seems to be really challenging on this one if is there anything that can be done for that 950 period to make this 30 minute no cost option possible or maybe a nominal cost okay I'm gonna ask another question because there actually are three scenarios in our PowerPoint because one of them was status quo so there's no appetite whatsoever for elementary first

[02:36:39] so between status quo and between status quo and the 30-minute shift if you had those as your two options as a board member would your preference be the 30 minute shift I see no hands would your preference be status quo continue with what we have now mr. Dan and miss Dixit miss Anderson and myself with two people

[02:37:14] abstaining abstentions I see again I'm not voting today I don't know if you are if you want our formulation of a survey I can participate but I don't know what consensus you are seeking if you are voting in December well I would I think the challenge right now is trying to determine what would appear on the survey next week so that is my question whether if you are doing this for the formulation of a survey that's one thing but if you are trying to decide have a

[02:37:53] consensus of a board whether we're gonna do this or not then 10 then that's another fair and I can't actually pose a consensus question without at least seven people present but when our board members return what I would ask is in In order to put something on a survey to measure against status quo, right now it is a version of the 30-minute shift.

[02:38:20] So my question would be, when they return-- I'm just going to reiterate that if we do that and we put that forward as an option, that is still not going to satisfy the requirements that are likely going to be coming in the state law.

[02:38:40] So it will still cause us to have to make a different change in the future. 100% agree with you. 100% agree with you. And that might be where we land, but we can at least survey. I think we can also, in the survey, articulate that there is something going on at the federal level that could impact this, and there's something going on at the state level that could impact this.

[02:39:03] And that we are surveying to see what our community feels, but the board could possibly take a choice to take no action and pause until we find out what happens federally or at the state level. think we can put that in the survey provide that context so at this point I think what we are left with is that what will be the survey will be the 30 minute shift versus status quo like I think that's just where we landed so do I need to can I get consensus on that is that a yes that where we've landed is

[02:39:41] the 30 minute shift versus the status quo it seems to me if you're gonna do a survey survey would have to go out with something to pick from right we have a status quo and something else correct I think that thought I mean it seems to be the only one left okay okay so without objection that's probably what the plan will be and we will put some information in there related to the federal action that's happening in terms of a bill and the state just to make sure our community understands that while we are serving you it could be a pause altogether which means it would be status quo for a time being but knowing we might be directed

[02:40:20] make a change and then we want to be within the boundaries of that change so I just want to clarify because the makers of the survey sitting behind me we're gonna put no change we're gonna put the 30-minute roll forward and then we're gonna put we're only putting those two there's two options the 30-minute shift no change status quo but we're going to inform our community that while we are surveying them we are also watching federal bills and state bills

[02:40:54] and it very possible that we could keep status quo until we figure out where those two bills at both levels sit so that we know that we're abiding by the Fed and the state laws if we were to do a shift so that will be if you will color commentary yes context but the choices for the survey will be two any other there survey questions we have that yeah okay and by federal you mean the daylight saving yes yeah the sunshine sunshine protection law and then the healthy start time we were expecting at the state level so I'll turn it back

[02:41:33] over to miss Anderson are we adjourned I believe that we are ready to move on to our next topic oh dr. Anderson I could just ask one final question and I'm happy to follow up offline because I want to build a better understanding to this while I think I I understand the routes I still want to envision how we have the number of students that we have at high schools because it's a four-year experience the secondary being the six years and the elementary depending on where you are I I still want to better understand the kind of numbers and play

[02:42:09] of buses at all times so I'm asking for a separate conversation for me to follow up because I think that there's some room here that I'd like to better understand I want to as we close out this topic I want to share I think an important data point which is to say whatever we decide to do if we're going to do something the fall of 27 the amount of adjustment that families may need to make depending on where they're what level their child is attending

[02:42:44] school and/or staff and rush hours and work I really think we will need to make sure that we're able to provide notice in January so that people can make adjustments to their childcare arrangements and/or work arrangements so I appreciate that the survey will able will be able to go out next week and that the board will be able to deliberate and here in the first meeting and then make whatever decision is going to be made at the end of December so that we can make those announcements in January because I know families whether their staff or families with children need to make you know those arrangements and child care

[02:43:21] is really challenging here in Fairfax County to arrange so I appreciate an understanding of that absolutely thank you so we will now take a brief recess to reset for high school programming options thank you board members can please take their seats we will now move on to the high school programming options topic session at 3:20 p.m. I call on Dr. Reed for presentation on high school programming options thank you miss st. John Cunning and we've had

[02:43:57] several senior staff working on this project and again this is responsive to a board motion that called out essentially both Mount Vernon High School and Lewis High School to look at program options and offerings and so I know that our chief of schools Megan Roman our chief academic officer Sloan Presidio Jen Glazer from the office of guidance and counseling and career and college readiness and Rhonda honoree Dr. Rhonda honoree from region six are here as they've all been collaborating with Serena Jaron and Carrie Demick the

[02:44:37] principals respective principals as well so I will turn it over to the team to share the PowerPoint presentation and then for the board discussion all right well thank you dr. Reed and thank you miss st. John cutting and sticks it for your help as meeting managers preparing for today's work session as dr. Reed mentioned this work session today is really in response to that September 10th board motion the directed staff to identify programmatic options to increase enrollment at schools that had a program capacity utilization of less

[02:45:10] than 85% and enrollment of fewer than 1,800 students so that meant that only two schools Lewis High School and Mount Vernon High School met each of the criteria so we've provided a couple slides in collaboration with the facilities department to kind of look at the current situation in terms of enrollment capacity and projected enrollment at each of the schools so on this slide you can see we've outlined Lewis High School's capacity and student membership projections through 2030 31 and you'll notice that the

[02:45:46] certified membership for this school year is in golden rod there in the middle of the slide and then you can find the projected membership data in those blue columns to the right and then on the far right hand slide side of the slide you can see the green columns which provides the program capacity utilization information so it is important to remember though when we're looking at this that these projections the numbers that you see here or based on last year's CIP they'll be updated for the CIP that's going to be presented to the board in January and then we provided the same information for Mount Vernon High School and just one other caveat for Mount Vernon the numbers here

[02:46:25] don't reflect the boundary changes that went into effect that the board adopted back in January of 2026 which reassigned about 55 additional students to Mount Vernon High School and again just as we mentioned with the previous slide these numbers will be updated in the new SIP in January. So before we start to actually look at any specific programming options we just want to kind of remind the community that there's two different access models that we currently utilize in Fairfax to promote increased enrollment in our high schools and the first is the high school Career Academy model and the Academy model

[02:47:02] provides additional course taking opportunities to base school students at that particular Academy but it also provides part-time enrollment for students from other base schools in the surrounding jurisdiction that travel to the Academy on a part-time basis and we currently have career academies in six of our FCPS high schools and then the second model is the regional specialty program and this is smaller in terms of its scope we only have two schools right now that currently offer regional specialty programs but in this type of programming the base school students have access to the program and then

[02:47:40] students from other high schools throughout the county are eligible to apply for a curriculum transfer to attend the program full-time so there's kind of two different models when we think about how these options might play out and on this slide you can see we've tried to provide just kind of a brief comparison of those two models so again for the career academies that's part- time enrollment for the regional specialty programs that's full-time enrollment career academies typically serve juniors and seniors and then the regional specialty programs are typically 9th through 12th grade students can transfer in later but generally they would transfer in at the 9th grade to

[02:48:17] participate as I mentioned we've got six different academy programs you can see the different locations across Fairfax there and then we have two regional specialty programs one is at Edison high school the global stem program and the other is at Lewis high school the Lewis leadership program so I want to provide a little bit of background information on the current offerings available to students at Lewis High School before we discuss any new options and you can see here on this slide that Lewis actually has a lot of unique programmer programming particularly in the areas of career and technical education they actually offer programs that aren't offered at other base schools like auto technology

[02:48:56] criminal justice cosmetology and then of course they have the Lewis leadership program one of the two regional specialty programs and then of course there's robust curriculum offerings and additional content areas outside of career and technical education so in terms of the Lewis leadership program I think it's important to remember that this program is still relatively new it just launched in 2022 and it really is designed to be a unique flagship program that is gonna really tries to bring the legacy of John R Lewis to life by connecting students with leadership justice and service learning

[02:49:34] opportunities embedded in the curriculum so learning takes place both inside and outside the classroom as part of the Lewis program and the programming really helps students connect to their own leadership values and beliefs and then to apply those to areas of interest in in their lives and in their communities so it's just really important to understand that every student participates in the Lewis leadership program and that's by design so we build a strong foundation for all students and then there are additional pathways that students can pursue in later grades to really support more independent leadership development opportunities and experiential learning opportunities and

[02:50:13] that's really mapped out on the slide that you see on the screen now so all of our Lewis students participate in the program by really exploring those some key leadership concepts embedded in the core classes particularly in history English and government classes and you can see what that looks like at the different grade levels so it's really designed as a four-year pathway where students start by again kind of examining their own beliefs about leadership and their own leadership interests and then as you can see as students progress across the grade levels there are a lot of unique learning experiences in the program for example there's opportunities for students to

[02:50:50] actually learn about history in partnership with the Smithsonian Museums there's opportunities for students to meet with elected officials including representatives on Capitol Hill students participate in a lot of service-learning projects where they have an opportunity to apply leadership concepts and skills to community kind of problems of practice like voter education and food insecurity in the local community so students advance in the program then they have a lot of additional opportunities to go beyond this work things like internships and senior capstone projects so one option

[02:51:28] moving kind of to future opportunities one option would really be to expand the Lewis leadership program to provide more offerings that would give students more ways to connect leadership with their academic and career interests so we've kind of mapped out here some potential coursework areas that we could expand including international relations public policy law for example we're also looking at the opportunities around work based learning like job shadowing in internships where students could really apply the skills that they're learning in the classroom we've also considered as part of the leadership

[02:52:03] expansion programming adding a JROTC unit and then one additional consideration would be thinking about applying to become a regional governor school at Lewis High School so Thomas Jefferson is a regional governor school for science and technology in Fairfax County there is a somewhat similar program really around civics and government and leadership the Maggie Walker program but that's down in the Richmond area so there could be an opportunity to apply as a governor school in the future as well so another option beyond expansion of the leadership program would be the

[02:52:42] consideration of establishing an early college programming option at Lewis high school if we were to do that Lewis would become the first early college program in Fairfax County it would give students a more structured way to earn college credit while still in high school and there's a relatively new program in the state called the College and Career Ready Virginia or the CC RV program that really charges community colleges with expanding opportunities to earn college credit well in high school and there's really two pathways that exist right now the first is the passport program and that gives students

[02:53:21] an opportunity to earn up to 16 credits while in high school and then the Uniform Certificate of General Studies which gives students the opportunity to turn about 30 college credits while in high school and then some students can go beyond that but typically they would enroll at the local community college level and take courses directly on a campus so if we were to open an early college program at Lewis it would really help expand I think momentum for students towards earning a college degree and reduce some of those financial barriers that we know a lot of students and families are really struggling with we've also provided some options around additional career and

[02:53:59] technical education programming so one thing that we could consider would be to establish a health and medical pathway and/or an emerging technology pathway at Lewis we think you Lewis is really uniquely positioned for these pathways really because of their proximity to the new I know the hospital that's being built and then also direct access to IT employers in the region and I think as we all know there's really a rapid expansion of both healthcare and IT jobs in Fairfax County and in Northern Virginia as a whole so this would really align with some of the economic opportunities that exist in our

[02:54:36] community right now so on this slide we've tried to provide just a little more information about what those pathways would look like if we were to open pathways there for example you can see the radiology pathway would actually be a new pathway we don't offer that currently in Fairfax County the medical assistant pathway we do offer on a limited basis but this would increase the amount of opportunities to increase student enrollment in this pathway which is very popular in terms of student interest and certainly is really an introduction kind of to the pipeline of future health and medical careers we've also mapped out some options for a sports medicine pathway that would be

[02:55:13] really a combination and partnership between health sciences and athletics and provide I think some really specialized learning opportunities for students and then with any of these programs and courses that you see here they would all include CTE completer in industry credential opportunities which we believe is really important on the emerging technology side you can see here we've added some potential courses that students could take in the areas of of computer science data science and robotics all three of those areas would really position Lewis to be a partner school for the new programming that we're

[02:55:50] opening at Skyview high school and provide accessibility to similar coursework on both sides of the county so we think that that probably would have significant interest from students outside of Lewis as well so just to quickly summarize on this slide the different options that we've developed for discussion today would include opportunities of course to expand the leadership college preparation and career pathways first by considering extending the leadership program civic focus in areas like international relations public policy law jrtc and possibly even a governor's school

[02:56:27] application additionally we could consider an early college program giving students more access to earn college credits while in high school and then some additional CTE pathways in emerging technology fields and health and medical and then all of these programs could either be offered as regional specialty programs or they could be offered as an Academy program so that would be something that we would need the board's input and feedback and direction on as well on the next slide we've provided some very initial high level costs we haven't had time to really go in depth on the costing because to do that I think we would need a little bit more direction in terms of

[02:57:07] which options the board would like us to pursue but you can see for example some estimated costs here if we were to open as an Academy program for example there would be additional infrastructure and staffing that would be required similar to the supports that we provided other career academies administrative and support staffing and then if we were to offer an early college program there would be a significant amount of coordination and collaboration in alignment with the community college so we would need some additional staff support and administration on that as well and then of course standing up any new career and technical education programming is going to come with

[02:57:44] possible facilities equipment costs and then we would recommend some additional staffing costs at the division level until the enrollment actually could be absorbed through base schools and through transfers into the program and then on the next slide we provided just kind of a high-level timeline that would really utilize a phased approach where we would work over several years kind of to plan design and then to start implementation of the program and we think that we need a long enough runway to actually be able to implement any of these new program opportunities well so that would really extend planning beyond

[02:58:21] this year into the design process next year and probably implementation starting in school year 2829 so next we're going to turn to Mount Vernon high school the second high school that met our capacity enrollment criteria and like Lewis Mount Vernon of course currently provides a lot of really robust CTE programming and programming that extends what is offered at many of the base school other base schools programs like culinary and JROTC and again of course Mount Vernon offers a lot of programs outside of career and technical

[02:58:56] education as well now we think Mount Vernon is uniquely positioned for some of these program expansion ideas because of their existing CTE and stem and JROTC infrastructure also they're very close in proximity to Fort Belvoir and the Richmond highway redevelopment corridor and access to aviation employers at Reagan National and Dulles airports the expansion opportunities that you see listed here include things like aerospace and pilot training aviation maintenance national security and public safety and again all of those programs really do align with regional economic development priorities and opportunities

[02:59:34] and would create some I think potential destination programming at Mount Vernon high school on the next slide we've provided just a few examples of the course sequences to consider for each of these opportunities for example in aerospace engineering you can see students would progress really from courses like stem design through aerospace engineering similarly in aircraft and drone pilot sequencing and we would pair things like stem design with aircraft piloting courses and each of these pathways that you see here would include CTE completer certification as well as industry credentialing

[03:00:10] opportunities so again very rough cost estimates for each of these pathways at Mount Vernon High School and again same as with Lewis we would really recommend that the teacher staffing be provided centrally before potentially being absorbed into the school staffing allocations and then on the last slide again we've just provided kind of that same implementation timeline to signal that we would need adequate time to plan design and then move into implementation phases so those are the materials that we've provided today we appreciate your attention and look forward to supporting any questions and

[03:00:46] look forward certainly to the board's discussion thank you for your presentation miss Marin thank you well first the way I see it we're here because the boundary review process failed to appropriately adjust the student membership numbers in schools. So while this is useful work that could be implemented, the solution at our other 23 high schools is to have a larger membership that supports diverse and robust options. Second, it remains unclear what specific criteria are used when identifying what courses will be offered in a matter of equity and access to students. The idea that students don't

[03:01:25] know what they want, so courses can't be suggested because they're unpopular, that is a statement that promotes disparity kids don't know what they don't know and kids don't know what they will or won't like until we present it to them we talk about the benefit of exposure to topics all the time but not for all of our schools perfect example my daughter is in her second year at sports and sports medicine at South Lakes it has changed the trajectory of her life another high school justice doesn't have it why because I know the superintendent is following trends on workforce and medical and health needs a lot of talent

[03:02:00] Why does it take a school board directive to bring a course like that to justice like proposed today? Same with Mount Vernon regarding aviation and aerospace. The superintendent has been talking about expanding this coursework since late 2025 for Skyview.

[03:02:17] Why is it only now with the board directive that it's on the table for Mount Vernon? Finally, I have to point out that the school board's directive was not met in work related to this topic. This topic was proposed on September 10th with a due date of the end of January.

[03:02:34] 2027. However, on July 16th, Ms. Dixit and Dr. Anderson made a motion to have Pathways for Westfield High School be presented by October. So somehow a directive that was given in September is before us today, but the one that was directed in July that was due in October is not. I asked the superintendent about it and she told me that the staff decided to wait because it required more work that's not her prerogative in other instances she has she can come back to us and say some things different but that

[03:03:13] is changing and dismissing our directive that is very serious and I think the board needs to address it I have other remarks but I am very disappointed that the directive about Westfield High School was not completed per the boards directed by October that community is impacted by the boundary this is one of those things connected to the boundary work that the superintendent decided not

[03:03:39] to deliver on. Thank you. Mr. Dannen. Good afternoon, so thanks for all the work on the program, on the research here. I want to start just talking about the transfers, right, because I remember looking at this a couple months ago. Can you speak a little bit to the, it looks like there's a couple dozen students transferring in and but more than 200 that transfer out. Can you speak to why these transfers out and what needs we're not meeting yeah I think I'm looking at

[03:04:18] the most recent transfer information right now and Lewis had last year we don't have all of this year's data compiled yet completely but about a hundred and forty students transfer out last year that was not the most there were several other high schools that had more students transfer out but it certainly was you know in the top four top five reasons for transferring out some students did transfer out for the global STEM program which again is kind of similar to some of the programming that we're recommending here to put in some new career and technical education programming again the Edison program is

[03:04:56] a regional specialty program so students can transfer from any school in the county to that program if we were to open something similar at Lewis students could transfer in and potentially that might fulfill some of the reasons that that some of those students are transferring out so that was about a third of the students that transferred out for that program there's a variety of other things world language offerings was one of the issues when students transferred out but we've tried to tighten up our regulation I recently to prevent some of those world language transfer opportunities and that was actually part of our presentation that we did a few weeks ago on world language expansion making sure that we've got other opportunities for students to

[03:05:35] access world languages without having to transfer there were a few AP transfers so I mean it's a variety of different things social-emotional transfers a number of different things what was the number for AP and IB well trying to find the right year sure well actually last year I'm not showing any transfers out for AP or IB at Lewis in prior years that was one of the one of the factors so I've got like five years worth of data can you talk a little bit have you

[03:06:12] surveyed the community the both of the families that are choosing to transfer out as well as the Lewis community itself on their preferences for for programming and so forth so we've done a little bit of surveying we've got some more surveys kind of in the works this was a pretty quick turnaround this was a motion from September 10th came on us pretty quickly but we were able to get some information out really to current students and families but that needs to go out more broadly the two areas that they were most interested in number one was health care also hospitality was very high and then technology and

[03:06:49] advanced manufacturing and Rhonda has been doing a great job working with Serena the principal there to try to you know collect as much information we can students families faculty but we know that we've got more work to do in that regard okay I know there wasn't a lot of information in there about the cost and you had stated that because you know you want to get more direction from the board so if there is time I'd love to do a pulse check or something to give you a little more guidance so that you can come back to us with additional cost estimates and so forth to help inform those discussions. Talking about the Leadership Academy, I had the chance a week or so ago to meet the director of this program and read up on her. Really, really phenomenal person. I wonder if I

[03:07:27] can send my students over there when it comes time you know and I can you talk a bit about the enrollment in that and then how is the efficacy of that program measured how do you know that it's working yeah so I think those are great questions first of all if we go back to some of the slides maybe that slide number nine I think is very helpful in understanding kind of how the program works because all of the students participate in the program right so when this program was designed and we did it with community partners we did it with

[03:08:04] John Lewis's family we did it with elected officials it was really important at the time to make sure that the program was embedded into the curriculum so that all students were benefiting from some of these learning opportunities right additionally we wanted to make sure that we had other coursework that students might be interested in taking just as individual courses but the majority and the focus of the program happens in the core content classes in English classes history classes government classes and then you can see some of those opportunities and then students on this slide and then students can take additional coursework like the Lewis leadership lab which is more kind of internship or externship focus where

[03:08:44] students are actually working on kind of leadership problems that they're interested in solving and addressing mentorship opportunities things like that so that happens in advanced coursework really more with juniors and seniors but there are opportunities for freshmen and sophomores as well do we know if this program is working or how do you measure that and I would love to read profiles and students have graduated and you know they're more likely to succeed post-graduation post high school graduation or how do we know I mean I think that's a good question if that was something that the board wanted us to do we could work with the research office to try to put together a program evaluation but you know right now the program's still new and the goals

[03:09:20] of the program has really been focused on providing you know the curricular experiences and opportunities for students we haven't really focused on like necessarily where students are going with next steps in terms of you know either employment or college majors decisions because again Lewis is a comprehensive high school this is a very important unique flagship program there but Lewis is a lot more than just leadership as well so sure yeah and I - The, you know, worth noting, I thought the college partnerships and college credit was very interesting at speaking as a community college graduate myself.

[03:09:56] The opportunity to earn credits in high school sounds like a great opportunity. The significant unknown about transportation costs gives me a little bit of pause, so I'd love to know a little more about that as well. So I will pause there. - Miss Lady.

[03:10:15] - Thank you. So, I've got a lot of questions. My first question is, why do we offer AP and IB at Lewis when it's the smallest high school in our county? Yeah, so a number of years ago, the community really was concerned about lack of access to certain AP courses.

[03:10:38] And we worked with some other board members and board of supervisor members to try to identify ways to provide additional access to AP courses there. One of the concerns was students might transfer for AP as well. and there were certain courses that we wanted to make sure that we could offer there.

[03:10:54] But you're right, when you have courses that are similar in levels of rigor, then it becomes difficult to keep, you know, balanced enrollment in those courses, particularly at a small school site. So I'm going to reiterate, that's ridiculous. That's a bad answer because we do have an option to offer APGov and some AP Maths, maybe AP Stat, but if you have an IB curriculum, I now fully comprehend why Marshall High School's IB program is the best in the state, because it's rigid.

[03:11:26] It's IB. I mean, my first recommendation is make a choice. How many kids at Lewis are IB diploma candidates? We'd have to pull the number on that. I will say one of the things that the Instructional Services Department has always tried to clarify is that the IB diploma, right, is a great program for students that want to take six or seven IB-level courses, right?

[03:11:52] it's not the measure of success to measure the quality of a program we want all students taking advanced courses I mean that's the able work that we're doing right now right so we really try to work with students and families to figure out what's the best pathway for them is it the full diploma is it a certificate is it part-time enrollment so we'd have to get the number of IB diploma graduates there but again that's not the outcome measure that we've internally used as the success measure well my colleague just whispered in my year she thinks it was three was three I'm sorry that is that's not a program folks and again I understand but we can't under match this is a diverse

[03:12:32] school we don't believe more kids can do the full IB absolutely kids can do the idea what I'm saying is that's a choice that students and families need to make so that's not just for Lewis that's for all schools Dr. Presidio I fully comprehend that I'm very well schooled more than most about all of our curriculum What I'm saying is you can't do either well, and sometimes it's teacher-driven, whether I'm going to do A-Push or I might do IB History of the Americas.

[03:13:01] There's other variables at play. And then the other question is how many students transfer to Lewis for the leadership program? Again, we could pull that information up. I think it's a relatively small number. One. Sure. I mean, this is a huge issue we're dealing with here.

[03:13:20] And I mean, I was never obviously involved in any of this decision-making, but somewhere we've made some major missteps, in my opinion. I don't think that we're having the belief in the students in Lewis that they can learn at the high level that they can.

[03:13:37] My favorite idea of the ones put forth is a regional governor's school. What's happening with that leadership program? I mean, take a look. That's off the charts, ladies and gentlemen. How do we market it? I've never heard of it. This is well beyond what's offered at Maggie Walker, I can tell you right now.

[03:13:54] I know. How was this marketed to the other 25 high schools? Because I had never heard of it until I got on the board. Yeah, the Lewis staff does a lot of work to try to market the program, information nights, feeder school presentations, obviously the community partnerships that have been built there.

[03:14:10] They work really hard at it. I hear you, but a feeder school presentation would be all middle schools in the county because anybody can train. TJ has all middle schools in the county, right? I mean, and I'm not trying to be mean here. I just am really frustrated at how overlooked this place has been and from an equity perspective.

[03:14:34] My next question is slide number 11, the early college. I mean, we already have DE. NOVA is incredibly prohibitive around who can teach a DE class. So how on earth are we going to expand DE offerings at Lewis, where we already have APNIB, and we don't have the credentials for teachers to do that expansion?

[03:14:57] So how is it offered here as an option? Yeah, no, it's definitely, there's challenges with any of these options. This one is perhaps the most challenging because we don't control it, right? we're dependent on the community college to be able to either authorize our teachers essentially to be able to teach the classes or it's a partner with us to offer the classes under the college and career ready Virginia initiative our local community college system has chosen to offer options for students through asynchronous online instruction so they have chosen the most cost effective way to do that we would have to work with the community college to

[03:15:34] partner with them in different ways but again we see this as an option if it's there's a majority of the board that would like us to pursue this option we stand ready to re-engage with the community college as well as the Virginia Assembly to see if there's anything that we could do to try to get some additional support here so my final question is did you find out how many current faculty members at Lewis can or have the credentials to be a DET so again we haven't had a lot of time to put all this together so there's more research that we would need to do if we want to pursue this option more fully that's obviously one of the things we would need to do they do have faculty

[03:16:13] that do teach some de courses there now I don't you know the school has the information but I don't have the information off the top of my head about how many faculty thank you I'll take a go back okay dr. Anderson thank you I think miss lady looked at my notebook here and took several of my questions but I do want to start with the fact that I think we missed the lowest hanging fruit of all to increase capacity at Lewis. We can't go around that in the boundary process. Lewis is in proximity to another school that is over-enrolled. Over-enrolled school next to an under-enrolled

[03:16:51] school, easy peasy. We missed that opportunity and now we're grasping at straws to bring kids back. I'm not saying we shouldn't do that, but we missed the lowest hanging fruit in this whole process So I just want to be clear in my position on this Secondarily, I do want to speak about the board directive from the motion that I supported with Miss Dixit regarding Westfield Dr. Reed, can you please share with me? How do you determine when you will?

[03:17:25] Not adhere to the timelines provided by a board directive because I didn't hear anything about this until Very recently. Yes staff prepared and I just sent it to you a document that we didn't choose to Present it along with the Lewis and Mount Vernon Presentation because we really felt that the Lewis and Mount Vernon presentation needs to have our full attention These are currently under enrolled schools that match the 85 below 85 percent And the enrollment If you will designation in the motion sure Westfield high school is not under enrolled currently

[03:18:03] And it's not planned to be under enrolled next year, so Because we have registration that begins in January. We have to make decisions on programming now For the schools that are under enrolled since Westfield's not under enrolled. It was not as time-sensitive We do plan to have it scheduled for a work session in the coming work sessions But the January timelines not as like we're approving secondary courses You know at new business at this board meeting so the work you have in your inbox

[03:18:36] It's been done the presentation of the work and the conversation is something we need to schedule what we really felt that today Should be focused on the most urgent situation would be which would be our two under-enrolled schools sure and I fully agree with that 100% what gives me pause is You've made a determination that a board directive can be shifted without the board redirecting that that's the issue that I have but I agree fully with your Rationale in if you are able to make such decisions on this directive It's a slippery slope and it causes concern because when we vote on something

[03:19:14] that's the only way we have to communicate with you and we don't communicate back with us it just makes it hard to do our jobs so that's my concern sure but the rationale makes perfect sense there are a number of motions that have had deadlines that we haven't presented by the deadline so if that's an expectation that they're not only completed but presented we can certainly accommodate that moving forward no I I don't necessarily think that's the case because I think you've been really good at achieving your timelines with sending things out on a Friday letter even as like a stopgap to a future conversation and I think this could have this could have had the same

[03:19:53] kind of approach so but I need to get into this conversation here thank you for answering the APIB question since 22 to 20 now the 26 school year can you give me a sense of how many students have enrolled in the Academy program are you asking I'm sorry I'll have to pull that data for you I don't have is it growing is there a trend that is optimistic I mean I think we've already said the number has been traditionally very small right I can get the exact

[03:20:31] number but I mean I think it's very minimal right I just want to make sure it's growing that it hadn't peaked already in the first year if it if it's small, if it's going in that direction, that gives us a different, that gives me a different kind of level of confidence than if it's just doing this. You also talked about the Academy, about students who are enrolled there part-time. How many students do we have that participate in Academy programming? So Lewis is not currently in Academy. So what I was trying to do is frame the different options for the board to consider, and obviously there might be the other options that board members have in mind that we didn't identify but

[03:21:10] regardless there's two different implementation models one is a career Academy that was mainly for juniors and seniors for students to transfer part time or to attend part-time the other is a regional specialty program where students would transfer in full-time typically starting in the ninth grade so all of these different options we discussed could be opened as a regional specialty program or could be opened as Academy programs so if students participate in an academy part-time does that count towards the school's enrollment it doesn't count towards their base school enrollment but it obviously is providing opportunities to better utilize the space that's available

[03:21:47] provide access to their base school enrollment so if I'm a student at West Springfield I go into Lewis for an academy and I'm part-time where does my enrollment get counted it West Springfield okay yeah but the benefit of the Academy program obviously facility utilization but more importantly we're opening specialized programming that can't be offered at every one of our base schools to students in the surrounding area for at least part-time enrollment right so you are serving additional student interests and needs sure and just the options that were discussed the early childhood I'm sorry

[03:22:25] the early college programming mr. Dunn slide five states that the two programmatic options are Academy versus a program and then slide six describes the differences between the Academy versus the program but when I'm reviewing the recommendations by staff for both Lewis and Mount Vernon neither of those two terms appear in with respect to the recommendations it looks

[03:23:02] like instead the proposal is just to increase the number of CTE courses so can you please clarify are you proposing to establish an academy or a program as defined on slides five and six for either Lewis and/or Mount Vernon yeah no thanks I think this is very similar to dr. Anderson's question so first of all let me just clarify again there are no staff recommendations there are staff options that we've identified here right there's a lot of different options that we've identified here we've had a lot of conversation with individual board members in some instances with community members in some instances so

[03:23:39] we've provided a plethora of options and for each of those options there are the two different models that could be considered for implementation the Academy model or the regional specialty program model I don't see Academy or program listed as one of the options for either Mount Vernon correct or Lewis that's correct because we were hoping to in today's conversation to get some direction from the board about which approach well first of all which options you would like us to explore further and then which models you would like us to consider because there are pros and cons with all of these things and I don't

[03:24:18] think in preparation for this meeting with less than you know eight weeks to prepare and get things posted and everything as we already mentioned we haven't gotten as much community input as we would like to we didn't feel like we're at a place to be able to provide recommendations yet we were hoping today's discussion could kind of provide us with a little bit more direction in terms of the consensus of the board what is the timeframe for soliciting student interest in the options that you've presented I mean you've got an emerging technologies at Lewis a health sciences at Lewis you say generally across FCPS these are popular programs but can we what what's what's the time

[03:24:55] frame for getting that data and there's already data that's gathered through the CTE counselors etc that's right for you know interest in different pathways yeah so as I mentioned a little bit earlier we've done in Rhonda and Serena the principal done a great job trying to connect with existing students that are there now right the two career and technical education areas that they were most interested in were health and medical and emerging technology manufacturing which align with the options that we've provided here but we really need to do more family outreach and community outreach so again our team has been working with the research office to try to finalize a survey that

[03:25:33] could be distributed to get us some more information I would say probably a month to be able to get that out get the information back get it analyzed at least if we were to do that and if we had direction from the board that you might be considering some different options here for example at Lewis if we wanted to get information from the community in terms of interest comparison between the leadership program or early college programming then we could build that into the survey as well I've spoken with FCPS staff who have characterized an early college program as as impossible under state law

[03:26:11] do you have a different view I don't think it's impossible but like I was mentioning earlier it's definitely going to be challenging because the way that our local community college system has chosen to meet kind of the state requirements is through online asynchronous classes which is not what we would want to offer there we would want to offer teacher-led synchronous instruction so that would mean that we're gonna have to get certified faculty in all those different areas endorsed and supported by Nova get articulation agreements for all the curriculum that we would offer so it's gonna it's gonna take some work to be able to do that why are we relying only on the local community college because we have other partners other state universities we

[03:26:51] already do classes with for DE so why don't we just expand our relationship with other state public universities instead of trying to rely on an unreliable partner yeah I think we certainly can explore all options the instances that you're mentioning where we have a partnership with four-year universities colleges and universities those are very limited with very specific courses what we're talking about here is you know like up to 30 credits of courses so a variety of different content areas I don't believe past conversations when we've talked to some of our local universities four-year

[03:27:30] universities that they would be interested in partnering and again the state had really set up the system to be run through the community colleges to get those foundational credits that then would be transferable to the four-year universities so that's how they've kind of thought about the articulation model but again all things I mean can be considered and worked on but I think it would be much more likely although challenging to get some partnership agreements with the community college than four-year universities in terms of a comparison between Academy and programs programs resulted the largest increase in enrollment at the target high school that's correct so really

[03:28:06] program would seem to be the way way to go is is the global stem program at Edison the only program within FCPS so there's two regional specialty programs the Lewis leadership program and then the global stem program at Edison so again if we were to move in the in the direction of opening some advanced emerging technology pathways like we kind of mapped out or health and medical we could create a regional specialty CTE program at Lewis similar to the global stem program at Edison and the global stem program was created in part to remedy under enrollment at Edison isn't that right it was but we also had

[03:28:44] community interest and partnering with us we worked with a lot of organizations the National Academy for Engineers we had grant funding at the time to do some things so it was kind of a con you know just a coordination of efforts coming together but yeah I mean definitely that program has bolstered enrollment at Edison and the current incarnation of the Lewis leadership program which is an excellent program is not the full vision that was originally articulated in school board discussions correct it's kind of a redux version of it I mean I think there's amazing things happening there right I think the challenge is to get more of those extended learning opportunities to more

[03:29:24] students and certainly as we've been discussing here make sure that students across Fairfax County understand the opportunities that exist there because I do think that if more students and families understood what that program really entails that there would be more interest in transferring there and where does the mariachi program fit into all of this because that the purpose of that program I understand is to increase enrollment I don't know anybody on the region side wants to speak to that right now that mariachi program is predominantly serving in the Lewis community serving some of the feeder

[03:30:01] schools as well as the high school and there are also plans to support experiences of other high schools as well for exposure for mariachi so it isn't structured in an Academy way to kind of increase enrollment the way an Academy or specialized program is but it is there hopefully predominantly serving the Lewis community in the feeders so it's not designed to increase enrollment at Lewis I wouldn't say it's designed to increase enrollment at Lewis because it's not structured in the same way that an Academy program would it could be something that as interest grows with that program there that could

[03:30:39] have a benefit but I don't think that was the primary purpose and intent of that and what's the annual cost of that program I don't have those numbers on me so I'd have to follow up on that thank you miss Anderson okay so I think that we're headed down a path here what I want to start by saying is that I think that the work that was done related to Mount Vernon is strong I'm still concerned with us talking about Academy programming as a way to increase enrollment since we know that that doesn't happen like it's because again

[03:31:16] this is about enrollment at the Bay School not just opportunities for kiddos that are at the school if the intention is to try to fix under enrollment then that's then if we're going to do that through programming in between the boundary changes then we need to do that by creating so I like the regional specialty model better and I think that some of the pathways that I know my colleague has been working hard to to create at Mount Vernon I think that that is probably something that would be best utilized particularly since if I'm understanding correctly we're also using the regional specialty model at Skyview is that correct Dr. Reed that was the intention the school within a school I

[03:31:55] think that at Skyview because we don't have a junior and senior class yet and we will have a junior class next year but it'll be a smaller than usual junior class and still no senior class that an Academy model really makes a lot of sense because we'll have space and we'll have students that will benefit from from that okay so but does but for an academy model what you're talking about though is the school within a school where people could actually transfer in is that correct it's both we're looking the aerospace would be a model that is clearly going to be a program but we're also offering like our life-saving class for students can get a WSI or a life-saving certificate as an academy

[03:32:35] course where students from any of the high schools that can access that could participate okay um one of the things that I will say that I have been saying all along is that I think that the global STEM program at Edison I had an opportunity to go visit some of the projects that were going on with one of the groups of kiddos it's an amazing program but it's tied to IB so I love the idea of creating an innovation program at Lewis that kind of complements what's going on down the street so that we don't lose as many kids the other way that we could actually take care of that is because Edison is over enrolled currently and is slated to be more over enrolled based

[03:33:12] on construction that's going on in the area it would make sense to remove the regional specialty program option related to that program and actually create something at Lewis that would support having kids come in in this other pathway so I am NOT at all suggesting that we remove an opportunity a majority of if I understand correctly a majority of the program are is made up of Edison students so I'm not suggesting that we take away that opportunity from Edison I'm just suggesting that if we know that it worked to create this regional option and they no longer need that in order to

[03:33:50] bolster enrollment that we could move the regional option to another school phase it out in one location and phase it in another so I just want us to continue down that path I like looking at the medical option but I do I am concerned that we're going to do the same thing that we've done with IB and AP at that school is that we are going to stretch them too thin which means we've got kiddos going in all different directions related to different coursework and we don't have anybody moving together in a way that is going to make the program successful so I just want to keep that in mind as we move forward that we don't want to throw too much spaghetti at the wall here we want

[03:34:27] to do something that's going to help increase enrollment at Lewis mr. moon My time is up already. Okay, thank you. I get that all the time anyway. I'm used to it. Thank you, Mr. Dixit. I'm gonna have to start with an assumption that what's been put on the table by the staff for the board to consider programs, etc., you know, good faith attempt and also because you believe in the values, benefits,

[03:35:04] those programs will provide to our, you know, students. But if the bottom line, a purpose of us going through this exercise to is to increase the enrollment at the Lewis do you think the board members in the best of positions to know which programs will attract more students into or stay at the Lewis with the program offerings or should they be going to the going to the students and communities and to see which ones will actually retain or

[03:35:41] attract you know students yeah I think both I think it would be helpful to have more community input into the different options right so I mentioned the Lewis team's been doing a great job trying to get what they can from students in the school now but we haven't taken that next step yet we have that survey under development but again I was hoping in today's discussion that we might get a little bit more direction in terms of things that we could include on that survey to get more of that input so for example if folks said you know we want to get information on all these things that's great but if there was something

[03:36:18] that seemed like a non-starter then we wouldn't bother to put that out in front of the community if there wasn't enough board interest in supporting one of those types of approaches. Again as a one board member I was starting with the basic assumption that you would not have put any of these programs on the table for our consideration if you did not believe in the value and benefits that will go to the students and again if it is the bottom line purpose is to bring in more students or retain more students at Lewis that the better place to start is students and communities rather than of course you always want to hear some

[03:36:56] feedback from school board members so given that I have some other questions to ask resources needed I mean ISO numbers there's different numbers and also timeline and those resources amount of resources needed are not gonna be actually needed until actual implementation phase or would you need some resources when the staff begins to begins planning so obviously there's no resources needed for this current school year but for next year depending on what option we were pursuing we potentially would need some additional support so for example if we were going to try to work on an early college

[03:37:35] program we would need somebody who could devote really full-time attention to collaborating with the faculty and the administration at the community college level to try to bring that to fruition so I think there would be some costs that would probably occur if we were to pursue that option starting next year but most of the costs to your point would not actually hit until we opened courses for students to be enrolled in. That's pretty much year number three or later? Yeah, 28, 29. Okay, and for, you know, planning and designing, if you need any resources right away,

[03:38:11] would you be able to, I don't assume, you know, those amount of resources needed for planning and design are not the numbers, the bottom numbers we see. Would you be able to let us know whether it's, as you said, a position or two positions or partial positions? So just to make sure, Because I'm thinking about planning for the budget for the next year.

[03:38:32] Right, right, which we've been talking about earlier today. So you're asking if we could try to provide a little bit more precise budget needs for next year's budget? Yeah, I would love to have that as a... Yeah, we'll work on that. Okay, thank you.

[03:38:48] And one last, I got 23 seconds. This question goes to, I guess, Dr. Reed, and amongst all of us as well. know since we are the one who passed this motion back in September with a certain criteria 1800 and 85% Dr. Reed do you consider those to be good criteria to use 1800 and 85%? That is the criteria we used. I'm asking whether those are the criteria even going forward that school needs to have at

[03:39:27] least about 1800 and in order to boost enrollment we probably need to have a but schools have utilization of the school facilities below 85% to boost enrollment. I'm just trying to have a sense of that.

[03:39:43] Because a long, long ago, it used to be 1,400. And then it went up to 2,000, 2,200. Yeah, that's why I'm pausing, to be honest. Because I think a lot of the research early on in effective high schools actually argued for smaller high schools, right?

[03:40:01] lot of the research in the early 2000s and so forth because we want children to be known and their work to be known and the larger and larger that we get sometimes the harder that is so I think the board selected the 85% in the 1800 I think it's a good place to start I think those are actually large high schools for many school divisions and I think that we do want to make sure though that that I think it's a bigger question in some ways and it goes to the Westfield point - I think Westfield's at 2,400 right now right so there's not a an

[03:40:38] imminent need I think that the question people have is how do we make sure students can access the breadth of courses at any given high school regardless of its size right so and I think that's where I think the conversation lies I I do think that for today those numbers seem reasonable I don't know if they will continue to be reasonable as we see enrollment shift across the nation but for today I think they seem reasonable. I know I'm fine but I think that's a good conversation to have. Thank you Mr. Moon. I'll take a turn.

[03:41:17] First of all thank you for the presentation and a lot of options it's like you know going for shopping and like you which one to choose but I look I like all of them but I just wanted to address something here which is maybe factually incorrect Dr. Reed did not just you know she did follow the board directive so in October you know when I was going to meet with the PTSA at board meeting I was at October 13 for Westfield PTSA Mr. McDaniel join me we had a presentation for the community there the feedback I had gotten from there is we

[03:41:55] want to know where we want to go the community was like asking for like their input so we'd so miss Benning and mr. Lehmann made at Norris they presented you know to the community of the Westfield parents and community PTA and we got some feedbacks and based on the feedbacks I did provide it to obviously FCP staff was there the idea was to bring different type of programming to Westfield they wanted more programming in their school to increase enrollment

[03:42:33] and not going Academy way especially the word Academy was something they were so we and I wanted to have that discussion separately and a different work session and as a person I'm this my districts my school I wanted to have a very robust homework discussion and then taking action on this I believe as Westfield is at 2,500 right now so we felt that was a healthy number for the school at least for this year I don't know if mr. McDaniel would like to add anything from that meeting but I just like wanted to share that we did work on that and we'll

[03:43:12] come back with more information so thank you I will take my turn now and the team thank you for the work you did you know that we met with you and you've revised this because we were disappointed with what we first got and I'm not gonna say that I'm not still disappointed because what really we wanted and what is critical is full-time enrollment and both of these schools traditionally have been under enrolled and it's not just that they're under

[03:43:48] enrolled it's that there is this area of the county is underserved and represents a lot of our neediest multilingual multiracial socio-economically diverse populations and I think one of the most important things that I heard miss lady say is why are we expecting that these kids can't do it when we know that they can so is this a problem of people that are in the building that are not having those expectations and I think when we went to the programming option as opposed to just full boundary option was that we need to have a strong

[03:44:27] basis and I know my heart has always been we need to meet the needs of the student population there we need to have a strong foundation for the people that are in that school we need to make sure that those kids are thriving and excelling when we move forward and if there is a boundary change there will be no excuse to say I can't send my kid to Lewis because they're gonna see that the kids there are actually thriving they are actually performing so that is one of the things that to me has been critical is that we make sure that they have the right programming that they can access my daughter I was in a different

[03:45:02] situation went to the Academy at Fairfax for musical theater we couldn't drive her there was not a bus provided and even though at the time there was not a bus provided because you need five kids from that school to go okay at the time even though financially we were in very dire straits my family helped us buy a little junker car for her that is actually a place of privilege that a lot of our families don't have so I just think that this is something that is really important the critical thing here is to get the enrollment up and both of these schools need this but I'm going to definitely say that amongst the

[03:45:40] priority schools which we selected that are under 1800s kids it's going to be Lewis Lewis right now is they lost 14% of its student body this year and it's 24% under the immediate minimum are about 1,800 students its needs are seven times greater than Mount Vernon which actually is in great need but Lewis needs 531 students to get to 1,800 kids Mount Vernon needs 71 and based on what you just said your new numbers say that you didn't put in the boundary state changes for Mount Vernon and they got 50 extra kids so that's true they only need

[03:46:17] 25 to get to the 1800 and I'm not shedding light on Mount Vernon because they need as much help and as much support I mean they and 40% of the kids at that school are mine but I'm telling you the critical need is I just really want to stress the importance of full-time enrollment being the purpose for this in my list is Miss lady first no yet you had a time Miss lady okay

[03:46:49] sorry thank you um so a couple additional thoughts um i do stand behind my my strong strong feeling you need to figure out if your ap or your ib um i do think there's an appetite for ib spanish and english at lewis um that could pull in um some student transfers uh the other thing i'm going to talk about is the global stem at edison i studied it it it could go it could be ap or ib it just happens to be they teach ib so the integrate it's all about integration in the STEM thing and it's a genius idea it should be happening in lots of our schools because it's why do I need to learn math why do I need to learn

[03:47:27] geometry well because it connects to all these careers and it's the intersectionality of the disciplines where students start to understand the connection to the future work and actually this needs to be happening in a lot of our schools because it will help retain kids who actually want to go to school because they understand the outcome the benefit that will how it will benefit them I do want to reiterate what some of my colleagues said that this is a this is the genesis of this not genesis this could have been addressed with boundary but but the privilege spoke and the privilege won

[03:48:06] well maybe that's not what happened but it feels like there could have been a bad under adjustment but that didn't happen so at this point I guess looking for to move ahead I would like much better robust communication around the Lewis leadership program and I would like us to consider what is it what does it take to become a regional governor's school so one of the things that I think we looked at is that we're gonna actually take we're gonna visit the school Maggie Walker and I know dr. Presidio you did a crosswalk I think of

[03:48:45] the courses so it might be helpful to share that because I think that part of the philosophy of the lewis leadership program was integrating many of the principles across all courses but I think having some kind of definitive program that when people come visit or make decisions about school placement that might be helpful to have a clear idea of that program so dr. Presidio yeah mean I don't really have much to add I would say again I think the Lewis coursework is kind of far exceeding a lot of what's already offered at Maggie

[03:49:21] Walker but again I think the way that the program to your point is communicated and marketed is much different in terms of having the governor's school affiliation versus something that you know is somewhat still unknown in Fairfax County unfortunately yeah that's my last point with my 19 seconds the second you name Lewis a regional governor school the people will come if we build it they will come that program is off the charts we have all we have so look at all the kids we got who want to be part of our school board student leadership program though all those children should be going to Lewis they

[03:49:58] fit into the profile so again sorry if I'm a little frustrated I just really really passionately believe that equity and access is and isn't this is of utmost importance and there's work to be done here the last thing I'll say and I won't need to go back is I love the idea of aviation at Mount Vernon it's fantastic I hope we get the grant that we applied for it's going to be a workforce issue because we're losing people in those industries but I have no appetite to spend 1.7 million dollars at a time where we're in crisis Dr.

[03:50:33] Anderson thank you and miss lady thank you for acknowledging I think some of the things we talked about regarding what the boundary process could have had in terms of impact on to Lewis. And that lies with us. That is our responsibility.

[03:50:48] That was a school board decision. So that frustration is definitely at this board, at least from me. I heard something very quickly that I don't think I fully understood, Dr. Reed. The school within a school model at Skyview-- I'm sorry, can you expound a little bit so I better understand?

[03:51:11] I believe that was the vote of the school. It was a comprehensive school with-- And I'd have to go back to the vote, but it was the equivalent of a school within a school pathway, which is what the aerospace pathway was representative of. And that will draw from students within the five schools that we had talked about or throughout the division?

[03:51:33] Well, recall that we voted on this being a comprehensive high school. Right, which is why I'm confused. I know. We've talked about a lot of schools today. So I understand that. But we voted on a comprehensive high school with the school within a school sort of a I don't recall all the specific language but we can pull that but if the aerospace program was going to be that program within the school as well as several other pathways having said that once the school is fully you know 9th 10th 11th 12th it may be full and closed to transfer like any other school but if it's still open to transfer it would be

[03:52:11] available to students at any other high school just like Edison would be or our other high schools that would have a program within that school sure and thank you that definitely is what I was thinking I just got confused with some of the conversation you know what I don't represent any part of Lewis high school I am very much sensitive to what the parents have shared in many many many meetings you know unable to field softball teams baseball teams it's a heartbreaking thing to hear particularly because we have much of the same challenges in the schools that I represent having said that I do

[03:52:48] represent parts of Edison high school and I am aware of all of the advocacy and support to get the stem program there and I would not be in support of removing it so I just want to put my stake in the ground I well I thought we talk about phasing it from one place to another.

[03:53:11] Either way, I just want to go on record. I don't want that moving from Edison High School. But we do need to hone in on what to do for Lewis. One of the things-- and I had the same note. Again, I think I'm sharing a brain with Miss Lady a little bit today, which is, how do we market the leadership program more intentionally, like right now?

[03:53:33] Because it's already November. We're going to begin class selections, et cetera. And if I recall, did we not have a video at some point on the Lewis Academy program? We could perhaps bring that back up again at a board meeting, at another Academic Matters.

[03:53:53] And I would like to go back, if possible. But I want an answer to my question in terms of the marketing. What could that look like that is different from what has already occurred? Thank you, Dr. Anderson. yeah I think it's a great question I think we need to probably huddle a little bit with the Lewis administration and have some conversations about that because I know that they do a lot of work right now but I think we can provide some additional central office support in terms of communication opportunities maybe some information nights that that we can do in other parts of the county well so we'll have to figure out what that could look like but definitely times of the essence because after the holiday break students

[03:54:32] are going to start that course review process so we'll work on that next is mr. Dunn mr. Presidio how much time or dr. Presidio how much time do you need to plan an academy or program for either one of these schools you said eight weeks was insufficient how much time do you need so I mean we're recommending back on the slides that we saw but realistically you've got a year in there how much time realistically do you need well if anybody wants to weigh in on this and contradict me I'd certainly welcome you to do that but I

[03:55:09] mean I think we need the full year to be able to do that well okay I think the school board has to be accountable for the fact that the Lewis leadership program was stifled was not allowed to develop the full vision I think we also need to be accountable for the boundary decisions made over the past 20 years that reduced the boundaries progressively and then the lack of leadership during the comprehensive boundary review to address that because the community spoke up but the school board didn't listen and the school board didn't act to address those issues and finally I wholeheartedly condemn any any

[03:55:47] attempt by anyone to compare Lewis and Mount Vernon what a disgusting despicable thing to do really it is one of the worst things I've heard in the last three years I've been on the school board I can't imagine why anyone would ever kick Mount Vernon in the teeth just to elevate Lewis. They're both in a bad situation, they both need our support, and we should not get into a tit for tat. Point of order, point of order, I'm sorry, are we, my understanding Robert's roles, we're not, we should not be misrepresenting another colleague's

[03:56:22] remarks? That's correct. I can quote them verbatim if you'd like. Thank you Mr. Dunn. Next is Mr. Moon. Are you, no, okay, so who's going to take turn, no? Okay, I'm going to go then next I actually just want to ask a couple of things there was a slide about data science and it said the data science program can be it will be developed in year to plan design I know George Mason University has been trying to start the data science program with FCPS and it's I think we some

[03:56:57] schools we already provide that then why does it take so much time to develop that program well we we do have a good partnership with George Mason particularly in computer science to be honest with you but again we're talking about new coursework and advanced coursework here so there is a fair amount of work that we would need to do on curriculum development and then teacher recruitment and certification in these areas is going to be important obviously it's going to be required by the state so I mean all those things are going to take some time so I understand mr. Dr. Perdue has been trying speaking with you

[03:57:34] in that matter and that's something he's very interested passionate about that is is getting that data sciences in our schools all high schools no he's a great partner we we love working with him okay and second thing I just see the the robust offering we have in Mount Vernon which in this pathways I just wanted to know when did we start discussing aerospace and pilot training programs like because if they did the motion in September it looks really like comprehensive already dr. Reed sure mistakes it I think one of the things

[03:58:07] that we did as a staff team when we began to look at the possibility of the FAA grant which would support aerospace instruction for our students we very early on it would we began working on that last spring and so at the onset of that I felt like it was really important we knew that we were going to plan for Skyview because it's a new high school with new programming and often we don't there were three-year possibilities in other words subsequent year grant possibilities so we thought if we could get a three-year rollover and we could

[03:58:47] do two schools a year we could get one in every region which really is what we want is an aerospace program every region but I felt like the Mount Vernon and Skyview would be both sides of the county and would enable us to provide at least a stake in the ground at both sides and that coincided with a conversation then later with Mount Vernon high school staff and I still think that's a great idea at a place they have room at that school and it's close to Reagan we were looking at Dulles being the if you will stake for

[03:59:25] the western side and the D.C., Reagan, D.C. airport for the Mount Vernon side, as well as Fort Belvoir's proximity to Mount Vernon. So it felt like a really good option to provide both. So that work plan had already been drafted in preparation for both the FAA grant and looking at how to provide more programming on that side of the county.

[03:59:50] And if the FAA grant doesn't come through, what's going to happen to this program well we're currently looking at other funding possibilities for it the skyview program again it's part of the startup funds because we have to have pathways at a new school for an existing school we would need either to change out a program or to add other programming we need like a sponsor either a corporate sponsor a grant some type of other funding maybe from the state that would support that because I think everybody's sensitive to our

[04:00:26] current budget situation and I mean it is challenging if we were to take it just out of operating funds but I do think it's a it's a it's a program aerospace and quantum are both what I would consider the most pressing professional occupational opportunities where families where students who learn more and those skills can have a family wage job in our area and also stay within Fairfax County and work.

[04:00:58] So we are hopeful to find a funding source, and we have to always, I think, have plans in the queue when the funding source comes because we don't always know when it's going to happen, and we don't want someone to say we have grant possibilities and then not have a project in the queue.

[04:01:15] So I think eventually I'd like to see that in each region, and we'd have to put it in a high school in each region that actually had space. Thank you, Dr. Reed. One other thing I'm seeing is missing, and again, the board members in the district can say more, but Fort Belvoir Hospital is there as one of the biggest military hospitals, and the radiology and the medical technician program being in Mount Vernon would be probably even more for the area if you're the residents, and that programming may be even good for that school.

[04:01:49] so just just my two cents and I think we also are looking dr. Presidio at the health and human I won't call it human services but health careers for Lewis high school as well I believe yeah and there is a new hospital under construction there in the Lewis area so again we think there's that connection to the health and medicals okay this engine gunning okay thank you going back to the Lewis leadership program and I really do I know that a lot of us weren't here when that was started and I think there's been a lot of confusion when

[04:02:22] were students allowed to people place in the leadership program to transfer yeah I it's only been a year or two I think I don't I mean it didn't start in the first two years for sure okay so so I think we've done a disservice to that program the program has grown to be very robust everyone that has gone there loves it but in terms of the marketing being just left at the school level I think is an unrealistic expectation they have a lot of work to do and are the

[04:02:57] central office needs to support that because if people are going to hear about it it's going to have to be supported by central office and by the school board so that is one of the things that I'd like to see happen because people don't know about it and if you don't know about it how are you gonna get there the people that do know about it love it and think that it's wonderful so that's one of the things that I wanted to talk about I wanted to ask about was there any marketing support for the global stem program and how did that happen and why did not that when why didn't that happen for the

[04:03:33] leadership program yeah again I don't believe that there was any different marketing with the Edison global stem program than the Lewis program so yeah I don't think there was any difference there um I do want to clear up again I don't disagree that we need to do more centralized marketing and supports no 100% and I believe Academy programs are strong but that doesn't help overall enrollment and I think that that's something when we look at these pathways we have to look at how we create them to be pathways that have kids that are actually invested and want to be at the schools the other thing I

[04:04:10] want to bring up and do a correction and I kind of when I heard about that only one kid got the IB diploma in my head was thinking and I was kind of like I was there when they conferred or three but I was there when they conferred them there was more than three that we did the conferring to so it might be 24 more so I don't know we really do got to get those numbers because I think we need to be accurate with the information that we have in terms of the I really think and I know I've had this discussion with one person is we really need to get well I

[04:04:45] really we need to know what the community wants and it has to bubble up instead of bubbling down and I know a lot of us been talking about governor school and I know that a lot of the community is not interested in that so that's just something that we have to take into consideration do we have to do more research we have to look at it more I just want to put that out there because I know that that's something the community is not interested in are there anybody wants to go back dr. Anderson do you want it okay thank you I think I

[04:05:23] missed the assignment because you were trying to figure out where is the board in terms of your next steps so I wanted to make sure that I circle back to this I think for me and again I do not represent Lewis so put all of this in a whatever you need to I think for me the Academy is not necessarily the way to go because this is all about increasing enrollment so that is low on the totem pole the regional governor school that sounds pretty attractive and I understand and again I do not know that community but I understand from what was just shared that the community does not want it but we're trying to draw other

[04:06:01] people in so it might be worth investigating because we need to find some significant thing to bring people in thirdly the marketing for the Academy I would love for there to be some sort of ready blurb that we can put in our newsletters that could be posted online that can be in the divisions newsletters that go out that say hey apply these are the deadlines that's just one of the ways that I think we can market the oh my goodness the one about the dual

[04:06:37] enrollment the I can't remember that page thank you whichever one that they could leave with an associate degree is this what we were saying and I can't find the page for that oh I found it I'm slide 11 are we saying if these things are in place students can possibly leave Lewis with an associate's degree so if you if we could pull up that slide it's really important the nuance here that we were trying to point out so I appreciate you bringing this up it's not impossible but the program that the state has basically mandated that the community college

[04:07:16] offer the college and career ready Virginia program really focuses on the passport program and then the uniform certificate of general studies so those are 16 credits for the passport program 31 credits for the general studies certificate so that general studies certificate really would be equivalent to about a year of college and that's about what most students probably would be able to do but some students could go further than that but what we were suggesting is in that case we don't think we could staff 70 credits of course taking opportunities and meet all the credentialing requirements and

[04:07:55] everything else that needs to happen those students that wanted to go beyond that we probably would need to work on a dual enrollment program where students took courses directly on the community college campus okay so an associate degree is really not on the table so I don't speak to that I also do at least not initially right I also do think that we have to pull the trigger on one or the other because I whether it's IB or AP because I don't think it's very well served when both of these things can be competing but most importantly we had what I think I heard 140 transfers I don't know if you shared that or miss st. John Cunning how are we reviewing and having discussions with every Lewis

[04:08:35] bound parent who has put in a transfer there should be we have these wonderful things here we have to stem the flow as well as bringing new people in yeah we can get some more information about what that process looks like at the school level but I know previous principals and administrators there have worked really hard to do just what you said to make sure before people you know commit to the transfer application process once they've submitted it to really have those conversations and make sure that they're aware of all the opportunities at Lewis but we can check and get some more updated information on them

[04:09:12] appreciate it thank you miss lady and followed by miss Merrin thanks I just want to provide a little context to my previous comment about boundary work I was really referencing a couple boards prior to this one when Elizabeth Schultz basically moved neighborhoods by keeping the number under the threshold that required a public hearing and I'm just I'm elevating next I don't want to be misunderstood when I when I was speaking about what I saw as privilege at that time and I was employee of the system at that time I do know that our staff currently and our current board is very invested in getting things correct when

[04:09:50] boundary scenarios are brought to us I'm also wondering I was just doing some googling of Maggie Walker but I think the governor school notion would carry a lot of weight but I'm also very open to a school within the school model which is kind of what we have but we really haven't elevated that the Lewis leadership program as a school within the school model so it would still be a residential school like Skyview but then we would have an opportunity to backfill where those gaps are with a school within a school model what I don't know is can you have a could it be a governor's school leadership Academy just like Chanteley academies or is a governor's STEM Academy like it's not

[04:10:29] the entire school but it has it has the governor's designation or could it be you know a school within the school where it is half governor school and half residential I just think we need to evaluate that I don't let that be amenable to the community but I think what I'm understanding is people want it to still remain a neighborhood school where their students and their families and their communities can attend and I think that might might address that if it was a school within a school model I still think we could get a governor's school designation for the leadership program so that would be something I would love researched and to get back to me on thank you miss Madden yeah just

[04:11:07] two points what I think is very much needed is a comprehensive approach to the process for placing courses in our schools, how we evaluate what's working, what's needed. The approach that we're hearing today is the approach of a system of schools and not a school system.

[04:11:22] I feel like we are reinventing the wheel. All of our high schools need to be robustly programmed. We have to evaluate what works. This is connected to the discussion about world language. And it's not because I'm looking, colleagues.

[04:11:37] It's because I go to our foundational documents for guidance. The policy on this for new course proposals and deletion and consolidation of existing courses was last updated 12 years ago, 2014. That's an entire K-12 education.

[04:11:53] Interestingly, the regulation that the superintendent does was updated just this past September. That hadn't been updated since 2019. So while the superintendent can update her regulation whenever she pleases, I see that as such a great opportunity that was missed for us to talk about how we're approaching course selections.

[04:12:15] We don't have-- and again, I will point out that this is the third year that I have pulled the secondary course piece off of consent. And I appreciate that now it will be on new business, because I have brought it up so much and for the third year. Otherwise, we would not be having these discussions as fulsome as we are.

[04:12:35] I do want to close with one question. The board vote on September 10th also said that the superintendent would be bringing options to increase enrollment and including information in the CIP.

[04:12:52] And that was promised to be delivered on November 12. And that was a board directive. So given that the timeline was changed for the Westfield Directive, Dr. Reed, can you confirm that the board will receive what was voted on by Thursday?

[04:13:09] Is that this? It included the boundary piece, though, of Lewis. So the language of the full motion that I think you're referring to-- and please correct me if I'm wrong. so we addressed basically the first half of that right so in today's presentation we identified the two schools because there's only two in Fairfax that meet the criteria established by the board of capacity utilization of less than 85% excluding modulars and trailers and enrollment of fewer than 1,800 students and then additionally in that motion the language reads future reviews of new qualifying schools schools that would meet the

[04:13:49] criteria beyond Lewis and Mount Vernon would be also addressed and included in the CIP and right now we only have the two schools thank you if I could have like 15 more seconds that's right so the reason that I supported this is because the change in programming is what triggers a boundary review so if we want to solve what was said that we did not do our job with the boundaries we need to approve some kind of program change to trigger the boundary review and if we wanted to get it done ASAP we got to do it so the courses can be offered in the next school year just a reminder so I do want to respond since the question was asked I think we did respond to the motion and we are presenting that on

[04:14:28] November 12th and I appreciate the review Dr. Presidio but I think the second half of the motion talks about future reviews of newly qualified and we don't currently have newly qualified schools is that correct so I think we've met the motion requirement at this point no I agree that's what I just said as well yeah absolutely thank you I want to go back to I'm sorry I have a lot of questions and I've got a lot of notes and they're all over the place right now I started very organized so all these things pop up in terms of looking at the

[04:15:07] early college and you talked about Northern Virginia Community College aside from those what other partners have you looked at that are regional and and what other ones have you investigated that's a great and in Virginia dual enrollment offerings are rather complicated compared to other states and there is a requirement that school divisions partner with our local community college if the community college offers the course they must be our first partner so we are really limited and what we can explore beyond

[04:15:44] Northern Virginia Community College they offer a very robust set of course offerings and we have to follow that from the State Council of Higher Ed in Virginia that's a requirement and we're in contract with NOVA to offer the courses there first and if it's not offered there we can move into yes we can look at other four-year institutions then we have experience with George Mason a number a small number of course at Longwood of course at Marymount and we've had previously a very specific unique courses that are not offered at

[04:16:19] Northern Virginia Community College okay thank you that helps answer that also I wanted to ask a question when we're looking at health and medical and we're looking at that as a pathway is there a way for those to be regional versus being academies because that's what would increase the the actual full-time enrollment yeah a hundred percent and I really appreciate the board's feedback back today on the need or the preference at least what I'm hearing for regional specialty programs not Academy programs anything that we mentioned as an option could be opened as a regional specialty program and then I'm gonna ask you one

[04:16:56] more question but timing wise you know I'm trying to give you guys grace because I know you had a shorter time frame but just like the aeronautic program and the balancing with Skyview we also had the quantum with the balancing and I was kind of disappointed that I think you do have some pathways here but I didn't see as a robust of a presentation of how if we're going to have the balancing of something at Skyview and the next the next one that should have a quantum pathway would be Lewis I didn't see the development of that within this presentation just yeah and maybe it's not robust enough but just to make sure

[04:17:31] particularly folks who might be watching at home didn't miss that on slide 14 is where we map out the emerging technology pathways so that computer science pathway includes quantum science, quantum computing as a possible course there. And additional courses could be added later.

[04:17:46] But these are the courses that we're working on right now with Skyview as well. So we were trying to have that similar program access in different parts of the county. And I just think leveraging the fact that we have financing for what's going on at Skyview, we have the money that is going on at Skyview.

[04:18:05] We don't have to reinvent the wheel for what happens at Lewis or what happens at Mount Vernon High School. research is done and then we can then transfer it over to the other side of the county which would not just benefit the students there but would benefit everybody on that side of the county right and that's again on slide 14 those pathways are all around the emerging technology similar to what we're doing at Skyview if if we were to pursue that with the board support you could open it as a regional specialty school and students would have access to that program to transfer there from around the county okay thank you dr. Anderson

[04:18:44] Okay, okay, um actually I will say one thing because I didn't talk about the Mount Vernon at all I'm I'm super supportive of the aviation. I think it's wonderful. Well, I want to Thank the members of the community that came out here I think that shows you the amount of interest from people in the community and some of the members of this community have been Long-term members of the community and some of them have surely been graduates of Lewis high school

[04:19:23] So I think the commitment is there from the community not just from the students and parents that attend But people that have been longtime members of the community, so I really want to thank them for being here I also want to thank them for the fact that they have a lot of insight and we should definitely look into what the insight They bring and take their recommendations into consideration at 4:56 this work session is adjourned and

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