Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Finance and Operations Committee Meetings, Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Date: Tuesday, March 21, 2023
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 1h (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/810598365?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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[00:00:09] Good evening. Welcome to the Tuesday, March 21st, 2023 Finance and Operations Committee meeting. We'll start. We do not have anyone for remote participation, so we'll take that off. Go to 2.0, which is procedures for public comment. So we have one speaker today, and we'll give you three minutes to speak.

[00:00:27] Rodlar Julian, please. You can sit right there, and you'll have to push the mic on off, and you'll see the—there we go. so rodley julio provided comments for msac but after reviewing the agenda and the reference materials had some additional comments so one of the benefits mentioned this is concerning policy 63 50. one of the benefits was improving of cellular coverage so just a question what measures

[00:01:15] So, for the benefit of improving cellular coverage, what measure is being used to determine there is a lack of cellular coverage for the school and the surrounding community? You know, that will trigger recommending a wireless network facility.

[00:01:34] So, that's one question. I don't see the policy address the impact of home values. So under Section A, Lines 5 through 27, I think that should be a suggestion to add an impact of home values.

[00:01:52] We understand that improved male cellular coverage will impact communication, but another impact to the community is the impact of their home values. And a decrease in home values, which is what some community members mentioned, also includes a decrease in property taxes.

[00:02:14] This also impacts LCPS. The proxy also provides language for testing to ensure that any installed tower site is in compliance with all FCC standards.

[00:02:30] So the question is, what happens if a test shows a tower is not in compliance with FCC standards, or possibly any new standards because of results of future research? Do the towers stay operational?

[00:02:47] Is LCPS tied to these agreements or contracts with these companies? Are there clauses within these agreements or contracts that say a tower will be disabled if not in compliance? Basically, what safety measures are in place if they're not in compliance?

[00:03:09] I wasn't sure, does this policy cover the possibility of mounting antennas on rooftops? I wasn't sure this was isolated to the towers on the ground. Per the FCC guide that was provided, when cellular and PCS antennas are mounted on rooftops, our F emissions could exceed higher than desirable guideline levels on the rooftop itself.

[00:03:38] Such levels might become an issue for maintenance or other personnel working on the rooftop. Other piece, there was an EME analysis attached to the agenda. Did LCPS or Milestone select the company or individual to perform the EME analysis?

[00:04:00] Based on the report, it seems like Milestone Towers may have selected the individual or the company. They're not sure if LCPS was involved. Since Milestone Towers has different motivations than LCPS, I guess I would suggest that the selection of the company to do the individual performing, suggest the selection of the company or individual performing the EME analysis be done by LCPS.

[00:04:33] if the milestone is selecting the individual, while that individual might be independent just from a community level as a parent, I would rather that selection be made by LCPS and not somebody whose main purpose is to actually gain business through LCPS.

[00:04:53] The last piece is the Telecommunications Act of 1996. So in terms of the distance wording that was removed from the policy, Section 704 of the Telecommunications Act, the only state's placement cannot be regulated on the basis of environmental impacts of radio frequency.

[00:05:24] However, RF emissions is not the only reason to consider the placement of these towers. Sir, your time is up. Oh. Thank you. We appreciate your comments, though. Okay. Thank you. Can I provide? And if you could turn turn that microphone off. Thank you, sir. All right Are there any other members of the public here to speak tonight? So we'll move on to item three, which is approval of the draft minutes Is there a motion? Mr. So be moved and I'll second that for the discussion Seeing none all those in favor of the motion, please say I raise your hand. Aye that motion will pass 2-0. Ms. Corvo absent for the vote

[00:06:03] Okay, we're on to action items 4.01 business financial services RFP are 205 252 architectural engineering services for miscellaneous projects renewal and we'll start with a motion mr.

[00:06:18] Mejedevi I move to the Finance and Operation Committee recommend the Loudoun County School Board renew RFP R20252 architectural engineering services for miscellaneous projects effective May 1 2023 through April 30 2024 as per the attached pricing recommendation I'll second that the discussions that we had that brought it back on the action item concerning the equivalency of the costing. Can we speak to the questions we had at the last committee meeting?

[00:06:49] Yes, we did address the questions from the last meeting. The first thing is we did update the pricing sheet. You will see the pricing sheet adequately reflects the same cost price across the entire spreadsheet with the exception of the costing estimating services and those pricings vary based on the subcontractor used by the vendor to provide the services. That's why you will see a variance in those amounts.

[00:07:14] So we did fix that, and then in addition, included in your packet was the historical pricing, where the intent was to show you where they had received increases previously, although incrementally and smaller in nature. Okay, so the historic values are located in this pricing sheet?

[00:07:35] They should have been part of the packet. It's in the executive content of the packet. Oh, in the executive content. Yes, sir. Okay, I'm going to take a moment so that we can open that up, because I didn't know we had executive content. Share it with you.

[00:07:59] Yes, please. Thank you, Chair. So I guess I think last time we also talked about the deriving to this price rate, I mean, the pricing sheet.

[00:08:15] And we talked about, you know, how we do cost plus, I guess. And I was doing some looking around, too, in terms of how, for example, Prince William County, how they put their pricing sheet out there for similar type of services that they are contracted where they have their rate overhead and the profit, too.

[00:08:34] I think you mentioned last time that we do something similar, but is that not posted out in the public domain, what that looks like? Okay, I need to clarify. So you're looking for the proposed prices that were offered by the vendors and then what the final pricing was, or what are you looking for specifically?

[00:08:56] No, specifically what I'm asking is this pricing sheet. When we spoke last time, we talked about the cost-plus model of how the pricing is done. I think you mentioned that this is something that LCPS also does the cost-plus model, too. I think Mr. Lewis is going to take that.

[00:09:13] Yes, sir. So, Mr. Behavey, I think the cost-plus conversation was related to construction services, not design services. And so these are professional services here. And so we will, you know, one thing to remember about these prices is once we have a project on board, we actually solicit a cost-fee proposal from these folks.

[00:09:31] And so these individual prices are used actually fairly rarely because they combine all those services into one project. So if we're going to do an elementary school, they'll give us a proposal to do that. And if we have changes to that, that's when something like this would come into play. But these are not done on a cost-plus basis.

[00:09:47] That's only the construction services. You know, one more thing I do want to point out that this is, again, I mean, I love it as a contractor, how you guys operate.

[00:10:04] When I do working in the federal government contract, it's everything is like hush-hush, and everything is, you know, the rates are completely different. But, you know, at least if you know what rate card you're working with, it's good to manage and good to work with. But that's not the opportunity I've been given for the last 12 years of working with federal government.

[00:10:22] So I appreciate from a contractor perspective, I think it makes it clear, I should say, versus, you know, you live in this limbo and so on and so forth. I could go on and on about that. Okay, so I need to ask the question, what is the urgency on this?

[00:10:44] Would we be able to move this to the next committee meeting so we could review this? Because there is significant confidential information. I believe this one, yeah, I would look to Joe.

[00:11:00] What happens if we delay? Because I believe this contract expires. I think it's the end of this month. I was going to look. Oh, this one's okay too? Because I know geotechnical ones. Yes, sir.

[00:11:15] So I think it does expire at the end of the month. But we have, right now we don't have any of that. we're ready to award. So because these are done on a regular basis, periodic basis, I guess you should say, we have some time with that. Okay. I move to table. Okay. Further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. So we'll go ahead and table it. Let's bring it to action for the next committee meeting so that it'll give us the opportunity to look at the executive content. I'm sorry. I didn't catch the fact that we had executive content. All right. So we're

[00:11:48] going to move on to item 4.02, renewal of RFPR wireless. So I'll go ahead and make the motion. i move that the finance operations committee recommend that the loudon county school board approve the staff recommended revisions as amended february 21st 2023 of policy 6350 wireless network facility co-location so that motion will die from lack of a second okay uh yeah so let's have a discussion on that because i mean we have implications on that so uh the discussion on

[00:12:24] this is actually not the approval of the tower at freedom high school it's actually approval of the language change which is driven by state law state and federal law removing are the distances that mr. Sheridan had recommended and I had I had proposed back in last year I believe because we we did not find that freedom high school is a suitable site given the proximity now what they're stating is that we cannot arbitrarily decide that because of the emissions that we cannot place the tower there however the school board still retains full authority to place

[00:13:00] the tower or to reject the tower based on our authority and our ownership of the properties so given that I think that at some point that's we'll have to forward it to the board for discussion it doesn't have to have our recommendation but I will put this on the agenda so that the board can have that discussion I do think eventually that we'll have to remove the language because it does violate federal law okay so uh what we'll do is uh mr mehenity yeah i don't completely agree with that i think one of the questions i i didn't ask i think because we

[00:13:36] we jumped in the report part i was doing some research i mean i think for example montgomery county next door neighbor they allow zero cell towers on elementary property um many of the prince prince george's county in maryland has decided not to renew any cell cell tower contracts so I don't think I agree with that whole precedence that somehow we are not following the law of the law or something like that I think I just don't understand I mean it seems like many of the school districts have even gone beyond to uh move the tower sites almost thousand feet and we are here

[00:14:12] we're removing the 500 feet completely so that's yeah that's that's what some schools thousand feet some school districts yeah no so I'm just telling you some I'm not saying everybody is doing that some of some have done that so I think that's why I wasn't able to support I mean again you're free to bring back to the full board as an agenda item but given I like to understand you know how many are how many wireless towers are in the pipeline that we're waiting for that have been restricted because of the 500 feet distance I'd like to understand what's maybe I didn't ask the question

[00:14:48] last time around mr. Lewis because the thing the firm was presenting last time about the and so on so forth like what's driving this what's how many how many applications do we have today that's are held back because of this and that's where we need a policy change or we're just doing policy change because of what because the law is from 1996 I mean it's not like it's 2023 law so that's why I'm right so I'll try to address that as best I can I may need help from others so right now the only proposal that we have in place that is being held up is

[00:15:25] the Freedom High School proposal we have started looking at with Milestone a possible location in John Champ high school but we don't have an official request for that at this point so I think what mr. Morris was was explaining a minute ago is and you're right and I think Fairfax also does not have towers on elementary school sites and the school board has that authority to say we do not want a poll here what what we were explaining and the reason we took the language out of the policy that had the restrictive distances is because we're not allowed to say by law that it is because of environmental conditions or health concerns, those types of things.

[00:16:04] So we can't use that as a specific thing, but you can approve or deny any location you want. So we can, let's say if the contractor proposed at a certain site, you can ask us what the distance is, and then you can approve it or not, and then ask us to look for a different site.

[00:16:21] So that's the only distinction there, this the board has that authority to say yes or no to any of these proposed sites i will say that as we continue to be less clear on what our expectations are the probably the less fewer applications we're going to see and we do have i think gentleman asked question earlier is is we definitely have some some dead spots in loudon county for cell service without a doubt if you drive down route 50 anywhere near middleburg you're dead and so there are many places in loudon County that we are sure to sell cell service and it is I think it's um one of

[00:17:00] those things that is critical infrastructure and you know school sites are a good place to put those so and I think that answers your question but you have that authority to approve or deny anything I appreciate that I think but this I think this line that we have in the policy sorry chair I don't think we say it just is 500 people occupied distance doesn't give you the reasons like because of you know emission emission sorry radiations I don't think we specify any reason we just say 500 feet there right that's how the current policy the way it's written right now we don't give a reason why it should be

[00:17:38] firing it should be within or should not be within the 500 feet of occupied residents or school building today so just to give you some historic information on this we rejected the freedom site and we directed staff to go back and find an acceptable solution within those parameters they were unable to find that so right now there is no tower going up at freedom I do appreciate the comments that were made by the gentleman earlier concerning to in

[00:18:18] particular compliance and who selected the the tester because we and we've had that discussion before I understand that it is an independent tester who has done these all over the country but i do believe that the individual is hired by uh millstone because lcps would not pay for that but did we have any voice in the selection of the inspector who tested the radiation levels no that selection is done through milestone and uh all of the pre-work

[00:18:55] pending the approval of anything done before the approval of the school board is is the responsibility of Milestone through our master license agreement which is the same master license agreement that the County of Loudoun has okay so when we look at the at permissions to put the antennas on school property the ultimate authority is us and so nothing would be put on any of our school properties including roofs roofs have never even been discussed and I don't think that there's any appetite I think that would die a 9/0 death on the board if someone were to recommend the rooftop installation mr. Lewis yeah if I could

[00:19:32] call a comparison is the gentleman that came at the last meeting that spoke that was the author of the of the report was also introduced himself as a registered professional engineer and so comparison would be that we hire architects all the time who are engineers and sub consultants which we just saw on the last item and so they select those engineers but they're still bound by all the the the laws and regulations and all the engineering and math behind that so So I think we could have hired that same engineer, but I think we, you know, we would have the same result.

[00:20:04] And so it's just a thought at all for that as a comparison about those professional services that they're required to do so that they know that their tower meets the recommendations or the requirements of the FCC. Thank you. I appreciate that comment. Now, when we talk about compliance, my understanding is that if the antenna is not within compliance by federal law, it must be shut down.

[00:20:27] What do we have a process in place to I know that there is a an annual inspection of the radiation patterns to make sure that they're safe. But what would happen if say we say the federal government adjusted the standards and we found them to be not in compliance?

[00:20:44] Is there an immediate mechanism to shut the tower off or how would that happen? Because suddenly it becomes a question of public utility and there could be all kinds of other concerns with that. Yes, sir. So they're required by our master license agreement to stay within compliance.

[00:21:01] So we can certainly say to them as the owner of the property that that tower is not allowed to operate. And we could say that. And the goal would be that they would see that coming and make adjustments as they went forward. But also reminding that the information we have so far is these things are operating at less than 1% of what the value is.

[00:21:21] So seeing that exceed those values, I think, is pretty slim. but certainly they are required to do that by our master license agreement. All right, so what we'll do is I will push this as an information item to the board for discussion.

[00:21:39] It won't necessarily be for a vote. That will be up to the board to decide whether we're going to place that on action item. So I'll work with the other board members to have that discussion. But we would appreciate having staff ready to update us on both the history of how we got here and the requirement from federal law to make sure that we're not crossing our wires there because we do need to comply.

[00:22:06] So there were some other comments that were made by MSAC that I wanted to discuss briefly. So the factors for consideration, there are several of those that are non-negotiable and they talk about the opportunity for the superintendent to waive all those.

[00:22:22] And I do think we need to restrict a superintendent's waiver to those items, only those items that make sense. So as we're looking at this, this would be something brought up. If this were to start to move forward, I would want that change to be made as well.

[00:22:39] They would identify those items listed for which the superintendent could waive and those that he could not waive. And the ones he could not waive are pretty obvious. Anything to do with safety of the community or safety of the students.

[00:22:56] So if we could just go through, I think that the factors that the superintendent could review based on the MSAC recommendation was 457, and the rest are health-related. So I don't think those would be necessarily something the superintendent would waive.

[00:23:13] And as far as information, I know that the public was concerned that information is being handed out. The information that is collected by the FCC or by the companies is the same information collected on every cell tower in America so it's it's not that they're able to capture student identifiable information they collect the same cell data and I IP addresses or however cell towers address each individual phone so

[00:23:49] it's it's the same as it would be with any other location so I don't think that that's a mr. Mahedovee question yeah thank you chair so I think you know reading into what the question was asked about I know we talked about tower versus putting on the building the only place I see even you know sort of mentioned in there is a on number line number 18 which says they can be effectively integrated current currently existing man-made structures and or natural features and comma such as light poles and trees I think the reference is very light that it could be only on poles and trees and not on the

[00:24:29] building property otherwise there's no mention to anyway the policy that can preclude or somehow make sure that it'll never be on a school building a single property from a policy perspective I know it's not going to happen but policy there is no clear distinction that it cannot be you know it cannot be on the building itself so that's something I think I hope the board can consider to make sure that it's all with a cell phone tower or tree but not nervous necessarily a building infrastructure and I'd be in favor of that I don't I

[00:25:03] think there would be any argument it is closing a what could be a loophole but again i you know i don't want to go too far down that path of saying because it is still completely under the control it's not that the board is uh giving away any of its authority so of course you know where i stand on the board giving away its authority so i think that uh you know adjustments can be made to make this a little clearer and address the public's concerns so we'll continue to work that as this moves up into the information item for the board so i will work with the uh the board chair to get

[00:25:40] this placed on an upcoming agenda so just point of clarification is typically what we do with these policies when we take them to the board we then we offer what has been approved by the committee and so we have a lot of markups in here already that have gone through comments so far to date with the committee and then we can try to add those that have we've talked about here tonight i'm not sure the best way to do that since we didn't talk about specific language so maybe we'll just put some sort of notation boxes or something in there about tonight's conversation because i think we have the opportunity for this to be very confusing for the rest of the board

[00:26:17] when we get it there without having something that has been taken through um you know generally the existing policy marked up by the committee and then that's here recommended for the full board so we'll do the best we can but i'm concerned about being able to articulate all these when we get there okay mr mehedovie thank you chair so i think to in light of mr lewis's point point i mean what's i mean this is also what's the urgency that's driving us to put in front of the board as well there there is none uh well other than whether we are going to i mean it's

[00:26:54] strategic direction to any any firms that are looking to erect any towers on lcps property so that's the overall direction but also the more immediate discussion is freedom high school which really isn't much of a discussion at this point because I think it's been written off the table unless the board were to overturn what the committee's recommendation was which which yeah we we never pushed before the full board and never had the recommendation so I think Mr. Lewis instead of the two three people committee discussing it's going to be the full board discussing all policy and we just have to go through the motions because I don't feel

[00:27:30] comfortable making this making that decision tonight on certain languages in approving this even forward uh i mean again to the board or even at the board i think it's a collective body of the nine board members to make a collective decision so i think which is fine i mean i think the policy can be brought in front of the full board at any time so maybe we can just go with this and what this and maybe we can all discuss on the board and make make recommendation and changes as proposed does that help mr lewis do you have what you need to to put together information on i believe so we'll do our best to articulate this conversation in those before that and um we'll wait and see we

[00:28:10] get on the agenda and then we'll go from there okay and i'll work with the board chair to get get that taken care of all right we're going to move on to 4.03 which is support services authorization for school board chair to sign land development and or easements documents related to es32 is there a motion mr madavee uh i moved the law i moved to the finance and operation committee recommended the loung county school board authorized the school board chair to sign all the land development documents easement required to be executed by school board for the delivery of es32 when such documents have been approved as to from s2 form by division council and i'll second

[00:28:49] that further discussion no seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye and raise your hand aye that motion will carry to zero with miss corvo absent for the vote thank you we're on to item 5.01 which is an information item business financial services school nutrition fund here here comes more money. Ms. Willoughby. Good afternoon. We are here to request a supplemental for the School Nutrition Services Fund by $559,770. LCPS received notice in February from VDOE that we were to receive funding for our successful efforts to increase per-student

[00:29:27] breakfast participation during the 2021-2022 school year. Awards were made based on actual participation as compared to the baseline year of 2003 to 2004 school year. Funding may be and will be used to support ongoing efforts to improve student breakfast participation unless otherwise directed this item will be brought forward as an action item at the april 18th 2023 finance and operations committee okay further discussion on this mr mehedomy thank you chair it's miss will be i i this afternoon or this morning we met with uh senator tim kane i think he was at the academies

[00:30:05] and i did plug the universal mail and he said they'll be looking at they'll be working with Department of Culture's budget to see how they can do that. So I don't know. We'll see. But hopefully, I mean, continue to see if we can get some more money for that as well. That's all.

[00:30:20] Thank you. Okay. And I guess my question is, would this get us to Universal Breakfast? Would that amount of funding get us there? No. So what is our plan? I mean, we currently have a level of threshold that we provide for free and reduced meals. How are we going to adjust that based on this additional fund sorry these funds will just be additional revenue to the school nutrition funds that we can help program in and to further the divisions efforts in increasing participation so we don't have like a specific planned

[00:31:00] use other than continuing what we're doing we are seeing positive trends this school year as well in our participation month over month and I hope I don't jinx it but month over month we're seeing growing participation and this will help with that and if someone in staff does come up with a great idea we'd love to hear it just to see if we could target those funds for the for the uh either the free and reduced meal families or those that have that additional need so part of these funds actually go to offset the cost for uh breakfast in a classroom which we do for all of our cep schools would it be possible

[00:31:38] to apply any of these funds towards backpack buddies or any of the other programs like that no because they're not a lcps program correct and these are federal for dollars okay thank you further discussion you want to place this on consent so this will go on the consent agenda for the next committee meeting thank you next up is support services tuition fees ms willoughby so we are bringing policy 4010 tuition fees not so much the policy but more the discussion

[00:32:14] regarding the policy at the request of school board member oga degba she had requested information regarding the possibility of waiving tuition fees for students of loudon county public school employees so this is something that does come up periodically i'll cut to the chase that staff's position remains that we do not offer this as a benefit in board docs there's information provided i'll outline some of the concerns that we've identified one concern is that loudon county and virginia taxpayers would be subsidizing non-resident education so that is a concern

[00:32:52] There's also concern that this is not a benefit for all LCPS employees or that I'm sorry this would need to be a benefit for all LCPS employees not necessarily just teachers which I think is who we hear most from. There's also concerns regarding school capacities and how this fits in with special permissions as well as transportation concerns. In terms of a budget impact it's really difficult to determine what the full scope would be. There's revenue impact from the lost tuition revenue and then there is also the possibility of expenditure impact if there was to if this was something that was to be enacted and we did all of a sudden have an influx of students we

[00:33:32] could be required to hire additional teachers there could be transportation increased transportation costs so it's really difficult to gauge what that would be although we did pull some information and currently so I'll just use one scenario currently there are 2,689 full-time employees who are Virginia residents but not residing in the county so and again this is a super high level kind of a worst case scenario assumption but just to give some scale to what we're looking at if we were to assume that every single one of those employees had one student and they wanted

[00:34:11] to bring them into the district and not pay tuition. In board docs, I had what the in-state tuition rate is, which is $13,163. And so under that scenario, the total lost revenue would be $35.4 million. And again, this is a worst-case scenario.

[00:34:29] We don't expect this would happen, but it does show how quickly the dollars can add up. And what isn't included is while there's lost revenue, again, there would be costs associated with 2,000 students coming into the district so that is a summary of the information that we have pulled together there's also in board docs we've provided information regarding historically who our tuition payers are typically our tuition payers are for students who are moving in or out of the district so it's very rare that we get a true full-year tuition payment which is

[00:35:05] think is what we're seeing in the some of the historical information other than that we are just bringing this forward as a discussion item and if there's further direction from the committee okay and I appreciate this it's very helpful to see the numbers and to be realistic about what we couldn't could not provide I would point out though that the assumption that every one of those students would pay the full amount to come learn in Loudon is probably not very likely. The whole idea is that they would be back in their home state if they're out of state and that they would come only if they had this this

[00:35:41] opportunity. So I think that that but the numbers of you know the cost the expenses would certainly be a factor and with that number of children there would absolutely be a significant cost associated with that. So is it is there any federal or state law that precludes us from we wouldn't be able to collect the funding for those students the state piece of the individual per pupil funding because they're

[00:36:14] coming from out of state correct actually there would be which is why we have an out-of-state rate versus just an out-of-county rate so if they are a state resident but not in the county we do collect some of the state funding for that people they would fall onto our roles I will also add just two other things I forgot to mention since we do like to kind of compare with what our neighbors are doing um fairfax does not offer a tuition free waiver for their employees as a

[00:36:49] benefit um i think it was arlington or alexandria um had just recently sunsetted their program and then prince william does offer a benefit but it's 30 discount off of the tuition one other factor i did touch base with miss boland our you know chief hr officer to get her perspective since this is related to benefits and she did share some additional information that I would like to convey which was knowing that this would require some level of resources or funding or lost revenue

[00:37:23] that in terms of our desire being employer of choice she believes and I would agree that we would be better served looking at other benefit options that would target our entire population versus just a subset of our employee population because again this would just be a subset of employees who don't live in the state don't live in the county and have a child of interest wanting to come into the district so I'll just share that as well I think that's a double-edged sword because here we are recruiting and we're bringing in others from outside the state so that is certainly a benefit to those that we're trying to bring into the county if they were in some high need

[00:38:01] positions a chemistry AP teacher for instance that would be a huge benefit to the county to bring them in but I completely understand and I agree with the perspective that this is probably not the time or the the manner by which we could adjust benefits so Mr. Medivine. Thank you chair. So Miss will be again for my for my for my knowledge and understanding so there's no agreement with states to like if somebody was coming from different state and presuming this is somebody's living in the state and then they are bringing the students to Loudoun County on a you know admitted in Loudoun County that's I mean that's what we're understanding the

[00:38:38] scenario to the staff or a teacher that lives in a different state and is bringing a student to Loudoun County what kind of scenario is this where we talk about out-of-state versus even out-of-county teachers and students so LCPS provides an education and the taxpayers fund an education for the residents and the students of Loudoun County so if but we do allow recognizing that people can move during the year not everyone's going to move right during the summer and rather than disrupt the students education let's say there's a

[00:39:16] scenario where someone starts the school year in Loudoun County and then they move to another to Maryland but the parents don't want to pull them out of school here and enroll them in Maryland they want to keep them here well then for our policy and regarding our funding and everything then they would fall under this policy where they would begin to pay the tuition rate because are not a resident but Ms. Ogadegwe is bringing forward of wanting us to discuss was to offer

[00:39:52] as a benefit for employees so for a full-time teacher who happens to reside in West Virginia but teaches at a Loudoun County Public School that for them to be able to enroll their student at LCPS without having to pay any tuition.

[00:40:07] So thank you the last part you mentioned that's what I was trying to I mean I'm guessing that's what she was trying to bring in is somebody's coming out of state working here bring the student so there's no stated like state-to-state transfer because now we're we're no even county to county so if even if you're having a Fairfax somebody's a student of Fairfax but we're teaching them up here so Fairfax won't allocate the funding to Loudoun County for that no no you register for the area that you reside in no one plays well in the sandbox it's I mean nobody wants to lose revenue right I mean that's what it comes down to

[00:40:46] I mean, if they lose a student, they lose that $19,000, $18,000 per pupil revenue from the county and from the state as well, I presume. That, and it also gets very complicated. Even our reporting our ADM for the state funding, it's a complicated spreadsheet where we add in students, we take out students.

[00:41:06] We have to get information even just for our students that attend TJ. They come off of our books and they enroll into Fairfax. So I can't even imagine what that could look like in terms of trying to track probably hundreds of students moving in and out and trying to account for that.

[00:41:27] Thank you. I appreciate that. However, I'm going to segue into the benefits of the concept of teachers and recruiting. Somebody gave me a wild idea, and I'm just going to share it for its worth. So we have this huge property right now. And I think the biggest challenge we hear is about housing.

[00:41:49] And affordable housing is a big, big discussion in Virginia as well. So they said, well, is there a possibility for us to build some sort of a couple-year temporary housing complex on the property for new teachers as a benefit? I said, well, I just want to share that.

[00:42:06] I mean, I don't know if it's an appetite or if it's even possible. But I thought, share it in the Finance and Operations Committee and see if there's any traction. you know it's lights up any bulbs in any cases that's my objective is to bring it up here so anyway thanks for listening i guess i would say that'd be a consideration for um mr lewis's cip but i will share that um that just i think it was last year was the first year where the county did dedicate i think it's the value of a half a penny of the tax rate towards affording affordable

[00:42:42] housing fund so there is um an initiative at the county level to support more affordable housing so what's that work and that would be funding that is not placed in the 60 40 division between the lcps so that we are doing our share uh whether the county acknowledges that or not and speaking of throwing mr lewis under the bus we'll move on to 5.03 student transportation thank you mr morris um mr davies is going to walk us through the the presentation we have tonight as soon as i can

[00:43:16] get it up on the board there and i will start by saying that we did in in anticipation of tonight's meeting we have notified all of the families that are affected by the information you're getting ready to see on three different occasions we notified them on february 24th march 7th and again on march 14th so that everyone would have good and i know mr mehevy you and i had a couple conversations about that so we want to make sure that everyone was dutifully notified so we we feel good about that and appreciate your input on that over the past so i will turn it then to mr davies

[00:43:50] good afternoon uh so first slide is uh just a school board policy 6210 uh that governs our walk zone distances uh measured one mile for elementary from the property line to the front door of the school and 1.25 miles for secondary and there is the exception rule for to go beyond that where it's It's especially considered particularly cost-effective beyond that by one-tenth of a mile for elementary and two-tenths of a mile for secondary.

[00:44:26] And this section D of 6210 governs the annual review of walk zones and the notification for those families that are affected. And we send notifications out no later than June 1st. Right now we have 40 crossing guards at elementary schools, 16 at middle schools.

[00:44:47] and we do not provide crossing guards at high schools. And next slide is a brief outline of all the proposed changes. And you can see the total number of students that are affected, larger affected populations are at Harper Park, Smarts Mill, and Tulbert.

[00:45:06] The total is 106. Today, obviously we're presenting our modifications, our proposed modifications, and then we'll do the same presentation at the next week's school board meeting, and then send out our notifications to affected families no later than the 1st of June.

[00:45:31] Our first one is Cedar Lane. We're proposing to include Pruddy Court. We went out and looked at this last year and measured, and it's well within the distance. And there's easy access to the rear of the school by crossing the street, Partlow Road.

[00:45:49] So that made sense. Next slide. Next one is Emmerich Elementary School. So that highlighted area you can see in the northwest corner of the, or northeast corner of the boundary is currently commercial properties, but they were former houses.

[00:46:10] And if they were turned back into residential, there are zero students affected there. So it made sense to incorporate that into the walk zone. So since for Harper Park and Tolbert, there's another slide for Tolbert later on, but it's the same area.

[00:46:27] A new sidewalk has been completed along California Road Drive, which is that diagonal adjacent to new property that we added last year. That now that that construction is completed provides a safe walking path for the highlighted area in the northwest corner.

[00:46:43] And also we incorporated a daycare that's on the south, that highlighted area on the south part by Potomac Station. For Hillsborough Trevor School, a new sidewalk has been completed. You can see the picture there along Gavramill Road, and that allows easy access, easy safe access to those houses along Gavramill there with zero students affected there.

[00:47:13] Also for Leesburg Elementary, this was an oversight last year. We brought in the one side of that street, but not the other side. So we incorporated the other side of the street this year to correct that error, and there's sidewalks and it's well within the distance and safe and zero students affected by that expansion it's allowed in valley high school there's two students that reside in this area we walked this route there's no changes to the infrastructure but by by determining a new walking path we determined that it was well within the distance and it made sense to make that change

[00:47:51] and does affect two students smarts mill again this was no changes to the infrastructure but When we determined that there was a new walking or a walking path that cut through backside of, you can see where that, you can go up there, right where it crosses into the green, the walk path, that area, there's a walk path there that we found that we didn't previously find that allows for that area, that development to be included in the walk zone for smart smell.

[00:48:33] This is for Sully. For some strange reason, there were five houses that were excluded from the walk zone for Sully. And we discovered that and incorporated that into the walk zone.

[00:48:49] And right there is one student that's affected by that. Similarly to Harbor Park, this is for Tolbert. Same development, same improvement along the new sidewalk along California Drive that provides safe access to Tolbert using the crosswalk.

[00:49:08] and that's 39 students affected. And that concludes the presentation. - So it appears none of these are using the exemption, is that correct? - Correct, that is correct. - That's good news. - Yes, sir. - Okay, when we have this further discussion in front of the board, can you also identify those walk paths that are being added that are walking next to four lane, what the speed limit is and what the standoff is of the-- - Yes, sir, we will know the speed limit where those new paths are and new crossings.

[00:49:36] - Mr. Mejedevi. - Thank you, Chair. Thank you. I think Cedar Lane has been something that community has been asking for some time now, so I'm glad to see that. My only question on that is on the slide when you talk about the reason for change, it says annual review, but I know there was an infrastructure.

[00:49:52] There had to be a path clearly made to cross over from that. I think they call it dinosaur park, to cross over from the community over to Cedar Lane where you see. There was no clear path that goes behind there. So are we doing any improvements on the path at all, or it always existed?

[00:50:10] They would walk on the playing field. So there's a break in the fence. So right where the sidewalk ends, they cross the street, and then there's a break in the fence where they can access the backside of the school and the playground, and they walk through the playground to the school. Okay, because I think it goes into parking lot.

[00:50:29] There should be a parking lot there where they enter from over there, or is there a different place I'm looking at? I thought there was a parking lot that they had to cross into and then walk down into the school. Oh, the parking lot for the park, that's further down.

[00:50:45] They don't need to go through that parking lot. They can go, all they got to do is walk across the street, go through the break in the fence, and they're in the playground right behind Cedar Lane. I'll take a walk because I thought that was the reason because when I brought it from Mr. Lewis, they couldn't create a walk zone because there wasn't a clear path for kids to walk, and that's why they were busted, right?

[00:51:06] remember we had we have a bus in the the bus was a issue also together that's why yes sir if i recall last year we did agree that when you point this out and i think it was a matter of timing is why we didn't include it last year it wasn't in the initial thing but the the policy actually clearly says a paved walk path is not required so we have a number of places around the county that walk on grass and so i'm fine with this change but just that's okay so uh we're running a little low on time are there specific items that we need to get to on the information agenda

[00:51:39] that we should knock out first? Probably the easements would be the best if we could do I mean we have the CMAR conversation that's there's the same conversation for three different projects and we would be okay if you would be okay to bring those back as action next time because they're pretty simple yeah but if we could do the easements that would be great. Okay so

[00:52:10] let's move forward with the easements start with the 5.04 which is a grant of deed do you want that one yes sir okay let's start with that please so that's this is a simple easement agreement with Loudoun County Sanitation Authority or Loudoun water and this is for the wax pool elementary school with a new water line and connecting to the water line out there any questions or concerns on

[00:52:43] that so this is for the it says no this is for sanitary look it's a water line Well, no further questions. Okay. Let's go ahead and place that on consent. You good with that? Yeah. So place that on consent on to 05.

[00:53:03] So this is a gas easement that connects to our high school and connects to the neighboring development. And it's just a very small little tiny easement that we are asking to commit to allow them to connect to the gas service.

[00:53:23] Concerns with that? So this is not, I mean, it looks like from the map, it's not nowhere near close to the property or anything like that, it seems. That's correct. Okay, we'll place that on consent. Place that on consent, please. 2.06. And this is almost identical request in the same neighborhood beside Madison's Trust serving the gas line there. Very same situation. No questions on that consent. We'll place that on consent as well.

[00:53:54] Alright. Do you want to try to handle the CMAR? Sure, we're happy to. So these are requests for the school board. The policy requires us to get school board approval to use the construction management at risk process and Mr. Mahevy you asked a couple questions last week about how do we avoid paying for things when we pay them on bid day and everybody you know the contractor makes money well this is the situation that I described where we actually are a part of soliciting bids for the subcontractors it also allows us to bring the general contractor or the

[00:54:30] construction manager is a better term on at 20% of the drawings to help us with the management of the design for Banneker and Parkview in particular those are existing campuses this be a critical thing to be able to have the contractor as a partner to help us through constructability site logistics those types of things and with HS 14 in particular we are expecting that to be quite a project to have a lot of road building to do both on the campus and we're expecting to improve a great deal of Evergreen Mills Road and so having a construction manager as opposed to a general contractor we would believe would help us with with all three of those projects

[00:55:09] and then all of them also are subject to the same thing we've been talking about is inflation and supply chain so we're allow that would allow us to get ahead get contractor on board and submit an early package to get long lead items on order and i kind of combined all three of those even though they're separate we wanted to be separate so we can find them later in the in the historical record but they are all the very same arguments understood and when we get to the action item on voting on them we will break them out separately mr mehedive i know in the time crunch but maybe maybe we we can speak with the phone just to understand this process i mean is this cmr coming from the the

[00:55:48] contractor or somebody that'd be hiring independent of the contractor to help us just like to get a i don't want to rush through it but i understand we are in time crunch but you know how do we how how do we leverage that so we we choose the the construction manager similar in the way we do architectural services where it's a selection base or a process where we have interviews and we bring those folks on board they provide a preliminary estimate as well but they provide what's called pre-construction services that allow us to get a better handle on what the design is going to be in Parkview is a perfect example we're trying to work in an existing campus to

[00:56:25] be able to do that so that that group would come on board and provide us that help during the design that helps inform the architects and engineers and then when it comes time to actually bid out the work then we were a part of that solicitation process with this construction manager so it's more of a partnership than it is a you know a strict contract relationship so there are many benefits to that as we get into this type of bidding environment and we are concerned that as the tight the market tightens we're gonna have fewer fewer bids with means less competition which means more costs okay i was just going to say uh these

[00:57:03] in the past we have used cmar for the projects that are one one one of a kind so if it's if it were a standard footprint of a standard elementary or middle school you would not use a cmar but cmar is for you know the risks associated with unique projects so but if you would reach out to mr lewis there was we we've been through that brief several times it's it's complex so that would be helpful So are you okay with us moving this to action for the next meeting?

[00:57:32] Okay, so we'll go ahead and place those on the action. And I think we're out of time, so you have new business? Mr. Mejedevi. Thank you, Chair. So one thing I'd like to bring back, Mr. Lewis, from the committee is the MS-14. And we talked about this in the full board meeting about the whole bathroom design and the locker room design.

[00:57:53] I think this is a great opportunity for us to make whatever adjustments to at least talk through and make sure we can make that adjustment before we start the construction of it so that's so that's kind of where i would like to bring back and have a discussion on it and perhaps give them directions as far as whether us as a committee i think can give directions or pull board but at least i'd like to have a discussion on that topic as well just for clarification are you talking about hs14 or ms14 ms14 i think we're already uh mr lewis where are we in the process so the conversation we had was we were going to go back and compare what the VDOE model policies for the restrooms

[00:58:29] provided and then what we've done with the new schools and so we are already preparing that after the conversation we were bringing it back and I'm not sure if we have it on the next agenda or not but we are preparing Mr. Pascarelli's team is working on drawing so we can be able to share what we've done do a comparison of what we had before in comparison what the policies are and So we are definitely coming back for that, and I'm not sure if we have it planned for the next agenda or not, but we're working on that.

[00:58:55] So, Chair, I think the topic is that I understand, but I think I'd rather make the investment and adjustments now than later go back and do it. I think there's just an understanding of how, what directions, and what the, I think it was Section C or Section in the policy 8040 where we directed it.

[00:59:13] I think we just need to make sure that that's being followed for the new schools. I understand that ES, because they are part of K-12, they already have each bathroom in every classroom, so it's not a concern, but starting with MS-14, I don't think we want to go down a path of going back to redo it or something. So that's why I'd like to do it, and if it means that it'll potentially cost some money or not, I think I'd rather do it now than later.

[00:59:37] That's my hope. Okay. Seeing as there's no further new business, we are adjourned. Thank you very much.

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