Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, 2nd Tuesday School Board Meeting, Tuesday, January 10, 2023

Date: Tuesday, January 10, 2023
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 7h 12m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/788014599?rel=0
BoardDocs (School Board): https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/loudoun/Board.nsf/Public

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-20. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:04] - Good afternoon. I call to order this January 10th Loudoun County School Board meeting. We will start with item 1.2 on our agenda, remote participation. I have been notified that Ms. Corbo is requesting remote participation for tonight's meeting.

[00:00:23] Ms. Corbo, could you please state your location, the type of remote participation you're requesting, and if anyone is present with you at your location? - Thank you, I am alone. I'm at home under policy 2420.

[00:00:41] I'm asking for electronic remote meeting participation due to an ongoing disability and medical condition as recommended by HRTD under ADA disability law. I will entertain a motion that Ms. Corbeau's request for remote participation be approved for health and medical reasons.

[00:01:00] So moved. Moved by Mr. Morris. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Mr. Beatty. Any discussion? I will reference my statement from the may 10th 2022 school board meeting as far as why i will not be supporting this motion seeing no further discussion all those in favor of the motion please raise your hand and say aye those opposed please raise your hand say nay nay those abstaining that motion will fail three three one two with miss okadeg bay abstaining from the vote and corbo re and

[00:01:34] miss reaser absent miss corbo would you like to request a remote participation for personal matters tonight because there is not a critical vote this evening and personal exemptions are limited i will not be requesting that tonight but i will be here at the meeting thank you we will now move to item two on the agenda for disclosure starting with ms sheridan microphone not working

[00:02:13] sorry about that as a member of the loudon county school board i make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees specifically as a as a school board member I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee these benefits however affect thousands of employees while in excess of the statutory three employees

[00:02:51] whose interest may also be affected of which I am included I can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public interest this disclosure will will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. - Thank you, Mr. Morse.

[00:03:07] - I will not be taking benefits this year, so I do not have a disclaimer. - Thank you, Mr. Mahedby. - Thank you, Chair. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding employee salaries, the budget, and/or health insurance, and any other discussion that may include or affect salary and benefits for LCPS employees.

[00:03:31] Specifically, I'm enrolled in LCPS health insurance and may be affected by any potential changes to health insurance. These subjects include thousands of employees well in excess of statutory three employees whose interests may be affected, of which I'm included. I can and will participate fairly, objectively, and in the public interest.

[00:03:48] This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. - Thank you. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding employee salaries, budget and or health insurance and any other discussion that may include or affect salary and benefits for LCPS employees specifically I am enrolled in LCPS health insurance and may be affected by any potential changes to health insurance these subjects include thousands of employees while in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may be affected of which I am included I can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public

[00:04:25] interest this disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years that will complete disclosures who we'll move to item three on the agenda, the approval of the consent agenda. Is there a motion, Mr. Mahedby?

[00:04:43] - I move that the board approves the consent agenda as stated in the board docs. - Sir, second? - Second. - Seconded by Ms. Ogadegbe. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion, please raise your hand and say aye.

[00:05:01] - Aye. - That motion will pass unanimously. Board members present with Ms. Corbo absent for the vote. We'll now move on to item four or work session. We'll start with 4.01 school board operations. I have a number of just brief items for tonight.

[00:05:20] The first is providing oversight of the auditor general's office. We had had some preliminary discussions about this, about how we would proceed. I think there's two viable ways.

[00:05:36] The first would be to form a select or ad hoc committee for 2023 of board members to provide oversight of the Auditor General's office to create the initial policies dealing with the Auditor General's office and provide direction on what the initial things or taskings we would give to that department.

[00:05:59] The alternative would be to add that portfolio to one of our standing committees, either legislative and policy would probably be the best fit or one of the other ones upon direction of the board. So I feel like forming a select committee for the year would be my preferred approach just because it would allow a little more focus for them to be able to focus on that exclusively.

[00:06:26] And then after the end of this year, we could determine, does it need to be its own committee? Does it need to be quarterly or monthly or whatever cadence makes sense? Or does it make sense just to roll it into one of the other committees once we have it stood up at this time? So I wanted to bring that up for just brief discussion if anyone had feedback about which way to proceed or had another approach.

[00:06:48] Ms. Ogadegbe. I think the standing up an ad hoc committee might be a good idea because it allows for some time to figure out what a more permanent solution would be and also just allows things to get started.

[00:07:06] Further discussion? Mr. Mahanmi. Thank you, Chair. As somebody who has been championed to get this other general's office and obviously the support of the board to get this office in place, I would like to agree with you.

[00:07:26] I think this should be set up as a separate committee. Initially, we can start as an ad hoc or select committee and then decide on whether we proceed with keeping that as a committee depending upon how many items come up. But I think that would be the best and the prudent way to do it versus trying to merge it with some other committee right now.

[00:07:42] Further discussion? Any disagreement with that approach? Okay, seeing none, I will direct staff to work on an initial charter for a ad hoc or select committee for the Auditor General's office, and we'll bring that to the board as an information item once that's ready.

[00:08:03] The second item is the let's talk user training for board members and assistants. We were trying to have this towards the end of last year, and due to scheduling and quorum issues, we weren't able to do that. This is more just a heads up that we think that's important for everyone to be trained on that and so that us and our assistants know how to use that system.

[00:08:26] So staff will be reaching out to try and find a day when we can get a majority of board members there to be able to complete that training. The next item, also just a heads up, I feel the appeal committee rotation that Mr. Morse put in place last year has been working out well and haven't heard any complaints from board members about that system.

[00:08:50] So I wanted to bring it up for discussion, but unless the board feels otherwise, I would plan on continuing that system. Mr. Mahedby. - Thank you, Chair. I didn't bring it as a complaint, but I thought this is a good point to bring it up. I think it would be a good idea to rotate that because I think the majority of those come in.

[00:09:11] I think when I was, I think, when few of us were there, I think in the month of August, we had, I think, quite a few. So I would like to have a reconsideration in getting that because once you are in December, January, it's not many, but in August, there's quite a few.

[00:09:28] So I'd like to get an option to see if we can rotate that. I think that's a fair point because it's definitely some parts of the year are far busier than other points of the year. So I'm happy to take another look at that and try and balance it out so that the people who were there during the busy time of the year are there during a light time of the year this year.

[00:09:46] I think that's a really good point. And Ms. Ogadegbe. Just for clarification for the new board members, can you provide a little more context about what appeals these are? These are any appeals that would come up during that month.

[00:10:04] They are typically appeals for requests for special permission, but they can also be requests for waiver of the VHSL transfer rule. It could be book appeals for instructional resources that are challenged or anything else that's eligible for appeal during that month.

[00:10:26] Any other discussion? Mr. Beatty. and again the idea is to combine all those appeals into one single meeting with a specific group of people that yes are scheduled for that right yes um have those been meeting because I was thinking about that I mean I haven't I don't think I've been designed to anything recently so that would be my other question is maybe transparency too about what's going on that schedule maybe I'm just missing it in the emails but I I would defer to staff but I believe they have been meeting as necessary but most months we haven't had any appeals that have that have needed to have them other than during the busy times of the year further discussion

[00:11:04] okay seeing none uh the last item i have had a few board members reach out with a suggestion of for information items moving to the same format that the board of supervisors uses and having a set amount of time per board member to ask questions or make comments for information items So I don't have strong feelings about it one way or another.

[00:11:37] I think it could potentially help to be a little more efficient during information items, but I wanted to bring it up for discussion and see whether it's something that, a direction the board wanted to go or at least to try out for a period of time and see how board members liked it.

[00:11:55] Mr. Beatty. I do agree that we need to do something to fix up the time, but one question I would have is, what's the leeway in terms of information get that the board of supervisors gets for all those information items because it's one thing to prepare five minutes of questioning and speech if you've got the slide deck or you know the whole presentation in front of you but I think some of these I mean if it's a policy obviously that's gone through the process but if some of them if I recall a lot of that information only gets published like the day of and that makes it harder to prepare so I would be in favor of setting that especially if we can get the information

[00:12:32] when the agenda is set or the day after so that we have time over the weekend to prepare for that or the Monday or the day of. Further discussion? Ms. Polifko. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[00:12:50] I wonder if it would be possible in some way for each information item if the presenter could sort of map out about or approximately how much time it would take to get through that item on the information segment and then that would prepare board members to know about how much time they would also have.

[00:13:08] Maybe we could segment it that way so that people have some sort of preparation as to how much time are we blocking out for each item. And that might also help with the flow of conversation back and forth with questioning and answering, potentially. Further discussion?

[00:13:27] Mr. Madby. Thank you, Chair. I think right now, looking at tonight, we have seven items, information items. Now, some of them might require a lot more discussion, But even five minutes would be, so you can cap it up at 45 minutes, even if you go with all nine.

[00:13:48] But if you were to go with that, I mean, I'm just thinking out loud here. So 45 times seven, if people were to say, I have to use my five minutes to demonstrate my knowledge, then that could lead into some different discussion altogether. So anyway, maybe case by case and say, well, this particular information item is so hot that you cap it, and then not general rule for all information items, but then I think at your discretion you can select thing this one we want to cap it and I think it's it's pretty rare that we have more than 45 minutes of discussion on an information item but I do think it could potentially for the ones that would take

[00:14:24] longer I think it could help board members prepare questions in advance or just kind of know what they want to ask or prepare material but to mr. Beatty's point it would require that I think we do have a standing rule that all material should be in board docs three days before the meeting it's it kind of ebbs and flows on how rigorously that's being how that's being followed but I do agree that that would be a requirement if we're going to put board members on a clock to do something like that further discussion miss okay I think if we do put a limit on it it should just be across the board the limit not like

[00:15:00] selecting specific items per meeting but then if for some reason a board member feels that more in-depth discussion is required then they could make a motion to allow that for that particular item but I I do agree just trying to be more efficient with our time would be helpful miss Rieser thank you mr. chair I also would support implementing a five-minute Q&A per board member as a as a ceiling I

[00:15:37] think that as it stands our board is pretty good about asking questions only when we have them and I don't think it would change I don't think it would change that I don't think people would feel compelled to fill their five minutes it's just a maximum and I'm not sure that I would agree with putting a limit on how much the staff time is for the item I think staff should have as much time as they need to present the item our five minutes is going to be consistent regardless of how long staff takes whether their presentation is shorter or longer will be dependent on the depth of the information that needs

[00:16:16] be presented so i i think that that's how the supervisors do it and and i have seen chair randall give an additional allotment of time like an additional round when something was particularly difficult to digest or required a suspension of the rules for lack of a better word i think the chair has the discretion to do that for the board of supervisors so i'm not even sure that we would need a motion depending on how we write our policy I think they don't have a policy on it it's in their rules of order and their rules of order are voted on at their organizational meeting every year so it can also be

[00:16:54] adjusted more readily than than policy needs to be so if that information is helpful about how I have seen it done I'd be happy to talk with anyone offline who wants to know more about it as well but you can watch any of their recorded meetings and for those of us that were on the board before we have employed that at the annual meeting that we have with them on the budget so we've all experimented with how that works I don't think it was too difficult and then the last thing that I was going to add on that topic is I've forgotten already so

[00:17:30] that's my five minutes thanks further discussion so I feel like there's some consensus that they're like to pursue something like this so what I propose is is I'll draft up some kind of guidelines for the way that this could work, and then we bring it back next time and for a thumbs-up, thumbs-down that people are comfortable with.

[00:17:57] Ms. Corbo, I see you with your hand up, but your remote participation wasn't approved tonight unless I misunderstood you and you wanted to use a personal exemption tonight. Can you clarify that? Because if so, we'll have to go back to 1.02 to vote on that. My understanding is I am allowed to speak if I'm holding on during a meeting, just not allowed to vote.

[00:18:19] I don't believe that's correct. Mr. Falcone. Thank you, Mr. Sirotkin. So it's certainly within the discretion of the chair to decide whether or not someone who's not a member of the board is welcome to speak.

[00:18:37] And so it's really, I think that's, it's up to you. We've never interpreted it that way, or no former chair has interpreted it that way. I'm not going to change the interpretation of that. So my interpretation of that is that you would need to be admitted into the meeting in order to participate in debate or to vote.

[00:18:56] Ms. Reeser? I remembered the other thing. I just wanted to address what Ms. Ogadugbe said about having it apply to all items. I think that it applies to all information items, but for action items, typically there isn't a limit because we're voting so that we can fully get our questions answered before we cast our vote.

[00:19:15] Any further discussion on this? Okay. Seeing none, that will conclude school board operations and we'll move to 4.02, one LCPS 2027 strategic plan for excellence goal two update dr ellis thank you mr sorokan good evening board members this afternoon we have an update on goals two of our strategic plan this evening we will

[00:19:55] focus on exemplary staff and i do not have any more introduction to that because i know our goal two team has been hard at work so i'm going to turn it directly over to dr michelle luttrell Dr. Luttrell is the principal at Loudoun County High School and is a member of the Goal 2 team and I believe she plans to introduce the other members of her team so Dr. Luttrell Thank you Dr. Ellis good evening chair Sorotkin and board members I am Michelle Luttrell the principal at Loudoun County High School this evening we are sharing with you the 1LCPS strategic plan for excellence Goal 2 updates

[00:20:31] Goal 2 of the strategic plan is grounded in cultivating high-performing teams of professionals committed to realizing our mission and vision this evening I am joined by Ray Mitchell executive director chief of schools and Lisa Boland chief human resources officer and presenting the three of us have worked collaboratively on this content but each will present an aligned action and accompanying information to you this evening we will share baseline data five-year targets and for each of the three aligned actions we will share updates successes upcoming events or initiatives opportunities and challenges as well as board implications

[00:21:09] next slide please before we share the updates I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the aligned action leads for goal to Tina Howell director of professional learning Elaine layman director of elementary and charter schools and Chris Bennett executive director of human resources and talent development who are also here this evening next we will revisit the foundational pieces of one LCPS our vision and mission next slide please our

[00:21:46] shared vision mission and core beliefs guide our collective work as one LCPS we place students at the center of our work helping every student pursue and reach their full potential and empowering them to make meaningful contributions to the world next slide please as shared earlier our discussion this evening is focused on goal 2 which states that LCPS teachers administrators and staff are the most important factor in helping our students after their parents seeing that student staff are esteemed exemplary supported and accountable is vital to student success you will hear our initial

[00:22:24] thinking and planning on goal 2 this evening and we'll receive a more detailed progress update at a presentation this spring next slide please I would like to call your attention to the documents we will be referencing this evening and board docs you have three attachments in addition this presentation. The Goal to Targets document outlines the aligned actions, target baseline data, and five-year targets through 2027. The data one-pager serves as a visual reference guide on the baseline data. Final document titled Disaggregated Data contains all the data points

[00:23:01] for the targets. On the next slides we will review broad strategies, walk through high-level data, share updates regarding collective work that is underway, and provide a few short and long-term implications for the board we will do this for each of the aligned actions I will now turn it over to Miss Mitchell for a discussion of aligned action 2.1 good evening board I am Ray Mitchell executive director chief of schools and I will be presenting action 2.1 so aligned action 2.1 focuses on offering

[00:23:39] high-quality professional learning coaching mentorship and leadership development, including emphasis on core academic excellence, special education, and English language learners. The strategies accompanying Align Action 2.1 are highlighted on this slide.

[00:24:04] Align Action 2.1 contains four metrics. The baseline data shows that 86% of staff responded positively to questions about professional development on the Annual Staff Stakeholder Survey.

[00:24:20] 71% of staff have obtained advanced degrees or credentials, and to break this down by school level, the data consists of 70% of elementary teachers, 67% of middle school teachers, and 74.5% of high school teachers.

[00:24:39] 86% of staff responded positively about professional learning experiences and opportunities. Because we are still in the baseline year for Metric 2.1 , we will provide the data and five-year targets for this once it is available.

[00:24:58] Next slide, please. We will measure our progress and effectiveness of the strategies using the targets set through 2027. The slide shows the metric, baseline data and targets for the next five years.

[00:25:17] Please note on the targets document that an explanation for how each target was set is provided in the 2027 target column. Next slide, please. So we have multiple updates and successes that are aligned with this action.

[00:25:40] We have English language development or ELD training for administrators and all EL teachers. We have QTEL, which is the quality teaching for English learners. Three cohorts that will cover all levels. The work of the EL instructional staff is aligned with the mission and division of the, mission and vision of the division. We also have adaptive schools, which is professional learning on how to support with effective collaboration, which has been offered three times this year so far. And we also have cognitive coaching, which supports staff with learning

[00:26:16] how to coach students and others in order to build capacity. And that has been offered four times this year. Next slide, please. Continuing with upcoming, we have multiple benchmarks to include professional learning opportunities for our EL and SPED staff to have an impact on student learning as well as the LCPS profile of a graduate. We are also working to align professional learning with a new supervisor that we have to support both administrators and staff and for our

[00:26:52] administrators those are our principals in their first and second year. We're also going to be having a launcher leadership opportunity in March for aspiring leaders and that will support both instructional and support staff. Next slide please. For our opportunities and challenges we are looking at deepening and broadening those professional learning activities to build the capacity for our English learners and with us tonight we have our

[00:27:29] director of our EL department Ms. Charisse Rosario who has done a lot of work to support our EL students and staff and with that as well as with special education we're going to be focusing on co-teaching opportunities to enhance our inclusion environments for our students in our schools across all levels and while we have a focus and pathways to offer professional development for instructional administrative staff a challenge we have continued to encounter is securing substitutes so we are looking at ways to to use our existing structures and resources

[00:28:07] to support that professional development for our growth. Next slide, please. And lastly, implications for the board. We just want to ensure that we are providing what our stakeholders need.

[00:28:23] So while we have positive rates on our surveys, we want to make sure that we are offering professional development that is needed for both our instructional support staff and our administrators. So not only are we looking at soliciting feedback, getting into schools to look at the implementation of that professional development and one of the things you see on the side we have adopted a calendar that was something that was there early on to make sure that we continue to provide those opportunities for our staff for days dedicated to professional development i am now going to turn it over to dr luttrell for

[00:29:01] 2.2 thank you miss mitchell so aligned action 2.2 states that we will develop dedicated resources to connect and align staff across the division to ensure schools offer equitable opportunities for all students the strategies focus on highly effective collaborative teams establishing standard operating procedures and connecting and aligning school leaders to strengthen quality

[00:29:33] instruction across LCPS next slide please this slide shows the baseline data for aligned action 2.2 disaggregated data for the metrics can be seen in the document titled disaggregated data file baseline data shows that 88 percent of staff responded positively to questions about collegiality on the annual staff stakeholder survey while 96 percent of staff responded positively to survey items about alignment with division initiatives

[00:30:08] this is a baseline year for the the measure of increasing the percentage of teachers who have common collaborative team time in their schedule. Next slide please. As mentioned data for the percentage of teachers who have CLT time built into their schedule metric 2.2b will be collected this year. The baseline data and target metrics 2.2a and 2.2c can be seen on this slide. The goal

[00:30:40] for target 2.2a by 2027 is to reach 95 percent. This target target was taken into consideration considering the research behind the development sequence of building collaborative groups. Forming, storming, norming, and performing is a model that describes the development of groups and how they gradually become more proficient and efficient over time.

[00:31:03] The goal for 2.2C by 2027 is to reach 99%. We certainly hope that the new strategic plan will help us achieve alignment in practice across the division. we have already seen evidence of this occurring across departments and schools next slide please updates and successes the elementary middle and high school offices have much to celebrate as they align resources to support building level teams with the implementation of collaborative learning teams on campuses across the division

[00:31:43] this work includes providing professional development site visits, providing ongoing feedback during those site visits, and utilizing coaching to support the work.

[00:31:59] Next slide, please. A continuation of the updates and successes, this slide showcases current efforts to develop standing operating procedures and resources to support the implementation of collaborative learning teams, graduation planning, instructional and compliance matters related to special education teacher leader selection and development of teacher leaders point to

[00:32:28] contracts for staff and the principal hiring process next slide please what is upcoming you will notice items that are upcoming they are an extension of those that we have just reviewed on the previous two slides the level offices will continue to pursue and offer targeted professional development to school-based staff to enhance their work with collaborative learning teams the Office of Special Education plans to develop a handbook for staff and

[00:33:05] community to reference to ensure all stakeholders have access to the same information to strengthen our partnership and practices to support our students with disabilities next slide please opportunities and challenges building strong collaborative teams requires patience fidelity of practice resources and time we are working diligently to create common structures and expectations for the development of CLT's however the challenge ahead of us includes the consistent implementation across schools along with the data

[00:33:44] collection measures to progress monitor these efforts additionally while schools are working to create common planning time for collaborative teams to meet during the school day sometimes it is not possible for complete teams of teachers to come together because they are covering classes due to the limited availability of substitutes the same concern holds true for professional development schools and the division are creating professional learning opportunities for teachers and staff but they are unable to consistently

[00:34:19] attend these sessions due to the limited availability of substitutes next slide please. Implications for the board, our exemplary staff and building exemplary staff, they deserve our best as we work together to meet their respective growth needs. The examination of master school schedules and staffing allocation may result in differentiated staffing needs by level or by school. Ms. Bolin will now share information regarding Aligned Action 2.3,

[00:34:54] employer of choice. Thank you, Dr. Luttrell. Aligned Action 2.3 states that we will serve as an employer of choice committed to recruiting, developing, supporting, and retaining top diverse talent while also offering competitive salaries and benefits for all staff. As indicated in one of our strategies, we will also implement intentional, logistical, and operational onboarding to ensure all new staff are set up for success. Next side, please. Aligned Action 2.3 has

[00:35:33] seven metrics associated with it. Baseline data for this action is found on this slide. I would like to highlight that LCPS currently has a 99% fill rate for our licensed positions, which is quite remarkable, and we are in a baseline year for tracking this data for other positions. In addition, we know that 13% of our employees resign due to employment with a competing agency and that 5% of our employees are currently utilizing our employee support programs. In the next several slides, I will share with you what we are currently doing to be the employer of choice

[00:36:12] and how we intend to recruit, develop, support, and retain staff in the coming weeks, months, and years. Next slide, please. The targets by which we will measure our progress and effectiveness for aligned action 2.3 over the next five years can be found on this slide. As mentioned previously, we do have a number of metrics in their baseline year to collect data. That being said, we will

[00:36:43] continue to update our targets as we collect this data. Next slide, please. There's a great deal to celebrate as we reflect on what accomplishments and progress we have made on the path to branding LCPS as the employer of choice. This work includes participating in both virtual and in-person recruitment events, hosting one-stop shop targeted fairs, utilizing talent ed and other technologies

[00:37:17] to connect candidates directly with principals, and hiring managers back in schools, continuing to foster and enhance LCPS's Grow Your Own initiative, a commitment and continuation of the classification and compensation cyclical review process resulting in the implementation of the universal salary scale, and developing a paid leave program that, dare I say, sets us apart from our comparator divisions. Next slide, please. HRTD continues to focus on recruiting and retaining top talent so

[00:37:55] that LCPS can serve as the employer of choice. This goal includes offering competitive salaries and benefits for all staff, providing effective tools and resources for staff to learn, grow, and be successful, recognizing those that go above and beyond, and creating a warm, inviting, and inclusive culture that attracts and retains exemplary staff. To highlight just a few of our future initiatives or enhancements in the works. Without giving too much away just yet, here is some

[00:38:30] of what you can expect to see coming soon. We continue to enhance our LCPS Grow Your Own initiative with the development of a residency program in partnership with James Madison University. We are currently developing and in the last stages of implementing one-page marketing resource flyers for recruiters and hiring managers to utilize with candidates which highlight the benefits of being an LCPS employee. The creation of a talent development program with

[00:39:05] the goal of supporting all employees as they want to grow within LCPS and included in the proposed fiscal year 24 estimate of needs leave enhancements for 10 and 11 month employees. Next slide please.

[00:39:23] Strategic planning is a process, an outcome, and in its best form, a roadmap used to move the organization toward higher levels of achievement. Like with any goal requiring action, the success of Aligned Action 2.3 requires time and resources and is subject to additional areas of opportunity and potential challenges, many of which we've already experienced and you're already aware of.

[00:39:56] Next slide, please. Aside from the opportunities and challenges shared on the previous slide, there are areas of impact I would like to highlight for the board as we move forward with intended actions for success. In many cases, challenges and implications are one in the same.

[00:40:14] Becoming the employer of choice includes actions to enhance benefits and develop growth opportunities for our educators. This will result in an already need for additional substitutes. We are working hard to identify and mitigate challenges and implications as they arise, but may need further guidance and support from the board as we continue on this path in the future.

[00:40:43] Next slide, please. The board approved the strategic plan on June 28th and the metrics on October 11th. During those presentations, you have seen the reporting structure as shown on this slide. In accordance, you will receive another update on Goal 3 in the coming weeks.

[00:41:06] Oh, I'm sorry, on Goal 2 in April. Next slide. This concludes our presentation this evening, and we will gladly accept any questions that you have. Thank you for the overview.

[00:41:25] I will open the floor for board member questions or discussion. Ms. Polifko. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first question is related to Target 2.1 and the increase in positive responses to the annual staff stakeholder survey with the baseline metric being 86%.

[00:41:48] I'm looking at the aggregated data, and it says under licensed teacher 84%. Am I correct in reading that as 84% of licensed teachers completed the survey? The way to interpret that is that 84% of people who identified as licensed teachers, 84% of the survey participants, 84% of those who identified as licensed teachers agreed or strongly agreed to those items.

[00:42:22] Okay, thank you. So what percentage of staff actually took this survey, if that number is available? We don't have that number in front of us right now, but we can provide that later on. So I'm trying to understand how I can interpret the 86%.

[00:42:45] If I don't know how many staff took the survey, I don't know what that 86% actually represents. So I appreciate if you could please get back to me with that response, I would greatly appreciate it. So just for some context, as far as the participation rate, I cannot provide that right now, but our full participation was approximately 4,000 staff members.

[00:43:05] Thank you for that. Additional questions, Mr. Morse. Thank you. So we talked a little bit about co-teaching, and I wonder where do we currently define the criteria for co-teaching, and is there a plan to move that into a staffing standard at some point?

[00:43:31] Thank you for that question, Mr. Morris. As I said, we have Charisse here. She can respond to it in terms of the English language learning program and co-teaching, and I'm not sure if we have someone here for our special education that also does co-teaching.

[00:43:49] So she can speak to it for that and then you said perhaps looking into it as a Staffing standard to do a true model of co-teaching. Cherise are you available? Hello? Thank you for that question. Yes, we are working very closely with our professional learning team and really on pushing out some wonderful co-teaching models in collaboration with Special education. I believe they also have some co-teaching practices and PD that is shared with staff and we work very closely with schools and

[00:44:23] encouraging that I'm sorry I'm thinking K through 12 so it looks differently in in the different levels and we're really providing school-based support as well regarding scheduling and ensuring co-planning to support co-teaching so we have spent quite a bit of time in offering wonderful professional development on good EL instructional practices ELD standards to really have a foundational base on what that co-teaching discussion would entail when when they are planning and providing support in the classrooms.

[00:44:54] I'm not sure if that answered your question, but that's the approach we've taken this year. - Mr. Morris, I can add a little bit to that question. So co-teaching is set up in the school's master schedule based on the needs of our students, be it students receiving EL services or students with disabilities that require the additional support in their classroom.

[00:45:14] So once we've identified those needs of our students, we build that into our school's master schedule, and then we add our teams of teachers together. So every teacher who is supporting our students who receive EL or students with disabilities, they are scheduled in with their collaborative team.

[00:45:30] So if I am a teacher in the special education department and I'm team teaching with you in science, I have a shared common planning block with you so that we can plan together. And from a site-based standpoint, we offer professional learning to help build our teams of teachers because there are different co-teaching models that one can use in an instructional setting based on the needs of the students or the model that's being designed for that particular lesson.

[00:45:53] So that's more site-based driven, based on the students and the needs of the staff. But that is a consideration when we build our master schedules. - Okay, so it sounds like there's no way we could do a staffing standard on that, because it's too unique. - I don't believe so, because it, again, is driven by the students and what their respective needs are from an instructional standpoint.

[00:46:14] - Second comment I wanted to say is that I think the lack of substitutes is probably the single most important factor that we have trying to keep appropriate personnel in the classroom, because we suffer greatly from pulling staff members from other areas of the school to fill roles that they are not supposed to be filling, and now you're creating a double problem.

[00:46:37] So they're leaving one position, and they're employed to fulfill that position, and they're not fulfilling it that day, they're being pulled into a classroom or another environment in which they are not necessarily certified or qualified. And to that as well, I think Ms. Bowling can comment.

[00:46:54] It's not because we don't have the subs. The subs are in the system. They're just not picking up the jobs. So that's a point that we need to more closely examine. Why are they not picking up the jobs in our schools? Thank you. Mr. Mahedby. Thank you.

[00:47:10] Thank you, Chair. And thank you, staff, for bringing up this strategic action number two back to the board. So my first question was on 2.1. And I think we talk about English language learners, EL and special ed.

[00:47:30] But one of the items, and it's more of a broader question just to understand for us and for the county too. So when we say including emphasis on core academic excellence, you know, one of the things that when I think about one of the hot items that we have as far as going into it is early literacy.

[00:47:48] And on the slide where I don't see a number, number nine, there's a bullet point number three, which talks about updates and successes, where the professional development for early literacy and cultural responsive instruction, which I don't think quite that they're together and shouldn't be and it should be separate if needs to be, but regardless, it's a success.

[00:48:12] But when I look at the slide number 10 in upcoming, I do not see any references to how do we also emphasize on core academic excellence when we talk about early literacy or even math curriculum besides just English language I know it's a it's a big emphasis for us to do for special education and English language but the same time I mean I'd like to see more on the from a core academic what are we doing to enhance the professional development to I to align it on that because that's what we're doing here so I don't think it's the team can speak to that and I think that'll be helpful so just to clarify just thinking about some

[00:48:52] of the core academics that we had in goal one and the professional development that's offered as a part of goal two. You're saying we need to make sure that we continue that for our goal two is to include the core academics and the professional development together along with an emphasis on special education and English language learners. Exactly. I think that's because I think that's number one goal of our as a board is to make sure that we are you know the academic excellence is the number one priority along with making sure that we provide equitable resources for English language learners and special education so I would like to see

[00:49:29] at least you know again as we're putting items for planning that those those programs for again as you described should be also identified as we in terms of what we're doing and eventually how we track them as well thank you for that and that is something that we can go back when we have our next committee meeting to look at the overlap between that area for goal one and goal two with those two things thank you in my second question is on I think it's on slide I guess at 18 on a line action 2.2 and again this is

[00:50:05] probably broader just for for better understanding I think so one of the items that we're saying is we want to connect and align the staff so if I if I look at a line I think anything the the the qualifying sentence that equitable opportunities so in maybe you can highlight them again reading through this what what are the how are we aligning our our resources to ensure that they're equitable across the division I guess that's that's one of

[00:50:45] the one of the questions that I have so example if I you know the way I look at it saying for example we do have staffing standards those are those are put in place but I also believe that as give me miss literature dr. Rattel was mentioning we do have to provide based on the students what the needs are and some schools may have a higher need and as again going back to 2.1 if you look at from an academic excellence and I think this is the conversation we had in

[00:51:22] the last time saying we're gonna break that break the break the tracking of how the students are doing whether we're tracking SOL's or map scores etc some schools might be doing really well and some schools need more help and doesn't necessarily fit in title one and even if it's title one schools in elementary or middle schools they may already have standards you know certain staffing centers in place but we may need to do better at how we provide equitable

[00:51:58] resources to make sure that we bring those academic you know programs up in those schools as well so in some schools they're doing great but some schools are lagging behind and some schools may not be title one but they still need support so again that's kind of the if I'm looking at alignment that's what I'm thinking is that alignment needs to be where we do provide you know again the the resources in in where we need to and that's that's how I'm sort of thinking So I'd like to see, maybe you guys can digest that and see if there's opportunities in this as far as how we're doing upcoming work.

[00:52:34] Those are describing that. And my last question. So my last question, slide number 27, again, just for better understanding for us and for the folks who are listening.

[00:52:54] So when you say grow our own teacher residency program, I don't know, can you speak to that a little bit more, what that looks like? It sounds great, but I'd like to understand better. Absolutely. And we have been providing some updates as we go through the process in the HRTD committee as well, so I can follow up with some of that information also.

[00:53:15] Essentially, what we have entered into is a partnership with JMU in which they are providing any TA along with other positions, but I'll use TA as an example, that has a bachelor's degree, the opportunity to participate in the program to get licensed for free.

[00:53:44] And during that same period of time, they will work in the classroom as a teacher and be paid as a teacher. And we will, from an LCPS perspective, part of our requirement is to provide them with a mentor.

[00:54:02] Thank you for that. So do we have any staff currently in this program, or this is new as something we'll be starting? This is the first year. So right now we are currently in the application interview process for candidates that have submitted their interest and next stages of that.

[00:54:25] There is a committee and certain requirements that have to be met for moving forward. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I just have two brief questions the first is there was a bullet talking about upcoming leave enhancements for 10 and 11 month employees could you describe what those are it although if it's part of the budget presentation I'm happy it's part of the budget presentation okay the other there's under the goal the metrics for aligned action 2.1 for increasing the percentage of teachers who have obtained advanced degrees or credentials.

[00:55:01] So the current is around 71%. The 2027 target is to go up to 73%. I don't have any issues or concerns with the target itself, but I'm just wondering, is there an industry standard for what we want that percentage to be?

[00:55:17] Or if we could pick a number out of the air for what it's supposed to be or what we want it to be, what would it be and why? There's not really an industry standard. We essentially were thinking of mitigating factors that are out of our control.

[00:55:35] If we could offer tuition reimbursement or potential additional programs outside of JMU's program, we may be able to have a larger increase. However, we don't have that opportunity at the moment.

[00:55:52] So that percentage was based on our current programs and those enhancements that we do have in the works until we can potentially put a tuition reimbursement or something of that nature program in the future. Okay, thank you.

[00:56:08] Any additional questions, Ms. Reeser, and then Mr. Beatty. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Boland, do we have benefits for part-time staff? It's really based on the number of hours. So we do, but not all part-time staff.

[00:56:26] It depends on the number of hours they work. Is it just based on hours or is it also related to position? No, it's based on hours. So is that information you could easily relay or something that you'd need to follow up? Absolutely.

[00:56:41] Well, I don't have it right in front of me, and I want to make sure I give you the right information, but I can get it to you before the end of the evening. Thank you. Mr. Bay. Thank you. Specifically, I'm going to ask about Section 2.2 and then C, but I think it's more philosophical. So the question, the 2027 target says 99%, and then it's got the asterisk.

[00:57:03] Targets have to be reasonable and ambitious. Is there a methodology that we used in determining something to be reasonable and ambitious, or was it more just trying to, well, yeah, I guess, what was the methodology to figure that out? Good evening.

[00:57:20] This is Ron Tyler, Director of Research Assessment School Improvement. When we were actually looking at some of the student achievement outcomes, if you remember, we looked at some of the highest achieving schools within LCPS and looked at the highest percentage of those for the student achievement outcomes.

[00:57:39] And the idea is that if we could move all of our schools to that highest category of school outcomes, looking at student achievement outcomes, that was something we agreed upon and we got feedback from the board that that was reasonable and ambitious. Regarding this particular statistic of when we're already at 99%, the idea of where do you go from there if you don't kind of reset or recalibrate how you're producing that outcome.

[00:58:09] - So I guess that would follow up the question, are we gonna change those questions year over year then in order to calibrate? Or will the questions that go into this specific data point stay the same throughout the year so that it can be consistent?

[00:58:30] - So as we had discussed when we set the baselines, we had talked about, say, year two or year three, if we meet some of our goals, is that an opportunity for us to reset? So that's a discussion, I guess, with the board proceeding.

[00:58:46] If we meet some of these goals ahead of schedule, can we then look at that and recalibrate maybe for setting an additional goal moving forward? So it's a discretion of the board at this point and the staff as we proceed.

[00:59:01] - Okay, thank you. - Any additional questions? Ms. Polifko. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate it. I do have two more questions. My first question is related to the staff development in special education, and I was hoping that I could get a little bit more elaboration on what we're going to be doing for special education teachers in training in terms of behavior support and behavioral training, as I know that is a constant concern and need of theirs.

[00:59:28] Thank you, Ms. Polifka. We have a number of trainings that currently exist, and with our partners with universities but also our expert staff that's on board because it's so cumbersome and we will provide that information with the specific trainings that we have available. We also have been sharing this information with SEAC. That might also be a topic that we discuss tomorrow night at our meeting but certainly we'll provide that for the full board. Thank you. Thank you and my final question is related to 2.3 recruiting, developing, supporting, and retaining. We have a

[01:00:06] baseline of 4.5% as an average usage for the employee support programs. That seems extremely low to me, and I want to make sure that I'm understanding what that percentage represents. My assumption is that it's because you have a small percentage of staff that would need to take advantage of those supports, but I may be wrong, and I would like some more clarification on why we would have a goal of putting a program like this into place at only greater than 6%.

[01:00:33] thank you so thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to clarify that because essentially that although we intend to expand what we are tracking for those metrics that specific area is in regards to our employee assistance program and so predominantly employees that are utilizing that program now they are using it for the counseling sessions so it is a mental or it is a specific number of employees utilizing more for a mental health concern.

[01:01:10] The goal, that's why it's so low. The goal with increasing that is the efforts we are making to educate staff on the additional areas that the employee assistance program can support them in.

[01:01:27] For example, real estate, housing, financial advising, legal services, a number of other services outside of just those counseling services to help them sort of outside of just their everyday work, career, but also in their personal life as well.

[01:01:48] Thank you for explaining that. Any additional questions? Seeing none, thank you very much for the update. So before we go to 4.03, we're briefly going to return to item two, disclosures for Mr. Morse to read this disclosure.

[01:02:05] - Thank you, yes, I have a modified disclosure, so I'll need to update this with the clerk of the board as well. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with an item on tonight's agenda regarding employee salaries, the budget and or health insurance, and any other discussion that may include or affect salaries benefits for LCPS employees.

[01:02:26] specifically my spouse is an LCPS employee who may be affected by any potential changes to employee salaries, the budget, and her health insurance. These subjects include thousands of employees well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may be affected of which my wife is and I are included.

[01:02:43] I can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public interest, this disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. Thank you. - Thank you. With that, we'll move to item 4.03, presentation of the FY24 superintendent's estimate of needs. Dr. Smith. Thank you. We're going to spend the next little bit going through the FY24 superintendent's estimate of needs.

[01:03:07] Chair Sorotkin, Vice Chair Mejedevi, and board members, I'm pleased to be able to present with you tonight the fiscal year 24 superintendent's estimate of needs. As you know, while our budget cycle is annual, work to prepare, present, and adopt the budget takes place throughout the year.

[01:03:22] Tonight's presentation regarding fiscal year 2024 which begins July 1st 2023 began this past July when we began our current fiscal year. Staff across all departments and roles have contributed to the development and preparation and I'm deeply grateful for their work and their dedication to continue to make LCPS the very best we can be. On June 28, 2022 our school board adopted one LCPS 2027 strategic plan for excellence. This plan is not a piece of paper or a book on a shelf but rather a living and action-oriented plan. Since adoption, our strategic plan has served as our

[01:04:00] roadmap and our guide towards innovation, improvement, and progress. And the FY24 budget offers the first opportunity for us to truly dedicate the resources and support needed to fully execute it. As such, one LCPS 2027 Strategic Plan for Excellence is the intentional theme and focus of tonight's Estimate of Needs presentation. As we begin tonight's budget presentation, it's helpful to briefly ground us in the vision and mission that have been adopted and utilized to lead our school division forward. Students are the reason for our work and they remain at the center.

[01:04:35] Our vision and mission provides every member of our one LCPS team with the focus and charge to do this work. We want each and every student to have the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to be successful in their chosen path and to achieve the dreams, their dreams. Our common vision across LCPS reminds us of this aspiration. In order to make our vision become a reality, we need to ensure that each and every day we are empowering each child to make meaningful contributions to our

[01:05:08] community and our world. Our strategic goals are supported and informed by six values our community of stakeholders, students, parents, and staff prioritize throughout the strategic plan development process. These values are infused throughout the one LCPS plan. The four areas of our one LCPS 2027 strategic plan for excellence will guide tonight's presentation of the estimate of needs.

[01:05:36] Our goals to empower students, hire and develop and retain exemplary staff, operate as an enriched division to benefit all student experiences, and engage our community to benefit our students are the thread that runs throughout. As we present resource needs to support 1LCPS, you will see these icons representing the strategic goals. It is my intention and our staff's commitment that each dollar across our division should be dedicated to supporting our student-centered approach as our work helps to realize our strategic plan. As a reminder, each goal contains specific strategies or actions approved by the

[01:06:15] school board that support achieving these goals. On this slide, you see the actions that support goals one and two. In some cases, these items are a part of best practices and what we are currently doing each day. In others there are opportunities for continuous improvement. Staff has been working on the metrics, data, and baseline in all goal areas since the plan was passed and each month as you know one goal team presents to the school board an update on advancing and measuring our work to date. These regular updates began this past fall and they're supporting strategies under

[01:06:48] action 4.3. Now that we've grounded ourselves in the foundation of our strategic plan let's dig in deeper. First I'd like to share about our process and some of the key guiding questions that have emerge. We'll then examine our needs and our best estimate of revenues that we can expect for FY24.

[01:07:06] We'll spend a majority of our time sharing our estimate of needs regarding proposed expenditures and new spending. Throughout the budget development process, we have asked, what is needed to achieve our mission and vision through the goals and aligned actions of our strategic plan? Let me say that again because this key question is critical. What is needed to achieve our mission and vision through the goals and aligned actions of our strategic plan? As we move forward and throughout the department presentations, you'll see that each and every item is directly connected to one or more goals and actions within one LCPS strategic plan for excellence. As you can see here, the FY24

[01:07:44] budget process included stakeholder feedback throughout, aligning with strategic plan actions 3.2 and 4.3. Specifically, aligned action 4.3 charges staff to expand opportunities to access information via enhanced transparency in the budget process. We worked hard to open up the budget process earlier in the year and intentionally provided more opportunities for our school board, administrators, and teachers to have a voice. This feedback directly informed prioritization of the budget and shaped key initiatives. What you'll see tonight and over the coming weeks incorporates that feedback to set the stage for continued progress towards our 1LCPS 2027 Strategic Plan

[01:08:21] for Excellence. Important themes that emerged in the feedback process helped to inform our presentation of needs tonight. Recruiting and retaining the very best staff, supporting student pathways and innovative program offerings underway and offering new supports for our students. The FY24 Estimate of Needs is not transformational but rather maintains the good work that the school board has already supported, making key investments in the support of the one LCPS strategic plan. Importantly, the Estimate of Needs champions funding for programs in these three core areas of compensation and benefits, continuation of innovative programs,

[01:08:59] and new supports for students, all of which have immediate impact on students and staff. I want to take just a moment and remind you the key driving question that emerged and has guided our budget process. The FY24 superintendent's estimate of needs also referred throughout this presentation tonight as CION for the school operating fund is 6.8 percent over the current year's budget. If you take a look at the first line of numbers here this is an increase of 106.7

[01:09:35] million for a total of approximately 1.67 billion dollars. Other funds listed on this chart will be presented in more detail on Thursday January 12th. To put that 6.8 percent increase into perspective this year's overall FY24 superintendent's estimate of needs is one of the smallest budget increases seen in recent years when compared to prior year's budgets. On the left this slide shows the major revenue and expenditure categories for the school operating fund. More detail will be provided but

[01:10:11] this is a high level summary of the budget. For revenues you can see our major categories of state, federal fees and charges county transfer and the carryover again i'll go into more detail in the changes in each revenue stream a little bit later in the presentation of the total funding the county will provide 68 of the funding for fy 24 in the state 30 expenditures are grouped by personnel operating and capital outlay and you can see the investment employees prioritized in this budget in the fy 23 budget nearly 90 of expenditures support our goal of exemplary staff

[01:10:46] You'll see that we're dedicating 86% of the budget increase to supporting employees in this budget. Ongoing commitments to school board initiatives and inflation on operation costs compromise 14% of the total increase. And finally, capital outlay purchases are relatively flat.

[01:11:04] These expenditures represent ongoing replacement of equipment, machinery, and communication equipment. You see the $106.7 million increase, representing a 6.8% increase over the FY23 adopted budget, is balanced with revenues equaling expenditures.

[01:11:22] So we're going to start tonight by taking a look at our division needs. What do we estimate as the division needs for FY24? The superintendent's estimate of needs has been categorized into the four main strategic plan goals. It's very important to note that several budget items could be categorized into more than one goal, And that this high-level grouping of budget items fulfills more than just one goal.

[01:11:48] For example, take a look at the exemplary staff investment employees and the financial costs associated with providing the pay increases and bonuses to support this goal. In addition, as previously mentioned, three core areas of compensation and benefits, continuation of innovative programs, and new supports for students each align these goals and are expressed and recommended throughout the presentation.

[01:12:10] I will discuss each goal more specifically on the next slides. But before we dive into each category, I want to address a common question that we hear. How is it that our budget grows when enrollment is relatively flat? The assumption is that if enrollment is flat, then the budget should be.

[01:12:28] As you saw in the previous slide, the cost of compensation is steep. LCPS's school operation fund budget is 90% personnel costs. So providing annual pay increases, especially at a time of inflation and in an area with a high cost of living, Also, adjusting health premiums, implementing state-mandated VRS, rate changes, and other inflationary costs are a few items that will cause the budget to increase, even if LCPS does not pick up one additional student.

[01:12:56] In addition, this board has prioritized programs and services that support innovation and continuous improvement. For example, our new IB and dual language programs require funding to get them off the ground, and these expenses will occur regardless of any increased enrollment. Additionally, staff has identified areas of improvement such as closing achievement gaps that we want to address as well.

[01:13:21] This year's expenditure is laddered to the goals of one LCPS. We'll address each goal in turn. First and always at the center of our work is our students. And we'll talk about goal one, empowered students. LCPS students are our top priority.

[01:13:37] Our work supporting our students, their learning, and their future. Success is why we exist. For FY24, LCPS staffing will be at 92.3 school-based. An increase from the current year percentage of 92.1.

[01:13:54] Per the current FY23 Washington Area Board of Education Guide, LCPS was second only to Fairfax, which reported 92.3 school-based personnel. The other seven systems in our areas ranged from 90.1 to 91.4 for school-based employees.

[01:14:11] If the other school systems remain the same, LCPS would be the projected leader in the region for the percentage of school-based staff. LCPS FY24 enrollment is projected to increase to 83,061 students, or a 1% increase from this actual fall student count of 82,233.

[01:14:34] This slide shows how the distribution of projected students occurs across the levels. The elementary level is projected to decline by 0.5%, but both the middle and high school levels are projected to grow from a full percentage point to almost 3. Comparing this budget, this budgeted projected enrollment to FY24's projected enrollment, we would have a small increase of about 0.03% or three hundredths of a percent or 22 students.

[01:15:00] So we're in a situation where the enrollment is essentially flat when compared to last year's budget enrollment, but we do anticipate a budget increase. One reason for the increased expenditures while the division-wide enrollment growth is slowing is the shift of the composition of our student body.

[01:15:18] We can compare this year's projections to next year's across certain subpopulations. For example, the English learner population is projected to increase by 12.2%. Special education is seeing a slower return to their pre-pandemic growth and is projected an increase just under 1%.

[01:15:35] Finally, our economically disadvantaged students are projected to increase by 3.6%. These student groups require additional resources and the superintendent's estimate of needs includes specific initiatives to support them.

[01:15:51] LCPS has over 200 staffing standards for school-based support and division positions since FY16. Staffing standards provide a base level of staffing and support across schools, programs, and services and are the cornerstone of the budget development.

[01:16:06] The school board approves staffing standards each year during the budget process. At our meeting on January 12th, a more in-depth staffing standard presentation will be provided. Based on the currently adopted staffing standards, an additional 48.3 FTE or full-time equivalent positions are required for FY24.

[01:16:26] These positions are primarily teachers, teacher assistants, English learners teachers, special education positions, and school counselors, and are primarily driven by projected enrollment changes. There are also positions to support the opening of ES32 and MS14.

[01:16:45] There are three staffing standard enhancements and one new staffing standard to better support students included in my superintendent's estimate of needs. On the top left of the slide, the English language teacher staffing standard has been enhanced to recognize duly identified students in the staffing calculation.

[01:17:03] While we currently meet the state staffing requirement division-wide, the state also recommends staffing kindergarten at one per 50 students. These adjustments will provide an additional 18.7 FTE to support our EL students. In the top right, you'll see that the elementary school counseling staffing standard has been enhanced to staff in full 1.0 FTEs at the elementary level.

[01:17:28] This matches the staffing at the secondary level Ensuring a minimum of 1.0 counselor per elementary school and remove splitting counselors between schools This enhancement will provide 25.2 additional FTEs for elementary schools The differentiated FTE staffing standard has been enhanced to recognize an entire school's population if they are designated as a CEP or community eligible provision school So instead of only counting 70% of the students at a CEP school, we would count a hundred percent This adjustment provides an additional 5.2 differentiated FTE to support schools.

[01:18:05] And we have also made the same adjustment in formula calculation for the differentiated allotment. Finally, a new staffing standard to support a new student support advisor for each conference of high schools included in this budget. The student support advisor will be the chief point of contact for providing continuing education and in-school intervention opportunities for students in the discipline process by acting as a professional colleague who regularly collaborates with school-based staff on instructional and behavior support.

[01:18:33] We have also included a stipend for each middle school. Supporting data for each of these items will be provided in upcoming department presentations. The FY24 superintendent's estimate of needs continues the IB program and elementary dual language immersion program that began in FY23.

[01:18:54] These two multi-year innovative initiatives for students will need additional resources for year two. For example, additional professional development and bus drivers are needed for the expansion of the IB program. Costs from year one are already included in the base budget. I also want to point out that we'll continue with our site-assigned subs and the premium rates of pay for substitutes.

[01:19:16] Continuing these successful programs in FY24 will help to ensure our substitute fill rates are high. LCPS also will continue division support for teachers within the teacher supply classroom allotment that we anticipate will return for FY24. This allotment from the division provides funding for teachers to outfit their classrooms in addition to the school's budgeted funds for classrooms.

[01:19:37] Teachers work with their school financial tech and principal to spend these allocated funds. We'll have a communication plan this upcoming year to help facilitate this program. The FY24 Superintendent of Estimate of Needs has additional support, resources, and programs for students.

[01:19:54] One new initiative is the addition of a one student support advisor stipend for each middle school. As I previously mentioned, the new staffing standard for one student support advisor position per high school will be responsible for supporting our at-promise or at-risk students. This position at the middle school level is a stipend that will be provided to the position to assist the middle school deans and assistant principal to coordinate interventions in the school and support services for whatever students may need.

[01:20:22] Another new initiative is a middle school intramural sports pilot program. This would add one position to oversee the program and include costs for four pilot middle schools. Other new supports are an elementary gifted resource teacher, a health PE specialist, a math resource teacher, and bus drivers for the McKinney-Vento program.

[01:20:40] Data to supporting these initiatives were provided in the upcoming department presentations. It's also important to note that the math resource teacher is required to support the governor's budget amendment to provide state funds for math instructional specialists at underperforming schools and this would be a school-based position. There are several positions moving from temporary grant funding to permanent funding. The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation generously provided one-year grant funding for the Math Summer Beam program this past summer. The program had initial success in its first year and we would like to continue the program for a second year and into the future. Two Go Virginia grant positions were identified earlier to roll back into the

[01:21:18] school operating funds at the end of this multi-year grant. The Carl Perkins grant funded a CTE work-based learning specialist for three years, the maximum allowed by this particular grant. The HHMI or Howard Hughes Medical Institute generously provided grant funds to support science programming. The Propel and Level Up coordinator has been grant funded since the inception of the program and the program continues to grow, hence the need for a commitment from the school operating fund. Several positions previously funded by COVID funds also need to move into the school operating fund. The virtual Loudon specialist will continue to support the secondary virtual

[01:21:56] Loudon program, particularly as we expand options for all secondary students in the area of world language and other hard to staff areas. The school improvement specialists have been supporting schools in the development and monitoring their school improvement plans, analyzing data, and identify supports. This important work helps to align all schools with the goals of the strategic plan and its metrics and will need to continue. The English Learning Development Coordinator will continue to support EL summer school coordination as well as additional instructional support needs for English learners throughout the school year. Finally, the movement of some of special education

[01:22:31] programs or special education positions, excuse me, will occur based on the staffing standard. There are some programs and initiatives that were funded out of COVID funds that are sunsetting in FY23 and are not scheduled to continue in FY24. This is based on staff recommendation and important school board feedback obtained during the school board budget work session.

[01:22:54] Programs include TutorEndingTutor.com, where the data does not support continuation. Elementary Virtual Loudoun is scheduled to end as LCPS returns to normal. Enrollment in the Elementary Distance Learning Program declined this past year, and we believe that in-person learning is best for our elementary students.

[01:23:12] Student Telehealth was an initiative that did not launch in FY23, and the governor's budget now includes an initiative to provide this at the state level. Together, these three items have a price tag of $5.7 million, and if they were to continue in the FY24 budget, they would have to be added into the school operating fund.

[01:23:29] I will also remind us of the school board's temporary plan last year to provide additional special education staffing above what the staffing standard provided. This slide is from last year's Superintendent Estimate of Needs budget presentation, and it listed several positions supporting special education.

[01:23:48] If you look closely, you'll notice that 36 of the positions are noted with an asterisk at the beginning as being additional positions that are temporarily funded out of COVID funds in FY23. These positions were planned to go away in FY24 when the funding ended. However, when we look at previous enrollment projections for special education, we see that they remain conservative during the pandemic.

[01:24:13] Similar to division-wide enrollment projections, the special education enrollment projection is re-leveled for FY24. The December 1st, 2022 official actual count was 9,445 students and 9,665 students are projected for FY24. However, after calculating the staffing standard needs for FY24 and applying hold harmless provisions for hard to fill positions that have incumbents, only a net reduction of 8.3 vacant special education positions will occur in FY24. The longer term plan is to return to the numbers

[01:24:50] of FTEs generated from the staffing standards through attrition. To avoid any reduction in force, 12.7 positions have been moved in the school operating fund for a cost of $1.4 million. More detail will be provided in the Student Services Department presentation. We now turn our attention to supporting our staff to best support student success.

[01:25:15] LCPS employees are our biggest asset, and the FY24 estimate of needs reflects the investment in making LCPS an employer of choice. To visualize these budgetary commitments another way, Here you see that the vast majority, almost 90% of the school operating fund, is personnel cost to retain and reward exemplary staff in this highly competitive employment environment.

[01:25:38] We have almost 13,000 full-time positions and another 3,000 part-time. This means it doesn't take much to change to the areas of compensation and benefits to make a big financial impact on the budget. A top question during budget season, as always, will employees receive in annual step increases and one-time top-of-scale payments?

[01:25:58] The answer in tonight's estimate of needs is yes. I'm recommended, as you see here, a $23.8 million investment to fund the annual step increase, a one-time 1% top-of-scale payment, and a salary increase for positions not on a salary scale for eligible employees.

[01:26:16] Last year, we met the state's requirement of providing a district-wide 5% average pay increase for employees. For FY24, the plan is to do more for our exemplary staff. We recognize the cost of inflation, and the superintendent's estimate of needs provides a 5% minimum pay increase for all eligible full-time employees, moving a step from FY23 to FY24.

[01:26:39] The way the scales are structured, employees currently on the top step of the salary scales will receive a cost-of-living scale adjustment, plus a one-time 1% payment for their FY24 salary. Additional information regarding the impact of top-of-scale payments and options for the school will be presented on Thursday, January 12th.

[01:26:57] It may be helpful to note that these strategic investments in staff, given the shortages and the data from across the region, state, and nation, send an important message.

[01:27:12] Our students deserve the best, and we will do our best to hire and retain the best for them. This slide reflects the minimum, average, and maximum pay increases employees would see for moving from their current step on the FY23 scale to the next step on the FY24 scale.

[01:27:28] You can see the minimum of 5% for all employees moving a step. The district-wide average is 5.8%, or $5,405. Again, this shows the changes for employees moving a step. Employees on the top of scale receive the scale adjustment and a one-time 1% payment of the FY24 salary.

[01:27:47] Again, in the upcoming salaries and benefits presentation, we'll go into more detail. Another common question and myth is that the employee's paycheck will total once you apply the health insurance premiums. The FY24 Superintendent's Estimate of Needs does include a 4% health premium increase for both the employer and the employee.

[01:28:09] This slide shows the math that we calculate each year as an example where we take the lowest annual pay increase and deduct the most expensive health plan premium increase. In this example, the annual pay increase is of $2,023, less the annual premium increase of $314 would result in an annual increase of $1,709.

[01:28:31] The superintendent's estimate of needs includes $5.4 million earmarked for one-time recruitment and retention bonuses as proposed as a new state initiative in the governor's budget. Remember, we do expect to receive $2.5 million from the state in revenue for their share.

[01:28:50] This $5.4 million will be the projected total cost for the program with the difference being funded by the county. We're still working on what this program will look like and we'll share additional information once it has been developed. Goal 2 of 1 LCPS is focused on being an employer of choice, and this goes beyond compensation.

[01:29:11] Supporting and retaining staff has never been more important. In the estimate of needs, we will increase the leave benefits of 10- and 11-month employees and revise their criteria for payout of sick leave upon retirement. For example, a universal-scale employee may generally be able to cash out most, if not all, of their sick leave hours due to the difference in daily rates between their salary and the average teacher's salary.

[01:29:33] On the other hand, more tenured and experienced employees and teachers were generally capped at a portion of their sick leave hours. It's expected that this benefit change will help with retaining our employees. The short-term impact is projected to be $2.5 million for increased sub-usage and sick leave payouts in FY24.

[01:29:52] In addition, Policy 7628 Retirement Benefits provides retirees who have 10 years of service with LCPS, 25% of their daily wage, with a cap of 25% of the average annual teacher's salary. In order to moderately enrich the end retirement benefit, we propose to increase the cap to 50% of the average annual teacher's salary.

[01:30:15] We'll now briefly cover items in the Estimate of Needs that support our goal of an enrichment division. Remembering that everything we do is supporting the three core areas of compensation and benefits, continuation of innovative programs, and new supports for students.

[01:30:35] As a division, we'll do everything we can to make sure our work continues to reflect the diverse needs of our students, families, and community. Our work to reach this goal presents the need for a net increase of 16 positions to further support the divisions.

[01:30:51] Departments will provide more information during their upcoming presentation, but I'll highlight a few examples from this slide tonight. The estimate of needs includes nine full-time school board assistance. The cost is which partially covered by the removal of the part-time school board aid budget.

[01:31:09] While a school board member is technically a part-time position, the workload of that position is full-time. Therefore, there is a need for a full-time assistance to support their duties in the community engagement. The lead router for transportation is needed to assist with the growth of county programs, such as IB, academies, GRTC, et cetera.

[01:31:27] There's a need for additional higher-level expertise in the routing office. The administrative assistant for the Douglas building will provide needed visitor and building support. Finally, the bus attendants are reducing by five per the staffing standard. The staffing standard calls for one per special needs route plus 10 as floaters.

[01:31:45] The special education routes are projected to reduce next year by five. Division-wide, we're seeing significant inflationary increases. These are a few of the areas to highlight. We're seeing increase in repairs and maintenance and cost of materials and supplies.

[01:32:02] We've received information regarding utility increases and diesel and gasoline prices continue to be unstable. Staff estimates the 28% increase reflects the worst case scenario at this time. If the school board were to approve collective bargaining, additional resources would be needed as listed on this slide.

[01:32:22] These items are not included in the superintendent's estimate needs. However, should the school board approve collective bargaining, these items are not included in the final adoptive budget. The school board may need to request additional funding from the county. It is my understanding that previously the Board of Supervisors were supportive of this approach. We'll now move on to goal four, engage community. As a reminder, this goal focuses on family engagement, business and community partnerships, and opportunities for trust building, dialogue, and data to inform division-wide decisions. I'll speak a little later this evening about some of the things we're doing now in the

[01:32:59] current year to support this goal. There are a few items proposed in the FY24 budget. It's important to be clear that we believe it takes all of us working together to ensure that all students are able to pursue and achieve their dreams. This is the foundation of goal four. We have a few items categorized under community engagement. The FY24 superintendent estimate of needs includes increased investments in technology, software, and services to engage our community. Specifically, we have additional funding for interpreter and translation services. To continue to make it easier for families to make payments online, we've also increased budgeted for items for online payment

[01:33:37] portal costs. Now that I've presented the division needs, let's talk about how to pay for these needs. There are three revenue streams to highlight. The first is the county funding or the county transfer. The estimate of needs is built on a request that increases the transfer by $73.8 million and will require a real property tax of 89 cents and a revenue split of 60-40. Almost half of this request, or 41.3%, is needed to provide matching funds to support state compensation initiatives. On January 3rd, the Board of Supervisors took action on the FY24 budget

[01:34:17] guidance. They supported the Finance Governmental Operations Economic Development Committee recommendation, which is shown on this slide. The county staff built a budget of three options for recommended guidance for a tax rate of $0.88 with a split of new revenue at 60% to LCPS and 40% to the county. Based on the superintendent's estimate of needs, this would result in a funding gap of $7.7 million based on the total request of $73.8 million. Option one increased the tax rate by one and a half pennies to 89 and a half cents and kept the same 60-40 split that resulted in a funding

[01:34:53] surplus of 3.8 million. The second option used the 89 and a half cent rate but provided 100 percent of the additional funding generated by the penny and half to the county thus leaving a funding gap of 7.7 million. The November memo that was provided to the county with a high level estimate of our projected FY24 budgeted forecast forecasted a county transfer of 83.5 million. It's important tonight that tonight's superintendent's estimate of needs it is almost 10 million below that that high level estimate. Finally as mentioned a tax rate of 89 cents which is just one penny more

[01:35:30] than the board of supervisors recommended guidance would fully fund the superintendent's estimate of needs. This chart shows the historical county transfer increases over the past 10 plus years. This year's superintendent's estimate of needs is planned using the lowest county funding request in over a decade. On to state funding. The state funding is projected to increase by 38 million

[01:35:56] It includes funding to support an average 5% division-wide pay increase, recruitment and retention bonuses, expansion of reading specialists through 4th and 5th grades, and funding to support math instructional specialists at underperforming schools.

[01:36:12] More specific information regarding the compensation and benefits for the instructional items will be provided in the upcoming budget presentations. While there are numerous state revenue lines, we're summarizing them into two main categories. The first is regular basic aid, of which LCPS is projected to receive an additional 19.3 in basic aid, bringing the total to $518.7 million for the state's share of public education.

[01:36:40] This funding provides for teachers, support positions, special education funding, etc. The next category is for compensation and bonuses. This is not a regular funding stream. FY24 is the second year of the state's biennium budget, which provided the state's share of funding the support of an average division-wide 5% pay increase for FY23 and fiscal year 24. New to FY24 is an additional $2.5 million to support recruitment retention bonuses and requires a local match. The state provides lots of flexibility in administering a recruitment retention bonus program, and we're still working on what that

[01:37:17] would look like for LCPS. The final highlighted revenue stream recognizes a net reduction in federal and other revenue streams, primarily from the reduction of federal COVID-19 funds. Here we see that the revenues are generally consistent, but you see the impact of one-time COVID-19 relief funds in the teal line. Other revenue streams represented by the burgundy line dip during COVID, but are returning to expected levels. So to recap and next steps, circling back to the

[01:37:53] key takeaways, this budget is focused on the one LCPS strategic plan and has one of the smallest budget increases in years. A tax rate of 89 cents, one penny more than the recommended guidance will fully fund this estimate of needs. Cost per pupil is also increased by 6.3 percent from $18,719 per student to $19,898. Each year the budget is estimate of needs to fully operate the school division. Per Virginia code and proper financial management we're not allowed to overspend the budget meaning we'll always have funds available at the year end. The school board has the authority

[01:38:30] to manage the funds appropriated to lcps each year to include reallocation of funds to other identified needs to relieve the burden on the county transfer request for next year 2.4 million of dollars of items were removed during the development of fy24 budget for purchase out of projected fy23 appropriated unspent year in funds this 2.4 million is 0.1 or one tenth of one percent of the fy23 adopted budget as with all year in spending it requires approval of the school board and will be included as part of the action item adopted in the budget in February.

[01:39:04] We will begin the official school board question and answer process. All questions should be emailed directly to Sharon Willoughby. And there is a quick turnaround of information, so time-intensive questions or costing requests will be brought to the school board for consensus.

[01:39:20] Here you'll see our schedule of budget meetings for the rest of the month. Tonight, I provided a high-level overview of the superintendent's estimate of needs, but over the next two weeks, we'll dive deeper into the budget proposals for each department. We'll begin this Thursday with staffing standards, salary and benefits, central support, HRTD, and business and financial services.

[01:39:41] Next week, we'll hear from the remaining departments. We'll have two public hearings scheduled, one on January 24th and another on February 2nd. According to our schedule, adoption of the budget request by the school board is on February 2nd. Thank you for your time and attention this evening regarding the FY24 superintendent's estimate of needs.

[01:40:01] We started by listening and focusing on the key driving question. what is needed to achieve our mission and vision through the goals and aligned actions of our strategic plan. The FY24 superintendent's estimate of needs is aligned and focused on empowering our students to achieve success, elevating and supporting our exemplary staff, providing wraparound support through an enriched division while partnering and working alongside our engaged community.

[01:40:25] While this budget requests among the lowest in years, we believe it represents the funding needed to execute and implement the goals and aligned actions in one LCPS 2027 strategic plan for excellence. I, along with staff, look forward to working with you over the coming weeks and months as we continue in the FY24 budget process.

[01:40:45] Thank you for the overview, Dr. Smith. This is our fourth budget during this term, but this is the first one during the term that will have a budget aligned to an active strategic plan. And so I'm very thankful for that and appreciate seeing the references to the strategic plan and how all of the aspects of it align to the plan throughout the presentation.

[01:41:07] at this time I'll open it up to board member questions I do want to just reiterate the point that we're going to have quite a few work sessions throughout the month of January for each department that will dive down in greater detail to all aspects of the budget so if you have questions about specific programs or specific initiatives that relate to a department that or in writing to Ms. Willoughby would be the most appropriate time but if you have questions about the budget process or general philosophy or the information uh presented tonight then i think that's fair game

[01:41:42] so we'll start with mr mehedby thank you chair so again i'll echo the same sentiments as as as you shared about the budget aligned to strategic um the plan that the board set out but at the same time i think at least from my my vantage point i mean this is a thing as mr serotkins said this is the fourth budget we always received uh detailed information from the staff i think this is really by far very digestible in terms of anything it it it also is um much more um simpler to understand

[01:42:18] also versus i know again like i said the detail has always been there miss willoughby but this is i think kind of puts in very good perspective in sharing what where we really spending the dollars and what the initiatives are and the strategic plan definitely definitely help for that so um i i you know i appreciate also including the elementary school counselors so i don't have any question i'll i'll direct my questions to miss willoughby as we go through it but i'm excited about how how we work towards again reducing that ratio uh further than i think like to understand better what the staffing standard for that is but i appreciate the work done in this regard and kind of putting this uh presentation together i'm excited to kind of work

[01:42:57] through the next meeting as well thank you additional questions see miss reiser i'd just just like to make a comment thank you again for the presentation we often have conversations with the Board of Supervisors individually and sometimes in some years I know when Miss Sheridan and I were chair and I think it happened with the past board leadership there were certainly meetings with with board leadership at the at the Board of Supervisors but there seems to be an

[01:43:35] invitation sometimes that that has been a missed opportunity in the past so I just wanted to ask our board leadership or our acting superintendent instead of waiting this year for a request to be made could we just go ahead and proactively make the invitation ourselves to the leadership at the board of supervisors to have a conversation if there are questions that they want answered that needs that needs to occur in advance of the meeting that we have with them so that we can avoid the miscommunication or the misunderstanding that has been alluded to in times passed i think that certainly makes sense and i'm happy to reach out and coordinate with

[01:44:15] the board of supervisors to try and avoid that absolutely mr morse i would only ask that any such meeting occur after our adoption of ours because if if they get involved in the discussion prior to the adoption of our budget it's going to cause a lot of confusion so i would like to have that that window thank you miss weiser yeah thank you for um for the clarification i i that was my intention and I appreciate your giving voice to that so there's no confusion. Thank you. Any

[01:44:47] additional questions? Seeing none, thank you for the overview tonight and look forward to the department level presentations throughout January to dive in in further detail. I think we all have a lot of reading to do. With that, we are going to move into recess until 6 30 p.m. and we will

[01:45:09] come out of recess at that time. Thank you. Yes, we'll begin our evening session with item seven on

[02:29:45] the agenda, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the National Anthem. The pledge tonight is being led by students from Belmont Ridge Middle School, who are accompanied by Susan Ferguson, the family liaison, and the students who are here are Elise Inter Nicola, Janice Lee, Colin Carter, Rayna Cahar, Mishka Negi, and Dia Rajpara. Immediately following after that will be the National Anthem with some students from the Freedom High School Band who are being accompanied by Jonathan Schiffer, Director of Bands.

[02:30:22] And the students who are here tonight from Freedom are Seth Alexander, Jake Dominguez, Steven Matichak, and Brandon Shen. So at this time, I will ask everyone to please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance and remain standing for the National Anthem. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[02:32:40] Wonderful. Thank you all so much for being here with us tonight. We really appreciate it. Now move to item 8.01 on the agenda, starting our two quarterly advisory committee updates, starting with the committee report from the Loudoun Education Alliance of Families, or LEAF,

[02:33:11] and i will turn it over to heather ward the chair of leaf good evening um chair sorokan school board members dr smith staff and the community my name is heather ward chair of the loudon education alliance of families known as leaf i represent sanders corner elementary in the ashburn district and i am pleased to share the leaf alliance update with you this evening next slide please

[02:33:50] for this update we'll review leaf's journey during its inaugural school year starting with an overview and concluding with outcomes and anticipated next steps next slide leaf empowers and informs parent leaders of children within lcps with representatives from the schools throughout our division the goal of leaf's two-way communication approach is for parents and educators to work together to review challenges explore options and provide feedback to those who to make decisions in the best interest of the LCPS youth.

[02:34:28] Next slide. LEAF members are asked to provide constructive insight on and summarize to their respective schools the topics discussed in meetings to facilitate two-way communication. Why do I bring this up? We often get questions about the flow of communication and how parents can reach the board.

[02:34:48] I will share more on this in a moment. However, it's important to note that the intentionality this two-way communication is to build trust and hone our communication and information sharing. It supports a mutual understanding and thwarts one directional thinking. It improves community alignment and collaboration and it increases community engagement and cross-district dialogue.

[02:35:15] Next slide please. LEAF members provide insight into and summarize the information that they receive and share we hope that leafs members will benefit from the shared strategies incorporated in our meetings and communications as they engage in dialogue and discuss opportunities to raise and hear parent and guardian voices next slide we are halfway through leafs inaugural year there have been highlights and learning junctures all of which have informed our next steps and

[02:35:50] long-term planning, which will be shared with you later in this presentation. In a short time, we have accomplished the initial foundational steps that support the sustainability and success of this alliance. First, let's begin with the alliance chairs. As outlined in the bylaws, the officers work together to help guide LEAF in the best interest of its mission. I am the chair with Mattel Gandhi as the vice chair of membership and Karen Miller as vice chair of communications with Erica Ogudegbi.

[02:36:27] Yes, okay, a school board liaison, sorry. The vice chair of planning seat needs to be fulfilled and has been open since October. We anticipate filling this role at our February meeting. The LCPS communication and community engagement office staff are taking on the part of the secretary for this first year.

[02:36:48] So thank you, Kimberly Gooden, for taking on that responsibility. next slide um the LC okay I'm sorry um all right there we go I'm sorry as we started our work we asked the LEAF members to engage in a gallery walk activity to comment on possible topics for information or presentations to incorporate in future agendas opinions and feedback and what they look and sound like communication support as they share information and best practices as a liaison between schools and the communities the result in this summary

[02:37:24] you see here and now guides our planning analysis resulted in guiding principles working agreement and needs based on what was shared the feedback and input support the big picture for lcps and help ground us in a cross-district discussion that benefits all children next slide the input also informed the development of a leaf member handbook that is now available to the alliance and is online for easy access this handbook is a living document which details the organizational

[02:37:58] structure and competencies making the alliance practical and relevant some changes may derive from feedback received about the handbook itself the qr code seen here is on the back page of the resource we're incredibly proud of the inaugural alliance handbook as we are committed to working towards real inclusion and increasing opportunities for parent voice this handbook guides its members regardless of abilities and experiences next slide the leaf website is live and serves as

[02:38:33] a landing page for alliance members we are going to be working over the next several months to update the site in the meantime it includes general information and will be updated with content that needs to be easily accessed slide all right leaf holds eight meetings annually most of which meet on the third monday of the month at 5 30 p.m except for our next meeting in february which is on a wednesday we've established a communication cadence that supports reminders and feedback opportunities we send meeting reminders three to five business days prior

[02:39:12] to the meeting we post the agenda two business days before the meeting and we send out a meeting summary as well five to seven days after the meeting we are also very intentional about the agenda every meeting includes a learning experience interaction and engagement strategy and multiple feedback opportunities next slide of the 98 schools in lcps 81 have representatives who have been approved by the school board 17 schools across the division are not participating 10 in elementary

[02:39:48] two in middle and five in high school next slide currently membership is at 93 members the recruitment drive started in april of last year and we've had a steady increase in membership since then at our most recent meeting in november we had 93 members 49 percent of which who were in attendance we are not yet at capacity and some representatives have had little to no engagement membership and attendance will be the focus of mattel gandhi who is the vice chair of membership starting this month i'm pleased to say that our meetings have been fairly well attended over the

[02:40:28] course of the first three meetings this year 13 members were approved by the board increasing our membership from 80 to 93. next slide we have also been fortunate to have a quorum at all of our meetings received an incorporated community and parent voice and feedback and modeled positive and effective cross-divisional collaboration and information sharing the alliance officers could have only completed all that we have with our staff liaisons who are members of the communications

[02:41:02] and community engagement office specifically joe jones salgren director of communications and community engagement office dr christina apartne coordinator and kimberly goodland executive assistants i want to thank the technical staff of the communications and community engagement office and digital innovation department they'll always make sure that we are up and running with all things technology and I could not do any of this without them so thank you very much next slide please as I mentioned we take our feedback and information thoughtfully in addition to a handbook

[02:41:38] the suggested shared in September led to creating a leaf graphic so that leaf information could be easily identifiable and you can see that here next slide All right, and then there is policy review.

[02:41:58] This has been a busy year, and the LEAF meetings sometimes fall within the review windows. However, whether in the meetings, presentations, or through notifications, LEAF has had the opportunity to provide feedback on 42 different policies that you can see here. Next slide.

[02:42:16] LEAF members receive information in a myriad of ways and mediums if we cannot share the policy information during our scheduled meeting. While not all mediums fit members' preferences, we ensure that all of our methods are inclusive. There's the website, we do Blackboard messages, and links to the note catcher, just to name a few.

[02:42:36] Next slide. Several members sought support on how exactly to bring content back to their respective communities. These queries prompted us to share information and suggestions during our meetings, and we've included this graphic here in our handbook.

[02:42:52] We recognize that every planning district, school, and community is unique, so we emphasize the importance of adjusting communication accordingly to their respective community. Next slide. Another question we receive is how information gets to the board.

[02:43:09] Similar to the previous graphic, the queries prompted us to share information and suggestions during our meeting, and this graphic is also in our handbook. We recognize our representatives have their preferred communication strategies, so like the previous slide, we emphasize adjusting accordingly.

[02:43:29] Slide. Before wrapping up with our next steps, I would like to share the most recent survey that was sent to members before and after winter break. Our goal was to get an idea of how the information shared through our various channels was being processed and shared with the community.

[02:43:46] After analyzing the response of 33 responses received, the following was provided. Next slide. all responses led to the members primary contact as either the PTA or PTO officers or the principal and school admin this makes sense as all schools do not have an active PTA or PTO when asked about the method of communication used to share information with the community members noted that they disseminated content through PTA or PTO agenda presentations updates on the PTA home page through the principal or school administrator

[02:44:25] email through a pta or pto newsletter or others including msac and social conversations when asked about oh next slide please when asked about their main idea of communication with the community all responses led to policies under review presentation summaries meeting agenda updates or a specific request for feedback next slide lastly we wanted to let you know the frequency of communication as you can see most align with the number of meetings that we've had so one to

[02:45:03] three 56 percent of those that responded have had one to three communications next slide please overall from my perspective as the chair leaf is establishing its purpose and process to support its longevity and positive impacts we will focus on several growth areas as we continue the rest of the school year and plan for the next first we will continue leaf as an established parent voice year after year this is an advisory committee that discusses topics that concern lcps as a whole

[02:45:38] and all of the students within that we will establish a more formal process among its members for constructive feedback including reminders on steps to take at the local school level when discussions questions or concerns are inappropriate for the entire group with that we will incorporate an annual inclusion of roles and responsibilities to level set understanding awareness and perspective this will help with discussion shifts to consider the overall lcps population rather than individuals and or individual planning districts lastly we will

[02:46:16] establish ways to support schools in accessing and communicating with leaf members next slide for our next steps for the officers the most pressing issue is to elect a new member to fill the open seat for an officer we must also recruit members from the underrepresented schools and establish agenda items for the remaining 2022-2023 meeting staff will also onboard our new school board liaison and work with officers on upcoming meeting agendas thank you for the opportunity to

[02:46:52] share our leaf update i'm happy to discuss any additional questions that you may have miss ward thank you so much for the update uh it's really great to see all the things that leaf has accomplished in just their first year of operation i'm also really heartened by the percentage of schools that have a leaf wrap and are contributing to uh to the mission of leaf that's really great to see and also thank you for volunteering uh to serve in the role as the first chair for the for the advisory group i'll open it up at this time board members if you have any questions mr

[02:47:27] morse thank you mr chair i do want to thank you i i know the work that uh that you're putting in and the results that you're reaping uh i hope the other board members are seeing the number of inputs that we're receiving on policy review that are coming directly from leaf the leaf representatives identify themselves in the comments and there have been a tremendous amount of comments quality comments that are coming in it's it's a voice that uh sometimes we haven't heard but i think that if we do look through leaf you'll see varying uh varying ideas and certainly valuable inputs that

[02:48:03] that we can't always get in other other communication channels so i want to thank you and i want to thank everyone that's on leaf uh for the work that they're putting in Ms. Reeser. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the presentation and congratulations on being the first chair of LEAF. I was at the inaugural meeting when you were elected and actually you made a comment tonight about the cross-district work that's being done.

[02:48:21] And one of the things I noticed at that meeting was just within the district, the cross-communication and how it was beneficial for the members even within my district, the Algonquian district, who were meeting each other for the first time and talking about what things work while at their school what things are different so I'm grateful for the work that you all are doing and hope to come back to visit again soon yes and I do think that that's something that we have really strived to do is to have opportunities we we tend to sit within our districts which allows us to to talk to people within our

[02:49:00] district but then we also look for opportunities where we can break into elementary schools or middle schools or high schools or even try to you know move some people around so that we're getting an opportunity to really talk to everyone and not just to have a specific district or um you know kind of take the take the lead on everything miss okadekbe i'll just briefly say how excited i am to be able to have the opportunity to work with you as the liaison from the school board and i look forward to actually chatting with you not from up here but just having an opportunity to connect and i thank you for your

[02:49:38] update i'm looking forward to it any additional questions or comments seeing none miss ward again thank you and looking forward to leave continuing its great work in 2023 all right thank you guys very much thank you at this time we'll move to 8.02 on the agenda the second advisory committee

[02:49:59] update from the gifted advisory committee how about that all right well first of all thank you for giving us the opportunity to address the board this evening tonight we're going to provide an

[02:50:35] update on the work of the gifted education advisory committee i'm wendy king the supervisor for gifted education, and I'm here with two incredible committee members, and I'm going to give them the opportunity to introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about the work of the committee. Hi, good evening. I'm Jill Rotifer. I am an LCPS gifted resource teacher, a parent of a twice exceptional student, and the GEAC representative to the LCPS equity committee. Good evening. My

[02:51:09] name is Valerie Matthew. I'm the parent of a gifted learner, an LCPS gifted learner, and I'm also an active member of the Gifted Education Advisory Committee. All right, we can go to the next slide, please.

[02:51:26] All right, we would like to begin the presentation with a quote from the National Association for Gifted Children. This quote drives the work of the Gifted Advisory Committee. The quote says, "Gifted and talented students need gifted education programs that will challenge them and enable them to make continuous progress in school."

[02:51:51] The committee firmly believes that this goal is achievable through the following. Number one, collaboration. Collaboration within the school, between the gifted team, the classroom teacher, the administrators, and other faculty members, such as the English learners, teachers, or the special education teachers, but also collaboration with the families of the gifted learners.

[02:52:24] So it's a collaboration within the school and with the families. The committee believes this goal is achievable also through implementation of research-based gifted education practices, and also application of sound instructional, sorry, initiatives such as differentiation, PBL, project-based learning, or personalized learning.

[02:52:51] Next slide, please. So in the field of gifted education, we know that gifted learners come from all racial, ethnic, and cultural populations, as well as all economic strata. We also know that gifted learners can have learning and processing conditions that require specialized intervention and accommodation.

[02:53:12] These students are twice exceptional, or two e-learners. And another quote from the National Association of Gifted Children says that identifying and serving culturally and linguistically diverse students enriches the fabric of gifted education and cultivates what is still an untapped national resource.

[02:53:35] And the Gifted Education Advisory Committee and our gifted department, we strongly support the division's commitment to implementing the most current research-based identification methods and program models that nurture potential to ensure that gifted services are accessible to students from all backgrounds.

[02:54:00] - Next slide. - Thank you. The Gifted Education Advisory Committee serves as a support group to review and make suggestions about gifted programs. It also makes suggestions and promotes community awareness of gifted education.

[02:54:18] School personnel, teachers, and administrators, community members, and parent-family members serve on the committee. Currently, the committee meets five times a year. We alternate between in-person and virtual meetings. Next slide.

[02:54:34] Here are some of the topics that the committee has addressed or will address this year. We have talked about or we're talking about elementary gifted program options, perfectionism versus person of excellence, social-emotional learning and gifted education, social-emotional development of gifted learners, and how to motivate gifted learners.

[02:55:01] This year, the committee has placed an emphasis on topics related to the social-emotional growth and support of gifted learners. We continue to invite some of the leading experts in the field of gifted education to LCPS to share their expertise, educate the committee members, and to provide information that is relevant to the work of the committee.

[02:55:24] This year, the committee is also collaborating with other LCPS departments to learn about existing programs and initiatives that support gifted learners. For example, this month, staff from the LCPS Department of Student Services will address the committee to provide an overview of the social-emotional learning curriculum in place in Loudoun County and to talk about the importance of social-emotional learning and highlight some lessons that are particularly important for gifted learners.

[02:55:55] The committee is pleased that Christina Fonseca has accepted to address the committee in March. She wrote the book, I'm Not Just Gifted, which is a key component of the Gifty Curriculum. And this curriculum is designed to help the gifted children explore their giftedness, develop resiliency, manage their intensities, face adversities and tough situations, as well as cultivating their talents and their passions.

[02:56:28] Next slide, please. Now we'd like to share with you some feedback from the committee. We will share some highlights of the LCPS gifted program and some recommendations that they have for moving forward to both maintain the momentum of the last few years and to enhance the existing services for gifted learners and the supports in place for families and educators. The committee shared positive feedback about the following: over 1,000 students across all elementary programs participate in EDGE, which stands for Empowering

[02:57:02] diversity and gifted education. It's our gifted talent development program in the elementary level. LCPS is hosting five in-person family academy meetings and four virtual family academy meetings as part of the EDGE grant made available through the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation and the Loudoun Education Foundation. We had 91 students audition for the visual and performing arts summer residential governor school programs 61 will move on to state auditions LCPS just hosted the state summer residential governor schools auditions for the

[02:57:39] third time the division completed the full transition to school-based collaborative model called fusion that program it will be in all or is in all elementary schools beginning this year next slide please and we also have some quotes to share from our GEAC members. The GEAC meetings are a huge resource. As a parent, they help me find where to go, such as NAGC, and figure out how to best help my child. I appreciate that the gifted resource teacher is home-based at each school. This allows for more collaboration between

[02:58:18] the classroom teachers and the gifted teacher. I'm pleased with the universal screening of all students in the third grade. The leadership curriculum for Fusion was amazing. Having the standard classroom teacher trained in gifted education made such a huge difference for my child, as well as having other gifted kids with him throughout the day. I'm impressed with the inclusivity and seemingly deep understanding of the neurodivergent needs of the gifted child's brain that go well beyond the academic curriculum. For example, creativity, innovation, strategic

[02:58:54] problem solving etc next slide please the advisory committee made several recommendations for lcps to consider as we continue to enhance gifted services first continue to support gifted programs by providing high quality resources appropriate staffing and space for programs revisit the staffing standard for gifted resource teachers to ensure equitable workloads for teachers support the implementation of the international baccalaureate program and LCPS. Continue efforts to expand communication and awareness about gifted services with families

[02:59:30] through an electronic newsletter, webinars on topics in the field, book studies, and other communication efforts. Implement more frequent GEAC meetings, alternating between virtual and in-person, and continue cross-communication with other division committees such as CEAC and MSAC.

[02:59:47] Next slide, please. Also, consider extending transportation opportunities for Thomas Jefferson students on inclement weather days particularly when lcps is closed and fairfax county public schools are open contemplate stipends for high school gifted contacts to support renewed signet program for high school gifted learners support high high school gifted learners with executive function skills and college career planning identify additional ways family members can be involved with the gifted program increase engagement with black and brown communities

[03:00:23] reach out to community organizations to host forums both in person and virtual okay so here are some key action items for the committee the state gifted regulations are slated to for review this year by the virginia board of education and it is anticipated that there will be additional guidance on talent development initiatives for k through three high ability learners so the committee will you look to the revised guidelines as well as our recent updates to our LCPS gifted

[03:01:00] evaluation process to revise our gifted plan for school year 2024 and the goal is to bring the revised plan to the school board this spring and the committee will also host an interdisciplinary committee to make recommendations for enhancing advanced instructional opportunities for our k-3 high ability learners and here are some topics that the committee has placed as priority for future meetings so talk about what is giftedness helping gifted

[03:01:36] learners manage stress and our expectations of others and themselves making friends as a gifted learner under achievement or motivate motivation of gifted learners helping gifted learners see examples of their gifts being put to use as adults and helping grown-ups talk to their children about giftedness thank you do you have any questions for us board members any questions for the committee I have one the interdisciplinary committee to take a look at K through three I know that's something we talked about in the

[03:02:14] curriculum and instruction committee four or five months ago do you have a timeline for when that will that's on the docket for February okay and okay great any additional questions thank you very much for the report really appreciate it with that we will move to our student school board representatives comments for this evening, starting with Shrikar Bangaroo, who is a senior at Rockridge High School.

[03:02:45] He has had the chance to create nothing but lasting memories at Rockridge since freshman year. At Rockridge, he is involved in numerous activities such as SCA, DECA, the public forum debate team, and the varsity lacrosse team. Previously, he served on the SCA as the sophomore class secretary and the junior class secretary. He is extremely excited to be working with Rockridge's principal, Mr. Doolman, and the rest of the representatives to make the school year better for students all over the county. Outside of school, he enjoys listening to music and playing pickup basketball with his friends. One aspect that's common throughout all his extracurriculars is the

[03:03:22] opportunity to engage with other students, whether that's through presentations, discussions, or games. Good evening, everyone. My name is Shrika Bangaru, and before I begin, I'd like to thank the members of the school board for giving me the opportunity to speak here tonight. I'd also like to thank my SCA advisors, Mr. Dobbs and Mrs. Mena, and our principal, Mr. Duman, for their continued support of the student body as we navigate through another school year following the pandemic.

[03:03:52] The students and staff at Rockridge have gotten off to a great start this year, with the SCA piloting efforts to make the year as enjoyable as possible. Throughout the school year, the SCA has worked to host numerous events. Alongside Homecoming, which had an attendance of over 1,200 students, the SCA organized events such as Frost Fest, Phoenix Pageant, the Students vs. Staff volleyball game and the Clash of Classes kickball event between juniors and seniors.

[03:04:19] While doing so, the organization continues to work towards reintroducing school traditions. One such was the annual blackout-themed football game where students celebrated a triumphant win before their homecoming. School-wide pep rallies also continue to spread cheer and spirit among the student body, even more this year thanks to COVID policies being loosened.

[03:04:39] Alongside these events, the importance of community and giving back lies at the core of Rockridge's values and so this past fall the SCA organized events such as Canada Teacher and Pie in the Face with both raising money for charitable causes. Through the Canada Teacher event we were able to partner with the Dulles South Food Pantry to collect over a hundred cans to help those in need.

[03:04:59] Moreover beyond the walls of the school Rockridge students continue to immerse themselves in various service opportunities. Given the stem involvement at Rockridge a team of seniors recently led the first ever Phoenix Hackathon. In In their efforts, they were able to raise over $4,000 to support the event, working with the LCPS CS department and local cybersecurity firm Mantech.

[03:05:21] The team was able to help over 150 prospective STEM students across the country learn important computer science and programming principles during the two-a-day event. Outside of academia, the Phoenix continued to demonstrate their talents, excelling in various extracurriculars.

[03:05:37] In sports, Rockridge's varsity football team finished the season with records in scoring and wins, along with field hockey, cheer, and golf, all competing at a high level. In wrestling, Rockridge continues to excel with students such as Ilias Choclis, recently championing at the King of the Rock wrestling tournament.

[03:05:56] In track, Rockridge's athletes continue to medal at each track meet they attend, with men's 4x200 already qualifying for nationals. Most recently, Rockridge's students placed as runners-up at the eSports VHSL tournament held on December 17th. Even more impressive are our school's publications attaining national recognition this year.

[03:06:16] Rockridge's yearbook, Genesis, was announced as a national scholastic pacemaker finalist this past December in recognition of the yearbook's excellence in design and creativity. Our Rockridge newspaper, The Blaze, has also made notable achievements. Last year, the Blaze earned the three out of six school newspaper online badges.

[03:06:36] These included the Best of SNO badge, which recognizes the best stories being published on the vast number of national SNO sites, the Audience Engagement badge, which recognizes the successful use of social media and effective audience engagement, and the Story Page Excellence badge, which recognizes innovative stories that go beyond the text to enhance reader experience.

[03:06:57] the yearbook and blaze newspaper continue to capture all the great things that rockridge has going on throughout the school year and we couldn't be more appreciative of their efforts as we look to the future and coming semester rockridge's students staff and 200 plus organization organizations and clubs continue to set themselves up for an amazing rest of the school year once again i'd like to thank the school board for their continued support and service toward lawton county students and families and thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak in front

[03:07:25] of you all tonight. Our second student school board representative this month is Nate Pearsall. He is a senior at Tuscarora High School. He is proud to serve as SCA president and student representative to the school board. Nate is also president of Husky Buddies, an inclusion club at Tuscarora. He also serves as Mu Alpha Theta president, where he tutors his fellow schoolmates and plans math-related events. In addition, he serves his community as a member of the National

[03:08:02] Honor Society and the Science National Honor Society. Outside of school, Nate works as a busser at Fireworks Pizza. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nate worked at Morningside Assisted Living. In his free time, Nate likes to spend time with his dogs and to play volleyball.

[03:08:19] Nate hopes to study business in college, but is eager to enjoy each moment of high school before that next chapter begins. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Nate Pearson. I'm happy to be here with you tonight representing Tusclore High School. Tusclore High School has adopted the acronym RISE. It's a guiding resource for students transitioning into the real world.

[03:08:41] You may recognize this phrase from Tusclore students loudly chanting at sporting events. However, it officially stands for respect, integrity, service, and excellence. Throughout my four years in high school, I've noticed that these core values have taken form in various groups and activities. I would like to take this opportunity to connect various Tusclore achievements with our motto, rise, respect. In the category of respect, I must recognize Tuscar staff and administration. These past few years have been difficult. However, they have done a great job at providing a sense of normalcy for their students, and we are extremely grateful for

[03:09:20] it. Integrity. The THS athletic department has placed in points on integrity, which has paid off as Tuscar received the VHSL Fall 2022 Sportsmanship Honorable Mention. This honor is given into schools without any player or coach ejections and are not on any warnings.

[03:09:41] THS Environmental Club has raised awareness regarding the dangers of fast fashion, promoting ownership and environmental responsibilities with their Earth Day Fashion Show. Tuscaloosa Peer Program has had many successful initiatives throughout the year. They completed their Thankfulness Food Drive campaign in collaboration with Sources of Strength.

[03:10:01] Members are proud of their consistent work with our Feeding Middle School Smarts Mill and make bi-weekly trips to showcase our campaigns there as well. We look forward to seeing what they accomplish while promoting integrity within Tuscarora High School.

[03:10:17] Service, the Tuscarora Student Council has continued to serve the students inside the school community, as well as the larger community outside of school. We collected an estimated 1,400 pounds of food from our Power Buff game this past week, which we plan to donate to Loud and Hunger Relief.

[03:10:38] Additionally, we raised over $1,000 for Colette Bain's family, who was a student at Woodgrove High School who tragically passed away in August. SCA has worked hard to emphasize the importance of service within our school community. Tuscarora Key Club has placed high importance on serving Tuscarora families with their Head Start toy drive.

[03:10:58] Through this activity, Key Club members were able to donate toys to Head Start family in need. Excellence. Tuscarora Performing Arts truly represent excellence that we strive for. four as a school just to recognize a few the tuscora marching huskies earned the title of class 1a state champions at the vmbc state championship they earned first place in their class and won best music best visuals and best general effects the ths orchestra performed the national anthem for the school board in september christopher talia and julia johnson were accepted into

[03:11:35] senior regional orchestra and bailey bushrod was accepted into junior regional orchestra Madabao Jazz performed with Old Dominion Chorus in Loudoun County High School at Franklin Park in December. Seven out of eight students who auditioned were accepted into district choir.

[03:11:52] Alice Sneed was accepted into the ACDA National Honors Choir course. Tuskawar Theater performed the one act, We Are the Sea, by Laura Lundgren at both the sectional and regional theater VHSL conferences this past fall, and placed second and third respectively, earning superior ratings.

[03:12:13] Additionally, our Tuscalo athletics have strived to exemplify excellence. This past spring, our boys baseball team won district championship. Our softball team won districts, regionals, as well as state runner-ups. The boys soccer became district and regional champions.

[03:12:30] Our girls soccer team are now regional champions as well as state runner-ups. Junior Alyssa Kerrigan is now two-time state high jump champion. This fall, the girls cross-country team earned the title of district champion, regional champion, as well as third in the state, and the boys' cross-country team are now district champions, regional runner-ups, and six in the state meet.

[03:12:51] It is clear that Tuscarora's success has been built off these important characteristics. I encourage the school board to place value on these elements while making their important decisions. I'm proud to be part of the Husky family as we continue to rise. Thank you all and have a wonderful evening.

[03:13:13] - Thank both of you for your comments tonight. We will now move to item 10 on the agenda, public comment. Thank you for engaging with the school board the public comment process the school board welcomes comments from loudon county residents and believes that strong community engagement and outreach are important components of a successful school system speakers must limit comments to the time allotted based on the number of speakers in the agenda this evening all speakers have been allotted two minutes for each public comment please be advised that speakers who missed their time slot will not be called at a later time all audience members shall maintain civility decorum and respect for the functioning and

[03:13:51] dignity of the school board at all times please remain seated unless arriving departing speaking at the podium or during a break violations of civility decorum and respect include shouting heckling jeering applause or other noise which disrupts or dis or delays the meeting obstructing speakers from being able to see the school board and vice versa interrupting speakers attempting to speak when not called to do so by the chair approaching a speaker or otherwise attempting to intimidate disparage or distract a speaker staff member or other meeting attendees speakers should

[03:14:28] refrain from vulgarity obscenities profanity or other like breaches of respect nor may speakers target criticize or attack individual students during public comment speakers should communicate those concerns to their school principal or an appropriate school official additionally complaints regarding division employees should be directed at the school principal or an appropriate school division official speakers should face the dais and direct their comments to the school board per lcps policy members of the school board will not answer questions or respond directly to the public during the public comment period violations of decorum or civility by any meeting attendee

[03:15:06] may result in the chair directing staff to remove the attendee from the remainder of the meeting repeated or persistent violations of decorum or civility by the audience may result in on the decision of the chair public comment being tabled into a later point in the meetings agenda limiting the number of attendees in the meeting room during public comment for safety reasons or the public comment period ending for the evening copies of materials for school board members should be given to the public information officer in the media box at the back of the board room prior to the start of the meeting please provide 12 copies of materials under no circumstances

[03:15:42] may a speaker approach the dais the public is reminded that access to school board meetings is is available through LCPS TV on Comcast Channel 18 and Verizon Fios Channel 43. The live streaming of the meeting may also be viewed on the LCPS website.

[03:15:59] Tonight, we're going to begin with in-person public comment. The first speaker is Meredith Ray, to be followed by Brenda Bengston.

[03:16:15] Good evening. Tiffany, you said that the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office has released a timeline that has proven their appropriate communication with LCPS.

[03:16:32] You also said at the last board meeting that you wanted to clear the air and make it known that the sheriff's office absolutely did their part and followed the law. The timeline that you mentioned was written by the sheriff and they investigated themselves and decided they didn't do anything wrong. So much for transparency. In that letter with the timeline, the sheriff said that he didn't trust any independent review of the handling of the assaults directed by LCPS. He also said that he believed an attorney general review was the most objective way to move forward on the issue. As a result of that investigation, the sheriff himself

[03:17:08] said he would trust. I can directly quote that it says a breakdown of communication between and amongst multiple parties including the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office, the Court Services Unit, and the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office led to the tragic events that occurred. The grand jury report also says that the Sheriff's Office did not see fit to charge or arrest the assailant for the assault that happened May 28th until July 9th and they collected very little evidence and multiple employees of the sheriff's office said that the assault was an iffy case and a shaky case. To be clear, the Republican endorsed members of the school board and the Republican sheriff

[03:17:47] want us to believe that the grand jury report is 100% true, but also that the parts that they don't like are not. Which is it? Because you can't have it both ways. As long as the sheriff's office has officers in our schools, there should be accountability for everyone, not just the people you don't like. Thank you. Brenda Bengston to be followed by Sandy Sullivan. Carefully taught

[03:18:20] from South Pacific illustrates a dangerous trend. You've got to be taught before it's too late, before you were six or seven or eight, to hate all the people your relatives hate. You've got to be carefully taught. Rogers and Hammerstein boldly exposed hatred in the 50s that we see today. Hate speech leads to hate crimes. Recent incidences in Loudoun demonstrate racism, anti-Semitism, and overt threats of violence. Editorials vilify teachers, while book banners

[03:18:58] target librarians. Unfortunately, hate sells in coverage, commentary, and clicks. It's cringeworthy hearing hate speech at school board meetings, and even more alarming to hear that someone would die on that hill to protect abusive hate speech towards students and staff. When you protect hate speech, you promote it. To perpetuate a state of hate, literal or figurative, is not a worthy goal. Maybe it's old school, but during my career, with thousands of colleagues,

[03:19:35] thousands of students and parents, we promoted civil discourse. Professional educators support the First Amendment, but do not promote or protect hate speech. We model behaviors to help students achieve milestones, not threaten them with millstones. As politicos campaign on this performance art stage, we'll hear the outrage du jour. If you promote hate speech, many of us will be amplifying the alternative, counter speech. Embrace love, erase hate.

[03:20:14] Thank you. Sandy Sullivan to be followed by Cheryl Ondertain. Good evening. I'm Sandy Sullivan, and I've served the members of the Loudon Education Association as their president.

[03:20:33] Chair Sorotkin, welcome to your new role. Vice Chair Mejedevi, welcome to your new role. LA looks forward to working with all of you. As always, LA is prepared to work with you through all that we go through through our school system, through the budget process and beyond. Let's all work together, assessing the current and real needs of our educators and students, developing the plans needed, and moving forward, moving forward in the interest of our students, our educators, and our community.

[03:21:01] Thank you. Cheryl Anderchain, to be followed by Beth Hess. Ian, a lot of people are talking about your latest shot at parents in the news last week.

[03:21:19] How tone-deaf and insulting to those of us who take time away from our families over the last couple of years to come here and speak. But you say what we come to speak about has nothing to do with policies, so I look back through all of my speeches that I've given here over the last two and a half years I came here to talk about things like shuttered schools and you robbing my daughters of a year and a half of their education, learning loss, and your lack of plans for remediation, this board spending over a million dollars to change a mascot while schools were closed.

[03:21:51] You also spent money renaming a football stadium when schools were closed, your continued focus on social justice instead of merit and academic excellence, or even raising test scores, masks, which caused a lot of harm to our children and exacerbates my daughter's anxiety.

[03:22:12] A book that glorifies and promotes prostitution. LCPS spending tax money fighting the grand jury investigation. Accounting of where the COVID cash went. The cover-up of a rape. This board doubling down when you got caught covering up the rape.

[03:22:27] And enabling a known predator to roam the halls of my daughter's high school for weeks before he struck again. I would argue that all of these have to do with your policies. but the cover-up is obviously the most egregious. Release the report and fire Falcone. All seven of you who are a part of the cover-up should do the right thing and resign. You lack integrity. You've trashed public trust and you certainly do not deserve your seats up there. Thank you. Beth Hess

[03:22:59] to be followed by Colin Doniger. Ian, I too would like to address your comments. Recently your comments about the people complaining at school board meetings is tone-deaf, but hardly unexpected.

[03:23:22] We're not complaining, Ian. What is happening in the national culture is relevant to what is happening here in Loudoun County. When you go down the road of boys going into girls' bathrooms, kids get hurt. Implement restorative justice, kids get hurt. Being woke has led to the lasting injuries for at least two young women in our schools. Be accountable and stop whining about parents you don't like. Your agenda is nothing more than platitudes and pandering to a small

[03:23:56] minority who don't get enough attention on social media. You all were elected to represent us, the students, the parents, and the stakeholders of Loudoun County. And Jeff, your tweet about trading jobs with Elon Musk was really stupid. If you don't like your job, quit, because we're not going to miss you. And we haven't forgotten about our calls for the termination of those implicated in the grand jury report. They include Ashley Ellis, Wade Bayard, Doug Fulton, Joan Sahlgren,

[03:24:35] John Clark, Timothy Flynn, and David Spage. Thank you. Thank you. Colin Doniger to be followed by Kathy Ellen Davis good evening dr. Smith I don't know you have no opinion again about you at all whatsoever I don't mean this to sound like an attack at all it's not intended that way I just noticed in the Loudon times you said that we need to regain public trust with an honest and transparent approach and

[03:25:11] that approach has to start with releasing the Blankenship and Keith investigation there's no way to find any transparency or trust without that going to the public where it should be we need to see what really happens also in a sorry wrong one also in a communication that went out it says together we will stay true to our one LCPS vision I don't think we have one vision I know my vision involves meritocracy academic excellence that involves safety in restrooms for our female students free from the presence

[03:25:49] of males we attended this town hall I know sometime last summer where we were able to put our input into that strategy that you were building and Mr. Sorokin and Mr. Mahadevi you were both there the contractor who was leading it said just trust us trust us and we said we don't and we know that you're not going to take our input there was a huge group of parents providing input none of that went into that strategy so there's no one LCPS vision at the moment if we want one LCPS vision then it's time to start listening to the parents that come up here week after week after week after week telling you what we are looking for and release

[03:26:27] that report give us the transparency that we're asking for that's a great way to start thank you thank you kathy ellen davis to be followed by abby platt good evening i know there will be talk later tonight about graphic and sexually explicit books so i thought i'd share some definitions sexually explicit means any communication language or material that relates to or describes sexual conduct so basically if a book talks about sex it's considered sexually explicit graphic means means giving a vivid picture with explicit detail. I'm a bookseller, teacher, parent, and published

[03:27:06] author who reads lots of books for kids and young adults. Typically, when I ask about inappropriate books, all I hear about is genderqueer, which, yes, depicts oral sex and an interaction with a sex toy, two times in this entire book. Some have called it pornographic. It's not intended to arouse the reader, so it's not. And it's intended for grades 10 and up and is not available for five-year-olds, as some have suggested. I know Ms. Polifko is worried about hyper-sexualized books in our libraries. Technically, there aren't any according to the definition. For a book to be hypersexualized, it would have to be extremely or excessively sexual. Fiction books that talk about sex as part of the story aren't extremely or excessively sexual. It's simply part of the story.

[03:27:45] Even nonfiction books all about sex simply present information about sex. There's nothing extreme or excessive about that. So to recap, hypersexualized books don't exist, so we don't have to worry about them. But what about inappropriate books? That's entirely subjective. Inappropriate means not suitable or proper. I am thankful that Ms. Polifco shared with me via email some books she has concerns about, like Lawn Boy, which contains sex, Monday's Not Coming, which contains sex, promiscuity, and prostitution, and this book is Gay, which provides education about anal sex.

[03:28:15] Of course, that's not all these books contain, just the concerns. These are all in high school libraries and aren't inappropriate by any means, especially when 54% of 15 to 19-year-olds are sexually active. Some people say leave it up to the parents. Fine. As a parent, you can tell your kid they can't read that book, but you can't decide that no one should read it. There's nothing wrong with books that talk about sex, and there's nothing wrong with them being in public school libraries.

[03:28:36] Talking about sex in general is healthy. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, please refrain from applause during public comments so that speakers can hear their names called. Thank you. Abby Platt to be followed by Lara Larson. It strikes me how many statements Loudoun County makes that include diversity and equity, but how many do not include a commitment to education

[03:29:13] or academic rigor. And I'm disappointed that my young son gets so much of the first part of his day that is dedicated to social and emotional learning when he cannot read because he is dyslexic. And instead of being able to focus on reading and writing, three hours and 20 minutes of every single week is dedicated to the wrong thing. And as a parent who is trying so hard to

[03:29:50] advocate for him so that he can read and write. We are being rebuffed at every turn and it's a new year and I sit and watch these meetings and it's astounding to me that such effort would be given to shut down our at-large member Denise Corbeau that she is silenced and not allowed to participate and to be part of a meeting in which she's supposed to be our at-large member.

[03:30:25] There's something very wrong in our Loudoun County School Board. We've got to do better, and I'm going to encourage you to stop silencing and to recommit to academic rigor, academic excellence, and to stop silencing, but to get away from diversity and equity, but to recommit to education and to focus on students and to get back to what matters.

[03:31:01] Thank you. Thank you. Laura Larson to be followed by Tamburlee Cummins. Good evening. I'm a lifelong Loudoun resident, graduate of LCPS, parent of an LCPS senior, and parent of one LCPS graduate who both received excellent educations.

[03:31:25] First, I'm here to say that I support our wonderful educators, librarians, staff, administrators who do incredible work under difficult circumstances where a lot is asked of them. They put their hearts and souls into our children, and I'm very grateful for them.

[03:31:42] I also want to talk about the importance of public education. The Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 includes these words that are still important today, written by Chief Justice Warren. Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It's required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the

[03:32:18] armed forces. It's the very foundation of good citizenship. Today, it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values and preparing him for later professional training and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.

[03:32:41] Such an opportunity where the state has undertaken to provide it is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms. I will not stand by as the Youngkin administration attempts to tear apart our public school systems.

[03:32:57] They're too important to the well-being of our democracy. Thank you. Thank you. Tamberley Cummins, to be followed by Susan Cox. Good evening and Happy New Year.

[03:33:18] I wish to thank the school board for allowing me the privilege of speaking at this forum tonight. In repayment, I pledge I will address each of you with respect and kindness. To the audience behind me, I pledge to honor their individualism and safeguard their well-being.

[03:33:37] I will not degrade or condemn another human being or group of human beings, nor will I seek to elicit violence against another. I make these pledges for the benefit of our children. I know they are listening, and the values I wish to convey to them tonight are those of civility, benevolence, and nonviolence, qualities which, if fostered, allow individuals, organizations, and societies to function for the better good.

[03:34:05] In pursuit of such goodness in Loudoun County, I therefore respectively request that the school board create an additional decorum policy that obstructs the issuance of hate speech and calls for violence during these public comment sessions. Talk of nooses and overt bigotry are sad remnants of our nation's past. Fortunately, such remarks are now recognized for the evil they invoke in those who are vulnerable. They have no place in our school gatherings. I realize

[03:34:40] that what I'm asking will be met with opposition. However, for many months now, I have witnessed the courage, strength, and sensibility of many of the current school board members, both in courtrooms and before the public. I believe there is no better group to accomplish and uphold the policy I propose. For the sake of our children who are listening, I hope you will consider this recommendation. Thank you for your time and your service. Thank you. Susan Cox to be followed by

[03:35:14] Rosemary Lawler. Let's not forget who the real victims are, the young girls who were sexually assaulted, the students who had their learning stifled by poor decisions of some on this board, when great trauma and learning loss happens, it hurts the whole community. It's not the school board who are the victims, as a member of the political activist group Loudon for All implies with their statement, quote, imagine listening to hours of people screaming, cursing, and threatening violence, end quote. Did this person dream up this exceedingly exaggerated conclusion in their

[03:35:50] imagination, perhaps, to create a political narrative about public comment? Are they not aware that we, the people, the parents who call out misdeeds of this school board, want accountability, transparency, and justice? We want safety for our children. We want excellence in education. We want literacy. I want to inform everyone here that members on the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors recently called out the school board. They described them as derelict in duty and in need of a house cleaning. It's not just us parents. And that was at the

[03:36:27] January 3rd, 2023 meeting. It stated that the release of the independent investigation about the sexual assaults would be a start at restoring trust with the public, which is so needed. I have been calling for this release over and over again to no avail. When school boards act shamefully, Criticism is warranted.

[03:36:51] And that's also what the board supervisor said about you. They used the word shameful. We should all be united. Our children deserve better release the independent investigation.

[03:37:07] Be a start for healing and rebuilding trust in this community. Proud parent of Parkview graduates, thank you. Thank you. Rosemary Lawler to be followed by Andrew Pihonak.

[03:37:24] Good evening. you for the opportunity to speak to you tonight. In February of 2022, my oldest grandchild at age 21 came out to us as a trans male. It has been a year of questioning, searching, learning, and talking, talking a lot. It saddens me that he felt, even in his own home, it was necessary to hide himself until he reached age 21 and was on the cusp of graduating summa cum laude from college.

[03:38:02] No child should have to live in the shadows, hide in plain sight. No child should have to face daily disrespect and lack of compassion from adults who refuse to acknowledge their name and willfully use inappropriate pronouns.

[03:38:20] For those of you who continue to champion equity, inclusion, and respect for our LGBTQ students and staff, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. For those of you hardening your hearts on the school board or in the community, to the needs of so many children, families, staff, and other community members, be aware.

[03:38:45] You may someday have to make a choice between your ideology and someone you love. That was never my ideology, so for me this February, there was no choice to be made. I have loved my grandchild since before he was born.

[03:39:02] I just know him better now, and I love him just the same. Thank you. Thank you. Andrew Pihonak to be followed by Diana Sosa. Good evening. I'm a very recent graduate of Loudoun County Public School, actually Tuscarora. Hate speech incites violence. Yet if it occurs, the Loudoun County School Board listens to it during public comment, says thank you to the commenter, and then streams it for all to hear on the Loudoun County website. During a recent

[03:39:37] school board meeting, a speaker said that being gay is immoral, and you board members are better off with quote, millstones around your necks at the bottom of a river, end quote. Multiple people in the audience cheered for this. Platforming hate speech like this empowers people to commit acts of violence against marginalized groups of people and causes people like me in the gay community to be bullied, often into suicide and suicidal ideation, tortured and killed. I demand policy in the school board that requires you guys to cut off a person speaking during public comment. The second hate

[03:40:13] speech is brought upon the board. Now, I have gathered my Loudoun County community members behind me in this cause with a petition that currently has around 950 signatures. That's more than enough people to fill this room probably like four or five times over. Hate speech incites violence. Thank you. Thank you. Diana Sosa to be followed by Christine Condi. Christine

[03:40:47] Condi to be followed by Michelle Warner. Those who stand for nothing fall for anything. Alexander Hamilton. Parents and students in LCPS stood against the Yunkin administration's policies targeting transgender students. We flooded the 30-day public comment period calling out his discriminatory policy, and students walked out in protest. Consequently, the sense of urgency

[03:41:21] initially expressed by Yunkin has evaporated. We stood for love over hate. Love won. Parents and students in LCPS stood against the whitewashing of American history and the ill-conceived attempt by the Yunkin administration to reframe race relations in the K-12 curriculum, which was vehemently opposed by the Sikh, Jewish, and black communities, as well as the Virginia Tribal Education Council. Consequently, they've released another iteration of draft K-12 history standards, written largely under then-Governor Northam's administration, while the current state superintendent of public instruction has justifiably apologized. We will continue

[03:42:01] to monitor the new history standards draft released last week. We stood for facts over fear, facts will win. On the website, StopLCPSCRT, the new broad run representative, Ms. Polifco, who proudly stood by election denier, insurrection mastermind and ardent supporter of the civil war in Brazil, Steve Bannon, claimed that she ran on hard issues and that there is no more reaching across the aisle.

[03:42:27] The parents and students in LCPS stand against such rhetoric and extremism, and will continue to call out the hypocrisy and lies. Working in the best interest of the students and staff in LCPS is imperative, that is your job. Affirmation over alienation, books over bigotry, caring over callousness, these are the ABCs of LCPS, and we will continue to stand in support of our teachers, staff, and students.

[03:42:54] I'm a former Loudoun County Public School teacher and proud parent of two LCPS kids. Thank you. Thank you. Michelle Warner to be followed by Shana Elbaum. Good evening. First and foremost, I'm here to request that you redact and release the independent review. I fully believe if the review exonerated any school board member or anyone in the administration, we would already have it and be able to read it. The fact that it is not and FOIA requests are continuing to be denied shows us, the parents, that there is something being hidden from us. There's no way forward without the review being made public. There's an inherent lack of trust that must be

[03:43:34] addressed and corrected board cannot continue business as usual rubber stamping their wasteful spending endless proclamations and enacting their politically motivated one-sided policies that leave the majority of the student body unheard and unprotected and your comments in your last interview show why you really should not have been elected chair or even be on this board I don't come here to complain I was up at 4:45 this morning I was at work by 7:00 I got home at five, fed my children, and came here. I'm not complaining. I'm not making up things. I'm not seeing it on the news, bringing it in here to talk to you guys about. Things are happening. They're

[03:44:14] happening to my children. They're happening to LCPS children, which happens to our families. I will not let you bully me or demoralize me into being quiet. I came just to get schools opened, and I saw a plethora of things that I didn't even know went on, and I'm not going to back down. We're not a minority. I've got friends that are talking to me about things, asking me questions. These are people that were like me, uneducated about things, uneducated about your policies and the committees, and they're asking questions. They want to be part of it. People are talking about

[03:44:49] running for the board. People are waking up. They're just not going to let you get away with what you're getting away with. You have to release this report. Redact student information and put it out there. Thank you. Shana Elbaum to be followed by Juan Pablo Segura. Hello my name is Shana Elbaum and I am a senior at Independence High School. Anti-Semitism is a problem in LCPS. Not only has it been on the rise since recent incidents in the media but kids like me have experienced it through

[03:45:25] their entire time in K through 12. I reached out to the administration in middle school after overhearing stereotypes and seeing swastikas but the problem was swept under the rug. I tried to ignore the hate I was constantly faced with, but after being followed around at my school and targeted because I somehow looked like Anne Frank, I knew there was a real problem. I even started a Jewish student union at my high school, but I have now seen more anti-Semitism than ever before.

[03:45:52] Loudoun County Public Schools must do better at educating kids on tolerance of all religions, even if Jewish kids aren't easy to identify. This looks like explaining the meaning of our holidays without just saying there's a day off from school, acknowledging the significance of events like the Holocaust and discussing how serious anti-Semitism is. With the recent swastikas found at both Woodgrove and Dominion High School, LCPS must be proactive to lessen ignorance and hate. I want LCPS to be a safe place for all. Thank you. Thank you. Juan Pablo Segura to be followed by Chris

[03:46:25] Hodges. My name is Juan Pablo Segura and I'm here today as a concerned citizen and a father of a child that I hope one day can benefit from Loudoun County Public Schools. I say concerned because after having been introduced to everything that's happened here in Loudoun in the last two years, I believe that not only do we have a crisis in leadership, but we are now developing a crisis of low expectations.

[03:46:53] I'd go further and say a tyranny of low expectations for our students, our teachers, and elected officials that should be able to deliver on results. After our children experienced two years of learning loss, we are now debating.

[03:47:13] We're not trying to fix the problems of two years of learning loss. We're now debating whether the Pledge of Allegiance is a good thing or not. When my mother, a South American immigrant, an Argentinian, a Latina, came to this country, all she wanted was to become an American citizen.

[03:47:31] And when she did, I'll never forget the joy in her tear-soaked eyes when she put her hand over her heart and she said those beautiful words. You have one job. Your job is to focus on results and encourage excellence. Everything now in this county is about being good enough.

[03:47:48] It's not about excellence. We need to focus on excellence. Low expectations crush our children's ability to dream. Dreaming is about tomorrow, not about going back on yesterday. These kids need to dream because we need them to reimagine the world that we live in for the better.

[03:48:05] so I ask that you rise to the challenge of excellence and if you are not ready to rise to that challenge then you have to step aside for someone else that can thank you very much thank you Chris Hodges to be followed by Daniel Brubaker good evening first of all I've heard a couple of people talk bad about Tiffany Polifco and I just want you to know that I support Tiffany I think she is terrific and I think that we need more people like her on the board so good job Tiffany

[03:48:41] My comments are regarding the release of the independent report and waiving attorney-client privilege. I watched the video, I went back to the video on December 13th and I have some verbatims and they all started about an hour and a half if you care. Mr. Falcone said attorney-client privilege will only be waived by majority vote of the board. So when it comes to which board members support making the report public, Mr. Beatty said I hope other board members will consider trying to make whatever part of the report available. Ms. Reeser to Mr. Beatty's comments, I would support making whatever we can available from that report.

[03:49:19] Ms. Kalifko, to Mr. Beatty's point, I think the report needs to be made public immediately. Mr. Morse, I support the release of the information in that report. Ms. Ogadab, sorry, I also do believe that sharing that report would be very important and part of efforts to make sure we are transparent.

[03:49:39] That's five out of nine. i'm not a math major but that's a majority so so the question is mr suratkin you're the chairman of the board in in in the name of transparency and trust when will you bring this to a vote thank you thank you again please refrain from applause during public comment thank you daniel brubaker to be followed by tori truesdale tori truesdale to be followed by max

[03:50:28] good evening i'm an lcps grad class of 2013 from freedom um i am now a long time loudon resident and i'm here to speak not just on behalf of lcps as a whole but speaking from being an alumni um a resident of loudon county and a small business owner i care about this county all of you on the board i'm sure care about the county as well i wanted to bring a concern to all of you regarding our teachers i know a lot of teachers in the county i was a teacher cadet i actually was

[03:51:03] planning to be a teacher and unfortunately due to the pay i decided not to go to the teacher route i have many teachers that i know that live paycheck to paycheck barely can pay their bills They cross the border, they cross, live in West Virginia.

[03:51:19] A lot of them do because of the cost of living. And what I'm here tonight to share to you all is I want us to do better for our teachers. A lot of them are afraid of speaking out due to risk of losing their jobs. And I just don't think that's fair. So I am here to speak on behalf of a lot of them who have shared with me their concerns.

[03:51:38] Something I learned last night is that this year, new teachers have been given a $250 stipend, returning teachers receive only $100. So if you do the math on how much per month, if you give it nine months, that's looking at, you know, for the $100, 10 to $15 for their classrooms.

[03:51:59] Teachers on average spend between $500 and $1,000 a year. So that's not enough. So my recommendation would be to consider increasing the new teachers to at least $500 a year and returning teachers to be at least $400 a year.

[03:52:15] If not that, then consider something else to really support our teachers and pour into them, because if we don't, you're going to lose more teachers like me. I would be a teacher today if we paid them better and if we actually cared for them the way that they deserve to be treated. Thank you. Thank you.

[03:52:32] Max Sawicki, to be followed by Jim Barnes. Thank you. My name is Max Sawicki. I live in Lovettsville. I'm a former assistant director at the Government Accountability Office, retired in 2017.

[03:52:55] And I co-authored a book on privatization of school management some time ago. These were experiments in the 90s that crashed and burned. So I hope you think twice if you're thinking at all in that direction. I want to raise three things.

[03:53:13] One, I'd like to encourage the board to engage with the Loudoun Education Association in collective bargaining. My wife is a teacher in Fairfax, and I'm quite confident that teachers know more than anybody what goes on in schools.

[03:53:33] So I would encourage you to work with the Education Association, not simply on wages and hours, but also on policy, because I think they could contribute in that dimension as well. Second thing I want to raise, I want to encourage you to continue to pursue diversity, equity, and inclusion.

[03:53:56] That these words have become controversial ought to be a scandal. Now, it's true that some of the contractors in this business can be sketchy. So anything like that needs to be evaluated carefully.

[03:54:13] But I think what schools need most of all is peace. And if there is no justice, there will be no peace, not only in schools, but for these meetings and for the board. Thank you. Thank you.

[03:54:30] Jim Barnes, to be followed by Lucy Salazzo. First, let me thank you all for the work that you do. I really do appreciate your service.

[03:54:45] My name is Jim Barnes. From 1989 until 2010, actually through 2010, I served as the public information officer for the Loudoun County government. And, in fact, I was the first public information officer in Loudoun County. And after leaving that job, I worked as a journalist covering local news across northern Virginia for about a decade.

[03:55:05] So as you can imagine, I've attended hundreds of public meetings like this over the years. And this is the first time I've ever been motivated to come up and speak as a private citizen. For many of the years I was working for the county, Wade Byard was my counterpart for Loudoun County Public Schools.

[03:55:24] So I can appreciate what a hard job he has and how good he's been at it. When I was working as a journalist covering Loudoun schools, he was always honest and straightforward with me, and he helped steer me in the right direction. I've always found Mr. Byard to be a hardworking public servant and a person of integrity.

[03:55:44] Now he's facing a serious charge, and I understand that he has been placed on leave without pay. I don't know the facts behind the charge or even what he's alleged to have said that led to his indictment. I trust that those facts will become known in his trial, but that won't take place until June 20th.

[03:56:02] Six months is a long time to go without a paycheck. Just imagine six months and what that would do to your household budget. And you may not have even done anything wrong. I believe that Mr. Byer deserves the presumption of innocence, and it seems only fair that his pay be restored until he has his day in court.

[03:56:20] So I respectfully ask that you consider doing so. Thank you very much. Thank you. Lucy Salazzo to be followed by Kristen Tapia. Let's talk about a little equity and inclusion here.

[03:56:37] In November of last year, I received a positive COVID test from the state and it was reported to LCPS. I was quarantined for 10 days. When I went to go do my time card, it was rejected. I was unable to use the 10 free sick days everyone else had access to, unless I showed proof of vaccination or an exemption, which still required the individual to declare their vaccination status.

[03:57:01] I had to use 10 of my sick days as a teacher or two weeks pay because I wanted to keep my private health information private. I can share with you my emails between HR about this matter. I sent a follow-up email, which went unanswered, and one of the more important questions I asked is, what policy or science was backing this decision to make me use my personal sick days?

[03:57:25] None of my questions were answered, and I received no reply. Medical discrimination occurs when an employer finds out about an employee's medical choices and takes a negative action. I'll give you an example. treating an employee's sick days differently from other employees in order to retaliate against that employee who made that decision to not disclose their medical choices.

[03:57:47] I am here today to ask you to do the right thing for me and any other employee who has experienced this coercive treatment. Reimburse the 10 free COVID days. These days weren't free for everyone. Just select individuals. Thank you.

[03:58:03] Kristen Tapia to be followed by Kristen Washington. I come here tonight as a resident of the community and a taxpayer with deep concerns about the motivations of this board. There's been a lot of talk tonight about transparency, so it comes as no surprise that I'm here to talk about this, too.

[03:58:20] Since the release of the grand jury report back in December, I've been expecting you guys to fulfill an obligation to your constituents to release the independent investigation for public viewing so we can understand the events that occurred. It's been over a month, and you've done nothing to make that happen, and so I'm only left with questions to speculate why.

[03:58:39] Why, after these terrible events, when you now have an opportunity to repair trust, to offer clarity on the points of failure, you choose not to? The only conclusion I can come up with is that you don't want people to know what really happened. If what happened was Scott Ziegler's fault and you let him go, then there's nothing in that report that you need to hide from the public.

[03:59:00] And if it's not Scott Ziegler's fault, it means you paid him over $300,000 to take the blame and walk away. and you continue to shield people who are not properly doing their jobs, they're still getting paid with our tax dollars, and you refuse to hold them accountable. Either case, this looks terrible for our whole community.

[03:59:18] To those of us who want the truth, it's not political to ask for transparency from elected public servants, especially when students have been hurt under your care, and there's still insufficient explanations as to why. Please release the report. Thank you.

[03:59:35] Kristen Washington to be followed by Edward Pizzarello. - I hope you've had a chance to read Fish in a Tree. I know I stand up here and talk about my daughter, our experience, and the lack of support she has received for dyslexia, but today I want to speak to the bigger picture.

[03:59:55] It is estimated that 20% of students are dyslexic. In a district of 83,000 students, that's over 16,000 that are struggling to read. As you consider the budget, I hope you keep the wooden nickel with you. You say that you are about the students. We need you to put your money where your mouth is.

[04:00:12] Support our reading specialists, guidance counselors, special and general education teachers. Invest in training to recognize the symptoms of dyslexia early, identifying students at risk, Orton-Gillingham training and certification. You talk about equity and that starts with reading.

[04:00:28] Dyslexic students who don't receive intervention are more likely to drop out of high school, be unable to hold a job, and enter the criminal justice system. I hope that as you consider the budget, you hold on to that wooden nickel and think of those students. A wise person once said, everyone is smart in different ways, but if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life thinking that it's stupid.

[04:00:53] Thank you. Edward Pizzarello, to be followed by Kerry Kidwell. Good evening. My name is Edward Pizzarello. My wife and I are 25-year residents of Loudoun County.

[04:01:11] We are also residents in CL06. It was part of the recent rezoning. We have two children. I've spoken in front of you before, one middle schooler and one high schooler. I'm here tonight to request that the board grandfather existing residents of CL06 in their current school path through high school graduation If a child has started on the path at Simpson or at County They should be allowed to graduate from County where we moved in and chose our schools And I understand the the crowding issue at hand But I would ask the board to consider the following circumstances from the meetings that we've heard in the past Mr. Morris at one point offered that the board should consider

[04:01:47] Extraordinary measures potentially to grandfather existing children to protect against further disruption for these students during that same resulting discussion mr Mahdavi Offered an amendment that was voted on which allowed for the grandfathering of children in other schools in the county This amendment was requested transportation for these students. We're not asking for transportation Our request is just to allow our children to stay in the school path that they're on When we look at the numbers the current forecast for county next year has it under capacity by 45 students with the movements of CLO6. The current cluster, CLO6, has roughly 80 students, of which about a dozen will graduate

[04:02:26] this year, further reducing that number. During the 2016 rezoning, a number of the families in CLO6 chose to move their kids to other schools, Woodgrove, Heritage, etc. So the number of students left that actually want to continue at county is much smaller than the 80 students that are currently in the cluster and could, in theory, fit over the next five years as this number continues to reduce granting requests of this nature without transportation where the parents assume those responsibilities would assure consistency for these children and support the previous positions of the board members as it relates to grandfathering children affected by

[04:03:01] the rezoning efforts thank you thank you kerry kidwell to be followed by christopher edmunds good evening we have recently seen multiple public instances of hate in louden county not only in the public comments at our school board meetings but on sidewalks in south riding bathroom walls and LCPS high schools and the n-word sprayed in black paint in countryside. Earlier this year we had an increase in racial slurs and incidents in LCPS and residents of Loudoun have had KKK

[04:03:36] recruitment flyers distributed to their homes. This hate impacts our entire community. Our community is diverse and while we may all be different in some ways we share our humanity. Dehumanization is identifying people in a way that minimizes their humanity. To other them by by stripping them of their individuality, to call people illegals, or use racial slurs, or say that the group does not belong in a civilized society.

[04:04:02] When people aren't seen or treated as fully human, they can be easy targets for prejudice and violence. This school board public comment platform is for community members to express their views regarding our public school system. This is the place to lift up our schools by making them the best that they can be.

[04:04:17] And we can disagree on many ways to reach the ideal school system, but we cannot allow hate and dehumanization have a space in this platform. This is not Twitter. We do have rules for public comment, like not using profanity or calling out LCPS students or staff. We must also refuse to negotiate on someone's humanity. The opposite of dehumanization is empathy and respect.

[04:04:43] We can build empathetic, respectful citizens by teaching social emotional learning. We can have diverse libraries for children to see in the worlds of others and gain perspective and compassion. We can have model policies that support the well-being of staff and students, diversity and inclusion and have a balanced curriculum including accurate history that is full of many voices and experiences. I ask the school board to fight for the humanity and respectful treatment of all as you make your policy decisions this year. Haight has no home here. Public school is for everyone. Thank

[04:05:13] you. Thank you. Christopher Edmonds to be followed by Phil Lopresti. Good evening. Christopher Edmonds. I'm with the CLO6 district. I'm here tonight on behalf of our families and our students in CL06. I have a junior and a freshman at county and a sixth grader at Simpson. While our hope was that the board would hear our concerns and punt on the rezoning at this time, the process continued on and unfortunately our small group of students in CL06 was impacted.

[04:05:47] As with any parent, our primary concern is the stress level and the stability in our students lives. In the December 13 meeting Mr. Mahadabi raised a concern to grandfather all the students enrolled within one of his DN09 districts, I believe, and it was received with positive note.

[04:06:08] This included the cost of transportation for these students, which was gonna be revisited in January. In this instance, we're merely asking for grandfathering of our students in the Simpson and County District, not transportation costs. We're understanding of your transportation challenges and wanna make sure that our request is as realistic as possible.

[04:06:30] Even if all actively enrolled students in CL06 grandfathered in county high remains below capacity at this time excuse me as time passes many of these students will graduate out and others will simply move on transition out of the area on their own terms county will continue to be relieved along the way we only ask that you show some concern for our students who have made county and simpson their home please grandfather them in without the need for special permission so that we can rest easy knowing that our children's mental health and stability remain at the top of the priority for the board. Thank you. Thank you.

[04:07:08] Phil Lopresti to be followed by Ian Pryor. Good evening members of the school board. Phil Lopresti, alumni of Loudoun County Public Schools and I am also a parent of two graduates. I no longer have a student in the public school system but I have certainly been reading quite a bit online and in the papers about the controversies and the issues of the day.

[04:07:35] I'm very disappointed to hear that the trust is broken down between some of the community and the school board I do believe that you guys have conducted yourselves with the utmost most integrity and I've respectfully disagreed at times I realize that there are safety issues some of which you can't discuss with us because of minors involved but I continue to try to give people the benefit of doubt until we hear differently I would like to associate my myself with the comments made by mr. Barnes and if you know mr.

[04:08:07] Barnes he's an esteemed retired member of the county government staff who did an excellent job for the county of Loudoun but I got to know Mr. Byard and I didn't come here to speak about this but I got to know Wade several several years decades ago but it culminated a couple years ago when I was vice president of LEAP and we were dealing with some of the suicides I always found him to be very truthful and I would just like to remind you guys that the charge and the public the charge that he has made against him is has a very high bar of proof so I think we have to treat him innocent until proven guilty by a jury of his peers.

[04:08:43] The last thing I'd like to say is I did listen to the last school board meeting. I'm very disappointed to come up to a school board building and find all the barriers and all that, and I understand you guys have to deal with threats, but I've worked national security special events. This is crazy.

[04:08:59] As a resident of Loudoun since the 70s, this just is shocking to me. We have to get back to the point where we don't have this kind of threat, and I understand that you're not necessarily the party. But I would encourage you to use that gavel effectively. If somebody attacks one of you personally, gavel them out of order.

[04:09:17] Mute their mic. Thank you. Thank you. Ian Pryor to be followed by Brian Davison. So it was a little over a year ago that I sent the FOIA for the Blankenship and Keith report. And I've got to be honest, I was a little torn at the time.

[04:09:34] Because what if you produce the report and then you fired people and then you made changes and then you take the wind out of the entire investigation before the attorney general gets into office. That would be a chess move. But you all decided to play chutes and ladders, and you objected to releasing the report based on attorney-client privilege. So then we brought litigation, and you challenged that, and you won. Yay for you! You just told everybody, including the grand jury, how far you would go to hide your secrets behind the veil of attorney-client privilege. Now, interestingly, there is a body of case law. And what that

[04:10:11] says is that if an organization does an internal report and then publicly summarizes or reports its recommendations, it is impliedly waived the information that informed those recommendations. Isn't that what you did? January 14th 2022, eight recommendations that sure looked like they were taken directly if not summarized from that independent review, which could be implied waiver. So So parents could hypothetically bring a new round of litigation based on a new theory of implied waiver.

[04:10:51] And you can go fight that and show everybody once again just how far you're willing to go to hide your secrets behind attorney-client privilege. How do you think that's going to look? Thank you.

[04:11:08] Brian Davison to be followed by Michael Rivera. Picking up on Ian's comments, Clara Lestoplin and Reggie Ducato doesn't apply to a different party suing for that report. You know, I'm never amazed by the extreme views of the Loudon teachers when I come to the school board.

[04:11:26] They're here openly advocating to dismiss and violate the First Amendment. But that's Loudon teachers for you. You talked about the budget tonight and how it was the first time it's ever been associated with a strategic plan of mediocrity. The plan where you say you want to get everybody to score just as much as they did at the height of the pandemic when everybody failed.

[04:11:48] And yet that budget is the same thing you had last year, just with different formats. It's a joke, Smith. It's a joke. But you have a war on merit going. We had the gifted advisory committee come up here and talk about how they had momentum. We used to have 35% of 7th graders take Algebra 1, right, Jeff Morse?

[04:12:07] And this year we have like maybe 1%. Y'all sat in and you got rid of all honors classes, right, Ian? You said that there's no difference between honors and regular courses. And tonight we're going to learn that y'all have been hiding national merit commendations from your kids just like they did in TJ and all the Fairfax schools because we have a Fairfax plant here who doesn't believe in merit. It's a total joke. You're unwilling to define the terms culturally relevant instruction and diversity because they're whatever you want them to make.

[04:12:40] You won't even allow a person to define your terms, Ian. Let's talk about FOIA and attorney client privilege. We had a case before the Supreme Court today in the matter of the grand jury and the plaintiff law firm argued they were trying to expand the attorney-client privilege. But even they conceded that you can't cc your attorney, Falcone, and hide it. And in fact, if you can segregate what's privileged from not, you have to release it. So I'm guessing virtually all of the attorney-client privilege that y'all have claimed are irrelevant. So let's see how you do

[04:13:14] in court here soon now that Irby's gone. Thank you. Michael Rivera to be followed by Nandang shangbag i'll refrain from bashing the board everybody else took care of that already my comments are um with respect to item 1304 the pledge of allegiance we started this meeting with the pledge of allegiance and the national anthem and i looked around the room everybody proudly stood with their hand over their hearts like good patriotic americans that we are let me read to you some comments that came from msac regarding the pledge of allegiance in the school the pledge

[04:13:52] of Allegiance policy is up for review and it's five-year increment. I understand my children can opt out, but that does create judgment and stigma when all of this can be avoided by not saying it at all. From a group that says they're part of equity, so it could be the Equity Committee, why must we have the Pledge of Allegiance said anywhere? This is indoctrination. Also from MSAC, if it's necessary to teach these things, they should be taught true and accurately.

[04:14:26] The Pledge of Allegiance is steeped in racism. This entire policy should be thrown out as it is indoctrination. I thought we couldn't stoop any lower as a school board or as a district, and it disgusts me that there are people that feel this way about the American flag, our great country, and take advantage of the fact that they have these liberties to speak freely because they are Americans, yet they want to teach children to hate the American flag.

[04:14:59] to fight for social justice, to allegedly protect all these people that are being oppressed that were never oppressed before, to see everybody by the color of their skin. I hope that the school board is wise enough to stand for the American flag and this great United States.

[04:15:19] Thank you. Nandang Shangbag, to be followed by Jeremy Wright. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to let me speak today. I'm the parent of a 12-year-old kid who studies at a Loudoun County Middle School.

[04:15:40] He was introduced to the game of cricket about three years ago, and he plays cricket in one of our local youth cricket academies established in our county. His journey with the game exposed me to the challenges faced by the cricket-playing youth in our county.

[04:16:00] The biggest challenge is the lack of infrastructure within our county. Every year, starting April all the way to October, Loudoun County kids have to go all the way to Maryland to play most of their games. They have to drive to Laurel, Bowie, Frederick, Columbia, Germantown, one and a half hour each way, followed by a six-hour game.

[04:16:27] Maryland counties have forged parent-school partnerships to make their grounds multipurpose so they can be used for soccer, baseball, as well as cricket. As a parent, I would like to see our school board do some kind of a feasibility study on whether something similar could be done within our county so that they don't have to drive multiple hours back and forth to play their game.

[04:16:51] The interest in the game is growing rapidly. Chair Sarkotin, you attended one of the annual banquets at my son's academy and I'm sure you got a glimpse of the interest, the surge of the interest in the sport.

[04:17:09] I encourage the board to consider providing resources for addressing the growing interest in the sport. Additionally, I would like to recommend the idea of introducing the game to more children in Loudoun County by running cricket clinics in our elementary schools.

[04:17:25] While the sport is niche, it provides an excellent alternative for our kids of our county to explore. Thank you. Thank you. Jeremy Wright, to be followed by Andrea Weiskopf. It took a special grand jury investigation to finally get the school board to admit their incompetence in keeping students safe at LPS and fire Scott Ziegler.

[04:17:53] Major problems still remain and are not being addressed. FOIA requests are still being denied as to the release of the independent investigation that was ordered by Ziegler and paid for by taxpayer money. These are a matter of public record, yet you continue to disregard the citizens' right to know.

[04:18:10] I have to ask out of curiosity, what are you afraid of, Mr. Sorotkin? Now that you're chair of this board and the offending party has been fired, why won't you release these documents? If you have nothing to hide and want to make significant changes to prevent this from happening again in the future, what are you waiting for?

[04:18:29] Even Phyllis Randall has asked you to release that report. Policy changes mean very little when there already exists a culture of see something and say nothing in this county. What will you do to fix that? There were employees who looked the other way during the sexual assault.

[04:18:47] That's your culture. That's your doing. LCPS employees are afraid to do the right thing. And it's time for you to ask yourselves why that is. Your lack of transparency, your refusal to work with your community, your egos are in the way of doing what's right for everyone.

[04:19:08] The programs we have in place to help either the offender or the victim in this case are still insufficient. What's the plan before something like this happens again? You're on the clock, and there are students who can't afford for you to wait or make the wrong decision again.

[04:19:26] If transparency and accountability don't happen, this culture of fear will continue, and there will be more victims. Let the daylight shine on this situation so we can finally put it behind us. Thank you. Thank you. Andrea Weiskopf is our final in-person speaker tonight.

[04:19:50] LCPS policies, by law, must be reviewed and potentially revised every five years. Policy 5045 was subject to this process in 2021. Even so, a demand to urgently reconsider and revise Policy 5045 is on the agenda.

[04:20:14] This is a manipulation of the policy review process in the hopes of imposing myopic views on this district's diverse curriculum and students. When it came to policy 5055, you had the convenient excuse of a politically motivated VDOE mandate.

[04:20:37] Nevertheless, you should have publicly decried the political game. Even when you can't win, you have to go on record as standing up for students. See the demand to review and revise policy 5045 for what it is, a blatant attack on public schools by seeking to hinder their efficacy.

[04:21:06] Personally, I would revise 5045 to prevent theocrats from banning books. But revising policy 5045 is not about books. It is about marginalizing and demeaning the children that you should protect and affirm.

[04:21:28] Stand up for each and every child, including those who are part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. Black Lives Matter. Thank you.

[04:21:45] We will now move to our virtual speakers. The first speaker is Karen Mineo. Hi. As a taxpayer of Loudoun County and a concerned parent, I demand to see the results of the publicly funded independent review of the two assaults that happened in Loudoun County High School.

[04:22:09] We, the taxpayers, paid for the review. We should be able to see the results. I will be expecting that report to be released. Also, I would like you to open an investigation into Loudoun High Schools and the Academy of Loudoun to ensure that students who earned national academic achievements or other merits and awards are made aware and presented with those awards.

[04:22:36] In recent light of schools in Fairfax, withholding those achievements from students, I would like to be rest assured that Loudoun students were not discriminated against in the same fashion, nor that they possibly missed out on opportunities that come with those awards.

[04:22:55] And a third item, I want to let it known that I am against LEA's collective bargaining, that they do not represent all the teachers in our schools. Thank you. Thank you. And our final virtual speaker tonight is Mark Wynn.

[04:23:14] Can you hear me? Yes, go ahead. Thank you. I just want to go on record. It is a little easier to actually speak to you all from a phone because there I don't feel the pressure of everybody's eyes. God's Word is never hate speech, never has been, never will be. There's no other book that's ever been written

[04:23:40] that's more inclusive than the Word of God. I don't understand why behavior convicted by one of the oldest transcripts is the problem of an individual or the problem of God. It's usually the problem of the person that's being convicted. I hope that everybody would see the total content

[04:24:16] that that was intended, which is your policies that are based on immoral behavior and access for boys into a girl's locker room is wrong. It's just wrong. And if you really believe in science, there's two sexes, male and female. Science doesn't lie. I'm sorry that some people are offended by it, but it doesn't lie. And God has never made a mistake. Thank you for your time.

[04:24:55] That will conclude public comment for this evening. At this point, the board will take

[04:25:00] a short recess. Board members, please be back in your seats at 840. Thank you. Coming out of

[04:40:26] recess, we will resume with item 11.01, the acting superintendent's report. Dr. Smith. Thank you, Chair Chirac and board members. Tonight, we're sharing information in a new format. We are combining the two previously separate presentations into one. We will start with good news and achievements from around the division and then move into the operational update to the school board. Let's get started with some of the great things happening in LCPS. Neil Slevin, executive Director of Teaching and Learning has been named Acting Chief of Staff. Mr. Slevin has served Loudoun

[04:41:03] County Public Schools for more than 20 years as a teacher, school principal, and division leader. Mr. Slevin began his career at LCPS as a social science teacher at River Bend Middle School, followed by an assistant principal at Stonehill Middle School. In 2010, Mr. Slevin was appointed as the inaugural principal of J. Michael Lunsford Middle School. From 2015 to 2019, Mr. Slevin worked within the Department of Instruction as the level director for middle schools. Since 2019 he has served as the executive director of teaching and learning. We welcome Mr. Slevin to his new role. The Belmont Ridge Middle School Student Council Association delivered 246 shoebox

[04:41:42] gifts to Rolling Ridge Elementary School students. The shoebox gifts contained essential items and small toys and gifts. The goal of the shoebox gifts was to share a bit of joy and some holiday greetings with Rolling Ridge students prior to the winter break holiday. Kudos to the Belmont Ridge SCA for developing this service project, donating their time and enthusiasm to it, and helping to promote connection between the two schools. Students at Loudoun County High School created more than 750 care packages called smile kits for cancer patients. The smile kits included items like fuzzy socks, lip balm, coloring books, and colored pencils, blankets, and handwritten

[04:42:21] cards of encouragement. Thank you to all involved for their dedication and generosity. All 17 of our Our LCPS middle schools hold the Schools to Watch designation. This makes our division unique as the only one in the nation with all middle schools designated as Schools to Watch by the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform.

[04:42:41] The Schools to Watch program identifies and recognizes outstanding middle schools. Schools in the program complete a self-assessment and re-evaluate their practices on a three year cycle. This year, the following schools have been designated or re-designated as Schools to Watch.

[04:42:57] Hamilton and Willard Middle Schools received a new designation, and in Eagle Ridge, Farmwell Station, Harper Park, JL Simpson, River Bend, and Sterling Middle received a redesignation award. All LCPS middle schools worked diligently to maintain this status.

[04:43:13] Congratulations to all of these schools on their achievement. The Office of Communications, in connection with the Office of Student Services, created five videos that were shared via social media during winter break. The videos featured craft ideas such as making bird feeders or kindness rocks or activities like stargazing.

[04:43:31] The goal of these videos were to provide inspiration for families and community members to try activities at home that reinforce curriculum learning and help create valuable connections between students and their families. These videos generated 37,000 impressions.

[04:43:48] In 1966, Loudoun Valley High School graduate and long-time William & Mary football coach Jimmy Laycock will be a part of the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2023. Originally from Hamilton, Laycock attended Loudoun Valley High School, earning 12 varsity letters in four years.

[04:44:04] He then attended William & Mary, where he was quarterback for the Tribe football team. Following a decade as an assistant coach, Laycock returned to Williamsburg in 1980 to lead the football program the next 39 seasons, amassing 249 wins, seven conference championships, and ten NCAA Division I football championships subdivision playoff appearances.

[04:44:25] Congratulations to our distinguished alum. Kudos to 2020 Dominion grad Jimmy Crist, who played in the 109th Rose Bowl this New Year's as a redshirt sophomore at Penn State. Penn State defeated Utah 35-21 in this historic venue in Pasadena, California.

[04:44:45] And now we'll move on to the update about operations of the school division. In this section of my report, I will highlight important improvements and our timely initiative information to the school board and the public. Tonight's operational update mainly will focus on the work that has taken place over the last month.

[04:45:03] First, let me be clear that it is my and our number one priority to ensure the safety and care of all LCPS students and staff and restore trust within our community. This will require both reflection and action. The special grand jury report provided recommendations on how LCPS can take steps and work with various stakeholder groups to address and improve how we respond to threats to our students and staff safety and security.

[04:45:28] My heart goes out to all of LCPS families whose loved ones who have had their safety and security infringed upon, especially the families of those discussed in the report. I will work to examine our process, structures, and procedures in a collective effort to ensure that something like this never happens again.

[04:45:46] Since my first appointment last month, my focus and charge has been summarized in four key areas. First, we want to provide the stability and support for our schools, offices, parents, and community to work together to do the important work of educating our kids each and every day. Second, we must rebuild trust and relationships with all stakeholder groups.

[04:46:04] We'll closely examine our current processes, structures, procedures, and make changes as needed to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency. And finally, our work is based in a strong and robust strategic plan, 1LCPS. We'll continue to move forward to promote, execute, and implement this plan with fidelity.

[04:46:24] These areas of focus will allow us to address our current needs, begin the healing process, and lay the foundation for a new superintendent while we continue the important daily work of academic excellence with each of our students. Similarly, work has already begun as a result of the recommendations from the special grand jury.

[04:46:42] During the December 13th work session, our school board discussed many changes to existing policies. Following that meeting, I polled the board and it was the consensus of the board that these policy revisions be placed out for immediate feedback and they'll go through an abbreviated committee review process. This will allow for review and feedback, but also ensure that we are moving these revisions forward in a timely manner.

[04:47:04] The policies are posted on our website, and feedback is requested by January 15. It should be noted that the policy changes that are in response to the special grand jury recommendations are noted with an asterisk on the LCPS Apology review page. In order to look forward, we need to take a look backward at the changes that have taken place over the past 12 to 18 months, and I'd like to highlight just a few.

[04:47:28] During this time, we've significantly expanded the Title IX office, improved tracking procedures, supported families through additional resources. We've also revised the alternative school placement process and support process. Our training and supports for administrators have also been significantly enhanced. Some examples include Title IX for administrators, student behavior and administrative responses, also known as our SBAR, and discipline data to support our MTSS intervention model. I'd also like to take this opportunity to provide the board with an update on some of the work that has taken place over the last month regarding each of the priority areas. I'd like to board the board and the

[04:48:06] public to know that we are taking action. I've met and talked with each of the police chiefs for Leesburg, Middleburg, Percival, and I've also had a productive meeting with Sheriff Chapman. In each meeting we will discuss our partnership and are working to ensure open lines of communication.

[04:48:21] I've met with principals across all of our schools and we've established a principal leadership team that will provide two-way communication between the superintendent and principals on a regular basis. Earlier today I met with the superintendent student advisory committee with students representing all of our high schools across the county. You see an emphasis on two-way communication across these items. This process is integrated across the meetings and advisories, listening sessions, and reporting results resulting in improvements and or actions. On this slide you'll see actions that have been started but remain in process. For example we've met with law enforcement

[04:48:57] and have begun a review of our existing MOU. We've established a team and have set a meeting cadence for the review that will take place over the next several months. We've also started a division team that's being used for student supports and to consider any potential change in school assignment.

[04:49:13] Principals and schools utilize this team to review the interventions and supports in place, offer additional supports and resources, and or consider a more appropriate placement if needed. A level two division transition team has also been established to support students transitioning to and or from alternative education settings. The additional school-based student supports proposed in the FY24 superintendent's estimated needs would also be a significant contributor to this work.

[04:49:39] Finally, I'll note that we have a process in place for case management. We've also identified ways that we can enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of this process. Over the past month, I've reached out and met with the county administrator and several board of supervisors to establish open lines of communication.

[04:49:57] We've initiated contact with the Privacy Technical Assistance Center, PTAC, and we are working with them to design a customized training on FERPA and transparency best practices for our staff. I'm requesting a staffing review of our hearings office, and we are in the process of hiring a dedicating hearing officer at this time we're also currently in the process of revamping our website for the school the office of school administration to improve transparency and ease of access for our public facing processes and procedures so that's just a little bit of review of some of the things we've been up to over the past month and the actions we are taking finally in a part of this operational update i'd like to share a little bit about the national merit

[04:50:35] recognitions in light of the news raised in fairfax county public schools regarding the national merit recognitions, I would like to provide an overview of what LCPS has done to review our practices in this area. I worked with the Office of the Student of Mental Health Services to work with each school to review their practice for notifying each national merit semi-finalist and the commended students. It's important to note that there are two types of recognition students receive from the National Merit Scholars Corporation. One are semi-finalists and finalists, and note we did not have, unfortunately, did not have any finalists this year, And two are commended scholars.

[04:51:10] I can confirm to you that all LCPS National Merit Semi-Finalists were notified and appropriate procedures were implemented to assist in their scholarship applications this year. In fact, National Merit Semi-Finalists were also celebrated in an LCPS news story on September 16, 2022, and at the September 27, 2022 school board meeting.

[04:51:35] Regarding the commended scholars, we've conducted a review of the LCPS practices for notified and commended scholars. It's important to note that this is a school-based process and communication from the National Merit Scholars Corporation is done at the school level. The additional information we requested from schools include the notification date and the number of students notified.

[04:51:56] As a result of the review, we confirmed that 14 of our 17 high schools notified scholars this fall after receiving acknowledgement certificates from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. We found that three of our schools needed to take additional steps to notify National Merit commended students. I do want to note that there is no indication that the commended scores were withheld from students intentionally, and I'll explain more details in just a moment.

[04:52:20] It's also important to note that all Academies of Loudoun students are concurrently enrolled at their home school, and all notifications of national merit recognitions go through the students' comprehensive home high school. So let me take a moment and share some more context of each of the three schools previously noted.

[04:52:37] One school, Loudoun County High School, was not notified of their commended scholars by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. Central office staff reached out to National Merit, but as with their communication process, they would only speak to the school. Loudoun County High School spoke with National Merit, and they identified there were five commended students at the school.

[04:52:55] National Merit is mailing the package of certificates to the school. The school has also reached out to all of the students and families of those five students. Another school, Freedom High School, the process lags simply due to human error in the school leadership, has since met with students, notified students and families, and is communicating with universities as needed.

[04:53:17] And our final school, Potomac Falls High School, had a recognition program that was scheduled for January 13th. Since that time, we've asked the school to go ahead and reach out and recognize those students, notify those families, and they have done that. And this is the same process I'll share with the January notification that they've used in past years.

[04:53:38] The three identified schools, Freedom, Loudoun County, and Potomac Falls, have established a communication plan to immediately inform students and parents of their accommodation who were not notified in the fall. As a former high school principal and other school divisions, I can attest that this process for recognizing the commended students is a school-based process, and it can vary significantly from school to school.

[04:53:59] Some may notify students' families in the fall and immediately, and others wait for a larger program for the recognition. And I've seen schools wait as long as the senior, end-of-year senior awards at times for some of this recognition. That was not the case in LCPS in terms of the end-of-year, but we did check to verify that.

[04:54:19] Students and families may also access the website to look at qualifying state and national scores and to see where they meet eligibility. This information is readily available on the College Board website. I do think that this has illustrated a need to work with and encourage the National Merit Scholars Corporation to develop a process to communicate directly with school division in addition to school communication.

[04:54:42] For our next steps, the Office of Student Mental Health will create a specific standard operating procedure for each high school administration, and the Office of School Counseling will continue to follow up in the future. We will continue to follow up on next steps and take any additional steps that may be needed.

[04:54:58] That concludes my operational report. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Smith. Board members, any questions for Dr. Smith regarding the report? Seeing none, we will move on to our one action item for this evening from the Finance and Operations Committee revision of policy 6130 unpaid meal debt. Mr. Morse. Thank you, Mr. Chair I move that the Loudoun County School Board approve staff. Excuse me I move that the Loudoun County School Board approve staff recommended revisions to policy 6130 unpaid meal debt

[04:55:37] Motion made by Mr. Morse seconded by Miss Sheridan. Mr. Morse would you like to speak to your motion? Yes, this was brought up before the break There is a concern with I believe the reason there was angst about passing this is the association with lines 58 through 60, where it says, if a parent and guardian regularly fails to provide meal money or send food to school with a student and the student does not qualify for free or reduced benefits, the school nutrition director will inform the school principal who may determine the next course of action,

[04:56:15] which may include notifying the Department of Social Services of suspected child neglect. I think that the language used there was considered harsh, and I would like to propose an amendment that would replace that final sentence with a recommended language from the SEAC recommendation number two, and I'll read that out for board members.

[04:56:41] So instead of the school nutrition director, let's see. Starting on line 56 through 60, replace all and replace it with the following. Principal will meet with the parents, guardians, to understand the reason behind the unpaid debt and determine the best course of action.

[04:57:03] Motion made by Mr. Morse, seconded by Mr. Mahedby. Mr. Morse, could you just read that one more time? Yes. So the replacement would read, principal will meet with the parents slash guardians to understand the reason behind the unpaid debt and determine the best course of action.

[04:57:19] And the reason I think this is appropriate is because we are not limiting the actions that the principal can take, which could include notifying CPS or social services, but we're certainly not putting that worst case into the policy because in the vast majority of cases, I believe that the issue can be resolved with the parents and the guardians through the principal, and it wouldn't have to get to that point.

[04:57:42] I don't think it's necessary to put that level of fear into the policy. And so, just one clarification, that's a strike and replace for that entire paragraph, lines 56 through 60? It is. Thank you. Discussion on the amendment? Ms. Ogadegbe. Thank you, Chair.

[04:57:58] I would just, I just appreciate your suggestion, and I am in agreement with it. I think it's very important that we not criminalize families based on financial challenges, so I appreciate your proposed change. Thank you. Mr. Mahedby.

[04:58:16] Thank you, Chair. Again, completely supportive of this particular change. I've said that when this was brought an information item, I couldn't support the policy with this language in place. I do have concern to your last line, what you made.

[04:58:33] The principals can still reach out to Child Protective Services. So I'm going to ask the question to Mr. Falcone. I mean, do the principals on such a matter as unpaid debt can reach out to Child Protective Services on such cases? Because I do find that concerning that it shouldn't be.

[04:58:52] I mean, I would like to make sure that this is not a reason why anybody should be reaching out to Child Protective Services. Thank you, Mr. Mejedevi. I totally agree. And just to clarify, that's not what the policy is actually requiring.

[04:59:09] It is requiring that the principal would consider notifying the Department of Social Services

[04:59:21] If a student is regularly failed to is not given lunch or given lunch money on a regular basis and there's not a parent or the student doesn't qualify for free and reduced benefits so it would be a circumstance in which a student is not regularly getting lunch and school division employees are mandated reporters and so a student that is not being regularly fed would potentially be a student that is subject to neglect which is why there's that language is in the VSBA model policy and why it was included in the original draft here.

[04:59:58] - Thank you, Mr. Falcone. And again, just for the record, I've been a big strong supporter of universal meal for all children. No child, I mean, I can't imagine any circumstances where any parent would deprive the child either money or food, unless there is some direstic concerns and so on and so forth.

[05:00:16] I hope that, I mean, I do trust the principals to make the best judgment in this case, But I do find troubling that that shouldn't resort to Child Protective Services, even if, you know, it's unpaid. But I think we all as a board member should, I think we have a legislative item that we have put forward with our federal delegation, I believe, for universal meal.

[05:00:38] And again, I call for, you know, the congressional legislation to really look into this to make sure that we do provide universal meal for all children and get away from this. thank you miss reserve so I have two questions first mr. Morse do you have that did you have that proposed language emailed to the board ahead of time or do you have it is in it's in board docs under the CAC recommendations number two

[05:01:11] oh that's right thank you sure and my my question for mr. Falcone is does that language need to be in the policy for a principal to meet with parents definitely not and in fact just to clarify it wouldn't it doesn't need to be in the policy to to require a principal or any other school employee to contact CPS if they suspected that was going to be my

[05:01:40] follow-up question so I think having any of that language in here brings some fear and shame around the idea of people not being able to afford meals so I'm going to make a substitute motion to strike lines 55 through 59. Motion made by Ms. Reeser, seconded by Mr. Mejedevi. So that is to strike that paragraph in its entirety? Yes, I appreciate what Mr. Morse was trying to do here, but I think that principals already have the authority to meet with parents on any topic, and they already have

[05:02:20] the responsibility of reporting suspected abuse or neglect. I think that putting it in a policy labeled unpaid meal debt has connotations that we don't need and and also may create the misperception that a principal has a responsibility to do something that that they do not further discussion on the substitute amendment mr. Morse yes I like the substitute motion my only concern is that we want to ensure without without the without the tenor of that for of the language

[05:03:00] that we originally had. We want to make sure that the principals are looking into the unpaid debt to understand it. So that's the only reason why I would want to keep my motion instead of the substitute motion, is that it's telling the principals that they need to look into it. If the board feels that that's a responsibility of the principals anyway, I'm okay with this. I would go with the substitute motion, but I'd like to hear from other board members on that. Further discussion? Ms. Polifko? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do agree with Mr. Morse. I think that withholding

[05:03:39] that information leaves it vague and it could potentially lead to, it leads us down a road where what happens, right? So where does this go? If we're not directing the individual that needs to look into it to look into it, my concern is that it just gets left undone.

[05:03:58] And I'm not saying that principals wouldn't necessarily look into it if they felt the need to, but without including it in the policy, I believe it leaves us at a dead end as to where we go to resolve that debt. And I don't believe it would be fiscally responsible of us to completely look the other way and waive all of it without directing some kind of resolution in the short term.

[05:04:23] Thank you. Further discussion, Ms. Rieser? So before this language was proposed, how were we dealing with it? Could staff elaborate on whose responsibility it is and what we do currently? believe this would have been our existing practice and we just took this opportunity to include that practice into the policy and to also match the VSBA model policy so it is already a principal duty and principals are

[05:05:02] already doing this yes okay thank you miss Sheridan I just want to follow up miss Reeser's question with is this part of professional development for principals is it part of annual training for them to remind them that if students have unpaid debt to look into it while it's one of their responsibilities is it part of regular training so that it's brought up I would have to go through our trainings to confirm that and if it's not we certainly can add it Mr. Mahedby thank you chair Ms. Willoughby how much

[05:05:38] I mean this maybe this is a question I meant to ask last time how much what's an average debt we're talking about well I want to emphasize that while I understand that the language may seem kind of out of place in relation to the title of the policy of an unpaid meal debt but the unpaid meal debt is really one indicator for a principal to consider along with looking to see if the parent or the guardian was sending food with the student to school that the the unpaid meal debt is an

[05:06:12] indicator for possible child neglect that's really what this is about regarding reporting We would not report if someone just had an unpaid meal debt. That's not what the intent of this language is. Thank you.

[05:06:30] I appreciate that. But I think, you know, over the course of three or four years, I've learned is that I think what things we put in policy has a lot of direct consequences. So I want to be very clear putting language in where it's perhaps, I mean, today, maybe, as you said, already similar kind of practices followed.

[05:06:53] But I don't want to codify it in such a way that that is a resort that perhaps some principals have to resort to taking into doing that before exhausting all the other options and avenues. So that's my concern. Mr. Beatty. Thank you, Chair.

[05:07:11] I can appreciate what Ms. Reeser is trying to do, but if you look at the Virginia Code, we are required to direct our employees that they have to communicate with parents. So I think we do have to put something in policy in regards to that. And I think Mr. Morse's amendment is more in line with not requiring us to necessarily go to CPS, but to have a communication with parents as the Virginia Code is going to require us.

[05:07:35] So I will not support the substitute motion, but I would support Mr. Morse's amendment. Further discussion? Ms. Reeser? I was going to take the last word on my motion, but I think Ms. Okadegbe raised her hand as well.

[05:07:51] Ms. Okadegbe. Thank you. I'll refer this back to Mr. Falcone to ask if the requirement for communication with the parents is applicable in this specific instance.

[05:08:16] Ms. Ogadegbe, you're going to need to give me a minute on that. Thanks. Mr. Chair. Ms. Reiser. I'm going to just go ahead and make my summary argument and maybe it'll answer Ms. Ogadegbe's question as well.

[05:08:33] I think if we have a duty to communicate and if we need to look at the factors surrounding whether abuse and neglect is happening and sending no lunch money and no lunch is part of that, that should come under a different title. And it should be one criteria in a list of many that our professionals are trained to look for.

[05:08:51] And I think putting it under unpaid meal debt takes it out of the umbrella under which we want to be looking at this factor. Look at how long the nine of us have sat up here discussing it. so it wasn't clear to any of us before this discussion what the purpose of it was and we have counsel and our chief financial representative here talking to us about all of this and we still think it's unclear so I I don't think we're doing a service to the kids that we're trying to protect or the principals who were asking to do this by putting it under this title we can simply add this

[05:09:26] to another part of whatever policy is relevant to advising our principals is to their responsibility. Thank you. Mr. Falcone, do you have an update or do you still need time? I don't think there's an express requirement that a principal has to meet with a parent as a result of an unpaid meal debt. Further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor

[05:10:00] of the substitute amendment to strike lines 55 through 60, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Those opposed, please raise your hand and say nay. Nay. That motion will pass.

[05:10:15] 5-3 with Morris Beatty and Polifco opposed and Ms. Corpo absent for the vote. So now we are back to the base motion as amended. Is there further discussion? Mr. Mahedmi.

[05:10:30] I'd like to make an amendment to update the lines 28 to 31, which reads, employees may not require a student who cannot pay for a meal at school or who owes a school meal debt to throw away or discard a meal

[05:11:06] after it has been served to the student do chores or other work to pay for such meals or wear a wristband or hand stamp to be changed as employees may not require a student who cannot pay for a meal at school or who owes a school meal debt to throw away or discard a meal after it has been served to the student do chores or other work to pay for such meals or wear the wristband or hand stamp employees may not apply any physical method to publicly identify a child as someone who cannot pay for a meal or who owes a school debt so just adding a line employees may not apply any physical method to publicly identify

[05:11:46] a child as someone who cannot pay for a meal or who owes a school debt from the MSAC's recommendation motion made by mr. Mahedvy seconded by miss Rieser mr. Mahedvy would you like to speak to your motion I think this is one of the I think again it comes back to how I think generally there's I think the schools are doing a phenomenal job in ensuring that there's no at least think after the policy was updated last time around that there is no shaming of students done but I think adding another sentence that to physically or physically method to

[05:12:26] publicly identify a child I think it just ensures that we we don't I you know We don't shame them or we don't deny them for a meal. It just helps clarify for them. That's all. Further discussion on the amendment?

[05:12:46] Seeing none, we'll place the motion to a vote. To add to the end of line 31, employees may not apply any physical method to publicly identify a child as someone who cannot pay for a meal or who owes a school debt. Those in favor? Ms. Reaser.

[05:13:02] I didn't hear Mr. Mehedabe when he was reading it. I thought what he said was may not apply any method. I didn't hear the word physical, and so I was going to suggest a friendly of saying any method because it's broader, but happy to support your motion if you don't want to change that.

[05:13:19] Mr. Mahatmi. I could modify the line from physical to any method. Without objection, the amendment will be modified to remove the word physical. So now REITs employees may not apply any method to publicly identify a student, a child, as someone who cannot pay for a meal or who owes a school debt.

[05:13:40] Any further discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor of the amendment, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. That motion will pass unanimously of board members present with Ms. Corvo absent for the vote. We are now back to the base motion as amended.

[05:13:57] Mr. Mahedmi. Thank you. One more amendment. I move to change the line number 46, which states school nutrition services will not utilize wristbands or hand stamps and add further to it.

[05:14:14] It says school nutrition services will not utilize wristbands or hand stamps or apply any method to publicly identify a child as someone who cannot pay for a meal or who owes a school debt. What line are you on, Mr. Mahedvi? You said 46, but I don't think that's, I think it's somewhere on 28 through 31.

[05:14:37] Well, no.

[05:14:46] There's a reference to wristbands on line 49, but it's stricken through.

[05:15:06] I withdraw my motion. Okay, and the motion's been withdrawn. So we're back to the base motion as amended. is there any further discussion seeing none we'll place the base motion as amended to a vote that the louden county school board approved staff recommended revisions to policy 6130 unpaid meal debt as amended all those in favor please raise your hand say aye aye that motion will pass unanimously of board members present with miss corvo absent for the vote that concludes our

[05:15:41] action items for today. We'll move to information item 13.01 from Business and Financial Services, the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, and School Activity Fund's Annual Financial Report. Ms. Willoughby. Thank you. Yes, so I am here to present the fiscal year annual review for FY22.

[05:16:13] This is for the school year or the fiscal year ending June 30th of 2022. Next slide, please. I always like to showcase this slide and kind of just cut to the chase on that across the board we had a clean audit Which is what we strive for of course. There are three aspects of Financial statements that are being reviewed each year. We have our annual comprehensive financial report, which is looking at the financial operations And the financial reports across the division we also have an audit performed for each individual school's school activity

[05:16:50] funds and then we also have an independent audit for the two charter schools on their school activity funds so again across the board no material findings resulting in a clean audit and but as always there are opportunities for improvements next slide some just technical information that while the Hillsborough Charter Academy and Middleburg Community Charter School are financially independent with their own board that they are considered a component unit of LCPS and so their statements are included in our financial

[05:17:29] report in the other supplementary information section also our individual school activity funds are reported as a non-major governmental fund in our annual comprehensive financial report as well we are always happy to brag on the fact that we have a 13-year running streak of having received awards of excellence from GFOA as well as ASBO and those are two financial professional organizations. We will plan on submitting our FY22 financial report for

[05:18:04] consideration of their awards as well. In Board Docs you probably saw countless attachments there are numerous documents and to include the actual annual comprehensive financial report that report includes the financial statements the financial notes the analysis disclosures and statistical information that is what is being audited along with the operations of our our accounting area in addition to what's included in board docs are several letters and

[05:18:44] reports from our auditors. And so an example would be the governmental auditing standards report which looks at our internal controls. There's also the governance report which looks at and looks for significant or material audit findings or matters, I should say. LCPS did receive an unmodified opinion, which means that it was a clean opinion. However, they did note one significant deficiency. So the auditors did discover an invoice for construction

[05:19:19] services that was not properly accrued as a liability as of June 30, 2022. What this means is that year-end, we must align expenditures in the correct fiscal year that the activity occurred. Construction projects can be tricky because they tend to overlap fiscal years, requiring us to account for expenditures through June 30 in FY22 in expenditures that occurred after June 30th and FY23 and so this also requires a lot of coordination with Department of Support Services and the construction vendors to make sure that the vendors are billing us and you know

[05:19:54] creating a point in time for service through June 30th. As you can imagine though we receive invoices that have a date of July but the services and the detail is for activity through June 30th In this instance, accounting used the invoice date of July to record the expense in FY23 when they should have used the service date to record the expense in FY22.

[05:20:22] When this was identified by the auditors out of the sample of invoices audited, accounting immediately made the correcting entry, and we have since identified and implemented enhanced procedures to ensure that expenses are recorded in the correct fiscal year. And that includes not just also internally within accounting, but also we plan on setting up regular meetings with support services, especially around year-end, knowing that it is these construction type of invoices that can create this type of situation.

[05:20:58] Next slide, please. Our general fund balance, also more commonly referenced as our school operating fund. This year the ending fund balance was $48.6 million, and so what this slide does is just break out with this pie chart how that $48.6 million is apportioned.

[05:21:20] So we have $930,000 that was related to inventory, so as part of our reserve or signed fund balance, we have just under a million related to inventories, and those are assets owned by LCPS. We have a small amount of about $121,000 related to prepaid expenses.

[05:21:40] These are going to be items that we pay for before July 1 for an activity that would take place after July 1. And the most common example I like to provide would be there could be a training or conference that would occur in July, but to register or sign up for that conference, you may need to sign up and pay for that in June.

[05:21:59] So it gets recorded as a prepaid because, again, as I mentioned earlier, we need to make sure that we align the recording of our expenses in the year that the activity occurs then we have just kind of working counterclockwise around that pie twelve million dollars related to the subsequent year appropriation and what that is is that during the FY 23 budget process we identified that there would be twelve million dollars available at the area and to support the FY 23 budget this represented less than 1% of the budget and 12 million is

[05:22:35] also what we have recommended for the FY24 budget and it's the amount that we've had consistent for the last several years the next large chunk of the pie is thirty four point eight million dollars and this is for encumbrances and encumbrances are reserves on the fund balance for contractual services because projects tend to also span multiple years we may engage the commitment for a a project and we roll the budget over from one year to the next so 34.8 million is related to

[05:23:14] encumbrance and then that leaves the last pie slice which is actually seven hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars and this is the amount that will be returned to the county so of the appropriated unspent balance the seven hundred sixty seven thousand is what will return to the county and that represents 0.05 or five five one hundredths of one percent of our entire budget

[05:23:46] next slide moving on to our individual school activity funds financial reports again in board docs there's a section of reports for them they've got the actual individual reports along with all the auditors letters memo procedures and their documentation next slide the good news here is that the auditors did not identify any significant audit matters it was a clean audit as I mentioned earlier on what we are especially excited about is if you look at the line chart that's on this slide this is showing the percentage of

[05:24:26] schools that had zero findings that the auditor had nothing to report they had nothing identified and so we're real real pleased to see that we continue to make improvements and that we had 77 percent of our schools with zero findings we attribute that to a lot of training we work very closely with the school financial technicians we have regular forums monthly meetings we work very hard to try to support them and so that we can ultimately

[05:24:57] strive one day to hopefully hit 100 percent next slide for the hillsborough charter academy their financial report and audit letters are also included in board docs they did have daughter did identify one material misstatement record related to the recording of an expenditure which they corrected during the audit and then they also had some recommendations to strengthen their internal controls and how they post their expenditures and so last year BFS or the business and

[05:25:34] financial services department began meeting regularly with Hillsborough we will continue to do that to provide assistance and support so that they can continue to have a stronger audit finding or a cleaner audit next year. Next slide. Middleburg Community Charter School their report and audit letters are found in board docs as well. Unfortunately for them that we did have several notations from the auditor and so there was the material misstatements

[05:26:09] As noted on this slide, there was also internal controls and other items that are listed on this slide, on the bottom of the slide. Recommendations for improvement regarding documentation of cash receipts, approval of bank reconciliations, and so forth.

[05:26:29] Because of the concern that several of these items were repeat items from the last several years, along with the fact that there were also additional findings there was discussion at the SPC committee regarding how to proceed with Middleburg Community Charter School and so the charter school agreed to a corrective action plan that we had drafted and that was actually on consent for this evening that the school board approved so I'll just highlight that as part of that corrective action plan LCPS will conduct two unannounced on-site

[05:27:05] financial audits before June 30th and that Middleburg will cover the cost of these of those two financial audited audits once each audit is conducted we will immediately bring a report to the SPC committee because we want to see progress as it occurs and not wait until June 30th further remediation includes additional training meetings specific financial management improvements and I do believe that they will make a concerted effort I've already had and And had a meeting and seen some of the improvements that the principal has made at Middleburg.

[05:27:44] And so I'm optimistic that we'll have a better audit finding for FY23. And that concludes my fiscal year update, and I'm available for any questions. Board members, any questions for Ms. Willoughby regarding the financial reports?

[05:28:05] Mr. Beatty. Could you remind me what the severity of the finding is? Really, they're just pointing something out. So there's levels, and I try to catch myself, too, because technically a finding, we generically kind of toss the word finding out, but a finding would actually result in not having a clean audit.

[05:28:30] And so, and then from there, there's severity of deficiencies. That's probably what I need to incorporate more in my language. So there could be a material deficiency, a significant deficiency. they have levels of what they identify and then they're also looking at a variety of things they're looking at internal controls as I mentioned all in the hopes of providing the public trust that we run a sound financial operation and that the information we publish in our financial reports can be trusted so hopefully that answered your question further questions?

[05:29:12] thank you very much for the update we will now move on to item 13.02 requested by Ms. Polifco to discuss policy 5045 selection review and challenge of instructional resources. Ms. Polifco. Thank you Mr. Chair. I will make this as brief as possible because I know we have a lot of stuff on the agenda this evening but I'm bringing this up because when we passed policy 5055 in recent weeks we passed this policy but unfortunately it is in direct conflict with policy 5045 which states that library materials are only considered instructional I'm sorry

[05:29:49] policy 5055 states that library materials are only considered instructional materials when assigned by teachers whereas policy 5045 states that library materials are considered instructional materials and as I recall the last time we met and discussed policy 5055 there were several members of the board that also expressed the similar concerns that I have which is how did those books get into our schools to begin with the books that are in our libraries books that include information about prostitution the book seeing gender actually which was first found i

[05:30:24] believe that at a middle school here in loudon county stated that prostitution or sex work is not bad work and so i think we could probably i will speak for myself but i would hope that as adults entrusted in the care of students and children in the school system we could all agree that it's not compassionate to put that type of material on our shelves and our libraries and and furthermore my concern here does not have anything to do with specific groups of individuals my concern is decency and providing materials that are appropriate for our children

[05:30:57] now we can sit here and talk about how appropriate is a subjective word and what I'm seeking to do in this instance is to operationally define the terms that have allowed those books to come into our schools to begin with number one diverse and number two culturally responsive so I think we should all strive and we should all want those terms to be operationally defined because it will help guide our practices as to what we bring into our what types of materials we're bringing into our libraries what we are going to consider appropriate and inappropriate and if we do not operationally define my concern is that we'll continue to go down this road where we have

[05:31:33] materials coming into our schools that are controversial and we're not operating in a proactive manner rather we're putting ourselves in a position where we're going to continue to have to be reactive so I'm entertaining this discussion with the board and I'm grateful that we're able to to sit together and talk about this as a group because I think it is long overdue and the reason that I am seeking to immediately move this policy back to the curriculum instruction committee is because I think it's a fairly easy thing for us to fix to remedy and I think it could also help foster and support transparency and some level of trust within our community moving forward

[05:32:08] if we can successfully operationally define those terms rather than continue to allow these types of materials to come into our schools so i i would hope that we can have a further discussion about that right now thank you thank you miss polifco and we the curriculum and instruction committee during the fall when we were reviewing policy 5055 recognized that we would have to go and start a review process for policy 5045 so that it we've discussed that throughout the fall that's it's already scheduled dr. Ellis can you briefly discuss what staff staffs actions have been regarding 5045

[05:32:48] and the the schedule and path forward sure thank you as mr. Sorotkin mentioned the CNI committee has discussed policy 5045 as a part of the drafting of policy 55 5055 and the committee requested that staff bring a draft revision at their first meeting in the in the calendar year so we are preparing a draft including revisions to policy 5045 again recognizing that there is some contradictory language so trying to clear that up so we staff is planning to

[05:33:26] bring back a draft for the c and i committee to review at its first regularly scheduled meeting of the calendar year further discussion seeing none that will conclude this information item we'll move to 13.03 from the department of support services school board meeting calendar for an

[05:33:53] abbreviated elementary school attendance zone change process mr lewis thank you mr sprocket members of the board so tonight we are bringing to you an item that's really a follow-up from our efforts this fall to do secondary attendance zone changes in the county in June of 28 you adopted a fall calendar that included dates in January and February to address some of the issues that we are aware of for elementary

[05:34:30] schools and try to make some revisions to those policies or to those attendance zones under the abbreviated process for attendance of change so what we're bringing to you tonight is the process that will take place over the next several weeks we're talking about the intent to change some of these based on cluster alignment the abbreviated process has four different criteria these the ones we're bringing for you tonight include two of them one for cluster alignment one for a new residential development specifically you'll see in in board doctor is there are three separate maps that we provided that

[05:35:08] we'll go over in more detail on January 24th but essentially the first one is in cancora area and this is one we talked about during the fall process and affects planning zones el 36.1 and el 36.2 the el 36.1 has no students in it at all el 36.2 has 40 students which equates to 9% of their home school and if you recall that the abbreviated process disallows anything over 10% so it falls within that criteria that area is bounded by russell branch parkway and gloucester parkway as well

[05:35:46] so those in that area the other the next map is labeled in your in board docs as cl24 it's actually students that are currently attending catoctin elementary school and they would be proposed to move to francis hazel reed and i just realized i forgot to say on on the concora area we're talking about students that are in sterling that we're talking about moving to stuart weller and that creates a a pure feed to belmont station or belmont ridge middle school and riverside high school the same would be true of catoctin back to that one where they are in catoctin were proposed to move them to francis hazel reed which would also create a pure feed to smarts mill in tuscawarra

[05:36:26] that area is has 47 students in it and equates to 7.9 percent the last map you'll see in there is is for cocktail cattail run and that's proposed new community so there's no houses there yet so there's zero students and we're proposing to move that um into the from tolbert harper park and heritage to balls bluff smarts mill and tuscarora high school and so those are the ones that we are proposing in this item and i will say we did look at a couple of other areas that we had talked about

[05:36:59] some some publicly some with privately with board members and those were in the lansdowne planning area and uh goose creek preserve we talked about possibly moving some of those as well as cl05 and cl06 which you had a couple speakers talk about tonight in each of those cases the number of students in those areas exceeded the 10 so we're not allowed to do that by policy but we did want the board to know that we looked at those areas in consideration of doing that moving forward these we're proposing that these changes would take place in the fall of 2023 and then as i mentioned

[05:37:35] a minute ago we'll come back with an overview and more detail of all the specifics in the january 24th meeting on february 14th we're scheduled to have a public hearing and for the board to take action in the meantime staff will run public notices in the papers and other places to allow the folks to know that live in these areas to give them notice so that's a quick overview that was our idea tonight was to bring you information on the process and just let you know what we're we're doing and we're happy to take any questions and as I noted we'll be back more detail on the 24th board members any questions miss Okadugbe I just I

[05:38:15] wanted to note the appreciation for looking at new development where there are zero students and as I drive through Leesburg and went by cattail run and I looked at the map previously and I thought oh that's weird we're going into you know eventually the high school that we know will be over capacity at some point so I think it that makes sense to me so I look forward to further updates and will certainly help to publish information about this information so families are aware as well thank you mr. baby thank you chair mr. Lewis would would this be the opportunity to discuss the grandfathering

[05:38:53] as we go through this of the CL 06 students if that was the board's will would this be appropriate to bring that discussion up throughout this its abbreviated attendance zone process so that the grandfathering will will take place for the attendance zones that were just taking place this in December that grandfathering process will start where we'll put notices out as you the policy 8160 addresses that specifically and so any rising fifth graders or ninth graders or eighth graders sorry are allowed to do that and choose that the policy does not allow for all students to be grandfathered but it does allow

[05:39:33] for those folks that are in the higher grades in each of those categories to do that so planning will send out those notices next month and we'll be bringing that item to you at the end of this month we'll bring that I am to you on February 14th for your consideration of allowing those students that choose to or requested to to stay in their homeschool to do that we'll provide you with all the detail on what the enrollment is and whether or not the school has the capacity to do that for the board's decision so I guess specifically on February 14th what can we expect from staff again so the total

[05:40:06] number of students in eighth grade uh in high school and then would you be willing to provide numbers for the other grades just for the public's awareness as we come across and the board's awareness we can provide you the numbers of of all the students yes sir um and but generally speaking what we're we'll be addressing to the parents is those that are eligible to be grandfather by policy we'll we'll bring those numbers to you of how many folks were surveyed and how many students or how many families requested to stay at their home school okay and then the second thing that you mentioned was um i think i missed it as you were going through but cl06 you said

[05:40:45] you looked at uh moving some of the elementary and i think there was other zones too and you said that's over 10 could you provide those numbers when this comes up in terms of what the the movements of elementary students that we're aware of that as public's aware of it as sure go forward thank you and just to follow on to mr beady's question the the neighborhoods that were above the 10% and are thus not eligible for the abbreviated process does that mean that it's we have a cluster alignment issue with those because we can't fix it

[05:41:15] through this process mr. Sorokin we intentionally looked at communities that had been mentioned in conversation with individual board members as to potential candidates for an abbreviated process so Goose Creek Preserve had been brought Mr. Mahedvi we had talked with him about that we knew that Mr. Beatty had been approached by the CL 06 and potentially CL 05 residents to move back to a central so we had intentionally looked at those we did not look countywide to

[05:41:53] make pure feeds from elementary to middle across the county with this process because of its limitations with the 10% category but we are open to looking at any that board members may have to see if they do qualify if that is of interest okay thank you mr. Mahedby sure thank you chair so thank you again miss Tate and mr. Lewis for meeting with me and I guess I just wanted to summarize I think one of the for the last two or

[05:42:29] three years I've been on mr. Lewis to look into Sanders corner and the boundaries you sort of boundary rezoning perhaps because Sanders corner I think was one of the schools that was losing a number of kids and then thereby losing a lot of staff too but as we looked into goose creek preserves that's currently in Sanders corner sorry it's in Cedar Lane today and then perhaps rezoning in for Sanders corner but looking at the numbers it looked like we'll be robbing Paul to pay Peter because the numbers in the Cedar Lane would be deprived of students and so right now

[05:43:09] we do have a challenge until that I'm forgetting that the planning zone which is going to be coming up right around this area when that comes up I think we can come back and further look at how we can perhaps rezone this this particular planning zone between Cedar Lane and and Goose Creek the other thing that we also talked about was between Selden's Landing and steward weller so I think that's still an open item but it sort of exceeds more than 10% for this this this item so I do have some discussion to be had with

[05:43:48] those principles and see what opportunities is but I do plan to bring some things back for the board if that's something we need to consider in this particular cycle so thank you miss okay just a question looking at I know the attachments are within board docs but looking at the attendance zone website i don't see a note about the abbreviated elementary school process so i wanted to know if that main page would be updated with the proposed maps yes ma'am we'll do that tomorrow after tonight's meeting that's a

[05:44:24] general process so we'll have that uploaded then further discussion mr batty um just another follow-up around cl06 was the idea of of reformatting if you will and splitting it because there's um just around dry mill road not that he's saying have to do that but when does that review process happen and how can people help uh make suggestions or add guidance to that so i'll ask mr tate to correct me if i get this incorrect but uh that generally that's something we do we look at those

[05:45:00] planning zones and anytime you want to uh approach a split of a zone we'll do that during the summer so it's not done in the middle of that process we'll look at that so if you want to send us any information you have then that would be appreciated so we know where you're headed thank you i remember you had talked about it before in summer is now so thank you very much and mr chrockman if i may i did fail to mention that um these areas are not subject to the ones we've been talking about that didn't apply for the abbreviated policy area it doesn't preclude the board for suggesting a full-blown process we could do that at some point in time in the future

[05:45:35] sounds like fun thank you sure does any further discussion all right seeing none thank you very much. We'll now move to item 1304 from the Curriculum and Instruction Committee, Policy 5015, Daily Pledge of Allegiance. Well, it's not even a substantive change, but the only change to this policy is changing shall to may on line 14, which sounds like a change in practice, but is not.

[05:46:11] It is really correcting a discrepancy between the first paragraph, which said students shall stand and recite the pledge, with the second paragraph, which states students not wishing to participate in the pledge may remain quietly seated.

[05:46:27] So it is correcting that discrepancy, but in discussions with staff and committee, this is not any sort of change in practice to the way that what we're compelling or not compelling students to do during the Pledge of Allegiance. And that other than that, it's changing his or her to there on line 17 is the only other change.

[05:46:50] Board members, any discussion or questions? Seeing none, board members, can I get thumbs for placing this on consent for the next board meeting? Okay, so we'll place that on consent. The next item is item 1305 from the Department of Instruction, Title I, Part A, overview.

[05:47:15] Dr. Ellis. Thank you, Mr. Chair. so this evening I have with me Scott Misen saw our supervisor of school improvement and he gave a presentation to the special programs and centers committee in December regarding title one and new ways that title one schools are calculated and the special programs committee requested that we bring this information to the full board for your information as we prepare for the consolidated grant application that you'll see later this spring so with

[05:47:51] that I will turn it over to Mr. Meisensal for an overview and then we're happy to address any questions. Good evening Chair Sorotkin, Vice Chair Meheve, Dr. Smith and all school board members. I'm Scott Meisensal, School Improvement Supervisor and I thank you for the opportunity to share an update on our Title I program. Title I Part A is a federal law and a funding source intended to improve basic programs in low-income schools. It is part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, also known as ESSA.

[05:48:28] The purpose of Title I is to provide all children significant opportunity to receive a fair, equitable, and high-quality education and to close educational achievement gaps. Title I funds are to be used to directly impact student achievement by providing additional services that increase the amount and quality of instructional time, providing students with an enriched and accelerated academic program, significantly elevating the quality of instruction and affording parents substantial and meaningful opportunities to participate in the education of

[05:49:07] their children. One of the main uses of Title I funds in Loudoun County Public Schools is to support staffing based on identified needs from schools comprehensive needs assessments. We have nine and a half school-based FTEs that are funded through Title I. These positions include reading specialists, instructional facilitators, EL teachers, math coaches, and STEM teachers.

[05:49:33] Funds are also used to support part-time supplemental pay for before and after-school activities of teachers at Title I schools. These activities include additional instructional time for students, professional learning for staff, and curriculum development. Loudoun County Public School's McKinney-Vento specialist is also fully funded through Title I. Title I funds are also used for supplemental instructional supports to include subscriptions to digital content, books for classroom libraries, author visits, materials to support STEM activities, as well

[05:50:06] as other instructional supplies. Based on the school's needs assessment, Title I funds are used to support professional development through attendance at conferences, workshops, and staff book studies. Loudoun County's Title I schools significantly exceed the required 1% use of Title I funds to address family engagement.

[05:50:30] In addition to family nights to support math, reading, and science, schools host family engagement activities to address ongoing needs of students throughout the school year. Title I also funds non-school-based set-asides to include transportation for homeless and foster students, supplemental funds to support instruction for students at North Spring Behavioral Center, and private schools set-aside for participating at non-profit private schools.

[05:51:01] Each spring, non-profit private schools are invited to participate in Title I programs as required by federal programs equitable services. For this current school year, we actually do not have any private schools participating in Title I.

[05:51:18] So every year, the federal allocation is made by, is made to the Virginia Department of Education based on poverty level from census data estimates. The census data estimates are based on a statistical model that incorporates information from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey,

[05:51:35] Administrative records taken from federal income tax returns and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the most recent decennial census, updates to population estimates that the Census Bureau may have completed since the last decennial census, data on supplemental security income recipients, and economic data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

[05:52:01] If you go back to that last slide, please, I'm sorry. The Virginia Department of Education awards subgrants to divisions based on federal allocation and other adjustments. So while the division's free and reduced lunch percentage, which is shown in the blue line in the graph, has consistently been increasing, the census data estimates for Loudoun County, the red line in the graph, has remained relatively unchanged.

[05:52:28] Next slide. The chart on slide 11 shows the Title I allocations for Loudoun County Public Schools since 2016. In alignment with Loudoun County's census estimates, the allocations also have been relatively unchanged since 2020.

[05:52:45] Again, Title I allocations to a division are based on census estimates regardless of the number of schools that are served by Title I. How do we identify poverty levels at schools? So prior to 2021, free and reduced lunch data has been the data point used to identify school poverty levels and the identification of Title I served schools.

[05:53:09] Beginning in 2021, if schools are identified as Community Eligibility Provision Schools, CEP schools, this data must be included in the Title I application. Community Eligibility Schools data are overseen by the LCPS School Nutrition Office.

[05:53:28] It's an option created by the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 that allows high-poverty schools to offer breakfast and lunch to all students at no charge without collecting school meal applications. It uses directly certified data to identify poverty of students.

[05:53:45] It is also used in the calculation for the LCPS differentiated staffing standard. We currently have nine schools identified as CEP and one CEP program listed on this slide to the right. Community eligibility provision data is not directly connected with Title I.

[05:54:02] However, it is used as a data point for identifying poverty levels. Next slide. So what options are available to identify poverty level at schools? The Virginia Department of Education provides multiple options for identifying schools to be served as Title I.

[05:54:20] Since Loudoun County Public Schools has both CEP and non-CEP schools, we must choose from the options highlighted in yellow. Option 1, we can use CEP data for CEP schools and apply a multiplier of 1.6, and then free and reduced lunch data for our non-CEP schools.

[05:54:39] Option two is to use CEP data for all of our schools, regardless of their CEP status. Next slide. Recently, LCPS has used the threshold of 50% poverty to serve schools as Title I served, although any school, 40% or higher, is considered eligible for school-wide Title I under the parameters of the grant application.

[05:55:07] The threshold of 50% has been used to maintain consistent support to the schools with the greatest needs. Average daily membership of free and reduced lunch status has been used to determine poverty level for all schools until 2021, again when schools were identified as CEP, and that was a requirement.

[05:55:26] Beginning in the 2021 application, a combination of CEP and free and reduced lunch data was used to identify Title I eligibility. That refers to that option one from the previous slide. In order to have a consistent data source for all of our schools, Loudoun County Public Schools is planning to use only CEP data to identify Title I eligible schools for the upcoming 2023 grant application, which is referring to option two from the previous slide.

[05:55:56] Again, the purpose of that is to have that consistent data source instead of merging two different data sources to identify poverty. The chart on the right shows the data used in the 2022 identification of schools, which was a combination of CEP and free and reduced lunch, compared to the option to just use CEP data with a multiplier.

[05:56:18] So based on last year's data, if we would have used option two, which is just the CEP data, we would have added Frederick Douglass Elementary and Leesburg in addition to adding the addition of Meadowlands, Tomek, and Robey for this current school year.

[05:56:33] so the schools highlighted in blue are the ones that we did identify if we would have used what we're planning to use for this upcoming year we would have added two additional schools as well next slide the amount allocated to individual schools is based on a per pupil expenditure determined by the number of low-income students at a school to determine the school allocation schools are sorted by highest poverty percentage within a grade span of k through five six through eight and nine through 12, and the PPE is multiplied by the number of low-income students

[05:57:13] at the school, which determines the school's allocations. Based on last year's poverty data and allocations, this chart shows possible allocations to schools if we would have added Frederick Douglass and Leesburg by using the CEP-only data for poverty identification.

[05:57:36] To put this into context, in last year's application, Guilford Elementary, which is listed as the top school their allocations were $235,166.77 a difference of just over $37,000. All other schools would have received reduced allocations proportionate to their poverty level by identifying those two additional schools. Just a note the total allocations that are shown on the slide they include a transferability from Title II and Title IV that we participate in.

[05:58:09] so what are our next steps in April the Virginia Department of Education will release the CEP data for the current year which will be used to identify title one serve schools for the upcoming school year we must report changes to title one status to the Virginia Department of Education in May prior to notifying notifying video VDOE of potential changes we will provide the data and list of schools to the board for your awareness the consolidated application will be completed and submitted to the school board as an information item in May

[05:58:45] and as an action item in June. The deadline to submit the application to the Virginia Department of Education is July 1st. So this concludes the Title I update, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. I do want to note too, also in BoardDocs, we provided a list of the identified schools from the last, I believe it is 10 years. So you can look back and see what our Cuts are cut bench benchmark was for identifying schools and which schools have been identified in in ten years

[05:59:21] Thank you for the update board members questions on the presentation miss Ogedegbe. I just wanted to express appreciation For the historical data. So I actually took a look at that Reformatted into a chart. I'll send to you. I meant to send it before today, but didn't get to it But it was helpful and instructive to take a look at specifically how populations have changed kind of across all of the schools and also in comparison looking at them

[05:59:56] next to each other so thank you for gathering that information and sharing it with us mr. baby thank you chair um one question i guess a couple questions um could you explain the discrepancy between the sort of the census data that hasn't doesn't seem to have changed and then our own data that's going into that shows that there's a greater need for these services yeah so that's - This is where, let me go back to my notes, where we look at the census data,

[06:00:32] it's the census estimate where they use multiple data points to determine what the estimated census data is for the county, and that's what's used to determine the allocations for the county. So when we look at that chart on slide 10, I believe, we can see that discrepancy between the estimates for a census versus what our free and reduced lunch percentages are as a division.

[06:00:58] Possible reasons for differences in data. There are different thresholds that determine poverty with use of the census data versus free and reduced lunch. There's a different threshold to identify poverty. Under-reporting of children is also a possibility in the census data that we don't, our census data doesn't accurately represent all of our families and students in our county.

[06:01:26] Just as of notes to that slide, as of December 8th of 2022, Our division's economically disadvantaged level is at 23.9% now. Okay, and based on what you just said, I would assume that our census data number is not going to change based on the most recent census, none at all?

[06:01:48] Based on the recent trends, it doesn't look like it's going to be changing. Interesting. Thank you. Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you for the report and the update.

[06:02:07] That will move us to 1306 from the Department of Instruction, Career, and Technical Education Month proclamation. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So very briefly, February is annually recognized as Career and Technical Education Month to recognize the achievements and accomplishments in Career and Technical Education, or CTE.

[06:02:33] We are very proud of our CTE teachers, central office staff, and of course our CTE students who participate in these programs lcps cte courses are offered at all middle schools high schools academies of loudon the north star school and roby and we have over approximately 30 30 000 students in grades 6 through 12 enrolled in cte courses i will not read the proclamation for you but the red line and clean copy are in board docs board members any questions regarding the proclamation i've seen it is there interest in placing this proclamation on consent during the

[06:03:13] the next meeting there is not consent so we will place it on action move to 1307 from the department of student services national school counseling week and proclamation february 6 through 10 2023 dr jones thank you mr sorokan this is an information item of an annual proclamation where we recognize our school counselors during the first week in february for national school counseling week this proclamation and information item highlights the unique

[06:03:51] contributions that our many school counselors provide and how impactful they are in our comprehensive programming throughout our schools and also in the information item we denote that 11 of our schools have been nationally recognized as the Association for School Counseling's model program which is RAMP a specialized designation that not all schools can achieve so this information is for for you for your consideration and it will return to the board as an information item in our next meeting thank you board members any

[06:04:28] questions regarding the proclamation is there consensus to place this on there is not we will place this on action during for our next board meeting that concludes our information items for today and brings us to our closed session is there a motion mr. Mahedvi thank you chair I moved the allowing County School Board resets the public meeting and enter into a closed meeting pursuant to 2.2 sections 2.2-3712 of Cota Virginia for the following. Discussion of the performance of

[06:05:01] specific public employees as authorized by 2.2-3711 section A1 of Cota Virginia. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Mr. Beatty. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion to enter closed session, please raise your say aye aye that motion will pass unanimously of board members present with Miss Corbeau absent for the vote we'll now go into closed session and I do not

[06:05:29] anticipate any motions coming out of closed session tonight board members we

[07:10:12] are coming out of closed session is there a motion mr. Mahedby yes chair I move that the closed meeting be adjourned that the Loudoun County School Board reconvenience public meeting and the minutes of the public meeting reflect that no formal action was taken in the closed meeting I move that the following resolution certifying the closed meeting be adopted and reflected in the minutes of this public meeting resolution 19-22 slash 23 whereas london county school board has convened a closed meeting on this date pursuant to an affirmative recorded board in accordance with the provisions of the virginia freedom of information act and whereas section 2.2-3712

[07:10:50] section d of court of virginia requires a certification by the school board that such closed meeting was conducted in conformity with virginia law now therefore be it resolved that that the Loudoun County School Board hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge, one, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the closed meeting to which the certification applies, and two, only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the Loudoun County School Board.

[07:11:25] - Yes, sir, a second. - Motion made by Mr. Mahedovey, seconded by Ms. Ogedekbe. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye, that will pass unanimously if board members present with Ms. Corbo absent for the vote.

[07:11:42] Given the hour without objection, I'm gonna skip item 15, board member comments. That'll bring us to item 16, new business. Is there any new business? Seeing none, we are adjourned. Thank you.

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