Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Student Services Committee Meeting, Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Date: Wednesday, January 25, 2023
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 56m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/793070568?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 2026-10-22. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:07] - Good evening and welcome to the Student Services Committee. I'm Harris Medvey. I'll be chair of this committee for 2023 and I'm joined by Ms. Sheridan and I guess Ms. Ogdebay is absent tonight. The first item on our agenda is public comments.

[00:00:22] I guess we don't have any public comments tonight. Approval of December 15th, 2020 minutes. Do we have a motion Ms. Sheridan? I know we both are not there, so yeah. - I move to approve the December 15th, 2022 minutes.

[00:00:40] - I'll second that. - Any questions on the meeting minutes? Okay, all those in favor, say yes, okay. So the motion passes with Ms. Sheridan and Mr. Mahedvi voting yes and Ms. Ogdebay absent.

[00:00:55] And we'll go to the next, we have the next item on agenda is policy 8155. This is an action item that's brought back to this committee again. So let's go through the action item and then we can jump on to the information item after that. So Dr. Bowers, I'll pass it on to you for that.

[00:01:13] Okay, thank you, Mr. Mejedevi. So I'm just going to do a brief overview of this. As you can see from the front page, this committee has bounced back and forth several times over the last few months. Originally, we brought this committee back. Mr. Hoyler had a few recommendations that he wanted to bring to the committee for this policy, and then staff wanted to add a few recommendations as well.

[00:01:35] So I'll just highlight those as we go through. There is one thing that I want to change on the first page here, which is line 65, I'm sorry, it's not 65, but I'll walk through and just explain when I get there. So 65 was simply, we moved the text from lines 185 to 186.

[00:01:52] It's still in there. We just moved it. Actually, Mr. Mahedvi, that was at your recommendation almost six months ago. And then on lines. Dr. Bowers? Yes. Are you looking at the red line copy? Just follow the line or the clean copy. I'm looking at the red line copy.

[00:02:09] Thank you. Yes. And so you have red lines 105, 106, 107, correct? Okay, so 105, 106, 107, and the lines that follow were Mr. Hoyler's recommendations as well, that if you're a fifth grade student who had been previously permitted special permission at the elementary school, that you would then be grandfathered in to stay at the elementary school for your final year in elementary school.

[00:02:44] We're very similar in high school and middle school. We allow the students to finish through the highest grade. So that was an addition that we placed into this revision of the amendment, okay? If you turn to the next page, it's lines 149 through 152.

[00:03:02] This was a recommendation again from Mr. Hoyler that we allow siblings of students who, we allow students whose siblings were placed in a special education program by the district, we would allow those siblings to also attend the school if they met the criteria that we have in the special permission policy so siblings may be allowed to attend the school that their sibling attends a special program uh transportation would

[00:03:35] not be provided and uh there was some back and forth between shall and may um because mr horley wanted shall because he wanted the students to automatically be guaranteed we discussed may as an option because sometimes there's just not space at the grade level and there's like at Havada there is no kindergarten and if you put shall there'd be there could be a kindergarten student that would have to go into kindergarten and there was no kindergarten at Havada it's at Pinebrook so we always try to accommodate our siblings if the parent requests that they attend special

[00:04:12] permission where that they have another child in a special program we always try to accommodate that i shared with the committee previously we actually had two students that we were unable to um to permit so ms sheridan i see you have a question yes i just want to make sure i'm in the right place i'm on your online 150 where staff is recommending may which we have this discussion on the dais if my memory is serving me correctly correct about the shall may and so i'll just state for the record i still continue to be in support of may because of all all those things you just, we'll have a staffing issue, we'll have perhaps a classroom issue if we use shall, if there's not room.

[00:04:52] So I just want to be clear that I remain in support of May. Okay, thank you. Now, SEAC did make a recommendation that didn't make it into this version, and I just want to share that with you. So their recommendation was this, where it says on line 150, permission may be approved for a student, so take out the S-1 students, whose sibling is placed at another school so they we have it as plural they said make it singular and so we would be acceptable for that uh recommendation to change the terminology to say

[00:05:28] special permission may be approved for a student whose sibling is placed yes difference in the interpretation of that it was for them and so we're just in agreement that it It could be either way.

[00:05:47] So are we only saying that only one sibling can come? What if a student has multiple siblings? Should it be with the S in parentheses to designate that it's? We could have students whose sibling, or we could have students whose siblings. Because there could be two siblings at the school as well, at a special program.

[00:06:05] I'm just asking what the difference was, and what was the rationale from SEAC to put that in there? It was just an editing of the text. And if it stays as it is, every situation will be looked at, whether there's one sibling, two siblings, three siblings, one or two students in specialized programs.

[00:06:26] I have some thoughts, Ms. Sheridan. Once we sort of approve this to push it up, I have some motions to make, so maybe we can present some ideas on that. On this particular paragraph? This paragraph as well. Do you want to, you're the chair, but do you want to talk about it while we're on that paragraph?

[00:06:43] I believe that this is not needed at all, because based on, again, this is my understanding the staff already does this and putting may here it almost essentially that the staff i mean can do it already so it doesn't really need to have a paragraph to say that it may so i i'm in the i'm in the with the mind that we should just cross off this entire paragraph because it's really not needed and again i'd like to get staff's thoughts on that because if it's may the staff is already doing it they already look at review the permissions they make sure that if there's space and as you and I have been on so many of this so many of these appeals we make the

[00:07:22] decision staff makes a decision and the board makes so I think this this entire paragraph is especially with the language of May is completely unwarranted here or unneeded here of staff has any thoughts about that I concur you don't think the entire E is even necessary because you're it's already in place it's not because May does the same thing that we currently do in practice which is we look at each individual situation and if there's capacity we place a student there so just from a different perspective from the parents perspective does it give benefit to the parent to know that that is something that they

[00:07:59] can request that is something for their consideration as well is it knowledge for the parent to have it in policy not just your practice it's a great it's a great point I can't speak from the parent standpoint but it is a it is a relative point it doesn't harm anything by being in there it just codifies what you're already doing. As long as May is there instead of shall, it doesn't harm anything. I'm all on board with the May and I understand all the repercussions of that. I think if this is something that gives parents knowledge of the process and enables them to ask for something, it also codifies what you're already doing. Very often we add things to policy just to codify staff practice

[00:08:38] that, you know, when you're lucky enough to retire and you're not the one doing this, that the next, you know, whoever is looking at this next knows what the the the process has been codified so if there's benefit to that then I there's no harm to it being there either if I'm not misunderstanding any staff any thoughts on that I mean no I agree I agree we it's already our practice and this aligns with our practice so I guess I'll speak to this just philosophically I mean I think there's so many items that staff does above and beyond in this thing so again I'm just speaking from

[00:09:16] where I support you know the staff wants to keep it and Mr. Sheridan you know this is it's a good perspective to have it codified but I think we could go through making it a manual if you want to codify everything the staff does into the policy in a general statement so so my intention was if the staff is already doing like even the line number 105 to the section that's added there we've we already do that practice as Dr. Bowers you explained to me in the past correct yeah so So these were, I mean, again, we can codify it, but again, sometimes it's just, there's more to codify in there in a general principle.

[00:09:56] So that's where I'm coming from. So anyway, can maybe finish up your whole, Dr. Bowers, your update on this policy. - So the next area that I'll highlight is on line 242. So when staff was looking at how we could make our process more efficient and also ensure that our students are placed in a timely manner and as in school before school begins, we looked at our current practice of of june 30th as a deadline and realized that we still have

[00:10:33] overflow after june 30th for one reason or the other so we would continue with june 30th as a deadline but recognizing that if parents submit an application between july 1st and july 31st that appeal would automatically be denied now mind you before june 30th and before it would it would could be approved it depending upon space but um and then after july 31st staff would not accept any additional special emergency requests um and it would not be eligible for appeal so i'll

[00:11:11] walk you through both of those we can if we receive a request between july 1st and july 31st we can make sure that we expedite those applications and have the student approved or not before the first day of school.

[00:11:32] Anything after July 31st, there's really no guarantee because school board members have to meet on appeals and so forth. Staff have to do schedules at the school. Kids are involved in sports. There's a whole lot of things that are going on in August that if they apply up to July 31st, we can make sure they get into school by the first day.

[00:11:50] Anything after that, it may be the next week. It could be the next month that they could actually go through the appeal process. Because of the timeline, we may have as many as 90 applications during July 1st to July 31st. We may have as many as 60 between July 31st or August 1st and the first day of school.

[00:12:08] So trying to figure out how we can make sure we take care of our students and also understanding the timeline of the school board and the fact that you have to have three committee members and so forth. We made this as a recommendation where we can manage it up to July 31st.

[00:12:28] It would be denied, but we would process it. They would not be eligible for an appeal, and so we brought that before the committee for review. Now, I can continue on, or I can answer questions for that one, because I know that's a biggie. No, I think I'm okay. I don't see if Ms. Sheridan has a question, but I think when we discussed about this back last year, I think we talked about also communication, that if you're going to put some hard deadlines in place, my hope is that we have a very good communication approach to this, to notifying the parents about these deadlines.

[00:13:04] The last thing we need is to push a policy, and then the parents always come back, and there are going to be occurrences where they may not be aware of the deadlines. So I think we need to also have a clear communication plan about every year about these deadlines, what the dates are, and so on and so forth.

[00:13:20] And I request that, I don't know if it needs to be in policy, but I think that would have been my hope that somewhere we add the, codify in the policy that we are, that we'll communicate, you know, by email, letters, whatever it might be, to parents notification of this deadline.

[00:13:36] Otherwise, you know, it's not going to be fair to put a hard deadline without the proper communication. So I don't know if you have any questions. So this is a huge change to not allow any appeals after July 1.

[00:13:53] July 31st. July 31st. sorry thank you um so you're saying for the entirety of the school year after july 31st there will be no more special appeal there'll be how does that affect the right to appeal in a different in the other policy maybe that's a question for mr falcone like certain things are appealable can we put that you can't appeal something in policy how does that affect the other policy uh thank you ms sheridan no i i i think the administrative appeal policy would would trump

[00:14:30] It ultimately would be a decision of the board, and so to the extent they conflict, we can certainly clarify that, though. I think we need to clarify that in policy, but if it was something where it was appealed to the board, the board decision would be the decision. So just because I'm not sure I followed what you said, so does that make this line okay or not okay?

[00:14:52] After July 31st, special permission request will not be accepted and will not be eligible for appeal. Well, yeah, I suppose, I guess, I guess we would want to clarify, will not be eligible for appeal to the, maybe appeal per policy. Yeah. So that would, so policy 2350 says, I'm sorry, I have to correct myself. So policy 2350 says that, you know, you can appeal decisions of the superintendent to the board unless there's otherwise stated.

[00:15:22] And so because this says it would not be eligible for appeal, so that would be – those special permission requests would not be eligible for appeal. So it's not in conflict because that policy says unless otherwise stated. Right. Okay. I don't know.

[00:15:38] I've got a hard time with this one. Yeah. No, I agree with you. I mean, that's why communication needs to be done appropriately. But at the same time, I think if we open up back, like, you know, again, going back to the comment Mr. Falcon was making, Well, if they can appeal back to the board, then we're back in the same situation where we started with.

[00:16:02] So I think it's a good, I mean, we need to set some time. I think, you know, it's a good timetable for the staff and for the division and everybody to plan accordingly. I know currently our special permission process is completely out of hand.

[00:16:17] And I think I'm not shy enough to always say that Prince William, sorry, Loudoun County is the only county among the top in the Northern Virginia has a much more lax uh special permission policy and i think that's i mean it's fine for what it is right now but at the same time i think we we do need to make sure that there's a good timetable there's a way to plan for our our administrative staff and the school staff you know well well ahead of advance versus trying to do august and september and moving kids around so i have a little bit different perspective and anybody who's been around the board and the division for the last

[00:16:54] however many years knows that i was not a proponent of this policy when we first brought it when it was first brought to the board um that being said i have served on many of these committees i didn't count them so i don't know how many um and sometimes students and their families come to us and they really they will give up playing sports they will um make sure that they're driving their kids back and forth to school and they will do everything they can to get their child Sometimes it's to get out of one school or it's to be able to attend a different school for whatever the reasons are

[00:17:30] So not being able to appeal and cutting that right off on the 31st Isn't sitting well with me because there are circumstances where students really do need to make that change and I get this Yeah, mr. Lodi. Yeah, and just to be clear the line that's drawn here was partly driven by principal feedback on requests that come after july 31st after master schedules have been codified teachers have been

[00:18:04] assigned to classrooms can create havoc on their ability to provide instructional operations and and so this is just a way in which to help manage and expect that what was planned for the start of the school year can be implemented as planned so i just wanted to make sure that that voice of the principal at least was heard in the presentation of of this date and I fully understand and appreciate that but this the student need has to come before

[00:18:40] the scheduled need and so while I very much appreciate that perhaps telling making sure a student who applies for special permission where you might not get the classes you're enrolled in in your in your assigned school you may not be able to you know be in whatever because we can't we don't have room in that class and it's the same thing as giving up being able to play for a year it's all of those things that we make sure that we communicate that you may not get the classes you're currently enrolled in and and all of that and I would prefer that personally I prefer that approach to just saying we're not doing this anymore so I will go back now let me close the loop

[00:19:20] and go back to line 13 so one of the things that we continue to do is to listen to our constituents and stakeholders and students and parents when there are outlier conditions that we just can't predict and so we've added under instructional suitability or for other reasons and so we have students throughout the year who have other reasons that that are presented to our staff where the current school is probably not the best placement for them the family brings this

[00:19:57] to us and so that or for other reasons allows us the flexibility to look at those students individually and say would there be a better placement and we work with a lot of different departments when we look at that DOI we look we we certainly reach out to council we work with Doug Fulton in his office in some cases and so it allows some flexibility there exactly for what you're saying for those students who come in after that deadline so that we're not just shutting a door but that door is being looked at very carefully to make sure one it is

[00:20:32] factual that there is information that's warranted for such a move and the impact that it would have for that student so we can talk to the parents so just to kind of close the loop because there is still another avenue that they can take and I fully appreciate that when a parent because I've not done this when a parent goes in and applies for special permission for their student and it's past July 31st are they getting shut out or are they being how will how will they know that there's something without reading this seven page policy how are they going to know that that that there's something else for them so at that point our staff has an individual conversation with them

[00:21:10] and is that codified in policy anywhere that practice so that it continues the level of service you're providing is tremendous and and fantastic but are we ensuring that all families are are aware because if I read if I just skipped oh what's the deadline or I just went straight to the special permission portal and I got denied because it's after July 31st um you're saying your staff is going to reach out to me regardless so to answer your question specifically we're in the process of developing standard operating procedures um across the board and so it would

[00:21:49] be codified within the standing standard operating procedure it's not there yet but it's it's on the docket to complete so yes it will be part of that procedure I just don't have the completed document yet any question I guess I'd like to see that in the policy I'd like to see it somewhere so that people know that there is I don't know maybe it's not appropriate for the policy I'm just concerned you know to your point about communication that we don't miss people we don't end up with

[00:22:27] students staying at a school that isn't the best suitability for them I'm gonna jump in the shirt I think that's good good good comments but I think it comes back to again as you know and you've been here what 12 years now this is the 12th year that you are I'm not sure you know going back to this the entire special permission process is is is a little out of hand I think that's where we're coming from to make sure that there is a certain date and time and I as Mr. Lodi talked about, there's a big burden on the school division in preparing and processing this.

[00:23:06] I think we need to do a good job in communicating that out. If we open up another loop or another sort of gap in this saying, well, this sort of line is good, but you can also do additional, but then I think if we go back to the same thing in this entire paragraph means nothing at the point.

[00:23:27] So I think there has to be some deadlines. And I think I know staff is pretty good about working with the families in accommodating it. I know that's, I'm sure you can testify more than I can. And so I think at the same time, there has to be some deadlines that parents and, you know, it's not so much on students, but I think the parents also have a huge responsibility in managing that and is also a burden on the staff.

[00:23:51] So I think from that perspective, you know, again, I sort of support having this line in here, but with the caveat that we need to do a really good job in communicating out to the parents and so on and so forth about, you know, what the deadlines are. And I'm sure we have deadlines for other things, too, not just this in school division, right?

[00:24:11] So this will be no different than other deadlines that our division has for many other activities and so on and so forth. and i know we have an information item i'm not sure i know we have a hard stop at six so we may not be able to get to everything so which kind of brings you back to we have information item on special permissions reasons and the numbers again in the context of this policy to discuss that as well how do we improve that so anyway do you have any other items mr bauer just i'll highlight the rest of them i think we'll go quickly um lines 248 simply says you have to be a student and LCPS to apply for special permission we run into that sometimes students have

[00:24:49] to actually register so we can process them the the next part from 253 down just simply would say what would that appeal process look like if it was adopted with the July 31st so that the dates were changed as far as when parents could appeal and that that's why those changes are there and then the last part um which is down on 359 um is the part that Mr Falcone presented as division council at

[00:25:21] the school board meeting earlier this year and this is where we had feedback from SEAC on one of the paragraphs as well I believe so yes Dr Mr Falcone do you have anything to say about the this changes and make sure none of you have any questions uh thank you Mr Mahed if you sure so So the purpose of these changes were to address a recommendation from the special grand jury report regarding the transfer of a student from one school

[00:25:58] to another school as a result of a disciplinary issue or a safety issue. And so this provision required, this provision of the policy requires notification to the superintendent whenever a transfer is being made because of a safety issue or a disciplinary issue or pursuant to a court order.

[00:26:24] And it also requires a meeting among administration of both the current school and the school that the student is transferring to, along with the Office of Safety and Security and any other relevant outside agencies that might have information about the student to address any safety considerations for the student moving into the incoming school and the rest of the students in the school as well.

[00:26:52] - Thank you, I have a quick question. So do you have any concerns from the changes recommendation, the recommendation from SEAC on this particular line number 365, 366? - And let me find that really quickly.

[00:27:11] - Ms. Sheridan, do you have any questions? - Oh, I'm sorry, yes. No, I have no objection to that. I think it's a well taken point. - So Mr. Sharon, do you have any objections? I was gonna add, make a motion to add that SEAC recommendations in there.

[00:27:38] So I make the motion that this committee recommend this policy eight one. - Wait, I thought you were meeting.

[00:28:11] - It's a recommendation number one. They would like to replace, they have a language there that they wanna replace it with. A meeting among the staff. So if you look at 365, their line is, a meeting among the staff of the students current school and receiving school to include from both school, principal or designee IEP 504 case manager if applicable and school counselor so they'd like to add that no objection okay so dr. Bowers would like

[00:28:40] to add that changes in there as well and they also have suggestions for line 372 which is for students with IEP I'm not sure this is adding a new section they're suggesting do you have any thoughts perspective on that no no no - No objection to that either.

[00:29:12] - So Ms. Sheridan, this is the recommendation number two for adding a section C in there for students with IEP. Do we have a consensus to get that language added as well? Sure. For students with IEP or section 504 plan, an emergency IEP 504 meeting will be convened.

[00:29:32] For all of the students pursuant to IDEA 504 child find, a team will be convened to consider making a referral to evaluation for special education and relative services. - May I have just a brief pause to make sure that our special education team looks at that and our 504 team to see.

[00:29:50] - Sure, yeah, Ms. Sheridan. - So I do object at this time until we see your plan in place to the, I've lost the line number, the July 31st cutoff for appeals.

[00:30:11] I do object to it. I'm not going to hold this policy up because I know the language from council is important to put through, but I'll speak to it on the basis.

[00:30:29] - So would you share what your thoughts are? In other words, are you recommending that we go back to the original language, which special permission request received after the deadline of June 30th will be automatically denied, but may be appealed?

[00:30:48] - Yeah, I don't like that one. The line that says after July 31st, it's automatically denied. I appreciate the fact that you're working on a process to ensure all of that. I would like to see what that looks like and how it's gonna be communicated to parents before I could support that.

[00:31:04] So at this, I mean, I'm not gonna hold up the policy because I know it's important to get council's recommendations into policy. So I don't wanna keep it from going to the board and have to come back to this committee again. But I'll speak to my objections to the July 31st cutoff on the dais and it'll be go to the board.

[00:31:22] - Oh, okay. - Okay. - And Dr. Bauer, the part I concur is that I think we do, I think based on the discussion, I was hoping that we would see a communication plan for this. So I would like to have that also that to go along with it, what would be a communication plan in order to make sure that we are, we have communicated with all parents about these deadline.

[00:31:41] And I guess also on the same topic, I mean, is July 31st, you know, what's the latest date that you can possibly go without, you know, is July 31st the latest after staff has done all the due diligence or you think that it could go down further in August, I don't know.

[00:31:58] It used to be that this policy went all the way to August 15th. It was, to be honest, insane. It was school starting two weeks before, so we moved back to June 30th in order to manage because the flow continues to be pretty significant through July.

[00:32:16] So through July and August, we're typically just running as fast as we can. So anything after July 31st, it's just very hard to even share with parents that we're to have the ability to make sure that they get in their school of choice before the first day of school anything before July 31st we can pretty much manage that flow but after that with with alt meetings and everything else that's going on schools with their schedules as Mr. Lodi said the impact that it has it's very challenging thank you so I when this policy goes up to the full

[00:32:56] board then i hope that you can share that perspective and also um the communication plan mr lody thank you i i mean our special ed staff had a chance to look at this we do have some concerns with the seac language added uh one because it wouldn't be required there's no regulatory requirement to convene an emergency meeting but even more concerning is the idea that if it was a student without a disability we would automatically consider a referral for evaluation

[00:33:32] i can't think of any other school related action that results in an automatic consideration of referral anytime the school division suspects a disability were required by law to take up that matter this may or may not trigger that child find obligation so we do have some concerns about the automaticity of this idea being placed in the policy i appreciate that feedback thank you so i think we are okay with the recommendation one ms sheridan right okay so recommendation two i

[00:34:08] guess based on the staff feedback i'm i'm not going to support the recommendation two from cia so ms sheridan i'll make a motion that this committee uh uh move the policy further to the full board for the next information item second and i guess with all the changes we talked about the only thing that we made changes to is to add the language from recommendation one from SEAC and that's the only changes we've had any other questions Ms. Sheridan no and I think just to the caveat to to summarize it so the staff will bring this policy back with a communication plan

[00:34:47] uh I think they'll be at least that's what we asked for uh at the meeting so all those in favor in sending this policy to the full board say aye and raise your hands the policy will passes with Mr. Mehdi and Ms. Sheridan yes and Ms. Ogdebay absent and I know Ms. Sheridan you have a 6 p.m meeting this evening as well right all right so we'll jump on to the next uh next item which is the review of policy uh 8290 it's being brought brought first time here as an information

[00:35:22] item threat assessment for the protection of school I guess Mr. Falcone uh thank you Mr. Mehdi so in response to the recommendations of the special grand jury report uh LCPS proposed several changes to policies including 8155 which we discussed a little earlier and then 8290 which is our policy regarding threat assessments and we actually have to have a policy regarding threat assessments under the code of virginia that policy is supposed to be based on the model policies proposed by the virginia department of criminal justice services and that's

[00:35:55] what our policy follows the changes to the recommended changes to policy 8290 in response to the special grand jury report are comparatively minor in relative to some of the other more substantive changes but they are important and they are as follows the first change was to make clear that the if the school has an sro the sro will be included in threat assessment team my understanding is that that is lcps's current practice but that also does need to be in policy

[00:36:29] now anyway as the code of virginia has been amended to make that requirement explicit and then furthermore staff also added to the policy proposed language that would include relevant members of outside agencies as well to the extent that they have relevant feedback and then later on in the policy there's a notification requirement to the school security office

[00:36:58] well and so I think those are the main changes in the policy I'm sorry thank you I do have a question to know this so it says including this the school security officer so can you remind us who the school security officers I mean these are the ones that we have in the high school for example we have two in every high schools and what training do they have in terms of when it comes to

[00:37:38] students and so on so forth to participate in such meeting I have no objection against sro but you know what what sort of training do we provide for a school security officer so i don't know the answer to that question one of the but that was that provision was also added with respect to the special grand jury report which said that the school safety and security office needed to be included more or needed to be more active in um uh student threat student safety incidents and so uh when i had when when staff had conferred with mr clark

[00:38:15] uh the director of safety and security he said you know it's it's he's he's reactive he they respond to what they're receiving but they don't have an investigative role necessarily so um the requirement there is to make sure that is again in response to the special grand jury report just to make sure that they're looped in.

[00:38:36] But to answer your specific question as to the training they get, I don't know. - So I don't know, I think you're spiriting this policy. So I think when we bring it next time to the next meeting, at least I'd like to understand what training is the school security officer is taking.

[00:38:52] And if they're not taking that, I think they need to have proper training to be able to participate in such activities. And maybe they're already participating, but that would be my sort of question. - I can answer that. - They do receive the same threat assessment team training that other unified mental health team members and SROs participate in.

[00:39:10] - School security officers? - Yes. - Okay, that's the same answer, okay. Yeah, Ms. Sheridan. - I just wanted to clarify that if you're not familiar with this position, that this isn't a guard at the school. This is a staff member in the building and certainly the one that was at Parkview when my children attended, was a beloved member of the school community and had relationships with students and made sure that he was an integral part of that team.

[00:39:41] I'm sure if I named him, you would know who I was talking about, Mr. Green. So that position isn't somebody who stands guard and watches things. It is an active member of the school building and active personnel who makes sure that they're part of the school community and and again interacts with the students and it's really an integral piece to this and I have no objection to them participating and because they receive that same training so I appreciate mr. and I'm well aware of that however we also get in trouble that we don't have we we add positions in different places

[00:40:20] for review without providing them right training and right support behind so it's it's our duty to ask if they had the right support behind you know in order be able to participate and fully engage with the appropriate meetings and that was the my objective of the question thank you so any other costs or questions on this policy anything from student services no but when you're done with this i have a i need to go back to the last policy for a second okay mr any other questions on this policy we can send it to okay so i guess this policy

[00:40:54] are we applying to send it to our advisory councils um msac and siac or what's what's What's the thoughts, Mr. Falcone, or made you move this a little bit quicker than, I guess we'll still have to come back with the action item. We can get some feedback prior to that as well from LEAF and other groups.

[00:41:12] - I believe we did receive feedback from LEAF and MSAC.

[00:41:40] I don't know the process of how it gets there, but I see that on the comment sheet both of, well, actually, MSAC said they had no comments. There was a LEAF member who had comments, then two different LCPS parents also had feedback as well.

[00:41:57] I see that, the document now in the board docs. Okay. So I guess we'll bring this item as an action item, Ms. Sheridan, next? Okay. All right. So I think Mr. Falcone will bring this item as an action item next time and go through that.

[00:42:14] And Dr. Bowers, I know you want to go back to the policy. So forgive me for this, but Dr. Jones wanted to make sure that the policy 8155, that if you approved everything up to line 359, then you would approve up through 359 and then send the policy to the Discipline Committee because the Discipline Committee needed to review the information, the text that Mr. Falcone had added so that they could provide their insight too.

[00:42:43] So I know you approved it to go to the school board, but her plan was for it to go to the Discipline Committee. I'm sorry? Yes. So if I'm a technical, does it have to come back to here or we can just? No, the Discipline Committee would then approve it to go to the full school board.

[00:42:59] Okay. All right. That's fine, I guess. So we'll make the motion that. Yeah, you'll need to make a motion and I apologize. Amend the motion that we're sending the policy to the discipline committee and not to the full school board. Yes Do we need to make a motion? It's fine. Is it amended fine? What do I do if I consent? All right, it's we made the amendment by consent. Okay. Thank you We'll move to the next item on the agenda

[00:43:34] Special permission data item number 501 in this in the Board Docs, Mr. Bowers So you have two different parts of data here you have the We were asked to capture reasons that families were requesting special permission.

[00:43:54] So you'll see special permission reason codes and the different choices that families had. And so we collect that data whenever they apply. And then the second part is simply move ins and move outs from each school from 2017 through 2023, just to get an idea of what the flow is from school.

[00:44:12] So we provided that to you. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer what I can. Thank you, Dr. Bowers. I don't know, Ms. Sheridan, if you have any questions. I do have a couple of questions. I'm looking at your reason codes and your numbers. Am I interpreting it correctly to say you've had 3,564 requests?

[00:44:34] Correct. In this school year? Yes. Or it's from last April when the window opened? Correct. From March when the window opened? I'm probably not going to object to your July 31st now that I'm seeing, now that I have the perspective of your data as well.

[00:44:53] So I'll decide, but probably not. - Thank you, Mr. Chair. So Dr. Bowers, I think, thanks for sharing this. Again, my hope is that, I mean, this is a good comprehensive data, I guess, what the reasons are.

[00:45:10] It kind of gives some perspective to the reasons why parents are selecting different school versus one or the other. And I think that the corresponding document, I'd like to get a copy of this. I mean, this is good in a pedia, but it's not helpful in that sense, like an Excel or CSV, so we can graphically see what the trend looks like.

[00:45:32] What have we done, I guess, I know it's not probably in the student services, but what have we addressed? If I look at the last four or five years of data, some schools are in major negative numbers. So what are we doing as a division? Because I believe all schools are equal and great.

[00:45:50] That's what I believe in Loudoun County. So if you see a huge trend, what have we done to address? Because it's not just one outlier year. There's some schools that are consistent negative numbers. So what are we doing as a division to address that particular aspect of issue?

[00:46:08] So the best person to direct that to would be the school principal and to the level directors. So the level directors could have this information, review this information, and have those conversations. Our office processes, we don't do anything as far as directly contacting the school and, you know, asking reasons or things like that.

[00:46:29] So the level directors and the school principal, DOI, and so forth would be the best place to ask that question if they're following the trend. We have the trends. We don't necessarily make assumptions. I guess the data this is being shared tonight, I mean, I'm presuming the state-shared data is available to all the leadership within LCPS to see this trend analysis of where, which schools need a lot of help.

[00:46:58] It is on request, yes. I don't have, like we don't send it out or put it in a newsletter or anything like that, but if it's requested, we provide it. Okay, I guess I'll ask Mrs. Levin that we share this data to all school board members in the next school board update.

[00:47:17] Because again, I find this, I think you and I have discussed this many times. You know, I do find concerning that the trend is not just one year, one off year. It's consistently every year. I mean, if I just take Buffalo Trail Elementary School, negative numbers are every year so it can be just i mean the reasons that we see here um it has to be something more than that so we'll take up with other i guess with department instructions or i guess the the supervisor of the schools comes under department instructions so we'll probably address within that um but thank you for sharing that uh last thing on this uh special permission

[00:47:56] reasons code i know in a couple years ago we kind of back went back and forth about adding the reasons when they select other are they asked to provide reasons other than other or just select other others just other they don't give any definition okay and then we have do not wish to reply also so i mean i know up to the it's up to the staff i don't want to make but these two seems like it's not very helpful to just be in the list so i would reckon i would ask that staff reconsider these two options and the reasons in there okay thank you for sure any other questions

[00:48:34] all right so we'll have another item i guess we'll go to item number five zero uh sorry five zero two a social emotional learning and second step and mr lody all right thank you um so i want to introduce dr lindsay orme who's to my left she's our inaugural and only social emotional learning coordinator for the division uh dr orme recently presented to uh on scl to the gifted education

[00:49:10] advisory committee this month and she's scheduled to present as part of the mental health and wellness series in February I think it's February 16th we're an opportunity for parents to hear more about social emotional learning all right so to provide a rationale for SEL and LCPS we had numerous elementary schools who are implementing different SEL strategies and programs across the divisions and then we had other schools who were seeking guidance and support

[00:49:44] as they wanted a greater focus on SEL. At the same time we were addressing school mental health secondary principals were sharing with us that many many students were encountering mental health challenges at the high school level and too many of them lack skills to manage stress emotions and conflict. So those were some of the compelling pieces that were driving our social-emotional learning initiative. Now, while PBIS is an important part of our behavioral approach to

[00:50:19] improving learning environments, many students need explicit skill instruction taught by classroom teacher and reinforced across the academic day. SEL is not new. It was historically known as emotional intelligence and it's an evidence-based approach that focuses on five core social-emotional competencies that have a positive impact on students to include academic performance, healthy relationships, mental wellness, discipline and pro-social behaviors. As you know the school board recently adopted a

[00:50:56] strategic plan that includes social-emotional learning, the strategy of of providing SEL for all students and associated metrics as we work towards that. The implementation of SEL has been a phased approach, originally conceived and planned over a five-year period.

[00:51:16] Prior to the 19-20, 2019, 2020 school year, we put out a request for proposals and a large representative committee that included input from SEAC parents and gifted education unanimously selected Second Step.

[00:51:35] The project started with 33 elementary schools at the K-1 level. Because the COVID pandemic created greater urgency and need on building community in our new virtual learning environments, the project accelerated quickly and expanded to 47 elementary schools K-5 for the 2020-2021 school year.

[00:52:00] In '21-'22, the remaining elementary schools came online and we brought on our middle school partners. 13 of the 17 middle schools joined our project for a six to eight grade level implementation. So we have four middle schools that we hope to bring online next year to round out our elementary and middle school implementation.

[00:52:28] The Adopted Second Step program a curriculum designed specifically to teach social emotional skills essential to children's success in school but also in life the curriculum is organized into four full units each unit contains supporting lessons for a total 20 lessons at the elementary level for per grade level and 26 to 27 at the middle school grade levels units are aligned across grade levels so each grade level in a school is focusing on the same common unit yet all lessons are grade

[00:53:05] level specific and allow for a logical sequence and a developmentally appropriate sequence of content these are some examples these are the units of study for the elementary level middle school level I can go into detail if you needed to know a little bit more about each of those for the sake of time I I will move to the next slide.

[00:53:30] So how does LCPS deliver this? The elementary schools use the daily morning meeting structure where classroom teachers teach second step lessons and related activities to students. It's our time to build community and teach skills and practice those throughout the week and across the curriculum.

[00:53:52] Family communication regarding lessons is set home each week by our classroom teachers. as you may know middle schools utilize the advisory period our middle schools have adopted either four to five days per week in which they do advisory second step lessons are delivered on one or two days during that week which provides middle school's time to also provide other advisory lessons that they have identified that are important for middle school student preparation

[00:54:23] Presently, high schools do not use an adopted SEL curriculum, but they do hold advisory and teach and present mental wellness lessons and other life skill lessons that have been developed by student leaders, approved by staff, and staff as well.

[00:54:40] Our unified mental health team has provided, at least the last I knew, over 80 lessons related to mental wellness. I don't know how you're doing with time, Ms. Sheridan. I'm fine. - It's in here?

[00:54:55] - Okay. - Sorry, I just wanna make sure it's almost 6:00 PM. - Understood. - So maybe tonight, I know it's, I don't wanna just rush through the presentation. I apologize, maybe I should have pushed it out to the next meeting, but maybe we can just add and continue the next meeting.

[00:55:11] I think that'll be helpful. - Okay. - 'Cause we have a series of questions that we wanna add and give us the great amount of energy for that. So we'll pause and I guess I'll work with Dr. Bowers and Dr. Jones to bring this back And we can continue from slide number five, I guess, lessons, presentations from then on.

[00:55:29] Sorry to interrupt. No, I'm not happy to repeat slides one through five if you'd like. Any new business for this meeting? None? No business? We'll adjourn. Thank you.

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