Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Minority Student Achievement Advisory Committee (MSAAC) Meeting, Wednesday, April 19, 2023

Date: Wednesday, April 19, 2023
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 1h 54m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/819256396?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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[00:00:00] - This is the more recent version of this? - Yes.

[00:00:23] - All right, good evening everyone. Thank you so much for attending this evening. For those of you that do not know me, my name is Erin Kunkel and I am the membership chair and for this meeting I am acting as MSAC chair in Mrs. Bush's absence.

[00:00:40] She is currently traveling, so we wish her safe travels and happy adventures. So we're going to get the evening started because as you can see, we've got a full house. We've got a lot of information that we want to share and a lot of great questions that we hope to happen tonight.

[00:00:56] So we're just gonna get things rolling. So first, I have a few announcements for you all. There is still an open position for the MSAC Executive Board for the 2023-2024 school year. We are still accepting nominations and applications for secretary.

[00:01:12] The updated form will be going out tomorrow, as well as the information for what the position of secretary does. So if you are interested in joining the executive board and helping out with MSAC a little bit more, I really encourage you to fill out that application and come on board.

[00:01:32] We will have a different election process for secretary going forward. We're going to have a vote virtually. So we're going to compile all of the nominations, We're going to send out that information to the delegates and then the delegates will vote virtually and then we will announce the new MSAC secretary for next year at our end of year award celebration, the equity.

[00:01:57] The next announcement I have is we are also seeking people who would like to come on into the auxiliary leadership positions. Those are for MSAC membership chair as well as comms chair. We are looking for people who are willing just kind of jump right in learn on the go kind of come along with their ideas make it your own I can attest to that I have had an adventure as MSAC membership chair I have learned a lot I have landed on my feet and sometimes I have not but I figured it out and it's a great way to be more involved with MSAC you learn so much more about how this advisory committee works and you get to make an

[00:02:33] impact in an even deeper way so I encourage you if you're interested to put your hat in the ring for all of those positions and we will announce those new elected officers and the auxilary positions again at the equity the next thing we have is we will be also having our award ceremony I said it three times the equity we are in the process of planning it it's coming I'm really excited about it this year we're going to take it up a notch and we are looking forward to just celebrating all things equity and the work of MSAC and so we're

[00:03:09] just putting it out there it will be May 19th here at the LCPS admin building from 7:00 to 8:30 we're going to have a keynote speaker we're just going to give we're going to award the students and teachers and leaders within the district that have done great work in equity this year and we're just going to kind of send the year off on a really positive note we do a lot of heavy work we do a lot of deep work and we just want to end on a note where we all can just enjoy each other's company enjoy the work that we do and kind of send this school year off with a bang

[00:03:44] and then the last announcement I have is that we are still in need of we are still editing the final or the annual report when we have that ready it will be sent out to the MSAC delegates so you will be able to review that one final time and then we will be presenting that to the school board so please be on the lookout for that we've got a lot of information and things coming your way so I hate to bombard your email inboxes but you know me I'll send out 10,000 emails in a day so we're gonna get it to you we're gonna get you that information please be on the lookout please read please provide your

[00:04:21] feedback it helps us in so many ways next we are going to do the approval of the meeting minutes for our March meeting this part of our agenda is open to delegates who are joining us in person today. So I'm opening the floor for someone to make a motion to approve the meeting minutes from the March general body meeting. Yes. Is there a second?

[00:04:57] All those in favor say aye. All opposed say nay. Ayes have it. So moved the meeting minutes are approved. Now we will begin our evening. We have a very busy schedule. We are going to try to get to all of our panelists. We appreciate you coming out tonight and giving us your time and sharing your knowledge and your expertise with us.

[00:05:24] We're going to switch up the agenda just a little bit. We're going to make a quick swap and change, and so we are going to have a presentation now from Katie Clark, the Supervisor in Teaching and Learning Team for the Pre-IB Program.

[00:05:40] So please welcome Ms. Clark and her team.

[00:05:43] Thank you.

[00:06:40] Good evening. Thank you for having us here tonight. As it was mentioned, I'm Katie Clark, Supervisor of Special Programs, and tonight we're here to talk about the International Baccalaureate Program, or as we're calling it, the LCPS Pre-IB. Here's our quick agenda tonight.

[00:06:59] We only have a few minutes, but at the end of tonight, we were told because of the packed agenda that we would not be taking questions. However, our emails are provided on the pamphlets in the back. You can reach out to us. We are happy to have a conversation, take any feedback, or answer any questions either through email or a phone call.

[00:07:21] So tonight, unfortunately, one of our coordinators at Heritage was not able to be here this evening, but tonight I do want to introduce Mr. Skavarch right here, and he is our Loudoun Valley High School IB coordinator that is working directly with this new LCPS program that will be starting this fall.

[00:07:43] Just wanted to share the alignment with our strategic plan. This is directly aligned to Action 1.1, provide rigorous and culturally responsive instruction to ensure deeper learning, and specifically 1.2, develop accessible, specialized programming.

[00:08:04] This slide shows our international baccalaureate timeline. This school year, we are preparing for authorization to become an IB World School at both Loudoun Valley and Heritage. And we are enrolling current 8th and 9th grade students into the LCPS pre-IB program for the 23-24 school year.

[00:08:27] During the 23-24 school year, we will have our first year of LCPS pre-IB and our authorization visit in the fall. We did just hold our consultant visits at both Heritage we completed today and at Valley.

[00:08:43] And then we'll get the green light to move forward with our application for authorization. Once authorized, we would offer our first year of IB courses for 11th grade students during the 24-25 school year and then we would fully be implemented in the school year of 25-26 with our first IB diploma candidates.

[00:09:06] Shown here is our LCPS pre-IB enrollment timeline. The student opportunity system was open from December 1st to January 20th for rising 9th and 10th grade students who were able to show interest.

[00:09:22] That information was communicated out to both rising 9th and rising 10th grade students and families. The lottery was run by our Research Assessment and School Improvement Office. Offers and waitlist statuses were updated for students back on January 31st.

[00:09:42] However, we still have room in our programs and our student opportunities is still open for any interested rising 9th and 10th grade students. This slide shows which high schools are out-of-zone students who are interested.

[00:10:01] So all students at Loudoun Valley and Heritage will have access to this program by nature of their zoned school. But any student who is interested from outside of that zone, these are clusters that would be attending Loudoun Valley and Heritage. And transportation will be provided for our students at hub stops.

[00:10:23] So they would get on a bus at their local high school, and then they would have transportation to both Heritage and Loudoun Valley. And now I will turn it over to Michael to give you some more information about the actual DP diploma program. Good evening, everyone. So I get to talk a little bit about the International Baccalaureate program.

[00:10:48] So I want to talk about it in two phases. The first is really about its philosophy. And the blue picture that you can see up here on the board is actually an excellent representation of the diploma program in its whole. So I want to walk you through a little bit about what the International Baccalaureate is all about using this diagram.

[00:11:09] The first is to know where the International Baccalaureate program focuses its attention on. And that's with students. So at the very center of this, you'll notice the IB learner profile. And what this is, is a set of 10 attributes that integrate themselves into every aspect of our teaching and the learning that students go through.

[00:11:29] Those attributes involve helping students become inquirers, questioning about the world, knowledgeable about a variety of different disciplines. And at the end of it, critical thinkers ready to take on problems in the 21st century. All of these attributes, open minded, risk takers, balanced, integrated into the core of what we do, and each of them is brought forward through the approaches to learning.

[00:11:57] So our teachers focus on building thinking skills in each of our students, helping them communicate with one another and in multiple languages, and developing social skills, identifying a key component which is working collaboratively and with teams.

[00:12:14] It's also a focus on self-management and the reflection that goes along with self-management, helping students to develop a principled lifestyle where they can meet their goals and have the skill set to reflect on those in order to go further every step of the way.

[00:12:30] Lastly, in a world filled with information, research skills are highly valued. In all of the classes, students are performing work in which they're taking information, they're analyzing it, they're seeing where it comes from, and really unpacking it. to make a judgment call about whether that information should be used in different places.

[00:12:51] How do we get at these skills? Well, in the International Baccalaureate Program, our teachers are using inquiry-based approaches. We use questions. Questions guide where students go, and students are encouraged to question every aspect of the world around them. That's what drives instruction.

[00:13:08] Second, it's focused on conceptual understanding. And what that means is, how do we take the big ideas that students are learning about and help them see that in context outside of individual disciplines? This is about getting to authentic cross-curricular and cross-discipline connections.

[00:13:26] How is mathematics used in the social sciences? How are languages used to acquire knowledge in any branch? That's what conceptual understanding is going to focus on. Next, you'll see developed in local and global contexts. And that's a really important aspect of the International Baccalaureate.

[00:13:43] It's one, helping students see themselves as part of their community that they're in, and then helping them get a sense of perspective about how that community is connected to the wider world. Next, you'll see a focus on effective teamwork and collaboration.

[00:14:00] Knowledge is better developed when people are doing it together. And that makes the core of the different projects and different learning environments that they'll engage in. Next, you'll see designed to remove barriers to learning. The International Baccalaureate is a set of college-level courses that students can take.

[00:14:18] So the expectation is high, and part of that process is making sure that there are stepping stones and scaffolds so that students are able to achieve at that high level. Finally, you'll see informed by assessment. And what that means is that we are taking data.

[00:14:35] We are constantly engaged in a conversation of where students are at in their skill building and then helping them get a little further every day. So up to now, I've talked really high level. That's the philosophy of the International Baccalaureate.

[00:14:50] Those are the ideas embedded into these different courses. So then what does it look like? Well, initially, you'll see something known as a course candidate. Well, a course candidate just means that these individual IB courses, which will be in a variety of different disciplines throughout the school, that students can take them piecewise.

[00:15:08] They can take one IB course. They can take two IB courses. They could take five IB courses. They have the option of choosing those courses just as they would with any other course that suits their interest and what they would like to explore. And to the, I want to say I got a little turned around, left of the screen here, you'll see the full diploma program candidate.

[00:15:29] Now, when a student takes on the full diploma of the IB, what they're doing is enrolling in six college-level courses that span the course of two years. So a full course load of International Baccalaureate classes, followed by a seventh course known as Theory of Knowledge, which is a fascinating course that focuses on philosophy of knowing.

[00:15:51] And it's going to challenge students to think, how do we develop knowledge in each of our disciplines? How do we know what we know? And how is it all connected? Embedded within that course is something known as the IB core. These are two experiences that will occur scaffolded in the classroom but supported for outside the classroom in which one, a student writes an extended essay that is a large research project on an area of their choosing and the extended essay is the production of an academic work that will really prepare them for any academic paper or learning that

[00:16:30] they will have in their future. The last activity is known as creativity, activity, and service, and the scaffolded aspect of the class is helping students reflect on the variety of experiences that they have outside of academics that support them in becoming a well-rounded student.

[00:16:48] The goal here to be to teach students to value their passions, value their drive, and utilize those in a reflective manner to grow themselves both in the classroom and outside of the classroom. So overall, that's the full diploma candidate.

[00:17:07] So students can take classes individually or they can go for the full diploma. So why the IB diploma or why take IB classes? As I mentioned before, these are college-level classes comparable in level to AP or dual enrollment, which means that a student can take the course and in their final assessment of that course, they can take their final score, they can bring that to a university and receive college credit.

[00:17:35] With that in mind, one way in which the International Baccalaureate makes good on its focus on building skills is that it has a two-part final assessment. Beyond just having a final exam at the end of the course, it has something built inside of the course known as an internal assessment, which makes up roughly 20% of their final grade, and that is a larger, generally research-based project the student is doing in class that's then filed with the IB and makes up part of their final college score.

[00:18:06] Valuing the time and energy that students do, completing authentic work in the classroom. Lastly, because the IB focuses on skills and colleges and universities and employers know that these are the skills that they're coming out of this course with, they're highly sought after.

[00:18:25] Colleges and universities take a look at an IB diploma candidate and say, this student is gonna be successful coming to my university. even being part of our community. So in total, I wanna say once again, as the representative from Loudoun Valley High School's IB program and representing Heritage's IB program, we have space, we're still open.

[00:18:51] We are welcoming students to come and submit interest in the program. We would love to have you. If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to myself, Michael Skavarch or Fernando Uribari as the IB coordinators from Loudoun Valley and heritage we'd be happy to answer any questions you might have and once again i do not believe we have time for questions tonight but i just want to say thank you all for your time and giving us a chance to present what is a very exciting opportunity coming to loudon county public

[00:19:22] schools thank you thank you so much for sharing that information with us um as a parent of a rising ninth grader i'm going to get to have a wonderful conversation with my child um in the coming weeks it sounds so interesting and an exciting opportunity for um our students uh going forward to help prepare them for not just college but the working world as they grow older they graduate college and they move on so hopefully you're

[00:20:01] inspired to reach out and get more information like I was and we are going to keep rolling along we have again it's a packed panel and we're going to try to get to all of our speakers because I really do want to hear from each of them and get their expertise and sharing so we're gonna start with just like a little question to kind of feel to each of our panelists and then again if you have questions if you'd like to know more please feel free to please raise your hand we'll try to get to as many questions as possible but we can't get to all the questions please know that there's going to be a way for you to

[00:20:38] reach out to our panelists and to get answers or to just you know discuss with them even more after the meeting so we're going to start with our student literacy panel um I just want to let you know we're kind of blended across both tables so you might be seeing some people here and you might be seeing some people there so um just kind of bear with us we just kind of we're going with the flow with this um so um our first our panelists for literacy are and please tell me if I mispronounce your name are um I do not see Miss Tiffany Lang

[00:21:14] she is um one of our MSAC oh there she is hi do you want to so we have Miss Tiffany Lang she's an MSAC delegate as you know but she is also a literacy specialist and expert and so I'm really excited that she's here to share with us and speak with us as well again this evening. We have Janice Sweet, did I say that correctly? She is the an assistant principal and LCPS parent, a literacy specialist and author. We also

[00:21:49] have Miss Beverly Samuel, she's a local author. We have Catherine O'Neill from early an early elementary specialist and we have Michelle Picard an elementary or an English literacy supervisor so we're going to get started with the questions we're going to kind of I'm going to get the conversation going and again please ask questions our panelists are here to share their expertise and knowledge with you so the first question I have is when it comes to early literacy how do parents and any of our panelists can take this question how do

[00:22:23] parents help their child perform better on the DRA or map or improve their DRA or map scores hi this is Katherine Neal I'm the supervisor of early literacy in elementary reading and writing just to kind of start off with this question there's been a lot of talk around the DRA assessment and we've done a lot of talking with our schools with our teachers about that assessment and really looking at the data that it provides and whether that data is really yielding the

[00:23:01] results and giving us the information we need to help support our students no matter what their literacy skills might be so the DRA as starting well as we collected that information and gathered that feedback we really realized that the DRA was not yielding the results and giving us the information we needed to make the best instructional decisions for our schools so we'll no longer be using the DRA starting next year the map assessment is definitely something that will still be in place I think one of the things to watch out for and is

[00:23:36] the the new PALS assessment which the new PALS is now going to be called VALS V-A-L-L-S-S and that's down stands for the Virginia language literacy screening system and that comes out of the what used to be known as the PALS office at UVA and but they really looked the old PALS assessment really was 20 years of an assessment that was delivered to our K through 3 students and really no changes had been done to the PALS and we were really finding that there was a

[00:24:16] lot of difficulty in being able to take the information from that PALS assessment and really knowing where we can target the support for our students because we know that we really have a really short window in kindergarten, first and second grade and third grade to really support our students and make sure that they are learning how to read.

[00:24:36] And so the VALS assessment is going to look different. We, Loudon, LCPS is going to be one of the pilot school divisions for next year for kindergarten, first and second. And we're really excited about the different subtests. We really feel that the information that's going to be yielded from this new assessment is going to help us really target some of the areas that our students need some additional support in so that they are really developing those literacy skills that they need at the early ages, really those foundational skills.

[00:25:12] Thank you. So our next question is, how can parents better promote or how can parents promote better reading comprehension and fluency at all levels? you have parents or you're one of our panel experts so for me as a mom one of the things I've always done with my daughter is obviously you have to make reading joyful it has to be fun however how you share it is how they're going to receive it so if you

[00:25:51] share that it's exciting and you're excited about it they'll be excited about it I can't stress enough that children are constantly looking for obviously we know as parents your approval to see what your facial expressions are saying and it's your body language and it's your tongue that will do the do the initial stage of engagement of whether reading is exciting or not and so that's the first introduction as far as I'm concerned as a parent and then in regards to obviously helping them to actually begin the early literacy process that's the first part the joy but then being

[00:26:28] patient and taking time and really utilizing the resources that are helpful to do the vowel sounds and the different sounds that are needed but as a parent what I've done is I would have her as she was learning the alphabet I would make it a game and so making it a game and being fun with the process is also important because children learn through play and sometimes I think

[00:26:59] one of my experiences as a parent is sometimes at the school level, the focus is so much on the science of reading that they forget sometimes that children are not mechanical, that they play, and they learn that way. And the quicker you do it in a fun way where it's kind of fun, that's when they begin to retain the information. So for my daughter, she learned the alphabet it fairly quickly when she was between between it was like three years old and starting at age three

[00:27:38] like she began to really understand words and things like that because of how I shared it with her and obviously you got to diversify it so children obviously learn not just through the books but through the toys and they learn through animation and whatever other tools that you want use as a parent, but I would strongly say that when it comes to early literacy at home for preschool through kindergarten, it has to be done in a way where the children is active and is done where they're allowed to have that imagination time and that play time.

[00:28:19] Thank you. Our next question has to do with the anchor, independent, and short texts, and the question essentially is, how are the anchor, independent, and short texts selected? um these this would probably be in reference to um especially in the high school middle school grades levels you know how are those books selected if anyone would like to take that question hi i'm chris cuzzo i am working the office of secondary english and reading i'm

[00:28:54] filling in for dr picard here along with my colleague melanie buckley i can speak to that briefly in our office one of the foundational beliefs in our curriculum is that literature should act as windows and mirrors and sliding glass doors.

[00:29:12] Students should be able to see themselves in the literature and then get a sense for what other people's experiences are like. So we've made an enormous effort in the last five or six years, energy and resources into making some shifts in terms of what books kids are reading in middle school and high school so that there is a great deal more representation in independent study independent reading in our classroom libraries in the book clubs and in anchor

[00:29:50] texts so when we've done that pretty deliberately you know trying to make sure that we are representing as many different experiences as we can through that and we've added a lot of great books that have been teachers have enjoyed teaching the kids have really gotten into um that just were not in our classrooms five or six years ago um i mean we were just talking earlier about um born a crime and secret

[00:30:23] life of bees spare parts fun and farsi i am not your perfect mexican daughter just lots and lots of great books that we've added that are uh connected to each of our units in high school and connected to the middle school units also as anchor texts for the units and book club options that are tied to the essential questions for those units.

[00:30:49] And I'd love to also add that we just completed a cultural audit, so we went through the books that we did adopt in the past three years, and we identified really bringing in the thread of IB and the tenets of what books are important from a global perspective, and we looked at, for all the texts that we have at the high school level, we looked at, for each book, the protagonist.

[00:31:13] We looked at the equity in terms of the protagonist, the time period, the theme, the setting. So we wanted to make sure that we were seeing all voices in the room when we were selecting those books and that within those books, if, for instance, in that one unit of study, if there were six books, how were we meeting the needs of addressing all the different voices in the room so that they'd have a global lens and the students could see windows and mirrors in the books that they were actually having the opportunity to read. Thank you. My next question is, this again

[00:31:47] goes back to these books for our secondary grade level learners. What can parents do in terms of finding websites or resources to access to support their understanding of the content in these books, especially if they can't read, because of busy schedules, the book prior to it being assigned or it being taught in class?

[00:32:13] We identify the books that we're going to use. We actually reach out and we use Common Sense Media as our go-to. And commonsensemedia.com is a great place for families to look at those books and examine what is referenced in terms of the themes, where the book is approachable for students, what students say about the book, what the parents say about the books as well.

[00:32:38] so it really gives many voices so that's one of the strongest threads we recommend also each high school has their resources listed and delineated so reaching out to the high school the department chair coupled with the teachers and also central office we can make sure we are meeting the needs and communicating which books are being shared with our stakeholders thank you my next question would be how are the teachers being trained to handle sensitive topics in class because we know

[00:33:15] a lot of sensitive topics and materials are are being taught and we we would just like to know how that's being handled or the teachers are being prepared and prepped to teach that material in classes I know that our office in conjunction with the social science and global studies office about a year or two ago put together both some guidance documents and some PD

[00:33:49] for for teachers about how to engage in those kind of conversations how to engage you know not just you know avoid all those things but how to engage students in those topics what in respectful ways and you know I know a lot of the schools still have the giant posters made that kind of clarified some of the key elements of that guidance I'd also like to add that with the support of the

[00:34:24] equity office it was it's been wonderful that during our PD PD days that schools are getting together and really delving look more into how to have courageous conversations and make sure that it's meeting the needs of all the voices in room. Thank you. Now, before I make the shift and focus on our community authors, I would like to open the floor to any of our MSAC delegates here tonight. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them. This is our opportunity to get information that can help us as parents, but that

[00:35:01] we can also take back to our schools and share as well. Right. So you mentioned there would be no more DRA is that correct so then there will only be the vowels now not the pals but the vowels now so in kindergarten and kindergarten first and second grade they will be using the vowels next year now also the map testing is also used as well so it's not the vowels isn't the only piece

[00:35:41] or data source but there will no longer be the DRA you are correct with that so it'd be the vows and the maps yes that's correct okay thank you so we talked a lot about books and reading and other such questions but I'm wondering more also about math and I see it's on the agenda I don't know if we're delving into that later yes and I can just pause and wait for my question until then yes if you can hold your question we're gonna kind of navigate our way over there

[00:36:14] great in just a few yes thank you okay we're going to move on to our community author questions I'm going to start with Ms. Samuel, if there is anything that you would like to share about your book and how it represents equity.

[00:36:35] Good evening, everyone. I'm delighted to be here. I am Beverly Samuel. I'm co-author of Make New Friends, along with my daughter, Alyssa Samuel, who's in the audience, which is Stan. I am very proud of this book.

[00:36:51] It's our first book that we published. And we published this book because we saw a need to provide a resource that can help break down barriers. The picture of the book is back here. You can see the characters are holding hands.

[00:37:08] They represent different cultural backgrounds as well as some religious differences in the characters, as well as they are, we have one child that's in a wheelchair. We believe that having this type of resource enables children to embrace differences, actually also learn from each other, and oftentimes they'll form friendships as a result of just getting to know each other.

[00:37:41] Breaking down barriers can help children reduce the amount of bullying and discrimination that occurs. And so we are very proud of this book. It follows a young girl, Ava, who's the main character, through a school day or two where she's meeting new friends from different backgrounds.

[00:38:01] And it's done in a friendly way. It just has an underlying message about diversity, equity, and inclusion. We've had very good success in going out and reading in the public libraries here in Loudoun County as well as through Fairfax County.

[00:38:18] It is a part of the Loudoun County Public School Book Collection. I'm sorry, Loudoun County Book Collection. We are working on trying to integrate it in the Loudoun County Public Schools. We have had one principal in one of the schools that we went out to read to that purchased 50 copies of the book so that it could be in every classroom.

[00:38:41] And so I hope that we are able to continue that success and being able to integrate it into the curriculum and as well as have it as a resource here in the Loudoun County Public School.

[00:38:59] Thank you. So for our authors, my next question is, what has been your experience with any best practices as a parent, as a vice principal, or as a literacy advocate?

[00:39:14] What have been your best practices that have helped or that you've seen help when it comes to literacy and our students? For me, for my daughter, I can't express the importance of allowing their innocence to be there for as long as possible.

[00:39:39] I think one of the issues that's been going on for generations is that the innocence, particularly children of African ancestry, is often taken because usually the books, when it comes to culture, history, it's always focused on the oppression or overcoming problems versus just having some normal books for a child that allows them to dream big

[00:40:16] and to see themselves as adventurers, as world travelers, as, you know, just their regular selves as they are in real life. And so what happens, I'll give you a good example of what happened to my daughter. There was a book in the library. This was, I think, was when she was in fourth grade.

[00:40:32] She's in fifth grade now. And she picked up this book. She thought it was going to be exciting about a girl who's following her dreams because that's the way it looked on the cover. And it was written by an American girl. It's like a doll company, if you guys are familiar with that.

[00:40:50] And when she brought it home, she stopped reading it because when she was reading it, throughout the story, it wasn't about just a girl following her dreams. It was focused on a girl following her dreams, but she had to keep getting through all these hurdles when it came to the civil rights and oppression.

[00:41:10] And so for me, when it comes to a child at elementary age, we have to remember that when they're elementary age, their minds right they're not focused in understanding things the way a high school student will or a middle school student but the elementary it's about protecting their innocence and allowing them to just have fun and dream big during that age range that's what's going to keep them really engaged and wanting to even read a book today she brought home a book which I'm so excited and proud to say that it's one of the books that I was able to curate to place in her

[00:41:45] library at Sanders Corner but this book is titled it's the end of the world and I'm in my in my bathing suit and in that book there's a little boy who the story is just about you know he had a chores of doing laundry he didn't want to do laundry so he kept wearing all his clothes every day and two was trying to to you know finally he didn't have any clothes to wear so now he just only has a baby Sue left but that book right it's a really funny book and allows her to just be able to see uh you know an image of herself in this case is a young African-American boy

[00:42:23] of herself just in a book but doing normal things and having fun it's it's whimsical it's fun it's exciting so for me the bigger picture that I want to say right now is that when we're talking about elementary age children if you want them to get excited about reading you have to remember that they're learning subconsciously and and um and consciously right and so subliminal messages are everything and so if there's there's constant focus all the time on stories that are when it

[00:43:01] comes to least black experiences on oppression then it doesn't get them excited about learning And it's actually going to make them not want to pick up certain books. And it makes them disengaged in the classroom. And I think sometimes people don't see that big picture.

[00:43:18] And so I think that's important to note. May I interject? I just want to also add that it is important for children to see themselves. You've talked about best practices to have literature that represents the society we live in.

[00:43:36] And so we've come a long ways as it relates to having mirrors when children can look in the book and see themselves or even see a name that represents maybe even their culture. Then they can see themselves, and that's certainly a best practice.

[00:43:54] Also, just consistency in providing opportunities for children to read early. And even in infancy, as parents read to their children, they're learning to enjoy literacy or books. So I would add those two best practices.

[00:44:18] And overall, thank you, and overall remembering that when children are learning about, when children are learning and they're reading books, when they're seeing and learning about other cultures, then it's important that we remember what stories we're going to remember, right?

[00:44:38] And so keeping that in mind, because these children will obviously be the leaders of tomorrow, And based on what they remember and what they understood at a young age is what they're going to keep with them. By the time they get to high school, at that point, they're almost already set.

[00:44:54] So elementary school is so important because whatever they get there, that's the thing that's influencing the most because that's their most impressionable years. And that's why I think it's so important to make sure that that reading is an exciting experience.

[00:45:11] And that happens with how you give it to them with their learning and the experience that they can remember while they're engaging in it. Thank you very much. You actually both answered my final two questions.

[00:45:29] And those two questions were what would you say is needed with respect to representation of minorities in children's literature? And then what we can do as parents to advocate for our children in their schools, you know, for literacy, especially when we're looking at books, as you shared, Tiffany, that represent our children, that they see a representation of themselves in books.

[00:45:55] So thank you for sharing that. And I would like to offer just a chance for any of our reading panelists to share any last remarks or any other things that you would like with us, and then we'll segue into our math panelists.

[00:46:15] - I would like to add the power of reading stamina and the idea that as an English teacher in the classroom, when students are able to go onto their phone and show me that they were on TikTok for four hours the day before, and this is just a school day, and that's what they're able to celebrate, I really wanna encourage the idea that literacy is building stamina and giving them an opportunity to, yes, there's a gateway of learning on their phones, but there's an opportunity for them to really be mature and global learners by making sure that they're having their reading stamina and practicing for 15 minutes, and maybe 20 minutes to 30 minutes would be wonderful a day,

[00:46:52] to really grow them as strong readers and really the vision of the portrait of a graduate of the five C's and collaborators and communicators and contributors and critical thinkers, and that's really what we're really focusing on, So I really appreciate the support from that lens as well.

[00:47:15] Well, thank you to all of our reading panelists. We appreciate your time and your insight. We thank you for coming out and sharing that with us this evening. I am going to segue to our math panelists. Our math literacy panel consists of, and please again correct me if I mispronounce your name, Heather DeVito, a math intervention specialist and second grade teacher.

[00:47:40] Nicole Agoni. Thank you. Agoni, a math supervisor, and Cindy Brady, a math specialist. And so I'm going to just open the floor to you to share your thoughts, your insight. The questions are pretty much the same.

[00:47:57] What can we do to help our children from early on, from kindergarten up through high school, to be successful in math? Where do you see, as parents, we can advocate for our students and just offer your insight?

[00:48:14] and your expertise in this area as well. All right. Thank you. So I'm Nicola Goatney. I'm our math supervisor. And we come with a couple different lenses here.

[00:48:30] So I'm going to share a little bit about what the three of us can talk about. So Heather DeVito works at Belmont Station Elementary School, and she is running a math intervention program, Bridges. And she's going to be able to share about the intervention and that program.

[00:48:45] And we'll be piloting that next year at five additional elementary schools. She's going to be able to share about that. And then Cindy Brady is our math specialist, and she's going to be able to share more about the intervention work that we've done thus far and then everything else through math that you asked the questions about what can we do for math.

[00:49:07] I'll just start before I turn it over to either one of them. And I think the first question was about what we can do to help our students be successful. And I loved when they were talking about reading and how, you know, having students engage in reading, that's the same for math.

[00:49:24] So playing games with your students and things that help engage in critical thinking around mathematics, talking about what numbers mean when you're at the grocery store, talking about what something costs or sales. So just having those conversations daily is much more beneficial than practicing flashcards of how quickly you can multiply something.

[00:49:47] But it's really thinking about what does something mean and how do we use it in the real world? How do we use mathematics in the real world? So that's really how I would say you can support your students with being successful in mathematics. And then either one of you, you want to share first about intervention?

[00:50:06] Sure. Hi, I'm Heather DeVito. I'm going to add to that last piece, if you don't mind. I think most students eventually in their life ask, why do I need to know this in the area of mathematics? And so I think any connection to the real world that you can make for your children, math is everywhere.

[00:50:27] And every job that is created and out there needs some piece of math. So I think relating math, like you said, the grocery store everywhere is a real great foundation for children. My role, I'm a second grade teacher, but in my other hobby has been to do intensive math intervention at Belmont Station.

[00:50:48] Two years ago, when we came back and returned to school full time, we noticed, especially in the early elementary years, children had not been touching things to count. Money was obsolete objects because of our pandemic.

[00:51:04] And so children were coming to school with real deficits in areas that we hadn't seen before. So actually on a snow day, when we had those, I found a program online that was intensive math intervention. And it's very similar to a lot of the intensive intervention that we do for reading, but not much has existed out there in this area that has been systematic and very explicit.

[00:51:29] So this Bridges to Intervention program, my principal, Ms. Timothy over there, was so thankfully invested in, and we were able to target children at Belmont Station at all grade levels that were needing math intervention, and for the first time ever, we had our hands on something very concrete that we could use, and it was a very powerful tool as we started using it.

[00:51:52] So this intervention has assessments that we can give children, and in addition to the map test, it can target real areas of weakness for them so that the interventionist can then come and with a plan provide really intensive instruction. And these are 30-minute lessons, and they move very fast, and they have a lot of components. They're very engaging for children, but we've been doing this work for two years. We have seen great data. There's a progress monitoring piece. Every five days, we're dip-sticking and checking to see what kind of understanding and it's been very powerful and exciting work for our teachers and also we've

[00:52:32] had to employ parents we've had to pay for a math interventionist a teacher to come out of retirement and come work at our school but through many hands we've been able to give this intervention to many students that have needed it and it's been very exciting work and we're excited that the county has taken notice and we'll be implementing this at many other schools next year so one of the questions is about how can parents advocate for their students and I want to speak a little bit about best practices in math education so in Loudoun County Public Schools through the math department we

[00:53:10] really advocate for students learning math through making meaning so in the elementary grades students should be coming home talking about how they built models how they made connections in math how they can draw pictures that show their understanding and even explain more than one way how to solve a problem we want to see that in secondary education as well so middle school and high school students should also be coming home able to talk about the meaning behind the math that they're working on and how they might build a model how they might solve it in an alternate way how a peer in class solved it differently

[00:53:49] than they did. So one way that parents can advocate for their students' education is to talk to them when they get home. Ask them questions about what they're learning in math, how they're learning it, how they understand it. A second resource is on the LCPS website.

[00:54:04] If you navigate to the math page we have links there that take you directly to the curriculum that is aligned for each of our grades and our secondary math courses. There are a lot of resources there that can help inform what math has learned at each grade level and each course and what types of experiences students should be having in the classroom and what types of questions they should be able to answer about mathematics. Thank you. I'm opening the floor

[00:54:37] for questions for our math specialists. I just really wanted to make sure they were going to have a chance to talk but I also just want to speak that I as a principal have taken on a math group in my school so what the real challenge is is in an elementary school day finding time to be able to support these students with that intervention and because after school elementary school does not provide transportation so we have to use those instructional hours and we also have

[00:55:15] to use whatever staff are available at this time because we don't have at many elementary schools a math interventionist who's tasked with that so it falls back on the teachers and if it's 30 minutes a day, that's going to pull that teacher 30 minutes away from the remainder of the class and instructional time.

[00:55:31] So an additional comment maybe, and maybe to Heather to ask what she's seen, or Ms. DeVito, what she's seen in terms of progress of students, and since we're at our MSAC meeting, what the general makeup of students who fit into these categories for our students who require that Tier 3 intervention, what that looks like, and how we're supporting them during the typical school day with staff members that are currently employed?

[00:56:02] Thank you. Yes, there have been very many challenges, and one of that is transportation. Because there has not been a staff person to do this work during the day, many of our teachers are paid after school to stay, and some of them are not paid, to stay after school and provide this 30-minute of intervention.

[00:56:23] And what we've found is there are a lot of students that don't have after-school transportation. They have parents that don't have cars. They have parents that work, and they're home with a grandparent. And so our big challenge has been to have children that don't have transportation, that they would receive intervention during the school day so they can receive that, and then provide, give intervention to those students who do have transportation after school.

[00:56:54] So we have had many challenges during the school day. We do, however, have seen great results. It's a very, this group of students is a very mixed group of children. And as we know in Loudoun County, you know, there's many parents that are able to provide after school tutoring.

[00:57:13] There's Kumon programs and other math programs out there. but there's many parents that aren't able to provide that. So this work has been very important to give a cost-free tutoring, basically, because it is intensive instruction to these students.

[00:57:30] And also, there have been so many challenges, which is why we're so thankful that some schools will have math interventions next year, because the work is great and the need is great, And it has been just a scheduling challenge to find the time to do these intensive lessons.

[00:57:47] And I just wanted to add to that because I know there was a question about like the amount of time. So something that's been a focus up in our office in the Department of Teaching and Learning is working with all core content supervisors about the instructional day. And we've heard very loudly from schools that we need time for intervention built in.

[00:58:06] So we're working on a model that will allow for that intervention to be during the school day for mathematics as well as for reading. Most schools have the intervention time already built in for reading, and so math is something that we need, and that is something that we are looking into and will be in place for next school year.

[00:58:24] I just don't know the exact number of minutes. And another reason for that and the why behind that is that all of our students need intervention, not just some students, and the last thing we want to do is make them stay after school for that. Even though it's fun and they enjoy it and they have lots of fun playing the games and doing the activity, we want them to feel like they are able to get what they need in the school rather than having to stay after.

[00:58:50] And what happens to students when they have to stay after sometimes is they think, oh, I'm that kid, I'm not good at math. So that brings me to the other thing that I forgot to say, how can parents advocate for their students or support their students? It's just like you don't say to your kids, I can't read or I hate reading. Don't say I hate math or I can't do math because it makes it okay for them.

[00:59:09] So just really, even if you think that and math is terrible to you, just internalize it and help your kids believe that you love mathematics and see the beauty in it too. Yes. Hi, I had a question about, I think it's tutor.com, and I know it has plenty of topics or subjects that it helps students with.

[00:59:38] But in relation to math, are there any metrics that you can share as far as underrepresented, marginalized, or at-risk students that are taking advantage of that resource, and if that resource is something that will be continued for the foreseeable future for LCPS students and families.

[01:00:03] So I have gathered some data from, we have the opportunity to work with department chairs, SALTS, which are like a department chair in a middle school in elementary contexts, and we get the opportunity to work with all groups. We have little touch points.

[01:00:18] Tutor.com doesn't come out of the math office, but I am familiar with it, and I know that we have data that is collected on it, so I don't have any data on that as far as who is using it and who is taking advantage of it, and I don't even know if it is continuing. But I do know that we've received mixed feedback from various people we've talked to.

[01:00:38] We've received mixed feedback on how that works when they receive the tutoring, right? So it depends on who's on when they log on and what type of tutor is there and how they're explaining topics. Now, it's great for kids to get explanations from different people in different ways, so I think it's a wonderful resource just because I explain it one way and I'm online tutoring at this time.

[01:01:01] I don't tutor online, but I'm online tutoring, and then the next night the next tutor is tutoring. So there's different people that will give them different ways that they explain. But to answer very bluntly your question, no, I don't have any data on that, and I'm not 100% sure. But I can write the question down and follow back up and get the answer to you.

[01:01:19] Okay, thank you. And just a little bit of feedback on the user experience, my sons use it and for math particularly when they're trying to share assignments or upload their homework, the page, it's never successfully done.

[01:01:36] So that's always a challenge and the workaround is just different every time. Thank you. I wrote down your question and your feedback, so thank you. On the LCPS website, you can find links to our yearly overview, which shows what content is taught during each quarter during the year as well as links to the curriculum framework which is written by the Virginia Department of Education

[01:02:16] and that breaks down exactly what students need to know and be able to do in that course as well as additional resources for families to use. And CERN and Dreambox are two elementary digital content programs that we purchase that students use so that is different than that.

[01:03:09] So I wanted to ask if there were any resources

[01:03:45] or tips you can give for parents to stop some of the summer loss that happens. I know I go and I buy those workbooks, I forgot the name of them. But, of course, there's a struggle to make sure they get done, and then I have to know how to do them also.

[01:04:04] So, you know, I have a fifth grader, no, sixth grader, sixth grader. So we're in a lot more advanced math. And I don't see a lot of the games and things like that for as the math progresses into algebra and things of that nature.

[01:04:21] So if there's any resources I'm missing, I didn't have good luck with tutor.com either. So and just Googling and finding out resources that are there this summer, I know the state of Virginia is offering parents in Virginia.

[01:04:39] If you have a K-12 student, they're offering $1,500 towards tutoring money this year or of any verified program for reading or math. And those with reduced incomes and they have very specific standards, they're offering $3,000 for parents.

[01:04:59] So that's money that is just, I think they're treating it as COVID recovery money, but it is, I believe, free for parents in all of Virginia. So it might be something to look for, and they also will have verified programs and some tutors listed.

[01:05:15] So that's one possibility for the summer, but make sure they include some games. You're so very correct about secondary math not having as many games as well. So other resources that your students have available to you all summer is whatever digital content the school uses during the school year.

[01:05:33] So in secondary, depending on what, if they're in middle school, math space or EDIA is a program that's used. And in high school, EDIA is the program that's used right now. And then elementary is Zern and Dreambox. So those are digital content that are adaptive programs that students can work at their own pace.

[01:05:54] And so those are available through LCPS Go. Your students should know how to access that and should be using it throughout the school year. And they're rostered to use that. And I believe whenever the scheduling turns over, so about August sometime is when it turns off.

[01:06:10] So you'll definitely have it through July. So that's an idea. And then as well as the VDOE, our Virginia Department of Education on the math page, has links for supports for parents. And then National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and CTM is another great resource as well.

[01:06:27] I'm sorry. I just wanted to clarify with that tutoring money program. Is that $1,500 per student or per family? I believe that is per student. And again, I'm not an expert on this.

[01:06:44] I did come across it, and I did verify with Virginia, with the Department of Education, that that money does exist, and there's just an application, and there's a payment portal there, I believe, that you need to. But it is available to every student in Virginia. For this, I believe it's this summer.

[01:07:00] I'm not positive if it's for the full school year or the dates that are around that, but you could research that. Yes, I agree. I did see it for this summer, and I just didn't remember whether it was per family, per student. I wanted to clarify that for my notes. Thank you very much. I believe they call it a recovery grant, so you could Google Virginia recovery grant, and that's where you might find that information.

[01:07:25] Well, if there are no other questions, I would like to, again, thank all of our math panelists and our reading literacy panelists for sharing your knowledge and sharing your insights with us. I know I got a lot of good information and I hope everyone else did too.

[01:07:43] Now we are going to move on to our next presentation. I just do want to have a point of order that we might run just a little bit over time, but we're trying to squeeze in all of our panelists and all of our presentations this evening, so please bear with us. If you're watching online and you would like to sign off earlier, please know that we might just be going a little bit over time.

[01:08:04] But next up, we are going to have the LCPS Diverse Hiring Practices, an update from the Comprehensive Equity Plan. And I am going to turn the floor over to our presenters now.

[01:09:26] Try to remember all our notes. Hi, I'm Bob Phillips. I'm the Director of Recruiting, School-Based Staffing, and Substitute Teachers in Loudoun County Public Schools. and we are here to give you some information on how we are trying to just as it is important to see persons of color in the literature that your children are reading it is just as important to see teachers of color in the classrooms here in Loudoun County Public Schools so that's kind of what we're going to give an update on how we're trying to tackle that problem and it's not just a problem that's isolated in Loudoun County it is a countrywide problem so we're very excited to be

[01:10:03] here. Thank you for joining us. We're very proud of the work that we've done. We have a team of eight in recruiting. We have three recruiting assistants who aren't here, but we also have four other recruiters that help tackle this problem. And Karen O'Neill is the supervisor of recruiting over here. Lynn Caldwell is our teacher recruiter. Jonathan Mandina is our universal non-exempt recruiter or the non-licensed staff. And then Jordan Stark is our diversity recruiter. You'll hear from each one of them later on in the presentation. This is our action

[01:10:38] statement. This is pulled from our strategic plan that the school board passed in the last couple years. And as I mentioned, we really focus in or hone in on our teaching staff. We want our teachers to be as diverse as our student body, and that is our ultimate goal. And you'll see throughout this presentation that we are chipping away with that slowly but surely every year making progress, but that is something that we continue to strive for as we go out recruiting on the road or host events here in Loudoun County Public Schools. Before me, I got this position in

[01:11:18] 2019. Before me, there was no director of recruiting, and we just had a very small recruiting department, and this was the data snapshot when our recruiting department and HRTD started working with hiring managers about what implicit bias was. And in those workshops, you'll see in some of the resources in a later slide, they were really mostly building background knowledge. What is implicit bias and what are some possible ways that you can identify that

[01:11:51] in the hiring process. So this is a snapshot from 27-18. Just know that our recruiting season for calendar purposes goes until september 30th so every october 1st we start over again for the next recruiting season so this goes all the way from to september 30th of 2017. and you could see just the percentages the licensed employees in green and our student body represented in the blue and another slide that we use to compare is our licensed new hires so once again this was 27 18

[01:12:29] The number of licensed new hires, this number was 838 for this particular year. In the previous slide, at that time, our N, which was our denominator for our total licensed staff, was around 6,300. When we started to tackle this problem, we really needed to use a two-pronged approach to this.

[01:12:54] There is the first one being the pool of candidates. We had to find a way to increase the number of candidates that our pool has for teachers, not only for when we're on the road at colleges, but for our hiring managers back here in our schools.

[01:13:17] Because when we go on the road to many of the colleges and universities, we may be able to bring one or two principals, but how can we get those candidates who are interested in Loudoun, maybe that principal doesn't have an opening, but get them to be seen, quote-unquote seen, in our applicant tracking system by our hiring managers back home who are still in their buildings.

[01:13:46] So one thing that we did was a very heavy lift. If you applied for a job recently in Loudoun County, you've probably noticed that our applicant tracking system is a little bit more user friendly. Prior to that, we had iRecruitment, which was an Oracle product that was outdated and not being serviced by Oracle anymore. And we moved to an applicant tracking system. And it helped us improve our candidate experience.

[01:14:07] So when a candidate applies in Oracle, they had to do it on a Chromebook or laptop. And if they left their laptop, it would time out and they would have to start all the way back at the beginning. Now we entered the 21st century with our applicant tracking system and any candidate can apply by their phone, by a tablet, by a Chromebook, whatever it is.

[01:14:31] They set up an account with us, and that account is with them forever, and it could apply to any job they want in Loudoun County Public Schools. In addition to that, we were able to configure this so that when we're on the road and we're at a table, and you can imagine a college fair, if you've ever been recruiting at a college fair, you get a lot of people coming up to your table.

[01:14:51] We needed to be very fast and very quick for them to sign up and express interest because we really have about three minutes to woo them to consider interviewing for us at a job at Loudoun County. So we created a very short application. And then once they create that short application, then they can go back to their dorm room or their apartment and then add on to that for our hiring managers.

[01:15:13] So that was another positive that this applicant tracking system has created. You could see we were able to put our logo and brand on it. We weren't able to do that in Oracle. This is our EVP, our employee value proposition, and we're going to hear about that in our next slide.

[01:15:36] One other thing that this system does that Oracle would not allow us to do is give us analytics. So each year as we're going out on the road to different fairs and different colleges, are we getting candidates? Are we getting people coming up to our table? is are we getting an ROI, which is return on investment in recruiting for our, when we're sending a team out to that particular university. One of the other things that we look at is the diversity of that pool. Are we getting diverse candidates? Are we meeting our goal of trying to get as many diverse candidates in front of our hiring managers as possible? So this is just a

[01:16:10] snapshot from our colleges we visited this year as of March 31st, in conjunction also with the fairs that we've hosted in Loudoun County, because we'll also host our own fairs. We host four fairs, and Karen will talk about that later in her slide. And you can see from this that 33% of the candidates identified themselves as teachers of color for us. So that's a good number when you compare it to our 2017 numbers and where we were in terms of our diversity and our teaching staff. The other prong that we needed to utilize was attack from the hiring managers. How can we

[01:16:49] give them the tools and the ability to not only recruit candidates to their schools, because although we're the recruiting team, the 8, 97, 98 principles we have are just as important in recruiting and retaining our staff as we are as central office. So how could we help them and give them the tools to recruit, attract, and also choose the best candidate based upon what they felt they needed for that particular role for which they were interviewing. So we are striving and we're continuing that striving to create common interviewing recruiting practices across our

[01:17:26] division. Just like we want some of our practices instructionally to be common from one school to another, we want a candidate to have an experience from one school to the other that is very similar. One thing we did, we took all that background knowledge that we utilized from one company um and we built a schoology class and your your sons and daughters or might have schoology and utilize that and we uh so any you know loudon county has a we're a large district so we have a lot of turnover of new administrators coming in every single year so every single year um any new

[01:18:03] administrator we take them through the schoology training to build that background knowledge to get up to speed on the practices that we taught back in 2017-2018, and then be able to apply those practices to our next set of trainings that we've been doing with our hiring managers over our last three years. In addition to that, we do require our hiring managers to have panels, and those panels should be diverse. That's not always the case. We know schedules don't always align, and and sometimes it doesn't allow that, but we do strive for that with our hiring managers.

[01:18:42] In addition to that, we ask our hiring managers to interview at least three candidates for an open position, if there are three candidates in a pool. That never used to be a problem, but now with the teaching shortage across the country, that sometimes can be, particularly for hard-to-find or hard-to-staff positions.

[01:19:00] In addition to that, in HRTD, we provide money for our principals to bring diverse staff in over the summer to sit on the panel. So particularly their teaching staff, maybe a teacher's off for the summer and they're the lead teacher at the elementary or the salt at a middle school.

[01:19:18] We will pay them to come sit on the panel in the summer with the hiring managers. The next thing we did was I go back to the recruiting. Not only are we recruiting for Loudoun County Public Schools, but so are all the schools.

[01:19:35] So we really worked with a consulting firm at Elements to help develop trainings that were not just sit and get like the old ones, but how they're going to apply those skills and knowledges to their hiring practices. So the first thing we did was we helped our schools build an EVP, an employee value proposition.

[01:19:56] What is it about your school that is going to attract the best talent to your school? What is it that's special about your school? Because we are all in competition. Some of the principals didn't like that, but we are. You're competing against another hiring manager for that candidate.

[01:20:14] So what is it that you can offer to that candidate to get them to choose your school over one of your competitor schools, as well as some of our competitor districts, Fairfax County and Prince William particularly. So we've been working on that.

[01:20:30] Not only did we work on it three years ago before COVID, then COVID happened, and that changed the whole workforce and the whole thought process of the workforce. So we came back and revisited this past spring, again, with our hiring managers, knowing that what's important to workers now is different than what was important to workers just three years ago before COVID. So if you go on our website, and I'm just going to show you a quick shot, we've built an air table that you can see that has all of our schools, and you can click

[01:21:08] in and see what their EVP is. Now, I will tell you, we have to get on some schools to get their stuff into us to make it look attractive, but some schools have really taken this and made videos and all kinds of things. So this is part of our, once again, our first step in the recruiting process in the candidate journey.

[01:21:31] After we built the EVPs, the next thing we wanted to talk about is how we can be consistent in terms of the questions we ask and the ways that we ask those questions. And we call this our candidate profile.

[01:21:47] How could we take that EVP and make it come to life with someone who's sitting across from you at the table in an interview room with your panel. We talked a lot about competencies and working on our hiring managers to put things in two buckets. A foundational competency, something that every one of your teachers should have, and then a functional competency. Depending on the position, it might be a leadership position. That functional competency might be a little bit different than someone who maybe not be in a leadership position on that teaching team or in any position in Loudoun

[01:22:26] County, because we're also doing this with our non-school based hiring managers. So if you're a bus driver, a functional competency would be having that CDL to drive the bus or be able to drive the bus. So those were some of the things that we worked on over the course of the last couple of years with our hiring managers. And then we got together in large workshops and we developed a working bank of competencies. And these are the ones that we really want our hiring managers, particularly when they're interviewing for teachers to hone in on. So we've got that, and you want to find a balance when you're developing the questions about a two-to-one

[01:23:04] ratio of functional versus foundational, because you're going to be asking, you know, a good interview would have about six to eight questions, and we want to try to find that balance. After we develop those competencies, well, how can you develop a good question to ask that? And these are some of the examples of the questions that we talked about, our behavior-based questions, or situational questions tell me about a situation where you had a parent upset how did you handle that walk me through it or skills tests or any type of presentation that you may ask a teacher to come in or do a demo lesson we know some principals may bring in their second round for

[01:23:43] a demo lesson so these were some of the things that we continue to talk about and we continue to build upon and then we also gave them an interview question bank that we broke out by the competencies that we've defined as important in Loudoun County so they can go in and choose different banks of questions that they can use in their interviews and once again making it tailored to each school as well as each position. Then we talked about how they can rate that interview question and that interview candidate so what are some ways that they can be

[01:24:21] less directive in terms of maybe using like a Likert scale for their rating or where they could be more directive. And actually, these are the words I want to hear come out of that person's mouth during the interview and check them off as they're saying them. So we talked about ways that they can do that. Once again, creating common practices for all of our hiring managers across the division. Then finally, we talked about ways that they can debrief because after you have an interview, you have to talk about the candidates and see who and make those decisions. So again,

[01:24:59] And we gave them some tools and some different protocols that they can utilize with their hiring managers – excuse me, with their hiring panels to make the best decision for a candidate to be either someone at that school or someone maybe not at that school but someone that could fit the role in someone else's school because we know that's important, too, in Loudoun County.

[01:25:23] I'm going to turn this over to Karen real quick. Hi, good evening. I will not take a lot of your time because I probably stand between you and bedtime with your children. So we just wanted to highlight some of the exciting things that we're doing with our recruitment team.

[01:25:42] You can see here on the screen some of our events and our initiatives. Our team of five, we have gone up and down the East Coast since January. We are starting to wind down now to approximately 46 colleges and universities, some being virtual events.

[01:25:58] And then, of course, hosting our own fairs where we get a lot of engagement. We actually have almost 70 candidates that we're interviewing tomorrow night as one of our events. and including a really successful virtual networking night which we're hoping to expand for next year got some great feedback from candidates that they appreciated the opportunity to engage with our teachers and administrators ahead of the events something else that's new for us this year that we're really proud of is our platinum partnership with diversity in ed it gives us an opportunity to be recognized as a diverse and equity diversity equity employer in all of their publications we actually have copies of the magazine up

[01:26:36] here you can see a little snippet of our ad and we have a QR code there so we can see how much engagement we're getting through this publication and we get access to resumes of candidates and engage with other diverse educators in that way so we're really proud of that one other thing I really want to highlight is something that we've built from the ground up this year and that's our James Madison University grow your own residency program and this is a program that is an alternate pathway to filling vacancies and supporting the teacher shortage across the Commonwealth we're partnering with JMU where they

[01:27:15] are working to create modules that our current pair of professionals had the opportunity to apply we interviewed over 75 applicants had approximately 90 apply but interviewed over 75 applicants and selected 40 candidates I guess now participants that currently have a bachelor's degree they are current parent paraprofessional and in the fall they will be an educator they will be a teacher in the classroom and working with a provisional license working to complete those modules with JMU and so our team has been working to build that program this summer those participants we're gonna put them through a boot camp

[01:27:55] where they're gonna do a week of best practices and some student teaching in our summer school settings so we're really excited about that and hoping to expand on that cohort moving forward. Also working on some different tactics for recruiting and not just going to recruitment fairs like the college and university fairs that we talked about, but also taking advantage of going to conferences such as NABSI and interacting, engaging, and connecting with educators in that way as well. And one other thing that we hope to expand on even further next year is our collaboration with our communications office they are working with us to create videos as Mr. Phillips was talking

[01:28:34] about before and creating these social media campaigns actually there's one of our educators here in in attendance tonight who was featured in one of our campaign videos and we've seen a huge increase in applicants this time this year comparing data from last year it's approximately 20,000 more applications since those videos and that campaign has started so we're really excited about that as well last thing I'll just mention we are also doing research for potential opportunities moving forward of supporting visa sponsorships just as

[01:29:11] a way to bring diverse perspectives into our classrooms through educators in that way and now I'll turn it over to mr. Stark who will talk about some of our other efforts all right thank you Karen and you guys please bear with me and forgive me I had swallowed on the wrong pipe and I had a little cough attack but please bear with me it seems like my voice is coming back it's funny that my slides are called the diversity recruiting slides when pretty much everything that we're talking about today is focused around diversity recruiting and if you ask me what an effective recruiter is it's one that

[01:29:51] includes diversity and inclusion into their work so with that I'll start with kind of give you a reflection of what the diversity recruiting has been when since I've been a part of it, and I do want to reflect on the diversity and inclusion recruitment network that has been a part. We actually started this network back in 2019, and this network is comprised with all of, or several members of the teaching, or excuse me, several members, several teachers, as well as several administrators have come together, and what they, their focus is specifically is to diversify our workplace.

[01:30:29] I mean, like Bob said, we have a vast population of diverse students coming into this county and we wanna ensure that they're able to look across the classroom and see someone that reflects them and can really adapt to what they're going through as well.

[01:30:46] So with this diversity recruitment network, what we did in addition to the three year stent, We also changed the name, and what it used to be was Diversity Champions Recruitment Network, and since then, we changed it to Diversity Inclusion Recruitment Network, and this was to reiterate our focus in diversity and to ensuring that the inclusivity of all of our social and ethnic characteristics are being represented.

[01:31:18] So with that name change, we also wanted to bring a re-ramp to further spark the membership of engagement within this network. And with that spark of membership engagement, we wanted to continue being creative with our recruiting tactics. And a lot of those tactics are what Bob and Karen have already mentioned, but I also wanna highlight that the recruiting network has been very beneficial when it comes to expanding our outreach to different communities as well as the universities.

[01:31:48] And also with assisting with our event preparation, We have a lot of internal fairs, and I'll be speaking on next slide about one of those fairs, but the network has been extremely beneficial and extremely helpful in that process. And another thing is they've been really beneficial when it comes to diversifying the interview panels that we have been really pushing out, especially with these internal fairs.

[01:32:17] We wanna make sure that when we have these countywide events that we wanna show that we can reflect a diverse panel. And these members in the networking group have really been very beneficial in that aspect as well. As you can see, I also listed a few workshops and these are some other elements that we wanted to use to really bring a different approach to the pipelines of recruiting.

[01:32:41] And this is a more intimate pipeline. This is a pipeline where we can go into these colleges and universities and talk to them back and forth in a back and forth conversation and really elaborate and discuss partnerships. And with these partnerships, we can expand upon the possibility of expanding that partnership into not only just talking to the education programs and those staff members, but also allowing them to make that extra step at going into the classroom and talking to the actual students, these candidates themselves, and talking about, as you can see recently at Virginia State University with a college prep, talking about,

[01:33:20] this is how you apply to our school division. And this is what it looks like. And we'll also provide some mock interview supports as well as some resume building. I'm really excited to get kicked off with Howard University with their talent acquisition advisory. They invited us to join in and talk about what are some ways we can grow education within their program and how we can maintain that partnership across county and school.

[01:33:47] In addition, I want to also add at the very end, these are just kind of a list of the HBCUs and MSIs, job fairs that we've attended. You can see that some are asterisk, those asterisks are virtual fairs. Pretty much since 2020, things have changed a lot and a lot of the universities have switched over to virtual fairs.

[01:34:09] Bit of a gift and a curse. I actually think it's great 'cause we can expand a little bit further when these fairs are virtual as well. So it allows us to reach out a little bit further. In addition, a lot of these fairs are repetitive, and we go multiple times a year, and we continue to do that to maintain that partnership.

[01:34:31] All right, and lastly, what I wanted to talk about is our diversity recruitment experience. This is, I'm happy to say that we will be, this year around, we'll be going about our fifth annual diversity recruitment experience. It's been extremely beneficial, and it's been a great experience to have.

[01:34:50] It's a two-part experience, so technically it is a job fair. However, we call it an experience because it's a two-part. It's a networking event in addition to an interviewing fair. And within that networking event, we reach out to as many HBCUs and MSIs as possible, and really connecting with our DNI recruitment network to really reach out and provide their outreach to bring as many members as possible to come in, talk with our teachers, talk with our administrators in breakout rooms.

[01:35:19] We have a guest speaker come in, it's been awesome. Lottie, I'm looking at you, you've been very beneficial in that. And just really to elaborate and just have casual conversation, casual conversation about our county, provide them with a brochure that provides resources about what we're about and about what Loudoun County, the county itself is about, and what are some diverse resources that we have in our county already and what we can expand on.

[01:35:48] And in addition to that, we provide some job prep and some mock interviewing skills to help them in their interview to come. And I think that is it. So I wanna turn it over to Lynn to talk about some of our teacher cadets.

[01:36:03] - Hi, I know we're reaching nine o'clock, so I'm gonna be very quick. So as a former teacher cadet myself, I think it's important that we continue to offer this teacher prep program in our high schools. It provides our LCPS students an opportunity to earn college credit in high school.

[01:36:20] and also gives them an opportunity to have that real world experience in classrooms, especially here within Loudoun. So looking at the data, you can see that we have had significant increase in student enrollment for Teacher Cadet. Two factors, I think about why that's increased.

[01:36:38] First of all, our students were very bummed during virtual setting that they weren't able to go visit our classrooms. But now that we're back in person, we've seen an uptick in the student enrollment And students are very excited about going to go work into those classrooms.

[01:36:54] And then also CTE developed a common interest form where students are able to provide student responses and also provide two forms of recommendation. Instead of them going to their teacher and asking them to take the course or their counselor, they're now able to do a district-wide interest form, which gives a lot of students an opportunity to take the course.

[01:37:19] So after we started reviewing the diversity enrollment data for teacher cadet, we thought about ways that we could help promote the class to our high schools. So for the past two years, we've attended curriculum fairs and elective nights in our high schools so that we can find ways to promote the class to our future educators.

[01:37:40] This is our fourth year with the LCPS Grow Our Own initiative here in Loudoun that I developed once I came here three years ago. We currently offer our senior teacher cadets employment with Loudoun County. We give them four to six years to complete their program, and then we connect them with a recruiter and a mentor so that they're engaged and then also providing them support for their immediate needs that they have within their college program.

[01:38:12] We're also, this will be our fourth year of celebrating at each of our high schools for our students signing. and we will start actually this year, May 10th, with our signing celebrations at our 16 high schools that participate.

[01:38:28] We also have a mentor, a junior mentor program here. We call them the cadet advisor program, and it's a teacher that's only been with us for two to four years. We purposefully did that because we wanted to find educators that aren't too far removed from the college experience, so that they're able to provide support to those students with their immediate needs when needed.

[01:38:50] We are creating an advisor pipeline for our current mentor department with this program, and we are also providing leadership opportunities for our young, diverse staff members here in Loudoun. People that necessarily wouldn't think about being a mentor or be considered for mentorship now have an opportunity to do this with our junior mentor program.

[01:39:11] Finally, we, looking at the, this is not the right slide. Finally, we also had our Educators Rising Conference I'm recently at Shenandoah University in Leesburg.

[01:39:30] This conference was for our clubs that we have in Loudoun County for Ed Rising. It was a professional conference that we provided for our students that gave them classes on classroom teaching, leadership opportunities, and then also helped to promote our teacher cadet program here within Loudoun.

[01:39:49] So we're doing many different things with our high school students to make sure that if they do have a passion and interest in education, that we are cultivating that experience and then actually bringing them back to come and work with us here in Loudon. Thanks, Lynn. Coming full circle, where are we now? We showed you the data snapshot of where we started in 2017 when we started all these initiatives and building background knowledge and common practices. And this is a data snapshot of our last recruiting season, which ended on September 30th of 2022. So of 2023, we'll have the next set of data

[01:40:28] to compare where we are in terms of our teaching staff. So you can see here for all licensed employees, there's been a change for teachers of color of nearly 25% more than there were in 27, 2018. Our N, if you remember back on that first slide, was 6,400.

[01:40:47] This N is nearly 8,000, so nearly 8,000 teachers. Our denominator keeps on getting larger as we keep on adding more and more schools and more and more programs like you heard about tonight. In terms of our licensed new hires, this is even more significant than we were in 2017-18.

[01:41:05] There's been a change of nearly 90%, 89.6% the proportion of teachers of color who are new to Loudoun County Public Schools when compared to the data set in 2017-2018. And this data set is a little bit smaller, but our numbers for teachers of color or percentages are even higher.

[01:41:24] and that is a data set of 638 that we had we hired last year so again we're very proud of the work that we're doing we're continuing to find that balance and get those ways for the charts to kind of tick up in each one of our subgroups but we know our work is still not done and we're going to continue to strive to do that I'm going to turn this over real quickly to Jonathan Mandina about our non our non-licensed or are you what we call universal non-exempt recruiting. Thank you. So I'm here to talk about some of our universal non-exempt recruiting strategies. This year we rolled out some one-stop shops and what those are is that's a new way to

[01:42:02] recruit with an on-site interview offers and then from there they'll roll right into pre-employment processing while they're on site to capture kind of their timeliness to the process and then also there's a physical required we would offer that to them while they're they're on site. Participation the community and social recruiting events. We do a lot of work with the Virginia or the Loudoun County Workforce Resource Center. This September, we're participating in the Loudoun Times Mirror job fair for the community. We have done a few iHeartMedia radio spots to broadcast out to

[01:42:38] different candidates that may not necessarily see us on the webs. And then last week, we held our first ever Indeed virtual job fair for transportation. So again, just trying new things to cast that wider net to maybe reach a different audience that isn't necessarily aware of the opportunities that exist outside of the classroom. This summer, we're going to do our first universal non-exempt career expo. It'll be in June, and then it'll be for teacher assistants, school nutrition, transportation, custodial, digital experience, and safety and security.

[01:43:12] And what this will be is kind of an open door opportunity for candidates to come in and community members to learn about all these areas. They can walk around, talk with hiring managers, figure out maybe what position works best with their interest, and then potentially do an interview while they're there.

[01:43:28] So something that we're really excited about, giving a shot for the first time, has been done a few times throughout the country. We did some initial research, kind of pulled a few different school divisions, and so now we want to bring that to Loudoun. So we're looking forward to getting that underway. We've also launched a teacher assistant hiring focus group As Bob was mentioning earlier about the licensed staff and standardizing that practice and process, we wanna do the same for our universal and non-licensed staff.

[01:43:56] So we're starting off with the teacher assistants and working with those hiring managers to define that process and make it more consistent. Some other new strategies that we've tried this year were transportation Thursdays, open door and onsite pre-scheduled interviews with our transportation team, as well as walk-in Wednesdays with our school nutrition staff members.

[01:44:16] again, pre-existing and on-site walk-in interviews. We've created a billboard or a sign to go outside the transportation headquarters, which the commuter buses for the county go through to try to draw in some additional interest, as well as we began using our own staff members and environments for our peach jar flyers that go out to the community to, again, promote the opportunity to kind of give our recruiting strategies a little bit more life.

[01:44:42] And then with that, we also added some videos from our own employees, speaking about why they work in the areas that are out there. And so it's right on our LCPS careers page underneath the welcome. They can scroll down, see the different categories that exist.

[01:44:59] This is a growing process. So not every job is represented. We're working with the communications team to build them, but they can hear directly from the employee, which is the best champion and cheerleader when it comes to promoting opportunities, and then learn more about maybe an area they want to apply to and then i'll turn it back over to bob thanks jonathan um are there are there any questions we have time for some yes what are you telling candidates that are concerned about

[01:45:35] finding affordable housing particularly entry-level teachers that is within a reasonable commute distance to their school that is a great question um we are also on the loudon county workforce housing team and have monthly meetings and that is a big concern particularly for our candidates who don't live in Loudoun County and get a little bit of sticker shock when they get an offer from central Pennsylvania or southern Virginia. One of the things that we tell them is what we try to

[01:46:10] promote are our benefits because our benefits are exemplary for especially with our paid parental leave now. In addition to that, our resources that we offer them as a large county. So we try to sell the positives and then the last thing that we try to tell them is that most of our young teachers when they come to loudon county will continue living almost in a college-like experience with a roommate where they're sharing a townhouse and sharing rent so that's that's the reality and we

[01:46:40] don't sugarcoat it um and that's what we try to do yes i had um two questions um one is regarding I guess retention I know just personally a couple of African-American teachers who were here in Loudoun County and they've decided to leave does does your body do any type of like exit interview or assess you know why teachers come especially teachers that you're targeting to increase diversity and then why they go and then my second question is how do I get at my school a more

[01:47:18] diverse teaching staff I love the information you shared about how you know county-wide there seems to have been opportunities where we've had growth and improvement but my two students we've been in LCPS probably for almost 10 years now the first time my sons had an African-American teacher was during virtual Loudoun during the pandemic and that has been their only experience since we've been here in Loudoun County so how can I advocate or what can I how can I get a more diverse teaching staff at my school so the first

[01:47:54] question is yes we do have retention data we do offer people an opportunity to share why they're leaving once again it's self-chosen whether they decide disclose that information or not and we do we do have that information it's not in this presentation but it is in our overall HRTD presentation that we normally put together so you can find that information in addition to that as As I mentioned, with our applicant tracking system, this is the first year that we're able to send out offers virtually or electronically.

[01:48:27] And if they decline the offer through our applicant tracking system, we're asking why. Why are you declining the offer? Again, giving us a piece of data to look at what can we do differently. In terms of your son's experience or your children's experiences in their schools, I don't know the school, so I'd have to get a little bit more information before I would be able to offer that answer.

[01:48:48] Again, you have hiring managers who maybe were using not the best practices for methods, or maybe they weren't choosing candidate pools correctly to put in front of their hiring panels.

[01:49:04] So we would have to look at that particular data. So I'll get that information, if I can get that information from you.

[01:49:20] It has to come earlier meetings, but we were out on the road recruiting.

[01:49:46] So this was the one. I have a follow-on question, another one. I'm so sorry, I don't remember your name, in the black. Yes, so you had a slide up where it had HBCUs where you went to the various career fairs.

[01:50:02] I'm a proud graduate of two HBCUs. How does your team build those partnerships with those schools, and how are those schools identified as far as the recruiting efforts? I'll start by saying in most cases, kind of the benefit of being in this position is that the schools are reaching out to you as well.

[01:50:30] As much as we're reaching out to them, we're also hearing from these universities and colleges to come to them, grab their candidates, grab their students, because that's the benefit of why their students are going to their school is because, hey, we have certain types of pipelines for you when you get your degree and you can go into these schools that we have partnerships with.

[01:50:51] So it's kind of a back and forth relationship. And a lot of, like I mentioned, a lot of those fairs that we went to have been virtual in addition to in-person. And there are several virtual platforms that we're able to utilize, and schools are able to utilize it from their end as well to kind of advertise, put flyers out of their fairs, and we're able to connect in that aspect as well.

[01:51:26] - Hi, I wanted to find out, maybe you did mention that, but I didn't hear it, I'm so sorry. for for instance your subs do you have any sort of um program that maybe if a sub wanted to become licensed um is there something or some way that um they can be um go through a a faster pace or any sort of information that a sub can do to be licensed quicker or to i mean you know if there

[01:52:01] is something out there in virginia there isn't um there we we offer on our careers page uh what they call career switcher opportunities all the different schools or or universities in virginia that offer a career switcher program one of them being shenandoah right here vcu a couple others in in the commonwealth some of their blended learning in terms of being you know one weekend you're in person and most the other time now the coursework is virtual um but that would be the quickest way we don't we're we we as karen mentioned our jmu program which was a very heavy lift

[01:52:37] really focused on our current employees who were full-time employees not just subs but current full-time employees who were who had a bachelor's degree and we're ready to make that jump into the classroom um and we're hopeful that our another partnership with gmu george Mason um would help us with the um sub piece and working with that body or pool of candidates to get them what you're saying into a classroom um but it's going a little bit slower um than our JMU

[01:53:10] uh pathway so we're still we're still plugging away on that one other questions well thank you and uh I'll turn it back over for the closing again um I just would like to um express our appreciation to all of our panelists for coming out this evening for sticking

[01:53:49] with us we went way over time but there was a lot of great information that was shared and a lot of great knowledge that we got to get to get to what was made available to us I guess I'm trying to say so with that I just say thank you all I give you all a round of applause for coming out tonight thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you to everyone else safe travels home drive safe on the roads and we will see you all in may at the equity thank you and have a good night

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