Coraggio Consulting Fairfax County School Board Meeting, Thursday, November 12, 2026 Date: Thursday, November 12, 2026 Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia Length: 4h 33m (video) Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty8Ytc6Y-VU 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 2026-11-13. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [00:06:39] - Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We're gonna be starting about 15 minutes behind. [00:06:46] Thank you. [00:20:53] - Board members, please take your seats. [00:20:56] Ladies and gentlemen, guests, please take your seats. [00:22:45] This November 12, 2026 regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board will now come to order. Please stand for the presentation of the colors [00:22:57] by the Lake Braddock Bruin Battalion. [00:23:27] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States. [00:25:24] My apologies, I was remiss in recognizing the saxophones from McLean High School. [00:25:57] we can give those students another round of applause please. Go Highlanders! Also, if we could give one more applause to the Lake Braddock Broome Battalion for the colors tonight. Thank you. [00:26:19] Agenda Item 3.02. Announcements. If you'd like to review a copy of the meeting agenda, please see the back of the auditorium. To obtain copies of any items or supporting materials being presented tonight, please reference the QR code on the agenda or visit www.fcps.edu backslash board docs. Tonight's meeting is being broadcast on Cox Channel 99, Verizon Fios Channel 11, and live-streamed on YouTube and our website at www.fcps.edu backslash live stream. [00:26:45] I would like to recognize the Fairfax County History Commissioner, Ms. Tammy Manorino, who is joining us this evening for a proclamation. I now call on Mr. Moon for a proclamation. [00:27:12] Veterans Day. Yes, thank you. It's a Veterans Day proclamation that I'll be reading. Whereas Veterans Day, observed annually on November 11th in the United States, is a time to honor and recognize the selfless service and sacrifices of all those past and present who served with the U.S. armed forces to defend the freedoms and rights that are so important to our nation's democracy. And whereas Veterans Day, formerly known as Armistice Day, [00:27:49] is the anniversary of the signing of the armistice by the Allies and Germans in 1918, ending World War I. Armistice Day officially received its name in the United States in 1926 and became an official national holiday in 1938 through congressional resolutions. [00:28:12] In 1954, President Eisenhower signed the Congressional Bureau that changed the holiday's name to Veterans Day. And we all add, Americans owe a great debt to the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who serve and defend our freedom in war and peace, and their families and communities that support them. [00:28:36] And whereas Fairfax County Public Schools has a strong, strong ties to our veterans, as our division proudly employs many veterans who now serve as teachers, administrators, and support staff in our schools and division departments. [00:28:54] Also, Fairfax County Public Schools serves over 12,600 military-connected students and their families. And whereas Fairfax County Public Schools acknowledges the profound impact that military service has not only on those who serve, but also on their families, particularly children of service members who often face unique challenges due to the demands placed on military families, including frequent relocations and deployments. [00:29:30] And whereas Fairfax County Public Schools is committed to providing military connected students with the best possible education and an inclusive and supportive educational environment that fosters stability and community. [00:29:45] Fairfax County Public Schools was named a Purple Star Division in October 2026 with 200 schools and centers owning their Purple Star designation. Therefore, be further reserved that the Fairfax County School Board does hereby proclaim November 11, 2026 as Veterans Day. [00:30:14] We urge all students, employees, and community members to join in appropriate activities to pay tribute to the members of our military and stress importance of service to our country as a core value in our democracy. [00:30:31] Therefore, we further resolve that Fairfax County School Board reaffirms our commitment that military-connected students and their families are welcome, supported, and valued in our schools. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Frisch, I will now call for the vote. [00:30:47] All those in favor, Ms. Anderson, Mr. Frisch, Ms. Marin, Mr. Moon, Ms. Dixon, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Dannon, Dr. Anderson, Ms. St. John Cunningham, and myself. That's unanimous for board members present. National School Psychologist Proclamation. [00:31:05] I call on Ms. St. John Cunningham for a proclamation. Whereas National School Psychologist Month is recognized annually in November to celebrate and honor the dedicated professional services staff in elementary, middle, and high schools who ensure the mental and emotional health needs of our students are met, both in and out of school. [00:31:26] And whereas school psychologists bring a unique combination of training in both psychology and education, enabling them to collaborate with teachers, administrators, families, and other professionals in order to create safe, nurturing, inclusive, and supportive learning environments for all children. [00:31:48] And whereas school psychologists are key members of the school team who assess individual strengths against student and school-based barriers to learning and apply their expertise and training in mental health, learning and behavior, and research-driven prevention and intervention strategies to help students develop and nurture the social, emotional, and life skills necessary to achieve personal growth, build resilience, and foster a sense of belonging. [00:32:20] And, whereas the National Association of School Psychologists has designated this year's theme as Inspire Connection, to spotlight how school psychologists build meaningful relationships that support students, strengthen collaboration, and transform school communities. [00:32:42] And whereas, through evidence-based practice, data-driven decision-making, preventative and responsive interventions, consultation and collaboration, and culturally responsive supports, school psychologists strengthen student learning, promote mental and behavioral health, address barriers to success, and champion equity, access, and positive school climates. [00:33:10] And whereas Fairfax County Public Schools believes that the mental health, emotional well-being, academic readiness, social competence, and behavioral success of all students are foundational to vibrant schools and thriving communities. [00:33:28] And, whereas in our Fairfax County Public Schools community, school psychologists play a critical role in promoting student engagement and success, facilitating transition planning, supporting positive behavior, and social-emotional growth, assisting with crisis prevention and intervention, partnering with families and stakeholders, and advancing inclusive practices to help students thrive academically, socially, and more. [00:33:59] emotionally now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board recognizes November 2026 as the school psychologist appreciation month and expresses its highest commendation and deep gratitude for the critical role of these professional these professionals play in supporting our students emotional social and mental well-being their second second mr. Dannon all those in favor of the proclamation. Ms. Anderson, Mr. Frisch, Ms. Marin, Mr. Moon, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Dannon, Dr. Anderson, Ms. St. John Cunningham, and myself. It's unanimous for all board members. [00:34:41] Agenda item 3.05, recognizing World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims Proclamation. I call on Ms. Marin for a proclamation. Whereas the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, commemorated globally on November 15, 2026, serves as a solemn occasion to remember the ever-present danger of vehicle crashes in our car-dependent society of Fairfax County. [00:35:07] And whereas traffic crashes remain a critical public safety and public health challenge across the United States, with the most recent data confirming a daily average of three children killed and 439 injured, and causing non-fatal injuries to an estimated 160,850 young people nationwide. [00:35:25] And whereas nationwide data underscores that 76% of child traffic fatalities are vehicle occupants, 17% are pedestrians, and 5% are cyclists, with peak risk times for young pedestrians occurring during afternoon hours. And whereas since 2022 in Fairfax, at least eight children have died in traffic crashes, with another 315 children injured. [00:35:49] We take a moment now to recognize the lives of the deceased children who have been known and loved by family, friends, teachers, classmates and neighbors. And whereas we recognize our collected sorrow when a young person in our community dies and strive to honor their deaths by demanding that local and state government expedite the known, needed, comprehensive traffic safety improvements that include three core components of education, enforcement and engineering, to strive toward a vision of zero traffic-related fatalities. [00:36:23] And whereas we urge all drivers to protect children by slowing down when driving, especially near schools. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board hereby recognizes November 15, 2026 as World Day of Remembrance for a road track of victims throughout Fairfax County public schools. [00:36:44] Is there a second? Second. Mr. Frisch, I will call for the vote. All those in favor. Ms. Anderson, Mr. Frisch, Ms. Marin, Mr. Moon, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Dannen, Dr. Anderson, Ms. St. John Cunningham, and myself. Madam Chair, maybe take a moment of silence rather than applaud. [00:37:00] Thank you. Thank you. [00:37:17] Jenna, item 3.06, celebrating National Family Engagement Month proclamation. I call on Ms. St. John Cunningham for a proclamation. Whereas Fairfax County Public Schools recognizes that strong partnerships among families, schools, and communities are essential to student success and to the well-being of every child. [00:37:37] And whereas November is National Family Engagement Month, a time to celebrate and recognize families as a child's first and most important teacher and partner in learning, with over 35 years of research confirming that active family involvement is the most effective way to increase student achievement. [00:37:56] And whereas professionals in every school and our departments of community relations, Multilingual learners and Title I provide a variety of family engagement opportunities on a daily basis in our division. [00:38:11] And whereas the FCPS Family and School Partnerships Office includes over 300 family engagement operational staff, including 200 dedicated family liaisons, family engagement region representatives, family resource center staff, community liaisons, home instruction for parents of preschool youngsters, otherwise known as HIPPY, early literacy, two parent, two homes, [00:38:42] Military family support, families reunite, cultural liaisons, and family information phone line professionals who work tirelessly to support all families in FCPS and ensure their academic success. And whereas family engagement staff serve as trusted connectors and advocates helping families navigate the school system, access school and community resources, and to engage meaningfully in their children's education. [00:39:13] And whereas, family engagement staff embody the values of equity, inclusion, and empathy, ensuring that every family, regardless of background, language, or circumstance, feels welcomed, informed, and empowered, and through their dedication, professionalism, and compassion, strengthen communication between home and school, promote cultural understanding, and nurture a sense of belonging that supports academic and social emotional growth. Now therefore be it [00:39:50] resolved that the Fairfax County School Board hereby proclaims November 1st through November 30th, 2026 as National Family Engagement Month. The board expresses its deep gratitude to the professionals in our schools, Department of Community Relations, Multilingual Learners, Title I, and Family and School Partnership Central Office staff and school-based family liaisons for their contributions, which exemplify the spirit of service and community that defines Fairfax. [00:40:23] Is there a second? I second. Ms. Dixit, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor, Ms. Anderson, Mr. Frisch, Ms. Marin, Mr. Moon, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Dannon, Dr. Anderson, Ms. St. Sean Cunningham, and myself, that's unanimous for all board members. Thank you. [00:40:38] I call on Ms. Anderson for a suspension of the rules. [00:40:57] I move to suspend the rules to allow for a student to share his written work after the proclamation honoring America's 250th anniversary. This suspension shall cover only this proclamation. Is there a second? Second. Second by Ms. Lady. I'll call for the vote. All those in favor, raise your hand. [00:41:15] Vote is unanimous. The motion passes. I call on Ms. Anderson for the proclamation. Whereas on July 4, 1776, representatives of the 13 colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence, setting out the ideals of liberty and equality that continue to shape our nation. [00:41:37] Whereas 250 years later, the promise of those ideals remains a work in progress, carried forward by people who have worked across generations to build a more just and representative nation. Whereas Fairfax County, established in 1742, was home to George Washington and George Mason, who both played important roles in the events leading to the American independence. [00:42:00] And whereas in 1774, Fairfax residents gathered to consider how the colonies should respond to British policies. George Washington chaired the meeting and George Mason drafted the Fairfax Resolves, which asserted colonial rights and called for the colonies to work together. [00:42:19] And whereas the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission is creating opportunities for Virginians to learn about and commemorate the American Revolution and its enduring legacy. And whereas Fairfax County Public Schools helps students connect the history of the nation to questions that remain relevant today. [00:42:39] What liberty, equality, and civic responsibility mean in their communities and in their lives. And whereas FCPS student Yug Mehta of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a resident of the Springfield District, received national recognition in America's Field Trip 250th essay contest, demonstrating the insight and creativity of Fairfax County students. [00:43:05] And now, therefore, be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board commemorates the 250th anniversary of American independence and recognizes the continuing importance of studying our nation's history and striving to fulfill its founding ideals. [00:43:22] And be it further resolved that the Fairfax County School Board encourages FCPS schools, educators, and students to take part in educational opportunities connected to the semi-quincentennial and congratulates Yug Mehta on bringing national recognition to the school division. [00:43:43] Is there a second? Second. Second by Miss Lady. I call for the vote. All those in favor, raise your hand. The vote's unanimous. The motion passes. I now call on Yug Mehta to read his essay, America, What It Means to Me. [00:44:05] Read out my poem. Next, I would like to thank my family. My mom is here taking my video. My dad's in the back. My sister's right there. [00:44:29] She's been a delight in my life. And my grandparents are here to see this occasion as well. So I would like to thank all of them for pushing me to reach these new heights and to further advance my studies, advance everything that I'm doing. [00:44:50] Now I will begin reading my poem. America, the land of the free. Now I will explain what it means to me. Built upon ideals of liberty and freedom, we built a democracy. Leaders are chosen, not crowned by decree. [00:45:08] No throne, no kings, just the will of the free. We were not always this way. Under the British, we didn't have a say. Our voices went unheard. When the British taxed our tea, we rose and said, we must be free. [00:45:24] No longer would we live under domination. We'll fight to make our own nation. And so it was, we fought their grasp, and when times got hard, we were steadfast. Sure, they had a more powerful army, but they do not know the might of the many. [00:45:43] When at long last we tasted victory, the entire nation rejoiced in unity. We knew then, our work was not over, and will never be, the pursuit of a more perfect democracy. The founders they met in Philly to pave our destiny. [00:46:01] What came out of that meeting, we'll never forget. The U.S. Constitution, our freedom set. America means to me a place, no, a vision where everyone can live like they see, rise with ambition, a nation built on the voices of the many. [00:46:22] Yet, when time calls, we join in unity, for we show that we can be anything that we see. America to me more than the nation a place of real tradition of creating humans for the next generation protected by the guarantees of life liberty and [00:46:44] property thank you thank you thank you that was beautiful thank you at this time I'd like to welcome all those here and support yes let's give him another [00:47:18] round of applause that was beautiful I'd like to welcome all those here in support of honoring America's 250th anniversary proclamation please join the [00:47:30] board for a photo at the front of the dais. I would like to welcome those here [00:49:49] in support of celebrating National Family Engagement Month [00:49:53] proclamation to please join the board at the front of the dais. I would now like [00:51:48] to welcome those here in support of National School Psychologist proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the dais. So that again is the all welcome in support of National School Psychologist [00:52:15] proclamation to join the board for the photo at the front of the dais. And now [00:53:37] last I would like to welcome those here in support of the Veterans Day proclamation to please join the board for a photo in front of the diocese is [00:53:44] the Veterans Day proclamation madam chair that was our last proclamation [00:55:33] photograph that was our last proclamation photograph thank you okay I [00:56:26] love the celebratory atmosphere but we are moving on to our purple star schools recognition folks if we can quiet down to be helpful thank you I call Mr. Dunn for the recognition. Virginia is home to over 77,000 military-connected school-age students, [00:57:00] more than any other state in the nation. All of our Fairfax County public schools proudly welcome and support the over 12,700 military-connected youth and their families who are part of our school community. In 2018, the Virginia Department of Education established the Purple Star designation to be awarded to military-friendly schools that have demonstrated a major commitment to students and families connected to our nation's military. Criteria established for the award were designed to increase educator awareness of military-connected youth and help schools to structure [00:57:39] their support to and for military-connected youth and their families. When a school achieves a Purple Star designation, it is valid for three years. After this period, schools who successfully reapply and meet the current program requirements achieve a consecutive designation. In the inaugural year, 14 Fairfax County Public Schools received the Purple Star recognition. FCPS now boasts 200 schools, making FCPS a [00:58:07] Purple Star division. Tonight we are honoring 73 of our schools who have been awarded the Purple Star designation for the 2026-2027 school year. The Purple Star School Awards serves to set each of these schools apart from the hard work of the faculty, students, parents, and community partners who stand together to ensure that our military-connected students are supported academically, behaviorally, and emotionally during their transitions. [00:58:47] We thank the FCPS school staff and students from these 73 schools earning the recognition this year for the warm welcome to their military-connected students and we thank our military families for keeping our nation strong and safe. [00:59:05] Schools that earned this prestigious designation received a special Purple Star recognition to display in their schools. I recognize our 55 schools who have achieved their first Purple Star School Award. These schools are now displayed on the screen and I invite students, families, staff, and community members in the audience to stand in support of their school. [00:59:37] Apparently there's some technical difficulty with the screening of the scrolling of the schools so my apologies. Okay, I'll just keep reading and then at the end we'll all stand up. [00:59:54] We will now recognize schools who have received a consecutive Purple Star school designation. These consecutive designations are in recognition of these schools' impressive ongoing commitment to welcoming military-connected students and families. [01:00:13] There are 17 schools who have achieved their second Purple Star designation. I will skip the part about how they're displayed. And we will move on to, I recognize the one school who has achieved their third purple star school designation. [01:00:32] These schools are now displayed on the star and, oops, now let's move on from that. At this point, I think that because all of our schools have them, everybody that is here from any of those schools, whether your staff, family or community, please stand so we can recognize all of you. [01:00:51] and if the school is here that has had that designation for three years miss Brown do we know the name of that okay all right West Springfield High [01:01:26] School I believe there we go so I think we're gonna scroll these now first [01:01:43] purple star designation please scroll second purple star designation thank [01:02:25] you and now our third purple star designation we've already recognized we'll do it again West Springfield High School thank you congratulations to our outstanding 20 26 27 purple star schools we'd like to recognize our Purple Star School points of contact, staff, families, administrators, and principals for their dedicated efforts to support military-connected students and their families. At this time, I'd like to recognize the Fort Belvoir garrison commander, Colonel Samuel Allen, who will [01:03:01] now provide brief remarks. Good evening. I feel like I'm facing the wrong way because I should be talking to all the teachers and administrators of the school system, so I'm going to do this kind of awkwardly like this. It is an honor to be here tonight. Not only am I a military member, obviously, by what I'm wearing, but I'm a proud parent of two products of the Fairfax County Public Schools. So as was mentioned several times in the proclamation, it is not easy being a military [01:03:39] kid, right? My oldest son has been in seven school districts. He just graduated from Woodson and did really well, so thank you for that. And I would tell you they were incredible. It is a true testament to the commitment of the staff, the administration, and the teachers for what you do. [01:03:57] that placement is hard, integrating is hard, but it matters. It really really matters. And so you know I've moved 14 times in 24 years. That's hard on the family, it's really hard on the kids, and you make a difference. So I'll finish by saying thank you for your commitment to the military community, thank you to our commitment to our children, and I appreciate what you do. Thank you. [01:04:19] Thank you. We would also like to recognize members of the Fairfax County Public Schools military connected youth process action team. This team's charge is to identify unique academic behavioral and social emotional needs of the military connected youth and their families and ensure faculty and staff are informed and prepared to meet the identified needs partnering with stakeholders as appropriate. At this time I would also like to ask my colleagues, Colonel Allen, student representative Shostick, our superintendent Dr. Reed, and our chief of schools Ms. Broman, members of the military connected youth process action team, and Fort Belvoir school liaison [01:04:59] officers, Marie Bailey and Angela Beebe, to make their way to the dais to recognize these schools and be part of the group photos. Madam Clerk, please call up each school by region to join us at the dais with their region leadership staff to receive their recognition and take a group photo. Starting with region one schools, A through F, Armstrong Elementary, Ludie Lewis Coates Elementary, Cedar Lane School, Flores Elementary, Forest Edge Elementary and Fox Mill [01:05:29] Elementary. Okay, so that's all Region 1 schools. Herndon E.S., Hutchinson E.S., Louise Archer, [01:06:00] Madison, McNair, McNair Upper, Spring Hill, Teresat, Thoreau, and Vienna. All Region 2 schools. [01:07:53] Bailey's Upper, Belvedere, Chesterbrook, Glasgow, Glen Forest, Justice, Luther Jackson, McLean, Sleepy Hollow, Timberlane, Thomas Jefferson for the School for Science and Technology, [01:08:04] Woodburn High School, and Falls Church, who is not at a last year, bye. Next up, Region 3 schools. [01:09:45] Bellevue Elementary, Bucknell, Highbla Valley, Polycareer Center, Quandah Road, [01:09:51] and Rose Hill High School. Elementary school, not high school. Next, Region 4 [01:11:19] will be called by Pyramids starting with the Edison Pyramid. Edison Pyramid. What? Oh, Regent, I'm sorry, I was calling the Regent, sorry, no, Region 4 is Centerville. Okay, yep, Region 4, Centerville first. Okay, all Region 4 [01:11:59] schools please come up front it looked like we had a lot but it looks like maybe we don't all region four schools sorry this is bonnie bray burke school centerville elementary centerville high school haley kings park lake braddock liberty middle school mountain view rolling valley south county south county middle school and high school west springfield bellevue bucknell hybla valley [01:12:35] nope sorry sorry bonnie bray i said them all already orange hunt robinson silverbrook terra Center, Irving, and West Springfield High School. Next up will be all Region 5 schools. Canterbury Woods, Crossfield, Daniels Run, Davis Center, Franklin Middle School, Katherine Johnson Middle [01:13:14] School, Kilmer Center, Kilmer Middle School, Lemon Road, London Town, Marshall High School, Poplar Tree Elementary School, Providence Elementary School, Shrevewood Elementary, Stone Middle School, Wakefield Forest, West Briar, Westfield High School, [01:13:29] Westgate and Willow Springs, but not least Region 6, Annandale Terrace, [01:14:57] Holmes, Lorton Station, Lynnbrook, Poe, and Wayanoke. Madam Chair, that concludes the [01:16:12] Purple Star School's recognition. Agenda item 4.01, community participation. The next order of [01:17:02] business is community participation. We welcome all community members who are here and those who signed up to speak this evening. Additional information about signing up to provide comments at school board regular business meetings and public hearings can be found on the school board's website at www.fcps.edu backslash school board. During the signup process, community members acknowledge they are informed of the school board's expectations for proper decorum when providing comments. These expectations are also available online and with the printed agenda and meeting materials in the back of the room. We ask audience members to be respectful of one another. Shouting and outbursts will not be tolerated. Please hold your applause until the [01:17:40] conclusion of a speaker's remarks. Audience members may not join speakers at the podium and should remain at their seats, including when recording video or taking photos. We are grateful to those who have come to speak to us today, and thank you for your cooperation. School board members will be listening, but not responding. Madam Deputy Clerk, please call the first speaker. Student 1. Hello, Dr. Reed and school board members. My name is Sanjana Long, and I'm a fourth-grade student. [01:18:15] I'm here to talk about lessons I learned in third grade about TechCaston schools. I've loved all my teachers so far because they were helpful, kind, and caring. I learned, though, that a caring teacher is not everything I need to learn. I need to be able to focus, and I learned that I can't when I'm in a class where all I can hear is the ding notifications and jingles from ST Math and Lexia. [01:18:40] I can't learn in a class where all I can see is people around me typing notes and slides to each other, playing video games, and watching inappropriate and distracting videos. This was not a problem with any of my classes until third grade, when I had the unfortunate combination of everyone having their own device and a tech-reliant teacher. [01:19:04] In my third grade AAP class, screens were always a choice for free time. We were often rewarded with TV shows. Even cursive was taught using YouTube videos, and the person who read to us was not our teacher, but a man or woman on YouTube. [01:19:21] I watched at least 12 Disney movies and 30 episodes of TV shows during the school year before the S.O.L.s. It was fun, but it was also true that I didn't learn much that year. What can we do about it? We need to stop giving everyone their own computer, especially in elementary school. [01:19:42] We can also limit screen time so we have more time for learning. Please listen to parents, teachers, and doctors about this issue so no one has to waste time at school on their device. Thank you. [01:20:08] Sherry-Ann Truong. Good evening, everyone. [01:20:28] My name is Sherry-Ann Truong. I'm a junior at Robinson Secondary School, and I've come today to address the issue of CPR education in FCPS. Women are 14% less likely to receive CPR from bystanders. This discrepancy has been attributed to fear of causing injury, inappropriate touch, or accusations of sexual assault. [01:20:49] These reasons trace back to one thing, people's fear of touching women's breasts. In a matter of life or death, that is why women are borrowed from health care. This bias begins in training. A survey attributed gender discrimination and CPR to mannequin designs. [01:21:07] 95% of CPR mannequins are flat-chested. And when we look at the equipment used to train FCPS high schoolers, the reality matches the statistics. Students are not acclimated to performing on individuals with breasts because they are trained solely to perform on flat-chested individuals. [01:21:24] These biases are being created right here in FCPS because school is where many first learn and only learn CPR. But we also have the unique ability to quell this injustice. Every high schooler in FCPS must learn CPR in order to graduate. [01:21:40] Our schools have the power to shape FCPR education for thousands of students across the county. Thus, I urge the FCPS school board to implement breast add-ons for CPR dummies at our public high schools. If FCPS were to buy just one breast add-on for every high school, it would only cost $461. [01:22:02] Only $461 to educate thousands of students for years and years to come. Because we don't just have the unique ability to quell this injustice, we have the duty to do so. Thank you. Robbie Lapham. [01:22:30] Hello, my name is Robbie Lapham, and I currently attend Oakton High School as a junior. I'm here in front of you today because I know of some deeply troubling information. The current band director at Oakton High School, Dr. James Van Valkenburg, was arrested and found guilty for a DWI on April 28, 2026. [01:22:56] He is currently on administrative leave, but why weren't the students and families of Oakton High School informed of this? On October 10th, 2026, Dr. V was arrested at an Oakton High School football game for being drunk in public. The next day, October 11th, during the Oakton Classic Marching Competition, he arrived after being trespassed the night before and was arrested. [01:23:16] My close friends were in the marching band and were there at the time he was arrested for trespassing, and this made them fear deeply for their safety. My question for you is why was he given so many chances? On an Oakton band trip, while Dr. V was band director, a girl was sexually assaulted. [01:23:33] This was the case FCPS versus Doe 2018. So I ask again, why was he given so many chances when he has demonstrated time and time again that he is not to be trusted with the safety of children? The students and families of Oakton High School deserve full transparency regarding this scandal, and we insist on understanding what actions will be taken to remedy the situation. [01:23:52] Thank you for your time. - Kat Frazier. [01:24:11] As a teacher, I have never felt so undervalued and dehumanized. Thanks to some vague mention about assigning duties and contracts, our whole school looks like a walking, talking house of usher, and it has seeped down to the students who are confused and anxious. I don't want to waste time blaming people, and I don't really know who to blame, but I'm asking you all to put a stop to it. [01:24:31] Look, you're not going to find me sitting behind my desk during class. I don't grade or plan during class time because that's student time. Unfortunately, I can't find any time to grade or plan because I'm doing IPR duties. And in case no one's noticed, none of those duties are student-centered. So I have to fill a conflict form out if I'm going to miss a duty, and the only reasons I can choose from missing are special education meetings, proctoring, or receiving approval from administration ahead of time, which no one gets. [01:25:00] Do you want to know what isn't on the list? Anything student-centered. There's no box for "I was working with a kid, helping a student in crisis, calling a parent." box for checking back in with the kid who stayed after yesterday because his dad left home unexpectedly. But what is most frustrating and insulting is that the whole reason schools can get away with this is because we care so much about the students. I'm so tired of hearing about contracts and hours. I'm not contracted to stay after school till 8 p.m. during college application time when kids volunteer to come back to school so I can help them. I'm not contracted to stay up till midnight or work weekends. We all know this is part of our job, but you're using it against us. [01:25:41] The fact that I can't let my kids down is the very reason you're getting free labor for these duties. Because you know, even if you took all my planning time away at school, I'd just stay up till 2 a.m. instead of midnight. Because I want to serve my students in a way that they deserve, and not just slap a bunch of grades on things so I can be done. You brag about us, you use us in your data. You tell the world how our social emotional health comes first. Well, then treat [01:26:10] us like humans who you really do value. Listen to us. Stop. Valisha Jackson. Good evening. [01:26:32] Before we begin, I don't know if we can wait just one moment. I wanted to just offer an opportunity for a trigger warning. That was not supposed to be part of my time. Please restart her time. Yes. Just because the topic at hand will cover sexual assault. And if anyone's listening or in the room that would want to leave, I just want them to have that moment to do so. [01:26:58] Okay. Thank you. [01:27:28] Okay. Good evening. I'm Valisha Jackson, an FCPS parent, and I'm here to discuss the daily risk of sexual assault our children face in FCPS daily. None of this is a shock to anyone in front of me or to the left because it's a pattern, and you know more than FERPA or FOIA will ever release to any of us. [01:27:52] In August, this board found the superintendent compliant with EL1, which bars failing to take reasonable measures to prevent anything unlawful, unethical, or unsafe. Wanna know how do you reconcile your vote knowing the reality of sexual assaults that happen in our schools? [01:28:09] What's changed? I will tell you. The formal Title IX complaints rose almost 75% before last school year even ended, but the Title IX coordinator reported that the increase was 47%. In that very same training program cited as evidence of compliance for EL10, which is covered tonight. [01:28:26] And Division Council's budget is a blank check of taxpayer dollars available to silence and further traumatize victims and their families. Their budget ballooned from $5.3 million to $11.6 million in one year and is $11.9 this year. [01:28:42] Add to that the costs buried in other budget lines, like last year's judgment for a third grader allegedly assaulted by a sixth grade bus patrol and contracted decision makers for investigations. But the policies and practices stay the same, and our children pay the price. Regulation 2118.4 accommodates respondents with IEPs for discipline, yet complainants with disabilities get the same menu of generic support options as everyone else, no matter the impact on their access to education. [01:29:10] Tonight, I want to know, are you going to keep voting for compliance despite what you know? Because your legal cover gets thinner with every one of your votes. With notice, I ask that you commission a truly independent public audit, Maintain ongoing oversight of all Title IX matters from top to bottom. [01:29:27] And I ask that you center the protection of our children and stop bartering with their bodies because their safety is not for sale. Good night. Kate Carey. [01:29:51] I'm a community volunteer with McLean High School and Longfellow Middle School, where I work with eco-action clubs. In recent years, McLean and Longfellow worked together on projects like invasive poles and promoting natural sciences. [01:30:07] Last year, the two schools focused on school-created light pollution. Big issue. This year, as we settled into a club meeting about stream aquatics, one of my McLean students, who happens to be here tonight, said, Ms. Carey, we want to go to another classroom today because we've been invited to a call hosted by Falls Church High School to learn about solar schools. [01:30:28] We walked into that meeting cold and listened to the progress FCPS has made on solar schools. We learned so much. First, thank you for having staff work so hard on this. Second, the McLean kids were astonished that their roof is eligible for panels. [01:30:44] But then they were dismayed to learn the reason we don't have solar roofs already is because it's so cost prohibitive to comply with Dominion's 2023 safety standards for mid- and large-scale projects that Dominion unilaterally implemented without state corporation commission approval in which electrical engineer groups do not believe are necessary. [01:31:06] These aren't simple regulatory standards, nope. These standards increase costs of installing solar by millions. And it's why solar school progress is stagnated, except for nine schools that have small arrays that are exempted. At that meeting, every single one of my students and all my middle school students said they want to promote solar schools. [01:31:26] Each January, McLean and Longfellow bring eco-clubs together for a community-wide event. This year, that event will be January 14th at Longfellow, and we invite all of you. We also urge you to negotiate with Dominion to end these controversial Dominion rules. [01:31:43] This issue is all the more urgent since Dominion announced there will be a 25% cost increase that will disrupt student programs and budgets for this school system. At this point, everyone with a roof has a big financial incentive. [01:32:05] - Nick Lennon. - Good evening. I'm the father of two energetic and kind elementary school students, I have a PhD in educational psychology and have been working at George Mason University for over 15 years. Today I'm speaking for myself, not representing Mason. I've seen a very troubling drop in the social skills of our university students. This is a concern that many of my colleagues share and this drop started before COVID but has continued. I often wonder what's the motivation behind introducing EdTech and FCPS. A common concern seems to be that our FCPS [01:32:45] students will lag behind if ed tech and AI aren't introduced at an early age. I'm here to share that our students are already being left behind, but not in their use of technology. They're being left behind in their social skills and their ability to relate to one another in person, face-to-face. My in-person ethics and leadership course directly relates to FCPS's focus on developing ethical global citizens. When I teach or facilitate, I incorporate interactive activities to get students to problem-solve together. One of my main goals by the end of the semester is that students will spontaneously talk to each other when they arrive at class, instead of simply staring at their devices and scrolling. [01:33:23] It can take a while to build this culture, something that students used to do without prompting. I'm extremely concerned about EdTech and FCPS, particularly the use of one-to-one devices and AI. I request that we get rid of one-to-one devices in elementary school and significantly limit EdTech and FCPS overall, unless it's the best alternative and absolutely necessary. [01:33:46] for example students with particular learning challenges we all need to help our students develop the face-to-face social skills that they need to be more fully human and humane members of society i strongly believe we need more face-to-face work in teams and less individual work on screens and this is in line with what our first student speaker mentioned so thank you very much jennifer [01:34:19] Hertzberg. Good evening chair, members of the school board and FCPS community. I'm Dr. Jennifer Hertzberg and today marks 160 days since I was prevented from carrying out my professional responsibilities for Fairfax County Public Schools as director of Title I. For months I have been without a meaningful opportunity to be heard. I am here because the concerns I raise go beyond a lack of due process. They concern our shared responsibility to safeguard public funds and uphold the public trust. I continue to serve in FCPS for now nearly 25 years, [01:34:55] most recently as director of Title I and Title IV, overseeing federal grant programs supporting more than 100 public and private schools. For approximately the past 18 months, I raised concerns through appropriate channels about federal grant administration, the use of public funds, and compliance with federal requirements. These were not workplace grievances or interpersonal concerns. They were substantive concerns about the [01:35:16] stewardship of public resources and FCPS's federal obligations. Throughout that time, I sought guidance and collaboration while continuing to fulfill my responsibilities in good faith. To this day, I have not been given any explanation connecting my removal from this work to any failure to carry out those responsibilities. That distinction matters when public funds are at stake. [01:35:37] Federal grants management is a specialized area of public administration. It requires more than general knowledge of budgets, procurement, or school operations. It demands a working understanding of federal regulations, program requirements, fiscal accountability, and the interconnected responsibilities that extend across an entire school division. [01:35:54] No one person can effectively carry that responsibility without informed institutional engagement and appropriate expertise throughout the organization. I ask FCPS to ensure legitimate compliance concerns can be raised, heard, and addressed, and that those entrusted with this work receive the support necessary to carry it out. [01:36:10] The stewardship of federal funds is a public trust. When legitimate concerns about public resources go unheard or misunderstood, the consequences extend beyond one employee. They affect our schools, our families, and the children we serve. Thank you for your consideration of these concerns. End of May. Christy Fulfaro. [01:36:43] Members of the board, my name is Christy Fulfaro. I'm a teacher at Lake Braddock Secondary School, a Fairfax County resident in the Sully District, and a parent of an FCPS student and graduate. [01:37:00] As a highly trained and qualified Spanish teacher, for 22 years I have served the Lake Braddock School and community. I am one of thousands in FCPS who bring specialized expertise and years of experience and dedication to my classroom. Like my FCPS colleagues, my commitment to instructional and professional responsibilities is not limited to my contract hours. [01:37:24] We are caretakers, counselors, advisors, coaches. We build relationships, support learning, and to serve the greater community in a positive and caring manner. We work to support academic, physical, and mental well-being every day. [01:37:39] And we do this because we care about our students' well-being and personal growth. We are influencers, encouraging students to take risks and challenge themselves to grow when it's uncomfortable. We craft recommendations for students as they apply to scholarships, universities, service academies, leadership positions. [01:37:59] And we do this because we care about our students' futures. We do these things, and we are these things every day. What we are not are trained security professionals who have the capacity to respond to a frontline threat at the entrance of our schools. [01:38:15] What we are not are warm bodies that can be deposited into any duty station an administrator deems necessary. Misusing other duties as assigned to turn certified educators into generic building personnel, devalues our profession, undermines school safety, and damages morale across this district. [01:38:34] And worse still, threatening discipline and termination when staff refuse because they feel unsafe or untrained is unconscionable. Our professional expertise, is it respected, or are we just interchangeable labor? So please protect the integrity of teaching. [01:39:02] Sarah Karish. Good evening. My name is Sarah Karish, and I am a Mason District resident and the parent of a Falls Church High School senior. [01:39:19] I would like to express my deep appreciation for the Board's commitment to reducing carbon emissions and deploying renewable energy. In particular, I am so pleased to see the Wave 4 solar proposal on your agenda and want to thank you in advance for approving it. [01:39:35] This proposal for a combined 5.4 megawatts of solar on 10 schools would take a substantial chunk out of FCPS's emissions as well as its energy bills. Unfortunately, your approval alone may not be enough to make the full proposal a reality. [01:39:51] As you know, Dominion Energy imposes onerous interconnection requirements on arrays over 250 kilowatts. These requirements forced FCPS to drastically scale back its original solar plans. The nine rooftop arrays that have been installed on schools since last year are all under the 250 kilowatt threshold. [01:40:12] These smaller arrays are a great step forward, but not nearly as impactful as larger projects in terms of both saving money and cutting emissions. The new proposal includes some large projects, but if the interconnection obstacle isn't solved, they may not be viable. [01:40:28] The good news is that members of the General Assembly are preparing to introduce legislation to remove this barrier to school solar. I know the legislative program that is on your agenda tonight includes support for minimizing or eliminating solar interconnection costs. I hope the county's entire delegation will get the message to support this important reform. [01:40:49] Finally, we can't ignore the backdrop of the proposed merger between Dominion and NextEra. If Dominion has been a poor partner for school solar, we can imagine how an even bigger utility will behave. I want to thank the board for connecting these dots in the comment you submitted this week to the SCC in opposition of the merger. [01:41:15] - Rayhan Rustagi. - Good evening, members of the school board. My name is Arihan Rustagi, and I'm a junior at Langley High School. I want to begin by thanking you all for taking the time to listen to us today. [01:41:32] As an FCPS student, I've had the opportunity to work alongside students from McLean, Falls Church, and Langley who all share a passion for solar energy. Throughout this experience, I've seen firsthand how much young people care about the future of our schools, our community, and our environment. [01:41:47] As students, we recognize that global warming is a challenge our generation will have to face. While we may not be able to solve this problem on our own, that does not mean we can't contribute to the solution. Expanding solar energy in our schools gives us an opportunity to make a meaningful difference right here in Fairfax County. [01:42:04] Beyond its environmental benefits, solar energy is also an investment in our education. By reducing our exposure to future electricity rate increases from Dominion, FCPS could have more money to invest in the things that directly benefit the community, whether that's supporting our teachers, funding our clubs, or expanding school activities. [01:42:21] Solar energy is not just about improving our school buildings. It's about improving the experience of the students and teachers inside them and also our environment. I want to thank the school board for their continued commitment to expanding solar energy. I encourage you all to build on the progress we've made by approving way forward tonight. [01:42:40] As students, we may attend different schools, but we share the same future. By investing in solar energy today, we are investing in a cleaner environment, a stronger education, and a brighter future for every student and teacher in Fairfax County. Thank you. Vanessa Hall. [01:43:05] Hi, y'all. Long time no see. Two things. First, please support the Arab Immersion Program. And second, parents agree that you should let them teach, and they shouldn't be staffing weapons detection because security keeps us safe so that educators can educate. [01:43:29] To be honest, when the systems were first discussed in April 2025, only two of us voiced concerns about cost, impacts on students, and efficacy. The student described them as only a simple solution to a complex problem, while improving peer-to-peer relationships and providing more social workers was actually more effective. [01:43:51] At the same time, I gently reminded the board that metal detectors may offer a perception of safety, but they have limitations and have not been shown to reduce violence. I was actually reprimanded by a school board member at the time, and I felt silenced despite being an upstander on community safety. [01:44:10] But I'm speaking now after teachers and students have raised the alarm. Last month, thankfully, the student representative said that screening systems strip away the dignity of students, making them feel like criminals before they even enter the school. That is not a welcoming environment, encouraging students to learn or thrive. [01:44:30] Studies show that a welcoming and supportive environment with more mental health support makes schools safer. Instead, we have school psychologists covering two schools and a significant number of staff concentrated around weapons detection in the morning, so they have no time to roam the halls, welcome students, or meet with parents and students in a crisis. Nevertheless, Fairfax studies actually show that an available trusted adult is a protective factor, yet these weapons systems take that adult out of the equation. Despite the perception of safety, the system's efficacy are low while error rates are high. We would not accept that anywhere [01:45:07] else in FCPS, and those systems do not... Fesher Ammer. Fesher Ammer. Okay. Mike Horrigan. [01:45:46] Good evening. My name is Mike Horgan. I'm a tech ed teacher at Lake Braddock Secondary. Across all of my classes, students quickly learn to use the right tool for the job. [01:46:06] You can improvise with tools, but when you force a tool to do something it's not engineered to do, you bypass safety tolerances, you create invisible fatigue, you invite catastrophic failure. [01:46:21] Eventually your tool quits working and people get hurt. I am not a security guard, yet without any training I have been asked to go into a bathroom and clear 45 boys out of a smoke-filled bathroom. I am not the right tool for that job and neither is an open gate magnetometer for what it's worth. Pillars do not break up fights, they do not conduct searches, they do not de-escalate conflicts. People do these things. But assigning classroom teachers to weapons screening stations [01:47:00] is administrative improvisation and it is dangerous. In engineering we do a kind of risk assessment technique called a pre-mortem where we imagine a failure before it happens. I have my students do it before big projects because it forces them to be honest about all the ways they could fail and assess them and address them. I'm asking you to conduct a pre-mortem tonight. Picture an escalation or worse at an open gate staffed by a teacher lacking specialized [01:47:36] training or legal clarity about search and seizure. Imagine the legal fallout for the district and for the teacher. Imagine the community reaction, the debate about whether legal concepts like negligent entrustment... [01:47:55] Please play the video testimony of Ashley Clifton. [01:48:22] Expand upon world languages in FCPS. As a multilingual learner teacher, I know the value that our multilingual learners bring. [01:48:43] Their home language is an asset and not a deficit. See, just as this crane uses levers to lift the heavy load, that's what we need to do. We need to use their heritage language as an asset as they're acquiring English. [01:49:02] How about the community, their families? They're here to support those students. That is a valuable resource that we have. In the communities where there is a high population of a certain language, that's where we need to improve and implement dual language immersion programs. [01:49:23] And using our teachers who are already licensed in elementary education and endorsed in another language. We don't have to go to other countries to recruit teachers. Here in FCPS, we have many teachers who already have these credentials. [01:49:41] That's a valuable way that we can save for our budget moving forward. So what do you say? Let's make it equitable for all students in FCPS. What do you say? All aboard! Julia Hostage did not submit her video for this evening, so please play the video testimony of Suzanne Stillman. [01:50:15] Good evening, and thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm Susan Stillman, and I'm a resident of Fairfax County. It's important that the FCPS School Board speaks up against the next era, Dominion merger. [01:50:31] You just experienced a very large increase in the cost of electricity from Dominion, which harms your budget and costs taxpayers. A merger which creates the largest investor-owned utility in a state with no constraints on campaign contributions would only make matters worse and future costs of electricity would be more onerous. [01:50:53] I hope you will send the letter to stand up for FCPS and for Fairfax taxpayers. You started construction on the Dunloring facility, which is slated to be a net zero building. This is a great investment that will help protect FCPS from future increases in the price of electricity. [01:51:12] Keep up the good work and continue to live up to the commitments of the Joint Environmental Task Force. I'm pleased to see the next tranche of solar on schools and pleased to see that the consultant has recommended that all those schools have solar installed. [01:51:28] I hope that you will approve that tranche. There is legislation being filed by Delegate Rip Sullivan that would eliminate the interconnection costs that are holding FCPS back from installing the large-scale solar systems that are most cost-effective. [01:51:45] The Dominion requirement is not industry standard, and it is their solely to hamstring school systems from installing the most cost-effective solar and saving taxpayers' money. I appreciate that you all have put this issue on your legislative agenda. [01:52:01] I hope that you will reach out to the members of the House Labor and Commerce Committee and the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee to highlight this opportunity to save taxpayer money and lock in the cost of electricity for Fairfax County public schools. [01:52:17] Thanks so much. Madam Chair, that was our last speaker. Thank you. Jen, item 5.01, Student Representative Matters. I call Mr. Shostek for Student Representative Matters. Thank you, Chair Lady. [01:52:33] I'm going to keep it a bit brief tonight. I think a lot of stuff that I've said recently can be left where it is for now. The first thing that I did want to say actually is I wanted to extend my gratitude to Mr. Dannon because I'll be speaking, and he's given me the opportunity to be a presenter at the Public Engagement Committee meeting next week, and that's an opportunity that I'm really fortunate to have. [01:52:57] When I was elected to this role, I really wanted to have the opportunity to sort of change the way that our county works with students and reaches out to students and gets input from students. And I think that that is a really crucial way of doing so. And not just in terms of working to get a second student representative, but everything regarding reforming the Student Advisory Council and other mechanisms to bring about student voices in our county. [01:53:23] I think having the opportunity to make real tangible change in this position is really meaningful to me, so I wanted to thank you for that. And, you know, on that day, too, it's actually going to be a pretty busy day. next Tuesday, for me, I will be meeting with the Student Advisory Council again. [01:53:39] So I hope to be able to sort of get the stitch on what's been going on in our county. And I know that I also plan on, you know, I've mentioned this at previous board meetings as well, but this is the really big one because this is going to be the last board meeting before my town halls, which I did really want to have official dates for today, but at last, circumstances got in the way of that, but just please stay tuned. Please be subscribed to Mr. McDaniel's newsletter. I'll also try to get some of my other colleagues on the board to be posting about this as well when I have [01:54:14] information, but we are looking at three dates right ahead of Thanksgiving, and so if you are a teacher out there that wants to make your students aware of this opportunity, this is really a way that I'm trying to communicate with students outside of the Student Advisory Council and to just get input from students across the county on things from the grade book to technology to metal detectors mental health services student representation all of that stuff it's going to be organized by topic that will that information will be put out I also am getting my my Instagram and everything set up so that that information will also be there as well so that's the the [01:54:52] big stuff for my end I really hope to I'm really looking forward to continuing this work on the board, and yeah, go over there. - Jen, I'm 6.01. [01:55:07] I call on Dr. Reed for Academic Matters. - Thank you, Madam Chair. Tonight's Academic Matters presentation, let's see if we can get this a little closer, will focus in which FCPS ensures students stay on track to meet graduation requirements. [01:55:29] So we can go to the next slide, please. In FCPS, we do offer students multiple pathways recover credit, build momentum and stay on track toward earning their high school diploma. Recently a credit continuation school-based program was developed as a pilot to provide additional opportunities for students at risk of failing to earn course and verified credits while remaining connected to their base schools. [01:55:57] Additionally, extended programs are offered by schools to help prepare students for end of course exams. And Credit Recovery Academy provides an opportunity for students to recover one high school course credit or prepare for an end-of-course exam over the summer. [01:56:14] So we have some great data with our Credit Recovery Academy on the next slide. And the Academy provides an opportunity for students to recover at least one high school course credit over the summer. This program has been part of the FCPS Summer Program for many, many years. [01:56:33] The Credit Recovery Academy meets the state requirement of 70 hours of instruction to recover a credit and provide students with hands-on learning to include science labs, inquiry-based projects, and cross-curricular collaboration, enhancing their experience. [01:56:49] I don't know if Mr. DeRose is here tonight. He had one of our students with him at our last meeting when we postponed this academic matters, but there was a lot of excitement among students. We had over 1,000 participate in recovering credits and a pass rate of over 98% for these credit recovery courses. [01:57:12] So on the next slide, Madam Clerk, if you would please play the video so we can hear the impact of Credit Recovery Academy from our staff and students, please. Credit recovery is a reshift or a reframing of the whole mentality and skill sets necessary to be successful in their classes and in the real world so they learn not only the content but you know showing up on time how to actually study paying attention in class [01:57:47] I learned responsibility time management I had to manage my time with family with school there are smaller class sizes so that teacher has the abilities to really get to know the students I I can't learn around a noisy environment, so I feel like the less people in the classroom had a less tone to the classroom, so I was able to focus more. [01:58:07] They see that there are not only one individual who maybe struggled, but there were others that struggled in that same situation. And they see that the whole FCPS community really care about them as individuals and really want to see them succeed. I've done CRA for plenty of years, and when they pass the class or they pass the SML, you're really excited. [01:58:28] The ones I really love are the ones that, you know, they came into this because maybe they had an attendance issue. Maybe they didn't feel the connection with the school or the curriculum or whatever, and they just kind of lost their way a little bit. [01:58:45] At the end of that three weeks of credit recovery, they have a whole renewed sense of optimism about school. My experience was pretty great. I feel way more confident. I got new connections and stuff from new friends, teachers, learned new things. [01:59:01] I'm going to keep pushing myself to get better. And so as we look at the credit continuation, in addition to the supports offered through the traditional Credit Recovery Academy, we've recently piloted a new school-based program. [01:59:22] And this credit continuation school-based program was developed to provide additional time for students at risk of failing to earn course and verified credits while remaining connected to their base schools, and that's been a real priority in this work, that students can remain connected to their base schools. [01:59:41] In addition to the division's Credit Recovery Academy, the new Credit Continuation Pilot was able to support an additional 1,572 recovered credits with 25 high schools participating, and 11 of these also offered extended programs to support end-of-course exam preparation. [02:00:00] And all this was really put into place this past summer. It was a heavy lift. I appreciate, in particular, our Annandale High School principal, Mr. DeRose, the leadership of our school support office, and all of our high school principals coming together to work on this. [02:00:16] It was really a yeoman's effort to carry this out. The program also included work sessions for students who have not yet completed their social studies performance-based assessment and their work keys, which gave them dedicated time to finish these requirements. [02:00:34] As we look to play the next video, could we please turn the volume up just a bit? Whoever is managing that. Nick, thank you. I struggled in chemistry. [02:00:49] I felt like I just needed a little bit more time. And my counselor told me about this credit continuation that I could do to basically still have that credit. Credit continuation is a great opportunity for our students to be able to recover small portions of those credits that's a huge benefit for our students who don't need to retake lessons that they've already learned and already mastered they can just focus on proficiency of the areas that they may have been missing so like the lessons were usually like let's say like 20 slides and then there would be like a quiz at the end if you didn't get it [02:01:27] right then it will tell you either the reasons why and this is how you can fix it. It allows students to work at their own pace and access one-on-one help because you have content teachers who are able to work with the students one-on-one when they did need one-on-one support. It wasn't like a classroom and we had to move on to something else immediately. They would sit down with me and talk about whatever I had on the laptop. They would walk me through a lot of the things. Credit continuation showed us different techniques and different skills. This has changed my way that I see myself as a student because I feel like i adapted as a learner by the end of um credit continuation just knowing that your grade [02:02:07] went up and just being able to say like wow like i actually did that like it proves to you that no matter the struggle no matter how difficult you think something is like you can overcome it and that's just not like an education that's just like a life lesson every time that they would pass something there was loud yells and celebrations and clapping and the smiles on the students faces when they got that mastery and their excitement was honestly i think motivated other students to motivated me didn't you to work harder through the program when people were clapping like when [02:02:43] i was completely done like that just felt nice and to be honest i kind of went home and cried after that because it just felt so nice i needed extra help but i got through it like you can also do that so i think um having had a chance to go out and visit with some of the students this past summer it was great to hear students talk about being able to do hard things and uh really continue to be inspired by their work so as we support students with on-time graduation we want our community to understand it's the value of offering multiple support [02:03:17] pathways for our students it's not just one pathway because the pathways need to be i think as varied as our students needs are by leveraging high quality instructional experiences dedicated wraparound services and strong meaningful relationships we give our students the opportunities they need and value to rebuild their momentum so they can confidently earn their high school diplomas and I think as we go to our goal report on graduation on time graduation we continue to make progress with that so thank you that is academic matters this evening thank you dr. Reed this time I'll now invite board members [02:03:55] to ask any clarifying questions or provide comments. As a reminder of my colleagues, per board member agreement, we will be using a timing system of two minutes for initial remarks and one minute for go-backs for all presentations that do not require a vote. [02:04:14] I'm going to go to Ms. Dixit, but in the meantime, I need a key to turn my light board on. Thank you. Ms. Dixit. Thank you, Dr. Reed, for the presentation. This is definitely a great program. Is there a breakdown of which courses have the most students in credit recovery? [02:04:35] - So I know we tracked that not very long ago, and I'll ask Dr. Presidio if we have somebody here representing the academic matters. - I think it's me, but thank you for the question. We could get more detailed information for you, but it's a lot of core math classes, algebra, geometry, algebra two classes, those are pretty common, as well as some introductory English classes. [02:05:02] - Thank you. - But it does vary. - Oh, it does vary. What's the criteria to prepare for the EOC exam and how many students participate in the credit recovery for this purpose? - Well, pretty much all of the students that are in the credit recovery program, and that's the program we've been running for many years in Fairfax, still need those verified credits. [02:05:23] So that's one of the benefits and components of the credit recovery program, is that students are able to not just recover credit, but they get support to prepare for the end of course exams to earn the verified credits. - Thank you. It does look like a great program, like I said, to allow the students to succeed and graduate on time. [02:05:42] I like the idea of catching them before they become overwhelmed and cannot recover, and some students drop out if they're feeling frustrated for not being able to succeed. Program could benefit all schools, even those with the high achievement rates. [02:06:00] There are students at every school that struggle and are more likely to fall through the crack schools where test scores and grad rates are high so I believe this program is happening at all schools or is it the pilot is because it's just started we're really excited about the credit continuation program that's the new program that's based at all of our base high schools so that started as a pilot two years ago I believe and now we've expanded to I believe all of our high schools this year and students if they're struggling in a class have an [02:06:37] opportunity to get help and support before they fail the class so there's a lot of concerted effort on the part of the faculty to really make sure that they're providing the additional instructional support that students need they also give them support and tutoring to make sure that they're preparing for the end of course tests the SOLs to earn those verified credits as well but we're really excited because we've basically doubled the number of students that are getting support and services over just the credit recovery program that we run in the summer. [02:07:08] So this is before a student fails, making sure that they're able to pass. Thank you. My last question is, when during the day does this program happen? Is it after school or remediation time? Does it require additional funding? So right now, schools are doing it in a variety of different ways. [02:07:28] The majority of the time is happening during the in-school intervention block time and advisory block time. so that it doesn't require additional resources. In some instances we are trying to expand to support schools or excuse me to support students with additional access points after school but that does require additional funds because that's extra duty time for our teachers. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Anderson. Thank you. [02:07:56] Just to pick up on that a little bit I want to make sure I clarify between the two programs. So credit continuation that happens during the school day during intervention time and the credit recovery Academy that occurs? So that occurs during the summer we've got centralized sites throughout the county and students access that site if they have already failed a class. And that's more regional so students from any school can participate? That's right and when a student does fail a class there's a state requirement of a certain minimum number of instructional hours that they have to meet to get credit and it's 70 [02:08:34] hours so it's very intense and that happens during the summer but if we can do more of the work that schools are doing through credit continuation then fewer students will need that additional support during the summer thank you how does this all dovetail with the Twilight program that existed is that still continuing so I don't know if I've got data on that right now we did have that at a couple schools we'll follow up and see if we can get you some additional information on that. Okay, thank you. I see here and again all of this I think is great data and I love the opportunity that students not only have the chance [02:09:11] to recover credits but to also get the support so that they don't have to get to credit recovery. But the passing rate here says students who pass a CRA course. Like what does that mean? What is the, is it just the hours being completed or is there an end-of-course assessment? No, there's assessments for the course so it's the same course the same standards it's in a smaller environment it's intensive right so you're several hours focused on one course each day but you do have the same standards that you would take if you took the course at a traditional base school during the academic school year and if they were also unsuccessful [02:09:49] with the SOL that was associated with that course do they also take it during the summer period yeah oh that's fantastic how are students able to access either one of these two programs? Do they self-select? Is it teacher/staff recommendation? Yeah I mean any student who's at risk of failure is getting a lot of support from the school-based team through their counselors and through the MTSS process. So you know students are being advised of the opportunities and supports that they have available to them. So there's a lot of information about how to access these programs and resources. [02:10:26] - Sure, and definitely these are showing that they're powerful in terms of helping students. I wonder, the 1,089 of students who failed the course, and 98% of them were, almost 99% of them were successful. How many, what is the percentage in terms of the number of students this represents who actually failed the course? [02:10:47] I imagine it's a drop in the bucket. - We could pull that data point for you as well, yeah. - Thank you. No, thank you, I think this is good for me. I appreciate it. [02:11:03] Good job. Thank you. Mr. Dannen, followed by Mr. Moon. As often is the case, Dr. Anderson took my questions about the rigor and so forth. So I was really glad to hear that we're not lowering standards for these kids. And I'll just add to it, it's really a great program, and the effort and the thoughtfulness and the passion that the teachers put into it is really remarkable for these kids. [02:11:29] And I love seeing the videos of that occur. So thank you. Mr. Moon. Thank you, Madam Chair. I was going to ask a couple of questions regarding a credit continuation program. One of the questions was going to be about a resource investment, but that's been already asked by Mr. Texas. [02:11:49] I'm not going to ask you that. Since this is a new pilot program, I don't know whether this has been already presented to us. How many schools are doing this? I believe we're at all schools this year. It started as a pilot program a couple of years ago. [02:12:06] So right now, it's all schools are doing this? Yes. Okay. Okay. I was also interested in just hearing from you. I mean, this is to help the students who may be failing, at the risk of failing. [02:12:24] What about the students who may want to just improve their grades from very low grades to a better grade? that sort of like a continuation of this credit continuation program. So grade replacement to take a course again for grade replacement I think is really what you're suggesting. Some students could access some of these programs to do that but the majority of these students that we're talking about in these data sets are students that have already failed a course credit recovery or the students that are at risk of failing a course. That's what we're really focused on with these programs. There are a lot of other supports that students can get to raise [02:13:04] their grades before the end of the the marking term. One final question is a slightly different is do we have a peer-to-peer tutoring or assistance program available in high schools perhaps upper grade? We do have peer tutoring again we'd have to kind of survey the schools to see what the state is at each of the individual schools but peer tutoring is offered in schools yes. [02:13:31] Okay, if you could provide us in writing, which schools are actually providing peer-to-peer programs. Recently, I was contacted by a student who was interested in looking into this. We are hopefully expanding their services to students who might otherwise need to get up. [02:13:52] Thank you. Thank you. Ms. St. John-Cunning. Thank you. I mean, this is really exciting and really positive. In terms of the credit recovery highlights, you talked about wraparound services for summer participants. [02:14:11] And I would be interested to know what specific non-academic supports are included in these services and how are we tracking the long-term impact on the attendance and retention of these kids, of these students. So great question, Ms. St. John Cunningham. [02:14:27] And this was the, you're talking about the credit continuation program or the credit recovery? The credit recovery, it talked about the wraparound services for summer participants. Got it. So Dr. Presidio, if you could handle that, because I think the credit continuation, which was the new program, Dr. Ponce, his office actually worked most closely on that with the high school principals. [02:14:51] So Dr. Presidio? Yeah, so we have counseling support. We've got career specialists even that support the program, as well as any, you know, social work, social services the students might need. So it's really just, you know, individual student dependent on what their needs are. [02:15:09] But we've got a lot more than academics. So we're able to provide those wraparound services that students might need. So at those centers, there are counselors and social workers that are focusing and helping the students with those non-academic supports? Yeah. Okay. And then for the year-round framework, what specific academic or attendance thresholds will trigger a student's placement into that program before, and I'm not going to use the word fail, before they don't pass a course? [02:15:45] So you're talking about the continuation, so I'm gonna hand that to Ms. Roman, our chief of schools. What in general, I know each high school probably had a slightly different, but Ms. Roman? Yeah, in general the teams and the counseling teams will be looking at grades to see are we trending towards potential D or F and then identifying those students as candidates for credit continuation opportunities. Thank you and then the final question I'm going to ask is in the participation data for both programs can you disaggregate the data [02:16:23] for us by student subgroups such as multilingual learners special education learners you know all the desegregation that we can have number one and then also by subject area I'd be interested to know what courses are the students having to take like are we seeing a trend this is where we need more maybe not just this is indicating they're not being able to pass these courses yes ma'am we can get that data for you thank you and all overall i'd love to see this and you know the more we can help support our kids and you know me any of those wraparound services i know are really important [02:17:01] thank you agenda item 6.02 secondary course offerings i call on dr reed for a presentation thank you madam chair and as this secondary course offering topic comes from our instructional Services Department and I know there's some support staff here for that report I'm going to turn this over to dr. Persidio to present our secondary course offerings all right well good evening and we are excited to have this [02:17:40] opportunity to talk about the new course proposals for next year this is going to be on the board action for the December 3rd meeting but it's a pretty important topic so we wanted to provide a little bit of background for you this evening So to start out just in terms of the discussion tonight, there's really kind of four parts and if we could go to the next slide that we wanted to cover. The first part is we're going to provide some background on the division's existing secondary course offerings. We're also going to explain the options for how students access different courses. We'll review the annual course review process and procedures and then finally we're going to provide a little [02:18:18] bit of background on the new course proposals for next school year. So for context, on the next slide, all of our middle and high schools have a catalog of course offerings that include a combination of both standard and optional courses. A standard course is a course that's available to all of the students at a particular base school, at all of our base schools, in academy or through online campus. An optional course is distinguished, is a course that's available to be offered at schools as appropriate, based on the individual school community interest and needs. [02:18:55] So historically, the breadth of FCPS course offerings has really been viewed as a strength, because we're providing a lot of choices and opportunities for students and faculty to create engaging learning opportunities based on their unique talents and interests in that community. [02:19:12] So in order to really determine on the next slide there-- yes, thank you-- whether an approved course is going to run in any given school year. There's a number of considerations that schools need to take into consideration, including student interest. Are there enough students who are interested in enrolling in the course to be able to staff it and have a full course? [02:19:32] There might be unique facility considerations that have to be in place to offer a particular course. And you can think about things like automotive technology that would require facility infrastructure. And then, of course, teacher licensure requirements and making sure that the appropriate staff are available and licensed to teach a class. [02:19:52] So on the next slide, we've provided a chart that summarizes the types of standard course offerings. That's what we're looking at on this slide, that are available at middle and high schools in FCPS. And one thing I think that's really important to point out is that at both the middle and the high school level, when you look at the number of courses, you have to consider that a course that has multiple levels is actually counted multiple times in these numbers. [02:20:18] So, for example, English 9, English 9 Honors, that's two courses when you look at the aggregate numbers up here, not one. So maybe the numbers seem a little high, but obviously there's multiple levels. And then at the high school level, you also have to consider there's standard level, honors level, AP level, and IB level courses, and dual enrollment level courses in many instances. [02:20:40] So a lot of those courses do have similar curriculum and again have duplicate or duplication in the counts. We also offer a significant number of optional courses on the next slide that include various options across our Career Academies and then of course Thomas Jefferson has a lot of unique courses as well. So optional courses are approved by VDOE. [02:21:02] They count towards graduation requirements and again they provide flexibility based on student interest, facility availability, and teacher licensure. So as we go to the next slide we just want to provide a little bit of information about how students access these various course offerings. Standard and optional courses are advertised at each base school and those courses serve the students that are enrolled at that particular school. Additionally there are several of our high schools that have some unique very specialized CTE programs like culinary, JROTC, and automotive that serve school students at their base [02:21:41] school. And then finally of course we have two regional specialty programs, the Edison Global STEM program and the Lewis Leadership program. And those programs are so unique that they're actually open to students anywhere in the school division to put in for a curriculum transfer to attend those schools full time. In addition to the options that are available at Bay schools, we're very fortunate to have a wide selection of specialized courses offered through our career academies. That allows students to access those courses through part-time co-enrollment at their base school and at one of the six FCPS Academy sites. [02:22:17] Again, our academies are really equipped with a lot of very highly specialized industry standard equipment that would really be cost prohibitive to be able to offer at all of our base schools. We also have the online campus that really extend course taking options to students as well. Students are able to enroll in two online campus courses as part of their regular schedule free of charge. [02:22:41] And really both the academies and online campus continue to be very popular with students because it does open up opportunities for course taking for things that are not actually offered at their base school. The next thing we'd like to just cover is a little bit about the course review process. [02:22:58] We do have a regulation where the school board has final approval for any courses that are going to be added or deleted from the division's course offerings. can also be made to grade weighting of a course or to add a dual enrollment option to a particular course. [02:23:14] And as part of that regulation, the way the process works is that there is a course review committee that meets annually to review all of these proposals that has representatives from curriculum staff, teachers from each region, principals from each region, and students from each region that review and make recommendations that are submitted to the Assistant Superintendent of instruction to the superintendent and then ultimately to the board and the course review committee met this year on October 8th. So finally we just wanted to highlight some information about the courses that are proposed for next [02:23:47] school year. The full list of courses is available on board docs but a sampling of the courses is available on the slide that you can see here and we're really excited because we have a number of new courses that are going to provide additional opportunities in CTE, world languages, environmental studies, and even lifeguard certification. [02:24:09] It was great. So this slide, as we kind of come to a close here, is really just highlighting the additional proposed course changes to add the designation of dual enrollment if we advance one slide. We've got four courses that we are adding the dual enrollment option to. [02:24:28] So in closing, we believe that the course proposals provide a lot of additional variety and rigor to our existing course catalog and our recommendation is that the school board approve changes to the new proposals as recommended by the course review committee. I appreciate your interest in this matter and be happy to try to address any questions or hear any comments that you've got. [02:24:50] Thank you, Dr. Presidio. I will get started with Dr. Anderson. Thank you. Mr. Dannon, they all went on so fast. Thank you. Mr. Dannon's first. [02:25:06] Finally first. Maybe I'll steal some questions this time. First, I really like the idea of adding students to the review committee. It sounds like that worked out really well. I noticed the regulation creates a process for additions and removals, and we spoke earlier, talked to emails earlier, that there weren't any removals this year. Can you talk a little bit to that? Has the committee recommended deleting classes, and if not, What's the consideration for that? [02:25:32] Yeah, I think typically we would have more interest in adding additional courses. We do have times when we do remove courses. That would be a course maybe that is no longer demonstrating a lot of student interest and relevancy in terms of our curriculum and our priorities. [02:25:50] Maybe there's been some changes in state standards, and that course is no longer necessary. But we didn't have any course deletions this year. and i'm just i'm curious i have a wondering about um the management load um both for teachers and administrators you know expanding the course offerings how much extra work is it to do that or is it not much of a of an extra lift just to continue adding courses well a lot of the courses are proposed by the school central office can also propose new courses but a lot of what we get is actually interest at the school level because again there might be strong community partnerships in a particular school. There might be faculty members that really have unique interests, [02:26:29] skills, and talents. We might be seeing things in the enrollment patterns in particular schools that would suggest that we need to add more levels of a particular program, for example. So a lot of the course requests for additions actually come from the schools. Okay, so you could have a scenario where a course is in the catalog, but the school may not even offer it anywhere. Right, so that's an optional course, typically. A school could decide, you know, this doesn't really fit in with our faculty facilities needs, you know, whatever the case may be. And a school doesn't need to offer that optional course. The standard courses have to be offered to all students. Okay. Can you talk a little bit about the criteria that the committee [02:27:07] uses to make its decisions? Are there set criteria? Is there alignment with strategic plans and goals and so forth? Yeah, I mean, again, we start with the Virginia standards of learning and, you know, SOQs and kind of work our way down from there in terms of looking at student interest, alignment with strategic priorities that we have in the school division so there you know there's a rubric and set criteria that they use to evaluate. And then way before my time about five years ago I understand there's a strategic program review done of the courses is that was that completed and if not I'm curious your thoughts about conducting some kind of a strategic review like [02:27:43] that. Well we did have some work that we did as a school system a number of years ago to kind of look at the breadth of our course offerings and I think there was some pretty robust discussion at the board level at the time my recollection was that the consensus of the board felt pretty strongly that we had a good process and you know there weren't any recommendations at least with the consensus of the board at that time to make any changes appreciate it thank you yeah thank you dr. Anderson regarding course removals which is why I wanted to [02:28:19] head so he definitely stole that so if a school is not able to fill a class and obviously they're looking for that class to have a minimum number of students in order to be able to offer it is that decided centrally in terms of what that minimum is or by the school yeah it's really more at the school level in terms of whether or not they can run a class because you know that process obviously is run at the local school level we do academic advising students are able to make course selections and depending on the level of student interest is really kind of the overriding factor I think that you're getting at with this [02:28:58] question there might not be the ability to run a class because maybe you've only got seven kids who signed up for this level of a class and it's just not feasible and practical to be able to do that but that is still a school level decision so if a school can swing it they could potentially have a low enrolled class and perhaps another school if they are not able to produce that from their budget yeah I mean it does happen I would say the directors of student services and their counseling staff work really really hard on the master schedule and I used to build master schedules when I was an assistant principal a million years ago and the amount of time that goes into that is [02:29:38] just incredible I'm sure miss lady can tell you a lot more about it but they work really hard to not let that happen and balance classes so that you know one teacher doesn't have more of a student load than another teacher but sometimes it just doesn't work out and in really in those instances it's really driven by low enrollment and low interest in a particular course. Can you speak a little bit to the efforts to be able to provide students with a class even though a school may have low enrollment maybe a neighboring school has a similar course with also low enrollment do we do anything to merge the two in order to offer the class it's really difficult because again you're talking about [02:30:17] students traveling between schools and what we try to do to create additional access for students is really the online campus first so that they can remain at their base school we have a lot of classes in the online campus that are very popular and then of course you know for CTE and more highly specialized courses, the academies, because we've got a transportation structure for that that works pretty well. And is online campus free? Yeah, so students can take two classes free each year. [02:30:46] And if a student were so interested in taking an online campus class because it's not offered at their school, they just work that out with their counselor and they'll have a space during the day where they can just go and engage in the class? Well, most of our online campus classes right now are taught outside of the traditional school schedule there's a mix of synchronous instruction largely the balance is more asynchronous instruction so a student can work on that outside of the regular school day so if they're taking two classes outside of the school day which is a maximum do they have a shortened day or just extra credits or both well both it could be it [02:31:26] could be both it would really depend on the student and I will say when the board quite a few years ago approved the two courses for free. Part of that was in recognition of students that might need or might be interested in a later start time. Okay thank you. And my last question is can you dovetail some of the ABLE work with the course offerings because we definitely all heard that perhaps we are way too broad in the number of courses that we offer and we continue to add more. How is this all meshing together? Well, I mean, I think part of that discussion, [02:32:06] and again, I don't want to speak for the ABLE team, but part of that discussion is when we have so many levels of a class, it becomes, or basically the same class, it becomes very difficult sometimes to be able to staff all the different levels. So I mentioned you might have a standard level, an honors level, a dual enrollment level, an AP level, right? It becomes challenging to balance out your master schedule and your staffing. And additionally, sometimes it becomes difficult to get students to actually enroll in the more rigorous level of the class because they have so many different choices of levels of offerings of the class. So I think that's part of it. A lot [02:32:43] of what you see in the course proposals that we have here for additions tonight, and really historically, a lot of those courses are really elective level courses, and a lot of that ABLE work is really looking at the core. Thank you. Ms. Dixit. [02:33:00] Thank you Dr. Presidio for the presentation. Today I want to especially recognize the proposed addition of Tamil one through four honors. Tamil would be the first Indian language added to the FCPS curriculum. This is a meaningful step in recognizing the languages and experiences of our student community. I'm also glad to see Korean heritage courses included in the proposal? I wanted to ask you, the Tamil language will be offered in all schools or is it going to be a pilot or just online academy? I think it's going [02:33:37] to depend. We're not exactly sure how this is going to sort out yet. Typically with less commonly taught languages we're trying to start either at a select pilot school or through the online campus so that we have enough enrollment to be able to run a class. So we would look, for example, is there a a preponderance of students that might be interested in that particular language based on their cultural background in a particular school? Is there a strong community interest and partnership there to try to pilot something? So we're still in the phases of trying to explore that while thinking about the development of the online campus option so that a student [02:34:15] anywhere in Fairfax high schools could have access. And access. So first of all, I want to thank you, Dr. Reed, for listening to the Tamil community and meeting with Balooine Tamil Academy they're very passionate about this they really like the language that they speak it like just how we are speaking English like they they speak Tamil like day to day and there's a huge population that of Tamil speaking students in our in our county we just don't know that so this will be interesting to see how it rolls out I also appreciate the student joining the course review committee for the first [02:34:51] time this year. Student Perspective can help ensure new courses reflects both student interest and opportunity they want to pursue. So I wanted to ask, is that this is the reason that we have 3D gaming design course this year? Is it with a student output input? No, the course, that course was coming from the school-based staff, but it's based on the level of student interest in those courses, right? And this is not a course about playing games, it's a course about game design right so computer science programming engineering right marketing of the materials right [02:35:28] so yeah but there is a lot of interest in game design thank you so much thank you thank you mr dunn i mentioned learning more about world languages like what is the kind of threshold for which fcps uses to determine whether to invest in establishing either online or in person World Language Program offerings? Yeah so I think the first thing is we have to have an approved course code and I know this sounds kind of crazy but the course has to be approved by the state [02:36:06] and the course code is tied to teacher licensure which has to be approved by the state and they have some state and federal requirements of why that that's the case so we have to go through that process and clear that hurdle that often takes quite a few months because FCPS is teaching more languages than many of the other school divisions in the state and in the country so we're kind of ahead of the curve on that so we work with VDOE to establish the codes and the licensure requirements then we have to look to see if we're actually going to have enough students in that class so we go through the entire course review process just as we're discussing tonight get that course approved then we start the academic [02:36:45] advising process to see how many students are interested in taking the course in particular schools. And again, a lot of these courses, we really try to start through the online campus as we think about expanding the number of less commonly taught languages, because it's going to be pretty difficult in a lot of schools, I think, to be able to actually have enough students, if you think about 25, 30 students per section, to be able to offer an entire program at a single school. So the online campus and then places where we've got sufficient student enrollment at the base school. Isn't that somewhat cart before the horse just the way I understand it? You go through the [02:37:22] course process with BDOE before you even assess whether any students are interested in taking the class? No, that's after we've already identified like a community-based interest, right? So in this case, the Tamil community we had met with a number of times. They'd expressed strong interest in partnering with us to try to make this happen. We have with the Uyghur community who submitted some requests as well. We're in the process of trying to get approval from the state to move forward with that. So it really starts a lot of these less commonly taught languages with community interest. [02:37:59] I'm trying to figure out like what is the quantum of students, right? For Uyghur students I believe there's around a hundred hundred and fifty students in the total FCPS student population is my understanding, but if you have different information please share, like at what point do we not have a sufficient quantum of students to justify having a new language offering? So that's similar to any of the courses we're talking about being offered at a base school, right? You have to have enough students to be able to assign that to a full-time teacher, right? So you're gonna need 25-30 students per section, five sections if a student, or excuse me, if a teacher is only teaching that one particular [02:38:38] language you're going to need a fair number of students on the online campus it's much easier because you can draw interest from across the county but even then with some languages enrollments might be still low there and what is the cost of going and getting BDOE approval for a particular course off yeah there's no cost for that it's just a requirement isn't there staff time involved well there's staff time involved in this entire process we're talking about so yes there's definitely staff time involved okay thank you yeah thank you Thank you. Mr. Moon. [02:39:12] Thank you, Madam Chair. Dr. Presidio, I was somewhat baffled earlier because I could not find a membership composition of Coal City View Committee. I thought I saw it a couple of days ago, but I don't find. [02:39:29] It's in the regulation. I believe it's 3202. I don't know whether I saw it in the regulation. I might have seen it in regulation. I don't have that with me, but what I remember seeing is a number of committee members is very few, is that correct? [02:39:48] No, because we... Community members, I'm talking about community members. Oh, community members. I apologize. Because long, long ago, I mean, this was long ago, that there used to be many more community members serving under a core city committee. [02:40:08] I'm not sure. I'd have to go back and... Could you research that a little bit? That is my recollection. That may go a dozen years ago, but I was surprised when I actually saw the composition of that. It's mostly staff, central administrators, and I think I might have seen two community member positions from a couple of regions. [02:40:31] There's one per region. There's one per region. But I did not see that from the list. I could be wrong. Yeah, I can take a look. I could be wrong. So that is one. second is you know i'm happy to see a couple of languages added and we had that discussion at the work session i'm glad that you are also working on you know Uyghur and potentially be added maybe in the following year but with that said for a couple of languages that are being added [02:41:05] gonna be offered we are only going up to level four honors we are unable to provide the students an opportunity to own additional full point by being able to do AP level course so my question to you is this because AP level only comes from the college board but college board is also endorsing couple of external assessments as a tools to give college credit worth endorsement [02:41:44] whether we can entertain those external assessments to go with that level 4 to give full point up. I mean I want to throw that to you and Dr. Riet for consideration. No I really appreciate your advocacy on that and we are actively working to try to bring that assessment into our system so that students do have the opportunity to apply those credits at the AP level when they apply to to college. So we are actively working on that. We can keep you updated. Thank you. Could you [02:42:17] put me on go back for Mr. Shostek? Thank you. Yeah, so I just want to say I think this is great, especially the getting a student on this board for, you know, course offerings. I did have a couple questions, and I say this as someone that has utilized off-campus, or not off-campus, The online campus, multiple times, actually, both in freshman and sophomore year. [02:42:52] And I've done it many ways. First year, I had nine periods, so I did an extra class. This is what Dr. Anderson was asking about. I don't see her. And then the next year, I had a period in the library. [02:43:08] And then after that, I had an off-campus waiver. So I left school early. So I've experienced it all. No regrets from me. But I did have a question specifically about the optional course offerings. And I think this came from an earlier meeting. [02:43:26] We were talking about how exactly that was determined. I know student interest is a big factor. But can you sort of, like, outline a bit more about how that process works? I know, like, for example, philosophy, right, is a class that is offered, I think, at, like, Langley and the schools that are in the more, like, western part of the county. [02:43:45] at, you know, Hayfield or Lewis or Edison or any of the, you know, schools in this area, that's not a thing. Is it first, like, you need a teacher that is willing to teach it, and then after that they sort of, like, survey students and see who would be interested? Is that sort of the process there? Well, like usual, I think you've kind of nailed it, right? Like, a lot of this is driven by student interest within the school, and a lot of student interest is driven by teacher expertise, passion, and marketing of courses. So those two things go hand in hand, right? So you might have somebody who teaches philosophy in your example and that's a really popular class in that school. Another school might put [02:44:23] it on their course academic advising sheet and you know nobody knows anything about that course in that school and they're not interested in that and they don't have sufficient student interest to be able to offer it. So a lot of it's student-driven but a lot of it is based on the teacher of that program or course. [02:44:39] Is it possible that a lot of like the lack of student interest that we have from say like schools and at Hayfield or Edison is because there's just not this sort of awareness that these are courses that are even offered like I know like political science is another one and so if this was sort of like possible to say send out a survey to students in the school and be like would you be interested in the following courses and then gather data on that and then see if there's any teachers following that to then see if that course can be added I think things like that do happen in some instances I mean I think that [02:45:12] definitely can happen. I think, you know, you do also have to keep in mind the other courses that, you know, a particular school might offer that another school doesn't offer, right? So if you're going to offer something new and you don't have new teachers coming in, that means you're going to have to not offer something that you're already offering. And I think when you get to that point, sometimes those are really hard decisions for the teachers and the administration to make because they're already offering classes that are popular with students. So to make a switch, To bring something new in means to take something that's already popular out of the equation. [02:45:46] I think that's also a challenge. Okay, thank you. Just one last thing. I sort of missed the mark on this, if I could just, I know I'm almost out of time here, but if I could ask one more question relative to the academic matters, would that be okay just briefly now? I would normally, but we have a huge agenda. [02:46:03] Okay, all right, thanks. I can connect with you. Yeah, yeah. Ms. St. John Cunning. I actually just have one quick question about the students that can enroll in the two free courses and there's a tuition cost to extra ones can you tell us what that additional cost is for those courses and is there a financial assistance available it's a sliding tuition scale I'd have to get you that I don't have it memorized off the top of my head but oh so it's sliding so that that there would be some assistance okay thank you I would appreciate that data Mr. Minfer, go back. [02:46:40] Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a quick question or a suggestion is for the Korean, for heritage speakers, two, three, and four, it's for the heritage speakers. And obviously, we are looking for schools where there is a sufficient number of heritage speakers who might be interested in. [02:47:01] It has been my experience, Dr. Sloan and Dr. Reed. A lot of times, whether a new course offering comes to fruition, comes down to the will of the schools, many times on the part of administrators. [02:47:21] You and I both know where the Korean heritage speakers are, where the schools are. I'm hoping that you and Dr. Reed and the chief of schools will encourage those schools to aggressively assessed the level of interest on the part of heritage because to make the programs successful come to fruition. I appreciate the suggestion and Ms. Roman and I are happy to work on that together and we appreciate everything you're doing to support the programs as well. So thank [02:47:54] you. Thank you, Dr. Presidio. Thank you. Agenda item 7.01, action item, certification of a closed meeting compliance. In order to comply with section 2.2-3712D of the Code of Virginia, it is necessary for the Board to certify that since the Fairfax County School Board convened a closed meeting on November 12, 2026, to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements, and only such business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the Board during the closed meeting. If a Board member believes that there was a departure from the requirements of the Code of Virginia section, please describe generally the nature or type of procedural [02:48:33] violation you allege without disclosing the confidential substantive content of the closed session discussion before the board takes a vote on the motion to certify closed meeting compliance. Do I have a motion to certify closed meeting compliance? Ms. Anderson, do I have a second? Mr. Frisch, all those in favor? [02:48:55] Ms. Anderson, Mr. Frisch, Mr. Moon, Ms. Dixon, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Dannon, Dr. Anderson, Ms. St. John Cunningham, and myself with Ms. Marion away from the desk. That motion carries. 7.02, action item, confirmation of action taken at a closed meeting. I call Ms. Anderson for a motion. I move to adopt the unanimous recommendation of the fact-finding panel vote to uphold the superintendent's recommendation and terminate the employee employees employment effective immediately. Do I have a second? Second. All those in favor? Miss Anderson, Mr. [02:49:30] Frisch, Mr. Moon, Miss Dixit, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Dannen, Dr. Anderson, Miss St. John Cunningham, myself with Miss Marin away from the desk. I think that's nine to one. Closed motion number two, I call Dr. Anderson for a motion. I move to sustain the grievance and rescind the reprimand based on a failure to meet the 15-day timeline without sufficient extenuating circumstances, and for counsel to take [02:50:03] the additional steps discussed and closed. Is there a second? Mr. Frisch. All those in favor? Ms. Anderson, Mr. Frisch, Mr. Moon, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Dannon, Dr. [02:50:20] Anderson, Ms. St. John Cunning. All those opposed. And Dr. Anderson, away from the desk. I'm sorry, Ms. Marion. I'm at the desk. Sorry. Sorry. Close motion number three. I call on Dr. [02:50:38] Anderson for a motion. I move to grant the grievance, rejecting the step three determination and granting the requested relief. Sarah, second. Second. Mr. Moon. All those in favor. Ms. Anderson, Mr. Frisch, Mr. Moon, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Dannen, Dr. Anderson, Ms. St. John Cunningham, and myself. All those opposed? Abstentions? Motion carries 901. Closed motion number four, I call Ms. Anderson for a motion. I move that the school board grant in part the step four [02:51:16] grievance appeals as discussed in closed session, including direction to the superintendent in consultation with employee exclusive representative organizations to clarify applicable regulations, including adequate training and consistent opt-out option for employees before the start of the 27-28 school year. Is there a second? I second. Ms. Dixit. All those in favor? Ms. Anderson, Mr. Frisch, Ms. Marin, Mr. Moon, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Dannen, Dr. Anderson, Ms. St. [02:51:43] Cunningham, and myself. It's unanimous for board members present. Close motion number five and call Ms. Anderson for a motion. I move that the school board authorize legal counsel to settle the matter discussed in closed session according to the terms and conditions discussed therein. Is there a second. Mr. Moon, all those in favor. Ms. Anderson, Mr. Frisch, Ms. Marin, Mr. Moon, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Dannen, Ms. St. John Cunning, and myself. All those opposed. Dr. Anderson, I believe the motion [02:52:14] carries 9 to 1. Agenda item 7.03, action item. Fairfax County Public School Board Legislative Program, state and federal legislative positions. I call on Dr. Anderson for a motion. I move that the board adopt the 2027 Fairfax County School Board State and Federal Legislative program, legislative positions. Is there a second? Mr. Frisch, Dr. Anderson, would you like to speak to your motion? I believe I have an amendment first. That's fine. I call on Dr. Anderson for [02:52:53] an amendment. Okay, I move to amend the 2027 legislative program of the Fairfax County School Board with the following. Amending section C, charter schools, with the following edit, which is on the board, I hope, which is more of a grammatical edit, which is going to now read, reserving final authority and approving, amending section E, early childhood education, with the following edit, again, grammatical, paying particular attention to increasing per-pupil funding, [02:53:32] Minimizing startup costs, reducing or eliminating any required local match, including the following language to Section I, which is substantive. The environmental sustainability state policies that protect school divisions and local governments from electric rate increases driven by the cost of serving large load users by ensuring that those customers bear the full cost of their generation. [02:54:02] transmission and distribution, infrastructure built to serve them, an advance notice to school divisions and local governments of significant projected increases in electric rates sufficient to allow time for budget planning along with state resources to help school divisions manage sudden increases in energy costs and measures that improve the reliability of of electric service to schools and other critical public facilities, including reporting on outages at school facilities and their causes. [02:54:41] The Fairfax County School Board opposes shifting the costs of utility infrastructure built to serve large load customers onto school divisions and local governments. There is an amendment to Section AE Student Safety with an edit to add for public enforcement of activities that protect children and adults in schools, and there is an inclusion of the following language to Section Z, which is a state education funding program, which are two parts. [02:55:16] One, funding requests for $1.5 million to establish a center for aerospace and security studies at Mount Vernon High School, and to seek state funding to establish and expand a regional quantum education program integrated quantum phototonics for healthcare that includes both phototonics and optics with connections to medical imaging, diagnostics, and health technology workforce funding of $1.5 million, which would support curriculum equipment, teacher training, and student access, as well as the development of potential partnerships [02:55:55] with industry and the National Institute of Health. John R. Lewis High School. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Frisch, Dr. Harrison, would you like to speak to your motion? Yes, I would. Give me a minute, please, while I find my notes. [02:56:12] Firstly, I do want to say thank you to the legislative team for its work. Mr. McElveen, who served as vice chair of this committee, who serves as vice chair of this committee, and Mr. Malloy, who is in the audience there, who is the staff member in this committee, who is really the engine behind a lot of the machinations of getting this information in front of you. Secondly, I do want to also thank board members for your diligence. I know I've kind of pressed upon you a little bit to do certain things this year with the program and I appreciate the support that you have provided. I want to be clear that what the program represents, it is [02:56:48] the school board's positions on a number of issues that span all kinds of topics. Actually, there's 34 in the state program and 14 in the federal program. These topics range from all issues that impact our students, from non-discrimination to English language learners, which I want to highlight because in Fairfax County, we typically talk about multilingual learners, but our program says English language learners because that is what the state utilizes. [02:57:19] So we want to be sure that the lawmakers for whom this is written primarily are aware of what our intent is. But I wanted to make that connection for our community. And as I just mentioned a little bit ago, the purpose of that program is to inform lawmakers of what is needed for Fairfax County. [02:57:38] It's to represent our advocacy. It's also to speak how existing legislation may be impacting Fairfax County public schools and what we would like for them to do otherwise. It is our opportunity to really raise concerns that they may not see that could negatively impact our schools. [02:57:58] And I can't speak about this enough, but the accountability and assessment that is in place at the state level has such negative impacts to not just Fairfax County public schools, but to all 133 school systems in the Commonwealth. That is a huge part of our program. [02:58:17] My ask, because I know some of the amendments that I've just read will be covered by colleagues shortly, but my ask is of this board is, once this program is approved, which I hope you do approve it, is to share this with your PTAs, to put a link to it in your newsletters. [02:58:36] Because the other piece that really matters is the advocacy. The lawmakers whom we are communicating with, they don't just represent the 12 of us that are here. They represent all of our families. They represent the public at large in Fairfax County. [02:58:52] So having them be able to raise their voice to these issues will also be in high support of advancing these positions. So I am asking for all of you to raise these to your PTAs in your conversations and to let them know there is a role for them outside of just knowing what is it we're asking for. [02:59:12] But they can also move forward and advocate for these issues as well, because it is going to take all of us. Thank you all. Thank you, Mr. Frisch. Would you like to speak to your second? Yes, thank you. First, I want to thank, you know, Dr. Anderson and Mr. McElveen for the tremendous work this year already. [02:59:30] I mean, we're barely into the year, but that's gone into the first year that we've had a standing legislative committee. And, you know, that's a real opportunity to hit the ground running and create new practices that are carried forward from year to year so that we get stronger and stronger the more we do it. And I think that work is coming into shape and I very much appreciate it. [02:59:56] I think when Mr. McDaniel and I brought forward the forum topic to do that, this is exactly the type of thing and more than we envisioned. So I very much appreciate it. I want to speak to a few elements of the legislative program. People may have seen during our work session this week that we learned from Ms. Burden that the Virginia Energy Purchasing Governmental Association recently informed FCPS that Dominion will soon increase the school division's electricity [03:00:30] costs by 24.9%. That is an astonishing spike that will compete directly with funding for students. and so you couple that with what we heard from members of the public this evening talking about the great work that we're doing on solar on the schools and how Dominion is simultaneously standing in the way of that work to save us money. You know we moved forward after our Annandale High School pilot for solar on the schools with a very aggressive approach to solar on the schools [03:01:03] that would have saved us 60 million dollars and we've had to significantly scale that work back because of these interconnection fees that dominion is arbitrarily charging for larger projects thankfully there is legislation that is going to tackle that and with this legislative program we can put an end to that one-two punch of not only cutting us off at the knees to save money and conserve energy while at the same time charging us more for the energy we do use. [03:01:36] There are a number of other amendments in here that deal directly with ensuring that the school division is not meant or is not made to take it on the chin in terms of the increasing cost of electricity whether it is imposed by the merger with our which our board submitted a letter to the SEC and public comment against, or because of the drag on energy prices that data centers are causing the rest of us to pay more. So I very much appreciate that, especially at a time when many Fairfax County families are choosing between an electric bill [03:02:15] and a grocery bill. I think it's important that we stand against an effort to make us underwrite a data center boom for an out-of-state company. So I appreciate colleagues' support for the program and for the letter that we sent earlier this week. Thank you. Mr. Dunn. I'd like to thank my colleagues who have, Dr. Anderson in particular, who have led the revision of this federal and state legislative package. I believe it's transformational. I believe it will open the door to effective legislative advocacy and action on our priorities. I think especially there's an [03:02:54] opportunity to enable school board members to meet in larger groups than two people at a time so we can then have more effective school board governance and achieve even better outcomes for our community and for our school division. I'd like to thank my colleagues for supporting the specific request for 1.5 million dollars to establish a Center for Aerospace and Security Studies at Mount Vernon High School. This represents a transformational investment in establishing a regional career and technical education center at Mount Vernon High School and enabling the high school to establish fundamental and [03:03:34] transformational partnerships with Fort Belvoir, with Reagan National Airport, with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, and leading defense contractors in our in our great county and in Northern Virginia to enable students to pursue opportunities and careers and high-wage, high-demand careers as airplane pilots, drone pilots, aircraft mechanics, air traffic controllers, and law enforcement officers. This is a wonderful day and I believe this will be reflected in future years as an inflection point in the history of [03:04:10] this pyramid and the opportunities available to realize the One Fairfax equity vision and ensure that every student in the Mount Vernon district and across the county have equal and equitable access to a world-class education. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. St. John Cunning. So I also want to thank everyone that did work on this and we did it differently this year and I'm really proud of the way that it was done because Dr. Anderson and Mr. [03:04:44] McElveen did a great job of including everyone. I too want to thank the board for supporting school-specific funding for two schools in my part of the county including Mount Vernon. I am really pleased that the board included the request for 1.5 million in state funding to establish a regional integrated quantum photonics for health care program at Lewis High School. [03:05:10] This directly supports the follow-on motion passed in September which directs the superintendent to to utilize Lewis High School as the first school for expansion of the specialized computer hardware and related support services program. This program would help students connect advanced learning in photonics and optics with real world applications in medical imaging, diagnostics, and health technology. [03:05:33] It would also give them an early pathway into a growing workforce that needs people with strong skills in science, engineering, and healthcare technology, bringing students closer the research and careers that shape the future of health care. An investment in this program is an investment in both student opportunity and our region's future. Students on all sides of the county should be able to explore emerging fields, gain practical experience, and see how their learning can make a difference in people's lives. The extra parts of this program, this legislative program, as we've talked, talked about our [03:06:09] multilingual learners needing extra time for accountability. Our priority should be measured by whether they help every student to learn, belong, and prepare for what comes next. That requires fair accountability, meaningful local flexibility, and funding that matches the responsibilities we ask our schools to carry. Thank you. At this point, I'll call for the vote on the amendment, which is on the screen. All those in favor, Ms. Anderson, Mr. Frisch, Ms. Marin, Mr. Moon, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Dannon, Dr. Anderson, Ms. St. John Cunningham, [03:06:44] myself. Motion carries 10-0. I call on Dr. Anderson for a motion. Okay, I move that we approve the 2027 legislative program. Is there a second? Mr. Frisch. Mr. Frisch, Dr. Anderson, would you like to speak to your motion? Just very briefly because I think I shared most of my comments during the amendment piece. Again, I do want to thank Mr. Malloy, but secondarily and most importantly I want to be sure that the public and we are reminded that this is [03:07:20] not the end of the program because legislation continues to evolve and we're going to give ourselves the opportunity to make amendments and revisions to this program throughout the year as needed so it's not a one and done and then we don't look at it again for another you know 12 months so this will be a program that comes up again in this conversation as we see what is happening in Richmond and federally about which I am so much more optimistic because for the past two years [03:07:51] going up to the Hill to speak to Senators Tim and Tim Kaine and Warner it was you know we hear you but we're not going to be able to move things too much I think that has that landscape has changed so I'm really looking forward to visiting with them in the very near term in order to really talk about our priorities primarily the e-rate because of some of the investments that fairfax county has had to make to cyber security we need for that to offset because whatever we invest in [03:08:27] cyber security which is millions of dollars it's not being invested in students in other ways and of course the dominion work as well so i'm really looking forward to a very productive federal program to kind of match the robust responses we've been receiving um at the state level thank you mr frisch would you like to speak to your second no thank you i will call for the vote on the amended main mode on the amended main motion which is on the screen all those in favor miss anderson mr frisch miss marron mr moon miss dixit mr dunn mr dannon dr anderson [03:09:03] miss st john cunning and myself it's unanimous carries two zero i mean 210 7.04 action item I'm award a contract Willow Springs Elementary School Renovation Project. I call Ms. Anderson for a motion. I move that the school board award a contract for the Willow Springs Elementary School Renovation Project to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder, HESS, Construction Company, LLC, in the amount of $59,500,000, and authorize the division superintendent or the chief operating officer to execute, deliver, and administer the contract on behalf of the school board. [03:09:39] Is there a second? Second. Ms. Anderson, would you like to speak to your motion? Absolutely. I'm pleased to support this contract for the Willow Springs Elementary School. Willow Springs was opened in 1990, and it has not been renovated since. This school has been on the renovation queue for some time. [03:09:56] The school's planning and design were included in the 2021 bond cycle, and the construction was approved in the 2023 bond cycle. This is another school that sits partially in the residential resource conservation area of our county and met with some issues with the initial design related to that zoning. [03:10:12] That required us to go back and redo our design to meet the strict density requirements, and this is an important investment in our school community and in providing students and staff with a welcoming, effective place to learn and work. [03:10:29] So thank you to everyone who helped bring this forward. I did have just one question. The capacity is going to increase quite a bit with this plan. Mr. Gordon, does this planned renovation remove the existing modulars that are at the school? [03:10:48] So, as you mentioned, the current facility is about 90,000 square feet. We're adding about 32,000 square feet in addition to about 122,000. There are currently eight trailers, temporary facilities are out there right now. If you look at how the school is currently using those facilities, they're mostly as special pull-out strings. [03:11:07] So, for sure, there's definitely space to allow those trailers to go away. - Okay, thank you. The other question is, could you speak just a little bit about the way we decide for the increase in capacity on these renovations? - So for, again, as I mentioned, there's an increase of 32,000 square feet of new space. [03:11:28] The purpose of this is, obviously, it's a renovation. It's almost 40 years old. And so if you're bringing interior spaces up to current ed specs, that does increase the square footage of certain spaces within the facility based on legacy type classroom. [03:11:43] I think typically our classrooms are about 800 square feet. Legacy classrooms are about 600 square feet. Okay, thank you. Dr. Reed, if the capacity of the school is reduced, is this a place that we could potentially look to put pre-K programs or things like that if there's space in the school? [03:12:00] Yes, ma'am. I think that's always a possibility. I also just want to note that we're going to have to amend the motion here. just it would be the chief of facilities and capital planning and not our chief operating officer but that would be the or the without objection yes please make the change it would be the same with 7.05 thank you that's it thank you thank you dr. Anderson would you like to speak to your second yes briefly the reason why I asked for this to be pulled off of consent it's because I I see a school renovation as an opportunity to celebrate particularly in a community [03:12:40] that the last time anything happened was almost 40 years ago. So I just really wanted to ensure that the Willow Springs community were aware that this is happening and I'm sure they're very excited about having a brand new building as most communities tend to be. So I just wanted to kind of highlight a good thing. Thank you. Mr. Dunn. I'm sorry can you explain again why we're adding 32,000 feet to the school if we're not adding classrooms or increasing the number of students? So the current design capacity for this is [03:13:17] I think is 1,110. At the end of this, we'll be at a capacity of 1,000. I think 50 is what the number will be per the CIP. So if you're taking current ed specs, right, the spaces within ed specs, you know, a classroom, the size grows. So increase to the facility will grow, more square footage grow, but you'll actually have maybe less capacity there because a classroom of it's currently about 600 square feet new design take it to buy a hundred square feet that does affect a [03:13:52] square foot utilization or capacity utilization within the facility and can you explain the cost I mean I'm looking at January 2025 we have proved these corner elementary and the ranges from about seven or eight companies was between 39 million and 43 million and the cost was fairly stable across the first half of 2025 that that was a fairly consistent range for multiple elementary school renovations so why is this one about 20 million dollars more so a lot of it is based on you know the estimate that we're doing obviously so [03:14:30] we do the program we're using and the company that we use to help assist with that is similar to other organizations around us are using as well so there is I would admit there is probably a slight inflation in there of that we've seen about four to six million that we've seen that will provide a buffer that buffer can help in times when you know with the tariffs and other cost materials that rise between steel so it allows us some flexibility any cost savings that are that are realized in this project will be used for future projects especially for design of projects within the out years do you have data showing [03:15:07] how much you've saved in the past from that buffer for each project not actually being spent um i'm sure we could probably figure out where we've been on the last two or three awards for sure i don't have any of that ready available that would be great because this is the first time i'm hearing that we're inflating kind of the budget to cover potential cost i wouldn't say we're purposely inflating uh the cost essence we're getting is what we're receiving from you know um a real-time analysis based on time and material and equipment so the difference is you know [03:15:45] as you get into a competitive bond a bidding market is that you'll see you will see some cost savings so but absolutely we can take an analysis of where we've been the last two or three awards and which of the construction methodologies are you using design but build design build CMAR I believe with this project it is not designed to build okay thank you thank you now call for for the vote for the motion that's on the screen. All those in favor. Ms. Anderson, Mr. Frisch, Ms. Marin, Mr. Moon, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Dunn, Dr. Anderson, Ms. St. John Cunning, Mr. Dannen, [03:16:20] and myself. That's unanimous for board members. 7.05 action item, board of contract, solar power purchase agreement at 10 school sites, wave 4. I call Dr. Anderson for a motion. Thank you. Based on Arcadis's PPA cost analysis and FCPS's renewable energy goals, staff recommends that school board approved the wave four solar ppa programs at 10 school sites listed in the action item and to authorize the division superintendent or the chief operating officer to execute deliver and administer the agreement on behalf of the school board subject to final contract terms and [03:16:59] confirmation of interconnection and utility upgrade responsibilities sir second second Thank you. Mr. Frisch, Dr. Anderson, would you like to speak to your motion? Yes, I would, because I just, again, I wanted to highlight positive things that are going on instead of having them just kind of live under the radar. We heard this evening from families, and I particularly wanted to highlight students at Falls Church High School have been dogged in terms of increasing the solar on schools. While the will has been there, there have been many obstacles that have impeded progress in this area which Mr. Frisch talked about [03:17:38] a little bit earlier. We have progress to have this be done expeditiously and has been impeded in a number of ways and so I'm glad we're able to move forward with these ten schools because clearly we need to have more of our schools with solar panels because we cannot afford the electric bills. Thank you. Mr. Frisch, would like to be your second? Yes, ditto about the students at Falls Church. When I was there for back-to-school night, the Get to Green Club [03:18:17] had a booth in the hall and they were capturing parents as they walked by, encouraging them to have their children sign up. They're very, very good advocates on the school divisions behalf you know it was just about a year ago September of 25 that we were heralding the 34 elementary schools that are getting solar panels ten more brings us to 44 and that is a very big step in the right direction when you can say that we've got roughly 200 schools in [03:18:53] this system but we will never reach the end of that process unless we are given the ability to fund larger projects at high schools and larger middle schools and our secondary schools. And the only way that will happen is if Richmond does the right thing and stops Dominion from choking off this project before it has a chance to get ground by lessening the impact of the interconnection fees. As I said during the comments about the legislative program, we embarked on this not only because it is the right thing to do, but because energy conservation saves us money, which we can put directly back into the classroom for student success. [03:19:33] Just because of the energy conservation efforts that we already embark on as a course of action in the everyday function of the school division, we're saving $10 million a year that goes back into the classroom. Our solar initiative was designed to reach as many schools as possible and to save us $60 million. And that is in jeopardy because of what Dominion has done over the last few years so hopefully our friends in Richmond will do right by public school divisions and local governments around the Commonwealth and make it easier for these projects to go up and let me tell you how excited the [03:20:08] kids are when they have an opportunity to use these in experiential learning opportunities where they learn about what happens when it's cloudy outside and the panels don't bring in as much energy they get to learn more about conservation it's a real great opportunity for them and this is a really great step in the right direction. So a little point of order, the motion doesn't read I move, so without objection can we make an adjustment to that so it [03:20:42] reads I move? Didn't Dr. Anderson say I move? What she says is what the motion is. Yes, it just wasn't written that way. It wasn't written in that way. I thought I did. But you did read it that way. [03:21:05] I thought I said it because it wasn't listed. You did. I just want to make sure it's correct when we go to vote yeah mr. moon as long as she said I move somewhere because I didn't hear that yeah yeah the motion language and I am happy to reread it I think it would be helpful if you read it again because we made we added chief of facilities rather than chief operating officer we will do that without [03:21:45] objection can we make that edit as well okay I moved that the school board approve based on our key this is PPA cost analysis and FCPS is renewable energy goals staff recommend the staff recommendation no that doesn't work read it from up there okay I moved at this oops what's that oh okay I moved that the school board approved though I'm not sure if stack I have to be edited yeah we still need to edit this I don't know what happened but in the [03:22:20] meantime, Mr. Moon, can I ask you to go ahead and speak to the motion? I was just going to point that out. Okay. All right. Thank you for your astute keen eye. We're going to take a five-minute [03:22:33] recess, and we'll come back to this vote. Board members, please take your seats. Staff members, [03:32:51] please take your seats. I mean, board members, please take your seats. Okay. I will now call [03:33:25] for the vote for the motion that is on the screen. Miss Lady, I so apologize. Mr. Gordon is just telling me it is the chief of, or the chief operations officer. Okay. I apologize. I will be happy to read it as such. So please read it. Okay. I move that the board approve the wave four solar PPA program for the 10 school sites listed in this action item and authorize the division [03:33:59] superintendent or the chief operating officer to execute deliver and administer the agreements on behalf of the school board subject oh subject to the final contract terms and confirmation of interconnections and utility upgrades upgrade responsibilities thank you thank you second mr frisch all those in favor miss anderson mr frisch miss marron mr moon miss dixit mr dunn Mr. Dannen, Dr. Anderson, Ms. St. John Cunningham, and myself. [03:34:33] Motion carries 10-0. 7.06, Amendment to Consultative Services Contract, Cornerstone On Demand, Inc., Professional Development Evaluation System. I call on Dr. Anderson for a motion. [03:34:49] I move that the school board approve the amendment to the Professional Development Evaluation System, and two, to authorize the division superintendent or the director of Office of Procurement Services to execute, deliver, and administer the contract behalf of the school board. Second. Mr. Moon, Dr. Harrison would like to speak to your motion. Yes, very quickly, I have a few questions. I understand that the amendment of this contract is to reduce the, I guess, the bundles of professional hours of consulting supports from 96 to 125 hours. Is [03:35:26] that correct? Yes. So with the 29 fewer hours that will now be provided, will there be a savings achieved by FCPS? Potentially. Potentially. So otherwise what would be the benefit of the reduction in consulting hours? We don't believe that we need the number of consulting hours. The way this contract works is there are different bundles of hours that we have to pay for and the previous [03:36:00] amount 125 was the floor but we don't think we'll need that many so we've reduced it so that there is a lower floor and this contract the changes that we're making is to the contract that expires next October of 2027 correct correct so if there are no state let me backtrack who are the consulting hours who's the audience for that is this teachers central office folks my understanding is the [03:36:35] consultants work on the system and make changes to the my PDE system for the school division okay so if there's no savings to us does it matter if we just keep the larger bundle yeah the the dollar amounts in the the contract the total amount is the total of the contract but the annual amount is an estimate based on eight years average and we wanted to reduce the consulting fees to the lowest that was allowable which is 96 hours because in fact in [03:37:12] fiscal 26 we didn't use any consulting hours at all so we just wanted some additional flexibility and then the lowest amount is still 96 yes okay so when do you think you will have any additional information as to whether or not there are any savings well the maximum savings that it could be would be five thousand eight hundred dollars because the hourly rate is two hundred dollars and 29 hours times 200 is five thousand eight hundred and this is information in terms of receiving that that you will know at some future date? [03:37:44] So is that already in place now? Yeah so Dr. Anderson it would just be determined by how many hours we ended up using for the duration of the contract. Oh so if we don't use the 96 do we get some funds back? I know but I got confused by what she just shared. That is correct. I'm so sorry. That is correct. [03:38:13] Oh okay so the year that we didn't use the 125 which was the floor then then there were some savings that were realized. Correct. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Min. Would you like to speak to your second? I just have a question to ask. I was a little confused when it says reducing the hours, but at the same rate. So we are just losing the number of hours. [03:38:41] Contract remains the same. And I guess, let me ask you this question first. If the amount of contract does not change, does it have to come to us if you reduce just the number of hours? We have a policy in draft form that would allow us not to bring zero change amendments to the school board, but that has not made it to governance yet. [03:39:12] So that is a change that we hope to make in the future, that if it is a zero change amendment, that it would not have to come to the school board for approval. Okay. I'm going to vote for this. However, I found the explanation on the agenda item a little confusing, not quite clear as to whether there will be a change in the amount of contract itself because I love it there. [03:39:40] Thank you. Seeing no other lights, I'll call for the motion on the screen. All those in favor, Ms. Anderson, Mr. Frisch, Ms. Marin, Mr. Moon, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Dannon, Dr. Anderson, Ms. St. Sean Cunningham, and myself. Passes 10-0. [03:39:58] 8.0, Agenda Item 8.801, Learning Environment and Relationships with Students EL10 Monitoring Report. Each year, the school board assesses the superintendent in part on the basis of the school division's reasonable progress toward achieving the 2023-30 strategic plan's goals and adherence to a set of 13 executive limitations found on pages 16 to 33 of the board's strategic governance manual. [03:40:21] The superintendent provides annual monitoring reports to the board for each executive limitation. The board then votes on whether the provided report is in compliance or if corrective action is needed. I call on Dr. Reed for a monitoring report on executive limitation 10, learning environment and relationships with students. [03:40:39] Thank you, Madam Chair. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board and the public. This evening, as Madam Chair mentioned, we are presenting executive limitation 10, which does discuss the learning environment and relationship with students in FCPS. [03:40:57] So EL10, the definition is on the slide in front of you, and for those watching from home, the entire report is attached to the agenda for this evening's meeting. At the time of this report, to the best of our knowledge, information and belief, we've gathered information and evidence that we believe supports compliance with the board's executive limitation associated with this topic, and I'll share some of the highlights, which should be those things that are new this year from prior years. [03:41:28] Otherwise, the rather lengthy monitoring report has data that we do collect year over year. So as we look at the next slide, this is probably, I think, one of our most exciting achievements. We set this goal three years ago, and we finally have earned the Purple Star Division status for this year. [03:41:49] Our FCPS student ambassador programs continue to be a focus of these programs. These school-based student-led leadership programs bring together our military-connected and civilian peers to support all of our students' transitions and connections to the community. [03:42:06] And I think you heard a bit about that tonight from Colonel Allen, our Fort Belvoir commander, and just the amount of times that our military-connected youth transition and transfer, it is significant. [03:42:21] So the work that our team has done, Katie Server, Rene LaHuffman Jackson, Ms. Youngblood Hall's team, as well as our principals and our region staff to achieve this is very important. On discipline updates, I want to give a shout-out to Dr. King and her team. [03:42:43] They've done a tremendous job of rolling out universal grade matrices. And at our family vision meeting group this past week, this second round of family vision groups, we're actually, Deanna Shin came to present information on these matrices for families. [03:43:02] And the reports were really appreciated. And the efforts to standardize our disciplinary practices and consequences across the division have been very important. We have several new resources for schools, which include our discipline decision support tool, Our quick reference guide and the minor referral features in SIS. [03:43:23] And we have a new SR&R in Discipline Matrix for our early childhood students because we need to comply with VDOE requirements, which are new. As we think about student support, on the next slide, we offer several programs to support our students' strengths and needs. [03:43:43] AVID, for example, is now offered in 81 schools, which is more than three times the number five years ago. This was a goal we set at the beginning of the strategic plan as well. And we're very proud of this growth and know that it's good for our students. [03:44:00] Also, for the second year, we're monitoring students' progress towards graduation. And this process helps identify at-risk students and provide support for them to graduate on time. As we look at student voice, we had our inaugural superintendent student summit this past year we had nearly 400 high school students attend. They shaped the conversation. There was a committee that developed the topics, and they had an opportunity to come together and share their experiences and recommendations last year. Twice a year, a representative from each high school [03:44:36] journalism class also attends a roundtable conversation, and we had our first one in October where our student journalists visited and their questions centered around our strategic plan and there were a lot of great questions. Also starting this year our student athletes and their families will be getting surveys after each sports season and about their athletic experience and personal growth to help improve our athletic programs and that's a feature we've talked about [03:45:10] for a couple years and are now implementing. Student advisory groups. We've had several student advisory groups that continue to meet and come forward with really some exceptional ideas. One is the student-created and student-led Youth Environmental Council. I want to thank Michael Parker in my office who helped support that work. And this focuses on environmental stewardship. And the group is actually planning to organize a spring youth environmental summit this year, and they're very excited about that work. And another new committee last year was our [03:45:48] Military-Connected Youth Advisory, and it brings together two military-connected students from each high school to meet with me on a quarterly basis each school year. And there's been some tremendous work that's come out of that, including our back-to-school barbecue, as well as our field day that we've held for families in the spring. At this time, Madam Chair, this concludes my summary of the monitoring report for EL-10: Learning Environment and Relationship with Students. [03:46:14] Thank you. I'll call on school board members for questions, starting with Mr. Frisch. Thank you. I want to dig a little bit deeper into a couple of these. I was at Fairhill Elementary School this week for Veterans Day, celebrating with students and their families. [03:46:31] Got to see some wonderful student performances, meet parents who are serving or have served, some grandparents who have served as well and they were extremely excited about the school division's status as a purple star school division. Many of them didn't know and so I got to break the news to them. It was fantastic. Can you talk a little bit about the impact that status has on families? I think it's easy when we are all having the same conversation year after year about the progress to lose the string which is what it actually means [03:47:06] in the in the building thank you mr frisch and i you know the student ambassadors that are a part of this program so that when students are new to a school they actually have students to meet early on to show them around campus be a support often they have support groups on campus we've really up upscaled our website our online registration that we've put into place in the last several years enables our families to register and get information about our schools before they actually arrive so they don't miss deadlines to access special programs miss Hall do you want [03:47:44] to talk about a couple of the other sort of benefits of being a purple star school division well I think you named some good ones we also have our again our student ambassadors it's just creating the relationships in the schools. It is a way in CIS we're able to see who our students are who are military connected. We are able to, like Dr. Reed said, the summer barbecue, the back to school barbecue. The students are sort of in leadership positions in terms of planning those. [03:48:23] Dr. Reed, you also have the Military Connected Family Advisory Committee. And that's just bringing these families together, the students together, to allow them to share their experiences so we can strengthen their experiences here in FCPS while they're here. [03:48:43] The CIS and the online enrollment allows them to get connected to the division before they even get here, and the families are able to really understand how FCPS can support them. Another thing we added this year, Mr. Frisch, at the request of some of our military-connected families is we added retired military-family-connected students because we have a lot of people who retire here. [03:49:11] They come back and retire, and their students aren't always flagged as military-connected. So there are times when things happen in our nation and world that we want to be exceptionally sensitive to our military-connected youth and those who've been impacted. [03:49:27] So it's really a way to make sure our children are seen and heard and really feel authentically included. When I think about these supports, where I grew up in Los Angeles, we would frequently lose families on a cyclical kind of calendar to work in the Central Valley of California. [03:49:49] the fields with their extended family and you know obviously that has its own challenges but some of the same types of solutions does the purple star designation assist students more broadly than even our military connected families I think we also added our embassy serving foreign service families I think it's just when when our students see that insignia it feels like home a a little bit, if that makes sense, you know, because it means that somebody in [03:50:22] that space understands their experience. In addition to the Purple Star designation, I want to talk a little bit about AVID. I had an opportunity to visit Pine Spring Elementary School with Delegate Marcus Simon as part of Take Your Legislator to School Month, and we were greeted by not only the school staff and some excellent student ambassadors who are part of the AVID program but had an opportunity to see some AVID in practice in the classroom where we saw students learning about study skills or actually [03:51:00] practicing you know how they prepare for their their study skills and met some AVID staff from central office but also from the national program. Can you talk a little bit about what the expansion means for our ability to enhance the opportunities for students not only to become better high school students eventually but take that take those skills into college as well where they can be more successful. I think the AVID program is one of the programs we feel that there's a tremendous amount of research around the WICR strategies are [03:51:37] best practice strategies for studying for organization and so really they benefit all students to have those skills, time management, the ability to take notes without highlighting everything on a page that you're reading. So we're really excited that we're able to expand that and I've never met a student that hasn't said that there was a benefit to having an AVID lesson or really understanding the WICR strategies. The last thing [03:52:11] I'll offer is that a little earlier, maybe a month ago, I brought forward a forum topic to have a holistic review of our practices around bullying, discrimination, harassment, etc., and how we deal with those in our schools to build a more welcoming climate. That is directly related to this EL, and so next year I'll be looking, you know, we've given basically this entire school year for that work to be done, and I'll be looking for that in next year's EL report. [03:52:39] Yes, sir. And we're actually, we have several members of our senior leadership team right now planning an evening town hall event as well as instruction across all schools on topics related to bullying and hazing and dating violence as well and setting boundaries. So just the importance of being an upstander in general. So we're looking forward to being able to provide that as well as modules for parent use as well. [03:53:11] - Thank you. I got a little out of order, so I'm gonna call Mr. Dunn for a motion. - I move that the school board finds that the superintendent is in compliance with executive limitation number 10, learning environment and relationships with students monitoring report. [03:53:30] I further move that the school board approve the monitoring report based on the superintendent's reasonable interpretation of executive limitation number 10, learning environment and relationships with students monitoring report. as outlined in the strategic governance manual. - Is there a second? [03:53:47] - I'll second. - Mr. Frisch, Mr. Dunn, would you like to speak to your motion? - No. - Thank you. Mr. Frisch. - Just a few minutes. I'm just kidding. - Thank you. - I'm good, thanks. - Dr. Anderson. [03:54:02] - Thank you. Can you share, because I don't think I know this, the division's designation as a purple star school, is that permanent or is that on a yearly basis? I believe we need to maintain it. As we, in the presentation you saw, there's a first year, a second time, and then a third year. [03:54:24] We have to continue to maintain the criteria that enable us to be a Purple Star division. And I, Ms. Hall, is that in every how many years, is it every three years? I believe it's every three years, and I think there's a possibility they may increase that. [03:54:44] They may increase the number so that the renewal will not be as frequent. There's a possibility. But there is a renewal process, to answer your question directly, yes. And so the school's designation, the individual schools, that's annual, or is that also for a three-year period? [03:55:01] My understanding is that the school, the renewal for the schools is a three-year period, but we can double-check that. It's for each school to renew, and I believe that is every three years. [03:55:17] The division is different from the schools. But you have to have every school be a Purple Star school in order to become a Purple Star division. So then in the last three years, every school became a Purple Star school in that period? [03:55:32] Yes, ma'am, that's correct. It's not necessarily all of them are this year because we just celebrated 73, if I remember the motion correctly. All 200 are now approved, so that means they're somewhere in their three-year cycle. Got it. and so while the division i'm not entirely sure yet how because it's the first time we've become a purple star division and there aren't very many in virginia but so i don't know how many years the division has but the cycle for all the schools we have to stay on top of to make sure every school renews at their appropriate year thank you i thank you for that um i i want to spend a little bit [03:56:08] time talking about avid um i'm glad that you explained some of the skills some of the strategies how do we connect that to the impact on student academics like are we able to make that through line so i think that um it goes to a mindset within a school right the belief that um with certain skills we can you know climb mountains um but i'm going to call on miss roman to talk a minute about the power and promise of avid and what it's able to do for us and what it's able to do for young young people because we have it in elementary middle and high [03:56:48] school at all three levels. And part of our expansion has been expanding AVID to all title one schools and certainly the earlier we can build some of these skills around independence organization some of the just cognitive skills around note-taking and making sense that soft skills around just being able to organize information in a more independent way. We want to start that early in elementary school so that we can see that return on investment. In talking to some principals they do see it as a big part of instructional and [03:57:23] pedagogy work too with being able to incorporate more engaging strategies across all classrooms and so it certainly is something that our principals are very invested in as a part of instructional growth. I will say there is, even if it's an anecdotal correlation, I think it's probably a little better than anecdotal you know the whole avid notebook thing where you hold up your notebook and shake it and theoretically no papers should fall out or any other items and sometimes when you particularly in those younger years as students are finding their study skills I've seen a number of backpacks [03:57:59] where the papers just sort of explode out of the backpacks or they're buried under a banana that no longer is discernible so I think that with avid strategies right the ability to organize a notebook to organize your study materials that's a very baseline expectation but if we're not able to do that it's really difficult to turn in assignments and stay on top of your studies no thank you I appreciate that I would just love to find a way to [03:58:31] qualitatively or quantitatively kind of offer some of the some of the impact of this investment but I also want to say this I think one of the AVID supports that has had some significant yield that I can see again observationally anecdotally is the 12th grade AVID where they are working with students on college applications applying for scholarships and in some places in the Mason district we have a lot of students who are literally on their own [03:59:08] Dr. Reed because of what has happened politically so they have had to navigate this on their own and the staff there is just buried with seniors who need more support and so I'm hoping these are the types of things that have bubbled up through to the chief of schools office because Justice High School is one in which there's a lot of need to help some of those students navigate the application process for college and they're not necessarily students that are in AVID because those classes are limited so I have to make [03:59:46] sure that I put that out as an opportunity for additional support for schools that have that kind of profile. I'd like to go back, please. Thank you. Mr. Dannon? Oh, I'd like a feedback response of any sort. Yes, ma'am. I think that, and Justice has a fabulous AVID coordinator. I believe it's Eric, and I don't, is it Eric Kinney or Eric? I don't know that I have Eric's last name at the tip of my tongue. Mr. Welch, he's the AVID King. Right, and he, you know, I've seen him at a variety of of awards and scholarship events too where students and families talk about [04:00:22] how that was transformational and their student being able to access financial aid or FAFSA forums and just the navigating all of the gates to get where they want to go when they leave high school so absolutely I think that support is important and I know that a number of our high schools are providing that also through their career and counseling office. But it is important, and I appreciate you calling out Mr. Welch. He's done and continues to do amazing work. Thank you. Mr. Dannon. Good evening. I first want to thank you all [04:01:00] for the work that your team do to meet this extremely important executive invitation. We're very large, obviously, in a very diverse school system, and so I recognize it's not easy to meet this executive invitation under some of those circumstances. I also want to applaud the recent achievement we celebrated earlier tonight about the schools becoming purple star schools and being a purple star division. I'd be remiss if I didn't call out, I saw student ambassadors, if I didn't call out the Robinson Rambassadors for their work and how well they've seen them being supported in the school there. And I know we've been able to uplift some ideas that they've provided to you all on ways to make their school safer. I also [04:01:40] want to talk a little bit about, I know various members in our community, even during my short time on the board have raised concerns about things such as anti-semitism, about Nazi graffiti and so forth. Can you talk a little bit about your approach and how you respond to those types of incidences where students don't feel safe based on their race, the religion, the country of origin? Yes, sir. [04:02:04] I think that those are topics we work on constantly and that was really part of the genesis of the work around the matrices that I spoke about. I was trying recall what slide that was but that was work that I think is really important the alignment it would be slide for the discipline decision tool so those strategies along with the universal grade matrices really tried to provide some consistent consequences and accountability for students who make poor choices in the areas you're describing I think as important it may be more [04:02:43] important is that education the preventive education to create and support nurture and support a culture and climate where those events don't occur at all right that's that's our always our best next path I would ask Dr. King to talk a minute a little bit about I know you've got your specialists that are out working with each region and maybe you could comment on that thank for the question. When acts of anti-semitism, racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, the anti's [04:03:17] happen in our school, it's the expectation that principals do a full investigation, send letters out to community members so that they're aware that that happened, hold students accountable, reteaching, and then working very closely with my team to come in and do some additional PD around areas that it continues to show up. If it's a one-time, principals know how to handle that according to SR&R, but if it becomes a pattern and we're tracking that, then we supply additional support from our equity team to those principals in that school community. [04:03:55] I appreciate it. Similarly, you just mentioned about being proactive and so forth, and I know we've talked a bit about the work that the division is doing, what more we can do to be proactive around preventing sexual harassment and sexual assault. You talked earlier about training around being upstanders and so forth. Can you elaborate a little more on what your team is doing both to be proactive about this topic but then also to respond when incidents like that happen? Yes sir, in fact Dr. King is one of the senior leaders that is working on that along with Dr. Riley. So I think Dr. King? Yes we're working on a community [04:04:32] event and some assemblies at high schools around a program called Love Like Adam. One of our staff members, nephew Adam, was killed in a hazing or died from a hazing act at VCU a couple of years ago and she came and presented to senior leadership. Many of us were moved by that program so that along with the other topics that Dr. Reed mentioned in the program is something that we're going to put in front of our students to make sure that they understand the [04:05:07] consequences of those types of behaviors, and do some preventative measures to ensure that when they leave us, while they're here with us, and then when they leave us to go off to college, that they understand the dangers of those types of behaviors. Appreciate that. And I've said this before, but you know, please keep us posted. If you recognize that there are policy shortcomings or ways that the board can support that work, you know, please let us know. I want to shift a little bit page six and seven of the full report talk about inclusive practices and just I've asked before I don't want to just reiterate for the record is the goal for the division to get to a hundred percent inclusion I think that [04:05:47] mr. down and they we because the decisions for placement are made by IEP teams there's always going to be a continuum of services and we want to believe that special education isn't a place right it's a continuum of services So I don't think we're ever going to get to a hundred percent. [04:06:08] I think our goal is to make sure that each and every child is in the placement that will best support their learning needs and enable them to thrive. Yeah, and I recognize the goal probably shouldn't be a hundred percent, right? There are kids who are better suited for other environments, but I also recognize that we're fighting an uphill battle where no and exclusion and segregation has been the default. [04:06:29] so and I recognize your work at I think a couple weeks ago we talked about the preschool inclusion and improvements and so forth so my team had a chance to fit the Skyview about a month or so ago and look at what they're doing can you speak a little about what the model is being used at Skyview and is that going to be expanded or what definition what criteria would you use to expand it yes sir the model at Skyview is really an evolving sort of it's a model that we're working on with our twice exceptional students and we're really trying to [04:07:02] pilot some strategies that mirror best practice research and incubate program ideas that we can then scale across the county so we don't have just one high school that is utilizing what I would characterize as best practice and best practice research for access for our twice exceptional students as you know Many of our neurodivergent students, their neurodivergence is an incredible strength. [04:07:32] As we look at neurodivergence from a strength-based lens, we know that our students want to be in courses that challenge them and still have those social connections and be able to work on their next steps in a space that also has sensory sort of considerations. [04:08:00] But I think that perhaps, Ms. Roman, you've been in some of those meetings and could talk just a minute about, a little bit about kind of the programming that we're seeing at Skyview. Yeah, I think the big things that we've been seeing at Skyview is that the principal, Principal Jay Goulds, has been working, getting feedback from students, from staff, and iterating on that. [04:08:23] And I think that that's something that's been really well received. They've talked about experimenting with the bells and the bell schedules, creating environments that are a little bit, I would say, more distraction-free, quieter spaces that allow students to focus. And so I think what's made some of that programming special and responsive to some of the learning needs of two e-learners is being able to get that feedback in real time and making some adjustments in that. [04:08:47] And I'd love to continue the conversation about that because I've heard feedback from colleagues and from ACSD members and so forth that even the way the building is set up isn't always conducive to certain programs. This can't be like a cookie cutter approach, even though we support the goal of inclusion. [04:09:02] So, again, I appreciate all the great work here and I'll be supportive of this. - Thank you. Ms. Marin. - Okay, so I want to again confirm the tremendous effort over years to have FCPS become a Purple Star School Division. [04:09:20] It was delightful to see this room filled tonight with so many people. I wish all the meetings were like that to commemorate our Purple Star Schools and our veterans. And also the expansion of AVID is a course offering. My own daughter went through AVID and my son is currently in it, so I totally get it. [04:09:38] I think the report has some lovely annual and biannual events in student advisory groups that the student attendant is hosting independent of the school board that seemed to provide opportunities for a select group of students. And I think there are many programs with important topics. The data about expanding pre-K inclusion classrooms and slots is noteworthy, especially in such a short time. [04:10:01] I'm kind of perplexed at why the elements highlighted in this presentation are mostly about what's implemented, you know, annual summit, twice annual meeting, but, you know, I'm hard-pressed to say that over 170,000 students in the school division have a rich learning environment that supports relationships with educators because of AVID. Having that elective, even when strategies are shared across the school, isn't a global indicator for the experience of 170,000 students. [04:10:30] I don't think, especially the presentation, talks about the creation of environments that promote what is said here, a sense of belonging, inclusivity. There is some talk about rules that are fair and equitable when it comes to discipline. You know I'm just not understanding the daily environment from this report and I'm unclear what the exact metrics are. The global indicators I would like to see are something like class size because we know class size makes a big difference for how children feel and relate to their peers and the teacher. The ability for students to obtain top choice classes because students get pretty bummed when they can't get get the electives that they want. [04:11:06] Equitable access and learning environments. The number of students in a school and how membership impacts access to courses. We are hearing how low membership in two high schools is creating a very poor learning environment for those students. That's how they feel. That's not mentioned in this report at all. [04:11:22] The rolling gradebook implementation. I hear lots of confusion, even from my own daughter, what's happening, what they think it is and what it isn't. Having the same counselor or mentor year to year. The teacher turnover rates, you know, I know they're on consent tonight, should we be digging deeper into that? [04:11:39] Also frequency of substitute teachers. You know, again, when I reflect on the strength of students' learning environments, I'm immediately thinking of the most important resource that students have, and that's their teachers. Teachers' working conditions are students' learning conditions. And we overwhelmingly heard tonight from a number of employees with very sobering comments about an array of items. [04:12:01] And I think that students have positive relationships with their teachers, despite the feelings that teachers might have of being unheard of, unheard or taken advantage of. So I'm not able to support the EL tonight. - Thank you. [04:12:16] Ms. Dixit. - So Dr. Reed, thank you for this presentation. And one of the things I really liked was the first inaugural, the student summit, which you did with 400 high school students. [04:12:33] How did these students got selected, and how did it represent our community overall from different, you know, backgrounds? And if you could... Yes, ma'am. Ms. Hall, your department put this together. [04:12:49] Yes, thank you. The students, well, there was the committee. There was an application process for the committee. The intent all along was to make sure that both the committee and the attendees were from diverse backgrounds and experiences to create a richer discussion around the topics that were chosen. [04:13:12] You know, we worked with points of contact, our community relations director did, worked with points of contact with each of the schools, high schools, to make sure that they had a good, well-rounded group of students. They weren't always necessarily the student leaders that are, you know, student government presidents, et cetera. [04:13:36] These are students who don't always have a voice, and that's some of the feedback that we received in the end. There were students who said, I've never had an opportunity like this before, and that's what we were looking for. It was, you know, we have pictures. [04:13:53] It was an amazing group of students that were there, very diverse, again, backgrounds and experiences from across the division. Okay, thank you. That's what I wanted to hear, that we did go for diversity and reaching out to students who normally don't sign up for student leadership, etc. [04:14:13] One of the things I have talked to before as well, Dr. Reed, is that a lot of our information, we have so much data, so much information. But there are not many public-facing data dashboards in terms of like this type of information. [04:14:29] So I was just doing my own research, and I see some other school divisions. They do have some public-facing dashboards in terms of sense of belonging, well-being, chronic absenteeism, disproportionate discipline in the system. [04:14:50] And I wanted to see because it's hard to dig into detail sometimes for an average person to go through our reports if it was possible to do something like the public facing. I will ask the team to see what's possible and also protect our student data in terms of reporting. [04:15:11] But absolutely, yes, ma'am, we'll see what's possible. Yeah, it obviously should protect student data. It's more on a higher level. And speaking of that, the word feeling safe, and, you know, in the report it's mentioned 84% or 80%, what was the number? [04:15:29] Student felt safe in school. How are we reaching to that number? Like, okay, what does safe mean to each person? How do we know that? Well, it's a self-reporting data point. So essentially there's a question likely in the Healthy Youth Survey where students are asked to answer that question directly themselves. [04:15:51] So they just, I saw the survey just says, do you feel safe at school? Yes or no? And doesn't go into, like, have you suffered this or that? Like, there are no subsets of questions on it. And I was, and again, we do this survey every year, and it's going on from 2000, 2000, I don't know, 20, 25 years now. [04:16:15] FCPS can do, I think, a better job in reaching to our own student body. And I feel like we should be doing these surveys on school levels and other levels and kind of come together as I think we'll have better because my own kid was to say, I'm just doing it because I'm asked to do. [04:16:36] There was no sense of like, I'm going to do it the right way if I want to. I don't know how to do that, but just getting the right input, maybe teacher and principals can do it better than somebody else from who they don't know. Yes, ma'am. We'll take a look at the survey and also we do an SEL screener, which is a different survey. [04:16:58] But I take your point that it's important to make sure we're accurate and know how our students are feeling. I'm supportive of all the work you're doing and thank you so much for this and I'll be supporting this motion. Thank you. Okay, I'll be supporting this motion. [04:17:14] Thank you. Ms. Anderson. So I want to start by saying that as a military-connected family myself, I am thrilled with the Purple Star Division. I am also thrilled that we are acknowledging retired families in our system. My husband retired while our kids were in the system. [04:17:32] It was hard when we were no longer identified. I have a specific thanks to Katie Server and all of our staff who specifically support our military-connected students. Katie's enthusiasm is contagious, and I know it was a huge lift. And she was excited to tell me, Dr. Anderson, that we only have 38 schools next year that need to be, that are due for renewal. [04:17:53] And I've asked her to share an example of one of the applications. I would love to see the work that's going on. I do have a, ultimately, obviously, I'm in support of everything that we're doing. I do have just a few questions that I was hoping to have answered. [04:18:10] Could you speak specifically to how students with disabilities are handled with the FGI monitoring process? So specifically, are they included in the September identification, and how is that coordinated with their IEP teams? So I'm going to defer to Dr. Presidio on that, as it's an Instructional Services Department program and decision. [04:18:31] So Dr. Presidio? No, thank you for the question. I think I'm going to have to confer with the team and get back to you on that one, though. Thank you. That would be wonderful. I also had a comment to make about our transitions for students with disabilities. I appreciate the work that the division is doing to strengthen those transitions for our students with disabilities as they leave the division. [04:18:50] I, in the same vein, I would like us to strengthen our transitions between levels of schools. Anecdotally, I have heard from families that a simple meeting between those who work most closely with students, particularly those of our students with the highest needs, it would be really helpful for the families to support those students as kiddos move up in the division. [04:19:13] So just putting that out there, that's potentially somewhere we could continue to grow. So thank you so much. - Yes, ma'am, and I think we're really looking at program locations as well, because we often put our most vulnerable children on the longest bus rides, and often have the most transitions in terms of moving to different schools where a program is placed. [04:19:38] So I know that several of our SEPTA representatives were part of our BRAC, our Boundary Review Advisory Committee, and really are challenging us to take that closer look at program placement and our students who have been moved multiple times to find their programs that they need to attend. [04:20:04] So it's a very real concern. And I agree, we need to address it. And I love the consideration of schools like Willow Springs, that is an AAP center, that sometimes our AAP centers actually don't necessarily always have the room or the capacity in order to have all of their students' disabilities at their base school. [04:20:22] And so I love the opportunity that we have there, that potentially we have some room that we could keep kids in their base school with the rest of their cohort. Thank you. Mr. Dunn, Ms. St. John Cunningham. [04:20:40] Thank you. I really want to commend the work that we see here that you've presented and what was in the report. I do have a couple of questions. One of them is in terms of, and this is for Dr. King, on page three, five, and 11 of the report, it talked about the new systems that we have in terms of great matrices and disciplines and the discipline tool. [04:21:05] It describes these, but do we have any of the results? Are we seeing patterns? Do we have the breakdown of that information and how these new approaches are working in schools. [04:21:21] - Yes, thank you. My team is constantly monitoring the results from the tools to see where we need to focus in schools who are having maybe a little bit of challenge of following the tools. [04:21:36] They created a very simplistic tool to help them make the decisions, but ultimately school administrators still have the autonomy to make decisions, particularly with our students with IEPs. But we will have our discipline reports and we'll report out on those numbers at the regular times that we do each year. [04:21:56] I appreciate this because I think if we start seeing trends and patterns, we can start addressing them. So I really appreciate this because I've seen how it can or doesn't work sometimes in schools. The other thing that, you know, and I know that we're really trying the best we can with our funding resources that were lack of resources that we have. And I know that the high impact tutoring program we had was extremely successful and it's gone from 166 schools to 53 Title I schools. How do you foresee that we're going to be able to make up that difference? Because it was such a successful program for our kids. And [04:22:34] you know, what is the impact of our lack of funding and our inability to continue programs like that? About the high impact tutoring. Oh, the high impact tutoring. Actually, Ms. Roman, our chief of schools, being her crafty, frugal self, has been working on a plan. [04:22:55] So Ms. Roman? Yeah, we do have a plan and we're working on a partnership to get some funds that would be able to support some expansion, getting closer to what we were able to do when we had the state funds. Currently, right now, high-impact tutoring is mostly happening in Title I schools, where schools are able to use their title funds to go towards that. [04:23:16] But we are hopefully close to finalizing a partnership that would allow us to expand that. Yeah, I know that that was really successful. And I just really want to mention that, you know, it's fortuitous that we had this report today when we were talking and honoring, you know, our Purple Star Division and our family engagement. [04:23:38] And I think that I would love to see a report on the impact of our family engagement teams because they are so critical in terms of creating that welcoming environment and just welcoming families. I know that as I sat here, I got several texts from family liaisons saying, thank you so much, we never get recognized. [04:23:58] And we know how critical their work is and work like, you know, the hippie work, all that kind of work really goes to making families feel welcome and students feel welcome. And they just have a high impact. [04:24:13] And just the fact that we're looking at this right now is kind of interesting. I don't know if you timed it on purpose that way, but that was a stroke of genius. So thank you for all the work you do. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just take a quick turn. Amazing report. [04:24:32] And there's so much here to celebrate. There's so much here that when I was working in the system, it wasn't happening. So if I went here and highlighted all the things in the report that were not in place three and a half years ago. [04:24:48] So kudos to your entire team for all the hard work. So at this point, I'll call for the vote on the motion. I'm sorry, your light's not on, ma'am. Okay, Dr. Anderson. Thank you. [04:25:04] I wanted to know about the athletic survey. As you know, it's an area of interest to me, and fall sports are complete. When will that be administered? And can you speak to who is the audience for that? What will that data yield? So I know that came up today earlier, and I have not had a chance to connect with Mr. Horn this afternoon. [04:25:25] I do know we still have a number of our fall sports teams still competing. While many are complete, we still have others competing. So I will be checking, or actually I'm going to ask Ms. Roman to connect with Mr. Horn. I will say, hot off the presses, I do have an update that it is scheduled to go to families. [04:25:46] week of December 7th for the fall and then tentatively late February for the next winter sports and then early June for the spring sports. Thank you. Audience is families. So it'll be headed to families. [04:26:01] Will that notice also include who will view the data, what should families expect once this is completed? So because it's a division-wide form our office and Tom Horn's office will be able to review the form but also it will be available for school leadership teams to review in action as well. Thank you. [04:26:25] If that could be included in the information that would be great. You know I have a whole number of questions that I'm not I'm not going to go through. I do want to however highlight some of the work that is happening with the SRNR particularly the matrices. I understand the amount of work that went into that just to try to streamline some of the disproportionality that we've seen so to me that's a direct through line and I'm just going to take this opportunity to kind of renew some of the advocacy that I've had since we began these ELs I don't know how many years ago now which is [04:27:01] they're great activities but I'm not seeing the through line between the activities and the intention of moving the division's goals forward i'd like for us to upon creating some of these um activities just to start with the end in mind like what will this impact and how are we going to measure that because i i see a space for that to be a little bit greater connected it's i'm struggling to use all of this to to determine how the work is moving forward and of course you know with number one that speaks to the continuously continuous performance [04:27:40] gaps of students that continues to be a big sticking point for me and I am just not satisfied with the progress that is being made because in some areas we continue to see that achievement gap grow thank you mr. moon you know dr. we you know that I really enjoy going out to these athletic events and support our students and and I've been doing that for close to three decades now but at the [04:28:14] same time I also hear some concerns from parents and students and how competitive it has become you know making a team staying on a team has become for students and families how that impacts upon their order other parts of their life they're supposed to be they're supposed to be student athlete, not the other way around. I sometimes wonder whether it's the other way around. So I want to have some conversation about that, you know, what we can do to help alleviate some of [04:28:49] those pressures and intensity from, I mean, I want to be able to support, you know, students wanting to achieve as much as they can. However, at the same time, when that level of intensity, which is certain point. I think that has a negative impact on everyone. [04:29:08] Yes, sir. And I think the mental health of our student-athletes at times also can be challenged when that level of intensity. There's a traveling team, a school team, and often, I understand. [04:29:25] I look forward to the conversation. Thank you. I will now call for the vote on the motion. All those in favor, Ms. Anderson, Mr. Frisch, Mr. Moon, Ms. Dixit, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Dannon, Ms. St. John Cunningham, myself, all opposed. [04:29:42] Ms. Marin, Dr. Anderson. I think that carries 8 to 2. Annually, the board will review each executive limitation at the time of the monitoring report as provided to determine if revisions are needed. Board members may offer amendments to executive limitations at any regular meeting, provided they send final amendment language to the board and clerk at least 48 hours in advance of the meeting at which it is to be considered. This time, as no amendments have been submitted, advance of this meeting learning environment relationships with students monitoring port was placed the consent agenda for approval later in tonight's meeting to maintain the current language for the year ahead agenda item [04:30:18] nine consent agenda are adopted rules of parliamentary procedure Roberts rules provide for consent agenda listing several items for approval of the boards by a single motion many items listed have gone through board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting. The consent agenda items are on the screen. Is there any objection to approval of the consent agenda items? Seeing none and hearing none, this consent agenda is approved. Agenda item 10, new business, the following are new business agenda items. There will not be a vote on these this evening, but action is scheduled at a future meeting. Agenda [04:30:58] item 11, board committee reports. I call on Ms. Anderson for a report on the governance committee. The Governance Committee met recently. We had a wonderful discussion about our initial discussion related to the two forthcoming EdTech policies and came up with some general feedback to give to our Educational Technology Review Committee. [04:31:18] But otherwise, we expect that at our next meeting we will dig into some of the language changes that we're suggesting with those two policies in addition to looking at some of the other policies that we're working towards. Thank you. I call Mr. Frisch for an update on the administrative committee. [04:31:34] Thank you. The admin committee reviewed policy 18-19, which we'll pick up back up at our next meeting. And we also approved a slate of standard operating procedures, which will work their way to new business, and the consent agenda for future board consideration. [04:31:58] Thank you. In accordance with board consensus, due to the late hour, we will skip board matters this evening. The meeting is, I'm sorry, superintendent matters quickly. I just want to remind our community that the special education family conference is this Saturday at Hayfield Secondary School from 830 to 4. [04:32:27] And we really encourage all our families who have an interest to attend the Special Education Family Conference this Saturday. Thank you. Thank you. My apologies, Dr. Reid. I skipped right over you. So maybe that changed the winner up there. The meeting is now adjourned at 11:32. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Coraggio Consulting ยท aguyonx.com