Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC) Meeting, Wednesday, May 3, 2023

Date: Wednesday, May 3, 2023
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 2h 47m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/823425619?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.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[00:00:02] Hello?

[00:03:18] Good evening. Good evening and welcome to our SEAC meeting. My name is Sharon Trofe and welcome to those of you who are in the room and those of you who are online. Please take a moment to scan the QR code to sign in electronically. We want to know everyone who's here. So even if you're not a PTA, PTO rep or a member, you're a member of the community or staff, please take a moment to sign in and let us know you're here and who you are.

[00:03:45] We have a goal to grow our in-person and at-home viewing and participation, so we need to know you're there. So please take a moment to do that. My name is Sharon Trofe. I'm the SEAC chair, and I'm going to have Craig Metz come up and bring in our virtual participants, our virtual members. Good evening. Kristen Martin, Zena Belharret, Kathy Lambert, and Heidi Bunkua would like to join the meeting virtually is there any objection to their participation seeing none they

[00:04:21] are welcome to the meeting did everybody get a chance to scan we're good to go okay so we're going to start off our meeting with the office of special education doing our centering work i'm gonna ask that tedra richardson our director of special education specialized instruction come up and kick off our meeting good evening everyone it is wonderful to see a full room almost full

[00:04:54] room for our last business meeting of this school year. So let's go back to September when we came together. We didn't know one another and we didn't know what this school year was going to bring us but we found our common ground and here's three memories from that time that have carried us through this school year. We would like our cluster, our schools, so elementary, middle, and high to work together. So we wanted to work towards vertical articulation for our students, for smooth

[00:05:28] transitions and communication. The importance of equal access and all meaning all, right? And our last takeaway from our very first time together this school year, many of us are parents of students with disabilities. And that is a common factor that I share with most of you as well. Last month, we met and we talked about what is the one word that you reflect as you reflected on all of our SEAC meetings across the course of this year. What is the one word? And so we had some tabletop

[00:06:06] groups to report out and the word accountability came out. There's been a feeling of accountability. There's been feedback over the course of this year. It's been a transitional year for us as a SEAC group working towards meeting the needs of our students. It's been collaborative, and it's been hopeful. So thank you for that reflection. We're going to give one to get one. We always have a connection before content. We're going to get you up and moving, but certainly you have to reflect

[00:06:46] yet again. So on a note card, you should have note cards in the center of your tables. You need to just quietly reflect on one of these prompts. So not all of them, but just one that's that stands out to you. One reason I participate in SEAC is, that's one of the prompts. The second prompt is something I've learned this year through my work as part of this advisory committee is,

[00:07:17] or the third prompt that you can reflect on is for next year, I hope that SEAC, you have to fill in the blank, okay? So this statement will be shared, so be thoughtful about what you're willing to share with others as you begin to move around the room. So once you choose the statement that you're going to reflect on, write it down on the note card, and then we're going to get up and move around. You're going to circulate around the room. Hopefully you will connect with somebody that you've never met before. Make sure you introduce yourself and have a little bit of conversation about the prompt

[00:07:55] that you have chosen as you reflect on these prompts. And so then after about two or three exchanges, you can come back to your table and then we'll do a little bit of reporting out and we will reflect as a whole group on what the common themes have been, okay?

[00:08:14] So one reason that I participate, something you've learned and what your hope for is for next year's SEAC. So choose one of those topics, those prompts to circulate, right?

[00:08:29] Once you got it, I still see lots of folks writing. Thank you.

[00:08:58] And it looks, oh, nope, I still see some folks writing. We'll give a little bit more wait time. That's fine.

[00:09:19] It looks like most of us might be ready to get up and circulate. So please make sure that you take your cards with you and you move around and meet two or three new people and talk about the prompt that you have chosen as you reflect back what you have learned or what you hope for for next year.

[00:09:46] We'll give you a few minutes to get up and going. Thank you.

[00:18:13] Thank you, everyone. If you could begin to move back to your tables, please. Share it. That is wonderful. All right, if you could move back to your tables.

[00:18:29] Thank you. Guys, oh, my goodness, that was wonderful to see the connections, to hear the laughter, to know that everyone was connecting differently or maybe you got a chance to see a familiar face that you hadn't seen in a while.

[00:19:09] Anyone care to share out what someone else shared and reflected on so we can identify some common themes? That's right. Sharon said, don't be shy.

[00:19:26] All right. Liz? So we are all here to work to meet the needs of students with disabilities. And I think it's going to serve us all well to remember the range, the full range of all students with disabilities.

[00:19:47] Sometimes we focus on this set of students or that set of students. Some of our students are in low-incidence disability categories, so we want to try to consider everybody when we're talking about our students. Thank you. Absolutely. Anyone else care to share?

[00:20:12] So I got a card where they talked about moving forward together, all of us on different sides and different things, moving forward in a collaborative work, because unless we're all together and working together for a common goal, we're not going to achieve much. So I think it's always a good reminder.

[00:20:28] Sometimes it feels a little bit like we're at odds, but we're not. We're all here together, and we need to work together to accomplish things. Thank you. That's a beautiful reminder, for sure. Anyone else? Last call. Anyone else? All right.

[00:20:45] So we're going to stay focused on all of our students with disabilities that are eligible, and we are going to stay focused on the fact that we're in this together. Thank you very much. Before I hand it back over to Sharon so she can start the business meeting, On behalf of the Office of Special Education, we want to celebrate and give Sharon her flowers now while she is here with us to say thank you for an amazing year as the leader of SEAC and the chair of SEAC.

[00:21:16] Thank you for your collaboration, for your partnership, for your positivity, and for your advocacy for our students. And I think leaving off on that last note of sometimes it may feel different, but to know that we're still working through it together has been beautiful this year.

[00:21:33] So on behalf of the Office of Special Education, we thank you. I'm going to be in tears before the evening is over.

[00:21:50] I just know it. Okay, let's jump in. If you haven't had the opportunity to sign in, please scan the QR code so we know that you're here, whether you're at home or you're here with us in person. Okay, I want to take the opportunity to introduce our current board.

[00:22:11] We will be having our elections tonight, so this is the last business meeting that we will be here as a board together. As I mentioned earlier, my name is Sharon Trofe. I've been the SEAC chair for the last, I think we were trying to figure out, I think, five years.

[00:22:29] Shanaz Khan is my vice chair of planning to my right. Liz Karate is our vice chair of membership. Craig Metz is our Vice Chair of Communication, Katie Rosenbrook is our wonderful SEAC Secretary, and then Tedra Richardson, you just met, she is our Director of Special Education for Specialized Instruction, and our School Board Liaison is Tiffany Polifko, and our Alternate is Erica Ogadegby.

[00:22:58] So the role of SEAC is mandated by the Virginia regulations, And we are a body that is put together to inform the school board on the needs of our special education students.

[00:23:16] We collect information from the community. We review policies that impact our students with special education needs. And we present our concerns to the school board on those. You're going to see that process in action this evening.

[00:23:33] We have policies and the memorandum of understanding to review tonight. And then we participate in the annual review and we present reports to the school board. We've presented two reports to the school board plus our annual report.

[00:23:52] And we have one report in process and one CEAC survey out there that will inform this year's annual report. So if you haven't had the opportunity and you are a parent of children in the school division that are receiving special education services, I ask that you please take a moment to fill out the CX survey.

[00:24:17] We do not ask for your name. So we are looking for how to make our system better. What can we do better? How can we work together better? And we will present that to the school board, to the Office of Special Education so we can continue our collaborative work.

[00:24:40] So we're going to move into our public comment stage. We have two people signed up for public comment. SEAC uses our public comment to inform our work.

[00:24:55] So our public comments are recorded in our annual report so we can see what the trends were for the year. And we use that information when we're working to our subcommittees to inform their work so when we are working on our areas that we can pull in those public concerns and see if we can't push out some solutions.

[00:25:20] So when you give your public comment, we ask that you focus on system-wide issues. Please do not give the names of schools or specific persons but the issue at hand and that you give, we ask that you provide us a written copy of that so we can include it our annual report and in our minutes our meeting minutes and we ask that you try

[00:25:44] to keep your comments to three minutes so the first person is Peg Klein good evening my name is Peg Klein and I'm here to speak on and on behalf and advocate for our daughter who's nine and in the third grade I would like to indicate at the outset that my comments are not directed to any staff at our

[00:26:20] daughter's specific school rather my comments are directed to the LCPS school board members and the LCPS special education administrative staff and supervisors my husband I traveled to China in 2019 and brought home our daughter when she was five when we brought her home she didn't know us and she didn't know any English she had been at the orphanage in China along with 500 other children since she was a week old. A month after bringing her home, we took her to a private daycare in kindergarten. They welcomed her lovingly and she began to thrive. She learned

[00:26:56] English and soon understood what they were saying to her. She was happy to have her friends and love school. Her first experience with LCPS was in the first grade for the 2020 to 2021 school year. The first grade was a total loss for our daughter. She struggled to learn and had to deal with constant change, transitions, and unpredictability. We were finally able to get an IEP for her in the spring of 2021. She's had four IEPs since then and has only mastered one goal, which was for PE. The same

[00:27:31] goals are repeated year after year, and she still breeds at a first grade level, beginning first grade level. We even had to hire a law firm to get her services, and yet our requests continue to be denied. She lacks the foundational knowledge of core information that should have been built in that first grade year and the years after, but yet she keeps getting moved from grade to grade with no real improvement. Addie deserves to know how to read. She used to love going to school, and now she hates it. Her self-esteem, which is already impacted by the trauma and neglect she experienced

[00:28:09] in the orphanage, continues to suffer. When we were at our last IEP meeting, we asked for an after-school tutor to help her individually with her reading. And a supervisor for special education services for LCPS told me directly that reading, writing, and math are not necessarily life skills for my daughter. Let me repeat that. A LCPS special ed supervisor thinks that reading,

[00:28:43] writing, and math are not necessary skills for a special needs child to have. It's no wonder why parents are frustrated and fed up. My daughter deserves to be taught how to read, write, and understand math. Yes, she learns differently from others, but she should not be punished or deprived of these essential life skills just because she has a disability. Thank you for listening to me.

[00:29:15] Peg, would you mind if we kept that? Thank you. Our next public speaker is Tom Ketchum. My name is Tom Ketchum. I'm the proud father of four children who have been identified as twice

[00:29:53] exceptional, though they are far more exceptional than just that, of course, and they are much more than just their labels. I'm the representative for Woodgrove High School and a voting member of SEAC. I have been honored to serve on school board subcommittees in another district for the last decade or so, and as we complete our first year with Loudoun County Public Schools, I thought I would offer my perspective both as a newcomer and someone with experience in serving on those other advisory committees. For the last several years, it seems that education has been in the spotlight

[00:30:28] in a unique and new kind of way. My mother was a teacher in Fairfax County for more than 25 years, and through her, I have understood the challenges of balancing the burning desire that fuels a lot of our educators with the demands of limited resources and meeting standards.

[00:30:45] But now, as our society grapples with questions of equity and access and evolving questions about curriculum and other issues, entirely new challenges and pressures confront the staff here at LCPS. I recognize the purpose of this committee and others is to provide feedback on the delivery of services to our students and to represent the unique constituencies within our student body.

[00:31:12] That work largely takes the form of recommendations on improvement, and that is an important and vital function. From what I have seen and experienced, LCPS is dedicated to that path of improvement. I want to pause here a little bit on that word improvement, because improvement does not mean deficit. There are problems that need to be addressed. There are issues that will be fixed, And I do believe that the staff is very dedicated to resolving those issues.

[00:31:39] But improvement is about adding to what we have, supplementing what we have, being able to improve upon what we have today. And what we have today should also be celebrated at the same time. I think that's very important for us to remember.

[00:31:55] So I wish to offer a commendation to Dr. Jones, Ms. Richardson, and the entire staff of the Special Education Department at LCPS. But further than that, to all the administrators, all the specialists, all of the therapists and staff involved in the processing of IEPs and 504s, and really to the entirety, all 13,000 plus members of the LCPS staff across the board, this is part of their job as well, because special education is education.

[00:32:26] I believe that Loudoun County Public Schools demonstrates a commitment to providing exceptional special education services to our students, and the range of evidence-based practices that LCPS employs ensures that students do receive a high quality of instruction and support.

[00:32:44] Of course, LCPS has invested in training and professional development for special education staff, and they must continue to do so, which helps to maintain and improve that effective delivery of services. I have seen a great commitment from very highly qualified professionals across a range of specialties, and I am very encouraged by the engagement that they offer to the families of our students.

[00:33:08] By the beginning of this coming academic year, as I understand it, we will have more than 10,000 students in special education here in Loudoun County. That represents roughly 12% of the total student population. To serve that number, we have less than 2,400 staff that are dedicated to special education.

[00:33:30] While there has been some discussion about overhead numbers, it is important to remember that 99% of those positions are dealing directly with students, as teachers or teacher assistants represent about 2,000 of that number and are additional ones in individual instruction and specialized therapy.

[00:33:52] I understand that spending of public funds is a very important subject, and I would also point out from my business experience that having a few dozen management positions or a single accounting position at a company of 2,400 employees would be considered extraordinary. While there are critical issues to address, and there will continue to be, there will always be new and important challenges to address, I would like to recognize that we have an extraordinary and dedicated special education department here at LCPS. As long as even one student out of those

[00:34:29] 10,000 has issues that needs to be addressed. I have no doubt that our staff will work diligently to fix those problems, and the role of SEAC will continue to be important as a forum that provides feedback and recommendations. However, I think we should also commend LCPS on the good work that they have done and continue to do every day. Thank you. So our first order on our agenda for new business is I'm going to bring forward Carla Sola and Nancy Walker. Is Nancy here? Come on up.

[00:35:09] the nominating committee, to present our slate for vote.

[00:35:35] Good evening. So as the co-chair for the nominating committee, we would like to present the following names for positions on the SEAC Executive Committee. For chair, we'd like to nominate Liz Crotty.

[00:35:52] For vice chair of planning, we'd nominate Lisa Williams. For vice chair of membership, I'd like to nominate myself. Carla Sola and for vice chair of communications we'd like to nominate Shanaz Khan oh may I have a motion from the floor to accept this slate of

[00:36:18] nominees thank you do we have a second thank you very much yes we have us oh so at this time we oh is there any discussion on the slate presented hearing none, we'd like to call for a vote on the slate.

[00:36:49] Okay. I'm passing it off. Elizabeth Baird. Zena.

[00:37:07] Zena's online. Is she online though? Heidi Bunkua. But if she's online, she should say here, right? Here. You're here. I hear you. Okay. Liz Crotty. Jennifer DiDonato. Catherine Lambert.

[00:37:30] I'm here online. Lorraine. Tom. Rosina. Kristen. Craig, Sarah, Plattenberg, Lakshmi, Katie, Carla, Sharon, Nancy, Melissa, Lisa, and I am present as well.

[00:38:03] We have a quorum. And do we need to do an amendment? We don't have Katie Rosenbrook up on, we didn't announce her for the slate. For secretary. For secretary. Yeah. We did. I apologize, Katie.

[00:38:21] So Katie has offered to stay on as our CX secretary, so we will also include Katie in the slate. I apologize for I didn't catch it either. It's not her fault. I didn't catch it either. Katie is also on that slate, so I apologize for that oversight on my part. Is that motion friendly? Or is that amendment friendly?

[00:38:54] Say yes. Okay. All those in favor of the current slate up there. Say aye. All opposed? Any abstentions?

[00:39:12] Seeing none. Welcome. Keep moving on things. Shanaz and I just wanted to take a little time for

[00:39:45] us to do our thank you to Sharon for all she's done over the last number of years and I know Shanaz and I and we have some prepared remarks ready I don't I wanted to open it up though in case other members or people in the community also had something that they would like to say to Sharon before we get going so if is there anyone else who would like to say some words

[00:40:20] um there here do we have a mic thank you Sharon I just want to say I just met you here in I think it was February of this uh this year and you brought me in you taught me so much I have learned more from this woman in the last few months about LCPS CX special education and how to be a fierce advocate than I have from anybody else in my entire life so I want to thank you so much

[00:40:55] your dedication rings through your passion for this and for our children in Loudoun County really rings through and thank you for guiding me in this short period and I know you offered to not be away and I'm going to take you off on that so thank you. Anybody else? All right. I can just build on that because I too joined SEAC as a PTO member this year and met Sharon and you have has been so inspirational and really motivating and that's why I chose to join the committee this

[00:41:34] this next year and I am hopeful you're not going far because there's still so much to learn from you thank you so I have known Sharon for well over 10 years and have served in the role of past SEAC chair and I think until you've been in that position you can't fully appreciate the hundreds of hours, the hundreds of hours that go into the position, the multiple meetings, all the details in addition to the toll it takes on your personal life and, you know, your professional life and everything else.

[00:42:12] It truly is such a commitment, Sharon, and you have provided really insightful leadership and dedication to students with disabilities way longer than any other chair that I know of. And I know on behalf of everyone here and those who have been here over the last five years, We're truly grateful to you for everything that you've done and how you've hung in there when no one else would step up and take over the chair role.

[00:42:34] So thank you very much.

[00:42:47] LCPS. Sharon knows, well, she knew me, I think, before I became a supervisor when I came here as an eligibility coordinator. But what I want to say is in the spirit of one LCPS and in the spirit of collaboration that Sharon knows, we will sit in meetings and she'll say, Nakia how did you know I was going to say that? Nakia you're reading my mind. So I do really feel like in the spirit of collaboration in the independence cluster and also with some of my charter schools we have had some really courageous collaborative meetings but it has always felt

[00:43:25] like we were all working on the same team and I just appreciate you bringing that to my cluster and to our families because we are so much better for it. So I appreciate you bringing that and having that opportunity for me to experience as a new supervisor and now in year five, I think.

[00:43:47] I don't even know. But I appreciate you being here with us. And we may or may not miss you. I'm not sure where you'll go. Going anywhere. Not going anywhere. She is not leaving. We are going to make sure.

[00:44:04] This is thank you, not goodbye. All right. Anybody else? Okay. All right. I'll get going, though, on the prepared remarks. I have some from Melissa. Dearest Sharon, I want to thank you so much for all you do every day for the families of children with disabilities in LCPS. As a work and SEAC colleague, I know full well how many crazy hours you put in seven days a week serving your clients and our SEAC. While the administration has often made your work as SEAC chair quite difficult. You inspire me with your

[00:44:41] poise and professionalism, dealing with every blow as it came your way. Your dedication to ensuring that SEAC would remain a vital and important voice for the most vulnerable in our LCPS community is remarkable and commendable. I'm so grateful we will still have your wisdom and institutional knowledge as we continue your work for our SEAC Melissa and then these are my remarks it's hard to know where to begin Sharon holds such a special place in my heart both for how she's helped my

[00:45:21] children and for the light she has brought to my life as a wonderful friend and as an example of someone who has made lasting change in our community what she does for our students both in and out of IEP meetings cannot be overstated she brings a sense of clarity as to what is right and what the children's needs are, and is always collaborative, whether it is in an IEP meeting writing goals or identifying and problem-solving difficult situations. She always shows our teachers care and respect and is quick to give kudos for excellent work and ideas,

[00:45:59] but then provides gentle prompts and guidance for an IEP team to consider. She could have simply attended her many clients' IEP meetings and known that she was making a huge difference for our children with disabilities in our school system but she didn't stop there. Sharon has devoted herself to our SEAC for so many years long after her own children left the school system. Sharon advocates for children with disabilities as a way of life. The hours that she spends listening to concerns, researching, planning, analyzing, and traveling to join us for our meetings are too

[00:46:35] numerous to count. She has always been so generous with her knowledge gleaned from her many years of experience. There are many things I have learned from watching Sharon in action. Sheer persistence and not giving up even when it feels like nobody is listening and it won't make a difference because someday it will. Data, data, data. Use it to inform all of your discussions and decision making and that when all parties are working from the same set of facts and information then we can truly be a collaborative team capable of making meaningful, impactful change.

[00:47:14] I am so grateful, and I know our whole community is so grateful for Sharon Trofe's excellent leadership, her love and care for our children, and her belief in all of us, including LCPS, that we are capable of great things and helping our children achieve their dreams.

[00:47:33] Thank you so much, Sharon, and thank you for continuing on with us. We aren't letting you escape. You are so valued in our community. I'm going to tell you now, I'm not making it through this.

[00:47:54] I'm going through hers, and I'm like, oh. Each year, SEAC recognizes individuals who have gone above and beyond to support our students with disabilities. I can't think of anyone more deserving of this recognition than Sharon.

[00:48:11] I have worked closely with Sharon for six years now. We were all trying to figure out the numbers. I went back and I was looking at all of our numbers. I have seen how her dedication, compassion, persistence, and her hard work have made a lasting impact on our special education community.

[00:48:31] Sharon has been a member of SEAC since 2009 and has dedicated her life to being a voice for our special education students. Sharon began on the board as the SEAC Vice Chair of Membership. In 2019, a group of us banded together and asked her, really pleaded with her, to take on the role of SEAC chair.

[00:48:54] And I think, Lorraine, you were talking about pinky swearing, and we all did that. We all came together, and I solemnly promised to support and stand by Sharon, however long that may have been. Little did I know how long we would actually stay on. During her time on SEAC, Sharon has worked with four different special education directors.

[00:49:15] She has pushed to increase community involvement, has worked endlessly to try to recruit new SEAC members, and has consistently shared the most updated information with the community. During the pandemic, she worked long hours, had multiple meetings with LCPS administration, and wrote many emails, ensuring that our students received the support and services they needed to make progress during that stressful period.

[00:49:43] She even managed to put together a virtual SEAC award ceremony so we could end on a happy note during a difficult year. She did this in a matter of weeks during distant learning, which was not an easy task. And let's not forget the numerous late nights working on policies and presentations for our SEAC meetings.

[00:50:05] When no one stepped up to take on the role of SEAC chair, she continued to stay on traveling each month to conduct our meetings in person. Sharon is the most dedicated and devoted person I have ever worked with. She spends endless hours researching and sharing knowledge with the community.

[00:50:21] She sees the issues our students face firsthand and is always thinking of new ways our students can benefit our schools, in schools. She knows our special education students have great potential and she advocates for them every day.

[00:50:37] I have learned so much by working with her. Sharon, you have become one of my closest friends. I appreciate you for everything you have done and all the long hours of work you have put into serving our special education community.

[00:50:55] You have made a lasting impact on all of us. Thank you for being a strong advocate for our children. You will always be considered a shining member in our CF community.

[00:51:04] I wanted to let you know that our members did contribute.

[00:51:52] This is a gift from all of our members, and there's a gift card in there as well for you, and we have flowers, and I just want to say how appreciated you are. Thank you.

[00:52:08] Oh, my goodness, I am so overwhelmed. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Our community of special education students, having two children of my own that had IEPs and went through LCPS, I see the potential of growth for all of our students.

[00:52:40] We have to assume competence in all of them as learners when they come into the classroom. And I hope that we can make a difference, that we can help to expand our meaningful inclusion and our transition services and make changes with our policy recommendations to help LCPS forge this path as Tom mentioned in his public comment we are changing our

[00:53:13] community is changing our the focus on how of equity and equal access and how we present things to our students is all changing and so we have to ebb and flow and we have to adjust and so there is that room for growth and as a community and as we sit at that IEP table I hope we could all come together and be able to make that change together collaboratively. So thank you so much. This really means a lot to me and I'm excited

[00:53:50] to say that I will be able to stay on as past chair and support Liz as she steps into this role and the new board, so I'm very excited to watch the growth and change under her leadership. I know she's going to do a fantastic job, and I look forward to what comes next.

[00:54:10] So thank you very much. I'm, like, very overwhelmed, very surprised. I had no idea that this was going to happen, so thank you. Thank you very much. Now I have to give our presentation.

[00:54:43] Breath. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. Tom, how did you make this work? There we go. Okay. All right. So we're going to move right into policy reviews. So on your table or on the screen, you can scan that QR code and that will take you to the policies in electronic format that we're going to look at.

[00:55:08] I'm going to have Shanaz and Craig come up, which is good because I get a breather here, while they present these policies that we're going to review.

[00:55:27] Okay, so we have a few policies here and our MOU that we're going to review with you all. There are two policies which we reviewed and we did not have any recommendation.

[00:55:46] It was policy 6720 on safety drills and 5065 on the current kindergarten, the curriculum and instruction. I don't know if anyone had a chance to review it. uh is there any discussion from the from our members regarding these policies seeing none i

[00:56:08] think we can go ahead and vote can we get a motion see uh any further discussion melissa stated that we are going to go ahead and vote on policy 6720 5065 recommending no recommendations um

[00:56:44] is there any discussion seeing none all those in favor say aye aye any nays any abstentions

[00:56:56] our virtual members Kristen I'm good Heidi I Kathy yes is Xena on virtually okay motion carries

[00:57:32] unanimously the following three policies we reviewed 2520 we oh and we will be discussing the mou as well policy 2520 is our policy relating to public comment given at school board meetings we had reviewed this policy in the past and we were given the policy again one of our concerns was the wording on line 85 limits extending the speaking time to only persons with disabilities

[00:58:08] that require translation or interpretation services, so they get extended time for public comment. SEAC is concerned that the other reasonable accommodation should also be considered for the extension of speaking time. So our recommendation was at line 85 after the word assistance, add or reasonable accommodation. So it reads, the speaking time will be doubled for speakers requiring translation or interpretation assistance or reasonable accommodation when

[00:58:41] requested. And so that is our only recommendation for the public comment policy. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, we can take a vote. All those in favor, we need a motion. I'm trying.

[00:59:07] So the motion was to add in recommendation one for policy 2520. Any further discussion?

[00:59:31] Seeing none, all those in favor of recommendation one, say aye. All those opposed, and do we have any abstentions? So the virtual should be saying aye at the same time, right?

[00:59:47] Because it's, just ask. Okay. Any comments from our virtual speakers? For the virtual speakers, all those in favor, say aye. Aye.

[01:00:04] Any nays? I don't have to call first. We have three ayes. All right, moving on to the next policy. I mean, thank God for Craig, really. He really knows this stuff. It blows my mind. I said, can never keep the order.

[01:00:21] It's still going to be policy. So our next policy is 3120. It's the powers and duties of the superintendent. We reviewed this policy, and one of our concerns was kind of the wording of the policy appears to give the superintendent the ability to convene the school board.

[01:00:47] CX suggests that in the event that the superintendent contemplates taking emergency action, the school board chair shall be contacted to convene an emergency meeting of the school board. I think the wording is just a little off there in suggesting that the superintendent is going to convene.

[01:01:05] The chair, given the facts of the situation, can determine in collaboration with the superintendent whether an emergency meeting is required. This will ensure that the school board chair is brought into the decision-making process. So our recommendation is line 144, delete, must attempt to, and replace it with, shall request the school board chair convene an emergency meeting of the school board prior to making such actions.

[01:01:37] Do we have any discussion? Can we get a motion? Sure.

[01:01:57] Correct. So the superintendent is hired, fired, managed by, he works for the school board. school board does not work for the superintendent the superintendent cannot order the school board to have a meeting the chair convenes the meeting so it was just the way it was worded had the org chart backwards so yes the school board chair can say i'm not going to convene a meeting the school board you know the superintendent cannot make the school board do anything which was kind of the feedback to the policy the policy was written superintendent's going to tell the school board to go have a meeting they can't really do that and yes they could the more collaborative

[01:02:34] Interpretation, however, because this was dealing with kind of an emergency situation, is the superintendent should probably liberally contact the school board chair and say, hey, there's this situation. And the school board chair can say, we need a meeting or can say, it's good. We don't need a meeting.

[01:03:01] Microphone. Thanks, Heidi. So my suggestion was to add, must attempt, I'm sorry, shall request the school board chair or vice chair, just to make sure that it's not dependent upon a single individual who may be unavailable or incapacitated for some reason.

[01:03:26] I totally agree with the concept. Actually, Ms. Polifco, I'm going to ask you, because part of this is literally just how the school board works. Is the vice chair automatically chair pro tempore if the chair is unreachable, just as a matter of rules of order?

[01:03:45] Yes, that would be correct. So would that? In that case, it wouldn't be necessary because if they're chair. I totally get where you're going. The counter would be when there's one belly button, we know that this happens, this is the person. When there's multiple, then there can be confusion over who got contacted. But if there's already kind of a rule of order in place for succession.

[01:04:10] Yeah, right. So if the vice chair can act as the school chair in that case, then I don't think it's necessary. I withdraw that. As long as everybody kind of understands, yes, we want to make sure that situation is handled, we think the current rules of order already take care of it, but that's what's intended here.

[01:04:27] Do you feel like that understanding addresses the concern, or do you feel like we need to amend this? I feel that addresses the concern, so let me make a motion then to adopt the recommendation of the policy subcommittee on policy 3120 to delete, must attempt to, and replace with shall request in line 144.

[01:04:58] Jennifer. Moved and seconded. The motion is to accept the recommendations to policy 3120. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Opposed, please raise your hand and say nay.

[01:05:14] Are there any abstentions? Virtual members, Heidi Bunkua? Aye. Who else do we have virtual? Kristen Martin, who else do we have? Kathy?

[01:05:33] Aye. Thank you. A motion passes unanimously. So we do have a discussion, though. Oh. Oh. But not on our. Do we have two recommendations here?

[01:05:50] 31-20. So line 145, we had a change as well. Can we borrow your money? Hold on. We are experiencing technical difficulties. It's not here.

[01:06:16] So, Craig, I only made the motion on that one recommendation, so we took a vote on that if there's a second recommendation. Correct. We can simply add another one. It's more the PowerPoint over there is not the PowerPoint over here. Try to figure out how that happened. I understand, but some, so we send it to Office of Special Education to have one deck, and it goes through a little bit of a conversion process.

[01:06:55] So in that conversion process, it's in our original that we sent. It just didn't make it over in the conversion. So there is a second recommendation. I will go ahead and read. It was in the packet that was sent to all the members, so you have it in your packet.

[01:07:15] So go ahead and read that. It just didn't make it in the conversion process. So recommendation two for policy 3120, line 145, when the division superintendent determines that it is reasonable to do so.

[01:07:35] And I'm so sorry, I don't have any, I don't have it. Right, and that's just expanding in this emergency contingency and giving the superintendent a little bit more explicit operational discretion.

[01:07:52] I think we would all understand that there would be some operational discretion to begin with. uh any discussion yes melissa you know we have it here at line 145 i believe it's that same sentence that starts with the emergency notification i think i remember yes so so i think i remember we did delete that i think after sharon and i also went back we were looking at some of the stuff and i think the wording did not make sense the way sharon do you recall that we were talking and

[01:08:32] then we it that recommendation did not actually make sense because the line wasn't adding up it was line 144 but the way it was written so instead we actually had it and I don't see it here but Melissa do you see it? I remember the discussion was in the policy it required the

[01:09:11] superintendent that they must attempt to if they believe it's reasonable to do so so it gave a lot of discretion to the superintendent to make a decision on whether they should or should not go to the school board. We thought in kind of a separation of duties matrix, anytime you have that kind of power, there should be someone else providing that check. So instead of allowing them that reasonable to do so, the action was to go tell the school board chair, and then the school board chair is a second person to say, yes, we do or no, we don't, but not giving the superintendent

[01:09:46] full authority to determine if it was reasonable to convene that meeting or not, right? It would involve a second person second set of eyes and provide some accountability on those decisions thank you yeah now i'm remembering it the recommendation was actually to delete that yes because it's the reason to delete that was to require a second person of sanity check to the reasonableness rather than it being one person can make that call so that if for example

[01:10:21] later we determine that that emergency decision was the wrong call, we can at least say two hopefully reasonable people looked at this and independently said, this is the right call. But if it's only one person, you know, that person could just have a difference of opinion.

[01:10:40] Yeah, so I think that... Line 145, delete when the division superintendent determines that it is reasonable to do so. I'll just hand you a... Right, and then operationally what this would say is whenever the superintendent is going to take an emergency action, the chair should always be in the loop on that. And then the chair and the superintendent can work together to determine whether an emergency meeting is necessary given the circumstance. But we thought that that needs to be a must conversation.

[01:11:15] And just to close the loop on the discussion, and so, because everyone in the room may not understand the many, many, many hours that the policy subcommittee spends going over these policies um so just to close the loop on that so the policy subcommittee on this issue of deleting the phrase from line 145 and 46 when the division superintendent determines that it is reasonable to do so the policy subcommittee voted and determined that that was the recommendation they were going to make to delete that phrase that vote okay happened and passed yes so i pulled the meeting

[01:11:50] notes and you have like melissa mentioned these meetings go on about five hours we're up to like midnight um so um in pulling the notes you're absolutely right so we had recommended to delete that phrase so then it would read in the event that the superintendent contemplates taking emergency action the school board chair shall be contacted to convene an emergency meeting of the school board the chair given the facts of the situation can determine in collaboration with the superintendent whether an emergency meeting is

[01:12:28] required so that will ensure that the school board chair is brought into the decision-making process that was our thought pattern on that and the recommendation so that is the that's what it was yeah so yes so do we does anyone need the second recommendation repeated again or do we have it okay can we get a yeah i move that we uh adopt the recommendation of the policy subcommittee

[01:13:02] to amend uh policy 3120 at lines 144 and 145 to delete the phrase when the division superintendent determines that it is reasonable to do so moved and seconded the motion is to accept the recommendation uh previously stated to delete that section 145 is there any further discussion Seeing none, all those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye.

[01:13:31] Aye. Opposed, nay. And are there any abstentions? Virtual, Heidi Bunkua? Aye. Katie? Aye.

[01:13:46] I'm sorry, Kathy. I'm sorry. Kristen? Aye. Thank you. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, everyone. Back on track.

[01:14:03] Okay. The next policy we reviewed was referring to the playground. The purpose of this policy is to establish general standards for playground design and construction, maintenance, equipment use, approval process, and funding within LCPS.

[01:14:25] So to begin, we laid out some of the terminology here, and I'll go ahead and let you guys read that for a little bit.

[01:15:08] So we looked over this policy, and our first concern was that we wanted to have clarified the principal's responsibility of a visual check of the playground equipment and the surrounding area to ensure safety, accessibility, and usability. So our recommendation is that line 21, replace the language equipment on a regular basis and with the playground equipment and surrounding area for visible defects, accessibility, and general usability on a regular basis.

[01:15:37] So on line 22, we want to create a new sentence, combine and reword the following sentence. The principal has the authority to order playground repairs, removal from the school property, and to restrict or deny the use of equipment.

[01:15:57] And it goes all the way up until conditions. And so that's why we put the example. It was really hard to word this without actually showing you exactly what we wanted. Our second concern is to clarify that efforts shall be made to make each playground inclusive and to have accessible routes to the playground equipment.

[01:16:26] So on line 67, we want to change should to shall, and on the same line, add routes after accessible. Line 68, delete beginning, oh, delete the beginning, within, and ending with possible on line 69 to read.

[01:16:50] Additionally, efforts shall be made to install accessible routes and inclusive playground equipment such that children of different abilities can play together. Our third concern, language in the policy does not speak to maintaining accessibility to the equipment in compliance with ADA.

[01:17:09] Recommendation three is on line 84, change should to shall, and on line 85, replace remain with maintain accessible routes and delete reasonably. So I'm sure if you all want to just review the proposed language.

[01:17:38] Concern four, LCPS does not have a published review cycle. Some elementary schools have playgrounds over 30 years old. Adding a review cycle does not oblige the school division to replace the playground, but to plan for and budget for the replacement of the playground.

[01:17:55] There are no playgrounds currently in the cap for the next seven years. So there was just no budgeting for the playgrounds. On recommendation four, line 125 replaced should be done at the discretion of, with, shall be reviewed at least every 10 years by.

[01:18:23] So do we have any discussion of the recommendations that we have discussed? Can we just speak to the accessible routes? Because I think that's terminology that people might not be familiar with and why we put that in. I think that was the big deal. And I don't know, did everyone just see the article that was in the paper this week about someone who's helping playgrounds?

[01:18:45] A student, right? Yeah, so it appears that we're going for minimum wheelchair accessibility as the standard we're going to right now, not actually inclusive. And not sure that meets our obligations in the ADA, but it's certainly not what we should be going for.

[01:19:02] We should be going for children of differing abilities can actually all participate and play. And so that's a little more complicated and a little higher standard. but rather than thinking of only basic access and only for one kind of disability we need to think a little bit a little bit better about this and so right now we're how it is in a lot of our school playgrounds is there's a little ramp that takes you up into the playground and then you're in a sea of mulch and so if you're in a wheelchair if we if we're even using that as our standard or you have difficulty with mobility you may be able to get to the playground but once you're there

[01:19:42] what's going to happen in that wheelchair when you go into a sea of mulch you know that's you can't do anything in there and much less if you have other issues so the accessible routes was a standard that we found when we were researching this and it basically like that's the requirement is that you should be able to get from one piece of playground equipment to another you know within that playground area so to us that was a better standard for us to be working for at a minimum There are plenty of playgrounds out there that have fully accessible surfaces, and that would be really wonderful to have an LCPS, too.

[01:20:21] But as a minimum, at least being able to get from one piece of playground equipment to another, we thought was really important. Mulch, in particular, came up as a -- I'm not sure we have any playgrounds that don't have mulch. So, okay, we have a wheelchair ramp, but we have mulch.

[01:20:37] It takes a couple seconds. It takes a couple seconds. Yeah, yeah. So you guys did a nice job of doing exactly what Liz just did in explaining those terms of art.

[01:20:52] I would like to see as part of the recommendation those terms of art being included in the language of the policy itself. Because otherwise somebody reading the policy is going to read right through some of those terms and not necessarily understand what accessible, inclusive, etc. mean.

[01:21:07] And so I think it would just be important to amend the policy with those definitions because I don't see those definitions in the policy as it stands. So typically at the end of the policies, there is a references, and typically we encourage referring these things to the laws they're based on. We've seen time and time again when they try to put their own definitions in the policy, magically the LCPS definition isn't quite the same as the law's definition, and for some reason it just never seems to be in the favor of the disabled students. So in the past, we've generally recommended including direct references to the

[01:21:46] definition in the applicable law, which in this case would be the ADA. Accessible is actually one though that was a little tough and tricky for us because there's a lot, I mean like it's, there's not just one place that has one definition that's everything you need. We were, we were having trouble finding the right reference for that one. So in the recommendations that are going back, does it include those references at the end? It does not. And that would be an excellent amendment okay right so you're absolutely right those were we included those so in the write-up

[01:22:21] it would be clear that those were the definitions we were using in making the recommendations because even if you have an accessible playground it may not be an inclusive playground so there's not all equals the same thing so the accessible routes would ensure that mobility to the playground equipment is there but it doesn't necessarily mean that the equipment itself is accessible so like the article in the paper it talked about wheelchair accessible playground equipment

[01:23:00] so there's there is a big difference between the different terms so we can definitely put our terms in there and recommend that the school board adopt our term or those terminology we pulled those from the accessible playground site that I think Lisa found during our meeting. So those terms helped us in the beginning define what we were looking for. So I think that's a great recommendation. Would you like a separate motion to amend the recommendation? Okay, just as part of it. Would you like to make a motion? I will make a motion then to adopt the recommendations

[01:23:40] of the Policy Subcommittee on Policy 6320 as amended during the discussion to include the references and the other recommendations that came from the Policy Subcommittee. They're a second. Moved and seconded.

[01:23:56] The motion is to adopt the discussed recommendations to... I just messed it all up, didn't I? Okay. They discussed four recommendations to the playground policy as amended in discussion to add a fifth recommendation that we should include or make a reference to the definitions.

[01:24:21] Is there any further discussion? We're going to have to get you the mic because our virtuals can't hear.

[01:24:38] My question doesn't seem to be really addressed by any of the policy. So what are our kids actually expected to be provided with in playground equipment? Like, it says the ages need to be listed there, but it doesn't say what they're supposed to have.

[01:24:59] So, like, our preschool kids don't have any playground equipment. They have a courtyard with some, like, hand-me-down stuff. So what can we do to make that better? Like, I don't know that that can go in this policy, but I just didn't know, is there supposed to be something that they're supposed to have, playground-wise?

[01:25:23] Is that something you could address, Dr. Jones? So some history, I don't know, Dr. Jones, do you want to? Our history that we could find in our research showed that in the beginning, PTAs and PTOs funded all of the elementary school playgrounds as Ashburn was being built up, right?

[01:25:52] It went from farmland to houses and community. So as elementary schools were being built, they were built without playgrounds. And the PTAs and PTOs then fundraised and put in the playgrounds, which means some of them are over 30 years old.

[01:26:12] Once they were built, the school division then took over the maintenance of those, if I'm understanding correctly. But the new schools, the new elementary schools that have been built since I forget the date, their playgrounds have been included in the construction with the PTA or PTO maybe supplementing some additions to those playgrounds.

[01:26:38] But the early schools built in Ashburn and some of the earlier schools that were built out in the Ashburn area were all funded by the PTA, PTO, and they have not been updated to have new playground equipment.

[01:26:56] So I'm not sure if there's any guidelines as a minimum of what goes into the elementary playgrounds or at the, some of the high schools have the preschool programs and they have small courtyards with playgrounds.

[01:27:12] But I don't know if there's any guidelines on what should be there or if it's mandated by the site and the number or the area that they have to build within. Jennifer, do you have any more on that? Yeah. I don't think there's anything that says what has to be built to Sharon's point, right? I am hillside right here in Broadlands, right? So you can walk to the school. We have equipment that's been there since the school's been delivered, right? So LCPS did not build them. We have different structures built by the PTO, some of them and the PTA, some of them 20 years, some of them 30 years old that have been there forever.

[01:27:51] some of them don't even have the little ramps up, right, to get into them. And they are mulch pits. So if you look at them, you know, some of these new schools have wonderful things. But I think the article just said there are no inclusive and accessible playgrounds in Ashburn, right? That's kind of ridiculous. In Ashburn, we don't have any inclusive playgrounds. We're in the wealthiest county in all of the United States. And Ashburn is a very wealthy part of that county. And we can't supply that and we can't support our kids with schools that are 30 years old with new playgrounds right ones that everyone can use ones that have at a minimum those mats so people can get around

[01:28:31] if not those play surfaces right i know for hillside i am on the pto and we will be coming to the school board because i looked we are not in any capital improvement plan we're going to get a new blacktop out back but we're not going to get a new playground structure that people are playing on and our blacktop's kind of fine but um so we're going to be coming for that i don't know of any standard that requires them to build anything i do know at wax pool when wax pool was developed there was a concern over the kindergartners because they were in a little like prison yard

[01:29:05] enclosure on blacktop with nothing else right yeah so i don't know of anything but we wanted to include at least with this because we did have to review it a few things in here the requirement to review a playground every 10 years. They don't have to replace it. Playgrounds last more than 10 years, right? But we want to at least make sure somebody's doing it on a cadence so you don't have old playgrounds that are coming to end of life, right? Broadlands is replacing all of their playgrounds because of issues with liability to be able to ensure these, to be able to keep your kids safe. My daughter, not that it was anything against LCPS, but she broke her arm, right, on

[01:29:43] that playground that we have there at hillside and off use it's something the surrounding community is doing because it's just good practice shouldn't we be doing that at lcps too so the idea here i think your point is great i don't think we any of us have a really good answer for that it's not part of this policy but it should be something we look at thank you there's currently a regulation i was just checking that and so i would suggest whichever questions and feedback

[01:30:18] that you have to include those questions for this committee's it's department for support services playgrounds are part of the cip but if you happen to go to the regulation currently regulation 6320 does have definitions in there speaks to the life cycle of playgrounds what's considered conventional versus inclusive, and what might be considered the standard types of equipment

[01:30:51] that's a part of those playgrounds, and how one can recommend particular things to be included within the playground.

[01:31:13] So bearing that in mind, we might want to review the regulation and make recommendations on that, which we were provided the policy to review, but we didn't go searching for a regulation.

[01:31:29] So thank you, Dr. Jones, to include those definitions there. That's a consideration. Or to even make reference in the policy that there is an associated regulation, I'll have to pull that up, because, I mean, it could have been there and we missed it.

[01:31:48] At this time, we do have a motion. We have a motion on the floor. If it turns out that some of our recommendations are answered by the regulation, they are. If it turns out that there's anything more to be considered, it should be considered.

[01:32:04] But in the interest of time, it has been moved and seconded. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Abstentions.

[01:32:22] Virtual, Heidi. Aye. Krista. Aye. Kathy. Aye. Kathy, I'm so sorry. I'm terrible. It's okay. Thank you.

[01:32:39] motion carries unanimously so when looking at the the policy and it's online that it's in your review it doesn't have a rec a uh a note at the end that there's an accompanying rec uh regulation so we wouldn't have known to look so that do we want to entertain asking them to include a

[01:33:07] reference to the regulation i'll second that any discussion moved in second is there any discussion The motion is that we add a recommendation that a reference to the regulation be added to the end of the policy.

[01:33:31] Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Opposed? Nay. Any abstentions? Virtual. Heidi? Aye. Kristen? I'm going to get your name wrong.

[01:33:51] I'm so sorry. I'll say your name. Aye. I don't know why. All right. It's just, I'm so sorry. It's okay. All right. The motion carries unanimously. All right. moving on memorandum of understanding the school board and louden county sheriff's office and leesburg police department enter into a memorandum of understanding to promote a positive relationship between students staff and law enforcement and to maintain safe supportive and secure school environments we have had the opportunity to look at the mou before we were given the opportunity

[01:34:29] again because the school board had asked I think it was actually the Board of Supervisors had asked the staff to add in provisions for Title IX into the policy we went ahead and we reviewed the entire I'm sorry I said policy but it's the MOU so the concern that we had while reviewing SEAC has reviewed MOUs from surrounding counties we took a look at Fairfax counties and we really kind of

[01:35:02] dissected it and they have specifically included disability bias and awareness training within the MOU documents. Including disability training emphasizes the importance of students with disabilities within our LCPS school community.

[01:35:20] The MOU fails to identify a timeline when LCPS will provide building level training specific to the unique needs of our students with disabilities within a particular school once an SRO officer has been located at the school. Our recommendation is on line 86 to add a new item number five.

[01:35:40] The Sheriff's Office and the Leesburg Police Department approved training that includes disability bias awareness. And on the policy, you will see I think all the other trainings are listed. We're just asking that this gets added as well.

[01:36:00] Recommendation two on line 189, change should to shall. SROs shall become familiar with the various types of disabilities and their implications for law enforcement interaction. Line 190, after disabilities, add prior to or within 60 days of assignment to a school.

[01:36:19] So it would read, LCPS will make available to all SROs any training on supporting students with disabilities prior to or within 60 days of assignment to a school. Concern number two really struck a chord with me as well.

[01:36:39] I really felt that this should be added to our MOUs. Students with disabilities should not be questioned without the parents or guardians being notified and present. The wording in the MOU places no parameters on the law enforcement with minor students and fails to document providing Miranda warnings.

[01:36:59] The recommendations are from the FCPS MOU. Recommendation three, we're going to remove, stop, interview, and take law enforcement action without prior authorization of the school administrator or contacting parents or legal guardians 271 sros have the authority to stop question and take okay so this is what it reads now and i think our line 271 would read sros have the authority to question students who may

[01:37:38] have information about criminal activity does that read right okay so line 275 after activity add unless exigent circumstances exist for example crime of active violence in progress with which threatens lives in the school the SRO will take immediate steps to contact parents or guardians before any questioning of a student about possible involvement in criminal activity the SRO shall fully inform both

[01:38:17] the student and legal guardian of the entitlement of Miranda warnings before any questioning takes place. SRO shall seek the authorization, approver, or denial of the legal guardian before conducting any interview of the student. The SRO shall make reasonable attempts to have the legal guardian present when fully informing them of their Miranda warnings. Additionally, the SRO shall, through the conversation with the legal guardian, determine if the student has the cognitive ability to submit to questioning. SROs shall document these steps in the police report.

[01:38:58] I'll give you guys a few minutes just to read that. I have a question. Did you say that's what's in Fairfax County's MOU right now? This portion of it, I believe this was something that we had seen in the FCPS, right, from the MOU. But this was something that, you know, I mean, no matter what when we i'm just imagining my own child right he's not verbal and the the minimum that

[01:39:36] he does verbal you know verbalize he'll say yes to everything you you ask him you know did this happen yes it didn't happen but he will say yes and so i mean i i think this would protect a number of our kids oh it's law school this is great so the uh fairfax mou we pulled that section word for word we made no changes to it we just pulled it right from the fairfax mou we thought it captured our concerns and so it was pulled word for word we didn't make any changes so word

[01:40:13] for word sorry word for word including the bit about miranda warnings it yes we because there's something there's something in criminal law called a terry stop which has to do with supreme court that's why i was wondering if we took that word for word because i thought i remembered because i I'd see entitlement of rights before any questioning takes place.

[01:40:33] But the police do have, law enforcement does have the authority to ask a certain amount of questions even before giving Miranda rights, even to minors. And that's a Supreme Court decision. So I'm not sure, I mean, they're going to do what they're going to do, of course.

[01:40:50] But I wouldn't want to put something into a policy that isn't really going to be applied anyway. So we did look at multiple policies. So that's why I did want to clarify with Sharon if we actually pulled this entire thing from the Fairfax then, but we looked at multiple parts. We pulled the Prince William and the Fairfax MOUs to pull language from, and so we took this directly from the MOU in Fairfax.

[01:41:14] If the committee, if the membership body would like to alter this language, we can make that recommendation from the floor if we think, you know, that's definitely a discussion. I think it's always okay to ask for it, and then if legal decides it's too expansive, then they can always strike that.

[01:41:34] That is, however, precisely why we looked at comparatives of what neighboring jurisdictions, potentially similarly situated, chose to do. Because if nobody ever proposed that, and we were proposing that, I agree, that would be a tough thing to ask for.

[01:41:51] But Fairfax did go there. You're absolutely correct in that that's what they've decided for, you know, a child on the street. This is a really kind of interesting situation because there's this voluntary agreement to put an officer in the school.

[01:42:09] And a student in the school is already kind of in this really weird place. And so we have the ability to decide, well, the authorities agreeing to the MOU, what the rules of engagement are. And they can always decide that they should be better than the absolute minimum by case law.

[01:42:32] And in this case, what we really don't want is we don't want the SROs to be the bad guys. We don't want the SROs to be bullying disabled children or violating, even if not their legal rights, but just doing something that a reasonable person would look at and say, that's not right.

[01:42:50] We want them to be the good guys. And so maybe having some rules of the road that are a little more protective helps make sure that the good guys just stay the good guys. And I will add that my experience, and I can speak to in our schools, that the SROs are really phenomenal.

[01:43:10] They really go and they make that extra effort to be introduced to our kids and work with our kids. I think my concern is when you're in a stressful situation and now your questioning has changed. Instead of doing the high fives, you're now actually questioning the student.

[01:43:27] My child would not know how to respond to that and would just respond to anything. And so just putting in something where, as a parent, I would want to be there when the questioning takes place so I can fully understand what he is trying to communicate.

[01:43:43] So, when you read the proposed language of the MOU, there's no reference. In fact, it's pretty clear they don't want to have to call parents at all. So, I mean, all the, there are no parameter protections for them to even ask the principals or anyone to call the parents.

[01:44:13] And I think what was concerning was, is there was no parameters around why not. Right. Why wouldn't you call the parent if it's a high stress, you know, active shooter?

[01:44:29] Of course, you're not going to stop and call parents. But, you know, if there if that is not the situation, then there would be no reason not to contact the parents and have the parents present. So I think that there should be. That's why we pulled the Fairfax language, because it said in the in the understanding is that the school building administrator, is the administrator of the school and the SROs are there for and should be interacting in criminal

[01:45:02] activity. They're there for a different reason. They're not to discipline our students in any way. That's the school building administration's job. So there was just no line there of why not wouldn't we call the parent to be there if they're being questioned. And not all of our students that have disabilities are actually identified. So there are students who have disabilities that are not identified. So, and there are visible and invisible disabilities. So I do think it would be important to have some provision to contact a parent before

[01:45:41] questioning a minor child, if it's not an emergency situation. Could you help me sort of understand how does the SRO find out that a child has a disability or not?

[01:46:04] So the first recommendation is, or what the second recommendation is, that within the first 60 days, currently the MOU has no timeline in it for LCPS administration to familiarize the SRO with the students with disabilities in the building.

[01:46:28] So that responsibility, we added the timeline. That was the first recommendation was to identify a timeline so that within the first 60 days of placement within a school, they will meet with the administration to familiarize themselves with the disabilities that are known that are within their school community.

[01:46:52] So if there's a program class there or if they have some students that they know have functional behavior assessments or behavior intervention plans, things like that, that they could familiarize the SRO officers with so they would have some idea.

[01:47:12] So the training that is required by the state does have disability training in it. And it does include disability awareness and disability bias training within their training.

[01:47:29] And that was one of the recommendations, was just to highlight that in the MOU. All of those ones that are there, the implicit bias, all of those are required as a part of that training. We just wanted to highlight, hey, don't forget our disability community in those also.

[01:47:48] Because those are typically your students who are disciplined at a higher rate than our typical students, or neurotypical students. For that clarification, I think the route I'm going is more is there a specific list given to the SRL of names.

[01:48:10] So that, say in any case, in any situation that something pops up, and you have a kid that has high-functioning autism, that you might not notice that. even you had training, how are you going to know as an SRO that this is a child with a disability and this recommendation in our memorandum of understanding is requesting that you get in touch with the parents?

[01:48:33] I think from what I'm hearing, and I could be wrong, it sounds like there's a gap between how he gets connected with that information. So our recommendation is that for any student that we contact the parents, we're not saying just parents of disabilities so the way the mou with fairfax was written is that hey for all of our students whether you have a disability or not we're going to contact the parents in this situation so that would cover all students because our students with disabilities are first general

[01:49:10] education students so that would cover everyone the training on familiarizing the sro with the students really falls on the case managers in the school to and the administration to meet with the SRO officers and inform them about the different students in the school building you know if some of our students with autism you know a lot of them don't like to be touched so if a SRO officer just

[01:49:43] came up and wanted to say hey how are you and put their hand on the child's shoulder just in a friendly way, that in and of itself may, you know, trigger or elicit a behavior. And we would not want them to turn and hit somebody, especially a police officer, and escalate something. So we do think it's really important for that training of the SRO officers and that awareness to happen pretty soon after they're assigned to a school so they have knowledge of the students within the

[01:50:18] building. And I do want to read one thing to you off of the FCPS's MOU. It says, when appropriate and to the extent the law allows, the FCPS should notify SROs of any special needs of a student involved in a school-based infraction that is not routine discipline in order to assist with the SRO in recognizing and accommodating behaviors that may be manifestations of the student's disability. We could add that as our recommendation as well.

[01:50:51] Can you flip the slide to recommendation number two? Okay, so tell me if I'm interpreting your question correctly.

[01:51:10] So what the recommendation was was the SRO should become familiar with the various types of disabilities and their implications. And I think the question is, shouldn't the SROs become familiar with these students with disabilities in the school um and and again that was kind of you know the thing that's been my ongoing concern because not in loudon county but i've had clients in other districts who had ptsd these are elementary kids little kids with ptsd due to physical or sexual abuse um and things that happened you know maybe before they were adopted uh and they can't be touched if you touch them they will have a

[01:51:50] literally a violent reaction this was well known by the school documented in the iep nobody told the sro and when the kid was wandering the halls as we knew the kid would and their iep is well documented and the sro told the kid to go back to class the kid said no the sro grabbed the kid to physically take him back and the kid had a complete and total meltdown and got arrested was handcuffed got arrested taken to the police department that could have been prevented if that SRO had known and there's not that many of those kinds of kids in a school but the handful where

[01:52:29] it truly is a problem if anyone lays hands on that child because of their history and we know about it these SROs need to be told they have a right the SROs have a right to know they don't want to trigger these kids these are good guys and women you know that are trying to help our students but if we don't provide them the information they need very serious consequences happen that's and so i agree i'm not so sure that our recommendation number two really does that so do we have language that we are proposing to make it clearer um i would say i do have one question

[01:53:08] for you though melissa in the disability awareness training that we are proposing they add into you don't right so wouldn't that alert them no because they don't they're not going to know who are the kids that if I know who are the kids but when you see the behavior at that point I mean to know who the kids are I was just going to say I feel both are important training on the various types of disabilities as well as a list or some direction on the students in the school building that

[01:53:48] have certain, as Melissa is saying, background experiences that others need to be aware of. Doesn't that second part of recommendation to you at the bottom there, doesn't that say that, that within 60 days of being assigned to a school, that LCPS will provide training on supporting students with disabilities? I mean, I know you could interpret that two different ways, but...

[01:54:23] I think there are two different understandings in the room. I think we need to cover generally understanding disabilities what they what to look for and how to support them and then specifically this student you need to be careful about in this way the question is does the current wording cover both and i think that there is an emerging consensus towards no we need to tweak this i see where you're going tom but i also see where they're going with so it would seem like the second sentence line 190 could be tweaked a little bit to say supporting students at that school

[01:55:00] essentially, so that you are sort of identifying, and maybe not a list because we get into all the PII issues, et cetera, that list gets circulated, but that it would be specific to that school, that it wouldn't be a general thing, in addition to the general training.

[01:55:18] Right. Let me just pause a second and see if we could ask a question of the staff. Is there something that's currently done on an informal basis often in this room or in this area? Is there already a practice that's often happening, rather than us potentially creating something out of whole cloth? I can try to answer that question, and I'll ask one of my directors to fill in where I might miss some information. Going back to, I believe, what Mrs. Trofe mentioned,

[01:55:55] in order to be a school resource officer by the state, there are specific trainings that they must participate in and that includes generalized understanding of students with particular disabilities and how those disabilities may manifest themselves in behaviors within schools also as a part of our sro program our department our office for special education as well as our office for school administration work closely with safety and school security on providing

[01:56:31] training for our sro families as well with that in each school there is we have our mtss our multi-tiered system of supports and for students that have particular behavior someone mentioned a behavior intervention plans if there are particular behaviors as mrs wa mentioned that a student would be sensitive to being touched on a shoulder by someone they might not engage with every day then that would be something that that IEP team or that student

[01:57:06] support team would recognize in order to collaborate with the parent along with the teachers and those that are part of the behavior intervention team to alert the safety and security as well as the school resource officer because one of their primary missions is not just about keeping our students in school safe but it's building those relationships with students as well.

[01:57:35] What if you just added something in there where it says LCPS will make available to all SROs any training on supporting students with disabilities to include, right, an identification of those students within the school who have a behavior intervention plan or whatever the phrasing needs to be to encompass that, but just making it clear prior to or within 60 days of assignment or school or to include those students with IEPs who require, right, whatever that phrasing needs to be.

[01:58:06] But that way it's very clear it's training on disabilities and disabilities as a whole, but then also identification of those specific students in this specific school who may have a disability that would be triggered by, you know, one of those events.

[01:58:26] My suggestion is, since we kind of got confused, we want to make sure there are like two separate sentences to make sure that it's kind of more clear that they're two different things. There's the general training and then there's the specific to the school. I might be inclined to say something like, the principal or designee shall provide the SRO with a list of...

[01:58:48] The other thing is that to the extent that there is an action that needs to be taken on LCPS's part, someone has to be assigned that action to compile that and provide it to the SRO and then the SRO needs to review it within so much time. Does that make sense?

[01:59:05] Yeah, I don't want to list, but yes, that concept of maybe somebody who's like the dean, the special education dean or somebody. Designee, that's the word. Thanks, Lorraine. Can you hand it to Carla, please? No, it's mine. If I may, I just want to give you one other thought, That as the suggestions that you're offering, certainly the writers of the MOU in cooperation with our county and Leesburg Police Department will be reviewing these suggestions.

[01:59:41] I do caution, though, as a parent, I'm not quite sure that I would want for my child's name, for my child specifically, to be singled out on a list to be provided to the school resource officer.

[01:59:59] But instead, if my child had a special concern or need, then I would want for that to be a part of the school support or safety plan to share with the SRO to engage and bring them in, but certainly not to look at an expansive list, because we know children with disabilities and their IEPs are confidential, and that is on an educational need to know that that student has a specific disability and we don't arbitrarily send out lists of names with students across the board if that those educators or persons in the

[02:00:38] schools don't have that educational legitimate reason to know so that could be handled through a supportive process individualized to the student need just a word of caution on that recommendation I have a question about the 60 days it Does it state anywhere that the training will occur within 60 calendar days or 60 business days?

[02:01:02] I believe a day is a day unless otherwise specified. So there would be a calendar day unless otherwise specified. I just wanted to know, does this have to be done tonight? Yeah, it actually needs to be done like days ago.

[02:01:18] Because there's so much that's been raised. I personally think I'll have to abstain because I'm not 100% confident I'm understanding everything. But I don't know how other people feel. So this was given to us on, I believe, May 7th or April 17th, and we were asked to have it reviewed and to the superintendent by May 1st.

[02:01:44] So I talked to Dr. Smith, and we agreed that we would get it to him tomorrow. So we do need to vote on it tonight. I would suggest that in this sentence we would want LCPS staff or the designee or the principal or principal designee at the school to provide the SROs with any training on supporting students with disabilities in their school that's specific to their school because every school will be different.

[02:02:22] And I agree with Dr. Jones. I don't think a list would be the most appropriate. The building, the deans that are in the high schools know their kids. They really do. They sit in every one of those IEP meetings and really do know the students.

[02:02:39] So I do believe that the dean and the principal or designee should meet with the SRO officers and just go through students that kind of bubble to the top of their concern list or they know that are in their intervention plans that these things need to happen.

[02:02:58] So I do think that even at that basic level of awareness would be more than what's in there right now. So if the training that is required by the state does have the disability awareness in there, the first recommendation is just to bubble it up to give it more visibility.

[02:03:17] The second recommendation is there. It's just not specific. There was no timeline in there about, well, when does this have to happen when the SRO is assigned to a school? So other language and timelines within the document said 60 days, and so we used that same 60 days, just to be clear there.

[02:03:40] But I do think if we made some recommendation on that line to be that the principal or the dean or special education designee meet with the SRO officers would accomplish what we're looking for without having to have a list or anything like that.

[02:04:03] Because the deans in the high schools definitely know their kids. The deans even in the middle schools know their kids. So I would say that that would cover us there. Okay, only because this is a huge issue for me.

[02:04:19] I'm going to make one more stab at it because, you know, I hear what Dr. Jones is saying. I hear what's being said over here about parents wanting some control, and I don't disagree at all on what's disclosed about their children. But first of all, for any parents in here who have children with these issues, please keep this in mind when you're meeting with your IEP teams, that this needs to be in your child's IEP.

[02:04:42] this issue. But so I would like to make a motion that we amend to include the language that the principal or special education designee shall notify SROs in their building of students with an IEP or behavior intervention plan, BIP, that require disclosure to the safety team and SRO.

[02:05:07] So that that, so it's only the SROs or the principal or SPED designee would be under an obligation to notify the SRO at least of the students that it's in their IEP or BIP that this is going to happen. That way the parent, because the parents are involved in the development of the IEP and the BIP. Any discussion? So we don't have a base motion. I moved that we amend. Do you want

[02:05:39] to adopt with the amendment that, okay. Yes, yes. Okay. Yes, but, okay, so I want to, I move that we adopt with the amendment that the principal or special ed designee notify SROs of students with an IEP or BIP that require disclosure to the safety team and SRO. They require disclosure

[02:06:10] of the student's disability to safety team and SRO. Moved and seconded. The motion on the floor is to adopt the two recommendations with the amendment read by Melissa. Is there discussion?

[02:06:30] If you were to modify that recommendation, so it would be the SRO shall become familiar with students with various types of disabilities in their schools through trainings and collaboration with administration.

[02:07:00] Melissa, you can accept that as friendly or we can vote on that. The SRO shall become familiar with the students with various types of disabilities in their school through trainings and collaboration with administration.

[02:07:41] Make a motion to debate that. You don't accept it as friendly. I don't accept that as friendly. So there is a motion to amend. Discussing. Wait a second.

[02:07:57] So I need clarification. So she's discussing, but as our members. Is she a member? Oh, well then we don't have a... Am I correct? You're not... Yeah, right. Okay. So that is a discussion. That she proposed. So, Melissa, you can still.

[02:08:14] So I think at this point you could withdraw your. But I would like to hear. Well, actually, no, it's the bodies now. You can't withdraw it. Okay. So.

[02:08:30] I know, right? Are we discussing this? So what has been proposed is that the amendment read SRO shall become familiar with these students with various types of disabilities in their school through training and collaboration with administration, the school administration.

[02:08:47] What was your wording? School administration. Right. Revision. But you said you didn't agree with it. I didn't agree with it. Well, it's not an amendment because, not a member, sorry.

[02:09:03] I was just giving her a chance to discuss. It's a discussion. How should we word this? I move that we open discussion for this proposal. We're already in discussion. Just discuss. Just discuss. Okay, I guess my thoughts is that the second one, while it gets closer to the school, i think it makes it a little bit more vague i'd like it to get more more specific um so yeah i just wanted to echo that i like the intent um but i just i agree i think it's less

[02:09:37] enforceable i will double or triple down on that because i think the other thing is is that the amendment as originally proposed puts the onus on the school to provide that information rather than the SRO to try to access it, and that leaves the school in control of the information, which I think is important, and I think the wording is fine, as you, at least as far as I'm concerned, suggested because it does talk about informing as opposed to providing a list, et cetera.

[02:10:09] I like the intent, though, a lot. We've already accepted her motion, right? We've accepted the motion. Her motion is on the floor. But we haven't voted. We are in discussion on her motion.

[02:10:26] Is there any further discussion? Given the discussion, I think it would be advisable to repeat the motion.

[02:10:47] Melissa, I'm going to actually ask you to help with that. So the motion is to adopt recommendations one and two, and additionally, to add an additional recommendation, which Melissa will read. Absolutely.

[02:11:06] I would say related to the motion, but as Loudoun County Sheriff's Department does receive crisis intervention training, and part of their training every year, And 100% of all patrol officers, I can attest to this personally, as being one of the people who trains it, we do every year provide updated training on special needs.

[02:11:30] Maybe not every, per se, special needs, but they are trained on a wide spectrum of special needs. Now, I understand it's the motion part is more on what the schools offer, but just to dissuade some people, these SROs are receiving training yearly.

[02:11:48] early. In fact, it may be more than that, depending on some of the updated information. But just as a person who helps provide some of that training, I wanted to share that. Right. And this is in no way a criticism of our excellent Sheriff's Department and Leesburg Police. We just thought it was interesting that it wasn't in the MOU and thought it belonged there. Since it's already being done, it should be not very controversial to add. Okay. Melissa, could you? I think we might

[02:12:17] have it okay because I massaged it again to talk about to talk about unique the students identify the students unique circumstances okay all right sorry guys okay let me read all right so all right should I just make a new motion should I make just make a new we already have the actually has been moved and seconded it's already on the floor it's already the bodies we are merely asking you to

[02:12:53] reread okay the previously so i will reread the previously um worded motion that the principal or special education designee notify sros in their building of students with an iep or bip that requires disclosure of the students unique circumstances to the safety team and sro I'll second it.

[02:13:22] It's already been moved and seconded. We are merely repeating. I was on a roll here. We're repeating the motion. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Opposed, nay.

[02:13:38] Abstentions? Oh, one nay or abstentions. One abstention. Heidi? Aye. Kathy? I guess you got it.

[02:13:53] I got it right. Aye. And Kristen? Aye. Thank you. Motion carries with one abstention. And that is it for policies. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, guys. I just want to say thank you for the discussion. I love seeing the community engagement on that.

[02:14:19] That is a difficult MOU to go through. It really does take a lot of discussion. This is not the first time we've made recommendations on making sure parents are present for those types of things. But I love the interaction and the community engagement. So I just want to thank everyone for that. I thought that was great. Sharon, can I add one to that? That's why we have the process we have here at SEAC. You know, we first have a subcommittee to spend the five-hour late night meeting to pick this stuff apart. But it's really important to open it up to a really broad

[02:14:58] set of perspectives and experiences and let us all work together and all have our input. And that's why we have this process that requires bring it to us before a subcommittee meeting and then the subcommittee meets and then we bring it to the body and i know sometimes we go a little late but it's important that everybody get a chance and everybody get an input and we are all hopefully the the sum of our experiences and knowledge yeah so we do want to move into our new business and have our meaningful inclusion uh subcommittee i'm gonna have liz come up and

[02:15:35] introduce Riverbend and Sterling Middle. We wanted to honor those who are doing some great inclusion opportunities for our students so let's move into that. We're not going to obviously have time tonight to move into our subcommittee work unfortunately so but I do want to get that through kind of a recap of the of the year after we do this. All right and I'll be really brief we had two schools who we would like to feature this evening. We are going to start with Brandy Cannon from

[02:16:09] Sterling Middle School, who's going to come and share with us about some really great inclusion that was happening at their school. Oh, okay. All right. Change of plans. Nope. There we go.

[02:16:36] Sorry. Okay. I would also like to take this opportunity to call up Dr. Gallardo and Ms. lift key because I definitely could not we definitely could not have done it without them so dr. Gallardo is one of our assistant principals and also the AP over special education and miss lift key was our Moana junior director so we had a play at school and we had all of our students were included and we were

[02:17:12] nominated for our practices of including students miss lifke would you like to share anything about the play or it was just the first musical the schools had in 10 years and i was excited to welcome all the students who were interested in participating thank you so we have some

[02:17:33] wonderful cute pictures from our musical and we also have a little video thank you guys so much

[02:18:42] um i just wanted to share really quickly that you know they the person who submitted them said that you know they made sure that their child would have the right supports in place so that she could feel like she could belong and they were so grateful that the team gave their child multiple opportunities to be part of the activities even though they had many challenges so thank you guys for doing that and really making a difference for someone um our next feature is for riverbend

[02:19:12] um i believe we have tara doherty here this evening i'll let you do this here even though you're bad with technology you're probably horrible with technology so we may have to get kim back up here i gotta go backwards oops there it goes oops see i should not have touched

[02:19:40] Tara Daugherty: My name is Tara Daugherty, I'm the Special Ed Dean at Riverbend.

[02:20:01] And I'm actually up here tonight on behalf of Miss Juliet Kenny who nominated Miss Paulette Reisman who's our intellectual disabilities teacher because of her efforts with providing meaningful inclusion at Riverbend through the Buddies program.

[02:20:16] So I have some words that I'd like to read from Ms. Reisman and then share some photos as well. And then we also have two testimonials from our Buddies students who participated. Okay.

[02:20:35] I have two together, so we'll figure that out. All right. Okay. So this is from Ms. Reisman. For me, the focus for the Buddies program is to provide mentoring opportunities for our students with special needs.

[02:20:50] During resource, the Buddies come to either my room or the class where the students are working and work alongside them, adding extra support academically as well as socially. When the buddies are in my room during academic lessons, they are involved with lessons and participate the same as my students, sometimes making mistakes, and in the inclusion setting, the buddies support the students doing their assignments by modeling good work habits as well as modeling appropriate classroom behavior.

[02:21:21] There are also times when it's merely social activities where the students get to play board games or they do some outside activities. It's my experience that the students learn best from their peers across all domains and all in all the kids look forward to the time they get to spend with their buddies in both settings and the inclusion teachers are extremely open to it as well so it's win-win across the board. There's no downside and an additional layer of positivity is that all students become more aware and accepting of students with differences.

[02:21:56] and then here the two testimonials from our buddies two of our buddies and it's also something that my dad used to do he also used to work with people in the special education and he still does and it I mean it's really fun being there with them I'm in bonding with them learning about their disabilities and how I can help them I think that's just the best part in the friendships I've

[02:22:28] build over this past year. Thank you. I'm involved with the buddy club because it's fun to go help out kids that need help with anything and like just show them what they need to be doing and my favorite part is probably having conversations with them and like seeing how happy they are when

[02:22:52] we come in. Thank you. I'll let you take the slides from here. Thank you guys so much really cheerily.

[02:23:11] We've been talking about buddy systems in the meaningful inclusion subcommittee and how we can you know kind of take that across the county so that more schools can have those so thank you guys so much don't want me touching it you don't want us to close it out again okay so i'm gonna quickly in my five minutes that we have left to go through um the highlights of the rest of the business meeting so members you were um emailed the meeting minutes to review for the april 12th

[02:23:49] SEAC meeting, were there any corrections or modifications needed to those minutes? Karen, I emailed you some corrections. So there are some corrections? There are some corrections. Okay, so we will push that to next year.

[02:24:05] We will make those corrections and then push those out, and we will put those on the agenda in October when we have our first official business meeting. I have been saying this every month, but we are still looking for a member to be able to do the Career and Technical Advisory Committee, so we still need a SEAC member for that.

[02:24:27] We have members on the other committees that we've been asked to sit on. And then May observances is the Better Hearing and Speech Month. So I just wanted to give a quick overview of our year.

[02:24:45] So one of the things that came over from the 21-22 school year was policy 53-50, the parental notification for screening and assessments, was new last year. And what this means is that all parents are notified when their child does not meet a benchmark.

[02:25:05] And SEAC sees how that is being carried out in the elementary schools. They have RTI groups. They might be put in a power-up group or what that school calls it. to address some deficits whether you have an IEP or you don't that are impacting that student to be able to meet benchmark. What we could not find we found that the high school and middle school all the notification is going out across the county but what there seems to be a disconnect between for the middle schools and high schools that there isn't always some remediation put in

[02:25:43] place at those secondary levels. Community concerns for this year, as of recent, is the combining of our self-contained programs, teacher and teaching assistant shortages, ASL not being offered at all high schools, IEE funding, low SOL scores for students with disabilities, ECSE not following the VDOE guidelines. The 2018 special education regulations are out of date. And budget

[02:26:17] related to funding that we've been reaching out to the school board, this was in my quarterly report given in March, was the teacher and TAs not meeting the LTPS staffing standard, related service provider speech, OTPT, etc. We had some positions that we were worried about losing. And uh, the virtual elementary option as a continuum of service option. Our monthly, uh, executive committee meeting will be after this meeting over at Clyde's. Anyone is welcome to join

[02:26:52] us there. Um, our SEAC awards, um, will be on June 6th at 630 at the, um, we have settled on the, uh, ceremony being at Stonebridge High School in their auditorium. We had 220 20 nominations, and I thought we were going to be able to get our notifications out today, which that did not happen. So with that many nominations and the amount of award recipients that we had, we had some questions we had to reach out to the community for because we had a lot of groups that were nominated to make sure we had all the right names. So we do believe we will be able

[02:27:31] to get a list to be pushed out to the special education office they all the names have been vetted by LCPS so we're ready to move forward and we should have that announcement hopefully Monday or Tuesday of next week pushed out to everyone so with this many nominations it has been a little bit more of a challenge but we are very excited with the number of recipients this year. The CEAC survey has been published and is out, so please take a moment. There's a flyer on

[02:28:06] the back table. Please take a moment to fill that out. We use that information to inform our work and to inform our annual report. The annual report for 2021 has been published. I do believe it's on our SEAC web page but it has been shared with the has been finalized and shared with the superintendent and the school board. Our membership we have currently 71 schools with PTA PTO reps

[02:28:39] so we are very excited with this number for this year this is more than double the number of schools we had represented representatives for last year. We currently have 20 voting members and one membership opening position. We have three members that will not be renewing their memberships for next year so we will have three additional open positions going into next year. Subcommittee reports, the policy and compliance subcommittee was the work that we saw tonight. Shinaj, you

[02:29:18] want to give a quick update on transition? So I wanted to thank Jenna and team. We've had a really great year working together in the transition subcommittee we've had some great conversations and I look forward to continuing working with Jenna and her and Suzanne everybody next year I just wanted to give a quick update that we have our cast sites we have seven cast sites currently and we're looking for our eighth one at the academies and so I think next year we're going to have some really great updates from with our academies cast and then we have project search

[02:29:56] which is at our lansdowne resort and our the sos program which is uh right now partnership there's a partnership with anova and so you know i think there were some just really great conversations that came out this year and and we have some we have our summaries written up we're ready to work on stuff next year so thank you um lorraine do you want to give an update on specialized reading math. So we are still doing our work and I just want to announce we will be

[02:30:32] having a virtual meeting on May the 17th at 5 30 p.m. The agenda will come out at least three days prior and then we have one more collaborative work session with Loudoun County public school staff on May 22nd that'll be here in this building 9 30 a.m. and there is a link we are asking that you register in advance if you're going to participate in either of well not in the virtual meeting but in the work session. And we've been working all year with Loudoun County staff to address issues that have been longstanding concerns of the specialized reading. And we added math

[02:31:06] subcommittee, everything from literacy screening, teacher training, evaluations, re-evaluations, inconsistency with intervention programs, lack of evidence-based, especially designed writing curriculums. And I want to give a thanks to Margaret Osbury, if she's still here. She has given us she's oh there she is thank you Margaret because she has been a really good sport is all I'm gonna say so we're a pretty lively group and she's had to hear a lot of concerns that have bubbled up over the years and recommendations and she takes them all really good naturedly and is working collaboratively

[02:31:43] with us on designing new decision trees for the general education teams as well as the special education team so we do have two more meetings and we're gonna be wrapping up all of our recommendations for the SEAC annual report and anyone can see me afterwards if you have any questions thank you and Liz you want to give an update on the meaningful inclusion sure you know we just got started not that long ago with meaningful inclusion so we have a lot of really lofty big things that we're working on right now you've got to see one of our things that's come to fruition the last couple of meetings with the recognition

[02:32:22] that we're doing which I think we're all really enjoying and really appreciate people coming out and sharing these these great examples with us other things that we're working on our after-school activities and making sure that it's more widely known what kind of supports we have available personalized learning this is a big one but it's going to take a lot of time so a lot of our things I think are going to spill into the next year but we're all very excited also talking about unified sports and learn you know the united uniformed opportunities there's a lot going on in our schools and trying to

[02:32:58] kind of expand upon that and understand how we can get that available for more students we've had conversations about rosters and how we can make sure our program classes are getting the same information as gen ed classes playgrounds was actually something that started coming up in our last meeting so we'll probably start to work on that too and maybe you know we'll also kind of take a look at the regulations and stuff and see if we can offer you know some suggestions or opportunities so that we can really make sure that we're capturing the needs of our students and making sure that they're meaningfully

[02:33:34] included so thank you to Nakia who's been our supervisor working with us it's been great to have her guidance as we've been you know trying to figure this all out and get started down a good productive path thank you our next meeting is going to be May 16th it's Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. and it'll be virtual so I hope that people can come and join us thank you Tom do you have any update on the gifted advisory committee I know the next meeting is May

[02:34:11] 11th anything from the equity committee meeting that was last month oh tomorrow Okay, Leanne. Good evening, everyone.

[02:34:28] I will make this brief. We only have one more workshop this school year, which plays into what Liz was talking about. We're doing inclusive practices and co-teaching. So it's going to be instruction as well as celebrating the successes in team teaching.

[02:34:47] And I just wanted to let you all know, again, that we've moved. We're in Douglas. We still don't have public occupancy yet, hopefully this week. So you can't visit us yet, and that's who I am. I did want to let you know that I'm pretty much set for workshops for next year.

[02:35:06] So we look forward to a good school year and a nice summer off. Tiffany, would you like to give us an update? Yes, thank you, Sharon. First, I would just like to add in a few words about my interaction with you over the past few months.

[02:35:27] And while we have not known each other long and we haven't had much of an opportunity to work together, it has been a pleasure to receive all of your communication as a board member, as a liaison to this committee. I can see how truly invested you are in advocating for our students in Loudoun County and their families.

[02:35:46] And this community is extremely lucky to have had you for as long as they have. I only wish that I had more of an opportunity to get to work with you and that I hadn't joined the board as late as I did. But I do appreciate everything that you've done, so I did want to make those remarks.

[02:36:04] Secondly, I'd like to address everyone in this room this evening as a community, as a group of parents and professionals who care very deeply about their children.

[02:36:16] Obviously, whether you work with kids in the schools, whether you're a parent advocating for your children, I want to express to all of you that I have had over the years many opportunities and instances in which I have advocated for children and parents, whether it's in an IEP meeting, whether it's just working through difficult situations with families in which they're trying to solve a behavior issue with their child.

[02:36:47] I have done this many many times. I have watched parents sit across the table in IEP meetings and cry. I have cried for my own students in my advocacy for them because it is very difficult to have to face an uphill battle and to speak difficult truths when you're faced with situations that are less than pleasant. It's not easy to discuss the unpleasant truths and at the last board meeting teachers specialists and parents came in to engage in public comment for children

[02:37:25] and that was the glue that bound everyone together in that room that evening it was not politics it was not discussed with curriculum it was parents professionals coming out to advocate for children and I was really pleased to see that because that's what we're here for we're here for kids Unfortunately, not everybody on the board received those comments well, and as a member of that body, even though I am only one member and I speak for myself, I feel that an apology is owed to this community.

[02:38:04] It's owed to the parents and the professionals who came to that meeting to advocate for children. Public comment is not about the board. It is about constituents. I appreciate all of you and your advocacy for children, and I thank you for engaging in public comment. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Richardson to give us an update. Good evening. Thank you. I have two. I'll try to make them quick.

[02:38:43] Our vacancy updates across special education have stayed pretty stable since last month's update. This is certainly a busy time of the school year where people are putting in transfers, looking at other opportunities, whether they're within LCPS or outside of LCPS.

[02:39:02] Our SPED teachers, we currently have 10 elementary school vacancies, 6 middle school vacancies, and 11 high school vacancies. For support staff, at the elementary level, we have 12 vacancies. Middle school has 6 TA vacancies, and high school has 29 TA vacancies.

[02:39:22] So again, I will continue to encourage you all to put the good word out. that we have opportunities for people to work with our amazing students. The next update is the process of special education staffing for 23-24. As previously shared, the Office of Special Education works collaboratively with business and financial services, human resources, and talent development, the Department of Instruction, and certainly our individual school sites.

[02:39:50] Just a quick overview of what that process looks like, feels like, sounds like. The budget process for the upcoming year starts in the fall of every current year. Business and Financial Services conducts a review of the past year's trend data for the Office of Special Education.

[02:40:08] Business and Financial Services utilizes this trend data, along with the overall projected growth for the division to determine the percentage of growth anticipated for the overall student population. Projections are then based off of the fall data point and reassessed again after the December 1st child count for special education once that is approved by the Virginia Department of Education.

[02:40:33] The Office of Special Education receives the adopted SPED staffing allocation based on the LCPS staffing standard for the upcoming school year after the school board adopts the budget for the new fiscal year. Once the allocation is received, the Office of Special Education then pulls the actual student data to begin the process of allocating the FTEs that have been allocated for the upcoming school year.

[02:40:59] Factors that are considered, level of services, rising ECSE to kindergarten students, the number of students that are in the referral process being considered for eligibility for special education. That is not a determining factor, though, until eligibility has been determined by the team.

[02:41:22] The impact of special permission request is also a factor. The Office of Special Education is working with Business and Financial Services and HRTD to reallocate staff based on the needs across the school division currently. We are also analyzing our data on a daily basis to make sure that we provide updates to all schools and division-level teams of the needs across the division.

[02:41:47] Planning for 24-25 school year is already underway to consider possible revisions to the current factors that are considered for special education staffing. And just a quick update on, as Mrs. Karate mentioned, our Meaningful Inclusion Subcommittee is looking at how we can expand our extracurricular opportunities.

[02:42:10] Just want to remind all parents that you should certainly be working with your students' individualized educational planning teams. Asking the questions, finding out what those opportunities are and then making sure that you know your points of contact at the building level, such as your case manager, your special education dean, your assistant principal, your principal, and certainly you can call us in the Office of Special Education.

[02:42:34] And we'd be happy to point you in the right direction to make sure that teams are considering the right level of support for our students to participate in extracurricular opportunities. Thank you. Dr. Jones. I want to say that Dr. Jones will be retiring after this year, and she has been a, since she came on board, a faithful attendee to all of our SEAC meetings. I think she's maybe missed, I don't know, three in her five years, five years with us. So she has been a faithful attendee to all of our meetings, and we greatly appreciate that support.

[02:43:14] Thank you, and it has continued to be my pleasure and honor to serve in this role and also to advocate with each and every one of you for all of our children. It's hard to believe that this is our last business meeting of the year.

[02:43:34] Yes, and I know the evening has gone long, so I do want to express my appreciation, Mrs. Trofe, for your years of service. You became the chair the 2019-20 school year, which was my second year in this role, and I've learned much from you, and I certainly do appreciate all of your advocacy for all of our children and our families.

[02:43:56] And I want to welcome and appreciate and congratulate our new slate of our executive committee. I know that you will continue to do great work. As a parent voice, it is very important as we continue the work for all of our children. As someone mentioned earlier, it's about continuous improvement, building upon our achievements so that our children can realize their potential and go on to do great things.

[02:44:23] Speaking about continuous improvement, I want to commend the Office of School Counseling for hosting last month a very successful annual career and apprentice fair. maybe some of you in this room attended where over 600 students in their families learned about the 17 different career clusters and we had over 56 businesses representing and in that same vein through college and career readiness we are going to be moving from our current legacy system which is naviance some of the parents in the room that might be high school parents know that system well we're expanding to new and enhanced school links we did a little blurb about that our student

[02:45:03] services committee last month and as we're moving closer to the end of the year and readying ourselves to kick that off next year one of the great enhancements is that we're expanding to the academic career plans not just for our high schoolers and middle schoolers but there's also a place for elementary children as well a parent portal so more will be coming to you through that and we'll be working through our community connections office so that we can ensure all parents are aware of that.

[02:45:34] May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and the board adopted a proclamation for that. We know our children spend six hours or more a day in our schools, and our unified mental health team members are a very important part of that in working with our community. So let's continue to promote the mental wellness and health of all of our children.

[02:45:54] And we have resources online, our website for parents in case they need to be connected with things within the community. At our next school board workshop, which is May 9th, we will be sharing additional information about fentanyl awareness and what we can do to keep our children and our community safe.

[02:46:16] So please, if you've not had an opportunity to attend any of our community events on fentanyl awareness, as we've partnered with our community partners, as well as our law enforcement, May 9th, during the workshop session, we'll be providing a bit more. There will be a proclamation that will be presented to the board and information as to what parents need to know and how they can help keep their children and their community safe.

[02:46:41] So with that, I thank you all for all that you've done and your support of our department. I know that it will be in great hands, very appreciative of the leadership and, again, the SEAC leadership. And I look forward to celebrating with you next month at the award ceremony. Thank you. And that concludes our business meeting.

[02:47:04] We had planned to have our subcommittees get together, but I think I ruined that with the turnover, so I apologize for that. But it sounds like our subcommittees do have meetings planned to finish wrapping up the school year.

[02:47:21] So with that, thank you very much. We'll hopefully see you everyone at the awards ceremony.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Coraggio Consulting · aguyonx.com