Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Legislative and Policy Committee Meeting, Monday, February 6, 2023

Date: Monday, February 6, 2023
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 30m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/796732033?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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[00:00:01] good afternoon this is atusa reser calling to order the monday february 6 2023 meeting of the legislative and policy committee board members present include myself john beaty and ian sorotkin we will begin with public comment and the procedures for public comment speakers may sign up to make in public person in-person public comments prior to the start of the committee meeting public comment period shall be limited to a total of up to 10 minutes the speakers must limit comments to the time allotted by the committee chair and announced prior to the public comment

[00:00:37] period today there are no public speakers so we will move to item 3.01 approval of the december 8 2022 draft minutes can i get a motion please mr sorokin thank you madam chair i move to approve the minutes from the december 8 2022 meeting as posted in board docs motion's been made and seconded by Mr. Beatty all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed anyone abstaining okay that motion

[00:01:15] will pass 201 with Mr. Beatty abstaining we will move to item 4.01 revision of policy 2310 committees of the school board this comes back to us for action tonight policy 2310 was updated to be in compliance with the virginia code along with changes that were requested by then chair morse in december the lmp committee reviewed the revisions and the community feedback we made

[00:01:50] a name change and clarified some language name change for one of the committees the discipline committee and clarified some language we requested a look at section d4 so that some of the suggestions of advisory committees could be incorporated and that could be clarified with regard to quorum for advisory committees and you can see the blue highlights include feedback changes that were made as a result of feedback from advisory committees and yellow highlights would include board changes for mr beatty since you were not part of our committee in december so the policy is coming

[00:02:29] back to us now with the revisions and the staff recommended and board recommended board member recommended feedback and I can turn that over to mr. Slevin in case there's anything he would like to add the the main change to the policy based on the December meeting is online 239 where we received feedback regarding advisory committees specifically and their definition of quorum and so language was

[00:03:03] included to give them autonomy in their bylaws to determine their own own quorum The other change also occurred on lines 219 and 220, based on board member comments to remove of the citizens of LCPS for advisory committee.

[00:03:25] Thank you. Are there any questions or comments from committee members? Mr. Sorotkin. Thank you, Madam Chair. So with regards to quorum, I understand the change that was made to give some flexibility to the advisory committees to be less than 50%.

[00:03:46] I am a little concerned that if one of the advisory committees had in their bylaws that just one person showing up or just two people showing up could constitute quorum, that that could be lower than we'd want or might have some unanticipated effect.

[00:04:03] So I'm wondering if there are any best practices in this regard for what, perhaps setting a floor of, I don't know, 20%, 25% of the membership or whatever, some level that we would not permit the advisory committee bylaws to go below.

[00:04:23] So that's a great suggestion. The reason why it was not included was because my understanding is the bylaws of an advisory committee, when it's established, have to be approved by the board anyway. So to the extent it were to differ from the board's requirements, that would be something that would be approved by the board anyway.

[00:04:44] Otherwise, the quorum requirements would default to the requirements that are of the school board itself. And so that would just be a majority of the membership again. So it's just to allow a little bit more flexibility. But as a practical matter, you can't get around that requirement.

[00:05:02] Could you point me to where the bylaws of the advisory committees have to be approved by the school board? I don't believe it's in that policy, but that's just my understanding is that that's what the practice has been. We certainly can add that language in.

[00:05:18] I think it has to be either one or the other. If the board has to approve the bylaws, then I'd be comfortable not putting the floor in because we get a bite of that apple anyway. But if it doesn't say in here that we're approving the bylaws, then I think we need to add some kind of protection in.

[00:05:39] Do you all have a preference on which of those you'd like? I'm interested in the opinions of my fellow committee members. Well, I think it could be easy enough to just add a comma and put which must be approved by the board.

[00:06:00] Or Mr. Falcone might have a different idea. But if that was, like, if you wanted to amend it to say that, I would support that, unless there's a different route you want to take. Mr. Beatty. Yeah, I would support adding just the caveat that it is going to be approved by the school board.

[00:06:18] I think I understood it, as Mr. Falcone said, that we're going to approve those. But if it is more clear in the policy, I think that makes sense. Mr. Sorokin. Thank you, Madam Chair. So I will move to amend on by adding to the end of line 238, which must be approved by the school board.

[00:06:38] I see Mr. Slevin has something he'd like to add before we continue, but I'll go ahead and second the motion just and we'll have the debate. I'm sorry for interrupting. No, thank you. I'm not sure if it's, I'm not sure if I could recall the last time an advisory committee came before the board asking for approval of their bylaws.

[00:06:58] And I'm not saying that that would not be a reasonable practice, but I think it would be a change. And I would wonder if, for example, the committee had autonomy – would that be an annual? Would the bylaws have to be required to be reviewed on a – like a three-year cycle?

[00:07:17] If they decide – if the advisory committee decided to change it, would they need to get a board approval? So I just feel like we're going down a path of a little bit uncharted. and that may be okay but like even looking at the msac bylaws it doesn't say anything in there necessarily about being approved by the board when those changes are made i i think i hear your concern is they may not have been approved thus far and they then we need to figure out how often would they need to be approved would it be time certain or only when changes are made is

[00:07:52] Is there a different policy where the approval of bylaws or language surrounding that would be more appropriately placed? No, I think this would be the right policy for that.

[00:08:14] So I'd be interested in hearing from committee members if we want to. Is there time for us to discuss it tonight and maybe bring it back, or is this something that's time-sensitive? Because I know there's a code component. I believe it's 2.2-3107.2.

[00:08:38] I'm sorry. Bear with me. one second. Sure. Maybe if we could, while staff is looking, I think Mr. Beatty, did you have a different question that is for staff or? Yeah, but it was going to be for Mr. Falcone. Okay, we'll wait for him then. While Mr. Falcone is looking at that, we could, if we want to discuss a little bit, we could potentially look at adding language about requiring a cycle of bylaws approvals and a time certain date to get people in compliance, like realizing here we are now,

[00:09:13] but maybe every three calendar years there's an approval or there's a process for when when a committee wants to change it they have to approach the board i'll weigh in individually um i don't think that we should create a duty for the school board to review their entire set of dial bylaws for every advisory committee that we have if we just wanted to approve or not approve their quorum clause or have some other i i guess at this point i would rather put a floor in this policy than create the cyclical review of bylaws of, you know, advisory committees.

[00:09:52] Mr. Sorokin? Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm inclined to agree. I feel like it was not my intent, but I feel like this, you know, this clause, which was intended to just be a ballot quorum, would be getting hijacked to mean something else entirely. So I do feel it's probably a good idea for the bylaws of the advisory committees to be reviewed and approved when they change.

[00:10:17] but I would be happy in the short term if we just added a floor in and just made that specific decorum as well. I could see both sides of it. I'm going to give you some proposed language and see if Mr. Beatty has some comments.

[00:10:33] Yeah, I would say just changing it to at least be a majority of this membership unless a greater amount is specified, something in that vein, so that we avoid the imperative for that it gets approved, But we do set out in policy what it should be, at least.

[00:10:53] So just to bring you up to speed, and what we were discussing in December was that we wouldn't want it to be more than 51%, but we would want to allow them to have less because, you know, sometimes it's a volunteer position, and sometimes they might get 30% of their membership, but they still want to have their meetings.

[00:11:10] So what I'm suggesting to Mr. Sorokin might be just language that says in which case it shall not be less than, and then we could maybe come to a consensus on that amount. Mr. Sorokin. Thank you, Madam Chair. So I believe my amendment was on it.

[00:11:26] Without objection, I will modify my amendment so that it would read, that whole paragraph would read, a quorum for each meeting of the advisory committee shall be a majority of the membership unless otherwise specified in the advisory committee bylaws. In no case shall quorum for advisory committees be less than 25% of the membership.

[00:11:50] Are there any concerns from staff with that amendment? I'm fine with that. So the current bylaws for MSAC that are posted on their website references shall be the number of members present at a properly called meeting, so they will need some time to update their bylaws.

[00:12:15] But as this policy goes forward, I can work with Ms. Spurlock on working with the executive committee of MSAC to navigate that. Okay. And is there an effective date that we are working up against? No.

[00:12:30] Okay. Mr. Beatty? Can I ask where the 25% came from? Does the committee feel it's necessary to get any feedback on that amount, or do we want to, Mr. Beatty?

[00:12:51] Yeah, I think so. Specifically, I recall being, when I was a CAC liaison way back when, there was some concerns about having enough membership for people present when they have to review policies, and that was affecting, I believe, their ability to go through the review process and make sure that they had time to look over it.

[00:13:09] That was, of course, before we changed our policy to be more inclusive of their feedback. But at the time, I think they had issues getting enough people to be there for it to be a formal and appropriate meeting of their advisory subcommittee or something, look over policy.

[00:13:26] So I would think that having them tell us what they think would be great. So with our review process, since this has gone out and come back with comments, but there is a change that's being made that is not insubstantial, What would the opportunity for feedback on whether that would be a difficult change for our advisory committees to implement or how long they would need to, we wanted to just get some feedback from them on how long they would need to be able to meet and rewrite and pass bylaws.

[00:14:04] Because if it takes us a certain number of months or weeks to get things through our meetings, being unfamiliar with what their processes are, I don't want to create an undue burden. So using SEAC, for example, looking at their bylaws, their bylaws already call for 50% or more voting members shall constitute a quorum.

[00:14:31] Looking at our research, it's my understanding that the only group that would probably need to update their bylaws would be MSAC. And so in order to get their feedback, what I would simply do is reach out to our staff liaison, provide this proposed language, and they would give us their point of view and then a timeline for what it would take to update their bylaws.

[00:15:01] Okay, so we could potentially send this to the board with a request that the board chair hold from docketing it until, since the board chair is sitting here, I guess I could just ask him how he feels about that. That would be fine by me.

[00:15:19] Okay. Would you like to make the motion? i think my amendment is on the table okay so um i'll second the amendment just since you did change it um all those in favor aye all those opposed that will pass unanimously i'm not sure i need to say that when everyone's raised their hands what do we think um so we're back to the

[00:15:48] base motion um i move that the lmp committee send revised policy 2310 yes yes oh i'm sorry um for Mr. Falcone so each of these talks about a quorum for the meeting um and specifically be for the quorum on line 62 of quorum for each meeting of any standing committee should be a majority of the committee school board members um shouldn't that just be committee members does it matter and then I guess the other thing is is it a majority of the committee members present or

[00:16:26] committee members signed does that have to be clarified or I mean I kind of there's a standing practice of how we've been doing it, but could someone come in and try to parse that perhaps negatively? Thank you, Mr. Beatty. Yeah, that certainly could be read in a way that it's not intended. So the way to fix that would be to revise it to say shall be a majority of the committee school board members assigned to that committee, I think would address your concern.

[00:17:07] And actually, now that I look at it, it says, I mean, I think that's the point of committee school board members putting the adjective committee as an adjective means that those are the members the school board members who are part of the committee so we could keep it as that or change it to of the school board members assigned to the committee and clarify that if you think it's if you think it's appropriate that's fine I just wanted to one thing that came across I was reading any other concerns or questions I move that the revised policy 2310 as amended be forwarded to

[00:17:46] full school board for consideration at the chair's discretion second all those in favor aye any opposed that will pass unanimously with all board members present moving on to item 4.02 revision of policy 2430 school board agenda this update to policy 2430 was made to align with the practices that are cited in robert's rules of order the current 12th edition and other acceptable revisions

[00:18:24] applicable revisions sorry and also to add language regarding the consent agenda which was one of the recommendations of the special grand juries report this policy was an lep information item on december 8 2022 it was also presented to the full school board during a work session on december the 13th 2022. it's currently being brought back to the committee with committee requested revisions made and you can see those the language in paragraph e lines 29 through 38.

[00:18:59] there's also advisory committee feedback that was attached there was no community feedback however i will open it up to committee members for questions or concerns actually i'm sorry mr sloven did you have anything you wanted to add i don't have anything but mr thank you mr sloven uh i had two minor changes i i added to this policy today at the uh the house of other cabinet members and i just wanted to call your attention to them they're not substantive they're just

[00:19:32] clarifying um what our practice is on line 25 subsection e i added the phrase except as provided in subsection G of this policy, and then it goes on to state all items subject to a vote of the school board will be subject to this procedure. And then in subsection G, I added the phrase, notwithstanding any other provision of this policy, the chair or division superintendent, and it goes on to establish the rest of the consent agenda policy. And the purpose of that

[00:20:06] is some cabinet members that express concern that oftentimes a contract is approved in committee and goes straight to the consent agenda. And it wasn't the intent of these revisions to remove that possibility.

[00:20:23] We just wanted to outline what the purpose of the agenda should normally look like. And so that language is added to clarify that process. Thank you. Is there anything else from staff, committee members?

[00:20:40] Mr. Beatty. I have a question about the striking Section F of the public comment on the old policy. Can you talk about why that was removed from the agenda, since that has been a key component of the meeting? Thank you, Mr. Beatty. So we have a separate policy, 2520, that just covers public comment.

[00:21:00] And the public comment policy subsection F doesn't really add anything that isn't already in 2520. And, in fact, it specifically says at the end of it, see policy 2520. And so the thought was, why not just take that reference out and just keep that about the agenda.

[00:21:19] and then leave 2520 to the public comment okay thank you anything else would you like to make the motion thank you madam chair i move that revised policy oh i'm on the wrong one moment i move that revised policy 2430 school board agenda be forwarded to the full school board

[00:21:56] for consideration at their next regularly scheduled meeting second it's been made by Mr. Sorotkin and seconded by Mr. Beatty all those in favor raise your hand and say aye all those opposed that will pass unanimously with all committee members present we move to item 4.03 adoption of policy 3210 office of the ombuds the creation of this policy came to us also in December it's being brought back to the committee with some requested revisions which are highlighted

[00:22:33] in yellow and again the advisory committee suggestions that were incorporated are highlighted in blue and there was some staff recommended feedback that was received and at this point i'm going to turn it over to miss williams to see if there's anything she'd like to add thank you very much madam chair we really appreciated the feedback that we got from both msac and seac and we feel that we have incorporated or at least touched on their feedback to expand understanding around it being a new office and the work that i'm doing we also incorporated the suggestions from

[00:23:13] our meeting in december and believe that some of the requests were surrounding they wanted additional information around processes but there are other policies that that outline what those next steps would be around title ix and cps reporting obligations so we just reference those particular policies is there anything else from staff are there any questions or comments from committee members well thank you we're very excited to have you back and to have you as a

[00:23:51] resource I know you've been a great help to me with a number of things that I wasn't quite sure where to to route constituents for help and I feel like I should just make note of the fact that this is part of our part of our strategic plan is to have LCPS be aligned around core educational mission for students and to strengthen trust listen humbly value difference and remain steadfast and ensuring every student is prepared to make meaningful contributions to the world and again just my personal experience I've been able to send both well I guess staff a parent and

[00:24:28] and other community members to you in the short time that you've been here so I'm very grateful for your help thank you and my numbers are growing month by month so that's how you know word of mouth having referrals sent to me and then those individuals sharing their experience will hopefully continue that trend thank you thank you very much i'll go ahead and move that uh the committee recommend for adoption policy 3210 office of the ombuds and that the policy be forwarded to the full school board for consideration at their next regularly scheduled meeting second motion's been

[00:25:06] made and seconded by mr sorokan all those in favor raise your hand and say aye aye okay all those opposed that will pass unanimously with board members present and we will move on to our information items item 5.01 organizational items is for information only and mr sloven is going to take that one is that right thank you mr we just wanted to take a moment to have a conversation about the organizational business for the calendar year 2023 we are going to remain a

[00:25:45] three-member committee with miss rezer as a committee chair and mr baby and mr sorakian as committee members we plan to meet on the first monday of the month at 4 p.m with a few exceptions so we do have conflicts in april and september that we will need to reschedule and there'll be no committee meetings in july regular meetings may be rescheduled as needed and special committee meetings may be scheduled as needed that's all information i have are there any questions or comments about the schedule mr baby thank you um what are the special committee meetings that

[00:26:22] might arise i could would you like me to speak to that or do you you may know already i don't but but you may speak to it, so I was going to speak mainly to legislative activities, but Ms. Rieser can speak to that. No, I think you nailed it. So we do have special meetings.

[00:26:38] Sometimes there's been a need for extra meetings as we're developing the legislative program, but also the breakfast, which you've attended, and other things that come up of that nature. So, for example, my understanding is in the spring there's a readout, so to speak, of the legislative action, and I'm assuming that wouldn't happen during a regular committee meeting.

[00:27:01] that might be a special meeting of the committee is that accurate yes um like a road from richmond type of event where we get an update from uh after the session from our legislators and um i think that's it anything else miss dawson oh okay thank you i i assume that was mo i was designed for the whole school board and i know we've like whole school board gets invited but i didn't that clarifies it for me yes yes you got it um anything else okay we'll move on to item

[00:27:36] six new business I'll just take a moment to touch on the legislature usually the second half of this meeting our legislative consultants would come and give us an update because of the timing of the meeting however they they are actually working with legislators at this time I think this time last week there were three different places they had to be so I'll just briefly update the board that there's going to the the bills that are passing each of the chambers will be going to crossover later this week. Some of us were able to meet with our legislators last

[00:28:13] week in Richmond and see if Mr. Sorokin wants to add anything but I think my biggest takeaway was that there has been an error made in the computation of funding which we heard about at the school board level and at the budget adoption so I don't know if there's anything else you wanted to add Mr. Sorokin regarding our visit with the legislators. Not much other than what you already covered i thought it was a we had a small crowd on the school board side but uh it was a productive visit with our loud delegation and uh the timing was good and being able to i would say in the in

[00:28:51] the 36 hours we were in richmond they there was they went from confusion to alarm about the vdoe error that will impact lcps funding as well as funding for every other school division in this in the commonwealth so i'm cautiously optimistic that the general assembly is going to be able to take steps to rectify that and get us the funding we thought we were going to get in the first place.

[00:29:16] But other than that, I thought it was a very productive visit. Yes, and actually many of our legislators who, it's a funny session due to redistricting, many of the legislators that spent time with us won't be representing Loudoun after this year, but they all spent time with us, whether it was Monday or Tuesday, and talked with us and continue to represent us while they have us.

[00:29:38] So it was very productive. Anything else? With that, we are adjourned. Thank you.

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