Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Loudoun Education Alliance of Families (LEAF) Committee Meeting, Monday, March 20, 2023

Date: Monday, March 20, 2023
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 1h 53m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/810143771?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] think we're going to get started here in just a minute okay welcome leaf members to the march 20

[00:01:02] 2023 meeting of the loudon education alliance of families this meeting will now come to order as we begin our agenda this evening seats are by planning districts and clusters if you haven't already please be sure to sign in either on the computer there are two options a computer at the the end of each table for you to use or a QR code and/or URL to access with your phone so make sure that you take advantage of one of those as you will see when we approve the minutes from the last board meeting you'll see it has

[00:01:39] listed who was present and who was not present in each cluster as a reminder staff and the officers do not share a list of contact information so please feel free to share your contact information with those in your district is needed I also want to raise a point that if you are asked by someone in your community for contact information of another leaf member please reach out and ask them first how they would like to be contacted if they would like to share

[00:02:19] their personal email address that they shared with you or maybe they felt comfortable sharing it with leaf members but they didn't want to use that email address for other purposes obviously as leaf members we need to be available for the members in our the individuals in our district but we also want to make sure that we're being respectful of people's email and phone numbers if that's not how they want to be communicated with so I will also take this as a note too and I think we're going to try to really implement this for year two but I would

[00:02:56] encourage all of you if you have not set up some type of LEAF rep at Stonebridge High School so on and so forth I would encourage you guys to do that one so that you can give that and it's not directly tied to you and then two that communication can continue even if you're not the LEAF member next year it just can continue to roll from there so I think that's a really good recommendation if you haven't set that up I would encourage you guys for year two to make that something that you are going to use and have available then our final note anyone

[00:03:35] attending who is not a school board approved member or alternate should sit in the public viewing area all right we're going to now move on to public comment LEAF meetings are open to the public Loudoun County residents are welcome to attend the meeting but must refrain from interrupting the meeting's agenda. Per the LEAF charter and bylaws, public comments should address an agenda item. Members of the public who wish to address items on the agenda can do so at this time. Do we have any public comments tonight? All right. Seeing that no one is providing public

[00:04:12] comments, we will move on to agenda item three, approval of the minutes. The minute meetings for the February 22nd meeting are in board docs for review and there is also a few copies at the tables provided another opportunity for review I will now entertain a motion to accept the minutes from the February 22nd 2023 meeting as submitted all right I have a motion here can you state your

[00:04:42] name so they can put Valerie Balser um is there a second Lauren Cherno second all right we have a second all in favor say aye all those opposed all right with no changes requested the minutes stand approve as submitted the minutes are approved and we're going to now move on to agenda item four action items and at this time I'm going to remind the the officers if they want to move to their

[00:05:20] clusters we're going to do a cluster activity and you guys can participate in your in your clusters so as we enter our last quarter I can't believe it but it's here work on recruitment materials and plan for the future we would like to take this opportunity for the clusters to reflect so we would like you to think about what worked well for you in your school what did you like value or what resources were useful in year one in connection with LEAF what did you learn where would you

[00:05:54] like more support there we go and what is one question you would like to ask or what can be fine-tuned for year two so these prompts are at your tables Christina is going to be Vanna White this evening and they are at your tables I'm sorry the prompts are at your tables along with a poster as Christina is demonstrating for you to capture your reflections in the form of a three two one so this whole exercise should take about ten minutes first we're going to take about four minutes to reflect and write down anywhere on the poster

[00:06:33] what you individually think in response to the prompts on the screen so this is an individual person activity next we will ask them that each cluster discuss their responses and capture the clusters agreement I'm prioritize three to one responses. Specifically, we're going to ask that you guys will, and I imagine this will pop up, three things that worked well you liked, valued, or learned, two things that were learnings or where you thought you would need more support, and one question you would

[00:07:12] like to ask. So we're going to have 10 minutes at which time the staff is going to collect the posters. Does anyone have any questions about what we are doing? All right so we are going to go ahead and get started and I will let you guys know when there are three minutes left and one minute left.

[00:07:35] So first we're going to spend about four minutes writing down the answer to these questions that are on the board now. So everyone can kind of just write in their thing.

[00:07:49] All right so that is

[00:12:07] roughly four minutes. So you guys have six minutes. If you haven't moved on to discussing things in your cluster, go ahead and begin having those discussions now to try to answer. Do we have a slide with the, what they're, no. Okay. So three things that worked. It's on your table. So on the table, there's three things, two things, and one question. And

[00:12:32] I'll give you guys like a three minute and one minute warning.

[00:15:58] Oh, all right. We have

[00:16:01] about three more minutes okay if everyone will wrap up we've got about another minute

[00:18:35] and then then a white will come by and collect your your posters okay we are going to end here

[00:19:48] so thank you for taking the time for that discussion as staff comes around to pick up the posters i want to welcome mr don trainer executive director chief of schools he is going to share the bathroom renovation safety and privacy information that he provided to the school board on tuesday night this is a informational item so mr trainer's presentation will offer information that you can use when questions come your way know that for this particular topic

[00:20:27] we're kind of ahead of our general feedback loop which is that we'll provide comments and connection with policies through the email and the google form that we fill out so this policy is not yet at that stage so we're really kind of ahead of things and are hoping for feedback they wanted to specifically provide this for parents so that not only can you guys provide feedback and ask questions but you can go to your individual schools if necessary to ask questions and get feedback at this time. So at this time, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Traynor. Good evening.

[00:21:05] As mentioned, my name is Don Traynor, and I'm the Executive Director of Facilities for LCPS. The presentation that you're going to see this evening was not presented by me, but was presented by Mr. Kevin Lewis, our Chief Operations Officer, on last Tuesday night, the 14th of March. And so you can go actually into board docs and watch that presentation. If interested, probably a much better job than I'm going to do this evening but from the facility side of it try to run through with you and kind of explain what we've been doing over the last year and a half and what we're going

[00:21:38] to be doing over the next kind of three and a half years coming up with this so let's see next slide maybe it just turned off let me see we'll just go with you Kim is that okay okay so once again tonight brief background of where we're at with our the restroom projects the secure restroom projects talking about the timeline as we've been through so far with the privacy restrooms briefly touch on technology and restrooms which is

[00:22:18] something that we're looking into and then our proposed construction pilot project which will be starting this summer and then kind of leading out to the next steps so next slide please so number one primary focus always is the safety of our students in the schools and so in focusing on trying to the building side of that how do we how do we provide safety for the students related to the structure the building itself there's always the kind of the conflict between privacy and then security this the safety side of it for

[00:22:55] the students in the schools and we often have risk associated with this when we have students in the schools risk either conflicts between students inappropriate activities that can go on in the restroom poor behavior choices that the students make whether that's smoking vaping in the restrooms or vandalism in the restrooms and we have challenges with each of those throughout the school year at every school in LCPS so this is not targeted at one area we have we continuously have problems with inappropriate activities in the

[00:23:33] restrooms across every school in the district and not just at the secondary though that's the main focus area but we have them at elementary schools also once again the the primary driver though is trying to get the privacy of the students and the staff in the restrooms and ensuring that that privacy is available as appropriate when it's when it's needed and that it's an option for for all staff and all students we're not not any particular group or demographics the it's required by the code of Virginia and it's required by

[00:24:09] school board policy 8040 so next slide and everything we're talking about here is related to the 2021 video a model policies and there is a state code that requires us to implement model policies from video e the 2022 model policies are still under review so everything that we're focused on right now is still related to the 2021 model policies next slide and so a little bit of additional

[00:24:43] background here policy 8040 was adopted by the school board August 11th of 2021 there is the section C of this policy requires the modernization of school restrooms and locker rooms to improve student privacy and promote the creation of single-user restrooms that are appropriate for all students and to do this within five years then regulation 8040 also key point bottom of that bullet accessible to all students without special codes or keys so what what we're saying is that every student in the school should have access to a

[00:25:19] private restroom without having to make special arrangements with their teacher with the administrator with keys to the restroom or a code to the restroom all the restrooms restrooms should be available if they prefer a multi-fix your restroom they have that option if they prefer privacy restroom they have that option so far in our capital budget we have appropriations now or as of July 1st when we get the FY 24 funding we will have the 10.9 million for this project that may sound like a lot but with our school system that will get us

[00:25:54] started with the pilot project but it will not allow us to implement whatever the solution is across the board for every school in the district next slide please um with policy 8040 we initially our initial implementation uh in the fall of 2021 was to very quickly take what was historically staff restrooms single-use staff restrooms or in some in many cases a multi-use multi-fixture staff restroom and re-designate it as a privacy

[00:26:27] restroom we did that by uh changing out the door hardware on the on the system we didn't really do any renovations or other changes inside the room itself if there was multiple fixtures we just put a lock on the door a push-button lock that anyone could go into the room close the door push the button and the door was locked and they then had private access to that restroom that initial rollout and to date we've spent four hundred twenty seven thousand dollars doing that across the entire district we were successful in reaching the initial implementation of policy 8040

[00:27:05] within just a few months doing that the goal was the target was six restrooms in every high school four in the middle schools and two in the elementary schools that was a target not all of our schools are designed alike not all of them have had the availability to convert six restrooms in a high school and we'll talk about a couple of those examples a little later we put new signage on the doors to these restrooms we actually did it twice because the first signs that were picked out we got initial feedback from the students that the signs were inappropriate so the sign that you see

[00:27:42] the picture on the slide there is the one that ended up that's on the restrooms right now and I already mentioned the door hardware we also installed some shower curtains in some of the restrooms to provide privacy for for changing there and then the dispensers for the free hygiene products we already had those in all of our female student restrooms we've gone back and added those into the privacy restrooms also next slide please okay so this is a brief timeline of where we've been I realize that the font's pretty small may be hard to read but primarily

[00:28:21] wanted to call your attention to the fall of 2021 when we started this process as we've moved through we've put in place initial changes we've been working to get feedback on those changes the feedback is not I will say it's not consistent in that we have some schools that like what's happened we've got some schools that don't like what's happened there is a conflict it's there's not an easy solution with this we hear from some schools they have great concerns about the privacy restrooms because the students are locked in the space without school

[00:29:01] oversight without the parents teachers staff whoever's in the building doesn't have access to that space without having to then use a key and override it and then and so it's there's there's just challenges there if we had one simple solution that we could roll out everywhere believe me we would already be doing it and pushing to do construction this summer to implement those changes. We'll have questions at the end, I believe, correct? Okay. But ultimately, there is

[00:29:37] the five-year requirement that's in the policy that we have to implement this change, whatever this change is. Once again, we are in the process of figuring out what the right solution is for LCPS, and we're going to talk about our next interim step coming up. So next slide. Now,

[00:29:58] Now, going through the timeline of the study, one of the first things we did after, well, actually before Policy 8040 was adopted, was support services created a principal advisory group to advise Mr. Lewis, our chief operations officer, on the concerns that they were having at the schools and how that we could modify the facilities to help with their operational concerns in the building.

[00:30:20] The principal group was composed of principals at all three levels, the elementary, middle, and high school, and through a series of meetings over the course of several months, the main challenges that you see listed there, what we got from the principals, student safety being their primary focus, trying to adjust student behavior, provide privacy for the students, supervision both in the restrooms, both during class time and during class changes.

[00:30:53] teacher hesitancy to intervene, and a concern for a lot from the staff is how do you approach a locked door in a restroom, and that's a concern for a lot of the staff. Then standardizing policies and procedures for administrators and the utilization of the e-hall pass system, which is available within LCPS but not consistently used by all the schools in LCPS and ultimately they we addressed with this group of principals that we were taking a staff restroom converting it to a privacy

[00:31:31] restroom and how how was that change going to impact their school their staff their students next slide please the around the same time period we hired an architect to do this to help us study this issue and to come up with facility related options that could be implemented in working with the principal advisory group you see picture there some options as far as the first one's kind of hard to read but the opaque glass doors on the stalls shower curtains which we did implement we did not implement any opaque glass doors

[00:32:10] anywhere but looking at standard options or standard procedures that were in place not only within within this part of the country but other areas around the country and also in other countries and in other cultures what would be acceptable we have a very diverse demographic of students within the county and we were trying to understand what the effects would be on any solution that we implemented as far as the facilities go and then they the contractor also helped us or the A&E helped us develop kind of a baseline cost for a pilot program and that's where you see the the 10.9 million that

[00:32:49] was listed in the CIP budget next slide please okay so that now moving on we we implemented those initial changes we talked with the principals we hired the architect and then we monitored and we kept reaching out to the schools kept reaching out to staff trying to understand what effect those privacy restrooms were having how they were dealing with it what challenges did it create operationally within the school we sent at the start of the school year this past year we sent a survey out to all of the principals in the system sorry the middle school and high school principals every one of them asking for

[00:33:29] their written feedback to help us try to refine this down and understand what challenges we had created on the facility side that they were now having to deal with only operationally questions regarding the the restrooms the locker rooms and and then wellness spaces which we'll touch on coming up common themes were concerns with the staff having decreased access to restrooms because we took away some of their restrooms to make the privacy restrooms concerns about the safety of the students when they are locked in a space that that we don't have adult access to monitor obviously some of the

[00:34:08] feedback very low utilization of the showers and locker rooms across the district but we're required to have some of those in place maybe not the same size that we have now and then very low designation of specific staff or student wellness spaces. And, um, so that is, and we'll talk about that kind of the next, next slide. We'll talk about wellness rooms, but then we also saw, and it makes, it's kind of common sense that the schools that were over capacity or very crowded, had bigger problems, had more problems dealing with accommodating students and the privacy requests

[00:34:46] than the schools that, that were, uh, under their, their capacity, their intentional capacity. So next slide, please. Now, focusing on the wellness rooms, what we found out from talking with the principals was that the schools themselves tended to come up with a solution for this.

[00:35:06] And it was different across every school. The schools that had a lower population were able to use either classrooms or offices or other space, counselor space, that could not be used in a school that had a pretty high population.

[00:35:25] These spaces are used by nursing mothers, used for prayer, for mental health concerns, and the schools were making it work, but every one of them told us they needed space for it. They needed something, they needed a location that was set aside just for this, and our schools up until the ones that are being built right now did not have this in the design.

[00:35:51] They did not account for a wellness room for staff or for students. However, we have rolled this into our current designs. So middle school 14, which is, I was trying to think of it, I just lost the name. Watson Mountain Middle School has a wellness room designed into it.

[00:36:11] And elementary school 32, which has not been named yet, is also going to have a wellness room built into it. So next slide, please.

[00:36:20] Okay. So then this winter, based on the feedback from the principals, kind of our second round we hired, intentionally hired a separate architecture firm to take another look at the challenges that we had as we were refining the scope and to help us look into solutions, potential solutions that were out there to make sure that we're looking at what other school systems have already implemented, that we're getting feedback from those other systems, the pros and cons of each option.

[00:36:55] And we've have decided to really focus in and initially on the high schools and we're proposing we proposed to the school board I'll be implementing two different pilot projects. The first pilot project Is going to be at Loudoun Valley and Broad Run Because those are us there's very very similar schools if you've ever looked at the floor plan of them And then we're going to do this project in both of those schools and then we have The other primary prototype is using the heritage model, and we're implementing this program.

[00:37:29] We're going to implement this pilot project at Heritage, Dominion, and Woodgrove as three sites, and we will talk about that. Next slide, please. Okay, so in addition to the standard multi-fixture restrooms that we have in the schools and the single-user restrooms that we have in the privacy restrooms we have in the schools now, the third option that was proposed was looking at a restroom that was basically open an open concept whether it's a multi-fixture in an open corridor model which is the top picture there you

[00:38:04] see from meridian high school which is in falls church and then the second option was a multi fixture all-gender restroom in what's called a screened model where there is a screening wall between the restrooms and the hallway.

[00:38:21] We have gotten feedback, and then the picture there is from the Tally Ho Theater, which is in Leesburg. So both of those, we've gotten very mixed feedback on implementing either of these. The general consensus from the staff is that the open, what's called the open corridor model would be a better model for operationally as far as the concerns for student safety there's a lot of a lot of the security concerns and focus they

[00:38:57] were worried about are alleviated and you'll see that there's and we'll go on next slide please so and so I've already talked about this the Watson Mountain and ES 32 both will have the more of the privacy restrooms built into these these two schools neither of them have the those the two prototype concepts that we that I just showed you with the open corridor but both of these schools were under construction we did take a focus on trying to expand student privacy restrooms and you'll see there for Watson Mountain we have 15 single

[00:39:36] user staff restrooms whereas Willard the previous last generation of middle school had 18. There was some efficiencies there. A little different floor plan allowed us to reduce the staff number of restrooms slightly. But where you see the big difference is on the single user restrooms for the students. And we have 12 single user restrooms for students at Watson Mountain Middle School, whereas at Willard we only had five. And so at Watson Mountain, these privacy restrooms are distributed across each floor they are intermixed with the multi traditional multi

[00:40:16] fixture restrooms that you would see in a school so this is kind of the some people refer to this as a hybrid model where we've got the traditional boys restroom with multi fixtures traditional girls restroom with multi fixture and then we have some privacy restrooms there in the same proximity with it on each of the floors within the school yes 32 is quite a bit different that school is being designed as a K and built as a K to 2 school. It's being constructed just a few hundred feet from Hovatter Elementary School which will become the three to five grade elementary

[00:40:53] school for that that zone. This particular site has 44 single user restrooms because every single classroom has it has its own restroom. So it number looks huge for an elementary school but every classroom because it's k-2 our lcps standard for for k-2 grade is an in-classroom restroom and so every classroom has the restroom there are still multi-fixture restrooms in the hallways smaller in number but there are multi-fixture restrooms and and of course elementary

[00:41:31] 32 es32 is a two-floor school and i didn't say this but i said that both of these schools have wellness room built into the school so next slide please okay technology and restrooms can be a very sensitive issue and we're very aware of that very focused on this our primary research and primary focus has been on how do we assist the school administration in monitoring the restrooms without violating anyone's privacy without without creating cons other concerns that we do not want to deal with.

[00:42:12] So we don't have a selected product yet. We have been reviewing and meeting with vendors that have, there are multiple products on the market. These, the technology we're looking at, as you see there, we believe that it'll assist, that it helps with safety.

[00:42:30] There are sensors out there that can be pre-programmed to recognize keywords. So if someone says help, that sensor detects the word help and sends a notice that somebody in this particular restroom has said the word help, notifying administration.

[00:42:48] They also detect vaping and other air quality concerns that we may have in the restrooms. There are occupancy sensors that use a thermal imager, not a camera, but a thermal imaging device that basically shows that there is a blob generating heat in the room.

[00:43:10] And that's the best way to describe it. having seen the online presentations, it's a blob. You can't tell the size of the person, you can't tell anything about the person. As a matter of fact, I don't know if something else was in the room that was generating the same approximately 98, 99 degree temperature rating, it would probably show that you would think it was a person in there. But on the system, it allows us to know that that particular restroom or that particular stall, that there is a an object in there that's generating heat that is that's all it that's all that sensor does

[00:43:50] key there no cameras no audio recording devices and it never captures any personally identifiable information so the notifications different systems have different options but it can do anything from sending a text message to somebody on the staff there it can be it can be a web-based monitoring where our administration or school security officers, somebody gets a notification on their computer through email, they can monitor it real time and see what's happening.

[00:44:25] It basically, the software we've seen shows up kind of as a grid, and if one of the alarms is triggered, that particular box is highlighted. We're looking at trying to implement something this summer in some of these pilot projects that we're constructing.

[00:44:42] And once again, we haven't narrowed it down to a particular product yet. We're close to doing that, we hope. But we believe that we need the technology to go with the changes we're doing to fully protect the students. And so next slide, please.

[00:45:01] So we're going now a little bit more detail into our construction pilot program. We already talked about these briefly. And, you know, the objectives there, the key objectives there is we're trying to provide privacy yet also provide security with some level of improved monitoring of the restrooms.

[00:45:31] We're trying to comply with policy 8040. We're trying to comply with Virginia code. There's two parts of the code. One that says we have to implement the privacy restrooms. The other one says is the building code where we have to have a certain number of fixtures in the school based on the population of the school.

[00:45:49] And then still reviewing the showers and the locker rooms. So, and then if you, next slide, please. This particular floor plan is Loudoun Valley High School. You can see if you kind of in the center of the slide, you'll see the six kind of six dots coming down from the top.

[00:46:10] That's the front door to the school. If you go in the front door through the new secure vestibule that's there and you basically come in and turn right, you'll see room 157 that's faintly highlighted in yellow. realize it's a little it is a little hard to see but 157 is a storage room at the moment but it's adjacent to two staff restrooms that were converted to privacy restrooms as part of this initial phase of this project so and if you'll go to the next page next slide the the two restrooms at the top of the

[00:46:48] slide or the in the darker green or the existing restrooms that were privacy restrooms for the students as part of our pilot we're going to convert those back to staff restrooms and then we're taking part of this storage room and building in three privacy restrooms that will all have those single-use restroom with a toilet a sink and a door directly into the hallway so this is happening at both Broad Run and Loudoun Valley and will actually

[00:47:24] increase the number of fixtures in the school they are both those schools part of the reason we're targeting them is both those schools are under their current fixture count as far as toilets for the school population it based on current code so they are under served as far as the restrooms go next slide please this slide is the floor plan of Heritage High School but it's a model template for nine of our high schools within the county they all look almost identical very very similar there's a couple of they have a the floor plan is flipped but they're very very similar the front door of this slot of this is

[00:48:03] down at the bottom you can probably see the stage highlighting it thank you Kim the front door is there this this school does show the new configuration of the office in front their vestibule flip was done last year if you go in the front door walk past the office past the library before you get to the cafeteria turn to your right down that hallway and you will see two restrooms that are faintly highlighted in yellow adjacent to room 314 so there are four restrooms highlighted in this in this drawing in yellow these were the all of the staff

[00:48:42] restrooms prior to our initial implementation of the privacy restrooms for the students what we did at these model schools is we took one of the private of the staff restrooms in each of these four locations and made it a privacy restroom we alternated between the men's and the women's room on the staff side but still a pretty big inconvenience for the staff if they were previously had had restrooms available for the specific gender they were looking for close by now it may be the opposite corner of the school or they may be down a floor we're going to take this that restroom the one adjacent at

[00:49:19] 314 and we're going to basically got the space next next slide and we're going to turn it into an open concept restroom with four stalls and sinks that are adjacent the the yellow area you see on the slide is actually open to the hallway so the hall is I mean it is this restroom is now part of the hallway each of these stalls will be a floor-to-ceiling stall that we're required through building code to ensure that there it's like a half inch from the floor up to

[00:49:57] the ceiling so these will effectively be four separate rooms that are being built in with the sinks out in the hallway and we're doing this at just the one location in the school and the reason we're doing the one location is because we don't know if this is going to work we're this is a pilot for us we we're planning to implement this change get feedback from parents from students from the staff to understand the challenges and concepts that they have with this what they like what they don't like. Operationally, how does it improve the safety and security of the students

[00:50:34] in the schools? We would then go through and all the other three sets of restrooms in this model template, and we're going to be doing this project, once again, at Heritage, Dominion, and Woodgrove. We're going to take the other three sets and convert them back to exclusively staff restrooms in those schools. So we would still keep the same number of privacy restrooms for the students.

[00:50:59] they'd just be in one location and we're opening back up three more staff restrooms for staff so next slide please okay so next steps this this is our pilot project we're we're implementing this now we hope to have we're really trying to get construction completed by the time school starts but it's a very aggressive schedule and we're not sure we're going to make it at this point There is still some logistical challenges that go back to COVID, and for some reason, bathroom partitions seem to be a long lead item.

[00:51:39] They were typically taking us three, four months before COVID, and at one point during COVID, we got up to almost a year trying to order bathroom partitions. But we're working, we've started with just kind of finalizing the initial design for these three schools, the pilot project.

[00:51:55] We're working to try to get those incorporated under contract very, very soon. We're going to be working with each of the schools to identify feedback groups from the students, separate group from students, and a separate group from the school staff. We plan to come to the LEAF and ask your feedback.

[00:52:14] So this briefing was obviously set up just in the last week or so to come in and present it to you, but we're going to be coming back when we get this implemented and hope to get feedback from the parents and so we'll be working on that pretty quickly in the fall we hope that it'll be about 60 days from the time we can get these restrooms opened in the schools that we can start start collecting that feedback and then making a decision and working with the school board to understand and the parents students understand what's working what hasn't worked and make the decision about how we're going to implement this across the rest of the

[00:52:54] school division over the next kind of two and a half years that we've got left in our timeline plus we'll be coming in asking for the money in the fall from the school board in our capital budget to implement the changes for all of the other schools in the district and then the last bullets there's really really more DOI department instruction but they're actively working right now to make sure that we're aligning the standards and policies and procedures within each of the schools dealing with restroom supervision and locker room supervision so and then the final slide this was

[00:53:33] just briefly a chart that we had put together trying to kind of indicate on the chart and we could I'm sure we could fill out probably put more dots in the in the boxes there but you know we did the initial rollout of the privacy restrooms you'll see there's very few boxes checked on that we know it was not perfect but it was it was expedient it got us started with the program compliance with state code compliance with policy and now we're trying to work and find the the permanent solution our pilot program adds a little bit more when we add in the technology pilot with the pilot restrooms we believe that that'll

[00:54:12] help us achieve each of our objectives there with the privacy restrooms so that's the presentation and I'm happy to try to field any questions okay so we have time in full disclosure for probably about three questions I want to remind you now and at the end if you are unable to ask a question you can scan your little QR cord here and ask a question provide feedback we will gather those

[00:54:44] and we will get some some information just kidding time the QR the one that's on your leaf handouts yes yes that one there sorry okay so I'm gonna start yes there hi thank you for your presentation I guess this isn't really a question it's more of just a comment and I'd like someone from LCPS to speak to a plan to perhaps educate students about vaping and I assume sexual assaults and medical

[00:55:22] emergencies since you are considering voice activated alarm systems in restrooms perhaps the focus needs to include a plan to address these issues as well okay thank you the very end in the pink shirt I apologize thank you I am a parent of a student at Loudoun Valley High School and one of the great concerns that I have about this whole plan is that almost daily the majority of the bathrooms at that school are locked the bathrooms and the locker room

[00:56:01] So regardless of what you have planned, I'm concerned that there will be a massive waste of money, number one, and that it won't accomplish what you think you're going to accomplish. And in the meantime, there are huge health concerns that are completely not addressed.

[00:56:21] And if you'll please note them down, that there are kids that are at risk for having a kidney infection, dehydration, Kids that they no longer carry a water bottle because they cannot use the bathroom. So you're spending millions of dollars, wasting millions of dollars, time, energy, resource, money on bathrooms that are locked every single day.

[00:56:47] And as a parent of an athlete, I'm livid, number one. But also, number two, I have parents, because I'm the liaison, I have parents that are coming to me saying, my daughter is menstruating. She's missing three, four days every month.

[00:57:05] Tell me, in what society is this okay? This is absurd. And then my question that I have for you is, if you're going to go to such great length to implement this pilot program with all these sensors and all this stuff, but you noted in your presentation that teachers and administrators and SROs are reluctant to intervene, how in the world will any of this information be of any value if the people that are in place now are not willing to do a damn thing about it?

[00:57:44] we already have those people in place and they're not doing anything about it the only thing they're willing to do at my daughter's school is lock the doors so she goes to practice at 7 a.m she comes back to get her stuff out of the locker room the girls locker room is closed it's locked all day long but not the boys locker room just the girls so you might have more information available to your finger fingertips you might have it on a screen what good is that to you you might spend more money and it might be on a screen what will

[00:58:18] you do with that will you hire more people to come in that have the backbone to do something about it to enforce the rules will you then open the bathrooms in the locker rooms and make them available so girls can actually go to school and participate in sports so many of your questions or concerns are related to the operational issues within the school I can talk about the facility side of that and I will tell you that I'm very aware that restrooms are locked during the school that different schools have different operational procedures for dealing with the challenges they've

[00:58:54] got right now part of what our department of instruction is actively working on is trying to communicate standardize how our schools are handling this and dealing with restroom supervision dealing with the locker room supervision they are actively working on that now planning to And I don't have the details or specifics of what it is, but I know that they're working to get the administrators all on the same page, everybody focused in the same direction, implementing best practices per se as far as the restroom security and safety, and then they'll be rolling that out to the staff.

[00:59:33] We have not yet determined who would get the notifications from the electronic sensors. That's a challenge for us also. The schools, you know, who do we notify? Do we notify the principal? Do we notify the assistant principal, the SSO, all of the above?

[00:59:51] Do we have additional security staff in the school that gets notification? We don't know that part of it yet, but that's something we have to determine and figure out before we bring these restrooms online. but understanding your concerns and it's their operational concerns in the schools that I can't address okay I am going to say that as far as the operational side if you'll come find me after the meeting we can we can take a note and figure out the best way to get answers to your

[01:00:27] questions to the group setting because I saw a lot of noddings and and saying so it looks like it's not just with you. So I'm not, is somebody, I tried, I'm going to try to pick different districts just so everybody gets us. So these two are out. Is there one other? If not, I'll go back to the Ashburn district. I just don't want to. Karen, yes. Okay. I have a couple of questions. The heritage model that you showed, why not make the bathrooms any use? Because you're saying that if you are a female teacher and you're used to having a bathroom on either side of the

[01:01:05] hallway, and if the bathroom is single use, why make it male or female, why designate it? So I don't understand what that is. And then the other question I have is, are all of these bathrooms ADA compliant? So I'll touch the last one first.

[01:01:25] Yes, all of the ones that all of these fixed, well, if you, Kim, can you go to that slide? So, in that particular slide, two of the restrooms are ADA, two of the stalls are ADA compliant, two or not, on this template.

[01:01:47] Of the staff restrooms in the schools right now, they're all ADA compliant. To get into the restroom, but then there'll be one stall. I mean, it's a multi-fixture restroom, so one of the stalls in the multi-fixture are two, but it depends on the size of the restroom, but at least one of them is ADA compliant.

[01:02:06] And this prototype, we just completed an ADA assessment from VDOE two weeks ago that assessed 10 of our high schools, and including multiple of this model and all of them, everything passed as far as the ADA compliance.

[01:02:29] So you had asked about staff and why we would redesignate some of the existing staff restrooms. Right now, the staff restrooms have two fixtures in them. Some of them have three, but the ones that have the two fixtures, we had feedback from the staff in the schools that they would prefer a gender-specific restroom versus a privacy restroom.

[01:02:52] And so if we keep it as a privacy restroom on the existing ones, we effectively are taking one fixture out of service or two fixtures out of service within the school. So if we, if we redesignate it back to the gender specific as it was, we're opening all of those fixtures in that restroom back up.

[01:03:10] Can I ask a clarifying? I'm sorry, because I don't think I understand. You said that the staff, are they, was the request that they preferred gender exclusive bathrooms or they wanted bathrooms that had multiple stalls so they had multiple opportunities to use, more opportunities to use the bath.

[01:03:35] Those feel like two different things. So the staff restrooms, the restrooms that we converted to privacy restrooms, they had multiple fixtures in them. They still have multiple fixtures in them, but we have designated it as a private-use restroom.

[01:03:53] So one person is using it at a time right now. In talking with the schools and the staff in the schools, under this pilot, we're taking four private-use restrooms that have multiple fixtures in them each, And we're going to build four private stalls in one location and then go back through the other three locations and redesignate those as a gender-specific multi-fixture restroom.

[01:04:27] I believe it's kind of a combination of both.

[01:04:43] We have had some feedback that staff did not want a gender-neutral restroom preferred, that they would rather have. And it's mixed. And I'm telling you, it's mixed. We don't have a majority that's heavily in either direction.

[01:05:03] We're getting feedback that staff likes private restrooms. We're getting feedback that staff likes the multi-fixture restroom that's gender-specific. If we were getting clear feedback in one direction, it would be easy.

[01:06:50] So the intention that I have is that you give me those questions now. And so the person that's speaking can hopefully address everything. Like we presented based on your all's feedback about transportation.

[01:07:09] I have like 10 questions that you have asked that hopefully he's going to address. Granted, hopefully more discussion after. But if we know the top. What she's saying is that in the last meeting there, we said if you have specific agenda topics, that was one thing that was discussed was that you all felt you all as a group made a comment that there was not enough feedback from you all as to what were agenda topics and so one of the

[01:07:44] things that we did then for this meeting was to specifically add an agenda topic which is transportation based on the questions that you all had I understand what you're saying which is different which is that you would like there to be built in more time for discussion amongst the group perhaps not directly with mr. trainer but just in our group about the information right right so so I think that we can do a couple things one if there are specific questions

[01:08:16] that you would like an answer to we can try to get those answered either through an email or to have him or someone in his group come back at the next meeting if we need to do that and then we can also reserve some time at the end to have additional conversations on this topic I just generally speaking we have an hour and a half that's kind of what we we try to budget and so if if something runs long like this does at some point we have to stop because we do have other things that we have to get

[01:08:52] but we can continue that conversation after we get through the this next information item before we move on to any new business so we can kind of just take a pause let's do this and then we can discuss both of them after that so at this time mr. Scott Davies who's the director of transportation services is here to provide an overview on transportation and then engage in a question and answer session I believe you were given some questions and then

[01:09:28] there should be an opportunity to ask some additional questions at this time so thank you mr. Davis thank you yes we did get some questions in advance and I put it put together a quick presentation to kind of hopefully address most of those questions again my name is Scott Davies and the director of transportation transportation so all the school buses in this in the district next slide really okay okay well I

[01:10:01] apologize so I'll just I do have some slides here I'll go ahead and talk through hold on one moment can you give me just one moment while we're waiting for a moment to hopefully save time at the end for further discussion I do want to clarify some information about meeting quorum

[01:10:40] As you know, a meeting quorum is necessary to conduct the business of this group, or in our case, LEAF, according to Robert's Rules of Order. A quorum requirement is a protection against an unrepresented action by a small number of people in the name of the body.

[01:10:56] In other words, regardless if action is needed during a meeting, our LEAF meetings must achieve quorum. That means 50% of our members must be present for a meeting to be called to order and continue. If the number of attendees falls under the 50% mark, the meeting has to be called.

[01:11:14] So we would like to implore you all to reach out to your fellow members and alternates to attend so that everyone's time is honored. And you can see, hopefully, from the last meeting, if there are individuals that were absent that you still don't see again tonight that you know, perhaps you could reach out to them.

[01:11:35] We do have an alternative, um, alternate system where that if, if you are unable to attend a meeting, you can, um, see who your alternate is and have them attend in your steed. Um, so just FYI on that.

[01:11:52] Do we have a question? Um, I just want to say that I am absent and present. If you look on that, Nikki Maples Reynolds is absent and present. I mean, so I was, I was there for sure, but just wonderful.

[01:12:08] And if you wanna quickly look through this, if you do notice any additional errors, we have already approved the minutes, but we can go at the end of the meeting and I'll do a little digging during this presentation so we can get that taken care of.

[01:12:27] Okay, so we do have half of our members here. So now we're gonna talk about some transportation. All right, Mr. Hades. - Okay, now I'm ready to go. Sorry about that. So next slide. So this is policy 6210, section F.

[01:12:43] This is the guidance that we operate underneath for determining ride times. So, essentially, less than an hour duration, except for runs that were less than 50% of the manufacturer's recommended student capacity is utilized. So, the more rural areas where we have a lot of geographic ground to cover and the population is less dense, we may go a little bit over that 60 minute threshold, as well as special needs runs that can go from Sterling out to Culberts in Percival, from the south to Sterling, et cetera, or outside the county.

[01:13:23] So we have buses that go to Thomas Jefferson, buses that go across the county to Academies of Loudoun, and then obviously all the special needs programs that are both inside and outside of Loudoun County. So those, because of the nature of those and the distances we have to cover, sometimes we'll go over the 60-minute threshold.

[01:13:46] Next slide. The earliest pickup time, so the average pickup time is about 6.55 for a 7.10 drop-off. So we try to drop off 20 minutes prior to the bell. For the 7.30 bell, it's 7.10. 7.50, it's 7.30.

[01:14:02] And that gives 20 minutes for, that gives us a 15-minute window to be on time for all kinds of external factors like traffic, accidents, things like that. And our threshold is that 20 minutes before the bell to five minutes before the bell, in order to make sure that students have time to go into the school, get settled, get breakfast if necessary, and then be ready to go when the bell rings for that first class.

[01:14:30] And our average ride time is about 15 minutes. The extreme, that is obviously out west, in the more rural area. The earliest we have is a 6:05 pickup time For a 7:10 drop off, that's a 65 minute ride time and that is for Banneker and mainly because Banneker's attendance zone is pretty big.

[01:14:53] We also have, for our special needs students, we also have several pickup times between 6:00 a.m. and 6:30 and that's because of the regional locations. It's so broad and we go across the county and outside the county. And obviously Thomas Jefferson, our earliest pickup time for that.

[01:15:12] school is 7 50 for an 8 30 a.m. drop-off time and that's about a hundred minute ride time for that student that's picked up first next slide so one of the questions we had was what was the purpose behind the tier the additional tiers last year we had in previous years we had three tiers elementary middle and high we went to five tiers this year mainly to stretch out the day to improve our on-time performance for our students and our reliability the compressed nature of the previous bell schedule combined with our driver shortage made

[01:15:50] being on time pretty difficult and and also resulted in a lot of second runs or second loads which I'll talk about there in a few minutes the three tiers required some students to be dropped off at school earlier and picked up later due to those second loads so in case you don't know second load is bus brings in set a load of students drops them off then goes back out and picks up a second load of students brings it back and so those first load of students have to get to school earlier have to be dropped off earlier and then that second load of students gets dropped off closer to the bell doesn't have

[01:16:28] the necessary time by getting rid of all those second loads everyone gets dropped off roughly around the same time and also gets picked up roughly around the same time so we went from over 100 second loads to around five. So big, big impact. That also allowed us to address part of our driver shortage. We were able to reduce 29 routes as a result of the additional tiers. So that took 25. We had last year we were in the 60s in terms of our driver shortage. We were able to

[01:17:05] to address half of that just by adjusting the route times. And then we've seen a big improvement on our on time performance. I know we hear from principals all the time that they have seen a noticeable improvement in terms of our on time performance, both in the AM and especially in the PM.

[01:17:26] And then the early start time for some students obviously is not ideal. We understand that the majority of complaints and we kind of figure this upfront that it would be the early elementary that would be the most concerned with those related, especially in the rural areas like Banneker where you have a 6:05 start, a pickup time for a 7:10 drop off.

[01:17:46] That's, we recognize that. But when we looked, when we stepped back and we looked at the entire school district as a whole, we thought that this would benefit a majority of students. The next slide.

[01:18:02] And so one of the questions we also had was, was the early start times a solution for the bus driver. So this gives you a quick snapshot where we were last job last year this time and where we are this year so we had 506 routes at the beginning of last year we have 477 right now and there were some operational changes that on added additional 17 routes so when I compare apples to apples it's 506 to 477 some of those operational changes were like the movement of all the kindergarten

[01:18:38] students to from Hovater to Pinebrook that it required three additional buses that we did not plan for and in terms of our staffing and stuff for last year that it was implemented this year and there were some other operational changes like of that nature so and we one thing we also last year we did not have as many field trips we were we specifically limited the number of academic field trips and dedicated all of our and so all of our dedicated field trip drivers were driving routes last year and then supporting athletics on top of that this year field trips are fully back and I have a second other

[01:19:17] slide that'll come later about that but we have 14 dedicated field trip drivers that are not driving routes this year and so we've been able to accommodate the comeback of field trips this year because of that but even you but you can notice here even now last year we had 551 driver driver FTEs filled this year we have six less 545 so with all these efforts we're still we have fewer staff this year than we had last year yet our on-time performance is still much better than it was last year with fewer staff so and

[01:19:55] it's not because we don't have the FTEs to fill because we still have 28 vacancies that we're looking to fill and so if you know anybody that wants to drive a bus please send them our way and another thing we also have been able to reduce the number of attendance necessary and at the same time fill a lot of vacancies for for attendance so you can see we've made a big impact at a date we're plus eight from this time last year for our bus attendance which is really necessary to support our special needs students next slide so tiered bell times so our on-time

[01:20:30] reporting for schools we improved from 93 to 97 percent and this is the one metric within our strategic plan that transportation is measured on it's on time performance making sure our students get where they need to be when they need to be there and so that's dramatically improved the student performance we don't have data we don't track that data within transportation that's really done at the school level regarding student performance and then we I understand there some could some could make a correlation between performance and on time or the early start times we transportation doesn't

[01:21:10] doesn't track that so again we don't have we don't have that data mr. Davies before you swap just for those of you who are wondering why these these were some of the specific questions that have been asked specifically about were people on time there were also questions about you know with an earlier start time at certain schools is that affecting the performance in any way so he's just answering the transportation doesn't have that and then was there any you know correlation between if you had an earlier start time students aren't doing as well or vice versa they're doing better than

[01:21:47] before and so that's specifically where those are coming from or those were questions that that we got asked to have him answer in case they seem a little bit out of the blue

[01:21:56] So there was also a question about start times this year versus last year so looking at the elementary so last year most elementaries we did have some outliers but most elementary started at 730 and those that had second loads would be dropped off at 710 and the second load would be dropped off at 730 so that second load those students that were on a second load bus would be dropped off at or right before the bell with no time to get settled in.

[01:22:28] The current status is for the early elementary, everyone gets dropped off at 710, roughly, barring any accidents or things like that. And then the second elementary gets dropped off at 740.

[01:22:44] So, again, 20 minutes prior to the bell to get settled, get breakfast, get ready for the day. And then the dismissal before last year, dismissal was at 235. This year it's 215 for the early elementary. Late elementary is 245.

[01:23:00] Next slide. So field trips are back and back with vengeance. You can see I took data from 2019, 2020, so just prior to the pandemic. So from August to March of 20 to August to March of 22 and 23 to show that, I'm sorry, that was August to, that was the 19-20 school year.

[01:23:28] So August of 19 to March of 20 compared to this school year, the same time frame. And you can see, and it follows the same pattern of the fall sports. That's the peak that you see in the September timeframe, then it drops off and then it picks back up again.

[01:23:45] And we're following that same path, but with a lot more requests and a lot more staff dedicated, a lot more overtime hours dedicated to supporting all those field trips. And it's going up.

[01:24:01] We're gonna see a big increase for this spring. So next slide. So another question we had was on summer school. Summer school, we are anticipating that we will have enough staff to support all the summer programs.

[01:24:20] And so we are just now advertising for summer school. We're having a meeting on the 27th of March where we're gonna have the drivers that are interested in working over the summer sign up. We haven't generally had an issue. Our issue is making sure that we provide them enough hours to compensate them to to to come in and work for a couple hours and stuff like that so but we do anticipate having enough staff both on the attendant side as well as the bus driver side to support all our summer programs and then last but not least our parent app stop finder I know we've got a lot of complaints

[01:24:57] especially earlier in the year I think we've addressed some of the issues but there are some still some challenges we went to a new routing system this year before we had four or five different programs that that did not talk to each other and did not make it easy to route all the various programs especially the countywide programs that we have and especially those programs that don't operate every single day so some students go to this school school number a letter a on on one day the next day they'll go to a different school and so routing has become a lot more

[01:25:34] complicated and that combined with our outreach piece as well as all the field trips and so we decided to go to a single platform and with that platform came a new GPS system as well as a new parent app and so that was what we implemented this year it's been challenging but as you can imagine with any new IT system that is bringing together or the amount of data that we need to bring it together every single day for all 83,000 students because we even though we don't drive all 83,000 students we track all 83,000 students

[01:26:11] and all that data comes through our system every single day and that's been it's it's a challenge we are working with the vendor to address that we've been working with procurements in our and our DDI shop to to get these get those issues addressed and put pressure on the vendor to perform so on with that next slide be happy to take any questions all right thank you so very much before we get started questions I do just want to thank Jeanette who I think I called Christina because it's been a day but Jeanette is now our new

[01:26:46] chair of planning and it was now we have a we have a full slate of of officers and it made a really big difference when we had our officer meeting she came up with a lot of really good ideas she really took all the feedback if you guys stayed after the last meeting to ask questions she compiled all of that we're still working to get the rest of those topics along with the topics that you guys asked in when we met at the beginning of the year to get those covered but it made a it made a big difference and lightened the load for for the officer so I just want to thank you because this is a direct result of her to have these questions

[01:27:24] so if there are questions we will start on this side okay yes I'm gonna start with you yes anytime

[01:27:43] we're transporting students not between home and school it's a field trip okay yes so that would

[01:28:40] fall within alternative transportation requests so if you want a bus if you want to request a bus stop that is not in your that is not at your home address for special permission or even if you live a walk zone and you know there's a bus that has room available and you're close to a bus stop that's just on the other side of the road you can request special permission or you can request an alternative transportation request you have to submit it by June 30th for the next school year and then so that's the window it only will open in mid-April through June 30th submit that request

[01:29:18] It's on our website, the process and portal. And then if there's room on the bus and the bus is going that direction and it's going to the school that you want to go to or that you're slotted to go to, then it'll be generally approved.

[01:29:40] Generally, for special permission, though, we don't provide transportation. That's the. Yes, exactly. And it alternative transportation request processes.

[01:29:57] That is a great question and a great opportunity. I think that's a good nugget for everybody to take back to their respective schools about the timing of that, because I wouldn't think that it would need to be done. It makes sense that you need it done before the school year starts, but I don't know if everybody's thinking that way.

[01:30:14] All right, I'm going to start back on this side, and then I'm going to come. Yes.

[01:30:35] So about half. So we took all the elementaries, split them in half. Half went late, half went early. And the criteria that we used was primarily logistics. those those schools that had a and it was how the routes were configured so that was where the whole goal was so that one bus instead of serving three schools could now serve five so it could go to one elementary then the next elementary middle middle and then high and so instead of sec instead of second loads and then how it said second schools the the primary when I talk about

[01:31:14] logistics a school that had a longer route would more likely be early an early school because that bus could do the early route start at 5:00 a.m. go out pick up that first student pick up all the students drop by 7:10 and then the school that had the shorter route the element would they would now be able to do that second school and be there by 7:40 and so that was the primary criteria that we used so I had just two quick questions so first with regard to field

[01:31:50] trips do you grant all requests for field trips for bus use um we try to obviously we don't have unlimited resources so it it our field trip office works very closely with the schools with the uh with the band directors with um the coaches athletic directors for each school to highlight where the where we are constrained on capacity or where we're constrained on timing so we can't go up at 2 15 because we're doing elementary but we could pick you up at one o'clock uh for for a uh

[01:32:26] or likewise for a school for um a um you know if a a field trip wants to go into dc um we may not be able to pick you up until 9 30 if you wanted instead of instead of 8 30 because we're still delivering high school at that time so um so we do work with a lot with the schools uh i don't want to say we we guarantee uh that we can do every single trip because i'm pretty sure that i would be wrong if i said that do you do you know about the percentage of of requests that you

[01:33:00] deny we don't really deny any we we we work with the with the requester to move the trip to when we to win we can so it's not a matter of saying yes or no it's a matter of i can't do it today i can do it tomorrow yeah i guess the only feedback that i had heard from the schools is that they're They're very limited in what they can do and where they can go simply because of those time constraints.

[01:33:20] So they essentially have like three hours. So it's very hard to get into D.C. to visit a museum and then come back in like essentially a three-hour block of time, right? And so I guess I would ask you to the extent that we need more resources in order to be able to make those field trips, which I think in a lot of parents I think probably agree that it's a pretty vital source of your education to actually get out and experience different parts of the surrounding area, especially when it's such a rich area that the kids can experience.

[01:33:49] So have transportation communicated to the school board any additional resources that it might need in order to be able to grant more or expand the types of field trips that our schools can participate in that are restricted currently because of the transportation schedule? Yes, so we did request additional FTEs to support the additional plussing up by about three drivers.

[01:34:14] We're going to add three more dedicated drivers. We also are adding more buses for field trips starting next year. And our goal is to grow that to ultimately have two per high school cluster, two dedicated field trip drivers per high school cluster.

[01:34:31] Not that they would actually serve that high school cluster, but that would be the pool of people that would be available. But again we still have 28 FTEs to fill and adding three more FTEs on top of that it makes it it does make it difficult because at the end of the day if I take route drivers and make them field trip drivers now I have fewer drivers to cover the routes.

[01:34:55] Yeah, and I understand there's logistical challenges. I do. And I guess that's what I'm saying, especially since Mr. Madhavi is here to say, to the extent that you need additional resources, maybe that's something that the school board should consider. And then I have one other question relating to the early start times. So I saw that you said that attendance was higher or tardiness would decrease this year. Has anyone actually looked at ridership to see how many kids in those earlier school districts are even riding the bus anymore versus getting the kiss and go?

[01:35:23] because I know that there is half of our neighborhood doesn't even really seem to ride the bus anymore because they just get driven to school. Well, so we did a ridership count. I'm not sure. We do a ridership count quarterly, and we did one back in October time frame to look at where stops were not being utilized so that we could then shorten the routes.

[01:35:47] And ultimately, we were able to eliminate several routes by doing that because of the stops that weren't being used, which for those that weren't being driven made their bus rides much shorter. Okay, so overall ridership has decreased then? No, our ridership has actually stayed steady.

[01:36:04] Okay, and then one question, just a quick clarifying question. You said that I guess it was the tardiness. Were you talking about student tardiness or are you talking about bus tardiness? The question was about student tardiness. And my question was the slide itself.

[01:36:21] It said on-time, I guess it was like on-time. So our on-time performance has improved. On-time reporting for schools improved. That's buses or that's students? Well, the students that are riding the buses.

[01:36:38] Okay. The students that aren't riding the buses, I don't know. Well, that's, I guess, the heart of my question because what I'm seeing is there's a whole lot of parents that are arriving after the bell and the kiss and go light at this point. So I guess I'm wondering about the tardiness.

[01:36:54] I don't want to keep, I know other people have questions, so I'm not going to manipulate the conversation anymore. But I guess, again, that's another, I guess, a point to consider how many kids are actually arriving on time, given, especially if they're no longer riding the bus anymore. True. And again, we encourage everyone to ride the bus.

[01:37:10] That is the most, my dream is all students either walk or they ride the bus and there's no parents that take their kids to school. It's never going to happen. All right. I really like that. Not the no parents thing as a parent, but the bus or walk, I think, or bike or scooter.

[01:37:30] I think that's a great goal to have. Unfortunately, I'm going to table this now. The same thing, I'm going to try to ask you guys how you want to proceed for the rest of this meeting, but I am going to at least officially table this conversation due to timing.

[01:37:50] you do have questions I'm going to point to the right thing now please use this code and you can include those if there are specific questions we will try to get those answered if there are more broad questions we can see if we need to have a further discussion and so I guess Joan if you will help me keep a quorum of however many people we so if we lose too many people we can't continue but just really quickly i have one thing and then i'm going to open it back up to further discussion

[01:38:24] assuming that people enough people stay so we can continue i did just want to briefly share the status of leaf recruitment so we are finishing up a recruitment resource kit for school administrators so in addition to the handbook there's going to be a checklist a sample press release to use about a vacancy a why would you want to be a leaf representative blurb a welcome letter dates um so any if there is any additional information that you think would be helpful for an administrator ptas or other supporters while recruiting representatives for next year if you'll

[01:39:01] share that in the feedback form um and um and then in our april meeting we're going to include an agenda item dedicated to recruitment and one of the questions that we'll be discussing is um whether or not the PTA should be the first step in the LEAF representative, or if it instead should be the principal or other administrator, and if they want, they can ask the PTA to help them fill that, or they can appoint someone without going through the PTA.

[01:39:37] I think there was, from conversations I've had, it was done a lot of different ways, so we're going to, that's one thing that hopefully we can discuss. So if you have thoughts about that or if you want to reach back out to your administrator or PTA and ask those questions, that would be great. But if you have anything else about recruitment, and I think Karen asked, so I'll just clarify, we should start getting people end of April through May so they can be appointed before the school board recesses at the end of the school year

[01:40:10] so that when the school starts again i can't believe i'm saying this in august then we would have already approved and appointed a slate so that at our first leaf meeting in august of 2023 we could then have elections for officers at that time but that's dependent upon having a sufficient number of appointed by the school board LEAF members at that time so before we move on to

[01:40:41] just a couple of reminders are there any questions or additional comments that anyone would like to make about what we have heard or additional things I would ask that if you made a comment if you can please wait until anyone else has any so has an opportunity to talk and then I'm going to limit you guys to two comments so if you've already made one you only get one more so I'm going to start here and then if you'll just help me keep if people have to leave I understand the

[01:41:16] meeting was supposed to be done at seven and we'll just go while we can okay yes yes no so so they are one-year appointments and so what you'll need to do is if you are interested in remaining on LEAF and hopefully there's a group of us that does want to do that so we don't have complete turnover and we can build on what we've done this year you would just want to have that

[01:41:54] conversation with your principal and or PTA and say I'm interested in remaining if you're a rollover if you're a fifth or eighth grader and you're going to roll into a new school you may want to contact that new school if you're interested in in rolling over or becoming an alternate if there already is someone there but it's just a one-year appointment but there's no term set so you could do it for several years provided that the principal still recommends you and that you're then still

[01:42:28] approved by the um by the school board yes all right yes so i think that's what we're going to

[01:43:04] try to discuss next week so so if what we decide is the best interest of leaf is to have a principal appointment and if the principal wants no that's what's okay so now in the bylaws it's that the principal the pta right okay so right now the pta gets to a point and so that would be up to your individual PTA. Next meeting, spoiler alert, we're going to have an agenda item about if we want to

[01:43:39] change the bylaws so that it's a principal appointment and or decision to send to the PTA, then you would have to go from there. So I think it's my PTA does a slate. I imagine most PTAs do something similar to that. So I think you would want to have a conversation with those people.

[01:44:01] and then it's just how your pta generally operates whether or not it's a you know a broad it should be a conversation i don't think it's an odd to answer your question it's not an automatic like i want to do this next year check you're in next year you still have to go through whatever the process is at your individual school to continue that yes yes we will we will get that

[01:44:32] um done um okay yes yes but you can either if we don't know the answer then um then we're writing them down and we're going to get them to you okay right well no just what's your question and then

[01:45:04] get over to our school board representative tonight all right thank you i was wondering

[01:45:45] why miss oak debate decided to not attend this particular session but i'd be happy i think that's an excellent question I don't think there has been the that particular level of tracking to see before they converted those staff bathrooms to you can say single-use bathrooms what the concerns were previously versus what they are today what I've heard I can share with you what I've heard is that it's it's more of a sort of major thing happening now that the bathrooms are locked before

[01:46:21] at least there was stalls were there in terms of you can see the see the feet and so on so forth but now with the single use it's completely locked and it's it seems a really high risk that god forbid if there's a kid there and you don't know what's going on and and so it's it's it's coming from a very high level of concern from that I don't I can last time somebody said there was no incident or something happened I don't want to say that because I don't know but I think it's just more from a very high level of concern that something could happen and that's what that's what that's what is resulting into making different actions against that and that's what principles are coming back with more feedback to see what what can be done about that so i don't

[01:47:01] know if i answered your question but there's no data yes there's no there's none yep yep that's a great question but i don't think they're i'm aware of well yes i was waiting for someone to i i wanted to ask whether or not we would see two heat blobs or just one heat blob i had i didn't ask that question um is it just a merge t bob okay um so anyhow so we are we have lost quorum

[01:47:34] um so if you guys have um if you have additional questions um i really think that the the transportation segment went great where we were able to address some questions that people specifically had the same thing for this if you have questions and i didn't catch and i should know her name because she's in my district what is the the lady that was sitting at the end what What is her? Oh, she is Abby. Okay. Um, I'm going to reach out, um, to, to her and perhaps

[01:48:09] spoiler alert on the agenda. Maybe we can have a topic about, um, female participation in school and, um, not being limited by, um, things that lock bathrooms. I have a comment though. I mean, I have a high schooler also that says that she does not go to the bathroom all day.

[01:48:47] So if you, Yes, I'll let, I'll say, but if you have specifically about that, you can email me. My email address is heatherwardishereatgmail.com, or you can email Jeanette, who is going to work on agendas for the, we have two more sessions, so agendas for the next two sessions.

[01:49:08] If you have concerns about that, let us know, and we can incorporate that and get the right person here to get some answers about that. I have a comment, though. Sorry. Yes. Yeah, no, thank you. I think one of the perspective of having a school board member liaison is to be there, to listen, and to take the feedback.

[01:49:26] So at least I'm here. I'm going to take that because it's concerning to me that, you know, for 7 p.m., and especially the girls' bathrooms seem to be locked versus boys. So I'm going to take the feedback and ask the question saying what's going on at Riverside, Loudoun Valley, and I'm sure other schools, all schools.

[01:49:42] Fair enough.

[01:49:50] Regarding the girls' locker room, though, it is the coach's responsibility to open that back up. And so I know as a coach, the PE teachers are not unlocking the sports locker room. They're not touching them because they're not their players, they're not their students, they're not on the clock.

[01:50:08] So as far as her example with the girls' locker room after practice, it would be the coach's responsibility to open that up and monitor and watch over the girls. So that's different. a lot of the male PE teachers are coaches and they're there and so they're going to unlock theirs a lot of female coaches or a lot of girls teams have male coaches or they have female coaches that aren't teachers that may leave and if that teacher leaves and they can't that's what that

[01:50:41] was my experience as a coach I had to go in and unlock the locker and then supervise the children or the students in there the PE teachers wanted no part of it because a they may not be there yet and they weren't theirs to supervise if that makes sense oh the bathrooms are locked because they don't have enough people monitoring them really and it's not just girls not going to the bathroom I have a 15 year old boy that does not go to the bathroom at school or they try and people are

[01:51:13] vaping and they walk back out I mean it happens everywhere right right right but definitely bring

[01:52:07] that all up to your principal because it is a school by school situation and every school is bathrooms are laid out differently and some are open and some are not some are closed at lunch some are not it just depends and that's really a discussion with the principal i don't know if it can be thank you guys i think this was an opportunity for a lot of people to have a lot

[01:52:47] of good conversations i feel good about this meeting um and our next meeting is set for monday april 17th 2023 at 5 30 right here thank you everyone for your participation and patience and we are hopefully going to be able to have a couple more great meetings this year and have some more discussions and then continue to build on that for next year so thank you

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